Police officers and firefighters from around the Richmond region were recognized yesterday for their selfless acts of bravery. They risked their lives to rescue people from burning trucks, water-submerged cars, smoke-filled buildings and collapsed trenches. They also apprehended dangerous criminals with guns. And for their efforts, they were awarded gold, silver and bronze awards at the 20th annual Valor Awards breakfast at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.

Mechanicsville resident Sue Beer and her daughters wanted to help a family in need last Christmas. So she turned to Hanover County’s Department of Social Services and, through its Holiday Match program, made the season a little brighter for a local woman who was taking care of her 9-year-old grandson. She wasn’t the only one. The match program, along with the Hanover Christmas Mother, helped 689 families, or 2,377 people, including 1,445 children.

Mechanicsville doctor Torino R. “Tee” Jennings was sentenced to a year and one day in prison yesterday for writing tens of thousands of prescriptions over the Internet for people he never met or examined and failing to pay taxes on his earnings. Jennings, 36, a former staff physician at Retreat Doctors’ Hospital, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Boston, where he pleaded guilty in July to seven counts of introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce and four counts of tax evasion. He faced a maximum prison term of 27 years and $1.7 million in fines.

A 16-year-old Hanover County student who is charged with attacking a fellow student with an ax is getting support from an online petition. Friends of Omar has formed to persuade Hanover prosecutors not to try Omar K. Abdelaal as an adult. Abdelaal was arrested Oct. 23 outside a Mechanicsville farm-supply store, where police say he struck a fellow Lee-Davis High School student with an ax, severely wounding the 15-year-old. The victim needed more than 100 stitches to repair damage to his face from a single blow, authorities said.

Audrey M. Harris; 10440 Cherokee Road, addition, $75,000. Tina R. Shiver, owner; Lifestyle Builders & Development, contractor; 8707 Elm Road, addition, $59,500. NVR Homes Inc.; 5113 Glenbeigh Drive, $123,382. Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority, owner; Better Homes Inc., contractor; 1300 Decatur St., $113,535. Bruce D. Adkins, owner; Hanover Interiors Inc., contractor; 1902 Conrad St., alterations, $84,850.

Take $60 million out of Chesterfield County’s $1.2 billion budget, and these are some of the things that could disappear:

• jobs for 225 teachers and 32 school resource officers, 30 firefighters and 30 police officers;

• four libraries and a couple of fire stations; and

• 10 government and public school departments, including health, planning, finance and budget.

Hanover County authorities say they had to end a DUI checkpoint early today because four of the five deputies made arrests, leaving too few resources to continue.

There will be no tricks, treats or Halloween parties this year for many of Virginia’s convicted sex criminals. Officers with the Virginia Department of Corrections and the Virginia State Police are teaming up again to make sure registered sex offenders who are under state supervision won’t cause any harm to young ghouls and goblins.

Boyle Dentistry
6366 Mechanicsville Turnpike, Mechanicsville
Tomorrow, 2-4 p.m.
  Dr. Vicki Tibbs
2700 Pocahontas Trail, Quinton
Tomorrow, 2-5 p.m.
  Dr. John J. Andre
10863 W. Broad St., Glen Allen and 208B Elm Ave., Louisa
Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
  Children’s Dentistry of Virginia

After getting their cleaning products approved by the county health department, Amelia County school employees and contractors began disinfecting buses and schools.

The Federal Club, with a $9 million Arnold Palmer-designed golf course, opened three years ago with high-profile promise. Today, the club and the surrounding upscale housing development known as Mountain Run off U.S. 33 in Hanover County is in bankruptcy protection. Mountain Run Golf Inc. and Mountain Run LLC filed for Chapter 11 on Tuesday afternoon in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond. Together they represent the golf club and course and unsold residential parcels.

Hanover County Sheriff’s Office auctions typically include the kind of horsepower found in seized cars and trucks, not Thoroughbreds. But a 2-year-old gray colt that currently lives at Horseshoe Hill Farm in Ashland is up for grabs next month. The colt, with no name, is valued at about $8,000 and will be part of a sheriff’s office public auction Nov. 4, said Horseshoe Hill owner Stephanie Nixon. The auction will take place at the farm, 14329 Horseshoe Bridge Road, at 9 a.m., with inspection beginning at 8 a.m.

Eight local governments in the Richmond area will have a new way to talk to one another in an emergency, with no telephone wires attached. A $1.73 million grant provided by the U.S. Homeland Security Department will allow emergency officials to complete a regional microwave system that allows them to share critical information in a natural or man-made disaster.

Manchester Middle School student Michael Turner thinks he would like to apply for the International Baccalaureate program at Meadowbrook High School for next fall, when he’ll start as a freshman. “I’m open to a lot of ideas and opportunities,“ he said Thursday evening while he waited with his parents for an IB presentation at Meadowbrook High.

Virginia’s graduation and dropout rates improved slightly over last year, with varied results across districts in the Richmond region. Data released yesterday by the Virginia Department of Education showed 83.2 percent of students who started ninth grade in the 2005-06 school year earned a state-approved diploma within four years. The on-time graduation rate for the 98,043 students in the Class of 2009 is an uptick from the four-year graduation rate of 82.2 percent for the Class of 2008.