The View From Peak's Knob

05/27/2021

Rev. Melissa McNair King reflects on the most recent Pulaski County School Board meeting and what it might feel like to be a transgender child in our local school system:

"I’m a person of faith. And when I read Scripture, I see Jesus erring on the side of grace time and again. I see him embracing the social and religious outcasts of his day. I try my best to do the same."

I’m a person of faith. And when I read Scripture, I see Jesus erring on the side of grace time and again. I see him embracing the social and religious outcasts of his day. I try my best to do the same.

03/23/2021

Don't forget to vote today! Polls open until 7pm.

02/26/2021

The Pulaski County Solar Farm is a promising initiative that uses our local resources (empty farmland) to address our need for green energy and tax revenue. But Craig McNally proposes ways it could be improved.

The Pulaski County Solar Farm is a promising initiative that uses our local resources (empty farmland) to address our need for green energy and tax revenue. But there are ways it could be improved.

12/07/2020

A few years back, we published a piece on the solar potential of the Town of Pulaski, along with some ideas about how this could be done through various community efforts. It's exciting to see investors are also interested in harvesting the free energy we receive from the sun. To update the statistics from that piece, to power the residential needs of the county with solar would required a 140 MW solar farm.

PULASKI COUNTY, Va. (WFXR) — Solar energy is looking to make its mark in Pulaski County. Several farmers and private landowners have agreed to lease their land to Hecate Energy, a company bas…

05/12/2020

Today is last day to apply for an absentee ballot for next week's local elections. Everyone is elegible to vote absentee, with COVID19 as the justification. Voting absentee is the best way to keep yourself and others safe while still performing your civic duty and having a voice. For more information and to apply see here:

Both the May General/Special Elections and the June Primary dates have changed per the Governor's Executive Order 56 and Executive Order 59. The Virginia Department of Elections encourages voters to protect their health during COVID-19 outbreak. Voting absentee in the coming May and June elections...

12/11/2019

In late 2019, amid impeachment hearings and 2nd amendment sanctuary debates, it’s difficult to find consensus on many issues. But one thing we can all agree on is that government agencies, alone, are not going to fix problems like our “Doodle Dust Dilemma” right here in our backyards.

Google “environmental justice in Appalachia” and nearly every returned link will exclusively describe the impact of coal extraction on the region. It’s no surprise, then, that here in Pulaski, VA, many of us only feel peripherally connected to that conversation. Although we have had a few coal...

01/15/2019

Pulaski county residents: don't forget to vote in the Commissioner of the Revenue special election tomorrow (1/15)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.roanoke.com/news/politics/pulaski_county/pulaski-county-special-election-set-for-tuesday/article_deca4d49-b388-5e9a-ad81-a9a5af0ab965.amp.html

Two women are vying to be the commissioner of the revenue for the remainder of 2019 in a Pulaski County special election Tuesday.

11/04/2018

This is the ninth district as seen by the 2011 edition of the National Land Cover Database The red is our roads and cities. The green is our forest and wilderness. The yellow is our farms and pastures. The blue is our lakes and rivers and streams. Who can best represent this diverse landscape?[ 591 more words ]

he image above is the ninth district as seen by the 2011 edition of the National Land Cover Database (you can zoom in to explore this data at http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=e4c45b7769af40d280c1a74208662c9d — note: it takes a moment to load all layers) Our district is larg...

08/30/2018

"[The 9th congressional district has] a rate of about 125 prescriptions per 100 people, or 5 for every 4 Virginians who call the 9th home...I knew our corner of the state had a problem, but I had no idea how bad it was." - Andy King

f there is one thing that Americans can agree on at this moment in our history, it’s that we have an opioid problem. An epidemic that touches every state and county. In fact, we all likely know someone who has become addicted to oxycodone, morphine, fentanyl, or any of the other countless prescrip...

06/13/2018

Jill Williams asks some questions about Pulaski County after listening to the Septic Podcast: Would Noah Thomas have died so tragically if he had been born into a wealthier family? How might our response have been different? And is it even important to ask these questions?

I have spent the majority of my adult life working on, consulting with, and learning about truth and reconciliation commissions. These bodies are generally tasked with investigating human rights abuses or other injustices so that a community or nation can learn from the past, establish accountabilit

06/11/2018

Remember to vote tomorrow. Remember to take your photo ID. And if you want to see a compelling letter from Pulaski Native Dawn Glass endorsing Anthony Flaccavento ( 4 Congress) for Congress in the Ninth District, click on this link.

Historically, very few people show up to vote in primary elections like the one that will happen tomorrow (Tuesday, June 12) in Virginia. But there are all sorts of reasons why we should. One is that higher numbers of primary voters signals to national parties and others that people in our part of t

05/31/2018

No one doubts that the opioid epidemic has damaged our community. While the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors has indicated a willingness to join the litigation, I believe that there are still some unanswered questions.

Some of you may have read about a large lawsuit being brought against the manufacturers of opioid prescription drugs by many localities throughout the country. In our neck of the woods, Smyth, Wythe, and Russell counties have joined and their lawyers have attempted to add Pulaski County to their cl