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Did you see the Patrick Henry/Hidden Valley high school football opener Friday night? If you missed PH's 44-14 win, check out the video highlights on our new VarsityCast page. Look for it to be updated Friday nights with live new content.

In addition to the weekly game highlights (shot by by multimedia producer Chris Zaluski), you'll find a real-time Twitter feed with Timesland scores and a chance to predict which teams will come out on top in the 2009 season. Look for the "Varsity Forecasters" box on the lower right of the page and see how your picks compare with those of Robert

Robert Anderson, Roanoke Times preps editor

Anderson, our prep sports editor. You have until 4 p.m. Friday to enter your picks.

Have any suggestions for how we cover high school football, in print or online? Leave them here or contact Robert at robert.anderson@roanoke.com

While you're browsing that VarsityCast page, also look for video of Robert's season preview and profiles of new coaches and top players to follow.

We had a lively discussion at our afternoon news meeting Wednesday about how we should display the news of Sen. Ted Kennedy's death on today's front page. Kennedy's death was announced by his family around 1:15 a.m. Wednesday morning, after our final deadline for Wednesday's paper had passed.

So, the news had been all over television and the Internet for more than 24 hours by the time our paper hit doorsteps this morning. A handful of editors in the room argued that his death was a huge national story and deserved traditional centerpiece display -- four columns wide with a large headline, photo, story, timeline -- on the front page.

Others argued that the timing of his death -- coupled with the fact that he had few local connections -- was good reason to play the story inside the paper.

As you can see here, we decided on somewhat of a middle ground: A large banner over the paper's flag announcing his death and directing readers to more coverage on pages three, four and five.

That alerted readers buying the paper in racks or stores to the coverage but also allowed us to give a nice display to local columnist Dan Casey's feature on Dave Asbury.

What do you think about how we played the story?

We've added a couple of new reporters to our staff and changed some beat assignments in the past month.

Rex Bowman joined the paper to cover Botetourt and Bedford counties. Bowman, a Floyd native who lives in Roanoke, spent 12 years covering Southwest Virginia for the Richmond Times-Dispatch before coming to our newsroom.

He's  also worked at The Washington Times, The Daily Progress in Charlottesville, The Argus in Fremont, Calif. and the Easton Star Democrat in Maryland.

Lerone Graham was promoted to full-time status as our weekend police reporter.  Graham, who graduated from Norfolk State University in 2008, was hired last year as a one-year intern in our New River Bureau.

Neil Harvey has taken over coverage of  Salem. He came to The Roanoke Times in 2001 and has worked in news and features. Most recently, he covered weekday night police.

Tonia Moxley is now covering Virginia Tech and Radford University and serve as the newsroom's point person on broader higher education stories. Her five years of experience covering Blacksburg and her wide network of sources in the New River Valley make her a good fit for that position.
Moxley first joined the company in 2002 as an assistant online editor with roanoke.com. She worked as an editorial assistant in the bureau from 2002-2004 before taking on the Blacksburg beat.

Click here for a complete newsroom staff list.

"How stupid can the Times be," read the subject line of the e-mail.

It captured the intensity of the reader’s complaint about a feature photo we published showing a 13-year-old Roanoke boy jumping off of a second-story stairway onto a trampoline.

"Why on earth would your newspaper put something out there that exhibits such dangerous behavior," the reader wrote. "Your paper should be promoting safety as much as possible, not encouraging foolish, dangerous behavior that can cause serious injury or worse."

Jumping onto a trampoline from one story up is a recipe for a trip the emergency room. I wouldn’t want either of my daughters trying it.

However, the decision on whether we acted irresponsibly in publishing the photo isn’t clear cut.

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