Now Earley is speaking out about mass incarceration and the death penalty. He currently serves as co-chair of and is immediate past president of the nationwide ministry, , founded by Charles Colson. He practices law with Earley Legal Group in Leesburg.

Earley will speak Tuesday, Oct. 20 at 7 p.m. in Martin Chapel at 91����Ƶ (91����Ƶ) on “Why America Incarcerates So Many People and What We Can Do 91����Ƶ It.”

Broad coalition endorsing visit

His visit is sponsored by a diverse coalition of more than 20 area organizations, including 91����Ƶ’s (CJP).

Earley’s visit comes months after the Harrisonburg Police Department, aided by CJP-trained practitioners from 91����Ƶ, James Madison University and the local Fairfield Center, announced an ambitious restorative justice program aimed at reducing local incarceration rates and reforming the local criminal justice system.

“In light of all of the recent conversation going on in our community over the issue of jail expansion, some of us saw Mark Earley as an ideal person to speak to the urgent need for criminal justice reform, given his conservative credentials and his years of experience in the field,” said , Mennonite pastor, counselor and criminal justice advocate. “The more than 20 local agencies and organizations officially endorsing the event, ranging from the Harrisonburg Police Department to James Madison University’s Department of Justice Studies, reflects some of the broad interest in this topic.”

Yoder is among the leaders of a local chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith peace organization, as well as of a local working group focused on local justice issues known as Building Better Communities.

Additional organizations endorsing Earley’s visit include the Valley Family Forum, Virginia Organizing, Our Community Place, On the Road Collaborative, NAACP Harrisonburg chapter, Northeast Neighborhood Association, NewBridges Immigrant Resource Center, the Martin Luther King Way Coalition, Mahatma Ghandhi Center for Global Nonviolence, The Institute for Reform and Solutions, Immanuel Mennonite Church, The Harriet Tubman Cultural Center, Harrisonburg/Rockingham/Page Reentry Council, Harrisonburg/Rockingham Interfaith Association, Harrisonburg City School Board, Harrisonburg Democratic Committee, Gemeinschaft Home, The Fairfield Center and Community Mennonite Church.

Relationships with incarcerated were influential

Earley, an attorney, practiced law for 15 years in Norfolk, Virginia, as a criminal defense attorney and then served in the Virginia State Senate from 1988-1998. During that time, Virginia executed 36 people. In 1998, he was elected Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia, resigning in 2001 to run an unsuccessful campaign for governor. For all of these years, Earley says he supported the death penalty, but had increasing doubts about its morality.

He also delved deeply into the lives and culture of the incarcerated as part of a , and visited every juvenile detention center in Virginia – a that he recounts in an interview in The American Conservative.

After losing the governor’s election to Mark Warner, Earley served the next eight years until 2011 as president of Prison Fellowship USA. According to its website, Prison Fellowship helps to make prisons “more rehabilitative places, advocates for a restorative criminal justice system; and supports church and service providers to support former prisoners, their families and communities.”

Earley is now a vocal opponent of the death penalty, often joining bipartisan efforts such as The Constitution Project to advocate for reform. An essay published in the April 2015 issue of the University of Richmond Law Review summarizes his change of view: titled “,” the essay reflects on the recent exoneration of 14-year-old George Stinney, the youngest person executed in the United States. In 1944, the teenager was convicted of killing two white girls after a two-hour trial and a 10-minute jury deliberation riddled with impropriety.

“If you believe that the government always ‘gets it right,’ never makes serious mistakes, and is never tainted with corruption, then you can be comfortable supporting the death penalty. I no longer have such faith in the government and therefore, cannot and do not support the death penalty,” Earley writes at the beginning of his essay.

Editor’s note: Valley Family Forum is no longer providing an endorsement of this event. [Oct. 16, 2015]

Mandy Khochareun didn’t go to the gym 13 years ago to find the man of her dreams. He just happened to be there.

Mandy, then a student at JMU, enrolled in a boot camp fitness class at Nautilus Fitness Center (now Gold’s Gym). So did Cy Khochareun.

When they met, the couple already knew they had one thing in common: an interest in fitness. That Sunday when Cy showed up at Mandy’s church, Valley Church of Christ, they realized they shared the same beliefs, too.

91����Ƶ students and engaged couple Jen Edwards of Richmond and Joe Horst of Daltan, Ohio, share a couch at 91����Ƶ’s Common Grounds coffee shop. Photo by Thomas J. Turney

Their dates consisted of mountain biking, hiking and exercising together. Four months later, they were engaged.

But finding the one isn’t always that easy, and the process definitely isn’t what it was 50 years ago. Although the idea of traditional dating seems to be fading, Harrisonburg singles are still finding places around the city to mingle.

"Obviously if you go to places like the gym or church, you’ll meet like-minded people there," said Mandy, 32. "You don’t have to meet them at the bar."

Mandy, now the group fitness director at Gold’s Gym, and Cy, 39, who now runs Taste of Thai and Oriental Market with his family, were married in 1996. "Neither of us were looking [for someone]," Mandy said. "It was just one of those random Tuesday night things … I just knew he was it." Mandy and Cy have two children – Jada, 3, and Ty, 4.

A Different Kind of Club

Josh Scandlen worked at a bar while he was a student at George Mason. He met plenty of girls there, but "not one person I look back and say,