Whit Sheppard on Muck Rack

Whit Sheppard

  • Author and Journalist
Boston
As seen in: ESPN, The Boston Globe, Richmond Magazine (US), Virginia Living
Covers:  Sports, Lifestyle, Culture
Author and long-form narrative journalist
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Articles by Whit Sheppard

Elder Fraud is an Epidemic

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By Madeline Mayhood, Whit Sheppard, Adam Ewing
| Virginia Living
You’re happy, healthy, and about to settle into retirement. Falling for a fraud scheme? No way. You’re way too sharp. You can spot them a mile away. Think again. Take William Webster—as in the William Webster. He and his wife, Linda, came perilously close to falling victim to an elder fraud scheme that began with an unsolicited phone call and a Jamaican lottery scam.
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Bubbling Up

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
Sparkling wine maker Claude Thibaut received a rich cultural inheritance from his father—one of the first growers in France’s Champagne region to produce his own vintage in the late 1950s—while growing up on his family’s small vineyard two hours east of Paris. Thibaut, 60, is an expert in the méthode Champenoise, a labor-intensive method that produces the signature bubbles in Champagne and sparkling wines.
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Search and Rescue

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
At first, it seemed clear who needed whom the most. Mosie came into my life a decade ago. I had moved to Richmond a year earlier after five years in Paris where I covered tennis for ESPN’s fledgling dot-com, work that sent me to exotic locales like Dubai, Rome and Moscow. But there’s no aloneness like bouncing between nondescript hotel rooms in far-flung places where few speak your language and even fewer know your name. I had toyed with the idea of getting a dog while still in France.
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Up A Tree - VirginiaLiving.com

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
Stafford County native Drew Dunavant takes tree-climbing to the next level. You’d think a man who earned a living scampering up and down trees might settle for a more sedentary hobby. Stafford County native Drew Dunavant, 27, an arborist and safety manager at TrueTimber Arborists in Richmond, started climbing at 14 with his friend and mentor James Earhart, who won the world championship at the International Tree Climbing Championship (ITCC) in Tampa in 2015.
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Why We Ride

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By Whit Sheppard, Adam Ewing
| Virginia Living
Great bikes and the people who love them. Adam Ewing has been photographing riders and their bikes over the last few years, capturing them in moments of rare stillness. A lawyer, a mechanic, an entrepreneur, a CPA, a soldier—Ewing’s portraits are of men and women who, in their daily lives, seem very different from one another.
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For the Love of the Game

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
Acclaimed video game designer Mohammad “Mo” Alavi of California-based game developer Respawn Entertainment studied at Richmond’s Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School before starting to create “mods,” or modifications,  to video games like Quake and Half-Life while a student at Virginia Tech. He started his design career at leading game developer Infinity Ward before earning widespread cred in the gaming community for his work on Call of Duty and Titanfall.
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Game On

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
The bar arcade concept combines two aspects of the terrestrial and digital—actually, analog—worlds, marrying craft beers and spirits with classic 1980s-era video games like “Mortal Kombat,” “Pac-Man” and “Donkey Kong.” Four 20-something friends opened the first Barcade in late 2004 in a former metalworking shop in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, trademarking the name in 2007.
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Tea for Two

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
The finest services around the state. There is a difference—a distinction, if you will—between what's commonly referred to as "high tea" and the leisurely ritual of "afternoon tea." High tea is in fact a full meal, historically taken by servants at suppertime, while afternoon tea is a light repast served "upstairs," inviting an hour or so of relaxed conversation and nibbling.
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Best Rides

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
More than 57,000 miles of highway in Virginia means great rides are waiting almost anywhere you go. The trick is picking one. Here are a few to get you started. Route 17’s Back of the Dragon is 32 miles spanning three mountains and more than 300 curves between Tazewell and Marion in Southwest Virginia. A meander along Skyline Drive from Front Royal to Waynesboro offers 105 miles of breathtaking scenery and awe-inspiring lookouts in the heart of Shenandoah National Park.
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Historic Spaces, Modern Faces

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
New uses for rooms from bygone eras. The inherent challenge in any historic home renovation—and Virginia is chockablock with them from Wytheville to Winchester to Williamsburg—is to layer on functional updates reflective of the needs of family life in the 21st century while simultaneously preserving the innate characteristics of a property.
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Here Comes the Sun

