A man carrying luggage jogged up and started asking questions.

“Oh, you need to go downstairs to check your bag,” Bradway said with a smile. “Yes, downstairs. Down that way.”

The man looked relieved and hustled away toward the escalators.

Norfolk International has 28 airport ambassadors, mostly retirees, who volunteer to soothe the nerves of frazzled travelers. Ambassadors wear mint green, hard-to-miss shirts while they stand throughout the terminal. They keep travelers moving and, in turn, help the efficiency needed in an airport. Their work has become more crucial. The airport expects to exceed 5 million travelers by the end of 2024, a record.

“They’re the airport’s face to the community,” said airport CEO Mark Perryman, “our face to our passengers.”

The program started in 2000 and has grown with the number of people flying in and out. Since 2022, the airport has hit a record each year. More than 4 million people traveled through in 2022; the following year, about 4.5 million.

Bradway, a retired business executive who lives in Virginia Beach, started as an ambassador in 2017 and enjoys bumping into former colleagues who still go on business trips.

“I’ll end up having a conversation with somebody I’ve known for 20 or 30 years,” he said.

He’s also happy to answer what he called the four most common questions for ambassadors: Where are rental cars? Are there places to eat beyond security? Where are the bathrooms? Which gate do I go to?

“Sometimes, you get, ‘Is there somewhere I can take my dog out?'” He’ll show them to an outside area.

Then again, not all travelers have needs that are so simple.

Vera Cornish, a 78-year-old retired educator from Virginia Beach, remembers a woman who declared to her: I’m going to have a nervous breakdown. The woman and her children had missed their flight and didn’t have much money, Cornish recalled.  She led them to the airport’s “family room,” which has a bathroom, changing table and comfy chair. She told the woman to lock the door and take a nap. By the time the woman woke up, Cornish had called a friend who allowed the woman and her kids to stay the night until they could board a flight the next morning.

Another time, Cornish enlisted her husband to help a traveler find her car after she forgot where it was in the parking deck.

“We searched for two hours,” Cornish said. “But I’m glad we found the car.”

After retiring from a 48-year career at Newport News Shipbuilding in 2018, Bill Morehead needed something to get him out of the house.

“My wife was telling me I was getting to be too much underneath her feet.”

Now 67, Morehead said the people-watching opportunities are too good to give up. He’s seen a man get on one knee and propose. He’s worked on Halloweens when people dressed as Godzilla and Barney cheered up children nervous about flying. He once saw hundreds of strangers begin to cry when a serviceman sneaked up on his relative after months away on duty.

“We see everything here.”

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

She reflexively looked for her boat and spotted it over her shoulder about 50 feet away; in the opposite direction, she saw something else. A bottle, containing something, gently bobbed in the water.

That can’t be, she thought.

On June 24, Eggar discovered a message in a bottle about five miles off the coast of Bermuda with only one clue to its origin: Its author was from Norfolk.

The message read:

This bottle is part of a marine water currents project. Please send an email with the date and location of where you found it. Send the email to: 

bottletrackrva@outlook.com 

Reference # L-232022 

Next, please put this note back in the bottle and relaunch the bottle, at outgoing tide if possible. 

Thank you. 

This bottle was launched__Dec. 23, 2022

From Norfolk, VA USA

Eggar, the other dive instructors and her boss, Chris Gauntlett, at Blue Water Divers in Bermuda, emailed the address but have not received a response.

None, including Gauntlett, who has been professionally diving for 30 years, has ever found a message in a bottle, and they want the public’s help to solve the mystery.

Gauntlett said it was blind luck that they found the bottle at all.

The day began as a routine morning. Gauntlett, Eggar and another instructor, Justin Hendrix, left the dock around 9 to take a small group of clients scuba diving near West Blue Cut. When they reached the coral reef, they anchored in a spot they never had before and descended in two groups.

Hendrix’s group resurfaced first and reported to Gauntlett that they’d spotted an uncharted wreck in the water, which was about 50 feet deep. Gauntlett, the captain, wanted to take a look himself and left the boat just as Eggar was surfacing.

“I didn’t have enough air in my tank to go down with him,” she said. “So, I decided that I would watch from the surface … and I look to my right and see something behind me.”

She swam toward it thinking it might be trash, “a beer can or something.”

But as she neared, her excitement grew. She fought through a strong current and seized the bottle. She felt an immediate urge to shout to the others about what she’d found but first focused on making it to a dragline, a rope about 35 feet long towed behind the boat for returning and tired divers to grab.

As soon as she grabbed the line, she screamed to Hendrix:

“I’ve got a message in a bottle!”

