At 7 p.m. the Kickers will host Crystal Palace Baltimore in the USL-2 regular season finale.

Bring the family before 6 p.m. and purchase a $5.00 ticket that allows admission for the whole group. Richmond Kickers regular priced admission ($12/adults, $7/youth) will apply after 6 p.m. Richmond Kickers Family Fest The festival will feature live music by local musicians, food, arts and crafts, an interactive fun zone, inflatables, video games, face-painting, a petting zoo, mascots and prizes. In addition, soccer fans of all ages will be invited to participate in small-sided soccer games, juggle-a-thons and soccer drills, to be held on the field at the stadium, throughout the day.

“Family Fest commemorates our anniversary with an event that will provide an entertaining experience for the entire family,” comments Tom Depcrynski, Richmond Kickers President. “We, as an organization just wanted to say ‘thank you’ to the community for their support over the past 15 years. An afternoon of festivities, concluding with a professional soccer game, is a token of our appreciation.”

The Kickers meet Crystal Palace Baltimore for the first time since dropping a 2-0 decision on the road on May 4 during a 4-4 stretch to start the season. Palace forward Gary Brooks added a goal and an assist to the scoreline and has since gone on to lead Baltimore with seven goals and one assist for 15 points. Overall, the Kickers hold a two-year, 1-1-1 record against Baltimore .

Meanwhile, a pair of back-to-back wins over Wilmington last weekend secured a first round bye for the Kickers who have guaranteed home field advantage in the semifinals on Sat., Aug., 16. With Charlotte (13-2-4, 43 points) leading the league by just two points, a win on Saturday could allow the Kickers (13-4-2, 41 points) to leapfrog the Eagles to claim the regular season title for the third consecutive season.

– The information above was provided by Shelley Sowers with the Kickers

After seeing the wealth of material Helen had in her personal collection painted by her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother, Gladwell realized the VHS could not pass up an opportunity to open an art exhibition that tells the story of the family’s creative past.

A Creative Dynasty: Four Generations of Virginia Women, which opens at the Society on August 16, 2008, is a unique combination of history and art, women’s and family history, and the presentation of fine arts and performance art. The exhibition concerns a century of artistic accomplishment by Julia Anne (Morrison) Blount (1831−1877); her daughter, Sallie Lee (Blount) Mahood (1864−1953); her daughter, Helen Gray (Mahood) McGehee (1892−1980); and her daughter, Helen Gray (McGehee) Umaña (b. 1921).

“Through the work in this show, visitors will see how women’s roles in society have changed,” said Gladwell, exhibition curator. “Each successive generation was afforded opportunities for greater success.”

This exhibit features more than thirty paintings, portraits, photographs, sculpture, and film clips. Most of the material has not been seen for 20 or 30 years, and some of the art has never been displayed before in public.

Julia Anne Blount took up painting out of necessity to support herself and her daughter after her husband was shot. Sallie Lee Mahood studied art at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., and in Paris, and became a successful portrait artist, painting notable Virginians such as Dr. Edward Christian Glass and George Morgan Jones.

After attending Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, Helen McGehee became an accomplished miniaturist and orchestra musician. Her daughter, Mrs. Umaña (known as Helen McGehee), was a renowned modern dancer and choreographer and was a founding member of the Juilliard School of Dance, serving on the faculty there from 1951 to 1984.

“My favorite items in this exhibition are the portraits that family members painted of each other,” Gladwell said. “It is interesting to see how the women interpreted their relatives through art.”

These stories of four generations of Virginia female artists and examples of their artistic achievements in painting, the graphic arts, music, and dance will be presented at the VHS in A Creative Dynasty: Four Generations of Virginia Women until January 17, 2009.

Educators who work at Virginia schools may visit the VHS to see the exhibition free of charge during the month of August, and the museum is always free to patrons on Sundays. Helen McGehee, who lives in Lynchburg, will be at the Society on September 25th to present a noontime Banner Lecture titled “To Be a Dancer: Helen McGehee on Modern Dance.”

