www.roanoke.com

We're looking to recognize "the Best of Southwest Roanoke County." The best teacher. The best school staff member. The best -- well, the best lots of things.

Lots of "best of" contests focus just on businesses -- and goodness knows, we've got lots of business categories, too. But we also want to do shout-outs to lots of other people in the community who deserve recognition. The best rec league coach. The best plumber. Even the best politician.

We've got details on our Best of Southwest Roanoke County contest -- including a link to the official online ballot -- right here.

The voting has begun and runs through March 31.

Let your friends know so they can help recognize "the best of Southwest Roanoke County."

We're looking to recognize "the Best of Southwest Roanoke County." The best school coach. The best rec league coach. The best -- well, the best lots of things.

Lots of "best of" contests focus just on businesses -- and goodness knows, we've got lots of business categories, too. But we also want to do shout-outs to lots of other people in the community who deserve recognition. The best teacher. The best school staff. The best bus driver.

We've got details on our Best of Southwest Roanoke County contest -- including a link to the official online ballot -- right here.

The voting has begun and runs through March 31.

Let your friends know so they can help recognize "the best of Southwest Roanoke County."

We’re looking for The Best of Southwest Roanoke County.
The best place for breakfast.
The best place to walk the dog.
The best place to get your car fixed.
The best . . . well, you name it.
Think of all the things you recommend to friends — that’s what we’re looking for in our “Best of Southwest Roanoke County” poll.
We’re kicking off the voting today -- here's a link to the official online ballot. The voting runs through midnight March 31.
We’ll be announcing the results in our one-year anniversary issue April 24.
We’ll be awarding a gold, silver and bronze medal and passing out stickers for our top winners to display.
We’ve got lots of categories, though you don’t need to vote in them all.
Some deal with schools — who’s the best teacher? Some with sports — who’s the best rec league coach? Some with businesses — who’s the best hair salon? Some with kids — where’s the best place to go trick-or-treating? At least one even deals with romance — where’s the best place for a first date?
But all deal with living right here. Our favorite question: What’s the best reason for living in Southwest Roanoke County?
Let the voting begin! (And be sure to tell your friends!)

If you happened to be at the Kevin Jones Performing Arts Studio show at the Jefferson Center this past weekend, maybe you heard what we heard.

The show -- sponsored by the Southwest Roanoke County-based acting studio -- started off with a dance number from the Broadway musical "42nd Street."

In the darkness, we hear the voices of out-of-work Depression-era actors when they get word of a new show about to go up.

Except instead of the traditional lines "Julian Marsh is doing a show . . . it's in Variety!" what we heard instead was: "Kevin Jones is doing a show . . . it's in SWoCo!"

Cue the lights, curtain up, hit the music, big dance number starts  . . .

We asked Kevin today for the backstory and here's what he told us: "The kids begged my this week to let them change the line to Kevin Jones...so I told them that if we did that we had to go all the way, so I had them add the SWoCO bit! The best part is that the show really was in SWoCO on Friday."

So, thanks, Kevin for the plug, and thanks to Leah Wedge (of Southwest Roanoke County) who got to deliver the line. If you missed the show, or even if you didn't, we expect to have some photos from it to share here in about a week. In the meantime, here's a link to our previous post on the show.

And if you have news or photos from Southwest Roanoke County, you can share at news@swo-co.com. And then you, too, can say "it's in SWoCo!"

Whoa, what’s this? You may notice the SWoCo site now looks a bit different. It’s not you, it’s us. We’ve changed our software. You shouldn’t notice anything different, other than a new look. But the new software will help us make posts more quickly -- and when we’re updating this site as often as we do (sometimes a dozen times a day), that’s a big deal.
As always, if you have news or photos involving people or events in Southwest Roanoke County, you can share at news@swo-co.com

What is SWoCo? And how, exactly, does one pronounce it?

We’ll admit, it’s a made-up name -- a catchy (we hope) abbreviation for Southwest Roanoke County the way folks in Northern Virginia refer to NoVa, or, um, the way some folks in South Roanoke call their neighborhood SoRo.

