Sadly, the Altavista Journal reported several tragic events during 2011.
One incident that especially hit the community hard was the death of two teens in a single-vehicle accident in early July.
Altavista's Shawn Michael Thacker, 15, and Lynchburg's Jenny Kay Mattox, 19, died in the wreck on Route 43. A 16-year-old driver of the vehicle, also of Altavista, was injured in the crash.
Several hundred people came together at the Booker Building for a candlelight vigil to remember Thacker and Mattox.
A number of other tragedies touched the community last year.
In February, Alexis Morgan Dillard of Altavista died in a single-vehicle accident on Roark Mill Road in Pittsylvania County.
Twenty-one-year-old Britney Smith, who lived in Lynch Station, drowned in June near Tri-County Marina at Leesville Lake.
In July, two people from Lynchburg were killed in a collision in Prince Edward County. A Rustburg man, Caleb M. Evans, was charged.
In September, 18-year-old Kristopher Ronald Dudley was killed in a single-vehicle accident on Ricky Van Shelton Drive near Hurt.
A hit and run accident in Bedford County in October took the life of Ben Johnson Wright III of Rustburg. A Lynchburg man, Paul Victor Cornato, was later charged.
In November, 5-year-old Andrew Wilson, a kindergartner at Gretna Elementary School, died in a house fire.
Also that month, Hurt's Jennifer Nicole Eades, 25, was one of three people killed in a two-vehicle wreck in Bedford County.
Kevin Lee Jacobs, 26, died in an industrial accident at Amthor International in Gretna in December.