Labor Day Event Also Features VA250 Museum
Buena Vista’s outsized role in Virginia’s fall political campaigns is to continue this year during the city’s upcoming 55th annual Labor Day celebration on Monday, Sept. 7.
Republican Sixth District Congressman Ben Cline and his Democratic opponent, bestselling author and former Roanoke Times reporter Beth Macy, will be making their first joint appearance when they deliver stump speeches at Glen Maury Park to launch the fall 2026 campaign.
Also slated to appear together for the first time are Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Warner and his Republican opponent, Bert Mizusawa, a retired U.S. Army major general and former deputy undersecretary for the Army.
Other politicians expected to address the gathering at the park include the Rockbridge area’s three representatives in the General Assembly – Republican state Sen. Chris Head of the 3rd District, Republican Del. Ellen McLaughlin of the 36th District and Republican Del. Terry Austin of the 37th District.
A featured attraction of the Buena Vista Labor Day celebration this year is the VA250 Mobile Museum, a hands-on, interactive and immersive “museum on wheels” that’s commemorating Virginia’s role in our nation’s history as part of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. The mobile museum is to be parked at Camden Field and will be open for visitors from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Labor Day.
This is the mobile museum’s second visit to the Rockbridge area, having come earlier to Natural Bridge State Park. “It feels particularly fitting to have Virginia’s rich history set the stage for Buena Vista’s Labor Day festival, which has become a singular and historic cultural event, over more than half a century now, itself,” said Rockbridge250 co-chair Eric Wilson, executive director the Rockbridge Historical Society. “This visit is particularly timely in this year’s electoral season, giving citizens an authentic opportunity to consider how centuries of political debate, advocacy, and activism have evolved over the two-and-a-half centuries of ‘American Evolution.’ ” Setting up camp next to the mobile museum at Camden Field will be local historian/ re-enactor Byron Faidley, who will be representing a Rockbridge County militiaman during the Revolutionary War. Dressed in period clothing, he will discuss soldiers’ experiences and military history more broadly, while also talking about his displays of reproduction firearms and other items from the era.
Also at Camden Field, the Labor Day Kids Fun Run and 5K road race will get underway at, respectively, 8 and 8:30 a.m. The races are fundraisers for the Parry McCluer High School cross country team.
Both local political parties are holding their traditional Labor Day breakfasts – the Republicans at 7 a.m. at the American Legion building and the Democrats at 7:30 at Parry McCluer High School. In addition to the aforementioned speakers, state Sen. Creigh Deeds of the 11th District, who formerly represented the Rockbridge area, will be speaking at the Democrats’ breakfast.
The Labor Day parade forms outside the recently shuttered Parry McCluer Middle School at 9:30 a.m. and will follow Magnolia Avenue to 10th Street, winding up at Glen Maury Park. The opening ceremony is set to begin at 11 a.m. at the park’s multipurpose pavilion behind the Paxton House. Political stump speeches will follow.
At 12:30 p.m., up on Inspiration Hill in front of the park’s double-decker pavilion, Mayor Jesse Lineberry will preside over the burial of a time capsule that won’t be unearthed for 50 years, during the country’s 300th anniversary celebration in 2076. Lineberry is expected to don a bicentennial tie that was in a time capsule from 1976 that was opened on July 4. Ron Cash, a City Council member who represents Buena Vista on the local VA250 committee, presented the tie to Lineberry at City Council’s Aug. 20 meeting.
Also at the park, Paxton House Society members will lead tours of the restored 19th century manor house from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Activities at the park will include carnival games, pony rides, bounce houses and face painting. The entertainment schedule at the park’s main pavilion is as follows: 1 p.m., the Blue Ridge Mountain Cloggers; 2 to 5 p.m., Vinyl Nation; 6 to 9 p.m., Movin’ On with Wayne Carter.
Festivities end at 9 p.m. There will be no fireworks this year.
