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Officials eye busy tourism year as VIR kicks off a weekend of speed

Virginia International Raceway is kicking off its season of major spectator events this weekend, marking the beginning of what promises to be a busy tourism season for the Danville, Halifax County and Pittsylvania County area.

The two events, Hyperfest: The Automotive Amusement Park and the SRO GT World Challenge, will bring tens of thousands of motorsports fans to the area in May and June.

The season gets underway with Haltech Hyperfest on Friday-Sunday. Hyperfest is one of the largest motorsports festivals on the East Coast and features road racing, car shows, ride-alongs, obstacle courses, karting, a kid zone, live music and more — truly something for everyone. VIR

The second event, the Fanatec SRO GT World Challenge America Powered by AWS will take place June 16-18, bringing the upper echelon of GT sports car racing to VIR.

Each of these events will bring both new and familiar faces to VIR and in turn, the surrounding areas, and an opportunity for our residents to show why we love the region so much.

“We’re so fortunate to have one of the most sought-after racetracks right in our backyard,” said LaTonya Hamilton, director of Halifax County Tourism. “2022 was a record-setting year for VIR and 2023 promises to be even better with new schedule additions, track upgrades and more. We want our local businesses to be aware of events so they can prepare and show VIR visitors how special our community is.”

South Boston medical practice begins work on new facility

The physicians of Southern Gastroenterology Associates, joined by family members and other supporters, broke ground Tuesday on a new facility where colonoscopies and other medical procedures will be performed.

The 33,670 square foot building is going up at the Houghton Business Park in South Boston. Dr. Bakul Patel and Dr. Suresh Jayatilaka are the principles of the gastroenterological practice, which is located inside the medical building at 1129 North Main Street. That office will remain open for seeing patients; the new facility will be where those patients go to have procedures done.

Drs. Patel and Jayatilaka grabbed shovels for the groundbreaking event, flanked by Brian Burton of J.E. Burton Construction, the general contractor, Ronnie Moore of American National Bank, the project lender, and a host of others. Also turning the first shovels of dirt were family members Dr. Babita Patel, wife of Bakul and an internist and primary care physician, and Julia and Braedyn Jayatilaka, wife and son of Dr. Jayatilaka.

GO Virginia event spotlights success of small entrepreneurs

Go VA Event Micah White Rural entrepreneurship was the focus of the annual “All-Hands Meeting” held Thursday by GO Virginia Region 3, a business-led economic development initiative that aims to foster regional growth through collaboration among business, education and government sectors.

The GO Virginia annual meeting, held at The Prizery, celebrated small businesses and entrepreneurs with a panel discussion, a comedic keynote speech, and a networking cocktail hour and dinner.

During his opening remarks, GO Virginia Region Council chair Tim Clark said the organization’s ability to bring people together is the foundation of its success. “We start to realize what our superpower is, what we were doing that had never been done before. The point of GO Virginia was to have regional collaboration. We found that in meetings where we brought communities and businesses together with education, with government, [collaboration] really became something that was noted.”

$20 MIL FINISHING PIECE

A $20 million state grant announced Thursday is the final piece of funding needed to go forward with construction of a new Halifax County High School, said Superintendent of Schools Amy Huskin this week. HCHS Presentation 07 27 222 8 copy

“We know the community has been waiting for this news. We’ve been hanging in the balance on what we were going to do [to complete the HCHS project budget], and we are just so grateful for this news,” Huskin said.

County and school officials received confirmation Thursday that Halifax’s application for state grant dollars had been approved during a morning meeting of the Virginia Board of Education. The board oversees the Virginia Public School Construction Grant program, created by the General Assembly last year with a cash infusion of $450 million.

Prizery unveils upcoming schedule, tickets available

The Prizery Players will present Disney’s The Little Mermaid Aug. 4-13.

Ariel lives in an enchanted undersea country, and she has a beautiful singing voice. But she is a passionate, headstrong teenager, and wants what she cannot have, to live on land.

When she falls in love with a handsome human prince, Ariel is more determined than ever to gain a pair of legs.

But her only option is to defy her furious father, and bargain with Ursula the Sea Witch, giving her voice as the price of entry onto dry land.

With the help of Flounder the fish, Scuttle the seagull, and officious court composer Seastian the crab, Ariel must wordlessly gain Prince Eric’s love within three days – or lose her voice to the sea witch.

Foundation honors scholarship founders

The Southern Virginia Higher Education Foundation Board of Directors recognized all of those who founded and brought forth scholarship opportunities recently. The dinner was held at Factory Street Brewing Company.

“For those living in our rural area of Southern Virginia, these opportunities for expanding one’s education after high school was made only possible through the generosity of our donors,” said SVHEF Board Chair Monica Pounds-Edmonds.

In the fall of 2003, the Southern Virginia Higher Education Foundation awarded their first scholarships. At that time there were only three scholarships available for post-secondary education offered through the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center. As the Foundation grew more support from local business and industries, today there are fourteen varying scholarships.

Some scholarships are earmarked to support students who are seeking careers in business, education, health care, information technology, workforce training and arts education at The Prizery. Plus, there are scholarships supporting all fields of study.

Warehouse building gets new life as logistics hub

Kiwi Sports, an ecommerce retailer, is establishing an order fulfillment and logistics hub in the warehouse building at 2202 Parker Avenue in South Boston, the one-time home of Lindstrand Technologies near South Boston Elementary School.

Maryland-based Kiwi Sports is an online seller of automotive parts and accessories — both original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and aftermarket parts — and it also sells sports apparel and equipment, including for winter sports enthusiasts. Kiwi maintains third-party stores on Amazon and eBay, with 2,500 followers and 114,000 items sold on the latter ecommerce platform.

FACE-TO-FACE: Community-wide job fair puts potential workers in front of prospective employers

Twenty-eight employers looking to fill more than 300 open positions met with job seekers Wednesday at a job fair at the Halifax County Fairgrounds.

The job fair was deemed a success by its coordinators.

“We’ve been thrilled with the turnout today,” said Mitzi McCormick, president and CEO of the Halifax County Chamber of Commerce, one of the sponsors of the job fair. “We were looking to put job seekers in front of employers. I think it’s very important to put the job seekers face-to-face with our hiring managers.”