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Vol. 31, No. 30 | Richmond Suburban News | November 26, 2014
STOPS AT EVERY HOME IN TOWN
‘Santa’ Clodfelter returns for local Christmas parade By Jodi Deal jdeal@mechlocal.com
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or more than 20 years, John Clodfelter, with his real white beard and a twinkle in his eye, has portrayed the Jolly Old Elf in stores, country clubs and restaurants all over the region. This year, Clodfelter will don the suit for a very special celebration: the Mechanicsville Christmas Parade, which he and his wife helped found in the mid-1980s. What started as a small, homespun Christmas celebration at the EVB Windmill Bank in Mechanicsville has grown into one of the community’s biggest annual events.
“Now it’s gotten to be a big thing in the community, which is a good thing.” JOHN CLODFELTER Talking about the annual Mechanicsville Christmas Parade
“I felt like Mechanicsville should have something like that — that it would be good for the community,” Clodfelter said. So he and his wife Gloria gathered some friends and started makFile photo/Tom Haynie ing arrangements. Hill Electrical wrapped a Bill Stegman, left, and Gene Haynie take a moment to chat with Santa Claus (John Clodfelter) as Christmas tree using a bucket truck, he recalled participants in the Mechanicsville Christmas Parade line up on Hanover Green Drive. Clodfelter, see CLODFELTER, pg. 30
who founded the tradition in the village with his wife Gloria, returns this year as Santa.
Chamber event brings job success for Trades grad By Jodi Deal jdeal@mechlocal.com
Jodi Deal/The Local
Austin Knox returned to the Hanover Center for Trades and Technology as a success story.
During his junior and senior years at Hanover High School, Austin Knox, who was studying heating, ventilation and cooling at the Hanover Center for Trades and Technology, had the opportunity to meet professionals from the industry he hoped to enter as part of the center’s annual net-
working event, Ready. Set. Hire. On Tuesday, Nov. 18, Knox returned to the event, not as a student, but as a success story. After he graduated in the spring, Knox, who was wearing a Trane uniform, said he turned connections he had made during the event into a full-time job. “I don’t think I’d be where I am right now if I hadn’t come to this event two years
ago and interviewed with Trane,” Knox told students, parents and area business representatives gathered in the center’s commons for the event, which aims to connect students with professionals in their future fields. Jodi Deal/The Local Ready. Set. Hire. is coordinated by Brad Trevillian told students the Hanover Business Council of the that mock interviews could see TRADES, pg. 13
help lead to careers.