Signs of the Times - Community Historical and Political Events for June
June 2002
Calendar 2002: Community Historical and Political Events for June
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Thursday, June 6 - Friday, June 7: Chad Counting Contest

In honor of the use of the new eSlate voting machines in the Charlottesville City Council election on May 7th, the Loper website is sponsoring a 'Count the Chads' contest!

It is our good fortune to have acquired a bag of chads extracted from three voting machines from the Charlottesville special election for State Senate last December.

Chads secured in a 12 x 10 3/4" Ziploc Food Storage Bag

To participate in the 'Count the Chads' contest, you are asked to guess the number of chads in the bag. The person who comes closest to the number counted will receive the actual bag of chads, and will be honored with a luncheon at a time and place to be discussed.

On Friday, June 7th at noon in the Galleria at the Main Street Market (on West Main Street at Fifth) in Charlottesville, Virginia, a group of skilled counters from Larry Sabato's Center for Politics at the University of Virginia will individually count each chad by hand. The determination of the winner will be announced at that time. You need not be present to win, although it will be fun to be there.

The count will be overseen by observers, including local and political noteables of impeccable credentials like Del. Mitch Van Yahres, U.S. Congressman Virgil Goode's Assistant Esther Page, Charlottesville Sheriff Cornelia Johnson, Charlottesville Councilor Meredith Richards, Libertarian Secretary J.W. Lark III, former Albemarle County Voter Registrar Jim Heilman, Albemarle Democratic Chair Will Harvey and Daily Progress Columnist Bryan McKenzie.

While a local environmental consultant has accurately weighed the chads, determination of the actual winner will be made on the basis of the hand count.

Counters and Observers of the chad counting process will be invited to have lunch with the winner.

Guesses may be emailed to george@loper.org. The winner must agree to allow his or her name and picture to be placed on the web site along with those of some of the other participants.

The deadline for entry into the contest is 5 p.m. on June 6th.

Saturday, June 8: The Charlottesville Women's Choir presents their Spring 2002 Concert at 7:30 p.m. at Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church.

Tickes sold at the door on a sliding fee scale, $5-$15. Partial proceeds will be donated to Quality Community Council - The Courage Fund.

Saturday, June 15: The Albemarle/Charlottesville Democratic Breakfast will be held at 9:30 a.m. at Jefferson Area Board for the Aging on Hillsdale Drive.

It will feature a panel, put together by Lane Kneedler, which will address "Domestic Violence: The Hidden Epidemic and Virginia's Response."

When Lane was a full time faculty member at the Law School at UVA, he was involved in a major reform and re-write of Virginia's sexual assault laws (1981), was on the Charlottesville-Albemarle task force on sexual assault (which Charles Martin was on as well) in the mid-1980's, and was a member of the General Assembly's Marital Rape Task Force (1986) that wrote Virginia's first marital rape statute.

Since that time, he chaired the Attorney General's Task Force on Domestic Violence (1990-1993) [they proposed the stalking law, the assault and battery of a family and household member statute, and the emergency protective order statute], and chaired the Family Violence Commission's Task Force on Marital Sexual Assault in the late 1990s.

This session he is working on a protective order statute for vicitms of dating violence.

Saturday, June 15: JUNETEENTH: Emancipation Celebration between 1:00 a.m.and 4:00 p.m. at PIEDMONT VIRGINIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE in & around the V. Earl Dickinson Building.

JUNETEENTH is the oldest known celebration of the ending of slavery in the United States of America. It was on June 19, 1865 that Union soldiers landed in Galveston, Texas with news that the Civil War had ended and the enslaved were free. The JUNETEENTH celebration grew out of the freed slaves' desire to remember that great day in June of 1865.

Kyra Gaunt will be performing during the 4 pm free concert on Sat June 15 at the Dickinson Theatre. She will perform a precursor to the blues and jazz that tells a story about women in slavery. Scot French will also offer brief readings by Angela Davis and Bernice Johnson Reagon on women in slavery and the power of singing in black culture.

Friday night at 5:30 is an opening libation ceremony open to public at the amphitheatre behind Dickinson Bldg. All events are free and open to the public.

Saturday, June 15: Friends of Delegate Mitch Van Yahres invite you to join them at a wine tasting with special guest The Honorable Tayloe Murphy, Jr., Secretary of Natural Resources of Virginia.

Cancelled

The event will take place from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Oakencroft Vineyard in Charlottesville, Virginia, with a ticket price of $100 per person and is not tax deductible. Replies must be made to the delegate's office by June 10th .

"Who Felicia Warburg Rogan, the owner of Oakencroft Vineyards and Winery.

What A 1950 Georgian-style house on a 12-acre vineyard.

Where Charlottesville, Virginia.

"I grew up in New York City. I moved to Charlottesville in1977 when I married John B. Rogan, my late husband. A friend of John's, knowing I always liked wine, thought I should meet Lucie B. Morton, a noted viticulturist who was running her family's vineyard in Northern Virginia. I liked wine in New York, but of course I couldn't grow vines on Park Avenue. Lucie said, 'Why don't you try making wine?' John was always up for something new, so we started making wine in our garage. We thought our homemade windes were wonderful, but in fact they were not that great.

We started planting vines on an acre near our house. Then I got hooked and wanted to start a winery, which my husband built from an old farm shed. He died 14 years ago, so never saw the fruition of his labors. I founded the Jeffersonian Wine Grape Grower's Society to encourage quality wine-growing in our area. When I moved here there were five wineries in the state, now there are 75. This area will become the East Coast version of Napa Valley. We have beautiful scenery and we are in the most historic area of the state, with three homes of former presidents. We also have excellent restaurants who support the industry by serving Virginia wines..

The best part of owning a vineyard is making wonderful wine and having people enjoy it. We're a small winery. Not one of the smallest, but there are wineries that produce 20,000 cases of wine. Then there are family wineries where the husband or wife makes the wine. We produce about 6,000 cases annually. There is a staff of four full-time employees. They've been working for me for 20 years. That is loyalty. I couldn't do it without them" (Interview with Felicia Rogan by George Gene Gustines, The New York Times, May 31, 2002).

Enjoy the views. Enjoy the company. Enjoy the wine.

Thursday, June 20: You are invited to attend a Breakfast Reception in support of Meredith Richards, candidate for Congress at 8 a.m. at the Downtown Grill on the Charlottesville Downtown Mall (201 W. Main Street).

Tickets are $50 each [contributor $250, patron $500, Sponsor $1,000]. Make checks payable to Meredith Richards for Congress. RSVP to 245-0191 or www.meredithrichards.org.

Friday, June 27: You are cordially invited to "Artpalooza" - the annual open house of The Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection and The Thomas Jefferson Center for Protection of Free Expression from 5 to 7 p.m. Reservations required. Please call (434) 295-4784.

Comments? Questions? Write me at george@loper.org.