McGehee will offer the same advice to the VHS audience in her talk as she did in a 1960s film produced by the Martha Graham Dance Company, saying, “I hope that each person here will find something in your life which is as significant for you as dancing is for me.”

For more information, please call (804) 358-4901 or visit www.vahistorical.org.

– The information above was provided by Jennifer Mason at the VHS.

The Midlothian, Va. native has taken his game to the Lexington Legends, a member of the Class A South Atlantic League, where he will join former Rams Mick Mattaliano of the Delmarva Shorebirds and Sergio Miranda of the Kannapolis Intimidators.

After a tough start with the ValleyCats, Jackson settled in quickly posting a .257 batting average with 13 runs scored and nine RBIs. He notched three doubles, a triple and a home run during his brief stint in Troy, N.Y.

“After that first game, I knew I had to keep my head up and keep playing,” Jackson said. “In order to get to where I want to be ultimately, I know I have to keep putting in the hard work.”

One of his last memories with Tri-City will be one he will never forget as the former VCU standout took the field at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, N.Y., home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

“It was a great experience, especially being new to pro ball,” Jackson said. “It’s a historic place and to have the huge crowd that we did for that game, it’s something I’ll never forget.”

Jackson has played in three games with the Legends, two at shortstop and one at third base, notching two hits in 10 at-bats, while scoring a run.

During his three years in the Black and Gold, he helped the Rams capture the 2007 CAA Championship while racking up a .309 career batting average with 25 doubles, 11 triples and 12 home runs.

His signature season came in 2007 when he led the team with 57 RBI and 14 doubles, while racking up a .341 average and stealing 15 bases.

– The information above was provided by Scott Day at VCU.

Find out at the interactive planetarium show LiveSky at the Science Museum of Virginia Friday, August 15, at 6 p.m.

Astronomy Educator Leslie Bochenski explains the dog days and shows you where Jupiter is this month. She uses a planetarium projector to explore the late summer sky. Admission to LiveSky is free.

Join Richmond Astronomical Society members as they share their telescopes on the Science Museum front lawn for Sky Watch at 8:30 p.m. Sky Watch is free. It’s an outdoor event held weather permitting.

For Science Museum information, call (804) 864-1400 or 1-800-659-1727. The Science Museum of Virginia is located at 2500 W. Broad St .

– The information above was provided by Nancy Tait with the Science Museum.

Blame for losing the Richmond Braves has been slung in every direction since the bad news broke on Jan. 14, when the Atlanta Braves franchise announced it had decided to take its players, bats and balls to a new home to be constructed in the Atlanta suburbs.

Outrage erupted! Angry baseball fans felt cheated. Whose fault was it?

The finger-pointing was directed first at Mayor L. Douglas Wilder. After all, he had campaigned for mayor promising to fix the problem of where the R-Braves should play baseball.

Then the list of the perhaps blameworthy grew to include the R-Braves general manager Bruce Baldwin, the Richmond Metropolitan Authority (which owns The Diamond), City Council, the Atlanta Braves, officials of the surrounding counties, the Richmond Baseball Initiative’s ballpark-in-the-Bottom guys (remember them?), and so on. Bloggers and letter-to-the-editor-writers guilt-tripped local baseball fans for not going to enough games.

No doubt, some being suggested for inclusion on the list of culprits to blame actually deserve it more than others.

Depressing time-lines showing significant dates in the saga of losing the R-Braves have been published. However, those speaking for the Atlanta Braves front office have said that talks with Gwinnett County’s officials moved to the front burner in early October of last year. Not before.

Not surprisingly, Mayor Wilder has implied that he thinks the Atlanta Braves actually made their decision earlier than that. Still, if culpability is the issue, let’s do look at the context of time by asking one key question: What else was going on during that crucial period leading up to early October?

