Richard Earl Stinson, 84, of Madison Heights, who was an original advisory board member of statewide Hunters for the Hungry organization, died March 3 at Guggenheimer Health and Rehabilitation Center. He was the beloved husband of Sammie Holley Stinson.

The Amherst County Sheriff’s office has seized equipment from Poplar Grove Golf Club for sale to help pay some of the club’s debt.

The superintendent is scheduled to present his proposed 2010-11 operating budget to the Amherst County School Board this week, after awaiting definitive budget decisions from the Virginia General Assembly.

Amherst supervisors have not announced any new developments after directing County Administrator Lee Lintecum to begin advertising for a new county attorney last week.

The dates have been set for the return of the Dixie Youth O-Zone World Series in Madison Heights. The tournament will be Aug. 5-Aug. 11, 2011.

A charge of felony child neglect against a Madison Heights man was certified to the grand jury Monday morning after a judge ruled there was enough evidence to send the charge forward, Amherst County Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Cary Payne said.

Property transfers and building permits

Here is a synopsis of crimes reported to the Amherst County Sheriff’s Office during the past week.

The Amherst Rotary Club’s 38th all-day pancake fundraiser is Friday at the Ascension Episcopal Church ou South Main Street, which in the past has raised thousands of dollars for scholarships and other local needs.

The Amherst Training School, also known as ATS, originally called the Amherst Negro School, was the first high school for black students in Amherst County. It was built on School Street with black community contributions in 1921 or 1922. ATS educated students in first through 11th grades, from the northern half of Amherst County. Madison Heights had no high school until the 1940s. Small elementary schools fed into ATS for high school.

At least one member of the General Assembly agrees that the state needs to increase its gasoline tax to keep the highway trust fund from going broke. But that doesn’t mean he has been able to sell the idea to tax-averse Republicans who dominate the House of Delegates.

The number of earmarks in the federal budget has dropped since last year, but that’s not the full story.

The other shoe dropped in Richmond last week, and it was a 12EEE, heavy-duty work boot.

Virginia could be on the verge of celebrating the days of the old Wild West. That’s because a State Senate committee has approved legislation that would allow bars to admit people carrying concealed weapons.

These are tight economic times for the country, and there’s nothing different here in Central Virginia.

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.

Weddings and anniversaries in Amherst

There were 58 deeds recorded in Amherst County.