Volume 13 • Issue 3 December 2017
Merry Christmas “Pappy, he will find our den . . . right?” December 2017
High Country Magazine
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December 2017
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C O N T E N T S
18 34 18
The Beech in the Mountains
34
DA Banks of Prices Creek
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Cheryl and the Snowbelles
56
The Past is Online
44
Carolina Caribbean Corporation opened its Beech Mountain development 50 years ago to exuberance before going bankrupt. Today, the town and resort are thriving.
Seeking re-election in 2018, Seth Banks, district attorney for the 24th prosecutorial district in Western North Carolina, has made a name for himself as a tough but fair prosecutor..
A former Radio City Rockette, Cheryl Cutlip perfomed all over the world as a dancer based in New York. Now, she teaches the Carolina Snowbelles in the High Country.
In just 2 years, the Digital Watauga project has processed 4,500 items, mostly historical photos. A collaboration between the historical society and public library, the past is now viewable online..
56 Painting by Peg Carino
on the cover
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n this month’s cover is a painting by Peg Carino who also did the cover painting for last year’s December issue. We enjoyed her painting so much from last year we asked her if she would make a return appearance this year with a new painting, which she didn’t hesitate to say yes. And her story continues with her family of bears who last year were ice skating away on a pond near Tynecastle. This year the bears are back, hanging out near their den, hoping and wondering if old St. Nick will pay a visit. Peg lives in Banner Elk and stays busy as a painter, and is known as “the artful gourmet.” She spends much of her time creating one-of-a-kind works of art and commissioned pieces that tell the stories of her patrons. Most of the time, she paints realistically and incorporates elements of visual illusion. “I am a whimsical painter. Even though many of my pieces may look somewhat serious at first glance, there is always something very whimsical in it that only the recipient of the painting will know,” she said. “I do family history, murals, furniture and decorative pieces.” Want to know more about Carino’s work? Contact her by email at artfulgourmet@gmail.com or ring her up at 828-260-9399.
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December 2017
READER SERVICES ABOUT US
The first High Country Press newspaper was published on May 5, 2005, and the first issue of High Country Magazine went to press in fall 2005. In March of 2012 the newspaper made the transformation to an online newspaper at our new website: www.HCPress.com. Our new “webpaper� is still packed with information that we present and package in easy-to-read formats with visually appealing layouts. Our magazine represents our shared love of our history, our landscape and our people. It celebrates our pioneers, our lifestyles, our differences and the remarkable advantages we enjoy living in the mountains. Our guiding principles are twofold: quality journalism makes a difference and customer care at every level is of the greatest importance. Our offices are located in Boone, and our doors are always open to welcome visitors.
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828.295.9886 www.JenkinsRealtors.com 452 Sunset Dr • Blowing Rock, NC December 2017
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FRO M T HE PUB L ISH ER
A Publication Of High Country Press Publications Editor & Publisher Ken Ketchie Art Director Debbie Carter Advertising Director Jeffrey Green
Everyone Loves A Parade
E
Ken Ketchie
verybody loves a parade and that certainly was evident at this year’s Blowing Rock Christmas Parade which was held on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It seemed like everyone was there! The Blowing Rock Chamber reports that an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 people lined the streets – in some places 4 to 5 deep to watch the parade travel the half-mile route down Main Street. It was the largest crowd ever for the Christmas Parade! There were fancy cars, dignitaries, families, non-profit organizations, businesses and some familiar floats - as well as a few new surprises. The Watauga High Marching Band is always there and is a big a hit with their Christmas music, and the clogging and tap dancing performances never gets old. The parade lasted just under an hour and the whole time folks were delighted to be there. There were lots of families with their wide eye kids hoping to snag some candy being thrown from the floats and grandparents having as much fun as their grandkids. And of course Santa Claus ended the parade waving to everyone. The previous night was also amazing in just how many people show up at the Memorial Park where an overflowing crowd of folks enjoyed the Christmas Tree lighting ceremony, live music and caroling, hay rides, hot chocolate and cider. Blowing Rock has certainly established itself as the place to be to kick off the Christmas season. Banner Elk held its Small Town Christmas Celebration with a fun day of activities on Saturday December 2nd. A few years ago they started having their parade in the evening starting at 6:00 pm. Many of the floats were decorated with Christmas lights and the nighttime darkness makes for a magical setting for paradegoers. The parade ends at the park where there were train rides, luminaries, light shows and visits with Santa. Their “Parade of Lights” has become a hit with the town folks and visitors alike as each year the crowds grow in size as Banner Elk’s kick off the Christmas season with their Small Town Christmas Celebration. Coming up next for me is the Boone Christmas Parade on Saturday December 9th. King Street will be lined for the 11:00 am parade with folks ready for this year’s presentation of floats and pageantry. Last year Three Folks Baptist Association presented a 10-float procession that shared Bible stories scene-by-scene on decorated floats from various churches from around the High Country. I’ll be on the look out for what they will have in store for us this year. After the Boone parade folks head up to the Jones House to warm up with hot cider and cookies. So from all of us paradegoers I’d like to thank all of those parade participates who take the time and make the effort to get their floats and presentations ready for us to enjoy. Because everyone loves a parade. Merry Christmas! 8
High Country Magazine
December 2017
Contributing Writers Jesse Wood Jan Todd Tim Gardner Frank Ruggiero Kate Herman
Contributing Photographers Todd Bush Jan Todd Frank Ruggiero
High Country Magazine is produced by the staff and contributors of High Country Press Publications, which serves Watauga and Avery counties of North Carolina
HIGH COUNTRY MAGAZINE P.O. Box 152, Boone, NC 28607 828-264-2262 Follow our magazine online where each issue is presented in a flip-through format. Check it out at:
HighCountryMagazine.com Reproduction or use in whole or part of the contents of this magazine without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Issues are FREE throughout the High Country. © 2017 by High Country Press. All Rights Reserved.
WE SUPPORT
SHOP LOCAL
December 2017
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Calendarof Events DECEMBER 2017
1-30
Tweetsie Christmas, Blowing Rock, (Fridays and Saturdays Only), tweetsie.com
1 & 3
Ensemble Stage “A Christmas Carol” Banner
6-7
App Ski Mtn Anniversary Weekend,
february 22-25
Elk, ensemblestage.com
appskimtn.com
8
Holiday Stroll, Downtown Blowing Rock, www. blowingrock.com
8-10 9-24
13
SugarFest, EDGE of the WORLD Mini Games, Sugar Mountain, skisugar.com Santa at Sugar, Sugar Mountain, skisugar.com Studio K Youth Ballet Company: The Nutcracker, The Schaefer Center,
totally retro ‘80s ski weekend, beech mountain
theschaefercenter.org
28
15-17
An Ensemble Christmas, Ensemble Stage at Valborg Theatre, ensemblestage.com
25
31
Christmas Day Skiing, App Ski Mtn, appskimtn.com New Year’s Celebration, Sugar Mountain,
31
New Year’s Eve Beech Mountain Resort,
New Year’s Eve Extravaganza, App Ski Mtn,
16-19
february 2018 3 4
beechmountainresort.com
31
january 2018
5-6
7
7
EDGE of the WORLD Snowboard Demo Days, Sugar Mountain, skisugar.com USASA Slopestyle, Winterfest Beer Festival, Beech Mountain, beechmountainresort.com National Winter Trails Day, Sugar Mountain, skisugar.com
7 9
Smith / Dakine / Armada Shred for the Cup Rail Jam, App Ski Mtn, appskimtn.com Septuagenarian (70 and Older) Party, Sugar Mountain, skisugar.com
15-19
Adaptive Ski Week, Beech Mountain, beechmountainresort.com
Arbor / SPY Shred for the Cup Big Air,
21
Appalachian Ski Mtn, appskimtn.com
25-28
WinterFest, Downtown Blowing Rock, blowingrockwinterfest.com
27-28
USASA Skier/Boarder X, App Ski Mtn,
appskimtn.com 10
High Country Magazine
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Totally Retro ’80s Ski Weekend,
Beech Mountain, beechmountainresort.com
24
Banked Slalom, Beech Mountain, beechmountainresort.com
24-25
USSA/SARA U16-U21 & Masters Championship, Sugar Mountain, skisugar.com
march 2018
3
Heroes on the Mountain, App Ski Mtn, appskimtn.com
Richard T. Trundy Memorial Sugar Cup Competition, Sugar Mountain, skisugar.com 5-end March Madness, Sugar Mountain, skisugar.com 11 Easter Egg Hunt, Last Day of the Season Celebration, Sugar Mountain, skisugar.com 17 St. Patrick’s Day Park Jam, App Ski Mtn,
5
appskimtn.com
23-24
Banff Mountain Film Festival,
The Schaefer Center, theschaefercenter.org 24-25
December 2017
Volcom/ Electric Shred For the Cup Slopestyle Finals, App Ski Mtn, appskimtn.com President’s Day Family Weekend, App Ski Mtn., appskimtn.com
appskimtn.com
Roxy Ladies Park Night, App Ski Mtn,
appskimtn.com
skisugar.com
The Great Cardboard Box Derby, Beech
Mountain, beechmountainresort.com
Meltdown Games, App Ski Mtn., appskimtn.com
DON’T FORGET
EVENTS
Christmas at Tweetsie Tweetsie Railroad is bringing the Polar Express to life this Christmas season. For the first time ever, Christmas at Tweetsie Railroad will take place every Friday and Saturday of December. Christmas at Tweetsie provides the opporturnity for all to meet Santa in his gingerbread house; photograph opportunities are available when meeting Santa. Telling Santa your Christmas list, come take a ride on the Tweetsie train! On the ride you’ll hear Christmas carols while riding on the Christmas lit tracks. If you are excited about the Christmas lights, Christmas at Tweetsie is a true Winter Wonderland that is full of thousands of lights. Be sure to check out Tweetsie Railroad’s first Christmas at Tweetsie event! This is a family friendly event that you will not want to miss!
Weekends Thu Dec.
The Giving Tree at Boone Mall The Giving Tree is located in the Boone Mall, near the old JC Penny. The tree has been up since Nov. 15, and will remain in the Boone Mall until New Years. If there are any remaining items, they will be donated to a local shelter.
Now Dec. 31st
The concept of the Giving Tree is to provide community members with something warm over the holidays, or to alleviate some financial stress during this gifting season. The holidays can bring pressure to purchase the perfect gift for someone, and sometimes people cannot afford to give gifts. So, the Giving Tree was placed in the Boone Mall for those who may be in need but do not want to ask for help. December 2017
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Tweetsie Christmas Rolls Into Town Inaugural Tweetsie Christmas Provides Winter Attraction
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weetsie Christmas is the latest holiday tradition in the High Country. Tweetsie Railroad unveiled this new holiday event in late November. It will run on Friday and Saturday evenings through Dec. 30. This experience includes a train ride on Engine No. 12, fondly known as Tweetsie, a spectacular display of festive lights across the theme park, meetand-greet with Old St. Nick, carolers throughout the winter wonderland, a live Christmas show and roasting s’mores by the fire pit. Cathy Robbins, director of marketing for Tweetsie Railroad, said that the 60th anniversary was a good time to launch a holiday event. Throughout the years, Robbins said guests have asked about a Christmas-themed event. Planning for the inaugural Tweetsie Christmas began a couple years ago, and the opening during Thanksgiving weekend was a hit. “We were sold out the first two nights for our first Tweetsie Christmas,” Robbins said. “We were thrilled to see so many families enjoying all the lights in the park.” With the winters in the High Country becoming less wintry over the years, the local tourism industry has been looking to fill the void when skiing and snowboarding aren’t an option. Robbins said that Tweetsie Railroad hopes Tweetsie Christmas helps to boost the region’s economy in the winter similar to how skiing and choose-and-cut industry helps out in the slower winter months. “Our hope is to bring more visitors to the area in December to purchase Christmas trees, shop, dine, ski and to stay a couple of nights in our lodging properties,” Robbins said. “When we started Ghost Train almost thirty years ago, October was not a very busy month in the High Country. Now, October is one of our busiest months for local businesses. Hopefully, Tweetsie Christmas can help bring more visitation to the area in December and create magical memories for families here.” Tweetsie Christmas costs $38 for adults and children. For more information about the 2018 season at Tweetsie Railroad, located on U.S. 321 in between Boone and Blowing Rock, click to Tweetsie. com or call 877.TWEETSIE. Jesse Wood 12
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December 2017
“Tweetsie,” all decorated with Christmas lights take guests on a train ride along a route decorated with a spectacular display of twinkling lights
Throughout the park guests can listen to carolers, watch a live Christmas Show, roast s’mores by a fire pit, and even step inside a giant snow globe for a picture.
We Make Winter Fun Sugar Mountain Ski Resort skiing - snowboarding - tubing - ice skating - snowshoeing
Sugar Mountain, North Carolina / 800-SUGAR-MT info@skisugar.com / www.skisugar.com December 2017
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Winter Forecast
Woolly Worm aspen Predicts a good winter When Ski Beech was developed in the late ‘60s, there used to be a sign floating around that said, “Someday Aspen will be the Beech Mountain of the West.” Beech Mountain turns 50 this winter, and during the 40th annual Woolly Worm Festival in Banner Elk this past October, “Aspen” was the winning woolly worm. His owner, Joshua Grosser of Apex, took home the $1,000 grand prize. This must be a sign for a good winter. As tradition and folklore beckons, official festival forecaster Tommy Burleson predicted the upcoming winter’s forecast based on the color of the 13 body segments of “Aspen.” Each segment of the woolly worm represents one week of winter; black segments represent a harsher winter, while brown segments predict a milder winter. According to Burleson, the forecast is as follows: • Week one through 3 below average temperatures with snow • Week 4 through 9 average temperatures, meaning 27 degree temperatures, • Week 10, average temperatures with Fleck light snow, • Week 11 average temperatures, • Week 12 and 13 below average temperatures with snow. The festival is co-sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Banner Elk and the Avery County Chamber of Commerce. All proceeds are given back to the community to enhance local schools, children’s programs, and to promote business and tourism in Avery County.
Woolly Worm Prediction Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week 14
1 (Dec. 21 - 27) 2 (Dec. 28 - Jan. 3) 3 (Jan. 4 - 10) 4 (Jan. 11 - 17) 5 (Jan. 18 - 24) 6 (Jan. 25 - 31) 7 (Feb. 1 - 7) 8 (Feb. 8 - 14) 9 (Feb. 15 - 21) 10 (Feb. 22 - 28) 11 (Mar. 1 - 7) 12 (Mar. 8 - 14) 13 (Mar. 15 - 21)
13 Segments = 13 Weeks
Below average temperatures with snow Below average temperatures with snow Below average temperatures with snow Average temperatures (meaning 27º) Average temperatures (meaning 27º) Average temperatures (meaning 27º) Average temperatures (meaning 27º) Average temperatures (meaning 27º) Average temperatures (meaning 27º) Average temperatures with Fleck light snow Average temperatures (meaning 27º) Below average temperatures with snow Below average temperatures with snow
High Country Magazine
December 2017
Ray’s Fearless Forecast slightly LESS SNOW Now, the folklore of a woolly worm – no matter how fast it can crawl up a string – doesn’t stand a chance when matched against the scientific approach of a meteorologist. First of all, that’s not much fun. And second, even Ray would tell you not to put too much stock into a long-range forecast, such as predicting four months of winter weather. Each year Ray Russell of RaysWeather.com, the go-to weather outlet in Western North Carolina and along the Blue Ridge Parkway, publishes the annual Fearless Forecast just about the same weekend as the Woolly Worm Festival. It’s what the readers want. The summary of the 2017-18 Fearless Forecast: • 10 to 15 percent less snow than the long-term average overall (more on the western edge of the Appalachians) • Temperatures about 1 degree above long-term averages (with big swings) To produce this report, RaysWeather.com owner Ray Russell analyzed El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) – as well as 10-year average snow trends in Boone, the North Atlantic Oscillation Wildcard and Arctic ice cover. Check out the entire Fearless Forecast at RaysWeather. com to see explanations of this report and to see some interesting, related graphs. And no, no woolly worm segments were analyzed or beans in jars counted to produce RaysWeather.com’s Fearless Forecast.
