About 150 students a year enroll in a local institute for classroom study and practical work to learn how to make airplane travel as pleasurable and worry free as possible. They are not aspiring pilots, and they will not be offering drinks, snacks, pillows and blankets in flight. They are, instead, trainees enrolled in the Aviation Institute of Maintenance Manassas (a Washington, D.C. school), which opened in a shared hangar at the Manassas Municipal Airport in 2001 to train mechanics in the aviation field. It later moved to a Godwin Drive location.

State and local officials are trying to get in the driver’s seat when it comes to making their fleets green.

Representatives of 335,000 United Methodists of the Virginia Conference will gather in Manassas Oct. 1 to discuss issues of immigration as it relates to their faith. The meeting was called by Bishop Charlene Kammerer.

The 23rd annual Haymarket Day was Sept. 17. The parade through town began at 9:30 a.m. and lasted about an hour; the day wound down at 4 p.m. VA 55 was closed throughout the day as people meandered down the town's main street to visit vendors, ride rides, have a bite to eat and so much more.

Streets will be full on Haymarket Day, Sept. 17. Ideally, this will help fill the shelves at the Haymarket Regional Food Pantry, which will be open and taking nonperishable and monetary donations throughout the day Sept. 17.

George Mason University's Fall for the Book is holding many events in Northern Virginia. Locally, there will be an event at 9300 Stonewall Road in Manassas. On Sept. 22 at the church, Amy Waters Yarsinske of the Norfolk Historical Foundation will discuss her latest book, “Flyboys Over Hampton Roads,” about the training camp of World War I pilots.

Manassas's Stonewall Stonewall Jackson Volunteer Fire Department and Rescue Squad held a 110-story stair climb to remember the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001. Proceeds from the climb benefit the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. More than 100 volunteer and career firefighters spent the morning climbing so people never forget that day and the people who died. Before the actual climb began, participants and planners gathered together for a prayer and a moment of silence to remember the men and women who died a decade ago trying to save others. Photo by Kathy Sansone

Cooperative Living's Richard Johnstone Jr. reflects on the occurences and his remembrances from Sept. 11, 2001, which occurred a decade ago.