The Best of 2024 - Government Leader of the Year
The FXBG Advance has launched the first in an annual series of awards recognizing the best article, government leader, and person of the year. Today, the Government Leader of the Year.
2024 Government Leader of the Year
The FXBG Advance best-of-the-year awards are voted on by our Board of Trustees, writing staff, and senior editorial staff.
In 2024, the Advance reported on numerous examples of government organizations and leaders acting in ways that stood in direct contradiction to the core of government work — public service.


Our winners of the 2024 Government Leader of the Year award, however, personify public service.
“The week had barely begun,” began Adele Uphaus’ story from December 5, “and already Cynthia Lucero-Chavez, the McKinney-Vento liaison for Stafford County Public Schools, was attempting to navigate the families she works with through a new crisis.”
Adele Uphaus presents the 2024 Government Leader of the Year award to Michelle Patton Swisher of Spotsylvania on Friday, December 20, 2024.
It was the first in a two-part series (Read Part I and Part II) about the daily efforts of the McKinney-Vento liaisons in Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, and Stafford public schools to address the increasingly complex needs of our areas most vulnerable children.
As the numbers of children attending schools who are homeless, in unstable housing situations, or living in families struggling to provide basic necessities soars, the jobs of people such as Lucero-Chavez have become even more challenging. In no small part because of the restrictions that McKinney-Vento dollars come with.
And yet, every day, the McKinney-Vento liaisons in Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, and Stafford get up and deal with the crises they daily face.
For their extraordinary commitment to public service, the FXBG Advance is honored to name the McKinney-Vento liaisons in Fredericksburg (Jennifer Bunn), Spotsylvania (Michelle Patton Swisher), and Stafford (Cynthia Lucero-Chavez) our Government Leaders for 2024.
The Advance delivered awards to Bunn and Swisher on Friday, December 20. Lucero-Chavez will be publicly recognized in Stafford on January 7, 2025.
Read about the 2024 Article of the Year
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The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.
First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
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