Today's News

Just because he helped make the intersection of Va. 122 and Va. 24 safer, don't think Lionel Toms has stopped working to make Bedford County roads better.

Toms, who lost his son John William Toms in 2002 to an accident at the Va. 122/24 intersection, worked with the Virginia Department of Transportation to reduce speeds there and get a stoplight installed. At one time it was the deadliest intersection in the county ? a fact he knew all too well.

Now Toms is working to make some back roads in the county safer as well.

According to County Attorney Carl Boggess, the deed by which Bedford County acquired 283 acres of land on what today is Falling Creek Road does not restrict how the county may use the land.

Bedford County originally purchased the tract from James and Susannah Jopling in 1832 for the purpose of building a poor house. A poorhouse existed there until the middle of the the 20th century. The Bedford County Nursing Home is there today and the Sheriff's Office, the PSA office and Falling Creek Park occupy other portions of the tract.

Can you imagine what it would be like to have no transportation? There's no public transportation in Bedford, so that means you would walk.

Margaret Yetter, a single mother, knows what it's like from experience. She walks from Bedford's Liberty Apartments to Vista Foods to do her grocery shopping, and then walks back carrying the groceries. She walks to the Bedford Wal-Mart.

The Bedford Area Chamber of Commerce, along with CINTAS, sponsored a community shred last week. The free shredding opportunity was held in conjunction with a chamber event at the Bedford Armory.

CINTAS operates a commercial document shredding business and one of its trucks rolled up to the Armory, doing the shredding right on site. The shredding started at 5:30 p.m. and by the time it closed up at 7 p.m. the company had shredded 2,400 pounds of documents. All of the paper shred is recycled, so it stays out of local landfills.