BY JANE BLOODWORTH ROWE PUNGO — This year’s growing season got off to a soggy start with heavy rains that damaged the strawberry crops and delayed planting for both grain and produce farmers. May’s hot, rainy weather damaged some strawberries,… Continue Reading
BY DAVID TRIMMER COURTHOUSE — Greetings to everyone! I hope and trust all of you are having a wonderful spring and looking forward to Memorial Day weekend and the 35th Annual Pungo Strawberry Festival. The event is a wonderful city… Continue Reading
BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE PUNGO — The dignitaries for the 35th annual Pungo Strawberry Festival, which begins this weekend, were announced during the annual festival press conference and lunch this month at the Culpepper Barn in Pungo. They are the celebrities… Continue Reading
Ed. Note – The following is adapted from remarks during the Wednesday, May 9, press conference announcing the dignitaries and theme. BY TODD JONES PUNGO — On behalf of the Pungo Strawberry Festival Board, the committee chairs and the many volunteers… Continue Reading
BY WALTER A. WHITEHURST PUNGO — The Pungo Strawberry Festival, which will take place this weekend, May 25-27, began in 1983 and has continued to this day. A very important part of the Festival is that more than $1 million of… Continue Reading
BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE COURTHOUSE — Four candidates are lined up to challenge Virginia Beach City Councilmember Barbara Henley, the incumbent in the Princess Anne District who has represented the city’s southern communities for much of the past four decades. Five… Continue Reading
Dear Editor: The agricultural reserve program, or ARP, is Virginia Beach’s best idea. It is a mistake to cast this program aside with so little transparency and discussion by reducing it to dollars and cents within the budget. The ARP… Continue Reading
BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE CREEDS — More than 400 people attended the second annual Back Bay-Knotts Island Waterfowl Festival at the Creeds Ruritan Community Complex this past month. The event, organized by Chris Ludford and Jimmy Coppedge, grew in its second year… Continue Reading
That ending the agricultural reserve program was proposed at all — then argued with questionable logic — shows a troubling division between Virginia Beach government and the rural communities it takes for granted. THE INDEPENDENT NEWS PUNGO — Two years ago, following his appointment as… Continue Reading
BY SCOTT MORRIS PLEASANT RIDGE — I am a 12th-generation farmer of land in the Pungo area, and I would like for my son to have the option of being the 13th. We sat at the Virginia Beach Excellence in Agriculture… Continue Reading