Collegiate Times

Linda DeVito works with Across The Way Productions, the production company that hosts FloydFest, and she is the spokeswoman for the festival. I sat down with her on the VIP porch in the beer and wine garden on Sunday afternoon as the festival was wrapping up to reflect on the weekend.

You can find more information about Across The Way Productions here: http://www.across-the-way.com/
-Liana

CT: I just wanted to get the official word from you on the capacity and how quickly you got sold out and if you had heard any complaints about not being able to find a place to camp.
LD: We sold out at 14,000. And that included all our staff, volunteers, vendors. You have to account for people on the ground. Even though our capacity is 14,000, that’s not just ticket buyers. You don’t want to have so many vendors and so many helpers and so many workers that our numbers are kept down.
For the most part, we bring in about 12,000 people. About 14,500 is our capacity.
In terms of complaints about not being able to camp, I personally did not hear any. We were on the ground running and trying to make sure that when people arrived yesterday (Saturday) in particular, they had a place to park. As of Thursday night, we had ascertained that we were sold out of Friday and Saturday tickets. It was obvious that we were unable to really effectively sell any more if we wanted to keep the quality of the festival where it was at.
We truly believe that quality is worth more than quantity. We want to make sure that our festival patrons want to come back. At this point, 67 percent of our attendees are returning customers. Any business that has that kind of success rate will continue to thrive.
One of the things that kept us holding on and not feeling like we were losing hold of the ropes in the stormy waters, was we saw people wanting to come still, and more often than not, those were repeat buyers. So there was a group of people that believed in us from the start. And we knew then, as we saw year three and year four continue to start, we were on our way to something big.
There’ve probably been some growing pains this year. There’s a staff of four of us at Across The Way Productions that will look at this very seriously and we will bring in our area directors to discuss their feelings.
You know, we always want to make sure that everybody that comes will choose to come back. This is our biggest Sunday ever. We’ve had some lines. What we’re seeing at the buses is that people are very organized this year. They’re packing their gear, they’re going to their cars, packing their cars, then coming back for the day. Normally we would have this exodus on Sunday, but something has just been really magical about this weekend.

CT: Is this the first year that’s sold out?
LD: Yeah, this year we were at maximum for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We’ve never been able to say before that we’re sold out, buy your tickets early. So now we can do that, we can say that in November, don’t wait. Buy them early.

CT: Are you going to look at increasing capacity or widening the area where people can camp?
LD: I don’t know. If we’re to expand in terms of camping you gotta think about cars. And transporting them to the site. And how effectively could we do that.
So logistically, we have some challenges in front of us. But we have always faced each year’s challenges with a committed effort to come up with solutions and provide for our attendees the best possible festival ever.

CT: So you didn’t hear people complaining about, I couldn’t find a spot, VIP camping was full, there was no more handicapped parking spots left? Those were things I heard this weekend.
LD: Those were things I heard this weekend, and those are going to be some things we’re going to have to figure out.
I have a brother with MS and I think this festival would be very hard for my brother to attend if he didn’t know Linda DeVito.
There’s a point where someone with special needs has to assess whether or not they can come to an event like this. We do provide and we try to do our best to help out. We will look at handicapped parking, special needs, VIP camping. If we make more field camping, then VIP could expand.
You know, if I were an attendee and I didn’t work here, I’d come as a VIP. If we have more people coming as VIP then we have to juggle is VIP more important than regular campers.
There’s so many issues we’ll have to seriously consider. We take each and every complaint, criticism, compliment, and we just have to tackle all of the issues and come up with solutions. That’s who we are and that’s what we do.

CT: Just to clarify, you said 14,000 is the capacity. How do you break down people who buy day tickets versus people who camp for the weekend in that?
LD: Honestly very few people buy day tickets. We only made day tickets available in June, and a lot of people got pissed off at that too.
You don’t want to be intrusive when they buy a ticket, but you do wonder how many people stay in hotels or offsite. There’s a myriad of different scenarios that people come to this festival with. So I don’t know what the answer is there. We’ll try to — maybe when they buy their tickets. Our ticketing company allows us to collect extra data. So when somebody buys an RV pass, before they get their ticket, they go to another page — when are you arriving, how large is your RV? So we could do something similar like do you plan on camping?

