Local News
Historic Church Celebrates 20th Anniversary of Education Building
Oldest Methodist Church west of the Blue Ridge continues the mission to reach out and touch lives in the local community.
“Sing to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” – Ephesians 5:19-20.
Pastor Bertina J. H. Westley invited the community to join Stephens City UMC (SCUMC) on Sunday, October 29, 2023 to celebrate the 20th anniversary year of our Education Building addition. All were welcome. A Homecoming Service at 10 a.m. was followed by a covered dish luncheon in the Orrick Chapel Fellowship Hall. 125 parishioners and guests attended.
Rev. Dr. Jeff Butcher (former SCUMC pastor 2008-2014), was the Guest Speaker. His message, “Witnesses for Life-Defining Christian Education,” was well received by the members of SCUMC.
Rev. Butcher employed John 1:35-42 and Colossians 1:15-20 as the foundation for his message to emphasize the importance in Christian formation for learning more than facts to rather the enabling of life-defining Christian discipleship. He recalled times when church members and programs empowered such transformation to occur and challenged those present to continue this life-changing ministry and practice.
What is our church hoping to accomplish through Christian Education? Rev. Butcher provided four stories, regarding his experiences at SCUMC with youth and adult Bible study classes when Stephens City UMC went deeper in Christian Education than facts to help people to define their lives as Christian disciples.
The first story was about how two young boys, on their journey of faith studied C.S. Lewis to connect more deeply with Jesus. The second story was about how the Holy Spirit bypassed Rev. Butcher and spoke directly to a 13-year-old boy, greatly influencing his thinking process. Rev. Bucher informed us that “Good things happen when the Holy Spirit makes an appearance during Christian Education, as the Holy Spirit is a much more effective teacher.”
A third story was about a young lady who witnessed the power of Christian Education through the LOGOS program. Her experiences on Wednesday night had become life-defining for her, even at her young age. She had learned more than just facts, she had learned about being in a relationship with God, and it felt good to her so that she chose LOGOs over attending softball practice.
The final story was from an adult Sunday school class. A female teacher and male student who often had strongly expressed opposing views, but had great respect for each other. That was a Christian Education class that got beyond teaching facts or reciting a passage in scripture, but to living out John 13:34-35 where Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Rev. Butcher concluded his sermon with an impactful prayer. “Dearest Christ, on this day as we celebrate 20 years of a building addition where so much transformational Christian education has occurred, we give you thanks as you are the source and the reason for those blessings. Continue to work in the lives of teachers and students, so all will become more like Jesus who is the visible image of the invisible God. In keeping with the life lived by you, O Christ, may we be humble in helping others to connect with you, so that their faith might be shaped by you and their lives transformed and defined in ways that leads them to a life that is abundant and everlasting. We pray this in your name, O Christ. Amen.”
Rev. Butcher retired in 2017 after serving 40 years in the Virginia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. In 2018 he received an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from the University of New England. He and his wife Jan currently worship at Cunningham UMC in Palmyra, VA.
Homecoming Music
The Worship Prelude began at 10 am in the sanctuary. Music continued throughout the service with the Congregation, Ringers, Singers, and Instrumentalists. Our special guest musicians featured a Shenandoah University Conservatory string quartet. The Chancel Choir led congregational hymns and anthems by composers John Ness Beck, Dan Forrest, Mark Hayes, Mack Wilberg, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
David Renner directed the Chancel Choir, congregation, and guest singers and instrumentalists. John Clawson led the Praise Band and Jacquetta Owen, guided the Stephens City Ringers and Bell Choir Reunion Group.
United Women of Faith (UWF)
UWF President Michele Hruska and VP Mary Beth Powell co-managed the marketing, logistics, volunteers, and venue setup for the successful Silent Auction.
Mildred Smith, Jane Young, Kathie Czerwinski, Jerri Cook and Donna Steward utilized their God-given gifts and talents to create a beautiful, worshipful environment for Homecoming that reflected God’s handiwork in nature.
David and Jane Smith, Rick and Linda Taliaferro, Ron and Karen Paul, Debbie Jones, Carole Baker, Christy Wintrode, Kathy Landrum, Cathy Judy, Ingrid Zimmerman, Jacquetta Owen, and Nancy Hollis coordinated the fabulous “Carolina Style,” Covered Dish Luncheon feeding more than 125 people.
Brief Church History
In 2002, the 1966 educational wing was demolished to make room for an improved, completely accessible education building addition. The totally accessible, 19,000 square ft. Education Facility addition completed in October 2003, empowers our congregation to serve as a “community lighthouse,” encouraging our Church Trustees and Council to initiate new thinking and training processes. These efforts equip the congregation to acquire the necessary skills and connect their gifts to function as an expanding church with an exciting capacity as God’s people serving the citizens of Stephens City, Frederick County and beyond. To honor Rev. Robert Orrick and the Orrick Chapel congregation which merged with SCUMC in 1991, the Church Council dedicated the new educational wing as Orrick Chapel Fellowship Hall.
