LoudounNow LOUDOUN COUNTY’S COMMUNITY-OWNED NEWS SOURCE
[ Vol. 1, No. 25 ]
[ loudounnow.com ]
[ April 28 – May 4, 2016 ]
Epicurience heads east ......... 3 Loudoun may lose road funding to Fairfax .................. 5
It’s Western Loudoun’s Election Day BY MARGARET MORTON
I
n most cases, the outcomes of Tuesday’s municipal election are foregone conclusions. But that’s not the case in Purcellville, which features three hotly contested races expected to shift the balance of the town’s sharply divided leadership. Voters in five of Loudoun’s seven incorporated towns head to the polls May 3 to cast their ballots for mayor and Town Council. Most races are uncontested.
Who’s Running? See the election preview on page 14
Douglas Graham/Loudoun Now
School system staff members discovered 200-plus years of records that tell the story of education in Loudoun County during racial segregation. Larry Roeder, chair for research on Thomas Balch Library’s Black History Committee, is undergoing a year-long process to digitize and preserve the records.
ONCE LOST, NOW FOUND Volunteers Discover and Preserve Forgotten Student Records BY DANIELLE NADLER “It was a typical day’s work.” That’s how Sue Hall and others in the Loudoun school system’s Student Records Department describe the morning two years ago when they walked into the Union Street School in Leesburg to take a look around. The building, which once served as an allblack school, had been all but abandoned. But they got a tip that there may—just may—be student records in there worth saving. Hall, Donna Kroiz and others noticed a pile of a dozen dusty boxes stashed under a staircase. They pulled out a couple and lifted the lids. Under a thick layer of dust, spider webs and even rat droppings, sat what local history experts are calling “a treasure trove” al-
most lost. Stacked in worn cartons were students’ classroom assignments and grades, teachers’ evaluations, correspondence between superintendents and school boards, and several letters from Loudoun’s black community petitioning for equal education, among other significant records. “We couldn’t quite believe it,” said Hall, the school system’s record archivist. “We thought, these should be saved.” Now a team of volunteers, led by Larry Roeder, chair for research on the Thomas Balch Library’s Black History Committee, are undergoing a year-long project to catalogue and preserve the once-lost documents that tell the story of Loudoun County schools between the Civil War and the end of racial segregation. They’re calling the effort The Edwin Washington Project, named after a black teen who, between jobs, attended school in
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Leesburg in the 1860s. Their focus is to get a better understanding of what school was like for black students specifically during the 125 years the county’s public schools were separated by race. “Their story is in these records, that sat untouched for 50 years,” Roeder said. “We want to document what schools they attended, what they studied, who taught them. That’s never been done before.”
Discovering Untold Stories Two to three days a week, Roeder and his assistant, Tony Arciero, put on dust respirator masks, roll up their sleeves and get to work. On those days, they take over the gymna-
Purcellville has 12 candidates on the ballot. Two are running for mayor; seven are running for four-year Town Council terms; and three are running in a special election to fill two years remaining on a vacated seat. The town has been in search of a new political balance since 2014, when long-time mayor Bob Lazaro and several veteran council members did not seek re-election. Voters that year swept in a slate of political newcomers who had criticized the work of prior councils on everything from utility planning to development. The split on the council between new and old members made for a rocky two years, with philosophical differences and lingering distrust from the election often breaking through the tenuous veil of amicability. The 2016 election is expected to close that council split—one way or the other. Mayor Kwasi Fraser is challenged in his bid for a second two-year term by longtime Councilwoman Joan Lehr. The two have often sparred during council sessions, and Lehr, who
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