ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg, left, shown on the ACC Network's set at ACC media days earlier this month in Charlotte, N.C., likes the maturity of Virginia Tech and Virginia.
ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg, left, shown on the ACC Network's set at ACC media days earlier this month in Charlotte, N.C., likes the maturity of Virginia Tech and Virginia.
Franklin County is quickly approaching its goal of providing high speed internet to the vast majority of its residents. The 10-year- long effort is finally seeing success even as some early missteps still remain evident around the county.
"By the end of 2027, we will get to 90% of the households," said Rodney Gray, chief operating officer for Zitel, a regional fiber internet provider.
One of Franklin County's communications towers that is mostly unused is seen on Sept. 30 along Callaway Road next to Callaway Elementary School and across the street from the volunteer fire department.
Zitel is putting the final touches on the county's internet expansion, fulfilling the last two project grants that include bringing high-speed fiber lines into homes. Work is currently ongoing in the southern areas of the county to provide internet to the remaining homes.
Gray said Zitel is still waiting on state approval to complete the remaining 9% of homes they can reach. There will still be around 1% of homes in the county that will be too remote to connect.
Getting to those remaining households in Franklin County was stalled for at least a year, according to Franklin County Administrator Steve Sandy. The delay was due to Zitel being asked to take over the remaining projects after it was discovered that RiverStreet Networks would be unable to complete the projects due to financial constraints.
Zitel is the last internet provider working to expanded high-speed internet in the county. Shentel completed a project last year that provided broadband to more than 6,700 Franklin County homes.
Sandy said he expects there will be fewer than 100 homes in Franklin County that will unable to get access to fiber internet once work is completed by sometime around the end of 2027. Those homes may need to rely on satellite internet services, such as Starlink.
Much of the expansion of fiber lines in the county comes from state and federal funding in recent years. Franklin County, like many other localities, saw a major infusion of grant funding during the COVID-19 pandemic with programs like the American Rescue Plan Act.
Franklin County received more than $10 million in ARPA funds in 2021 with supervisors dedicating $7 million to expanding broadband internet. The funds came with a deadline of 2026, but Zitel has received an extension to the end of 2027.
Franklin County also received an $11.8 million grant from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development's 2022 Virginia Telecommunication Initiative. A similar grant awarded to the Western Piedmont Planning District Commission allocated another $5.9 million to the county.
Riverstreet received $44 million in federal funding from the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program to provide internet access in multiple counties including Franklin. That is the project Zitel is current moving forward on.
While efforts to expand high-speed internet in Franklin County have been delayed over the years, Gray praised what will be accomplished once work is completed. He said the county's internet access will be one of the best in the state.
"The internet access that is going to be available to their industrial parks and their business complexes and to their small businesses and citizens is only rivaled in Richmond, Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia. It's faster than services in Roanoke and Lynchburg," Gray said.
That is due to fiber lines being the entire backbone of the internet service provided in Franklin County, according to Gray. He said other counties like Roanoke rely on coaxial cable that max out at around one megabit download speeds.
The fiber lines in Franklin County can reach download speeds of up to five megabits, Gray said. Those speeds could be a big incentive for companies looking to relocate who depend on fast internet speeds.
It was in 2017 that the Franklin County Board of Supervisors began looking at ways to expand broadband internet to some of the more rural residents the county. Work started to acquire state and federal grants available to expand internet services.
Those growing needs for high-speed internet came with significant costs. Sandy said digging fiber lines comes at an approximate cost of around $1 million a mile.
Gray said most internet providers are unwilling to spend that much money to run fiber lines to remote areas where only a handful of homes would hook up. That is why state and federal grants have been critical.
There have been other cost savings with Appalachian Power Co. agreeing to run fiber lines on power poles in the county. Gray said the partnership provides the power company with access to fiber lines while saving internet companies the cost of digging lines.
Much of the work done in Franklin County came as a result of a significant influx of state and federal funding starting in 2021. That funding, mostly due to COVID-19 relief efforts, forced the county to pivot from a broadband strategy it started in 2020.
That year, Franklin County received a $2.3 million grant from the Virginia Telecommunication Initiative to expand broadband using a fixed-wireless system. Franklin County partnered with Blue Ridge Towers and Briscnet to fund the remaining cost of the $4.6 million project.
