October is money season for the Waynesboro economy. McElroy’s focus isn’t trying to reinvent that wheel, but to use the wheel that she already has working for you the other 11 months out of the year.

“We already get that visitation in the fall. We want visitors who come here in the fall to think of Waynesboro as a destination to come back to and highlight the other things that they can do the rest of the year,” said McElroy, who is working with a private group, the Tourism Association of Greater Waynesboro, on an initiative to get that ball rolling.

The Waynesboro Tourism and Trade Show on Oct. 3 was a linchpin to the effort to educate local residents and business owners about the role they can play in boosting the city tourism economy.

The idea to engage locals in a sort of word-of-mouth marketing effort is a wise one given this statistic – that 45 percent of visitors to the city come to Waynesboro to visit friends and family.

“The goal is to showcase Waynesboro as Waynesboro residents experience Waynesboro – and that hopefully that will get them to realize that we can offer that experience year-round and get them to come back and match their interests to what’s available here,” McElroy said.

There is also anecdotal evidence suggesting that many of those visiting family and friends in Waynesboro coordinate their visits to occur the weekend of the big Fall Foliage Festival, according to Piper Grove, the executive director of the Downtown Waynesboro-based Shenandoah Valley Art Center, the Festival’s organizer.

The juried art show is in its 40th year and routinely draws artists and visitors from across the country and across the world. Which isn’t to say that the Art Center is resting on its laurels in that respect. SVAC won approval from the Virginia Tourism Corp. for grant money that is being used to fund a nationwide media blitz aimed at drawing a new crowd to Waynesboro for the Festival.

And then, in conjunction with what McElroy is aiming to do, we can get them to come back again, and not wait ’til next fall to do so.

“The key to this is educating our local community as much as the visitor to what there is. So Joe Schmo can come to visit, and they can talk to anyone and learn about all the great things we have going on here, because people here will have been educated on what we have here in our backyard and can be prepared to say, This is why you need to come back in the spring, and this is why you need to come back in the summer,” McElroy said.

Fall Foliage Festival and Art Show

WHEN: Saturday, Oct. 15-Sunday, Oct. 16
WHERE: Downtown Waynesboro
INFO: www.SVACart.com

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“The opportunity to sublease the facility at 329 West Main could not come at a better time. We are looking towards the reopening of the Wayne Theatre in 2012. This move will provide a natural transition for the Alliance while building on our success with the Radio Hour,” WTA Chairman Bill Hausrath said.

Board member Tracy Straight is working with Wayne Theatre Alliance executive director Clair Myers to develop the first season of performances. “I am very excited about what we are going to be able to do to move our programming forward,” Straight said. “I have been working towards the reopening of the Wayne Theatre since the WTA was organized in 2000 to save the building. This interim step is an ideal way to get the organization and the community ready for what the Wayne will be.”

The Alliance is within $600,000 of completing its $3.2 million capital campaign and is currently working on finalizing a construction loan that can get work going at the historic theatre.

“The process is complicated because of the size of the loan, the nature of the business, and the tax credits associated with the project,” said Jim Wilson, treasurer of the Alliance. “We are confident that all the ‘T’s and I’s’ will be crossed and dotted soon and we will have the funds to complete the project. That will be our next announcement.”

“We are all very excited to begin our life as a presenting and a producing organization,” said Gayle Mapstone, Vice Chair for Administration. “I remember when the Wayne was the community’s entertainment center. I look forward to bringing that energy back to Waynesboro.”

Highlights for October

Oct. 14: Richard Adams Variety Show. A zany creation by musician, writer, composer and comedian, Richard Adams. (2nd Friday of each month). Show begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $9.99.

Oct. 21: River City Radio Hour. The Radio Hour includes local musicians and comedy combined with original “radio serials” including adventure, humor and mystery. Shows begin at 6:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Tickets: $10.

Oct. 22: Mojo Saturday Night with Bluesman Kevin Chisnell. Show begins at 7 p.m. Tickets: $10.

Oct. 27: Open Mic Night with Lorie Strother, The Dreaded Blues Lady. Show begins at 7 p.m. Tickets: Pay What You Will.

Oct. 28: Gateway’s Top Comic Competition. Eight comics square off in a competition to determine Gateway’s top comedian. Show begins at 8 p.m. Tickets: $10.

Oct. 29: Hootin N Holler Halloween. Show begins at 8 p.m. Tickets: $20.

More information online at www.WaynesboroGateway.com.

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The season gets going on Saturday, Oct. 1, with Oktoberfest, with German food and drink, music and dancing, children’s activities and games for kids of all ages. Oktoberfest runs from noon to 8 p.m. on Oct. 1.

