UVA Drama’s Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson incorporates emo rock and satire to tell the story of America’s seventh president. The musical plays with fact and fiction to give Jackson a rock star persona that strays from sanitized history textbooks, and the songs, performed by a live band on stage, document Jackson’s life, from his humble beginnings to his presidency.
Through 10/10. $12-16, times vary. Culbreth Theatre, 109 Culbreth Rd. 924-3376.
At a previous motions hearing, Judge Cheryl Higgins allowed police to unshackle Jesse Matthew’s belly chain, freeing his hands to only handcuff restraints. Nonetheless, in a September 30 hearing, Matthew appeared, once again, with handcuffs attached to his belly chain, making it difficult for him to raise his right hand when he waived his rights to a speedy trial for charges of the murder of Morgan Harrington.
The trial was set for October 2016, just three months after Matthew will face capital charges for the abduction and slaying of UVA student Hannah Graham.
The defense had asked Higgins to recuse herself in the Graham case because she has a daughter who is a UVA student. Judge Higgins disclosed in the Harrington portion of the hearing that her second daughter goes to Virginia Tech, where Harrington was also a student.
Higgins also heard motions by defense attorney Doug Ramseur and denied all but one, allowing the defense to file motions under seal, giving the public no access to the motions until the time of the motions hearing. The commonwealth’s responses will be kept under seal, as well.
“The reporters who are covering this are certainly invested,” Ramseur said, adding that every motion he files gets reported and it could affect Matthew’s right to a fair trial. He also stated that motions potentially involving the names of witnesses raised serious concerns because he does not want the media to contact witnesses before the trial.
Higgins denied the defense’s’ request for Matthew to undergo a prison violence risk assessment by a professional, as well as the request for all grand jury information such as identities and addresses, and selection processes for the grand jury over the past four years.
After the motions hearing and scheduling for the Morgan Harrington trial, Gil Harrington, her mother, said she approached Matthew’s mother, offered her condolences and shook her hand.
“It’s very surreal to be here as many times as we’ve been here,” Harrington said. “You become habituated to the obscenity of it.”
Matthew is scheduled to be sentenced in Fairfax on October 2 for a 2005 sexual assault of which he is also convicted.
“We’ll obviously be interested in what happens,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Denise Lunsford after the September 30 hearing, “but that’s a separate case in a separate jurisdiction.”
On September 9, C-VILLE reported that many citizens felt the recently opened $33.6 million McIntire Interchange was a “disaster” and that traffic was worse than before the pricey project was built. City officials said they were adjusting the timing on the lights both at McIntire and at Park Street September 3, and, three weeks later, regular users of those roads report little difference.
One problem: Traffic going north on McIntire Road or south on the John Warner Parkway gets a whopping 18 seconds to get through the first green light, with the second light green a total of 35 seconds.
“That’s reasonable if you’re one of the first five cars, but if you’re 35 or 50 cars back in the queue that is not reasonable,” says Mike Farruggio, who worked on an interchange steering committee for two years that recommended two roundabouts, a plan City Council rejected.
The interchange was supposed to ease the flow of traffic from Rio Road to the U.S. 250 Bypass and get traffic off streets like Park. “You get stuck for long waits and stopped with no cars coming at all,” says Farruggio. With the availability of smart traffic technology, he says, “There are no excuses. Anywhere in the city at 6am you shouldn’t be sitting at a light for 45 seconds with no traffic coming. It’s just ridiculous.”
Jeanette Janiczek, the city’s program manager for the McIntire Interchange, confirms the 18 seconds and says the priority is to keep the ramps from backing up onto U.S. 250, while the lights installed on Park Street are designed to keep that street moving.
Residents argue that’s not happening. “There are cars lined up, ” says Gail South, who lives off Park Street. “There’s no one coming and they’re sitting stopped.”
South says she never had to wait before the lights were installed in June. “It’s worse than before,” she says. “It’s hard to believe that a city that touts progressive attitudes and environmentalism would cause such unnecessary carbon spewing.”
