Cover Stories
Code of silence: County clams up when cops open fire
Published on Jun 13th, 2013
27 comments Two days after a 21-year-old Crozet man was shot dead by an Albemarle police officer on June 8, officials finally released his name. Neither Albemarle police nor Virginia State Police, which is...
Cicadas: If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em
Published on Jun 6th, 2013
8 comments Jackson Landers stands over his stove. Spatula in hand, flanked by his two eager children, he stirs the contents of the saucepan thoughtfully. “It’s olive oil and Old Bay,” Landers says. “I was going...
Dem duke-out: Candidates face off in June primary
Published on May 30th, 2013
7 comments Wes Bellamy, Adam Lees, Kristin Szakos, Bob Fenwick, and Melvin Grady want to be on City Council, where two seats are open. Usually the Democratic primary in Charlottesville means game over for the...
Summer reading: 5 local authors to take to the beach
Published on May 25th, 2013
1 comments In a town where there are more writers per capita than readers, it can be daunting to think about keeping up with the local offerings when it seems like just about everyone has a book. For your...
Escapes: Summer fun near and far
Published on May 23rd, 2013
0 comments   Well, summer is right in front of us, and while living might not be easy these days, it is an opportunity to get out and explore all the things that our area has to offer. And we're not just...
Blue Ridge Swim Club: 100 years of splashing, swimming and sunning
Published on May 23rd, 2013
0 comments Want to time travel? You don't need a flux capacitor, you don't need a degree in physics, and you don't need to resurrect Albert Einstein to ask him how to do it. You just need a swimsuit and way to...
Shock and awe: Inside the Rugby Road raid
Published on May 15th, 2013
24 comments After the entire city of Boston was shut down last month during a massive manhunt following explosions that maimed and slaughtered marathon bystanders, news that a block of Rugby Road was shut down...
Bucking tradition: Does Democrat Terry McAuliffe have what it takes to beat Ken Cuccinelli?
Published on May 9th, 2013
6 comments by Peter Galuszka Easter Sunday blows rainy and cold while the cell phone buzzes at 12:58 p.m. It's a surprise email from Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Terry McAuliffe. "Peter," his message reads...
Biscuit Run bonanza: How Hunter Craig turned a donation into a windfall
Published on May 2nd, 2013
14 comments Hunter Craig has a way of snatching victory from defeat. Craig's masterstrokes in the field and in the courtroom follow a tumultuous year for the now 52-year-old media-shy banker, developer, and UVA...
Good vibrations: Music heavies weigh-in on the scene
Published on Apr 25th, 2013
7 comments "Vibrant," appropriately enough, is the word many local musicians the Hook spoke to used to describe the local music scene these days. "Charlottesville has an incredible amount of musicians and bands...
Live and outside: Festivals rock all summer
Published on Apr 24th, 2013
1 comments What would summer be without outdoor music festivals? A lot less fun, that's what. You don't have to go far to find festivals large and small, and Charlottesville acts are on the bill at most of...
DIY music: Get out there and sing it!
Published on Apr 24th, 2013
0 comments Think you've got what it takes to thrill an audience? Charlottesville has some fun ways that those with musical aspirations–– but without a back-up band or regular gig–– can take to the stage. Sam...
Full circle: Music Resource Center launches careers, collaboration
Published on Apr 18th, 2013
0 comments It's a Thursday afternoon, and Music Resource Center Outreach Coordinator Damani Harrison is in the Center's state of the art sound studio with a group of high school boys recording a radio show. "...
Under fire: Is the Elks Lodge getting a bad rap?
Published on Apr 18th, 2013
31 comments After working a long shift as a chef at the Main Street Arena on Friday, March 15, Kenny Jenkins headed over to the Elks Lodge on Second Street NW for a drink and a dance with his fiancée. A longtime...
Can Anyone Stop Ken Cuccinelli? Here's how Virginia's pro-life, pro-gun attorney general could take over the Governor's Mansion.
Published on Apr 11th, 2013
31 comments by Peter GaluszkaIt is a wintry afternoon on Saturday, Jan. 11, 2014. Strutting against a cobalt blue sky, a fife and drum corps dressed in resplendent red and blue colonial garb plays martial airs...