Hoping it was a treasure map, she opened the bottle as soon as Gauntlett returned from exploring the wreck. Although the message didn’t contain an X marking a spot, its description of an oceanic research project was, to Eggar, like gold of a different sort.

“I’m an ocean lover. I love other people who are as intrigued as I am in the ocean.”

Anyone with information about the message in the bottle can contact Blue Water Divers Bermuda through WhatsApp at +1 441 234-1034.

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike reported the issue behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack. The company said the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows.

Flights at Norfolk International Airport were facing “major delays,” according to FlightView, a website that tracks flights and airports across the United States. The tracker reported that more than half of departing flights were delayed as of 7:40 a.m. Friday.

By 9:45 a.m., the airport said airline systems were coming back online, but the morning’s outage would affect flights throughout the day. About 20 flights were canceled Friday morning. Kellie Bryant arrived in Norfolk about 4:30 a.m. from Smithfield with daughters Ashley and Katelyn to catch a connecting flight to Washington. Their final destination was Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic for a girls’ beach trip.

“(Something was wrong) when we walked downstairs and realized how long the line was for checking baggage,” Katelyn said. “We waited three hours, got up (to the desk) and we couldn’t even check in. We tried to reach United, and they were not helping us at all, so we just missed our flight because we couldn’t check in.”

After several hours of delays and confusion, the Bryants will now fly out of Raleigh on Saturday.

The outage also affected communications for inmates at Hampton Roads jails. The Norfolk and Virginia Beach sheriff’s offices posted around midday Friday that their inmates were unable to make or receive phone calls.

WTKR News 3, a reporting partner of The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press, also reported issues as a result of the outage. According to a post to X the outage prevented the station from going live Friday morning, and in-house engineers worked to resolve issues for viewers.

For Dominion Energy, customer service call centers also were affected. Customers can still use the Dominion app and website to report outages, manage their accounts and pay bills. The Norfolk Tides asked fans to use the team’s website to buy tickets, or to pay in cash at the box office.

A man’s face is painted into and peers out of the bird’s chest. The painting, “Thunderbird with Inner Spirit,” is a self-portrait by one of the first Indigenous North American artists, Norval Morrisseau, to have work displayed in mainstream fine art museums, starting in the 1960s.

The portrait is one of several works by Morrisseau included in “Early Days: Indigenous Art from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection,” that are on display at the Chrysler through Sept. 1.

The first survey of Canadian Indigenous art to be presented internationally, the show features some of Canada’s most renowned Indigenous artists and a wide range of art forms.

Color pencil drawings, photography, sculptures, tapestries and centuries-old beadwork are included in this exhibition, which is divided into thematic, sectioned galleries.

One section, “Vestiges of Exchange,” deals with Colonial and Native contact and centers on works inspired by Great Lakes ceremonial attire of the 1700s. Such works include wampum belts made of beads and used to mark the conclusion of negotiations.

A plaque reads: “The trading of objects also recalls the trauma of contagion, reminding us of the often-fatal exchanges that took place between settler and Indigenous cultures.”

A nearby artwork, “COVID-19 Mask No. 8” by Ruth Cuthand, resembles a medical face mask embroidered with glass beads. It represents the inequities in health care that persist in Indigenous communities.

But the exhibition features humor, too.

In a gallery titled “Wit and Satire,” a large painting by Kent Monkman, “Wedding at Sodom,” depicts a scene in which his alter ego — named Miss Chief Eagle Testickle — brings an “arrow of desire” to a cowboy during a gay wedding. 

Large, beautifully intricate ceremonial masks of red cedar, made by Henry Speck Jr., hang from the ceiling in the gallery devoted to the coastal Pacific Northwest.

Faye HeavyShield’s work “Sisters” is positioned at the center of a gallery devoted to women artists. As a child, she and her five sisters were sent to a school where they were abused and forbidden to speak their native language; the work’s 12 high-heeled shoes are thought to represent the sisters “circled in solidarity” to defend themselves and one another against threats, and the shoes’ cloven toes allude to the deer hooves “suggesting the animal’s attributes of elegance, strength and delicacy,” according to the museum.

The show was organized by the largest publicly funded gallery in Canada, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, which has worked for decades to expand its collection of Indigenous works — a goal shared by the Chrysler, according to Chelsea Pierce.

The McKinnon Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Chrysler, Pierce said that her recent work has focused on making new acquisitions of Indigenous artwork and that the museum is striving to increase the visibility of works by Native Americans.

Just check out the front of the museum, she said.

