Photos courtesy of Cartwright Family Farms In 1980, Virginia was home to about 4,000 hog farms. Most were family-owned and raised heritage pigs free-range. Prized breeds like Mulefoot, Red Wattle, Tamworth and Berkshire had been around for 200 years or more—and…
Eight Great Local Spots to Ride Your Way to Better Health and Take in Some Stunning Scenery Along the Way It’s no great secret that bicycling is one of the best and most enjoyable ways to catch a workout. Pedal-power…
For years Charlottesville’s iconic Boar’s Head Resort has been quietly updating its image. But last May it unveiled the equivalency of a facelift: a $15.5 million renovation of its central inn and restaurant aimed at redefining Southern hospitality for the…
Five p.m. found me dashing from my home-office to the car, fumbling with the ignition switch as I told Google to call my 12-year-old son and glanced at the rearview mirror in hopes that, please Lord, I hadn’t (yet again)…
Saturday night in Norfolk’s downtown NEON Arts District often finds stand-up comic and founder of Norfolk’s Push Comedy Theater Brad McMurran leading his celebrated improv troupe through a rendition of his smash-hit The Unusual Suspects: An Improvised Murder Mystery. The show has sold…
As the unbearable summer heat fades into refreshing evenings complemented by crickets chirping and frogs croaking, one of our favorite activities is embarking in a good old-fashioned family camping trip. No matter where you reside in Coastal Virginia, you don’t have…
On Friday, June 21 Chincoteague Chamber of Commerce Director Evelyn Shotwell was bustling around downtown’s Robert N. Reed Waterfront Park preparing to launch the town’s new 50 Years of Love summer concert series. It was late afternoon and Main Street…
The term mindfulness gets a lot of play these days. The concept has come far since flower children introduced it to American pop culture in the 1960s. Today, it alludes to a groundbreaking new science of wellbeing and stands at…
In 2014, Reagan Vaughan decided to raise a show steer and compete in the Virginia Beach 4-H Livestock Show and Sale. The wiry 12-year-old had grown up on a working 400-acre farm and was no stranger to animals—she’d frequented the…
Photo by David Uhrin Sixty-two-year-old jazz drumming icon Jae Sinnett has backed some of the biggest names in the genre—including legends like late sax pioneer Joe Henderson and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard; contemporary staples like Branford Marsalis and New York sax…
Paul Shugrue’s WHRV 89.5 FM program, “Out of the Box,” is unique among mainstream American radio. Unlike most DJs, he plays nothing but brand-new music and has complete control over playlists. Launched in 2004, the show’s title alludes to “an…
The U.S. economy has rebounded, and the Fed has increased interest rates to their highest point since 2008. For would-be home owners and sellers, the news brings mixed—and sometimes confusing—messages. Should they act now or wait? Seeking direction, the frenzy…
Big things are happening in the tiny, bay-fronting town of Cape Charles. Downtown, 14 new businesses have opened in the past two years alone. The historical district has undergone an astounding transformation. There are gourmet restaurants, a craft brewery, cidery…
Richard Walker Uses His Story to Fuel Reform and Help Convicted Felons Get a New Start At the offices of Newport News nonprofit Bridging the Gap in Virginia (BGV), 60-year-old Richard Walker sits listening intently to a young man’s story.…
Illustration by Matt Haddaway Here’s a harrowing statistic: In Virginia, one in 14 children will experience the incarceration of a parent before the age of 18; for African-Americans, that number jumps to one in nine. What’s more, of these 103,000…
In April 2015 24-year-old Jamycheal Mitchell was arrested for stealing a Mountain Dew, Zebra Cake and Snickers bar from a Portsmouth 7-Eleven. Though the junk food was worth just $5, he was denied bond and detained for 101 days while…
Fueled by the “War on Drugs” and harsh sentencing guidelines instituted in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, the U.S. prison population has skyrocketed. Today our country is king of incarceration—home to just 5 percent of the global population, we house…
The determination to spend a weekend thru-hiking from Maryland’s Assateague Island State Park to Chincoteague took root during my first humiliating attempt to camp in the island’s national park. The catastrophe came as the demoralizing climax of a romantic scheme…
It was the spring of 2016 when Mark got blindsided by a phone call informing him of his mother, Lisa’s death. Two months earlier, unbeknownst to him and his estranged older brother, Steve, Lisa had declined an emergency surgery that…
It was early in the summer of 2014 and husband and wife Roger and Ann Bolen were celebrating. After 25 years working with the Virginia Housing Development Authority, Ann was retiring. Avid travelers, the Norfolk-based couple decided to mark the…
Fifty-two-year-old Newport News Neurologist Ugur Yilmaz is a bit of a Renaissance man. Born in the ancient, cosmopolitan city of Istanbul, Turkey, he was raised in a diverse multicultural crossroads amid a family of humanists. Surrounded by architecture dating to…
