A mix of rain and sunshine didn’t keep 65 volunteers and local southwest county residents from supporting the Cave Spring Volunteer Rescue Squad Saturday afternoon at their annual chicken barbecue dinner held twice a year.

The rescue squad sold out of tickets around 4 p.m. Saturday and served about 1,200 dinner in the course of only three hours. The volunteers and community raised about $4,000 for the volunteer rescue squad.

Those who bought dinner tickets either came and picked up their food in their car, or enjoyed the company of other people in the community inside the rescue squad between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Dinners cost $7, with homemade barbecue sauce which, Sharon Campbell President of the Auxiliary said has been a secret recipe forever.

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Laughing and chanting were the sounds heard around Jubilee Acres Friday morning as about 300 students, parents, and faculty of Faith Christian School cleared paths, mulched, and rebuilt trails at the Rescue Mission summer day camp.

Project Faith was well underway at 8:45 a.m. and students were repeating chants led by their student leaders and SGA President and Crew Chief Bryan Strelow.

“I think we are going to get our job done. We have a lot of manpower and the pre-planning really helped,” Strelow said. “Every year they give us a bigger project and we always finish it. It shows our work ethics.”

Organizers and Strelow began planning for the event last fall. By January they had chosen a place to conduct their community service. In years past, the school has done community service with the greenways, building and clearing trails. For the past two years the students have done community service for the Rescue Mission.

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Sportswriter Robert Anderson spoke today with Troy Wells, who was named last night as the new boys’ basketball coach at Hidden Valley High School. Here’s his report on the new coach — who won three state titles in 13 seasons in Martinsville.

For the official press release from the Roanoke County school system, click here.

During the recent statewide archery tournament held by the National Archery in the Schools Program, Hidden Valley High School took second place statewide.

The tournament was sponsored by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF).

The tournament was held “virtually”, meaning teams competed at each school and reported their scores to the tournament judges, to cut down on traveling expenses.

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Area businesses and organizations came out Wednesday to the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) “Lock Up” at the Holiday in on Starkey. Participants had to raise bail to get out of jail and even had to get their picture taken behind bars.

The MDA is a national voluntary health agency dedicated to conquering neuromuscular diseases that affect a million Americans of all ages.

And according to Diane Boardman, District Director, one lucky guy, John Peters who represented Advanced Auto Parts did just that. The MDA gave each participant a goal of raising $2,400.

Boardman also said that about Roanoke helped raise $36,500, about $20,000 shy of their goal.

“We haven’t raised this little in the Roanoke area in a while,” Boardman said. “We usually raise about $50,000. We do appreciate the people that came. They worked enthusiastically for a great cause.”

About 67 people honored their commitment and attended the lock-up throughout the day, which began at 9 a.m. and ended at 4 p.m. About 250 people total had originally made a commitment Boardman said.

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Hidden Valley High School has named a new boys’ basketball coach. He’s Troy Wells, currently the head coach at Martinsville High School.

The official press release from the Roanoke County school system follows:

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Keagy Village, the retail center under construction in Southwest Roanoke County, will have an nTelos store. Business writer Jenny Boone has posted more information about that and other developments at Keagy Village on her retail blog, The Storefront.

We had a previous post about Keagy Village on April 6.

In case you missed it, sportswriter Aaron McFarling today had a story about Zack Helgeson of Hidden Valley High School, whom he called “the most feared slugger the Roanoke Valley.” With it, video producer Evelio Contreras had a video of Helgeson taking some swings.

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

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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.