Brendan Fitzgerald has a piece in C-Ville Weekly at the intersection of juicy gossip and hard news: outgoing UVIMCO CEO Chris Brightman may have been forced out due to an affair with an employee. The University of Virginia Investment Management Company handles UVA’s endowment—billions of dollars—and Brightman’s abrupt resignation a few weeks ago came as a surprise. About the same time, his executive assistant left UVIMCO. Now Fitzgerald sees that the coworker with whom Brightman was having an affair—one Carolyn Barfield Sawyer—is being divorced by her husband, eleven days after Brightman’s resignation, citing her affair with a coworker during a work-related trip to Arizona. Of course, nobody is commenting on this. In an odd coincidence, Barfield was recently hired by City Council to replace the retiring Jeanne Cox as Clerk of Council. One of her recommendations is said to have come from Brightman.
Update: I reversed Brightman and Barfield in an initial version here—it’s Barfield’s spouse who has filed for divorce.
Waldo,
Please note that Brendan’s story does not say that Mrs. Brightman filed the divorce petition in question. We have no record or knowledge of Donna Brightman’s legal standing with regard to husband at this time.
The Brightmans’ Blandemar Farms house was listed for sale at $2.75M on April 6.
http://realcville.blogspot.com/2010/04/ex-uvimco-ceo-christopher-brightman.html
D’oh—that’s an important distinction! What did read:
Now reads:
It must have been the similarities between “Barfield” and “Brightman” that led to my misreading. Thanks so much for that correction, Cathy.
The Hook and C-Ville Weekly both had this story and it’s interesting to compare and contrast what they did with it. The Hook avoided the temptation to get down in the mud and instead allowed its readers to connect the dots on their own. Tastefully done. Meanwhile, C-Ville plunged right into the muck. Sorry Cathy, I’m normally a fan but this was below you.
Please. All one has to do it watch the relentlessly uncharismatic Harding on the website and they will understand her lack of insight….
Sounds like this guy really messed up. This will be big.
He and Tiki should compare notes. Maybe they can go to rehab together.
This is not really news and I don’t see the purpose of posting this personal stuff about these people’s private lives on the internet. Just leave them alone.
Waldo, a Media General paper won a Pulitzer today. The Bristol Herald Times won for an investigative story I had not heard about: natural gas royalty ripoffs in Va.
Bristol Herald Courier, that is. And the WP calls it “a small paper in the coalfields of Appalachia.” Bristol is not in the coalfields, and MG is not that small.
Stories like this remind us there are few things more intellectually insulting or hypocritical than Christians and editors riding a high horse of morality.
Giddyup!
The Bristol Paper is the closest paper to some of those counties. I went to HS in Wise County and if we subscribed to the paper, that’s what we got.
Dad opened a K-Mart there in the middle of the 364 day coal strike. (1989) Before that store opened, folks made trips to Bristol and surrounding cities to shop or to Roanoke or Bluefield.
It’s good to see Brightman’s got all his friends supporting him. It was starting to worry me that the blog comment community had suddenly grown a heart.
It is also funny to see anonymous commenters calling out newspapers, who publish stories with their real names. Classic.
Maybe even funnier that I didn’t give mine? Joke’s on me. HA HA! You commenters win again!