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Kerri Belcher, a sophomore at Salem, looks for a teammate to pass to during the game. Photo by Erin Millar, special to So Salem

We have a gallery by photographer Erin Millar from the girls' basketball game at Salem High School last night.  Click here to see the shots from the game, which Hidden Valley won 47-33. For a little more detail, click here for the high school basketball roundup on varsity.roanoke.com.

The Salem boys' basketball team takes to the court in just two hours at the Salem Civic Center. They play at 3 p.m. in the Member One Valley Shootout against George Washington of Charleston, W.Va.

Do you have photos from Salem sporting events? Send your shots to news@sosalem.com, and we'll post them here for all to see.

Valentine's Day is only two weekends away. Are you ready? If not, here are four ways to say "I Love You" in Salem and western Roanoke County. Can you think of more? Feel free to add your suggestions in the "comment" field below.

1. Singing Valentines: Let the Star City Sounds Chorus serenade your sweetheart for Valentines Day. A four-part harmony quartet will sing two love songs and provide a rose. Available February 13 or 14. Cost: $35. Call Linda at 774-1542 for scheduling.

2. More Singing Valentines: Say "I love you" with a singing Valentine sung by a Virginia Gentlemen barbershop quartet. For only $45 on the 13th of February and $50 for the 14th, a quartet will serenade your sweetheart at home, at work, at school or most anywhere in the Roanoke Valley. The quartet will sing two love songs and present a card with a personal message and a long-stem red rose, and capture the moment with a photo taken with your sweetheart.Presented by the Virginia Gentlemen Barbershop Harmony Chorus.For more information, go to: www.vagents.org.

3. Buy a "love line" in So Salem. Yes, this is a cheap promotional ploy, but it's also cheap (only 99 cents a line) and the ultimate promotion is, well, for you. Call 981-3311 to place your "Love Line" in print. Deadline: Noon on Tuesday, Feb. 10.

4. Go see "She Loves Me" at Showtimers community theatre just off 419 in Roanoke County, which isn't in Salem but is pretty darn close. It's a love story, and it opens Feb. 12.  (For more on the show, see this story.)

So, got other Salem-related Valentine's tips to add? Leave a comment below.

Roanoke County schools have announced a series of meetings for the parents of teens about to get their drivers' licenses -- and those soon-to-be drivers. It's called "Partnering for the Privilege, Safe Teen Driving Program" and there's a meeting coming up at Glenvar High School on Feb. 10.

The full press release is below, with more details and meeting times:

Giving your keys to a new teen driver?

Did you know?

If you have questions please contact: Barry Trent, Coordinator for Health, Physical Education and Driver Education at Roanoke County Public Schools.
Phone: (540) 562-3900, ext. 10255 Email at btrent@rcs.k12.va.us.

Did someone you know make the honor roll at Glenvar High during this last grading period?

Check it out the list below (click the small "read more" to see the rest) and remember to give those hardworking students an "attaboy" or a pat on the back the next time you see them!

A Honor Roll-9th grade: Brooke Bennett, Kenna Chapman, Katherine Dillman, Felicia Duncan, Kimberly Eaton, Rebecca Hartley, Kyle Jacobs, Zachary Parrish, Brittany Warren,

-10th grade: Colin Bittner, Brandy Bryant, Abby Caldwell, Alexandra Clark, Haley Goodes, Timothy Howard, Nicholas Kidd, Kristen Knighton, Christian Martin, Rachel Moore, Matthew Rosendahl, Elizabeth Sherer, Nicholas Trinchere

-11th grade: Patrick Ferguson, Jeremy Ferris, Lyndsey Hunter, Rose Kohinke, Sarah Perez, Caroline Thomsen, Joseph Walker, Brian Winslow

-12th grade: Mary Collins, Tiffany Gibson, Jenneal Jones, Casey Martin, Amanda Rhodes, Matthew Rickmon, Elizabeth Trinchere

A/B Honor Roll

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Janet Wilkinson never dreamed that she'd have her very own design featured in the fall 2008 edition of a popular beading publication, Stringing Magazine, but then again, she never realized that she was so good at making jewelry until a few years ago. The Salem resident, whose handcrafted gemstone work is on sale at local boutiques like Millie's and at Art on a Mission in Tanglewood Mall, discovered her knack for making beautiful things at a party at Beads Indeed downtown."I just knew how to do it," Wilkinson said. "I just knew how to make jewelry - maybe I was just good at it because I hung out in the garage with my dad." It seems contradictory at first, but many of the tools used in the crafting of jewelry are the very same tools used for household and vehicle projects. She grew up in Craig County, and her father was a former marine and a firefighter there.

