Good morning, Blacksburg.

Cornstalks are growing along the Capitol Trail in Richmond right now, and nobody planted them. A CSX grain train derailed over the canal on July 3, birds scattered the seed along the bank, and nature took it’s course.

In today’s Blacksburg Connect:

Let’s get to it.

🏈 Virginia Tech 44, Old Dominion 21. The Hokies continue their dominating start and are now 2-0 in the James Franklin era. Ethan Grunkemeyer went 31 of 42 for 327 yards and three total touchdowns, both passing scores to tight end Luke Reynolds, who had 108 yards. The defense had seven sacks, 14 tackles for loss and three fumble recoveries, including a 14-yard scoop-and-score by Tyson Flowers in the first quarter. Que'Sean Brown returned a punt 79 yards, the program's longest since 2022, and John Love's 14 points made him the sixth Hokie past 300 career points. Next is Maryland on Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m.; the next home game is Oct. 2 against Pitt.

👟 A school record at Knights Crossing. Blacksburg High junior Rivers Matthews won the boys' varsity 5K Red race in 14:57.6, breaking both the meet record and the Blacksburg school record of 14:59. Teammate Calvin Wilbon took second for a 1-2 Bruins finish.

⚽️ In Men’s Soccer the Hokies secured a 2–1 victory over Wake Forest at Thompson Field on Sunday, marking the 150th career win for head coach Mike Brizendine.

🏈 Bruins fall to Floyd County. Blacksburg High was shut out 42-0 Friday night, dropping to 2-1.

Closed meeting at 6:45, regular meeting at 7:15 in the second-floor board chambers at 755 Roanoke St. Few things worth watching, per the agenda.

Scheduling a hearing on elderly and disabled tax relief. The board votes tonight on whether to schedule an Oct. 13 public hearing on raising the eligibility limits. The income ceiling would go from $72,000 to $74,000, and the net financial worth ceiling from $210,000 to $218,000. The relief tiers would shift too:

💵 $0–$48,000 — 100% of real estate tax exempted

💵 $48,001–$60,000 — 60%

💵 $60,001–$74,000 — 40%

The home itself and up to one acre are excluded from the net worth calculation. The program cost the county $710,178 in the 2026 tax year. Supervisors agreed at their Aug. 24 work session that the limits need to keep pace with cost-of-living adjustments. Tonight's vote only sets the hearing; the ordinance itself gets voted Oct. 13.

A Helene grant for the New River communities. The board votes on a resolution backing a state grant application to survey historic buildings and sites in the northwestern county — Longshop, McCoy, Wake Forest and Whitethorne. Planning staff say the area has been under-surveyed for decades and took some of the county's worst flooding from Hurricane Helene. No local match is required, and the survey would not create any new historic district or regulation.

Public address comes before all of it. Sign-up is outside the room, four minutes each.

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The New Music + Technology Festival opens tonight and runs through Saturday. It is one of the weirder week of events Virginia Tech puts on.

The festival started in 2021 and runs twice a year, directed by Kyle Hutchins, an assistant professor of practice in the School of Performing Arts. It is a joint project of the school and the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology. Across ten festivals it has put on roughly 200 works, 48 of them world premieres, with about 100 visiting artists, more than 50 Virginia Tech faculty and 140-plus students from five colleges.

What makes it unusual is the range of people involved. The programming pulls in music, theater, cinema, dance and visual art, and also creative coding, computer science, neuroscience, molecular biology, robotics and cybersecurity. The venues are part of the point — the Cube and the Sandbox at the Moss Arts Center are built for work that a normal concert hall cannot hold.

The schedule:

🎻 Monday, 8:00 p.m., CID Rehearsal and Performance Hall — Virginia Tech Faculty and Friends, the opening concert, with violinist John Irrera, pianist Richard Masters, clarinetist Bryce Newcomer and UVA flutist Kelly Sulick

🤖 Tuesday, 8:00 p.m., The Cube — Drosera Obscura, a live vocal performance with animatronics, built with McGill University's music media and technology centre

🔊 Wednesday, 8:00 p.m., The Cube — Eric Lyon's spatial music, with Annie Stevens and Alan Weinstein

👹 Thursday and Friday, 8:00 p.m., and Saturday, 3:00 p.m., the Sandbox — WORMWOOD, from Scotty Hardwig and Zach Duer

Tickets go through the Center for the Arts box office.

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