Inside A3 97th annual Powhatan County Fair this weekend
Powhatan, Virginia B2 BSH soccer wins VCC title
Vol. XXIX No. 20
May 18, 2016
Lonesome Dove serves 2,000th rider By Laura McFarland News Editor
P
OWHATAN – Lonesome Dove Equestrian Center marked a huge milestone last week when it held a celebration in honor of its 2,000th veteran going for a therapeutic horseback ride since the nonprofit seated its first rider in 2008. State and local officials, including Governor Terry McAuliffe, came out to help Clint Arrington, executive director and founder of Lonesome Dove, celebrate the occasion and honor the veterans who have taken all of those rides. More than 100 people attended the event, including officials, veterans, volunteers and members of the public. Fittingly, the celebration came after a
PHOTO BY LAURA MCFARLAND
Governor Terry McAuliffe, left, congratulates Ricky Jones, right, for being the 2,000th rider helped at Lonesome Dove Equestrian Center, founded by Clint Arrington, center, in 2008.
morning ride that saw 13 veterans brought in to ride therapy horses and have an opportunity to visit with the gentle animals. From beginning to end, Arrington made sure those in attendance knew that those men and women who have served their country in the U.S. military are what Lonesome Dove is all about. “What we do is give them a chance to regain their courage, confidence, hope and honor,” he said. During the ceremony, Arrington asked McAuliffe and his wife, First Lady of Virginia Dorothy McAuliffe, to participate in Lonesome Dove’s tradition of giving riders a trophy after their therapy rides. Ricky Jones of Chester was one of those riders, see DOVE page 5A
Future use of middle school explored By Laura McFarland News Editor
Prsrt. Standard U.S. POSTAGE PAID Powhatan, VA Permit No.19
POWHATAN – Initial recommendations about the future of Pocahontas Middle School after it ceases being a working school in a few years were made last week to the Powhatan County School Board. The school board listened to a presentation during its meeting on Tuesday, May 10 detailing recommendations that came out of a facility utilization committee formed to look at the middle school’s future. The school district is about to move into a roughly two-year building phase in which Powhatan Junior
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Future uses of Pocahontas Middle School was the subject of a school board presentation on May 10.
High School will be renovated and rebuilt to become a new middle
school. Since the completed new school will house grades six to eight, what becomes of the redundant middle school, which has a rich history in the county, then becomes an issue. The committee gave basic recommendations to the school board that include the building housing a museum; creating a multi-use community center; using it for another county use such as school or county administrative offices, and entering into private business, according to Cheryl Thomas, who facilitated the group. Although the purpose of the
Christmas Mother gets its miracle – a new home By Laura McFarland News Editor
POWHATAN – The Powhatan Christmas Mother Everyday Committee was really living by this year’s theme, “expect miracles,” when it put out a call to the community to help it find a new home, and they very quickly got one. On Wednesday, May 11, a story was published in the Powhatan Today about the Christ-
mas Mother program needing a new home because its current one at Powhatan Junior High School will be lost when the school is almost totally demolished so a new middle school can be built. The group has been actively searching for a new place to call home. At about 8:15 a.m. that Wednesday, current Christmas Mother Gaysee HOME page 9A
Belmead supporters offer speeches, prayers in opposition to property’s sale By ZACHARY REID Richmond Times-Dispatch
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see SCHOOL page 2A
PHOTO BY LAURA MCFARLAND
Christmas Mother Gayle Walters, left, points to the theme for 2016, “Expect miracles,” while standing with Brian Kieran, who made one possible for the program.
POWHATAN — An eclectic group of supporters has vowed to fight as hard as necessary to protect the historic Belmead property in Powhatan County, a former plantation long owned by a religious order and once the home to generations of black students.
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Teen docents for the museum housed in Belmead Mansion and community members demonstrate their support of FrancisEmma. About 200 people gathered to help send the message they don’t want the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament to sell the property and to ask them to reconsider.
Less than two weeks after Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament announced their intent to sell the 2,265-acre property, 200 or so people showed up on Saturday, May 14 to hear speeches, voice their opposition to the proposed sale and pray for a peaceful resolution.
“I personally feel betrayed, heartbroken and saddened,” said Jennie A. Shuklis, the chairwoman of the board of FrancisEmma Inc., the nonprofit entity that operated Belmead until late last month, when Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament dissolved the board so it could sell the property. She said members of the board would like time to raise money to buy the property, or to otherwise participate in the sale to ensure that the next owner “respects the land and the history” of Belmead. She was the second of 11 speakers during an afternoon news conference that included many calls for prayer and pleas for divine intervention to save a piece of property. “It is sacred,” said Carson L. Tucker, a member of the Powhatan County Board of Supervisors. “Where else is American history better encapsulated than here?” The property is owned by Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, a Pennsylvania-based religious order founded in 1891 by St. Katharine Drexel, a Philadelphia heiress who used her family fortune to serve poor Native Americans and blacks. She and one of her sisters and a brotherin-law founded two schools on the property, the St. Emma Military School for boys (1895) and the St. Francis de Sales High School for girls (1899). The schools were open into the early 1970s and served about 15,000 students. The property was largely neglected for more than 30 years, until FrancisEmma was created about a decade ago. It has raised $5 million, which has been used to repair “40 years of benign neglect,” said Elizabeth see BELMEAD page 9A
ORNDORFF
Standoff ends with Powhatan man arrested, no injuries By Laura McFarland News Editor
POWHATAN – A standoff involving deputies with the Powhatan County Sheriff’s Office and troopers with the Virginia State Police on Saturday, May 14, ended without injury when a Powhatan County man was taken into custody and charged with domestic assault. Gerald E. Orndorff, 69, was arrested and transported to a local hospital for observation after law enforcement officers forcibly entered his home in the 1300 block of Schroeder Road, ending a standoff that lasted more than four hours, according to Sheriff Brad Nunnally. Dispatch received a call from Orndorff’s adult son at 5:50 p.m., saying that his fasee STANDOFF page 9A