The Virginia Tech baseball team reacts to seeing their school announced on ESPN's NCAA tournament selection show Monday.
The Virginia Tech baseball team reacts to seeing their school announced on ESPN's NCAA tournament selection show Monday.
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BALD KNOB NATURAL AREA PRESERVE
Public access to globally rare flower at Bald Knob Natural Area Preserve
Bald Knob Natural Area Preserve officially opened to the public Friday, giving visitors the opportunity to walk through a unique habitat of exposed rocks as well as catch a glimpse of globally rare flower hidden among the wildlife.
Multiple local officials and state representatives were in attendance for the unveiling ceremony Friday, held along the recently constructed stone parking lot the serves as the access point of the 1.2-mile loop trail overlooking the many stone surfaces that jut out around the meadow.
The Rocky Mount preserve, managed by the Virginia Natural Heritage Program at the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, was created to protect an environment that is not found in many other places. The large mafic rocks that can be found throughout the area are a home to unique life.
The Piedmont fameflower can be found among the stones in the preserve. The vivid rose-pink flowers only open for a few hours in the afternoon in the hottest days of the year. There are few other places on earth those blooms can be found.
The Bald Knob Natural Area Preserve is home to the Piedmont fameflower, which only blooms during the hottest days of the year. The flower is only found in five locations on earth, with four of those locations being in Franklin County.
"This species is nearly endemic to this area," said Nikki Rovner, director for the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. "Which means of the five populations we know about, four of them are here in Franklin County. The other is in North Carolina.
Rovner added that the largest population of the flower can be found at Bald Knob. Because of that, the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation created the preserve to protect what they saw as a place with exceptional ecological value.
The Bald Knob Natural Area Preserve is home to the Piedmont fameflower which only blooms during the hottest days of the year.
The Perdue family donated property that helped to create the preserve back in 2019. Rocky Mount Mayor Holland Perdue, son of Clyde Perdue who donated the property, spoke briefly about the importance of preserving the habitat.
"I spent time here as a child long before it became what we are here celebrating today," Perdue said. "To see it preserved, improved and open for the public in a way that allows future generations to experience the beauty of this place is something that I truly appreciate."
Lesley Starke, acting director for the Virginia Natural Heritage Program, said the Bald Knob Preserve marked the 24th natural area preserve in Virginia to offer public access facilities. In the coming months, she said two more of the state's 69 preserves will offer public access.
Lesley Starke, acting director for the Virginia Natural Heritage Program, points out one of the rare Piedmont fameflowers found along the Bald Knob Natural Area Preserve during a public access unveiling on Friday.
"It represents the decision to protect a place, not just for today, but for the future," Starke said. "It represents the careful balance between sharing a landscape and safeguarding it. We are grateful to everyone who helped bring this project to this point and we are pleased to share this moment with you."
David Bulova, Virginia Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources, also spoke briefly at Friday's unveiling. He emphasized the importance of a community having a connection with its natural resources and its heritage. Those who have a strong connection to those are more willing to protect them, he said.
"The thing about this project that is really special is it takes that one step further," Bulova said. "Everything that you see here in terms of the way the trail is designed, the way the parking lot is designed, is to make sure that people are connected."
The Bald Knob Natural Area Preserve can be found at 1095 E. Court St. in Rocky Mount.
Jason Dunovant (540) 981-3324
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Rocky Mount Mayor Holland Perdue speaks on his family’s donation to the Bald Knob Natural Area Preserve at the unveiling of its new public acc…
Government-politics
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Clock is ticking on new Virginia budget, but mum's the word
Virginia has less than six weeks to adopt a new, two-year state budget, but the members of the General Assembly appointed to negotiate an agreement haven't met as a group since March 6.
The leaders of the legislative money committees are no longer talking directly with each other about how to reach a deal before the budget expires June 30.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger faces her biggest test since taking office in January in weighing how to resolve the impasse with a growing gulf between her and leaders of her political party over her vetoes of their legislative priorities, some of which have implications for the budget.
