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Recent Articles from Beth JoJack
VTCSOM seeks to create neurosurgery department
Administrators at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine are working toward establishing a department of neurosurgery, a step up from its smaller program. The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) received the school’s proposal for creating the new department in early August and could vote on it as soon as Oct. 24, […]
Wallops Island lifts off with Rocket Lab addition
Rocket Lab USA is boosting the visibility of one of the United States’ lesser-known spaceports on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Since January, the California-based aerospace company has launched three successful missions from its Launch Complex 2 at Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. Rocket Lab selected the spaceport, located within NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Ac[...]
EarthLink support center approaches completion
By mid-August, construction workers had gotten up a big portion of the steel framework for the 28,000-square-foot, two-story building that will house EarthLink’s customer support center at Project Intersection, a new business and industrial park in Norton. Employees of the Atlanta-based high-speed internet service provider should be able to move into the building by March […]
Blue Ridge festival rocks on — for now
UPDATED SEPT. 11: The Blue Ridge Rock Festival was canceled on Sept. 9 due to severe weather, including storms and hail. The festival’s organizers said they would provide refund details early during the week of Sept. 11. The Blue Ridge Rock Festival is on track to sell out this year, with organizers expecting more than […]
Satellite internet improves mobile health care
The Health Wagon got its start in 1980 when Sister Bernadette Kenny, a nurse practitioner, began dispensing free, much-needed health care to people in rural Appalachia from her Volkswagen Beetle. “She was thinking outside the box,” says Health Wagon President and CEO Teresa Tyson. Kenny served as inspiration, Tyson says, when the health care […]
Big deals
CENTRAL VIRGINIA Appomattox: In November 2022, Virginia MetalFab, a precision sheet metal fabricator, moved from Nelson County’s Gladstone area to nearby Appomattox, where it’s leasing the former Thomasville Furniture plant, which shuttered in 2011. Founded in 2002, Virginia MetalFab manufactures metal parts and assemblies for industries ranging from utilities to transportation and tec[...]
FloydFest cancelation causes economic ripples
FloydFest, a five-day celebration showcasing more than 100 performers, has had an annual regional economic impact of about $4 million since its 2002 founding, according to festival organizers. Even so, county officials and local business owners seem to be taking a “c’est la vie” attitude to the cancelation in April of this year’s FloydFest, which […]
Riverdale project could be ‘transformative’
Partnering with the city of Roanoke, developer Ed Walker started redevelopment of 100 acres encompassing the sprawling, former campus of American Viscose, a rayon plant that closed in 1958. “This is a chance we have as a community to really do something transformative,” Roanoke Economic Development Director Marc Nelson says. Located in the city’s southeast […]
German auto parts maker revamps Salem GE plant
Most everyone in the Roanoke Valley either worked at the former General Electric Co. facility in Salem or knew someone who had, says Renée Turk, the city’s mayor. “On some level, it meant a lot to the entire community,” she says of the manufacturing plant, which opened in 1955. After employing more than 3,000 workers […]
Westward ho!
Southwest Virginia’s leaders feel confident their region will be home to the state’s next inland port. “The planets are aligning for us right now,” says state Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Washington County. “Our localities are excited about it. The state seems to be excited about it.” During the Virginia General Assembly’s regular session, Pillion and two […]
