Mountain Xpress 04.24.24

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CALL OF THE WILD

Countless individuals in Western North Carolina are taking advantage of opportunities at local wilderness schools. They’re learning how to forage for food, protect our natural resources and respond to emergencies in the wild.

Where is our land ethic?

I have lived in many places where development has severely impacted the environment, and other places where counties and municipalities have done a better job of balancing conservation and economic growth. It is apparent that Buncombe County is one of the former, as we are rapidly losing habitat, and water quality is no longer improving.

I believe we must do better and recommend that we become familiar with the following plans: The Southeast Conservation Blueprint [avl.mx/pry1], Buncombe County’s Farmland Preservation Program [avl.mx/cgu], Buncombe County’s 2043 Comprehensive Plan [avl.mx/dlv] and the N.C. Natural Heritage Program’s Biodiversity and Wildlife Habitat Assessment [avl.mx/dlw].

Let’s contact our elected officials and let them know that you value our natural resources, wish they would think more about habitat and consider these plans. All of us can also benefit our community by landscaping with native plants and removing invasives in our backyard.

— Phil Baigas Weaverville

Pick leaders who choose safety over ideology

As Asheville approaches the November elections, we face a crucial choice about our community’s future. Council member Kim

Correction

In the April 17 issue, Xpress misidentified Mark Hopey in the lead photo of “Coming Home: Alternative Education in Asheville City Schools May Be Returning to Montford.” X

CARTOON BY RANDY MOLTON

Roney, endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, seeks reelection, advocating far-left ideologies over practical community solutions.

The most recent point of concern is her opposition to placing school resource officers in our schools, a stance officially recorded in the minutes of the Asheville City Council’s March 12 meeting. Her resistance to this measure, which aims to protect our students, emphasizes her preference for ideological priorities over effective, community-focused policies. This decision goes beyond individual preferences; it’s about ensuring fundamental security in our schools.

This election is an opportunity for Asheville to choose governance that balances safety, fiscal responsibility and community welfare. We must critically assess the potential impact of electing officials who might favor radical changes, potentially leading to instability and discord.

We need leaders who support realistic and inclusive solutions that address the needs and aspirations of all Asheville citizens. Let’s prioritize candidates who propose practical policies to ensure our city remains a safe, thriving place.

As the election nears, I urge my fellow residents to consider the kind of leadership that will truly represent our community. Let’s vote for a future that enhances Asheville’s safety, prosperity and unity.

— Jim Fulton Arden

More input needed on school library book bans

[Regarding “Exposure to Darkness: School Library Book Bans Come to Buncombe,” April 3, Xpress:]

Are educators the best people to decide what books to ban for student libraries? Absolutely not.

Such decisions should be made by educators, students and parents. Not all educators have their finger on the pulse of what is going on with students and parents. They should not decide what’s best for everyone.

Thanks for letting me share my thoughts.

— Cathy Alexander Candler

Check the source for ‘extremist’ label

[Regarding “Exposure to Darkness: School Library Book Bans Come to Buncombe,” April 3, Xpress:]

When Mr. Greg Parlier or anyone else uses the Southern Poverty Law Center as a source for appraisal of any group to any degree right of center, they forfeit credibility. (This opinion is so widely held and so demonstrable that one wonders why a journalist hasn’t enough perception or self-regard to avoid using SPLC as a reference. Surely other sources or none at all — relying on a wide variety of news sources — would be a wiser choice.)

The SPLC labels most conservative groups, usually erroneously, as a “hate” or “extremist” group. It is itself one of the country’s leading bona fide hate AND extremist groups.

The Moms for Liberty group, by today’s definitions, is certainly conservative in trying to protect young children from sex-related matters (many quite extreme) until they are more mature in their abilities to sort out reasonable choices, and they deal with those questions responsibly. It is risible for Asheville schools to determine, categorically, that school officials are better able to make those judgments than parents.

— Michael Childs Vance Elementary School alumnus Charlotte X

CARTOON BY BRENT BROWN

Ax to grind

BY GREG PARLIER

gparlier@mountainx.com

Asheville-based nonprofit MountainTrue and other environmental groups await responses from the U.S. Forest Service after filing a flurry of legal actions against the federal agency over its Pisgah-Nantahala Forest Plan.

The latest lawsuit, submitted April 18, alleges that logging proposals in the forest plan could put endangered bats at risk, therefore violating the Endangered Species Act. (See previous Xpress coverage at avl.mx/dme.)

Two other lawsuits filed since January focus on the Forest Service’s approach to its timber harvest program.

