Community Calendar

Come join us at Shenandoah Valley Art Center for a Tea Party which includes high tea and sharing a lovely afternoon of art with artist, Mae Stoll. (March 26, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m., $40, 416 W. Main St. Waynesboro, VA 22980, reserve tickets: 540-949-7662)

At 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 8, the Piedmont Master Gardeners and The Center at Belvedere will co-host a free Spring Lecture by landscape architect Thomas Rainer, a leading voice in ecological landscape design. Titled “Horticultural Futurism: Designing a Plant-Centric Future,” the presentation will follow a public open house beginning at 5:30 p.m. in The Center’s Rose and Pollinator Demonstration Gardens. The Center is at 540 Belvedere Blvd. in Charlottesville. To register for the program, visit https://thecentercville.org/calendar/rsvp/136614. Rainer is a principal at Arlington-based Phyto Studio and has designed projects at landmark locations such as the U.S. Capitol grounds, the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the Toronto Botanical Garden, and the New York Botanical Garden. He is also co-author of the influential book Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes.

Rocktown History and the Augusta Military Academy Museum present Francis Gary Powers, Jr. He'll debunk the fake news that surrounded the U-2 Incident and tarnished his father’s reputation. He reveals what it was like growing up in the shadow of a famous Cold War figure, details his search for the truth after his father’s tragic death in 1977, and explains how his research prompted the United States Air Force and CIA to posthumously award his father the POW Medal, Director’s Medal, and Silver Star.

Join us in-person at Rocktown History or connect via the Rocktown History YouTube channel. No registration required. Powers will bring copies of his books for sale and signing.

Gary is the author of Letters from a Soviet Prison (2017), Spy Pilot (2019), Enemy Territory (2022), The Berlin Airlift (2024), Cold War Virginia (2024), and Protecting America: Cold War Defensive Sites (2024). He is Founder and Chairman Emeritus of The Cold War Museum located at Vint Hill, VA, and assisted the National Park Service in identifying historic Cold War sites for preservation. In 2015, he consulted for the Steven Spielberg thriller, Bridge of Spies, about the 1962 spy exchange between KGB spy Rudolph Abel and U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, Sr.