Dystany Spurlock takes part in NHRA pro stock motorcycle qualifying for the Virginia Nationals at Virginia Motorsports Park on June 21, 2025, in Dinwiddie, Va.
Dystany Spurlock takes part in NHRA pro stock motorcycle qualifying for the Virginia Nationals at Virginia Motorsports Park on June 21, 2025, in Dinwiddie, Va.
SML Wake Education Task Force members Joy Manning and Ben Vidovich, center, speak with Eric Dotterer, left, and 1st Sgt. Tim Dooley with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources.
The Bright Side amplifies good news stories, highlighting moments of kindness, progress, and positive change happening across our community.
Smith Mountain Lake is seeing a decline in destructive wakes. Efforts by a local volunteer task force working to curb bad behavior by boaters looks to finally be having an impact.
The Wake Education Task Force was created in 2022 during the height of a messy public clash between wakesurfers and lakefront residents. Vocal residents were working to ban wakesurfing in some areas of the lake due to damage to docks and the shoreline cause by wakes, while wakesurfers were pushing to stop what they saw as excessive measures.
At the time, the Tri-County Lakes Administrative Commission was actively considering allowing lakefront property owners to apply for no-wakesurfing zones on the water around their docks. Multiple public hearings were held to debate the issue with both sides critical of the other.
The concern of many residents were the large wakes that many boats create that allow for wakesurfing. Many boats, specially designed for wakesurfing, can create wakes several feet high that can be surfed on. If those boats pass too close to the shoreline and docks, they have the potential to do significant damage.
It was during those public hearings that many wakesurfers and wakesurfing supporters urged TLAC to try education before legislation. It was many of those individuals who later came together to urge TLAC to form their task force.
"There was a lot of noise related to wakesurfing specifically," said Joy Manning, a task force member who joined soon after the public hearings. "I wasn't a fan of people targeting a particular group."
Josh McClure wakesurfs at Smith Mountain Lake in 2021. Concerted efforts to get wakersurfers to practice their sport more responsibly appear to have resulted in a decrease in complaints about damage from high wakes in narrow coves.
TLAC did approve a single no-wakesurfing zone along Merriman Run on Smith Mountain Lake in 2022. At that time the commission also agreed to pause any future applications for no-wakesurfing zones while approving the creation and $10,000 in funding for the task force.
At the time, TLAC members said they wanted to give the task force time to see if they could make an impact educating residents on how to be courteous while wakesurfing or other enjoying other activities that create large wakes. Now four years later, it seems that there may be some positive impact from their efforts.
"The message is actually getting out. People are actually starting to listen," Manning said.
Manning, a former wakeboarding world champion, works with around a dozen other members who have spent the last few years creating pamphlets, websites, banners to get the word out as well as attending lake events and even visiting local schools to spread information on how to be courteous on the water. Member consist of a mix of wakesurfing advocates and lakefront residents who want to prevent damaging wakes.
The educational information asks boaters participating in wakesurfing or other towed watersports to minimize repetitive passes in a single area, stay away from docks and shorelines, avoid coves and congested areas and avoid driving unpredictably and erratically. They have also recruited boat rental companies on the lake to provide the information to renters.
One of the Wake Education Task Force's flyers encouraging boaters to be responsible with their wakes
The group even created a map of Smith Mountain Lake with areas marked red where wakesurfing is not recommended, yellow where wakesurfers should use caution and green where wakesurfing is recommended. The map prevents wakesurfers from going into narrow coves and busy areas where their wakes can be more destructive or dangerous for other boaters.
Sgt. Kenneth Williams with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, which patrols Smith Mountain Lake, said there has been a noticeable reduction in reported complaints from residents due to wakesurfing. He attributes the better behavior to their stepped up enforcement as well as the good work of the task force.
"From the outside looking it, it looks like it has been a success," Williams said of the work of the task force.
Reported complaints concerning wakes from wakesurfers fell from a high of 11 in 2023 and 13 in 2024 to only seven last year. Williams said those numbers don't account for the many residents who voiced complaints to officers while they patrolled the lake.
At previous TLAC meetings, members have stated how calls concerning bad behavior by wakesurfers have significantly decreased.
Manning said she has received calls from volunteer groups at other lakes who have asked about the group and the secrets to their success. Many of those lakes are facing the same issues when it comes to wakes.
