Community

Features about community members and special happenings.

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Music & Arts Featured

New Works 2025: FCA calls for artists

By highlighting work created within the past two years, New Works 2025 reflects the vitality of our regional arts community and honors the commitment artists make to push boundaries, take risks, and expand their practice.

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Community Featured

‘Harvesting Memories, Planting Dreams’: Floyd Fair returns this weekend

Exhibitions that will be on display inside of the barn will feature garden produce, preserved foods, cooked foods, horticulture, needlework, photography, arts and crafts, and Lego.

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Community

The Genetics of Giving

Research has identified several genes associated with empathy and altruism, two key traits closely linked to charitable giving. For example, studies have found that variations in the oxytocin receptor gene are associated with increased empathy and prosocial behavior.

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Music & Arts Featured

Local talent wins big at Galax convention

Margo MacSweeney placed in a number of categories, including Youth Clawhammer Banjo (first), Youth Flatfoot Dance (first) and Dance (fifth).

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Community Featured

Pet of the Week

Meet Floyd County Humane Society foster cat, Mr. Perky, who is just so sweet.

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Community

Plenty! features volunteer shoutouts and a monthly recipe

Oven Roasted Candy Squash Recipe submitted by Farmer Sean

Community Featured

Supervisors continue conversations to tackle bear problem

The regular meeting of the Floyd County Board of Supervisors on Aug. 26 included presentations from Chris Taylor, executive director of New River Valley Community Services, and Floyd County Building Official Mark Bolt. Taylor, who has been director of NRVCS since March, provided the board with some statistics specific to

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Community Featured

About three dozen join Labor Day protest in Floyd

Mott said she thinks it’s important to show up for what you believe in because “being visible is one of the most important contributions we can make to the current political climate.”

Community Featured

Planning Commission recommends changes to Land Ordinance

In a 3-2 vote, the Planning Commission voted to recommend the Board approve the Land Division Ordinance with changes, including removing the provision that would allow for reduced lot sizes on private centralized water systems and to establish a minimum lot size of five acres certain parcels.

Community Featured

Veteran's Voice: 'After 9/11: Remembering and Reconnecting'

Isolation isn’t just uncomfortable. It’s dangerous. Rural veterans die by suicide at significantly higher rates than their peers in urban areas. Distance from care, fewer resources and the sense that no one around them truly understands all play a role.

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Community

Library project to be finished next month

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Community

Pets of the Week

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Community Featured

Floyd Yoga Jam ‘Nexus’ focuses on community and connection

For 14 years, every Labor Day weekend, Yoga Jam has been bringing celebration and wellness practices to the green fields and creek banks of Burnett Farm in Willis.

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Music & Arts

Breiding returns to host season 13 of The Floyd Radio Show

News Featured

Six animals test positive for rabies in Carroll County

“The fox was captured while chewing an electrical cord on a residential porch on Farm Brook Road,” MRHD stated.

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Community Featured

Mabry Mill roof upgrade celebrated

Ward said, “The Blue Ridge Parkway is one of the most visited National Parks in the country with more visitors than Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon combined. Mabry Mill is one of the iconic locations along the 469 miles of Parkway, but it’s in our backyard. It’s our home.”

Community Featured

Campaign aims to create ‘safer and happier’ communities

“I think there is so much online entertainment now and so many other things going on that many of us get overwhelmed,” she said. “We forget the simple joys of just getting together regularly with a neighbor over coffee.”

Community

Pets of the Week

Tiger is four years old, and Aria is seven. They are a bonded pair, so volunteers are advocating for them to be adopted together.

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Music & Arts Featured

Third annual Living Traditions Festival draws about 2,000

There were demonstrations in blacksmithing, barn quilt making, basket making, soap making, chainsaw carving and more. Some of the interactive demonstrations — working with clay, making corn husk dolls and print making — were especially popular with the younger crowd.

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Community Featured

Yoga Jam kicks off this week

Instructors — who will lead not only yoga sessions but also sound baths, nature walks and educational workshops — include Mary Brown of Jivamukti Yoga, Joe Klein of Be Well Now, Katie Sutton and Josh Vogt of Zen Within Academy, ShirleyAnn Burgess of Living Light River Studio, and many more.

Community

After School Programs at the June Bug Center

The fall semester lasts September through December while the spring semester starts in January and ends in May. Tuition is based on a sliding scale, and discounts are available for siblings and registering for multiple programs.

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Community Featured

Mountain Valor Fest returns to unite local vets

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Community Featured

Backstories and Backyards: Barrel-making

Kathleen Ingoldsby introduces an occasional column looking back into the stories behind everyday objects, connecting each item with the people, places and events of different eras in Floyd County history.

Community

Peer-based recovery center opens in Floyd

“Research has shown that peer recovery centers reduce relapse rates, by offering hope, resources and a community that help turn lives around,” Chiddo said. “The centers are... magnets for recovery. Having Certified Peer Recovery Specialists promotes the positive change...”

Community Featured

Living Traditions return this weekend

The third annual Floyd Living Traditions Festival, to be held rain or shine from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 23, is a free event held both outdoors and inside the center’s historic 1940s-era dairy barn.