Virginia Tech defensive ends Mylachi Williams (center) and Aycen Stevens (left) celebrate Williams' sack in the fourth quarter against Old Dominion on Saturday in Blacksburg.
Virginia Tech defensive ends Mylachi Williams (center) and Aycen Stevens (left) celebrate Williams' sack in the fourth quarter against Old Dominion on Saturday in Blacksburg.
Franklin County Public School Superintendent Kevin Siers will be stepping down at the end of this school year. He made the surprise announcement at the end of Monday's school board meeting.
ROCKY MOUNT — Franklin County Public Schools Superintendent Kevin Siers will be stepping down at this end of this school year, he told the county school board Monday.
Siers announced he will be submitting his retirement paperwork later this year. He plans to move back to his former home in West Virginia to care for his father.
The retirement will come at the end of a tumultuous four years for Siers, who was hired in 2023 to replace former superintendent Bernice Cobbs. He formerly served as superintendent of Pulaski County Public Schools.
During Siers' time as superintendent, the school division has faced significant reductions in staff and the closure of two elementary schools due to funding cuts. Siers said the school workforce has been cut by 15%.
Those school closings and staff cuts were mostly due to state cuts based on the Local Composite Index that measures how much funding a locality will receive. The index uses real estate values for a locality as one of the measurements to decide a locality's ability to pay for education costs.
Siers and other local leaders have argued that those measurements are skewed due to the high property values of Smith Mountain Lake that do not match the rest of the county.
"It has felt at times like we were being repeatedly asked to liquidate a great school division and it is impossible to feel good about that kind of work," Siers said of his time as superintendent.
More recently, Siers and the school board have faced criticism due to accounting errors that saw the school division go significantly over budget during the previous school year. Those errors have led to more oversight from the Franklin County Board of Supervisors.
Blackwater District representative and Chair Arlet Greer was the lone board member to speak following the announcement by Siers at the conclusion of Monday evening's meeting. She called the decision "disheartening."
Greer said work will soon begin to find a new superintendent. The school board plans to provide regular updates on progress at upcoming school board meetings.
The Franklin County School Board voted in Adam Bennett as its new Rocky Mount District representative. He will be replacing Jeff Worley, who stepped down from the position last month.
Bennett is a former teacher in Franklin County and currently serves as an assessment specialist for the Virginia Department of Education. He was one of three applicants for the Rocky Mount seat.
The vote for Bennett was near-unanimous. Union Hall representative Sandra Ingram was the lone school board member to vote no.
Bennett will serve on the school board until the end of 2027. A special election will be held in November of 2027 to fill the seat for the remainder of the term that will end in 2030.
Jason Dunovant (540) 981-3324
Country artists Crawford and Power perform in front of a large crowd at the Rocky Mount Farmers Market stage at last year's Rocky Mount Fest.
Some of the acts performing at Saturday's Rocky Mount Fest.
The schedule and stages of each of the performers at Saturday's Rocky Mount Fest.
This Saturday downtown Rocky Mount will be filled with crowds enjoying the sounds of 17 bands on four stages celebrating what has become the town's biggest annual festival.
Rocky Mount Fest returns Saturday bringing an expected crowd of around 20,000 for the free event that celebrates the the town's musical and cultural history. Guests will be able to enjoy live music as well as food, games and crafts from more than 100 vendors.
The event starts at 3 p.m. Saturday in downtown Rocky Mount. As in previous years, Franklin Street from Floyd Avenue to North Main Street will be closed for the day to allow for the festival to allow guests to walk the street free of traffic to peruse the options of the many vendors while listening to music from one of the four stages.
"We have twice the number of vendors that we had last year," said Daniel Pinard, Rocky Mount’s cultural and economic development director.
Along with the increase in vendors, Pinard said the kid zone at the Rocky Mount Depot will also be expanded this year. In addition to the inflatables and face painting provided for kids, Pinard said this year there will be a silent disco area where kids can listen and dance to music played in headphones.
For the music this year, Pinard said there was a decision made this year not to focus on a headliner but rather to showcase the many artist who have roots in this area. That includes bringing back several talented local acts such as Crawford and Power this year.
"We are incredibly lucky that we have a wealth of local talent here," Pinard said.
In addition to Crawford and Power, artists such as Phat Laces, Supafly Five, Solacoustix, Darkside Experience, Gypsy Nix, Colby Helms and the Virginia Creepers, Kerosene Willy, Last Call Party Band and Jerry Wimmer's Bottom of the Barrel will be performing throughout the day. Acts will start at 3 p.m. and continue until the end of the festival at 10 p.m.
