Hey it’s Terrific Tuesday again. How’s everything in your neck of the woods?

“Tis Springtime, tis springtime cold winter has passed” ….maybe. One thing is for sure, it looks more like spring even if it does not feel like it.

Everywhere I go many of the folks who speak to me or call me, all have a common thread in Botetourt County. Sneezing, running eyes, husky and gruff voices laced with coughing. It’s pollen season in Beautiful Botetourt County. I am trying to remain Claratin clear–how about you?

So Terrific Tuesday is dedicated to the beauty of Spring in Botetourt at the expense of upper respiratory health. Enjoy the photos! The last photo has a puff of pollen blowing from the tree in the photo! Ugh!

Do you have photos to share? news@botetourtview.com

Left to right: Sam Anderson and Ben Persinger

In the fall of 2012, James River students Sam Anderson and Ben Persinger broke the record for the farthest-travelling rubber-band race car. The record-holders’ race car went a total of 43.1 meters (141.4 feet).

- Submitted by Andrea Miller 

It’s time for our Annual Middle and High School Sports Physicals!  This is a community service offered to ALL students entering grades 7-12 for the 2013-14 academic year and living in the Roanoke, Salem and surrounding areas.  The physicals are very comprehensive, low cost – $17.00 per student, and surpass sports physical requirements.  This year the exam will include Baseline Concussion Assessment.  This event will take place at Northside High School on Saturday, May 18.  Sports participation not required.  All students can arrive between 8:30am – 11:30am.

Please call 540-444-2925 ext. 200 with any questions.  Students must have a completed and signed (by parent or guardian) VHSL Physical Examination Form along with their $17.00 (cash or check).   The form is available by calling (434)977-8475, online at www.vhsl.org (under Forms, Admin/Order Forms, SMAC) or www.healthfocusswva.org (under Events & Activities, Annual Events).   Students will be removing shirts, so females should wear a bathing suit top, sports bra or other suitable attire.  This is a one day event only!

Submitted by Cindy Hannah

Feeding America Southwest Virginia  issued an appeal to the community for additional financial donations to ensure it can continue to maintain its level of food distribution to hungry people in the region.

Rising food and distribution costs are rapidly outpacing financial donations, raising the possibility that 2 million fewer meals could be served by partner feeding programs this year.

“While we are always very grateful for the financial gifts from our donors, like everyone else we’re seeing higher fuel prices and other food distribution expenses,” said President and CEO Pamela Irvine.  “To help us sustain our current level of service, we are asking the public for additional financial support. Over the last four years, when many families struggled, Feeding America Southwest Virginia has strived to expand to meet the increase in demand throughout our 26-county region. We are now making this appeal to individuals, corporations, civic groups and the faith community to be able to continue to serve people in need.”

Feeding America Southwest Virginia is increasingly concerned that it will need to reduce programs if additional financial support is not received, resulting in less food provided to fewer people. Last year, the Food Bank provided enough food for more than 13 million meals to the hungry in Southwest Virginia.

One in six people in Southwest Virginia struggle to put food on their table. Since 2008, Feeding America Southwest Virginia has experienced a 57 percent increase in food distributed as well as a 52.3 percent increase in the number of households served through its 405-partner feeding programs.

One partner feeding program recently stated, “From six-figure incomes to minimum wage income job losses, people are hurting.  Any reduction to the family budget impacts us all at the most basic level.”  One woman with a master’s degree in engineering recently lost her job and was on the verge of losing her apartment.  Many people standing in line today at one time held well-paying jobs, and some were even past financial donors.  They don’t know where else to turn.
In response to fiscal challenges, Feeding America Southwest Virginia has been researching sustainable financial models, analyzing expenditures, reducing costs where possible and evaluating program services. The organization is currently contemplating scaling back its food distribution program.

“These are tough times for non-profits that depend on the generosity of others,” Irvine says.  “Feeding America Southwest Virginia’s challenge is to maintain realistic expectations while continuing to meet the most basic human need — food.”

The Food Bank’s long-term partner, Kroger, has once again come forward to lend its support. At a news conference today in Salem, Kroger announced that it will match total customer donations up to $20,000 in April. For more than 30 years Kroger has partnered with Feeding America Southwest Virginia to provide hunger relief in the communities where their associates and customers live and shop.
Kroger customers in its stores from Smith Mountain Lake to Bristol have four ways to participate in the campaign through April 27:
•    Round up their order by donating change up to the next even dollar amount when checking out;
•    Add a $1 or $5 donation to their order when checking out;
•    Donate their change in the coin collection box at the checkout counter, and
•    Purchase a box of nonperishable food items for $10.95. The box contains food for 11 meals for a family.
After April 27, Kroger will tally the cash raised and then match that amount up to $20,000.

