Get to Know Chris Graham
NAME: Christopher Mark Graham
DATE OF BIRTH: June 22, 1972
FAMILY: Wife, Crystal, married in 2000
EDUCATION: Wilson Memorial High School, 1990 (graduated #2 in a class of 118); University of Virginia, 1994 (bachelor’s degree in American government)
OCCUPATION: Co-owner of Augusta Free Press Publishing; executive editor, The New Dominion print magazine, TheNewDominion.com, AugustaFreePress.com and TheSportsDominion.com news websites; published author (Mad About U: Four Decades of Basketball at University Hall, Judge Not; Stop the Presses)
PROFESSIONAL RECOGNITION: 10 awards for journalistic excellence from the Virginia Press Association
LOCAL-GOVERNMENT EXPERIENCE: City Hall reporter, The News Virginian, 1997-2000; City Hall reporter, The Shenandoah Valley Observer, 2001-2002; appointed to the Waynesboro Cultural Commission in 2001; participated in Waynesboro City Council visioning process in 2003; participated in focus group that provided input in the ongoing review of the city comprehensive-plan update in 2007.
CIVIC INVOLVEMENT: Waynesboro Rotary Club scholarship winner, 1990; served on Central Valley CASA board of directors, 1998-2001 (served as vice president from 2000-2001); volunteer with Boys and Girls Club, 1998-2005; volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters, 1999-2007; volunteer youth-basketball coach at Waynesboro YMCA, 2000-2003; served on the Wayne Theatre Alliance board of directors, 2002-2003; Waynesboro Kiwanis Club member, 2003-2006; race-day public-address announcer, Blue Ridge Classic Soap Box Derby, 2004-2007; participant and volunteer, Book ‘Em, 2004-2007; co-organizer of vigil to remember victims of Virginia Tech shootings, 2007
Humble Beginnings
Chris Graham is a native of the Greater Augusta area. He was born June 22, 1972, in the old King’s Daughters’ Hospital in Staunton, the son of Kathi Graham and the late Bill Graham, who passed away on Jan. 2, 2008, at the age of 54.
He lived the first year of his life in Deerfield in the far western part of Augusta County – where his Graham family has a long history, dating back to the 1740s – before his parents resettled in Crimora in the northeast corner of the county.
Chris attended the old Crimora Elementary School and played Little League baseball and youth basketball before his parents were divorced in 1985 when Chris was 13 and an eighth-grade student at Wilson Memorial High School. His mother raised Chris and his younger sister, Stacy, as a single parent while working a minimum-wage job for three years to make ends meet.
In the face of some not insignificant hardships during these years, Chris graduated from Wilson Memorial as the salutatorian in the class of 1990, then worked his way through the University of Virginia, from which he graduated in 1994 with a degree in American government.
Coming of Age
After a brief fling with law school at the University of Richmond, Chris returned home to the Waynesboro-East Augusta area and worked in 1994 and 1995 as a substitute teacher in the Waynesboro and Augusta County public-school systems. He then answered a classified ad promoting an opening in the sports department at The News Virginian in the fall of 1995, and worked for the next five years in the sports and news departments at the paper, becoming the Waynesboro city-government beat reporter in 1997 and continuing in that job until he left the paper for The Charlottesville-Albemarle Observer in September 2000.
Chris and his wife, Crystal, a former layout editor and reporter at The News Virginian, were key parts of the launch of a new weekly newspaper covering Waynesboro-East Augusta, The Shenandoah Valley Observer, in April 2001.
The couple left that paper in 2002 to launch Augusta Free Press Publishing, which began as a single news website, www.augustafreepress.com, and has grown to include two additional news websites, www.thenewdominion.com and www.thesportsdominion.com, and a print magazine, The New Dominion Magazine.
Businessman and Professional
In addition to serving as the editor of the websites and the print magazine, Chris is the host and executive producer of three news podcasts, “The Augusta Free Press Show,” “The New Dominion Show” and “The SportsDominion Show,” which are all available to listeners over the Internet.