In 2022, the Chrysler installed a mixed-media light box outside its main entrance doors — formed by big, yellow, boxy and decorated letters. The piece, placed in consultation with the museum’s Native advisory council, spells what the people of the Powhatan Chiefdom called their land on which the museum now stands: TSENACOMMACAH.

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

___

If you go

When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays; noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. Through Sept. 1

Where: Chrysler Museum of Art, One Memorial Place, Norfolk

Cost: Free

Details: chrysler.org

Whether called a firefly, glowworm, or — in Latin — lampyridae, lightning bugs are part of American life, particularly in Southern culture. They’ve been sung about by Taylor Swift and flown into the prose of William Faulkner.

And while 40% of the world’s insect species are facing extinction, no one knows how healthy the firefly species are, said Virginia Tech entomologist Eric Day. There just isn’t enough data. Without more well-funded, long-term studies, Day said, it is impossible to determine the species’ health or to categorize them as threatened, endangered or robust.

Out of the roughly 130 species of fireflies in North America, Virginia has close to 30.

“There’s none that I know of that are endangered in Virginia,” Day said. “There are a lot of them that the numbers are low.”

For many Virginia species, there’s little to no preexisting data.

“So, that’s really the missing factor, that if we find low numbers, we don’t really know what that means because there are no previous studies of it.”

Most scientific literature lists lightning bugs as DD: data deficient.

“I don’t have the funding to do firefly research. I would love to have that kind of a grant,” Day said. “But that’s not where the money is.”

Anecdotal evidence suggests, however, that firefly numbers have fallen in developed areas and remain in better shape in more rural environments. Fireflies always will be more attracted to open fields, especially near rivers or streams. The flies are carnivorous and depend on healthy ecosystems for good hunting. They spend the early part of their lives with their legs on the ground, eating other insects and sometimes, even, slugs.

The males take to the air in mass after evening temperatures rise above 70 degrees.

“When they’re flashing, they kind of only have one thing on their mind: Boy meets girl.”

Every lightning bug species has a unique flash pattern. The males will flash while in flight and the females will respond with the same pattern from the ground.

Faulkner mentioned the bugs in his 1957 novel “The Town:”

“Then, as though at signal, the fireflies — lightning-bugs of the Mississippi child’s vernacular — myriad and frenetic, random and frantic, pulsing; not questing, not quiring, but choiring as if they were tiny incessant appeaseless voices, cries, words.”

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

Their topic was “Freedom’s Friendship” — in particular, the lifelong friendship between two icons of early American history: James Monroe and Gilbert du Motier, commonly known as the Marquis de Lafayette.

A large American flag towered above the proceedings and flapped at half-staff over the historic fort’s battlements as historians Robert Kelly and G. Mark Walsh spoke in commemoration of American independence and the 193rd anniversary of the passing of the fort’s namesake.

Monroe, the fifth president and former Virginia governor, died July 4, 1831. But the story of his friendship with Lafayette began during the Revolutionary War.

Monroe was born in Westmoreland County and later attended William & Mary. Just 18 when war broke out, he joined the Continental Army.

Lafayette, a French aristocrat, was 19 when he arrived in Philadelphia to join the American cause in 1777.

Both fought with distinction against the British Empire. They first met at the Battle of Brandywine. Monroe’s knowledge of the French language helped to establish their bond.

“So imagine their closeness in age, their closeness in temperament, the language commonality and all these things are making these young men very close,” Walsh told the small crowd.

Walsh, a member of the National Advisory Board for the James Monroe Memorial Foundation, added that the war heroes’ bond was deepened through a shared acknowledgement of the hypocrisy of the Declaration of Independence words “all men all created equal” while institutionalized slavery continued to exist in America.

“Monroe increasingly had difficulty with those words,” Walsh said. “… Lafayette takes those words and uses them in his first draft of the (‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’).”

After the war, Lafayette returned to France and exchanged dozens of letters with Monroe and the other founding fathers, helped in the Louisiana purchase and recommended another Frenchman, General Simon Bernard, to oversee the design of American coastal fortifications. Bernard was placed in charge of the Board of Engineers and constructed forts, roads and canals.

“Fort Monroe, however, was Bernard’s true masterpiece and it has often been called ‘the Gibraltar of the Chesapeake,” Kelly told the crowd.

Kelly, the vice-president of American Friends of Lafayette, added that this year is the bicentennial of Lafayette’s final trip to America. In 1824, Lafayette was invited to the U.S. as a “Guest of the Nation” and visited all 24 states.

Lafayette was in Hampton Roads on Oct. 24, 1824. The American hero — who happened to be French — was escorted through Fort Monroe with the highest military honors.