Ray’s 2017-18 Forecasted Snow Totals City Asheville Banner Elk Beech Mountain Boone Hickory Jefferson/West Jefferson Lenoir Morganton Sparta Spruce Pine Sugar Mountain Waynesville Wilkesboro
Expected Total Snow/Ice 12 inches 40 inches 85 inches 34 inches 5 inches 21 inches 5 inches 5 inches 20 inches 18 inches 85 inches 14 inches 7 inches
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Bethlehem and Beyond - The Parade Three Forks Association to Reprise Bible Stories at Boone Christmas Parade
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othing kicks off the holiday season like a good parade on a chilly day. If you plan to visit downtown Boone this year for the town’s annual rendition, watch for a special series of floats presented by the Three Forks Baptist Association – they’ve got an important story to tell! In 2016, the association introduced an interchurch project to share landmark Bible stories scene-by-scene by decorating floats and enlisting local church members to play significant characters in each one. Led by Perkinsville Baptist Church member Kandy Taylor, the group will reprise the new tradition at the upcoming Town of Boone parade on Saturday, Dec. 9. “Last year was incredible. People were still talking about it in July,” Taylor said. “We were so grateful, so we’re very excited to see what will happen this year. We are trying to get more creative and be more detailoriented.” A component of the association’s “Bethlehem and Beyond” series of Christmas events, the parade project will incorporate 11 depictions this year:
• Creation and the Fall, Perkinsville Baptist Church • The Nativity, Mount Vernon Baptist Church • The Heavenly Host, Three Forks Baptist Association • The Shepherds, Union Baptist Church • The Wise Men, De la Cruz Farms • The Woman at the Well, Laurel Fork Baptist Church • The Good Shepherd, Three Forks Baptist Association • The Last Supper, Laurel Springs Baptist Church • Jesus Loves the Children of the World, Oak Grove Baptist Church • The Crucifixion and the Resurrection, Brushy Fork Baptist Church • Heaven, Union Baptist Church “We do this to bring unity to the community and to show the truth of the gospel,” said Taylor. “The gospel is for everybody, and Jesus is the way.” One of the longest standing organizations in the High Country, Three Forks Baptist Association is a net16
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December 2017
Pictures from last year’s parade
work of more than 30 churches in Boone and surrounding communities. The association aims to unify local believers in spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ and sharing God’s ultimate message of hope with the community. Its online calendar maintains a master list of holiday celebrations, services and festivities hosted by area churches, including Christmas caroling and musical performances, drive-through and live nativity scenes, a Christmas Festival and more. The Bethlehem and Beyond Christmas Festival will take place on Saturday, Dec. 16 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Boone Mall, 1180 Blowing Rock Road. Formerly known as the “Bethlehem Bonanza,” this annual event will return for 2017 with arts and crafts, group activities and good, wholesome holiday fun for the whole family. It’s designed for children ages 12 and under and will include ornament making, group story time, special treats and more. All children attending the festival must be accompanied by an adult at all times. The Boone Mall will also host a series of Christmas caroling throughout the month of December that are also being hosted by the Three Forks Baptist Association. “We provide Christ-centered activities at the beginning of each December for our community,” Three Forks Baptist Association Office Manager Jennifer Waldorf said during last year’s events. “These activities give us a chance to remind the community of the reason for the season and of God’s love.” Whether you belong to a local church or not, everyone in the community is invited to get involved and enjoy the Bethlehem and Beyond festivities. If you would like to help with the parade project, get the scoop on other Bethlehem and Beyond events or learn more about the Three Forks Baptist Association, contact the association office in Boone at 828264-4482 or reach the staff by email at threeforks@bellsouth.net. Get more details at www.3forksassoc.org.
The Town of Boone’s annual Christmas parade will begin at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 9. For more information on the parade route and other details, contact the Jones House Community Center at 828268-6280 or reach Sarah Upton by email at sarah.upton@townofboone.net. Get to know folks from local churches and learn about the unconditional love of Christ and the good news of the gospel by joining Bethlehem and Beyond events this year! By Jessica Isaacs
BETHLEHEM AND BEYOND CHRISTMAS FESTIVAL WHEN: Saturday, Dec. 16, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. WHERE: The Boone Mall, 1180 Blowing Rock Road For more information, contact Three Forks Baptist Association at 828-264-4482.
It’s that time of year Visit Boone Drug at New Market to send some Christmas cheer! Custom made Christmas cards printed in house Personalized tumblers, mugs and note cards Now carrying Crane&Co. stationary & Christmas cards Boone Drug at New Market 245 New Market Center Boone, North Carolina 828.264.9144
December 2017
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50
...Years Thomas Brigham
Grover Robbins
Ray Costin
Ryan Costin
Carolina Caribbean Corporation installed an Italian-built, skis-on gondola that could carry 1,000 skiers per hour to the top of Beech Mountain. It was one of just three that operated in the US at the time.
SKI BEECH
After Carolina Caribbean Corporation’s heyday and bankruptcy, Beech Mountain Resort is thriving under the Costins’ ownership. By Jesse Wood
T
he heyday of Carolina Caribbean Corporation operating atop Beech Mountain was something else. Nearly a fantasyland with Jack Pentes’ Land of Oz creation, the resort’s mile-high atmosphere, cast of characters and vibrant community created a magical era when it opened 50 years ago. Throughout the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Carolina Caribbean Corporation salesmen spent their weekends flying in guests from all over the country to pitch them on Grover Robbins’ vision of Ski Beech. After landing at what is now Elk River Airport in DC-3s and being bussed to the top of the mountain, salesmen would wine and dine prospective members inside the Beech Tree Inn or downstairs in the private Red Baron Room, according to John Wade, an early salesman and one of the original homeowners in the development. “We’d fill them up on bloody marys, beer and on up. Feed them. Show them property. They could go skiing and what not for the weekend. On Sunday, we’d wrap it up and hopefully make a few sales,” recalled Wade. “There was nothing else like it. People would come up here and basically get under the ether.” Thomas Brigham, a dentist from Alabama who
later started nearby Sugar Mountain Resort and Snowshoe in West Virginia. Spencer Robbins, Grover’s brother, recalls visiting the undeveloped mountain with Brigham in 1965. This was the same year Grover bought out Brigham and his investor’s initial land contracts because they struggled to raise necessary funds to build the ski resort. At the time, Beech Mountain Parkway was a 16-foot-wide gravel road that ended halfway up to the top of Beech. The road then narrowed to one-lane and continued to the meadow at the Elder Farm on Elderberry Ridge, according to the Images of America’s Beech Mountain publication. Brigham, with Robbins riding shotgun, drove to the last house up N.C. 184. They unhooked the snowmobile from the back of Brigham’s car and rode the logging trails all over the mountain. “It was a beautiful day with quite a bit of snow on the ground. We spent 3 to 4 hours touring the mountain,” Spencer remembered. “It was one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen.” Spencer would later head up north with Brigham prior to’67-68 ski season to meet with a representative of the ski industry to purchase some skiing equipment. They bought 1,400 pairs of ski boots, skis and poles. While they were making the order, a December 2017
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lady came over and asked, “Why would two gentlemen with such southern accents be ordering skis?” “We tried to explain to her, we were trying to develop a major ski project in the mountains of North Carolina. It was hard for her to conceive of such a development in the south,” Spencer recalled. “She kind of laughed at us.” The land acquired from Brigham and his investors totaled about 1,800 acres, but Grover had bigger plans for Beech Mountain. With 40 initial investors pitching in $20,000 a piece, Robbins secretly began acquiring adjoining properties from about 20 other families. By 1970, the year Robbins died of cancer, the company held 10,000 acres. More than a quarter of that was located at the base of the mountain, where the Elk River Club and the old Beech Mountain Airport is today. Robbins envisioned a four-season community with golf courses, an airport, ski resort, The Land of Oz attraction, and more. 70-plus miles of road – about the same mileage of roads throughout Blowing Rock and Boone combined – were built. 5,200 of the 9,000 planned lots were sold. At its peak, 350 people were building the roads and water-andsewer utilities in the resort, and 300 CCC agents were selling Beech Mountain real estate in about 10 different states. “It was an amazing deal,” said Fred Pfohl, owner of Fred’s General Mercantile atop Beech and a former employee of Carolina Caribbean Corporation. “It was almost a fantasy land.” Aside from affluent and potential investors being flown in on airliners, Beech Mountain attracted a lot of people who weren’t necessarily being pitched to purchase property back in those days. They just wanted to work and have a good time. The resort’s slopes and word of mouth from family and friends attracted many to the mile-high resort. A phone call from a buddy is what got Pfohl to leave Greensboro after returning home from serving in the Vietnam War. His friend, John Troxler worked on building the
The meadow on Elderberry Ridge before the ski slope was built. 20
High Country Magazine
December 2017
An early map of the Beech Mountain Resort (top). Beech Mountain ski slopes descend more than 800 feet from top to base, where the Beech Tree Village is located (below). The meadow on Elderberry Ridge is across from Town Hall today (below, left). The two pictures below are from the early days of the resort.
The ski slopes as it looked soon after it first open in 1968.
“We were family. We were one big family, and we still are.” Rachel Deal, a secretary from Crossnore who worked at Carolina Caribbean’s Beech Mountain Resort from ’69-’74 golf course on Beech in the summer of 1969 and was offered a full-time job as cash control for the ski resort. Troxler called up Pfohl and told him to come and work with him. Pfohl started that New Year selling lift tickets and adjusting ski bindings. Local realtor Jim Brooks, on the other hand, was a college student at App State paying his way through school working in Boone motels in the late ‘60s. He inherited half-a-lot on Beech Mountain with another relative after his grandfather died, and upon graduating college in 1970, he managed the Top of the Beech Mountain Inn. He later joined the sales staff of Carolina Caribbean Corporation. Today, he owns a realty company on Beech called Beechwood Realty. On the evenings during the week, socializing seemed to be the activity of choice on the mountain as the slopes were only open at night on the weekends. The nightlife at Beech Tree was happening with acts like The Kingston Trio and Doc Watson performing regularly. “Everyday something was going on,” said Brooks. “I would look out my office and if you saw folks going over to the Beech Tree, you’d go over there and if things were happening, you’d call your wife.” This nightlife was buzzing even though alcohol sales were illegal. Watauga and Avery counties were dry – as they remain – and Beech Mountain wasn’t a municipality yet with the ability to vote in the sale of beer, wine and liquor. The only ABC store in the High Country in those days was Blowing Rock, and frequent runs were made to stockpile booze on the mountain. Brown bagging, of course, was legal, but unlawful drinks were flowing from the Beech Tree and Red Baron Room, too. Usually, the law would look the other way at resort communities like Beech or Pinehurst, but everyone once in a while lawmen would raid the establishments and confiscate thousands of dollars worth of booze. Watching over the residents were two deputy sheriffs, Grady and Hobart, who worked for the company. While Grady and
Jim Brooks, owner of Beechwood Realty and Fred Pfohl, owner of Fred’s General Mercantile, were both employed by Carolina Caribbean Corporation in the early days. They’ve stayed on the mountain after all these years.
Austrian ski instructors provided entertainment and brought some of the Bavarian culture to Beech Mountain Resort during the Carolina Caribbean Corporation days.
Jim Brooks (above, left) sold Beech Mountain property for Carolina Caribbean Corporation in the ‘70s. This skihaus (right) was among several Alpine-themed properties up for sale on the mountain.
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With the grand opening of the Beech Tree Inn with the Red Baron Room private club in the basement, the Carolina Caribbean Corporation provided a hub of socializing and nightlife atop Beech Mountain in the late 1960s. Hobert couldn’t do anything about the official law coming in to regulate, they did make sure everyone having fun atop Beech made it home alright after a long night of carousing. “They kind of looked after us,” Wade said. With not much to do, the residents entertained themselves. The cast of characters that made up Beech Mountain back in the day would host or attend the daily cocktail parties and dinner gatherings. Among the earliest residents in the development were special-forces personnel and military officers, such as Gen. Wes Moreland, Lt. Gen. Jack Tolson, Lt. Col. Reuben Mooradian, Col. George Handley and Col. Gordon Ripley, among others.
Ripley was one of the initial residents on the mountain and the first veteran to live on Beech. (He would later recruit more of his brothers-in-arms as a salesman for the Carolina Caribbean Corporation.) Like other early residents found out, if you wanted to hang out, you’d just look out your window and see what the neighbors were doing. Story goes, Brooks repeated second hand, “Col. Gordon Ripley, he’d just show up at your house with his bulldog, in his pajamas, with his drink in hand, and say, ‘I’ve come over to drink with you.’” Other well-known individuals to descend upon Beech in the early days, whether as property owners recruited to
The Snow Carnival of the South, a local event that took place from 1969 to 1973, coincided with the explosion of skiing in the South and Western North Carolina. Pro ski racer Jean Claude Killy (above right) was one of the racers. 22
High Country Magazine
December 2017
The Feb 4, 1971 issue of the Watauga Democrat announces the big purses of the Snow Carnival of the South, which included the N.C. Ski Cup at Beech Mountain and Sugar Mountain. Many professional skiers made appearances in the High Country, including (from left) Spider Sabich, Otto Tschudi, Harold Steuffer and Jean Claude Killy. spread the word or just guests to the party, were college football Coach Paul Dietzel, former U.S. Postmaster General Red Blount, football players from the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins team, Playboy Playmates like St. Monique Pierre, Olympic skiers and more. Within just a couple years of the resort opening in 1967, Beech Mountain was hosting professional races and attracting
world-class skiers with big purses up to $30,000. There were even posters floating around that said, “Someday Aspen will be the Beech Mountain of the West.” Olympic and professional skiers like JeanClaude Killy, Otto Tschudi, Spider Sabich, Billy Kidd and Jimmy Huega competed in competitions like the Snow Carnival of the South, N.C. Ski Cup, International Ski Racers’ Association Grand Prix and
Southern Star Classic. “[Back then] we had the third largest purse in the world on the international professional race circuit,” Brooks said. “That year, Mickey Mantle was there. Miss Canada was there and all those pro racers.” But the fun didn’t last forever. In 1975, Carolina Caribbean Corporation filed for bankruptcy. Several factors contributed to the demise of the corporation and a
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T
The Legendary Red Baron Room
he Red Baron Room opened January 1970. It was a private club in the basement of the Beech Tree Inn, which was the happening spot in the Beech Tree Village during the era of Carolina Caribbean Corporation. With a side door, the Red Baron Room was another one of Jack Pentes’ creations. For $100 per year, members could bypass the crowded Beech Tree Inn upstairs and hang out in the themed club dedicated to World War 1 flying ace Manfred von Richthofen, also known as the “Red Baron.” Carolina Caribbean Corporation staff flew to Germany and met the widow of Red Baron and came back with memorabilia to decorate the interior of the private club. The space featured maps, airplane wings, an engine rotor and more. The Red Baron Room actually consisted of four different rooms: a museum, bar, an operations room and a supply room for card games. “The main room featured an authentically Vern Holland (above) was Members of the Red Baron Room received designed and detailed 1917 French bar replete an early “Red Baron,” which special glasses for each specialty drink they with wine racks. This large bar was a favorite consumed. These glasses are showcased in the with members as well as the Carolina Caribbean meant he received an award given to leading Carolina Beech Mountain Historical Society musuem. Corporation sales staff. Many a land sale was Caribbean Corporation completed there. The piano player provided ensalesmen, according to the tertaining music, and members enjoyed dancing all over this lower level,” according to the Images Beech Mountain Historical of America book produced by the Beech Mountain Historical Society. Society. Members could bring their own booze under the brown-bag laws, but buying a drink from the Beech Tree Inn or the Red Baron Room was illegal because Watauga and Avery counties were dry and Beech Mountain wasn’t yet a municipality able to vote in the sale of liquor, beer and wine. But that little technicality didn’t stop the drinks from being poured and served. “The liquor flowed,” said John Wade, a former salesman with the Carolina Caribbean Corporation and one of the original residents of the Beech development. “You “We had the best Mountain had to go all the way to Blowbar in the world, the ing Rock to get it, but needless to say, there was a lot of it Red Baron Room.” in the quote-un-quote private club down there.” Everyone who enjoyed Andy Tenille, an early ski those days in the Red Baron patrolman and current Room remember the special Grandfather Village glasses and the Blue Max resident. pendants given to those who drank the specialty drinks such as the Lafayette Escadrille, Night Patrol, Gotcha, Kicking Mule, Sopwith Camel and Hat in the Ring. Andy Tenille, an early ski patrol member at Beech Mountain, who resides in Grandfather Village today, recalled one of the specialty drinks not mentioned above: the Upside Down Margarita. Just like it sounds, with this drink you’d sit on a barstool with the back of your head on the counter, holding two bottles and consume some tequila, triple sec and lemon juice. “We had the best bar in the world, the Red Baron Room,” said Tenille, nearly 50 years later. Though Carolina Caribbean Corporation has come and gone, the Red Baron Room is still around and membership fees are the same. Beech Mountain Resort remodeled the downThe Red Baron Room, featuring World War I aviator décor, stairs of the Beech Tree Bar and Grille prior to the 2015-16 was a private club in the basement of the Beech Tree Inn. winter season. Individual memberships start at $100 and famCCC staff traveled to Germany to purchase “Red Baron” ily memberships are $175. memorabilia from his widow. 24
High Country Magazine
December 2017
Jack Pentes, a Charlotte-based designer, was the creative genius behind the Land of Oz attraction on Beech. Grover Robbins invited Pentes to create a theme park that would attract people to the top of the mountain in the summer. Land of Oz opened in 1970. sudden halt to development on Beech Mountain. Grover, the resort’s visionary, passed away from cancer in 1970, and he missed seeing the opening of the Land of Oz and the completion of the back nine of Beech’s golf course. Then a few years later, the economy went into a recession and the gas shortage happened. About this time as well, Carolina Caribbean Corporation was finishing up its development in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which consisted of a 100-unit condo and a nine-hole golf course. But several
murders took place in St. Croix around this time, and this violence ended the sales program for The Reef. The company sold the development for a significant loss to generate cash flow to pay for the exhaustive infrastructure that was being built on Beech Mountain. Ultimately, the company just got ahead of itself. “When you get 10 percent down on a $10,000 lot, that’s $1,000 bucks. You might have $7,500 in the cost of the land, the roads, water and sewer, commissions and marketing. With $1,000 coming in
and $7,500 going out, you better figure out a way to sell that mortgage, and they couldn’t sell any more,” Brooks said. “That’s what took us out. St. Croix was a bad deal, and there could’ve been a bunch of profits there, but when we couldn’t discount our paper anymore that was the end of that.” Several banks took over the property immediately after the bankruptcy and slowly divested. Tweetsie Railroad, which was owned by the Robbinses, bought the airport property and what is now Elk Riv-
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er Club. The West Bowl area was auctioned off and would eventually become what is now The Lodges of Eagles Nest. But from the ashes of the bankruptcy emerged a town that is thriving today. The Beech Mountain Property Owners Association, later to become Beech Mountain Club, purchased the golf course and recreation area. But after the bankruptcy less than half of the parcels agreed to stay within the POA and pay dues to pay off the note for the golf course and recreation area. In 1978, the area became a Sanitary District, which was able to levy a tax for water and sewer. Still, the POA couldn’t afford to pay for all of the services, so it appealed to the state. In 1981, the N.C. General Assembly approved a bill declaring Beech Mountain a town with the ability to utilize its municipal taxing authority. “It was wild and woolly, but it was just a lot of people working together to make things work and you know a lot of these people had gone through from the beginning and they were still here,” Pfohl said. “There were all these permanent people around that wanted to live here and make all this stuff work, not only are they invested heavily in building a house and buying lots. This is where they wanted to be
The men in the Costin family: Ryan, current General Manager at Beech Mountain, and his brother, Jack, with their grandfather, Ray, and father, John.