Chris has also served as the host and executive producer of a series on WVPT-Virginia’s Public Television, “Virginia Viewpoints,” which aired on the Harrisonburg-based station in 2006 and 2007, and as a regular guest host on “Insight,” a Valley- and Central Virginia-themed public-affairs show broadcast on WMRA, a National Public Radio affiliate in Harrisonburg.
Chris was as well the cofounder of “ACC Nation,” a weekly sports-radio show that covers Atlantic Coast Conference sports that launched in 2005. He left that show in 2007.
Chris is the author of two books – Stop the Presses: A Collection of Columns, a compilation of humor columns published at www.augustafreepress.com in 2002, 2003 and 2004; and Judge Not, which he describes as a “small-town political thriller” based on a disputed city-council election in a Shenandoah Valley town. He is the coauthor of a third book – Mad About U: Four Decades of Basketball at University Hall, on the history of University Hall at the University of Virginia, with Augusta County-based writer and journalist Patrick Hite.
Native Son
Chris dates his interest in government and politics to a book that his mother purchased for him from an elementary-school book fair when he was in the second grade that featured biographies of American presidents.
“I can’t tell you what it was, but I was just hooked,” he said. “I don’t remember much about the book, but I do remember that I had memorized who the presidents were in order, when they served, and who their vice presidents were and when they served. I’m sure I was an interesting little kid to be around.”
His first run for political office, in fifth grade, for treasurer of the school Student Council Association, resulted in a triumph. His second run, as a high-school junior, for student-council president, was not a success.
“It was a three-way race, and I assumed that I would win, because my two opponents were members of the same social clique, and I thought I could build a coalition of kids from my old elementary school and steal away enough votes from them in their own circles to sneak out a narrow victory. I was wrong,” Chris said.
His candidacy for city council in 2008 is more focused and more pointed than those first two runs.
“But I think it has its roots in high school,” Chris said.
“There was a group of four of us from my high school who ended up matriculating at the University of Virginia and graduating four years later. I’m the only one who is still here – and my friends who aren’t here anymore aren’t here because there just weren’t opportunities here for them to do what they do and make a decent living. And we’re talking about people who are now architects and computer engineers.
“Something isn’t right about that. As much as it’s great that we focus our time and money on improving our local school systems, I think it is actually disastrous for us to do so if we don’t at the same time do what we need to do to ensure that there are opportunities here for our young people.”
Family, Community Important to Graham
Chris was married to the former Crystal Abbe on Oct. 7, 2000.
“I am the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” Chris said of Crystal, a 1995 graduate of Fort Defiance High School in Augusta County and a 1999 graduate of Virginia Tech.
Crystal is the publisher of The New Dominion Magazine and runs the day-to-day operations of Augusta Free Press Publishing, which includes the print magazine, the websites and a growing book-publishing division.
Crystal was the host of the award-winning “Virginia Tonight” local-news and public-affairs television show on WVPT-Virginia’s Public Television in 2003 and 2004.
Chris and Crystal have been quite active in the Greater Augusta civic community. Chris has served on the board of directors of Central Valley CASA, a Fishersville-based nonprofit that recruits and trains advocates to work on behalf of abused and neglected children in Waynesboro, Staunton and Augusta County whose cases are currently in the local court system; and volunteered his time with the Boys and Girls Club, as a Big Brother in the local Big Brothers Big Sisters program, as a basketball coach in the Waynesboro YMCA youth-basketball program, and with the Blue Ridge Classic Soap Box Derby.
Chris also served on the Waynesboro Cultural Commission upon being appointed by city council to the position in 2001; and served a term on the board of directors of the Wayne Theatre Alliance, an offshoot of the cultural commission that was originally formed as an advisory body to city council. Chris as well participated in the first city-council visioning process in 2003 and served in 2007 on a focus group formed to provide input into the ongoing city comprehensive-plan update process.
Crystal has also served on the board of directors and the staff of the Wayne Theatre Alliance – and is currently the vice president of the SWAN women’s networking group and is active in the Greater Augusta Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Together the Grahams have been active financial and volunteer supporters of the American Cancer Society, the American Red Cross, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, the Book ‘Em Foundation, the Boys and Girls Club, Global Public Ministries, Kiva.org, The Salvation Army, the Tim Spears Christmas Fund, and Vector Industries.