The performances will be spread out between the four stages located along Franklin Street. They will include a large stage at the Rocky Mount Farmers Market at the nearby Harvester Performance Center.
Businesses and restaurants located downtown will have extended hours for the day. The festival will also allow guests to enjoy beer, wine and cocktails as they explore the event as part of the town's designated outdoor refreshment area.
More information on Rocky Mount Fest can be found at rockymountfest.com.
Jason Dunovant (540) 981-3507
BLACKSBURG — When Virginia voters fill out their ballots this fall, they will vote yes or no on three constitutional amendments that would protect reproductive rights, codify same-sex marriage and automatically restore voting rights to people convicted of felonies.
On Thursday, the Montgomery County chapter of the League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan voting-rights organization that has endorsed a yes vote on all three amendments, held an informational session on the proposals.
Attendees listen during the League of Women Voters presentation on the constitutional amendments Thursday night in Blacksburg.
While Virginia law currently permits abortion and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling requires the state to allow adults of the same sex to marry, enshrining those rights in the state constitution would provide additional protection.
Instead of strengthening an existing state law or court ruling, the third amendment would rewrite the section of the Virginia Constitution that currently disenfranchises people convicted of felonies.
“Statutes can be changed, and they can be changed overnight by the General Assembly,” said Pat Hyer, a retired Virginia Tech administrator and member of the League of Women Voters. She added that Supreme Court rulings, as evidenced by the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, can also be impermanent.
By contrast, amending the Virginia Constitution is a lengthy process, making the document difficult to change.
For a constitutional amendment to reach voters — the final step in the process — it must first be approved by the General Assembly. A regular General Assembly election must then be held, after which the newly elected assembly must approve the amendment again.
“Virginia has made it extremely difficult to change the constitution on purpose,” Hyer said. “It is amazing that three amendments have now made it through the process.”
Voters will see each amendment presented on the ballot as a question, with the option to vote yes or no. The Virginia Department of Elections refers to proposed constitutional amendments as “ballot questions.”
The first amendment on the ballot would establish constitutional protections for reproductive health care, including abortion.
The first part of the question voters will see on their ballots — which is not the full text of the amendment — says the measure would “protect the freedom to make personal decisions about prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion, miscarriage management and fertility.”
The second part of the question says the amendment would protect “doctors, nurses and patients from being punished for these decisions.”
Finally, the ballot question says the amendment would “allow for restrictions on abortion during the third trimester of pregnancy, except when the patient's health is at risk or the pregnancy cannot survive.”
The proposed amendment would not substantially alter Virginia's existing abortion laws.
However, Hyer said that it provides greater protection than Roe v. Wade by covering health care decisions beyond abortion, including postpartum care and fertility.
Pat Hyer
“Why I support this amendment so much is because it covers a whole continuum of reproductive health care,” she said.
Virginia law currently allows abortion during the first and second trimesters. After the second trimester, an abortion is permitted if the procedure is performed in a hospital and the physician, and two consulting physicians, certify that continuing the pregnancy is likely to result in the woman’s death or substantially and irremediably impair the woman’s mental or physical health.
State law also protects people from extradition to another state for performing health care activities that are legal in Virginia. Thirteen states currently have total abortion bans, including Kentucky and Tennessee, which border Virginia.
The final provision in the amendment would allow the state to regulate abortion during the third trimester, with exceptions for health risks.
Hyer said that provision is a political concession that could improve the amendment’s chances of passage.
She added that the amendment, like existing law, does not require anyone to have an abortion or receive health care they do not want, leaving the decision with the patient.
Some Republicans have opposed the amendment. Former gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle Sears wrote, “I am morally opposed to this bill; no protection for the child.”
The second amendment on the ballot would amend the Virginia Constitution to recognize marriage between two adult persons regardless of sex, gender or race and require all legally valid marriages to be treated equally under the law.
Under Virginia law and the 2015 Supreme Court ruling Obergefell v. Hodges, same-sex marriage is legal in the commonwealth.
However, the state constitution still defines marriage as between a man and a woman. The proposed amendment would rewrite that section to align with state law and the federal ruling, using the language “two adult persons.”
Rude
Carolyn Rude, a retired Virginia Tech professor and former president of the League of Women Voters who spoke alongside Hyer Thursday night, said there are two reasons Virginia needs the amendment.
“One is that we should align our constitution with practice and with what's going on nationally,” she said. “We should also protect Virginians from a possible overturn of Obergefell.”
The Supreme Court has not agreed to hear a case seeking to overturn Obergefell, but Justice Clarence Thomas has said the ruling should be reconsidered.