Williams said he applauds their efforts such as encouraging wakesurfers and those involved in other towed watersports to stay 200 feet from the docks and shorelines, even though the law only requires boats to be 50 feet away. That extra space helps wakes dissipate more before they reach the shore and can prevent riders colliding with docks that occasionally occurs with towed watersports.
"I think the work is outstanding," Williams said.
Manning said there is still work to be done for the task force. They have expanded their message from primarily focusing on wakesurfing to all towed watersports. With each year she said they work to expand their message as well as their reach to assure everyone is safe and courteous on the water.
"Once we start seeing behavior start to turn, maybe we focus on two more behaviors that we start to tackle," Manning said.
Jason Dunovant (540) 981-3324
Officially, they’re banned, but there are thousands of skill games across Virginia.
And weeks after Gov. Abigail Spanberger vetoed a measure to legalize the slot-machine-like devices, a Prince William County judge ruled that a version of the slot-machine-like devices was legal.
That ruling came two months after a Prince William County man pleaded guilty to a felony charge of operating an illegal skill game. A partner’s case on a related misdemeanor charge is pending. On Friday, a Salem district court dismissed felony charges of operating an illegal skill game against two convenience stores.
Zach Smith is seen in 2022 playing an electronic skill game at a 7-Eleven in Henrico County.
Spanberger vetoes skill games bill
"They keep saying they're illegal and I keep saying they're wrong, and I keep winning," said state Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, who represented the store owners.
"This is a small business issue with people charged under a stupid law," he said. Stanley said the ban, as machines remain in place, has cost the state tax revenue on more than a $1 billion of skill machine profits, "money that could have fixed schools, fixed roads, helped people deal with poverty."
Skill games have been the focus of intense lobbying at the General Assembly for the past three years, ever since the Virginia Supreme Court overturned a Greensville County judge’s injunction barring enforcement of a 2020 state ban.
The stakes are high.
During the year after the General Assembly enacted the ban but before it took effect, Virginians wagered an estimated $2.2 billion on some 9,000 skill games, generating a profit for the game operators of nearly $507 million, a Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission study found.
Now, there may be as many as 90,000 skill games across the state.
Big profits are at issue.
The investment in the three-year effort to make some of them legal – 25,000 in the vetoed bill – has been significant, too.
The biggest operator, Georgia-based Pace-O-Matic, gave just under $2 million to Virginia politicians’ campaign funds over the past three legislative sessions, according to campaign finance reports compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project.
Filings with the state Conflicts of Interest and Ethics Commission show Pace-O-Matic paid more than $215,000 to lobbyists arguing its case in 2025 and more than $254,000 in 2024. Figures for 2026 are due in the summer.
Entities that raise funds through such legal charitable gaming as bingo, pull tab games and Texas Hold’Em poker tournaments, including fraternal associations, veterans groups and religious bodies, have lobbied against legalization; part of the big-money lobbying of casinos and horse racing interests has focused on keeping skill games illegal.
The convenience stores that host many of these machines say the money the operators pay from is revenue that allowed them to keep their doors open during the pandemic, when many customers stopped coming, while the Greensville injunction barred police anywhere in the state from enforcing the 2020 ban.
Their lobby group says skill games remain an essential source of revenue, and it mobilized dozens of store owners at legislative hearings on legalization.
After the 2023 Virginia Supreme Court decision overturning the Greensville injunction, some stores and truck stops did turn off or remove machines.
But that’s been the exception rather than the norm, says the Virginians Against Neighborhood Slot Machines, a coalition whose members include the Police Benevolent Association, the Fraternal Order of Police, along with members of the clergy, the casino trade association, the Family Foundation, which advocates for Bible-based policies and Freedom Virginia, a progressive group.
The coalition says skill games operators continue to actively disregard the law, and sometimes provide legal advice to store owners to help them keep machines operating, even as police in Petersburg seized 36 machines from 6 stores in March, or last year when the Alexandria prosecutor charged two store owners with possessing illegal skill games. One of the store owners pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was fined $500. The other case is still pending.
One reason for the spotty enforcement is the changes Pace-O-Matic made to its flagship Queen of Virginia games.
