Good morning, Blacksburg.

Fun fact for Halloween: the first jack-o’-lanterns weren’t pumpkins. In Ireland and other Celtic nations, people carved scary faces into turnips (and sometimes potatoes or beets) and lit candles inside to ward off Stingy Jack and other spirits. Irish immigrants found American pumpkins far easier to carve, and the National Museum of Ireland still keeps a plaster cast of a century-old “ghost turnip” with a pinched, angry face. Now you know.

Outside, expect a mostly cloudy Halloween with a high near 63 and a light east breeze, then a cloudy night with a low around 42. Clocks fall back an hour tonight, overnight Saturday into Sunday, so enjoy the extra hour of sleep. Smithsonian Magazine | Smithsonian Gardens | National Weather Service

It’s our first Saturday week in review: the biggest stories from this week’s five issues, all in one place, plus what’s on this weekend.

In this week’s Blacksburg Connect

Let’s get to it.

About 10 people used the citizen comment period at Tuesday’s Blacksburg Town Council meeting to ask the town to end its contract with Flock Safety, the company behind the license plate reader cameras Blacksburg police use. The cameras weren’t on the agenda, and council took no vote. Since August, the town has kept plate data for 7 days instead of the 21 state law allows, limited searches to violent crimes, missing persons, stolen vehicles and active threats, and stopped automatically sharing data except with Virginia Tech Police. Police Chief John Clair said the department is looking at options “where we own the equipment,” and council also approved a charter-boundary resolution after a hearing where no one spoke.

meeting video | town plate reader page

Ran in Issue #61 (Fri)

Christiansburg Town Council voted 6-0 Tuesday to sell Carilion Clinic a little over five acres at the front of Huckleberry Park, nearest Peppers Ferry Road, for $5 million, Cardinal News reports. Mayor Mike Barber said Carilion plans a medical facility there, though neither the town nor Carilion has said exactly what will be built. The park opened in 2023 at an estimated cost of $18 million, and Barber said the goal all along was to sell one or more parcels to offset that cost.

Cardinal News | council agenda

Ran in Issue #61 (Fri)

LewisGale Hospital Montgomery, part of HCA Virginia, plans an $18 million, 11,000-square-foot freestanding emergency room in Radford’s Tall Oaks Crossing shopping center. Radford ER is expected to open in 2028 with 11 emergency treatment bays, a covered ambulance entrance, on-site lab and imaging, and about 25 clinicians. It will be HCA Virginia’s second freestanding ER in the New River Valley, after Christiansburg ER.

Virginia Business

Ran in Issue #60 (Thu)

Two federal announcements from Rep. Morgan Griffith’s office put Virginia Tech at the center: a $1 million Department of Energy award to grow the critical minerals workforce (Tech is one of 16 schools nationwide), and $24,791,450 in Economic Development Administration grants for additive manufacturing, including $16,972,068 for the Virginia Tech College of Engineering. Private-sector partners include MELD Manufacturing of Christiansburg. Separately, a team led by Tech’s Commonwealth Cyber Initiative won a $5.6 million award for Miageru (“look up” in Japanese), which would use 5G networks as a distributed sensor array to detect and monitor autonomous aircraft in low-altitude airspace, where traditional airspace surveillance technology can cost more than $30 million.

DOE award | EDA grants | VT News on Miageru

Ran in Issue #58 (Tue) and Issue #59 (Wed)

Virginia Tech beat Clemson 20-16 last Saturday night in Death Valley, scoring the final 10 points, capped by Ethan Grunkemeyer’s fourth-and-1 touchdown pass to Luke Reynolds from the Clemson 5 with 1:44 left. It was Tech’s first win over Clemson since 2007 and made the Hokies bowl-eligible at 6-2 (3-2 ACC) in Franklin’s first season. Tech is off today, then visits SMU on Friday, Nov 6, at 7pm on ESPN. The Nov 28 Commonwealth Clash at Lane Stadium is sold out, making it six sellouts in six home games.

football recap

Ran in Issue #57 (Mon) and Issue #59 (Wed)

Banker Alexander Black, a descendant of town founder William Black, began building his Queen Anne Victorian on Draper Road in 1896. His family lived there until he died in 1935, and after a short stint as a boarding home, the house spent more than 60 years as a funeral home, ending when McCoy Funeral Home sold it in 2002. The town bought it and had it rolled across Draper Road next to the Thomas-Conner House, and today it’s the Blacksburg Museum, open Tuesday through Saturday, 10am-4pm.

Blacksburg Museum | the move

Ran in Issue #60 (Thu)

The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors holds a public hearing Nov 10 at 7:15pm at the Government Center, 755 Roanoke St, on rezoning 263.50 acres of the Fotheringay property near Elliston for 349 homes, re-advertised after a parcel was left out of the legal ad for the Oct 13 hearing. The same night, the board hears two Black Diamond Resources requests on Peppers Ferry Road. Blacksburg Town Council also next meets Nov 10, since its Nov 3 work session is canceled for Election Day.

Cardinal News | county notice

Ran in Issue #60 (Thu) and Issue #61 (Fri)

Today is the last day of early voting in Montgomery County: 9am-5pm at the Office of Elections, 1546 N Franklin St, Christiansburg. In Radford, early voting is at the Radford City Registrar, 619 2nd St. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov 3.

On the ballot in Montgomery County is a new sheriff, for the first time in more than a decade, after Sheriff Hank Partin retired in April: Republican nominee Robert Page, interim sheriff since Partin left, faces Democratic nominee Tim Brown, a lieutenant with the Christiansburg Police Department. In Radford, City Council candidates weighed in on the city’s fiscal distress, data centers and Flock cameras at a Cardinal News forum.

Montgomery County early voting | Cardinal News on the sheriff’s race | Radford forum | Cardinal News voter guide

Ran in Issue #59 (Wed) and Issue #61 (Fri)

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