The Stantons celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary February 12, a milestone that fewer than 0.1 percent of married couples make.
Mary Jane Gore
Valentines, imagine getting hitched this month. Then imagine celebrating your 75th wedding anniversary in February 2094.
A 75th anniversary is so rare that the U.S. Census Bureau keeps no statistics on it. Estimates are that fewer than 0.1 percent of marriages make it to 70 years or more, according to the University of Nebraska Omaha Center for Public Affairs Research.
Bill and Shirley Stanton of Afton, 94 and 93, respectively, are a rare couple indeed. Shirley Loving was born and raised in Charlottesville with her sister, Jean, who still lives here.
Bill Stanton is from Wisconsin, and the U.S. Army sent him to UVA for a meteorology class during World War II.
They married on February 12, 1944, a few months before D-Day. That same year, A Streetcar Named Desire hit the stage, and cooped chickens would be introduced in a Charlottesville courtroom during a dog’s trial (not guilty).
Shirley and Bill Stanton on their wedding day in 1944. Submitted photo
Here’s what the couple says about their 75-year bond.
How did you meet?
Bill: We met at a USO dance in Charlottesville; I cut in.
Shirley: We danced the whole time. Because I was a volunteer, I had to get permission to date Bill.
How did he propose?
Shirley: He was back in Charlottesville on furlough. After his class, we walked along to the Rotunda, and he pulled out the ring.
What is the best part of your long marriage?
Bill: It was all pretty good.
Shirley: We can’t complain.
What was the hardest or most challenging thing about being married?
Bill: (laughs quietly) Shirley, what do you think?
Shirley: We had a son die. We are very fortunate that nothing else that bad happened.
Bill: We worked hard.
Shirley: Everything we did was a challenge. We are so lucky to be in our home still, and it’s because we have a daughter and a grandson here to help us.
What is your secret to a long marriage?
Bill: Tolerance.
Shirley: Bill is very fair-minded. I can’t say I have taken advantage of it, but I have enjoyed it.
Anne Williams signs off from WNRN on February 15. “I just want to say thank you for being such a loving town,” she says. Photo by John Robinson
In the summer of 1999, Anne Williams had just relocated to Virginia from Ohio, and she brought along some on-air experience from Yellow Springs’ WYSO that helped her land an interview with independent radio station WNRN.
Williams says she was driving on Interstate 64, headed to the interview with her radio dial tuned to 91.9, when Icicle Works’ “Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)” came on, followed by the song “All Star” by a new band named Smash Mouth. The programming impressed her, and she knew she was going to the right place.
“It spoke to the eclectic nature of WNRN, to what it was then, and to a certain degree now,” says Williams. And she thought, “Wow, this would be great to be here. I would love to keep on doing this.”
Almost 20 years later, on Friday, February 15, Williams will pull her final shift as the host of WNRN’s morning show, a role that has made her an unassuming icon in local radio, and a champion of music in central Virginia. She’s moving to Knoxville, Tennessee, for an off-air gig as the operations/development director at WDVX, and “looking forward to being part of one of the only all-Americana stations in the country,” says Williams.
The Americana radio format had just begun to coalesce on a national level when Williams joined WNRN, and she made the genre the focus of her “Acoustic Sunrise” show. On weekdays beginning at 6am, Williams played popular favorites like Alison Krauss, Steve Earle, and Lucinda Williams, and introduced listeners to new acts such as Lake Street Dive and St. Paul & The Broken Bones before they gained traction.
“I remember our meet and greet with station VIP members, and St. Paul & The Broken Bones had about 10 people when they played the Southern Café & Music Hall,” says Williams.
Staying musically curious helped her wake up between 4 and 4:30am each weekday for her show, and Williams says it’s also been a factor in her support of developing acts in central Virginia.
“Some of my favorite times were giving local folks the opportunity to play live on the air,” says Williams. “I have a really vivid memory of doing an interview with Danny Schmidt during my first summer here, and of Devon Sproule when she was 16.” She also found satisfaction in championing the talents of The Steel Wheels and watching the career transformations of Bryan Elijah Smith and Jason Isbell.
