Best of the Valley: How Voting Works & How to Win

Who votes in Best of the Valley and why it exists

Best of the Valley is a readers' choice awards contest, and the community it belongs to is Harrisonburg, Virginia and the valley around it. The Daily News-Record, the city's daily newspaper, runs the program and describes it in plain terms: each year, the paper asks the public to nominate, and then vote for, their favorite businesses, businesspeople, events and attractions in and around Harrisonburg. The people who decide the outcome are ordinary readers and local customers, not a panel of judges.

The ballot lives on Valley Hometown Guru, a companion site the paper operates for this market. That site is organized the way a local directory is: arts and entertainment, food and drink, auto, body and soul, home, kids and education, medical care, pets, services and shopping all appear as browsing sections, and a Winners 2026 area lists the most recent results. The contest's own about page, which doubles as the program's voting URL, sits at https://valley.hometownguru.com/page/about-valley-hometown-guru.

The paper behind it is easy to identify. The Daily News-Record publishes from S. Liberty Street, Suite 101, Harrisonburg, VA 22801, and lists 1-540-574-6200 as its contact number, so a business owner who wants to ask about the contest is dealing with a named local newsroom rather than a faceless national platform.

Best of the Valley facts

Which editions of Best of the Valley are confirmed

The program has a long confirmed run for a local readers' choice contest. Editions are confirmed for 2021 through 2026, six consecutive cycles, and the organizer's own description of the contest uses the phrase "each year," which matches that run. The 2026 edition is the latest, and it has already produced published results: the Hometown Guru site carries a Winners 2026 section naming the businesses that finished first.

The calendar is the part the organizer leaves off the page. No nomination opening date, no voting start date and no closing date for the 2026 edition appear on the about page, and no rule on repeat voting is printed there either; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Two structural facts about the cycle are clear from the organizer's own text. First, the contest has a nomination phase before voting, so a business must be nominated by the public before it can collect votes. Second, the subject of the ballot is fixed: businesses, businesspeople, events and attractions in and around Harrisonburg, Virginia. Everything else about timing and rules is something the paper publishes on its own schedule, and the Best of the Valley 2026 blog category on the site is where cycle-specific announcements appear.

How a supporter votes in Best of the Valley today

Voting in Best of the Valley works in two stages, both open to the public. In the nomination stage, a supporter submits the names of favorite businesses, businesspeople, events or attractions in the Harrisonburg area. In the voting stage, the same public returns to the Hometown Guru site and votes among the nominees that made the ballot. Both stages happen on valley.hometownguru.com, the companion site the Daily News-Record runs for this market.

Getting to the ballot is straightforward. The program's voting URL is https://valley.hometownguru.com/page/about-valley-hometown-guru, and the site's front page also links through category sections such as food and drink, services and shopping, which mirror the kinds of businesses the contest covers. A supporter who wants to vote for a particular restaurant, spa or shop navigates to the relevant category and casts a ballot for the nominee listed there.

What the ballot asks of an individual supporter, beyond the vote itself, is not spelled out on the organizer's about page. Whether the Harrisonburg ballot requires registration, whether it limits repeat voting, and whether it runs on a daily return pattern are details the paper handles on the live form rather than in a standing rules document. The practical instruction for a supporter is therefore simple: nominate early in the cycle, come back when voting opens, and let the live ballot govern the details.

How Best of the Valley sits among Virginia readers' choice ballots

Virginia has no shortage of public-vote awards programs, and Best of the Valley is the Harrisonburg entry in that field. Its closest neighbors on this site are Best of Arlington in the Washington suburbs, Best of Charlottesville and the Daily Progress Charlottesville Readers' Choice in the Charlottesville market, the BroadwayWorld Central Virginia Awards and BroadwayWorld NOVA Awards on the theater side, and Best of Coastal Virginia Magazine in another corner of the state.

Three things separate the Harrisonburg contest from those neighbours. The organizer is a specific local newspaper, the Daily News-Record, rather than a magazine or a national theater title. The subject matter is broad: any business, businessperson, event or attraction in and around Harrisonburg can be nominated, which makes the ballot a general readers' choice exercise rather than a single-industry award. And the platform is the paper's own Hometown Guru property, so the contest, the winners list and the directory-style browsing sections all live under one roof.

For a business owner, the practical consequence is that support has to come from the Harrisonburg audience. A customer base in Arlington or Charlottesville does not transfer, because each of these programs counts only the votes cast on its own ballot for its own market.

Strengthening support for a Best of the Valley nomination

Because this contest opens with a nomination round, the first job for a Harrisonburg business is to be named at all. Ask regular customers to submit the nomination while that stage is open, since a business that misses the nomination window cannot appear on the voting ballot later. Once voting starts, the ask changes: supporters should return to the Hometown Guru site and cast votes in the categories where the business is listed.

The organizer's published pages for this contest do not set out a policy on outside voting help, so any business weighing paid support should check the live rules before spending anything, and can compare service options through award contest votes. What is certain from the format is that the ballot counts public participation in a local market, so outreach that reaches actual Harrisonburg customers, in person, by email or through the business's own social channels, is the support a readers' choice contest is designed to measure.