In his concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which returned the issue of abortion legality to the states, Thomas wrote that the court “should reconsider” Obergefell, calling it one of the court’s “demonstrably erroneous decisions.”
Rude said the amendment “gets the state out of the decision about who you can love and who you can make a commitment to, and we can treat all marriages equally.”
A majority of Republican lawmakers opposed the amendment when it was considered by the General Assembly, and some conservative activists have spoken out against it, including Family Foundation President Victoria Cobb.
“Every child deserves the best they can have, and that is a biological mom and dad, whenever possible,” Cobb said.
The third amendment would automatically restore voting and other civil rights to people convicted of felonies once they have been released from incarceration. It would also explicitly state that Virginians have a fundamental right to vote.
Under the Virginia Constitution, most people convicted of a felony cannot vote unless their rights are restored by the governor. Virginia is one of three states where people with felony convictions can be permanently disenfranchised.
A federal court ruling earlier this year limited that disenfranchisement to 11 offenses that were felonies at common law in 1870, including arson, burglary, manslaughter, rape and murder.
Under the current law, enfranchisement varies between governors. In her first year in office, Gov. Abigail Spanberger has restored voting rights to about 66,000 formerly incarcerated Virginians, while former Gov. Glenn Youngkin restored voting rights to fewer than 10,000 people during his four-year tenure.
About 260,000 people remain disenfranchised because of felony convictions, roughly 120,000 of whom are Black people, according to the Sentencing Project, a prison-reform advocacy nonprofit.
Rude said the issue is one of fairness — and race.
“If the sentence is determined to be two years or five years, is it fair to punish the person for the rest of their life?” Rude asked attendees.
The constitutional ban on voting for people convicted of felonies dates to Virginia’s 1902 Jim Crow-era constitution, which was designed in part to disenfranchise Black voters.
Rude said the commonwealth “explicitly tried to limit the voting rights of Blacks, in particular, and poor whites for that matter, by instituting things like the literacy tests, or poll taxes and mass incarceration.”
While Virginia has eliminated poll taxes and literacy tests, Rude said, the felony-based restriction remains.
“Black people have disproportionately borne the burden of this policy of not restoring rights, and Virginia should be in sync with the rest of the country,” Rude said.
Some Republican lawmakers have opposed the amendment, including Sen. Mark Peake, R-Lynchburg, who spoke against it during Senate debate.
“Rapists, murderers, child pornographers — they’re having their rights restored just like somebody who wrote a bad check,” Peake said.
The third amendment would also change an existing voting prohibition from applying to people “found to be mentally incompetent” to people who “lack the capacity to understand voting” — clarifying the restriction.
Early voting begins Friday, and Election Day is Nov. 3.
Ethan Hunt (540) 381-1678
Carolyn Rude speaks to attendees of the League of Women Voters' forum held to discuss the three constitutional amendments on the ballot this fall.
Law
The Franklin County Board of Supervisors has selected lifelong county resident Bonnie Law to fill its vacant Boone District seat.
The board unanimously voted for Law’s selection during a special called meeting Friday, after spending about 30 minutes in closed session. Law will serve as an interim supervisor until November 2027, when a special election to fill the seat will be held.
Law has been a resident of the Boone District for more than 20 years, according to her application for the position. She is the former owner of L & M insurance and a retired Allstate Exclusive Agent.
“I appreciate the unanimous support from the board in this interim appointment, and I just want to focus on the work and just try to make some positive outcomes for our citizens,” Law told The Roanoke Times after the meeting.
She declined to answer questions until after she is sworn in, which is scheduled to take place prior to the board’s Tuesday meeting.
The seat became vacant last month, when former Boone District Supervisor Mike Meredith resigned Aug. 18. His resignation came two days after he shared during a public meeting that “Project Flash,” a proposed data center in the county, would not be moving forward.
On Aug. 31, while the board had begun accepting applications to fill the vacancy, Meredith emailed the board of supervisors about his intention to complete his term. He claimed that because there was no motion, resolution or recorded vote on his announcement, his resignation was not completed.
But Meredith abandoned his efforts to retain the seat Tuesday, citing the length and costs of the legal process.
“I plan to fully support whoever is appointed, and I hope they will continue to serve the Boone District with openness, communication, and dedication,” he wrote in a Facebook post announcing his decision.
During the special meeting, Chair Lorie Smith said that the board had been through “a good qualitative process” to fill the vacancy. She thanked the five Boone District residents who applied for the position.
“It is such a good thing to see people voluntarily walk in or sign up for public service. It's a very tall mountain to climb. It's one though that is highly rewarding,” Smith said. “So I just want to express — this board, we very much appreciate the participation we had and getting to know the applicants.”