According to Missions Chair, Cathy Barley, the expanded Education Building enabled our church to increase our Preschool (established in 1984) enrollment to 50 children and is open to all 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds. Since 1996, we have hosted Seniors First – The Shenandoah Area Agency on Aging programs, four days a week. Pat Long was the first cook and Jack Turner drove the delivery van. Our Food Pantry, (begun in 2004), is one of the largest in South Frederick County, and supports 100 families comprising over 400 adults and children each month with direct church to home deliveries for those who are homebound. We are a founding member (2009) of Winchester Area Temporary Transitional Shelter (WATTS) and host the warming shelter one week each winter. Our Day Care Center, established in 2018, enrolls 50 children ages 6 weeks to 5 years of age.
“The two-story facility allows more classroom space for adult and children Bible School classes. The expanded kitchen empowered the church to solicit non-profit and civic organization morning and evening events. We have a youth ministry, Vacation Bible School, Summer Camp, Chancel Choir, Hand Bell Choir, Praise Band, United Methodist Men’s and Women’s Groups, Grief Support Group, The Caring Outreach Group, numerous Bible studies, local outreach, and National and International programs,” said Barley.
Since 1775, serving as the oldest Methodist Church west of the Blue Ridge, we have cherished the rich heritage of Methodism here, we find inspiration to more effectively meet the challenge God continues to offer our congregation to make new disciples and to serve the community with a focus on the future. Thanks be to God for the powerful work of the Holy Spirit living in our hearts and empowering us to develop our ministries and missions to build out His Kingdom in our community as we connect others to Jesus Christ. Each church anniversary can be used as an opportunity for testifying to God’s grace, mercy, and provision.
Chamber News
Front Royal Welcomes CBM Team of Supreme Lending with Enthusiasm and Optimism
Front Royal, Virginia, celebrated a significant business merger that marks a promising future for local economic development. The CBM Team, a longstanding local business entity, has officially joined forces with Supreme Lending, expanding its reach and capacity to serve the community more effectively.
Nike Foster, Executive Director of the Front Royal/Warren County Chamber of Commerce, and Mayor Lori Cockrell welcomed the CBM Team to our community. The event underscored a vibrant community spirit and the potential for economic growth. Byron Biggs, Chairman of the Chamber, highlighted the merger as a symbol of positive evolution in the local business landscape. It is now poised to extend its influence beyond Virginia.
Mayor Cockrell shared personal anecdotes, reflecting on the profound local ties and the exceptional character of the individuals involved, particularly noting the entrepreneurial spirit of Cory Michael, a former student of hers and now a regional manager for Team CBM. Her words painted a picture of a community that values deep personal connections and collective growth.
The merger promises substantial benefits to Front Royal, bringing enhanced services and opportunities for home ownership that were previously out of reach for many residents. This union is a merger of two companies and a fusion of cultures and aspirations, aiming to enrich the local community while maintaining the cherished CBM brand identity.
Attendees left the event with a sense of excitement and anticipation for the future, confident in the continued prosperity and communal strength of Front Royal.
Local News
Congratulations to Warren County High School Seniors – Class of 2024
Royal Examiner presents the Warren County High School Class of 2024. Congratulations to these wonderful seniors on their hard work and deserved accomplishments! We wish you the best in your next big endeavors. Photos courtesy of Victor O’Neill Studios and Tolliver Studios, LLC.
If your Warren County senior is not listed, please send in their Name and Senior Picture to news@royalexaminer.com.
Local News
Fairfax Police Officer, Son of WC Deputy Jim Williams One of This Year’s Fairfax Valor Awards Recipients
At the Thursday, April 11 Fairfax County Valor Awards ceremony, Fairfax County Police Officer Cody Williams, son of Warren County Sheriff’s Office Deputy and Bailiff Jim Williams, and two colleagues were among the 2023 honorees. We asked proud father Jim about the incident late last year that led to his son and fellow officers’ recognition. This is what he told us:
“On December 25th, Christmas Day, at 9 p.m., members of the Fairfax County Police Department Reston District Station responded to a shot person call. According to his wife, the homeowner had accidentally shot himself while cleaning his handgun. Officers Cody Williams, Andrew Craven, and Anthony Galindo arrived on the scene to find the homeowner unresponsive. The gunshot wound was to the victim’s left calf, resulting in an extreme loss of blood. Williams and Craven applied two tourniquets, and Galindo performed CPR. The victim was transported to the local hospital. He was able to make a full recovery.”
