I devoured the weekly copies of Time magazine that arrived in the mail, and the daily papers, first The Washington Star, then The Washington Post. I briefly delivered the latter, as a teen, helping my next-door neighbor whose family handed down the delivery route through several siblings. That’s why I was happy to hear that The Roanoke Times is one of the first 10 digital news entities selected by our parent company, Lee Enterprises, to host a new iteration of what used to be called Newspapers in Education.
News for Students will provide digital subscriptions to Roanoke-area teachers and their students. Educators in the Roanoke and New River valleys are eligible to apply for a classroom subscription that will be funded by community and corporate donations, at no cost for educators. The deal includes one year of access to our website, roanoke.
com , which includes a login capability for each student, and access to the e-edition – a digital replica of the printed newspaper – as well as thousands of news and sports articles, videos and podcasts. Our journalists based in the Roanoke and New River valleys work hard to cover our communities, and to present articles, photography and video coverage in a format that is compelling and readable in print and online. The idea is to provide the region’s students a chance to read and see the work of our journalists, work that is locally reported, edited and verified.
To sign up, visit this website: http://go.roanoke.com/NFS A newsmaker on film Speaking of locally reported articles, a woman who was profiled in The Roanoke Times on Dec.
31 , Lhakpa Sherpa, is the subject of a documentary that dropped on Netflix in late July. Photojournalist Heather Rousseau and I hiked in Giles and Craig counties with Lhakpa and her daughter, Sunny, in October while they were visiting sponsors of her 2023 ascent of K2. Rousseau, completing a two-year reporting fellowship on refugees and immigrants, wrote an article about Lhakpa’s groundbreaking life as a Nepalese climber — the first female Sherpa to successfully ascend and descend Mount Everest, who went on to climb the world’s highest peak, known as Chomolungma by her people, nine more times.
Both Rousseau’s reporting fellowship and Lhakpa Sherpa’s 2023 expedition were sponsored by the Blacksburg-based Secular Society. Lhakpa Sherpa and her children live in Connecticut and her life story is the subject of the compelling “Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa,” a film by British-born director Lucy Walker that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. It chronicles her 2022 ascent of Everest, and tells her story of overcoming a culture that discouraged women from climbing, as well as, later in life, domestic violence.
Netflix bought the rights to air the film and you can stream the one hour, 44-minute documentary now. I highly recommend it. Heather and I took Lhakpa and Sunny on a day hike to Kelly Knob on the Appalachian Trail on a beautiful fall day.
As I started leading the hike up a stretch of trail I’ve cared for with my family for 25 years, she joked with me, “Today, you are the Sherpa.” When a young black bear crossed our path on the return trip from the knob, Lhakpa sang Nepalese songs as we continued so the bear would know we were there. Such a gift to meet her, and to be able to share stories like hers with our readers.
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