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Columnists

FRED FIRST: Approaching the Longest Night

Yes, you’re right—if you’ve even noticed—that this space has been neglected for some weeks now, and it has been hard to figure out where and how to jump back...

A Life Well-Lived: Shirley Padgett Lester (1947-2025)

Shirley Padgett Lester of Vinton went to her heavenly reward October 4. Below is the...

BOB BROWN: How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden “Presidency”

Permit me to think out loud as an old-fashioned person who respects authority, history, and...

JOHNNY ROBINSON: The Gratitude Perch

On the old road up Mill Mountain, part of Roanoke’s fabulous greenway system, there’s a...

ROBERT L. MARONIC: Sometimes President Trump Needs To Think Before He Speaks – Part II

Contrary to what President Trump believes, I think that Lakanwal was adequately vetted before September 2021,...

Every Drought Ends with a Good Rain

by Fred First This selection is from Slow Road Home, written in August 2002, a lament during one of the worst droughts in living...

When Jokes Are In The Genes

by Mary Jo Shannon A study of the Shannon genome would reveal, I suspect, that the Y chromosome contains a specific gene for playing practical...

Harry Burn Was A Good Boy

by Mike Keeler He was elected to the Tennessee legislature in 1918 at the age of 22, making him its youngest member.  But in...

Recipe of the Week: Harry Potter Treacle Tart

by Leigh Sackett My son just had a Harry Potter birthday party and since I was a fan of the books long before he...

Cathedral of the Spirit By George Anderson

My wife and I had an opportunity to go to Greece to enjoy a vacation with my daughter, Paige, who lives in Eastern...

“We Have Met the Enemy and They Is Us”

by Hayden Hollingsworth Walt Kelly, on the first Earth Day in 1971, paraphrased Commander Oliver Perry’s message to General William Henry Harrison after the...