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The long wait is over. Here’s our photo gallery from Saturday night’s Cave Spring homecoming dance.

These aren’t the only homecoming-related photos we have here at SWoCo. On Saturday, we posted photos from Friday night’s homecoming game. We have both action on the field, and some of the hoopla surrounding the night.

So, do you have photos from homecoming events you want to show off? You can share at news@swo-co.com

And if you’re curious, we posted photos from the Hidden Valley homecoming dance on Sept. 22.

OTHER RECENT CAVE SPRING COVERAGE

* Oct. 11: Photos from the Cave Spring homecoming game
* Oct. 10: Update on Cave Spring junior varsity volleyball
* Oct. 10: Photos from the Cave Spring - Hidden Valley volleyball game
* Oct. 6: Photos of Cave Spring junior varsity volleyball
* Oct. 6: Cave Spring volleyball JVs on a roll
* Oct. 4: Cave Spring falls to William Byrd in football
* Oct. 3: Cave Spring boys basketball team holds golf tournament as fund-raiser
* Sept. 30: Funny photos of hijinks involving Cave Spring golfers
* Sept. 24: Photos from the Cave Spring - Hidden Valley volleyball game
* Sept. 23: Photos from Cave Spring Back to School night
* Sept. 22: Photos from Cave Spring freshman and sophomore team
* Sept. 19: Photos from Cave Spring - Patrick Henry football game
* Photos of Cave Spring fall sports teams.

If you missed the orchid show Friday and Saturday at the Roanoke Council of Garden Club on Colonial Avenue, don’t fret — we have a photo gallery.

We had a previous post about the show on October 8.

So how does your garden grow? You can share your photos at news@swo-co.com

On Friday, you could sense the excitement radiating from 4th-grade students as they prepared to meet with Virginia Tech football players and coaches and have them read to them.
Two schools in Southwest Roanoke County, Cave Spring Elementary School and Back Creek Elementary School, participated in the program called “Herma’s Readers”.
Virginia Tech head coach Frank Beamer began the statewide program in honor of his late mother who was an elemnetary school teacher.
The players and coaches read to the students in an effort to show the importance of reading.
Offensive Coordinator, Brian Stinespring represented the Virginia Tech football team at Cave Spring Elementary from 11 a.m. to noon.
According to J.R. Edwards a 4th-grade teacher at Cave Spring Elementary, “The Tech players and coaches spread out all over the state and randomly picked school’s to present the importance of reading to the kids.”
Edwards said the school received a phone call from Stinespring asking to come read to the kids and promote the importance of reading.
The team traveled to 25 different schools all over Virginia.

For more photos from Stinespring’s visit, see our photo gallery.

Cave Spring Elementary held its annual Fall Carnival on Saturday and our paparazzi photo crew was there, rolling out the red carpet. Kerri Dalton and Thomas Buchko here weren’t shy about posing for the cameras, and neither were any of the other folks you can now find in this photo gallery.

So do you have photos from your school’s fall carnival? Or anything else, for that matter, involving people or events in Southwest Roanoke County? If so, you can share at news@swo-co.com.

We ask readers each week to suggest rec league games we should go to. Well, we were invited to check out the Cave Spring Raiders this past weekend, and we’re glad we did. They rolled over the North Roanoke Mountaineers 38-6. Here’s Wyatt Hage running for a first down.

For more action, see our photo gallery.

So what other games should we go to? Let us know at news@swo-co.com. There’s no way we can go to all of them, but we always appreciate your suggestions on the ones we can catch. And if we’re not there — send in photos to news@swo-co.com and we’ll be more than happy to run those.

We have a photo gallery from Friday night’s homecoming game at Cave Spring High School — both action from the field and the scene around the stadium.

(Unfortunately for Cave Spring fans, Blacksburg won, so we’ll just skip over that little detail.)

Here we see Monika Slowikowski (bottom left corner), Molly Reilly (just above Monika), Jennifer Wade and Logan Smith (in white), all seniors.

These photos are from Garland Gay.

