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Jim Lehrer to Participate in Great Falls Speaker’s Series

Popular anchorman Jim Lehrer will be the guest speaker at this month’s Great Falls Speaker’s Series (GFSS) on Tuesday, Nov. 18 at 7 p.m., at the Great Falls Library. Lehrer, also a prolific author and a playwright, will be on-hand to discuss his newest novel, “Top Down,” about the Kennedy assassination. Signed copies of Lehrer’s book will also be available for sale (for as long as supplies last).

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Great Falls’ Spooktacular Success

Traditional village event has record numbers.

The ghouls and ghosts of Great Falls took over the village green and shopping center last Friday, Oct. 31. Celebrate Great Falls’ Spooktacular, a spooky multi-decade tradition, brought out hundreds of children, pets and parents to get candy and get to know their neighbors.

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HOT Topic

Fairfax County Fire & Rescue invites the media for Hands-On Training.

Rob Schoenberger is pretty good with a 15-foot extendable camera. Its built-in microphone and powerful lights come in handy, paired with a Delsar seismic sensor device, when trying to locate people trapped under the rubble of a collapsed building.

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St. Francis Episcopal Celebrates 50th Anniversary

St. Francis Episcopal Church in Great Falls celebrated its 50th anniversary with a “Homecoming Weekend” recently.

Toxic Gas Plume Moves South

Citizens association asking for two more cleanup pumps.

Mike Terpak is worried about his well becoming contaminated. Like about 80 percent of village residents, his home runs on a well system. Terpak is a resident of the Oliver Estates, a neighborhood that the gas plume concentrated near the old Exxon station with known carcinogen Methyl Tert-Butyl Ether [MTBE] is creeping towards.

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Alex Bartolozzi Wins Healthy Snack Contest

Isabelle Saba, a cadet in Girl Scout Troop 1991, wrote to the farmers market about an idea she had to teach young children about nutrition and healthy living at the farmers market. Some lessons she suggested stressing are “what foods are in season, how buying local is better, the importance of knowing what you eat, where the food comes from, and why the farmers market is always the best choice.”

Earning Black Belts at Great Falls Academy

Pictured above are four recent black belt graduates of the Lead by Example Tae Kwon Do Great Falls Academy, located in the Seneca Square shopping area, near Seneca Road, as well as Andrew and Earlena Bellino, owners of the Academy with Master Lightfoot, a prodigy of Grand Master Jhoon Rhee, who invented performing some martial art routines to music.

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Board Approves Bicycle Master Plan

The Fairfax County Government Center has several massive parking lots. Many hundreds of spaces. But Bruce Wright and members of the Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling only needed some rack real estate in front of the building. They rode into the afternoon session of the Board of Supervisors on two wheels apiece from Reston, taking the West Ox Road Side Path.

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Mutiny at the Debate

Final Comstock-Foust debate gets emotional as both candidates debate social issues for first time.

The final debate Sunday between Republican Barbara Comstock and Democrat John Foust was arguably the most fiery and combative debate in the race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R) in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District.

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Down to the Wire

As 10th District race heads into homestretch, Foust, Comstock continue to battle for voters.

The race to replace U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R) in Virginia’s sprawling 10th district has been exactly what political prognosticators said it would be: one of the most watched, most expensive and most contested races in the 2014 midterm elections.

The Tastes of Autumn

John Conway, Master Chef, The Old Brogue visits the Farmers Market.

There are ways we eat and tastes we know that have been with us since birth. Many of our ingrained ways of eating are not as tied to the seasons as they could be. Eating more healthy involves making changes that connect us with more seasonal specialties in tasteful ways.

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Helping Lift the Burden of Student Debt

William Mullen, 15, of Great Falls interviews Sen. Mark Warner.

On Sept. 21 Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia), who is running for re-election on Nov. 4, was interviewed by William Mullen, 15, a sophomore at St. Albans School in Washington D.C. who lives in Great Falls. Here is a short excerpt from the interview:

Art and Thanksgiving at Katie’s Coffee

Oil painter Begoña Morton returns to Katie’s Coffee in Great Falls during the month of November with her new collection of “Daily Paintings.”

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Nurturing Happy Memories

For some, memories of just a few happy moments provide arsenal for enduring.

“It’s my few happy memories that keep me going,” a young woman who had grown up in foster care told me a few months ago. To be honest, today I’m a little foggy on exactly what her happy memories even were. They weren’t monumental experiences or achievements. They were simply moments in time when she felt happy.

Gail Péan Wins ‘Viewers Choice’ Award

Oil painter Gail Péan is the winner of the "Viewers Choice" Award in "A Sea of Sticks and Stones" a juried exhibit in the Art Hall of U.S. Geological Survey headquarters in Reston.