The Shadow
COVINGTON, Va. (Virginian Review)— Local business leaders and economic development officials underscored growing momentum on Main Street during the latest episode of The Value Prop podcast, released this week by the Alleghany Business Review.
Hosted by Gene Mundy, the episode featured Kester Dingus, executive director of Olde Town Covington; small-business coordinator Terri McClung; and Barnwood Blessings owner Lori Connor. The discussion focused on new business opportunities, ongoing revitalization efforts and the expanding slate of community events drawing people into downtown Covington.
You can watch the podcast on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1FxzoaQdFL/
Dingus, who was hired as the Executive Director of Olde Town Covington in July 2025, announced that the organization is on track to receive full accreditation from Main Street America. The national designation, he said, would open the door to additional grants and strengthen Covington’s long-term revitalization strategy.
“Olde Town Covington has full support of the city, and we are very appreciative of that,” Dingus said. “Our goal is to promote economic development downtown, assist business owners and connect them with available resources.”
McClung, who manages the city’s small-business outreach, described her role as both a guide and advocate for prospective entrepreneurs. She maintains an inventory of downtown properties, helps connect business owners with available spaces and works with them on business plans.
“Everything is confidential until they’re ready,” McClung said. “We walk through planning, we review business plans, and we help them understand what they’ll need before going to a bank or taking the next step.”
A major resource, McClung added, is The Gauntlet, a 10-week statewide business incubator program that several Covington entrepreneurs have completed. The program includes training in financing, marketing and business planning, followed by a formal pitch before statewide judges.
“It’s one of the first things I recommend,” McClung said. “Even people who didn’t score high speak highly of the networking and knowledge they gained.”
Connor, whose downtown shop Barnwood Blessings opened in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, credited the city and Olde Town Covington with helping her business grow despite economic challenges.
“You can’t wait for everything to fall into place,” Connor said. “The community support has been overwhelming, and events bring tremendous foot traffic.”
Those events — including Olde Town Christmas, Halloween festivities and downtown car shows — are a cornerstone of Covington’s growth strategy. Dingus detailed plans for the December 6 Olde Town Christmas celebration, featuring activities stretching from one end of Main Street to the other. The full day of events will include a free showing of The Polar Express, children’s crafts, downtown shopping, food trucks, giveaways and the annual Christmas parade, which already has more than 60 registered participants.
“We started planning in July, and the businesses themselves built the program,” Dingus said. “Events draw people in. They help businesses and showcase what downtown offers.”
McClung added that advancing through Main Street America is positioning Covington for larger initiatives, including Downtown Investment Grants that could fund major improvements such as public restrooms.
“We have great momentum right now,” she said. “We all work together, and that collaboration shows.”
Mundy closed the episode by emphasizing the shared commitment to economic growth.
“Main Street momentum is about community,” he said. “Supporting businesses, growing events and working together to build Covington’s future.”
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TRANSCRIPT
Terri McClung 0:00
You know, Alan is very big on his flowers, and that is part of the beautification, which is should be part of Olde Town. But through us advancing with Main Street, it’s going to open us up to more grants, and one of them right now that we can do is a Downtown Investment grant, but that includes something big, such as restrooms. Okay, so we can, and
Lori Connor 0:31
like the hotel Collins Green Sports, we can have restrooms built with this grant that the city would typically have to do. So, you know, it’s, it’s, we all work together. Yeah, it takes a lot. So he can have these flowers, and we’ll help do this. You know,
Gene Mundy 0:53
so great collaboration.
Gene Mundy 0:55
Good afternoon. Welcome to the value proposition. Today’s episode, Main Street momentum. We’re here today with some very special guests, with Mr. Kester dingus, who’s the executive director of Olde Town Covington, Miss Lorie Connor, who’s the owner operator of barnwood blessings, and Miss Terry McClung of the city of Covington, small business coordinator. Welcome everybody. Thank you.
