Great Meadow International — Full results and story, see page 18
July 11, 2018
Our 201st year
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Vol. 201, No. 28
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www.Fauquier.com
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$1.50
Rep. Tom Garrett talks about dealing with alcoholism, moving on By Leland Schwartz Times Staff Writer
After telling the world he’s an alcoholic and dropping his re-election campaign for Virginia’s 5th District congressional seat, you might think Rep. Tom Garrett would be pretty bummed out. Hardly. Instead, Garrett (R) seems suspended in a whirlwind of relief, excitement and optimism about starting a new — and sober — life at age 46. “It’s nothing I can’t handle with the help of God and a support group,” he said in a recent interview. Garrett, who is finishing up the last few months
of his first term in office, said his decision to leave Congress wasn’t driven by news reports that he used his staff to run personal errands, charges he called “antithetical to the truth.” Rather, he said he’s leaving because of the introspection that followed those reports, which made him consider “what matters.” The soul searching, Garrett said, led to a different question: If “they said something about you that burned, not because it was false, but because it was true, what would that be?” Certainly, he said, it would be his alcoholism. “So where am I going to tell the world this darned secret?” he asked himself.
Garrett chose the Virginia Civil Rights Memorial at Virginia’s Capitol Square in Richmond as a backdrop for the Memorial Day video in which he made his announcement because the memorial is “about freedom,” he said. The monument celebrates Barbara Johns, the young Virginian whose protest against her underfunded and overcrowded black Farmville high school led to a lawsuit that eventually became part of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the landmark Supreme Court case that outlawed school segregation.
See GARRETT, page 5
‘A heart as big as the whole outdoors’
TIMES STAFF PHOTO/LELAND SCHWARTZ
Candlelight vigil held to remember 19-year-old killed in Friday crash Friends of Steven Michael Kendall, a 19-year-old killed in a crash Friday night, gathered at Liberty High School Sunday night to remember the Bealeton teen.
See story, page 8 INSIDE Business.............................................19 Classified............................................43 Communities......................................35 Faith...................................................42
Health & Wellness...............................25 Libraries.............................................40 Lifestyle..............................................29 LFCC..................................................41 Opinion...............................................10
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