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
Plants that can take the heat. The trick to maintaining a vibrant plantscape in Northern Virginia, according to Ken Duffy, ASLA, of Oakton’s Geoscape Inc., is to choose species that will do well in specific areas of the region’s diverse microclimates. Variations in soil quality and the timing and duration of sun exposure are key elements in this fragile alchemy. Jennifer Horn, RLA, an Arlington-based landscape architect, recommends different plant combinations, depending on the sun factor.
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Start Your Engines

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
The Primland racing experience offers a weekend of high-speed luxury. The Primland racing experience invites guests to spend the weekend with top racing professionals. One of the highlights is a 190-mph “hot lap” with either Tom Kristensen or Harold Primat in the 585-horsepower Audi R8 LMS, a terrestrial version of riding shotgun in a fighter jet. Think lots of G-force.That’s no ordinary getaway.
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Make 'Em Laugh - VirginiaLiving.com

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
“Bwahahahahahaha!” is a totally appropriate reaction to a clever SNL skit, but in a yoga class? Amidst a backdrop of reverential hush punctuated only by sporadic grunts and the occasional “Om”? Laughter—commonly referred to as “Laugha”—yoga aims to change that thinking.
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The World Comes to Waterford

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
It’s not your ordinary concert series,” says board member Barbara Josselyn of the Waterford Concert Series, which kicks off its 23rd season March 19 with a performance by Canada’s St. Lawrence String Quartet. “It’s an intimate, personal experience.” Co-founder Eleanor Adams grew up in a family with its own string quartet.
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Need A Lift? - VirginiaLiving.com

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
You won’t find too many Virginians complaining about mild winters, save perhaps for skiers craving a velvety cushion of powdery snow underfoot.
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Black Gold - VirginiaLiving.com

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
Let’s say you’re a garlic lover and a fellow aficionado mentions he has recently discovered organic black garlic. He tells you it has twice the antioxidant and antibiotic properties of traditional white garlic. Would that pique your interest? And suppose he told you it doesn’t cause garlic breath. That would seal the deal, right? Virginia Tech grads Lisa and Pat Lloyd are betting on it. In 2011, they left careers in the pharmaceutical business and teaching, respectively, to found Obis One.
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The French Are Coming!

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
Richmond’s French Film Festival, which celebrates its 25th anniversary March 30 - April 2, is the brainchild of two local French literature and culture professors who already knew a thing or two about navigating cross-cultural partnerships when they first conceived the idea in fall 1992. The inaugural festival was held just a few months later. Drs.
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The Real Deal | Virginia Living

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By Whit Sheppard, Martha Steger, Dawn Klavon , Konstantin Rega 
| Virginia Living
John McGuire’s SEAL Team inspires resiliency. SEAL Team physical training bootcamps. Photos courtesy of John McGuire In October 2006, former Navy SEAL John McGuire broke his neck in a freak trampoline accident and the immediate prognosis was dire: the trauma-care doctor who treated McGuire told his family that it was highly unlikely he would survive through the night, and if he did, he would never regain the use of his arms or legs.
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The Real Deal - VirginiaLiving.com

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
In October 2006, former Navy SEAL John McGuire broke his neck in a freak trampoline accident and the immediate prognosis was dire: the trauma-care doctor who treated McGuire told his family that it was highly unlikely he would survive through the night, and if he did, he would never regain the use of his arms or legs.
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“No Soup for You!”

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By Whit Sheppard
| Virginia Living
The Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center hosted its annual “Great Winter Soup Cook-off” fundraiser Feb. 10-11 in Abingdon, with headliner Larry Thomas, the “soup Nazi” from Seinfeld, character actor and author back for a second appearance at the event. “I have found the people of Abingdon to be some of the nicest, most hospitable people I’ve ever met,” he wrote via email.
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He Paid the Price

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By Whit Sheppard
| Richmond Magazine (US)
The official Wilson NFL football, circa 1977 — one of three still on display in Mary Ann Easterling's simply appointed South Side brick rancher — says it all, really. Just underneath the laces, the ball's smooth brown leather surface gives way to a section painted white long ago, meticulously inscribed with her late husband's name, the date — Sept. 18, 1977 — and the game result — Falcons 17, Rams 6 — in red, black, silver and white, the Atlanta Falcons team colors of the late 1970s.
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