Ray Costin (left) bought Beech Mountain Resort in the ‘80s. His son, John, also managed the mountain, before Ryan took over. Ray died in 2012 at the age of 90.
because it was a beautiful place and all the other things that came with it.” Tri-South Mortgage Investors controlled the ski area and Land of Oz theme park. The latter would close down in 1980. By the early ‘90s, Emerald Mountain Realty developed a gated community around much of the old Land of Oz theme park. While the attraction will never operate like it once did, attracting hundreds of thousands of people each year, Emerald Mountain Realty does open the property to the public a few weekends per year with “Journey with Dorothy” in June and “Autumn at Oz” in the fall. Profits from these annual events help to pay for maintenance of what remains of Land of Oz. In 1985, Ray Costin bought the ski resort from Tri-South. It remained throughout the bankruptcy proceedings as it proved to be a profitable endeavor. Since Costin purchased Ski Beech, it has stayed a family-owned resort – something noteworthy in the face of a consolidating industry with public companies like Vail scooping up ski resorts across the country. Though Carolina Caribbean Corporation went bankrupt and the Land of Oz shuttered its doors, only to return for a few weekends a year, Ski Beech never
Moving into the 21st Century, the Costin family continues to improve and upgrade the Beech Mountain Village and slopes, bringing the resort of 95 acres of skiing terrain, a terrain park, ice skating, shops and restaurants and more back into its prime. 26
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December 2017
Gil Adams Retiring as Beech’s Ski Patrol Director After 30 Years
W
hen Gil Adams was a teenager working the ski patrol during the Carolina Caribbean Corporation days, he’d sneak off into the control room for the PA system, where you could dial a certain number and echo whatever across the entire mountain. “Nobody was supposed to know much about it, but ole Gil Adams. He was messing with playing the banjo or whatever and hanging out in the ski patrol room. He’d go down there and dial nine and start playing bluegrass on the thing, and I would have to run down there and shut him up,� laughed Fred Pfohl, owner of Fred’s General Mercantile and former ski operations manager at Ski Beech. Gil Adams has been around the mountain since Ski Beech was first developed. Hailing from Kingsport, Tenn., Adams was introduced to the High Country as a kid attending Holston Church Camp in Banner Elk. His parents bought a lot atop Beech Mountain before roads were even built and the entire family skied Beech the first year the resort opened 50 years ago. Adams’ father enrolled Gil and his brother Mark in first aid class and then the brothers joined the ski patrol, where they were able to ski without having to pay for a lift ticket. That was in 1970, when Gil was 18 years old. Employed by Carolina Caribbean Corporation in those early days, he’d work ski patrol in the day and in the restaurant washing pots and pans at night. “Back then, it was magical era,� Adams recalled. “The village was alive then also. I believe it was 1971 when the men’s pro tour came to Beech Mountain with JeanClaude [Killy], Billy Kidd, Spider Sabich. That was very exciting and I think the following year, the women’s pro tour came.� In 1970, he left Beech Mountain to attend the University of Tennessee. But soon moved back before ski season began. He lived atop Beech and down in Banner Elk off and on throughout the decades. He’d work at the ski resort during winter and in construction or the cab-
bage patch in the summers. He’s worked in the ski patrol now for about 50 years, 30 of which were as director of ski patrol. In the early ‘70s, he gave the only known ski patrol to delivery a baby on the mountain after a women’s car broke down. “I looked up to see where our boss was and he’s running to the bar because he said, ‘If there’s a doctor around, he’ll be down at the bar,’� Adams recalled. “The baby came out blue. As soon as we touched that baby with our cold hands, it started crying and became pink. We wrapped the baby in a ski patrol jacket and took the mother and baby to the hospital.� On the ski patrol, Adams worked beside physicians, medics, college kids, carpenters and plumbers. All had outdoor medical training, and all volunteered their time on the slopes. Some received a paycheck as employees, while others were strictly volunteers. “But we are all professionals,� Adams said. “We are there to protect and help serve people. If somebody becomes sick or injured, yes we are there to help. But we are also there to provide customer service and assistance.� He also worked as the marketing manager for Beech Mountain Resort for about 10 years, beginning in the late ‘90s, and he served multiple terms on the Beech Mountain Town Council. Throughout the years, he, of course, taught his kids how to ski and is still playing music. He’s an original member of the Corklickers and has been a stand-in for the Laurel Creek String Band. (The Corklickers will perform at Beech on Jan. 5, the Friday night before the resort’s Winterfest Beer Festival.) Adams is retiring from the director position of the ski patrol. This winter, Beech Mountain Resort will make a smooth transition between Adams and the newly hired ski patrol director Brad Blackwell. But Adams isn’t going anywhere. He plans to volunteer on the ski patrol at Beech for the foreseeable future. “I’ll be doing that until I’m pushing up daisies,� Adams said.
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Snowboarding at Beech Mountain
Ryan Costin took over as general manager of Beech Mountain in 2008. Since taking over, Beech Mountain is operating smoother than ever and customer word of mouth hasn’t been better.
Skiers take the quad lift to the top of the mountain
The View Haus was completely remodeled in 2014
Mountain biking on Beech grows in popularity each year.
The ‘5506 Skybar is a bar at the top of Beech’s slopes. 28
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December 2017
missed a beat during the upheaval of Beech Mountain Resort in the ‘70s. And under the current leadership of General Manager Ryan Costin, 34, grandson of Ray, since 2008, Beech Mountain is truly thriving. His father, John, previously served as general manager. When Ski Beech opened 50 years ago, only a few slopes were running, such as the Upper and Lower Shawneehaw slopes and Powder Bowl. When the ski resort opened, the developers were caught off guard by the amount of people who arrived to ski at Beech Mountain – and many of them already knew how to ski. “There were a lot of transplanted people who were skiers who moved down South to work and had no place to go ski. This took the Carolina Caribbean developers by surprise with how big the crowds were (initially),” said Gil Adams, former marketing manager at Beech and retiring ski patrol director of 50 years. A rarity on the East Coast to this day, Beech Mountain Resort is known for its quaint pedestrian village with a Swiss-Bavarian flavor at the base of the slopes. As the Image of American: Beech Mountain book produced by the Beech Mountain Historical Society wrote, “The Beech Tree Village was the hub of activity on the mountain, both in winter and summer. In winter, snow and ice turned the village into a glittering wonderland and night skiing and ice-skating made the evenings lively.
In summer, the ice rink was turned into an activity center. The shops in the heart of the village were open year-round.” The Bavarian theme added to the unique and festive character of Beech when it opened in the late ‘60s – that and the Austrian ski instructors that arrived on the mountain. Austrian ski champion Willie Falger and his wife, Kitty, were Beech’s first ski instructors. Not only did the Falgers and other Austrians teach folks how to ski, they shared their lively culture with everyone. They wore Lederhosen and danced and sung to an oompah band. These sounds echoed through the village. When Grover Robbins and the Carolina Caribbean Corporation developed the resort atop Beech Mountain, skiing, golfing and socializing was just a means to an end. The goal was to sell real estate. By the time Ray Costin bought the development, the resort had to stand on its own. It did during the bankruptcy and it has done so under three generations of Costins. While Ray and John Costin had other endeavors, managing Beech Mountain is Ryan’s sole focus. “When my dad was here he still had his construction business he was involved and pretty hands on with, and my grandfather had numerous endeavors, and none of them actually lived up here in a full-time capacity,” Ryan said. “That was the biggest difference.
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Talia Freeman is the director of marketing at Beech Mountain. She is also responsible for scheduling the live entertainment and coordinating the annual festivities on Beech Mountain.
National acts like Acoustic Syndicate and Nappy Roots have performed atop Beech Mountain. This winter, big names like Town Mountain, Marcus King and Flow Tribe are scheduled to perform at Beech Mountain in January and February.
Over the years each winter, the Bathing Beauty Contest, Great Cardboard Box Derby and 80’s Retro Ski Weekend have been some of the popular events at Beech Mountain Resort. 30
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December 2017
“As for the mindset, I am sure everyone has a pretty similar concept with what they want to see happen with regards to going about the operation. And then, we grew up skiing and snowboarding – me and my brother and sister. My dad was not exposed to that growing up and certainly my grandfather wasn’t.” Looking around, Beech Mountain Resort has succeeded in continuing and helping to complete Grover Robbins vision of a four-season destination. In recent years, Beech Mountain Resort has added snowtubing, a craft brewery and the ‘5506 Skybar, a sweet glass roundhouse that allows patrons to relax and soak up the view at the very top of the mountain. Instead of jumping off the chairlift and attacking the mountain, folks can mingle with a beverage and snack and enjoy the stunning views. They’ve also added mountain biking trails and scenic chair lift rides. The lift rides can also take mountain bikers with their bikes and disc golfers up the mountain. Then there is the nightlife that Talia Freeman, director of marketing at Beech Mountain, brings to the village. Bands like Acoustic Syndicate and Nappy Roots have performed atop Beech Mountain. This winter season national acts like Town Mountain, Marcus King and Flow Tribe are scheduled in January and February. The Great Cardboard Box Derby, 80’s Retro Ski Weekend and New Year’s Eve celebration with fireworks are a few of the events that make Beech
Mountain festive each year. From an operational standpoint, General Manager Ryan Costin said that priorities this year include streamlining the customer experience, maintaining aging infrastructure that comes with half-century anniversaries and improving snowmaking capabilities. For example, the famous Beech Tree Bar and Grille (formerly the Beech Tree Inn) and the Red Baron Room downstairs was completely renovated for the 2015-16 season. The previous year, the lighting system for night skiing was upgraded, the aging J-bar beginner lift was replaced with a new Magic Carpet conveyor lift and the Bavarian-style View Haus was completely renovated with new carpet, tables, chairs, railings, lighting and bathrooms with automated fixtures. “It’s nice to talk about 50 year anniversaries but that also is kind of a crutch to some degree. We have a 50-year old facility and probably a bit older than that when you talk about when it was constructed. The variance of temperatures here … makes it difficult to maintain these facilities,” Costin said. “We have somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 roofs and individual buildings we are operating out of. It’s nice and spreads everything out and certainly gives people a different perspective than some other facilities. But with that said, it takes a lot of effort to keep up with it. Our focus is going in and giving everything the attention it needs to try to
The Beech Mountain Historical Society operates a small museum near Fred’s General Mercantile. The museum is open seasonally with rotating exhibits. Topics include life on Beech Mountain before the ski resort; background on its earliest known visitors, the Cherokees; logging, milling and railroads on the mountain; Carolina Caribbean Corporation; early skiing; Land of Oz; and more. Admission is free. Hours vary. For more info, call 828-387-2930 or email beechhistory@yahoo.com.
bring it up to 2017.” Snowmaking improvements are ongoing, too. That’s especially important with the sporadic, warm weather that has become the norm lately of High Country winters. Beech recently made significant investments in about 70 fan guns that are selfcompressed, so the resort doesn’t have to push air up the hill to each snow gun on the mountain. The continued investment in snowmaking allow Ski Beech to take advantage of 48, 36, 24 and even 12-hour windows of below-freezing temperatures to create a quality base. “On hill improvements are, of course, complimented by focusing on off-hill amenities. That’s just as important as the skiing and riding and tubing because of these up and down weather patterns,” General Manager Ryan Costin said. “We don’t want people to come here and miss out on the experience. That’s kind of been the overall focus is to create more activity and more of a timeframe here where you can experience more than you can at some other places.” Gil Adams, the former marketing manager, has seen the whole story of Beech Mountain unfold. He’s been on the ski patrol at Beech Mountain since 1970 and skied on the mountain when it opened in 1967. His parents bought one of the original lots on Beech from the Carolina Caribbean Corporation. He joined the ski patrol as a teenager because his dad figured out that was a good way for him to ski without having to pay for a lift ticket. Adams, who is transitioning away from ski patrol director duties, has seen it all on Beech Mountain. He was around during the Carolina Caribbean Corporation days. He witnessed the bankruptcy, and he’s seen three generations of Costins manage Ski Beech. With Ryan at the helm, Adams said the mountain is definitely in good hands for another 50 years. “[At one time], I kept getting feelings from folks that we were kind of, not on a downhill, but people weren’t talking very nice about us, but since Ryan has been here, our word of mouth with people coming here is that we are building back up,” Adams said. “People see that improvements keep being made. It doesn’t stop. It happens every year.” t
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The 24th Judicial
District Attorney
Seth Banks Prosecutor Seeks Justice for All By Tim Gardner
T
he High Country is home to District Attorney Seth Banks, someone’s life. And it’s especially rewarding when I’m told that who has distinguished himself across the State of North my staff and I have helped people get their lives in order or that Carolina as a highly regarded and respected prosecutor. we’ve helped them and their families in a time of crucial need.” The only child of RobSeth has a strong love for ert and Susan Banks, Seth his country and these Appawas raised in the Prices lachian mountains he calls Creek Community of Yanchome. He is appreciated ey County (approximately across the 24th Judicial Dissix miles from Burnsville) trict for his approachable, on a farm that has been in gracious demeanor. Yet, he his father’s family for five is also known as a tough, generations. Seth gradubut fair, prosecutor in the ated from Mountain Herifive counties he serves: tage High School in BurnsWatauga, Avery, Mitchell, ville. He then earned his Yancey, and Madison. undergraduate degree from From a courtroom to North Carolina State Uniany other setting, Seth versity in 2004 and his law Banks is a man for all seadegree from Wake Forest sons with a passion for University in 2007. living life to the fullest. It After graduating from is his cogent logic and inlaw school, Seth worked as sightful perspective which an assistant district attordraws people from all walks ney in Guilford and Rowan of life into his sphere and counties for five and a half often brings serendipitous years. He later became a blessings. Indeed, Seth has partner with the Bailey and a true love for getting to Banks Law Firm in Burnsknow people and making ville for just over a year. a difference in the commuSeth then won over 47% of nity. “I get to learn about so the three-way vote in the many people and what has 2014 Republican Primary enabled them to succeed race for District Attorney in life or what led them to that May. Shortly before the make, and hopefully overprimary election, Jerry Wilcome, problems,” he said. District Attorney Seth Banks poses at his desk as he prepares to son had retired as District “I am thankful for those study details regarding another case he and his staff will prosecute Attorney and was replaced times when we are able to for the NC 24th Judicial District. on an interim basis by Bob make a positive impact in 34
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The North Carolina 24th Judicial District Attorney’s Staff: From left to right (Back Row) Ginny Tester, Milton Fletcher, Penn Dameron, District Attorney Seth Banks, Matt Rupp, Jennifer Cook and Justin Philbeck; (Middle Row) Jasmine McKinney, Celeste Renfro, Joyce Nations, Brandi Deyton, Jennifer Stevens, Martiza McBride and John Honeycutt; and (Front Row) Brandy Boone, Becky Tehandon and Sherry Perry. Not Pictured- Robin Jenkins and Alex Roberts. Orr, a former Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. As I felt at home in that setting. Seeking justice each day as a prosecutor there was no General Election challenger, Orr then stepped aside for the people of our state quickly became a calling. and Seth was appointed District Attorney by then Governor Pat “I chose to run for District Attorney because of my love for McCrory in June 2014, prior to beginning his full four year term this part of Western North Carolina. I feel extremely privileged in January 2015. Seth to call these mountains has said he will seek rehome. I desired to serve election in 2018. the people of this area and I continue to seek Seth has extensive to make a positive imexperience in all aspects pact through the judicial of prosecution, includsystem. I feel I have the ing serious assaults and right skill-set and experimurder, breaking and ence to enable me to do entering, trafficking of this job well.” drugs and crimes against Juggling time bechildren. He is following tween his main office in through on a near-lifeBoone (Watauga), and time goal of serving the his satellite offices in the people of the High Countowns of Newland (Avtry. “I’ve always been inery), Bakersville (Mitchterested in public service ell), Burnsville (Yancey) in general and the legal and Marshall (Madison), system in particular,” he said. “While attending When he’s not prosecuting a case, Seth Banks can often be found somewhere Seth’s weekly worklaw school I worked as an speaking to an individual, small gathering or at a civic or community event about load is always different crime and the specific functions of the judicial system, or during an election based on present needs intern in a prosecutor’s campaign, meeting and greeting voters such as at this election rally in 2014. and court schedules. He office, and I realized that December 2017
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District Attorney Seth Banks (middle) posed with several of his staff members from Watauga. From left-to- right: Sherry Perry, Investigator; Matthew Rupp, Assistant District Attorney; Celeste Renfro, District Attorney Legal Assistant; and Maritza McBride, Victims Coordinator. detailed his hectic work schedule: “My and members of the public. I enjoy getting tions. We deal with many difficult situadays are spent in court, in meetings with into court when I can, but I have to bal- tions that directly impact the people of our law enforcement officers, judges, defense ance that with overseeing what is going communities. In the midst of these situaattorneys, and members of the public as on with court cases in the five courthouses tions a good prosecutor strives to ensure that guilt does not escape nor innocence well as with the eight Assistant District throughout the district.” Then, when asked how he would de- suffer. One of my favorite Bible verses, Attorneys who work in my office, visiting crime scenes, and giving presentations on fine an accomplished District Attorney, and one I try to follow in my work, is Miemerging issues around the district. Since Seth offered the following professional cah 6, verse 8, in which we are told to “do the 24th Prosecutorial District covers five and personal attributes one should pos- justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humcounties, I do my best to divide my time sess: “An exemplary District Attorney is bly with your God.” Balancing justice with one who seeks justice for the people in his mercy, and doing so with humility, is how among them.” Seth gave several observations when or her region, and thoroughly knows the I strive to approach each case that crosses asked to describe himself as a District At- law and how to apply it in varied situa- my desk.” And Seth has been torney. “I consider mysuccessful in his work self the leader of my as District Attorney, as staff and I have to be can be seen in the speboth hands-on and a cific achievements his delegator in my job,” he office has produced. explained. “I obviously “The overall Crime Incan’t be everywhere I dex Rate in our district would like to be at the is at a ten year low,” he same time, but I’m often noted. “This is a meahaving conversations sure, calculated by the about cases with my Attorney General, which Assistant District Atseeks to gauge the rate torneys in each county. of criminal activity. This I seem to be continuaccomplishment would ously traveling between not have been possible Avery, Madison, Mitchwithout the partnerships ell, Watauga and Yancey that we have formed Counties so that I can with law enforcement have one-on-one conagencies across the High versations with my staff, Seth Banks stands behind his desk in his office at the Country as we jointly law enforcement, judges Watauga County Court House in Boone. 36
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First District Attorney Burgess Gaither 1851-1852
Sherry Perry, Investigator with the District Attorney’s office, stands in the hallway of the Watauga County Court House in front of a vast pictorial display of all the District Attorney’s who have served the North Carolina High Country.
