High Country Magazine - October 2020

Volume 16 • Issue 2 October/November 2020

October / November 2020

High Country Magazine

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October / November 2020

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October / November 2020

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C O N T E N T S

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Farm-City Banquet Celebrates 65 Years COVID-19 forced the cancelation of this year’s Farm-City Banquet, but this story gives everyone a look back at some history of agriculture in the High Country.

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Junaluska: Oral Histories of a Black Appalachian Community Living in one of the oldest African American communities in western North Carolina are residents who are determined to preserve their history with a recently published book.

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Four Decades at Banner Elk Realty John Davis has sold a lot of houses and seen a lot of faces during his 40 years of work at Banner Elk Realty.

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Student Housing Continues to Boom Brand new residential complexes continue to sprout up across Boone, including the Peak of Boone, The Finmore at 241 and Rivers Walk.

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A Fresh New Look at Stonewall’s Restaurant Entering its 35th year in operation, Stonewall’s Restaurant in Banner Elk recently underwent some redesigning to offer even more to their loyal customers.

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Jim Hamilton’s Ginseng Novel

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Watauga County Extension Director Jim Hamilton spent years writing and getting feedback on his novel The Last Entry, a tale of ginseng and Appalachian folklore.

on the cover Todd Bush - Our Fall 2020 cover photo by Todd Bush gives us a picture of the leaf season that will be embracing the High Country over the coming weeks. This photo was made last year and was taken from the shores of Banner Elk’s Wildcat Lake with Beech Mountain rising above reflection amidst the quilt of Fall colors. You can see more of Todd’s photography by visiting his website at: bushphoto.com, 6

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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.

ADVERTISING & MARKETING

Our magazine is a wonderful way for businesses to advertise to our readers. Our magazines tend to stay around for a long time, on coffee tables and bed stands, and shared with family and friends. To find out about advertising, call our offices at 828264-2262.

BACK ISSUES

Back issues of our magazines are available from our office for $5 per issue. Some issues are already sold out and are no longer available.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photography and page reprints are available for purchase. For sizing, prices and usage terms, please call our office. Some photos may not be available and some restrictions may apply.

FREELANCE OPPORTUNITIES

Writers and photographers may send queries and samples to the editor at hcmag@highcountrypress.com.

Contact us at:

High Country Press/Magazine P.O. Box 152 1600 Highway 105 Boone, NC 28607 www.hcpress.com info@highcountrypress.com 828-264-2262 October / November 2020

High Country Magazine

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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

Rolling Right Along With ZOOM

I

Ken Ketchie

t seems gadgets keep on making it easier for us to communicate with one another while making it less likely that we actually communicate in person.

The ever-improving technology available certainly keeps us in touch these days at the touch of a button. That got started back when emails first arrived on the scene. Not long after that, cell phones found their way into our pockets, and so a quick phone call from just about anywhere became possible. That’s when we started down that road of being able to be constantly in touch. Around the same time, the cutting edge folks discovered the Blackberry and its ability to send a message as a text on its Blackberry Messenger (remember BBM’s?), bypassing the need to call someone.

I’ve always played catch-up with these new ways to communicate with the latest thing to come out because I’ve always been that “in-person” type of fellow. I prefer to communicate in-person when possible while out selling ads or conducting interviews for stories for my newspapering work. I’ve always enjoyed that person-to-person contact.

It can be time-consuming making that effort to drop by for a visit – or even catch someone in their office who is not too busy to speak with. I can’t count the times I’ve heard “you just missed them.”

Those work meetings are usually very brief and to the point, but the ability to see facial expressions, hear the tone of someone’s voice, and see body gestures adds insight to a conversation.

It also gives you some wiggle room with the conversation and a chance to clarify what is being said. If there’s a little extra time, you usually have a chance to get off subject for a little gossip and a bad joke or two.

But now even more so with the pandemic, those days are becoming more infrequent and far between.

So now we have upped the bar even more with the advent of Zoom that has become the “go-to” way to communicate these days.

It has already come a long way since we first started seeing examples of it showing up on TV back in the spring to replace in-studio interviews. Churches adopted Zoom to conduct Sunday services and businesses embraced it for business meetings.

Zoom has taken off and I finally had my first hands-on experience when working on this issue. Roberta Jackson and Lynn Patterson with the Junaluska Book project suggested we use Zoom for our interview.

Lucky for me, our writer for the story Harley Nefe was well-versed with Zoom and quickly got us set up for the meeting. With a click of a button there we were, all on a computer screen looking at each other. Lynn even had her end set up that whoever was talking, Lynn or her Mother would show up as the large image on the screen.

It was almost like being in the same room. We laughed and chatted and got to see each other talk and there was that magic of being together.

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Contributing Writers Nathan Ham Harley Nefe Jan Todd Jesse Wood

Contributing Photographer Todd Bush Lonnie Webster

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. © 2019

by High Country Press. All Rights Reserved.

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Early Voting Begins October 15 - Here’s a Look at the Process

W

e are roughly a month from the 2020 Election and just a few days from the start of early voting in North Carolina.

Voter registration for the 2020 Election ends on October 9. However, you can also register and vote on the same day during the One Stop Early Voting Period.

One Stop Early Voting in Watauga County begins on October 15 and continues through October 31. On weekdays from October 15 through October 30, early voting sites are open from 8 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. On Saturday, October 17 and Saturday, October 24, the sites are open from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. and on Saturday, October 31, you can early vote from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m.

Watauga County residents can also vote by mail by requesting an absentee ballot online at the North Carolina Board of Elections Online Portal or by written request to the county board of elections office. That form is also available online on each county’s board of election website.

All absentee ballots must be requested

by October 27 and can be returned to the Board of Elections office in person or mailed back. All mailed ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day, which is November 3. Absentee ballots can also be dropped off at each of the six early-voting locations during early-voting hours. Ballots can not be dropped off at precincts on Election Day, only at the board of elections’ office.

Page Two Watauga Local Races

Watauga County has six early-voting locations: 1) Watauga County Administration Building, Commissioners’ Board Room • 814 W. King Street, Boone

Avery Ballot Local Races

2) Appalachian State University, Plemmons Student Union – Blue Ridge Ballroom • 263 Locust Street, Boone

October 15-16: 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.

October 19-23: 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.

October 26-30: 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.

October 31: 8 a.m. until 3 p.m.

4) Deep Gap Fire Department 6583 Old 421 South, Deep Gap 5) High Country Vacation Homes (Foscoe) • 520 Church Road, Boone 6) Western Watauga Community Center 1081 Old U.S. Highway 421, Sugar Grove

High Country Magazine

Avery County Pool Complex 220 Shady Street, Newland Avery County early voting hours:

3) Blowing Rock Town Hall 1036 Main Street, Blowing Rock

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Avery County has one early voting location:

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Buckeye in the News This Summer on Beech Mountain Buckeye Creek Road Paved and Ready for High Country Travelers

The Town of Beech Mountain had a busy summer, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and a lot of uncertainly around tourism in the High Country.

Town residents and tourists alike were happy to see the newly-paved Buckeye Creek Road officially open this summer. The 2.7-mile road with 40 curves gives folks a scenic drive down the backside of Beech Mountain into Tennessee near Watauga Lake.

It will also open up new economic possibilities for that side of the mountain that hasn’t ever had those opportunities before.

“This is a huge step for Beech Mountain and has opened up many areas to easier access,” stated Mayor Barry Kauffman.

“Our residents and visitors now have a quicker way to travel to communities on the other side of the mountain, including Watauga Lake, Elizabethton, and Mountain City, Tennessee, as well as Boone.”

Kate Gavenus, the Beech Mountain TDA Director, says that there are several ideas being tossed about for the new road, including a regional “High Low Trail” that could feature restaurant tours, a hiking loop, and a winery loop that will be expanded on even more in the spring.

The new road also serves as a boost for the safety and wellbeing of residents on that side of the mountain.

“This is a big deal for the Town of Beech Mountain and a big deal for Avery County,” said Bob Pudney, who is the town manager and serves as fire chief for Beech Mountain. “Buckeye Creek Road now provides our residents and safety personnel a second, paved route to enter or exit the mountain in the case of an emergency. A couple of years ago, we had to have water rescue support from our Tennessee neighbors, and we realized then that it was really critical to get our access road paved from that side of the town.”

Buckeye Creek Road is easily accessible from Beech Mountain Road and connects the town to U.S. Highway 321.

In the spring of 2020, the Beech Mountain Town Council unanimously approved a contract bid to pave Buckeye Creek Road. The cost was $685,000, which was taken from general reserves. This project was part of the town’s long-term comprehensive plan and was completed in June.

Buckeye Recreation Center Renamed in Honor of Fred and Margie Pfohl

Residents in Beech Mountain got a chance to celebrate and honor the life of one of the town’s most loved and respected residents. Margie Pfohl passed away earlier this year and her longtime husband Fred, owner of Fred’s General Mercantile, was on hand at the Buckeye Recreation Center for a special surprise: the renaming of the center to the Fred and Marjorie Pfohl Buckeye Recreation Center.

“It was a great surprise. There are a lot of other people that deserve similar and there are a lot of other people that got me to the point I got to. I’ll accept the honor for all of the folks that have helped make Beech Mountain what it is,” said Fred. “I’ve enjoyed the Buckeye Rec Center, I was around when it was built and I helped initially with a 14

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October / November 2020

Buckeye Creek Road is officially paved and open for travelers after a ribbon-cutting ceremony took place in late August. The 2.7-mile road takes drivers down the backside of Beech Mountain.

A surprise ceremony honored Fred and Margie Pfohl by renaming the Buckeye Recreation Center in their honor. Margie passed away earlier this year and Fred has always supported recreation in the area.

lot of different things.

Fred was the first elected mayor of Beech Mountain and has always been an advocate for organized recreation activities in the town. He has also served on the town’s recreation committee since its inception.

With Margie’s death still on Fred’s mind, it was obviously an emotional moment for him, remembering all of the times that she supported him through the good times and the bad times.

“It was great that they were honoring both Margie and I, and she’s had as much to do with things as I have because she has always kept me on the right track and when there was ever any time when I questioned or had any anxiety about something, I always talked to her about it and she would always point me in the right direction. She’d always pat me on the back and tell me not to worry that things would be better. All of my success can be attributed to a great wife,” said Fred.

Margie and Fred were married for 43 years.

- Nathan Ham

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October / November 2020

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Boone Town Council Endorses Concept for Municipal Complex

T

he Boone Town Council unanimously endorsed a concept for a new town government complex, or a municipal complex, that would house the Boone Public Works Department, Boone Police Department, Planning & Inspections Department and other facilities.

In addition to the three town departments that would relocate to the site, the municipal center would also include the town’s fourth fire station, a potential ABC store and a recreational greenspace.

The complex will be located on 53.8 acres of property in between Brookshire Park and Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation, on U.S. 421 on the east side of Boone, which the town purchased for $4.68 million in 2016.

The property, consisting of four parcels owned by the Bolick family, has 1,450 linear feet of road frontage along U.S. 421 and nearly 2,900 linear feet along the New River.

Due to the river frontage and the property bordering Brookshire Park, a future park and extension of the greenway trail is planned for the property as well.

The main entrance to the complex would align with the intersection of U.S. 421 and Bamboo Road. A second entrance could be co-located with the existing Blue Ridge Energy driveway.

During the Boone Town Council’s online monthly meeting on Aug. 20, Jason Bertoncino of the engineering firm WithersRavenel presented a conceptual site plan for the complex.

The largest component of the original design proposal was intended to address the space and functional limitations of the Town of Boone’s Public Works facilities.

The administrative offices and primary shop areas are currently located in a 1950s era former automotive sales and service facility. Public Works has additional shop and storage yards located on the Horn Avenue property and materials stored behind the current police facility on U.S. 321.

According to the concept plan from WithersRavenel, the age and scattering of these facilities do not promote efficient operations nor do they meet modern municipal facility standards.

The concept plan includes space for a 150-person community meeting room in the Public Works and Planning Administration building.

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High Country Magazine

Another facility that is addressed in the plan is the Town of Boone’s Police Department, which is currently housed in a former funeral home on U.S. 321.

According to the concept plan from WithersRavenel, while the police department facility has served the town well, it is dated and not well suited for the modern needs of law enforcement from a function and security standpoint.

In addition, the Town of Boone itself is currently served by two fire stations.

According to the concept plan from WithersRavenel, with the rapidly growing eastern portion of town having the longest response travel distances, adding a third town facility to this side of town will be important as the

October / November 2020

Town of Boone considers future growth.

Also addressed in the plan is the Town of Boone’s Planning & Inspection Department, which is currently situated in the old post office located along West King Street.

According to the concept plan from WithersRavenel, while a historically significant and beautiful structure, it was built in the late 1930s and for a different purpose. While it has a good location, it has limited public accessibility and is not suited for the town’s current or future Planning & Inspection Department needs.

Lastly, a plan for an ABC store was addressed.

The Town of Boone’s existing ABC store, located along U.S. 321 on the south side of town, is one of the larger volume stores in North Carolina. This area can often become congested with traffic and difficult to access for traffic visiting Boone.

According to the concept plan from WithersRavenel, the town has identified the need for a second store to serve the residents and visitors to the eastern areas of the county.

With the Boone Town Council’s endorsement of the project, the Town of Boone will move forward with more detailed plans and cost estimates.

- Harley Nefe

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FARM

65 Years of a Banquet Celebrations

By Nathan Ham The COVID-19 pandemic has put the brakes on another traditional event in the High Country. The annual Farm-City Banquet, which would have celebrated its 65th anniversary this year, will not happen in 2020 and will return stronger than ever in 2021.

The banquet is normally held each year as a way of celebrating the importance of local farmers to the High Country, and the many partnerships that exist between the agricultural community and the Town of Boone.

The banquet would not be possible without the hard work and support of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension of Watauga County, one of the driving forces that have kept the Farm-City Banquet one of the most highly anticipated events of the year.

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High Country Magazine

Mr. and Mrs. Bill Harmon were named the Farm Family of the Year in 1989 at the 34th Farm-City Banquet.

“Even 65 years later in 2020, FarmCity celebrates and recognizes the strong agricultural base that we have here,” said Jim Hamilton, Director at Watauga

October / November 2020

County Cooperative Extension.

Hamilton took over as the Cooperative Extension director for Watauga County on January 4, 2010. He took over for Sue Counts, who retired in 2008 after serving as the director for 10 years. Hamilton had been in Boone previously working as an extension agent from October of 2002 to February of 2005 before taking an assistant professor position at Alabama A&M. He later taught at Haywood Community College. Hamilton has the added experience of serving in the Peace Corps for three years in Paraguay.

The annual banquet averages around 250 attendees with lots of great food, door prizes, and plenty more.

It’s good to bring a community together around a dinner table where politics and personal differences don’t matter.

We’re all one community that can still en-

Banquet

CITY

Farm-City Banquet Takes a Brief Hiatus for 2020

The Eller Family Farm was named the 2014 Watauga County

In 2018, C&J Tree Farms was chosen as the Watauga County

Conservation Farm Family of the Year

Conservation Farm Family of the Year.

joy a meal together,” said Hamilton.

The Many Partners Involved in the Farm-City Banquet

The historical “Farm-City Week” came about as a nationwide movement in

1955. Charles Dana Bennett, a businessman from Vermont, and Merle H. Tucker, Chairman of Kiwanis International Agriculture and Conservation Committee, were seated together on a train headed from Chicago to Washington, D.C. when

the two started a conversation. That year, farm income was declining while farming costs, property taxes, and farmer debt were all on the rise. Bennett and Tucker began talking about the poor public image of agriculture, the strong urban influence

Farm-City Banquet 2018 Boone United Methodist Church Banquet Hall

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Here’s a Glimps of Watauga County from the 1957 Annual Farm/City Report

T

he Farm-City Banquet has always been more than just a dinner. In the earliest of the banquet days, the Farm-City Banquet not only provided folks an outlet to celebrate farming in the community, but also what was called the “Watauga County Progress Report” that updated people on everything from the number of people connected to the telephone system to new businesses that have opened.

This is a summary of the October 21, 1957 Farm City Banquet Annual Progress Report highlighting the major news during that time.

“This booklet represents reports of activities carried on within the area by most organizations. It is by no means complete since space would not permit. This report, however, indicates that considerable progress has been made in the development of all phases of livelihood in Watauga County. It exemplifies what can be done through the cooperative efforts and hard work of everyone directed toward a common set of goals. Watauga County has 19,000 proud American citizens, proud that they live in Watauga County. Let us pledge the whole hearted cooperative efforts of the entire county population to the tasks that are before us; to make Watauga County economically stable, morally clean, wonderously more beautiful, and spiritually great.”

This Annual Progress Summary event is sponsored by the Watauga County Rural Development Committee in cooperation with all other groups and agencies in the county.

Everything listed below was just some of the information from the annual Watauga County progress report at the 1957 Farm-City Banquet. The 28 page summary was provided by the Watauga County Rural Development Committee.

Public Services

Health, Education and Welfare 20

High Country Magazine

• Aid to dependent children - $114,480

Health Department • One doctor, one sanitarian, one nurse and one secretary.

• Doctor and sanitarian serve a threecounty district.

National Guard • 47 enlisted men, one officer, full employment for one man.

