OK, imagine this. You’re tired of your life in sunny California, so you sell the house, pack up the fifth-wheel camper and start traveling East.  You tour national parks, climb a few mountains and keep moving.  In the back of your mind you are looking for a place to settle down and plant your roots (literally).  Your goal is to find that perfect place to start an organic produce farm.  Along the way (40 states and 50,000 miles later) you stop at a small rural community in Southwest Virginia, and it captures your attention. Friendly people, seasonal climate, you like it here but keep moving on.  Traveling Northeast into New England you see beautiful country but tough, cold winters. All the while a small voice inside you keeps whispering “Virginia.” You know, that nice place, Wythe County I think it was called. 

Marion Town Council issued a message Monday to area skaters, skateboarders and BMX bikers who have floated ideas for a community skate park: keep in touch.
Council member Jim Gates, who sits on the town’s recreation committee, acknowledged the event last week when American Ramp Co. set up some equipment on a Marion Automotive Group lot. The company’s selection of ramps, a quarter pipe and rails drew athletes on wheels from as far as Wytheville.

Smyth County, the local health district and the state track behind 2007 year-to-date figures for reported cases of rabies. But a health official insists the public keep up vigilance in efforts to hold the numbers down. 

“I feel like a bowl of Jell-o, all jiggling inside.”

On the outside, Evelyn Lawrence was as poised as ever Monday evening, elegant and eloquent in her trademark way for which she is known and loved in the community.

Rural Retreat is known as the home of the famous Dr Pepper soft drink, but a new business in town is trying to carve out its own niche with a healthier form of liquid refreshment.
Boyer Milk Co. opened its doors at 439 Gienow Road behind Rural Retreat’s Food Country USA in early July.
The family-run business is owned by matriarch Debra Boyer who has been operating a dairy farm in Crockett for 40 years.
All of the milk sold at the store is farm fresh – locally produced and packaged on the same day.

When her students return from summer vacation Wednesday, Teresa Hash will see them as she has every year and will all year long, as more than a classroom full of third graders. To her they are little bundles of raw individual potential, and that’s how she approaches education.

“It all started with this brochure in my school mailbox. I get them all the time, but this one caught my eye.” A tone of amazement lingers in Jeff Robinson’s voice as he talks about a statewide honor and the trip of a lifetime that ended a little more than two weeks ago.

Hope Tree Family Services’ C to Shining C walk across Virginia was on schedule but falling behind in fundraising when it entered Smyth County Wednesday.

A Florida man died Sunday after crashing his motorcycle off Interstate 81, just south of Rural Retreat.
Walter J. Wolcott, 71, of Tampa, Fla., died after his motorcycle ran off of the interstate one mile south of Virginia 90 as he traveled northbound on the highway.
Virginia State Police Trooper J.T. Melvin said the single-vehicle crash occurred a few minutes after 10 a.m. Wolcott died within the hour at Wythe County Community Hospital, Melvin added.

A group of literal cross-country runners made a swing through Southwest Virginia on Monday, churning through 60 miles to honor 60 U.S. servicemen killed in Iraq.
The stretch from Abingdon to Wytheville was just a small portion of the runners’ 4,086-mile trek across the continental United States – one mile for each U.S. military member killed in Iraq from the first death in March 2003 through death No. 4,086 on June 3, 2008, a few days before the group began its journey.