Features
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An Interview with Lester Karlin The Virginia Tech football program has been known for consistency whether it is winning in the Atlantic Coast Conference or a relatively low turnover among assistant coaches over the years. Clearly, though, the most steadfast member of the program is the equipment manager, who has been around since the days when Bill Dooley was coach. Lester Karlin has been the equipment manager at Virginia Tech since 1978. In that time, he has seen the school rise from a virtue unknown to a team that contends each year for the ACC championship and a BCS Bowl bid. Ovarian Cancer Alters Tech Student's Life Iona Parks can change her hairstyle at a speed most girls would kill for. If you were to see her around Virginia Tech’s campus during the day, chances are her hair would look drastically different at dinner that night. Some would admire her versatility, but the wigs she wears tell a much more sobering truth: at just 19 years old, she is a survivor of ovarian cancer. Feature: Unemployment of College Graduates. The economic struggles that the United States has been experiencing are now affecting areas of society that once seemed secure. Tempered Steel: How Frank Beamer Got That Way The military helicopter peels sideways through the broad blue sky as the crowd roars, and soon enough Frank Beamer appears at the mouth of the tunnel here at Lane Stadium. He's about to lead his team onto the field, but as usual he pauses as he allows the fervor to gather, all the while surveying the world he has built from what was once the quaint mediocrity of Virginia Tech Football. Continue reading the full article at TheRoanoker.com An Interview with ESPN Radio Host, Sean Bielawski Sean Bielawski, 24, hosts The Sean Bielawski Show on ESPN Radio Blacksburg. The charismatic and well-spoken host from Roanoke, Va. has had an interesting journey to the job he has today. Homeward Bound Sophie was paralyzed from the waist down when she was just 4 years old. Sophie's family dropped her on her back, causing her to lose the ability to walk. Afterward, they took her to get help. The doctor told them Sophie would have a chance to walk again -- if, and only if, she underwent surgery within the next 24 hours. Rather than pay Sophie's medical costs, her family decided to give her up for adoption. An Interview With Fiction Editor Lee Boudreaux Lee Boudreaux is a fiction editor in New York. In 15 years she has climbed the publishing ladder, from being an unpaid intern at Longstreet Press, to being an assistant editor, to being a senior director at Random House, one of the largest publishing houses in the world. She currently works for the HarperCollins imprint Ecco Publishing as its editorial director. An imprint is a smaller division of a larger publishing firm. It is usually a smaller publishing house that is absorbed by a larger one. Boudreaux has helped to publish novels by several noted authors such as Adriana Trigiani, Stephen King and David Wroblewski, author of the recent bestseller “The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.” Basketball's Best Kept Secret
Micah Lancaster is a rising star in the basketball world. The 26-year-old skill development trainer has gained notoriety across the country for his ability to instruct some of the best basketball players in the world. |
The Rocket Chaser In the Sunday morning light, Billy Rose’s black-rimmed glasses reflect a winter sky crisscrossed with airplane trails. As the greeter stands at the church doors, few realize that although his feet may be rooted to the ground, his dreams once soared much higher. Born in eastern Kentucky, Rose and his family moved to Coalwood, W.Va., when he was just 2 years old. During the late 1950s, the Coalwood area was composed of about five different mining communities situated around the coal mine. Dickens Is The Area's Music Man Tad Dickens is a music journalist and critic for The Roanoke Times. He was born in Colonial Heights Tenn., and he comes from a journalism background. His duties include the "Inside Out" section music coverage that appears in the Roanoke newspaper each Thursday, plus blogging and keeping up with social media on the music scene in Roanoke and the New River valleys. He has had a tremendous amount of experience with the music business, and he has been on both sides of the industry. From playing and performing music, to writing about music, Dickens works to bring readers the latest information on the local music scene. In an interview, Dickens went into more detail about the work he does with The Roanoke Times. A Gift For More Than One Village
Jane Vance - an adjunct professor of the Creative Process through the Department of Religion and Culture at Virginia Tech, an aide for special needs children at Blacksburg Middle School and an established painter of South Asian styles - resides in the unique, aqua-blue house in Blacksburg, Va. As I pulled up the rocky path leading to Vance's home, I left Virginia and crossed into an unimaginable world in a different place in time. Hokie Ambassadors Add a Warm, Soft Touch to the Cold, Hard Facts For many high school students, college visits can be an overwhelming experience, especially universities with campuses as big as Virginia Tech. Couple that with an hour-long tour jam-packed with facts and figures about the school, and any teenager’s (and their parents’) head is sure to spin. Hokie Ambassadors (HA) is a volunteer-based group of student tour guides at Virginia Tech who serve to embody the university for prospective students. Being current students themselves and having gone through the process of choosing schools, the members of HA know firsthand what it’s like to visit a college and have to make a major life choice based on an hour or two of their lives. Ambassadors recognize that since their words are a major contribution to the decision process, it is valuable to the visitors to give each of their tours a personal perspective of what life is like at Virginia Tech beyond the brochures and Web sites. Event Planning Is Her Challenge Planning an event can be stressful enough from worrying about guests, decorations and organization while making everything run as smooth as possible. Whether it’s high class occasions or small business socials, Diamond Events says it seeks to provide clients a wide range of style to fit many occasions. Diamond Events is a full-service company that specializes in event planning for family social gatherings, business functions, and of course, weddings. The Washington, D.C., Maryland and Northern Virginia areas are markets where Stephanie Hughes, founder and president of Diamond Events, showcases most of her work. When There's Trouble, The Task Force Deploys A disaster can occur at any time, without warning or without notice. The members of the Virginia Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue Team (VA-TF1) are one of the first to respond to these disasters. VA-TF1 is comprised of 200 trained men and women from the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department. VA-TF1 also includes canine search specialists, physicians, structural specialists and rigging specialists. They are the world’s first “responder community” when an emergency occurs. The team responds to both domestic (Virginia Task Force 1) and international (USAR Team 1) disasters. The Road to the NBA He was faster, stronger and better than anyone else on the court. There are a lot of good players at this gym, but none quite like him. After he finishes breaking down the defense and making a jumper in his opponent’s face, he does it again and again. Tyc Snow is a household name in Northern Virginia. He has been terrorizing local players since his days at Stonewall Jackson High School. Snow is now embarking on a difficult journey from the National Basketball Association Development League or D-league to the NBA. Interview With Recording Artist Kina Grannis It only took 60 seconds for Kina Grannis’ life to change forever. The Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” contest was over. The votes had been cast. Grannis anxiously sat beside her two competitors, waiting to see whose music video would air to nearly 97 million people during the biggest television event of the year, the Super Bowl. “I heard my little guitar part start at the beginning of the commercial," she recalled, "and I just started crying … I didn’t really know what it meant at that point. I just knew that this was changing everything.” |
Basketball is a sport dominated by some of the world’s biggest and best
athletes. So what would you think if I told you a short white guy from Michigan
was being paid to train these great physical specimens?
Tibetan prayer flags lined the unpaved path to an aqua-blue house hidden among the trees. A statue of Buddha rested upon a towering shrine of glimmering stones and metals. The breeze propelled the Tibetan prayer wheel surrounded by a garden of vibrant flowers. A postcard image of the mountains glowing beneath the sun grew beautifully in the distance. This is not South Asia. I am in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwest Virginia.