By J. Tobias Beard, Kyle Daly, Brendan Fitzgerald, Will Goldsmith, Cathy Harding, Erika Howsare, Katherine Ludwig, Meg McEvoy and Doug Nordfors
Photos by Jackson Smith
Old habits die easy. In past years, our C-VILLE 20 annual issue was all about local people who had already stepped into the limelight. Our task was to celebrate the celebrated. This year we wanted a new challenge: to follow the intricate treasure map to the bounty not many in our community are aware exists. To dig deep and throw the spotlight on those whose work deserves to emerge from the shadows.
Not only did we do some serious in-house brainstorming, but we also enlisted the help of the public by soliciting suggestions. The final list grew from both those roots. We surprised ourselves and were surprised—and delighted—by the names we couldn’t have come up with alone.
So here they are: everyone from a memorable high school history teacher to a water-savior to a void-filling publisher to a perfectionist restaurateur to a scientist out to end Alzheimer’s—just to name a few.
Please allow them to introduce themselves.
 |
The Law
Mark Frazier
If Charlottesville Police Captain J.E. “Chip” Harding gets elected to the Albemarle County sheriff’s seat in November, city police personnel can expect some shuffling around.
Transitions can bring new leaders to light, and 29-year-old patrol officer Mark Frazier may be one of the freshest, most promising faces in the city police department.
Before Frazier joined the force five years ago, Capt. Harding had heard about the young Covenant School coach: “A number of Covenant parents came up to me and said, ‘Y’all are getting ready to hire the next Timmy Longo,’” referring to the charismatic city police chief.
Which just gets Frazier laughing when he hears it.
The patrolman who hasn’t even applied for a promotion is too humble to talk about becoming a supervisor—yet.
Frazier works the “power shift” (3:30pm to 3:15am), covering District 8, a large area that includes highly active spots such as Westhaven and the 10th and Page neighborhood.
Recently offered a chance by Capt. Harding to trade in that tough shift to “come upstairs and be an investigator,” Frazier declined the offer. “Patrol officers are really the heart of law enforcement,” he says. “I just love that constant interaction with the community.”
Born and raised in Charlottesville, Frazier attended Covenant and graduated from Western Albemarle High School and then UVA.
Being a cop, he says, has “pushed me out of my comfort zone and out of the bubble it’s so easy to live in in this community.”
The bubble burst quickly in Frazier’s first year as a police officer. He was off-duty at his house near the Corner, when UVA student Andrew Alston stabbed local volunteer firefighter Walker Sisk 27 times on 14th Street.
“I got my gun and my badge, and started helping out,” Frazier says. He followed the blood trail that led to Alston’s apprehension and he testified at Alston’s trial.
Alston, scion of a well-to-do suburban Philadelphia politician, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and served less than three years. “[The case] hurt some of the trust that people have in the system,” Frazier says.
But Frazier, also an active member of Christ Community Church, remains positive. “Right now what I’m passionate about is seeing a lot of the walls in this community torn down…the walls between race or socioeconomic status.”
Will Frazier soon be taking this sense of purpose up the ranks of the city police force?
“I really can’t predict what the future holds for me,” he says. “I see myself staying in this community and with this department for a long time.”—M.M.
 |
The Party Hopeful
Christian Schoenewald
What originally seemed in line to be a run-of-the-mill tax season turned into a bitter battle over the property tax rate thanks in large part to a “Truth in Taxation” campaign from the Albemarle County Republican Committee. At the April 4 Board of Supervisors meeting, they presented the Board with a jar full of almost 1,500 teabags.
“Over 200 years ago in Boston, the Sons of Liberty dumped tea into Boston Harbor because the British government had become unresponsive and oppressive,” said Christian Schoenewald, party vice-chair. “There are many in Albemarle County who feel the same way.”
While much of the campaign’s spotlight went to Republican Chair Keith Drake, much of the organizing credit belongs to Schoenewald, a NoVa transplant who in four short years has become an integral force among the county Republicans.
Though the 34-year-old Schoenewald had worked in the Office of Management and Budget for the Bush White House after graduating from American University’s School of Public Affairs, he wasn’t an active party member until he came to Charlottesville. His wife got a job at International Auto Parts, and Schoenewald forwent the job market for the daily grind of party politics. Despite being legally blind from birth, Schoenewald saw diminishing local opportunities for the middle class and Charlottesville becoming “a playground for the wealthy.”
He came eager for action. Schoenewald volunteered to challenge Dennis Rooker for his seat on the Board of Supervisors even though Republicans hadn’t planned to oppose the seat. The effort was unsuccessful—Schoenewald won only 25 percent of the vote. Still, it whetted his appetite for the campaign trail.
These days, Schoenewald is busy getting the word out about Republican events and the seven contested campaigns the party’s running for the November election—state senate, sheriff, prosecutor, clerk of court, one School Board seat and two supervisor seats are up for grabs.
But the desire to run for office is still in his blood. As nice as it is help coordinate campaigns, “I’d much rather be a candidate. I would encourage everyone out there to run for office—there’s nothing else like it.”—W.G.
 |
The Mobilizer
Becky Reid
It started out as a slow, but continuous drumbeat—a constant cadence you can’t ignore until you’re unconsciously tapping your foot in time—“Becky, Becky.” The public chanted her name to us in a campaign of e-mails of the same refrain: Becky Reid, grassroots organizer for Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge, is “inspiring,” “amazing,” “dedicated,” “making Charlottesville a better place.” Talk about a grassroots movement. All right, already—she’s on the list!
