Category: Meetings

Don McCown, land use field representative for the Piedmont Environmental Council, will speak to the Lake of the Woods Democratic Club on October 8 about the impact of recent industrial proposals on life in Orange County.

The program will begin at 1:30 p.m. in Classroom 1 of the LOW Community Center. A meet-and-greet session will proceed the presentation at 1 p.m.

McCown  joined the Environmental Council in 2022 and is responsible for addressing land use and transportation issues in Orange and Madison counties.

Prior to his present position, he served for more than 20 years in a variety of community service roles, including as a supervisor in Virginia’s magistrate system and as AmeriCorps program director for Habitat for Humanity of North Carolina.

Originally from West Texas, McCown and his family have lived in the Piedmont for more than 15 years. McCown received his B.A. in sociology from the University of Oklahoma and his J.D. from The Catholic University of America.

The Piedmont Environmental Council is a locally based, donor-supported 501(c)(3) nonprofit and an accredited land trust. Its mission, according to its web site, is to “protect and restore the lands and waters of the Virginia Piedmont, while building stronger, more sustainable communities.”

The Council recently urged Virginia’s political leaders to declare a moratorium on data center development in the Commonwealth, saying more time is needed to implement protections for residents and natural resources. The organization is helping to organize a march on Richmond on October 24 to encourage legislators to support the moratorium.

The Council is also actively fighting an unprecedented expansion of high-voltage power lines driven by the boom of data center construction in Northern Virginia. Most notable is a massive 115-mile proposed transmission line — jointly backed by Dominion Energy, Transsource and FirstEnergy Transmission — running from Joshua Falls in Campbell County to a new Yeat substation in Culpeper County. The line would cut a wide swath through the heart of Orange County.

Both these issues have been of considerable concern for property owners in Lake of the Woods.

The Piedmont Environmental Council

Author and scholar Hilary Holladay, whose Substack publication “Byrd Street” has filled the gap left by the virtual dissolution of local journalism in Orange County, will speak to the Lake of the Woods Democratic Club on August 13.

The meeting will take place at 1:30 p.m. in Classroom I of the LOW Community Center.

Holladay, a former writer for The Orange County Review, founded Byrd Street in 2024 after the county’s only local newspaper was purchased by an out-of-county company who  does not provide any local reporting. Byrd Street is available at byrdstreet.substack.com.

Holladay is the author of several books, most recently “The Power of Adrienne Rich: A Biography,” published by P1rinceton University Press. Her published works include poetry and fiction as well as biography and journalism. She was the inaugural Sharp Writer in residence at the College of William and Mary in the fall of 2025.

Holladay holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia, an M.A. in English from the  College of William and Mary, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She founded the Jack and Stella Kerouac Center for American Studies and ran a series of conferences on Kerouac and the Beat Generation for more than a decade. She was a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and taught at James Madison University and the University of Virginia.

Ken Westbrook, founder and CEO of a non-profit organization whose mission is to fight online fraud and scams, will be guest speaker at the May 14 meeting of the Lake of the Woods Democratic Club.

The meeting will take place in Classroom II of the LOW Community Center. The program will start at 1:30 p.m. following a social time beginning at 1 p.m. All are welcome to attend.

The mission of the Stop Scams Alliance is to significantly reduce scams in the United States through a comprehensive, systemic approach involving public-private partnership and cross-sector cooperation from technology, telecom, financial institutions, consumer advocacy groups, and government. The focus is to stop scams at the source, before they reach the consumer in the first place.

According to the Stop Scams Alliance’s web site, there are 21 million fraud victims in the United States each year, costing consumers $196 billion. The average loss per victim is $20,699.

The FBI has reported a 20-fold increase in losses to scams since 2015. Losses ballooned 26 percent between 2024 and 2025.

Westbrook is a Distinguished Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, one of the nation’s most respected nonpartisan think tanks and policy forums.

He served as an executive in the Intelligence Community (IC), specializing in analysis and information management. He received numerous IC awards and subsequently held senior positions with two Fortune 500 software firms, co-invented a patented security technology, and created and taught a course in Information Management at Georgetown University.

Stop Scam Alliance web site

Dorren Brown, executive director of the Orange County Free Clinic, will be guest speaker at the club’s April 9 meeting.

The meeting will take place at Classroom II of the LOW Community Center. The program will start at 1:30 p.m. following a social time beginning at 1 p.m.

Brown has been executive director of the clinic since shortly after it first opened its doors in 2007. With more than 18 years of leadership, she has guided the organization from a small operation in space donated by the county Health Department  serving 87 patients with an all-volunteer provider team to a vital health care facility with 13 paid staff and more than 4,500 patient visits each year.

Her career began in education, where she spent 31 years as a teacher and administrator. She taught U.S. history and drama before moving into school leadership as a principal.

The Orange County Free Clinic was established as a 501-C-3 non-profit organization to provide basic health care to qualifying adult individuals, those who are uninsured, underinsured and hae incomes at or below 300 percent of the federal proverty level. The idea for starting a free clinic in Orange County was inspired by a group of committed physicians and community leaders sensitive to the lack of accessible health care for uninsured low income residents in Orange County.

As a community based health care provider, the Orange County Free Clinic is supported by the Town of Orange, Orange County, Gordonsville Town and numerous community organizations,  individuals, private foundations and grants and does not receive direct federal funding for operations.

Orange County Free Clinic web site

Orange County Supervisor J. Bryan Nicol will speak to the LOW Democratic Club on March 12 about current issues facing Lake of the Woods.

The club’s meeting will take place in Classroom 2 of the LOW Community Center. A gathering period will begin at 1 p.m. and the program will commence at 1:30 p.m. All are welcome to attend, regardless of political affiliation.

Nicol, who has represented District 5, which includes Lake of the Woods, since 2023, is a former deputy attorney general of the State of Indiana and served as commissioner and deputy commissioner of the Indiana Department of Transportation. He is currently chief strategy officer for an architecture, engineering and consulting firm. He and his family have lived in Lake of the Woods for 15 years.

Nicol writes a regular report to Orange County residents under the title “Nicol’s News” in Lake Currents.

In addition, the club is preparing to participate in the next “No Kings” rally on March 28 in Culpeper to call attention to excesses of the current administration in Washington. A work session is planned for 4-6 p.m. on March 25 in the lower level of the Clubhouse to prepare posters and placards for the event.

The club has begun its campaign to encourage voting in the special election on April 21 to temporarily allow congressional districts to be redrawn to ensure a fair vote for congressional candidates. The measure is in response to lawmakers in at least three Republican-controlled states adopting mid-decade gerrymanders, redrawing their congressional map to create districts more favorable for GOP candidates. Early voting begins March 6.