The town-owned Bayer Property was the focus of Monday’s Damascus Town Council meeting, with the volunteer fire department looking for land and a council member hoping to charge those who camp there during Trail Days.

County events planned through November aim to not only get people reading, but talking, too.
“If you’re reading, your mind is thinking and putting pieces together and then talking about what you’re reading is much more broadening,” Washington County Library Director Charlotte Parsons said. “It encourages people to think about what they’ve read because you have to do some reflection before you can articulate your thoughts. TV, on the other hand, is very passive; it just happens to you.”

Although more than 33,000 Washington County residents are registered to vote, not many usually turn out on Election Day.
League of Women Voters member Sara Combs hopes to change that.

The Upper Tennessee River Roundtable and the Appalachian RC&D are offering a Tri-State Watershed Conference

It was a rough summer for Southwest Virginia police agencies. Autumn isn’t shaping up to be any more kind.
An investigator with the Saltville Police Department was arrested Tuesday evening on a federal gun charge. Gary Ray Call faces one count of being an unlawful drug user in possession of a firearm. Sgt. M.T. Conroy of the Virginia State Police said more charges are pending.

Ten sheriff’s deputies escorted the referees from the stadium. It was quick and quiet. The Holston High School Cavaliers headed to their buses and fans lined the fence along the field.  One fan clapped. Another booed.
The team had lost. The first of the season for the Cavaliers, a team that had been on an improbable five-game winning streak.

It was 1942. Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor a year ago. World War II was in full swing. And Verna Mahaffey’s blood, like many Americans’, was running red, white and blue.

School Board member Dayton Owens filed a formal request last Thursday to have the Lee Smith novel “Fair and Tender Ladies” removed from the approved optional high school reading list.
“I find the language very crude and the sexual content offensive,” Owens wrote on the reconsideration form.

The annual report for Virginia Highlands Community College has a little extra something for officials to be proud of this year.
Vice President of Instruction and Student Services Deborah Clear said the college awarded its 10,000th credential during the 2006-07 school year.
“It’s a great accomplishment for us,” she said.

County Supervisors last week voted to spend $2,600 for a study to look into moving the library’s main branch from downtown Abingdon to the William King Regional Arts Center.
“Where the current library is is maxed out,” said Supervisor Phil McCall.