A Feb. 26 lawsuit alleges that the Forest Service’s practice of setting timber targets for forest managers incentivizes them to prioritize harvesting older-growth trees. Futhermore, it maintains that the Forest Service has not assessed the direct, indirect or cumulative effects its actions have on carbon storage and emissions, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

The suit stems from internal USFS documents obtained by Southern Environmental Law Center attorneys via the Freedom of Information Act that show how high a priority those timber targets are in decisions across the agency, says Patrick Hunter, the managing attorney in SELC’s Asheville office.

Environmental groups keep pressure on U.S. Forest Service

Internal emails show that agency staff members believe the need to meet timber targets impacts the Forest Service’s ability to provide “basic customer service for health and safety,” “keep trails opened and maintained” and “respond to needs resulting from catastrophic events … in a timely manner.” In some instances, agency staff members have used money meant for wildlife habitat improvement to fund projects designed to achieve timber targets, even if those projects had “no benefit to wildlife,” according to SELC’s review of the documents.

“I had no idea how significantly timber targets affect Forest Service decision making across the board, ranging from investment in recreation projects to where to cut timber to how to invest

in basic maintenance of Forest Service facilities,” Hunter says. “The agency’s single-minded pursuit of these targets threatens almost every value that people cherish about our national forests, puts the climate at risk and violates federal law.”

That suit joins another, more pointed lawsuit lodged in January accusing the agency of ignoring its own forest plan in moving forward with logging a sensitive area in the Nantahala National Forest. That logging plan is known as the Southside Project.

“With both the Forest Plan and this Southside timber sale, Forest Service leaders have put commercial logging first and ignored federal law and overwhelming public support for conserving our most beloved natural areas and landscapes,” says Josh Kelly, public lands field biologist for MountainTrue.

AT LOGGERHEADS

The latest lawsuit, filed jointly by SELC, MountainTrue and four other conservation groups, argues that the USFS ignored its own research when

drafting its 2023 Pisgah-Nantahala land management plan, showing that some specific timber projects would drastically harm the habitat and feeding grounds of four endangered bat species.

The 1976 National Forest Management Act requires each forest to have a land management plan to guide the management of forest resources — including conservation, recreation and timber production. Last updated in 1994, the 20-year forest plan covers more than 1 million acres of forest and took 10 years to finalize, partly because of thousands of comments from forest users and advocates.

MountainTrue argued the forest service prioritized “poorly conceived timber harvests” at the expense of water quality and areas critical for the preservation of biodiversity, according to MountainTrue’s objection to the plan while it was being finalized.

Kelly and Karim Olaechea, MountainTrue’s deputy director of strategy and communications, say the Forest Service has acted defensively and vindictively toward Western North Carolina’s largest environmental group

FOREST FIGHT: From left, MountainTrue intern Corinna Steinreuck, member Rhys Burns, and Southern Environmental Law Center attorney Julie Reynolds-Engel stand in a forest that is approved for timber harvest in the Buck Creek Project, part of the U.S. Forest Service’s Pisgah-Nantahala Forest Plan. Photo courtesy of Josh Kelly

since MountainTrue expressed its objections to the plan.

“I think if the forest plan had turned out better, you would not be having this conversation today. I think if the forest plan had turned out better, our relationship with the Forest Service would have been more important than filing the carbon suit, for example. Since filing the notice of intent [to sue] on the forest plan, the reaction from the local leadership of the Forest Service has made it clear that our relationship couldn’t get much worse. So the cost to us is pretty low,” Kelly says.

One example of that, according to Kelly, is the Forest Service has informed MountainTrue that the agency and nonprofit can no longer partner on removing invasive plants from the forest, hurting not only both organizations but the forest itself.

“A lot of this litigation was completely avoidable. And a lot of it is a direct result of a very poorly designed forest plan,” adds Olaechea.

USFS spokesperson for North Carolina forests, Adam Rondeau, did not respond to questions about the agency’s relationship with environmental groups or the lawsuits, citing pending litigation. Instead, he sent general statements about the forest plan and Southside Project.

TIMBER TARGETS

At the crux of the February lawsuit is the Forest Service’s long-standing practice of using timber targets as mandatory performance metrics for national, regional and forest-level managers, according to the lawsuit.

Since at least World War II, according to Kelly and Hunter, the secretary of agriculture sets annual timber targets that the USFS must meet. Those targets, measured in volume, get divided among the Forest Service’s nine regions, and passed down to individual forests.

The Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service “make no effort to comply” with the National Environmental Policy Act’s requirement that federal agencies analyze and disclose the direct, indirect and cumulative effects of their actions, as well as the effects of a reasonable range of alternatives, according to the lawsuit. In other words, the Forest Service isn’t analyzing and reporting how timber harvests affect carbon emissions in an era when the Biden administration claims to value old-growth forests and prioritize its response to climate change

The Forest Service does review how some individual projects affect carbon

storage and sequestration through an environmental impact statement, Hunter acknowledges, but it doesn’t consider the cumulative effect all its harvests are having on carbon storage and emissions as a result of its timber harvest goals. Instead, the reviews it does are conducted on an island, as if no other timber is being harvested in other forests.

The USFS “dismisses the siloed effects of individual logging projects as ‘minuscule’ or ‘imperceptibly small’ drops in the bucket but never considers the effect of the full bucket of projects authorized to achieve timber targets,” the lawsuit alleges.

“This lawsuit is trying to force the Forest Service to look at the overall effect of the numerous projects it authorizes each year to hit these timber targets,” Hunter says.

“If you’re in the Forest Service, and you want to move up in the Forest Service, you want to be able to show your supervisors that you can take a limited amount of funding and hit your timber target,” Hunter continues. “So to do that, there are strong incentives pushing the agency to harvest forest that would produce a lot of volume, which mostly means mature and older and old-growth forest rather than engage in timbering activities that may do more ecological good, but not produce as much volume.”

As a result, carbon-dense forests with lower relative risk of wildfire, like in the South and the East, are often logged most heavily. That’s why Kelly calls the timber targets the No. 1 threat to national forests in the eastern and southern U.S., eclipsing wildfires, insects and disease.

WNC PROJECTS

Close to home, the prioritization of volume timber harvests could impact a number of areas, particularly in the Nantahala National Forest.

Tod Fullerton, who lives in Clay County, frequents an area of the forest that includes a logging activity known as the Buck Creek Project. He says part of the beauty and value of the area is its remote, wilderness feel that would be significantly disturbed by a timber harvest.

“It would really take away an area that I would have the ability to go visit. One of the beauties of that area, by my definition, is it is hard to get to. Maybe this is where my idealism comes in, in that I think there are landscapes that should be set aside just for the sake of

landscapes and what lives there, not us,” he says.

Some of the Buck Creek Project area includes steep sloped forest that, while hard to access, provide value as a buffer, wildlife corridor and carbon sink, and is one of the reasons he chooses to live there, he says.

Ultimately, in Western North Carolina, because of the amount of areas protected from logging, the greatest danger of the USFS’ timber targets are in the types of forest being prioritized for harvest, Kelly says.

“It’s not a matter of the amount of timber that’s being cut. It’s where it’s being cut, especially locally. There’s not too much timber being cut in the Pisgah and Nanatahala national forests; it’s the fact that some of the most sensitive places in old-growth forests are still being targeted when they don’t have to be. That’s so frustrating,” Kelly says.

SOUTHSIDE PROJECT

The lawsuit on the Southside Project, filed Jan. 31, alleges that the USFS is moving forward with a logging project in an ecologically sensitive area that its own latest forest plan defines as a “special interest area” in southern Macon and Jackson counties.

The project, which was approved under a previous forest management plan, aims to cut more than 90% of the trees in a 15-acre area, including areas that are within 100 feet of the Whitewater River, Kelly says. That would violate its own management plan, which gives the area more protections.

The Whitewater River, which contains multiple waterfalls, is a tributary of the Chattooga River, a wild and scenic river known for its pristine fishing and recreational paddling opportunities. Will Harlan, a senior scientist and southwest director of the Center for Biological Diversity, calls the area “one of the most stunningly scenic gorges anywhere in the East.”

“The Whitewater is a world-class recreational river and an ecological treasure. This is a perfect example of how the Forest Service is headed in the wrong direction. They should be protecting places like this and logging elsewhere. Instead, they are targeting some of our most pristine and special places,” Harlan says.

The Center for Biological Diversity signed onto the suit with MountainTrue and SELC, along with the Chattooga Conservancy, Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club.

Kelly says he thinks the project slipped through the cracks while there was turnover in district rangers while the forest plan was coming

CHOPPING WOOD: A lawsuit alleges that the U.S. Forest Service’s longstanding practice of setting timber targets for forest managers incentivizes them to prioritize harvesting older growth trees. Photo courtesy of Will Harlan

together. He is “very confident” that the environmental groups will win the lawsuit on the Southside Project.

In a statement about the project, Rondeau, the USFS spokesperson, argues that the 15 acres under litigation is dominated by white pine, and the project’s goals are to remove white pine to allow for oak and hickory regeneration.