Joking aside, if we weren’t already convinced that Reid is an emerging, galvanizing force in local social activism, the barrage of nominations from her army of volunteers was evidence of her effectiveness—she’s taught them well.
Reid is one of those living-to-work types. She came to Charlottesville three years ago for the job with Planned Parenthood—her “dream job,” she says, “what I had to do.” But her professional life looks a lot like her personal life what with her involvement in her “spare” time with political organizations such as Charlottesville’s Left of Center and the League of Women Voters. Her natural organizing abilities and leadership qualities mean she’s always being asked to chair this volunteer committee and run that campaign. Last year she co-chaired the Democrats Get Out the Vote effort for City Council elections. This year she’s adamant that she’s “just helping” with Denise Lunsford’s campaign for Albemarle County Commonwealth’s attorney—but you can almost visualize the pressure from others and herself, to take on a bigger leadership role.
And it’s no wonder Reid is in demand—she gets it done—or she mobilizes others to get it done. In the short time she’s been with Planned Parenthood, she has helped the advocacy arm of Virginia’s organization become a model for other states. For instance, she led the charge to revamp the state’s website, www.ppav.org, to make it a more interactive way to communicate legislative updates and lobbying efforts
to volunteers.
The key to Reid’s success has been her ability to leverage the organization’s limited resources by maximizing the talents of her volunteer pool. Some volunteers are comfortable calling up their legislators, some people prefer to work behind the scenes doing data entry (or website development), for example. Reid recognizes the importance of deploying people toward their strengths and interests. And she has that innate ability to delegate and to propagate leaders among her volunteers.
Reid recognizes that between her day job and her extracurriculars, she often spreads herself too thin, but she can’t seem to help it—she draws just as much energy from the volunteers she’s motivating as they do from her. It’s the “ability that we can change things” that keeps her going, she says.
So chant it with us: Becky, Becky.—K.L.
 |
The Ink
Ben Miller
The curtains around the saloon-style doors to Ben Around Tattoos and Offbeat Gallery stay closed during the business day; anyone curious about the art behind the doors has to step across the threshold. However, Ben Miller—a former Capital Tattoos artist who bears the aspect of a large, perpetually grinning scroll of ink, himself—keeps the curtains to the windows in his W. Main Street tattoo studio pulled wide open.
Last October, Miller purchased the space adjacent to Starr Hill Music Hall, a structure with a façade similar to the music venue (an inset entrance between boxy windows). Ben Around opened its doors in January and invited roughly 100 people into a space that is less a conventional tattoo studio than a David Lynch fantasy: Garish, red velvet parlor seats form the hub of Miller’s gallery space, around which reel the most unlikely exhibitions to ever greet a Charlottesville art venue, and Miller plans to keep it that way.
Though Ben Around is quickly taking hold in the local gallery scene, Miller wants to rethink the form and function of the First Friday receptions that are a mainstay of Downtown art, and he doesn’t seem to mind nipping at a few traditions while he does that. Ben Around does not have a liquor license (“We’re not interested in hype or a big booze party”), and Miller is content with his distance from the double row of galleries lining the Downtown Mall (“We’re interested in different aspects of art, you know, other than landscapes and horses”). Like-minded or at the very least curious art lovers and scenesters—as many as 50 at a time—turn out to each provocative First Friday reception. May saw cartoonish imps from Denver-based tattoo artist Jenny Lee; the current exhibit, “Interiors,” runs through June 30 and features anonymously donated MRIs and CAT scans, with prints for sale.
Beyond the art lining the burgundy walls is the sterile, white box where Miller retreats to do his own work. He encourages the curious public to peer in there during gallery hours, saying it “lowers intimidation,” but he draws the line at inking customers during receptions, noting that he doesn’t want them “to feel like they’re part of a sideshow.”
Considering his already hectic schedule, he very well might need the break once a month. Even as he plans gallery shows and receptions, Miller puts in long days in the studio with clients from Charlottesville and beyond; many book full days with him. “I may only do nine tattoos in one week,” Miller says, “But I’m still tattooing eight hours a day, six days a week.”—B.F.
 |
The Palate
Riaan Rossouw
Riaan Rossouw didn’t go to enology school and wasn’t trained in France or California. Instead, he learned the art of winemaking from the ground up in his native country of South Africa, learned with his hands and his eyes instead of books. Rossouw has been walking through vineyards since the age of 5, and working in them since high school. Now, at 30, after cutting his teeth as an intern and then as head winemaker at Oakencroft Winery just west of Charlottesville, Rossouw is poised to be at the forefront of the next generation of Virginia winemakers.
When he moved to Charlottesville in 2000 to join Oakencroft, all he knew about Virginia was that you could grow tobacco there. It was a big risk for someone with only two years experience as an assistant winemaker under his belt, and his first few years seemed nightmarish as he struggled with the realities of being an immigrant in post-9/11 America. Two-thousand-and-two was the first vintage that was largely his, and his Oakencroft Merlot Reserve was one of the best Virginia wines that year, a bottle recently praised by none less than the managing director of Chateau Fourcas Hosten in Bordeaux.
In 2004, that risk began to pay off. Rossouw was asked by the Puckett family to be a part of designing a new winery, Lovingston: small, family-owned, and dedicated to quality. “If this was yours,” the Pucketts asked him, “what would you do with it?” What he did was to create the 2005 Lovingston wines, one of the most successful first vintages of any recent Virginia winery.