• Boone is scheduled for permanent Armory in the near future.

Public Utilities Electricity

• 4,262 farms and homes served

Public Schools

• High schools – 4

• Elementary schools – 8 • Total enrollment – 4,109

• Teachers in county system – 142 • County superintendents – 1 • Supervisor – 1

• Total spent on improvements in public schools is $314,671.19

• All teachers in county system have 100 percent membership in county, state and national education associations.

Appalachian State Teachers College • 4-year college and graduate school teachers – 117 • Enrollment last year – 1,899.

• Summer school enrollment – 1,699 • Money appropriated for the next two years for capital improvements is $1,433,500. Also given authority to borrow $1,750,000 to building one dormitory and replace one dormitory.

Welfare Department • Five employees (One added this year).

• Total budget for the year is $295,060.

County’s part of this budget is $47,499.

• Old-age assistance - $124,500

October / November 2020

by Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation.

• 14 miles of new line at a cost of $62,500 serving 179 homes. Substations and lines rebuilt at a total cost of $350,00.

• Delivered to consumers in Watauga County 21,675,350 kilowatt hours of electricity during the year; up eight percent over previous years.

New River Light and Power Company

• Built 12.98 miles of new lines in 1957.

• Extended service to 75 new customers.

Telephones

• Southern Bell Telephone system installed 175 new phones during the year.

• Added dial system in town of Blowing Rock.

• Skyline Telephone Membership Corporation installed 300 phones during the year, running 50 miles of line.

Towns Town of Boone • Increased sanitation department to full time. Garbage picked up from all homes two times a week.

• Purchased Horn in the West property at a cost of $105,000. This property to be used a public park and playground.

Town of Blowing Rock • Completed Grover Robbins memorial swimming pool.

on agricultural policies, and a growing population of people that did not know any farmers and probably had no idea where their food even came from.

This kicked off the idea of a way to bring a more positive relationship between farmers and city residents. Not long after this conversation happened, the National Farm-City Committee was formed by Kiwanis International.

The Kiwanis continued to play a major part in the Farm-City relationships until 1988 when the American Farm Bureau Federation took over responsibility for the movement.

Now, as is the case in Watauga County and many other locations across the country, Farm-City events are planned by the Cooperative Extension, agribusinesses, farmers, youth groups, civic groups, and other organizations to educate the public about the interdependence of agriculture and industry.

“The extension is the facilitator because we work with everyone in the community.”

L.E. Tuckwiller was the early director of Cooperative Extension and was the first director that started organizing the banquet for the county. In the early days of the Farm-City Banquet in Watauga County, the banquet was held at the old Cove Creek School.

“The extension has been so tied in with the organization of the event. We are the picture-perfect example of what Farm City is. We have Boone and the mentalities and ideologies of the town and then we have the farming community,” said Hamilton. “The extension is the facilitator because we work with everyone in the community.”

While people can quickly forget about the areas outside of Boone and Blowing Rock, farmers are working their land from all corners of the county, from Deep Gap to Zionville and all points in between.

“Despite what Boone may look like, this area is still very, very rural,” said

Jim Hamilton Celebrates 10 Years as Watauga County Cooperative Extension Director

J

im Hamilton has spent the majority of the last 20 years of his life in Watauga County. After working as an extension agent in Watauga County from 2002 until 2005, Jim returned in 2010 to take over as the Watauga County Cooperative Extension Director, a position he still holds today.

Hamilton took over for Sue Counts, who retired in November of 2008 after she served as the extension’s director since 1995.

“I feel the public outreach mission of Extension fits my personal goals of working on hands-on issues that affect the health and livelihood of individuals and promoting environmentally responsible practices,” said Hamilton when he first took the job. “I gained a lot of experience writing and managing grants and projects over the last five years in higher education and am looking forward to applying my background and interests in this new position.”

Jim, who is originally from Alabama, went to N.C. State and ended up with his Ph.D. in Forestry and Environmental Resources and during his Ph.D. work is when he first fell in love with the High Country.

“I was doing my doctoral research on Latino farmworkers in the Christmas tree industry. I came up here, loved the area, and then the Christmas tree extension agent position Jim Hamilton opened and I took that job,” said Hamilton.

When Jim first left the High Country, he did so to take an assistant professor of forestry outreach position at Alabama A&M in February of 2005. In March of 2006, Hamilton came back to North Carolina to work as a forestry instructor at Haywood Community College in Clyde.

Jim spent three years serving in the Peace Corps in Paraguay and put his outdoor experience and education to good use by teaching others about beekeeping, small tree nursery work, soil and conservation, pesticide safety, and crop diversification. He also holds an MS in Forestry from the University of Auburn and a BS in Anthropology and Natural Resources from the University of the South, Sewanee.

In his early days growing up on a cattle farm in Alabama, Jim says those days working outside, even with all the hard work, shaped his future of wanting a career working outdoors.

“My parents weren’t full-time farmers, but farming was a full-time job. Loading hay in August in Alabama in a steel barn were formative experiences I had growing up,” Jim said.

The farm was his mother’s family farm and they maintained about 60 head of cattle and grew pine trees as well.

After reminiscing about his childhood, bringing everything back to the present day, Jim says that his job as the county extension director is more than just administration work, but also still getting to go out into the field with farmers and landowners.

“We are the conduit for bringing the latest research-based information from the universities out to people in the county. We facilitate the technology transfer into our rural communities. It’s interesting for me to go out into a Christmas tree field and help diagnose a pest problem. I enjoy helping farmers write and apply for grants to help them diversity their farm,” Hamilton said. “There’s never a dull moment here, from identifying snakes in buckets that get brought in to the office to reassuring residents that we don’t have murder hornets in our county.”

October / November 2020

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• Skyline Amusement Park and Tweetsie Railroad opened during the year.

Chamber of Commerce Blowing Rock

• Blowing Rock Chamber of Commerce carried on an extensive program which has resulted in the best year in tourist activity in the history of Blowing Rock.

Boone

Catawba Dairies Cooperative, Inc.

• Purchased local Hillside Dairy Plant around September 1, 1957.

Yadkin Valley Dairy Cooperative, Inc. • Completed new addition to plant and started deliveries of grade A milk to schools and stores in Watauga County on Sept. 1, 1957.

• Watauga farmers are receiving a higher blend price for their milk as a result of this operation.

• The Boone Chamber of Commerce

1958 Banquet Brochure

was successful in locating one new industry in Watauga County: Shadowline, Inc., manufacturers of fine ladies lingerie.

• Boone Developments, Inc. • Chartered September 1957, authorized capital stock of $200,000, subscribed and paid $50,000.

• Corporation has optioned 237 acres of land or sites of golf course and country club.

• Plans are now in progress to construct golf course and have in operation by early summer 1059.

Civic Clubs

• Blue Ridge Garden Club • Worthwhile Woman’s Club • Gardenerettes’ Garden Club

• Business and Professional Woman’s

1960 Banquet Brochure

Club and Watauga Medical Auxiliary • Teen Canteen • Junior Woman’s Club • Junior Chamber of Commerce • Lions Club • Rotary Club • Community Clubs•

Industry International Resistance Corporation • Continued its operation within the area employing local labor.

• Was designated as the model plant within the chain of plants for its efficiency of production.

22

chure 1961 Banquet Bro

High Country Magazine

Shadowline, Inc. • Moved into the area and started pilot operation on May 7, 1957.

• Moved into permanent building on July 15, 1957, with 21 partially trained employees.

• Are operating at the time of this report with 72 employees. All of these are local people except for one manager, one supervisor, and one mechanic.

October / November 2020

County, State, and Federal Agencies County Government

• The County Commissioners appropriated $10,000 to cover cost of extending water and sewer lines to new industry, Shadowline, Inc. • There is an increase in tax evaluation of approximately two million dollars ($2,000,000), mostly from increase in personal property and new homes, businesses, etc.

Farmers Home Administration • During the first year of operation of the Rural Development Program, the Farmers Home Administration has assisted 10 new full-time farmers and 23 part-time farmers with operating loans.

Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation • Number of farmers participating in conservation program – 1,341 • Number of tobacco allotments in the county – 1,586 • Number of tobacco allotments planted – 1,495 • Total number acres of tobacco planted – 731.77 acres Soil Conservation Service

• Since the start of Rural Development Program, soil and water conservation has increased by 25%.

Extension Service

• Home Demonstration Clubs

Bettie Bond, who helps organize the FarmCity Banquet each year.

Gene Brewer took over as the extension director after Tuckwiller and then Sue Counts took the position when she was hired in 1995. Counts was one of the driving forces that got Bettie to become a key member of the Farm-City committee in the late 1990s and has helped make the banquet what it is today.

“We had a committee and we had a chairperson and tried to get as many people involved as we could. We got donations for door prizes and Bettie was really great at making baskets and putting goodies from different places in the baskets and people would get a ticket at the banquet and the baskets would be given away,” said Counts.

“I think the Farm-City Banquet attracts a lot of people.”

As for her work at the extension agency, Counts took over at an important time as farmers started looking for new crops to grow.

“In my time there, we had a good transition from growing tobacco to growing other things. Gene Brewer had gotten the Christmas tree industry growing during his time as county director so the Christmas tree farms were well-established when I be-

Pictures From The Past Former Watauga County Extension Director Sue Counts shared some pictures with us from her time working at the extension office.

Susan Owen was presented with the first Women in Agriculture Award.

Pictured here are Nora Wilson and extension agent Lillian Danner

Extension Director Sue Counts and her staff members.

Mr. and Mrs. Bob Shipley were longtime farmers in Watauga County.

October / November 2020

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Lillian Danner Dedicated Over 30 Years to Watauga County Cooperative Extension L

illian Danner came to Watauga County in 1958 and found both her job and passion for the farming community, starting as an extension agent at the Watauga County Cooperative Extension in June of 1958.

She remembers back to when the Farm-City Banquet was a daytime event that quickly transitioned to an event dinner where everyone dressed their best and celebrated the importance of agriculture in the High Country.

“There were always a bunch of committees that would meet for several months to get everything together and we would spend time the day of the event decorating and getting the place set up.

We’d have speakers and an awards program and there was entertainment of different types,” Lillian said.

The dinners would typically start around 6 p.m. and would last at least until 9 p.m.

“The whole purpose of Farm-City was to incorporate Appalachian State, the town of Boone and the county together,” she said.

Lillian started her career working with extension homemakers clubs and the many programs that they offered including teaching drapery making, furniture refinishing, craft making, and offering leadership programs as well. The home economics programs were designed to help families cook, plan for meals, and

sustain themselves on their land well outside of town.

In 1960, the agency combined home economics with agriculture to what we now know as the agriculture extension service.

On the agricultural side of things, tobacco was the king crop back in those days. Lillian remembers when one of the large tobacco warehouses sat on the land where Walker Hall is on Appalachian State’s campus.

In addition to tobacco being the most popular crop in the area, Lillian remembered how less crowded the county was

This kitchen display from the 1950s shows a pressure cooker, refrigerator, sink, and stovetop oven and would be a typical set-up when Lillian started her career working with extension homemakers clubs.

24

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October / November 2020

back then.

“The one thing that stands out in my mind as much as anything was when I came here, the population was not even 19,000 people, and you know how it has grown now,” she said.

Tobacco began to slowly disappear in the area after health concerns began to drive people away from smoking and chewing tobacco. Cabbage became a major crop in its place, particularly with the kraut factory on the edge of downtown Boone. Christmas trees then became, and still is, the major agricultural crop in the High Country.

“Christmas trees came in and really helped make a big difference, and still makes a big difference,” said Lillian.

Lillian worked with the extension until she retired on January 1, 1990, a total of 32 years committed to the farming community in Watauga County. At the age of 85, she still has fond memories of her time with cooperative extension.

“They were good years and I am very grateful for all of the experiences that I had during that time and all of the many people I worked with, both staff people and community people,” Lillian said.

Even after retirement, Lillian would still lend a helping hand to people at the extension office. That has certainly been one thing that others within the extension agency will not soon forget.

“Without Lillian Danner, my job at the extension would have been very, very difficult,” said Sue Counts, who took over as Extension Director in 1995. “She is a good friend, a wonderful person, and was a great extension person. She’s full of knowledge and willing to share it and was always there for me. She made my job so much easier and I am very thankful for her.”

Current Watauga County Extension Director Jim Hamilton also had plenty of praise for how much Lillian has done for the agency.

“Lillian had such an incredible career and has supported extension and FarmCity as long in retirement as she had in her career. She has been retired as long as she had served as an agent but has remained active and interested in what we are doing here at the extension office,” Hamilton said.

came the county director,� said Counts. “During my time was the time to transition from tobacco to organic vegetables.�

Counts said that Watauga County was one of the first to receive a Golden Leaf grant to work with tobacco growers to transition their farms to growing organic broccoli. Charles Church, who was one of the largest tobacco growers in the county, was one of the pioneers to lead other farmers from growing tobacco to growing vegetables.

The Many Partners Involved in the Farm-City Banquet

Watauga County Cooperative Extension and its staff have facilitated the Farm-City Banquet and awards programming since its inception. Cooperative Extension partners with communities and local governments to provide education and technical assistance based on research from North Carolina’s land-grant universities, NC State University and NC A&T State University. Other community groups and entities have partnered with the extension to make the banquet a community event. Watauga County Farm Bureau has been a key sponsor for many years. Many other local businesses and organizations that have also supported the banquet in recent years include Carolina Farm Credit, New River Building Supply, Hollar & Greene Produce, Blue Ridge Energy, Mast General Store, and Southern Ag among others.

Other local businesses provide items for gift baskets of local goods that are given away at each banquet as door prizes: Stick Boy, Apple Hill Farm, Goodnight Bros, Critcher Bros, Moretz Mountain Orchard, the Watauga Beekeepers, and others. Additionally, locally renowned artist, Richard Tumbleston donates original pieces of his art, often finishing the piece at the banquet.

The Agricultural Services Center, located on King Street in downtown Boone, is home to the Cooperative Extension, Watauga County Soil & Water Conservation District 2, the Natural Resource Conservation Service, and the USDA Farm Services Agency. In addition to those agencies, the High Country Food Hub is located in the basement area of the building and is operated by Blue Ridge Women in Agriculture. “We manage the Agricultural Conference Center for commodity group and county agency meeting space, so we

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Make the trek to the Boone & Blowing Rock area in Watauga County to hand pick your family Christmas tree. Many farms offer hayrides, farm animals, cookies and cocoa, and even Christmas Shops where wreaths and roping are also available. Visit the Choose and Cut Capital this season, and start your own family tradition.

To find a farm, visit: wataugachristmastrees.org or call 828.264.3061 October / November 2020

High Country Magazine

25

L.E. Tuckwiller Worked Over 30 Years at the Watauga County Cooperative L.E. Tuckwiller took part in an interview with the Appalachian Oral History Project on April 10, 1973. At the time of the interview Tuckwiller had just finished his 30th year working with the Watauga County Cooperative Extension and was serving as the director at that time.

The interview was conducted by Joy Lamm.

L.E. Tuckwiller

A family portrait on a farm around 1950.

Three men on the McNeal Farm inspecting a partially harvested cabbage field.

Several farm trucks lined up on a road in 1967.

A sausage truck is parked outside of a local slaughterhouse.

A large group of men standing in a row of cabbage plans around 1970. *All historical photos: Courtesy of Watauga Digital Project, Boone, North Carolina 26

High Country Magazine

spent over 30 years with the Watauga County Cooperative Extension, starting out as an extension agent before ending his tenure as the extension’s director. Tuckwiller was born and raised in West Virginia. In an interview for the Appalachian Oral Project in April of 1973, Tuckwiller described his home in West Virginia.

“It’s not quite as mountainous as around Boone, but over where we were raised it was what they called the rolling land. And, part of it got up on the mountains also, but we had land you could get machinery over. It wasn’t quite the one-horse farm you find in some of the steeper mountains. It was a 200-acre farm – quite a bit of land involved,” he said.

Tuckwiller’s first job coming out of college was working for the Farmer’s Cooperative in Cherokee and Clay County, North Carolina, for seven years. Before that, he had never been to the state before.

In the same Appalachian Oral Project interview, Tuckwiller detailed how important farm life was in the High Country.

“Most everyone depended on their farm for their income, whether they actually farmed or whether they did business with the farmers such as the fertilizer dealers and the merchants. The biggest payroll of course was Appalachian State University, as it still is. The census gave us around 2,600 farms and the income about $1.5 million total sales during the year, so you see, there really wasn’t a lot of money floating around,” said Tuckwiller. “Part of it was what we would now call subsistence farming, with making most everything that you used at the farm, on the farm, and in the home. We didn’t buy a lot.

October / November 2020

I guess the grocery stores would say we didn’t buy anything at all.”

Tuckwiller noted many of the products that farmers sold at the time.

“We were producing quite a number of vegetables. In 1943, when I came here, the second World War in progress, we were growing cabbage, snap beams; Irish potatoes for sale. We were also growing some beef cattle, a large number of farmers kept sheep and sold sheep and lambs. Then there were poultry and eggs on a good many farms at that time. So, we sold vegetables,

L.E. Tuckwiller is pictured here with his grandson Joseph Miller in 1969.

Miller is better known as the COO of Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff.

livestock, livestock products, eggs, poultry,” he said.