CT: Could you just talk a little bit about some of the things that went different or better this year than in years past?
LD: This year’s attendees are different. And I’m not sure how to qualify that in terms of this interview.
What we have found is we truly have managed to communicate to a certain segment of festival-goers that this is a festival that truly is a family event. And the debauchery, for lack of a better word, that normally accompanies certain festivals, we didn’t really have that this year. There was a little bit going on last year in Global (Village), but for the most part there’s not been much of that alternative festival behavior like crazy drinking. You have to drink in the beer gardens, we ask for that. And we’ve had compliments about that. People have written to us saying one of the things we like best is that you keep it under control, you’re not looking for wild parties in the woods, and I think everybody respects everybody else here.
In terms of this year’s challenges, there were very few. The parking issue — all of sudden we had — I was playing police, directing people.
We tell this to our interns: If you think what you’re doing is menial, I’ve done every single job here. I’ve done it all and we’re all — we’re not sitting on our laurels.

CT: Just looking into next year and years down the road, how can you predict the festival growing or changing?
LD: I think we’re going to have a more dedicated festival-goer, I think we’re going to be throwing a party for our friends. There have been people here since year one, they don’t want to miss it. There’ll be new folks that come in a join the club, but what we’re having right now is a situation where people feel like they’re family, which is kind of cool.
How cool is that to be able — I keep looking out and going, how is it that I have found something to do in life that brings so much joy to so many people? You look out and everybody’s smiling, everybody’s feeling good, people smile at each other as they walk through the field. I mean, I don’t know how it gets any better, really.

CT: Is there anything else I didn’t ask you about that you think is important for my readers to know about FloydFest?
LD: To readers of the Collegiate Times I think it’s important they understand that this was a dream that young people had not much older than they are now and that our two founders, Chris Hodges and Erica Johnson, they dreamt big. And they followed their dream, and other dreamers like them came together.
And if I have any advice for the readers of the Collegiate Times is dream. Don’t think that something big can’t happen. And by all means make sure during the course of their collegiate career, make it a point to get out here at least once. I myself a few years was the general manager of WUVT, and had this happened while I was in school, I’d have been out here like a magnet. And it’s always been said that with this thing there was never a way that Linda DeVito wasn’t going to be connected to it because of my commitment to music.
But just make sure to come next year or after. Don’t go through four years of college without coming to FloydFest.

I caught up with Papadosio band members Anthony Thogmartin, who plays guitar, and Mike Healy, who plays drums, before their second set of the festival in the beer and wine garden on Saturday night. Their first set of the festival closed out late-night fun in the Global Village on Friday night.

Papadosio will play in at Awful Arthur’s in Blacksburg on September 23. You can find more information about the band and their festival, Rootwire, here: http://papadosio.com/
-Liana

CT: So first of all, how many FloydFests have you been to?
MH: This is our second.

CT: Has your experience this year been different?
MH: It’s definitely been better. Last year when we played. the power went out. So this year, none of that, no need to worry. I think the lineup is definitely better this year. I wish we could hang around longer.
It’s amazing, we love this festival. It’s seriously probably the best vibe we’ve been to this year. It’s a family atmosphere, not a lot of people doing crazy drugs. It’s nice, there’s such a great vibe here. It’s just really loving and friendly.

CT: I know you’ve played in the NRV area several times. Why do you guys play in this area so much, what is it about the area?
MH: Honestly, when we first started coming to Blacksburg, right off the bat people were just really really stoked about the music and it’s honestly drawn us back. After last summer after we played FloydFest and Camp Barefoot and All Good and some other festivals around the region, fans just started coming out and appreciating what we’re doing.
And it’s been such a good time every time we go back to Blacksburg and Floyd. The hospitality there was the best we’ve ever had, it’s so friendly. People just really get down.

CT: Where do you guys see yourself in the next few years? What kind of direction are you taking?
MH: I see ourselves as continually making new friends and fans all over the country and world.
AT: We’re looking to try start doing international stuff. We’re doing our first West Coast tour in April, and there’s talk of us going to a festival in Shanghai because one of our buddies does a festival there.

CT: Is there anything you think is important and interesting for Virginia Tech students to know about your experiences as musicians or at FloydFest?
AT: We’ll be coming back real soon to this area, there’s a Blacksburg show in September. And we’re playing Floyd in October.
MH: We’ve just been real busy all summer working in the studio as much as we can between all these festivals. We’re working on a new album, so we’re real excited about that.

CT: Do you have any idea when that’s gonna drop?
MH: Hopefully before next summer. We’re not putting a deadline on this one like we have on others. It’s gonna be done when it’s done, not sure at all.
AT: Try not to rush it. Creativity is like waiting for rain, sometimes it’s there, sometimes it’s not.
MH: So definitely keep your eyes peeled for it. We’ll probably play some new things when we come back through.

