Powhatan to join Pocahontas
New ferry will honor man that colonists feared
By Ryan Kushner
Staff writer
SURRY— The Pocahontas is set to be joined by her father on the Jamestown-Scotland Ferry fleet.
The name of Powhatan had commanded fear and respect from inhabitants of Virginia before it was Virginia, and it’s now on track to adorn the side of what will soon be the newest addition to the Virginia Department of Transportation’s James River flotilla.
The Surry County Board of Supervisors voted to support naming the upcoming ferry after the early seventeenth century Native American chief Powhatan at its meeting Thursday, Sept. 7.
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Numbers climb at Smithfield High School
Thornton says more teachers are needed
By Ryan Kushner
Staff writer
An additional 73 students have shown up at Smithfield High School this year so far, and the increase may exceed 100 as additional students show up. The increase prompting Superintendent Dr. Jim Thornton to call for the hiring of seven more teachers at the school.
Thornton cited crowded classrooms with 30 or more students as a reason for the new hires, which would ease the burden on current teachers at the school.
Thornton announced at the School Board meeting Thursday, Sept. 14, that the division could afford hiring three of the seven teachers it required using additional state funds allotted for an increase in the division’s size. The teacher salaries, including benefits, would amount to $68,680 each, according to Thornton.
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ABC store considered for Surry
By Diana McFarland
Managing editor
SURRY — A liquor store may be coming to the town of Surry.
The Virginia Department of Alcohol Beverage Control is eyeing a store to be located in the former Surry Hardware building at the intersection of Routes 31 and 10.
The agency is currently seeking comment on the possible store location, according to ABC spokesperson Becky Gettings.
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Jefferson defends Board decisions
DeGroft says Isle of Wight employees paid enough
By Ryan Kushner
Staff writer
RUSHMERE—Past controversies and some personal accusations surfaced during the first public forum between the candidates vying to represent the Hardy District on the Isle of Wight County Board of Supervisors, the only race in the county with two competing candidates on the ballot this November.
Incumbent Rudolph Jefferson is currently seeking a second four-year term in the supervisor seat that represents the only minority-majority district in the county, with former School Board member Herb DeGroft running as his challenger.
During the meeting, which was hosted by the Isle of Wight County branch of the NAACP Monday, Sept. 11, DeGroft pledged to fight for tighter management of personnel costs in the county, handing out a 2015 salary comparison sheet that claimed the county paid its administrators some of the highest salaries in the region.
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Residents recall Jim Crow era here
By Diana McFarland
Managing editor
The discussion of whether Confederate monuments should stay or go continues, and a key argument for their removal has been based on the assertion by the Southern Poverty Law Center that many went up during the start of the Jim Crow and Civil Rights eras to assert the authority of southern whites over blacks.
The flurry of monument-raising occurred around those two periods of history, according to “Whose Heritage: Public Symbols of the Confederacy,” published by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
But fewer and fewer people alive today remember the Jim Crow laws in the south, which sprung up after Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896 declared laws ordering mandatory segregation to be constitutional, and after the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to be unconstitutional. Many today probably do even not know where the name Jim Crow, which represented discrimination and segregation against blacks, came from.*
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Wat Pasantidhamma - Carrollton's Buddhist Temple
In 1998, Wat Pasantidhamma, a Thai Buddhist temple, was founded in a wooded area in Carrollton. It continues to be a place where buddhists and monks from all over the nation come to pray and meditate.
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