While her friends were struggling and flustered with the steps from the instructor, Wilkinson had nearly completed her necklace with a silver bali bead as its centerpiece. And her skills have only blossomed since then. She started picking up magazines from craft and beading stores and trying the designs in them. It wasn't long before her talent produced elegant pieces worth selling.

"For the price of something that is not made of semiprecious metals and gems at the mall, I can make it with quality material," said Wilkinson. She picks up a great deal of her raw material at the Salem Gem and Mineral show when it comes to the Salem Civic Center.

"I make everything out of quality materials so that people who are very sensitive to it don't have the issue," because Wilkinson is sensitive to certain metals in earrings, too.

While most of the jewelry that she makes is one-of-a-kind (especially everything that's on sale at Millie's), she has two "lines" of jewelry that she makes now: "Too cool for school" and a breast cancer research themed line. The first of the two features gemstone jewelry that come in various school colors: Roanoke College, Salem High, Glenvar High, Virginia Tech, UVA, and others.

Wilkinson also repairs and revamps jewelry for folks - "Most people will just cram it to the back of their drawer because it's broken and it ends up being a waste of money," she said. Her idea for revamping people's existing jewelry came to her when a friend brought her some inherited items that had sentimental value.

"I ended up making these vintage coral buttons into earrings," she said of the seemingly unusable items that had once belonged to her friend's grandmother. "I ended up going through her whole collection, and she gave me the liberty to redesign it."

Her aspirations are, once her three- and six-year-old sons are grown, to fully develop her jewelry creations as a full-time business. But for right now, she's "a mom, first and foremost," with a keen ability to create beautiful jewelry. You can see more photos of her jewelry at www.beedesignjewelry.com.

We've just updated our Roanoke Valley crime map with the latest offenses from Salem and Roanoke County -- and Roanoke, as well. The data includes offenses through Monday, Jan. 26 in Salem, and Saturday, Jan. 24 in Roanoke County.

In the week leading up to Jan. 26, Salem police reported one robbery, one burglary and six larcenies.

In the week leading up to Jan. 24, Roanoke County police reported one burglary and two larcenies in western Roanoke County.

Also, the Salem Police Department provides more detailed information than other localities -- so in addition to the Roanoke Valley crime map, we have a more detailed Salem crime map you can search, as well.

Follow the links above and you can see where they were and what they were. Our data delivery editor, Matt Chittum, has more information how you can use the searchable crime maps.

Also on our Datasphere collection of searchable data: Home foreclosures for each locality in the Roanoke and New River valleys.

Students at Masons Cove Elementary School kicked off their shoes on Thursday, Jan. 29 while studying the Giant Map of Asia that is visiting all Roanoke County Elementary Schools now through February 4. The topographic map was provided by EdNet with National Geographic.

This will be the second year that Roanoke County has participated in this program, according to Amy Cummings, Coordinator of Social Studies with Roanoke County Public Schools. However, this is the first time it has been at Oak Grove Elementary School

"Everybody has been really positive about it," she said. "What I thought was great about it was that it's the same price whether we had it for a week or two months. It's an incredible investment in our kids."

Cummings said that when they participated last year they received the Giant Map of Africa, and this year decided to get the Giant Map of Asia. Next year, they hope to request the Giant Map of North America. The maps are requested and moved from each school after a day or two. The program costs around $275.

"It is definitely not only hands on, it's feet on, elbow on, knees on- It's completely interactive," Cummings said.

Each grade level uses the map for a different purpose depending on their age and what they are studying. Many classrooms did projects leading up to the arrival of the giant map of Asia and for other classrooms the map will spear off a subject they are about to study.

The map comes with a trunk full of activities, including ropes, a giant die, lesson plans, etc.

"One day I went to pick up the map from another school and all of the kids were in the hallway and one yelled, 'The map is fun!'," Cummings remembered.