Gene Mundy 1:34
Well, let’s get started. Great to have you all here our second episode,
Gene Mundy 1:40
we started caliona with the Congressman at the federal level, and we’re taking it right to our hometown. So want to start off with you, Kester and talk a little bit about Olde Town Covington and what it does for our community. Olde Town Covington is primarily focused to concentrate on promoting economic development in the downtown area and some revitalization that is our main charge on specifically downtown Covington, what is known as the historic district. There is a specific area that is accepted as the historic downtown Covington district, and you had a recent big announcement, you know, regarding the status of Olde Town Covington. Would you like to share that with with everybody?
Kester Dingus 2:31
Olde Town Covington has been a an affiliate with Main Street America for 2025 we are in the process of doing a self assessment, a self evaluation, and we fully expect to become fully accredited by Main Street America in the next few months here. So that is a huge step to meet the accreditation standards by Main Street America.
Gene Mundy 3:00
So we have Miss, Miss Lori with us, who runs barn with blessings, which has been, you know, extremely successful here on Main Street. We’d like to kind of share with everyone you know, what’s been your recipe for success.
Lori Connor 3:15
Number one, first and foremost, is the support of Miss Terry, who went and actually talked with her when she was at the Economic Development Commission, before we ever looked at running a building in downtown. So she’s been instrumental and very supportive. Kester, coming along has also, you know, tried to help us do the best that we can, and and our customer support has been, just been great, despite the failing economy here. Likely it’s been a little bit of a struggle this year, but things are good, and they’re looking up.
Gene Mundy 3:49
Well, failing, it’s kind of a hard word, you know, I think we do have some some economic challenges, but, you know, I think things are looking better. And I think that’s kind of the the objective is, you know, bringing more business to Main Street, bringing more businesses to the city of Covington, yes, and how do we do that? And that’s kind of the role that you fulfill. Terry, could you tell us a little bit about your role as the Small Business coordinator.
Terri McClung 4:18
I keep an inventory of all the buildings downtown, those that are occupied, non occupied. And when I have someone approach me about starting a business, we sit down and talk, and at that point, everything is confidential until they make the decision to speak about it, I let them know of the available buildings. I work with them. Give them a booklet that tells them how to do a business plan, because that’s gonna be one of the first questions they are asked if they go to a bank asking for money or even just anything moving forward. Mm. Them. So I help them prepare a business plan. If they need it. Most of it they have to do themselves, because they know what they want to do. And you know, I can’t help them at that point. I can just help them review it and give them pointers.
Gene Mundy 5:17
Sure. How do you How does the city and Olde Town, Covington interact with each other. Like, what’s the relationship that allows? It’s kind of symbiotic, right? You’re, you know, the city, city has its structure, and you have the organization. I mean, how does it work together?
Terri McClung 5:36
Well, I’m a board member of Olde Town, and, of course, I’m an employee of the city of Covington. So every two weeks, I have a bi weekly meeting with the city manager as well as other department heads, and we give updates on everything we’re doing. And so I’m able to update him on everything Olde town’s doing. And then through old town, we have what we call a consent consent agendas, which we fill out and we they’re sent in before our meeting. So everybody is aware of what everyone is doing. And if there’s any questions, it doesn’t hold up a meeting, they’re already aware of everything, so everything that I report to the city manager also goes into the consent agenda to Old Town. So everybody’s fully aware of everything that we’re doing and what’s going on.
Gene Mundy 6:32
Sure, Kester, you took over as executive director six months ago first. Yeah, so it’s been really recent. How do you you know you’re new to the job, and how do you feel? You know? How does this relationship work together?
