It’s a new year, a time to start fresh and list resolutions we’ll probably break by Valentine’s Day. Still, in the spirit of the season, we’d like to wish one and all a very happy new year and offer heart-felt appreciation to so many.

Any visitor to the Royal Mews adjacent to Buckingham Palace has surely marveled at the historical significance and majesty of the carriages on display. Their magnificence is undeniable.

Sheila Johnson’s love affair with Middleburg began in the mid-1990s when she regularly drove out to the area from Washington to ferry her daughter, Paige, to riding lessons. She’d pick her up at The Sidwell Friends School, try to beat the pre-rush hour traffic and somehow deliver her on time for her regular 4:15 sessions.

Written by Middleburg author Nicholas Nicastro in the same murderous genre as Sweeney Todd and The Assassination of Jesse James comes an unforgettable and bone-chilling historical taleabout the horrors hidden in American history.

Happy New Year: Stone Springs Hospital Center just east on Rt. 50, welcomed its first…

As a child, nothing seemed more beautiful to Sylvia McClain than the sounds of the harp. Growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, McClain attended Birmingham Symphony concerts several times a year with her school. She took piano lessons, but after her first visit to the symphony, something else caught her eye.

Zan Dial, chef and owner of the Federal St. Cafe, has worked in restaurants ranging from high-end gastronomy to pub fare. His new restaurant falls somewhere in between, and it’s exactly what Middleburg needed. 

Maria Arellano was the first in her family to graduate from college two years ago, and she’s now a legal assistant in a Washington law firm still thinking about applying to law school. She also knows that because of a program at The Hill School she joined while still a third grader in a local public school, none of the above would have been possible.

John Pennington still remembers the day he came home from the University of Virginia and told his mother he was going to major in English. A child of the Depression, she’d hoped he and his four siblings would find a profession safe from the vagaries of the economy, and she was a bit skeptical about her son’s course of study.

Amy L. Vollmer knew she had some big shoes to fill when she stepped into the role of Philomont’s postmaster in March, 2015.  After all, she was taking over the job formerly performed by Laura Pearson, who had retired in January after serving as postmaster for more than 50 years. And the post office had been in the Pearson family for over a century.