Charlottesville singer-songwriter Carl Anderson, who’s now making a name for himself in Nashville, says he grew up listening to Williams’ morning show. “It was her support of local music in particular that encouraged me to wonder if perhaps my own voice might one day come through the speakers,” he says.
Williams plans to continue lending a hand to touring bands. Those who stop by to play WDVX’s “Blue Plate Special,” a live hour of programming six days a week at noon that supports up-and-coming acts, will now be greeted by a friend.
“I look forward to seeing Charlottesville bands come through Knoxville, and I’ll be right there clapping,” says Williams.
CVille Smoke Shop’s Jim Carlson says if you’re old enough to go to war or vote, you should be able to buy a cigar. Photo by Eze Amos
By Shrey Dua
Daniel Devlin is a 20-year-old UVA student who’s been vaping since he was 18. If Virginia lawmakers get their way, he could soon face civil penalties for pursuing his habit.
Last week, a bill that would raise the age to buy tobacco and vape products from 18 to 21 was passed by both houses of the General Assembly. It’s the latest attempt to curb the vaping trend that has become a mainstay amongst college, high school, and middle school students.
A number of states and more than 400 localities have already raised the vaping age to 21. Last year, the FDA declared the underage use of e-cigarettes an epidemic, and in November it banned sales from convenience stores, as well as fruity flavors. The administration says from 2017 to 2018, there was a 78 percent increase in e-cigarette use among high school students, and a 48 percent increase among middle school students.
People between the ages of 18 and 20 who are currently able to legally purchase vapor and tobacco products would once again be considered underage, and face a $100 fine or community service for the first offense. UVA students in particular would immediately feel the effects of the new law because college students often make up a large proportion of the vaping population.
Devlin believes the legislation is an impractical method for keeping vapes out of underage hands. “If middle schoolers are vaping and addicted to nicotine when the age is 18, then raising the minimum age would only expand the black market for nicotine products,” he says. “The only thing that would change is that people would stop going to 7-Elevens and go to the black market instead.”
But not all students agree. Karim Alkhoja, who is 20 and a third-year at UVA, says there hasn’t been enough research into the effects of vaping, and “if the argument is that at 21 people are more likely to make more evidence-based and common sense decisions, why would we continue to allow the purchasing age for these products to be 18 and not 21?”
Jim Carlson co-owner of the CVille Smoke Shop, which sells a variety of cigars but no vaping products, says he totally disagrees with the proposed legislation. “I don’t think the government should be a babysitter,” he says. “If you’re old enough to vote or go to war, you should be able to buy a cigar. What’s really the difference between being 18 and being 21?”
Dawn Morris, owner of local smoke shop Higher Education, is more open to the change: “Unfortunately I do understand why it’s necessary to raise the age to 21 with all these vape companies and vape juices that are specifically flavored for children,” she says. “No adult is vaping Fruit Loops. Someone needs to protect that situation, and until we can change that, it’s probably a good idea.”
Delegates Rob Bell and Matt Fariss voted against the measure in the House, where it passed 67-41, with the support of delegates Steve Landes and David Toscano. State Senator Bryce Reeves was a co-sponsor of the bill in the Senate, which passed its own bill 32-89 with the support of Senator Creigh Deeds.
If approved by Governor Ralph Northam, the law could go into effect July 1.
Photos appeared February 3 of Kappa Sigma fraternity members wearing American Indian headdresses (pictured above), and a since-deleted social media post captured Zeta Tau Alpha sorority sisters in sombreros and carrying maracas. UVA’s Inter-Fraternity Council condemned Kappa Sig’s “cultural appropriation” as being “prejudiced and culturally insensitive.”
Governor Ralph Northam, in his first televised interview in over a week, told CBS’s Gayle King that it’s the 400th anniversary of “the first indentured servants from Africa” arriving in Virginia.
