Antebellum Winchester: Pre-Civil War buildings

Had it not been for his oppo­si­tion to large-scale solar ener­gy devel­op­ment on Clark County’s prime farm­land, Stephen Craycraft might nev­er have got­ten involved in local gov­ern­ment. “I got in because of the solar issue that came about a few years ago. It was my part of the coun­ty that was going to be affect­ed,” he said. “That’s what pushed me into pol­i­tics.” Now the local busi­ness­man, who is in the last year of his first term as 3^rd District mag­is­trate, is run­ning for coun­ty judge-exec­u­tive in a crowd­ed Republican pri­ma­ry race. 

There’s a song by Mumford & Sons called “White Blank Page” that has fol­lowed me for awhile. It’s writ­ten as a love song — raw and unguard­ed — but like most hon­est music, it refus­es to stay con­fined to one sto­ry. Some lyrics don’t just describe a rela­tion­ship. They name a ques­tion you didn’t real­ize you were car­ry­ing. Though writ­ten about roman­tic betray­al, that ques­tion echoes far beyond romance. It sur­faces in civic life. In church pews. In friend­ships that once felt unshakable.