There were several places around Boone where area farmers could sell their products, some right downtown, others in nearby Mountain City, West Jefferson and areas off the mountain.

“The vegetables were sold though, at that time, we had Goodnight Brothers operating at Hollar’s Produce. At time to time other large farmers would have some produce.

Continued on Pasge 28

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A painting in progress by Richard Tumbleston as well as a completed painting on the bottom. These are typically the top door prize at the annual Farm-City Banquet.

have a centralized office to meet the needs of farmers and community members in the areas of agriculture and horticulture, family and consumer science, local foods, forest and non-timber forest production (Christmas trees), specialty crops, and community development,� Hamilton said.

The goal each year for the catered meal is to locally source all of the items on the menu. That tradition has continued since early on when Mary and Mike Hall, owners of the former Bandanas Barbecue catered the event for several years. After that, Casa Rustica and owner Rick Pedroni catered the event for a couple of years also integrating local food items. In the last two years, Lost Province and owner Lynn Mason have been able to locally source almost every ingredient for the dinner from local farms. “For a 250-person banquet in November, to feed that many people it’s hard to find 100 percent local ingredients, but Lost Province has been able to almost entirely find local sources for the whole meal,� said Hamilton.

For roughly the last 20 years, all but two of those years (2009 and 2010) the banquet has been held at Boone United Methodist Church during the annual Farm City Week in November.

How Farmers Have Operated During COVID-19

Folks from every walk of life have been affected one way or another by the

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27

L.E. Tuckwiller Continued ...

11 Rooms and Suites and 3 Cottages

As trucks began to come in, we got more and more o the outside truckers coming in buying a truckload of cabbage, a truckload of teams. The biggest bean market in the world at that time was at Mountain City, Tennessee. We had a bean market there, we had a small bean auction market here in Boone for a while, and there’s also one in West Jefferson,” said Tuckwiller. “Some of the towns south and east of here, such as Charlotte and Gastonia, were good markets for farm products. Farmers began to get pick-up trucks. They would load a pick-up, or maybe a larger truck, with cabbage, beans, apples, take off down there for two or three days and sell a load. Potatoes were a big item, we could store potatoes all winter.”

Goodnight Brothers and Hollars used their large trucks to ship produce well outside the region. Tuckwiller recalls trucks going as far away as Charlotte, Atlanta and Louisiana, as well as up the Eastern Seaboard to places like Washington, D.C., New York City and Boston.

Things began to change in the area as more and more farmland turned into housing developments, restaurants, businesses and highways.

“The development has taken quite a large part of the better farms. The Neil Blair farm was a big farm. Where the Hound Ears development is was Claude Shore’s farm. That was not an exceptionally large farm, but it was good farmland. Where Boone now sits, where all this shopping development on Blowing Rock Road is, that was farmland. That belonged to the Farthings mostly, Grady Farthing’s brothers Ed, Zeb and Don,” Tuckwiller recalled.

When asked about the increased development in the High Country back during the 1973 interview, Tuckwiller

said he had plenty of mixed feelings.

“A lot of the people are making an easier living, at least part-time, in industry, than they were able to make on the farm with the assets that we had for farming. So that has helped. But also I hate to see the bulldozers tearing up our land. I think it could be done without as much destruction as has been for the last few years, but they say it’s progress, so we’ll go along with it to a certain extent.

We’ll do all we can to try to keep them from tearing up all the beauty,” he said.

“We still think that the farmers are the backbone of Watauga County, that is as far as the attraction for tourists. There’s nothing more attractive in our reports that we get, one of the things that they like about Watauga County is these well-kept farmsteads and nice cattle on the hill, things like that. So I’m still a farmer, I believe in farming.”

After being on the job for over 30 years, Tuckwiller acknowledged that some aspects of his job had changed over the years from the 1950s through the 1970s.

“My job, when I started, was working with individual farmers trying to help them change their management practices, or their production practices, to produce more and make more money for their farm. My job has been more in the last – since the rural development program in the 1950s – has been to try to help the people help themselves, whether it be in agriculture or whether it be funding employment or starting some kind of small business that would help them with better incomes or make a better living,” Tuckwiller explained. “It’s evolved from helping people in a limited way with agriculture to helping them in any way that we can to give them a better living whether it means more money or just more pleasure from what they are doing.”

L.E. Tuckwiller Award Winners 2005 - 2019

This award recognizes a town or community for the outstanding efforts in “community development.”

2005 - Beaver Dam/Bethel Community 2006 - Town of Seven Devils 2007 - Green Valley School & Park 2008 2008 - Town of Boone 2009 - Elk Knob Comm. Heritage Org. 2010 - Operation Medicine Cabinet 2011 - Recycling Consortium 2012 - Boone Area Cyclists 28

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October / November 2020

2013 - Charles Church 2014 - Watauga County Farmers Market 2015 - Farm Café 2016 - BRWIA Food Hub Program 2017 - Watauga FFA 2018 - Digital Watauga 2019 - Hollar & Greene Produce

COVID-19 pandemic. Even local farmers have not been able to avoid an economic impact on meat and crops.

“The pandemic highlighted a resilient dynamic within our community tied to our local farms and our consumer base that is becoming more interested in supporting their local farms and knowing where their food comes from,” Hamilton explained. “In March, when most businesses and restaurants shut down and grocery store items became scarce, sales at the Food Hub jumped from an average of $4,000 per week to over $20,000 per week.”

Farmers who had no issues selling their goods to area restaurants and through local direct sales suddenly had a major hole in their income sources. Restaurants across the state were forced to close down for indoor dining and many restaurants chose to just close all together instead of attempting to work with a takeout-only method. That’s where the Food Hub came in. Farmers had the opportunity to sell their products while consumers would be able to feel like they could shop safer than having to battle crowded grocery stores.

“Farmers and other organizations

The Watauga County Conservation Farm Family of the Year This award is presented at each banquet by Watauga County Soil & Water Conservation to the farm whose conservation practices are recognized.

1989 - Bill Harmon 1990 - NA 1991 - Larry Davis 1992 - Ewing Harmon 1993 -Mark Thomas 1994 - NA 1995 - Wade Moretz 1996 - Frank & Brenda Payne 1997 - Jerry Dotson Family 1998 - J.B. & Marie Greene 1999 - Ray & Virginia Ward 2000 - Bill & Loyce Edmisten 2001 - Joe & Francis McNeil also contributed produce and other goods each week for area restaurant workers who had been laid off due to the shutdown. The Food Hub helped facilitate this,” Hamilton said.

Bond said that farmers being able to have the Food Hub market was not only

2002 - Floyd & Jane Greene 2003 - Jimmy & Brenda South 2004 - Steve & Judy Stanberry 2005 - Denny & Charlotte Norris 2006 - J.D. Norris 2007 - Blake & Ann Brown 2008 - The Ed Scott Family

Info Not Available for Years 2009 • 2010 • 2011 •2012 • 2013 • 2014 • 2015

2016 - Paug Gragg Family Farms 2017 - Jimmy South (South Angus) 2018 - C&J Christmas Trees 2019 - Victor Fortune and family important for them to be able to sell their products, but also a great way for people to learn about the hub and experience a new way of providing food for their homes.

“I think that many of the people that are now going to the Food Hub will now

BEFORE October / November 2020

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29

be going from now on, but it took something like this to get their attention and into action,” said Bond.

In addition to local fruits and vegetables, meat processing had been a cause for concern with many large processing operations in North Carolina and other places across the country being forced to close down due to COVID-19 outbreaks.

“Due to bottlenecks at meat processing plants, Bob Shipley, the son of long-time agriculture teacher and Western NC Agriculture Hall of Fame member, Robert Shipley, partnered with Cole’s Processing to open Watauga Butchery, the county’s first USDA inspected meat processing facility,” said Hamilton. “Here in the mountains, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Our farmers and the communities that support them here are resilient and find innovative ways to make it work.”

The interest in buying local foods was growing in popularity before COVID-19.

“From the time I started in 1995 until now, the demand for local foods has increased leaps and bounds.

An aerial photo of the Town of Boone in 1950.

I think in Watauga County, it’s all small farmers and I think that there has been an increased interest in farmable to hold the annual Farm-City Banquet. ing. I think that’s why we have more farmers’ markets and more “Since we can’t have the banquet this year, that makes redemand for local foods,” Counts said. member it so much more important. We need to remember how It will certainly be a bittersweet end to 2020 without being important these farmers are,” Bond said. t

Farm City Awards

During each banquet celebrating the local farming community, awards are handed out for a wide variety of accomplishments.

Christmas Tree Grower of the Year

L.E. Tuckwiller Award

- presented by Watauga County Christmas Tree Association.

Cattleman of the Year Award - presented by Watauga County Cattlemen’s Association .

- recognizes a town or community for the outstanding efforts in “community development”. This award is sponsored by the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce.

Beekeeper of the Year Award

Agritourism Award

- presented by Beekeeper Association .

- no set sponsor. Presented to a successful agritourism operation.

Charles Church Sustainability and Stewardship Award - presented by ASU to an outstanding student in ustainable development .

Healthy Food System Award - sponsored/presented by High Country Food Council for an individual or entity that is an advocate in promoting ways to strengthen the local food system .

Agriculture in Arts Award

Friend of Agriculture

- varying presenters. Sometimes not awarded. Presented to an artist, musician, craftsperson who integrates agriculture into their work .

- given to an allied business/organization/individual that supports farming but isn’t in the farming community .

Woman in Agriculture Award

that’s a special one that isn’t given every year .

- Presented by BRWIA to an outstanding female farmer .

Community Volunteer Award - Sponsored by Mast General Store to someone in the community who exemplifies volunteerism .

Youth in Agriculture Award - Presented by Olivia Haigler to a young man or woman who has made significant contributions to local agriculture.

“Spirit of Farm City award Farm Family of the Year Award - presented by Watauga Soil & Water to the farm/farm family whose conservation practices merit recognition.

Robert G. and Agnes D. Shipley Agricultural Endowment to support youth related to agricultural activities in Watauga County.

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October / November 2020

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By Harley Nefe

L

“In the process of doing the research, I ocated on a hill overlooking down- ing from the College of Arts and Sciences town Boone and being walking dis- in 1988 to have a couple of her students came to know the community a bit, and I tance away from Appalachian State conduct interviews in the neighborhood. started to attend the Mennonite Brethren Church, and I started taking field University, lies Junaluska, which notes like any good anthropolois a historically African American gist,” Keefe said. neighborhood. The community In the 1990s, Keefe was conbegan as a segregated neighbortacted by members of the Juhood in the 19th century set apart naluska community who were from the larger community below concerned that their historic it. Junaluska is one of the oldest Methodist Episcopal Church, African American communities sometimes called the Boone in western North Carolina and Chapel on Church Street Extenone of the few surviving today. sion, was endangered of being Over time, the neighborhood demolished because the city had has changed; however, still living condemned it. It was a vital and there are residents who are deteractive church during the 30s and mined to preserve their history.

40s, especially, but it had deA lot of the Junaluska heritage clined in enrollment and stopped can be found in a recently pubbeing used in the 1980s. lished book from this year titled The Junaluska community was “Junaluska: Oral Histories of a really interested in preserving it; Black Appalachian Community,” therefore, Keefe recruited some which contains history narratives of her students and a colleague of that were adapted from interviews the App State anthropology dewith residents of the neighborhood. partment who is an archaeologist The book was edited by Susan and knows about historic preserKeefe, who is a professor emerita vation to be involved. of anthropology at App State who They tried to make improveretired in 2016, along with the Juments to the building to ensure it naluska Heritage Association. would no longer be condemned, Keefe’s involvement with as well as they also looked at the Junaluska community beland titles and discovered that gan when she moved to WatauThe book “Junaluska: Oral Histories of a Black the community didn’t really have ga County in 1978 and started Appalachian Community” was published this year ownership of the land, so historic teaching at App State when it was and contains narratives of residents of the preservation funds were not posa much smaller school with about historic African American neighborhood. sible to receive.

9,000 students.

Keefe also had a student who “I was interested in ethnic studies, and I was interested in involving my Those two students completed 27 inter- focused her senior honors thesis on the views over the course of that summer, and Methodist Episcopal Church, and she and students and doing research,” Keefe said.

After Keefe became aware of the Ju- then they presented professional papers at Keefe published an article together on the work; however, ultimately, the church naluska community, she received fund- a conference Keefe took them to.

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October / November 2020

of an oral history where they could presIn order to compile the oral history was demolished.

After that, Keefe continued to work ent their story,” Keefe said. “So, rather narratives, Keefe decided to use particiclosely with members of the Junaluska than it being filtered through somebody patory development research, where the emphasis is on improving the community in the 90s. In the participants or the people who 2000s, a couple of community are being directly involved in members got Keefe engaged the development or the recipiin some fundraising they were ents of the development. They doing in order to assist older are involved in actually putresidents in the community ting the research and project who could no longer pay their together. heating bills, and so their hous“Participatory research idees were falling into disrepair. ally means that the community Keefe worked with them and is involved in designing the rehad a couple of her students put search and collecting the data together a map of the commuand analyzing the data and nity with the locations of all of publishing the results,” Keefe the resident’s houses. said. “And so, I was anxious Then in 2011, the St. Luke’s to apply the participatory reEpiscopal Church was interestsearch model in this project ed in working with the Mennobecause it suited it perfectly, nite Brethren Church on goals and I was interested in involvof mutual interest, which came ing the community from the out of the St. Luke’s Episcobal beginning, and I did that by Church’s attempt at reconciliaattending their meetings when tion and justice and reparations they started the Junaluska for their participation in the Heritage Association.” slave trade and their apology Keefe became the Junaluska for that.

Heritage Association’s secreAs a result, also in 2011, tary and took minutes at the a number of people from St. meetings and focused on the Luke’s Episcobal Church, the direction the members wanted Junaluska community and the to move in.

Mennonite Brethren Church Lynn Patterson (left) and Roberta Jackson (right) are “They were interested in began working together and daughter and mother. They are both residents of making their community more formed the organization the JuJunaluska and members of the Junaluska Heritage visible,” Keefe said. naluska Heritage Association.

Association. Photo courtesy of Lynn Patterson.

Keefe further said that One of the things that the while she taught at App State Junaluska Heritage Association was interested in, especially members of else, to let them speak directly about their for 38 years, she would often ask her stuthe Junaluska community, was having a lives and their experiences. So they were dents if they knew about the Black neighborhood in Boone, and typically, nobody community history and learning about very willing to work with me on that.” had heard of it. family genealogies.

“Given the history of racism and Jim “They were interested in knowing Crow laws and so on, the Junaluska comwhere they came from, and it’s hard to do munity itself in many ways self isolated genealogical research if you’re an African and stayed out of the downtown area even American with a background in slavery,” though they are only a couple of blocks Keefe said. “So, I was working with them, away because they didn’t consider it safe,” and they were primarily interested in geKeefe explained. “Some members of the nealogical research, but I could see how community worked in Boone and in town their interests could also be directed toin the restaurants and the auto dealers ward doing a community history and an that used to be on Depot Street and varioral history.” ous stores, but there wasn’t much interTherefore, Keefe, students and memaction between the Junaluska community bers of the Junaluska Heritage Association and the rest of Boone. Junaluska had its interviewed 15 members of the Junaluska own segregated schools, it had its own community over a couple of years, and it churches, and so there really wasn’t much was out of that interest that they began to Susan Keefe edited “Junaluska: interaction. After desegregation in the work as a coordinated group on the oral Oral Histories of a Black late 60s, there was more interaction, but history book that has since been published.

Appalachian Community.” the community itself has always consid“I was talking to them about the value Photo courtesy of Elvin Hatch.

October / November 2020

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Map of Junaluska

The Hill and The Mountain Residents of Junaluska have always referred to the lower part of the community as ‘The Hill.’ The Boone Mennonite Brethren Church is located in this area. The upper part, known as ‘The Mountain’ is found further up Junaluska Road. Lynn Patterson grew up on The Mountain and had relatives who lived in both areas, The Hill and The Mountain. Photo courtesy of Frances E. Tucker 34

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ered it safest to remain on the hill.”

Keefe further said, “So, (the Junaluska community) was interested in increasing their visibility and their voice in the larger Boone community, and so I worked together with them on doing that through writing and publishing the book.”

The book “Junaluska: Oral Histories of a Black Appalachian Community” contains a brief introduction written by Keefe, which is a brief ethnography or history of the community.

It also contains a collection of 36 life narratives. Many of the life narratives were collected by Winston Kinsey in the 1970s. Kinsey was in the history department, and he interviewed 17 members of the Junaluska community, which have been kept in the Special Collections of Belk Library.

Keefe knows about publication and has experience with editing; therefore, she edited the oral histories to remove the questions from the interviewers and the ‘ums’ and ‘uhs.’

“I wanted to turn it into a narrative that was the voice of the person speaking in the interview,” Keefe said.

“So, that took a lot of work to edit those things and then once I had put the narratives together, I called on the community, the Junaluska Heritage Association and others in the larger Junaluska community to come together and help edit those narratives.”

Keefe and members of both the Junaluska Heritage Association and the Junaluska community spent many months getting together in the basement of the Boone Mennonite Brethren Church to edit the narratives, improve their accuracy, add information and to ensure the narratives represented the community in a way it wanted to be represented.