CT: Anything else you wanted to make sure people read about?
MH: Rootwire is our festival, August 4-7, in Logan, Oh. It’s our second year and we’re super stoked. Last year it went really well and we’re expecting a lot more people and artists and bigger and better things.

CT: How is that experience different from something like coming to FloydFest?
MH: Well, because we’re there the entire week and pouring in our blood, sweat and tears, setting up and getting ready. And it’s like we just roll into FloydFest, play some shows and have some fun.
AT: For us we’re trying to set up like — people come here to get entertained. But at Rootwire, people come not only to get entertained but to entertain. Like we encourage people to do what it is that they do. If you are a stilts walker, a live painter, a performance artist, we’re basically just saying bring what you do. And last year everybody came and created stuff. It’s kind of the focus of Rootwire to get people to realize their inner artists. And there’s a lot of workshops. I think Rootwire draws a slightly younger crowd since we’re a slightly younger band.

I chatted with Felecia Shelor, who was helping run the Poor Farmers’ Market booth during the festival. You can find more information about the Meadows of Dan and the Poor Farmers’ Market here: http://www.poorfarmersmarket.biz/
-Liana

FS: What we’re doing here is a produce market. We’re selling slices of watermelon and cantaloupe and fruit cups and all the local produce we can get our hands on and brownies and muffins and fried pies and all kinds of snacks and lemonade and tea.

CT: Where are you sourcing the produce from? One farmer or multiple people?
FS: Multiple. We get everything locally. Different people grow different things, so we get everything we can as local as we can.

CT: Have you been here in years past?
FS: I was here for the first three years for FloydFest, then we didn’t come for a few years, then we’ve been back for the past three years.

CT: How have you seen the festival change from the first few years to the last few years?
FS: That’s a good question. I think what I’ve seen that’s different is that there’s a lot more local people participating. In the first year it was people who came from all over the place who just followed these kinds of events, but now I see a lot more people that I know. And it’s becoming more family-oriented.

CT: What do you think that’s going to do for the future of the festival? How do you think the festival is going to be in the next few years?
FS: I think the festival is over the top already, and if it can just hold its own, which I don’t see any reason it won’t — so if it just remains the same, it’s perfect the way it is.

CT: Is there anything else that you think is important or interesting for readers to know about, either what y’all are doing or about the festival in general?
FS: I know you want to talk about the festival, but I want to promote the area. This is FloydFest, but we’re actually in Patrick County, it’s actually in Meadows of Dan. So Meadows of Dan is a wonderful little place. You drive down from Blacksburg down the (Blue Ridge) Parkway. It’s a really great thing to come down the Parkway and come to Meadows of Dan and go to Mabry Mill and go to Chateau Morrisette and come to my store, Poor Farmers’ Market.

Tom Phelps is a potter from Floyd, Va. You can find more information about his work here: http://www.potterystuff.com/
-Liana

TP: We’ve been at every FloydFest, and every year we try to out-do ourselves. We enjoy having a front-row seat at a very good venue. It’s been a fun thing for us to be involved with.

CT: How long have you been doing ceramics?
TP: 22 years.

CT: What made you get started?
TP: I had my degree in ceramics, and I didn’t do anything with it for a long time, and then I had my midlife crisis and now I’ve been a potter for all these years.

CT: What kind of response do you get from folks who come out to FloydFest and see your stuff?
TP: We get a good response. This has been a successful venue for us to do ever since the beginning. And we do arts shows and crafts shows and festivals on the whole East Coast and this is right in my backyard and it’s become one of the most successful ones.

CT: And you said you’ve been to every single FloydFest. Could you talk about how you’ve seen it change and grow over the past 10 years?
TP: It’s grown by the attendance, number of vendors — but it still has the same feel. It’s the family-oriented bunch of people out here and we try to keep it nice and polite for everyone.

I chatted with Tom Ryan, who founded the Republic of Floyd company in 1999. The company had mostly satirical artwork and T-shirts for sale in a booth during the festival. You can find more information about the Republic of Floyd here: http://www.republicoffloyd.com/
-Liana

CT: Why and how did you get started?
TR: We are like a halfway house for underemployed Floyd artists seeking to earn a living and get over on the man. All these people are the man, we’re taking $20s from them, and that’s the whole deal.