Marcus Erwin 1857-1859
Joseph Adams 1879-1884
B.T. Falls, Jr. 1957-1964
Thomas Rusher 1984-2002
Williford, 29, of Boone, was apprehended, arrested seek to ensure the safety of our community. “My office staff has placed a strong emphasis and charged in connection with the fire. Williford was prosecuted by Seth and his staff on the prosecution of habitual felons. Over the last three years we have been responsible for a fifteen- and he pled guilty to second degree murder, first fold increase in the number of habitual felons sent degree arson, assault with a deadly weapon and to prison. By focusing on habitual felons we have taken repeat offenders off the streets so that we can stop the cycle of criminal conduct. This focus on career criminals has had a direct impact on the Crime Index Rate. We’ve helped make the 24th District a better and safer place. “Additionally, the backlog of cases that I inherited has been virtually eliminated through the combined Investigator Sherry Perry looks up criminal and civil computer data, efforts of my office, our records and related information at her desk in the District Attorney’s resident District and Boone office, located in the Watauga Court House. Superior Court Judges, Clerks of Court and their staffs and law enforcement staffs. Justice delayed is justice denied, and I’m proud that we in the 24th Prosecutorial District currently have one of the highest case clearance rates in the State.”One of the more high-profile cases Seth and his staff have been involved in was an August 2016 fire in the Valle Crucis community of Watauga County that killed one person and injured several others who lived in apartments above the Valle Landing shopping center and restaurant. Benjamin Draughon
drug charges. Williford received a prison sentence of between 25 to 30 years for the murder conviction, another five to seven years in prison for the other charges and was ordered to pay restitution to the victims and their families in the amount of $534,900.41. Gereta Dove, whose daughter, Macie Dove Pietrowicz, perished in the fire, and whose son-inlaw, Marky Pietrowicz, suffered third degree burns from it, praised Seth and his staff for their work in December 2017
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“My staff is one of the best any District Attorney has in the state. They take their roles as public servants seriously as they go into courthouses in Avery, Madison, Mitchell, Watauga, and Yancey counties seeking justice for the people of this district.” prosecuting Williford and also the moral support they provided her family. “Seth is a good, Christian man who was remarkably swift and thorough in bringing justice in the case,” Dove stated. “He got the absolute maximum sentence under the plea deal and he and his staff were very professional, but also loving and so compassionate to our family. We’re very thankful to him and his staff. They could not have been any better.” While Seth is proud of his accomplishments as District Attorney, he’s quick to deflect credit, instead heaping much of it on his staff members who include: Prosecutors John Honeycutt, Matt Rupp, Milton Fletcher, Jennifer Stevens, Jasmine McKinney, Penn Dameron, Justin Philbeck and Robin Jenkins; Legal Assistants Brandy Boone, Becky Tehandon, Joyce Nations and Celeste Renfro; Victim Service Coordinators Maritza McBride, Ginny Tester and Jennifer Cook; Investigator Sherry Perry; Administrative Assistant Brandi Deyton; and Intern Alex Roberts. “My staff is one of the best any District Attorney has in the state,” Seth proclaimed. “In fact, I think my staff members compare very favorably with any such judicial system staff in any state. They take their roles as public servants seriously as they go into courthouses in Avery, Madison, Mitchell, Watauga, and Yancey counties seeking justice for the people of this district.” Seth declared that his most immediate challenge as District Attorney is the opioid and substance abuse epidemic in the 24th District. “So many of the criminal cases in our district involve substance abuse,” he stated. “It’s a major problem that also is sweeping across America. It’s imperative that we come together as communities across our region to address this problem, because there is so much at stake as we seek to sustain our quality of life for future generations. I consider the fight against drug and substance abuse a moral imperative for my office and for our community as a whole. This problem is a challenge that can only be solved by hard work in our district over an extended period of time. But I know that the citizens of our mountain communities are up to that task.” 38
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TOP PICTURE: Legal Assistant Celeste Renfro working feverishly from her desk. MIDDLE PICTURE: Victims Coordinator Maritza McBride prepares to enter yet more information into the District Attorney’s office computer system. BOTTOM PICTURE: Sherry Perry confers with Alex Roberts (standing), a District Attorney’s office student intern attending Appalachian State University.
I
Duties of a District Attorney
n North Carolina, a DisEvaluate Evidence In the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2017: trict Attorney (DA) is the If a prosecutor deelected public official who cides to go forward with a 29,379 cases across the 24th Prosecutorial District were disposed of. represents the state in the case, he or she must study 22 convictions of Trafficking in Controlled Substances were obtained. prosecution of all criminal 4 Murder convictions were obtained. and understand all of the matters. The district at5 Murder cases are currently pending. evidence presented to entorney supervises a staff of 106 Felony Breaking and Entering convictions. sure it meets the elements assistant district attorneys 448 Felony convictions involving the sale, transportation, delivery, or of the crime. The state (ADA), victim witness lepossession of illegal narcotics. legislature defines each gal assistants (VWLA), in21 Felony convictions for crimes involving sexual assault. crime with a series of elvestigators, and other ad506 convictions for Driving While Impaired. ements, all of which must ministrative employees. A be met to satisfy the state’s District Attorney Seth Banks and his staff are responsible for serving the North Carolina 24th district attorney’s primary burden of proof. It is the Judicial District that consists of five counties, covering 1,545.56 square miles and 123,037 people. responsibility, with his or prosecutor’s job to make her assistants, is to proscertain the evidence availecute all criminal cases filed in District and Superior Courts, pre- able and admissible in the case is sufficient to meet this burden. pare the criminal trial docket and advise local law enforcement. Prosecutors in North Carolina generally depend on law enforceSpecific aspects and details of job responsibility for a District ment agencies to produce sufficient evidence of the crime so that Attorney include: the case can be brought to trial and proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Decide Whether to Prosecute
Prosecutors are given wide discretion over whether to prosecute an offender. Even if there is probable cause to believe that a crime has occurred, there is always the possibility that the evidence will not be enough to move forward; witnesses disappear; or evidence reveals that another perpetrator was actually responsible.
Offer Plea Bargains Prosecutors are given wide discretion to negotiate with the defendant’s attorney for a possible plea bargain. A plea bargain is when the state, through its prosecutor, agrees to charge the defendant with a lesser crime carrying fewer penalties in exchange
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Discussing last second preparations before going to court to prosecute yet another load of cases are: (From left-to-right): Jasmine McKinney, Assistant District Attorney; Robin Jenkins, Assistant District Attorney; and Seth Banks, District Attorney. In the background are former District Attorney Tom Rusher and Judge Hal Harrison.
Seth Banks confers with the Honorable Judge Hal Harrison.
The Watauga County Court Room. 40
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There’s perhaps no better way to measure respect than by how one is viewed by their professional peers. And Seth is in high standing state-wide, as evidenced by his being selected to serve as an executive committee member of the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys and as Chairman of the Crime and Victim Services Committee on the Governor’s Crime Commission (both current terms). And in recognition of his skill, expertise and experience in the area of North Carolina Criminal Law, Seth is certified by the North Carolina State Bar as a Specialist in State Criminal Law. Mitchell Sheriff Donald Street applauded Seth and his staff for their work. “My office and the district attorney’s office have a great working relationship,” said Street. “During Seth’s time as District Attorney, there’s been an increase in the amount of time defendants are receiving in court and the amount of trials that are being done in court, which are producing guilty verdicts. Habitual felon cases are being activity pursued and not dismissed for a plea agreement. This is a direct reflection of Seth and his staff ’s keen efforts at curbing crime.” Yancey Sheriff Gary Banks echoed Street’s sentiments: “Seth is doing an excellent job for the citizens of Yancey County and the 24th Judicial District. He’s honorable, hard working and a caring crime victim advocate and prosecutor. Seth also has hired a staff of Assistant District Attorneys and support staff
Duties of a District Attorney for a waiver of the defendant’s right to a trial. The prosecutor must present the plea agreement to the judge, who must approve the agreement and make certain that the defendant understands the agreement.
Conduct Trials If a criminal case goes to trial, the prosecutor must first work with the judge and the defense attorney to select a jury to hear the case. Once the jury is empanelled, the prosecutor presents the jury with an opening statement summarizing the case. The state presents its evidence first to the jury, followed by the defense.
Seeking Justice Prosecutors are the only advocates in the criminal justice system who are sworn to seek justice. Whereas defense attorneys are ethically bound by the rules of professional conduct to advocate for their clients’ interests, prosecutors have the responsibility to be ministers of justice and not simply advocates. This responsibility carries with it specific obligations to see that the defendant is accorded procedural justice and that guilt is decided upon the basis of sufficient evidence. The prosecutor represents the State and, therefore, should use restraint in the discretionary exercise of government powers, such as in the selection of cases to prosecute. During trial, the prosecutor is not only an advocate, but he or she also may make decisions normally made by an individual client, and those affecting the public interest should be fair to all.
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Seth Banks with wife, Gretchen, and their sons, Luke (left) and David (right). J&S Photography of the High Country. that are the most helpful and capable professionals available. While it’s his duty to prosecute and get lawbreakers punished for their misdeeds, Seth and his staff also stress rehabilitation for offenders, as it’s never too late for anyone to change his or her Earthly life around for the better. His job has long hours and can be tedious, but Seth truly enjoys helping curb crime in the North Carolina High Country and in filling the various ambassadorial roles of a District Attorney. Seth is bent for goodwill, and knows that the best things in life – faith, family and friends – are not to be taken for granted. A devoted family man, Seth has been married to his high school sweetheart, the former Gretchen Cort of Burnsville, for twelve years. He and Gretchen’s families have traced their origins to some of the earliest settlers of the Blue Ridge. They have two sons: David, age 5, and Luke, age 3. When he does find some free time, Seth can be found hunting, hiking, backpack camping, reading (he particularly enjoys histories and biographies) or listening to what he calls “old time music.” Sentimental and philosophical, you can find the essence of this man and his professional work in his concluding remarks: “As District Attorney, the people of Watauga, Avery, Madison, Mitchell and Yancey Counties have given me the honor and the privilege of seeking justice for them in courthouses across this District. For that, I express my gratitude. The District Attorney’s Office will continue to work hard to ensure the safety of our community so that our mountain traditions and way of life can be passed on to future generations.” t -Tim Gardner is a freelance journalist for High Country Magazine, and has also has written for other magazines as well as for various newspapers and online sports publications. He makes his home in the North Carolina High Country community of Ingalls. 42
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A picture of the Banks Family walking on Seth’s mother’s old family farm. From left-to-right: Luke, Gretchen, Seth and David.
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The Carolina
Snowbelles Tapping into the Holidays
will have several chances to see this group in action. Next year, the group has been inhether it is curling vited to perform at the Kenup in front of a nedy Center in Washington, fire and watching DC. “White Christmas,” attending Featuring dancers from a production of “The Nutage 10 through adult, the cracker,” or heading to New Carolina Snowbelles reYork City to see the Radio City hearse several hours a week Music Hall Christmas Spectacthroughout the entire year to ular featuring the Rockettes, perfect their precise jazz and enjoying dance performances tap moves. “Precision dance” is a holiday tradition. Thanks focuses on exactness of perto Cheryl Cutlip, former formance, dancers moving in Rockette and director of the tandem to produce an overall Carolina Snowbelles, folks in effect as a group, rather than the High Country can now get that of an individual dancer. a glimpse of the glamour and It takes a tremendous amount Director, Cheryl Cutlip (right) and Dance Captain Lindsay glitz of a “big city” dance proof practice, discipline, and Masland (left) discuss a rehearsal plan for this year’s team duction without leaving town. teamwork. “They have to of Carolina Snowbelles. The Carolina Snowbelles work together,” said Cheryl. are a precision dance troupe forming this year at events including the “If one or two dancers don’t entering their third Christmas season, and Western Youth Network Festival of Trees, get it, the whole group is off.” already tapping their way into the hearts the Holiday Stroll in Blowing Rock, and Cheryl understands hard work and disof the arts community in the area. Per- Christmas parades, locals and tourists cipline. She was a Radio City Rockette for
By Jan Todd
W
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Photos by Chasity Strickland
Carolina Snowbelles (above, left to right) Madi, Elliana, Kati Mac, Ali, Hattie Rose, Ava and Raylee
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Cheryl, age 5, getting ready for a recital
Cheryl, age 7 Yankee Doodle recital costume at Diane’s Studio of Dance 15 years, with an impressive list of stage credits and life experiences that would seem like a dream to many dancers. She also understands what it is like to grow up in a small town. “I come from a one-stop-light town near High Point,” she said. In Archdale, North Carolina, her mother enrolled her at the one dance studio when she was just three years old. When Cheryl was thirteen, she began taking lessons in Winston-Salem with the legendary Mallory Graham, who had choreographed and performed in many Broadway shows in New York. Graham was also known to be very successful in placing his dance students on Broadway. Graham opened doors for Cher-
Cheryl, age 11 performing her first tap solo yl. She described, “When I was about 15, I started dancing in the Miss North Carolina pageant, which was produced by one of my dance teachers. I was getting opportunities to perform on television, and that was very exciting for me. Then that same year, I traveled with a company called Dance Caravan, dancing eight hours a day for six weeks on a 12-city tour during the summer. That was a turning point. My parents knew that if I came back after that tour, still excited about dancing, then that would probably turn into a career for me. And sure enough, I came back knowing what I wanted to do!” After finishing high school and attending UNC-Greensboro for a se-
Radio City Music Hall publishes an annual photo book featuring the current Radio City Rockettes. This photo of Cheryl was taken to represent the Snowball Costume worn for the famous Christmas wreath routine called Santa Clause is Coming To Town.
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Photos by Jenna Markiewicz
Each summer Cheryl hosts a precision dance summer intensive, KICK IT UP. Along with Appalachian State University and local patron, Karyn Kennedy Herterich, Cheryl brings in guest professional teaching artists . The week culminates in a family and friends performance and Carolina Snowbelle audition. The 2018 event is June 26-30. More:www.projectdance.com mester, Cheryl auditioned for Opryland U.S.A. and was offered a spot on the variety show “The Spirit of America” at the Roy Acuff Theater. “Brenda Lee was the star of the show,” remembered Cheryl. “She is such a lovely lady, a real class act.” “So there I was, eighteen years old. I had begun my professional career, quit college and moved to Nashville. I never looked back!” continued Cheryl. “It was a great experience, a training ground in addition to performing. While working for them, Opryland continued training us as dancers, and I gained more skills on that job.” When the Opryland season came to a close, Cheryl went to work on a ship owned by Crown Cruise Lines, a now defunct operator that sailed small ships carrying a few hundred passengers. “The ship I was assigned to was brand new, built in Spain,” said Cheryl. “The whole crew flew to Spain and sailed across the Atlantic. That was an experience like I’ve never had again. On our way out to sea, we were sailing by Morocco, and the captain just decided to stop there for dinner! We were so close, so why not? Then, I remember on about day 5 of the sail, we were in the middle of nowhere, days without seeing land. It was almost a little eerie!” Cheryl continued, “The living quarters were very tiny on the ship. We had to share the space with a roommate, so that made the space even tinier. But it was a fun time. We’d go to the same ports over and over, and get to know some of the locals. I remember in Haiti, we’d go out on a boat and catch our own lobsters, enormous ones about three feet long! Then we’d grill them. It was an amazing time, connecting with people in Key West, Cozumel, Cancun, the Caymans.” “We did a few different shows, a 50’s show, a welcome show, and a more sophisticated theater show. As a young dancer, I was able to save a lot of money on that job, because our rent and food was covered, and there really weren’t many places to spend money!”
Carolina Snowbelle hopefuls auditioning at KICK IT UP
Department Chair, Kevin Warner and Dance Captain, Lindsay Masland evaluating auditions
Brad Parquette teaches ballet portion of audition December 2017
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Cheryl reviews details of new routine, Let It Snow. Photos by Ken Ketchie When her six-month contract on the cruise line was up, Cheryl packed her bags again and this time landed in New York. After a few months of auditioning, she became a princess. Not by marrying royalty, however. Cheryl was cast as Cinderella at Disneyworld in Japan!
She reflected, “Living in Japan, that really opened my eyes. eeing the respect and honor in the Asian culture, as a twenty year old, was life changing. Everything was so completely different, the language, the food, even the way they open books, flipping pages from left to right.”
