Our Valley - July 2025

Harrisonburg, Va.

Wednesday, July 30, 2025

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Mothman Rodeo puts local twist on stories of the unexplained

By RICHARD H. HRONIK III Daily News-Record

While many bands call the Shenandoah Valley home, few can claim to blend classic country feels with darker punk themes like Mothman Rodeo does.

The band routinely plays at local venues and festivals, sharing stories of paranormal encounters and lost souls. After Bill Howard and Blake Cramer, both singers, songwriters, and guitarists, formed the band in 2023, they recruited other local musicians to expand the band to its current six members, Howard said.

Now, the band features Howard and Cramer on vocals and guitars, Jess Bergh on drums and backup vocals, Aaron Gray on guitar, Michael Stover on bass, and Justin Carver on banjo.

Almost every member of the band also plays with other local bands. Howard and Bergh play with The Judy Chops, and most of the members of Mothman Rodeo also play with Trout Mouth, Cramer’s other band project.

Howard said that many of Mothman Rodeo’s original songs are inspired by stories of paranormal encounters.

“One of the songs that I wrote most of the lyrics for is called ‘Hills and Hollers,’” Howard explained. “It’s supposed to be about weird things happening in the woods. I got enamored with the idea of cryptids and aliens and things like that, and I wanted to write something about that.”

Howard added that some songs are inspired by an encounter Cramer had with a cryptid in the forests of the nearby Appalachian Mountains.

Other songs, like “Back Porch,” which Howard also plays with The Judy Chops, are based on real stories.

“That’s all about my great-uncle,” Howard said of the song. “My family has a farm out in Bath County. He built the house there. We think he probably had schizophrenia, but he started hearing voices, and he got put into an asylum. When he got out of the asylum and came back home, he ended up killing himself there, at the house. That’s always been a little piece of family lore. When I wrote the song a few years ago, I was thinking, ‘what’s the

saddest story I know?’”

Cramer said he wrote the song “Elvis Ash Tray” about his great-aunt Caroline, initially performing it with Trout Mouth. However, he thinks it sounds better when playing it with Mothman Rodeo.

“I was telling a story about her [great-aunt Caroline] to a friend of mine, and they were like, ‘Yo, that’s an incredible story,’” Cramer said. “They handed me a pen and paper and were like, ‘Sit down, we’re going to write this song right now.’”

See MOTHMAN, Page 8

Cattle farm has become a tourism destination

By ANYA SCZERZENIE Daily News-Record

Some people in the Shenandoah Valley raise cattle for beef, others raise them for milk, but the Myers family raises them for fun.

At Still View Farm outside of Grottoes, there are at least 13 highland cows, with more on the way — most of the cows are currently pregnant. Two of the cows are miniature, and there are plenty more animals besides. The family also has goats, rabbits, pigs, and chickens.

The farm is owned by the Myers family, consisting of Brendan and Katie, their three children, and their cat. It opened in 2024, and the family bought their first Highland cattle in early 2025.

“We pretty much jumped into it and figured it out,” Brendan said.

The family did not intend for their farm to become an agri-tourism destination, but that’s what happened, largely because of the Highland cows. With their long horns and shaggy coats, Highland cows are sometimes used for meat production but are more commonly kept as pets. The ones at Still View are exclusively kept as pets.

The family only started raising cattle last year. They used to have a goat farm in Dooms, but they decided to pivot away from raising goats when they began having children. Goats tend to escape their enclosure, and Katie remembers being heavily pregnant one hot July day and trying to herd the goats back into their pen.

“They just got to be too much, and they kept getting out all the time,” Katie said. “[Cows are] just something different.”

Brendan Myers does excavation work, and Katie stays at home with their three kids. Their farm was only intended to be a hobby farm. However, the farm has a Facebook page, and it was through this page that people began to show interest in visiting, asking if they could bring their children to the farm or take photos with the cows.

“I gotta be honest, I didn’t realize that was a thing,” Katie said.

Katie said she and Brendan were surprised at how quickly the farm’s Facebook page “blew up.”

“A lot of hardcore farmers don’t have the time. It’s a lot of people to deal with,” Katie said. “It’s more of a newer generation thing, more to create additional income while having a farm, I feel.”

Some people began scheduling photo shoots using the farm as a backdrop and the Highland cows as secondary subjects. Others brought their children to experience the farm.

When large groups of children visit the farm, the experience is more like a petting zoo, but small groups can get up close and personal with the animals, Katie said.

“We have one kid who had never seen a goat before in his life, and, by the end of the farm tour, that kid was

FARM, Page 8

Making nature accessible to everybody

By NANCY SORRELLS

For the Daily News-Record

Bill Simmons of Sangerville in northern Augusta County had heard tales of the Blue Ridge Tunnel all his life. Like many others, he followed the story of the restoration and transformation of the 1850s railroad tunnel into a public greenway that opened in 2020.

But, at 96, knowing that there was more than a half-mile walk to the entrance and then a walk through the tunnel itself of nearly a mile, he felt like he would never actually get to see the famous engineering marvel that passes 700 feet under Afton Mountain to connect Nelson County to Augusta County.

That all changed recently, thanks to Paige French, the founder and executive director of Blue Ridge Packs and Tracks (blueridgepacksandtracks.org), an area nonprofit dedicated to making the outdoors accessible for individuals with mobility challenges through the use of a track chair program. Not only did Simmons actually get to see the tunnel, but he also went through it twice — east to west and then west to east — to fulfill his dream, all while driving a battery-charged track chair.