About Feeding America Southwest Virginia
Feeding America Southwest Virginia was founded in 1981 and proudly commemorates 32 years of fighting hunger and changing lives through community partnerships. The Food Bank is an affiliate member of Feeding America.  For the last three decades the Food Bank’s ultimate mission has remained the same: eliminate hunger in the region. The primary function of the Food Bank is to secure large quantities of food for the hungry. More than $24 million worth of food  and grocery related products are channeled through a network of more than 400 partner feeding programs (in a 26-county and 10-city region) that provide food or meals to those in need.

Visit www.faswva.org for more information or like us on Facebook, Feeding America SWVA.

Submitted by Feeding America SWVA

Hey It’s Terrific Tuesday again. How’s everything in your neck of the woods?

I have been on hiatus, but I aaaam baaack… I have to write and from what I have heard personally over the past two weeks most of you like

My Tech pillow and VT bling ring on April 16, 2007… We are Virginia Tech.

to read. Remember  if you like this little column, you have to say so. COMMENTS are appreciated good, bad or indifferent, but help me out here– good is preferred.

Six years ago today I was one week out from my father’s death. First day back to work actually. I was up on North Mountain near Eagle Rock with Jerry Fraley when the first call came as I went in and out of service, quickly followed by a few texts. “There’s a massacre at Virginia Tech,” said my friend Deb Carter. She had alerted me on 9-11 as well. ” How many?” I asked. “Maybe 30,” she said. “That couldn’t be right.” said Fraley. I hoped she was wrong. It was surreal.

Jerry beat haste down the mountain in his truck and I hopped in the car and fairly flew back to the Herald where I worked back then. Disbelief flooded my mind as I traveled from Eagle Rock to Fincastle. “Surely this was a mistake.”

However on arriving, we a small community paper sprang into action. I knew a number of kids at Tech who had gone to school with my oldest daughter Brittany. Botetourt kids like Damon Ross, Ashley Marshall and Clark Rhuland. With little trouble I got cell phone numbers from parents and called. Clark had been the first intern I had ever worked with in the news biz. It was shocking to think they were all up there in the midst of such a terrible day.

Damon had seen students bloody and wounded carried from the hall by state troopers from his dorm room window overlooking the drill field. Pictures made famous by The Roanoke Times photographer.  Ashley was back at her apartment. It was a somber few moments talking to them. Always a mother, I tried to comfort them. I wanted to make them better as much as I wanted a story.

Clark was the gold mine of information.  He worked for the Collegiate Times as a sports writer/editor and gave up-to date information. Our Sheriff’s Department sent their SWAT team. Maj. Delbert Dudding gave me information on the training  the Botetourt Sheriff’s Office had been doing since Columbine. That is when I first learned  our Sheriff Ronnie Sprinkle and his deputies were “go to” people in situations like that awful day at Virginia Tech. They were heroic in their service. God Bless them.

Like everyone else I clung to each report. For a small paper we put out a decent section on the horror of April 16. I will never forget telling my children when I got home that day,  “I am glad Daddy didn’t live one more more week to see  that awful event at his beloved alma mater. ” My sons are there today. Third generation Hokies, they have maroon and orange in their veins.

Last year when the gunman shot the Tech officer, I had a student up there. My heart flipped when I got the first  text during a Prevention meeting at Greenfield Training and Education Center. I quickly passed the info on to Blacksburg police and state law enforcement in attendance. They took off and I approached Kathy Sullivan who had a Hokie student, too. Ours were fine, but one cannot help thinking back to April 16, 2007.  Yesterday at the Boston Marathon it was my first thought followed by 9-11, the Colorado theater and tears welled up when I thought of Sandy Hook.

Again. It had happened again….death to innocents. For the families of  the victims of April 16, 2007, the days are  six years past. They will view this day forever as the end of one life and the beginning of the next– so hard to live and imagine. Life without a child, a husband or wife. It will be something they learn to live with, but something that changed them forever. All of us, too, because in America on April 16, 2013:

“We are Virginia Tech.”

See ya next week.

Started out as a chance sighting, now I can’t pass a window without checking for them.  The other two were unwanted visitors, following the six hens I had watched that day. I haven’t seen them since last Wednesday.