Making wine in Virginia is difficult; there is no pattern that a winemaker can follow and no easy answers to the constant problems that the climate throws your way, which actually suits a rugged individualist like Rossouw just fine. (His motto: “Art does not get born out of a book.”) As a winemaker who does not believe in patterns and thrives on challenges, he has a philosophy that is uniquely suited to his adopted home. Now, as some Virginia wineries reach the three-decade mark, he is just beginning to hit his stride.
Rossouw has gained much in his seven years here. Already he has made, at Lovingston, some of the best wines in the state. He has found, in the Pucketts, a family that believes in his talents enough to let him develop his own label, SpringBok (now in bottles though not yet on the shelf). He has recently married, and he has realized, in his new home, the freedom to express himself as a winemaker and as a person.—J.T.B.
 |
The Publisher
Rhonda Edmunds
The media market has gotten, shall we say, saturated in the past five years. What with multiple TV stations, new radio stations, and plenty of newspapers, it takes a certain kind of optimism—or an eye for the unfilled niche—to launch yet another publication around here. Rhonda Edmunds seems to have a touch of both. The force behind a new, four-color magazine geared towards African Americans in Central Virginia, Edmunds may well be the new face of local publishing.
Two years ago, Edmunds found herself looking around for a new project. She had always enjoyed magazines and was editor of her high school yearbook. “I loved that job,” she volunteers.
Knowing her passion for print, Edmunds, currently communications director for the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, realized there was a void to fill: “There’s not anything particularly focused on illuminating the African-American community,” she thought.
Enter The Light. The quarterly magazine’s debut issue in March focused on African-American youth.
“I just see too many kids out there that are just kind of wandering around, and it hurts me, first of all being a mother, but then secondly being a black person in the community,” Edmunds says.
The next issue, due in July, will tackle HIV/AIDS in the community. Edmunds is working on a piece about black churches and AIDS, and “how we don’t talk about it as we should.” The magazine, which is distributed by subscription across Central Virginia and on newsstands in Charlottesville (including the C-VILLE office), also covers general interest topics. Other articles include everything from fashion to health tips to the achievement gap, all penned by Edmunds, in the current issue.
“She found a community of people who wanted to tell their stories,” says Kaye Monroe, a career and leadership coach who writes a column for The Light. “She’s been a one-woman show.”
Edmunds knows she must balance her passion for the subject matter with a business-minded approach to making it in the market, and the first issue contained many advertisements from many local African-American-owned businesses.
Edmunds is sanguine about her prospects. “I really don’t see where [the competition is] hurting me a whole lot right now. Obviously I would like to have more advertisers than I currently have. …I think this is very different from what’s currently in the market.”
Monroe, a local resident for 25 years, says, “This is the first time that I have seen an African American magazine. …It’s something that’s probably been long overdue.”—M.M.
 |
The Players
Justin Gwilt and Dan McCauley
Two years ago, Justin Gwilt and a friend, Jake Guzman, then both UVA undergrads, decided to grab a piece of the poker craze and started the Virginia Poker Association, an excuse for students to get together and play Texas Hold’em. But after they held their last tournament, they were left with a question: What do we do with all these poker chips? Less enterprising minds might have hit up eBay or just given them away. Gwilt and Guzman had other plans. During a trip to Philadelphia, Guzman had seen a thriving poker scene taking over Philly bars. On his return, he and Gwilt started planning just what they’d do with all their poker chips.
Gwilt and Guzman went to a few local bars that were already holding rather disorganized poker nights and told them they could do it right. Jabberwocky and O’Neil’s bit, and NutFlush Entertainment (www.charlottesvillepoker.com) was born. Within a year, NutFlush was holding games six nights a week, each at a different bar. Though they’ve cut it back to four (five when UVA’s in session), their popularity continues to grow, largely through word-of-mouth.
Poker players show up most weeknights at Wild Wings Café, Rivals, the Biltmore or the Lazy Parrot Grill ready to play. Guzman left the area when he graduated, and Gwilt has since taken on another partner, UVA grad student Dan McCauley. The two arrive about an hour before each game starts with portable tables and chips in tow. By 8pm most nights, a crowd has assembled to play for points, with no buy-in required (that way, everything’s in accordance with Virginia gambling laws). Gwilt and McCauley oversee seven tables of players over the subsequent three and a half hours, and at the end of the night, the big winner gets a gift certificate or a cash prize from the host bar.
NutFlush now has about 350 members in a loose league, with around 50 showing up to play on any given night. At the end of the season, the top 64 players compete in a poker invitational. The last player standing gets $1,000. Yet despite the thick air of competition, many of the players have made connections, organizing their own poker games on the side. “People get to work on their game here, practice reading other players,” says Gwilt. “If they want to set up a private game, it’s a good place to come out. People make friends here.”—K.D.
The Rebuilder
J.P. Williamson (Not Pictured)
Over the past year, the name “J.P. Williamson” has been springing up across the region. Williamson speaks at meetings for the latest phase of the Hollymead Town Center on Route 29N; he’s present for city Board of Architectural Review meetings about renovations to the Hardware Store on the Downtown Mall; and his company, Octagon Partners, recently found a location at Zion’s Crossroads in Louisa County to build a mixed-use outlet mall.
The local development field has long been dominated by a familiar set of names: Wendell Wood, Charles Hurt, Chuck Rotgin. It’s no small chore to break into the scene—particularly if you scattershoot your projects all over the Central Virginia map: In addition to projects already mentioned, Octagon is currently working in Culpeper, Harrisonburg and Wintergreen. And Williamson says their plate still isn’t full. Since he and his partner, Sean Stalfort, moved from Connecticut in 2003 to Charlottesville (where they were both born and raised), they have collaborated with longtime local developer Wood on Hollymead and a Utah-based firm on Zion’s Crossroads. Such big-scale projects assure that Williamson won’t be under the radar for long.