While work was already underway to provide fiber lines to some areas of the county, the fixed-wireless plan would construct seven cell towers around the county that would carry equipment to beam an internet signal into homes. Some other towers in the county were also updated to provide the service.
The plan relied on line-of-sight to produce a good signal to the homes. Even then, the top speed was far lower than what the fiber lines provided.
One of Franklin County's cell towers that is mostly unused is seen on Sept. 30 in Callaway.
Sandy said the county's original plan was the build the original towers in phase one. Phase two would construct smaller towers around the county to strengthen the signal to reach more homes.
When additional state and federal funding came available with the COVID-19 pandemic, Sandy said the county decided to pivot to more high quality options for residents. Despite the change, the county had already signed a contract to complete the construction of the seven towers that are now mostly unused.
Those towers can be seen in Sontag, Callaway, Glade Hill, Snow Creek, Wirtz and a tower in Westlake constructed to look like a pine tree. All remain unused except for the Westlake tower, which now has Verizon service.
Sandy said the county's goal was to provide high-speed internet as fast as possible to as many people as possible and the fastest and most affordable way to do that was through fixed wireless. Their goal was to slowly add fiber lines as funds became available over a long period of time, then COVID-19 funds brought a lot of funds to the county very quickly.
"We knew that technology was eventually going to expire as people would get access to fiber," Sandy said of fixed wireless technology.
While fixed wireless is no longer an option with the services no longer in business, Sandy said the county is currently working with cellphone providers to increase cell signals in the communities. Improved signals have long been requested in areas such as Snow Creek, where large portions of the community have no cell signal can could benefit from a service provider placing equipment on the towers nearby.
Verizon has expressed interest in installing equipment on the Snow Creek tower, Sandy said. So far, they have not announced any official plans.
Workers were seen harnessed to the side of a communications tower in Westlake in November 2022. The towers, originally built for a wireless internet push, was later converted for boosting cellphone coverage in the Smith Mountain Lake community. The 160-foot tower was equipped with fake tree limbs to reduce its visual impact on the nearby Booker T. Washington National Monument.
Sandy said the county is facing similar issues finding cellphone companies to place equipment on the towers as they did finding internet companies to build fiber lines in the county. The cost to provide the equipment currently outweighs the financial benefit to the companies.
Much like what the county did in obtaining grants to incentivize internet companies to build, Sandy said the county is using a similar strategy with the cellphone towers. They are working to obtain BEAD grant funding to persuade companies to provide service to these towers.
"We've been pushing thus far and we have not had very much luck," Sandy said. "Unfortunately, to get companies to locate on the tower I think it's still going to take some more incentivization from the state to really make it worthwhile."
Until then, there will remain several unused towers in Franklin County waiting for a provider. They are the remains of a project abandoned before it was even really started as the county came into an influx of funds to better serve its citizens.
Jason Dunovant (540) 981-3324
As the Smith Mountain Lake Center is preparing to create a permanent home at Westlake Cinema, the theater has already become a well-used space for live performances with the newest continuing this weekend.
The organization will be hosting the Off-Broadway musical comedy "Zombie Prom" until Sunday. It's the third theatrical production at Westlake Cinema following sold-out productions of "Bonnie & Clyde" and "The Addams Family."
Tickets are on sale now for the show, which opened Friday.
The SML Center, in a news release, described "Zombie Prom" as a lively musical featuring a nostalgic 1950s rock 'n' roll sound, a talented cast of local and visiting performers and a live band.
"Despite its playful title, Zombie Prom is not a children's musical. The show is a campy, fast-paced comedy with an original score inspired by the music of the 1950s, colorful characters and plenty of humor for adult audiences," the news release said.
"What I love about Zombie Prom is that it doesn't take itself too seriously," director Matt Karris said. "It's got this fantastic 1950s rock 'n' roll energy, a wonderfully ridiculous story and some really funny characters. We've brought together a terrific cast of local and visiting performers, and I think audiences are going to have a great time with this one."
According to the release, the musical takes place in the 1950s at Enrico Fermi High School with teenagers Jonny Warner and Toffee falling in love, but their relationship faces some decidedly unusual obstacles.