The Bomb, Virginia Military Institute’s yearbook, included blackface photos while state Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment was managing editor in the 1960s. Norment says he was one of seven working on the yearbook and “cannot endorse or associate myself with every photo, entry, or word on each page.” He adds that he is not in any of the photos, nor did he take them.
The University of Richmond joins in the racist imagery with a photo from its 1980 yearbook of a man with a noose around his neck surrounded by people in KKK garb.
And VCU’s yearbook included blackface photos as recently as 1989, WTKR reports.
Attorney General Mark Herring admitted February 6 that he applied brown makeup and a wig to go to a party dressed as rapper Kurtis Blow in 1980 while he was a 19-year-old UVA student.
Quote of the week
“What if the blackface was just part of your costume of a black person?”—“Saturday Night Live” skewers Virginia and white cluelessness
In brief
Drop the cellphone
Both houses of the General Assembly passed bans on the use of handheld communication devices while driving. The measure to thwart distracted driving is expected to be signed into law, and Virginia will join neighboring Maryland and the District of Columbia in prohibiting holding a cellphone while on the road.
License reform killed
A Senate bill to repeal Virginia’s automatic suspension of driver’s licenses for nonpayment of fines, which has been called a “modern-day debtors prison,” died in a House subcommittee February 11, with Delegate Rob Bell one of the 4-3 votes to not let the legislation move forward. A federal judge has said the current law is likely unconstitutional.
Speaking of Bell
Greene County Democrat Elizabeth Alcorn, a retired dentist and former county party chair who resigned after a dispute with Leslie Cockburn’s 5th District campaign last year, says she’ll challenge Bell for this 58th District seat. Bell will seek his 10th term in November.
Northam’s numbers
Virginians are pretty evenly split about whether Governor Ralph Northam should resign after a photo depicting people in blackface and in KKK garb appeared on his 1984 yearbook page, according to a Washington Post/Schar School poll. Overall, 47 percent say he should resign and 47 percent feel he should stay. Among African Americans, 58 percent think Northam should remain in office and 37 percent want him to go.
Blackface numbers
In the same poll, 11 percent of the Virginians surveyed have either worn blackface or know someone who has.
Candidate conundrum
Charlottesville police sent an officer to Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania’s office February 7 for a reported disturbance in which City Council candidate John Hall was being “verbally aggressive.” Hall wasn’t there when the cop arrived, and no charges have been filed.
UConn/UVA pipeline
courtesy UVA
Executive VP and Provost Thomas C. Katsouleas has been named the next president of the University of Connecticut. Former UVA prez John Casteen served as UConn president from 1985 to 1990 before taking the top spot here.
School absences surge during flu season
Thirty-three fewer students and staff were present at Venable Elementary School on February 11, and they have the flu to blame.
Charlottesville schools spokesperson Krissy Vick, who’s been “washing her hands like crazy,” says a letter went home to parents to acknowledge the illness, which also kept 14 people home from Greenbrier and 13 from Walker Upper Elementary on February 8.
It’s no surprise that county schools have been hit, too.
“It’s been a challenging time,” says spokesperson Phil Giaramita. More than half of the 25 schools in Albemarle have had “significantly higher absence rates due to illness,” and though he couldn’t give any specifics because they don’t log every absence, he says, “it’s a reasonable assumption that flu has been a major contributor.”
The Lego universe characters battle against Duplo invaders who have turned Bricksburg into a wasteland named Apocalypseburg in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. Warner Bros.
There’s been a quiet revolution happening in family entertainment for the last few years, where movies with broad popular appeal strive to be more than a way to distract your kid for 90 minutes. Whether children internalize it or not, animated films have been dissecting such weighty themes as willful ignorance and authority worship (Littlefoot), and identity in the digital age (Wreck-It Ralph), not to mention the wide-ranging, ever-increasing sophistication of Pixar’s output.