Lucas
The single biggest issue in the budget remains whether to repeal a 16-year-old state sales tax exemption for the purchase of computer equipment at data centers, upon which Senate Finance Chair Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, continues to insist. Spanberger and House Appropriations Chairman Luke Torian, D-Prince William, steadfastly oppose repealing the exemption because of the potential damage to the state's business reputation and its ability to attract new investment and jobs.
Va. Senate pushes back on governor as budget showdown looms
But the stakes are even higher for Virginians, who have never entered a new two-year budget cycle without an agreement in place to appropriate funds to operate state government and deliver services to its citizens.
If that happens, former Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne warned, "I don't see how we keep our Triple-A credit rating."
"It doesn't give confidence in Virginia government that you can't deliver a budget on time," said Layne, a Hampton Roads healthcare executive who served as finance secretary under one Democratic governor and transportation secretary under another. "That is a governance issue with the rating agencies."
Lane
Two of the United States' three national credit rating agencies said this week that Virginia is nowhere near a budget crisis, but they are watching closely to see when and how state lawmakers approve an agreement.
"We are monitoring what's going on in Richmond," said Bryan Quevedo, a San Francisco-based director for Fitch Ratings who is responsible for Virginia's credit outlook. "We have not yet drawn a credit view on that, but we definitely do recognize that there is not a precedent at this point in the commonwealth's modern budgetary history to start a biennium without a budget."
Oscar Padilla, a Dallas-based director of S&P Global, said, "While this may be relatively new for the commonwealth, it's not something that takes us by surprise or rises to the level of concern on the credit rating front."
Virginia's next payment on S&P-rate debt comes due Aug. 1.
"It hasn't been tested for the commonwealth if it goes that far, I wouldn't want to speculate," Padilla said. "We'll take the administration's and the legislature's word that they will adopt a budget before the beginning of the fiscal year."
"Just like any state, we're watching the developments, trying to assess what key risks the administration and legislature is identifying," he said. "And we just take it at face value and weigh whether it is creditworthy or not, or just neutral."
The third bond rating agency, Moody's, was not available for comment this week.
"Virginia will have a budget by June 30," Lucas vowed at a Senate Finance & Appropriations Committee meeting Tuesday. "We will have to get this right for Virginia."
But Torian confirmed this week that the Senate budget leader is not talking to him about how to resolve the budget impasse.
"She's not communicating with me," he said Thursday. "Normally, if you want to get a budget, people should be talking to each other, and that is not happening."
Torian
They last reported progress April 23 after the assembly convened in special session to work on a budget agreement they had failed to reach by the end of the regular session March 14. Lucas and Torian said they had agreed on a target of an additional $1.6 billion in revenues for the two-year budget, but without details on how to generate the money.
Torian, who is talking with the governor, said this week, "The House is ready to meet when (Lucas) releases the (Senate Finance) staff to meet to talk about our similarities and our differences."
Lucas also is not communicating directly with Spanberger, instead criticizing her on social media for vetoing legislation that would have generated revenue that the state needs by creating a market for cannabis sales and legalizing electronic skill games, while levying taxes on both.
"So for those asking for an update on the budget — we are now further off than we have been throughout this entire process," she said in a post on X earlier this week. "We asked the Secretary of Finance at a recent meeting what revenues the Governor wanted us to use, and he wasn’t sure either."
"But here’s the good news," she added. "We are in special session so the Gov can send us bills at anytime to correct vetoes and restore the money to the budget."
Early last week, Spanberger directed her finance staff to conduct a new forecast of revenues to give more information to budget negotiators about how much excess revenue the state can expect to have available at the end of the fiscal year to carry forward into the next budget.
Secretary of Finance Mark Sickles, a former longtime budget negotiator for the House, said in an interview, "To solve the budget impasse, if we're going to use any of these funds, it has to be done after a reforecast."
Lucas pushed back on the governor and instead doubled down on repealing the data center tax exemption to free an estimated $1.9 billion in state, local and regional revenues over the next two years.
