Today's News

Becky McLendon couldn’t stand the thought of a child going to bed hungry, or someone going without food for days.
After her husband, Sam, accepted a job as Carroll County tourism director and they moved to Galax from North Carolina three months ago, her first goal was to start a soup kitchen at Rooftop of Virginia
God’s Storehouse Soup Kitchen will open Aug. 30, and food will be served from 3:30-5:30 p.m. at Rooftop, on North Main Street in downtown Galax. The kitchen will be operate Mondays and Thursdays and may expand to other days of the week.

Family Dollar officials plan to open a new store on U.S. 52 in Cana before the end of the year, a spokeswoman said in response to questions from The Gazette.
Plans for the store have been filed with the Carroll County building official’s office, and Bryn Winburn, company PR manager, believes that the construction of the new location will begin soon.
“We do plan to open a store in Cana later this year,” she responded in an e-mail. “This store will be approximately 8,000 square feet and will employ eight to 10 team members.”

HILLSVILLE — Student meal prices will rise this school year, but so will the nutritional content, Carroll County school officials stress.
The Carroll School Board approved breakfast prices of 90 cents for elementary students and 95 cents for older students and lunch prices of $1.65 for elementary and $1.75 for older students, after moving to meet new U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations under the most recent updates to the “dietary guidelines for Americans.”

A young Galax police officer learned a hard lesson when his mom showed him some tough love in middle school, completely changing the direction he was headed.
Silverio Gonzales, whose family came to Virginia from Mexico, hated middle school and did just enough to get by.
When he told his mom he didn’t want to go to school anymore, she sent him to Florida to pick oranges.
“She taught us that education is the most important thing we can do for ourselves,” said Gonzales, who just joined the Galax Police Department as its first bilingual officer.