The first Lego Movie, already 5 years old, showed that not only could a product tie-in be more than advertisement, it could pack an emotional punch while delivering a poignant statement on escapism and alienation, all within a hilarious and visually innovative package. Its sequel, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, wisely avoids trying to reinvent the monorail, instead focusing on bridging the unnecessary gap between ridiculous fun and emotional maturity.
Five years have passed in the film’s world as well, and the Duplo invasion has left a trail of destruction. Emmet (Chris Pratt) has not adjusted to the new Mad Max-esque existence of Apocalypseburg, remaining upbeat as ever among the wasteland scavengers. Suddenly, a mysterious visitor comes in an impenetrable spaceship, seeking to bring the five strongest warriors—Emmet, Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), Batman (Will Arnett), Benny (Charlie Day), and Princess Unikitty (Alison Brie)—to Queen Watevra Wa-Nabi (Tiffany Haddish) of the Systar System. (Systar, get it?) Queen Wa-Nabi appears to be the antagonist at first—she suspiciously sings a song about how not evil she is, despite what looked like an attack on Apocalypseburg, and Emmet’s visions of the coming Our-mom-ageddon do little to sway that impression.
What follows is a terrific commentary on many things at once. To say exactly how these are relevant would be giving away too much, but to name a few themes: gatekeeping in fandom, clinging too firmly to the things we enjoyed as children and thereby stifling creative possibilities, and the overly gendered divisions in children’s entertainment and the perceived threat that “girly” things represent.
The Lego Batman Movie reconciled the character’s silly origins with its absurdly dour modern incarnation, and much of that spirit carries over into The Second Part. Someone else’s fun does not inherently make our own less valuable, and the opportunity to share in that fun should be explored, not feared.
The notion that there is a correct way to enjoy a form of entertainment, especially one as limitless as Lego, is ultimately self-defeating and can become a conduit for many of society’s most negative impulses. Look at the apoplectic reactions to any supposed slight against “real fans” and you know the mentality The Second Part addresses, then deflates.
The Second Part is not the same revelation as its predecessor and the gags can be a bit more strained, but writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller show there’s still plenty of life in this idea. The use of Lego vs Duplo is clever, and the free-form animation of shapeshifting Wa-Nabi is very inventive. It’s a well-meaning and still altogether entertaining addition to the series that opted to age along with its audience, not chain them to the past.
Pretty Things Vaudeville Show plays with sharp objects on Wednesday at the Southern. Publicity image.
Hollywood offscreen:In a throwback to the pre-pixel days of entertainment, the Pretty Things Vaudeville Show wows from the stage with sword swallowers, contortionists, and traditional magic. The Hollywood-based ensemble features the mind-reading dog Scraps, and the daring Rachel Atlas, whose special props include a bed of nails, razorblades, a machete ladder, and a human chopping block.
Wednesday 2/13. $15-20, 8:30pm. The Southern Café & Music Hall, 103 S. First St. 977-5590.
Tyler Watkins Davis. Courtesy Charlottesville Police Department
Tyler Watkins Davis entered an Alford plea February 8, and though it’s technically a guilty plea, it means the man from Middleburg, Florida, is not admitting guilt, but acknowledging that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict him of malicious wounding in the brutal parking garage assault of DeAndre Harris.
Defense attorney Matthew Engle said his 50-year-old client doesn’t challenge the fact that he bashed Harris in the head with a wooden tire thumper, which caused severe trauma and required eight stitches, but he does dispute that it was done with malicious intent.
If the case went to trial, Engle said he would have argued that Davis perceived a threat outside the Market Street Parking Garage and was acting in self defense when he clobbered Harris—and that he did not intend to maim, disfigure, or kill Harris, which is required to meet the standard of actual malice.
Judge Rick Moore has often referred to the racially-charged beating as the worst he’s ever seen, but unlike the other men who participated, Engle noted that Davis only hit Harris once, and backed off when the others piled on.
