Patrick Corrigan has stepped down after four seasons as the Ferrum men's basketball coach to become the associate head coach at West Florida.
Patrick Corrigan has stepped down after four seasons as the Ferrum men's basketball coach to become the associate head coach at West Florida.
Holland Perdue takes an oath to tell the truth at his misconduct hearing before the Virginia State Bar on Thursday.
RICHMOND — The Virginia State Bar on Friday suspended for three years the license of Holland Perdue, the mayor of Rocky Mount who practices law in his hometown, for what a bar attorney called “deceitful and dishonest” behavior in a civil case.
The decision by a five-member disciplinary board came after it found Perdue violated the bar’s rules of conduct in a variety of ways during his representation of a widow who was seeking a share of her late husband’s estate.
“Mr. Perdue’s conduct wreaked havoc on everyone in that case,” Deputy Bar Counsel Edward Dillon told the board.
At the heart of the misconduct complaint was a court document that Perdue filed, attesting that he had met the deadline to bring a complaint in Franklin County Circuit Court — when in fact it was filed more than a month late, leading to its ultimate dismissal.
Teresa Brown, clerk of Franklin County Circuit Court, testifies at Holland Perdue's misconduct hearing before the Virginia State Bar on Friday.
Teresa Brown, the longtime clerk of court, testified that shortly before Perdue filed the lawsuit on Sept. 23, he came to her office with an unheard-of question.
“Mr. Perdue asked me if there was any way I could backdate a filing” to reflect that it was filed before the statute of limitations expired, Brown testified during a two-day hearing. “I told him absolutely not.”
Perdue denied the accusation, which came from a longtime friend in the close-knit community. “I absolutely did not,” he said when his attorney, John Lichtenstein, asked if what Brown said was true.
In 2024, Perdue was representing Valerie Venning, who was not listed in the will of Greg Venning, a developer who owned multiple properties around Smith Mountain Lake. Perdue filed what’s called a claim for an elective share, which would have entitled his client to collect part of what Greg Venning had left to his four daughters.
State law required that a corresponding lawsuit be filed within six months, or by Aug. 21.
Although he did not file until Sept. 23, Perdue objected to a request by the daughters’ attorney, Lindsey Coley, who argued that the lawsuit was time-barred and should be dismissed.
He filed a response the following month that stated: “On Aug. 20, 2024, Perdue filed a complaint to protect the plaintiff’s rightful share.” Attached to the response was a print-out of a screen shot — taken from the court system’s secure online platform — that showed an Aug. 20 filing date.
How the court record was altered, and who did it, remains a mystery in the convoluted case.
“That’s the question I would like an answer to myself,” Brown testified. “I don’t know the answer.”
Under questioning from their boss, all 11 deputy clerks in the office denied they had a hand in the fraud. Brown then made a report to the Virginia State Police.
After an investigation, a special prosecutor determined there was no evidence to support a criminal charge against the mayor of Rocky Mount.
But Perdue fell under scrutiny of the state bar, which sets a lesser standard of “clear and convincing” evidence for violations of the code of conduct by which all Virginia lawyers are required to abide.
Retired Judge William Broadhurst, who was appointed to hear the civil case, made a complaint to the bar in March 2025, writing about what he called a “concocted exhibit” in the document that Perdue signed.
Coley, who earlier in the year had filed a motion in Circuit Court asking that sanctions be imposed against her opposing counsel, followed with a second complaint in April.
Holland Perdue testifies at his Virginia State Bar hearing on Thursday.
In defending his actions to the bar’s disciplinary board, Perdue argued that everyone involved in the case knew his complaint was filed late on Sept. 23, a fact that was made clear in the same filing that purported an Aug. 20 date.
His defense centered in the word of a paralegal in his office, who testified that she inserted the offending language in the document after finding the mysterious screenshot in a collection of court documents gathered by Perdue’s office.
Laura Gall testified that after finding what was called the “golden ticket” that solved the case for Holland, she inserted the screenshot and supporting language in the court document, not knowing that it was erroneous. Perdue signed the pleading and filed it with the court.
Perdue testified that he had reviewed and approved earlier drafts of the 16-page document but did not read the version that Gall had prepared. That was his mistake, he acknowledged.
“You learn a lot sitting in this chair,” he said from the witness stand.
Gall’s testimony was questioned by several members of board. She did not unequivocally deny telling a state bar investigator that she had no memory of inserting what became known as “paragraph 44” of the filing, or saying that Perdue would be mistaken if he said that she did.
