Appalachian Power has added an additional payment option to its existing payment plans to help customers manage their monthly electric bill.

The road to incorporation of the village of Amherst to a town 100 years ago this year was filled with bumps. One of them was Amherst trial judge Clarence J. Campbell and his encounter with a representative of the Virginia Anti-Saloon League.

Town of Amherst officials were still contending with replacing a washed out sewer pipe from last week’s heavy rains when snow buried everything last weekend.

A Town of Amherst police officer was injured last week when her patrol car was struck by another vehicle, police said.

As troubling as the budget outlook is for the next fiscal year, Amherst County school officials paused from that tough business at the school board meeting last week to recognize schools and staffers who earned state honors.

Residents of Amherst and Nelson counties should be especially cautious while driving this morning.

Traffic alert

Power was restored to more than 13,000 Central Virginia Electric Cooperative customers by late Sunday, according to a company spokesman.

About 11,000 Central Virginia Electric Cooperative customers lost power this morning when a transmission line failed that supplies multiple CVEC substations, an official said.

The projected Amherst County Public Schools deficit for the next fiscal year is now $3.1 million, the superintendent told school board members Thursday night.

Ethics investigations in the General Assembly have generally been one of the best-kept secrets in the legislature. A citizen or lawmaker can file what he or she believes to be a legitimate complaint about a conflict of interest, for example, and that’s the last anyone beyond the ethics panel hears of it.

Virginia’s ban on texting behind the wheel, enacted last year, was a good first step. But, highway safety advocates argue, it is basically a toothless law that needs some muscle. That’s because its status as a secondary offense can’t in itself prompt a traffic stop.

When city and state officials worked toward getting a second Amtrak train from Lynchburg to Washington, D.C., the idea was to get travelers to Washington. There’s so much to see and do in the nation’s capital. At the same time, business travelers always seem to be heading north.

Del. Charles W. Carrico, R-Grayson County, believes the rights of what he calls the Christian majority are being trampled by an administrative order requiring Virginia State Police chaplains to deliver non-denominational prayers at official public events. He wants the General Assembly to do something about it.

Virginia’s outgoing Transportation Secretary Pierce Homer could not have been more blunt about the state’s transportation woes than he was last month when he said the latest round of budget cuts was eating significantly into road maintenance. The bulk of that is road repaving, which has been cut by some $45 million.

Weddings and anniversaries in Amherst

There were 58 deeds recorded in Amherst County.