The answer could easily be what was dominating the news coming out of Richmond in the days leading up to the fateful decision made by the owners of the Atlanta Braves to end a 42-year relationship. Specifically, on Saturday morning, Sept. 22, Richmonders began absorbing the perplexing news about the Friday Night Fiasco their mayor had engineered.

The front page news told of Wilder’s botched effort to forcibly evict Richmond’s public school administration/school board from their offices in City Hall. Wilder’s unprecedented ploy was stopped cold when Circuit Judge Margaret P. Spencer issued a restraining order at 1:15 a.m. on Saturday.

Other than an absolute yes-man, it’s difficult to imagine any sane person would have advised Hizzoner to do such a thing. Put another way, who would have told the mayor to grab money from funds to help Battery Park recover from flooding (that was The City of Richmond’s fault) and spend it on a moving van sneak-attack on the School Board?

Since then Judge Spencer has made the restraining order permanent and Wilder’s behavior in this matter has been seen in an increasingly bad light. Moreover, as a lawyer, Wilder had to know in advance there was a good chance a judge would put the kibosh on his eviction plot before the night was over. So, if he knew it was likely the eviction would be halted, what was he thinking?

What was going on in the then-76-year-old Mayor Wilder’s head still seems a mystery. He blew half a million bucks out of disaster-relief monies to create a disaster out of thin air at City Hall. Then nothing was accomplished for the money. Since then more money has been spent on lawyers attempting to defend Wilder’s indefensible move.

Well, there’s no chance the top management people of the Atlanta Braves franchise (owned by Liberty Media since February, 2007) didn’t read all about Mayor Wilder’s bizarre stunt. After all, the story stayed at the top of the news for a solid week. Moreover, there’s no chance at all those decision-makers saw Wilder’s headline-making behavior as a good sign.

Let’s face it, to a guy reading about it sitting in an office in Atlanta, it had to look like Richmond’s government had come unhinged. Hence, it may well have been the last straw.

Beyond whatever decisions were made in Atlanta in early October, 2007, who knows how many people in what positions of power decided to give up on investing in Richmond, based on what they were reading about Richmond’s mayor and his wall-to-wall battles with everyone around him?

Now some see Wilder’s fingerprints on the Rodney Monroe degree controversy that VCU is still trying to straighten out. Wilder’s most recent perplexing stunt — shunning the July 21 unveiling of the Virginia Civil Rights Memorial — is yet another indication of bad judgment from a man who was once thought to be the craftiest politician in town.

Over the last couple of years, it has been painful for many of Doug Wilder’s longtime admirers to watch the man they have looked up to for decades — the first black governor of a state — transmogrify into the most squirrelly politician in town.

– Words and art by F.T. Rea

Can be downloaded at your leisure here.

To listen (and download) all 16 installments of the Bopst Show for rvanews.com, go here.

The Bopst Show Request Line: (804) 767-2550

I hope you can find the time to listen,
BOPST

A common story was circulated then about a group of black army recruits who stopped at a roadside café in the South. They were told to go to the back door to be served lunch while a group of German POWs was allowed to enter through the front and eat in the main dining room.

That story may be apocryphal, but it is symbolic of a profound paradox. While the United States threw all of its might into a war to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, it did so with large numbers of uniformed personnel who were denied the full fruits of American citizenship.

Click here to read the entire piece.

A unique rock ‘n’ roll show will take place tonight. It’s a live music throwdown to remember longtime Fan District resident Chris Gibson (pictured above with her husband Tom Applegate), who died last December. It’s a fitting memorial for her, because it’s being held in a bar that features live music.

The performers include: Buttercup; Jonathan (the Juggler) Austin; Terry Garland; and of course – BEEX, live on-stage, and on-screen!

What: Christine Gibson Memorial Concert

When: Friday July 25, 2008, 7 p.m.

Where: Canal Club’s Downstairs Lounge, 1545 Cary St.