But Gall said she didn’t have the documents in front of her during the telephone interview, during which she took offense to the investigator’s questions about her being “thrown under the bus."
“Quite frankly, I didn’t appreciate being intimidated,” she said. “I was feeling pretty bristly about how I was being treated... and my goal was to get off the phone.”
Regardless of who altered the court’s website to show the Aug. 20 filing date, Brown said she was “devasted” when she found out what had happened.
“I feel like that has affected my reputation and the integrity of my office,” she said.
Brown became emotional — dabbing her eyes with a tissue at one point — while delivering damaging evidence about a man she said she had known, and liked, “all his life.”
Working in the clerk’s office for nearly 40 years, Brown was close to Perdue’s father, the late Clyde Perdue, a Circuit Court judge in Franklin County. And the younger Perdue once took her daughter to high school homecoming dance.
Coley also failed to hold back tears in her testimony during the second phase of the hearing, when the board was considering how to sanction Perdue for what he did. She described getting angry calls from people who had heard about the case.
“I feel like my name was being dragged through the mud, and I don’t think that was warranted,” she told the board.
At the conclusion of the hearing, Dillon asked that Perdue be disbarred. Lichtenstein appealed for mercy, saying that his client had no prior history of bar complaints and was well regarded in Rocky Mount as both a lawyer and mayor.
“It’s an aberration in his practice; he’s never been here before,” he said during the bar hearing in downtown Richmond.
In testimony that went into Thursday night, Perdue was asked about a social media post he made last April that mentioned the motion for sanctions in reference to his position as mayor of Rocky Mount.
“Unfortunately, it is no secret that political leadership comes with politically targeted attacks,” the entry stated.
Perdue said he was peeved with The Roanoke Times, which he knew was going to publish the next day what became the first of several stories about the case.
As part of a settlement agreement, Perdue agreed to pay Coley $50,000 for her expenses in defending her motion for sanctions. He also agreed to retract his Facebook statement with the following post:
“After further consideration, I do not believe the motion for sanctions to have been politically motivated,” it stated, “but rather based on factual statements included in a pleading I filed, which were incorrect.”
Laurence Hammack (540) 981-3239
Members of the press stand outside of the Virginia Supreme Court, Monday, April 27, 2026. The Supreme Court Justices will hear oral arguments on the redistricting referendum.
RICHMOND — The Virginia Supreme Court on Monday morning heard arguments from and questioned lawyers representing both sides of the congressional redistricting issue.
Last week, Virginia voters narrowly approved a referendum allowing the Democrat-led state legislature to aggressively gerrymander Virginia's congressional districts in an attempt to balance out Republican gerrymandering in other states. Republicans have filed legal challenges to Virginia's effort, claiming that proper rules were not followed in amending the state constitution.
Monday's arguments largely focused on two key issues: early voting and the scope of October's special session.
Reporters stand outside of the Virginia Supreme Court on Monday, where the seven justices heard oral arguments on legal challenges to the commonwealth's redistricting process. The court has not indicated when it will issue its decision.
To amend the state constitution, the legislature must pass the proposed amendment twice, with a House of Delegates election in between. The General Assembly met at the end of October last year to complete the first passage of this proposed amendment to the constitution, just days before Election Day in November.
"The people of the commonwealth approved an amendment to the Virginia Constitution. That approval was a final step in the clear and comprehensive process laid out in Article 12 of the constitution," said Matthew Seligman, an attorney for the Democratic legislators who pushed for the redistricting. "The General Assembly and the people complied with every step of that process."
The Tazewell County judge who challenged the process "attempted to interfere with that democratic process by halting it. ... This court should not countenance that," he said.
Thomas McCarthy, the attorney for the Republican legislators challenging the process, likewise challenged that argument.
"A bare partisan majority of the General Assembly ran the proposed amendment through the legislature, departing radically from the mandated constitutional amendment process and historical practice, severely undermining the rights of Virginia voters," McCarthy said.
Although voters approved the new congressional district maps last week, that did not render Republican legislators' objections to the process moot, said Justice Wesley Glenn Russell Jr., who raised most of the questions during the hourlong hearing.
"That there's a yes vote doesn't tell us anything about those merits," Russell said.
Matthew Seligman, a lawyer with Grayhawk Law, speaks to reporters on Monday. "The term election is defined in the constitution by five separate revisions as a single day that takes place in November," Seligman said during oral arguments.
Lawyers on both sides disagreed over the definition of an election — does it mean when people begin voting, or does it mean when the votes are counted?
