Learning from our past

2008: When Angela Graves, manager of Meadows Farms nursery on Route 29, took a look at her stock last week after the hail storm, she sat down and cried.
"We had worked so hard for three weeks to get ready for summer," Graves says. "In 30 minutes, all of our hard work was gone." Now, though Graves does not have a dollar figure to apply to the losses, she says 75-80 percent of the stock has to be sold for half price.The National Weather Service said the storm that wreaked havoc on Ruckersville last week was the result of a cold weather front over the Appalachians pushing funnel clouds, lightning, hail and heavy rains the County's way.

2004:Kristen Ariel Moore will carry on a family tradition when she starts college this fall at Virginia Tech. "I chose the school mostly because it is a very good engineering school," says the 2004 William Monroe Graduate. "I also chose it partially because I have family there and because both my parents graduated from Virginia Tech." The 2004 winner of the Women's Club of Greene County academic scholarship is also following family in her choice of major. "My father is in engineer but math has always appealed to me. I have always done well in math and science and I thought engineering would be a good field to play my strengths."

1999: Planning for Ruckersville future is becoming one of the most important issues facing Greene County officials. To increase public awareness for four main aspects related to future planning in Ruckersville, Greene Future will hold a forum on Monday at 7:30pm in the Ruckersville Elementary cafeteria. The forum will focus on four subject areas, including transportation, economic development, schools and sewage service and feature comments from government officials and local citizens. Scheduled to speak are: Joanne Burkholder, Bill Gentry, Jim Woodson, Dudley Pattie, and Angela Tucker.

1984: Armed Forces enlistments among recent high schools, college students and college graduates continues to rise. According to a survey of Navy, Army, Air Force, Marine and Coast Guard recruiters, many young people living in the area are opting for a career in the armed forces to learn a specific skill, earn college credits, travel or gain additional funding through the services' college fund to continue with there education at a later date.
The recruiters say they have little or no trouble meeting there quotas, which vary from service to service and have actually had to delay some enlistments to fall 1985 because quotas have been filled.

1949: The Skyline Drive is featured as the "South's most famous scenic route and one of the most famous in the world in a two page lay out in last weeks Life magazine. Instead of the usual scenic photographs taken from the drive, Life has covered the two pages with a green-tinted contour map, drawn from maps and aerial photographs, showing the course of the drive, along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains from Rockfish Gap north to Front Royal, and from Orange and Sperryville west to the Shenandoah Valley. The picture map, which should delight prospective tourists as well as the chambers of commerce, shoes and marks highway crossing the Drive and the Piedmont and Shenandoah.