“The Asians have such a love affair with Disney, and I was Cinderella! So I had fans that would come and visit me in the American village. One of the Japanese customs was to bring a gift when visiting someone. So I would open the door and see these elaborate gifts, and really didn’t
Rehearsals begin each week with a 30 minute company warm up including floor work, stretching, kicks, across the floor jazz and tap skills. 48
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“So there I was, eighteen years old. I had begun my professional career, quit college and moved to Nashville. I never looked back!” understand why they were giving them to me. I still have some of the gifts, beautiful decorations, ornate things. Or sometimes they’d take pictures of the show and bring me postcards of myself. It was amazing, and so sweet.” Cheryl once again returned to New York after eight months in Tokyo. “That was the cycle for a dancer,” she explained. “Go to New York, audition, get a job that goes somewhere else, go back to New York, audition some more. After Japan, I went to Europe to dance on the show 42nd Street, then came back to New York.” The audition for the Rockettes, Cheryl admitted, was just like any other audition. “When you’re a dancer in New York, you audition every day. You have your bag packed, you look through the want ads, and go to auditions. I didn’t grow up dreaming to be a Rockette, I just wanted to dance professionally. So the audition for Radio City was just one on a list of many for me that week.” “I remember the audition as being very long. We learned a routine in a group of our, performed it, then learned another routine. They measured us, made sure we were tall enough. At that time, you had to be 5’5’ to 5’9”. Now it is 5’6 to 5’10.5’. At the call back audition, we did kicks, sang, and had an interview.” Cheryl had no idea that she was beginning a fifteen year
BEFORE December 2017
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The Carolina Snowbelles work tediously to perfect their unified steps. Each dancer relies on the dancers around them to create the lines, kick heights and stage depths while moving together. career with the Rockettes. “I thought it would be like every with him, and he said, “Actually, I was hoping I could have my other job, something I’d do for six months, then do something picture made with you guys!” So it was a whole reversal, with us thinking, “Wow, we’re dancing with else. I didn’t realize that it was a job that Sting!” while he was thinking, “Wow, I’m I could do full time. After we finished performing with the Rockettes!” the Christmas show, I was offered the Easter show, then just kept going. Some In spite of the fun and glamour, life years it was full time, some years it was as a Rockette wasn’t easy. In New York seasonal. Eventually, I became a dance City, thirty six dancers take the stage durcaptain and part of the creative team, ing the Christmas season for more than doing pre-production and behind the 200 shows in an eight-week period. The scenes things. The Rockettes became dancer’s day starts around 9:30am and like a second family to me.” isn’t over until about 11pm. “After the holiday season, we’d take a month off to While a Rockette, Cheryl had a blendlet the body rest and get back to normal,” ed experience of life in the spotlight, said Cheryl. “But it was a fun, fun time.” while in uniform, and living in New York as a “regular person” when not dressed Cheryl lived in New York for about for the part. “Unless I was in costume, no twenty years, during which time she marone recognized me as a Rockette,” said ried Ron, a landscape architect, and had Cheryl. “But on the job, it was a whole two children, Ava (age 12) and Evan (age different culture. The Rockettes are in 9.) Seven years ago, they decided to move the fabric of New York City, so we’d go to the mountains. “It was just a feeling to high profile functions, meet presidents that came over us,” Cheryl reflected. and celebrities, be a part of the pop-rock “Ron and I both felt it. So we sublet our scene. And I’d be standing there, thinkapartment in New York, packed up eving, “They have no idea who I am, just a erything, two kids, two cats, in our delittle girl from North Carolina!” crepit Jeep, and came here to live. We discovered this was a great place for our Occasionally, Cheryl found herself children, and it has been good for Ron star-struck. like the time she found herand me as well.” self dancing with Liza Minnelli. “To Having stepped off the big stage, Chermeet someone like that, to be on stage yl feels that she has entered a new phase with someone like that, it was amazing, of her career. “I had teachers and mentors watching her process and perform,” rewho gave me opportunities, who traveled membered Cheryl. with me and encouraged me to take that Another time, Cheryl met and pernext step. So now, with my age and where formed with rock icon Sting. “I love Sting. So after the show, a few of us asked Encouragement based teaching with a clear I am in my career, it is time to give back, and be that person for someone else.” him if we could have our picture taken expectation of the work is Cheryl’s motto 50
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In three short seasons, these dancers have improved greatly allowing us to achieve more in depth work. Cheryl started teaching tap and jazz at the Western Carolina Youth Ballet studio in Boone, owned by Brad Parquette. “I started offering precision dance classes, teaching that unique style that I used as a former Rockette, and interest started to build. I began wondering what it would be like to
have our own little troupe, to enliven the community and go around and perform, and become the fabric of the High Country like the Rockettes are to New York.” Auditions, twenty-five dancers were selected, and the Carolina Snowbelles were born. “It is an eclectic group of
dancers,” Cheryl described. “We have a couple of professors, some moms and daughters, every age, every size. With all generations learning the same material, a little magic happens.” The Carolina Snowbelles is an allscholarship program. All of the dancers
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“I tell the girls that it isn’t may goal to have them all become Rockettes. I want them to be successful in whatever they want to do in life.” are required to take regular lessons from a studio, and the Snowbelles is designed to be an extension. “I know that it isn’t always possible for families to pay for this level of additional training. I really wanted a troupe that was community driven, giving the community the opportunity to support young dancers, and they’ve done that. It has been really exciting.” “Our founding patron was Karyn Kennedy Herterich, the owner of South Marke shopping center in Blowing Rock. She is also the one that connected us with the Kennedy Center and helped us get the invitation to perform there next year,” said Cheryl. “Blowing Rock Community Foundation is a partner, Alice Roess, and lots of individuals have also stepped up to help us.” Even though the program has only been in existence for a few years, several young dancers from the High Country have already begun to realize their dancing dreams. Three Snowbelles, Katie Hannah, Savannah Spencer, and Emma Pinnix, auditioned and earned spots in the week-long Radio City Rockettes’ Summer Intensive this year. They went to New York and learned advanced techniques, ending in a public performance. Cheryl reflected, “It’s one thing for me to tell my students about the experience, but it is really cool for them to hear about it from their peers!” “I tell the girls that it isn’t may goal to have them all become Rockettes,” Cheryl added. “I want them to be successful in whatever they want to do in life. I have students who want to be veterinarians, lawyers, all kinds of careers. Their experience as Snowbelles really gives them “life training.” They learn the importance of being on time, of giving me three hours or so of really hard work. They learn how to show up and handle themselves in public, to talk to patrons, to get along with one another. They come together here with one purpose. That translates to being successful in whatever field they choose.” The Carolina Snowbelles is part Cheryl’s 52
High Country Magazine
The Carolina Snowbelles perform during the annual Blowing Rock Christmas Parade in 2016.
The Carolina Snowbelles appear in the annual An Ensemble Christmas. Get your tickets at www.ensemblestage.com
Celebrating the opening of The Appalachian Ski Welcome Center, The Carolina Snowbelles joined the festivities and ribbon cutting cermonies.
December 2017
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“I didn’t grow up dreaming to be a Rockette, I just wanted to dance professionally.” “Project Dance Foundation,” which seeks to nurture dancers to their fullest potential and inspire people all over the world. Project Dance began as a response to 9-11 in New York City, when the dance community sought to encourage and bring a message of hope to those impacted by the devastating events of September 11, 2001. “I was living in New York during that time, and the Rockettes, as well as Broadway dancers and ballet dancers, got together and wanted to do something to help people in the city. So we worked with the city to build a giant stage in Times Square, and for ten hours, we danced. We danced as an expression of love, of hope. We had people visit our stage who had been affected by 9-11, emergency workers, families of victims, who were literally on the asphalt in front of us in tears, receiving what we had to offer them in the form of dance. It was very emotional, with everyone dancing their own heart message,” described Cheryl. That experience sparked a passion in Cheryl, and she founded The Project Dance organization. Along with hundreds of volunteers, the Foundation produces events around the world. “We do 3-day conferences where participants network with one another, perform a group dance as well as solo numbers in an open air concert. The idea is to equip that dancer for their next step in their professional career. We’ve been to Sydney Australia, Hong Kong, Jerusa-
Photos from a Project Dance performance in New York. The project is an international movement of dancers seeking to positively impact culture through artistic integrity. Our desire is to see every dancer nurtured to their fullest human potential for their own wellbeing and for their contribution to the world. www.projectdance.com Photos by Gary Murakami 54
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Karyn Kennedy Herterich (right top photo with Snowbelles) is known for her passion for the arts and children. The Carolina Snowbelles launched 3 years ago due to her active participation in the lives of these young dancers. One of The Carolina Snowbelle’s favorite annual performance is for Karyn in front of her store at South Marke, Serves You Right in Blowing Rock during the Christmas parade. lem, New York, Paris, Orlando, all over the world.” Styles of dance vary according to the culture and interests of the dancers who participate in the events. Cheryl elaborated, “In Southeast Asia, most of the dancers are men, and they do a type of street dance. In Sydney, Australia, ballet is very big. In South America, they dance for life. In Israel, they actually have a Minister of Dance, who oversees dance. It has been amazing to see how dance works in different cultures.” “Dance is beautiful, powerful, and transcends any language,” Cheryl concluded. “It is unifying, and doesn’t require words to express a message. That is what gets me out of bed every morning, to be a part of that.” t
Karyn Herterich was crying with joy as the Snowbelles showed their gratitude
The Snowbelles do their part for the Blowing Rock Christmas Parade Nov. 25
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Digital
Watauga
Preserving Local Images Captured on Film
A joint partnership between the Watauga County Historical Society and the Watauga County Public Library BY kate herman
W
atauga County was a very different place in the late 1800s. Founded in 1849, Watauga County was formed from parts of Ashe, Caldwell, Wilkes, and Yancey Counties, at a time when the region was rural and sparsely settled, home to hunters, trappers, and farmers, all the descendants of hardy migrants who had determined to scratch out a living as mountain folk. Portions of the county, too, served as religious retreats, as at Valle Crucis, or tourist destinations, as Blowing Rock did. With those travelers and transplants came the new technology of the day— photography. Traveling portrait makers wandered through occasionally, as well, and by the 1880s, it was not uncommon for Watauga County scenes and people to be captured on film. The Digital Watauga Project—a partnership between the Watauga County Historical Society (WCHS) and the Watauga County Public Library (WCPL)— has the proof that photographs were being made in Watauga County by the 1880s. Thus far, the project has digitized 4,500 items, most of them photos, and has thousands more lined up. 56
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Eric Plaag, the Chairperson of Digital Watauga
December 2017
Identifying the earliest Watauga County photo, though, is no easy task, as Eric Plaag, the Chairperson of Digital Watauga, recently explained. “It would be impossible to identify a specific photo as our oldest,” Plaag said, “primarily because images from before 1900 are often not precisely dated. The earliest images probably date to the 1880s. Two forthcoming collections in our project—the James B. Mast, Jr., Collection and the Bethel Collection—have a large assortment of images from before 1900.” Curiously, Digital Watauga got its start in 2015 with the digitization of the older images in the collections of Historic Boone, a now-defunct historical organization whose former members had turned over their materials to the Watauga County Library several years earlier. Since then, Digital Watauga has accepted more than 30 collections into the project. Seventeen of these collections are already online at the project’s website, DigitalWatauga. org, while the rest are currently being processed, cataloged, or digitized. The Digital Watauga Project was first formed in late 2014 when Plaag
Interior of the 1904 Courthouse courtroom, circa 1950, during a Farm Bureau meeting. Note that seating was still segregated, with whites permitted in the ground floor seats and African-Americans relegated to the balcony. Many Boone residents today are startled to learn that the courtroom was used for many purposes aside from trials, ranging from community meetings like this to film screenings, religious revivals, and live music performances. Images courtesy of the Digital Watauga Project, Palmer Blair Collection (Pal-Bla-2-127, Pal-Bla-2-126, and Pal-Bla-2-128)
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Kindergarten class posing for its annual class photo outside Palmer’s Photo Shop in the Carolina Hotel Building/Qualls Block, circa 1956. The building reflected in the shop window is the Jones House. Image courtesy of the Digital Watauga Project, Palmer Blair Collection (Pal-Bla-2-129). At first, Digital Watauga realized that the county’s prioritized digitization of historic images were eia handful of collections ther being held back from already under the control repositories in the area or of the project, using a oneleaving the mountain as year, non-renewable EZ older folks died and their Digitization Grant through children moved away. the State Library of North “Trust in local repositoCarolina to purchase the ries to properly safeguard necessary equipment and the historical materials of get things started. Almost the county’s residents was immediately, though, local at a real low point,” Plaag residents started coming explained. “It was imperaforward with their own tive for us to find a way to collections, many of them rescue those materials from from families that had been being lost while also helpholding images privately ing donors feel confident for many decades. The rethat their old photographs This George Flowers image from May 1973 shows Doc Watson receiving sponse has sometimes overand other items would be his honorary doctorate from Appalachian State University. Left to right are whelmed the project. treated with respect and “Many of the collections care. It was also critical for Chancellor Herbert Wey, Dr. Rogers Whitener, and Doc Watson. we host originate in famthose materials to be visible Image courtesy of the Digital Watauga Project, George Flowers Collection. ily photo collections,” Plaag to the public, rather than said. “Good examples are hiding away in an attic or a digitize them, and get them back quickly closet somewhere.” to our donors. We manage the work of the Farthing-Glenn Collection, the Roark Plaag brought together various stake- making the images available to the public, Cabin Collection, the Clarence A. Price holders in the community, including the and donors get to keep their stuff, know- Home Movies Collection, the H. L. and WCHS and the WCPL, and the idea for ing that it’s safe and well cared for, but still Gladys Coffey Collection, and four forthcoming collections: the James B. Mast, Jr., a nonprofit, long-term digitization project accessible.” Collection, the Von and was born. “While we do Mickey Hagaman Collechave some permanent colWe borrow things, digitize them, and get them tion, the Bethel Collection, lections that are owned outback quickly to our donors. We manage the work and the Wilson-Norris right by the project,” Plaag For residents explained, “we generally of making the images available to the public, and Collection.” whose families originated aren’t interested in keepdonors get to keep their stuff, knowing that it’s in this area, the Digital ing collections permanently. Watauga Project serves as That’s the secret to Digital safe and well cared for, but still accessible.” an excellent way of reconWatauga. We borrow things, 58
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Interior of the Boone Hardware Company store, later known as Farmer’s Hardware and located in the present Farmer’s Hardware block on West King Street. Left to right are Ruth Cottrell, Troy Norris, and J. Frank Moore, the manager of the business. This image likely dates to the opening of Boone Hardware in this space in 1923, as Boone Hardware became Farmer’s Hardware in 1925. Image courtesy of the Digital Watauga Project, Historic Boone Collection. necting to their roots within the area. It is also very exciting for the entire community. For example, the James B. Mast, Jr., Collection contains hundreds of images of members of the extended Mast family, who owned a series of competing general stores
in the western part of the county, one of which was the original Mast General Store still operating in Valle Crucis. Also surfacing were the collections of two major Boone professional photographers, Palmer Blair and George Flowers,
who purchased Blair’s shop in 1958 after Blair’s death in a plane crash. The Palmer Blair Collection came first through the generosity of Blair’s widow, Sarah Lynn Spencer, and nearly 2,500 images from that collection, most taken between 1946
A worker attaches cables to the massive columns of the 1904 Watauga County Courthouse during its demolition in 1967. The old Heilig-Meyers warehouse building—today well disguised as the Watauga County Administration Building—is visible in the background. In a curious twist of fate, Clyde Townsend bought the bricks from the courthouse to construct a new house on Clyde Townsend Rd., just off the 105 Bypass. Townsend sold this house to Bryce Durham a couple of years later. The 1972 murder of the Durham family at that home remains one of Watauga County’s most notorious unsolved cases. Image courtesy of the Digital Watauga Project, Paul Armfield Coffey Collection.
This image from the early 1970s shows the widening of Queen Street between Water Street in the foreground and Grand Boulevard in the distance. Workers here are installing the large parking meter pad that still exists as an island between the two travel lanes. Image courtesy of the Digital Watauga Project, Paul Armfield Coffey Collection. December 2017
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and 1957, are now online. Plaag knew that the George Flowers Collection— which had been donated to the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce in 1998, but then seemed to disappear—was still out in the world, too, and Plaag was intent on finding it. Instead, the collection came to him a few months ago, in the form of
a phone call from the Watauga County Maintenance Department. “In 2008,” Plaag explained, “the Chamber president decided to give the studio portraiture half of the George Flowers Collection to Appalachian State University, but the news photography portion remained in the Chamber’s own-
ership. As part of a Chamber move happening around that time, the collection ended up in a storage locker at the county maintenance department for safekeeping.” County Maintenance staff were calling for help in organizing and preserving the massive collection. The storage locker also included the original sign from the Flowers
George Flowers captured this image of Watauga County Sheriff Ward Carroll and the massive haul he and his deputies seized in a March 1973 raid of businesses in the Beech Mountain area. Image courtesy of the Digital Watauga Project, George Flowers Collection. The picture caption read: Watauga County Sheriff Ward Carroll and his deputies unload one of seven vehicles used in hauling some 118 cases of beer and 1,470 bottles of intoxicating liquors seized in a midnight raid Sunday 3/11 of the Beech Tree Inn and the Village Inn at the resort area of Beech Mountain.
A young boy fishing on a pond in Watauga County, 1959. Image courtesy of the Digital Watauga Project, Watauga County Agricultural Extension Collection (Wag-Ext-1-9).
This George Flowers image from 1971 shows a group of Cherokee Indians hired by the Appalachian Ski Mountain performing a snow dance during an exceptionally warm December. George Flowers Collection.