Kester Dingus 6:49
From the Old Town Covington side. I mean, yeah, from the Olde Town Covington side, well, Olde Town Covington has full support of the city, which we are most appreciative of. Have an outstanding relationship with the city council and city manager. I too meet with him every couple of weeks just to run things by him and and talk about different events or different things that olde town can assist with or be involved with, such as some funding issues and some things like that. So it’s a very open relationship, very supportive relationship by the city, and again, Olde Town is very much appreciative of that type of relationship. Terry and I work together on various projects and different events and different things that we have coming up within the city that downtown, that olde town, is either heading up or working on needs her expertise or needs some input from the city side. So it’s an outstanding combination and benefits all the downtown businesses and and very beneficial overall.
Gene Mundy 7:59
Thank you. Lori, as a, as an, as a business owner, you know, and I’m a small business owner, that’s a small business owner. What were your challenges, you know, starting off, starting your company, and what helped Kelly overcome those challenges, just as we said earlier, just the don’t quit mentality.
Lori Connor 8:22
Have a high drive and very motivated. I love to make beautiful things. And you know, there were, of course, were, you know, some hurdles that we had to overcome, but perseverance and a strong faith is for is in the forefront. For sure. Good advice for prayer, exactly. I mean, that’s good advice for anybody that’s trying to start a business, right? Having having those kind of attributes, you definitely can’t wait for everything to fall into place. You have to just go for it and keep going for it, despite all the hurdles and, you know, the naysayers and, you know, but we’ve had human, humongous community support. We came out in November of 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic, and the community support was just overwhelming. And it continues to be, despite the economy.
Gene Mundy 9:18
tell me about the gauntlet, right? Which is, which is a, you know, a vehicle that helps fledgling businesses anchor themselves and grow. And you were a part of the gauntlet, can you I want to, want to ask you about it. Then I kind of want to ask Miss Terry to give her, you know, from the, from her perspective, the value of events. Or sessions like that to help
Lori Connor 9:45
Well, it’s definitely a huge opportunity to step out of your comfort zone, of course, and try to do something that would better your knowledge of running the business. There were many avenues opened you in doing that and being a participant was a lot of work. It opened my eyes to a lot of things that I didn’t know before. So it was a very huge learning process that helped propel us forward. I believe we were one of the winners, and we were very, very appreciative of that.
Gene Mundy 10:20
Thanks for that answer. And you know, Miss Terry, can you share with us, kind of how the gauntlet, how? How does that help you businesses, from your perspective, get started here, not only on Main Street, but across the city and the county. Really, the
Terri McClung 10:38
Gauntlet is a 10 week virtual class, and there are topics such as financing marketing. So whenever someone approaches me about starting a business, it’s one of the first things I try to do is talk them into doing this program, if for nothing else. The networking that takes place during this 10 weeks, it’s huge. And some people have scored very low through going through the program, but talk very highly of all the people that they met. You never know you’re going to meet right what? There may be some issues you’re having, and that person is going to most likely be there. They have to prepare a business plan. They’re graded on the business plan. They’re graded on attendance. The business plan scores are they then go in front of folks from across the state that they have to do a 15 minute pitch about their business, and then they are graded and scored by whom I don’t know. I have no idea who does that, but it’s, I highly recommend anybody, even if you’re expanding a business, starting up a business, or even thinking about doing a business, to go through this program.
Gene Mundy 12:13
When’s the next one?
Terri McClung 12:14
It should start. They haven’t been the dates out yet. The last week in January, 1 week in February is when they normally start. And it’s like I said, it’s 10 weeks, and it’s very intense, like I’ll use finance for an example. Whoever teaches that class will sometimes do one or two other during that week. And so what you put into that is what you’re going to get out of it.
Gene Mundy 12:46
So if you’re a small business owner and you’d like to participate in the gauntlet, reach out to miss Terry, right?
