The Madison County High School Guitar Club is looking for music lovers to attend its “This Is How You Can Help” benefit concert for Haiti. The concert is set for 4-11 p.m. Friday, March 19 in the MCHS auditorium and is open to all types of musical performers, the club co-leader and MCHS teacher Jackie Cullen said.

Madison Farm to Table is offering a free Saturday night at the movies event, 7 p.m. Feb. 27 in Madison County High School’s auditorium.

The Lions clubs of Madison and Greene counties’ “American Idol”-like Bland Music Contest is coming up. The contest provides an opportunity to young musicians to gain experience in performing before an audience and having talents judged by professionals and features elementary, middle, high school and some home school students living in Madison and Greene

There will be a special author event 1-5 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 23 at the Mad Arts gallery at 117 N. Main St. in downtown Madison featuring Criglersville resident and author, Frank Dixon, who will speak and sign his new philosophy book, “Spinoza’s God.” Dixon, who has a strong Madison County following, will speak to attendees for 15 minutes at the top of each hour, and answer questions and sign books during breaks. This format will continue throughout the afternoon.

It’s time to keep that new year’s resolution to be healthy and fit — plus feel great doing it! A new session of Madison yoga started Monday, Jan. 4. Ongoing classes are Mondays at 4 and at 5:30 p.m. in Wetsel Middle School’s library. Classes emphasize stretching, toning and relaxing. Beginners welcome.

Each of us likely can recall a special Christmas present from our childhood that consumed our pre-holiday thoughts like no other. We spied it in a store or catalog and could think of little else amid the distractions of the approaching holiday. Certainly, Christmas is a time of giving, but as children, we often focused more on the getting and were obsessed with our heart’s desire. Whether it was a train set, a Cabbage Patch Kid, a Beanie Baby or a BB gun, each of us had that singular gift that captured our minds and hearts.

The 6-foot-4, 235-pound Brightwood country gentleman wasn’t safe. And he took a dreadful fall. “I came tumbling down 22 to 25 feet,” he said. “I remember all of what happened. I landed on my back with my gun in between me and the ground. Most of the time, I pulled the gun up to me using a pull rope. That day I didn’t. I was in a hurry. Being in a hurry will get you every time.” That time it got Scott Collier in a real bad way.

Madison’s annual downtown Christmas celebration returns Dec. 5 and this year the event’s “Grinches” are nowhere is sight. Last year’s lighting problems on the traditional town Christmas tree appear licked and singer preacher Dr. Tommy Palmer is expected to return to lead the event’s community sing along, after a bad cough sidelined him from the 2008 celebration.

The group of artists who meet regularly at Firnew Farm in Hood is reaching out to Madison County and offering an open showing of their work.
A 6-8 p.m. Nov. 20 opening reception will launch the Firnew Farm Artists Circle show, which is called “A Christmas Art Show.” The reception will be at Sweely Estate Winery’s hospitality center at 6109 Wolftown-Hood Road (Route 230) between Oak Hill and Wolftown. Following the reception, the exhibit continues 11 a.m.-5 p.m. daily through Dec. 3 at Sweely.

Madison’s production of “Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie,” an adaptation of Jason Sonnenblick’s novel, by the director, Donald Hitt, will be offered to the public in an evening performance on Nov. 16 at 7 p.m. in the MCHS auditorium, admission $3. “We hope the public will support the show, and many will come out to wish the students well as they embark on the next level of competition,” Hitt said.

Plans have been made to make the Madison Chamber of Commerce annual banquet a very festive event so all may meet for an evening of fun and fellowship on Monday, Nov. 16. This year the chamber is again pleased to show our support by hosting our banquet at the fire hall and dinner will be prepared by Mill Valley Inc.

The Unitarian Universalists of the Blue Ridge (UUBRidge), in coordination with the Rappahannock Food Pantry, are proud to present Frank Dixon, an acclaimed local actor, in a performance of “An Evening with Mark Twain.” A retired computer-security expert now living in Criglersville, Dixon specializes in bringing to life America’s most famous humorist and one of its greatest writers. His program is drawn from Twain’s lectures and letters, spoken in the writer’s native Missouri twang.

Four County Players’ “Othello” runs weekends through Oct. 17.  Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; with a matinee offered on Saturday, Oct. 17 at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 for adults, $12 for students and seniors.  Friday’s performance is $5.

Dramatic recitations, group chants and nonsense sentences can be heard in the hallways of MCHS some days after class. The sounds come from the students practicing for their upcoming forensics competitions. The forensics program at MCHS has little to do with the type of scientific forensics that are often portrayed on “CSI”-style television shows. This has nothing to do with crime scenes.

While many people have heard of Take your Child to Work Day, fewer are aware of Take your Pet to Church Day.  The celebration of St. Francis of Assisi is Sunday, Oct. 4 and the Rev. Brad Jackson will offer a pet-friendly service outside Piedmont Episcopal Church in Madison for the occasion. 

