We need not be defined by even severe physical and emotional trauma inflicted by others. Escaping such definition by our experiences equips us to help others find paths out of their own traumas.

Smyth Countians will vote at the polls next month on a new county food and beverage tax, while a decision made for them last week takes effect to raise county water and sewer service rates.

Another old school building has made its way onto the county supervisors’ agenda.

The balloon rises and falls. Nobody can grab it or push it, hold it or squeeze it.
If someone says they can, Dr. Barry Love says they’re lying to you.

A Marion artists group was among local nominations for a 2008 Governor’s Award for the Arts. A news release naming Jack Taylor of Sugar Grove and Rebecca McGhee of Chilhowie among 345 nominees from whom 10 winners were selected did not include Appalachian Spirit Artists Association of Marion.
Suzy Sukle of the Appalachian Spirit said the Marion Downtown Revitalization Association nominated the group.

Smyth County School Board members took a big step toward facilities improvements Monday, acknowledging a consensus that replacing Marion Intermediate School and renovating Marion Primary are priorities and authorizing Superintendent Dr. Mike Robinson to open related dialogue with the community.
Deteriorating MIS was the elephant in the room for the school board long before MGT of America identified its replacement as a leading recommendation in its study last winter of the county’s school facilities.

Jane Hale of Marion told the Smyth County School Board on Monday that she was disappointed the board had not responded to her complaint about teachers and students in Marion schools using racially derogatory language and behavior.
Hale said a Marion Middle School teacher had “cursed out a black student,” and that teachers in school halls hear racial offenses and check to see whether other teachers heard it. If not, she said, the offenses go unreported and unpunished.

For the past few years, Smyth County schools have finished the fiscal year with money left over. Since that’s county money (the school division spends its substantial state allocations first)  the school board returns it to the county coffers, then asks for it, or a portion of it, back to pay for capital projects like parking lot paving.

What’s in a name? Politics, if you ask proud new father Mark Ciptak of Elizabethton, Tenn.

U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-9, announced Friday that, at his urging, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, through its Rural Development Agency, is providing a federal grant in the amount of $50,000 to the Nebo Volunteer Fire Department.