Anne Hemenway, who lives on Park, concurs. She’s come up with her own solution to deal with the 18-second light at McIntire when trying to head west on the bypass. She takes the ramp to the right onto Park, goes left and circles back onto the bypass. “We got onto the bridge faster than people waiting at McIntire,” she says.
“Since our adjustment on September 3, it seems as though the signals are working more efficiently, and the number of complaints have diminished,” says City Manager Maurice Jones in an e-mail. He promises continued monitoring and tweaking.
Former mayor Blake Caravati was one of three councilors who voted for the parkway “and to this day, I still get crap about it,” he says. “My impression is it’s working well, except for the lights at Park Street.”
Not everyone sees that as a problem. City Councilor Kathy Galvin, who lives off Park Street, says she’s received positive comments from pedestrians and dog walkers who find it safer to cross the street. She points out that Park should be more pedestrian oriented, while the John Warner Parkway is more for vehicles. “I’m amazed Park Street is turning into a pleasant street again,” she says.
Galvin says she’s heard no complaints about the McIntire Interchange, and that adjusting people’s work schedules could alleviate congestion.
“Both the McIntire Interchange and Park Street Interchange are operating as designed and intended,” says Janiczek. She said a final timing adjustment on the interchange based on video of traffic will take place soon.
Petit manseng has captured the curiosity of many of Virginia’s top winemakers. Just how integrated the grape will become to Virginia’s repertoire remains to be seen, but it is off to a roaring start. “I love the grape,” says Jeff White of Glen Manor Vineyards. “It is so versatile. It can be aged so long.”
Originally from southwest France in the Jurançon appellation, petit manseng has likely been grown there since the mid-1500s. “There is a lot of clay in Jurançon, and humidity. It’s very similar to here,” says Matthieu Finot, winemaker at King Family Vineyards. Professor of Viticulture Tony Wolf (Virginia Tech) also draws parallels between France’s petit manseng zone and Virginia’s growing regions. “They have rain in the Jurançon, too,” he says. “It’s up against the Pyrenees. It’s what we call a ‘wet weather grape.’”
Wolf brought petit manseng from New York to Virginia in 1987 to evaluate several potential varieties that might be suited to Virginia’s climate. Thirteen years later, Michael Heny and Graham Bell made a petit manseng wine at Horton Vineyards. Jennifer McCloud of Chrysalis released her petit manseng in 2002. Today, you’ll find about 77 acres of petit manseng in Virginia that contribute to a wide variety of styles at many different wineries.
Walking through a vineyard, you can instantly tell there is something different about this varietal—it looks curious on the vine. The grapes barely touch one another in a loose bunch that resembles a chemistry class drawing of a molecule more than the classic bunch of grapes. In humid Virginia, this translates to airflow between each berry, which means petit manseng has a natural ability to ward off rot and mildew. The thick, strong skin also makes the fruit hearty in the vineyard, especially in poor vintages.
In Wolf’s experimental block, he noted that in the cool and wet 1996 vintage, 18.1 percent of the chardonnay grapes rotted, while just 1 percent of the petit manseng grapes experienced rot. Losing 18 percent of a crop can be devastating, while a 1 percent loss is more absorbable.
Winemakers around the state echo the grape’s vitality in the vineyard. “Petit manseng grows so well in Monticello. It’s vigorous, with practically indestructible thick skins, plus high acid,” says Rachel Stinson Vrooman of Stinson Vineyards.
Once harvested, managing the acidity of petit menseng can be a test to the craft. “Petit manseng is easy to grow, but it is more challenging for the winemaker to make something good afterwards,” says Finot. Area winemakers approach the taming of the fruit in different ways.
Lovingston winemaker Riaan Rossouw uses carbonic maceration to round out the acidity; his 2014 petit manseng is a delightful example from Virginia. The wine is ever-so-slightly off-dry with a bright acidity that brings everything into a juicy balance. Light tannins from a longer skin maceration fill out the wine, and it dances on the palate before finishing long.
