INSIDE Goochland History: Courthouse remains an architectural gem. > page 2
Volume 66 Number 11 • March 17, 2022
Group aims to spotlight local cases still unsolved Founder says new nonprofit’s goal is to solicit information from the public By Roslyn Ryan Editor
When veteran news reporter Brandy Brown founded the Reopen the Case Foundation, she knew she wanted to help the families of crime victims find the closure they so desperately seek. Now, just over a year after launching the project, she’s hoping the nonprofit foundation will become a critical resource for a law enforcement community often too inundated with new cases to devote resources to those that have grown BROWN cold. Goochland has seen several such cases, including the murder of Joan Weigelhofer, a mother of three found dead in her local real estate office on Aug. 3, 2003. There are also the cases of Richard Hamm, a Goochland man found shot see Case > 5
Make up test School story
As pandemic wanes, educators are trying to help students recover ground lost during school closures By Roslyn Ryan Editor
A
s school divisions across the Commonwealth continue to put the most disruptive period of the COVID-19 pandemic behind them, many are now seeing more clearly the impact that school closures and all-virtual learning had on students. And in Goochland, as in
other localities, school officials remain troubled by the data they are seeing. According to Goochland County Public Schools assistant superintendent Steve Geyer, Goochland students recently failed for the first time to score above the national average on the annual Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) assessment, a test that attempts to determine the amount of ground an individual student
gained over the course of one academic year. The division also saw an overall decline in the Standards of Learning (SOL) pass rate, as well as an increase in the number of students in need of academic support in reading and math. Geyer, who delivered the information during a March 8 joint workshop between the see Test > 4
Metro Creative photo
Home repair effort helping those in need to remain safe By Roslyn Ryan Editor
Some home repairs are relatively minor: a leaky faucet, a loose stair tread. And then there are those at the other end of the spectrum, the kinds of catastrophic breakdowns that make a house unlivable. It’s the latter kind that most deeply concerns Goochland Cares Executive Director Sally Graham. Through the organization’s Critical Home Repair program, Graham and her team work alongside area volunteers to address home repair issues for Goochland residents in need. It was through the program last year that Graham was first alerted to the plight of a local resident with a particularly alarming home repair issue. As Graham learned from members of the Goochland County Fire-Rescue department, a local woman’s living room ceiling—which was later found to have been incorrectly installed—had come crashing down, effectively trapping her in her home. The fire department had been called in to rescue the woman, who Graham learned from rescue workers would likely have been seriously injured or killed had she been sitting in her living room when the ceiling fell. Through the Critical Home Repair program, GoochlandCares was able to repair the ceiling and prevent any see Repairs > 2