“I’ve worked with a lot of different communities over my professional life, but I would have to say this one has been the most rewarding because I really have gotten to know and work with people over a long period of time,” Keefe said. “And I’ve seen their families grow up and so personally, it’s been really rewarding. You know, I do not live in the community that I was born and raised in, and I really appreciate what it means to be a member of a close-knit community where people have grown up together and can count on one another and help support one

Junaluska is a historic African American neighborhood located on a hill overlooking downtown Boone and being walking distance away from Appalachian State University. The community began as a segregated neighborhood in the 19th century set apart from the larger community below it. Junaluska is one of the oldest African American communities in western North Carolina and one of the few surviving today. Photo courtesy of the Watauga Digital another. It’s a very secure feeling. Of part of Boone and had been for centuries,” search history, also has a daughter named course, there are a lot of communities in said Roberta Jackson, who is a member Lynn Patterson who also is a member of the Appalachian region that are like that. of the Junaluska community and the Ju- the Junaluska community and the JuBut this book is really one of the first, I naluska Heritage Association. “That was naluska Heritage Association.

“We all know (Keefe), and she has think, to dive into an African American the reason we decided to research what happened back when our mothers and fa- been an advocate and an ally for our comcommunity in the region.” munity for as long as I’ve known her,” Another one of the big contributors thers were here.”

Jackson, who retired from working at Patterson said. “She has always been a who helped complete the book was the Junaluska Heritage Association, which App State and has since had time to re- part of our community and she has always wanted our voice to be has been together for almost heard.”

10 years.

The book “Junaluska: “The mission of the JuOral Histories of a Black Apnaluska Heritage Association palachian Community” shares is to preserve the community narratives across four different as well as its cultural heritage,” generations.

Keefe said.

“We are so excited about it Another reason the Juand to share our stories, and naluska Heritage Association we are so excited for the opwas formed was to ward off portunity to work with (Keefe) unwanted development in the on this project and for you neighborhood by raising its guys to be recipients of who visibility and hopefully enThe Mountain Lions baseball team was active in the we are,” Patterson said. gendering a desire in the town 1940s and 1950s. Pictured are (back row left to right) When Keefe and members of Boone and its residents to Clarence Moore, Sam Horton, Jr., David Clayborn, Sr., of the Junaluska Heritage Asprotect it.

James McQueen, Ralph Hagler, and (front row left to sociation began working on “We began with the idea right) James West, Jr., Grady Moore, Henry Clay Folk, the book about 10 years ago, that people didn’t know that Bill Moore, Paul Grimes, Eugene Coles, Jr., Landon Jackson and her sister Sandra our community was here. And we wanted people to know we Moore, and Fred Banner. Not pictured: Bruce McQueen. Hagler were key to making were here and that we were a

Photo courtesy of the Junaluska Heritage Association.

October / November 2020

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Read Excerpts from Book Shares Her Junaluska Stories Roberta Jackson shared her memories in 3,406 words in the book “Junaluska: Oral Histories of a Black Appalachian Community.”

Here are 1,526 words of that narrative.

M

y mother (Kathryn Margaret Wilson Hagler) told me I was born in Dr. Len Hagaman’s clinic on Water Street in Boone. It was 1946. We lived on The Hill, on the far end of North Street. There was one more house at the end of the road, and then we lived in a little house behind that. Later we moved to North Depot Street. I don’t remember when we moved there, but I know we lived there when I was a teenager.

My Childhood I remember having a good childhood. We didn’t have a lot, and we used our imagination.

We played outside in the summertime. We climbed trees, played hide-and-goseek, and we’d dig around in the dirt.

In the wintertime, we always had lots of snow, so we would ride on sleds. And we’d stay out until we’d just about freeze. . It was cold outside, and it was cold inside because there were cracks in the walls. I slept with all three of my sisters (Sandra, Louise, and Mary Ann) in the same bed together, and it helped us stay warm.

We didn’t get to do a lot, but we didn’t want to either. We’d have dances at our school where we socialized. There wasn’t a lot like the kids have now.

We didn’t have telephones. We did have a TV! Our house was one of the first on The Hill to have a TV. I remember watching the Ed Sullivan Show. We only had one channel: Channel 3.

Getting an Education I read a lot when I was young. I read anything I could get my hands on! At Watauga Consolidated School [the newer segregated black school] on Wyn Way, there was a small library, and I would borrow books. I started school there in 1960 and graduated in 1964.

Before that, I went to the old [segregated black] school (also called Watauga Consolidated School) on Church Street. That school had two rooms on the first floor for first through fourth grade and fifth through eighth grade. Downstairs was the high school. I always loved that school. We had teachers who came from Winston-Salem Teachers College.

We had teachers that encouraged us to go to college, and they wanted us to go to their school. I was the first in my family to go to college. I was going to be an elementary school teacher. I went to Winston-Salem Teachers College with my high school classmate, Joyce White.

I got sick in my second year of college and came back home. Then I couldn’t afford to go back to school, because it was really financially hard on my mom and dad.

Making a Living When my family moved to North Depot Street, my mother had a garden. My mom grew beans, greens, tomatoes, onions, carrots, and beets. She canned her vegetables. She was a really good cook too.

We didn’t always have plenty of food to eat. I can remember (and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind me saying this) my mother would send us downtown to Goodnight Brothers Produce Company on Howard Street. They would have cabbage and potatoes that were damaged, and they’d set them on their dock area for free. We’d go down there to get cabbage and potatoes and bring them home. We never went hungry, but it was not easy sometimes because there were six of us children at home.

My dad, Robert Hagler, Jr., changed tires at Andrew’s Chevrolet right down on Depot Street. And at one time he butchered for Jones Hollow Abattoir on Bamboo Road in Boone. My mom worked at Northwestern Bank on King Street cleaning at night. I think she also worked as a housekeeper in some private homes too. She did the washing and ironing, the sweeping 36

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stories needed to be told.

“I decided that I would try to do some research about Blacks in this county, and really, there was no research,” Hagler said.

“Black people were invisible, but we know that Black lives do matter.”

When reflecting on the process of researching the Junaluska community, Keefe said it is important to visit the community, and it takes time.

“I heard many stories in Junaluska of the frustration of community members of people who would come into the community, want to do some research and do what the Junaluska people called ‘driveby interviews’ and then they would leave, and the community members would never hear from them again or know what was happening with this information,” Keefe said.

In order to help the research process, Keefe said you need to become a member of the community and show up, be there and get involved in things members are interested in.

“That’s how you gain trust,” Keefe said.

“It takes time, it takes trust and it takes honoring the ideas and the voices and the goals of the ethnic community you’re working with.”

The life history narratives in the book are from people born between 1885 and 1993.

“You really see the spread of the African American experience over 100 years in this little town in the south, and it’s pretty interesting,” Keefe said.

Readers will discover that a lot of the people featured came to Junaluska from other places, like adjacent counties and other communities. There were other Black communities in Watauga County outside of Boone.

“I think there are African Americans in every county in western North Carolina, but it is rare to find a community like Junaluska where African Americnans have lived for over 150 years and have not been removed by urban removal or highways and all that stuff that have destroyed so many African American communities,” Keefe said. “So, they are somewhat unusual.”

In Keefe’s introduction to the book “Junaluska: Oral Histories of a Black Appalachian Community,” she discusses the history of the community. It was formed in the 19th century, and as far as she can tell, it is one of the oldest African American communities in western North Carolina, making it a well established community. The origins of the neighborhood itself are unclear, but the street that the Boone Mennonite Brethren Church is located on was originally called African Street.

“I think we can assume that African Americans have lived in the neighborhood

The Chocolate Bar The Chocolate Bar on North Depot Street was a Junaluska social club in the 1940s and 1950s. David Clayborn, Sr., was the manager of the Mountain Lions baseball team and ran the Chocolate Bar, where this fundraising event took place in the early 1950s to raise money for uniforms and baseball team supplies. Pictured are (standing left to right) Leroy Kirkpatrick, Sr., Lizzie Whittington, Thelma Hatton, David Clayborn, Sr.; (seated left to right) Ottie Folk, Cecil Webb, Vera Folk, Sam Horton, Jr., Carrie Horton Webb, and Hallie Belle Hatton Horton.

Photo courtesy of the Junaluska Heritage Association.

since before the turn of the century,” Keefe said.

The Junaluska area could also have been the location where some of the Jordan Councill, Jr.’s slaves had quarters and were housed. Councill was known as the ‘father of Boone,’ as he donated the land for the first courthouse on Depot Street. He was one of the largest slave owners in Watauga County and probably lived nearby.

“But the community itself has always said, ‘They probably just stuck us up here because it was worthless land on the side of the mountain, and little did they know

that in the 21st century, it would be very desirable land because it has a beautiful view of downtown and campus, and it’s within walking distance of everything,’” Keefe said.

While Keefe and members of the Junaluska heritage Association were doing their research, they discovered people were in the Junaluska area as early as when the government started taking censuses. Some of the people on the census were born in the 1790s.

“Black people have been in this area for as long as the white people have been

in this area,” Hagler said. “It’s just that we weren’t as visible.”

People may have been brought to Junaluska from down the mountain to help with farming, and people just stayed.

“For a long time, this is where we spent our lives, right here in this community,” Hagler said. “We didn’t go off the hill, as we say, until we were teenagers. We didn’t know anything about white people. White people probably knew as much about us as we did about them, but we have found that we live very well together. And now our community is a mixed community

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and mopping.

I thought my mom was the smartest person in the world. She was a good woman. She really did her best for us kids. She worked hard for us.

Pentecostal Church and Tent Revivals When my brothers and sisters were little, our family was Holiness people, Pentecostal people. We went to church in tents, because there was no black Pentecostal church in town. We’d have tent revivals up where the Junaluska Park is now. My uncle, Rossalee Hagler, was a preacher at tent revivals. He lived in Boone when I was young, and then they moved to Wilkesboro. My uncle, Allen Hagler, was also a preacher. He lived here in town until he married and moved to Washington, D.C. Our family was really religious. Girls couldn’t wear pants or sleeveless blouses.

We also attended the Methodist Church in Junaluska every Sunday. I think we attended that church because the Holiness people didn’t have a church building.

It was very different compared to the Pentecostal Church, where we were more physical and expressive. At the Mennonite Church, it was more structured, and you didn’t clap your hands. We just sang directly out of the hymn books, and that was it.

Segregation Downtown We only went shopping at Christmas and Easter, just to get new clothes to wear to church for the holiday programs. We’d go to Newton’s Clothing Store on King Street. There was also a grocery store on King Street that we went to, but I don’t remember doing a whole lot of grocery shopping. We had to buy coal for heating, and we got it from Ronda Horton’s coal yard on Depot Street. We burned more coal than wood. We used wood just to start the fires, I think.

We could go to the movies downtown, but we [the blacks] had to sit upstairs. That really was the best place to sit at a movie, I think. We would go every now and then. They kept us separated for a long time at the theater.

We couldn’t go to sit down at a restaurant until 1963 or 64. Dr. James Greene, who owned Carolina Pharmacy on King Street, sent word by someone that we could come sit down and eat if we wanted to. Before that, if you wanted to get anything from a restaurant, you had to go around back to pay for it and take it with you.

When I was a little older, I began to realize things in school. We called the public schools downtown the “white schools.” At times, we would get their hand-me-down textbooks with other students’ names already written in them.

There was never any social interaction between white kids and black kids at that time.

We were separated, and that’s just the way it was. We only played with the kids in our neighborhood.

Things really started changing when I was in college. I can remember people meeting with groups of us at Winston-Salem Teachers College and encouraging us to march on City Hall in Winston. They told us there was the possibility of violence, and that you could be killed. So that opened my eyes. We all marched down there and stood, and at the same time there were people in Boone marching.

Family Ties I married Cecil Jackson in 1966. He was a year behind me in school. He was born in Elk Park, North Carolina, and his family moved to Junaluska when he was six or seven. He started working at ASU after graduating high school; he worked in building services as a housekeeper and then in the grounds department.

I have three children. Lynn is the oldest, and she and her daughter, Alana, live with me now. Cecil Jr., is two years younger than Lynn. Then Michael is quite a bit younger. Lynn helped raise him. Cecil Jr., and Michael both live in Charlotte. Cecil Jr., majored in business at ASU, and he is a tax appraiser. He has five children: Brittany, Adam, Cecilia, Jonah, and Zachary.

Remembering the Past Junaluska has changed over the years. It has grown smaller. A lot of the people have died, and then we have not had that many people to replace them. The children move off. That is what has left some of these houses in the neighborhood open, because after the parents die, the children don’t care about it. I liked it better when there were more people here. It was more interesting. And people looked out for you; you know, if there was someone in the house doing something they weren’t supposed to, they’d tell your mama, and she’d whip you and tell you who told. It was a good neighborhood, a community.

We’ve always had two or three white families who live here, but now there are a lot more. Many are students, and I don’t know them. But people have the right to sell their property if they want to. So now it’s not a completely black neighborhood. It’s black and white. White people have the money to buy, so we cannot stop it. But I wonder if people would even care if we did try to stop it.

It’s important to write down the history of Junaluska before it disappears. I love history.

I realized after starting to research our history that it is one to be proud of.

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and there are as many whites here as there are Blacks.”

Patterson said that their current neighbors seem to know what the community is and what it means.

“They are very respectful of our history and our heritage, and we appreciate that,” Patterson said.

In the past, Junaluska could be seen as a community within a community.

“Everything we needed, we pretty much had here,” Patterson said. “We had stores, we had cafes, we had businesses, churches, barber shops.”

Patterson also said that people have asked her before why the Junaluska community no longer has stores.

“Not only in Junaluska, but all across the country, desegregation allowed us not to be forced to have to maintain our own stores and our own restaurants,” Patterson said. “When we were allowed to integrate, we did. I’m not saying the desire isn’t there because we still do even now have business owners in the community, it’s just that with things being different and life being different, the need for us to have our own businesses is not as prevalent as it was then. We were a community within a community, and that was out of necessity. That is what we needed.”

Individuals who read the book will learn not just about the Junaluska community, but also a lot about the history of Boone and Watuaga county by reading the accounts of the people featured in the book.

“Anybody who has lived in Boone for some time will find lots of things that they identify with that the individuals talk about because most of them worked in the town of Boone at various stores,” Keefe said. “They worked as servants for white families in the neighborhoods nearby, they worked on campus at ASU, and so you read about D.D. Dougherty, you read about the former governor of North Carolina Jim Holshouser. Individuals are mentioned, so anyone who is interested in local history would be interested in this book because you get African Americans’ perspective on it.”

One of the main topics that residents of the Junaluska community are familiar with and experienced is desegregation. The schools integrated in 1964, which was the year Jackson graduated high school and went on to college.

Hagler had a different experience in school with the sudden integration happening her senior year.

“I guess because we were raised so to ourselves, we were just a small group of children,” Hagler said. “We had our own school, our own teachers, and to be suddenly sent to a school outside of our community, to ride a bus with all these other kids, I can’t think about it

The picture on the left is the Methodist Episcopal Church, which was the first Black church in Junaluska, built in 1898. In 1995, It was condemned and demolished. The picture on the right is the Boone Mennonite Brethren Church that was constructed in 1918. Photos courtesy of the Junaluska Heritage Association. without tears because it was the most saddest thing of my life. It was more than I could handle. I could not adjust to it, but it was such a heartbreaking year.�

Due to the difficulty, Hagler decided to quit school before graduation and went back and received her GED. “It was a horrible experience for me,� Hagler said. “The teachers didn’t want us; the students didn’t want us. I have never felt so unwanted in my life, and I am so glad it was not that way for our children.�

Patterson was one of the first children of color to attend Hardin Park Elementary School the first year the school opened, as she was a kindergartener then. “I remember our parents were kind of worried about us because they had been to school where they were all together,� Patterson said.

Boone Mennonite Church pictured today.

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Read Excerpts from Book Shares Her Junaluska Stories Lynn Patterson shared her memories in about 5,443 words in the book “Junaluska: Oral Histories of a Black Appalachian Community.” Here are 1,681 words of that narrative.

W

hen I was growing up in Junaluska, it was very close knit, and there were more people. There were more children and families. You could pull a trailer beside a house if there was a small patch of land. In between my mom’s house and my grandparents’ house, there was a trailer and a whole family lived there. The lady (Marie Miller Grimes) who lived in that trailer was married to my grandmother’s nephew, William. When they divorced, she bought a trailer, and my grandmother offered to let her pull it behind her house to help her and her two kids out. When the town created an ordinance against trailers in the 1980s, the old ones were grandfathered in but no new ones could be added, and a lot of people moved away from Junaluska because there was no place for them to live.

Growing Up in Junaluska My mother is Roberta Hagler Jackson, and my father was Grady Cecil Jackson. I was born in 1967, and I grew up in the house on Wyn Way where my mother, my daughter, and I still live. My parents’ house on Wyn Way was right behind my grandmother Rosalee’s house.

My grandmother would cook, and everyone that wanted to eat would come to her house. She had sixteen brothers and sisters, and the majority of them were still in the community. So, they would stop by and their kids would stop by, or they’d stop to pick up their children and take them home. Junaluska was divided between “The Hill” and “The Mountain,” and she had a central location for the Mountain.