"I am now concerned that the governor and secretary will suggest a forecast without fully understanding our next year's budget pressures and economic conditions in the fall," she said at the outset of the committee meeting this week. "The administration is focused on a forecast, but we are faced and focused on the policies around who pays their fair share of taxes and how the businesses that we attract to Virginia treat our citizens and resources."
Virginia collected an estimated $851 million more in tax revenues than it previously had forecast through the first 10 months of the fiscal year. Sickles pointed out that the Senate, in its proposed budget, had taken the unusual step of appropriating much of the revenue surplus expected earlier this year.
"You took $500 million of the proposed surplus already in your budget," he said.
Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, defended the proposed use of the surplus, which he said would pay for a one-time tax rebate of $100 to individual taxpayers and $200 to couples filing jointly, although they would get the money only if they owed at least that much in state taxes. The House budget does not include a tax rebate.
The other major differences, besides the data center tax exemption, are the size of proposed raises for teachers and state employees, and the amounts of additional state funding necessary to offset deep cuts in federal funding for social safety net programs and the loss of enhanced federal subsidies for health insurance purchased through the state-operated marketplace.
The absence of a budget agreement poses challenges for local governments and businesses that rely on state funding.
"The lack of any substantive progress on the two-year budget that begins on July 1 is disconcerting, to say the least," said Joe Flores, a former state finance secretary who now serves as director of fiscal policy at the Virginia Municipal League. "For months, local officials have waited patiently for the commonwealth to finalize its budget, so that we can do the same."
"Our hope is that the state's budget writers will complete their work sooner rather than later, so we can all move on to other pressing fiscal matters," Flores said in a statement.
Former Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Augusta, who previously served as co-chair of the finance committee, said it also leaves unanswered questions about healthcare funding and state parks, which are interests he still lobbies on behalf of.
"When the budget hasn't been finalized, everything's at risk," Hanger said. "Without a final budget, no one knows exactly what they can count on."
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, said everyone on the finance committee understands the deadline that Virginia faces for a new budget.
"In my experience, deadlines force action," Surovell said. "Deadlines force compromise."
But Richmond political analyst Bob Holsworth said the legislature could make compromise more difficult for Spanberger by including language in the budget she vetoed on cannabis, skill games or both.
"With the budget, the real question is whether the Senate attempts to put some of this legislation back into the budget," Holsworth said.
"Ultimately, I think they'll come to an agreement, but I think there's a lot of distrust of the governor right now," he said.
The budget crisis comes at a politically awkward time for Virginia Democrats, who had spent the past eight months — and an enormous amount of political capital — on amending the state constitution to allow congressional redistricting this year to give them an advantage in midterm elections in November. It was part of a national effort by Democrats to offset an aggressive push by President Donald Trump and Republican-controlled states to redraw their political maps to protect and potentially expand the slim GOP majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Voters approved the proposed amendment by almost 3 percentage points in a referendum April 21, but the Virginia Supreme Court overturned the amendment and the election results, requiring Democrats to run in much more politically challenging districts to try to unseat Republican incumbents. Early voting in congressional primaries begins June 18, with the primary election on Aug. 4.
"At some point, they have to get on to the campaigns," Holsworth said.
Bagby
Sen. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, who is chairman of the state Democratic Party, said he is confident the General Assembly will produce a budget on time, although he acknowledged, "It has not been an ideal process."
"Getting folks the hell off of Twitter is my recommendation," Bagby said. "We speak with the budget."
In the end, he predicted, "The budget will be worth the wait."
Michael Martz (804) 649-6964
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Sen. Lucas speaks at the start of Tuesday's meeting of Senate Finance
State-regional
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'A world that yearns for peace': Virginia War memorial unveils four new names on shrine to the fallen
To James W. Ring, commander of the Virginia National Guard, the somber reflection that accompanies Memorial Day is a reminder that the human heart longs for peace above all else.
“In a world that yearns for peace, in a society that yearns for men and women who live lives of honor and service, we remember these men and women for their courage,” Ring said of Virginia’s fallen service members during a solemn Memorial Day ceremony at the Virginia War Memorial.
