Good morning, Blacksburg.

Fall arrives this weekend whether the thermometer agrees or not. Hokies are on the road, and there's a shred-a-thon at the farmers market. More on all of it below.

In today’s Blacksburg Connect:

Let’s get to it.

Blacksburg Town Council meets at 11:00 a.m., not in the evening. Work sessions run on the first and third Tuesday of the month at 11 a.m. at the Blacksburg Motor Company Building, 400 S. Main St. Two things to know before you go: work sessions have no citizen comment period, and they are not televised or recorded. Council takes no action at them. They exist so members can ask staff questions about items coming up later. Agendas and minutes are posted afterward. The Planning Commission work session scheduled for today has been cancelled.

The school board meets in work session at 7:00 p.m. at the Government Center. The ten-year, $164 million capital plan we covered yesterday goes before them, along with the rest of the work session agenda.

Hollingsworth & Vose just completed a $40+ million expansion of one of its Floyd manufacturing plants, timed to the company's 50th anniversary in the community. Floyd was H&V's first location outside New England, and the company now runs two plants and an R&D Center of Excellence there.

The new line will manufacture cutting-edge filtration media for liquid applications, and the ribbon-cutting drew CEO Josh Ayer, Rep. Morgan Griffith, and Virginia Commerce Secretary Carrie Chenery. "For 50 years, H&V has been a cornerstone of our County," said Floyd County Board Chairman Joe Turman. Fifty years and $40 million is about as strong a vote of confidence in the NRV as a company can cast.

Some scale on what this means for Floyd. When the project was announced in January 2023, Turman said the investment was more than three times larger than the biggest private investment in the county's 191-year history. The state put in a $558,700 grant from the Commonwealth's Opportunity Fund, and Virginia beat out Georgia for the project. The original announcement projected 25 new jobs; last week's release doesn't say whether that number held.

The regional economy was on the agenda in Radford last week, too. Radford University hosted "Shaping Tomorrow, Together," a luncheon bringing state and regional leaders together on NRV growth: Secretary Chenery, New River Valley Regional Commission director Kevin Byrd, and Onward NRV's Katie Boswell talked workforce, small business support, and making the most of the region's outdoor recreation assets. The through line from both stories is the same: the NRV's pitch is advanced manufacturing plus mountains, rivers, and trails, and the people in charge of selling it are coordinating.

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