Terri McClung 12:56
There is a fee, and I do not know the fee, because you have to go in Petra location, you know, and, and I am, I’m not even sure what the fee is this year, I meant to ask. We had a little networking last night at Jack Mason’s Tavern and Clifton, just some business leaders there, just trying to gear up. And there’ll be a few more. There’s one of Buena Vista first week in December, and I think one at VMI like the second week in December. But I encourage any entrepreneurial that want to do this program to attend those networking it’s great advice. They do have them on the website. I looked this morning, the dates are on there for these networking classes. However, they haven’t updated some of the gauntlet information for 2026 yet,
Gene Mundy 13:46
Coming soon. Coming soon. Let me go back to Kester. I want to ask you, you know, we had a chance to chat a few weeks ago, and one of the things that you brought up was some new grants for facade improvements on Main Street. Can you share with that with everyone? Tell me what that is and how that’s going to help us here.
Kester Dingus 14:06
Well, through Main Street America and Virginia, Main Street both opens up some opportunities for grants. The one that was out late summer was backed by American Express, called backing small businesses, and part of olde town’s job is to try to get that word out to the business owners, which we did that one had a very short turnaround time was about two weeks from time it was announced, until the deadline had to be turned in. So Olde Town put together a little package of the information, you know, the questions that’s normally asked and the requirements of a grant, that sort of thing. We emailed that out to all the downtown businesses, and then I personally visited with several of the businesses. And out of that, we had six businesses. That actually applied for that grant and made it, you know, under the deadline and submitted all everything that they had. We are waiting now to see if we have been fortunate enough to get anyone to receive that grant that was backed by American Express. They was going to give away 400 grants, $10,000 each, and that was a nationwide grant. So it was very competitive, but we’ve got some of our businesses here in town in the running for it, so hopefully somebody will get it, and that would be a huge boost to some business in this area. There are another different ones. T Mobile is another one that funds grants and so forth, as well as the local foundations. You know, people’s bank Foundation has grant opportunities. Of course, the Allegheny Foundation has grant opportunities, and some of those come out are announced by Main Street America or through Virginia. Main Street American Express has been very good to fund some small town grants, and they seem to like the small town high impact type grants, so they’re one of the big ones that’s out there right now. They will be another round, probably late February, early March, somewhere in there. And once that grants are released, then we will release that information and work with the business owners and get that word out. Hey, here’s some more grant opportunities. Get your applications in and you know, hopefully we’ll be able to bring some money back to downtown Covington. So that’s part of olde town’s job is to keep that information flowing to the business owners and assist them finding the money on the grants and things like that.
Gene Mundy 17:01
Super so we’re getting close to the holidays soon, the big event coming up in December. You like to share any kind of some insight into Olde Town Christmas?
Kester Dingus 17:15
Olde Town Christmas is gonna be December the sixth, which is gonna be here before we know it. We started this planning process, actually, July the 31st we sent out an email to all the downtown businesses and asked them to join us for muffins and a meeting over at the Regional Library, and we had about 12 or 15 businesses come out, and we sat down, and instead of Olde Town saying to the businesses, will you do this? We asked the businesses, what can you do? What is your ideas? And let them bring the ideas to us. So we’ve kind of done it in a reverse fashion, and they actually come up with a lot of ideas and and they were the ones that put the program together. Olde Town just kind of facilitated all that. And so in a nutshell, we have activities literally from one end of Main Street to the other, and then up Maple Avenue. And there are numerous businesses involved with that, things for the kids as well as things for the adults. With the holiday movie going to be shown the Polar Express is going to be at 130 that day, that is a free showing. RC theaters has been super to work with Olde Town Covington. Everyone that that wants to go to the movies, it is free. You also get a free small popcorn and a small drink. Seating is limited. There’s a 151 seats, and that’s all that’s going to be there. The tickets are out. Now you can either go by the theater itself and pick up your free ticket. Or you can do it online. If you do it online, there is a small convenience fee that you would be charged, but the movie itself is free, so that’s one of the big highlights. Santa Train is going to be in garden trucking