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Meet the low-profile outfit behind one of Harrisonburg’s highest-rising structures

After Bridgeforth Stadium, it’s possibly the most recognizable landmark for those driving through Harrisonburg on Interstate 81. The 120-foot wind turbine is perched on a ridge on the east side of the highway, its spinning, 33-foot blades propelled by the invisible breeze. What can’t be seen from the road is the force behind that specific turbine – a renewable energy advocacy organization that calls Harrisonburg home.

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Tiller Strings: sales, rentals, repair, sheet music, accessories.

In the name of history: Should Paul Jennings Hall coexist on a campus with buildings that also honor Confederate leaders?

JMU leaders say the naming of the new residence hall after Paul Jennings is a step toward confronting racism that has been embedded in the history of the campus and its namesake, as well as the Harrisonburg community, the commonwealth of Virginia and the country. But some people, including students and community activists in Harrisonburg, are asking what this might signal about the renaming of other buildings on JMU’s campus — the ones named after confederate leaders.

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School board pegs March 5 for superintendent announcement, continues debate over teachers’ sick pay policy

The next superintendent of Harrisonburg City Schools is expected to be named at the school board’s next meeting in two weeks after board members ended their meeting Tuesday in closed session to hash out details of the job’s contract. “We are targeting March 5 for the announcement” of the new superintendent, said Deb  Fitzgerald, the board’s chairwoman.

Keys to stemming rising jail population could be in the numbers. The question now is how to find them.

            While the local jail population continues to grow, the record-keeping systems used by law enforcement, the courts and other pieces of the local criminal justice system remain stuck in the past, complicating efforts to understand what’s driving that population growth or to begin addressing it. Within a year, however, new insight into local criminal justice trends could be coming from two different sources.

With one nat’l championship in hand and a shot at another, JMU teams successfully ride growing e-sports wave.

On a Friday afternoon, six members of the James Madison University Overwatch team gather around a TV screen, watching tape from a “scrim session” – gamerspeak for scrimmage – earlier in the week. “Look where we are right now. We’re really far back,” says Mark “Sanity” Johnson, the team captain, pointing at the screen. “We should be here right now.”

General Assembly debates mandatory prison time for students who make certain school threats

While some say different circumstances call for different outcomes, a bill now moving through the General Assembly would create a mandatory prison sentence for certain kinds of threats made against schools in Virginia. Though the law is a response to the increase in threats made against schools in parts of Virginia, local school administrators say they have not seen an increase in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. 

Area food banks prepare to fill coming ‘SNAP gap’ as a result of the 35-day government shutdown

Weeks after the government shutdowns ended, food banks and pantries in Harrisonburg are bracing for a spike in demand this month to respond to what’s called “the S.N.A.P. gap.” This “gap” is another ripple effect from the 35-day federal government shutdown that ended Jan. 26.

Scooter companies will have to provide money and data to operate in Hburg. Meanwhile, HEC appointment saga isn’t over yet.

The Harrisonburg City Council once again postponed completing its appointments to the Harrisonburg Electric Commission by filling only one of two spots at Tuesday’s meeting, but it did unanimously approve a one-year pilot program to regulate sharable scooters and bikes. City Attorney Chris Brown presented the one-year “pilot project” for the permitting of Bird and Lime-S electric scooters that have flooded the city since last fall.

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