PROJECT: Kitchen backsplash TIME: One week COST: $1,200 HOW HE DID IT: Jeff Wilson took a week of vacation to install a tile backsplash in the kitchen of his Glen Allen home. “I knew he was up for the challenge because he helped restore our 1972 Corvette Stingray convertible,“ wrote his wife, Alicia Wilson. Hiring a contractor to do a backsplash in the 15-by-24-foot kitchen would have been costly, particularly given the pattern and materials Alicia had in mind. Her vision was to incorporate natural materials in a vertical pattern to offset the length of the kitchen—meaning lots of angled cuts.

Recovery never tasted so good. About 5,000 people turned out at Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Glen Allen yesterday to celebrate overcoming obstacles, offering hope and mending lives. They also came to eat pig. In its fifth year, The McShin Foundation’s Recovery Fest was highlighted by its first barbecue cook-off. Nine local restaurants participated in the challenge, which was decided by judges including Chesterfield County Sheriff Dennis Proffitt, Henrico County Sheriff Michael Wade and Richmond Sheriff C.T. Woody.

CULPEPER—A Glen Allen man riding in a motorcycle convoy was sent to Culpeper Regional Hospital for rib and shoulder injuries yesterday after his bike crashed into a guardrail at the intersection of state Route 3 and U.S. 522. Another motorcyclist in the group suffered an elbow injury as he tried to avoid the downed bike, according to Virginia State Police trooper W.L. Lyle. That unidentified man was treated at the scene.

Location: Hopewell
  Opening: 2010
  Cost: $160 million
  Majority owner: First Reserve Corp.
  Source grain: barley
  Bushels used: 30 million a year
  Ethanol yield: 65 million gallons a year
  Tax revenue: about $2 million
  Employees: about 45 to 55

The Henrico County-based company that is building an ethanol plant in Hopewell has turned to Perdue AgriBusiness as a source of grain for the refinery. Perdue is creating a contracting program for local farmers to grow barley for the Appomattox Bio Energy plant, Osage Bio Energy President and CEO Craig Shealy said yesterday. The plant will be the first of its kind in Virginia and the first barley-based biofuels plant on the East Coast.

Molly M. Binion of Glen Allen, a junior majoring in communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, was one of 127 Hokie Ambassadors who volunteered for the Office of Undergraduate Admissions at Virginia Tech during the 2008-09 academic year. Hokie Ambassadors are student tour guides who show prospective students and their families around the Virginia Tech campus. In accordance with the university’s motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), these tour guides logged nearly 3,000 hours of service to the university this year.

With the current national conversation about health-care reform, Leigh T. Bernard figures this is a rare opportunity. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for health-care reform,“ said Bernard, who lives in Glen Allen. “We have one chance to make it right because we’re not going to get this chance again.“ Bernard is the mother of 7-year-old twin daughters who were born prematurely. One of her girls, Taylor, suffered a brain injury at birth, which resulted in cerebral palsy. She relies on a power wheelchair to get around, except for the shortest of distances, when she can use a walker. She is dependent on the assistance of others for most aspects of daily living.

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. plans to hire up to 40 sales agents in the Richmond area. The local office, at 4880 Sadler Road in Glen Allen, already employs 75 people. The planned hirings are part of a nationwide drive to recruit up to 4,000 people to sell life insurance, disability income insurance and long-term care insurance.

Five Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles offices in the region will be closed on certain days during the next two weeks to prepare for the state’s new process for issuing driver’s licenses and identification cards.

• The Richmond Central service center, 2300 W. Broad St., will be closed Tuesday and Wednesday. Customers can use the East Henrico or North Henrico offices during the closure.

With temperatures yesterday reaching the low 90s, thousands worked up a healthy sweat while sampling from 22 Virginia wineries at the 18th annual James River Wine Festival. Wine was plentiful, but shade was not on the festival grounds at the Innsbrook Corporate Center in western Henrico County. Putting their Army skills to use, retired Lt. Col. Justin Porto, 54, and retired Master Sgt. John Modrich, 49, fashioned a tent out of umbrella chairs, a quilt and PVC pipe found in nearby woods. Army Capt. Heather Andrews, 36, and Christina Bleck, 50, took refuge from the sun beneath the makeshift shade.

Three-year-old Micah Waylan never got to meet his big brother, Blake. Blake died of leukemia in 2005 at the age of 10. Micah was born a year later. But yesterday, Micah put on a special shirt, hopped on a yellow bike and rode in his brother’s memory, raising money for a good cause in the process. Micah joined about 55 other Staples Mill Road Baptist Church students participating in the church school’s seventh annual “Trike-a-Thon” in Glen Allen. Preschoolers from 2 to 4 years of age circled a track in the parking lot on anything they could find with wheels. Elementary school students helped those who needed it.

Two men were arrested last night and charged with reckless driving in connection with Tuesday’s fatal motorcycle accident on the Manchester Bridge. Joseph Christopher Greene, 32, of the 3900 block of Glenwood Avenue in Richmond, and Jorge J. Diaz Jr., 32, of the 4500 block of Hunter Landing Drive in Chesterfield County, have each been charged with reckless driving by engaging in a race between two or more motor vehicles on a highway. The charge is a misdemeanor.

Richmond police identified the victim of yesterday’s fatal motorcycle crash on the Manchester Bridge as Bradley James Ferguson, 21, of Glen Allen. Police said Ferguson was southbound on the bridge in downtown Richmond at 3:45 p.m. when he lost control and crashed. Ferguson was declared dead at the scene. Speed was a factor in the crash, according to police, who are continuing their investigation.

A fired Fannie Mae contract worker from Henrico County has pleaded not guilty to charges that he planted a virus designed to destroy all the data on the mortgage giant’s 4,000 computer servers nationwide, according to federal prosecutors. If the virus had been released as planned, the Justice Department said, the disruption could have cost millions of dollars and shut down operations for a week at the largest U.S. mortgage finance company.

Brad Richards, son of Mr. and Mrs. Bruce A. Richards of Glen Allen, was named to the spring 2008 dean’s list at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. At the time a first-year student majoring in aerospace engineering, Richards was one of 747 undergraduate students (about a quarter of the undergraduate population) who made the list. Founded in 1865 in Worcester, Mass., WPI was one of the nation’s first engineering and technology universities.