We were also informed of comments by Fairfax Police Chief Kevin Davis, who made an analogy to his officers’ Christmas Day call and the 1947 Hollywood movie classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” starring Jimmy Stewart. As fans of that great and timeless film will recall, it had its own Christmas day event of a somewhat miraculous nature involving a Guardian Angel. And indeed, it will be “a Wonderful Life” for the injured man and his family moving forward due to the prompt actions of their “guardian angels” Officers Williams, Craven, and Galindo, among others at the scene.
We found this background on the Fairfax Valor Awards website:
“The Fairfax County Valor Awards recognize the remarkable achievements in service of our community’s dedicated first responders. Since 1979, members of our police, sheriff, fire and rescue, and public safety communications have been honored for exceeding the call of duty with their lifesaving acts. The Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce is proud to host this prestigious event.” In attempting to get photos of the Christmas Day “guardian angels” from even sponsor the Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce, we were informed individual shots were not taken due to the number of recipients from the past year. This year, a total of 240 awards were presented, including 84 Lifesaving Awards, 131 Certificates of Valor, 22 Bronze Medals of Valor, and 3 Silver Medals of Valor.
Congratulations to Officers Williams, Craven and Galindo for a Christmas Day first response well done, and one that at least two Reston residents may remember as their very own Christmas miracle, circa 2023.
And thanks to our own WCSO Deputy Jim Williams for alerting us to this nearby Happy Ending Christmas story. And also a nod toward our own first responders in Warren County and the Town of Front Royal for all they do daily for us. You’re ALL Valor Award winners to us!!!
Community Events
Valley Chorale Announces Upcoming Spring Concerts in Middletown and Front Royal
The Valley Chorale presents “Wishing On a Song – Music in the Key of Hope”, a spring concert exploring aspirations of love, home, spirituality and compassion that unite and uplift us all. With styles ranging from light classical and sacred to vocal jazz, spirituals and pop, The Valley Chorale strives to capture the hopes that unite us.
The Valley Chorale is known throughout the Shenandoah Valley for innovation and excellence, with piano, cello and percussion accompaniment, and their concerts are often a heart-warming experience for all. They welcome babies and tots, so no need to hire a babysitter.
Tickets can be purchased on their website TheValleyChorale.org — $15 for age 21+ (free under age 21) or at the door for $17.
SATURDAY, MAY 4, 3:00 – 4:15 PM
Belle Grove Plantation (Bank Barn), 336 Belle Grove Road, Middletown, VA
SUNDAY, MAY 5, 3:00 – 4:15 PM
First Baptist Church, 14 W. 1st Street, Front Royal, VA (Community Reception to follow)
For further information, visit the website: TheValleyChorale.org: follow them on Facebook; email them at TheValleyChorale@gmail.com or call at 540-635-4842.
(From a Release by The Valley Chorale)
Local News
Gifted and Exceptionally Motivated Former Students of Mountain Vista Governor’s School Inducted into Foundation Hall of Fame
On the evening of Saturday, April 27, beginning at 5 p.m. in the cafeteria at Warren County High School, the Mountain Vista Governor’s School Foundation hosted a donor reception followed by an induction of two former MVGS students into their hall of fame. In the names of those former students, two scholarships will be awarded in the amount of two hundred dollars each to students in need.
One of nineteen regional governor’s schools in Virginia, Mountain Vista Governor’s School for Math, Science, and Technology, is present at two locations, on Laurel Ridge Community College’s Warrenton campus and the Middletown campus. MVGS draws and actively seeks out gifted, exceptionally motivated students from the thirteen base schools it serves in Clarke, Frederick, Warren, Culpeper, Fauquier, Rappahannock, and Winchester. Splitting their time between their base schools and MVGS, these students, in Middletown or Warrenton, depending on the counties in which their base schools are located, are given a chance to take advanced courses, including ones in humanities that, if they opt for dual enrollment, may help them skip the first two years of college. Government funding allows MVGS to welcome students into its tuition-free program. But if the students desire dual enrollment in connection with Laurel, wherein they receive college credit for their courses, then tuition becomes necessary. Attendance at MVGS involves an application, and there is a limit to the number of student places that can be filled in during any given school year.
Saturday evening was a showcase of rising talent in the MVGS system, as well as testimonies to the caliber of its program as two former students who benefited from MVGS and have gone on to have brilliant careers were given the opportunity to speak about how much they value their educational history at the governor’s school and how it uniquely prepared them to excel. The Foundation, separate from the school itself, is concerned with fundraising on behalf of the school so that students can be supplied with the tools and other resources they need to receive their education. Because of those assets made accessible by the Foundation, the two students who spoke were effusive about what a great foundation they had for future success. The rigor they underwent prepared them to maximize the challenges ahead.
