Southwest Virginia

A big change is coming to mental health treatment in southwest Virginia. The state is rolling out a new way to transport people in crisis. 

The Old Fiddler’s Convention in Galax just wrapped up its 84th annual event last month. It’s the oldest such musical event in the world and is the subject of a new documentary.

For the last several years, science and technology have increasingly dominated the scene at most universities, while the humanities took a back seat.  If you wanted to get a good job, you had to major in one of the STEM subjects: science, technology, engineering, or  mathematics.

Now, the Virginia university known as Tech, that is Virginia Tech, is elevating the role of the humanities as part of a university-wide initiative, giving it a seat at the technology table. 

In parts of Virginia, there’s no medical care facility for miles. And if there are any, too often, people can’t afford to go. For decades, the “Wise Health Wagon” has traveled Virginia's Appalachian Mountains, treating patients free of charge.  

In 1962, a 35-year-old physicist from Kentucky became president of the university we know today as Virginia Tech. The late Marshall Hahn was a maverick, who brought change to a mostly male, mostly white, southwestern Virginia military school.

Hahn died in 2016. His daughters live on the family property, much of which has been protected from development by conservation easements, which the family put in place decades ago.