"When Warner makes an unexpected return from the dead, he's determined to win back Toffee and make it to the senior prom. Unfortunately, their plans don't sit well with the school's strict principal, Miss Delilah Strict. And when a tabloid reporter catches wind of the story, things get even more outrageous," the release said.
New York-based performers Jacob Eli Schmitt and Grace Benedetto lead the cast as Jonny Warner and Toffee. Schmitt, a graduate of LIU Post's BFA Musical Theatre program, makes his Smith Mountain Lake Center debut. Benedetto, also a graduate of LIU Post, is a first-place winner at the Apollo Theater's Amateur Night, the release said.
Several familiar performers return to the Westlake Cinema stage, including Megan Livingston, who starred as Bonnie Parker in Bonnie & Clyde, as Miss Delilah Strict, and Michael Marziliano, who also appeared in Bonnie & Clyde, as Eddie Flagrante. Returning cast members Campbell Duff, Jason Cox and Matthew Thurman are joined by Center Rep newcomers Sidney Draper, Kelsey Slaven and Katherine Bird.
The production is directed by Karris, with musical direction by Johnson Scott and lighting and sound design by Lane Kinsley. Zombie Prom features book and lyrics by John Dempsey and music by Dana P. Rowe.
All performances take place at Westlake Cinema at Smith Mountain Lake.
Tickets are available online at https://smithmountainlakecenter.ludus.com/. Seating is limited.
Jason Dunovant (540) 981-3324
Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, listens as Gov. Abigail Spanberger delivers a speech to the assembly money committees, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026.
State Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, said she's not resigning after a federal grand jury indicted her last week on racketeering, money laundering and drug trafficking charges.
"Absolutely not," she said when asked if she would resign.
"Absolutely, I am not guilty," she said, speaking to reporters Monday after a meeting of the General Assembly's Joint Subcommittee on Tax Policy.
"I have one thing to say. I am not a victim; I have been fighting all my life, and I continue," she said.
The indictment alleges Lucas "approved and directed criminal activities” for illegal sales of marijuana, supervised laundering of money received from those illegal sales and used her political influence to attempt to influence Virginia legislation for the benefit of herself and her family.
FBI director Kash Patel said the business received nearly $5 million in illegal gains over nearly five years.
The indictment alleges that Lucas, her daughter Lisa Lucas Burke and Carlton Upton — the senator's business partner in two outlets, The Cannabis Outlet and The CBD Shoppe — had defrauded Virginia citizens and deprived them of Lucas' honest services through bribery.
It says Lucas "used her political position in the Virginia state senate to insulate” her marijuana business from criminal scrutiny.
Besides Lucas, her daughter Lisa Lucas Burke and Upton, the indictment charged Lucas' daughter Theresa Lucas Lamb, grandson Ryan Eichelberger, businessman Prince Albert William Hudson and Tameka Johnson, who managed a store on Granby Street in Norfolk where the indictment says marijuana was illegally sold.
The indictment says at least one other Virginia legislator was aware of Lucas’ involvement in the marijuana business as long ago as 2022.
It says that on March 9, at the start of the final week of a 2026 General Assembly still wrestling with the sales legalization bill, Lucas allegedly telephoned a Virginia legislator to push for the legislation because "I got to get the license and I got to get the money rolling in.”
The indictment says, in another call that week, a Virginia legislator told Lucas the cannabis legislation would make sure "everything is on the up and up," to which Lucas allegedly replied, "And make it legal because I did, when I did it, it was obviously illegal."
One of the most powerful politicians in the state, Lucas is chair of the Senate Finance & Appropriations Committee and president pro tempore of the Senate.
She clashed with Gov. Abigail Spanberger over the state's $1.9 billion sales tax exemption for data centers, which Lucas wanted to eliminate while Spanberger said it would undermine the state's pro-business reputation.
The clash stalled a state budget until the final days before a shutdown would have been necessary, after a compromise in which Lucas and the Senate agreed to Spanberger's proposal for a tax on data centers' electricity use.
Lucas has been in the Senate since 1992 and is by far the most senior member.
From her youth as a shipfitter at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, she built a Portsmouth-based business empire that includes residential and day support services for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as a transportation business.
Lucas and her family have dominated city politics in Portsmouth for decades.