Michael Shaps takes an old world approach and brings the acid of petit manseng into check with a hint of skin contact and some barrel fermentation. The touch of oaky richness from the barrel ferment is a beautiful counterpoint to the acidity, and the result is an austere, dry wine that can age gracefully right alongside your bottles of red Bordeaux.
Some winemakers use the grape’s natural acidity as a blending component. High-acid grapes and rich grapes have been blended throughout history to create balanced wines. White Bordeaux is an example where bright, crisp sauvignon blanc blends with buttery semillon to make a balanced wine that has richness and acidity. You’ll find this same mindset in play in many of the world’s most famous wine regions: In Rioja, blending in a small percentage of high-acid graciano cuts through the fruitiness of tempranillo. In most Champagne bottlings, smooth and rich pinot noir is used to temper bright chardonnay, and in the southern Rhône blending can achieve beautiful balance in both reds and whites.
Many Virginia winemakers are playing with petit manseng’s usefulness for blending. Finot blends the full force of petit manseng’s acidity with viognier and chardonnay to bring a brightness to King Family’s 2014 Roseland white blend. At Early Mountain Vineyards, the 2014 Block 11 is a blend of petit manseng and muscat—drinking it might remind you of biting into a fresh clementine. Grace Estate adds a touch of petit manseng to vidal blanc to make its 2011 Le Gras white blend.
Petit manseng’s resilience and acidity also makes it a perfect candidate for dessert wine. One of the most unique aspects of Virginia’s vineyards is that just about every winery produces a dessert wine—you rarely find this in other regions of the world. As petit manseng ripens and sugar levels increase, the acid levels still stay high.
Stinson Vineyards makes a great local example, and it would also be worth seeking out a bottle of Linden’s late harvest petit manseng for a world-class dessert wine that can age for years.
You will not find petit manseng in many places outside of the Jurançon and Virginia. The grape is a unique treasure that can make beautiful wines in select climates, and we’re lucky that local wineries are breaking open the possibilities of petit manseng in our home state.
–Erin Scala
At a September 24 forum on environmental issues organized by the Sierra Club, the six Albemarle Board of Supervisors candidates weighed in on a few of the most notable issues in the county.
Democrat Norman Dill, independent Lawrence Gaughan and Republican Richard Lloyd, who are running for the Rivanna seat, White Hall incumbent Supervisor Ann Mallek, who is unchallenged, and Scottsville District candidates Rick Randolph, a Democrat, and Republican Earl Smith were in attendance.
Moderator Jessica Gephart asked what local government could do to assure that all residents have convenient and affordable access to a system that processes their solid waste materials in a safe and sustainable way.
“The burden should not be on the county,” Gaughan said. “Private business is the answer, not more government.” Though Dill asserted in his response that single stream recycling doesn’t work, Gaughan said it works in Los Angeles County and it can work in Albemarle, too.
Randolph, who has been on the county solid waste committee since it was created in April 2014, sparred with Mallek over the logistics of the Ivy transfer station while Gaughan made boxing motions a few chairs over.
Smith answered that transfer stations will work, but should be manned by volunteers to help people sort their trash because, he said, “You’ve got to make it bulletproof for people to go take their [trash].”
When the moderator mentioned rainwater runoff, one candidate seized the opportunity.
Lloyd stood and, handing one side of a large poster to Gaughan, unraveled it to reveal several photos and a bold caption that read “Who Killed the Moormans?” He said no one seems to care for the rivers and someone must be held accountable for their bad health.
For Dill, who shares Lloyd’s passion for keeping the county’s waters healthy, “The Rivanna watershed is the No. 1 treasure that we have here and it needs to be protected,” he said.