What’s the secret to Octagon’s success in breaking into the market and its relatively smooth sailing, from a public relations point of view? It doesn’t hurt that Williamson, a 1986 graduate of Charlottesville High School, and Stalfort, who went to Western Albemarle, both have local roots. Or that they’ve so far avoided controversy with their Downtown projects by not going for nine stories that zoning would entitle them to—the Hardware Store, for instance, will get only minor tweaks. But Williamson says they’ve been accepted because of their follow-through: “We tend to execute on the deals that we undertake. I think sellers and brokers in the community respect the fact that we make decisions quickly and then close.”
And they’ve got the ever-popular development approach known as adaptive reuse on their side, too. Sure, they’re involved in Hollymead, but Williamson and Stalfort are suckers for worn-down historic buildings in need of some tender loving care. Example: Gleason’s, a former Garrett Street feed store built in the 1880s where their office is now located. They converted the rat-infested building into a space to suit the tastes of boutique retailers, with a four-story condo building on the way. “When we looked at [Gleason’s], people said, ‘Well, what tenants are going to come to this building, it’s on the other side of the tracks?’” If Octagon stays on course, you can bet more and more folks will venture across those tracks.—W.G.
 |
The Nature Lover
John Murphy
John Murphy’s big concern is sediment. “When the landscape around a river or stream is disturbed, the stream morphology changes,” Murphy explains while knee-deep in the Doyles River, just outside White Hall. “An affected river becomes less efficient at moving sediment, and more sediment in the water changes the biological makeup of the river.” Moments later, as if to illustrate his point, he plunges his hand into the river and plucks out a dead fish. “Madtom,” he says.
Murphy is the director of StreamWatch, and thanks to him and the nonprofit he founded in 2002 to examine the biological and sedimentary make-up of streams and rivers in the Rivanna watershed, more and more volunteers are sticking their hands in the water to see what they can find. He and StreamWatch’s program manager, Rose Brown, lead a group of volunteers who routinely collect data from sites throughout the 766-square-mile Rivanna Basin with the goal of improving the health of its streams and rivers. They do this by studying insect populations and sediment composition and passing their findings on to Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality and other concerned organizations and individuals.
In just five years StreamWatch has successfully tapped funding from eight partner organizations, including Abemarle and Fluvanna counties, the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority, the Nature Conservancy and a new partner, the City of Charlottesville. Still, StreamWatch can only maintain a staff of two part-time employees, hence its reliance on volunteers. At last count, as many as 65 had been trained through StreamWatch to help with the sample collection.
Murphy can certainly appreciate the value of volunteers; StreamWatch was born from his own volunteer efforts, which, as a budding environmentalist, eventually sent him back to school after two decades away to study environmental science. From there he founded StreamWatch to raise awareness of the area’s immediate environmental concerns.
“Environmentalism is no longer the province of tree huggers,” says Murphy, a native of California. “We face a difficult challenge of balancing economic needs with long-term environmental sustainability. If we don’t solve the long-term problems, our kids are screwed, but our economic systems are geared for the short term. We’re out on a limb, and we’re also between a rock and a hard place. We can extract ourselves, but only with great care.” And the StreamWatch volunteers, bug by bug, pebble by pebble, are working on it.—K.D.
 |
The Teacher
Krishna Kishore
“I had a bit of an ego at 24,” says Krishna Kishore. If he’d have let that ego get the better of him, he might still be playing power politics on Capitol Hill—he spent a few years there as an aide after graduating with degrees in history and foreign affairs from UVA. Or else he’d be climbing the ladders of higher ed administration thanks to a master’s degree in that very thing from the University of Michigan. Instead, he wised up to the fact that when you have an intense passion for the study of history, and you enjoy working with young people, there is a profession for you and it’s called high school history teacher—big salary be damned.
“You have to find the place that fits you well,” he says he finally realized, and so back to school he went, this time for a master’s in teaching from the Curry School at UVA. Eventually that led to his job at Charlottesville High School.
If he has an ego now, we wouldn’t blame him—in the five short years he’s been on faculty at CHS he has made a name for himself as one of the teachers—you know, the kind that the kids really like even though he makes them work really hard.
“Memorizing a bunch of history text can get a little boring, “ says former student Riley Moore. You ain’t kidding—just mentioning the Battle of Bull Run makes more than some of us nearly comatose. “But he makes it enjoyable,” she says. Huh? A teacher notorious for his killer tests and marathon-long homework assignments is enjoyable? If you’re a little perplexed, so is he. “There should be nights when you are cursing my name,” Kishore tells his students.
Indeed there may be some swearing over his daily writing assignments, but Kishore’s enthusiasm for the subject matter is contagious. Whether he’s doing his one-man history show for an audience of self-confident 11th grade AP U.S. history students or rather-be-elsewhere 10th graders reading below level in his world history class or ESL students who ask, “George Washington who?” Kishore is a consummate performer of the secondary schooling stage. He says he never wants to let any student down—not the student who’s carrying six AP classes and still has the energy to debate him on the virtues of representative government nor the student whose biggest achievement is showing up to class every day.
