Chuck Lionberger. Photo by Jared Soares, The Roanoke Times
How much does SWoCo resident Chuck Lionberger love Disney? His vanity license plate on his minivan is “MICKY FN.” And when he saw the golf ball-like structure at Epcot: “I felt like I was coming home for the first time. I found where I was. I found where I wanted to be.” The Roanoke County schools spokesman recently won a free trip to the Florida park for his family. Read Courtney Cutright’s story here.
Roanoke Times staff photographer Jared Soares shot the Cave Spring Knights winning their second straight state championship on Saturday, March 13. The Knights are once again AA Division 3 VHSL State Boys State champs after defeating Brunswick High 54-43 at the Verizon Wireless Arena at the Siegel Center in Richmond.
The montage of trophies in their bedrooms spoke for the two young dancers, before the interview. Some stood from the floor to eye-level, while others densely covered shelves and dresser tops.
The Southwest Roanoke County home of Jim and Beth d’Alelio houses two of the Divine Dance Center’s very accomplished competition dancers, brothers Tony and Joey d’Alelio, 16 and 12 respectively. Tony is a sophomore at Cave Spring High School, and Joey a sixth-grader at Cave Spring Middle School.
The boys dance nearly any form: ballet, hip hop, jazz and clogging. Tony favors contemporary while Joey’s favorite is musical theater.
Both brothers started dancing at age 9 but were inspired for different reasons.
“At first it was because of girls,” Joey said and cracked a smile. “But then later I realized I really liked it.”
Tony was first inspired after seeing videos of his mother singing, dancing and acting while attending Shenandoah University. Anything that was on a stage and in the spotlight would have been fine for Tony, so he decided to audition for “The Nutcracker.” He landed a part as “Fritz,” discovered he was good at dance and pursued it. Read more »
You may have seen this note to readers we ran in the Feb. 19 print edition of SWoCo. If not, here it is:
We have a conundrum and we’d like your feedback.
Each week, we ask readers to share their photos, and we try our best to run all of them.
This winter, we’ve received some hunting photos. When we’ve run those, well, we’ve also heard from a few readers who strongly object to hunting — and object to us running them.
We’re torn.
On the one hand, we don’t want to make anybody unhappy. On the other hand, well, the parents sharing photos of their kids’ hunting trophies are as proud of those kids as others are of kids who have won a sports trophy or some other recognition — and we’re here to help celebrate achievement.
How do you think we should resolve this? With the photo in the Feb. 19 edition, we’ve taken the liberty of cropping it to show the proud hunter — and the antlers — but not the dead deer. You can find the full photo here.
Let us know what you think.
Since then, we’ve received a number of responses, both pro and con, reprinted below. What do you think? You can leave comments below. Read more »
To welcome the spring
in 17 syllables
is your new challenge
Believe it or not, the first day of spring is less than a month away. To celebrate, we’re asking SWoCo readers to dig deep into the poetry of their souls, write a haiku (or two) and submit it for publication.
A haiku is non-rhymed verse. There are 5 syllables in the first sentence, 7 in the second and 5 again in the last sentence. Haiku often focuses on nature and often has seasonal references. In our case, we’d like for you to write about spring and what it means in Salem. Youth, passion, blossoms … Spring Break. (Need help? Check out www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Haiku-Poem.)
Send your haiku(s), accompanied by a photo of you, the poet, to news@swo-co.com, and include your names and phone number where you can be reached if there are questions about your submission. We’ll print a selection of what we receive in the March 19 edition. Deadline is March 8.
Our paparazzi photo crew will be at Friday night’s Cave Spring – Hidden Valley game. If you want your photo taken, the crew will be set up near the snack bar. Just look for the SWoCo backdrop and the red carpet, and get in line! We’ll likely be posting the photos online sometime Monday right here at www.swo-co.com.
But wait, that’s not all! You can also get a SWoCo car decal while you’re at the game. Bonus points if you get one and share a photo with us later showing you putting it on your car. Or your skateboard. Just not the neighbor’s cat . . .
Loren Wright shares this photo gallery from the Touch-A-Truck festival at Green Hill Park in Roanoke County on Saturday. Here are photos of Craig, Loren, and Aidan Wright — and Cory Ensor — having fun.
You can view her photos in the slideshow above or in this gallery format.
For more on Touch-A-Truck, see this post on our Salem community news site.
Do you have photos involving people from Southwest Roanoke County? If so, you can share at news@swo-co.com.
We asked you to pick the “Best of Southwest Roanoke County.” And you did.
And the results are right here — in more than 50 categories, ranging from best community event to the best electrician, from the best school event to the best new thing in Southwest Roanoke County, from best place to go trick-or-treating to the best new reason for living in Southwest Roanoke County.
So, what do you think? And what categories should we add for next year?
You can leave comments below.
In the print edition, you’ll see several places where we send folks online to find more photos. Here are those links:
Go behind the scenes at a photo shoot to see how photographer Jeanna Duerscherl created this photo illustration for the All-Timesland Swimmers of the Year feature that ran in Sunday’s sports section of The Roanoke Times.
One of those swimmers, of course, is Ali Horn of Cave Spring High School. The other is Evan Gregg of Blacksburg High School.
You can get a peek behind the process in this video by Chris Zaluksi.
Elizabeth Jones is the community journalist for SWoCo and can be reached at 981-3191. You can share your news and photos through the “Share” button below or at news@swo-co.com.