“What a wonderful day. I got to do it!” said Simmons, who taught agriculture and industrial art in area public schools for four decades and retired from Fort Defiance High School in 1989. Accompanying him through the tunnel were four of his daughters and three sons-inlaw. Truth be told, Simmons, who still lives at home but makes his way around with a walker, was a force to be reckoned with at the controls of the track chair as the walkers alongside him had to insist that he slow down just a bit!

Making Simmons’ dream come true was Paige French, a retired nurse with a passion for her newly formed nonprofit. Providing accessibility to the outdoors was an idea that she and her late husband, John, had shared after hearing a story on the radio about chairs with rugged, tank-like tracks, rather than wheels, being used by mobility-challenged individuals to get outside and enjoy nature.

As nurses, Paige and John understood the restorative power of nature

Cramer said he and Howard had played music together for over 13 years. Now, after playing in Mothman Rodeo and Trout Mouth, he said dive bar shows are some of his favorites.

“I like when we have a longer set, and I like it when we get people responding to us and dancing, or paying attention to the show,” Cramer said. “We haven’t had many shows where we weren’t getting that kind of response.”

Howard and Cramer said they are both looking forward to Front Porch Fest in Patrick County, where Mothman Rodeo will perform later this year. In the coming months, the band will play smaller shows in a lead-up to the festival, according to Howard and Cramer.

“We’re doing, kind of a ‘road to Front Porch Fest’ series that they do, that’ll help us get our name into a couple of other spots,” Howard said. “I’d love to play the Mothman Festival over in Point Pleasant, W.Va.”

“ It was like, ‘let’s just play and see what happens,’ and it just so happens that everything clicks, and we’re all firing on all cylinders and are on the same page when we start playing.

n Blake Cramer, Mothman Rodeo co-founder

In the future, Cramer and Howard said they plan to record the band’s first album. Until then, though, Cramer said he’s happy to go with the music.

“The way things have progressed in this band, it was one of those things where it wasn’t a conscious decision of, ‘let’s do this, let’s do that,’” Cramer said. “It was like, ‘let’s just play and see what happens,’ and it just so happens that everything clicks, and we’re all firing on all cylinders and are on the same page when we start playing.”

Contact Richard H. Hronik III at rhronik@dnronline.com, 540-208-3278, or on Twitter @rhronikDNR

lying on the barn floor, and the goats just jumping on him,” Katie said. “That’s what we love, though. We want to get kids out here and just be able to do that.”

Katie said she “can’t imagine not” raising her own children on a farm and emphasized the importance of children having experiences outdoors with animals.

“Kids help us collect eggs and stuff, and they just love it,” Brendan said. “They pay to help us with our chores. Probably, most people who come here aren’t from farming backgrounds. They just come for the experience that they can’t otherwise get.”

However, it was somewhat difficult for the family to open their home to guests, they said.

“It’s a constant battle. You never feel like you’re good enough,” Brendan said. “You lose a little bit of your privacy, too. You just got to keep everything flawless at all times, and you’re always ready for something.”

But, even if the farm isn’t perfect, people still seem to enjoy their time

there, Katie said.

“We’ve hosted two paint nights already,” Katie said. “People come to do the paint night, and then get to wander around, love on the animals, and stuff. It’s just trying to get people here doing fun, unique things, getting people outdoors, especially kids.”

Contact Anya Sczerzenie at asczerzenie@ dnronline.com or 540-208-6789.

Accessible

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and sought a way for everyone to experience its health benefits. Together, the couple dreamed of opening a nonprofit that offered the use of track chairs at no cost so that anyone, even those with mobility challenges, could experience the outdoors.

The plan was to start their nonprofit venture in 2023 when they both retired. Then John died suddenly, and Paige thought that was the end of their dream. Four months after her husband’s death, Paige woke up from a dream in which God told her to think again. “He said, ‘It is funny that you think that this was just John’s plan or just your plan. “Actually, this was my plan, so just get going and do it,” she explained. And so, she did.

Paige formed a nonprofit organization (Blue Ridge Packs and Tracks), traveled to Colorado, and trained at a state park using track chairs. She then started fundraising to purchase two chairs. Each of the sturdy 500-pound chairs costs between $16,000 and $20,000. She has added equipment so that anglers and hunters in the chairs can attach fishing rods or rifles and once again experience the joy of being outdoors sportsmen. The track chairs can navigate rough and muddy areas and are even designed to handle up to 10 inches of water. This winter, her chairs will be in action with the adaptive win-

ter sports programs at both Massanutten and Wintergreen ski resorts.

Although her organization has only been operating since April 1, her chairs have already enabled people with mobility impairments to hunt, fish, and explore outdoor trails. She has a working partnership with Nelson County Parks and Recreation, which operates the Blue Ridge Tunnel. As a result, reservations can be made twice a week, on Sundays and Tuesdays, to take a trip through the tunnel in a track chair. The chairs are designed to be operated either by the individual in the chair, as Bill did, or by a volunteer walking alongside and operating the controls.

Paige hopes to purchase more chairs, a four-wheel e-bike, and additional equipment to transport the chairs to various venues for use. She is eager to make connections with other area groups, parks and recreation programs, and perhaps even places like Shenandoah National Park.

“Our goal is for everyone to have the opportunity to experience the restorative power of the outdoors. No one should be left behind just because things are a little rough or muddy. These track chairs will get you there,” Paige explained.

To learn more or to explore more outdoor track chair partnerships, visit blueridgepacksandtracks.org.