With high expectations like that, he‘s destined to join the next generation of teachers to make it into those casual conversations, years down the road, that start, “ I had this history teacher once, Mr. Kishore…”—K.L.
 |
The Conduit
Christine Gyovai
In certain local circles these days, plant guilds are a hot topic. So are sun sectors, bartering and straw-bale houses. If these are unfamiliar ideas, the umbrella under which they all fall—permaculture—probably is too. But if you are in the loop, chances are you already know Christine Gyovai. In those certain circles, she’s a driving force for a rapidly growing movement.
Permaculture, to answer the obvious question, is a way of sustainably designing and using one’s house and land—meaning anything from growing compatible plants to organizing a work party among your neighbors. Energy use, food production and human relationships are all integrated under a set of principles, like “catch and store energy and materials.”
Gyovai didn’t invent permaculture—two Australians did that in the late 1970s—but she’s a big reason why locals can now get certified in permaculture design. Having earned her own certification in California in 2000, she came to UVA’s graduate program in urban and environmental planning two years later and began developing connections with like-minded locals. “Christine is an amazing networker,” says Dave O’Neill, who owns Radical Roots Farm near Harrisonburg and himself was approached by Gyovai a year ago at the City Market. She’d heard he was teaching permaculture in Roanoke and wanted to start a course closer to home.
The response, says O’Neill, was “almost overwhelming.” Thirty-five people, including everyone from farmers to attorneys, filled the first 72-hour course, held last spring at Afton’s Rockfish Valley Community Center, and another 20 went on a waiting list. It was the largest permaculture course taught east of the Mississippi in 15 years, Gyovai says.
In conversation, Gyovai has the calm demeanor you’d expect from a woman with a background in professional mediation. Her main passion, she says, is for human community, but she knows about the hands-on side of permaculture too: She and her husband are building a straw-bale house for themselves and the baby they expect this fall. “She’s been a great catalyst” for the movement, says Terry Lilley, one of Gyovai’s students who’s now organizing a second permaculture course for October and November.
Beyond the certification courses, Gyovai also coordinates an umbrella group, the Blue Ridge Permaculture Network, which includes around 200 people and sponsors one-day workshops. Gyovai is careful to spread the credit around to O’Neill and other organizers. But with her apparent talent for tapping a groundswell of environmental awareness—and simply adding a structure that brings interested people together—she enacts another permaculture principle: “Make the least change for the greatest effect.”—E.H.
 |
The Dramatist
Robert Wray
Every small-city arts scene needs people who have paid their dues in bigger markets and are ready to start fresh by bringing their expertise to bear on a new community. In the case of Charlottesville, perhaps no one these days fits that bill better than playwright and actor Robert Wray—a.k.a. Brad the Stable Boy.
That was Wray’s role for a few months on the soap opera “Days of Our Lives.” One of evil Mr. Curtis’ lackeys, Brad was the only witness to one of those murders that keep the daytime TV audience rapt. Brad’s storyline—and Wray’s role, plus his skittishness when he was around or on his character’s horse—came to a halt when the script called for the murderer to get nabbed.
But the bulk of Wray’s artistic background is no joke, albeit less lucrative. He spent 10 years in New York City gaining a reputation as a writer and actor for Circle Repertory Company and various off-Broadway venues (he tended bar and taught theater to make a living). He also did film work, acting in high-profile independent films such as Basquiat and smaller films such as Exquisite Corpse.
After getting a master’s degree in playwriting from the University of Iowa, he set his sights on Charlottesville and set down roots here a few years ago. When growing up in Norfolk, he would hear glowing things about this city from relatives who lived here; the place simply took on magical properties in his head.
You can see that kind of imagination still at work in Wray’s plays. The Secret Rain, which was given a staged reading at Live Arts in April, is about a young mother who’s visited by the ghost (or is it the actual presence?) of Holly Golightly. His new play, which he hopes will get the same expert Live Arts treatment, is a riff on Hamlet.
He continues to act as well. He has a small role in Evan Almighty, which was shot in this area, and he’ll be in Four County Players’ production of Twelfth Night this summer.
His dream is to start a theater group here that produces only new works and practices (in terms of set design) a minimalist aesthetic—“theater down to its essence,” he calls it. He compares the possible future of the theater scene to the current music scene here. “There’s music everywhere. Theater can also have those different colors and voices in town. And I can add my funky bluegrass.”—D.N.
 |
The Entrepreneur
Karen Laetare
You can take the girl out of California, but if the girl is Karen Laetare, she might just create a plausible facsimile of the Golden State right here in Virginia. It’s hidden on Route 53 past Monticello. You come around a sharp corner and it’s as though you’ve landed in Sonoma: grapevines, mountain views and a funky old building where, since 1999, Laetare’s been selling the food that completes the illusion. Orzo salad, cheese and olives, grilled veggies, fresh focaccia and scones—did someone say wine country?
“It’s all smoke and mirrors,” she laughs–that is, the way she’s built her career since she and her husband moved from Sacramento in 1992. There she’d had a corporate hospital job, but here she began playing unfamiliar roles: innkeeper at Prospect Hill, catering manager at HotCakes. She had no culinary training; she’d started cooking at home and “tapped into this talent,” she says. Employers noticed. Eventually she found herself with her own business. She named it Brix Marketplace, after the term for the sugar content of wine.
The site, long on charm, is no gold mine. “I made huge mistakes” in the beginning, says Laetare. “I thought it would be the next Dean & DeLuca.” Sitting, though, as Brix does between Jefferson Vineyards and Monticello, traffic is seasonal and weather-driven. There is almost no seating. But it’s still there, and one gets the sense that a scrappy work ethic—Laetare put herself through college over a decade of night classes —is the biggest reason why.