A new event on the schedule at the Museum is the Oct. 14-15 Ancestral Skills Days, a weekend that will bring together practitioners of ancestral technologies, schoolchildren and the general public to learn and practice the skills of prehistoric peoples with demonstrations of flint-knapping, the uses of stone tools, bow and arrow making, soap stone bowl making, the uses of natural fibers, and Native American pottery and cooking demonstrations.

Also circle Oct. 27-29 on your calendars for the Frontier Culture Museum’s Creepy Tales, a candlelight guided tour of the Museum featuring The Oak Tree Park Monster, The Murder of Mungo Campbell and more.

About the Museum

The Frontier Culture Museum tells the story of the thousands of people who migrated to colonial America, and of the life they created here for themselves and their descendents. These first pioneers came to America during the 1600s and 1700s from communities in the hinterlands of England, Germany, Ireland, and West Africa. Many were farmers and rural craftsmen set in motion by changing conditions in their homelands, and drawn to the American colonies by opportunities for a better life. Others came as unwilling captives to work on farms and plantations. Regardless of how they arrived, all became Americans, and all contributed to the success of the colonies, and of the United States.

To tell the story of these early immigrants and their American descendents, the Museum has moved or reproduced examples of traditional rural buildings from England, Germany, Ireland, West Africa, and America. The Museum engages the public at these exhibits with a combination of interpretive signage and living history demonstrations. The outdoor exhibits are located in two separate areas: the Old World and America. The Old World exhibits show rural life and culture in four homelands of early migrants to the American colonies. The American exhibits show the life these colonists and their descendents created in the colonial backcountry, how this life changed over more than a century, and how life in the United States today is shaped by its frontier past.

More information online at www.FrontierMuseum.org.

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Awesome Wrestling Entertainment’s Night of Legends will bring together more than 30 of pro wrestling’s biggest superstars for a wrestling pay-per-view that you will not forget.

The debut TV event for the Waynesboro, Va.,-based company is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 15, beginning at 9 p.m., and will be available toviewers on a pay-per-view basis on InDemand, DIRECTV, AT&T and Verizon, and Bell TV in Canada, for a suggested retail price of only $24.95.

The broadcast will also be available live on an Internet pay-per-view basis at www.AWEonPPV.com.

The live show begins at 5 p.m. with a meet-and-greet for VIP ticketholders and 6 p.m. for all others. The wrestling action begins at 8 p.m. with AWE’s inaugural Bunkhouse Stampede featuring more than 20 wrestling legends.

The pay-per-view card features Kevin Nash, a former WCW and WWE World Heavyweight Champion, and a mystery partner against the three-time former NWA World Tag Team Champions The Rock-n-Roll Express. The controversial Nash has recently been making waves in WWE, but the 7’1″, 310-pound giant has been trading verbal punches for several months via the Internet and Facebook with Ricky Morton of The Rock-n-Roll Express, with whom he’d had a backstage run-in during their days in WCW.

Other highlights on the card for AWE Night of Legends include:

- The return to pay-per-view of former WCW World Heavyweight Champion Diamond Dallas Page, former WWE and WCW World Heavyweight Champion Sid Vicious, former TNA World Heavyweight Champion Rhino, and, after a nine-year absence from the ring, former WCW and WWE Superstar Perry Saturn.

- A three-way match involving a trio of former ECW World Heavyweight Champions – “Hardcore Legend” Terry Funk, “The Franchise” Shane Douglas and Tommy Dreamer.

- A match pitting “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, a WWE Hall of Famer who always has his trusty 2×4 and American flag with him at ringside, against Mohammad Akbar, the sneering son of an Arab-American oil magnate.

- A match featuring Fit Finlay, a former titleholder in both WWE and WCW, against “Loose Cannon” Alex Silva, a 21-year-old who is being touted as a future AWE World Heavyweight Title contender.

For more information on the AWE Night of the Legends Pay Per View event, go to www.AWEonPPV.com.

AWE Fans: What To Do While You’re in Town

Fans from 24 states and three foreign countries have already purchased tickets to the live event. That means a lot of people probably new to the Shenandoah Valley will be in town before and after the big show.

Never fear, AWE Fans. We have your guide for what to do while you’re here.

• Best Local Pizza: Shenandoah Pizza, Downtown Staunton. Online at www.ShenandoahPizza.com.Best Mexican Restaurant: El Puerto, West Main Street, Waynesboro.Good Oversized Greasy Burgers: Five Guys, Richmond Road, Staunton. Online at www.GoFiveGuys.com.Brand-New State-of-the-Art Movie Theater: Zeus Digital Theaters, Lew Dewitt Boulevard, Waynesboro. Online at www.ZeusTheaters.com.Cool Sports Hangout: Buffalo Wild Wings, Rosser Avenue, Waynesboro. Online at www.BuffaloWildWings.com.Local Newspaper Friendly to Wrestling Fans: The News Virginian. Online at www.NewsVirginian.com.

