During the day-to-day drama in his courtroom, Judge Robert Bruce Spencer Jr. would peer over half-frame reading glasses as he heard cases from speeding tickets to landlord-tenant disputes. “When those glasses would slide to the tip of his nose, lawyers and defendants knew there was going to be trouble,“ said his son, Robert Bruce Spencer III of Powhatan County.

HIXBURG—A small church, nestled in the tightknit community of Hixburg, was reeling yesterday from a quadruple homicide that took place nearly 20 miles away. Mark Niederbrock spent almost six years as pastor at Walker’s Presbyterian Church and in that time left an indelible legacy on those who he met. “I don’t think he’ll ever be out of our minds, out of our hearts,“ said Margaret Glover, a church member. “As the years go by, Mark will be there with us.“

APPOMATTOX Acouple of weeks into her 40th year at the same job and coming up on her 65th birthday, Appomattox County Clerk of Courts Barbara Williams sat in her office and cried just a little. As of next Monday, the fourth-longest-serving clerk of courts in Virginia will retire. “The people in this county, the citizens, have been so wonderful to me. I get emotional talking about it,“ Williams said as her eyes began to well with tears. “It’s crazy to cry at leaving a job when you don’t have to leave.“

The head of the Museum of the Confederacy wanted to talk privately with the Appomattox County Board of Supervisors on Monday night about plans to build a satellite museum in Appomattox, but the board declined. S. Waite Rawls III, president and CEO of the Richmond-based museum, had come to town to update the supervisors. He asked to speak to the supervisors in closed session, but the board chairman said no.

Spring can’t be long in coming. Virginia State Parks have opened their cabins and campgrounds. For many campers, the new season might bring a week in the wilds. For people like Bill and Virginia Stallings or Charles and Diane King, it means months making sure that other people’s weeks are pleasant. The Stallingses and Kings are camp hosts. For years, they’ve been trading volunteer hours for a free campsite for months at a time in a state park.

A new program aimed at families and groups in the Richmond, Charlottesville, Lynchburg and Farmville areas is operating at Frog Bottom Farm in Appomattox County. The farm provides vegetables from June to October through its Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, subscription program. In a CSA program, customers pay up front to receive vegetables directly from a farm every week throughout the summer and fall.

A Civil War battlefield in the town of Appomattox could be preserved with the help of a state grant, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources announced. Region 2000 Local Government Council Executive Director Gary Christie said the grants have the added prospect of drawing visitors into the town from the Appomattox Courthouse battlefield three miles away. A 46-acre tract known as Appomattox Station will be bought by the Civil War Preservation Trust, a national organization that seeks to purchase endangered battlefields, state officials said in a news release.

More than two months after the rupture of a natural-gas line sparked a devastating explosion in Appomattox County, the company that operates the pipeline has fielded about 135 damage claims.

LYNCHBURG Kinkle and Grace Campbell’s modest white house is still heated from a wooden furnace in their bedroom. The Campbells get their water from a backyard well, despite their proximity to a public water line. And they grow much of their food in a large garden just footsteps from the roar of U.S. 460 near the Jumbo Family Restaurant.