If Brix has been a hidden gem, it’s now in a position to become the place where a lot of people might stop on their way home from work. About three years ago, Laetare got noticed again. Great Eastern Management Company, which runs Pantops Shopping Center, approached her to ask if she’d like to occupy a new building near the main entrance. “She just had it together,” says Steve Hopkins, a vice president at Great Eastern. “She was a hands-on operator; she was managing her business.”
Indeed, on a recent morning at Brix Terrace Café, which opened two months ago, Laetare was shuttling trays of prepared food from kitchen to display case, greeting customers, checking on employees. The space glowed with sunlight; muslin fabric draped in swoops from the ceiling. There was plenty of seating.
It’s been a long road. “It took us eight years to perfect the cinnamon rolls,” says Laetare. She hopes more people will taste them now.—E.H.
 |
The Collaborator
Wendy Brown
She works with a basic motto—“share what you know, find what you need”—but Wendy Brown’s work is anything but simple. Founder and director of the Center for Nonprofit Excellence, Brown knows that nonprofits sometimes can be so busy thinking about the needs of others that they back-burner their own—be those organizational, informational, or simply networking with like-minded souls. Since last October, she’s made it her business to offer CNE’s services on all of these fronts to the more than 700 nonprofit organizations in the five-county region, from Albemarle to Fluvanna, Nelson and beyond.
“Nonprofits and entrepreneurial organizations share many characteristics,” says Brown. “You have a lot of dedicated people working hard, but there is no centralized location for finding the business tools they need. And you don’t want to re-create the wheel.”
So far, her message seems to have taken hold. Merely nine months after the CNE hung out its shingle, the center held an open house event that attracted 175 people to honor CNE’s first 100 members (membership ranges from $100 to $400 annually for nonprofits). CNE’s monthly brown bag lunches and seminars regularly draw a couple dozen attendees for topics from dealing with pesky IRS auditors to making an impact on the local media (done!).
Not only that, the center is an effective aggregator of important information. Partnering with the Foundation Center (“The grandaddy of grant and research writing,” says Brown), CNE is now one of eight cooperating collections across the state where members may investigate the 80,000-plus foundations that have funds to donate to nonprofits that know how to ask, using new computer equipment and books obtained through a $10,000 matching grant with the Perry Foundation.
“Folks from Charlottesville have driven to D.C. and Richmond for years for training, or have paid up to $1,300 a year to have one individual to access the [Foundation Center’s] database,” says Brown. “CNE can bring the highest level of searchability to Charlottesville for free.”
With a master’s in business administration from Darden and years of public service (from probation officer to candy striper to literacy volunteer), Brown certainly knows her way around effective organizing principles. And as a 20-year resident of the area, she knows her way around Charlottesville. But what is it that motivates her to work so seemingly tirelessly for the groups that work so seemingly tirelessly for others? “I grew up in a family where it was expected that we volunteer. The nonprofit sector in this country drives so much innovation and meets so many needs.”—B.F.
 |
The Seamstress
Sherrie Hannah
He probably didn’t know it, but when Judge Michael T. Sauer ordered Paris Hilton back to jail two weeks ago, he was doing Sherrie Hannah a favor. The local sewing teacher has been decrying the influence of the imbecilic heiress to her younger charges for the past year. Maybe now that Hilton is back in the slammer, Hannah can get on with the business of bobbins and the zig-zag stitch.
If it seems unusual that a sewing teacher should dedicate class time to pop culture icons…well, the only thing to say is Hannah is not your run-of-the-mill instructor. Only two years ago she was a rock stylist and freelance textile artist in New York City (she worked on photo shoots for such magazines as People and Sports Illustrated and styled such indie icons as Jeff Tweedy and Dar Williams). But Hannah, who is 34, gladly left that world behind in search of a meaningful work in a smaller community. Through the grapevine she heard that Les Fabriques, the venerable fabric store on Route 29N, might want a sewing teacher. In practically no time flat, she put a beginner’s class together. The response, she says, was “overwhelming” and it’s easy to see why. With her warm affect and one-of-a-kind personal style born as much of her flattering handmade garments as of her glamorous good looks, the flame-haired Hannah makes a lasting impression.
Now teaching full time at Les Fabriques, Hannah, who has a full roster of adult classes, also dedicates four afternoons a week to her After-School Stitch program geared at middle school girls. And it’s to them that Hannah imparts her message about how to rightfully earn one’s place in the limelight. “Teenage girls are obsessed with Paris Hilton,” she says. “I ask them, ‘How is this important? How can you be a fashionable woman who does good things for her community?’”
Hannah does more than ask the question, however. She’s answering it. As she’s gotten to know her young students, she says, several of them have confessed to her that they struggle with serious eating disorders. In response, Hannah is organizing—with her girls—a fashion show of her students’ works. Slated for next spring, “Every Body is Beautiful” will benefit the Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness, a Florida group. “I realized through fashion and sewing I could instill a sense of confidence in girls,” Hannah says.
Restoring traditional arts while promoting self-esteem and critical thinking skills in the next generation of girls? If that’s the shape of fashion to come, well then sign us up. It’s time to thread your needles, ladies, and Sherrie Hannah is leading the way.—C.H.
 |
The Believers
Susan Pleiss/IMPACT
Churches helping the poor? Not exactly news. Congregations in the area are known for programs that provide shelter, food and clothing to the needy. But typically congregations do not assemble a packed audience at Charlottesville High School and pin local elected officials to the wall on issues like transportation and affordable housing.
