Virginia

Natural Bridge, known as Natty B by locals, in the eponymous Rockbridge County, Virginia is a geological formation in which Cedar Creek has carved... out a gorge in the mountainous limestone terrain, forming an arch 215 ft high with a span of 90 ft . It consists of horizontal limestone strata, and is the remains of the roof of a cave or tunnel through which the creek once flowed. Natural Bridge has been designated a Virginia Historic Landmark and a National Historic Landmark. The Natural Bridge was a sacred site of the Native American Monacan tribe, who believed it to be the site of a major victory over pursuing Powhatans centuries before the arrival of whites in Virginia. Some believe George Washington came to the site in 1750 as a young surveyor on behalf of Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron. To support claims that Washington surveyed the area, some tour guides claim the initials "G.W." on the wall of the bridge, 23 ft. up, were carved by the future president. Legend also has it that George Washington threw a rock from the bottom of Cedar Creek over the bridge. In 1927, a large stone was found, also engraved "G.W.
more

Fort Eustis is a United States Army military installation located in Newport News, Virginia. The post is the home to the Army Transportation Corps,... and also home to the U.S. Army Aviation Logistics School. Fort Eustis and its satellite installation, Fort Story, are the home of the U.S. Army Transportation Center, U.S. Army Transportation School, NCO Academy, Army Aviation Logistics School and 7th Sustainment Brigade. Other significant tenants include the Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command's Operations Center , Army Training Support Center and the Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate . At Fort Eustis and Fort Story, officers and enlisted soldiers receive education and on-the-job training in all modes of transportation, aviation maintenance, logistics and deployment doctrine and research. Much of the land which constitutes Fort Eustis was known in colonial times as Mulberry Island, and was first settled by the English colonists shortly after Jamestown was established in 1607. An important event in Virginia's history occurred in the James River adjacent to Mulberry Island in the summer of 1610.
more

Hale's Ford is a small unincorporated community located in the northeastern corner of Franklin County, Virginia about 25 miles from Roanoke. It is... most notable as the location of the Burroughs Farm, the tobacco plantation where the famed educator and orator Booker T. Washington was born into slavery in 1856. His mother Jane was an enslaved black woman held by the Burroughs and his father was a white planter who lived nearby. After the American Civil War ended, Jane took her children to West Virginia to rejoin her husband, who had been sold there as a slave before the war. The Booker T. Washington National Monument, established in 1956, preserves portions of the 207-acre tobacco plantation where Washington was born. It interprets his life as a national leader. Hale's Ford is also the site of one of Virginia's historic covered bridges and of the Hook-Powell-Moorman House, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.
more

Greenway Court was the estate and hunting lodge of Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron in what is now Clarke County, Virginia, United... States. The surviving remnants of the complex — a later replacement brick house and Fairfax’s stone land office — are a National Historic Landmark and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places . A lifelong bachelor, Lord Fairfax resided at the lodge with his nephew, Thomas Bryan Martin, from 1751 until his death in 1781. Also housed on the estate were Fairfax's approximately 200 black slaves. Fairfax was the only English peer residing in the Colonies and was proprietor of a 5-million-acre land grant . He had employed a teenaged George Washington as a surveyor. Greenway Court is approximately 1.2 miles south of White Post on VA 658. A visit to this estate is the subject of "A Night at Greenway Court," an 1896 short story by Willa Cather. Greenway Court is used as a name to describe an unincorporated community in which the former estate is located.
more

Jamia Simone Nash , also known simply as Jamia, is an American singer and actress. Jamia was born in Virginia Beach, Virginia and she is African and West Indian descent. She attended Mason Elementary School, where she participated in a talent show and first discovered her fame. She currently... resides in Santa Clarita, California and attends West Ranch High School. She has one sibling,her younger sister is Olivia Charnae Nash. Jamia began singing at the age of two; her first national appearance was on Showtime at the Apollo in 2002, where she sang the Alicia Keys song "Fallin'". She performed at the 2003 Essence Awards, singing Michael Jackson's song "Who's Lovin' You" in honor of Mary J. Blige. She and her younger sister Olivia sing the hook in the song "Black Girl Pain" on Talib Kweli's 2004 album The Beautiful Struggle. She played a ten-year-old Fantasia Barrino in the 2006 Lifetime Original Movie Life Is Not a Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story, a biopic about the 2004 American Idol winner. In the 2007 film August Rush, Jamia's character Hope is the lead vocalist on the song "Raise It Up", which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
more

Scott Travis is a Grammy Award winning American rock musician, best known as the drummer for the English heavy metal band Judas Priest and the American heavy metal band Racer X. Born in Norfolk, Virginia, Scott was a well-known drummer in the local music scene of a region known as Hampton Roads... during the early 1980s. Playing with bands in clubs throughout Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Hampton, and Newport News. Travis moved to California in the early/mid 1980s and played in various local bands, such as Hawk, and later on moved to play for the critically acclaimed Racer X, together with Paul Gilbert, and very briefly played in Saints Or Sinners, which later changed their name to The Scream, and also featured Travis's Racer X bandmates Bruce Bouillet and John Alderete. His big career move came about late in the decade after Judas Priest's long time drummer, Dave Holland, exited the band, citing personal reasons. Travis had always wanted to be the drummer of Judas Priest. As a young teen, he had often thought about setting up his drumkit in the parking lot at the Hampton Coliseum in hopes that the band would notice him as they rolled through with their tour bus.
more

