DAMASCUS, Va. (AP) _ Witnesses described a frantic scene and close calls after an elderly driver plowed into dozens of hikers marching in a small Virginia mountain town’s parade. 

 Investigators say they are looking into whether the man had suffered a medical emergency before the accident. The driver was being treated and hasn’t been identified. 

 About 50 to 60 people suffered injuries ranging from critical to superficial, but no fatalities were reported. Three of the worst injured were flown by helicopter to area hospitals. 

 It happened during the Hikers Parade at the Trail Days festival, an annual celebration of the Appalachian Trail in Damascus, near the Tennessee state line. 

Photo credit: rpv.org

The Republican candidates for Virginia governor, lieutenant Governor and attorney general will campaign together in a statewide fly-around Sunday through Tuesday.  Ken Cuccinelli, Mark Obenshain and E.W. Jackson will visit ten cities in those three days.  It is their first series of first joint campaign appearances since their nominations Saturday at the Virginia GOP convention in Richmond.  The events include a 10:30 a.m. appearance in Roanoke at Landmark Aviation’s outdoor courtyard at Roanoke Regional Airport, and an 8:45 a.m. Tuesday appearance at the Lynchburg airport general aviation terminal.

Rev. E.W. Jackson

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ Virginia Republicans have chosen firebrand conservative minister E.W. Jackson’s for lieutenant governor, the first black candidate the party has nominated for statewide office since 1988. 

 Jackson provoked the loudest ovation of the day at from the tea party-dominated Republican Party convention in Richmond on Saturday, declaring in an impassioned speech, “I am not an African-American, I am an American!” 

 He won the nomination on the fourth ballot over six rivals. As the only black candidate, he becomes the first black Republican nominee since the party nominated Maurice Dawkins in 1988. 

 Jackson heads a nondenominational church in Chesapeake and credits his religious background for his shift from the Democratic Party. His first GOP bid for office came last year when he lost the U.S. Senate nomination to former Sen. George Allen.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ State Sen. Mark Obenshain has won the Republican nomination for attorney general in Virginia 35 years after his father won the party’s U.S. Senate nomination. 

 Obenshain was nominated by acclamation on a voice vote after his rival, Del. Rob Bell, conceded defeat after the first ballot at the Virginia Republican Convention on Saturday. 

 Obenshain’s father, Richard Obenshain, won the party’s U.S. Senate nomination in the same building in 1978, but was killed in August of that year when a small plane carrying him home from a campaign event crashed when Mark Obenshain was 16. John W. Warner took his place on the ballot and won the first of five U.S. Senate terms. 

 Onstage with Obenshain when he accepted the nomination was his mother and Richard Obenshain’s widow, Helen Obenshain.