The week in review
Latest Charlottesville school superintendent: Rosa Atkins, Caroline County's assistant superintendent, is named to the position vacated by Scottie Griffin in April 2005 and will earn $153,000 a year.
Most flaccid golden parachute: If Atkins is fired before her four-year contract is up, she gets nothing. The city had to pay Griffin $291,000 to leave.
Unluckiest draw: City School Board member Ned Michie was picked to run for reelection in May to the new, voter-mandated elected School Board, while Chairwoman Julie Gronlund gets to hold onto her seat for a little longer.
Worst week for alleged bomb threats: Orange County High School is locked down for much of the day February 9 after a student reports hearing other students talk about a bomb threat, according to the Daily Progress.
Biggest swing vote: Albemarle County, long a hold-out from the Thomas Jefferson Partnership for Economic Development, votes February 8 to join the private advocacy group, with newest supe David Slutzky voting with Ken Boyd, Lindsay Dorrier, and David Wyant over the nays of Chairman David Rooker and Sally Thomas.
Longest sentence: Convicted killer Jessica Fugett, 18, gets 100 years for the February 2003 murder of Nola Charles and her three-year-old son. Her confederates in the slayings, her brother, Rocky Fugett, and Robert Paul Davis, were previously sentenced to 75 and 23 years respectively for what Commonwealth's Attorney Jim Camblos calls the "the most gruesome murder I've ever had to deal with as a prosecutor," Liesel Nowak reports in the DP.
Worst school system in which to be a stoner: Williamsburg-James City County Schools, whose superintendent, Gary Mathews, has asked the School Board to allow random drug testing of students who play sports, participate in extracurricular activities, and park in school parking lots.
First local 10pm news: WAHU Fox27 bucks the news-at-11 trend.
Latest information, please: Dial 2-1-1 debuts February 10 as a 24-hour resource for health and human services.
Worst dump: Six 55-gallon drums are illegally rolled into a stream in White Hall February 5, John Yellig reports in the DP. Authorities are still investigating the makeup of the mysterious dark brown liquid that leaked from one of the drums.
Best beneficiary of ham bounty: UVA Cancer Center gets a $5 million gift from the Springfield-Luter Foundation in memory of longtime Smithfield associate and director Palmer Weber, father of Cancer Center director Michael Weber.
Sweetest reviews: UVA creative writing prof Deborah Eisenberg gets raves for her new book of short stories, Twilight of the Superheroes, from heavy hitters the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor.
Most in love: Virginians, 81 percent of whom say they're in love, according to a Center for Politics poll taken after the November 2005 election. More Republicans– 84 percent– report being in love than Dems (75 percent).
Best undercover(s) work: Spotsylvania County detectives have sex at massage parlors– at one point leaving a $350 tip– to obtain evidence to root out prostitution, the Washington Post reports.
Worst news for brides: Mortar replacement on the picturesque University Chapel bell tower begins in June and will continue through December, the Cav Daily reports.
Best news for brides: Weddings will continue despite the construction and wooden safety fence erected to keep pedestrians from getting beaned.
Latest shooting by an elected official: Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally fires on 78-year-old Harry Whittington February 11 while hunting quail in Texas, spraying birdshot in Whittington's face and heart. Whittington has a heart attack February 14; Cheney is issued a warning citation for not having the proper $7 stamp on his hunting permit.
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