A good example of the type of excellence students are encouraged to achieve in the program is the artificial intelligence project undertaken by Tamara Otten, which was displayed at the event. Tamara will soon take her project to an international competition in Los Angeles. She is exploring the possibility that AI could be trained to detect filtered images. This has ramifications for mental health as young people would then be able to discern that many of the images that they are being bombarded with on the Internet are not genuine. Therefore, they should not compare themselves to those unrealistic standards. In Tamara’s mind, this is just the beginning.
The evening also featured an auction of student-created artwork and a bag raffle. The members of what was an intimate gathering went home with leftovers of Devin Smith’s culinary art. Smith is an expert chef known for his involvement with Reaching Out Now, another organization reaching young people, specifically in Warren County.
Local News
As Opening of Youth Center Draws Near, the Reaching Out Now Family Looks to the Past for Inspiration
As Samantha Barber and Toby Hire sat, side by side, holding hands on April 26 in a yet-to-be-furnished room of the Raymond E. Santmyers Student Union and Activity Center in Front Royal, Virginia, there was a very real sense of water, which is stopped by nothing. “Water is my serenity,” Samantha said in this conversation with the Royal Examiner. It maneuvers its way around any obstacle in its path, if not eroding the obstacle altogether, and that is precisely what the Reaching Out Now (RON) family, of which Samantha is the president, has done in its endeavor to provide Front Royal and the wider Warren County region with a youth center, opening soon, where students can come to play, relax, have fun, develop strong bonds of friendship, and explore what they want to do with their futures.
The youth center is necessary, and the stakes are life and death. The brilliant lives and tragic early departures of Harlee Hire and Nathan Jenkins, the first to suicide and the second to a boating accident, inform the RON family of their mission to reach young people. There is this awareness that life is incredibly fragile, and the only way to face it is through community. It is as simple as asking: “Are you okay?” That is precisely what RON intends to do through the youth center so that young people in Harlee’s position do not fall through the cracks.
Harlee loved water. And by all appearances, she could overcome any obstacle. Through tears, “She was a great friend,” her mother Toby said as Samantha gripped her hand. Harlee practiced radical encouragement. It was not uncommon to hear her yelling shameless compliments like: “Your butt is looking fine today!” And even in the early months of 2022, after her friend Nathan’s boating accident in January and before she attempted suicide on May 10 and officially passed on May 11 and the Honor Walk donation of her organs on May 13 at UVA, she clung tenaciously to life. “I am going to do this, Miss Sam,” she told Samantha at a fashion show RON was hosting. And she walked down the runway.
“It is a sacrificial gift,” Samantha said of the youth center. “Nathan would have loved this,” Susan Jenkins said, standing outside the Santmyers building in May of 2023, and as soon as she said it, it began to rain. Indeed, a little fall of rain can hardly hurt me now, to quote the musical production of Les Miserables. There is a very real sense that both Harlee and Nathan continue to live through the youth center as the RON family remembers them and strives to reach young people in their position. Especially Harlee’s. While it is impossible to predict an accident like the one that occurred for Nathan, Samantha, and Toby both feel strongly that intervention is possible in the case of young people who are struggling with mental health issues.
In fact, May will be Mental Health Awareness Month for RON as they host three different athletic events in memory of Harlee and Nathan through their Safe at Home program. On May 9, a varsity girls’ softball game will be held at Skyline High School at 6 p.m. They will host a community baseball day on May 11, between 10:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. at the Bing Crosby Stadium. And on May 25 at Skyline High School from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., they will host a community softball day. In order to get tickets, go to reachingoutnow.org
There is no need to be perfect. Samantha is frank about the impact this trauma has had on her health. “You have rheumatoid arthritis,” a doctor told her. He explained that she had internalized so much psychological pain that it had a very real manifestation in her physical health. But this is just one more obstacle that can be overcome through the support of friends offering real, physical comfort. You can be broken, Toby said. It is okay. It is the broken kids that RON wants to reach. If you are in trouble at school, we understand, Samantha emphasized. If you have weed in your backpack, we understand. This is not a matter of selecting the crème de la crème of students who are already gifted and exceptionally motivated. It is a matter of reaching all the kids and helping them understand their potential.
In the unfurnished room at the youth center, a room named in honor of Nathan and intended to be a game room, the Nate (DAWG) Game Room, Samantha, and Toby agree wholeheartedly that there is nothing wrong with just playing games if you are not playing them alone. Toby said this is the most connected yet disconnected age. The goal of the youth center is to help young people connect authentically.