Welcome to Radford Magazine! Hello dear reader! You are holding the debut issue of Radford Magazine! The very first one! How exciting! The mission of Radford Magazine is to celebrate the people and businesses of Radford, Virginia, as well as the nearby parts of the New River Valley. Radford Magazine is free to the public and will be published twice a year, featuring a Spring/ Summer issue and a Fall/Winter issue. The magazine will be sharing the stories of small business owners, events and festivals, art, theater, wine, beer, and more! In this issue we begin by visiting the fine jewelry institution that is P.R. Sturgills, the legendary lady behind Elliott’s Military Surplus & Fishing Tackle, the legacy of Dean’s Body Shop, the colorful story of Painting Consultants, a clear-ringing piece about New River Valley Hearing, and the refreshing new tale of Long Way Brewing.
The Radford Magazine Team My name is John Brill and I am the publisher of Radford Magazine. Historically, I have been a layout graphic designer. As a graphic designer, I have worked on a lot of different publications over the years, but my favorite has been Floyd Virginia Magazine. Floyd Virginia Magazine was launched in 2008. In 2013, I joined the team as the graphic designer, and in 2018, I became the publisher. Floyd Virginia Magazine was my first experience working as a publisher. Suddenly, in addition to the graphic design work I had always done, I was now doing sales, coordinating stories, and doing the physical distribution of the magazine! It was a challenge, but I took to it well. Now, I will be bringing that publishing experience to Radford. Oddly enough, this will actually be the second time I have been behind the layout and design of a Radford publication. From 2015 to 4
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2018, I was one of the layout graphic designers on the Radford New Journal. It’s funny how things work out. With Radford Magazine, I plan to use the same formula that has made Floyd Virginia Magazine a success for these past fourteen years. The only thing I don’t do is the editing, for which I am eternally grateful to Vickie Holt. I have known Vickie for over fifteen years, and she is a very talented woman! She even edited this article. Her writing and editing backgrounds include international publication as the writer behind several issues of the once-popular ElfQuest comic book series from 1993 – 2000. In 1998, she completed a novel that was adapted by a company in New Jersey to a radio-show style, audio format. In 2003, she wrote briefly for the Vinton Messenger, and in 2005, her investigative article about Britain’s first mega-rockstar, Tommy Steele, was published in Blue Suede News magazine. In 2014, Vickie took an interest in Bollywood, the Indian film industry. In an effort to introduce this exceptional entertainment source to America, Vickie created “Vickie’s Bollywood Beat”, a website for which she wrote movie reviews, actor biographies, informative articles, and news items. Because of her activity, representatives from the India-based news platform, UCNews, approached her to become a contributing entertainment journalist! Between July 2017 and November 2018, Vickie wrote no fewer than thirty-one articles that became available to the Indian public. She was thrilled that one article about up-and-coming actors that bigbudget producers should be paying attention to resulted in actor, Harshvardhan Rane, contacting her personally to thank her! Throughout 2016 and 2017, Vickie regularly wrote for ColorsVA Magazine. From 2017 – 2019, she was the main writer for a craftbeer and community-focused magazine that went through a couple name changes, ending up as Brew Hub Magazine. She wrote the majority of almost every issue, covering the region’s craft breweries,
Fall/Winter 2021-2022
