After driving an hour from her home on the Eastern Shore for a doctor appointment, Adrianna Pruitt waited in an exam room.

The 21-year-old would soon be catching up with a doctor she knows well at The Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters clinic in Virginia Beach. Dr. Marta Satin-Smith, 62, has been treating Pruitt since diagnosing her with diabetes when she was 2.

“It’s not even talking to the doctor, it’s like you’re talking to your family member or friend,” Pruitt said.

Now, after spending her entire 27-year career at CHKD, Satin-Smith is about to retire.

“I’ve been telling them, my group, that I’m going to retire for over a year,” Satin-Smith said. “They haven’t found a replacement for me.”

The shortage of non-primary care specialty physicians was estimated to grow to between 33,700 to 86,700 by 2033, according to a June 2020 report by the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Read more in the Sunday Main News section

Sometimes, where you’re seated at the table can make all the difference.

When a city code enforcement officer meets with a business owner, sitting across from one another can set up an oppositional relationship. But taking a seat on the same side of the table can signal a willingness to collaborate. That’s how Bill Mellon, zoning team leader for Norfolk’s recently formed Business Compliance Unit, explains it.

Mellon gained this insight at a training session last month by Safe Night Inc., a consultant group hired by the Downtown Norfolk Council to build new relationships with downtown businesses, to help them succeed and reduce crime in the area. Subtle changes like this, based on evidence-based theory laid out by Safe Night co-founder Molly Mastoras, fit into a larger picture of how city regulators plan to interact with business owners going forward.

Read more in the Sunday Main News section

Hampton Roads cities are finalizing their budgets for fiscal year 2024 and are hosting meetings for public comment. Here’s how you can weigh in on spending priorities in your community:

Read how to contribute in the Sunday Main News section

After 20 years, Scott Jackson thought he’d seen it all.

For two decades, he has directed and produced the grand spectacle that is the Virginia Arts Festival’s International Tattoo.

Jackson creates the choreography, and finds and brings in civilian and military bands from around the globe to perform alongside U.S. military musicians. He has booked flights, dealt with delays, rebooked flights for performers stranded here, there and everywhere from Africa to Asia — always ensuring they made it to Norfolk for curtain call.

But he’d never encountered anything as “dramatic” as what it took this year to get a group of Ukrainians to Hampton Roads and help the young women overcome the obstacles of war. The Crazy Drummers, an all-female group of 16 dancers and drummers, will perform at the tattoo Thursday through Sunday.

Read more in the Sunday Break section

Bald eagles are conservation darlings.

Once lurching toward extinction, eagles flew off the endangered species list as the number of mating pairs nationwide soared from a low of a few hundred in the 1960s to nearly 10,000 by the late 2000s.

And the Chesapeake Bay region has continued to burnish its reputation as one of the country’s top bald eagle breeding grounds, registering a nearly fivefold leap in paired males and females during the past two decades.

But can there be too much of a good thing? Perhaps so, according to one of the region’s leading avian researchers.

Bald eagles are conservation darlings.

Once lurching toward extinction, eagles flew off the endangered species list as the number of mating pairs nationwide soared from a low of a few hundred in the 1960s to nearly 10,000 by the late 2000s.

And the Chesapeake Bay region has continued to burnish its reputation as one of the country’s top bald eagle breeding grounds, registering a nearly fivefold leap in paired males and females during the past two decades.

But can there be too much of a good thing? Perhaps so, according to one of the region’s leading avian researchers.

Read more in the Sunday Break section

Gerald Divaris and F. Denver McGarey have known each other for more than 20 years, sharing projects and clients.

And both of their commercial real estate companies, Divaris Group and The McGarey Group, were founded on the same things: family values and family relationships.

Their connection took on new meaning on March 1 when The McGarey Group, a mixed-use development, leasing and advisory services firm headquartered in Pinehurst, North Carolina, became a division of Virginia Beach-based Divaris Group.

The acquisition extends Divaris Real Estate’s services and expands its footprint regionally as well as nationally.

Read more in the Sunday Work & Money section

Two days after removing his football facemask for the final time of the 2022 season in November, Hampton University cornerback Bryon Perkins flew to New York City to speak of taking off his other mask. The one concealing his sexuality.

Featured on a 12-minute national TV segment of the “Tamron Hall Show,” Perkins, 22, recalled revealing a month earlier that he was gay. Perkins is the first Division I football player at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) to do so.

“Once I realized that I was hurting myself to appease the idea people had of me, I decided I could no longer live that way,” Perkins told Hall. “I really just wanted to be a better version of myself.”

Read more in the Sunday Sports section

Note To Readers:  A reminder that Parade magazine is now only found along with your e-edition of either The Virginian-Pilot or Daily Press each Sunday morning.  Print copies of Parade magazine ceased after the November 13th issue.