There are a few basic things that anyone looking to be an editor at a small community paper should know. The first, and perhaps most important, is that not everyone is going to agree with you all the time. But, since I’m married, I’m more than used to someone not agreeing with me. I can deal with it.

The other thing you must know is that there will be meetings…lots and lots of meetings. In a County facing the kind of growth and opportunity Powhatan is facing, there are very few evenings in a week where there isn’t a chance to go to a meeting about something.

The big ones, of course, are the School Board, the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission’s meeting.

If County officials aren’t meeting on a given night, there are always various community group meetings to check out. Powhatan Tomorrow. The Huguenot Trail Advisory Committee. The School Drug Advisory Committee. Most of these are open to the public and the members of the various groups and committees are always more than willing to help catch you up on what they have been or are currently trying to accomplish.

Also worth noting is that there is a reliable handful of people who you will see at pretty much every meeting. These are the people who have shown up to a BOS workshop to hear how the County’s water and sewer project is coming along, or take on the local VDOT representative about the fact that a certain stretch of road is in need of repair. They could be home relaxing, not giving a fig about how the Comp Plan revision is going, or whether the School Board has decided to name the new school after the next American Idol winner, but do they do that? No.

While all of these people deserve credit for their work and their diligence, I would personally have to give the Community Watchdog award to the woman who addressed the Board of Supervisors recently about the possibility of Earthquakes in Powhatan County.

Noting that the proposed Malvern development was actually located somewhat close to an area where seismic activity had been detected in the past, she urged the Board not to approve the project.

Was it kind of an odd thing to bring up? Yes. Did she have to endure a few quizzical looks from the Board, and even some snickering from the audience as she made her case? Yes. But she did it anyway.

My point here is that you can’t throw a rock in this county without hitting someone who is trying to fix or plan or examine something. And I think that’s great.

Are there some nights I’d rather be at home watching washed out celebrities compete in a dance competition? Perhaps. But it’s still nice to know that there are at least a handful of people—whether we always agree with them or not—who are foregoing their couch time for the betterment of the County.