Laura Peters
Staunton News Leader
Published 6:00 AM EDT May 20, 2019
STAUNTON – Staunton and Waynesboro were honored in Virginia’s Best contest and get ready for some music and arts festivals in Staunton — here’s the buzz.
Virginia’s best
Staunton and Waynesboro have landed on Virginia Living Magazine’s Best of Virginia Living list for 2019. The magazine polls readers to ask where to find the state’s best services.
This year, more than 40,000 ballots were cast, and in total, nearly 1,600 businesses were recognized, a release said.
Here’s the rundown of first place awards:
Waynesboro
- Best Art Event — Fall Foliage Art Show
- Best Golf Course — Waynesboro Golf & Country Club
- Best Pool Company – Valley Pool & Spa
- Best Outdoor Adventure — Shenandoah National Park
Staunton
- Best Charity — Blue Ridge Court Appointed Special Advocates
- Best Performing Arts Company — American Shakespeare Center Blackfriars Playhouse
- Best Historic Site — Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum
- Best Hotel — Stonewall Jackson Hotel & Conference Center
- Best Bakery — Newtown Bakery
- Best Chocolatier — Cocoa Mill Chocolate Company
- Best Outdoor Dining — Byers Street Bistro
- Best Pizzeria — Shenandoah Pizza & Taphouse
- Best Place for Brunch — Mill Street Grill
- Best Restaurant — Mill Street Grill
- Best Wine Shop — Yelping Dog Wine
- Best Bicycle Shop — Black Dog Bikes
- Best Car Dealer — McDonough Toyota & 2nd Valley Honda
- Best Florist — Honey Bee’s Florist
- Best Independent Home Décor Store — LTD 7
- Best Funeral Home — Henry Funeral Home
- Best Independent School — Stuart Hall School
- Best Law Firm — Timberlake, Smith, Thomas & Moses PC
- Best Orthodontic Practice — Parrott Orthodontics
- Best Chiropractor — Amato Chiropractic and Rehab
Both Staunton and Waynesboro received a number of second and third place nods in the contest. For more information go to VirginiaLiving.com.
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Festivals and more
Hot glass
The 17th annual Virginia Hot Glass festival will be held May 26 through 27 at Sunspots Studios in downtown Staunton.
This year, the festival will feature Grant Garmezy, who creates life-like busts of animals such as storks, alligators, lions and dragons, according to a release.
He uses a method called “hot sculpting,” which is all done freehand without molds, the release said.
The event runs Memorial Day Weekend, May 26 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and May 27 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The festival will feature demonstrations of glassblowing and flame-working techniques all inside Sunspots Studios, located at 202 S. Lewis St.
“I can make glass look like any other material, from wood to ceramics, or fire to ice, and from fish scales to reptile skin,” Garmezy said in a release. “Sculpting with hot glass involves heat, gravity, glass blowing tools that have been around for centuries, and found tools to create textures and curves that bring life and energy to an animal. And your time is limited by how long you can keep the glass hot and moving.”
Glassblowers at the Festival will take turns working in the glassblowing studio at Sunspots, while flamework artists will have a torch set up for their demonstrations. Flamework glass artists melt thin rods of glass in a flame and form them into colorful beads, marbles and miniature sculptures, the release said.
On the second floor of the studio, artists will set up booths for their work.
Park art
Across town, another art festival, Art in the Park at Gypsy Hill Park, hosted by the Staunton Augusta Art Center, will bring even more artists and their work to Staunton for the weekend.
Art in the Park runs May 25 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and May 25 from noon to 5 p.m. The event features art, crafts, a kid’s art activity area, food trucks and more.
“We hope by offering two great art festivals in Staunton on Memorial Day weekend that we will be able to draw many tourists here for the holiday weekend,” Sheridan said in a release.
Both events are free to the public.
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For more information go to sunspots.com/virginia-hot-glass-festival and saartcenter.org/ and Staunton Jams on Facebook.
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You can reach reporter Laura Peters at lpeters@newsleader.com. Follow her @peterslaura.
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