In the summertime, Grandmother Rosalee would feed us breakfast. I don’t think they had a lot of money. She would make biscuits, and my grandfather worked at the Dan’l Boone Inn, so he’d bring home leftovers, and we’d have biscuits and ham and grits. We played outside all day long. We would clear brush and build clubhouses. There were woods [“The Pines”] where Junaluska Park is located and also around the black Watauga Consolidated School [now the WYN Center on Wyn Way]. It wasn’t our land, but we would play back there. Or we played in the spring or in the creek across the street from the WYN Center.

The older kids were responsible for the younger ones, so if a younger one fell, we had to bring them in. People would help each other back then because times were tight.

I was responsible for the younger children because I was the oldest girl in the family. Cecil and Michael were my younger brothers. I was eleven when Michael was born. .* It was my job to make sure the kids didn’t get into trouble and to make sure they didn’t get hurt. I took the job very seriously.

School Days and Integration I was in the first kindergarten class at Hardin Park Elementary in Boone when the new school opened [after desegregation] in 1972. I think my parents were extremely anxious about it because of their experience integrating the high school. I think they went from a situation of being pretty sheltered to being thrown in with kids that hated them. A lot of those who went through integration dropped out. They hated the fighting. My dad told me that he was in a fight every single solitary day. So, my parents were real nervous and worried about how school would go for us. But our teachers were great. They were very caring, and I think they went above and beyond.

So, attitudes changed very quickly after integration came in 1968. I think the kids from Junaluska felt things were taken from them. They loved their [black] school, and they loved their [black] teachers. They knew it wasn’t top of the line, but it wasn’t a shabby education either. People who wanted to go to college went to college and did very well with their education from here.

I hear my parents talk about going to the Appalachian Theater and having to sit in the 40

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“And some of the pictures of their schooling and what they did when they were in school, I’m jealous, I’m going to be completely honest because even though they were separate, they had an equally rich education, and you could kind of tell that.”

As time moves on, many members of the Junaluska community tend to move away.

Brittany Ball is the niece of Patterson and another Junaluska community member who grew up in the neighborhood and went to different events and church there.

Ball said her generation has started to move out of the neighborhood, and there’s not really a lot of them still living there.

“I don’t think it’s something that people move away from because they’re trying to get away from it,” Ball said. “I think they’re just moving because there are other opportunities that present themselves to those people. Everyone will come back; that’s our home.”

Hagler reflected on people leaving the Junaluska community as well and said that it’s been that way throughout the area’s history.

“There’re many people who have left here, and they had different reasons for leaving, but opportunities have always been one of the main problems here,” Hagler said. “It depends on what field you go into.”

Keefe said the community is in large part a result of segregation, Jim Crow laws and American history that has prevented African Americans from taking advantage of opportunities in the same way white people had.

“If you read about the community in this book, you realise that it was a warm, supportive environment for people,” Keefe said.

“People felt secure; they felt loved. They had their own school because it was segregated.

They had their own churches. So, for the times of segregation, they felt pretty good about themselves, but as society has changed.

As the kinds of opportunities that have been available to whites and have become available to people of color, I don’t think we can expect them to stay put.”

Keefe further said, “The community has become older as time goes on because after desegregation and people were allowed to go to school wherever they wanted to or live wherever they wanted to, they started to move out to have more opportunities. So, a lot of the people in the neighborhood now are elderly. There are some children, but it’s not like it was 30 years ago. So, the community has changed in that way, but of course the young people come back and visit and still feel ties to the community. So, I think (the book) has increased their self identity and their pride of their people, not that they didn’t have pride before, but they realize now more the fullness

October / November 2020

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balcony, but it was considered “their place.” So when things were integrated, it felt like they had to give things away that belonged to their culture. When whites began sitting in the balcony, my parents were looking around asking “What are you doing here?” When the restaurants told my grandparents that they didn’t have to go around to the back anymore, that they could come through the front door, I think it was kind of unnerving for them. My grandparents probably expected segregation, because it was what they had always known.

Going to College and Discovering Race After high school graduation in 1985, I went to North Carolina State University on a forestry scholarship for a year. But I got so homesick for the mountains and the cool air. And, in Raleigh, it [race relations] was different. I don’t remember being excluded from anything I wanted to do because of race in Boone. At Watauga High School, they were very inclusive and very warm, very open. In Boone, we had issues, but all the Junaluska boys dated white girls. There were biracial children in the community. You just didn’t see that in Raleigh. It was difficult, and I think that may have been one of the reasons I got so homesick. Up here, if I wanted to date a white guy, it was not a big deal. My brothers’ girlfriends have always been white; in fact, Cecil married a white woman. It just wasn’t a big deal here. Friendships with whites were accepted, but I didn’t necessarily feel that in Raleigh. It took going off the mountain to discover that.

I transferred to ASU, and I was the only one from Junaluska going to ASU at the time. I didn’t live on campus; I lived at home. So I was pretty much alone my first year here.

Going to Downtown Boone I remember shopping on King Street with my mother and my grandmother when I was growing up. We went to the dime store and to Hunt’s Department Store. I got my ears pierced at the age of six or seven at Walker’s Jewelry Store. When I was in middle school, I went to Carolina Pharmacy with my friends for lunch. Mr. Kenneth Mathes [from Junaluska] worked at the counter, and we would get hamburgers and fries. We’d also go to Boone Drug Store to eat. I don’t remember having any [racial] problems, I was in the youth group at the Mennonite Brethren Church. My mother and her sisters, Sandy and Louise, ran a youth group, which was highly controversial at the time. Women weren’t allowed to do very much at all in the church. We were called the Whirly Birds, because we wore these beanies with little propellers on the top. Whirly Birds for Jesus!

Family My dad was a short and stocky man, very barrel chested. He had green eyes, which really made him stand out. He was a tough man. When we were growing up, he was very strict and no-nonsense.

He would discipline us, and he disciplined other people’s children, too.

My mom was a reader. She was one of four sisters that were extremely close and still are. She has always worked, for as long as I can remember. When I was a child, she worked for TRW [an electronics factory]. Then, I remember her working at Roses at the lunch counter. That was hard work, and I don’t think she was very happy there. So, she came to ASU and worked as a housekeeper and then switched to office work in the physical plant. She stayed there until she retired six years ago.

Favorite Memories My best memories of growing up in Junaluska have to do with being a kid, playing outside, going to church. We spent evenings down on The Hill, so we had the best of both worlds [living on The Mountain and socializing on The Hill]. In the evening, we’d get into the back of my dad’s truck, and we’d ride down to my grandmother Kathryn’s house. My dad would sit on The Corner [of Depot and North streets] where all the men congregated.

Married Life I met my husband (David Patterson) at church. He was a student at ASU from Granite Falls, North Carolina. ASU had a small population of about 5 percent African Americans, and most of them attended church at our Mennonite church. He was in the church gospel choir and played drums. We met at church and were best friends for years. Then, we started dating and got married and had a daughter.

Alana was born in 1993, three years after we married. That was a long time to wait, and everybody kept asking: “What are you waiting for?” “Are you pregnant yet?” Alana is a great kid. I keep waiting for the “terrible two’s,” but they haven’t happened yet! She’s my rock. She’s a very sweet girl, a very gracious girl. I’m blessed.

An Interest in Junaluska History I’m getting older, and the community is getting older. My Aunt Sandy has always been our historian, but I started thinking, what if something happens to her? Who is going to carry on? Who knows the stories? Who knows the history? I would love to see something written down, so we can remember who we are and where we came from. I want Alana to know the stories about how the church used to be and who her grandparents are. I want her to know it, so she doesn’t have to find it out from total strangers.

You hear people say, “Junaluska is dying. It’s a dying community. It won’t be here in fifteen years.” But it’ll always be here, if we write it down, and we have this history. If it’s in the library and it’s recorded, parts of Junaluska will always be around. So, you nay-sayers be gone! I think this is why people in Junaluska are interested in these things. That is why people are doing the interviews.

Brittany Ball, born in 1986, is the niece of Lynn Patterson and a Junaluska community member.

In February 2015, Junaluska was featured in North Carolina’s Our State magazine.

“I was amazed,” Ball said. “This was one of the first times I had really seen that we were acknowledged as a community in the western part of the state.”

The story came about after the editor of the Our State magazine visited and spoke at Belk Library on App State’s campus. Patterson, who works as a program specialist at the university library, pitched the Junaluska community to her. The next summer, the editor visited again and completed research for the story.

“That was a highlight for us and was exciting for us to be featured in that magazine,” Patterson said.

Patterson further said, “If you don’t know about Junaluska, then you haven’t been reading the papers because for the past 10 or 11 years, we have really been

getting stuff out there, and we’ve really been pushing the community and our history and what we’re about and our legacy and what we’ve done for the town and we’ve been very blessed in the fact that the university has also been embracing us getting our legacy and our story out.”

However, despite the publicity and the accomplishments of the Junaluska community, the members remain modest about their achievements.

“As a community, we’re not very loud people, we’re here, and we know who we are, and we know what we’ve contributed to Boone. We know what we continue to contribute to the Appalachian community and to the county and to the town,” Patterson said. “We’re here. Just because we’re not screaming it from the top of the mountain, doesn’t mean our contribution isn’t as important.”

The book “Junaluska: Oral Histories

of their communities history, and I think that makes them proud. They are persistent people.”

Since the publication of the book “Junaluska: Oral Histories of a Black Appalachian Community,” and as the Junaluska Heritage Association continues working on other projects, members said that one of their goals is to show people that change can be accomplished if you work at it and do it.

“I work with a lot of students and spend a lot of time with students on campus, and one of the things I try to stress to them is that it’s OK to be angry,” Patterson said. “It’s OK to protest. It’s OK to stand up for your rights, but at the end of the day, you have to figure out how to sit down and actually express what you need and what you want. When you sit down and use your words and when you articulate what your needs and desires are, then people can come to the table and meet you, and change can happen that way.”

Patterson further said, “We appreciate the opportunity to tell our story because I think that’s what separates people now.

People don’t get the opportunity to hear other people’s stories and in that, it dehumanizes people. I just think if people sat down and talked to each other and understood that we are all human, this world would be a better place.”

The publishing of the book “Junaluska: Oral Histories of a Black Appalachian Community,” isn’t the first time the spotlight has been casted on the community.

October / November 2020

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The cover image of the book “Junaluska: Oral Histories of a Black Appalachian Community� is of the Junaluska community quilt that was made by women in the community in 2014. According to the quiltmakers, the squares represent aspects of community life including different places, events, memories and people.

of a Black Appalachian Community� was published this year by the company McFarland Press.

Patterson said they ordered 200 copies, and all summer long, they’ve been selling the books. As of Aug. 27, they had three books left; however, the books were already on hold to be picked up. “I think people are excited and proud 44

High Country Magazine

October / November 2020

of the book,� Patterson said.

She further said that it’s mostly community people who are purchasing copies and are sending them to family members. “My biggest thing about this book is that it is going to preserve our history and that even in 100 years from now when none of us are in that neighborhood anymore, we’ll still have a piece of

The 2017 Dedication of the Historic Black Cemetery The Historic Black Cemetery began as a slave burial ground, and it went unmarked outside the Boone City Cemetery fence before renovations by the Town of Boone in 2017. Ground penetrating radar revealed 165 mostly unmarked graves in the Black section. On Oct. 1, 2017, a cemetery marker was dedicated by the Junaluska Heritage Association listing the names of the 65 individuals known to be buried there. Pictured at the dedication (top left picture) are JHA members (from left) Susan Keefe, Roberta Jackson, Kristen Baldwin Deathridge, and Diane Blanks. Junaluska community historian Sandra Hagler was at the Historic Black Cemetery Marker dedication (bottom left picture). Roberta Jackson is seen in bottom right photo. Photos courtesy of Lonnie Webster.

our history that can be told in schools, so that people know that Boone does have a strong community there,” Ball said. “The biggest thing about the Junaluska community is that we stick together, and we are all family regardless of what our last names are, and we can always depend on each other. I know our stories will still be told, and they still exist for people to know that we were there. I’m proud that this book was able to be published and our history will live on.”

Ball further said that she learned a lot of different things from reading the narratives in the book, and that the experience has been eye opening and surprising for her.

“All the stories of the people who were before me were very interesting stories and the dynamic of how things have changed in the past in our neighborhood and how some things have kind of stayed the same as far as things that we value or things that we do as a community,” Ball said. “The whole book is just phenomenal because you learn.”

Jackson also spoke about the residents’ reactions and said that she thinks it’s been very positive.

“Everybody is interested in everyone else’s story and realizing we all lived here together in the same community, a great community,” Jackson said. “When I was

growing up, we didn’t have much, but we didn’t need much. We had eachother, we had our neighbors, we stayed in our neighbors’ homes. And to read some of the stories really makes me feel good.

And I found out where people went.

What happened to these other people I was growing up with? This is a good way to find out.”

Jackson went on further to say that by reading the book and some of the narratives, she learned that the people in the past years were great, strong people.

“They were people that if I had known them, I really would have looked up to them,” Jackson said. “Researching history is great because it is very rewarding.”

Patterson said it was nice to reminisce about the good memories and think about how things used to be when they were kids.

“We had a great time growing up,” Patterson said. “You know, we had our struggles and our hardships, but for the most part, our community is different, and we like the fact that we are different.

Our experience is not like any other African American community that we heard of or know about. So, we’re proud of our mountain heritage and proud of our history and proud of our contributions to Boone and Watauga County.”

McFarland Press is continuing to print

the book, and the last time Keefe received a recent newsletter, the book was the top best seller.

“I’m very pleased,” Keefe said. “I have to say that I have published a number of things in academia, and I’ve never had this kind of response so it’s kind of interesting doing a more popular book, but I think it also has come about at this moment in our history of Black Lives Matter and people becoming more aware of and interested in the Black experience in our country, and so I think it has generated some interest from that, and I would say perhaps a lot of people are kind of surprised that there is this old Black community in the town of Boone because a lot of people are unaware about it, and so it’s provoked some interest of how did that happen and who are these folks and what kind of experience have they had here.”

The book “Junaluska: Oral Histories of a Black Appalachian Community” is available to be purchased locally through Boone’s independent bookstore, Foggy Pine, and it can also be purchased from McFarland Press or Amazon.

“I would have to say that the success of the book is due to not only my long term participation with the community and their trust in me, but also our respect for working together on projects of mutual interest.” t

October / November 2020

High Country Magazine

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High Country Magazine

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Banner Elk Realty

John Davis 40 Years in Real Estate

By Nathan Ham

J

ohn Davis has seen his fair share of “booms” and “busts” in the real estate market over his 40 years working at Banner Elk Realty. His story goes well beyond just selling houses. John has built many strong relationships and developed many new friendships over the years – things that can’t be measured on a sales report or in a bundle of paperwork.

John’s time in the High Country dates back to shortly after he was born in 1950, in Durham. His father was finishing a course at Duke Divinity School and once he finished that class, the Davis family moved to Boone where John’s father became the Baptist Student Union Director 48

High Country Magazine

at First Baptist Church under Dr. L.H. Hollingsworth in the early 1950s. The family remained in Boone until 1956 when John’s father became the pastor of a church in eastern North Carolina.

During his time in Murfreesboro, John graduated high school in 1968 and attended Wake Forest University and graduated with a B.S. degree. After that, John said “he wasn’t sure where he was going to go next, but he always had a soft spot in his heart for his mountain home.”

“I remembered the mountains, and getBanner Elk Realty spent about 35 years in the same location next to the Red Caboose.

October / November 2020

REMEMBER WHEN ting out of college not knowing what I wanted to do, I loved the mountains so I came back, got a Master’s Degree at Appalachian State, and stayed here ever since,” John said. “Back then there were not many jobs here, and in order to stay, you had to really love the place because you weren’t really making any money.

You were just barely making ends meet.”

After graduating from App State, John found his way up to Beech Mountain.

“I had gotten to know Fred Pfohl and some others up there. Carolina Caribbean, developer of Beech Mountain, went bankrupt in 1974. The bank put a trustee in charge of the ski resort at Beech to get it back open in the winter of 1975-76. Fred was hired as ski operations manager. Fred hired me as ski

This empty lot is now where Banner Elk Town Hall and town park sits, as well as the old Bank of America building and the Banner Elk Pharmacy building. In this photo is the back of Banner Elk Elementary and a well house.

“I’ve sold some second homes up here three or four different times.”

John Davis rental manager.” said John, who was 25 years old when he took this position.

John recalled some of the other people that worked with him at the ski rental shop, including Kinney Baughman and Tim Holland. Wilson King was one of the ski instructors that year.

“We went through that year and I enjoyed it. Things went well. Then spring came and the slopes were closed, so I worked for Ken and Rachel Deal going under houses fixing broken water pipes and other maintenance issues in the spring and summer,” John said.

Not long after that, he ended up moving to Banner Elk and starting The Elkhorn Company. It was a hiking, backpacking and ski shop where Dunn’s Deli is today. But after two years, “I realized that I didn’t like being couped up in the shop all day and that if I wasn’t there running the shop, I had to hire someone to keep it open. If I had to pay an employee to run the shop, there was no profit at the end of the year. I realized I needed to find

The former Shell gas station in Banner Elk is pictured here. Jim Ollis owns the building and has been recently remodeled into real estate office space.