“The project land and area nearby has been designated as a Special Interest Area due to its high ecological diversity. However, the portion of the Special Interest Area dominated by white pine is not as healthy or ecologically diverse. Rather than exclude this portion from the Special Interest Area, our specialists recognized that some work on these 15 acres could improve the area’s resiliency and forest health overall,” he says.

Kelly disputes Rondeau’s assertions that the Forest Service simply aims to remove the white pine.

“The Forest Service could have limited itself to removing only white pine in this stand if that’s what it thought was ecologically appropriate. It did not,” he says. “Instead of agreeing to only harvest white pine, the Forest Service decided to authorize more aggressive logging. The stands in the Southside Project area with the highest concentration of white pine and the lowest concentration of oaks are those that have been cut by the Forest Service in the last 20-30 years.”

Kelly claims white pines make up less than half of square footage of trees in the stand, and the Forest Service proposes reducing the square footage of trees from 140 to 20 square feet per acre.

Beyond the makeup of the stand, Kelly says the point of the lawsuit is simply that in its own updated management plan, the USFS acknowledged the particular ecological importance of the area included in the Southside Project, deeming it worthy of protection.

FLURRY OF SUITS

Jan. 31 — SELC, MountainTrue, the Chattooga Conservancy, the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club file a lawsuit against the USFS for the Southside Project’s alleged violation of the 2023 PisgahNantahala Forest Management Plan. The Forest Service’s deadline to respond is Monday, April 22.

Feb. 26 — SELC, MountainTrue and the Chattooga Conservancy file a lawsuit against the USFS for its

WATER

Therefore, he says, they should follow their own advice and avoid logging the area as planned.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Kelly, Olaechea and Hunter all made it clear that the groups signing on to the lawsuits are not against responsible logging in the forest.

“We’re strong believers and supporters of a balanced approach to forest management that does include sustainable logging,” Olaechea says.

As part of an attempted compromise with the Forest Service, for example, Kelly notes that 400 MountainTrue supporters advocated for 600 acres of logging instead of 795 in the Buck Creek Project area

alleged violation of the National Environmental Policy Act’s requirement to assess the effects of its widespread timber targets on carbon sequestration. The USFS is due to respond to the lawsuit Monday, May 6. April 18 — Southern Environmental Law Center, MountainTrue, the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, The Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club sue the U.S. Forest Service for an alleged violation of the Endangered Species Act related to endangered bats.

in order to minimize environmental impacts while still allowing for a significant timber harvest.

There is a way for forest management to include sensible logging while minimizing damage to the forests and maximizing its carbon storage capabilities, Kelly argues. But the crux of both of these lawsuits is the Forest Service is not adequately analyzing the impacts its projects may have.

“It’s the fact that they have never, and they do not analyze the cumulative carbon impacts of these targets. That’s the critical part. And that really does run contrary to the [Biden] administration’s larger goals around climate change and protecting oldgrowth [forests],” Olaechea says.

The solution, Kelly notes, is quite simple.

“We want the Forest Service to evaluate the impacts to carbon. As soon as they do that, then all the calls for relief are satisfied. So the impact that this ends up having can be remedied pretty quickly,” he says.

That being said, Hunter says that while the SELC would much rather solve these issues outside of court, the group won’t hesitate to continue using legal actions if the Forest Service refuses to work with them.

“I just hope the Forest Service agrees to do the analysis, and that by doing the analysis, they’re able to make more balanced decisions and value other resources to the same extent as producing timber,” Kelly says. X

VOTING ENDS

April 30 at midnight

QUALITY: Environmental groups say the U.S. Forest Service is ignoring the impact its timber harvests and associated road builds have on the water quality of pristine rivers like the Whitewater River in Nantahala National Forest.

Photo courtesy of Will Harlan

Sustaining community

A conversation with Asheville City Council member Kim Roney

Editor’s note: As part of Xpress’ monthlong Sustainability Series, we reached out to all candidates running for Buncombe County Board of Commissioners as well as Asheville City Council. Conversations with those who participated will appear throughout our four April issues.

“As a current Council member, I’m dedicated to representing working, poor and compassionate people, and to demanding accountability as unchecked tourism extracts our resources and burdens our infrastructure,” Kim Roney told Xpress during the March primary. Roney, who has served on Council since December 2020 and ran for mayor in 2022, was the top vote getter in the spring race. Come November, the incumbent will be vying for one of three open seats.

Asheville City Council meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month at 5 p.m. in the Council chambers located on the second floor of City Hall. The elected body approves the city’s annual budget and determines the tax rate, among other responsibilities. To learn more about Council’s role and authority, visit avl.mx/dkd.

Xpress: What misconceptions do community members have about the role of Asheville City Council?

