Inside A10 Vietnam Memorial Wall photo display
Powhatan, Virginia B2 PYAA Angels fall just short against Amelia
Vol. XXIX No. 30
July 27, 2016
Republican mass meeting results overturned By Laura McFarland
ing, which had seen Jean Gannon elected the new chairwoman over incumbent Pat McSweeney, according to Ben Slone, district chairman. There were also three abstentions. At the core of the appeal was questioning whether the credentials committee, which verified voting members at the mass meeting, had functioned properly, especially in regard to giving due weight to eligibility challenges brought against some of the voting members.
News Editor
POWHATAN – The 7th Congressional District Republican Committee voted this month to invalidate the results of the mass meeting held by the Powhatan Republican Committee on April 5. The 7th Congressional District Republican Committee met on Saturday, July 16 and voted 11 to 4 in favor of an appeal of the results of the mass meet-
The results of the district committee hearing mean that the local committee reverted to the leadership that was in place before the April 5 meeting, which meant McSweeney and three other officers were placed back in charge of the Powhatan group, Slone said. The district committee’s decision also meant actions taken by the local committee since the mass meeting have been invalidated, although how sweeping that decision will be has somewhat been left to the local com-
mittee under McSweeney’s leadership to decide. The district committee’s decision became effective immediately, but Gannon has the right to appeal either to the Republican Party of Virginia’s appeals committee or to the party’s top governing body, the state central committee. “That is the ultimate authority of any appeal at any level within the comsee APPEAL page 3A
Closing ceremony honors fallen By Laura McFarland News Editor
Prsrt. Standard U.S. POSTAGE PAID Powhatan, VA Permit No.19
POWHATAN – In the end, it all circled back to the wall. As retired Capt. Bill Haneke spoke during the closing ceremony of the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall on PHOTO BY LAURA MCFARLAND Sunday, July 17, he Retired Capt. Bill Haneke was talked about classone of two keynote speakmates, friends and ers at the closing ceremony strangers who went to Vietnam roughly of the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall’s visit to five decades ago. Some came Powhatan County. home healthy and whole, at least in body, while others were severely injured, like Haneke, or died in a foreign land. At one point before they were shipped overseas, he served with the 9th Infantry Division 4th Battalion 47th Infantry Regiment. The men were shipped to an area in Vietnam that no Americans had been in before and sufsee CEREMONY page 8A
PHOTO BY LAURA MCFARLAND
Floyd Greene Jr. is retiring this month as the county’s emergency management coordinator, a position he has held since 1990.
Floyd Greene retires from county By Laura McFarland News Editor
POWHATAN – People who know and have worked with Powhatan County’s emergency management coordinator, Floyd E. Greene Jr., are aware that the knowledge and experience he has acquired through years of volun-
teer and paid service to the county are immeasurable. Since the early 1990s, as the county’s population and services grew, so too did Greene’s role working as emergency manager for the county and maintaining its 911 system, the emergency communications towers, the radios, and the backup generators.
So when Greene goes through with plans to retire at the end of July, many agree he is going to leave big shoes to fill. For his part, Greene has had more than 10 years to prepare for this moment. It was about a decade ago that he told the powers see GREENE page 6A
Students film veteran documentaries By Laura McFarland
P
OWHATAN – Only a few hundred yards from where those who fell during the Vietnam War were being remembered this month, a group of Powhatan students was honoring and sharing in the experiences of some of the men and women who made it home from several different American wars. A group of rising seventh- through ninth-graders participating in a Veterans Video History Camp conducted and filmed interviews on Thursday, July 14 at Blessed Sacrament Huguenot Catholic School with men and women who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces sometime in the last 75 years, said Meredith Perry, who led the camp and is an instructional specialist in history and social science. The two-week camp was held at Powhatan High School, where the students learned the basics of interviewing and filming and background on the different
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Students participating in the Veterans Video History Camp through Powhatan County Public Schools interview veterans who served in the U.S. Armed Forces from World War II to the Iraq War.
wars the veterans would be talking about with them, she said. Blessed Sacrament opened some of its rooms for the camp on July 14 so the interviews could coincide
with the first day of the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall, she added. “The main thing is the desire to consee STUDENTS page 8A
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