n LOUDOUN
4 | n LEESBURG
VOL. 8, NO. 43
8 | n EDUCATION
10 | n PUBLIC SAFETY
14| n LEGAL NOTICES
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Youngkin Pardons Father Charged in School Board Meeting Fracas
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SEPTEMBER 14, 2023
“A Warrior On My Path”
Boulder Crest Celebrates 10 Years BY RENSS GREENE
rgreene@loudounnow.com
BY ALEXIS GUSTIN
agustin@loudounnow.com
Scott Smith, the Loudoun father who was charged with disorderly conduct during a June 22, 2021, School Board meeting where a policy about the rights of transgender students was up for a vote, was given an absolute pardon by Governor Glenn Youngkin on Sunday. Smith said although a weight has been lifted from his shoulders with the pardon, he still wished he could have had his day in court to SMITH PARDONED continues on page 32
Alexis Gustin/Loudoun Now
Scott Smith answers questions at a press conference at the Loudoun County Court House Sept. 10 after being pardoned for disorderly conduct by Governor Glenn Youngkin.
On Friday, Boulder Crest Retreat celebrated 10 years serving military veterans and their families struggling with post-traumatic stress. The nonprofit opened its wellness retreat for combat veterans and their families in Bluemont in 2013, following two years of fundraising, on 37 acres donated by founders Julia and Ken Falke. The guest speaker at Boulder Crest’s groundbreaking ceremony in 2012, then a U.S. Marine Corps colonel, returned as a brigadier general to speak at the celebration Friday. “I’m not a guest speaker. I’m a family member here. Because I’m a warrior on my path,” Brig. Gen. Anthony Henderson said. “Like many of you, I have been on that path longer than I knew, and I will be on it until the last of my days. Because who we are and who we’re meant to be and can become is filled with joy, of walking the path that Boulder Crest represents.” Henderson said he, too, has faced post-traumatic stress disorder, facing the traumas of the stresses of life, of the battlefield, and of his son’s struggle with a disease that Henderson only found out about when he came home from deployment to find his son in a wheelchair. “It did carry as PTSD. I couldn’t admit it, I wouldn’t accept it, because I feared not being promoted, not being accepted by friends and family, and in an honest reality, I pushed it aside and focused on
Renss Greene/Loudoun Now
Boulder Crest Retreat founder Ken Falke greets U.S. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Anthony Henderson, who spoke at the retreat’s groundbreaking in 2012, at the center’s 10-year anniversary Friday, Sept. 8.
the other men and women that I needed to lead, who were fighting for their lives every day in the services of their country,” he said. “I brought them home, and I did not expect to begin losing them then.” He said the strength of America is hope, and that Boulder Crest is a beacon. “For the rest of my life, I will always be on this path, and this will be my home to it,” he said. Ken Falke, a Navy veteran, recalled the people and donors that helped start and grow the nonprofit, and the decision to create Boulder Crest after selling his company and previously starting another non-
profit serving veterans, the EOD Warrior Foundation. He recalled meeting a soldier who had lost his legs early in the invasion of Iraq, whose only family, his mother, could not afford to fly to see him in the hospital. Falke said he bought the mother a plane ticket. “We realized then how important family is during this healing process,” Falke said. Falke this year stepped down as CEO, BOULDER CREST continues on page 35
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