Dagen McDowell is an anchor on the Fox Business Network and a business correspondent for the Fox News Channel. She is also a business contributor on the Imus In The Morning radio show. A native of Campbell County, Virginia, from a family of Irish background, McDowell graduated from Wake Forest... University with a degree in Art History. McDowell began her career as a financial journalist at the Institutional Investor's Newsletter Division. McDowell appears regularly on Your World with Neil Cavuto and has been a weekly panelist for Cashin' In .
more

John Edmund Driscoll is an American television and soap opera actor. Driscoll grew up in Virginia. He went to Woodbridge Senior High School in Woodbridge, Virginia and graduated in 1999. He was raised in a military family that valued athletics. Driscoll went to George Mason University where he... majored in theatre and was a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity. After he graduated from high school, he was a professional runway and catalog model for Armani and Versace, among others. Modeling led to acting in commercials and musical theatre. Driscoll's first role was as Brandon on Young Americans, in 2000, in a recurring role. He also had a recurring role on Dawson's Creek . In 2004, he appeared on an episode of One Tree Hill. In 2006, he had a starring role on the short-lived NBC series, The Book of Daniel. He also guest starred on Law & Order: Criminal Intent that year. Driscoll is best known, however, for his portrayal of "Coop" on the daytime drama Guiding Light. He joined the show in 2004 and played his final scenes in February 2009, when the character died after injuries sustained in a car accident.
more

Kentucky , officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United... States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth . Originally a part of Virginia, in 1792 Kentucky became the 15th state to join the Union. Kentucky is the 37th most extensive and the 26th most populous of the 50 United States. Kentucky is known as the "Bluegrass State", a nickname based on the fact that bluegrass is present in many of the pastures throughout the state, because of the fertile soil. It made possible the breeding of high-quality livestock, especially thoroughbred racing horses. It is a land with diverse environments and abundant resources, including the world's longest cave system, Mammoth Cave National Park; the greatest length of navigable waterways and streams in the contiguous United States; and the two largest man-made lakes east of the Mississippi River.
more

    West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Upland South, and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia on... the southeast, Kentucky on the southwest, Ohio on the northwest, and Pennsylvania and Maryland on the northeast. The capital and largest city is Charleston.     Historically the area now occupying West Virginia had a separate identity from the early days of pioneering settlement. The early British American settlers called the area Vandalia. After the American Revolution the settlers of the area sought the status of an individual state of the union under the name Westsylvania, but their attempts were blocked by Virginia which claimed most of the area, and Pennsylvania which claimed a small part of the area.     After the Wheeling Conventions, West Virginia broke away from Virginia during the American Civil War and was admitted to the Union as a separate state on June 20, 1863, and was a key Civil War "border state." It is one of only two states formed during the American Civil War and is the only state to form by seceding from a Confederate state and one of three states to secede from another state .     The Census Bureau considers West Virginia part of the South because most of the state is south of the Mason-Dixon Line. The northern panhandle, however, extends adjacent to Pennsylvania and Ohio with the West Virginia city of Weirton on a parallel with Pittsburgh, while Bluefield is less than seventy miles from North Carolina and Harper's Ferry is considered to be a part of the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. The unique position of West Virginia means that it is often included in a wide variety of geographical regions, including the Southeastern United States and even the Northeastern United States. Notably, it is the only state which entirely lies within the area served by the Appalachian Regional Commission, which is a common definition of "Appalachia".[4]     The state is noted for its great natural beauty, its historically significant logging and coal mining industries, and its labor history. It is also known for a wide range of outdoor recreational opportunities, including skiing, whitewater rafting, rock climbing, caving, fishing, hiking, mountain biking, and hunting.
more

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to... its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east. Maryland was the seventh state to ratify the United States Constitution, and three nicknames for it are occasionally used. Maryland is the 9th least extensive, but the 19th most populous and the 5th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state's most populated city is Baltimore. Its capital is Annapolis. It was named after Queen Henrietta Maria. Maryland has an area of 12,406.68 square miles and is comparable in overall area with the European country of Belgium . It is the 42nd largest/9th smallest state, and is closest in size to Hawaii , the next smallest state. The next largest state, Maryland's neighbor West Virginia, is almost twice the size of Maryland . Maryland possesses a variety of topography, hence its nickname, "America in Miniature.
more

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the... west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina is the 28th most extensive and the 10th most populous of the 50 United States. North Carolina comprises 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte. In the past five decades, North Carolina's economy has undergone a transition from heavy reliance upon tobacco and furniture making to a more diversified economy with engineering, biotechnology, and finance sectors. North Carolina has a wide range of elevations, from sea level on the coast to 6,684 feet at Mt. Mitchell, the highest point in the Eastern US. The climate of the coastal plains is strongly influenced by the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the state falls in the humid subtropical climate zone. More than 300 miles from the coast, the western, mountainous part of the state has a subtropical highland climate. North Carolina borders South Carolina on the south, Georgia on the southwest, Tennessee on the west, Virginia on the north, and the Atlantic Ocean on the east.
more