Caroline County's Commonwealth's Attorney Tony Spencer (right) on harmonica and Mike Ross of Stafford County team up to play a bluegrass tune one evening at Cafe on Main Street. Spencer's daughter Josephine joins in the fun. Sandy Singer View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

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CLOSE KNIT Caroline County's Bowling Green is the kind of friendly community where everyone knows your name

Caroline County's Bowling Green has small-town charm and friendliness

BY JIM MASON

Date published: 6/6/2009

BY JIM MASON

FOR THE FREE LANCE-STAR

SHARON KOSKI tools around Bowling Green in a big red Dodge Ram 1500 pickup truck when she's not walking about on the sidewalks of the Caroline County town's tree-lined streets.

She and husband, Sam, came to Bowling Green from England by way of Washington state and Fredericksburg.

"When we moved to America, we had no job and no house" she said. "We stayed at Sam's grandmother's house in the state of Washington."

Then Sam, an aeronautical engineer, landed a job at the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren. So the couple packed their belongings into a U-Haul and trucked across the country to Fredericksburg, where they rented an apartment.

The couple had met in Virginia Beach while Sam was in the Navy stationed at Oceana Naval Air Station. She was on vacation at the time.

"We fell in love and he followed me to England," Sharon said.

After their wedding, Sam, 31, wanted to return to the United States. "I told him I would only move to America if I could have a big red truck," Sharon said.

He agreed. Now she not only has her "big red truck," but also has a job of her own.

The former Sharon Coombs, born and raised in West Wickham in Kent, England, works as a neurodiagnostic technologist at Mary Washington Hospital. She performs brain scans and related tests that aid in the diagnosis of patients with disease or injury of the central nervous system.

Sam was born in Orlando, Fla. He has lived in Hawaii, California and Idaho. His father was in the Navy.

In the summer of 2007, the Koskis saw an ad in The Free Lance-Star about a home lot for sale in Bowling Green. They headed to the Caroline County town 20 miles south of Fredericksburg to check it out, only to discover somebody else had bought it.

"But we fell in love with Bowling Green and wanted to stay," Sharon said.

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Date published: 6/6/2009