Manassas Park joins neighboring Prince William County, which welcomed back more than 90,000 students today.

In Manassas Park, most students return to class today, while kindergarteners will return tomorrow, Tuesday, August 23. It’s the second year for Manassas Park Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Melissa Saunders, who joined the city in April 2021 after working next door at Manassas City Public Schools.


The FredNats earned a series split Sunday in Lynchburg behind a strong start by Jose Atencio and three runs from Jared McKenzie. Fredericksburg controlled the game from the outset en route to a 4-1 victory.

McKenzie scored in the first and third on RBIs by Will Frizzell and then cruised home in the fifth on a wild pitch. James Wood followed with a home run to right to run the FredNats lead to 4-0. The blast was his second in a FredNats jersey.


RiOT businesses to hold pitch night under the stars at FAM

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“The improvements … are pretty dramatic,” Occoquan Mayor Earnie Porta Jr. said at a recent ribbon-cutting ceremony. “This has a lot of advantages for us both in terms of the way it directs traffic as well as the safety for pedestrians.”

Prince William County, the town, and the Virginia Department of Transportation, or VDOT, collaborated on the project along Mill Street between Washington and Ellicott streets. Updates to the area will improve pedestrian safety, accessibility and connectivity. The project included five crosswalks and nine ramps with detectable warning domes that comply with the American with Disabilities Act.


School supplies and backpacks are ready to go to Stafford County Public Schools — Stafford Rotary Club learned of the need for supplies and backpacks for students at all levels. Knowing that basic needs are essential for students and help them engage in lessons, they got to work and collected 65 backpacks along with numerous school supplies for first-grade through 12th-grade students. [Fredericksburg.com]

North Stafford club installs new officers — The small but mighty North Stafford Rotary held an initiation party for the new officers of the club, whose terms began in July and continued through June 2023. [Fredericksburg.com]


About 90,000 students will return to classes across the county. Except for the youngest children in the county’s Head Start program, who must continue to wear face masks, the start of the school year will feel more like pre-pandemic times.

No facemask or social distancing requirements are in place, and the school division won’t conduct contract tracing to identify who’s contracted the coronavirus.


At 10:56 a.m., deputies went to Richmond Traffic Control at 1182 Ramoth Church Road, near the Stafford Regional Airport, for a report of shots fired.

Deputy R.A. Weatherholtz arrived first and learned an employee of the business was irate and engaged in a verbal dispute with another employee, police said.


Your mission states that you wish to “inform” the community about what is happening. Well, your writer’s understanding of the recent removal of Henry “Hank” Scharpenberg from the Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee’s (CTAC) leadership role is flawed and does not reflect the real issue at hand.

Had the reporter and the Stafford Board of Supervisors members who called for his ill-considered removal and ultimately yanked Mr. Scharpenberg from his leadership role of CTAC had attended more than one meeting, they would have understood the issues this group faces, works hard on, and discussed at length all year long.


Yesli Vega pushed for more police officers this past spring when the Board of County Supervisors passed its largest budget in history — $3.8 billion — in April 2022.

Instead, the Democrat-controlled Board of County Supervisors provided funding to hire 15 new civilians, returning the uniformed officers working the desk jobs to the streets.


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