Last week at the School Board meeting several parents

Last week at the School Board meeting several parents

voiced their concern that some dollars would

be taken from the Rappahannock County Public School budget impacting the junior Panther baseball program. They came to the meeting and told of their concerns.

The beauty of the budget process is that local residents are encouraged to come and lobby their elected representatives if they’d like more dollars going to teacher salaries, a new track, new textbooks or the sports program.

On Monday, April 24, there is a public hearing at the Rappahannock County High School starting at 7 p.m. where the Board of Supervisors will have an opportunity to hear from the citizenry how they feel about the proposed PY 2007 School Budget of close to $12 million.

While you may not think that your voice makes a difference or that the lot is already cast in one direction or another, this is not necessarily so.

Some of our neighboring counties get quite testy and come armed with placards, hosts of children and lobbying efforts that'would boggle the bigger Washington.

While raucous lobbying is frowned on and no board relishes hoards of unhappy residents overflowing meetings, they do appreciate and want to know of their constituents concerns.

So, if you have them, show up.

Springtime

The 10-K Fodderstack race is this Saturday. It’s also

Earth Day. What about a “Womanless Beauty

Pageant”? That’s happening as well. Football season isn’t over. There’s a powder puff game going on at the high school. Several of the Relay for Life teams are having bazaars. You can learn about lowering your taxes on Sunday afternoon with the Rappahannock County Conservation Alliance, check out a new art show at R.H.Ballard, see Syriana on Friday evening or the Klemperer Trio on Saturday. In short, there are more things happening in Rappahannock County than can fit on the Upcoming Events page and we haven’t even

talked about May yet.