CT: Why do you think it’s important to have something like this?
TR: Compared to like, war and famine and shit? This is total bullshit. (laughs)

CT: What kind of response do you get from people who come in here?
TR: This is all satire. We make fun of ourselves as much as we make fun of people like you.

CT: Why do you think it’s important to make fun of people?
TR: Because you’d better have a sense of humor if you’re gonna live in this century and millennium. We’re approaching the end times. In fact, we have a poster you might be interested in purchasing. It says “Greetings from Floyd, your end times destination vacation.”

CT: How long do you think you’re going to be doing this?
TR: Till the end times. Which I think is in about a year and a half, 2012.

CT: What do you think it’s important for Virginia Tech students to know about your company if they’re going to come visit you in Floyd?
TR: Well, that we sell alcohol and rolling papers, which is the requirement for a good, well-rounded education. Several years ago, I, too was educated.

George and Rain Lipson, owners of Green Label Organic Clothing, pose in their vendor tent.

I sat down with George Lipson, the co-founder and owner of the Green Label Sustainable Threads organic clothing company. Lipson owns and founded Green Label with his wife Rain Lipson in 2004. The company is based out of Floyd, Va. We chatted about his business and about sustainable clothing. You can check out more information about Green Label clothing at www.greenlabel.com.
-Liana

CT: Could you tell me a little how Green Label got started?
GL: It was kind of a coming together of things we’re both passionate about. I used to be a rock and roll T-shirt designer and merchandiser. I did everybody from the Grateful Dead to the Beatles to smaller, lesser known.
We met and moved to Floyd, and Rain is a very passionate organic gardener and environmentalist and we both started looking at the world around us and I thought about starting a T-shirt company when I came here. And we started looking at different ideas and one of the things we wanted to do was to send message about sustainability, green living, good business practices, social consciousness and responsibilities, so we decided this would probably be a good idea.
We looked around and everyone was wearing Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfinger and Nike, and they’re all nice brand names, but you look and what do they mean? It’s clothing that’s all made in China and it’s all unsustainable. And then we stated looking at cotton. Conventional cotton is grown it’s the second most pesticided crop in the world. It uses 25 percent of the world’s pesticides and only 10 percent of world’s agriculture. A lot of the chemicals are on the cotton are carcinogenic – it’s really not only unsustainable but an unhealthy product. If you want to know more, on our website we have videos that describes this.
So we decided there’s no way we’re gonna put these messages on an conventional shirt, so we decided it had to be organic and from there we took it to make it the most green-friendly product we could. And we came up with Green Label Organic Sustainable Threads as our company name.

CT: And when did that all get started?
GL: That was six years ago. So first in 2004 is when we started putting it together and we started it in the second bedroom of our house. Today we’re proud to say we have our own warehouse in Floyd and we sell to maybe 500 different retailers in the country.

CT: You come to Floyd Fest every year, what kind of response do you get from people here at the festival?
GL: There’s really two kinds of responses.
If they’ve had our shirts before — “oh, I just love my Green Label shirt, so glad you’re here again.” And they come buy another one, which is one of our favorite responses.
And the other is — “wow, these are really different designs.” And we tell them about the designs and what we put them on, and what they’re about.
Each design we do has a message attached, it says something. We try to do it with fun, we’re not preachy about being organic. It’s always been my desire to make them something that people want to wear.

CT: Specifically to college students, do you think the organic movement is catching on? What do you think it means for our generation to go with organic?
GL: There’s a couple things going on that’s one of the reasons I think it’s been really successful.
We actually started out aiming at college students, roughly 16 to 35-year-olds, college and up, because we’ve always felt like you guys “got it.” This is the world you’re gonna live in and there seems to be more social awareness and consciousness than with older folks.
But we have been amazed that our designs and T-shirts sell as well to 20-year-olds as they do to 50-year-olds. And we’re very pleasantly surprised by that. I think we’ve captured some of the old hippie spirit, which is where we come from, with a whole new view that a lot of college students and young people in general have a much more conscious view of the world than we witnessed in the ’80s and ’90s.

CT: Looking into the future, what do you see your company doing in the next five, 10 years? Where do you want to be?
GL: We love what we do. We grow in items in the sense that we change our style and we stay mostly in the shirt, hoodie kind of market. People love our designs so we’re now working on things like calendars and cards, but it all has to be sustainable.
So we just enjoy what we do the way we do it. There are a lot of companies that got on to the organic train and they try to make everything under the sun – we’re not really focused on that. We like what we’re doing.