parking lot. That is another local business, Calloway enterprises, going to have that that’s going to be running all day for there is a $5 charge for that per ride. Other events, gift wrapping, ornament making. Make room. Covington is going to do an ornament making session with the kids, and then tie that back into the movie. They are doing a special canvas painting session for adults during the time that the movie is running. The movie will be chaperoned by the Jackson river Kiwanis club so. Mom and Dad can drop their kids off at the movies, go right up the street to make room and enjoy a Christmas canvas painting session with make room Covington. Lot of the businesses are open their doors and are going to do different events and different things. For example, mountain rust is going to be open all day long that day, the friendly fork is doing old fashioned garland making like the old construction paper rings that we used to do as kids stringing popcorn on the string for garland, all the old fashioned, old timey type things. And that is going to be that one is sponsored by the friendly fork, as I said, but it’s physically going to be in the mountain rust building, just due to room constraints and that sort of thing. And then the City Cafe at the end of Maple Avenue has old fashioned popcorn balls that they’re going to be handing out to anybody that wants to do that. Then the parade will kick off at six o’clock. And during the parade, we have, I think it’s five different businesses offering free hot chocolate. And they are, you know, throughout the downtown and again, up Maple Avenue, businesses that graciously said, Yes, we will do that. Go by and get you a free hot chocolate and and watch the parade. So it’s an all day event, literally from one end of town to the other, as well as numerous food trucks will be in town that day, everything from hot dogs all the way to the cousins main lobster truck will be back. So all different price ranges, all different types of food, and again, they will be scattered up and down Main Street and up Maple Avenue. So should be a fun time. Just hope it is pretty weather and does not rain, yeah, but all this planning has been done by the downtown businesses, started July the 31st and we met two days ago to go over the final plan, to make sure we’ve got everything covered the Christmas magazine that Olde Town put out, with the assistance of the Virginian review, that is out among various businesses in town. And we will also have those available at the Olde Town information tent that Saturday. And in that magazine, it has a schedule of events. It has a map that was drawn by one of the ladies at the Chamber of Commerce for Olde Town has everything listed out what’s going on, the times and the locations that will match the numbers on the map, and then the businesses will actually have a candy cane sign in the window that has the number of that activity, or whatever, and all those numbers match up the candy cane signs in the window the legend on the map, as well as the schedule of events. And we also will have Big Al with the radio station will be in town that day during live remotes, pretty much about all day olde town has got a number of gift certificates and gift cards that we’re going to give away. We’re going to draw every hour on the hour to give those out. So it should be a fun time all the way around. There’s a lot of stuff going on, lot of planning, a lot of work has went into this. And, you know, hope to have a good crowd out and have a good time all day in the Christmas spirit, and then cap it off with the annual Christmas parade. We’ve got somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 registered already for the Christmas parade, and that is still open. Registration is still open. They go to our website, there’s a simple form to fill out and get your group or club or what have you registered for the parade. I think we’ve gotten like three or four this morning, before I left the office. Come up here they the parade registrations are still rolling in, so it’s going to be a fun time all the way around. Just hope it Don’t Rain.
Speaker 1 24:27
Pray for the news. Church will have their annual bazaar from 9am till 4pm that day, and that’s usually a pretty hit, huge hit that gets things started off. The Shriners donut truck trailer will be in the parking lot out back where they’re usually located. So it’s gonna be a big day downtown…
Gene Mundy 24:47
More than just a parade.
Lori Connor 24:48
think it’s something that can grow every year too, with different ideas any other pour in.
Kester Dingus 24:54
The other thing is, the boys home are going to have live Christmas trees, and Christmas. Or Christmas wreaths for sale at the farmers market facility. So you know, again, from one end of town the other, there’s going to be something going on, hot cider and and hot coffee at the LOVE Park will be available for sale, and just various businesses, different events and that sort of thing. So pick up one of the Christmas magazines. They’ve been distributed among a lot of businesses downtown, or you can see us at the information tent. Be back in mid city mall parking lot that day. Pick up that and register for some of the drawings and the giveaways.
