Charlottesville Breaking News
Guilty! Monticello marauders cop a plea
The saga of the Monticello break-in ended on Thursday, May 6, as UVA nursing students Heather Lynn Horn and Connor Hyland Ginley pled guilty to a reduced charge of misdemeanor trespass, avoiding jail time and a felony record for breaking and entering.
On Saturday night, March 20, the two had attended the 100th anniversary dinner of The Raven Society, an elite UVA honor society of which Horn was reportedly a member.
Following the gala, the pair repaired to TJ's mountain, where, according to Albemarle Police Lt. Earl Newton, they were apprehended by Monticello security sometime just after 2am on Sunday, March 21. Newton says a guard "noticed the top portion of a downstairs window open, and heard a woman's voice."
The two were caught as they were walking away from the house, and county police were summoned for the arrest. Newton says he's unaware of any reports regarding alcohol use before or during the incident.
Though Horn and Ginley did not return the Hook's calls, they have each stated publicly that they meant no harm by their late-night expedition.
"We just drove up to the exterior of the gate," The Daily Progress quoted Horn on Monday, March 22.
Ginley said in The Washington Post two days later, "We were just appreciating Monticello... We were just walking around enjoying ourselves. We didn't damage anything."
Damage or not, Monticello brass wasn't amused.
"The charge of breaking and ent...
W&L tops UVA: But Wahoo leaders don't mind
The University of Virginia just tied for
number one public university in the annual U.S. News and World
Report rankings. However, in the recent Princeton Review's
Best 351 Colleges, UVA didn't make the cut in one key
category where tiny Washington and Lee came in at number five.
The listing? Top party schools.
"I think it's appropriate we didn't make the list," says Susan Bruce, director of UVA's Center for Alcohol and Substance Education. "Our annual reports shows our numbers on use of alcohol are starting to go down."
That hasn't always been the case. The infamous annual debauchery that was Easters assured the university a high ranking among the national pantheon of party schools. That is, until revelry in Madison Bowl, aka "Mud Bowl," got out of hand in 1976 and was quashed in 1983.
In 1987, when Playboy published its list of top party schools, UVA came in at number 10. By the time Hefner's mag did a second list in 2002, the university was nowhere to be found– the only Virginia school mentioned was JMU, coming in at number 25....
Mountain love: Waltons fans converge on Doubletree
13-year-old Daniel Agnew of Richmond displays signatures of the stars. Why a baseball? Round parchment signatures last longer.Photo by Bill Emory
Jon Walmsley meets the twins.Photo by Bill Emory
Kami Cotler with fan at the DoubleTree.Photo by Bill Emory
Kami Cotler on her conversion from actress to teacher: "I get bored on the set-- too much sitting around, I'm not in charge."Photo by Bill Emory
McDonough on cell phone: "Good night, John Boy."Photo by Bill EmoryThe Waltons were a cultural phenomenon. Norman Rockwell did a cover for the Saturday Evening Post in 1973, seating the show's characters at the Thanksgiving Dinner table made famous by his WWII illustration, "Freedom from Want." Being tied to an American icon by an iconographic illustrator is heady stuff.
TV is larger than reality. A Google search on the Waltons returns 16,900 results, while a Google Search on Schuyler, Virginia, returns 551 results.
I didn't own a TV from 1972 to 1980. I'd heard of The Waltons the same way today I've heard of Britney Spears. But I was then, and I remained until the end of last week when they all came back for a reunion, blissfully ignorant about the series created by Schuyler native Earl Hamner (who also piloted Falcon Crest, starring Ronald Reagan's first wife).
My expectations for the shindig were low-key. I hoped to meet Earl, ask if he had feelings of kinship with Thomas Wolfe. Substitute Schuyler for Asheville, substitute Hamner for Wolfe. But the author, while participating in the events of the weekend, did not attend the function at the DoubleTree Hotel in Charlottesville on Saturday afternoon.
So, for you Waltons cognoscenti, Elizabeth, Jason, Toni, and Erin were on hand. My efforts to photograph the correct people as they arrived were gracefully, willingly, directed by the various Waltons fans in attendance.
What is left 20+ years after...