When it came to promoting the health of young people, the candidates seemed to agree it was a good idea. Dill said children can grow immensely by immersing themselves in nature, even if just lying in the grass and watching ants. Randolph spoke highly of bike riding and reading classics such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Mallek spoke of supporting the Leave No Child Inside initiative in county schools, which she says is more important than SOL testing, and Lloyd said people should be forbidden from spraying chemicals like certain mosquito sprays, which children could get on their bodies. Smith said he wants to promote an outdoor program for kids to spend more time on the James River because “they’ll learn more on a four- to five-hour trip down the James than a trip to D.C.,” and Gaughan, who supports the farm to table movement, expressed concern about students on free and reduced lunches still being subjected to “processed crap.”
To end the forum, audience members submitted five rounds of questions about issues such as fluoridated water and cell phone towers popping up next to schools. Although candidates differed on several issues, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was something everyone could agree on.
With a no from Mallek, “ditto” from both Randolph and Smith, “no no no no no no” from Lloyd, “I completely agree” from Dill and a one-minute response with the same outcome from Gaughan, the candidate forum came to a decisive conclusion.
When two of the most beloved live bands on the circuit are packaged together on the same tour, it’s time to put your party hat on. So, get your fix from Dr. Dog before getting Trampled By Turtles late into the evening. (Sorry, we couldn’t resist.) The indie bluegrass meets neo-psych rock blowout promises a good time for all.
Friday 10/2. $30, 7pm. nTelos Wireless Pavilion, 700 E. Market St., Downtown Mall. 877-CPAV-TIX.
The Virginia Film Festival has announced the schedule for 2015, which will run from November 5-8. This marks the festival’s 27th year and the anticipation is a testament to the growth that Jody Kielbasa has forged since taking the executive role in 2010. The festival will again showcase contemporary films making the festival circuit and due for imminent release, as well as foreign features, shorts, local films, documentaries and a handful of classics. This year’s festival will include a few new venues, including The Violet Crown (which makes its debut in conjunction with the festival), The Southern Cafe and Music Hall and a partially renovated Vinegar Hill Theatre, returning after a two-year hiatus from the film festival.
Opening night begins with I Saw the Light, a film directed by Marc Abraham and starring Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olsen. It tells the story of iconic singer-songwriter Hank Williams, who revolutionized country music. Other highly anticipated feature films include The Lady in the Van starring Maggie Smith and Son of Saul, a Hungarian film that centers around the tale of a commando charged with burying the dead in concentration camps who discovers the corpse of his son.
“It’s not only the presence of directors and stars of films, but the opportunity for discussion with social activists, like Larry Kramer and Joel Salatin that distinguishes the Virginia Film Festival from other film festivals,” says Kielbasa.
This statement is reflected in the fact that locally produced and civil and social rights films are again a focus of the festival lineup; Sunday afternoon features a screening of Larry Kramer in Love and Anger and a panel with the distinguished playwright and LGBT activist later in the evening. The festival schedule also includes other promising films with a social message such as Polyface and Black Panthers: Vanguard of a Revolution.
For a complete schedule, visit the Virginia Film Festival’s website. Tickets go on sale Oct. 2.
A little more than a hundred years ago, in the rural foothills of Nelson County, an ambitious band of five brothers—Will, Doc, Dick, Sam and Massie—were devoting themselves to the hard, prefatory dirty work of chasing a dream. Specifically: The men were spending their mornings and afternoons scouring the forest, field and countryside trapping rabbits. Droves of them. The skins of which they stockpiled, intent on, once the cache was big enough, selling to the local trading outpost for a respectable sum of cash.
Their plan?
Use these hard-earned funds to purchase the seeds, equipment and livestock necessary to transform the Piney River homestead their grandfather, Massie “Big John” Saunders, had settled along with his wife, Sallie, in 1833 into a working agricultural powerhouse. Of course, like many would-be, turn-of-the-century entrepreneurs bent on effecting a rags-to-riches metamorphosis, when the brothers finally cut the red ribbon on the 800-acre farm, they were well aware the odds were stacked against them. However, having as a role model a man who built the family cabin from the timber he cut, planed and cured himself, and having from day one collectively pitched in to work the land that cabin rested upon for their sustenance, a do-or-die self-reliance was the only philosophy these men knew. As such, the brothers were confident they possessed the grit and determination needed to ensure their business’ success.
