Sheila Johnson, the Democratic businesswoman who endorsed Republican Bob McDonnell in the governor’s race this year will serve as one his inaugural co-chairs, the campaign announced yesterday. McDonnell’s inauguration as the 71st governor of Virginia will be held Jan. 16, and will return to Richmond for the first time since 2002. The 2006 inauguration of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine was held in Williamsburg because the state Capitol was under renovation.

In 1975, retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Renninger Bauman donned Bavarian leather pants, suspenders and a green Lechtaler hat and sang some songs in German for an audition at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. The East Greenville, Pa., native was hired to portray the character he created in his audition, “Der Burgermeister,“ or mayor of the resort’s German town.

When the Rev. Claude Charles Vaché became diocesan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia in 1978, he was seen as “high church” or very traditional in his views, according to clergy colleagues. However, “he prayed a lot over issues, always asking for guidance,“ said his “foster son,“ Valdeir France of Portsmouth. Unequivocally opposed to the ordination of women, he surprised his diocese by changing his mind. “He began to think and talk about it and thought it was the right thing to do,“ France said.

Andy Warhol, that enduring mass of Pop art contradictions, dubbed himself “a deeply superficial person.“ This utterance was all the excuse the Muscarelle Museum of Art at The College of William & Mary needed to celebrate its recent acquisition of 150 Warhol photographs with an exhibition opening Saturday in its three second-floor galleries.

The Virginia War Memorial has organized a 10-day trip to England and France to honor the “greatest generation” of World War II. The trip will run from March 30 to April 8 and will start in London at Winston Churchill’s War Cabinet Rooms, proceed to Portsmouth, then Normandy, and conclude in Paris. For more details and an itinerary, go to www. vawarmemorial.org.

Virginia’s Historic Triangle saw a drop in tourism for the second straight year, as some businesses are reporting fewer visitors and lower spending than last year.

Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor made it clear that serving on the U.S. Supreme Court is no easy job. “People always ask me questions about being on the court. ‘Is it fun?‘ No, it is not fun. ‘Interesting?‘ Very. ‘Challenging?‘ Yes. It’s work worth doing, and I’m privileged to have done it.“ Speaking yesterday afternoon to an audience of more than 200 in Colonial Williamsburg’s DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, O’Connor shared her thoughts, both political and personal.

Debbie Smith, forced from her Williamsburg home in 1989 and raped in nearby woods, is not an anonymous victim. Her attacker, Norman D. Jimmerson, was caught in 1995 by Virginia’s fourth DNA “cold hit.“ Smith began speaking out publicly for victims and helped lead to congressional passage of the Debbie Smith Act of 2004. In 2006, she decided she needed to meet with Jimmerson, now serving life in prison, and he was willing.

A Williamsburg man who trolled Web sites dedicated to pedophilia was sentenced Wednesday to 27 years in prison, with all but three years suspended. Henrico County Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael Huberman described Arel W. Powers, 56, as a man who did far more than possess child pornography. In December, after repeated online conversations with someone he didn’t realize was a Virginia State Police investigator, Powers drove to a Henrico restaurant expecting to meet with a woman who would take him to her 7-year-old daughter for sex.

The “BUD” ticker is back. Anheuser-Busch InBev said that starting yesterday, the “BUD” ticker symbol is trading again on the New York Stock Exchange. The symbol left the exchange last year after Anheuser-Busch Inc. sold itself to Belgian brewer InBev for $52 billion. The deal created Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, known for brands like Budweiser and Beck’s. The company has a plant and theme park in the Williamsburg area.

The Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William and Mary has announced this year’s recipients of the Cheek Medal, created to recognize outstanding contributions to the arts. This year’s honorees—David Alan Brown, curator of Italian Renaissance painting at the National Gallery of Art, and Fred Wilson, a conceptual artist—will be honored at a dinner and ceremony Sept. 18 at the Lake Matoaka Amphitheater at William and Mary.

The deadline for public comment on a proposal to keep jurors anonymous in Virginia criminal trials passed yesterday with apparently few opinions offered. Kent Sinclair, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and chairman of the advisory committee, said yesterday that he was aware of only three or four comments on the anonymity proposal submitted by the deadline.

Governors from across the South told President Barack Obama’s health-care reform czar yesterday that they need to know what the program will cost small businesses, taxpayers and their own austere state budgets. “If you detect a level of paranoia here, it’s probably justified,“ Alabama’s governor, Republican Bob Riley, told Nancy-Ann DeParle, the director of the White House Office of Health Reform.

Even as construction workers and contractors put the finishing touches on the College of William and Mary’s Alan B. Miller Hall, faculty and students with the Mason School of Business were already taking advantage of their new digs Friday. They pushed past the moving boxes, rearranged furniture and blew off dust in many of the new building’s study rooms, classrooms and offices that feature state-of-the-art learning.

A two-alarm fire at the Williamsburg Shopping Center has destroyed a restaurant and damaged three other businesses.