Fairfax County Makes International News

I moved to Fairfax County, Virginia 15 years ago last week. Considering that I only thought I would be here a few years, it's a bit surreal that I've now lived here full time almost as long as I lived in Pittsburgh year-round. Located in Northern Virginia, Fairfax County's population in 2015 was estimated at 1,125,385,* making the county larger than 8 states (Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming) and the District of Columbia. You don't hear much about Fairfax County since most people consider it a DC suburb and Virginia's political capital is about two hours south in Richmond. However, in just the past few days, Fairfax County has made national and even international news multiple times.

1. Last Thursday, Scott Silverthorne, mayor the city of Fairfax was arrested in your typical meth for sex bust. (I don't believe Fairfax City is technically part of Fairfax County but students living in Fairfax attend Fairfax County Public Schools. Plus, Fairfax City is completely surrounded by Fairfax County. Fairfax City is basically the Lesotho of Fairfax County!) It seems like Silverthorne was having some financial problems, so perhaps he would have been better off simply selling meth rather than trading meth for sex.

2. How do you get a Mercedes on top of Ferrari? Once you hear the first sound/crash, don't continue to back into and then on the car.



Oh, this happened in Great Falls, Virginia located in, you guessed it, Fairfax County!

3. This is an absolutely tragic story. On Saturday a dispute over chairs at a wedding led to a caterer being stabbed to death. Basically, a Fairfax County park employee thought the caterer was stealing chairs, so after an argument, he stabbed her. Tyonne Johns later died at the hospital.

4. Let's finish with some good news. Congrats to Ginny Thrasher of Springfield, Virginia (of Fairfax County) for winning the first gold medal of the Rio Olympics. The 19 year-old Thrasher won gold in the 10m Air Rifle Women's event.

* This number and lots of other fun demographic data are available on the Fairfax County website.