More than a century later, the brothers’ dream of a prosperous future rooted in their grandfather’s beloved Piney Creek acreage has proved itself more than viable—it has become, in fact, robustly realized. Having weathered umpteen droughts, two world wars, a natural disaster (1969’s Hurricane Camille), various economic downturns, the ever-increasing mega-corporatization of agriculture and slews of other less world-crushing obstacles, under the innovative watch of second-generation CEO Paul Saunders (son of original brother Sam), Saunders Brothers Inc. remains alive and thriving, operating on a scale well beyond anything its founders could have imagined. Alongside Paul labors a crew of blood relatives ranging from four of his own seven sons, their wives, their children, various cousins, second cousins and even a couple of descendants of original (read, hailing from way back in 1915) family friends. Together, they work to grow, care for and sell approximately 5,000 bushels of apples, 20,000 bushels of peaches (much of which is designated as specialty varieties to be sold to local Virginia markets, featuring a toggled harvest season from mid-June to mid-September) and many other complementary nursery products (in the form of more than 1,000 types of plants, divided into different tiers and products including azalea, holly, mums, rhododendrons, geraniums, pansies, etc.), including many thousand boxwoods.
Although it’s obvious a century’s worth of shifting markets, acquisitions and technological innovations have led to overhauls of the farm’s day-to-day methodologies and business strategies, the heart of the operation—its company culture and moral integrity—remains completely intact.
“When I was growing up, my daddy always advised me, ‘Be careful. Try to make a good name for yourself. Mind your reputation!’” says 82-year-old Paul Saunders. “He was as honest a man as I have ever known, and he was trying to impress upon me to be the same. He’d tell me: ‘Son, there is only one thing that you will take with you when you leave this world—your name.’”
Within the first few minutes of a chat with Paul Saunders, it is clear the man regards this philosophy of honor and integrity—giving folks the proverbial fair shake—as comprising the moral centerpiece of the Saunders Brothers operation.
“Both my daddy and my uncles always told me to give people the full measure,” says Paul. “Originally, the brothers were dealing with wholesalers and brokers who were members of the community, not to mention the local stores, so it was important they run their business based on the ideal of doing unto others what you’d have them do unto you.”
In other words, customers were in no way, shape or form to be considered in terms of the statistically convenient, but humanistically degrading language of consumerism. Instead, they were to be treated as individuals. As friends. Neighbors. Family.
“[The original brothers] always insisted that no matter what kind of product you’re selling, you have to make sure what your customers are buying is of the best quality,” says Paul. “They told me to always be strictly straight and honest, the way I would with my own family. They impressed that upon me. And I believe that’s the way a business should be run. And I also believe that putting this notion into practice [has] led to our business’ success and its longevity as well.”
Indeed, for Saunders Brothers Inc., these sentiments have become more than an implied employee guideline or tacitly agreed upon code of conduct. To get a feel for how serious Paul and company takes the philosophy—that is, to see how it informs and has become the keystone of an entire company culture—a quick perusal of the company’s website yields the following four bullet points, plucked directly from the mission statement:
• Honesty and truthfulness are foundational to our business.
• Every team member is a part of the Saunders Brothers Family.
• To have a positive impact on our employees, customers, suppliers, community and environment.
• To be a premier supplier of superb-quality plant material for garden centers.
Considering the above, when it comes to understanding the development and lasting success of a company that has become one of the Mid-Atlantic region’s major suppliers of produce and nursery products (an operation that employs more than 100 workers), the list’s key point is the capitalized proper noun: Family.
