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I spoke with Jim Flowers, director of Virginia Tech KnowledgeWorks this morning, about how the businesses his organization works with are faring amidst the current economic turmoil. His answer: So far so good.

KnowledgeWorks, located in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center, is a "growth enhancement program" that offers incubation space and other services to startup companies. Flowers said the more well-known companies they work with, such as ClickandPledge and Torque Technologies, are making steady progress. The companies in earlier stages of development are coming along just fine, too, he said.

The way Flowers sees it, innovate technology and new services fare better during tough times than retail, restaurants and other services that people typically cut back on when tightening their belts.

"I think that we're relatively economy proof," he said. "Not that we'll see no affect."

That may come further down the road as people extend their timelines for starting up new businesses, waiting for more a more favorable environment to make the leap into entrepreneurship, Flowers said.

"Of course, the last thing they're going to do right now is quit a good job."

Jeff Biggers, the man who wrote United States of Appalachia: How Southern Mountaineers Brought Independence, Culture and Enlightenment to America, will be the keynote speaker at the annual Appalachian Teachers' Network Conference on Saturday, Nov. 1.

The event, which runs from 8:30 a.m.  until 2:30 p.m., will be held at Radford University's Selu Conservancy.

There will be sessions on:

"Community Environmental Health Issues in the Classroom: The Case of Surface Mining”

“Tracking our Contemporary Appalachian Culture Back to Home and Hearth in Scotland,”

“La Riviere Historic Preservation Project: Preserving the Past to Look to the Future”

“The Appalachian-Ulster Teaching Project”

“Diggin’ for Gold: The Floyd County High School Oral History Project”

“Floyd One-Room Schools: Education’s Treasured Resources”

There will also be a presentation by the Grayson-Galax Traditional Dancers.

The ATN conference aims to bring together teachers who strive to keep heritage and cultural traditions alive by integrating Appalachian Studies into their classrooms.

For the $35 fee, conference participants get coffee, pastries, fruit, and cheese in the morning, a catered lunch and relicensing points. To learn more, contact Ricky Cox at rcox@radford.edu.

-- Tim Thornton

This Sunday's Current centerpiece features encounters with the paranormal from two "ghost hunter" groups and a woman who says she has the gift to communicate with the dead. You'll find out what happened when one group investigated Pearis Cemetery in Giles County, which has been around since the Revolutionary War. Another group shared their encounter with the ghost of a small child haunting the bedroom of a Radford family's daughter. You'll also be able to hear audio samples collected from some of these investigations to determine for yourself if you believe.

But why stop there? In the spirit of the season, if you have a ghost story or any other encounter with the paranormal in the New River Valley, this is your opportunity to share. The New River Notebook is open for you to share any spooky tales of your own, so feel free to add on to this post with any stories you believe may provide a scare.

--Lerone Graham

Polls in Blacksburg will likely be busy come Nov. 4, if voter registration numbers are any indicator of turnout.

Between January and the Oct. 15 registration deadline, the number of Blacksburg's registered voters increased by 52 percent, according to Montgomery County Voter Registrar Randy Wertz.

On January 2, 14,403 Blacksburg residents were registered. By Oct. 15, the number had increased to 21,829, Wertz said.

Montgomery County, including Blacksburg, saw an overall 17 percent increase in registered voters, going from 47,662 to 55,850 between January and October.

Wertz's staff worked 25 days straight, 12 to 13 hours a day to process the new registrations, Wertz said. Volunteers were recruited from the Montgomery County League of Women Voters and the local Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) to help.

Most of the new registrations came from Virginia Tech students, meaning that on Nov. 4, lines will likely be long at precincts that serve the campus. That includes St. Michael's Lutheran Church on Merrimac Road, the county's largest voting precinct. County records show that nearly 6,000 people are registered to vote at that precinct alone.

Blacksburg Transit is planning special bus service to ferry voters to the polls on election day, according to town officials.

The flurry of registrations has also caused some confusion. Wertz said that last week a Virginia Tech student who recently registered in the county received her Virginia voter card and her absentee ballot from Maryland on the same day. She turned to the registrar's office to decide what to do.

