Farmville

Barreling along Virginia's back-country roads almost an hour west of Richmond, I'm beginning to doubt we'll ever reach Farmville. It's been nearly three hours since we crossed the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in Washington and plowed down I-95, though the last 30 miles have been lovely. A gothic-looking railroad bridge rivaling a Roman aqueduct crosses the James River, then it's rolling green countryside and woods. But I'm ready to shop. A friend who is about to open an interior design business has heard about Green Front Furniture, an import business in rural Farmville that offers a huge selection of higher-end furniture, accessories and especially Oriental rugs at up to 50 percent off regular retail prices, and she is eager to check it out. I want to cover a roomful of bare floor without spending the equivalent of the national debt.

William Robert Faison Sr., 83, teacher, volunteer William Robert Faison Sr., a retired educator, died Friday of undetermined causes at his Pikesville home. He was 83. He retired about 20 years ago from the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, where he ran a graduate equivalency program at the Maryland Correctional Institution, Jessup. He earlier taught at Calverton Heights Junior High School and had worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad and General Motors. Born in Philadelphia and raised in Farmville, N.C., he moved to Baltimore in 1944 and earned a degree at Morgan State University in 1966.

FARMVILLE, N.C. -- Farmville's only courtroom has never played host to a felony trial. This week, the town's 4,000 residents will watch a parade of jurors, lawyers, psychologists, parents and children converge on that courtroom. There, they will unfold what may be the largest child sexual abuse trial this country has ever seen: the trial of Robert F. Kelly Jr. of Edenton.The trial was moved to this one-blink community in Pitt County, 65 miles west of Edenton in Eastern North Carolina, because of pretrial publicity.