Still, there’s that whole pronunciation thing -- so we went to the Kevin Jones Performing Arts Studio to get some help. Kevin rounded up seven of his students -- all from Southwest Roanoke County. All they knew was they were going to shoot a video for use on roanoke.com. We took each one aside, showed them them SWoCo logo, and asked them to pronounce it and tell us what they thought it stood for.

Here’s what we got: SWoCo, the video. Actually, three videos.
It’s not exactly the Star War trilogy, but hey, even George Lucas had to start somewhere, right?

Video 1: How to pronounce SWoCo.
Video 2: Just what is SWoCo?
Video 3: How does SWoCo make you feel?

Read more »

If you hadn’t heard the name “SWoCo” before, what would you think it stood for? A brand of yogurt? A deodorant? A fancy drink? Or maybe the name for the new community newspaper (and website) for Southwest Roanoke County?
We thought we’d have some fun with the name, so shortly before our first issue came out we went to the Kevin Jones Performing Arts Studio to get some help. Kevin rounded up seven of his students -- all from Southwest Roanoke County -- and asked them what they thought “SWoCo” stood for.
Here’s what we got: SWoCo, the video. Actually, three videos.
It’s not exactly the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but we did copy Peter Jackson in one way. We shot them all at the same time. Just not in New Zealand -- somewhere in SWoCo, instead. Action!

Video 1: How to pronounce SWoCo.
Video 2: Just what is SWoCo?
Video 3: How does SWoCo make you feel?

Read more »

So how does the name “SWoCo” make you feel? Does it make you feel happy? Or maybe it makes you want to dance? Does it seem vaguely futuristic?
We thought we’d have some fun with the name, so shortly before our first issue came out we went to the Kevin Jones Performing Arts Studio to get some help. Kevin rounded up seven of his students -- all from Southwest Roanoke County -- and asked them how the name made them feel.
Here’s what we got: SWoCo, the interpretive dance. Plus: SWoCo, the video. Actually, three videos.

So, anyone out there want to make their own SWoCo video? Hey, it worked for "Snakes on a Plane" . . .

Video 1: How to pronounce SWoCo.
Video 2: Just what is SWoCo?
Video 3: How does SWoCo make you feel?

Read more »

The first issue of our new community newspaper for Southwest Roanoke County comes out today.

* If you’re a subscriber to The Roanoke Times and live in zip codes 24018 or 24059, you’ll find SWoCo included in your regular newspaper delivery each Friday.

* If you’re not a subscriber, but still live in those areas, you’ll get SWoCo mailed to you each week as part of the Simply Savings advertising flier you now receive. For most of you, that generally means it will arrive on Friday or Saturday, depending on postal delivery. If that uncertainty sounds like a reason to subscribe, our circulation department will be happy to help you.

* In addition, we have free copies of SWoCo available at these locations:

-- Kroger, 3815 Brambleton Avenue
-- Kroger, 4404 Brambleton Avenue
-- Kroger, 4488 Electric Road
-- Mill Mountain Coffee & Tea, 4710-A Starkey Road

Read more »

Welcome to the new website for community news for Southwest Roanoke County.

If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog for the past month or so, you’re noticing something different today. If you’re coming here for the first time, well, it’s all new anyway.

The big news here today is that we’ve launched a full website -- and a weekly print edition.

What you’re looking at here is The Notebook, our news blog for Southwest Roanoke County. Most days, we update this blog multiple times -- sometimes with things you’ll later see in print in some form, sometimes with things you won’t. Think of it as a running conversation.

And we do want this to be a two-week street. You can click the “comment” button on the lower right to comment on blog posts. You can also share your news and photos at news@swo-com.com. (Don't forget the dash!)

If you want to bookmark this blog, here’s the new, formal address.

And if you want to bookmark the whole site, you’ll want this.

For more about what the whole website features, click here.

For more on our weekly print edition, click here.

Finally, to meet our community journalist, Emily Flora, either in person or in cyberspace, click here.