Photography business. As a result of the news collectionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rediscovery, the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce donated digital use rights to the George Flowers Collection, which Digital Watauga is currently processing, with plans for digitization to begin in the spring. Plaag remains astounded by and
grateful for Flowersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gift to the Chamber. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He had a vision that exceeded the technology limits of his time,â&#x20AC;? Plaag said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He donated his workâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;estimated in 1998 at four million negatives and printsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to the Chamber long before projects like ours existed, with hopes of it being freely available to the public someday.â&#x20AC;? Today, almost
The Troubadours of Appalachian Elementary School march east on Howard Street across the Depot Street intersection in 1952. Behind them is old City Hall and, to the right, the back of the Farmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hardware block. Image by Palmer Blair, courtesy of Digital Watauga Project, Historic Boone Collection.
20 years later, Flowersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vision is becoming a reality, in large part because of the commitment by David Jackson, the current Chamber president, to seeing the collection preserved through Digital Watauga. Plaag emphasized that using Digital Watauga to view images is easyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and freeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;through the projects website, Digi-
Shot of the American Legion Parade, 1954, marching down West King Street, as seen from the lawn of the Daniel Boone Hotel. The building at center is the John W. Hodges Building, with the Carolina Hotel/Qualls Block to the right of it (under the hotel sign). Behind the Hodges Building is the west building of the Goodnight Brothers complex on Howard Street. Palmer Blair Collection (Pal-Bla-2-219).
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This circa 1905 image looks southeast toward Boone from the hill to the west of present-day Dotson Dr. Except where an arrow is indicated, numbers correspond to the structure directly beneath. Today’s West King Street, then known as Main Street, runs from lower right to upper left. 1) Boone Cemetery; 2) Watauga Academy at the Appalachian Training School for Teachers; 3) E. S. Coffey House; 4) Old Episcopal Church, SW corner of Appalachian and West King (obscured behind other buildings); 5) Old Blowing Rock Highway winding through the valley (began at Appalachian Street); 6) Frank A. Linney Home before renovations; 7) J. D. “Crack” Councill Home on site of present Boone Post Office; 8) J. M. and Ida Moretz House; 9) Coffey Hotel, later the Critcher Hotel, on the SE corner of present-day West King and Depot, with “Brick Row” rooms located to the east on West King; 10) Blair Hotel; 11) third Watauga County Jail, known as the “log jail,” near the NW corner of today’s Depot and Howard Streets; 12) Critcher Barn; 13) Sheriff Jack Horton Home, one of the first houses built in Boone; 14) 1905 Watauga County Courthouse; 15) west face of the 1874 Watauga County Courthouse, located on the NW corner of today’s Water and West King Streets; 16) W. L. Bryan Home, with the old Watauga Democrat office obscured behind the trees to the west; 17) public well in the middle of Main Street and in front of the 1874 Courthouse; 18) Rivers Old Home Place, SE corner of today’s Water and West King Streets; 19) Lovill Law Office, SW corner of today’s Water and West King Streets; 20) Old Methodist Church; 21) Manley B. Blackburn Hotel and General Store; 22) fourth Watauga County Jail, today home to the Proper Restaurant; 23) Old Baptist Church, near today’s River Street Ale House; 24) Old Greer Log House. Only four of these sites still stand today: Boone Cemetery, the Frank A. Linney Home (altered in 1915), the J. M. and Ida Moretz House (much altered on several occasions), and the fourth Watauga County Jail. “On occasion, individuals or compa- of an image they have seen on our site, talWatauga.org. He recommends that new users view the “How to Use Digital Watau- nies may ask for a high-resolution version perhaps to use in advertising or a publication,” Plaag stated. “If ga” page on the site before the physical materials are using the site. There is not owned by Digital Watauga, a requirement to register users can request the highfor Digital Watauga before resolution version directly using the site, despite the through us. This usually “Register” and “Login” butinvolves an image fee and tons that are default buttons a permissions fee, which is used by the site’s platform, standard with most nonOmeka. While most of the profit digital projects like images online are of suitthis one. If the physical maable resolution for casual terials are still owned by one web viewing, exploring, and of our donors, we refer the research, the project mainperson making the request tains a non-public server directly to the owner of the with very high-resolution Children of the Johnson School, circa 1910. image rights. Once we hear versions of all the images. Image courtesy of Digital Watauga Project, Farthing-Glenn Collection (Mar-Mas-1-004). 62
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Digital Watauga is designed to be a safe, cooperative way for people with original images and materials related to Watauga County to share those materials digitally with the community, without having to worry that their original materials will disappear. back from our donor that details have been worked out, we will release the high-resolution version of the image to the person or company making the request. This allows donors to maintain control over the publication rights to their images—one of the keys to the success of our project.” While the project’s collections continue to grow daily, the Digital Watauga Project remains almost entirely a volunteer effort. Only one member of the project is compensated, and that happens indirectly. Terry White, who works for the public library as an Adult Services Specialist, devotes four of her 24 job hours per week to working on the project and supervising interns and volunteers. Outside of that, all members are volunteers who are passionate about Watauga County’s past. Plaag added, “We are always looking for volunteers who are interested in working with us in a variety of capacities, ranging from identifying individuals and places in images that are submitted to us to doing the physical work of digitization and metadata collection.” The project offers supervised, for-credit internships in the fall and spring semesters as well as during the summer, which often draw students with a history or library background. Each volunteer or intern spends anywhere from three to sixteen hours per week working on the project. A committee of library employees, WCHS members, interns, and volunteers also meets monthly to discuss work on the project. The Digital Watauga Project relies largely on tax-deductible financial donations from the community to the WCHS to cover the costs of digital storage, archival storage materials for the physical collections owned by the Digital Watauga Project, digital transfer costs for moving image collections, scanning equipment, and various other expenses of the project. Are you interested in learning more
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The Mill Commissary at the Whiting Lumber Mills, Shulls Mills, NC, circa 1916. Image courtesy of Digital Watauga Project, Lowery-Whiting Collection (Low-Whi-2-7). their materials for us, about Digital Watauga, although we have used or perhaps even donatthis method on two ocing some pictures of your casions with donors who own? Contacting Plaag is lived at a great distance the first step. “Our process from Watauga County works best when we have and were also very savvy a chance to see a sample in terms of scanning techof the donor’s collection, nology. Also, while we or even the full collecprefer to borrow materition, ahead of time,” he als from donors, we have explained. “Typically, this done field scanning at the process involves meeting homes of donors who with the donor, evaluatwere reluctant to part ing the collection, and with their materials. The discussing our digitizadownside to this approach tion process in detail. All for donors is that it usudonors are asked to sign ally means I’m camped a deed of gift; in most cases, donors grant digital Boone Rotary Club award presentation, 1950, with B. B. Dougherty (L) and Watt Gragg. out at the donor’s kitchen table while the scanning use rights to their images Image courtesy of Digital Watauga Project, Historic Boone Collection. is completed, and this obbut retain ownership and viously doesn’t work well all rights to their original digital projects.” with collections that are larger than a few materials. We then ask to borrow the maDonors are discouraged from just hauldozen images.” terials so that we can do our digital work. ing out their photos, scanning them, and One of the biggest challenges that DigiSmaller collections are usually completed emailing them to Digital Watauga, though. tal Watauga faces in working with donor within a couple of months. Very large col“Because our project has very detailed collections is that some have not been lections might take years, in which case technical specifications,” Plaag said, “we stored well from an archival perspective. we ask to borrow a small batch at a time, usually don’t encourage donors to scan “Folks tend to put their old photos in pareturning those once that group of images per sacks or cardboard boxes,” has been digitized, and then Using Digital Watauga to view images is Plaag said, “which are in turn we pick up more items from tucked away in the attic, basethat collection. This allows us easy—and free—through the projects website, ment, or garage, often for deto post portions of a large collection as we work on it, rath- DigitalWatauga.org. It’s recommended that new cades at a time in poor climate conditions.” In some cases, er than waiting years to post users view the “How to Use Digital Watauga” Digital Watauga discovers imanything from the collection, ages have badly deteriorated as often happens with other
page on the site before using the site.
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Detail crop showing the south side of West King Street in 1952, with the Pastime Theatre (today’s Professional Building) taking center stage. Most of the Pastime’s façade likely survives under the present treatment. Image courtesy of the Digital Watauga Project, Palmer Blair Collection (Pal-Bla-4-103). Plaag offered, “came with or are in danger of literthe Clarence A. Price ally being eaten by acids Home Movies Collection. in the containers in which We had recently acquired they have been stored, or digital use rights to the worse—by critters in the images of Palmer Blair, a attic, basement, or garage. professional photographer To help donors, Digital Wawho had died tragically tauga also offers the service in 1957. While working of re-housing collections in through the Price films a archivally stable containfew weeks later, we disers. “All we ask is that docovered footage on Price’s nors reimburse us the cost reels of Palmer Blair taking of those storage materials,” photographs during the Plaag said. “We provide the 1949 Watauga Centennial labor to re-house them.” Parade. This was especially Plaag is quick to undercool because it showed the score that Digital Watauga photographer for another is designed to be a safe, Appalachian Theatre ticket booth on February 12, 1947. Originally, the doors flanking collection in action, as cooperative way for people the theater were set back about fifteen feet from the ticket booth, but these doors well as the equipment he with original images and materials related to Watau- were installed as an airlock in the early 1940s. Image courtesy of Digital Watauga Project, was using. Those kinds Appalachian Theatre Collection (App-The-4-26). of overlaps don’t happen ga County to share those often. His widow and chilmaterials digitally with the community, without having to worry that their original materials dren had also never seen that footage, and it was cathartic for will disappear, be kept hidden away, or be manhandled by the them in many ways. It gave me real joy to share it with them after public. “We keep all materials under lock and key in a fire resis- so many years.” Digital Watauga welcomes public comments in the comment tant cabinet, except when they are being actively worked on for digitization,” Plaag explained, “and no one is permitted to handle field on the page for each item on the website, in order to help the original materials except trained volunteers, interns, and staff identify people or places shown in the image. “We see Digital Watauga as a community project,” Plaag added, “and we welcome associated with the project.” Such a project unearths images that have countless uses for community input,” although comments are moderated for spam the community, not the least of which is better understanding and may not show up immediately. There is also a Facebook page how long-lost buildings once looked or what long-lost people for the project, where Digital Watauga provides frequent updates might have been like. They are also turn up the inevitable con- about forthcoming collections. The best way to share images with nections and overlaps that occur in a small mountain commu- Digital Watauga is to contact the project by email at DigitalWanity. “I think probably my favorite overlap between collections,” tauga@gmail.com, or by calling Plaag at (828) 773-6525. t December 2017
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Photo by Todd Bush
Still The Same After All These Years
Photo by Frank Ruggiero
Photo by Frank Ruggiero
Those Who Live and Work There Cherish Its Old Time Community Feel
Jennele Vaquera of Lucky Penny
T
Bill Parish of Highway Robbery
he town of Boone is often referred to as “The Heart of the High Country.” But at the heart of Boone is its famous downtown, a small, but bustling main street, frequented by locals, students and tourists alike. Lined with businesses of today in the buildings of yesteryear, King Street is home to a proudly eclectic and independent set of shops, award-winning restaurants and exquisite art galleries, each a testament to the Mountaineer spirit that defines the Western North Carolina High Country. Add to that business offices, municipal buildings and residences, and you have a downtown district seemingly larger than its footprint. But there’s more. There’s community. From nightlife to holiday parades to casual stop-and-chats outside Boone Town Hall, King Street represents a vital part of Boone in general — the heartbeat of the High Country. 66
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West King Street, looking east from a spot near the John W. Hodges Building, Christmas Eve, 1964. Image courtesy of the Digital Watauga Project, Paul Armfield Coffey Collection.
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Views of King Street From The 1960s
hat was your Boone? Was it breakfast or burgers at the Boone Drug lunch counter? Buying a poem from Joshua Watauga? Was it Old Crow Medicine Show, playing for pennies just outside the door? Or maybe it goes further back, to the days when Doc Watson did the same. Or catching a Saturday matinee at the Appalachian Theatre; perhaps even a fresh-made doughnut from the Carolina Pharmacy. Maybe test-driving Chevys, Fords and Dodges at one of three downtown dealerships, or being fitted for a suit or dress at Hunt’s Department Store. Everyone who passes through King Street, be it local, student or tourist, has their own version and vision of Boone — a concept shared by each generation of locals, students and tourists. And while many storefronts have come and gone, the brick and mortar that housed them remain. Decades ago, there wasn’t much distinction between Boone and downtown Boone — it was just Boone. But even as larger businesses ventured outward and upward (sometimes literally; these are the mountains, after all), King Street endured, maintaining its singular, small-mountain-town charm. Some things never change. West King Street, looking east from in front of what is today known as Macado’s Restaurant, circa 1967. Image courtesy of the Digital Watauga Project, Paul Armfield Coffey Collection.
West King Street, looking east from in front of the Post Office, as it appeared circa Christmas 1962. Image courtesy of the Digital Watauga Project, Paul Armfield Coffey Collection.
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Photo by Todd Bush
Downtown Business Owners Reflect on Decades in Boone By Frank Ruggiero
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arlier this autumn, a local radio station hosted a special challenge. If a listener could name all the businesses on King Street in downtown Boone, from Appalachian Street to Water Street, they would receive a set of free movie tickets. More than 200 called in, less than one person won. Bill Parish didn’t go to the movies that weekend (it wouldn’t have been fair, he said), but the shopkeeper had other cause for celebration. The owner of Highway Robbery, a wom-
Highway Robbery
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welve feet wide, 110 feet long, a little more than 1,200 square feet total. The quaintly compact, yet surprisingly spacious Highway Robbery has held up many a shopper at price-point, offering unique finds at honest prices. The name, Parish assures his clientele, is entirely innocent. “I’m a cowboy at heart,” he said. “Our last name used to be ‘Parrish,’ with two Rs. We had a cattle rustler in our family tree, and so as to not associate with them, we dropped an R from our name.” Today’s Parishes — those with one R 68
en’s clothing and jewelry shop in downtown Boone, is celebrating 46 years of business. Meanwhile, the next block over, Jennele Vaquera has reached her own milestone, with her women’s boutique, Lucky Penny, now in its 10th year. Although Parish’s and Vaquera’s stories differ by decades, a common thread connects their businesses beyond time and location, a necessary ingredient in achieving success in downtown Boone. To them, it’s simple: Treat people right.
High Country Magazine
— only rustle fashion and nostalgia. Highway Robbery’s décor conjures thoughts of Americana at its purest, its walls and displays lined with advertising memorabilia, antiques and curious trinkets, the kind found at the service stations, rest stops and five-and-dimes of yesteryear. This, combined with the store’s eclectic stock that appeals to shoppers of all ages, adds to the store’s timeless quality. And it’s no mistake. Some customers, like Jane Munroe Floyd, have been visiting the store since 1979.
December 2017
“You’ve always provided clothing that appeals to me,” Floyd told Parish during a recent visit. “And I just bought a dress from you.” “Remember when you put it on and I proposed?” Parish joked. Patricia Parish, his wife of 39 years, has heard that joke before. And she knows her customers about as well as her husband. “The merchandise?” Parish said. “It’s all Patricia’s fault. Something we try to run our store on is that we wouldn’t sell stuff we wouldn’t buy ourselves. And we try to
South Side of King Street; Businesses from East to West Panoramic View of Buildings on the South Side of King Street Photos and Layout By Ken Ketchie and Debbie Carter
EAST KING ST.
Appalachian Street
ASU
Boone Saloon
Mountaineer Mania
Jimmy Johns
Appalachian Tee
Town Hall
Macado’s
Doe Ridge Pottery
Hands Gallery
Appalachian Voices
Lililu
Dancing Moon
King Street Creamery
A Piece of the Past
Appalachian Theater
Appalachian Sportwear
Under The Sun
Town Hall
Highway Robbery
Horton Hotel
Farm Café
Depot Street
Farm Café
Boone Belles
Our Daily Bread
Appalachian Antique Mall
Happy Place Rock n Roll Emporium Anna Bananas December 2017
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be friendly to people and show them that we like their business.” Bill Parish and his wife, Patricia Referring back to Floyd, he said, “She’s like my cousin, she’s been coming in so long.” Parish was only 22 years old when he opened the store. Although he was raised in Florida, he and his family would spend summers in Western North Carolina, near Waynesville. During his junior year at the University of Florida, where he majored in advertising design, his family moved to Hickory. Parish would soon follow after graduation, but not before taking a detour to the Georgetown area of Washington D.C., where he helped a friend run a clothing store, called Elysian Fields. “What I wanted to be was a set designer in the TV business, but you had to be in big cities to do that,” he said. “And after living in Georgetown for a while, I’d had it with big cities. Now, if I have to go through the stoplight twice at Wendy’s, I’m ready to move.” Parish relocated to Boone in 1970 and opened Highway Robbery on Sept. 29, 1971 — a date emblazoned on his original business license, adorning a wall near the checkout counter. He picked the name, Highway Robbery, “because it was easy to spell,” Parish said, recalling his time in Georgetown. “Everyone wanted to know what an Elysian Field was.” (It’s the heavenly afterlife of Greek mythology.) For his own store, Parish went with something simpler. “If you can do phonics, you can spell ‘Highway Robbery,’” he said. The store actually started on the corner of King and Appalachian streets, where Jimmy John’s is currently located. The building sported a false front, and since the apartments next to Boone Saloon weren’t yet built, passersby could see it exceptionally well. “It was a really good location, and we paid about $75 a month for 10 years,” Parish said. Back then, Highway Robbery specialized in fine, custom leatherwork and jewelry, with the help of Parish’s dear friend, Dan Miller, whose sculpturing prowess would eventually take him to Hollywood. “We originally did all kinds of leatherwork in the store and made all the jewelry,” Parish said. “We crafted handmade sandals, where we’d do foot-tracing and make them for the individual, forming the sandal with arches and putting the frame in.” The sandals could be likened to modern-day Chacos, only custom-made with fine leather for each buyer. Parish still has some on display. “We did all kinds of leather bags, clothing, stuff like that,” he said. “Up until about five years ago, we made a lot of the products that were featured in the store.” That included jewelry, in which Miller specialized, often featuring trees, birds and other earthy designs, an aesthetic much of the store’s jewelry still maintains and that its clientele continues to enjoy. When the store first opened, many of Parish’s customers hailed from Appalachian State University, then called Appalachian State Teachers College, with a student body of less than 4,000, he said. Still young himself, Parish had enjoyed all the entertainment the burgeoning college town had to offer. “We used to have this thing called Rally Weekend, where for about three days, you’d have these amazing bands,” he said. “The third year I was here, we had names like The Allman Brothers, Rod Stewart, Ted Nugent, Goose Creek Symphony.” Curiously enough, Parish and Allman Brothers guitarist Dickey Betts were already friends from his time in Gainesville, Fla., when, during college, Parish worked at a leather store selling custom guitar straps that became a favorite of various rock luminar70
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ies, including the Allmans. In fact, Betts is even featured in a painting that Miller created, which still hangs above the check-out counter and depicts Parish, his family and friends in an Old West saloon. “Dan called it ‘The Boone Saloon,’ before there was an actual Boone Saloon,” Parish said. Back then, downtown Boone was really just Boone, he explained. “Everything was downtown,” he said. “You had Belk, Cato’s, two drug stores — Boone Drug and Carolina Pharmacy, where the Boone Saloon is now — two hardware stores, a dime store down on the corner, bunches of clothing stores, Hunt’s Department Store where Mast is, and,
The Highway Robbery building is just twelve feet wide.