Launching dreams: Nguyen's bringing the biz to small business
Published on Apr 4th, 2013
3 comments When Toan Nguyen first conceived of a local microlending program similar to ones that have been successful in developing countries, people scoffed. "They said $5,000 is too little to start a business...
Fat secret: Peirce-Cottler seeks cures from saddlebags
Published on Apr 4th, 2013
3 comments One doctor's trash is another's treasure– at least that's the case for UVA biomedical engineer Shayn Peirce-Cottler, whose use of liposuction leftovers in her research is helping improve...
Moves that bind: Katie Schetlick finds connections through dance
Published on Apr 4th, 2013
0 comments We fidget as we sit, we walk, we run and dance—we’re all in constant motion. But how often do we think of it as something that we share with others, something that links us together? Katie Schetlick...
Animal matters: Sahar Akhtar on the morals of animal treatment
Published on Apr 4th, 2013
4 comments UVA professor of philosophy Sahar Akhtar's class "Animals and Ethics" is a popular one. "Students now want to know what the justifications are for treating animals in certain ways," says Akhtar, "...
Love thy neighbor: Pastor Greg Thompson brings back the beloved community
Published on Apr 4th, 2013
0 comments Greg Thompson wants us to learn to love each other, even if we have deep differences, and not just because he's a pastor at a local Presbyterian church and Jesus said love thy neighbor and all that,...
Likely to inspire: Bob Pianta innovates teacher quality
Published on Apr 4th, 2013
2 comments Bob Pianta isn't afraid to say he has no idea what the classroom of the future will look like. Coming from the dean of UVA's Curry School of Education and a nationally-lauded builder of better...
Beyer's market: Innovation rules at Tom Tom
Published on Apr 4th, 2013
0 comments Stopping by the Hook office two weeks before the second Tom Tom Founders Day Festival kicks off on April 11, it's clear festival organizer Paul Beyer is a busy man. In addition to putting the...
Rotunda to Rivanna: the future of our urban core
Published on Mar 28th, 2013
15 comments Like the palm of your hand, our city, if you were to look at it from high in the sky, has a similar pattern of lines that time has carved out. One of those lines, running east to west from the...
Fiction contest winner: 'The Cliff'
Published on Mar 21st, 2013
3 comments By Charles McRavenThey rode in as if they owned the place, and within five minutes, they did. Thirty Union soldiers, commanded by a captain, spreading out over the farm, posting sentries. ...
John Carlos: The silence heard round the world
Published on Mar 21st, 2013
0 comments When John Carlos was a seven- or eight-year-old growing up in Harlem, he had a vision of that moment on the victory stand in Mexico City at the 1968 Olympics, even down to using his left hand rather...
The write stuff: Meet the winners!
Published on Mar 21st, 2013
1 comments Writing takes discipline, to be sure– just ask the Hook's famed contest judge John Grisham, who spends hours every single day at the keyboard, and has more than two dozen best sellers to his...
Virginia is for book lovers: 10 hot book fest picks
Published on Mar 14th, 2013
2 comments You can go seeking knowledge. You can go to gaze upon a literary idol. You can go desiring bons mots. Or maybe you just go to have fun– along with all that other stuff. Whatever your...
Opinion: Dumler bashing's out of control
Published on Mar 7th, 2013
183 comments By Marlene Condon I don't know Chris Dumler.  But I do know that the community's response to his sexual battery conviction could have come right out of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter....
County in crisis: Dumler digs in as outrage mounts
Published on Mar 6th, 2013
30 comments More than a month after Scottsville Supervisor Chris Dumler pleaded guilty to sexual battery and steadfastly refused to resign from the Albemarle Board of Supervisors, igniting a firestorm that's...
Tragedy on the tracks: Mystery surrounds death of Kimberly Welch
Published on Feb 28th, 2013
21 comments Two weeks after 18-year-old Kimberly Welch was killed by a train on the tracks just east of Charlottesville city limits, details about the teen's tumultuous life on the streets are emerging as her...