On Monday, staff at the memorial unveiled the four names of Virginians who were recently added to the glass and stone walls that comprise the Shrine of Memory. The four fallen service members joined nearly 12,000 sons and daughters of the commonwealth who died in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and the War on Terror.
Among the new names was U.S. Army Sgt. Mark Stets Jr., of Virginia Beach, who was killed by an improvised explosive device in Pakistan in 2010.
Jimmy Grigg, 8, looks at the names in the Shrine of Memory during the Memorial Day ceremony at the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond on May 27, 2024.
Speaking to an audience of several hundred attendees inside the memorial’s auditorium on Monday morning, Gov. Abigail Spanberger said Stets had worked in psychological operations — evincing the “quiet courage in places that never make the news.”
He was on his way to a reopening ceremony for a Pakistani school for girls that U.S. personnel had helped rebuild when the IED went off, Spanberger recounted. He left behind a wife and three daughters.
“It’s a hard day,” Spanberger said. “Because somewhere in the commonwealth, a child is finally old enough to understand what a folded flag on a bookshelf really means.”
The addition of new names can take time, Spanberger said. In some cases, the long road to the Shrine of Memory involves years of research and contact with grieving families. But in the end, that hard work ensures that “we can finally say their names alongside those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to a grateful nation and a grateful commonwealth.”
“I think about what it means to a family,” Spanberger said. “To know that Virginia remembers.”
And that, indeed, is the very mission of the Virginia War Memorial, which opened in 1955 and has hosted annual Memorial Day services ever since.
On Monday, Clay Mountcastle, director of the memorial, reminded the crowd gathered in the auditorium that Memorial Day is not a day of celebration, but rather one of commemoration.
Even as he spoke, Mountastle said his father was headed to the Seven Pines National Cemetery in Sandston to “visit his friend,” Lt. Chuck Aronhalt, who was killed in Vietnam in 1967.
Aronhalt was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross after he pulled wounded men to safety during a firefight in Pleiku Province, and later deliberately drew enemy fire away from the platoon members under his charge.
To Mountcastle, Aronhalt typifies the fallen service member: a person of deep valor who remains largely unknown to those he served.
“Each one of us has heroes for which we are grateful and proud,” Mountcastle said. “Even if we don’t know every single name.”
Samuel B. Parker (804) 649-6462
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A Virginia War Memorial staffer rings a bell Monday in honor of each of the four fallen service members added to the Shrine of Memory.
Education
Ferrum College announces new provost
Ferrum College last week announced a new provost, the chief academic officer who oversees all operations of the programs of study, faculty and academic services for students.
Richard Grant has been elevated from interim provost, a post he had held since January. His appointment also includes a position as a physics professor.
"Dr. Grant understands the heart of higher education—that our work is ultimately about transforming lives, opening doors of opportunity, and preparing students to make meaningful contributions to the world," Ferrum College President Mirta Martin said in the announcement.
Previously, Grant was a faculty member at Roanoke College since 1996, where he had various leadership roles.
He has managed a number of large grants for science facilities, research projects and teacher training, Ferrum's announcement said.
Originally from Canada, Grant holds a bachelor's in physics from the University of Toronto and a master's in aerospace, physics and space sciences from Florida Institute of Technology.
He also has a master's and doctorate in physics from Old Dominion University. He has worked as a research assistant and scientist, Ferrum said, and taught physics at Roanoke College and several other institutions.
"I am honored and deeply grateful for the opportunity to serve as Provost of Ferrum College," Grant said in the announcement. "Ferrum's commitment to student-centered learning, meaningful mentorship, and preparing graduates to lead lives of purpose strongly resonates with my own values. I look forward to working alongside our faculty, staff, and students to strengthen academic excellence, expand opportunities for experiential learning, and advance initiatives that support student success and institutional growth."
Grant's past scholarship focused primarily on physics education and research on surface corrosion processes, Ferrum said. In addition to contributing to publications on teaching methods, he has developed instructional materials and physical science workshops for K-12 teachers to make science education fun, interactive, and effective.
