Charlottesville Breaking News
Boston horror: 'Sore in my legs, sad in my heart'
Harry Landers, photographed here at the Martha Jefferson 8K in March, ran 3:39 in the Boston Marathon April 15, finishing 30 minutes before the bombs exploded.photo by Natalie KrovetzFree Union resident Harry Landers finished his fifth Boston Marathon in three hours and 39 minutes. He was showering in his hotel room at around 4:10 into the race when the bombs exploded.
"I just heard two explosions– what was that?" his wife, Janis Jaquith, saw someone post on Facebook. She cut on the TV in their hotel room a few blocks away from the finish line.
"It was jaw-dropping," says Jaquith. "You can't believe it's happening on such a joyful day. It's Patriot Day, and it's a joy to be alive," especially for those who just finished a 26-mile run. At press time, three people are dead and 170 wounded.
"Where the bomb went off was where Harry had been cheering me on the day before when I ran a 5K," recounts Jaquith. "That's right where people got their limbs blown off the next day." And that's where bystanders and family members waiting for their marathoners would be, she adds.
Hook columnist, Jaquith, and Landers, both Massachusetts natives, spoke to the Hook from Boston the day after the terror of April 15. "It was absolute shock and people were crying," says Jaquith, describing "horror upon horror." There was frantic checking in with everyone, and dozens of people to worry about, she says.
Landers was there with his running group from Charlottesville, which included Ragged Mountain's Mark Lorenzoni, builder Mike Gaffney, and about 30 others.
"For me, this is like Christmas, the 4th of July and my bi...
Video Special: Tom Tom Festival round-up
The Tom Tom Festival is still going. Indeed, a reporter hears jazz plating right outside his window. But videographer Anwar Allen has already covered some of the action. Enjoy!
So, what do people think of Tom Tom?
9 days: Dumler goes in for chunk of jail time
Chris Dumler leaves court April 2 after a petition had been filed to remove him from office.photo by lisa provenceIf you're a county supervisor trying to put a dent in a 30-day jail sentence, Friday, April 12, might seem like a good time to knock off nine days because the Board of Supervisors won't meet again until May 1. Supervisor Chris Dumler will be serving time from April 12 until April 21, according to Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail.
The initial crowd of journalists and protesters has died down since Dumler first began serving weekends March 8 for his sexual battery conviction. But spending 15 weekends in jail must get old, and given that he gets the first weekend off every month to serve in his JAG reserve unit, that puts him into July before he has a weekend to chill and not do time.
"He's still a member of the Army Reserve legal command," says Reserve spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Matt Lawrence. And when a reservist is convicted of a crime that occurs while not on duty, he or she is subject to an administrative process, which has a wide range of options, from doing nothing to discharge, explains Lawrence. "There is an administrative process that's open," he says.
Dumler did not respond to Hook requests for comment.
After Dumler's first weekend in jail, Lieutenant Colonel Martin Kumer at the jail asked a judge to change his starting time on Fridays from 6:30pm to 4:30pm– and not tell the public about it, citing "information we have received from the Albemarle County Police Department that Mr. Dumler's house was recently shot a...
Benchmark: Claude Worrell confirmed as juvenile court judge
Claude Worrell gets the open Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court seat on the 16th circuit.photo by lisa provenceFor 20 years, Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Claude Worrell has prosecuted some of Charlottesville's most notorious cases. His days arguing in front of the bench soon will be over, and Worrell will be sitting on the bench in the 16th Circuit Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
The General Assembly confirmed Worrell the evening of April 3. "I was helping conduct a mock trial at UVA," says Worrell. Delegate Rob Bell took a photo of the screen noting his 86-0 confirmation and sent it, he adds.
"I think he will be an excellent judge," says Bell.
"I'm very pleased to be chosen, and I'm going to do whatever I can to make the functions of juvenile court as efficient as I can for everyone," says Worrell in one of his last interviews, as he likely won't be talking to reporters after he dons the black robe July 1.
Worrell succeeds Dwight Johnson, who once sentenced a couple to eight years for serving alcohol at an underage party.
His current boss, Dave Chapman, is already freaking out about the imminent departure of his top deputy and his 20 years of e...
Social capitalist: Fairchild's unlikely B-school path
photo by susan wormingtonGreg Fairchild has to cancel a phone interview. He's in Macedonia and has been invited to the president's house to listen to jazz after they discovered a mutual interest in Chet Baker earlier that day at lunch.
This sort of thing seems to happen to Fairchild a lot.
Darden professor Fairchild has accumulated a stack of accolades. Last year, CNN/Fortune named him one of the top 10 business school professors– in the world. He's the only academic on Virginia Business Magazine's top 25 Virginians to watch in 2011. And let's not forget his three-year, $850,000 MacArthur genius award.
"I haven't lobbied for any of these," demurs Fairchild. "I'm just flattered. I teach at a business school and am interested in people who don't have a lot of money and businesses that aren't very big."
He acknowledges that's a field that defies the stereotype of B-schools instructing MBAs on how to take a Silicon Valley start-up and grow it to an IPO, or take a large corporation and out-compete another large corporation.
Fairchild isn't from an inner city or low-income background, he says. But he was always interested in the question of business development, going back to his days as a Darden MBA student in the early '90s, when he went to Moscow and wrote a case study on the opening of Pizza Hut, at that time a very risky venture. Fairchild discovered he liked risky ventures, particularly ones that could improve people's lives.
While...
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