Dan Casey, Roanoke Times Journalist Profile

Articles

CASEY: Montgomery County Emergency Assistance Program celebrates half a century

1 month ago | roanoke.com | Dan Casey

For some, it’s hard recall back 50 years, so here’s a factoid to jog the memory: In 1975, Steven Spielberg’s horror-suspense movie “Jaws” was the top-grossing Hollywood feature. The Captain and Tennille scored Billboard’s longest-running No. 1 Top 40 hit, “Love Will Keep Us Together.”That year, I was a high school junior living near Annapolis, Maryland. One thing I remember from that winter was the prolonged cold snap.
CASEY: A reader mailbag on Dan's adventures applying for Social Security

1 month ago | roanoke.com | Dan Casey

On April Fool’s Day I recounted a recent adventure that was no joke: Applying for Social Security retirement benefits. Late in March, I did that in person at the local Social Security office on Jefferson Street downtown. The object was to understand how that process works as the Trump administration and the Department of Governmental Efficiency take budget-cutting wrecking balls to a bunch of federal agencies, including Social Security.
CASEY: Where is Roanoke’s controversial multi-family zoning law heading?

1 month ago | roanoke.com | Dan Casey

Thursday morning I stepped outside my front door and measured the width of Tillett Road in the Grandin Court neighborhood. The tape measure extended to 20 feet — but the street is wider — so the operation was imprecise. But if I reckoned correctly, the width was 24 feet, perhaps a handful of inches less. That means when cars are parked across Tillett from each other, there’s barely enough room for a normal-sized vehicle to squeeze between. And I doubt a fire engine could get through that narrow gap.
CASEY: Rep. Morgan Griffith issues form letter denying ‘overreach’ by President Trump

1 month ago | roanoke.com | Dan Casey

Tuesday, Harry Bosen picked up the phone and called the office of his congressman, Rep. Morgan Griffith. The retired lawyer lives in Cave Spring and was incensed after he checked the value of a retirement account. In a matter of days, it declined by $110,000, Bosen said. The sudden plunge followed President Donald Trump’s announcement last week of trade tariffs against almost every nation on Earth.
CASEY: Congress can act to reverse the stock market’s ‘Trump Plunge'

2 months ago | roanoke.com | Dan Casey

There was lots of shouting and defiance Saturday, as millions of Americans protested at “Hands Off” rallies in Christiansburg, Roanoke, Lynchburg — and across the commonwealth and the nation. The protests were conceived against budget-slashing tactics by President Donald Trump that threaten entitlements such as Social Security. But by the time the gatherings occurred, the ‘Trump Plunge’ on Wall Street became yet another reason for voter outrage.
CASEY: Customer claims mistake by Jiffy Lube ruined his Mercedes engine

2 months ago | roanoke.com | Dan Casey

There’s one day Wayne Amos rues greatly: Oct. 2, 2024. That’s the day the Roanoke real estate agent took his 2014 Mercedes sedan to Jiffy Lube on Peters Creek Road for an inspection and oil change. Amos is a repeat Jiffy Lube customer. According to Jiffy Lube records, he’s been taking his Mercedes there as far back as 2018. For most of that time, Amos lived in South Roanoke, and he took the car to the location on Franklin Road for state inspections, but not oil changes.
Indiana-based author to host book events in Floyd

2 months ago | roanoke.com | Dan Casey

An award-winning author from Indiana is coming to Floyd for public presentations about his newest book, which contains two chapters set in Floyd County. “Chinatown Troubadour, A True Story,” is author Pres Maxson’s sixth book and his first non-fiction volume. In it, the author attempts to reconnect with a street musician he briefly met in Paris 20 years ago. The search took many twists and turns.
CASEY: Roanoke man, 24, spends a week in jail after running errand for his mom

2 months ago | roanoke.com | Dan Casey

March 18, 2025 was a bad day for Anton Brown of Roanoke. Early that afternoon, around 12:30 p.m., the 24-year-old drove his grandmother, retired teacher Janice Brown, to Shining Stars, a licensed child care center in the former Villa Heights Rec Center in northwest Roanoke. The day care is operated by Anton Brown’s mother, Bernadette Lark, a teacher and civil rights advocate. And Lark asked Brown to run an errand. The batteries in the day care center’s soap-bubble-generating machine were dead.
CASEY: Roanoke activists to join nationwide 'Hands Off' protest Saturday afternoon

2 months ago | roanoke.com | Dan Casey

This upcoming Saturday, Americans will take to the streets for an organized national mobilization against recent federal government chaos. That was launched by President Donald Trump, his billionaire sidekick Elon Musk and Musk’s Department of Governmental Efficiency, aka DOGE. Musk has wielded DOGE like a wrecking ball in the Social Security Administration and other federal agencies. And that’s one of the reasons demonstrators will gather in cities, counties and small towns around midday Saturday.
CASEY: Treasure trove of Civil War documents finds a home at Virginia Tech

2 months ago | roanoke.com | Dan Casey

An enormous cache of recently discovered Civil War letters and other 19th century documents has been donated to Virginia Tech by a descendant of a Confederate general who later played a key role in founding the land-grant university. The officer was Gen. Gabriel Colvin Wharton, a native of Culpeper County and a graduate of Virginia Military Institute. In 1863 — in the middle of the Civil War — Wharton married Anne “Nannie” Radford, whose family helped found the independent city of the same name.