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Today's News

  • Balancing the budget

    Bedford County School employees were being asked this week if they would be willing to take a pay cut, as opposed to having layoffs, to help the school system deal with a $4.9 million shortfall in next year's budget.

        The results of that survey will be used to help the school board make decisions about the 2009-2010 budget.

        The board met in a work session last week to discuss the budget and will meet again tomorrow. A proposed budget by School Superintendent Dr. James Blevins suggested cutting 80 positions next year.

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  • Policy for school layoffs adopted

    With thoughts in mind of having to cut as many as 80 school positions, the county’s school board adopted a reduction in force (RIF) policy Thursday night. The plan was adopted unanimously.

        According to Dr. James Blevins, superintendent of schools, no positions have yet been identified for elimination. Once that has been decided, the RIF would provide the guidelines for determining what employees would be affected.

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  • Board approves wireless towers

    A unanimous vote by Bedford County’s supervisors, Monday night, cleared the way for three Bedford County schools to get broadband.

        According to Jonathan Yates, representing Conterra Ultra Broadband, 14 Bedford County schools were able to get broadband service via existing fiber connections. The schools had to use microwave transmissions, which require the transmitting and receiving dishes to be in a line of sight, to connect the others. In order to do this at Boonsboro, Body Camp and Huddleston Elementary schools, the schools have to erect towers.

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  • LHS grad participates in inaugural parade

    About 2 million people were on hand for President Barack Obama’s inauguration, but  only saw him on a TV screen. Cory Watkins, of Bedford, saw President Obama from about 20 feet away.

        Watkins, a 2006 Liberty High School graduate, is a member of the Hampton University Marching Force, the university’s marching band. The junior, majoring in business management and  minoring in Spanish, plays clarinet, the instrument he took up in sixth grade.

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  • Local residents make the journey

    LaCarol Wynne wasn’t about to miss the inauguration of President Barack Obama last Tuesday so Monday afternoon she and two others set out from Bedford for Washington D.C.

        “It was so overwhelming,” she said of the event, which drew an estimated crowd of at close to 2 million people. “We didn’t get any sleep, but it was worth it.”

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  • Al Weed talks about climate change

    Bedford’s city and county Democratic committees heard from Al Weed at a joint meeting meeting earlier this month. Weed, representing Public Policy Virginia, was in town to talk about global warming.

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  • Welcome to Washington

    According to newly sworn-in President Barack Obama, he won and those who disagree with his initiatives are just going to have to learn to deal with it.

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  • An historic inauguration

        President Barack Obama’s inauguration, last week, was historic. For one thing, he’s America’s first black president. It’s historic because there are still people alive who can remember a time when the only way a black man would have gotten into the Oval Office would have been to clean it.

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  • An unforgettable inauguration

        If anyone had any doubt about the outpouring of support and the depth of good wishes for the new president, they must have missed the sight of about 1.8 million people in and along the National Mall for Inauguration Day, 2009.

        There has been no event in Washington, D.C’ s history that drew a larger crowd. Only the jumbotron viewing screens allowed the many sections of the crowd that flowed down the National Mall to witness the ceremonies.

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  • Forest Middle School student serves as House page

    There may not have been any snow on Capitol Square this week, but temperatures were low and the winds were high enough to make them seem even lower.  Those who had to venture outside moved a lot more quickly as a result.

    Displaying good timing and cleverness, members of the Virginia Credit Union League – credit union employees from across the state – sported long red knitted scarves as they made their way around Capitol Square.  The scarves were impossible to miss, making the credit union employees simultaneously notable and warm.

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