Stephanie Penn
Reporter
Harrisonburg, VA
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Stephanie joined the WHSV team in June of 2020. She recently graduated from James Madison University where she studied journalism and Spanish and was a part of the student-run newscast, "BreezeTV." She is excited for the opportunity to stick around the Shenandoah Valley!
Stephanie grew up in Northern Virginia and is a die-hard D.C. sports fan. In her free time, she loves hanging out with friends and family and trying new restaurants in the valley. Her favorite part of WHSV is getting to meet and tell the stories of people in the community.
Stephanie is excited to work hard for you!! Thanks for watching and follow her on social media for news updates!
“I like the optimism in the guidance and I like the fact that the new guidance uses what we’ve learned for the past nine months about mitigation and other things, so that’s a very positive part of it,” said Harrisonburg City Public Schools superintendent Michael Richards.
“Our hospital systems are seeing an increase of COVID-19 patients and have to deal with that caseload, so an increase of flu burden in the hospital systems would not be good,” Laura Lee Wight said.
LaPira said the call for removal doesn’t involve political parties and is not for retribution, but to uphold the foundation of our country.
After a challenging start to 2020, the City of Harrisonburg saw a lot of interest at the end of the year from local entrepreneurs ready to kick start their businesses.
Since December, the group has been raising money to purchase meals from mostly locally-owned restaurants, who have also been dealing with hardships because of the pandemic, and delivering the food to front-line healthcare workers at Sentara RMH in Harrisonburg.
Monday’s resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives was not unanimously passed and the presidential impeachment process will continue later this week.
“As we all well know, it’s not a silver bullet. It’s gonna take a while for this to deal. We’ll probably still have to use the mitigation, the handwashing, the social distancing, the masks, and so forth. But nonetheless, this is a big first step for all of us,” Superintendent, Doug Lambert, said.
“It was just very important to us to bring that same environment here to Harrisonburg. We’re very much island lovers, tropical vibes, so we just thought this would be fun. This will be something different,” co-owner Corri Loan said.
“Because the disease is somewhat unpredictable, this will be an enormous step in increasing confidence in the building and also protecting everyone,” Superintendent of Rockingham County Public Schools, Dr. Oskar Scheikl, said.
“Certainly we want people to come early, wherever they go. We encourage them to get in and get their taxes filed as soon as they can, and just hope they have a safe year,” Skillman said.
“We’re experiencing higher levels of COVID-19 transmission in our community than we did back in March and than we did in the summer surge, so now is the time to take action,” Wight said.
“Especially for dogs, it is really important when you come back in from a walk to be wiping their paws down because a lot of the snow melt chemicals and rock salt is super irritating for their paw pads,” Corbin said.
“What we would encourage you from the mental health community is do self-care. Take care of yourself first,” Ghaemmaghami said.
“It’s just more than a place for a dog to run around. I mean you get a lot of regular community folks that come there every day or every other day, and it’s sort of like a meeting place.”
“We’re excited at the opportunity to hopefully get back to some sense of normalcy. I think it’s important just for them and for us, but it’s important for our area and the economy here bringing them back and getting to serve the businesses around the area benefits everyone,” Phil Saunders with Matchbox Realty in Harrisonburg said.
Sheena Richards’ grandparents have done their Christmas light display for about 30 years. On December 22nd, her grandparents’ garage caught fire. Luckily the Christmas lights were on the house at the time, and not in the garage where they are stored.
“We’re hoping that people go to all the small businesses and help them out for New Year’s Eve. If nothing else, come in for dinner. Pick up your food if you want to do it at home and prefer not to come in,” Donna Finnigan said.
“This is just not only a financial reinforcement of the important work that they do, but it’s also to let them know that we really value the work that they do,” Cristina Casado, Director of Community Engagement at the Community Foundation, said.
With cold temperatures this winter, Open Doors in Harrisonburg is looking for winter apparel.
Tsega Kidanu is usually in contact with her family in Ethiopia every week, but for the last 50+ days she hasn’t heard anything.
With the rainy weather most of the Valley saw on Christmas Eve this year, Emanuel Lutheran Church in Woodstock decided to postpone their live Nativity scene to Sunday evening.
From closed doors to shorter hours, small businesses have faced many challenges this year.
For the first time this year, families were allowed to sign up to have their adopted pet brought to them on Christmas.
On Tuesday, Chastity Eppard made a Facebook post asking if any local children needed gifts this year for Christmas on Friday. Days later, the community pulled off Christmas.
“A lot of folks come out. They wear Santa hats. They’ve got candy canes and this is part of their tradition and they can do it safely. They can have their tradition safe at the theater and we love to have them out here. It’s great seeing them,” Hayes said.
Maya Waid, a junior at Harrisonburg High School, is asking the community to donate school supplies for virtual students.
The congregations of Asbury United Methodist Church and Otterbein United Methodist Church will experience the Christmas Eve service from the comfort of their vehicles this year.
Crews started pretreating roads on Tuesday night ahead of Wednesday’s snow. This year, they also have to take into account COVID-19 safety measures while out on the roads.
The Centers for Disease Control’s vaccine advisory team voted to recommend the COVID-19 vaccine to be administered to those ages 16 and older.
Open Doors, in Harrisonburg, is asking for community help to remove snow expected from Wednesday’s system.
The performance ended early so most of the concert-goers dispersed, but Shanna and her mom stuck around to get a few more pictures by Cathedral stairs when all of a sudden they heard the gunshots.
The bulk of the plan to be put forward is details actually about the moderate range. If the school system makes it to the yellow zone after the holiday season, the school system is figuring out what the plan will be for student return.
The front of the store is open for records and repairs, but the recording studio is still in the works and parts of the store are still being dried out.
John Zirkle, of Elkton, has been in the Christmas tree business for about 40 years, and for the last three, he’s been donating half of his proceeds to St. Jude children’s research hospital.
During the Click it or Ticket campaign, VSP participated in Operation C.A.R.E.- Crash Awareness and Reduction Effort. 498 drivers were cited for failing to buckle themselves or juveniles.
John Richard “Dick” Neese died early Saturday morning in a single-vehicle crash on 1-81.
Families were able to drive through and collect goodies from the different stations, and children could drop off their wish lists to Santa.
Since 2014, the Health Equipment Loan Program has been trying to connect community members with the medical supplies they need.
I mean, you know, we need them, it just makes the town. It’s nice to be able to come in here and see a friendly face, and get some good advice from people that’re experienced,” Joe Sinegra, a customer at “Walkabout Outfitter” in Harrisonburg, said.
The Shenandoah County Fair in Woodstock is up and running with safety guidelines in place, certified by the Virginia Department of Health, and a new drive-thru light show.
From 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon, community members came to the lodge for a socially distant spaghetti benefit dinner to raise money for Christy Centeno.
“It feels really good to be able to do something knowing we have a lot to be thankful for, and we can give to those who need food,” Senior Karla Hostetter, said.
“To make this campus safer to express everyone’s opinion, we need to respect each other a little bit,” Dr. Woo said.
You can bring these plastics to the recycling bins in front of some stores to be repurposed in a take back program that was started by the alliance years ago. Taylor says these plastics can be remade into new bags, asphalt, and other products.