Do you have photos from the game to share? Or any game, for that matter, involving teams or players from Southwest Roanoke County? If so, you can share at news@swo-co.com

We’ll have our paparazzi photo crew at Saturday night’s homecoming dance, so check back for those photos.

OTHER RECENT CAVE SPRING COVERAGE

* Oct. 10: Update on Cave Spring junior varsity volleyball
* Oct. 10: Photos from the Cave Spring - Hidden Valley volleyball game
* Oct. 6: Photos of Cave Spring junior varsity volleyball
* Oct. 6: Cave Spring volleyball JVs on a roll
* Oct. 4: Cave Spring falls to William Byrd in football
* Oct. 3: Cave Spring boys basketball team holds golf tournament as fund-raiser
* Sept. 30: Funny photos of hijinks involving Cave Spring golfers
* Sept. 24: Photos from the Cave Spring - Hidden Valley volleyball game
* Sept. 23: Photos from Cave Spring Back to School night
* Sept. 22: Photos from Cave Spring freshman and sophomore team
* Sept. 19: Photos from Cave Spring - Patrick Henry football game
* Photos of Cave Spring fall sports teams.

Send your scenes of the people and places of Southwest Roanoke County in this season of fall festivals, pumpkins, hay rides and falling leaves. You could be published in SwoCo and win a great prize!

Photos should be taken in Southwest Roanoke County or include people from Southwest Roanoke County, and depict fall.

Submit you photo by Oct. 19 by visiting swo-co.com and clicking “SHARE”. Include the words “Autumn Snapshot Contest” in the message along a photo caption, your name, address and a phone number or e-mail address where you can be reached. Parents may submit entries for children 13 years and younger; just note in the message the child’s name and age.

We’ll select winners of two $50 gift certificates to Elderberry’s by random drawing. We’ll also print the selected entries in SwoCo and on swo-co.com beginning Oct. 31.

Moriah Moore from Cave Spring High School sends us this update on the junior varsity volleyball team:

“Cave Spring JV volleyball had a rough start to the week. They lost in two straight games to a tough Blacksburg team on Tuesday, 20-25 and 20-25. The team regained their composure for Thursday, though, serving more consistently and defending more effectively against Hidden Valley. As reported earlier, the Knights won the hard fought match, 2 games to 1. In addition to good serving and solid defense from the entire team, the Knights were led offensively by Leah Wilkes, Jessi Fortner and Rachel Kennedy.

Tomorrow, Cave Spring will participate in a JV tournament at Patrick Henry. Their first match starts at 11:15.”

We had a post — with a photo gallery – earlier today about Thursday night’s Cave Spring - Hidden Valley game. People are still buzzing about the second game that went to 35-33 before Cave Spring won. Moriah says: “I haven’t seen a game like that since high school volleyball has changed to rally scoring. It was amazing.”

What do others have to say about that game? You can leave a comment below.

OTHER RECENT CAVE SPRING COVERAGE

* Oct. 10: Photos from the Cave Spring - Hidden Valley volleyball game
* Oct. 6: Photos of Cave Spring junior varsity volleyball
* Oct. 6: Cave Spring volleyball JVs on a roll
* Oct. 4: Cave Spring falls to William Byrd in football
* Oct. 3: Cave Spring boys basketball team holds golf tournament as fund-raiser
* Sept. 30: Funny photos of hijinks involving Cave Spring golfers
* Sept. 24: Photos from the Cave Spring - Hidden Valley volleyball game
* Sept. 23: Photos from Cave Spring Back to School night
* Sept. 22: Photos from Cave Spring freshman and sophomore team
* Sept. 19: Photos from Cave Spring - Patrick Henry football game
* Photos of Cave Spring fall sports teams.

We’ve just updated our Roanoke Valley crime map with the latest offenses from Roanoke County — and Roanoke and Salem, as well. The data includes offenses through October 5.

Last week in Southwest Roanoke County, police reported five larcenies and two burglaries.

Our data delivery editor, Matt Chittum, has more information how you can use the searchable crime map.

Also on our Datasphere collection of searchable data: Graduation rates for each school system in Virginia. See how Roanoke County compares.