Erick’s Cheese and Wine Shoppe and the Corner Restaurant pictured here before the building was torn down and the land was turned into the “Corner on Main” Park.

October / November 2020

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May 23, 1985 Listings

Banner Elk Realty’s First Ad in The Mountain Times July 7, 1983 Banner Elk Realty ran its first ad in The Mountain Times on July 7th, 1983. This began a long tradition for John Davis putting his ad copy together for the next edition of the newspaper.

Back then, the ad process was done without the aid of computers and email. These ads from the 1980’s give you an idea of what the pricing was like for small starter homes, larger vacation homes, land, and commercial real estate nearly 40 years ago.

May 3, 1984 Listings

August 22, 1985 Listings

January 5, 1984 Listings

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October / November 2020

a different profession.” throughout most of his caSo, in 1978 Davis closed reer selling real estate at the doors to the Elkhorn Banner Elk Realty, that at Company. After a short least 95 percent of his clitime back in the home ents have been vacation/ maintenance business, he second home buyers and decided to get his real essellers. John also explains tate license in 1980 and that the vast majority of joined the team at Banner his clients are repeat cusElk Realty-a team that had tomers or word of mouth been selling real estate in referrals to Banner Elk the region since 1972.

Realty. “Most perspective “Dan Plyler was one of buyers are wanting cool the owners before me. So, summer temperatures, a I started working there and long-range mountain view I really enjoyed working and a stream or other body John Davis (left) presents a donation check for a charity to with the people, learning of water on their property.

Aileen Von Canon (center) along with Banner Elk Realty about the properties and These are the most asked agent Bob Langston in ther late 1990s getting really familiar with for amenities he receives,” the business”, said John.

John said.

The first ownership change during John’s tenure came While some people tend to shine a negative light on vacawhen Joyce Andrews and Peggy Wiseman bought Banner Elk tion homeowners, John says “that’s simply not the case.”

Realty from Plyler.

“In general, all the folks who have bought vacation/sec“Joyce and Peggy owned the business for about two years ond homes up here are good neighbors. They have helped all and decided to sell. Carroll (C.B.) Williams and I bought the sorts of charitable and civic organizations for many years. business from them,” said John.

The new nursing school at Lees-McRae was funded by a very Tragedy struck not long after Davis and Williams purchased philanthropic family who have a second home up here,” he Banner Elk Realty. Williams was killed by a lightning strike said. “We are very fortunate to have these people up here in while he was out trimming our area.”

Christmas Trees on his farm.

More Than Just “I bought my partner’s share of the business after a R eal Estate C.B.’s death from his estate.

Broker So, by 1982 I was owner of Being out in the comBanner Elk Realty and have munity meeting home been ever since,” John said. buyers, reconnecting with As time went on the return customers, and dealbusiness grew to six indeing with home sellers makes pendent contractor real esup a large part of what real tate agents and a full-time estate agents are doing duroffice coordinator. Things ing their busy workdays. stayed the same until the However, being a familiar late 80’s-early 90’s, when face in the community can real estate market activmean more than just selling ity slowed and some of the property. agents in the office left for And with all this, Davis different jobs. and his wife Carolyn still As the market changed found time to give back to and the business evolved, their community. Over the John became the face of Banpast four decades, Davis ner Elk Realty, particularly has been a board member over the past 15 years or so of the Avery-Watauga Aswhen he became a one-man sociation of Realtors (Now office and really enjoyed beHigh Country Association ing able to spend more time of Realtors), a Banner Elk with clients and less time town council member, a John is pictured here with his wife Carolyn, who got married in Boone with administrative tasks. board member of the Averyin 1989 at the age of 39. The couple is still happily married.

John estimates that October / November 2020

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WHEN THE MARKET TOOK OFF

J

uly was by far the busiest month for local homes sales in more than 15 years. August almost surpassed it.

REALTORS® continued to sell homes at a record pace last month as demand for homes in the region remained strong and interest rates stayed near record lows.

There were 365 residential listings sold

by REALTORS® in August, just three fewer than they sold in July. The combined sales value was $139 million, as recorded by the High Country Multiple Listing Service (MLS).

The median sold price was $319,900, the first time that metric has exceeded $300,000 in a month since at least 2011. Forty-two of the homes sold in August were for more than $700,000. Of those, 14 sold for more than $1 million.

The average sale price for August was $381,299, the fourth straight month the metric has exceeded $300,000.

As the summer months have recorded historic demand, sellers have not been listing homes at a pace typical for this time of year.

Since May, 1,507 listings were been added to the MLS. Last year, there were 274 more has been added - 1,781 total – in the same time span.

There were 730 active residential listings in the four-county area as of September 4. That’s 130 fewer than were for sale a month earlier, and 950 fewer than this time last year.

LAND SALES. Sales of land followed the trends in residential properties with a record 114 tracts sold for $10.3 million in August. That was one fewer listing than was sold in July (113 listings for $10.4 million).

Of the land sold, 43 listings were in

Watauga County for $3.88 million. REALTORS® sold 31 tracts worth $2.68 million in Ashe County, followed by 18 tracts worth $1.76 million in Avery County and 12 tracts for $1 million in Alleghany County.

COMMERCIAL SALES. There were four commercial listings sold by REALTORS® in August. Two were located in Watauga County and sold for a combined $1.76 million.

Avery County recorded its first commercial transaction since May 2019 for $335,000. Alleghany County recorded its first such sale since last October for a reported $150,000.

ALLEGHANY COUNTY. REALTORS® sold 30 homes worth $6.3 million in August, the most residential listings sold in a month there in at least 12 years. The median sold price was $163,750, the lowest recorded this year.

ASHE COUNTY. A monthly sales high was also set in Ashe, with 69 homes sold for $22.99 million. The median sold price was $295,000. The previous monthly high for unit sales had been 48 homes.

AVERY COUNTY. REALTORS® sold 83 homes worth $36.65 million in August.

The median sold price was $332,750, the highest for a month in more than 10 years.

Six of the listings sold for more than $1 million, with half of them going for more than $2 million.

WATAUGA COUNTY. There were 157 homes sold for $66.2 million in August. The median sold price was $380,000. That was the third consecutive month - and fourth in the last five - during which the median sold price in the county surpassed $300,000.

From the August 2020 Boone Area Real Estate Report from the High Country Association of REALTORS® 52

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October / November 2020

Banner Elk Realty often found ways to give back to the local community, including sponsoring a course hole during fundraising charity golf tournaments.

Banner Elk Chamber of Commerce and a board member for both the Banner Elk Tourism Development Authority and the Avery County Tourism Development Authority. He and Carolyn also served on the board of Avery County Habitat for Humanity.

“We have tried to give back, tried to be civic minded, tried to be involved with the changes that are going on and the decisions that had to be made over the years,” he said.

“We have both seen the importance of that and hope that all of the younger people that have the energy and time will not shy away from taking responsibility for giving back and volunteering to help make our beautiful community a better place.”

How R eal Estate H as Changed in 40 Years

A lot has changed over the years in the real estate market. There have been real estate “booms” and “busts” throughout 40 years, more licensed agents ready to help customers, changes in technology, and changes in the legal documentation.

When it comes down to technology and paperwork, it’s a whole new world compared to what it was 40 years ago.

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I

The Current State of Real Estate

f you’re looking to buy a house in the High Country right now, you’ve probably noticed that what few houses are on the market right now are disappearing about as soon as they appear. This current real estate boom has brought about unprecedented shortages of available houses and incredibly quick sales for houses that are out there.

“It is so fast-paced. I’ve been selling real estate now for 29 years and I would say we’ve never had the sense of urgency of purchasing homes that I see now,” said Pam Vines, President of the High Country Association of Realtors. “Prices have increased at a rapid rate and several houses are going for more than asking price.”

Vines estimated that on average, it takes about 200 days to sell a house.

“Now we are seeing a dozen or more offers on a property within the first week if it is listed and marketed properly,” she said.

The ongoing real estate boom seemed to start in May around the time that local inventory started to slowly drop as well.

Now, inventory is at an all-time low according to Vines.

“The inventory issue is a hurdle that we have to overcome. If this does continue, where are we going to get our inventory?

Building prices have gone up as much as 40 percent I have heard,” said Vines. “If we are out of inventory and we have to start building inventory, is it going to be affordable?”

In July, the High Country Association of Realtors reported more than 360 homes sold in Watauga, Avery, Ashe, and Alleghany counties. That was a 72-percent increase from the year before. July was also the busiest month for land transactions in over a decade with $9.9 million worth of land sold.

Last month, 30 homes were sold in Alleghany County, the largest number sold in 12 years. In Ashe County, 69 homes were sold in August, shattering the previous record of 48 homes sold during the month.

It’s hard to imagine that this will be sustainable for a long period.

“Obviously things will start slowing down and go back to normal, but I think with the influx of so many people that are coming here right now, it’s going to keep

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Brief Timeline

1971 High Country Association of REALTORS® founded as Avery-Watauga Board of REALTORS®.

1980

Ashe County Board of

REALTORS® founded.

1982

Avery-Watauga Board of

REALTORS® changed jurisdiction to formally add a section of the town of Blowing Rock.

1991 Avery-Watauga Board of REALTORS® changed name to AveryWatauga Association of REALTORS®.

2001 Alleghany Association of REALTORS® founded.

2011 After the dissolution of the Ashe County board, the High Country Association of REALTORS® took on Ashe County’s jurisdiction and membership.

Pam Vines, President of the High Country Association of Realtors.

2015 The Alleghany Association of REALTORS® merged into the High Country Association of REALTORS®.

us going when the peaks do slow down,” Vines said. “As interest rates start to creep up, I think that will lead to a normal slowdown, but the number of people that want to come here will continue to rise.”

There are approximately 735 agents in the High Country Association of Realtors, and most of them have to be pretty happy right now, and very busy.

“Agents will look at MLS (Multiple Listing Service) every 30 minutes to see what new has come on the market. It’s crazy,” Vines explained.

Another concern with this real estate boom is to make sure that real estate agents put realistic prices on houses and don’t end up pricing everyone out of the market and causing even bigger problems with increased unaffordable housing. Combine that with low inventory numbers and other issues such as a lack of rural broadband access across the High Country, and it presents some issues that will have to be dealt with moving forward.

“Those are things that we will be challenged with in the near future in 2021.

How do we have smart growth? How do we provide inventory for people that want to live and work here? It’s a difficult task,” Vines said.

October / November 2020

Total Members - 850+ Housing Units Average Cost of Houses Sold Sold in Yearf

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

475 598 637 1155 1458 1071 1080 799 696 938

$217,732.00 $266,091.00 $209,414.00 $240,825.00 $280,131.00 $285,788.00 $377,801.00 $350,209.00 $328,104.00 $253,514.00

Ashe County Numbers Added in 2011

2011 2012 2013 2014

1068 1329 1172 1466

$256,595.00 $246,224.00 $248,588.00 $172,472.00

Allenghany County Numbers Added in 2015

2015 1696 2016 1696 2017 2177 2018 2332 2019 2608 2020 1886

$246,922.00 $187,725.00 $260,940.00 $275,034.00 $307,220.00 $323,375.00

2020 Year to Date through September

“In 1980, we had one-page front and back that was the offer to purchase contract. Now it is 12 pages,” John said.

“In terms of technology, if you wanted to make a copy, you took a piece of carbon paper and put it between two pages. There were no computers, no fax machines, no copiers, and we still did business.”

John added that while some of the increased paperwork can be time consuming, it’s important that the buyer and seller feel protected when it comes to such an important life decision, as selling or buying real estate.

Realtors these days also are required to take continuing education classes every year and the hours of training needed to get your real estate license has continued to increase.

“It’s a technical and sophisticated business now compared with 1980,” John added.

The Impact of COVID-19 on R eal Estate in the High Country

Strangely enough, COVID-19 has brought on a major real estate boom in the High Country. When the pandemic first started, the real estate market in April and May experienced a slow-down according to Davis. In the following months, it quickly became a hot seller’s market with more real estate sales in June and then big increases in sales in both July and August.

“At present it is very promising. It’s a strong seller’s market right now. Hopefully, that will continue through the end of the year and hopefully on into next year,” John said.

“After experiencing several up and down cycles in the last 40 years, it is very difficult to predict market conditions too far into the future in a resort area market like ours.

At the present time, the federal reserve is keeping interest rates low. Banks are very busy with people making refinance applications and purchase applications. The market should stay strong as long as the money is flowing freely into the system.”

“Looking ahead to the future,” John says, “as long as the market is strong and he remains in good health, he will continue doing what he enjoys; helping his clients make good decisions when buying and selling real estate.” t October / November 2020

High Country Magazine

55

Big Investments in Student Apartments Story by Harley Nefe

T

he year 2020 has brought about many changes in population having to find off-campus housing.

“Historically, there has not been enough on-campus supply Boone; however, while traveling throughout the town, a prominent change that would be hard to miss is the to meet the demand,” Milner said. “So, the private sector will new construction associated with the apartment complexes that come in and meet that demand. If Appalachian State University is not going to add to are being built. their own supply then the Appalachian State private sector will gladly University is in the probuild it to meet that decess of its public-private mand.” partnership, or P3 projCurrently within the ect, that will eventually Town of Boone, there end up replacing seven are a few new apartment residence halls — nearly complexes being built.

1,800 beds — and addThese projects include ing around 300 more in the Peak of Boone, The addition to better, effiFinmore at 241 and Rivcient parking. ers Walk.

The push for the projMany wonder if these ect comes from the uniArtist-rendered image of Appalachian State University’s $191 million new projects will reach versity’s desire to have public-private partnership, or P3 project. The development of their intended occupancy newer, updated dorms the entire project is planned in three phases, with completion of 100%. along with the increase in dates of fall 2020, fall 2021 and fall 2022.

“It’s a process we call student enrollment. absorption, so it will be As of the Fall 2020 semester, there are 20,023 students enrolled at Appalachian interesting to see how these larger projects get absorbed into State University, including 18,061 undergraduates and 1,962 the marketplace,” Milner said. “Is there enough demand to meet the additional new supply?” graduate students.

Another big conversation that arises with the topic of apartJames Milner, CCIM, who is a commercial real estate broker and appraiser, said the on-campus housing supply is at about ment complexes in Boone, is the monthly rent residents have to 5,700 beds (as of June 2018), which equates to approximately pay for their leases.

“It’s just basic economics of supply, demand and the effect 28% of the student population (2020), mainly freshmen, being able to live on campus. This leads to around 72% of the student of those two things on price,” Milner said. “As you increase de-

App South 56

Built between 1967-1974, Appalachian South Apartments benefits from its close proximity to campus, as it is located at 206 Psi Drive.

High Country Magazine

October / November 2020

Bavarian Village

Built in 1973, Bavarian Village is an older apartment complex in the area located at 314 Meadowview Drive.

mand and don’t have enough supply, price is going to go up. That’s why I’ve always said for years, flood the market with apartments because at some point, price will come down. And maybe that’s what will happen with the addition of these new projects to overall supply.”

Milner further said that the addition of the new projects also has an effect on already established apartment complexes like The Village of Meadowview, Mountaineer Village, University Highlands to name a few in the area. Local apartment complexes that aren’t as new will have to figure how to compete and get their buildings filled as opposed to the newer projects.

“They want to be competitive,” Milner said. “You got to get yourself in the mindset of an owner. If the market says tenants are going to pay a certain price for an apartment, then that’s what tenants are going to pay. Again, it goes back to the fundamentals of the investment. The developer has spent a lot of time, money and energy to not only buy the land that’s already expensive, but then to go through the risk and process of designing it, engineering it, planning and permitting it. So, then they build it, and they have to get the greatest amount of return from that investment. The developer is merely trying to follow the development guidelines as outlined in the Unified Development Ordinance.”

While there are many newer apartment projects in the Town of Boone, there are also a couple of apartment complexes that have been around for close to 50 years. For example, Bavarian Village was built in 1973, and Appalachian South Apartments was built between 1967-1974.

Milner said, as some apartment complexes get older, the owners have to decide on what capital improvements they want to make to increase the longevity of the investment and stay competitive with the new projects.

“Bavarian Village has evolved over time, and I don’t think since I lived on Meadowview Drive, that it’s a student-oriented complex anymore,” Milner said.

The other older apartment complex in the area, Appalachian South Apartments, benefits from its close proximity to campus, as it is located by the Holmes Convocation Center.

“The question that the owners at App South have to make, and I think they have to make in the near future, is at what point is redevelopment imminent and what kind of capital improvements are needed to stay competitive,” Milner said. “While the location is superb, amenities and condition are important to tenants.”

However, instead of focusing on whether or not the projects are good investments, another viewpoint to consider is the benefits these developments have on the Town of Boone.

“While many of the town residents are in disgust over these larger apartment complexes, they do have a benefit to the town in terms of property tax,” Milner said. “These investments run quite a large property tax bill to the Town of Boone. Show me another property owner who writes an excess of $100,000 check in property taxes to the Town of Boone. I think they also have a benefit in the fact that they actually have to get built.

People are coming to Boone in terms of trades, and those people have to eat, sleep, drink; so, they are adding to the overall commerce of the community.”

The Standard

Built in 2016, The Standard is located at 828 Blowing Rock Road. The total cost of the project was $42 million, and the apartment complex contains a total of 203 units.