The Madison County Quilters Guild will offer folks the chance to explore quiltings fascinating techniques at two shows this weekend – while at the same time helping an important pair of Madison County nonprofit organizations. The shows – both at Madison County High School – are set for 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 3 and 11 a.m.–4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 4. Proceeds from the $5 admission will be split between the Madison County Free Clinic and the Madison County Food Bank.

We have been getting a lot of interest in (Madison County) Cloverbud (4-H Club) lately and I would love to form a club to serve these youth. There will be a Madison Cloverbud organizational meeting at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 29 at the Madison Cooperative Extension Service office (second floor, War Memorial Building).  Parents and youth ages 5-8 are welcome to attend. We will have some fun activities for youth and information for parents.

For the seventh straight year, Lyra, a group of acclaimed professional Russian singers, will perform at a Madison County church. “It’s concert-quality music right here in Madison,” Mount Zion United Methodist Church member Frances Lacy said about a concert featuring Lyra the church hosts every year. “I think it’s also a wonderful opportunity for two different cultures, communities to get to know each other through music.” Lyra’s Madison performance this year is set for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Mount Zion, which is in Oak Park.

Two Madison County-area artists, who are taking advantage of autumn’s trend toward change and moving to new venues, are having one final show at their current gallery in Little Washington. The Middle Street Gallery’s show opened Sept. 4 in Little Washington featuring work by longtime artist members Tucker Hill of Etlan and June Jordan of Sperryville, in their last exhibition there after many years with the 26-year-old gallery.

Crisp, cooler weather is a reminder that it’s almost time for the fall tea to benefit our Madison County Historical Society! The tea is set for Wednesday, Sept. 30. A generous luncheon tea will be served at 12:30 p.m. in the Kemper Residence on North Main Street, home of former Virginia governor and Battle of Gettysburg Confederate war hero James Lawson Kemper.

Even those long familiar with September’s Taste of the Mountains can find new offerings in the 2009 edition of the annual downtown Madison street festival.
The project, which takes almost a year to put together, according to the Madison Chamber of Commerce’s Tracey Williams Gardner, is set for 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 5 on Main Street.

At this year’s Sept. 5 Taste of the Mountains street festival a few more unique voices will be heard, seen and experienced. Madison County businesswoman Janine Jensen has pulled together the work of several artists to display during the festival. The art exhibit will be free to the public, though the art is for sale. It will be set up in the historic downtown brick building at 117 N. Main St. The original building was built in the 1830s, though it has been added onto several times, and features an old-fashioned vault door, a remnant of its days as a bank at the turn of the century.

The Madison County High School Marching Band recently finished its summer camp and will publicly unveil its new Celtic-theme show at this year’s first MCHS football game, which is a benefit match-up vs. Orange County set for 7:30 p.m. Aug. 22 in Eddie Dean Stadium at MCHS.

A group of Madison County residents is organizing an event to celebrate “the delicious bounty of locally produced food.” The dinner – set for 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 12 at the Madison Inn restaurant at 217 N. Main St. in downtown Madison – will feature Madison County-produced meats and vegetables.

With large, sturdy tires, powerful engines and detailed paint jobs, these aren’t your typical lawn mowers. These mowers – set to debut at the 2009 Madison County Fair – are the kind that require riders to wear protective gear. “These guys really ‘soup’ these [lawn mowers] up. They almost look like little race cars,” Madison County Fair Treasurer Terri Tatum said of the Shenandoah Valley Tractor Pullers Association, set to host a lawn mower pull at the fair at 6:30 p.m. Friday, July 17.

Graves Mountain Lodge in Syria will again host its annual free community fireworks display a little after dark on Independence Day—Saturday, July, 4. This year, Sweely Estate Winery near Wolftown also has a special Fourth of July program.

Madison County is known for its curvy, rolling mountain landscape. Next week, some 2,000 visitors will themselves be the ones doing the rolling on this landscape, each doing it on two wheels. Many will show off curves of their own too as they arrive clad in form-fitting spandex outfits. They’re the riders participating in the 22nd annual Bike Virginia event.

We humans are not going to go away and, with careful management, neither are the bears, so the best thing for us is to learn to live with our ursine neighbors. At 11 a.m. Saturday, June 6 at the Rappahannock County High School, bear expert Jaime Sajecki will explain how. Sajecki will start her talk with the video “Living with Black Bears in Virginia,” and will then answer questions from the audience.

The Madison County Historical Society will host Michael Theard at the May 24 quarterly meeting to speak about the “Buffalo Soldiers.”

In addition to tunes, cloggers and crafts – Graves Mountain Lodge’s annual Spring Fling festival will keep curious children captivated. The rain or shine two-day event – set for 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. this coming Saturday and Sunday, April 25 and 26 – will feature additional, more extensive tours of the Syria resort’s farm this year, according to Farm Manager Lynn Graves.