McCarthy, representing the Republican side, argued the amendment violated the requirement that it be approved only after the “next general election,” because it was introduced after early voting had already begun and millions of voters had already cast their ballots.
“One hundred percent the purpose of this provision is to make sure the voters are informed,” McCarthy said. “None of these voters had any idea this was coming, and that’s not how the process is supposed to work.”
Russell asked lawyers for the Democratic side why it wouldn’t be a natural understanding of the word “election” to mean the process of voting and the term “shall be elected” to mean the end of that process.
"The term election is defined in the constitution by five separate revisions as a single day that takes place in November," Seligman said.
Russell pushed further and asked if there could be an election where every single vote is cast before the election begins.
“That seems a very extreme definition of election to me,” Russell said.
Virginia Solicitor General Tillman Breckenridge responded: “It's the definition of the election that the constitution gives, Your Honor.”
Sen. Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, speaks to reporters as Sen. Glen Sturtevant, R-Chesterfield, looks on following oral arguments Monday. "We’re very happy with the oral argument,” McDougle said.
McCarthy, the GOP lawyer, also argued that the amendment is invalid because the legislature pushed it through in a special session that was only authorized for budget and limited housekeeping matters — not constitutional amendments.
"The more tricky, and in my mind, unprecedented aspect of that question is a sort of perpetual special session, when the constitution envisions a citizen legislature that's part time, that meets at prescribed time periods, and we're writing on a blank canvas on that question," said Justice Stephen McCullough, the only other of the seven justices to question the attorneys.
The Supreme Court has not indicated when it will issue its decision. The State Board of Elections is set to certify the election on Friday.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who urged Virginians to vote “yes,” said Monday morning at an event in Roanoke: “It's going to be important that the (Court) render a decision, and ideally do it quickly. But I also think that it's important to note that more than 3 million Virginians cast their ballot ... in an election that meant something to them.”
She continued: “I do believe that the referendum was constitutional, was aligned with the law. I do hope that that's the court's decision as well, but it isn't for me to weigh in.”
Dan Gottlieb, spokesman for Virginians for Fair Elections, the referendum committee that campaigned in support of the new maps, echoed the governor.
"More than three million Virginians voted in a free and fair election," Gottlieb said in a statement Monday. "Republicans lost — and are now trying to throw out the will of Virginians in court."
After Monday's session, Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, an appellee on the case, spoke with reporters outside the courthouse.
"We’re very happy with the oral argument,” McDougle said.
“I’ve been a lawyer for a long time, and I learned not to read too much into what a judge is asking."
Republican lawyer makes closing argument, Democrat makes rebuttal at the Virginia Supreme Court in the redistricting case.
Franklin County Administrator Steve Sandy updates supervisors Thursday on proposed zoning changes that have caused concerns for many residents.
With public debate ongoing over plans to update zoning ordinances in Franklin County, supervisors held a work session Thursday with the goal to turn down the temperature on the heated topic.
"I felt like maybe we needed kind of a reset and we needed a recap of how we got here," said County Administrator Steve Sandy.
Sandy detailed the process that started in 2024 with the goal of updating the county's zoning ordinance that was put in place in 1988. That process has included surveys from residents, focus groups, public workshops and several months of public work sessions held by the Franklin County Planning Commission going over the changes.
While the zoning ordinance is getting what Sandy called a "refresh," he emphasized that zoning would not be expanded in the county and the new rules would not impact the unzoned areas of the county.
Franklin County is the only county in Virginia with split zoning. Much of the western and southern sections of the county have no zoning. This will continue after the zoning update, Sandy added.
"The Board of Supervisors made a decision at the beginning of this update process not to change that line through this process," he said of the line that splits the zoned and unzoned areas of the county.
The zoning line was put in place in 1988 and had aligned with the voting districts in the county. As the districts' sizes changed with population change, other districts expanded into a portion of the zoned areas. Currently, the Blue Ridge District is the only district with no zoned areas.
Sandy also addressed public concern with the Berkley Group which has assisted Franklin County in updating its zoning. He said county staff is limited in resources and expertise and obtained the services of the firm. He pointed out the Town of Rocky Mount had successfully used their services in 2024.
When the first draft of the new ordinance was made available late last month, residents raised several concerns. Sandy addressed some of those issues on Thursday.
Chief among them are regulations on chickens and bees in some zoned areas of the county. Sandy said the update would allow chickens in residential areas of the county where it wasn't allowed before.