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

The pier was taken over by a crew shooting a scene for a Hollywood musical based on music producer Pharrell Williams’ 1970s childhood in Virginia Beach. Private security guards meandered along the Boardwalk and Virginia Beach Marine Patrol officers guarded the pier entrance throughout the morning, repeatedly explaining to each new curious passerby:

The pier would remain temporarily closed to the public during filming.

The biopic, directed by Michel Gondry, doesn’t have a title yet, but is being filmed in Richmond and Hampton Roads and drawing on locals for its production. The Chad Darnell Casting agency invited Virginia natives to apply to become movie extras and, about 1:30 p.m., about 50 filed out of vans.

Everyone was decked out in 1970s clothing and colors: faded greens and dusty yellows, striped burgandies and opaque couché. Men wore short swimming trunks and some donned straw hats. Marceo Richardson-Cahoon, 22, wore a holey, green tank top. 

He and his sister, 26-year-old Lynia Cahoon, both from Norfolk, stood in line near the pier, excited. A couple weeks ago, they drove to Richmond to be fitted by costume designers. Cahoon said her brother is autistic and this would be his first job.

“So,” she said. “I was like, that’d be a good story for you to tell people; ‘I was actually an extra in a movie.'”

Her brother smiled. They were cast as beachgoers and assumed they’d be asked to walk around on the sand as the cameras rolled. Cahoon was also cast as a “clubgoer” for a scene, she said, that would be shot later at another Virginia Beach location.

“I can’t wait for my face to be on the big screen,” she said, with playful gusto.

Her brother said: “It’s exhilarating.”

Caroline Tetschner of Virginia Beach and Erna Pulley of Chesapeake chatted while waiting in line. They’d also carpooled to Richmond several weeks ago.

“It’s so cool to see somebody like Pharrell Williams, especially with his roots in this area, bring something of this scale to life,” Tetschner said, “and to be a teeny tiny part of that, is pretty awesome.”

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

They conceptualized, performed and filmed the video of Jake Clemons’ song “Born Like Me,” which was released Wednesday to commemorate Juneteenth.

Clemons, a 1998 GSA alum, has been a tenor and baritone sax player with Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band for 12 years. He is the nephew of Clarence Clemons, a Norfolk native and longtime saxophonist for Springsteen’s band until his death in 2011.

The song has been available to stream since 2022. Clemons wrote it in the wake of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s 2020 deaths at the hands of police; the lyrics reflect on racial violence, the need to stop racial injustices and people coming together in peace.

The song includes Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Allison Russell and Tom Morello, the former guitarist for Rage Against the Machine.

The music video, however, is the work of GSA students.

“I wanted to think about a way to have a visual aspect of this release, and in some fantasy, I wanted to be able to promote this school that I’m very proud of and grateful for,” Clemons said in an interview.

GSA students from every department played a part. Music students composed the intro and outro. Theater and film students organized the shoot and controlled the cameras; students represented the song’s repeated lyrics of “I can’t breathe,” such as by being wrapped in cloth and depicting drowning.

Viewers might recognize a few locales, including the top of the Dominion Tower parking garage, the Interstate 264 overpass near Harbor Park and the dark flow of the Elizabeth River that acts as a backdrop in multiple scenes.

Ava Harlan, then a high school senior, was a first-assistant director and created call sheets and scheduled shoots.

“We’ve had so many opportunities at GSA so far, but this is definitely the biggest one,” she said, standing on set in downtown Norfolk. “It really is just the dream.”

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

Rockers the Red Hot Chili Peppers and rapper/movie star Ice Cube, all from Los Angeles, will perform June 28 at the Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater at Virginia Beach.

Indie rock band Irontom will join them on stage.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers produced hit singles throughout the 1990s and early 2000s including 1992’s “Under the Bridge,” 1999’s “Scar Tissue” and 2006’s “Dani California.” The band has won three Grammy Awards including the 1992 Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance with Vocal for  “Give It Away.”

Ice Cube began his music career in 1988 as a songwriter and rapper for the group N.W.A. before  launching a solo career with the 1990 album “AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted.”

Cube’s hit songs include “No Vaseline” in 1991 and “It Was A Good Day” in 1992.

He starred and co-wrote the 1995 movie “Friday” and got top billing in other films including “21 Jump Street” and “Ride Along.”

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

___

If you go

When: 7 p.m. June 28

Where: Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater, 3550 Cellar Door Way, Virginia Beach

Tickets: Start at $239

Details: virginiabeachamphitheater.com