Bill Parish with Patricia, wife of 39 years
Bill Parish stands by his favorite painting, ‘The Boone Saloon,’ depicting him and his friends and family in an Old West saloon, before today’s Boone Saloon even existed. Photos by Frank Ruggiero.
South Side of King Street Businesses from East to West Panoramic View of Buildings on the South Side of King Street Depot Street
Municipal Engineering
The Shoppes at Farmers
Did Someone Say Party
641 RPM
Lucky Penny
Village Jewelers
Art Mart
Wedding Resource Center
Did Someone Say Party?
H.C. Souvenirs
Watsonatta
Eggers, Eggers, Eggers & Eggers
Mysterium
Ransom Cafe & Pub
Wine to Water
WEST KING ST
Water Street
Mellow Mushroom
MPrints
Water Street
Boone Fire Dept.
Boone Fire Department
641 RPM
Office Building
Dunnagan Isaacs & Friley
Tom Speed Office
Joshua Teague Office December 2017
Vidalia Restaurant H i g h C o u n t r y Courthouse Magazine
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of course, all the banks were downtown. Lost Province Brewing was the Chevrolet dealership. Everything was downtown. The Ford dealership must’ve moved to the 105 Bypass in 1973 or ’74, and Farmers Hardware took that building. “We’re still a very neighborly town compared to a lot of places, but I used to use the expression that coming to work was like coming to a birthday party every day. You could go in Boone Drug and know everybody in there — and you couldn’t launch a career in politics without hanging
out in Boone Drug.” Highway Robbery eventually moved to a space in the Appalachian Theatre building, before settling in its current location in 1980. Although the location changed, Parish still maintained relationships with his loyal clientele, along with an important cross-section of the High Country community — students. “That’s our business,” he said. “We’re geared toward younger people, with jewelry and accessories, and we always try to offer a reasonable product at a reasonable
price to show them we appreciate their coming in.” And they remember. “The other day, this girl who’d worked for me came in, and she’d gone to Appalachian, her daughter went to Appalachian, and now her granddaughter’s gone to Appalachian,” Parish said. “People come in all the time, say they’re glad we’re still here, because they can still come to Boone and see what’s going on, see who’s still living here.”
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ennele Vaquera can relate. Vaquera has lived in Boone for 15 years and owned a business for 10. She describes Lucky Penny as “a chic, feminine boutique clothing store, perfect for whimsical, Bohemian women with a sense of wonder.” During her 10-year tenure, she, too, has employed students, has had student customers and has seen them return with young families in tow. And not just students. “When I opened, I didn’t realize just how much tourism there was in Boone,”
Vaquera said. “The locals and students absolutely support me, but the tourists are pretty consistent, from weekenders to summer homeowners to people who come here every winter for Thanksgiving. I already know who’s going to come back; I see their kids having children, bringing their kids to Boone and Tweetsie and to get a Christmas tree. “What’s great about our tourist customers is that this is such a special place for them. They don’t get this where they live, so one of their High Country tradi-
tions is to come to Lucky Penny. It’s just all about the experience.” Again, Vaquera can relate, having enjoyed her own Boone experience, one that continues today. “It was kind of being in the right place at the right time,” she said. While attending Appalachian State University (class of 2006), Vaquera, originally from Kitty Hawk, N.C., helped open a store, Barre Station on Appalachian Street. The owner’s concept was to offer off-priced clothing through overstocked
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A Walk Down King Street with Jan Todd Here Are Some of the Businesses You’ll Find Along King Street
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here’s a vast array of King Street merchants and businesses that call Downtown Boone home where they offer up their goods, services - and more. You can also experience a healthy helping of small town hospitality, hear some interesting stories, and learn a bit about days gone by. Join us on this stroll down King Street, as we visit a sampling of shops and businesses downtown. Some have been around for decades, others are newcomers. All contribute to the magic and charm of Boone. Photos by Jan Todd Vidalia Restaurant
Sam and Alyce Ratchford
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oon celebrating their 10th anniversary of business downtown, Alyce and Sam Ratchford have built a hugely successful restaurant named after an onion. “The name came from one of the three ingredients in a Mirepoix,” explained Alyce. “Celery, onions, and carrots, the basis for stocks and flavorings in many American dishes.” If that explanation sets high expectations for a culinary delight, you’re in luck. Vidalia can deliver. Sam Ratchford grew up in Boone, graduated from the New England Culinary Institute, and served as Sous Chef at Storie Street Grille in Blowing Rock, where he met Alyce, who worked there as a front-of-house manager. The young couple worked at several other area restaurants, picking up experience in both food service and business management, enabling them to do well when they purchased Vidalia, venturing into business for themselves. The restaurant partners with several local farms and suppliers, emphasizing the use of fresh ingredients from the High Country. As for style of food, “Sam likes to call it “creative American,” whatever piques his interest at the moment,” said Alyce. “It may have an Asian influence, Italian, Cajun, or Southern.” The menu changes according to season and availability of ingredients, always offering a variety with wide appeal. Special wine dinners are scheduled occasionally, with multicourse meals paired with extraordinary wines. Vidalia is located at 831 West King Street, in a building that was originally occupied by an appliance store. “You can still see part of the word “Magnavox” painted on the side of the building,” remarked Alyce.
Doe Ridge Pottery Bob Meier
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own the stairs at 585 W. King Street, customers may find owner and Master Potter Bob Meier at the wheel, creating functional and decorative stoneware pieces for sale in his gallery. He began throwing pottery as a student at A.S.U., where he attended after his military service in the 1970’s. “I took a course in ceramics as part of the Technical Education program, and fell in love with it. I was making so many things in the lab, that I started selling pieces to pay my lab fees!” said Meier. Meier earned a Master’s Degree and has taught a variety of courses over the years at the University as an adjunct professor. With twenty-two other artists, he opened the Hands Gallery in 1975. “That’s how I learned how to run a retail business,” he said. He has had his own shop on King Street for thirty years. “I started out at a space next to the Dan’l Boone Inn. Then, when they widened the road and tore down that building about eight years ago, I moved here.” In addition to Meier’s work, Doe Ridge Pottery offers pieces by seventeen other local potters from Ashe, Avery, and Watauga counties. All of the functional pieces are food safe, oven safe, microwave safe. “Safe from anything except dropping them,” quipped Meier. Through the first of January, Doe Ridge Pottery will be featuring a “Mug Show,” hosting potters from the Blue Ridge. Meier said, “We’ll have an incredible variety of mugs. They make great gifts, a quality piece without an outrageous price tag.”
Watsonatta Western World
Ellen and Darrel Watson
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customer once came into the store and told owner Darrel Watson that she’d heard about his store in a sermon. “My preacher said, “I hope when I get to heaven, it smells like Watsonatta Western World in Boone.” Indeed, the aroma is heavenly, if you appreciate the scent of genuine leather. “That smell has been cookin’ for forty-eight years,” explained Watson. “You can’t get that overnight.” Watsonatta is King Street’s oldest retail store, in business since 1969. Darrel was born and raised on a farm on Beech Mountain, and grew up to be a real life cowboy, raising cattle and horses in the High Country. He runs the store with his wife Ellen, who loves greeting and helping cus-
tomers with their selections of horse and tack supplies, work boots, fashion boots, hats, belts and other Western wear. Customers range from students to tourists to loyal, repeat patrons who come back year after year. Why? “If you hung around the store a little, you’d figure it out,” said Watson. “We’re like family here. We have quality merchandise, and give you good customer service.”
Village Jewelers
Jennie Trivette, Charlie Travis and Megan Sheppard
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tep into Village Jewelers at 697 West King Street and you’re likely to be greeted by a . . . dog. Appropriately named “Boone,” the standard poodle belonging to owners Charlie and Joy Travis jumps up behind the counter to put his forepaws on the jewelry case and enthusiastically welcomes customers to the store. The Travis’s began their business as “Old World Galleries” in Blowing Rock in 1979, selling art, Persian rugs, antiques and jewelry. “We’ve evolved over the years,” said Charlie Travis. “We retired for a few years, adopted some dogs, and I went back to school and earned an M.B.A. in Business.” It was probably Travis’s love for helping people, though, that lured him back into business. That, and the availability of a sweet location on King Street in Boone. “This spot had been a jewelry business for seventy years, Walker’s Jewelry,” said Travis. “We were able to move in here and reinvent ourselves.” They began as “Old World Galleries,” a name with strong recognition in this area, then changed the name in 2016 to “Village Jewelers,” to more accurately reflect their concentration in fine jewelry. Well known area jewelers Jennie Trivette and Morgan Shaw joined the Travis’s in this venture. About half of their business is custom design. “We’ll come up with something new, or take heirloom pieces and repurpose them. Those pieces have a personal, sentimental value, and are often signify a special event or anniversary.” The key to developing such special items, according to Travis, is to develop a strong rapport with the client. “We have counseling sessions from 10-5 Monday thru Saturday,” joked Travis. “We develop a level of trust that enables us to find or develop pieces that are meaningful to the client.”
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merchandise. “Like a nicer T.J. Maxx kind of thing,” Vaquera explained. “I was a manager, got it opened from the ground-up, and we had it for eight months.” One of the store’s key suppliers pulled out, and without that support, the store had to close. “So, basically, the owner said, ‘I have this store I don’t want,’ and I was like, ‘Well, I just graduated, and this is eventually what I want to do, so I just took over her lease and started my own shop.”
From left, Lucky Penny employee Blakely Rogers, an ASU student majoring in design and merchandising, helps store owner Jennele Vaquera check inventory. Photo by Frank Ruggiero
Enter Lucky Penny.
In 2009, Lucky Penny took up residence at 693 W. King St., where Vaquera and Charlotte Baxter, owner of Shear Shakti hair salon and massage studio, gutted and renovated the space to house both businesses — Shear Shakti upstairs and Lucky Penny on the ground floor. “We’re forever a work in progress. I’m always trying to change the store up, add new things, expand our products.”
“When I opened the shop, there was only one other boutique in town, Gladiola Girls, and that was one of my favorites,” Vaquera said. “I just wanted to open something that was a little bit lower in price point, and I honestly just sat down and came up with names that sounded cute, but still affordable.” She admitted that it took some time to build the concept, as the store transitioned from the off-priced men’s and women’s fare of Barre Station to solely
women’s apparel. “The owner of Barre Station would always buy regular retail merchandise and go to market, but that specific shop catered more to the college crowd,” Vaquera said. “I started going to market and took the experience I had from Barre, applied it to my own aesthetic and began making relationships. Now, I’ve had some of the same vendors for 10 years.” In 2009, Lucky Penny flipped on down to 693 W. King St., where Vaquera and Charlotte Baxter, owner of Shear Shakti hair salon and massage studio, gutted and renovated the space
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Here Are Some of the Businesses You’ll Find Along King Street Boone Bagelry
might die there, too!” exclaimed Joe. Joe started his art supply store in the attic of Boone Drug, and now that attic houses clearance items for Boone Belles.
Hands Gallery
Elisha and Clark Brown
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hen Tony and Donna Nicastro arrived in Boone to open Boone Bagelry in 1988, most people in the area didn’t even know what bagels were! It took awhile to convince Southerners that there was an alternative to biscuits at breakfast time, but the Nicastro’s had the right formula for the job. Tony, originally from Brooklyn, insisted on authentic. So, from day one, the bagels were “boiled in Brooklyn, and baked in Boone.” Elisha and Clark Brown currently manage the store on King Street. “There really is a difference in using the right water,” insisted Elisha. “Our customers who come here from up North say that they can tell that these are authentic Brooklyn bagels.” The Nicastro’s took over a building that was originally an ice cream store. The building had a front porch, which is now enclosed. When they opened, they served beer and bagels, and played soap operas on the television set to appeal to the college students. They eventually replaced beer with espresso drinks and fine coffee, and have a wide variety of sandwiches, including an astounding Reuben, which are served on bagels.
Boone Belles
The Shoppes at Farmers
Debbi Ordan
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aces are always changing behind the counter at Hands Gallery. The shop is owned and operated by a cooperative of twenty artists, who take turns working shifts at the store. A group of craftspeople joined forces in 1975 to open this fine art and craft gallery, which originally operated in a building on Highway 105. They moved to King Street about twenty years ago, and became a favorite stop for tourists and locals alike. “For us, it is like a community,” reflected Debbi Ordan, a co-op member who creates custom jewelry using traditional metal smithing techniques. “It is truly amazing that a group of artists can work together in harmony. We’re like a family. When we are creating our art, we work in solitary, most of the time. So this co-op gives us a way to connect with other artists, as well as with our customers.” All of the merchandise in Hands Gallery is locally made, by artisans that live within a fifty mile radius of the store. Pottery, handmade dolls, paintings and photography, quilts, woodwork, jewelry, musical CD’s, baskets and more are sold as home decor and gifts. Ordan said, “You can’t find things like these anywhere else.”
Appalachian Sportswear
Leigh Ann Pless
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relative newcomer on King Street, Boone Belles carries trendy women’s apparel, accessories, shoes and gifts. Their best selling “Simply Southern” line of clothing and gifts has a dose of sassiness that appeals to all ages and brings smiles to the faces of customers. Boone Belles is owned by the Pless family, Kay and Brad, and their daughters Leigh Ann Bless and Hilary Carpenter. Leigh Ann, a graduate of A.S.U., said, “My family has been coming up to Boone for years, for snow skiing and mountain vacations. Then I came here for school, and didn’t want to leave!” It’s a familiar story here in the High Country. The Pless family opened the boutique in 2014, in half of what once was the infamous Boone Drug store space. “One of the most interesting stories about this building is that Joe Miller, founder of Cheap Joe’s Art Supplies, was born right here on the doorstep!” said Pete Dwyer, fiance to Leigh Ann. Indeed, according to Joe himself, his mother didn’t quite make it to the doctor’s office on a cold, snowy night in 1939. “I was born there, and at one time I thought I
date his expanding inventory. In 1990, A.S.U. began requiring vendors to be licensed to print and sell merchandise with the school logo. When App played Michigan back in 2007, Smith took another leap of faith. “I designed a t-shirt with two football helmets clashing, and obtained advance permission from the University of Michigan to use their logo and print the final score. “They laughed at me,” recalled Smith. “They couldn’t believe I wanted to print the score, expecting it would be a blow out on their end. So I was the only printer with authorization prior to the game, and when Appalachian won, I was ready to roll.” Smith said that Michigan rivals, Ohio State, ordered a thousand of his t-shirts to sell at their own bookstore, for students to wear to the upcoming game with Michigan.
Karl Smith
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arl Smith opened his first t-shirt shop on an act of faith. “I was barely making it at the time,” confessed Smith. “I was a single dad with a 4-year old daughter, I owned a rusty old truck, and that was about it. I was working as an air-brush artist at the mall.” One day, he and his daughter wandered into a clothing shop on King Street, and started chatting with the owner. “She was about seventy years old, and ready to retire. She’d been praying for someone to take over her lease.” With his truck as collateral, Smith secured a $2,000 loan and opened for business. “I started with just the front of the store, and walled ain what was probably the biggest back room on the street. My daughter rode her Big Wheel around back there, and I sat in the window, air brushing items to entice customers to come in.” As the business grew, Smith gradually moved the back wall, “stud by stud,” to accommo-
Brandon Langdon nother King Street business celebrating the town’s history is The Shoppes at Farmers, located on the corner of King Street and Depot Street. Occupying the two buildings that originally housed the Watauga Bank and Boone Hardware, The Shoppes at Farmers now hosts a variety of merchants in an eclectic emporium offering everything from apparel to art, handcrafts to home decor, jewelry to just about anything. The sign boasts “Family Owned Since 1924,” and current proprietors Jason and Brandon Langdon are greatgrandsons of Clyde Greene, who owned Farmers Hardware along with some business partners. Farmers Hardware was located where Boone Bagelry is now. Boone Hardware fell victim to the Great Depression, and was going out of business when Greene and partners bought the building and contents, and relocated Farmers Hardware to that location. Brandon remembers helping out in the hardware store as a boy, and waiting on the legendary Doc Watson, who would come in to shop on a regular basis. “He’d ask for a particular bolt or screw, and then say, “Let me see it,” Brandon said about the blind Doc Watson. “I’d hand him the screw, and Doc would feel it carefully, then say something like, “No, it needs to be a little bigger,” until we got the right one.” After eighty years as a hardware store, the business began to struggle against competition from big chain stores, and closed the summer of 2004. The Langdon brothers reopened the store as an emporium the next year. Treasured artifacts are proudly displayed inside, including the first item ever sold at Farmers Hardware (a rifle), a couple of checks (written in pencil!), a barber’s chair from the barbershop that was once downstairs, old pictures of the store and town, and the original cash register. In the portion of the store that used to be Watauga Bank, merchandise is displayed inside the bank vault. Store manager Pat Anderson is well versed in historical facts and colorful stories, and enjoys taking customers on tours.