The Cottages of Boone

University Highlands

Built around 2013, The Cottages of Boone is located at 615 Fallview Lane. The apartment complex consists of a total of 894 bedrooms.

Built in 2000, University Highlands is located at 289 Ambling Way. The apartment complex is the only off-campus community exclusively for Appalachian State University students.

October / November 2020

High Country Magazine

57

T

he Rivers Walk Apartments located at 178 S. Waters Street is a new destination for luxury living located just a three minute walk away from Appalachian State University’s campus and a block away from King Street.

The complex will house modern living arrangements throughout its variety of studio, one, two, three or four bedroom apartments. Two-story townhomes will also be available. Residents will be able to have individual leases.

The property management team is already accepting applications through their online portal on their website. Tenants can move in as early as October or January depending on apartment availability.

They will start accepting applications for 2021 move-in dates Nov. 1.

The 243,971 square feet complex is four stories and has 145 bedrooms.

The apartment complex is already advertising having many community amenities including a cardio and weight training room, break out study zones and work

58

High Country Magazine

stations, a pool with a sundeck and grilling stations, a yoga and spin studio, a resident social lounge, bike storage, access to a greenway, controlled access buildings, available parking spaces and online payments and work order options.

Total cost: $26 million Number of bedrooms: 145 243,971 square feet The complex is four stories Located: 178 S. Waters Street Opening Fall 2020 The individual apartments will include full-size washers and dryers, walk-in closets, granite countertops, keyless fob entry, convenient elevators, trash chutes and available park views.

The apartment complex is also adver-

October / November 2020

tising itself as pet friendly with a one time fee of $300 for residents and $25 rent.

Only one pet is allowed per bedroom, and the max weight is 20 pounds each.

The Rivers Walk Apartments rent prices per person are as follows: the 500 square feet studio apartments are listed at $1,024. The one bedroom apartment’s rent is at $1,123. The two bedroom and two bathroom 700 square feet apartments are listed with $858 rent. The three bedroom and three bathroom 830 square feet apartments are listed with $805 rent. The four bedroom and four bathroom 1,575 square feet apartments are listed with $795 rent. And Lastly, rent for the townhomes will cost $805.

These prices cover fully-furnished units as well as water, trash, WIFI and cable. Electricity and on-site parking is paid separately.

On-site parking will cost $75 per month.

The project cost a total of $26 million, with the architect and general contractor being Luckett & Farley Architects, Engineers and Construction Managers, Inc.

T

he Peak of Boone located at 199 Highway 105 Extension is a new luxury apartment complex that will begin pre-leasing in Spring 2021. It’s located just a half mile from Appalachian State University and less than a mile from Downtown Boone.

The apartments are managed by Boone High Country Rentals, which is an experienced property management firm servicing Boone, Avery, Watauga and Ashe counties.

The property management team is advertising The Peak of Boone apartments as having contemporary designs and thoughtful layouts.

The complex consists of two buildings. Building 100 is 72,232 square feet and has four stories. Building 200 is 21,102 square feet and has three stories.

Between the two buildings, there are 186 bedrooms.

There are also a variety of apartment layouts throughout the apartment com-

plex, including studio and one bedroom plans, two bedroom plans and three bedroom plans.

There are four different floor plans for the studio apartments — 356 square feet, 375 square feet, 407 square feet or 436

Total cost: $11 million Number of bedrooms: 186 93,334 square feet The complex is four stories Located: 199 Highway 105 Ext. Pre-leasing to begin Spring 2021 square feet.

There is only one floor plan for the one-bedroom apartments, which is 446 square feet.

The two-bedroom plans have four various options, including 776 square feet, 800 square feet, 842 square feet and 850 square feet.

Lastly, the three-bedroom apartments have three different floor plans — 1,029 square feet, 1,104 square feet and 1,224 square feet.

The project cost a total of $11 million, with the architect being Brent Davis Architecture and the general contractor as Presidia General Contracting, Inc. Presidia General Contracting, Inc. offers concept to completion construction service for multifamily housing projects and has over thirty years of experience with hundreds of apartment buildings across the southeast.For individuals interested in becoming a part of the Peak of Boone community, contact information for the property management team can be found on the apartment complex’s website to inquire about leasing information.

October / November 2020

High Country Magazine

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60

High Country Magazine

October / November 2020

T

he Finmore at 241 Shadowline Drive is a brand new apartment complex just for student off-campus housing, which will open Fall 2021.

The 275,204 square feet complex has a variety of apartment layouts including one, two or four bedroom layouts, and the building contains 174 bedrooms within its five stories.

The apartment complex also advertises itself as pet-friendly along with offers a variety of amenities including outside social areas with fire pits, grilling stations, resort-style hot tubs and a fully equipped fitness center. The area also has a covered parking garage, Starbucks coffee bar and an AppalCart Transit stop.

Individual apartment features include having Amazon Echo in every apartment; USB-ready wall units; private bedroom and bathrooms; full XL-size beds with built-in storage; large floor plans

with ample closet space; fully equipped kitchens; 55” Smart HDTVs; electricity, water, cable and internet included; keyed bedroom entry; full-size washer and dryer;

Total cost: $35.29 million Number of bedrooms: 174 275,204 square feet The complex is five stories Located: 241 Shadowline Drive Opens Fall 2021 covered parking garage; voice-controlled apartment features like thermostat, lights and ceiling fans; fully-furnished apartments; and a virtual doorman.

YOUR TRUSTED,

The project cost a total of $35.29 million, with the engineer being Kitchen and Associates, Inc. and the general contractor as Southern Building Group, Inc. Kitchen and Associates, Inc. is based in Collingswood, New Jersey, and has nearly 50 years of experience providing professional design solutions throughout the country.

Southern Building Group has developed, constructed, and managed premier multi-family, commercial, student housing, and senior living communities, throughout the country. Southern Building Group’s experience ranges from traditional garden-style apartments to multi-level urban infill projects.

Prospective tenants can visit The Finmore at 241’s leasing office located at 116 W. King Street or find contact information and additional renting details regarding applications on the apartment complex’s website.

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High Country Magazine

61

After A Lucky Break at Avery High School in 1983 ...

Scott’s Back Home Story by Jan Todd • Photography by Ken Ketchie

N

ew energy — and new aromas — are drifting out from Banner Elk’s iconic Stonewalls Restaurant. Now in its 35th year of operation, the establishment has adjusted to its change in ownership, recent pandemic conditions and new opportunities on the mountain to freshen up its offerings for loyal locals, the resort crowd and tourists in the High Country.

Avery County local Scott Garland and his partner Tim Heschke, who grew up in Iola, Wisconsin, purchased Stonewalls in 2016 from John and Ann Carrier, and completely renovated the restaurant over the past few years. They updated the menu while preserving the legacy for the devoted diners who have celebrated special occasions as well as enjoyed casual dining at this landmark institution known for its prime rib, seafood and gourmet entrees.

Heschke is the head chef at Stonewalls,

and Garland handles the “front-of-house,” management and guest relations. They moved from Cincinnati to Banner Elk when they purchased the restaurant. It was a move back home for Garland, who re-

membered dining at Stonewalls before his senior prom in 1986.

“I spent the first 18 years of my life trying to get out of Avery County, and the last 30

years trying to get back,” Garland laughed.

Now Garland and Heschke are partnering with Jim Accardi – owner of Fraziers Tavern & Grill — to open a new event site called The Venue at Hidden Creek, which will be ready for business in 2021 on Beech Mountain. The venue will accommodate up to 250 guests and will be available for weddings, parties and other events.

To serve refreshments at The Venue, Garland and Heschke bought a 26-foot food truck and plan to operate it under the banner, “What the Cluck?”, serving Nashville style chicken — a spicy fried chicken with various levels of heat — and other Southern style food.

Garland said, “We pulled the trigger on purchasing the food truck during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when restaurants in North Carolina were prohibited from operating. We weren’t sure when we’d

A $4 Million Gift From Susan McAshan 62

A part-time resident in Linville Ridge and heiress of the company that produced Chiffon Margarin and Seven Seas dressings donated funds to launch the culinary arts program at Avery high school, where Scott attended.

High Country Magazine

October / November 2020

“I spent the first 18 years of my life trying to get out of Avery County, and the last 30 years trying to get back.”

Scott Garland be allowed to reopen. Food trucks operate under different guidelines than restaurants, because all of the servings are considered take-out. It gives us more flexibility.”

“What the Cluck?” will travel around the High Country, serving food at events, high-traffic areas, and even in the Stonewalls Restaurant parking lot.

“The food truck will give us a way to provide some affordable options for family meals, under a different brand from Stonewalls’. We’ll have it popping up in Newland, Linville, and here in Banner Elk, with Facebook and social media announcing the locations,” Garland added.

Of course, Stonewalls Restaurant will still do what it does best, Garland said.

“We’ve had a great business from day one,” he shared. “If it hadn’t been for the pandemic, 2020 would have been our best year yet.”

Garland said they were relatively lucky with the timing of the pandemic shutdowns in the spring. Stonewalls Restaurant

Tim Heschke (left) and Avery County local Scott Garland purchased Stonewalls in 2016 and completely renovated the restaurant over the past few years. usually closes in late March/early April for deep cleaning and vacation time, and they have a staff savings plan to accommodate payroll during that time.

Garland and Heschke had to cancel their vacation plans due to the pandemic, but used the time to plan for the next phase

of operations. Garland said, “We started doing take-out with curb-side pick up when we opened back up. That first Friday, Tim and I planned to handle it on our own. Thank goodness some of our employees live very close, because within the first hour we were so busy we had to call for reinforcements!”

By the end of May, North Carolina restaurants were allowed to operate at 50% capacity indoors, so Garland said they started getting creative. They moved some outdoor planters to expand the covered seating area outside and rearranged indoors to provide sufficient distance between diners.

“We’ve had a great business from day one.

If it hadn’t been for the pandemic, 2020 would have been our best Customers enjoying their experience at Stonewalls. Due to COVID-19 regulations, the staff rearranged the inside of the restaurant to provide sufficient distance between tables.

October / November 2020

year yet.”

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63

Scott Garland had an internship with the Sheraton Stamford Hotel Towers in Stamford, Connecticut at the age of 19 while he attended The Culinary Institute. He was one of the youngest student to be accepted to the Institute.

“We can only take reservations for the inside, though, not knowing what the weather might be. If people sit outside and want to come in, chances are I have nowhere to put them,” Garland said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to operate at full capacity again soon.”

Stonewalls’ owners are accustomed to a fluid environment at the restaurant. Since their purchase, they have completed extensive renovations — all while living in an apartment above the kitchen.

They spent almost $300,000 in remodeling, Garland said, bringing the building

up to code, redesigning to accommodate a large bar area, creating more space in the kitchen, and redecorating to create a sophisticated — yet approachable — feel to the environment.

“We wanted it to be a nice place for people to celebrate special occasions, but also a place where people feel comfortable for an everyday, casual meal,” Garland described.

Part of the challenge in the updates was the structure of the building itself. Originally, the building — constructed in 1982 — was designed to accommodate a pharmacy on one side and a small restaurant on

the other. Those two businesses operated out of the space for just under two years before being sold to the original owners of Stonewalls.

One goal of the recent redesign was to optimize flow and function of the space.

“It doesn’t matter how good a restaurant looks if there isn’t a good flow for the waitstaff and guests,” Garland said. “You have to pay attention to the crossover areas so people aren’t bumping into one another.”

In the kitchen, they were able to open up some space for food prep by moving

On the left, Tim Heschke is with a gingerbread house at age 14 at his home in Iola, Wisconsin where he grew up.

On the right, he won grand champion in a 4-H food category competition at the age of 19.

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October / November 2020

“We wanted it to be a nice place for people to celebrate special occasions, but also a place where people feel comfortable for an everyday, casual meal.” the refrigeration outside. Most of the kitchen renovation, however, involved plumbing.

“When the original restaurant was built, the health codes were different. During the redesign, we had to adhere to today’s codes, which meant we had to add a mop sink, a prep sink and a different type of drainage. Since the building was built on a concrete slab, the only way to modify was to drill up the floors. We pretty much took the kitchen down to the studs,” Garland described.

The new kitchen was designed with cleanliness in mind, with an easy-care epoxy floor.

They installed a new energy-efficient refrigeration system and a more water-conservative dishwasher, helping the restaurant to lower costs and reduce its carbon footprint.

They also updated point-of-sale systems, redesigned the bathrooms, and made changes throughout the restaurant to increase efficiency and sustainability. “We both come from a corporate background, where environmental consciousness and cost efficiency were drilled into us,” said Garland.

The remodel included a switch to LED lighting, more costly at first but much more energy efficient and earth-friendly. The new owners replaced the building’s propane heating system with cleaner, more efficient natural gas and installed tankless hot water heaters.

Outdoors, heated sidewalks reduce the need for salt during the icy days of winter — an earth friendly option as well as a safety feature for Stonewall’s guests.

The expanded bar area was another guestpleasing addition. “When Stonewalls was opened, the town was dry, so there was no need for a large bar,” Garland explained.

When they purchased the property, there was an olive oil shop in one area of the restaurant, and Garland and Heschke converted that space in the redesign to accommodate their custom designed bar, where they serve fine wines, local craft beers and handcrafted cocktails.

Scott Garland leads a staff meeting right before the 5:00 opening.

Scott handles the front-of-house management and guest relations at Stonewalls.

Scott’s attention to detail keeps the restaurant in immaculate shape for guests to enjoy.

October / November 2020

High Country Magazine

65

Tim Heschke is the head chef at Stonewalls Restaurant, managing the back-of-house operations where he is hands-on in preparing meals for guests.

From Homestyle Cooking to Escargot

I came along,” he described.

“My brother is 17 years older, and my sister is 13 years older Garland and Heschke than me. When I was studybring a wealth of fine dining ing genetics in high school, I experience to the table. Prior had to ask my parents what to purchasing Stonewalls, color their hair was, because they worked together at CaeI only knew it as grey.” sars Entertainments HorseWhen his father passed shoe Casino in downtown away, Garland and his mothCincinnati. er moved back to Linville full Garland grew up in Lintime, where Scott enrolled in ville, surrounded by a large Avery High School. family. “My mother was a He started washing dishes Hughes, one of nine children. at The Tartan — his cousins’ I had an uncle who owned a Southern homestyle restauhotel, a cousin who had the rant — at age 12. When Garbeauty shop, two of my cousland was a high school sophoins who owned a restaurant, more, he was introduced to a and my aunt ran the counvery different style cuisine. try store that used to be my “Susan McAshan, the grandfather’s. My uncle Jim heiress to the company that was a state senator. If I got Tim enjoys his time in the kitchen where everything is prepared fresh to made Chiffon Margarine, into any trouble any given order and nightly specials are, well, always special.

Seven Seas salad dressings, day, my mother would know and other package goods, had nuclear power plant. “We spent our weekabout it before I got home because someends, summers and holidays in the moun- a house in Linville. She donated $4 million one in my family would call and tell her,” tains, though,” Garland said. “Linville was to start a culinary arts program at Avery he laughed.

High School,” Garland said. always what we considered as home.”

Garland spent his early childhood in Because the program was privately Garland was the youngest of three chilAiken, South Carolina, where his father dren. “My parents were a little older when funded, the students were exposed to opwas a security guard at the Savannah River 66

High Country Magazine

October / November 2020

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New Food Truck Makes Its Debut

rom the time Scott Garland ordered his food truck from a company called Concession Nation located in Deerfield Beach, Florida, to the time he picked it up, the process took three months.

Concession Nation specializes in food trucks and produces eight trucks a week, customizing each one based on what will be cooked in it.

“You send them a wishlist as far as what you want for equipment, and they build it based on that calculating what the electrical load is and the gas load,” Garland said.

Garland has a 26-foot fully self-contained food truck that has a diesel en-

gine and propane for the cooking units.

Inside it has a full convection oven, gas chargrill, griddle, four-burner stove and oven, henny penny fryer and a henny penny pressure fryer.

He paid around $160,000 for the trailer and $70,000 for a Dodge 450 truck to pull it.

Garland said that food trucks have been doing really well lately.

“The whole thing with restaurants being at 50% occupancy, food trucks don’t fall under the same guidelines,” Garland said.

“There’s no occupancy for food trucks because there’s no in-dining. So, they’re getting a lot of business based on that.”

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High Country Magazine

The food truck, “What the Cluck?”, will be serving Nashville style chicken.

October / November 2020

portunities atypical of most public high school programs. “We had field trips to French restaurants in Charlotte and went to a Bigger Brothers food show where we learned about the food brokerage aspect of the restaurant business,� he recalled.

The class had hands-on training when the program opened a 52-seat French-style restaurant in Montezuma — an unincorporated community in Avery County. “They leased kitchen space at a camp and had instructors work with us on food prep. It was open on the weekends for dinner. That was my first experience with escargot,� Garland said.

His class even went to the luxury Greenbriar resort in the Allegheny Mountains in West Virginia to observe a week of the Culinary Olympic Team’s training.

While at the Greenbriar event, Garland met and spent time with Ferdinand Metz, the president of The Culinary Institute in

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Attention to Style During the remolding phrase, Garland added LED lighting everywhere they could. In the bottom photo, the twig chandelier casts shadows on the birch wallpaper creating a sophisticated contemporary look.

