Inside A8 Miracles of God Christmas service
Powhatan, Virginia B1 Powhatan wrestling team sweeps opening tri meet
Vol. XXXIV No. o. 27
January 6, 2021
County-sponsored broadband project nears completion By Laura McFarland Editor
P
OWHATAN – Despite crews facing one of the wettest falls on record, work is nearly complete on a special broadband project the county undertook in several parts of Powhatan to bring internet service to more residents. In September, the Powhatan County Board of Supervisors approved using federal CARES Act funds to hire Hosted Backbone LLC for broadband installation in several population dense parts of the county that are currently underserved with internet services. The agreement authorized the company to lay fiber in small areas of Districts 2, 3, and 5 with concentrated areas of homes. Hosted Backbone is installing fiber in those areas and will ultimately own
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Hosted Backbone crews work on installing fiber internet infrastructure in a mobile workzone in Powhatan County. Once work is completed, the company’s subsidiary, Port 80, will ramp up efforts to begin connecting residents with internet service.
By Laura McFarland Editor
By Laura McFarland
Prsrt. Standard U.S. POSTAGE PAID Powhatan, VA Permit No.19
PHOTO BY LAURA McFARLAND
Michelle Davenport, co-owner of Three Crosses Distilling Co., marks bottles with their batch numbers. Her business was facing a huge tax – hike if a federal excise tax cut hadn’t been made permanent.
POWHATAN When President Donald Trump recently signed a bipartisan fiscal year (FY) 2021 funding deal into law, it included a win for a few small businesses in Powhatan County.
The 5,593-page year-end funding package included the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act, which provided
permanent tax relief for Central Virginia craft beverage providers, including some in Powhatan. The legislation makes permanent the
federal excise tax (FET) cut on distilled spirts that was enacted in 2017 and also affects beer, wine, distilled see PERMANENT, pg. 3
Walton uses poems to encourage others By Laura McFarland Editor
DELIVER TO: Postal Patron Powhatan, VA 23139
see BROADBAND, pg. 4
Powhatan schools expect 249 virtual students to return to in-person learning
Local craft beverage businesses excited about permanent tax relief Editor
the infrastructure, but its subsidiary, Port 80, will be the internet service provider that will actually be working with residential customers, said Evan Weiner, Port 80 managing member. There were initially four distinct project areas: the Pilkington area in District 2, the area near State Farm in District 3, and Walnut Creek and the Paddock in District 5, Weiner said. The State Farm part of the project, Walnut Creek, and the Paddock were all completed before Christmas, and additional areas that needed help were also added. Hosted Backbone was able to bring in additional crews to add fiber lines on Huguenot Trail going west from Pleasants Road and into Blue Bell Farms and Taurman Park subdivisions. They also added a project on Anderson High-
POWHATAN – While many may struggle to find positive things to say about 2020, for Tom Walton, it is a year that he did something he never would have considered possible – he published a book. The Powhatan resident wanted to help spread a little light in some pretty dark times with a book of original poems he had written through the years. “Truly Blessed. Why Me?” contains 90 poems Walton has written over a span of 20 years aimed at spreading encouragement and light for other people. “The title ‘Truly Blessed’ doesn’t mean I feel I have more blessings than anybody else. But I choose to focus and dwell on the blessings I have and not on negative things. I think all of us have an opportunity to do that,” he said. “And the why me part is because I haven’t done anything to deserve those blessings and I am thankful for them.” When people read his poems, Walton has always hoped they would be inspired to stop dwelling on negative things and be proactive about positive things they can do. When he started writing poems about 20 years ago, he would photocopy them, keep them in a file, and give them away for free to people when he thought they could use some encouragement. “I have enjoyed the journey of sharing it with people because that was my whole thing to begin with.
PHOTO BY LAURA McFARLAND
Powhatan resident Tom Walton released a book of poetry in 2020 called ‘Truly Blessed. Why Me?’
I wrote the poems to encourage people,” he said. When an old Powhatan High School friend read some of his poetry and suggested creating a book, Walton was skeptical. Growing up, he said he would be more likely to be found on an athletic field than in the library and was never a reader. He retired from Powhatan High School as an agriculture teacher. But in 2001, he heard a woman in his Sunday school class read a poem by Edgar Guest called “Tomorrow.” It tells the story of a man who put off doing and being all that he could be until the proverbial tomorrow not realizing his time would came up before he finally see WALTON, pg. 4
POWHATAN – Powhatan County Public Schools will spend the next few weeks working on plans to welcome 249 virtual students back to in-person learning. Dr. Eric Jones, superintendent, announced on Dec. 8, 2020, that the school system would follow through on the promise it made at the beginning of the school year to allow families who opted for the virtual model to choose whether they would allow their children to return in-person. A binding survey sent out by the division the next day has shown that 110 elementary students will return to full-week instruction and 60 Powhatan Middle School and 79 Powhatan High School students will return to two-day in-person instruction on the hybrid model, according to Dr. Tracie Omohundro, assistant superintendent for instruction. This leaves about 620 students who will remain on the virtual model through the end of the 2020-2021 school year. Jones said he and his staff are excited to welcome back those virtual students who are choosing to return to face-toface learning. Each school will have challenges with scheduling those students, but they are confident that they will be fully prepared to have them return on the scheduled date of Jan. 25. “The next three weeks will be extremely busy scheduling the return of virtual students. The biggest challenges will be adjusting the master schedule at the secondary level to maintain good class sizes with minimal disruption to student and teacher schedules,” Jones said. At the elementary level the division has solely virtual teachers who will be returning to in-person
instruction. This will present challenges in the facilities setting up new classrooms and also balancing class schedules at each grade level. While Jones said in December that hiring additional staff may be necessary because of increased class sizes, there are not yet any plans to do so, he said. “It is too early in the process to know if we will have to hire additional staff to accommodate returning virtual students. Our focus right now is having teachers move back to in person instruc-
“The next three weeks will be extremely busy scheduling the return of virtual students. The biggest challenges will be adjusting the master schedule at the secondary level to maintain good class sizes with minimal disruption to student and teacher schedules.” Dr. Eric Jones PCPS superintendent
tion as needed for these students. Hiring additional staff is a last option we will use to maintain class sizes and teacher safety,” he said. He pointed out that adding back the new virtual students will not mean reducing any of the gains the division has made in the school year so far, such as allowing some students to eat in the lunchroom or expanding recess options. The other big challenge is bus transportation, Jones added. The division’s transportation staff did a remarkable job during the first semester see VIRTUAL, pg. 5