Mary Runnels holds a 1956 Series E war bond that she recently found. Her mother, Floris Blankenship, purchased the bond for her for $18.75. It is now worth $188.59, Runnels said, noting it stopped accruing interest after 30 years. Her mother bought the bond for her as a life lesson about saving, Runnels said.
Ask Larry Gable how he survived his stint in Vietnam in the late 1960s, and he is likely to point to his healthy sense of humor. Even his draft date offers fodder for comic relief. “When I went to the induction facility in 1967 for my physical, the doctors found a heart murmur. I thought I had escaped the draft,” the Chester resident said. “Wrong. Within the year, they called me back for another physical and my heart murmur had cleared up. I was drafted on April Fool’s Day.”Perhaps that mischievous date set the tone for Gable’s overall perspective on…
Tai chi is great for physical, mental and social benefits. That’s the word from Mike Stephens, who took up the practice after suffering from a heart attack and triple bypass heart surgery in the late 1990s. Stephens was trained in the martial art of tai chi by Tim Turner after reading an article about it in a newsletter for victims of multiple sclerosis. Stephens, who was diagnosed with the disease in 1991, said he sat around for a number of years and felt sorry for himself. “I thought, ‘It can’t get any worse than this,’” he said. The heart attack…
Mother’s Day falls on May 13 this year, and one family that will be together that day boasts five generations of women ranging from age 11 to 99. Clara Dennis is Marie North’s mother, Penny Conner’s grandmother, Ashley Stanley’s great-grandmother and Mya Johnson’s great-great-grandmother. Dennis has four children, several great-great-grandchildren and four generations in Tennessee. This year marks her 78th Mother’s Day. Although 88 years separates her great-grandmother and her daughter, Stanley said it does not sound like a lot because she is used to being in a family with so many generations. “It’s cool because I don’t think you…
Birthdays are all about surprises. When Alice Foreman approached her 90th birthday, she experienced her first big surprise: a birthday party at her church, Chester Baptist. “I thought I was going to a book signing at my church, and then to Dillard’s to exchange some clothes I had bought,” she said. The April 14 book signing turned out to be a surprise with 75 to 80 friends, former co-workers and family members. “All of my friends were there. My bridge friends, church friends and folks I worked with at John Randolph Hospital before I retired,” she said. “My family has…
Helping teens develop leadership skills was one of the ideas behind the Chesterfield County Public Library’s mini-leadership conferences. The fourth annual three-day conference – officially known as the Teen Leadership Institute – was held at the Chester Library last week. It featured motivational speaker Charles McLeod. McLeod – who grew up in southern Chesterfield County and graduated from Matoaca High School – was the first black basketball player at Richmond Professional Institute (now Virginia Commonwealth University). He credits his humble beginnings and early years living in public housing, aka “the projects,” for keeping him grounded and giving him the ability…
A good day for Nancy Thweatt is when the students in her first-grade class learn something new after having struggled with a lesson. Thweatt said when the proverbial light bulb goes off, she’s done something her students will be able to carry on to subsequent grades. Thweatt has been a teacher for 18 years and the first-grade teacher at Wells Elementary School for 12 years. Although she has taught second and third grades, she prefers first grade. “They’re more open to learning in first grade, but if you can catch them now when they’re young and just get them interested…
Kirk Cox enjoys his job, and as the 55th speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, he hopes to continue in that post for several more years. Cox, R-Colonial Heights, became speaker in January when he began serving his 28th year in the state Assembly. He was elected to the state House in 1989 and began serving in 1990 when the Republicans were “way in the minority.” At that time, serving as speaker was “not on my radar,” he said last week following an evening presentation before the Chester Lions Club. The former government and history teacher replaced Bill Howell,…
After a lifetime of managing risks, David Johnson is teaching others to do the same. Johnson, 63, became Chesterfield County’s director of risk management Feb. 26. The Annapolis, Md., native who lived in Norfolk for 10 years while growing up, brings a wealth of experience to the position. Johnson has worked in environmental health and safety for 40 years after graduating from Drew University with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and doing graduate-level work at New York University. He has worked for well-known companies such as Revlon and Honeywell over the years, but started as an industrial hygienist and…
Chester’s Ashton Creek Vineyards was busy Friday with customers in the tasting room, folks enjoying lunch with a glass of wine on the patio, and the setup for a wedding. But before the vineyard had opened, the staff had formed an assembly line at the back of a 48-foot truck housed with state-of-the- art bottling machinery parked below the tasting room to bottle up 5,400 bottles of five different wines to be tasted and sold by the winery. This was not the first time the six-year-old vineyard had bottled wines. The previous year, when they opened the tasting room…