A maximum of six chickens would be allowed per acre in lots under five acres in areas zoned A-1, in the proposed changes to the ordinance. There are currently no limits on chickens in A-1 in the current ordinance.
There would continue to be no restrictions on chickens in A-1 property over five acres or in unzoned areas of the county.
For been hives, two or more are permitted within a minimum of a half-acre lot, with four hives permitted per acre on lots from one to 4.9 acres. Hives are currently not permitted at all in residential zoned property. There are also currently no regulations on bees in properties zoned agricultural.
Another point of dispute is a proposed change to A-1 properties that would limit how they could be subdivided. Large A-1 properties would not be able to subdivide into properties smaller than 10 acres. Sandy said the proposal was to prevent farmland from being split into residential developments, taking away the county's rural character.
Following Sandy's presentation, supervisors were critical of how the process had gone so far. Union Hall District representative Dan Quinn did not hold back in his criticism.
"I feel like the Berkley Group did a poor job in general," Quinn said. He urged the county to take a more measured process in updating the zoning by going piece-by-piece with each new provision and casting a vote.
Snow Creek District representative Nick Mitchell also questioned how some of the changes made it so far.
"How did anyone think that a minimum 10-acre lot size was going to fly?" Mitchell asked about the proposed A-1 change. He said farmers with large areas of land should have the ability to subdivide at least an acre to give to a family member or to sell to help keep the farm going if times are tough.
Sandy said county staff and the Berkley Group will use feedback from supervisors and from the public in writing a second draft of the proposed ordinance changes that will be provided to the public once completed. He added that a May 13 work session at 5 p.m. at the Government Center is also planned between supervisors, planning commission members and the Berkley Group to discuss what needs to be changed for the second draft.
A public hearing was planned for the planning commission on June 9 and for the board of supervisors on July 21. Sandy said those dates may need to shift to allow more time for the public to review the second draft of the proposed new zoning ordinance.
"At this point, I think those dates are going to shift. They are going to move out," Sandy said.
Smith Mountain Lake resident Penny Hodges was one in a group of concerned Franklin County residents in attendance at Thursday's work session. She has been vocal in her criticism of the county's proposed zoning changes on social media and at multiple meetings during public comment.
"They are not looking out for the people," Hodges said following Thursday's meeting.
She said the county should only make any changes that are mandated by the state and leave the rest of the county's zoning alone. Even with a planned second draft of the zoning ordinance coming, Hodges said it would be best to just leave it as is.
Hodges also questioned the Berkley Group and their involvement in the process. She said the county should have known people would have concerns with the changes they have proposed.
"I haven't talked to a single person for this," Hodges added.
Jason Dunovant (540) 981-3324
Ferrum College's commencement speaker was once the top educator in the state.
Wheelan
Belle Wheelan, who served as Virginia's education secretary from 2002 to 2005 under Gov. Mark Warner, will deliver the keynote address Saturday, the college announced, as Ferrum holds its 110th commencement ceremony.
Approximately 150 graduates will walk the stage at the campus's Hart International Plaza to accept their diplomas. The ceremony begins at 9 a.m.
Wheelan has served as president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges for 20 years. The commission oversees more than 750 colleges in 11 states, including Ferrum.
She is the first African American administrator and the first woman to hold this position as president. Her career, spanning more than 50 years, also includes roles such as faculty member, chief student services officer, campus provost and college president.
After completing her bachelor's degree from Trinity University in Texas with a double major in psychology and sociology, Wheelan earned a master's degree in developmental educational psychology from Louisiana State University, and a doctorate in educational administration with a concentration in community college leadership from the University of Texas at Austin.
Virginia Senate Resolution No. 69 stated in 2020 that, "committed to serving the community at large, Belle Wheelan has also been a valued member of various social and civic organizations" and that she "has made an indelible mark on the schools of the Commonwealth in ways that will benefit students for generations to come." In the resolution she was "commended for her dedicated service on behalf of countless students and their families."
Wheelan's other accolades include seven honorary degrees, the Woman of Distinction Award from the American Association of University Women and other national awards for her leadership in higher education.
She was named president emeritus by Central Virginia Community College in 2017 and was inducted into the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame. Her work continues to influence accreditation, student success, and institutional excellence across the South and beyond, Ferrum said in its announcement.
"Dr. Wheelan's lifelong commitment to education and transformational leadership make her an exceptional choice to inspire our graduates," said Ferrum College President Mirta Martin. "Her story of perseverance, innovation, and service reflects the very values we instill in our students throughout their years at Ferrum College, so they may go forward and transform the world."