Someone at a voter registration drive had failed to fully inform the student about the rules, Wertz said.

By law, a citizen may be registered to vote in only one place at any time. Anyone registering in Montgomery County, for example, must withdraw his or her registration in any other locality or state.

And this was not an isolated event, Wertz said. Other Tech students have in recent days sought advice about being registered in more than one place.

The registrar said he wonders how many newly-registered residents don't understand the rules and how many people might, as a result, vote more than once. There is no state or national voter registration database to help ferret out double registrations.

-- Tonia Moxley

BLACKSBURG -- Tired of paying to water your flower or vegetable gardens? Want do your part to conserve the town's potable water resources?

You can do both those things, plus add some original artwork to your home and support environmental education by bidding on a piece of "rain barrel art."

Today through Saturday, silent bids will be taken on 10 fully-assembled rain barrels painted by local artists and school children. The barrels are on display in the second floor lobby of the town Municipal Building at 300 S. Main St.

Bidding ends at 2 p.m. Saturday, and the winners of the barrels will be announced immediately following the last tours of the Blacksburg Motor Company -- also known as the old Doc Roberts building -- at 400 S. Main.

The auction is sponsored by Sustainable Blacksburg, a grassroots nonprofit environmental education organization made up of officials from Blacksburg and Virginia Tech, as well as businesses, community groups and individuals aligned to support and encourage sustainable living throughout the New River Valley.

The group was formed in 2006 under the auspices of a $95,000 pollution reduction grant awarded to Blacksburg by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Since then, the group has taken on a life of its own, said member Meredith Jones.

Sustainable Blacksburg is one of the sponsors of the 3rd annual Sustainability Week program currently underway across Blacksburg and on the Virginia Tech campus. A listing of upcoming events may be found here.

Proceeds from the auction will be split between Sustainable Blacksburg and the schools or artists who were responsible for painting the barrels, Jones said.

-- Tonia Moxley

Radford University hasn't gone as whole hog as Liberty University on the student voter front. Liberty's president, Jerry Falwell Jr., told students they need to register in Lynchburg, kicked off a voter registration drive and cancelled classes on election day so there'd be no excuse to stay out of the voting booth. RU hasn't done all that, but when Radford registrar Tracy Howard made it difficult for Radford University students to register in the city, the university's administration spoke of for the students' rights. RU plans to run shuttle buses from campus to the polls.

Yessir, when it comes to students' voting rights, RU is a stand up institution. For faculty and staff, not so much.

The RU administration sent out an email last week to remind folks that if going to the polls means missing any work time -- if a long line on the way to work means you're late, for example -- they'll have to take leave time to make up for it.

It must be true what they say. Freedom really isn't free.

-- Tim Thornton

A Virginia Tech student is in jail today after an early morning domestic dispute sent another student to the hospital with a fractured skull.

Craig Louis Troisi, 21, a Tech accounting major from Easton, Md., is being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $1,500 secured bond. Troisi is charged with misdemeanor assault and public intoxication following an early morning altercation with his girlfriend, 21-year-old Charlotte Belinda Lauren, also from Maryland.

Blacksburg Police and Rescue Squad were called to the 300 block of Franklin Road in Blacksburg just after 1 a.m. this morning for a head injury, according to a news release.

Lauren was found sitting on the side of the road with a severe laceration to the head. She was transported to Montgomery Regional Hospital where doctors determined she had a fractured skull, then sent her to Lewis-Gale Medical Center for treatment. Her condition was not immediately available this afternoon.

According to the release, Troisi and Lauren had been out celebrating Troisi’s birthday but got into an altercation after returning to Troisi's residence. Lauren was knocked to the ground and injured. Troisi called 911, the release said.

Troisi and Lauren are both listed on the Virginia Tech Web site as accounting and information systems majors.

