Bob Rose made his first visit to the Meadow Highland Games & Celtic Festival a memorable one. Goaded by friends and family, Rose good-naturedly volunteered to have a ferret placed down his pants to demonstrate the ancient sport of ferret legging. Twice yesterday afternoon, a ferret was placed down Rose’s sweatpants, only to pop its head out of the elastic waistband. Rose took it in stride, yet the finicky ferret refused to remain still. The third time was the charm when the ferret was placed down the rear of his pants.

Traci Johnson dances “soulsa,“ a combination of African and Latin dance, during the Drums No Guns performance at the Imagine Festival at Broad Rock Park.

To running back Jonathan Grimes, it was almost business as usual. William and Mary’s 24-3 Colonial Athletic Association victory over James Madison yesterday was, of course, anything but that. The fifth-ranked Tribe (3-1, 6-1) cleared another hurdle in its run toward the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs by breaking a streak of five losses to struggling JMU.

A break-up would have sufficed. University of Richmond safety Derek Hatcher yesterday arrived as the passed ball did. Instead of the break-up, Hatcher went for the interception, and got it by prying the ball from the Massachusetts player who momentarily had possession in the third-quarter sequence. UR coach Mike London called Hatcher’s thievery “one of the best plays defensively I’ve ever seen. . . . Talk about ball awareness.“

It didn’t take Jameel Sewell long to pick up on what was going on—Georgia Tech was disrespecting the Virginia passing game. The Yellow Jackets manned the trenches to shut down the run, then watched a combination of missed throws and dropped footballs doom Virginia in a 34-9 loss yesterday. This one could have been close, though—Virginia found its way into the red zone three times but mustered just six points from those possessions.

A steady, raw drizzle descends on Petersburg as the Chevy Suburban carrying Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Creigh Deeds pulls into the parking lot of Virginia State University. On this soggy Thursday night, VSU is playing host to Virginia Union University in the annual gridiron clash between the historically black schools. Deeds, 51, a state senator from rural Bath County, isn’t about to play favorites. To have any chance of winning Nov. 3, he will need just about every eligible vote in the sodden stands.

The Little Sisters of the Poor in Richmond are quite serious about their mission of caring for the elderly. Their selfless nature typically keeps them out of public view, but the recent canonization of their order’s founder, Jeanne Jugan, and their own 135th anniversary have them planning a rare celebration or two. They are returning to the Fan tomorrow, Jugan’s 217th birthday, for an open house at the Warsaw Condominiums, their home from 1877 to 1976. They will celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving for the canonization of Jugan on Thursday at Cathedral of the Sacred Heart. They also will host a touring stage production about Jugan next month.

Beware of flying balls this afternoon at Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School. Two seniors are organizing what they hope becomes the world’s largest dodgeball game. Wil Van Winkle of Richmond and Carter Hadley of Chesterfield County are rallying their classmates and teachers to help break the world record of 120 participants set on March 13 by Portlethen Academy in Portlethen, Scotland.

It’s about time someone realized that a restaurant overlooking the James River would be, oh, I don’t know, an absolutely brilliant and wildly popular idea. Considering that the river is such a defining element of Richmond’s essence, I’m shocked that its shoreline isn’t clogged with scenic eateries.

Even in a recession, demand for surgical supplies continues to grow. And so AVID Medical keeps growing. The James City County-based company, which recently completed an $8 million expansion that doubled the size of its plant, is benefiting growing demand in health care for pre-assembled surgery kits. The company, with a staff of more than 500 now, continues to add jobs and expects to employ more than 600 in about a year.

Republican Bob McDonnell said Virginia shouldn’t participate in a federal health-care program that contains a “public option.“ Democrat R. Creigh Deeds said it might save money for the state.

When the temperature hit the mid-70s the other day, James Wilbur and his two sons headed straight to the James River. They body surfed in the rapids until the October water chilled them.

La’Shunta Terry can do cold weather. After she underwent a lumpectomy, six rounds of chemotherapy and eight weeks of radiation to destroy the disease that robbed her of a mother, blustery weather does not rank as a challenge.

As a young Army lieutenant stationed in Germany, Bob McDonnell made the Guinness Book of World Records. He organized his hospital unit to carry a 120-pound woman on a stretcher on a record-breaking trek—93.4 miles in 32 hours. Thirty-two years later, McDonnell is doing a different kind of heavy lifting, as he seeks to break Democrats’ eight-year hold on Virginia’s governorship.

Face down on the ground after the second of his two fumbles, James Madison quarterback Justin Thorpe buried his helmet in the turf and slammed his hands down. The gesture summed up the day and perhaps the season for Thorpe and the 16th-ranked Dukes, whose offensive troubles were front and center in a 27-0 Colonial Athletic Association loss to sixth-ranked Villanova yesterday.