Gene Mundy 25:39
So one of the questions I want to ask as a business owner on Main Street, how do events like this, Halloween, car shows? You know, how do those events benefit? You know, the businesses that are located here on Main Street in
Lori Connor 25:58
a great, positive way. You know, when we have the street scene here, we have visitors from out of town, we actually coordinate our fall open house with that street scene so those people know they can come in. You know, the wives come in and shop while the guys are outside with the cars and things like this olde town Christmas. It’s just an all day event, number one for to bring a family out. And then, of course, it helps businesses. The foot traffic is wonderful. Sure, we love to see it. And, you know, we get visitors from the homestead on the weekends. You know, they want to know what else is going on. So I think you know here locally. So I think that the more that we do these types of things, the more foot traffic that brings, of course, nothing very grateful.
Gene Mundy 26:45
One of the things I wanted to add is, I think, you know, from the city’s perspective, they do a very good job. You know Alan, you know he is on the decorations. I mean, the Christmas decorations are already up. They put them up, I think, two days ago. But you know, that’s that collaboration, I think, between the city, between Olde Town, between the businesses, you know, it kindly works together, and everybody benefits. And I think, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s a great thing. So I guess, from my perspective, and asking your opinion, you know, how does, you know, how does the city, how do they do all that? You know,
Terri McClung 27:26
it’s, well, they have a big crew, so they get things done, and they have some assistance with like the sports complex and getting the twinkling trail lights up. But you know, Alan is very big on his flowers, and that is part of the beautification, which is should be part of Olde Town, but through us advancing with Main Street, it’s going to open us up to more grants, and one of them right now that we can Do is a Downtown Investment grant, but that includes something big, such as restrooms. Okay, so we can, and like the hotel Collins Green Sports, we can have restrooms built with this grant that the city would typically have to do. So, you know, it’s, it’s, we all work together. Yeah, it takes a lot so he can have these flowers, and we’ll help do this, you know, so great collaboration. It is, it really is. We have a great momentum going now, and we want to keep it going. And we’re just going to try to do everything we can to continuously grow. We’re going to make our event bigger next year for the Christmas parade that day we have our New Year’s Eve for the first time event coming up. That’s right, yep. So that’s going to be new, and we hope that’ll be a blast.
Gene Mundy 29:03
We should come back, have a talk about that, maybe in December, get a little, you know, push on New Year’s Eve celebration. We have time. You guys have time. It’d be a great, uh, I think a great episode.
Kester Dingus 29:20
And all these events that both Olde Town and the city of covingtons Parks and Rec puts on, not only are they enjoyable for for the people and for the community, but as Lori said, it brings a lot of people downtown to drive the business and get them into the shops and to get people down here. And a lot of people may not know that, hey, this business is here. I didn’t know that, but you get them downtown for something fun, expose them to what all we do have to offer, and then hopefully, in return, that helps drive Lori. Business and all the other businesses in town. So, you know, we got to start it somewhere and and a good way. Everybody likes to have fun. Everybody likes to eat good food, and you get them downtown enjoying that sort of thing. And then it just kind of trickles out from there and just drives the whole economic side of it, downtown.
Lori Connor 30:23
Sustainable growth, which comes from everybody working together and being positive and you know, just like when we started the planning for the Christmas Day, December 6, and invited the downtown businesses, I mean, the more people you have, the more ideas you create, excitement. It does motivation. It does.
Gene Mundy 30:48
Which is the theme of why we’ve been here. Today is to talk about Main Street momentum, bringing the community together, supporting each other, helping business owners, growing events and collaborating teamwork. So I would like to thank you all for being with us today. Thanks for taking the time and sitting down and sharing you know what we’re doing here in the city of Covington. We hope to bring in Clifton Forge. We’d like to give you guys the chance to come in and talk to us as well and tell us what you’re doing and how we can help your success. Thanks everyone for joining us. That concludes today’s episode. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you.