The summer after the Supreme Court ruling, it introduced a version that doesn't require a direct deposit of money, but that still allows a player to wager funds. The company said that meant its machines were not covered by the state ban, since its description of skill games says they are games of chance that require inserting money, tickets or tokens in order to play.
“At least one of the players in the industry had decided that good-faith discussions around this weren't good enough, and they … sought to evade Virginia's law, and that action creates grave concerns in my mind as to the business practices and tactics of this company," said then Gov. Glenn Youngkin, saying he would veto any legalization measure.
Not long after that, Judge Hugh McConnell of the Hanover District Court dismissed a misdemeanor charge that David Bogese, owner of the Breez-In Mart in Mechanicsville, had an illegal gambling device with a skill game in his store.
McConnell ruled that since the new Queen of Virginia Skill 2 game in Bogese's store did not require players to insert a coin, ticket or token, the new game was not subject to the state's ban on skill games.
In February, after the Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney and store owner Sean McNamara agreed that his machines were legal because they did not require insertion of money or tokens, a district court judge dismissed charges that McNamara had run an illegal gaming facility and possessed an illegal gambling device.
“The recent ruling in Manassas Park provides further clarity to small businesses that operating Pace-O-Matic QVS2 skill games is legal in the Commonwealth of Virginia,” said Rachel Albritton, senior vice president at Pace-O-Matic.
“This ruling is significant because not only did the court specifically recognize the legality of QVS2 skill games under Virginia law, but it also stated that the other games seized in the case are illegal. QVS2 games are the only adjudicated skill games meeting the predominant skill and ‘non-insertion’ requirements under Virginia state law,” she said.
But elected officials in many localities from Alexandria to Tazewell, along with officials from the Virginia Council on Problem Gambling, the Virginia Moose Lodge Association, the Veterans of Foreign Wars of Virginia, and the Virginia Fraternal Order of Police have called for increased enforcement.
“Certain companies have tried to skirt this law, but our view is straightforward: the law on skill games is clear, and it should be enforced,” the coalition opposing the game said.
A bill to legalize the games squeaked through the General Assembly this year, nearly dying on the final day of the session.
An initial compromise that allowed fewer games than the sponsors - state Sen. Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, and Del. Cliff Hayes, D-Chesapeake - had proposed but more than the House wanted, while retaining the lower taxes and manufacturer and distributor fees that Rouse and Hayes proposed, passed the Senate by a 25-14 vote but failed in the House on a 52-42 vote, which saw 26 Democrats and 26 Republicans join hands in opposition.
After conferees made some late-afternoon tweaks, the bills, Senate Bill 661 and House Bill 1272, failed again.
But after Del. Michael Webert, R-Fauquier, asked for a vote on the Senate bill to be reconsidered and some intensive off-the-floor discussion, this bill passed on a 57-38 vote. It passed the Senate 23-15.
Spanberger vetoed it, saying legalization would “strain an already fragmented system and introduce thousands more machines without a comprehensive regulatory structure.”
She said the machines have been disproportionately located in communities where many people are living below the poverty line and where a higher percentage of residents are minorities.
Often, the convenience stores that host the machines are the only stores in those neighborhoods.
“Small businesses rely on legal skill games for supplemental income to keep their doors open,” Pace-O-Matic’s Albritton said.
“QVS2 skill games give these local small businesses the additional income they need to hire staff, pay wages, make local improvements, and, in some cases, keep the lights on,” she said.
And while the company is satisfied with the Hanover and Prince William district court decisions affirming that the company’s machines are legal, she said, “We look forward to continuing our work with lawmakers on a legislative solution to regulate and tax skill games.”
Spanberger: With changes to 38 bills rejected, time for another review
White Oak logistics firms impact 117 jobs as site closes, Meta shifts contractors
Dave Ress (804) 649-6948
Prices are displayed on a gas pump at an Exxon gas station on Broad St. in Richmond, Va., Monday, May 4, 2026.
It's a tough time to sell gasoline, drive a truck or plan a family vacation in Virginia, with the summer driving season right around the corner.
Fuel prices continue to rise across the board in response to the ongoing standoff between the United States and Iran over ship passage through the Strait of Hormuz. The average retail price of regular unleaded gasoline has increased by 23 cents a gallon in the past week in Virginia and now stands $1.16 a gallon higher than a year ago.