But IMPACT, which stands for Interfaith Movement Promoting Action by Congregations Together, did just that at their “Nehemiah Action” on March 15, when they pressed all five members of City Council and several county supervisors for commitment to solutions on transportation and affordable housing for the area’s poorest residents.
“We don’t go away. We kind of doggedly go after it,” says a smiling Susan Pleiss, a member of Church of the Incarnation.
Pleiss is one of many people of faith who, as members of IMPACT, are turning their religion into an engine for local change.
IMPACT was formed last year after a group of local pastors met about starting a social justice movement. Fifteen-member congregations at the outset grew to 25 churches, synagogues, mosques and other assemblies.
IMPACT members say social justice work is a natural extension of their faith.
Blaire French, a member of Congregation Beth Israel, was called to IMPACT by a command in the Jewish faith that translates to “repair the world.”
Pastor Bruce Beard of Transformation Ministries says, “What good is it if you go to heaven and you haven’t impacted the world that you’re in?”
Still, for some churchgoers used to serving in soup kitchens and clothing drives, getting political meant getting outside their comfort zones. This year, IMPACT saw that bus routes to areas like Southwood Mobile Home Park were restored and supported affordable housing initiatives in the city.
In years to come, IMPACT will tackle different issues. They’ll start from the bottom up, querying members of congregations and then voting for a few key social justice issues to focus on each year. Potential issues include health care and jobs and wages, members say.
Good causes, all. But what makes IMPACT think they can set themselves apart from all the other good-doers in Charlottesville? Sheer numbers help—when 1,600 community members are supporting an organization, officials tend to listen. And, IMPACT members say their status as people of faith is a plus.
“We’re not politically based, not just Democrats, Republicans. There are different socioeconomic levels—it gives us more power,” says Bonnie Carr of First Baptist Church. “People are not looking at us as just some radical group.”—M.M.
 |
The Host
Steve Richmond
What do DJ Steve Richmond and Arthur Fonzarelli have in common? One can make women appear at the snap of his fingers; the other can cue up the right track by Madonna or the Talking Heads and flood restaurant floors with mobs of wide-legged, hip-swinging dance enthusiasts. And with his dirty blond hair slicked back and Arnette shades ever-present, Richmond may not be too far removed from the prototypical “Happy Days” hipster. Ehhhhhh.
Richmond moved to Charlottesville from Norfolk in 1994, putting in 10 years at Plan 9 before taking his current position as a designer for Osteen Phillips Architects. But after a party in 2006 where Richmond manned the sound system for the evening, he followed his love for the “immediate feedback” of the live music experience to the intimate space of Atomic Burrito, where he began experimenting with themed dance nights.
This is where the tempo picks up a bit, where the strobe lights get flashier: Rather than simply take the easy road (swing dances, karaoke) or the debatable road less traveled (indie rock, anyone?), Richmond began tacking up Vespa-decorated flyers for “Ready, Steady, Go!” a British rock-inspired dance night soaked in mod bands from the Jam to the Who. Amidst an already active DJ scene Downtown, Richmond found a niche.
Richmond followed the fist-pumping, piston-legged success of “Ready, Steady, Go!” with his first “City Life” dance party, held last February at Atomic Burrito. This go-around, Richmond’s tunes oscillated wildly (to borrow a phrase from Morrissey) between the ’80s and the present, riding that delicate line where modern disco punks from the Moving Units to Le Tigre meet New Order and Blondie.
Next up: a gig at Michael’s Bistro, where he was invited to spin on April 14. What followed was nothing short of a table-dancing rave-up, as the tables and chairs at the heart of the Bistro were pushed aside for a 40-person crowd demanding more Daft Punk while they sloshed their pricey Belgian imported beers across their Ralph Lauren-approved duds.
“It was a college scene,” Richmond recalls with a proud smile. “A bunch of people I didn’t recognize.”
Richmond still holds down his gig at Osteen Phillips, but the demand for “City Life” events is growing. And, true to form, Richmond is already brainstorming a new group of records for a new dance event. Before he unleashes his newest creation, DJ Steve Richmond is slated to spin at the ’80s prom at Satellite Ballroom to benefit Planned Parenthood on June 22. Happy days for us.—B.F.
 |
The Scientist
Michelle King
According to the most recent U.S. census, “super seniors”—those 85 and older—are the fasting growing segment of the American population. As the Baby Boomers face senior citizenship, the threat of Alzheimer’s is becoming ever more immediate and real, and it’s projected that by 2050, up to 16 million Americans will be afflicted with the disease. Dr. Michelle King hopes to defy that estimate.
King, a 30-something research assistant professor in UVA’s Department of Cell Biology, first became interested in Alzheimer’s while working on her Ph.D. in cell biology at Northwestern. When she came to UVA in 2001, she enlisted the help of George Bloom, a professor in cell biology, in developing an Alzheimer’s research program. Last year, the two reached a breakthrough when tau and beta amyloid, two proteins that appear abnormal in the brains of Alzheimer’s sufferers, reacted strongly with each other in a cell culture.
King says that there has been literature for almost a decade indicating that the two proteins have some form of connection in an Alzheimer’s-affected brain, but she was still surprised to watch in real time as cells containing the protein tau shriveled and died as they came in contact with the beta amyloid. Her research indicates that a major contributor to Alzheimer’s is that very process: Tau and beta amyloid accumulations essentially choke an affected patient’s neurons, cutting off the neural pathways that allow for normal brain functions like memory and basic cognition. King and Bloom published these findings in the Journal of Cell Biology last November, and now that their research has demonstrated the connection between tau and beta amyloid, figuring out how to interrupt that pathway could be the key to a cure for Alzheimer’s.