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Part travelogue, part biography, and part ode to his much loved pets, Looking Through the Rain is Hahn’s last work. At times delightfully funny and playful, it’s also sometimes a bit wistful. It’s a very personal work in which the author shares thoughtsand emotions about his past and hopes for the future.

Hahn, 64, passed away in February. A long-time teacher in the Waynesboro school system, his works included Tuesday Mourning, a play telling the story of soldiers from Bedford, Va., who died in the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, and Shenandoah Moon, the story of the forced relocation of natives of the Blue Ridge Mountain communities that were cleared to make way for the development of the Shenandoah National Park, which Hahn wrote as a play and a book.

The book was published by Augusta Free Press LLC, the parent company of New Dominion Tourist.

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“Let’s get ice cream,” said one.

So how was their daddy to explain a world that had been defined by that grotesque Wall, and a Foreign Service career spanning these same peculiar years?

In tales that are funny, poignant, and provocative, Bob Dickerman recalls in his book, My Daddy Fought the Cold War: Not Entirely Serious Tales of a Foreign Service Career, published by Augusta Free Press LLC, what it was “to fight the Cold War” as a self-described “working stiff diplomat” in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean. This is hands-on history as it’s too rarely written.

Dickerman was a 24-year-old reporter on The Chicago Tribune when invited to join the United States Foreign Service in 1962. His assigments took him, in order, to Finland, Somalia, South Vietnam, Norway, Iceland, West Germany, the Eastern Caribbean, Trinidad & Tobago, and Denmark.

Now retired, he lives on a bucolic Appalachian farm surrounded by the George Washington National Forest west of Staunton, Va.

Raised in Staunton, Oberlin, Ohio, and Bloomington, Ind., Bob was educated at Antioch College, Roskilde Arbejderfolkehøjskolen in Denmark, and Harvard University.

He is a former Research Fellow at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs.

Online at www.MyDaddyFoughtTheColdWar.com.

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Orlando is of course home to the Walt Disney World Resort, a must-see place for families with kids. While you’re there, make sure to save some time for Universal Studios, SeaWorld Orlando and Legoland Florida, a 150-acre interactive theme park with more than 50 rides, shows and attractions opening Oct. 15.

Are you an NBA fan? The Eastern Conference title contender Orlando Magic featuring All-NBA center Dwight Howard tip off the 2011-2012 season at home on Nov. 2 against the Charlotte Bobcats.

Orlando is also home to a pair of college football bowl games – the Champs Sports Bowl on Thursday, Dec. 29, and the Capital One Bowl on Monday, Jan. 2. The Champs Sports Bowl has a tie-in with the Atlantic Coast Conference, meaning fans of teams including Virginia Tech, Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina could see their team playing there in December.

More information on what’s going on in Orlando is online at www.VisitOrlando.com.

Book a flight at Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport at www.FlySHD.com.

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The City of Harrisonburg gifted the historic Warren-Sipe House to the Museum, and the generosity of museum members and friends has made it possible to renovate and improve the facility to meet national museum standards. In 2000, the Virginia General Assembly designated the Museum as the official quilt museum of the Commonwealth.

Construction of the Warren-Sipe House was completed in 1856, and membership in this society will acknowledge the ongoing support of groups, businesses and individuals for the preservation of our museum facility and support of the museum’s many programs and events.

This fall, the Museum is hosting an exhibit called “Unity in Diversity: A Collection from Country School Quilters,” featuring the quilts of Country School Quilters, a 45-member chapter of the Richmond Quilters’ Guild.

The exhibit will be on display at the Museum through Dec. 17.

More information on the Virginia Quilt Museum is online at www.VaQuiltMuseum.org.

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The award-winning Augusta County vineyard has had a successful run with Sunset at the Vineyards, which brings people in from across the Valley and throughout the Mid-Atlantic for music, food and wine.

The Oct. 21 event will feature food by Simple Elegance Catering.

Meals are $15. Orders must be placed by Oct. 18.

More information is online at www.BarrenRidgeVineyardsVa.com.

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All tax-deductable contributions to the Waynesboro Family YMCA will help us provide children and families friendly programming and services to the community of Waynesboro and Augusta County.

Strike-a-Palooza will be held on Saturday, Nov. 12, at Wayne Lanes, 208 N. Charlotte Ave., Waynesboro.

Registration is required. More information online at www.WaynesboroYMCA.com.

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