Inside A4, A5 PHS, BSH graduate lists
Powhatan, Virginia
B1 Greenhow sets personal records in 100- and 200-meter dash events
Vol. XXXIV No. o. 2
July 15, 2020
Powhatan Freedom Festival rocks July 4th By Laura McFarland Editor
P
OWHATAN – At least a few thousand people are estimated to have gathered in and around the Powhatan County Fairgrounds on July 4 to celebrate the nation’s bithday. Organizers of the Powhatan Freedom Festival capped walk-in admission into the free event at 1,000 people, but people also watched the fireworks in cars from outside the gates, gathered in nearby parking lots and homes, and even lined the streets around the fairgrounds, said Melinda Hitt, who organized the event with her husband, Corey Hitt. As little as a week before the event, Melinda Hitt said she was just hoping for 500 people to show up for the evening event. So as momentum gained in the days leading up to July 4 and then people started to flow in, she was overjoyed at the community turnout. “I think it went so well because people were ready to feel a little bit of normalcy – the old way that we knew how things were before COVID. I think they wanted something positive and to get a break from the social media negativity,” said Hitt of Powhatan. Gates opened at 6 p.m. so people had time to come in and grab a good spot to enjoy the fireworks and a nice evening outside, Hitt said. While they waited for dusk,
PHOTOS BY ANJIE KAY
Above, Randa Jackson gives a lift to volunteers Brandon and Urma Saunders at the Powhatan Freedom Festival. Right, friends Madilynn P. and Addy R. had a great time together at the event.
visitors could listen to music, eat, try to win prizes, play cornhole, or watch a movie. There were also a few political candidates who spoke about the meaning of freedom, the importance of voting, and celebrating Independence Day. While called a festival, the event was meant to feel
more like a backyard barbecue with ith friends f i d than th a big bi production, d ti Hitt said. id She also worked to make sure safety was at the forefront of the evening out, hiring Powhatan deputies to run security for the event and putting stations throughout the fairgrounds with personal protective essentials such as gloves, hand sanitizer, and masks.
PCPS makes adjustments to put on summer school By Laura McFarland Editor
see SUMMER, pg. 8
a second-grader during summer school classes.
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POWHATAN – Powhatan County Public Schools is getting its first taste of educating children in person under COVID-19 restrictions, and so far it is going well. The division is three weeks into in-person summer school with 70 elementary and nine middle school students attending academic classes at Powhatan Elementary School, said Isabella Worrell, elementary summer school administrator. Summer school will run through July 23.
PCPS also has 170 high schoolers attending summer school via distance learning, said Christine Phaup, secondary summer school administrator. They are either taking courses to recover credits or work ahead in academic classes or signed up for drivers education, physical education, or special education classes. The division didn’t need to provide classes focused on retaking the SOLs this summer since students were exempted from them during the last school year. PHOTO BY LAURA McFARLAND Preparing for summer school was like hitting a moving target Michelle Clark gives a cardboard high five to
PHOTO BY LAURA McFARLAND
Alison McCarraher of Powhatan came to the Powhatan Village Farmers Market with her mom, Jan Nelson, and two daughters.
Farmers market opens in Village area By Laura McFarland Editor
POWHATAN – Powhatan once again has a farmers market where customers can peruse fresh produce and goods offered by local vendors every Thursday in the Village area. Although delayed for a while by COVID-19 restrictions, the Powhatan Village Farmers Market officially launched on June 25 and is steadily gaining traction as more people hear about the weekly event. The market is held from 4 to 6:30 p.m. every Thursday on the grounds of Bienvenue, an event center located at 3841 Old Buckingham Road. The farmers market is scheduled to run through the end of September with the possibility of follow-up pop-up markets in the weeks after, depending on weather, said Lisa Dearden, executive director of RVA Agriculture, the non-
profit running the market. It has been several years since the last farmers market left the Village, relocating twice, including a move out of the county to Westchester Commons and changing its name, before ultimately closing down. RVA Agriculture did a series of pop-up markets in fall 2019 in the Village to see if there was a demand for it and found people really receptive, Dearden said. “A lot of those vendors were looking for a place to market their goods. That is why we came up with the idea to have a series of pop-up events in the Village. On the Westchester page, everybody kept saying, ‘Come back to Powhatan,’ ” Dearden said. “So we collaborated with Three Crosses Distillery and had a series of pop-up markets in the fall. We had five in a row and they just kept getting more and more see MARKET, pg. 6
see FREEDOM, pg. 6
Public input sought to help broadband grant effort By Laura McFarland Editor
POWHATAN – Powhatan County is working with Firefly Fiber Broadband to seek a rural broadband grant to bring greater broadband access to the county and is seeking input from residents. Staff members announced in June that the most promising option Powhatan currently has to possibly expand the availability of broadband access is a grant through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Reconnect Program. Powhatan is part of a newly expanded broadband partnership with Central Virginia Services, Inc. (CVSI) which operates Firefly Fiber BroadbandSM, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Central Virginia Electric Cooperative (CVEC). Firefly seeks to expand fiber-to-the-premise for 1,559 locations in western Powhatan representing a total of $7.2 million of new investment in the county, contingent upon the successful award of grant funding. Firefly submitted a USDA/RUS Broadband ReConnect 2020 grant application in mid-April 2020. The county worked through March and April to help complete the application and successfully submit it. The grant winners will be announced in fall 2020. If successful, this project would expand fiber optic lines carrying gigabit level service to large portions of Powhatan County that have no reliable options for internet access. If the grant is awarded, the vast, new system will be built and connected by the end of 2023. Powhatan residents who are interested in supporting Firefly’s USDA RUS Broadband ReConnect 2020 grant application can share their critical need for broadband in Powhatan by visiting https://www.usda.gov/reconnect/contactus. Bret Schardein, interim county administrator, said the public input is important to the application process to show the need and the demand for service in underserved areas. “If people wish to write in or submit comments to help support it, that is an important part of the application process,” he said. On the submitted application, Powhatan did not pledge any matching funds for the grant, Schardein said. That could see FIREFLY, pg. 7