– Submitted by Donna David

Craving Wine & Chocolate? Why not enjoy both of these sumptuous treats! Join Virginia Mountain Vineyards and Baylee’s Best Chocolates of Roanoke for some of the regions best award winning wines and finest gourmet handcrafted chocolates.
This entertaining event takes place in the winery amongst the wine barrels and tanks and is always sold out. Reserve your space early.  Saturday, April 20, 2-4 p.m. Virgini Mountain Vineyards, 4204 Old Fincastle Rd.  Fincastle, VA 24090.  $20 per person. Reservations required. Call 540-473-2979
www.vmvines.com

Submitted by David S. Gibbs, Virginia Mountain Vineyards

Fall of the US dollar’s worth over almost 100 years.

Hey It’s Terrific Tuesday. How’s everything in your neck of the woods?

It has been a wild week. People coming and going in the world of politics. Del. Lacey E. Putney decided not to run and thus far three people in Botetourt have announced intentions, Jerry Johnson, Jim Crosby and Terry Austin have all tossed a hat in the ring for the Republican nomination for the 19th district seat. We may expect one more potential candidate and who knows  about a Democrat or a n Independent. Del. Lacey Putney has been my friend for years and deserves a big ” Huzza!” for all he has accomplished in his 52 year career.  I hope he rides into a glorious sunset with his lovely wife Carmela. Surely they deserve some fun after all of the  years of serving constituents.

Ah politics…

Nothing however captures my attention more than that guy over in North Korea.   Kim Jong-un is a nut. Today he announced he will ramp up a nuclear uranium enrichment plant approx. 600 square miles — just a tad bigger than Botetourt County. How can you operate a plant that big?  I have on my personal Facebook a number of pics from the Plaid Avenger– John Boyer, a popular Virginia Tech professor who teaches World Regions. I own his textbook. Love the “Plaid Avenger.”  Check him out if you want  current news on the eight reasons he cites for the uptick of tensions with North Korea.

He also has a  variety of men (some nuts) we have leading the humans of the world.  Always makes for  good reading. He knows what scares me!

As for other scare tactics. I received a long video via email yesterday on the US losing ground fast as the world trade reserve currency. Very frightening and no mainstream media is talking about this. It could affect the way we live and do daily business. According to the video, it  has a great deal to do with the US Treasury printing money to cover its debts instead of trying to solve the debt issue. The catch is what if interest rates and inflation begin to go up. How do we make the payments on our debt. Here is a  mainstream  article about the  growing concern from the Wall Street Journal. Four letter word “Yuan,” China’s currency. While we watch Survivor they are  moving into world superpower status and as the dollar falls the Yuan gains credibility.

So if North Korea doesn’t scare you– look to Washington, DC.  Nothing going on here in the 19th District comes anywhere close!!

See ya next week!

Botetourt County’s Parks, Recreation and Tourism Offices are scheduled to move in early April to a newly leased office building in Fincastle. The department’s new location is the former office of retiring attorney Buck Heartwell at 16 E. Main St., Fincastle, and is two buildings east of the Voter Registration/Election Offices.

Parks and Recreation had previously been located in the basement of the County’s Public Works Offices on Back Street in Fincastle, while the Tourism Offices were located in the old historic jail and most recently in the Old District Court Building. The new office building will allow all of the Recreation and Tourism staff to be located in one building and will provide the Tourism Office with the ability to provide additional services to visitors to the area.

The actual office move is scheduled for April 8. The Parks and Recreation and Tourism Office telephone numbers will remain the same, although the mailing address will change to 16 E. Main St., Box 4, Fincastle, VA 24090.

Established by the Board of Supervisors in 1989, the function of the Department of Parks and Recreation is to maintain the grounds of various county-owned property including governmental offices, libraries, business parks, recreation parks and school athletic facilities. The department also provides youth athletic leagues through the county’s seven recreation booster clubs, provides various community recreation programs and special events and operates the Senior Van Transportation Program and the Botetourt Sports Complex at Greenfield.

Established by the Board of Supervisors in 2004, the function of the Tourism Office is to work with the various community businesses and stakeholders to develop and promote various cultural, historic and recreation-based tourism assets to attract visitors to the county. Recent Botetourt County Tourism initiatives include the development of the Botetourt County Wine Trail and the Wine Trail Summer Concert Series, The Open Studios Artist Tour and the Upper James River Water Trail.

For more information, please contact the Department of Parks and Recreation at (540) 473-8326 or email recreation@botetourt.org, or the Office of Tourism at (540) 473-1167 or email travel@botetourt.org.

– Submitted by Richard “Pete” Peters, Director, Botetourt County Parks, Recreation & Tourism

Legacy International invites you to Indonesian students and Iraqi chaperones in your home this summer, June 7-17 and June 30-July 6.  Contact Innocentia Afa at 540-871-0882 and visit www.legacyintl.org for more information on this unique and exciting educational opportunity!

Submitted by Innocentia Afa, Global Youth Village