When asked if she has ever been to see the storied holiday windows in New York City, self-proclaimed toy lady Paula Bolte beams: “That’s on my bucket list!” Bolte, the owner of Imaginations Toy & Furniture on South Main Street in Blacksburg for 22 years, hasn’t let the lack of big city inspiration stop her from creating her own wonderland windows over the years. The tradition of a holiday display started out very simple around 10 years ago. But thanks …
The path to owning a hair salon wasn’t an obvious one for Kevin Meredith of Meredith’s Salon in Christiansburg. After graduating from Radford High School and dabbling in the “real” working world, …
Like most serious Christmas decorators, Nancy Wilmina Alexander begins placing out her Christmas collection the day after Thanksgiving. Her daughter, Kay, always comes from North Carolina to assist, and together they lovingly …
Most shopping malls across the country parade such a similar line-up of stores that you barely need to go inside to know what you’ll find there. Hallmark? Victoria’s Secret? Bath & Body …
When Jane Bonomo opened her first boutique shop in 1973, it was in a small building on Church Street just off Main Street in downtown Blacksburg. Now she owns a whole plaza …
The annual U.S. market for the toy industry is $28 billion, so there’s a lot to know about something that seems as elementary as toys. Research shows that learning through play is …
The glow of the flame…the roar of the fire…the muscle feel of splitting logs. These – and more – are reasons folks use wood to heat their homes. The biggest driver of …
If your favorite color is not Burnt Orange or Chicago Maroon or the unusual combination of both, and you visit the Virginia Tech campus during Hokie football season, you might just change …
Now a beacon for branding and sparkly nuance, the American football helmet was once made of nothing but hardened leather. It is inarguably the most important part of the uniform yet, shockingly, …
Mickey Hayes’s first hotrod was a 1934 Ford sedan with a Chrysler hemi engine. His most recent hotrod came off the factory line fully optimized, with no improvements necessary: a 2011 Mercedes …