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now, candles, decorations, gifts, and to house both businesses — Shear that opens it up to people who don’t Shakti upstairs and Lucky Penny on necessarily want to buy the clothes. the ground floor. Not everyone wants to wear leather “I would say the store really pants. You’ve got to have something evolved as I got older and was no lonfor everybody.” ger in college,” Vaquera said. “Once I That sentiment transcends busibecame a homeowner, wife and now a ness. In her employees, many of them parent, I feel it changes as I change.” Appalachian State students, Vaquera A new mother, Vaquera and her sees a past version of herself. husband, Allen Dawson, welcomed “If my employees need anytheir daughter, Marleigh, into the thing, I’m absolutely going to do it world this past September. Not surfor them,” she said. “Having a baby, prisingly, their growing family histoJennele Vaquera 10 years ago in her new location on King Street they girls have been so helpful. I’ve ry shares a close connection to Lucky Penny — the other side of the coin, if as the remodeling was wrapping up and the doors were open. Her been so fortunate to have such good future husband, Allen Dawson worked on the remodeling job. employees. I’ve had some who are you will. working big jobs in the retail indusVaquera and Dawson actually met trict evolve, especially as it digs back toduring the transition from Barre Station. ward its roots, with old buildings restored try, which is really cool to see.” One of her former employees now When the store moved to King Street, and empty spaces filled. she knew just who to call. They worked “It really depends on what you do,” works furniture design for American Eatogether closely on the new space, and she said. “You’ve got to have a good prod- gle, while another organizes and executes five years later, they were married. uct and brand and believe in what you’re photo shoots for magazines, from hairAnd they, like Lucky Penny, are still doing. You have to be there, and you’ve dressing to clothes-pressing to set design. “She loves her job, and she’ll still going strong. got to mix it up. You’ve got to know what “I don’t know how I made it,” she ad- your customers are looking for, what you come help me with my storefront window sometimes — if I can get a hold of mitted. “It still feels so wild. I guess I grew can do to better the service. up a lot after college. But the business “We’re forever a work in progress. her,” Vaquera said. “It’s been fun to see community has been great, and downtown I’m always trying to change the store up, them actually get jobs in our field, behas always had open arms.” add new things, expand our products. cause it’s not necessarily easy to find a She’s excited to see the downtown dis- We carry a little bit more home goods good job in merchandising. It’s hard, un-
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December 2017
Here Are Some of the Businesses You’ll Find Along King Street The Horton Hotel
“old-timey” feel, the age of the buildings helped make them the perfect home for the new store. Cooper said they had to do a little work before moving in, doing a little painting and taking out the shag carpet to expose the original wood flooring. “But the creaks in the floor were already there!” he laughed.
Appalachian Antique Mall Jill Reeves
Denise and Fulton Lovin
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t isn’t open yet, but has the town abuzz. Denise and Fulton Lovin are currently renovating the building constructed by Walter Horton in the 1920’s to open a boutique hotel with 154 guest rooms, a street level lounge, and a rooftop bar overlooking Howard’s Knob and the town of Boone. The establishment will embrace the history of Boone, and provide an upscale venue for tourists and locals alike. “We’ll serve craft cocktails, local brews and wine, plus some delicious appetizers and snacks, in a sophisticated atmosphere,” said Denise. “The decor will incorporate local history and artifacts.” Denise’s research indicates that the building was constructed initially as a mechanic’s garage for Model T automobiles. Later on, it was converted to a dress shop, a restaurant, an appliance store, and most recently “The Art Walk.” Fulton Lovin graduated from A.S.U. in 1980, and stayed in Boone to manage rental properties. Denise came to work as a psychiatrist, but has recently left her practice to focus more on the couple’s businesses, including Pads for Grads and the White Fence Farm. Their new project, the Horton Hotel, is sure to be a favorite destination and welcome addition to the nightlife in the heart of downtown. Opening is targeted for late spring 2018.
Mast General Store
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hether searching for antique glassware for crafts or collections, props for plays, or vintage Christmas ornaments, Appalachian Antique Mall offers a treasure chest of possibilities in its 16,000 square foot, 3-story store at 631 West King Street. An antique mall, with individual booths offering wares from up to one hundred dealers, has occupied this space since the early 1980’s, though the ownership has changed over the years. Historically, the Belk Department Store opened its Boone location in this spot in 1935. The store still sports creaky wooden floors, connecting customers with the past. Current owner Jill Reeves purchased the business, then called Boone Antique Mall, in 2003, and most days is behind the counter, chatting with customers. As a former school teacher, Reeves says that “Knowledge is power.” She sends monthly newsletters to all of her dealers, sharing tips on topics such as what’s hot and what’s not, how to clean and restore items, and how to spot reproductions. Reeves has a warm, sweet personality and takes time with each customer, answering questions about antiques and providing quick recommendations of local places to eat or shop. Reeves remembered her first day on the job at the Antique Mall. “I couldn’t get the inventory computer to work, and asked the customers in the store if anyone knew anything about computers. A young man stepped forward to help me, and I hired him on the spot.” Reeves has since provided jobs to students, retirees, and other local residents. “I love them. I’ve been really lucky.
King Street Creamery
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ast General Store is often credited for revitalizing downtown Boone. It was a time that retail establishments and shopping were moving to malls. Hunts Department Store, originally owned local resident Guy Hunt and occupying the space at 630 West King Street since 1940, announced its closing in 1987. “We were approached by several citizens of Boone about opening a store downtown,” said John Cooper, who reopened the original Mast General Store in Valle Crucis in 1980. “Joe Miller, in particular, was most persistent. At the time, we had already opened the Annex in Valle Crucis, and were bursting at the seams. So it was a good time to open a second store.” The red brick side of the building was built around 1913, and originally opened as the People’s Bank. The other side, built in 1917, opened as the first Boone Drug location. Since part of Mast General Store’s appeal is based on an
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f you’d like a glimpse of King Street from the “olden days,” King Street Creamery is the place to go. Not necessarily because it has been around a long time, though. This ice cream and coffee shop has only been around for about three years, opened by Karl Smith, who also owns Appalachian Tees and Appalachian Sportswear, both on King Street. “After the
downtown location of Boone Drug shut down, there was a real demand for an ice cream store,” said Smith. He had experimented with soft serve cones at his Wolfie’s Deli shop (now closed), and realized that hand-dipped ice cream was in higher demand. Smith has decorated his store with pictures of Boone from the early 1900’s, and early photos of Appalachian Teachers College and the transition to the University. One of the prints hanging in the shop is believed to be the oldest picture of Boone on record, depicting a small town in the horses and carriages era, with people welcoming a parade of horses coming down the main road. The surrounding mountains, now covered in forests and dotted with homes, were at that time cleared for farmland. Examination of an early picture of King Street, complete with Model T automobiles parked in front of stores, revealed that the Creamery spot was occupied a hardware store. Wolfie’s Deli was originally a staircase leading from Howard Street up to King Street. At some point, it was closed in, and a very narrow shop was opened at the King Street level. “In the basement,” said Smith, “There is a staircase to nowhere. The original staircase is still there, but just ends at the ceiling.” Smith has plans to expand the offerings of King Street Creamery. Coffee, espresso drinks, ice cream, and handmade fudge is now on the menu. Future items will include more decadent candies and perhaps pulled taffy.
The Happy Place and The Rock n Roll Emporium
Rawn Simonds and Sasquach
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awn Simonds brought a little peace and joy when he opened up his stores in downtown Boone. Scents of incense drift from The Happy Place, filled with colorful apparel, Baja jackets, black light posters and funky tapestries. “We try to create a positive atmosphere and a fun experience for customers,” said Simonds. Down the hall, Bigfoot beckons customers to come and explore more fun merchandise, ranging from classic rock and roll t-shirts, to costumes and wigs, to unique clothing and second-hand books. About the giant Sasquach, Simonds remarked, “We needed something to entice people to come all the way to the end of the hall. When I saw the statue of Big Foot, I knew that was it!” During Halloween, the book section of the shop is transformed into “The Scary Way Out,” with good natured and kid-friendly characters wired to startle and spook. Shops in this mini-mall are quite a departure from the five and dime that used to occupy the space. Simonds and Krista Kull moved to Boone from Asheville in 2006 to open the store and raise their child. “We hire personalities, not employees,” said Simonds. “We think people should have the freedom to enjoy themselves, and they share that attitude with our customers.”
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December 2017
less you know somebody.” But many of her employees come to Lucky Penny with no prior work experience. “The first thing I ask is, ‘Do you shop here?’” she said. “Some say no, but they would if they had a paycheck. I’m like, ‘OK, I can work with that.’” Throughout the years, Vaquera has hired students majoring in apparel merchandising and textile, business, art, design and photography. “The aesthetic kind of jives,” she said. “I definitely try to hire people who are into the store, into retail. It’s not for everybody. Just like restaurants, retail can be grilling.” But the payoff is more than satisfying. “One of the cool things about being in business is that I really get to know some of the students and their families, and they come back every year,” Vaquera said. “Those customer interactions are really cool, especially as you see people grow. Because college is a really pivotal time. Some kids don’t need to evolve that much, but I know I did. I feel like Boone kind of reared me into adulthood.” And now, she’s returning the favor. Lucky Penny is also incredibly active in the community, contributing toward nonprofit and charitable causes on a regular basis, with a goal “to make fashion and the arts accessible for everyone,” Vaquera said. Like so, the store supports local charities and nonprofits, as well as area schools and colleges. For instance, Habitat for Humanity recently hosted a major fundraiser, for which Lucky Penny auctioned off an exclusive, private shopping night, with Peabody’s Wine & Beer Merchants supplying the beverages and Tina Houston of Reid’s Café catering the food. “We started that package last year, and it’s been really successful and fun,” Vaquera said. “We always donate jewelry and merchandise, but with the high school and college, there’s so much to be involved with. It’s nice to be able to help out.”
See For Yourself Highway Robbery is located at 607 W. King St. in downtown Boone. For more information, call (828) 264-7604. Lucky Penny is located at 693 W. King St. in downtown Boone. For more information, call (828) 264-0302, or visit www. luckypennyboone.com. t
Here Are Some of the Businesses You’ll Find Along King Street Did Someone Say Party?
Donna Cook and Larke Blanton
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onna Cook came to A.S.U. in 1978 and never left Boone. “Back then,” she said, “There weren’t many jobs in Boone for new graduates. You had to make your own thing, or move off the mountain.” She has owned and operated Boone’s destination bridal and tuxedo shop, Did Someone Say Party?, for 28 years. “It’s ironic,” she said. “I didn’t even plan my own wedding, but I thought I’d be good at this!” And indeed she is. Cook is now serving her second generation of customers. “They come in for prom dresses, then for wedding dresses, and now I’m outfitting their daughters in prom and wedding attire! My customer base is so loyal.” Cook recalls the early days of her business. “We moved in this building, and it had 300 phone lines! It used to be the Democratic Headquarters.” The building revealed more of its history during renovations. A business license from Bare’s Department store, dated 1922, was found mounted on an original post, covered up by paneling. “I think it was an antique mall for awhile, too.” Cook raised her two sons in the store. “That was the “time-out” closet for Boy #1, and that one was for Boy #2,” she said, pointing to two dressing rooms. “We had boys running up and down the stairs, parachutes flying off the balcony. As the boys got older, they’d go visit the folks at Farmers Hardware, go to the theater and watch dollar movies. Everyone on the street knew they were my boys, and helped me watch after them.” The boys are now grown and gone, but the store still bustles with lively brides, helped by Cook and her team to find the perfect dress.
The Appalachian Theater
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M-Prints
he Appalachian Theater was built in 1938, by Arthur Hamby and Ralph Winkler. It had 999 seats, which was amazing considering that the entire population of the town at that time was fewer than 2,000 people. The theatre hosted Vaudeville acts and other live performances, and showed movies and newsreels, particularly important to keep the public informed during the war years. The theater changed hands several times over the years, and its offerings varied from live performances by legendary artists Doc Watson and Earl Scruggs, to the “Dollar Theater” days of late-run cinema. It finally closed in 2007, and became somewhat of a “blight” until it was purchased by the Appalachian Theater of the High Country, a non-profit organization set to restore the grandeur of the venue and bring music, dance, theater and movies back to downtown King Street. John Cooper, Chair of the Board of Trustees, explained, “We have plans to reproduce the Art-Deco style almost to a “T.” The theater was very well built, with steel supports to the balcony. We plan to offer a showcase of local talent, classic and foreign films, and a stage for national artists as well. Many big-name performers like an intimate setting.” Construction of the interior renovations are slated to begin in late spring. A parking garage is proposed to help handle the expected crowds. “A venue like this enhances the livability of downtown, and has the potential to be a big tourist draw, similar to that of the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia.” The project promises to generate a positive economic impact on local restaurants, retailers, and hotel
Stuart Mangum
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ike several downtown merchants, Stuart Mangum, owner of M-Prints, Inc., is a “Boone-a-rang.” Folks who grew up elsewhere, came to A.S.U., graduated and got jobs off the mountain, and then found their way back to Boone. “I came back to go back to school,” said Mangum, “but that didn’t happen. I got a job with a screen printer, to raise funds for tuition, but ended up staying in the business and buying my own shop.” Mangum opened M-Prints in 1991, and they do custom screen printing and embroidery for teams, businesses, and organizations all over the High Country. “We do a lot of work for A.S.U., for the Athletic teams, intramurals, social organizations. Then of course we work with local businesses, schools, and individuals. We’ll print one shirt, or we’ll print several thousand.” Screen printing isn’t limited to clothing. M-Prints has printed on leather goods, umbrellas, and even beach chairs. They have a graphic artist on staff, and can help with a design, “from a napkin sketch to the finished artwork,” said Magnum. The shop is located at 713 West King Street. “Originally, the building housed the Boone Tire & Bargain store, carrying everything from tires to appliances. Allegedly, the first television in Boone sat right here in the front window,” said Mangum. “People would come from all over and stand on the sidewalk, watching the TV.”
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Parting Shot...
By
Jordan Nelson
Drone picture from above the Boone Mall looking toward the Shops of Shadowline and Harris Teeter
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The October 23 Flood in Boone
rom the residential evacuations along Boone Docks Drive to the beautiful rainbow that followed the torrential rains, Jordan Nelson of Nelson Aerial Productions took some incredible birds-eye footage of the flood in Boone on Oct. 23rd. That Monday, nearly six inches of rain fell. Boone was inundated in stormwater. One car left unattended in the Boone Mall parking lot drifted with the current, and Winklers Creek beside the Burger King looked like the Mississippi. Nelson’s four-minute film, which captured the residential rescues and the flooding from the Holmes Convocation Center to Deerfield Road, reached 1.9 million people on Facebook. It was shared nearly 20,000 times and viewed on YouTube and Facebook by nearly 900,000 people. Nelson said he began filming about when the rain stopped. This was also when the water levels were the highest. He controlled his drone from three different locations until sunset: Meadowview Drive across from Hampton’s Body Shop; the parking lot in front of Mint off of Boone Heights Drive; and from behind the fire station off of State Farm Road. “These locations allowed me to fly within line of sight and to ensure I didn’t fly over moving vehicles or people. I got to work on the video as soon as I got back from filming and had it edited and uploaded by 11:30 p.m. that night,” Nelson said. “The footage was seen on The Weather Channel, Good Morning America and The Washington Post’s website that I know of.” The 5.95 inches of rain in one day for Boone was a record for 80
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the month of October, according to RaysWeather.com, which has archived weather data from 1929 to date. Only two other dates produced more rain in one day in Boone than the Oct. 23 flood: Jan. 14, 1995, 6.9 inches; and Sept. 7, 2004, 7.64 inches. Watauga County Emergency Management Coordinator Taylor Marsh said that the area along Boone Docks Drive, where boat rescue operations took place, featured some of the worst flooding he’s seen in Boone. “Down around in the Hampton [Body Shop] area, it’s the worst I have ever seen, and speaking with some of those business owners down there, it’s the worst, the highest the water has ever gotten down there,” Marsh said. “I’ve talked to a few people that said it’s the worst they’ve ever seen in the Perkinsville area near 194.” The day after the flash flood – while residents and business owners picked up the pieces – Marsh and other emergency officials, both from local and state departments, surveyed the damage. The storm caused 40 apartment units to receive more than two feet of water, and the damage assessment found at least 25 homes and businesses suffered major damaged, according to the state. Coinciding with the rainstorm and flooding in Boone and Watauga were high winds and tornadoes in surrounding counties, such as Wilkes, Ashe and Caldwell. Gov. Roy Cooper announced that federal Small Business Administration loans are available to local homeowners, renters, businesses and nonprofits affected by the Oct. 23 storm in Western North Carolina. The application deadline is Jan. 22.
By Jesse Wood
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