Features

    Liberty Lodge, Bedford’s Masonic Lodge, will celebrate its founding, Saturday. There won’t be any charter members, however. That’s because the Lodge was chartered in 1813, 200 years ago. It got its name because Bedford was named Liberty back then.

    The Lodge was organized on July 6, 1813, and received its official charter on Dec. 14, 1813. It met in the home of Charles Mitchell which, Carl Wells, the Lodge’s chaplain, believes was located at the corner of East Main Street and Otey Street.

    Carole Rogers of Bedford knits all year.

    A lot.
    Enough, in fact, to provide 75 sweaters and 125 hats and scarves to a program that gives one of each to students at a Bedford or Franklin County school each year.

One of the worst train wrecks in Virginia history occurred in the wee hours of the morning of July 2, 1889, when a passenger train traveling eastward from Roanoke didn’t quite make it to Thaxton. Now “Lost at Thaxton,” the result of 18 months of research by Michael Jones brings that tragic night to life for readers.

    Veterans of all sorts frequently visit the National D-Day Memorial. Last Friday, John Fatino, an atomic veteran, took a tour.

    A book written by Mary Ellen Gallaher two years ago, called “Nobody’s Home,” sparked memories for a number of people who grew up in the Perrowville community in the 1930s and 1940s.

    One of these days it's likely Alexis Brown will be known as Dr. Brown.

 The 2013 Jefferson Forest High School (JFHS) graduate is headed off to the College of William and Mary, the second oldest university in the United States; she is enrolled in a pre-med program.

After retiring as the president of an executive search firm, Dick Mendel was looking for a place to spend his retirement.

    He wanted an area with four seasons. His executive recruitment firm was based in Texas, but he is a Catskill Mountain boy, so he was looking for a green location. Mendel settled on Virginia, after some research and rented a house in Roanoke while he conducted a search.
    He settled on a house in Body Camp that needs a lot of work, but it’s a historic house.

    You don’t win a Purple Heart:  You earn it.

    And, rare is the man who wants to earn one.
    Still, those that have done so are in a special class:    They’ve taken one for the team and have the scars to prove it.
    Roy Scott is such a man.
    A Forest  resident (Boonsboro area), Scott earned a pair of Purple Hearts in Vietnam.

    Destroyer sailors don’t expect a smooth ride when they ship out aboard a tin can, the nickname these fast warships acquired.
    With hulls that are long in comparison to their beam, destroyers are built for speed. Photos, particularly of older destroyers, will often show one of these ships riding over the crest of a swell with its bow completely out of the water. Back in 1952, Bruce Clarke, who owns a farm in Chamblissburg, had a rougher ride than normal when his destroyer struck a mine.