Of course, a cure is far easier said than done. The research is a big leap forward, but, King says, it represents only an early understanding of the process by which Alzheimer’s disease develops. She and Bloom have been exploring patent and biotech possibilities, but the primary difficulty lies in financing. “It’s not an easy time to obtain grants,” says King. “We’re trying to answer some very important questions that have been plaguing the field for a while, but we’re limited by what funds we have.” All those soon-to-be seniors can only hope that progress in the field won’t be completely stymied by such economic concerns. A generation’s mental health depends on it. And when the breakthrough finally comes, King will be at the cutting edge of discovery.—K.D.
 |
The Transplant
Marijean Jaggers
Consider this new version of a famous Shakespeare line: Some are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them, and some are community activists. Translation: In the pantheon of distinguished people, community activists seem like a breed apart. Without their selfless, behind-the-scenes mission to act locally with a global-sized consciousness, no city or town matures, and hope becomes a thing of the past.
Now consider Marijean Jaggers. You could say that a lot of people in Charlottesville don’t yet know how to thank her, owing to the fact that a lot of people here don’t yet know her. Jaggers, along with her two children and husband, moved away from St. Louis recently, after her husband’s employer transferred him to Charlottesville. But she didn’t switch jobs. She started a Charlottesville branch of the public relations firm Standing Partnership and telecommutes to St. Louis as well as does local PR work.
The Springfield, Illinois, native was known in St. Louis as a multitasker. “I like to stay busy,” she laughs. She’s starting to gain the same reputation here. When we opened up the C-VILLE 20 nominations to the public this year, her name came flying through. “Marijean is definitely someone who is making a difference in our community,” the nominator wrote, and went on to provide an extensive list of details.
Here are some highlights: She was a member of the Chamber of Commerce Leadership Charlottesville 2006 class; she uses her PR tools to bring attention to the homeless-advocate group PACEM and the Charlottesville Community Scholarship Fund, and she is on the board of each of those groups; she led the efforts behind the establishment of voicesofpoverty.org—“my pride and joy,” she calls it—which has a series of podcasts of interviews with people who are living below the poverty level (“25 percent of the Charlottesville population,” she points out); and she’s a fervid blogger (www.stlworkingmom.com. and leadingcharlottesville.blogspot.com are her two main activist sites). “People can really establish good relationships” that way, she says, and believes that all the networking propels community effort forward.
Jagger’s wealth of energy goes hand in hand with Charlottesville, compared to St. Louis. “It’s like going from a large university to a small liberal arts college,” she says. “There’s more opportunity here to do more, to make more of an impact.” And she finds that she doesn’t have to thrust her intensity upon the people here. “They’re interested in talking about issues and finding solutions,” she says.
We like to think that Charlottesville, with its rich history, was born great, but only with the help of people like Marijean Jaggers will it achieve greatness.—D.N.
 |
The Connectors
Zack Worrell and Greg Kelly
Here’s one theory of art: Only through destruction can creation occur. While that may sum up certain Butoh philosophies, it also describes how Zack Worrell and Greg Kelly came to make The Bridge, the art gallery/community exchange that is literally just on the other side of the Belmont Bridge from Downtown Charlottesville.
It was the spring of 2004. Worrell, who has lived here his most of his 36 years, and Kelly, a transplant from St. Louis by way of Colorado, were dismantling a barn Worrell had purchased so as to reclaim the lumber. Worrell, whom Kelly describes as “an artist on a level that he [Worrell] doesn’t understand,” was, by his own admission, angry. “I wanted to see blood,” Worrell says, alluding as much to his own sense of undiscovered purpose as to the national political realities that enflame his passions. “Along comes Buddha Boy,” Worrell continues, good-naturedly describing Kelly’s generally serene state as well as his interest in Eastern religion, “and we realized the way to feel better was to shine a light instead of look at the darkness.” For his part, Kelly, 33, was seeking a way to “extend art beyond the walls.”
“I wanted art to be a tool,” he says, “some sense of community.”
With the barn dismantled, Worrell and Kelly turned their attention—and their newfound convergence of interests—to the Belmont storefront Worrell had recently purchased. Their first ad hoc art show went up there in the fall of 2004, featuring their own work and that of other local artists. Within a couple of short years they were on their way to the kind of art outreach programs whose birth they had first envisioned during the demise of that old barn.
In the last year alone, The Bridge has become a leading space to see rarely screened films (The Cut Ups on the work of William Burroughs, for example, and a documentary on soccer sensation Zinedine Zidane) and community-based art exhibits (high schoolers who had their work displayed during the recent Festival of the Photograph, for instance). It’s also become a producing body, of sorts, for various mobile art projects such as Johnny Fogg’s “Mother Father Project,” which invites everyday folks to create pictures of their parents on postcards that are then exhibited in a temporary gallery that travels throughout the city. Upcoming projects include collaborations with residents of local public housing projects and the Charlottesville All-Stars Crafts and Arts Fair later this month. These latter programs, in part, speak to Kelly and Worrell’s additional goal to lend support to young artists, and, of course, to commit resources to the local community.
For Worrell, in particular, a privileged son of Central Virginia, there is a sense of realization in reaching out. “My objectives come from having been raised here and growing up with wealth,” he says. “There’s no way I’m going to sit here and suck off the tit and not give back. I’m not going to drink iced tea and watch the world go by.”
Indeed, the view is very different—in every sense—from across The Bridge.—C.H.