Because Saunders Brothers began on such a small scale, serving, as Paul recollects, the immediate geographic community with the brothers functioning as participants and members thereof, interacting with customers on anything other than a first-name basis would have seemed ludicrous. Furthermore, in those originating times, when additional labor was needed that assistance was A) typically only seasonally necessary, and B) often enough provided by the teenaged sons of said community. Thus, with these traditional values and attitudes firmly entrenched, even as the company grew and began to supply an ever-expanding number of local, then state, then tri-state, then full-on East Coast-wide markets with wholesale produce/nursery products and in the process came to employ more and more seasonal (and increasingly migrant) workers, the brothers never considered adapting a sense of their company as something other than a “family” organization. By this rationale, it was natural to extend this concept to include the new relationships with new workers and business partners.
Nowhere is this ideological framework—not to mention the uncanny penchant for adapting to the demands of changing times—more visible than the very-much-against-the-industry-grain tract Saunders Brothers took when dealing with the increasingly intensive labor demands of its fruit orchards.
“For decades upon decades, the peach harvest at Saunders Brothers was circled on many local calendars,” wrote former The News & Advance columnist Darrel Laurant in a piece detailing the work history of Nelson County. “Whole families turned out with their work clothes on, often three generations’ worth… They depended on the [Saunders Brothers] harvest to provide the supplemental income that would see them through the year.”
In the late ’70s, an altered work climate—i.e. local teenagers developing a preference for air-conditioned jobs over intensive physical exertion amid the indiscriminate summer heat—threatened to leave a whole season’s worth of peaches unpicked.
Confronted by imminent catastrophe, for the first time in more than 50 years, the Saunders family was forced to consider doing what pretty much all the other larger-scale farms had already done: Outsource labor to migrant workers. But Saunders Brothers decided that, if it was going to make the leap, it was going to do so with the same integrity it’d always practiced.
Initially, the brothers used imported labor in the traditional manner—hiring transient crews that arrived for the harvest, took care of business, then departed in a mass exodus seeking the next orchard or field. However, it didn’t take long for Paul and his sons to recognize the extent of the newcomers’ work ethic. After a bit of discussion, they collectively decided to gamble on the notion that, if they treated these workers well and provided them with steady work and the opportunity for advancement, they might convince some of the workers to become regular fixtures.
“We paid them three dollars an hour over what any of the other farms were willing to pay,” Paul says. “Then we went around the county and fixed up some houses for them to live in, with everything they needed. If these guys were going to work for us, they were going to become a part of our family. We were looking to build lasting relationships.”
Along these lines, Tatum Saunders, Paul’s wife, began encouraging the workers to bring their families along with them, going so far as to set up childcare services for the kids, help build soccer fields for recreation, organize multiple weekly potluck dinners and provide transportation to church services and other area events.
“We started trying to really encourage them to sign on for nine-month contracts a year in advance,” says Paul. “We offered and encouraged opportunities for advancement. Then we expanded our nursery and boxwood operations, which allowed us to offer many of them year-round work.”
Unlike other ag businesses built on well-documented models of exploitation, Saunders Brothers sought to provide its workers with the opportunity to pursue their own version of the American Dream the company itself was founded upon.
“As a result,” says Paul, “we’ve been able to create loyal relationships based upon trust. At this point, most all of our workers have been with us for over 15 years, a few for nearly 30. Some have become naturalized citizens, bought houses nearby and took on a greater responsibility in the company. I feel confident in saying our employees are the most reliable in the business.”
And when it comes to withstanding the sometimes inimical twists and turns of a bad growing season, Saunders is quick to point out that team mentality can be the deciding factor between charting in the black or in the red.
Another aspect of how this family-first initiative has worked to give the company a leg up on the industry has to do with a knack for adaptive innovation, which seems to derive from a broad diversity of interests among the farm’s management. From the get-go, Paul’s seven boys were all included in the daily doings of the farm, but it was their father’s (himself a graduate and avid supporter of Virginia Tech) insistence on the pursuit of a higher education that led each of the four eventual partners to develop a particular specialty and, in turn, bring that specialty back home to the farm.