Roanoke County found out about the program last year from the previous coordinator and decided to continue with it.

The map teaches how to find rivers, oceans, countries, things about the equator, etc.

"It just brings a while new perspective to the students," Chuck Lionberger, Public Relations Specialist for Roanoke County Public Schools said. "

--Emily Flora, SwoCo community journalist

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About ten high school students with the Glenvar Coalition plan on filming two public service announcements on Monday, Feb. 2 to submit to local television and radio stations.

One PSA, written by the students, highlights the issue of teen pregnancy by leading up to a phone call - where the female teen character has to tell a male character the consequences of a bad decision.

The statement the clip will end with is a familiar one to Glenvar High students: "Make it a great life or not - the choice is yours," is similar to what Principal Joe Hafey says every day during their morning announcements (although he says "day" instead of "life".)

Another PSA was written by faculty sponsor Sherry Gearhart, and it is also aimed at teen pregnancy prevention.

Zach Armentrout, a student in Burton Center for Arts and Technology's mass communication program, is producing the audio and video for the public service announcements.

Photo: from left, Mandy White, Kyle Horne, Zach Armentrout, Tabitha Cain, and Hannah Whitt practice the script for the first public service announcement.

A correction to today's print edition of So Salem: The Roanoke County planning commission rezoning hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, February 3 at 7 p.m. - not Wednesday, February 4.

Thank you to those folks who emailed me the correction!

-Miranda

FOR COVERAGE OF THE ASPHALT PLANT PROPOSAL:
* Jan. 29: Western Roanoke County residents meet to organize opposition
* Jan. 28: What do you think of the tie vote on the asphalt proposal?
* Jan. 23: Public hearing on proposed asphalt plant draws 200
* Jan. 20: Asphalt plant is proposed for old water treatment site

Got something to say on the issue? You can leave a comment below, or on any of those posts.

Well, they say a picture's worth a thousand words, so we'll let this one speak for itself. You can figure out what's going on here, we suspect. Kids. Candy. And boys' sandlot night at Salem High School. These two fellows are members of the Salem Sharks, who were among the rec league teams recognized at the game.

We have a spread of photos in this week's print edition of So Salem and promised more online and, well, here they are -- in this photo gallery.

Each week, we find ourselves with more photos than we can ever hope to fit into print, so that's one of the ways we use our online site. We also, of course, use it to post upwards of a dozen new items each day from Salem and western Roanoke County, so bookmark us and think of this as your daily digital newspaper for Salem.

So what are some of the other online extras we have this week?

Well, we've been following the big controversy over the proposed asphalt plant in Glenvar. We just put up our most recent post early Thursday evening -- and it links to this previous post on Wednesday, which in turn links to other posts we've done as the issue has unfolded. You can weigh in by leaving a comment on any of those posts. We'll have more news on the issue as it develops.

SPECIAL ADVERTISING NOTICE . . .
In this week's edition of So Salem, you'll see a special promotion in the classifieds on page 17: Share a special message with your sweetheart this Valentine's Day by placing a Love Line in our Feb. 13 print edition of So Salem. Only 99 cents a line! For details, well, see the ad or call 981-3311 by noon on Tuesday, Feb. 10. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled news briefing . . .

We also have these online extras this week:

* More photos from Roanoke College students and alumni at the inauguration
* More photos from the Academic Challenge
* Photo from the Winter Carnival
* Judge sends Salem murder charge to grand jury
* Kimberly Blair of Salem named to position at Virginia Tech
* More photos from Annie Lin at Winter Jam

AND IN SPORTS . . .
* More photos of Salem vs. Cave Spring in boys basketball
* More photos of the Virginia Edge
* More photos of the Virginia Lady Warriors
* 64 photos of the Lady Diamonds vs. the Twilight Zone
* Photos of Salem Outlaws in NRV Classic
* Does Salem have the best Group AA girls basketball team in the region? Vote in this poll.

So how can you get your news and photos in So Salem? Easy! You can share at news@sosalem.com. (And a special request this week: Be sure to send us your holiday photos!)

For more information on us -- and how to advertise and reach more than 90 percent of the households in Salem and western Roanoke County -- see below:

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