Poetry & Strength
“Mental health? There are a lot of signs but no one wants to take them seriously until something drastic happens,” says 18-year-old Aspen Marie Griffith. “Mental health is talked about a lot more, but there still isn’t much help. And going through therapy…
Turn Up the Volume
If Hub City Vinyl has a mantra, it should be “business in the front, party in the back.” During the day, there’s a record shop in the front of the store where lovers of vinyl can peruse, but in the evenings, Thursdays through Sundays, it’s Live at Hub City Vinyl, a place where…
Portraits for a Cause
Author and humanitarian Sam Childers (aka the Machine Gun Preacher), Thaddeus Bullard (WWE Titus O’Neil), and other celebrities are part of local portrait artist Nicole Troup’s mission to bring awareness to her Portraits for a Cause project. Her most recent painting of…
The Next Chapter
If ever a Major League baseball player achieved nothing more than footnote status, it was Thomas Charles Lipp. He made his Major League debut for the Philadelphia Phillies on…
Boonsboro: Quaint and Historic
Mystery and romance novelist Nora Roberts saved the historic building at the intersection of Alt. Route 40 and St. Paul Street, rebuilding it from the ashes of a fire and turning it into an elegant bed and breakfast called Inn BoonsBoro. Each room is named…
Preserving Our Agricultural Heritage
For Jeremiah Weddle, farming is in his blood. Relatives going back at least to his great grandparents have been farming in Washington County. His parents started Creek Bound Farm in 1980 doing most of the labor by hand. They grew the farm into the 4,500 acres that the family manages today.
For the Love of the Theater
Many moons ago, a young Barry Harbaugh took a class trip with the other seventh graders at Boonsboro Middle School to see a performance of Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass” at the newly opened Kennedy Center. Sitting in the audience, he just knew he wanted to be a part of live theater for the rest of his life.
An Unlikely Candidate
In 2004, Tekesha Martinez left Hagerstown and swore she would never come back. Growing up as a foster child, being bounced from place to place, she found herself alone as a teenaged mom and angry at the community that had raised her. She returned in 2010, now a mother of five, and had every intention of leaving again. But fate had other plans.
Flying into the Season
Check in on the Flying Boxcars website and it will give you the exact time down to the second before professional baseball makes its return to Hagerstown. Check in on the Visit Hagerstown website for a live feed of the progress on construction of the new downtown ballpark, officially the Hagerstown Multi-Use Sports and Event Center. As the time ticks away and construction continues…
Historic Smithsburg
By 1923 much of the town of Smithsburg had been built, and now, a century later, not much has changed. Pleasantly, Smithsburg retains its 19th-century charm and the town center is largely unencumbered by modern development. The town boundaries have been pushed out to accommodate some housing developments over the years and that has brought the population to…
Treasure Hunt
It’s the thrill of the hunt. Whether stalking game for supper or the day’s best bargain, finding what you seek is always satisfying. While some folks insist only new things will do, others turn a savvy eye to second-hand shops for “new-to-me” treasures.
We’ve Had Our KIX
KIX guitarist Brian Forsythe was sitting in a jail cell thinking about how it could all go so wrong. “I had visions of being on an arena stage, and here I was,” says Forsythe, who had been arrested on drug charges. “I couldn’t believe that my life had changed so much.”
HotList 2024
Whether you’re in the market for fine antiques, a cozy stay at a bed and breakfast, an accountant to do your taxes, or just a good beer, we’ve got it in our annual reader’s poll list of the best of Hagerstown and Washington County. Here are the restaurants, businesses, professionals, and entertainment venues that our readers picked as the best.
The New Team in Downtown
The new look of professional baseball in Hagerstown extends beyond a new name, new uniforms, and a new stadium. The league the Flying Boxcars will play in when they take the field in the spring of 2024 is different from the Minor League Baseball system that the Hagerstown Suns played in from 1981 to 2020.
A New Beginning
“Life in the Ukraine was very disturbing—sirens sound every day and this means that missiles and suicide bombers are flying somewhere over the city,” says 76-year-old Svitlana Rochniak. “You don’t know where they will fly. Rockets flew into our city, suicide bombers came into the park next to our house. The facility in the factory where my brother works was bombed, and the research institute where my mom worked was bombed.”
Unusual Nights Out
Winter offers us a chance to spend evenings by a cozy fire or curled up on the couch watching a good Netflix series. Of course, when the days get longer and the nights colder, cabin fever can sometimes set in and those quiet evenings at home become mundane.
Play Ball! Again!
Hagerstown’s love affair with baseball spans nearly the entire history of the sport, although like most relationships, it has been a somewhat up-and-down affair. The Western Maryland Historical Library tells us the Hagerstown Base Ball Club was…
A City on the Move
As a native of Hagerstown, Mayor Tekesha Martinez has seen the ebbs and flows of the economic development of Hub City.
“I grew up going downtown with grandfather,” remembers the 45-year-old.“ Downtown was where you’d go to get pizza. I would go to McCroy’s to get my school supplies…
Unique, Unusual, and Downright Strange Places in Washington County
Josh Goldman has stuff. Lots of stuff. Lots and lots of old stuff. He loves stuff. He keeps it all in his 20,000-square-foot…
Home Grown Entrepreneurship
Every year in the US, there are tens of thousands of new business start-ups, only a fraction of which will become successful companies. Business incubators- special programs combining office and work space, specialized training and mentorship - can guide these entrepreneurs as they turn their dreams into reality.