Admission: $5.00 — all ages

To write this post, I just put on my black Beex T-shirt that I got at the Hollywood Cemetery memorial service (12/14/07) for Chris. I suspect there will be a lot of those shirts on the people who show up tonight to remember Richmond’s undisputed queen of punk rock.

For some background on Chris Gibson click here and here.

To back up that claim, one needs only to walk through Capitol Square to see the new Virginia Civil Rights Memorial that was dedicated on July 21, 2008.

The sculpture, by Stanley Bleifeld, is about change. Three of its sides recall of the heroism of those who walked around the Massive Resisters then in power, as they marched toward fair treatment and a better education. The fourth side’s figures suggest changes yet to come.

The 18 figures of the piece are not presented in heroic proportions. They are just slightly larger than life-size and they all stand on a low-rise platform, allowing viewers to stand along side them. In that way the art suggests everyday people, on the level with the rest of us, can be heroes, too.

In 1951, when Barbara Johns led the “walk-out” demonstration at Moton High in Farmville, which the sculpture recognizes, the kids were risking their lives for change. Some of them may not have felt that, as much of the worst violence of the Civil Rights Era was yet to come. Others may have been so caught up in the spirit of the moment, surfing a wave of hope, they didn’t sense how provocative their peaceful gesture might seem to the authorities.

In the presidential campaign now underway Sen. Barack Obama has adopted the word “change” as a one-word slogan. After mocking him, his opponents began to use the very same word in their speeches. It seems change is not only inevitable, sometimes it is more universally welcome than others.

Now everybody is for change, but not necessarily the same changes. Obama has been talking about changes that come from the bottom up. He casts himself as one who would facilitate the sort of improvements people on the bottom — out of power — need to have a better life. If he wins and lives up to his lofty campaign rhetoric, he can be expected to then try to affect change from the top down.

To make meaningful changes that get traction it usually takes simultaneous pressure from the top and the bottom. Too much heavy-handed, top downism is asking for a trouble with workers and the underclass, a revolution. Too much bottom up is a revolution.

Unless a sitting governor’s wife had not decided she wanted to put a memorial to Virginia’s Civil Rights heroes in Capitol Square, Bleifeld’s well-executed statement simply would not exist.

The Farmville students’ call for change from the bottom up inspired a movement which inspired the artist. But the actual changes in public schools that have attempted to answer that righteous call had to have been made by those in power.

Likewise, the political push and fundraising for the memorial had to be done by those in power.

Back to schools, the extreme emphasis on test results that has loomed over public education in the last decade was a change from the top down. Before the Standards of Learning/No Child Left Behind era, parents weren’t calling for standardized testing to cure the ills of public education.

No, they were calling for better teachers and decent facilities. They still are.

Are our leaders in Richmond today listening to what parents and students say they need from public education? Or, are they busy driving their kids out to their private schools?

Richmond School Board member Carol A.O. Wolf asks, “What will it take to bring Richmond’s black and white middle class back into our public schools?

My best answer to her question is that it will take a sincere effort to change, both from the bottom up and the top down. And, it will take good leadership.

From the podium on Monday morning, before unveiling the monument, Gov. Tim Kaine recalled the photographs of his wife as a girl — Virginia’s First Lady Anne Holton, with her father, then-Gov. Linwood Holton — walking into a public school in Richmond. In its time that black and white image was an inspiration to millions looking for a sign of real change.

Now it’s time for Richmond’s political, business and religious leaders to send their children and grandchildren back to public schools. Instead of more studies, they need to be listening to their kids telling them what is really going on in public schools.

Fifty-four years after the Brown vs. Board of Education Decision, isn’t it time for Richmond’s government to guarantee that an honest effort will be made to offer a quality education to children in every neighborhood in town?

Can’t we elect fellow citizens to office who will see to it that change becomes our friend?

What will it take? Indeed.