CT: Is there anything I didn’t ask you about that you think is important or wanted to mention?
GL: We want to make people aware of organic farming in general and the growing and farming. As we discovered with cotton and many people already know with food, fertilizer and pesticides and insecticides are really counter-productive, and we really cling to that message and just want to bring awareness. And we also like people to be socially and politically aware of just what’s going on.

A festival-goer carries a bag of ice on her head in an attempt to beat the heat.

Temperatures during FloydFest reached up to about 90 degrees on Friday and are predicted to touch 90 on Saturday as well. But the heat didn’t stop some festival-goers from enjoying their afternoon on Friday.

While Cyro Baptista’s Beat the Donkey played on the Dreaming Creek main stage, an older couple kept cool by sitting still and wearing hats with flaps that covered their necks.

“We’ve seen a lot of hats,” the woman said. They said this was their first FloydFest, but they had been prepared for the heat and weren’t upset with it.

Band members might have been warm — one especially in a full-length NASA flight suit — but they kept the energy going with their dancing and unusual instruments pumping up the crowd. People with sunglasses and hats happily kicked up clouds of dust with their dancing.

Dust was covering virtually everything on Friday afternoon. Several volunteers working security said they knew trucks had been spraying the dirt and gravel road that runs around festival grounds with water to try to contain the dust. The main modes of transportation at FloydFest other than walking are golf carts and four-wheelers, which can kick up a lot of dust on the road in their wake.

The dust was also apparent as the Pimps of Joytime played on the Streamline Stage at Hill Holler. Young people in bare feet and bikini tops danced with abandon and didn’t seem to mind the dust and sun bearing down directly on them. Some people had purchased parasols and paper umbrellas and were dancing underneath those.

A special concern during extreme heat is children and older people.

In the Children’s Universe, Georgiann Brown helped her six-year-old daughter Emma make a craft in the arts and crafts tent.

“We’re just trying to keep hydrated and keep coming in the tents,” Brown said.

Brown, who was attending the festival with her husband and a friend, the friend’s husband, and the friend’s son, who is the same age as Emma, said the adults in their party had complained about the heat more than the kids had.

“We had a gazebo with our tent, and my friend and I talked our husbands into moving it over here to the Children’s Universe, so we can relax under that,” Brown said.

And even though the sun was out in full force, Emma seemed quite content as she colored her project.

“She loves it,” Brown said. “I think it’s very family-friendly. I definitely wouldn’t bring her if it wasn’t.”

The National Weather Service is predicting a high of about 89 degrees for Saturday and a high around 84 for Sunday. There is also a 60 percent chance of rain for Saturday night. The NWS is calling for a tenth to a quarter of an inch of rain and potential heavy thunderstorms.

by Liana Bayne,
special sections editor

Brian J of the Pimps of Joytime on the Streamline Hill Holler Stage

The Pimps of Joytime play frequently throughout the Blacksburg-Roanoke-New River Valley area. I sat down with Brian J, the Pimps’s lead singer, for a few minutes after their set on the Hill Holler stage on Friday afternoon. You can check out the Pimps of Joytime www.thepimpsofjoytime.com.
-Liana

CT: How many years have you been coming to FloydFest?
BJ: This is our second.

CT: And what’s your experience been like this year?
BJ: Well we just did our first set, which was fun. Last year we only played nighttime both time, which I love nighttime, because it’s the right time, but this was good. It was fun, the energy was good.

CT: Do you feel like the heat was killing the energy at all?
BJ: No. People were still there. It was hot. But, yeah, it was a good crowd and good times.

CT: Have you seen anything different this year because it’s the 10th anniversary? Anything special?
BJ: I was looking around and I saw some things, like the trapeze. But I actually was never here in the daytime last year, so I’m not totally qualified to say.

CT: I know that you guys are pretty popular with the Virginia Tech student set. How do you feel about playing in the Blacksburg-Floyd area?
BJ: We love this area. We love our fans and the audiences in this area, so it’s always a pleasure to be here.

CT: Is there anything else you think is important or interesting for people to know or read about?
BJ: I hope that people who don’t know us check us out, Pimps of Joytime, on Facebook and Twitter, the website, and see what it’s about. And, I like this festival because I like the surroundings. It’s really beautiful here. We do a lot of festivals and they’re not all like this. It’s great with the trees and fresh air. The vibe is positive and people have a lot of energy. So we love it here.

