Compared to other places, Madison County generally has a strong voter turnout for presidential elections. Although Registrar Diana Eanes declined to make any specific predictions on the turnout for this Tuesday’s voting, when asked if she thought it would be a higher percentage turnout than the 75 percent of the county’s registered voters who cast ballots in the 2004 Bush-Kerry race, she replied, “Oh, sure.”

More should be done to protect trout fishing in Madison County’s Robinson and Rose rivers – the beautiful streams that tumble from headwaters high in the mountains surrounding Syria. Scientists say acid rain is sharply reducing numbers of the fish – it’s already said to have wiped out wild brook trout in a third of Virginia’s 500 trout streams. This is particularly alarming because brook trout – the Virginia state fish – are more pollution resistant than many other types of fish.