When participants Jacob Goodwin and Alex Ramos went to trial for their roles in the attack, they were sentenced to eight and six years, respectively. Daniel Borden, who pleaded guilty, was given a lesser sentence of three years and 10 months in January. Davis faces a maximum sentence of 20 years, and will be sentenced in August.
Davis wasn’t caught until months after the others—and he may have Goodwin’s lawyer to thank for his arrest. At one of Goodwin’s hearings, attorney Elmer Woodard played a video of the assault, and asked why police had not arrested Davis, the then-unknown man wearing a wide-brimmed hat, whom Woodard dubbed “Boonie Hat” as he continually referred to Davis’ role in the beating. It wasn’t long after that that Davis was in cuffs.
Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Nina Antony said the two other men who can also be seen attacking Harris in the viral video have not yet been identified.
Brian Pinkston, a project manager at UVA, is running for City Council. COURTESY SUBJECT
A UVA facilities project manager jumped into the race for City Council February 6. Brian Pinkston said to dozens at The Haven, “I’m running for City Council because I want our city to recapture this vision of the common good.”
He was introduced by former vice-mayor Meredith Richards, who noted Pinkston’s ability as a project manager to handle a lot of moving parts and to work collaboratively and effectively with others.
“I believe in this City Council election, people are looking for solid, trustworthy, unifying, and principled leadership,” said Richards.
A Georgia native, Pinkston, 47, said his work as an engineer taught him “how to dive into complex problems.” And in his late 20s, as a parent of small children, he started work on a Ph.D. in philosophy at UVA. “I can’t recommend philosophy highly enough,” he said.
He noted that he grew up in the deep South, and, pointing toward the statue of General Robert E. Lee across the street, said, “I recognize the past is still with us.”
More so than the other three Democratic candidates in the race, Pinkston also stressed his faith, and the wisdom found in religion.
He noted that 25 percent of families here don’t earn enough to cover basic needs for survival. It’s “morally unacceptable to tolerate these high levels of poverty,” he said.
Pinkston joins activist Michael Payne, RegionTen board member Sena Magill, and attorney Lloyd Snook in seeking the Democratic nomination for three open seats on City Council. Incumbents Wes Bellamy, Kathy Galvin, and Mike Signer have not said whether they’ll seek reelection.
Among those at The Haven were Magill, former councilor Bob Fenwick, and UVA associate professor Jalane Schmidt, who formed a new political action committee, Progressives for Cville, that has backed Payne and was going to endorse Don Gathers, who had to withdraw from the race because of health concerns.
The deadline to file for the June 11 primary is March 28.
February is Black History Month, a time when schools across the country dutifully trot out lessons about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks. In 2015, a minor firestorm ensued when Orange County High School students connected the civil rights movement of the 1960s and today’s Black Lives Matter movement in a school performance, and an anonymous
deputy complained on Facebook.
“It’s supposed to be black history, not black current events,” another parent, who also worked in law enforcement, told C-VILLE.
Similar complaints have cropped up at other schools when Black History Month events draw a line from the inequities of our past to the problems of the present. But racism can’t be safely contained in feel-good plays. The past, as William Faulkner famously observed, “is never dead. It’s not even past.”
We live in a city that was literally built by black people, in a county that, at the end of the Civil War, was majority black, but which more than a century later is still dominated by monuments to Confederate soldiers. In this week’s cover story, we document the ways our local government, schools, university, and community members are unearthing and commemorating black history in Charlottesville, not out of some wan impulse toward “political correctness,” but because this is our history, and any story that disregards it is incomplete. As Charlene Green, head of the Office of Human Rights, tells us, “You may think that what happened only affects someone else, but it affects you.”
In 2019, as we commemorate the 400th anniversary of the beginning of slavery in Virginia, as our elected officials continue to struggle for the right to control our own monuments, and as our governor has unexpectedly prompted a conversation on the legacy of blackface as entertainment, we are fairly freighted with the past. The question is what we do with it. —Laura Longhine
Demonstrators want police Chief RaShall Brackney held accountable for what Katrina Turner later clarified was a “verbal attack.”.