-- Tonia Moxley

Joel Salatin (left front) and family at Polyface Farm in Staunton

Joel Salatin, the self-described lunatic Virginia farmer made famous in Michael Pollan's book "The Omnivore's Dilemma," railed against the "chicken police" and other obstacles put in the way of local food production by government and the industrial agricultural lobby at The Lyric Theater in Blacksburg this afternoon.

About 150 people attended the event, which kicked off the annual Sustainable Blacksburg celebration. The week of environmental education events is sponsored by Virginia Tech, Blacksburg and the nonprofit Sustainable Blacksburg. Salatin's talk was followed by a "local foods" dinner at the Dietrick Dining Hall on the Tech campus. The meal featured some of Salatin's pasture-raised beef.

Salatin railed against increasing governmental regulations that push up the costs of locally-grown food from small and family farms and make it more difficult for them to compete with industrial agricultural companies.

He also described his philosophy of farming and detailed some of the sustainable practices he uses on his farms located near Staunton, including his "pasture sanitation program."

Based on the tendency of birds to follow herds of grazing animals in the wild, Salatin showed how he rotates his cattle and chickens through the same fields. The cows graze and leave their manure, then are moved to another pasture. One the heels of the cows come the chickens, which scratch across the field, eating the parasites and other pests left by the cows. In this way, the cow manure is evenly distributed to keep the pasture fertilized without added chemicals, Salatin said.

Industrial farmers spend money spraying their fields to kill parasites and innoculating their cows with antibiotics to keep them healthy. Meanwhile, Salatin said he cleans his fields naturally and the chickens reward him with thousands of eggs.

In addressing the question of affordability of meat and produce from smaller, local farms, Saladin talked passionately about what he called the "hidden costs" of industrial farming -- the fossil fuel required to ship food thousands of miles, pollution caused by large-scale, chemical dependent farming and animal processing, and food-related diseases such as diabetes and obesity, all caused Salatin said, by overprocessed, underpriced food.

"The question is, can we afford what we've been doing?" he said.

For a list of upcoming Sustainability Week events for Oct. 21-25, click here.

-- Tonia Moxley

Photo courtesy of Ray Roberts/Former Va. Gov. George Allen poses with Christiansburg business owner Pat Atchison at an Oct. 20 rally in Blacksburg

Former Virginia Governor and U.S. Senator George Allen rallied about 100 McCain/Palin supporters in downtown Blacksburg this morning.

Allen gave a speech reminiscent of a locker room pep talk to an audience dominated by Virginia Tech students inside the Montgomery County Republican Party headquarters. The office is located in the old Record Exchange storefront just off Main Street.

Flanked by life-sized cardboard cutouts of Sarah Palin and John McCain, Allen called the group "McCain-Palin Hokies."

"All right team, are y'all ready to win?" Allen shouted to cheering. "That's the Hokie spirit!"

The former Senator, who lost his seat in 2006 to Republican-turned-Democrat Jim Webb, invoked the by now ubiquitious "Joe the plummer" from last week's Presidential debate. He then called up from the audience Pat Atchison, a resident of Blacksburg and owner of Clean & Green Technologies in Christiansburg.

"This is who this campaign is for. It's about rejuvenating our economy," Allen said.

Allen hit hard the Republican themes of cutting business taxes as a way to stimulate job growth, fighting nationalized health care, promoting morality and most notably, using so-called clean coal technologies to reduce the country's dependence of foreign energy.

"We are the Saudi Arabia of the United States when it comes to coal," Allen said. "We want to use that coal. Clean coal."

He also advocated generating electricity via nuclear power, a major part of John McCain's energy policies, as practiced by the French.

"John McCain knows if the French can do it, so can the Americans," he said.

Allen also advocated oil exploration off Virginia's coast and suggested that royalties from off-shore oil production could be used to fund the state's transportation needs and bring down the cost of tuition at state colleges and universities.

Montgomery County GOP Chairwoman Patty Manthe said she was thrilled with the turnout and Allen's visit.

"There was electricity in this room," the chairwoman said.

Read more about this rally in the Oct. 21 Roanoke Times.

-- Tonia Moxley