“My wife, Lyn, and I met while working in a nursery in Cairo, Georgia,” says Tom Saunders, head of the farm’s container nursery. “I was an intern in horticulture from Virginia Tech and she was a Clemson horticulture graduate working as the propagation manager.”
Once the couple decided to tie the knot and began looking for somewhere they could work side by side while putting their cutting-edge agricultural know-how to the test, returning to Piney River was an obvious choice.
“We went to work incorporating engineering advances like solenoid valves, cell-phone-activated irrigation controllers and mechanized conveying systems,” Tom says. “Additionally, we implemented encapsulated fertilizers to feed our product more predictably and efficiently.”
When another third-generation Saunders brother, Bennett, began managing field production, he replaced the overhead sprinkler units in the company’s orchards with underground drip lines, reducing, by his estimation, the farm’s water consumption by upward of 75 percent.
But this tendency toward innovation was nothing new.
Early on in the farm’s operation, with the stock market headed toward a crash and the apple, cattle and vegetable markets floundering, one of the original brothers heard a tale of a bushel of peaches selling for a dollar (at that time a whopping sum). Without hesitation, the five brothers took action, shifting their operations toward peaches. While pickings remained thin for quite some time, once the peaches (of the then-popular variety Elberta) began coming in, the farm was bolstered to new life.
When Paul officially took the helm in 1981, the orchard was expanded to encompass more than 150 acres planted with an ever-increasing diversity—presently including 30 varieties of peaches, 13 types of apples and Asian pears as well. Additionally, Paul pursued his interest of boxwood cultivation, laying the foundation for what would become one of the largest landscaping nursery operations in the Mid-Atlantic, supplying wholesalers and private clients (a list that includes the Kennedy administration’s White House) with many thousand individual plants each year. Through copious research and many trips abroad seeking new strains, Paul earned a reputation as one of the world’s foremost boxwood experts, founding the National Boxwood Trials, an organization dedicated to the research and propagation of superior specimens and horticultural expertise.
With a century’s worth of surfing the shifting agricultural tides under its belt, the present Saunders Brothers crew doesn’t see itself going anywhere. In fact, everyone is quite unanimous in their expectation: The business will continue so long as they keep their values in mind and folks keep needing to eat.
For more information about the history of the Saunders Brothers family farm, visit www.saunders brothers.com, drop by the Farm Market at 2717 Tye Brook Highway, Piney River, or pick up a copy of Paul Saunders’ memoir of life in Piney River, Down on the Farm (available online).
–Eric J. Wallace
Still caught in the wake of last year’s Rolling Stone controversy, the administration at the University of Virginia has been hard at work trying to improve its response to sexual assault. Attempting to mend the damage, the university entered into a resolution agreement with the Office for Civil Rights last week that promises to uphold Title IX regulations.
Among other things, UVA vowed to provide sexual assault training for students and faculty, develop an effective system for reviewing complaints of sexual assault, improve outreach with students and review its previous complaints to determine if they were handled appropriately.
Liz Seccuro, a UVA grad who was raped as a first year in 1984, described the Title IX resolution as “a watershed moment for sexual assault victims.”
She adds, “For the first time there is culpability, and an acknowledgment that the university has not followed the rules in the past or treated sexual assault victims on Grounds properly.”
Despite the acknowledgment not everyone is ready to believe in the changes that UVA pledges to enforce.
Seccuro, for one, calls her experience, “nothing short of disastrous,” saying the administration “protected the perpetrators and witnesses” in her case.
While the university is surely not the same as it was 30 years ago, there are disturbing similarities between the way Seccuro was treated and UVA’s present-day violations of Title IX for four consecutive academic years. Title IX is a federal law that prevents gender-based discrimination in a federally funded education program.
From 2008 to 2012, as well as three cases after this time period, the Office for Civil Rights said UVA failed to respond to student reports of sexual violence in a timely and equitable manner.