Diesel fuel prices stayed steady over the past week, as drivers don't have to compete now with home heating for fuel, but the average price is more than $2 a gallon higher than a year ago. Virginia trucking companies are levying surcharges that add to the cost of the food and other goods they carry.
A sign displays gas and diesel prices at an Exxon gas station on Broad St. in Richmond, Va., Monday, May 4, 2026.
Airlines are also putting surcharges on ticket fares to pay for fuel, with the demise of Spirit Airlines over the weekend fresh in mind.
"It's going to really start hurting," said Kent Engelke, chief economic strategist and managing director at Capitol Securities Management in Richmond.
The average cost of regular unleaded gasoline neared $4.46 a gallon nationally on Monday. In Virginia, the average price increased to about $4.18 a gallon, compared to $3.95 a gallon a week earlier and $3.02 a gallon a year ago, according to AAA Virginia.
The rise coincides with the approach of Memorial Day and the beginning of the summer driving season, when consumer demand always pushes up gas prices.
"A lot of things are coming together at the same time," AAA Virginia spokesperson Morgan Dean said on Monday.
Virginia drivers aren't the only ones facing a cash crunch. Gasoline retailers are being squeezed by operating margins that are "absolutely minimal, if not non-existent," said Michael O'Connor, president and CEO of the Virginia Petroleum and Convenience Marketers Association.
"The people who are selling gas aren't making any money off of it," O'Connor said Monday.
A sign displays gas and diesel prices at an Exxon gas station on Broad St. in Richmond, Va., Monday, May 4, 2026.
Iran has closed the strait to most shipping in response to U.S. military attacks that began on Feb. 28 and a blockade of the country's ports that continued after a ceasefire that began on April 7. Gasoline prices eased after the ceasefire, but the price of crude oil continued to rise on world markets on Monday amid conflicting reports that hostilities had resumed in the Persian Gulf.
The price of Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, neared $114 a barrel on Monday afternoon, compared to $67 a barrel before the war began. The price of West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude oil benchmark, rose to just under $105 a barrel, compared to $65 a barrel before the war.
Engelke said he's confident that oil prices — and gasoline prices — would plummet by 30% if hostilities ceased in the Persian Gulf region, but no one knows when that will happen.
"The longer this goes on, the deeper the issues are going to be at the end," Engelke said.
Michael Martz (804) 649-6964
Franklin County will celebrate America's 250th anniversary with several events in the coming months, including a trivia night, a living history encampment and a visit from an interactive mobile museum.
These activities are part of a statewide commemoration of the nation's semiquincentennial designed to engage Virginians and visitors with the commonwealth's history and heritage.
On Saturday, a traveling museum highlighting Virginia's role in the nation's founding will visit Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Rocky Mount.
Guests tour the VA250 Mobile Museum Experience, which features stories of Virginians who had an impact on the commonwealth and the country.
The VA250 Mobile Museum will be outside the school Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
"Out of Many, One" is title of the interactive experience inside the museum, a quad-expandable tractor trailer that has been traversing the state since last year.
The mobile museum has been bringing key stories of Virginia's history to schools, museums, local events, fairs and more in every region of the state.
The VA250 mobile museum lives inside a quad-expandable tractor trailer that has been traversing the state since last year.
A full schedule of the mobile muesum's stops is available online at VA250.org. Upcoming Southwest Virginia stops include in Hot Springs May 23-25, Covington May 28-31 and Pearisburg June 4-6.
On May 17, there will be a fundraising event at the Jubal Early Homeplace in Hardy that will feature history and share the importance of tea during the American Revolution. The event is at 2 p.m.
On May 21, the Franklin County Library will hold a community trivia event focused on Virginia history and culture. It runs from 5:45 to 6:45 p.m.
On May 28 at the county library, there will be hands-on sessions exploring traditional textile arts and techniques from the 18th century. The event runs from 10 to 11 a.m.
On June 14, the Jubal Early Homeplace will host a living history experience featuring reenactors, demonstrations and interactive exhibits. This encampment will take place from 1 to 5 p.m.
In addition to these events, Franklin County is currently hosting the United We Create contest, open to all K-12 students, including public, private and homeschool participants. The contest encourages students to creatively explore themes related to America's founding and shared history.
For more information on the contest and other 250th events, go to visitfranklincountyva.com/247/Virginia250.