Railroad Earth on the Dreaming Creek Main Stage

I’m reporting from FloydFest X, “The eXperience,” this weekend. I’m hoping to give you, the reader, a glimpse of what it’s like to be here, and I’m hoping to introduce you to some of the people you’ll find around the festival grounds. I’ve hijacked the Exposures blog for the weekend so that I can integrate my content with photos from our photo editor, Daniel Lin.

Not all of my stories will be hard news. Some will be features, others will be Q&As. But hopefully they’ll all be unique, an experience you wouldn’t have, something that I can share with you that will interest you.

Three main themes and motifs are really standing out to me during my experiences here: heat, light, and creativity.

In terms of heat, there’s the obvious answer that the high temperature was around 90 on Friday and is predicted to be around 90 on Saturday afternoon as well. But there’s also people spinning fire hoops and poi, eating and cooking hot meals, and lighting a community bonfire near the Global Village stage at night.

With light, not only do you see lights on stage, you see them everywhere in the crowd. Many young people enjoy playing with hoops that are LED-lit. Some of them have other items that light up as well. And let’s not forget about the home-made dragon named Devina (she’s made out of scrap metal that sits on an old station wagon frame) who shoots fire from her neck. Near her last night on the hill leading to the Global Village stage was a mermaid, also made from scrap metal, who shoots fire from her breasts.

All of these expressions of heat and light are also expressions of creativity. There’s obviously the music that really gives artists the chance to showcase themselves and their musical abilities. But from the women offering hair braids to the folks selling baked goods and home-made earrings, creativity is everywhere. People are happy to be here and express themselves through their clothing, campsites and dancing.  People with fiddles and guitars at their tents in the woods are playing just as much music as bands on stage.

FloydFest is not just a young people’s festival. There are older people and families with children, some even with babies still in diapers. There are girls with bikinis, ground-length skirts, and everything in between.

So parts of this blog may read a little more informally than others, but this is really quite an informal experience. Sleep on the ground in your tent, take a baby-wipes shower, go lie in a hammock (which are strung up everywhere there are trees), listen to some bluegrass. Climb a mountain, explore the Blue Ridge Parkway just off the edge of the festival grounds. This is a relaxing experience, an informal one, and a different one.

I’ll be posting short stories here to go along with Daniel’s photos. Tweet at me @lianabayne if you’ve got a story from FloydFest you want to hear about and I’ll try to get it up as soon as I can. We’ll be here until Sunday night.

You can find more information about FloydFest at www.floydfest.com.

Thanks,
Liana Bayne
Collegiate Times Special Sections Editor

When most people start their day, the Collegiate Times has already appeared in the red boxes around campus.

Before it is snatched up and carried to class, before the sudoku is completed, erased and filled in again, your CT has already been through a journey.

It has been smashed with four different ink layers, twisted into a perfect fold, dropped onto a conveyor belt and carried up and around a building before dropping into the hands of a mailroom employee. Then, it is loaded onto a truck and driven down a curvy mountain road, down US 460 all the way to Blacksburg.

The paper makes its way to the mail room after a trip around the building. Photo by Luke Mason

When the CT staff finishes the paper – the staff must meet an 11 p.m. deadline – each night, it sends the final documents to the Bluefield Daily Telegraph in Bluefield, W. Va.

Bluefield has been printing the CT for the past three years. The press churns away in the wee hours of the morning behind dirty gray wall that shields it from a dimly lit, empty newsroom.

After receiving the documents for the paper, Bluefield’s employees create “plates” for the paper in a dark room with a yellow glow. The plates will eventually tell the press where to dump ink.

The paper receives runs of cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink on the press, comprising CMYK color.

It then drops onto a conveyor belt that carries it up toward the ceiling, makes a right turn near the giant paper rolls stacked in a warehouse, and ends up in the mailroom. Advertisement inserts are stuffed in and the paper is loaded into trucks.

The trucks make the hour-long drive to Blacksburg. Bluefield, much like the CT staff is on a strict deadline. They aim to get the paper on the press by 2 a.m. and in the trucks by 3:30 a.m.

Boxes are first filled at about 5 a.m. and – ideally – the last boxes are stuffed before the campus students, faculty and staff populate the campus for the first 8 a.m. classes.

Any deviation from this strict regimen usually leads to the papers being delivered too late for the early birds to grab a copy.

These photos were taken in the early morning hours of Friday, April 23, as the CT staff made its annual trek to Bluefield after sending the paper.

Click Here To View Photos from the Trip.

- Zach Crizer, NRV News Editor