Few country fans don’t know the lyrics to “Dumas Walker” or the name of that band that sang it almost 20 years ago.
That band, the Kentucky Headhunters, was a big hit in the early 90’s, but these days, they tend to stick to smaller venues like the Washington County Fair. And according to Kentucky Headhunters rhythm guitarist Richard Young, that’s the way they like it.

Guns in school can’t be taken lightly, and aren’t, but officials say a gun recovered from a Patrick Henry High School student wasn’t on campus due to ill intent.
“We don’t believe there was any threat associated with it,” said School Superintendent Dr. Alan Lee.
According to Lee, two younger high school boys exchanged a gun on school grounds Sept. 8. A third boy reported the exchange to his mother who then reported it to the schools. Lee said he believes the intention was to sell a gun and nothing more.

It’s part of orientation, or if it isn’t it should be, the stories of the ghosts at Byars Hall. There’s piano playing when no piano is played. And then the most told and retold, the one about the light high above the duck pond-facing entrance swinging with or without the wind. That’s the popular one, the one first-year students hear. There are different versions of why the light swings. Some say there was a debate society shooting. Others say one debater threw another debater out of the third-floor window to his death two stories below. Point is, the stories are all about the debate rooms, the debate groups and their members. No one, though, seems to sure, at least during the telling of the ghost stories, of who the debate societies were. 

It’s at once the oldest and newest building on campus.
On Wednesday, Emory & Henry College celebrated the completion of its $7 million renovation to the school’s visual and performing arts building.
Most of the Byars Hall building, up until this year, had been constructed in 1890 on the foundation of two earlier buildings destroyed by fire, according to a press release from the college.
Generations of E&H students knew the often dark, sometimes nearly empty building as the center of the school’s fine arts, housing art, music and theatre departments along with a computer lab, piano practice rooms, music rehearsal halls and a small art gallery.

Charles Foster’s potatoes were just going to have to wait. He was setting up his produce stand at last Tuesday’s Abingdon Farmers Market when he heard Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama might be showing up at Pop Ellis Soda Shoppe & Grill.

A Virginia Republican and his Democratic daughter on Monday passed through Abingdon, stumping for Sen. Barack Obama. 
Speaking to a room of mostly Obama supporters at the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center, former Gov. A. Linwood Holton and his daughter, current Virginia first lady Anne Holton, pointed out the importance of Virginia, a swing state in this election.

The Museum of the Middle Appalachians in Saltville will dedicate a converted conference room as a library Saturday in memory of a former Saltville couple. The Morgan Research Library will be a memorial to John William Morgan and Grace Allison Morgan.

You’ve wondered since spring what to do with that half-bottle of out-of-date weed killer you found in the garage, and that can of old bee spray that’s rusted on the bottom.
Environmentalists thank you for not throwing them in the trash, which would have been against the law. And for your trouble comes this reward from The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) and the Virginia Pesticide Control Board.

Beauty pageants in recent years have gotten some bad press. Competitors and organizers of the Miss Washington County pageant look to avoid the flak.
According to Miss Washington County co-chair Deb Icenhour, the competition is more than just for kicks. Each of the girls were competing for a chance to win a scholarship and to grow as people.
“We’re here to build character, not tear it down,” said Icenhour

Getting the county and Abingdon together to build a sports complex has been slow going for the past few months.