By Terry Haycock<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Photos: Above: Bonnie with her publication and in 1966 as a chorus member of the Ice Capades.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Meet Bonnie Atwood, editor of Virginia Capitol Connections\nQuarterly Magazine, a \u201cone-stop source for non-partisan statewide political\nnews.\u201d Bonnie\u2019s service to VCCQM goes back to 1998 when staff shared one office\ncomputer and procured daily paper copies of legislative bills, lugging them to\ntheir desks for perusal. She notes that there were about 100 bills per day. At\nthat time, staff had pagers, not cell phones, and had to find a phone to\nrespond to calls!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since there is currently a Democratic majority in the\nGeneral Assembly, a phenomenon not seen in 25 years, Bonnie notes that there\nare a lot of new rules and more controversies about them than we normally see.\nThese days, with the coronavirus safeguard rules of social distancing\ndisrupting lives, business, and government across the U.S., along with the\nassembly scheduled to reconvene soon to vote on these bills, major questions\nare being raised about how to meet since current law says legislators have to\nmeet together face-to-face in order to vote. Truly a dilemma for the\ngovernment. How will it manage? Since journalists who report on government machinations\noften rely on nonverbal gestures as well as verbiage to discern truth, the\ncurrent rules pose additional new challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bonnie\u2019s journey to VCCQM began when she was hired as a\nreporter on a daily newspaper after graduating from George Mason University in\nFairfax. She hated it the first two weeks, but eventually got used to the\nstress of 7 a.m. deadlines and loved it. Bonnie says, \u201cEvery day was different\nand interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She did take a break to marry and have children; she\nfreelanced at home, later earning a law degree from the University of Richmond.\nWhen she met a state lobbyist who valued her background in writing and law, he\nhired her. Bonnie\u2019s thought was, \u201cWow, this is for me!\u201d Here, she could use her\nskills to help groups of people in ways that differed from traditional law\npractice. She loves her job. Often asked to advise others on earning a degree\nin maturity, she opines that \u201c \u2026 you have to want it really, really bad.\nSomething has to keep you going \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hard to believe that she has any, but in spare time, Bonnie\ntap dances \u2014 not the political kind, the Gene Kelly kind! During the present\nsocial distancing culture, the dance group meets each Thursday via an online\nvirtual class to keep up their skills. Bonnie has performed in three dance\nrecitals. As a youth, she loved figure skating and was a chorus member in the\n1966\u201367 Ice Capades tribute Nat King Cole. But Bonnie says she no longer\nskates. She also loves music and is an avid reader, most recently “The Man\nfrom Muscle Shoals: My Journey from Shame to Fame” by Rick Hall, legendary\nrecord producer, and “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook” by Mark\nBray. She is nothing if not eclectic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the current situation is resolved, you will want to\nmeet Bonnie at a VPC meeting. In the meantime, check out her work on the VCCQM\nwebsite at vccqm.org. Bonnie\u2019s wish for all of us is to stay safe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Journalism, Law, Music, and Dance: A Visit with Bonnie Atwood By Terry Haycock Photos: Above: Bonnie with her publication and in 1966 as a chorus member of the Ice Capades. Meet Bonnie Atwood, editor of Virginia Capitol Connections Quarterly Magazine, a \u201cone-stop source for non-partisan statewide political news.\u201d Bonnie\u2019s service to VCCQM goes back to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n