Although the Title IX resolution details a plan of action for UVA to effectively address sexual assault in the future, Seccuro doubts whether real change will occur, calling some of their previous efforts “lip service” and emphasizing the importance of hard consequences to stimulate change.
Current students at the University of Virginia are more optimistic about the changes, including several sexual assault groups on Grounds. One Less and One in Four, two student-led groups that practice advocacy and peer education, published a statement addressing the recent resolution agreement.
“Although we recognize the many past mistakes with regards to the treatment of survivors’ stories and reports, it is clear that the university has made crucial steps towards fostering an environment conducive to reporting and comprehensive, fair adjudication,” it said.
Alexandria Pinkleton, the president of One Less, adds that it’s not just UVA making changes. One Less and One in Four combined efforts this fall to introduce Dorm Norms, an educational program for first-year students explaining how each of them can prevent sexual assault.
Pinkleton notes that they reached more than 1,200 students this year and hopes the university will continue to support them in the future.
The two clubs also described their hopes for future transparency in UVA’s sexual assault policies, a thought seconded by Seccuro, who observes how confusing these policies can be for victims and accused alike.
The resolution addressed this clarity for student organizations, specifically mentioning fraternities and sororities and saying that the failure of an organization’s student members to comply with the Title IX policy may result in the university “severing all ties with the organization.”
Seccuro, who was sexually assaulted at a fraternity, believes the relationship between the university and the Greek system is reliant on money and thinks it could have an effect on sexual assault investigations.
“Never underestimate the Greek alumni machine and the power it wields,” Seccuro says. “The university is afraid to alienate the Greek organizations and their checkbooks, so investigations will be delayed, if they ever even happen.”
However, Seccuro believes it’s unfair to fraternities to paint them all in the same light. As she puts it, “We’re trying to prosecute rapists, not an entire culture.”
While the Title IX resolution holds many promising steps for the future, especially where university policy is concerned, the University of Virginia might have a long path before sexual assault victims feel comfortable with administrators handling their cases.
For Seccuro, who says she never received an apology from UVA, the answer lies in empathy.
“The university needs to come out of the dark and lend a hand, an ear and a much-needed heart,” she says. “We can have all the best practices and policies in the world, but we must have basic empathy afforded the victims of this most devastating crime.”
Real talk: UVA students discuss sexual assault
Over the past year, UVA has not only updated sexual assault policies, but it has also implemented mandatory education modules and bystander-training programs like Green Dot to raise awareness of sexual assault. Here’s what students say about the changes.
Charlotte Barstow, Third year
“On education modules: It encouraged me to be on the lookout for things and not be afraid to step in if something’s off or looks a little suspicious.”
Shanelle Rucker, Fourth year
“It’s interesting because I think that everyone sees the alcohol wise modules and the sexual assault modules as kind of obnoxious to do. But they’re still learning at the same time.”
Michael Mutersbauth, First year
“Everyone’s on their guard. Things may have slipped through the cracks or problems may have occurred because someone turned the blind eye. I feel like people aren’t doing that anymore.“
Dominic Lam Ting Luk, Fourth year
“I think [sexual assault] has definitely been taken more seriously ever since last year. It definitely helps that it’s more on everyone’s mind now because I’m sure it was going underreported before.”
Elizabeth Muratore, First year
“I think it’s great that [the university] is investigating these cases, but I think the only thing that will really make people feel safer is if the cases stop coming in.”
Beginning September 28, expect nightly closures of the Rio Road crossover at U.S. 29, as a part of a grade-separated intersection project involving excavation and construction of abutments on which bridge beams will rest when they are placed next summer, according to VDOT.
During the closure, Rio Road traffic will not be able to cross U.S. 29 or make left turns onto it, and left turns from the highway onto Rio Road will also be prohibited. Business entrances north and south of the intersection on U.S. 29 and east and west on Rio Road will remain open during the utility work.
All lanes will be restored by 6am each morning. Speed limits between Hydraulic Road and Airport Road on U.S. 29 will vary between 35 and 45 miles per hour and are in effect all day.