FATHERS, SONS AND MORE

FATHERS, SONS AND MORE

The official publication date for this summer issue of Country ZEST was June 11, nine days before Father’s Day (not to mention the first official day of summer). So what better time to celebrate some delightful dads, not to mention a few wonderful wives and magnificent moms.

Our cover subjects, the Hannum family of Delaplane, checks off all the above boxes, not to mention adding their three talented teenage children into the mix. You can read all about the Hannums in several stories, including a feature on oldest daughter Chloe, so far a four-time winner on the point-to-point circuit at the ripe old age of 18.

We’ve also got some father and son stories going on—specifically the dynamic Warrenton real estate duo of Joe and Tray Allen and, occupying an office just a few doors down on Culpeper Street, attorney and former judge Greg Ashwell and his law partner son, Will.

Over in Belvoir just outside Marshall and hard by the railroad tracks, another father and his two sons have carried on a business that began 100 years ago. It’s morphed into a bustling and mostly hidden scrap metal recycling operation on a property that also has helped several other local businesses survive.

There’s another intriguing father-son partnership at Callaway Classics, leading to a recently-opened business in Marshall focusing on the renovation and sales of classic automobiles.

We’re also featuring a piece on a different sort of relationship—a retired, white cattle farmer befriending and mentoring a young, black Hill School student from a single parent household who was more than 50 years his junior.

They came from far different backgrounds, but also shared a love of golf for more than 20 years until the older man, my late friend Ben Gale, passed away last year. I get goose bumps thinking about what Ben and Chamberlain Hill each did for the other. Hope you will, too.

There are plenty more photos, columns and stories to savor on a wide variety of subjects—Middleburg’s very own baseball team, a passionate horse rescuer, a fencing master, a Dolly Parton-inspired library, peacocks in all their glory, water yoga, chickens and lovely lingerie (G-rated, of course).

It’s summertime, and the reading is easy, the better to add a little more ZEST to the coming months.

Leonard Shapiro Editor Badgerlen@aol.com