Eze Amos
The complaint in front of City Council February 4 was pretty extraordinary: “Chief [RaShall] Brackney came out of nowhere and literally attacked me that night.”
That it came from a member of the police Civilian Review Board was all the more astounding.
At a February 5 protest in front of the Charlottesville police station, Showing Up for Racial Justice members held signs that read, “Chief Brackney assaulted Katrina Turner.” A handful stood in the street and stopped rush hour Market Street traffic and demanded that Brackney be held accountable.
“I wasn’t physically attacked,” clarifies Turner. “I was verbally attacked.”
She describes a situation at a November 5 City Council meeting in which a girl had a panic attack outside the council chamber. When Turner left the room, “This little girl was laying on the ground gasping for air. I said I know CPR. I’m medically trained. I could help her.”
Turner says police officers stood aside and let her approach the girl, whom Turner wanted to turn on her side to help her breathing. “The only thing I could hear behind me was the chief of police yelling that I needed to leave,” says Turner.
Brackney would not listen to her explanation and continued to “aggressively get in my face yelling to leave the scene,” says Turner in the complaint she filed with police January 4. “Her last words to me were, ‘Mrs. Turner, you have been warned to leave the scene.’ I also thought I heard her tell me that I would be arrested if I did not leave the scene.”
Turner asked for body camera footage from the officers present in her complaint, and at the February 4 council meeting, she said no one had called her to get her sworn statement.
“She does not like me,” says Turner. “I understand but when I’m trying to help that child is not the time to come after me.”
Civilian Review Board member Katrina Turner wants to know why no action has taken place on the complaint she filed against Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall Brackney. staff photo
Police spokesman Tyler Hawn declined C-VILLE’s request to speak to Brackney, saying the complaint is a personnel matter and she would not comment on it. He also says that none of the street blockers were arrested.
It’s no secret that Turner has issues with the Charlottesville Police Department, stemming from an April 30, 2016, arrest of her son after he called 911, and she’s filed several complaints about the handling of that.
Both Brackney and Turner are relatively new in their roles. Brackney was named chief in May, the first woman to hold the position. And Turner was named last summer to the newly formed Civilian Review Board, whose mission is to come up with bylaws for handling citizen complaints about the police.
Mayor Nikuyah Walker did not respond to a request for comment on the matter, but she did discuss it on “The Schilling Show” February 6. “From my understanding, the police chief yelled at [Turner] to move out of the way of a situation during an incident in the hallway during a council meeting,” she says.
Walker says if Brackney had physically assaulted Turner, “I’m sure we wouldn’t have gotten out of the building if that happened.”
The mayor says she talked to Interim City Manager Mike Murphy, and an external party will take a look at the situation “so it won’t be in our internal affairs department.”
Some of what she’s heard about Brackney from the activist community “hasn’t been very fair,” says Walker. “I’m hoping the community will give her the chance to do the work while understanding she’s a police chief in America.”
And if Brackney did something to harm Turner, council and the city manager should intervene, says Walker, “but if not, then it’s unfair.”
UVA law professor Josh Bowers is on the Civilian Review Board, and he doesn’t think the dispute between the police chief and a board member will interfere with the board’s job of creating bylaws.
“If Ms. Turner has a complaint against the department or an officer, that’s a personal matter, not a board matter,” he says. And because the board has not drawn up bylaws that would define what constitutes a conflict of interest, “I can’t speak to whether it’s a conflict of interest.”
Don Gathers was on the board until he resigned in January, and he says he doesn’t think Turner’s complaint against the chief will have any effect on the work of the board because “they’re dedicated people and they’ll go on with the work they’ve been tasked with.”
He did ask why the complaint was being described as an assault. “There’s some miscommunication. [Turner] never used that terminology.”
He says he hopes Turner and Brackney can work through their differences. “The community needs them both. We definitely need strong black leaders on both sides.”