October / November 2020

High Country Magazine

69

Stonewalls outdoor patio dining area has been popular this summer.

For now, the bar stools have been removed from the bar area.

Hyde Park, New York.

“The Culinary Institute is the Harvard of cooking schools,” Garland remarked.

Garland became the first Avery High School graduate from the culinary program to attend The Culinary Institute.

One of the culinary instructors from AHS, Penny VonCannon of Banner Elk, remembered Garland when he was a student.

“Scott was very creative. A lot of people saw his talent — including John Blackburn at Eseeola Lodge, who took Scott under his wing. Some people are born to be culinary artists, and Scott is definitely one of those people,” said VonCannon.

It was fairly unusual for a student to go straight from high school to The Culinary Institute, Garland said. “I think the average age of the incoming students was about 28 years old. It was an intense environment, living and breathing culinary 24 hours a day.”

Garland said a career in the culinary industry is something people either love or hate. “It’ll provide a good income, and no matter where you are, you can probably find a job. But there are sacrifices. You work when other people play, on weekends and holidays. I’ve spent maybe two Christmases at home with my family in the past 30 years. But there is something very gratifying about taking something from a raw product to a finished meal to serve the customer.”

After culinary school, Garland completed a degree in hotel and restaurant management from the University of New Haven. He returned to the High Country where he worked at the Westglow Spa, then served seasonally as kitchen understudy at Linville Ridge before transitioning into club-

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house management. During the winters he worked at a country club in Naples Florida.

Garland accepted a position in Asheville at the Biltmore Forest Country Club and later joined the opening team for the Inn on Biltmore Estates, where he was responsible for the daily operations of the restaurant and lounge. He developed and implemented signature food and beverage events — including several “Platinum Wedding” packages with budgets of over $1 million each.

“I’d tell my clients that the only limit to my imagination was their budget,” he said.

“Being able to go in and design events like that was stressful, but also very rewarding. I had some great experiences.”

Garland moved to Cincinnati in 2014, where he served as the banquet service manager at the Horseshoe Casino, managing events for up to 1,400 guests.

Farm to Table Tim Heschke grew up on a small family farm in Iola, Wisconsin, a town about two hours from Milwaukee. His family raised a few Black Angus cows and butchered their own meat. He inherited his love of cooking from his mother, who worked in a bakery.

Heschke’s first job was milking cows.

While in high school, he started washing dishes at a local golf course, then attended a culinary arts program in Milwaukee. He worked as a chef and a food and beverage manager at several hotels and restaurants, then returned to school to earn a Bachelors’ degree in restaurant and hospitality management from the New England Culinary Institute.

After meeting Garland, he joined him at the Horseshoe Casino and served as the Hospitality Supervisor, managing the buffet area that served 4,500 people a day on busy weekends.

Heschke said it has been easy to adjust to the small-town atmosphere of Banner Elk, considering his upbringing in Wisconsin. “It is a lot warmer here, though,” he said.

At Stonewalls, Heschke makes everything in-house, including the ice cream and bread. He has added new entrees to the long-time favorites that guests remember across the years.

Since Heschke and Garland took the helm, Stonewalls Restaurant has continued to thrive. They earned the 2019 Business of the Year award from the Chamber of Commerce and have collected a number of awards from the Avery Journal, including Best Steakhouse, Best Salad Bar, best Dinner Restaurant, Best Caterer, Best Fine Dining, Best Seafood, and Best Gourmet Specialty. t

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a

Ginseng Sparks

Friendship and Book

Ag Director Pens Novel on Ginseng Story by Jesse Wood

Y

After funding with a local film company ou never know what will spark a novel it was pretty good. After working on it some more, he sent it to Glenn. To Jim’s surprise, fell through, the story was left without a – and perhaps a movie one day.

About 5 years ago, Jim Hamilton visited Glenn was intrigued. They swapped ideas home. Jim sent ‘Sang to Anson Mount, who starred in AMC’s western drama Glenn Bruce’s property in BlowHell on Wheels. Jim met the acing Rock. Jim is the director of tor as an undergrad at Sewanee. the Watauga County Cooperative Anson replied, “Do a novel first Extension, which helps landownand see if it gets legs.” ers and farmers manage crops, So Jim asked for Glenn’s timber stands and livestock. blessing to turn the screenplay Glenn, on the other hand, ‘Sang into a novel. “I knew I is a veteran author of 17 novels didn’t want to get involved in and numerous screenplays for that as a writer, and it also just film and TV. He is perhaps best felt right for him to do it and me known for writing the screenplay to help,” Glenn said. for Kickboxer, a 1989 martial So the process of Jim writing arts flick starring Jean-Claude a few pages and sending them to Van Damme.

Glenn for feedback began. BeGlenn was thinking about cause a novel has on average four growing some ginseng. So Jim times more words than a screenstopped by to see if his property play, Jim had plenty of room to was habitable for the finicky, mysflesh out the story. Editing via tical and valuable plant, one that shared documents online, Glenn has been prized for centuries, would pull out his digital red pen particularly in Asia. and take Jim to school.

As the two chatted and “Glenn was just an amazing walked the property, Jim mencritic and editor,” Jim said. tioned he’d never seen ginseng The rough draft for The Last on the big screen and was curious Entry took about a year to write how to go about writing a story and the second draft took about centered on the plant. Glenn was another year. As time went by, interested but didn’t like writing the amount of blood on the page with others. from Glenn’s red pen got less and “I’ve been doing this for 40 less. Halfway through the first years and that usually doesn’t draft, Jim started to feel comfortwork out,” Glenn said. “But “Hamilton’s authenic and vibrant characters able – something he noticed gosomething about Jim, we just hit it off … Eventually, we jump from the page and you’ll smell the freshly ing back to edit the start of the original draft. agreed I’d write the screenplay turned loam with every root that’s dug.” and we would work on the sto“I was like, ‘Oh, wow.’ The Dave Lucey ry together.” book changed a lot during that Owner of Page 158 Books, Wake Forest, NC Fair enough. first major edit, and then in the So Jim went home that night, had a soak about characters and plot lines over the second major edit, I really refined the craft, in the hot tub and started jotting down the ensuing months and Glenn soon “cranked you know, the metaphor, description and premise of the story. His wife, Silvi, thought out” the screenplay titled ‘Sang. dialogue,” Jim said.

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Jim poses behind a ginseng plant before berries cluster on the plant’s stem. Because ginseng plants take several years to seed, ginseng is illegal to pick prior to the berries ripening in early autumn. Photo by Sarah Tunstill estry student. He didn’t know much about ginseng at the time other than it being a “beautiful, unique plant.” As time went on, he learned about ginseng’s place in Appalachian history. How Daniel Boone made a fortune exporting Kentucky ginseng; and how the Cherokee used it medicinally, believing the plant was invisible to those unworthy; and how mountain people harvested ginseng late in the year to buy Christmas gifts or supplement their income in the doldrums of winter.

The reason people harvest the plant late in the year is because the berries ripen in the fall. If those berries don’t fall to the ground or become replanted, no new ginseng plants sprout.

That’s a big concern when ginJim Hamilton jotted down the outline of The Last Entry on meeting seng plants take at least five minutes after a local government meeting in Boone. Then Glenn years to reproduce Bruce, a veteran author and screenwriter who used to live in Blowing With that time lag and Rock, started swapping ideas for a story that became the screenplay, with American ginseng listed ‘Sang by Glenn Bruce, and novel, The Last Entry by Jim Hamilton. as a species that could become

When Jim got stuck, he followed Glenn’s advice on putting the book down for a couple months and returning to page one of the novel with fresh eyes. In all, the process took five years, from the first day Jim and Glenn spoke to when the book was recently published.

Perfect Person to Pen Ginseng Plot

Jim grew up in Alabama on a farm where his family raised cattle and grew loblolly pine trees.

From the old homestead, you can see the last “hanging toenail” of the foothills of Appalachia, a bump called Hog Mountain. Several years back, he even found a natural stand of about 70 or 80 ginseng plants on the Alabama property, something unexpected and serendipitous.

His first encounter with ginseng, though, was as a for-

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PUBLISHED TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 14, 2015 at 1:56 PM

extinct without federal regulations, it’s illegal to pick ginseng until those berries ripen in the fall – even if it’s on your property. But with a pound of dried ginseng root selling for hundreds of dollars, sometimes the temptation is too great to wait – as The Last Entry depicts.

In 2013 when the price of wild ginseng jumped above $1,000 and reality shows like Smoky Mountain Money and Appalachian Outlaws put a spotlight on the ginseng trade, Jim’s office started receiving a bunch of calls from people looking to grow some ginseng. While Jim’s program focus with the Extension began with the Christmas tree industry, which is also a focus in the novel, he began learning all he could about growing ginseng.

“We just started getting question after question, which sort of allowed me to operationalize my interest in the plant, which was great,” Hamilton said. “I was able to take a professional focus turn into medicinal herbs.”

Big ginseng farms began popping up in the High Country during this time and began planting thousands of pounds of seed per year. Naturally, this attracted ginseng poachers, who were probably watching those reality TV shows and seeing what ginseng was fetching.

With so much seed in the ground, local farmers and other stakeholders in the

local agriculture industry, including Jim, worried about the impacts of poaching on the economy. So, they met with District Attorney Seth Banks in 2014 and a month later, the first felony conviction for illegally ‘sanging on private property occurred.

Reporting for High Country Press at the time, I recall Jim’s enthusiasm when that happened and how he called it a “great victory” in dissuading the stealing of someone’s ginseng.

A Screenplay to Novel to Movie?

The Last Entry is a great read with interesting characters and storylines. I’d call it a page turner, especially if you are interested in ginseng and Appalachian folklore.

Although I don’t normally read fiction, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, even reading it on my lunchbreak at work.

So far, it has received little publicity since being published – in part because it was released into the wild around the time of a pandemic. However, The Last Entry warrants more attention.

The novel has the four M’s of hillbilly noir – meth, marijuana, moonshine and murder. The Last Entry strolls the delicate line of painting Appalachia with authentic and stereotypical brushstrokes. It’s a line Jim is all too well aware he’s walking – especially as an outsider calling Appalachia

Ginseng made it into the mainstream consciousness several years back when the price rose above $1,000 per dried pound and reality TV shows like Smoky Mountain Money depicted potential riches from digging up the “green gold.”

The promotional material on the left was designed by Silvina Hamilton 74

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October / November 2020

Glenn Bruce had a lot of red edits for Jim Hamilton’s novel.

Glenn Bruce

Glenn Bruce is a Hollywood pro and author of numerous screenplays and scripts for film and TV. His big screen credits include Kickboxer, a classic martial arts film from the ‘80s starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Victor One and Cyborg Cop. He’s also written episodes for popular TV shows like Walker: Texas Ranger and Baywatch. He was a sketch writer for Cinemax’s Assaulted Nuts, too. Bruce is also the author of 17 novels and more than 50 published short stories, essays and poems. After teaching screenwriting for 12 years at App State and living in Blowing Rock, he resides in Florida, where he recently finished that 17th novel. home for most of his adult life.

Ginseng has a mystique and romanticism just like old Appalachia.

The underground world of ginseng is something you might not know existed unless you were in the thick of it. Surprisingly or not, ginseng hasn’t been explored much in American fiction before now.

“In part, The Last Entry is an homage to the ginseng subculture of the Appalachians which spreads far and wide,” Jim said at last year’s Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance conference in Spartanburg, S.C. A snippet of the dust-jacket summary sets the scene: “The Last Entry is a journey through the cultural crossroads of post-modern Appalachia where oldtime traditions clash with a rapidly-changing world. Jim Hamilton weaves his tale of brotherhood, loss, and redemption in the Blue Ridge Mountains set under the backdrop

Promotional material and a copy of the Bruce’s screenplay called ‘Sang.

of the secretive ginseng trade of the southern Appalachians.”

With deadbeat parents, Tucker and his younger brother, Danny, are essentially raised by their granddad, PawPaw, who introduces them to ginseng.

As children, PawPaw teaches them to live off the land, to navigate by the stars and do right by the world.

When Tucker graduates high school in the early ‘90s, he joins the Navy. The story follows Tucker on a Navy ship off the coast of Hong Kong and back to the family homestead in Appalachia once his tour ends. In a bind for money upon returning home, Tucker sets off to find a hidden stash of ginseng using his grandfather’s cryptic journal as a guide. However, he’s not the only one looking for those plants.

Jim Hamilton

Photo by Sarah Tunstill October / November 2020

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Tucker Trivette is in a bind. He joined the Navy straight out of high school. Without many options, it seemed lie the right thing to do. Now he’s heading home. To what, he’s not sure, but he’s hoping things are better. They’re not. Set upon by hard times and a nemesis from his youth, Tucker seeks redemption and reward hidden deep in the forest, to reclaim a legacy hinted at within his grandfather’s cryptic journal. Tucker understands the value of friendship and family—and paying his debts. Determined to play the hand he’s been dealt to start over and succeed, he’ll have to bend the rules to get there. The Last Entry is painted in the woodland tones of western North Carolina’s rural mountains—a cultural crossroads of post-modern Appalachia where old time traditions clash with a rapidly changing world. Jim Hamilton weaves his expertise in natural history and the underground world of ginseng into a story and characters that reflect the region’s struggles with poverty and a black market-economy still tied to its land and forests.

When writing, Hamilton sought advice from relatives for portions of the novel. For example, his brother is in law enforcement and helped him write realistic dialogue whenever police entered the scene.

Jim’s father enlisted in the Navy, so that helped during some of the sailor scenes. The novel also features an agriculture agent, so Jim didn’t need to do too much research for that career field.

Some local and regional writers proofread the story, including Bettie Bond, Mike Jasper, Ross Young, Max Hagaman and Sandy Lebowitz. Jim said he was grateful for everyone who read early drafts and helped the novel come to fruition.

“For those authors that sit down and write riveting books completely on their own, more power to them,” Hamilton said. “I’m just thrilled it came to print and I really just want it in the hands of

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people ... Now that I know it passes the sniff test, I am happy for that.”

As for the screenplay becoming a movie one day, Glenn said it was a possibility.

Movie studios jump at the chance to produce a “tent-pole idea,” such as a DC comics’ story that’s never played on the big

October / November 2020

screen. With these types of films, you can increase your profit margins by selling merchandise and other kinds of promotions.

Independent films, however, don’t have many financial backers.

In many respects, the film industry is less about art and more about math with dollars.

“It’s a brutal, tough business. So would this have a chance to get made? Sure, if you’ve got the money,” Glenn said.

“If you’ve got investors who were into ginseng or were into Appalachian films or who had Asian contacts and because of American ginseng, could raise money in Asia to get you all the way there or halfway there you know. Yeah. It’s always possible.”

The book is available at Foggy Pine Bookstore in downtown Boone or at www.foggypinebooks.com. It’s also available at www.amazon.com. t

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Strange Atmospheres and Empty Stadiums

n your typical autumn Saturday in Boone, over 30,000 fans will pack into Kidd Brewer Stadium for college football in the High Country. Unfortunately for almost everyone in 2020, nothing about this year has been typical.

The Appalachian State Mountaineers opened its 2020 football season on September 12 with an unexpected home game against the Charlotte 49ers. The Mountaineers had little trouble with their in-state competition, picking up a 35-20 win. How App State got to that point was a whirlwind of changes that every college football program in the nation has had to deal with.

The Mountaineers were scheduled to open the season against FCS foe Morgan State in Boone on September 5 and then play road games at Big 10 powerhouse Wisconsin and ACC rival Wake Forest. Unfortunately, all three of those games were canceled due to COVID-19 and replaced with Charlotte, Marshall, and Campbell.

Another thing that COVID-19 derailed was fan attendance.

The Mountaineers played to a nearly empty stadium in that first game against Charlotte, with only a few media members, parents of senior Mountaineer players in attendance, and your occasional construction worker taking a quick break to watch some football from the north endzone where construction continues.

App State won their first game, lost a close one to Marshall 17-7 on the road the following week, and most recently defeated Campbell at Kidd Brewer Stadium 52-21 on September 25 in front of roughly 350 fans that were allowed to be in attendance.

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Those fans were almost exclusively 300 family members of App State players and 50 family members of Campbell players.

Colleges all over the country have had to change their schedules around; several have had to cancel games even right up to the day before due to too many positive COVID-19 tests or too many players in quarantine. The entire Pac-12 and Big 10 conference chose not to play at all this fall, and they both have since changed their minds and will begin their seasons at some point in October.

CBS Sports has been keeping an up-to-date list of games that have already been postponed to late dates or canceled altogether.

As of September 25, a total of 22 games have already been canceled or rescheduled. Eight schools (Houston, Memphis, Baylor, Florida Atlantic, Virginia Tech, Arkansas State, Rice, and Charlotte) have already had to cancel or postpone at least two games on their schedules.

As updated testing numbers continue to come in across North Carolina and the rest of the states, the hope is that restrictions can continue to be eased and football fans can slowly return to stadiums across the country in larger numbers. Football is a great sport to watch on television or in person, but with empty stadiums, it still doesn’t have the same feel without roaring crowds, rambunctious student sections, and each school’s band getting ready to blast out their fight song as players storm out onto the field for kickoff or when your favorite team scores another big touchdown.

– Nathan Ham

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