Dave Ress (804) 649-6948
Twenty years ago, Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment that put a ban on same-sex marriage into the state constitution. That ban remains in the state constitution, even though federal court rulings have made it unenforceable.
This Election Day, voters have the opportunity to pass a constitutional amendment that would remove the ban from the state constitution and affirm that two adults may marry regardless of sex, gender or race.
Same-sex couples have been able to marry in Virginia since 2014, following a federal court decision striking down the state’s ban. The following year, the U.S. Supreme Court established a nationwide constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
One audience member kisses another at the mention of marriage equality at a Monday, Oct. 19, 2026, rally in Henrico County featuring Pete Buttigieg and Democratic Virginia congressional candidates Shannon Taylor, Elaine Luria and Tom Perriello to drum up support heading into the midterms.
Buttigieg revs up Va. Democrats to flip the 1st, 2nd and 5th
Virginia already has a state law, signed by then-Gov. Glenn Youngkin in 2024, that protects same-sex marriage. But because the state constitution supersedes state law, the constitutional ban could again prevent same-sex couples from marrying in Virginia if the Supreme Court overturns its 2015 ruling.
In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the federal constitutional right to abortion.
“This is our opportunity here in Virginia to be very proactive,” said Narissa Rahaman, executive director of Equality Virginia, Virginia’s largest statewide LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. “We've seen in recent years, most recently 2022, that our rights guaranteed by the Supreme Court are not fully guaranteed. We've seen the Supreme Court revisit settled decisions, and we want to ensure that we're doing everything we can in Virginia to protect the freedom to marry for all Virginians for generations to come.”
For Richmonders Riley and Blakely Sisk, the amendment is personal. The couple married in March 2024 and are expecting a baby in January.
They met on the dating app Bumble in 2021, when Riley lived in Richmond and Blakely lived in Washington, D.C. Their relationship grew through visits made possible by remote work during the pandemic.
“We certainly knew that we wanted a family, and we wanted that commitment to each other,” Riley said. “I think that's really what being married means to us: the commitment to one another ... and just having the same thing as other people.”
Now, with Blakely pregnant, the legal protections that come with marriage carry particular weight.
Being married “offers that protection, especially with family building,” Blakely said.
The couple said they haven’t faced discrimination in Richmond, which they describe as a bubble, but putting their marriage rights before voters across the state feels nerve-wracking.
“We’re not asking for anything more. It’s just removing language that makes another couple feel less than or not as important,” Riley said.
Felon voting rights amendment goes before Virginia voters
Virginia voters to decide whether to enshrine reproductive rights in state Constitution
Opponents of the constitutional amendment argue that it goes beyond protecting same-sex marriage. Victoria Cobb, president of the conservative, faith-based advocacy organization Family Foundation of Virginia, said listing “gender” separately from “sex” could create a constitutional basis for legal challenges involving transgender participation in sports and access to locker rooms. The amendment does not address these issues.
“We've never put the word ‘gender’ in our constitution. The word ‘gender’ is undefined, and when you put it next to sex, it implies you mean something different, which is putting its thumb sort of in the middle of the battle on one side,” Cobb said. “When you put (gender) in a separate category from the word ‘sex,’ you're attempting something very specific legally.”
Cobb also said she was disappointed that the amendment lacks an explicit religious freedom clause protecting religious organizations and clergy who decline to perform marriages that conflict with their beliefs. Virginia’s existing marriage law expressly allows religious organizations and clergy acting in their religious capacity to refuse to perform any marriage.
Cobb and the foundation also oppose same-sex marriage itself.
“Obviously we, the Family Foundation, still hold to the fact that every child deserves a mom and a dad where possible, and a society that intentionally creates homes where a child grows up without that is not giving the best to their next generation,” she said.
Amending Virginia’s constitution requires approval by both chambers of the General Assembly in two legislative sessions, with a House of Delegates general election between them, followed by voter approval.
Lawmakers first approved the proposed marriage amendment in 2025 and approved it again earlier this year, following last November’s House election.
Question 2 will appear alongside Questions 1 and 3, which ask Virginians whether to enshrine reproductive rights, including abortion, into the state Constitution, and whether to guarantee voting rights to people convicted of felonies after their release from incarceration.
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3, and early voting is underway.
Here's just a sampling of our election coverage since August.
Anna Bryson (804) 649-6922
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