Roney: There are lots of things we can’t do, but are we doing what we can? From budgets and policies that match our community values, to speaking up for our residents when the N.C. General Assembly’s priorities are legislating hate or greed, to land use decisions that get us to the aspirational goals in our Living Asheville Comprehensive Plan —

we have a community that cares and that’s eager to have our back when we have theirs! For me, that means having the courage to say no when needed and the consistent leadership to say yes to taking better care of the people of Asheville and our mountain home. That said, we aren’t saviors, we’re your neighbors, and we need the public to engage. As your Council member, I’m committed to sharing the necessary work ahead and I believe we are capable of better.

What can local leaders do to promote thoughtful community dialogue about complex and difficult topics such as the opioid crisis, crime, housing and health care?

As a music educator and former service industry worker, my heart aches with my students, their families and our community struggling through overlapping crises.

Being accessible and building relationships is key to shared accountability and shared success. We can inform ourselves on best practices and creative initiatives, share what we learn, meet people where they are, get to know our neighbors most impacted by these serious issues and engage partners doing the work to address root causes.

Through good days and hard ones, I have enjoyed building relationships by sharing food and time together, from sitting around the Welcome Table to riding public transit to engaging at community events. In addition to staying in the work together when times are hard, it’s also important to model, encourage and amplify partnerships, and to celebrate our wins!

KIM RONEY

What can the city and county do to help small businesses thrive?

We must stabilize our local economy instead of relying so heavily on tourism. Partnering with the county, the city can start here — No. 1: Expand transit, bikeability, walkability and accessibility so having a car isn’t a prerequisite to accessing local businesses. No. 2: Reconfigure our affordable housing toolkits to align with smart land use, including meaningful short-term rental regulation, so locals can live close to where they work and shop. No. 3: Partner for a commercial land trust to keep commercial rentals permanently affordable. No. 4: Deliver true public safety by matching behavioral health and substance use crisis

with staff uniquely qualified for the situation at hand. And No. 5: Ensure neighborhood resiliency by activating neighborhood plans and our Climate Justice Initiative to guarantee a hopeful future and stable economy for the people who live and work here.

If you could give raises to one city department, which department would you like to see receive it and why?

I’m focused on the living wage floor in every department so we can recruit and retain staff and they can afford to live in the communities they serve. Living wages must include our firefighters, routinely left behind.

From the entry-level sanitation worker to department heads, we all pay more at the grocery store, but those making less than median wages are more likely to be renters or commute long distances. I share concern that continuing to provide across-the-board percentage raises is resulting in “wage expansion,” disproportionately favoring largest salaries. This is why I’ve requested consideration of lump-sum raises instead of percentages, so we can afford living wages without perpetuating income inequality.

If we don’t raise the floor for living wages, we knowingly expect our staff to not be able to afford housing and cost of living, and we’ll keep failing to meet basic public service expectations due to high vacancy rates.

To learn more about, visit avl.mx/dku.

— Xpress Staff X

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Opposed Woodfin Town Council shoots down de-annexation request

About six months after Chip Parton approached the Woodfin Town Council with a petition signed by almost 200 residents of the town’s west side requesting de-annexation from town limits, the town has decided. Council members don’t support the effort.

Council members voted 6-0 on April 16 to oppose the request, which bubbled up after the town implemented a stormwater fee last summer to comply with the state-issued permit it was in danger of violating. Several residents thought the fee was unfair, and it renewed gripes among westsiders who say they never wanted to live inside town limits in the first place. The area was annexed by Woodfin in 2006.

Unlike annexation, the power to de-annex lies with the General Assembly, according to state law. State Sen. Julie Mayfield and Rep. Caleb Rudow said at a community meeting Feb. 1 that they will only support a de-annexation bill if the town and community agree that part of the town should go.

Complaints from residents on the town’s west side say they don’t receive the same level of services as those on the east side, which Town Manager Shannon Tuch disputes.

“An examination of the concerns expressed by the residents concluded that town services have been provided to the area beginning in 2007 when the annexation became effective and that west Woodfin residents receive all the same services that other residents receive, without exception,” Tuch said at the meeting.

Those services include trash and recycling pickup, police protection and zoning enforcement, she said. Notably,

they do not include maintenance of water and sewer infrastructure, which many west Woodfin residents don’t have access to, despite living less than a mile from both the independent Woodfin Water District and the Metropolitan Sewerage District. Residents use private wells and septic systems instead.

Town Council member Eric Edgerton made the motion to pass a resolution opposing the request and wrote a opinion piece for Xpress explaining his position. (Read the full commentary at avl.mx/dm1)

In that commentary, Edgerton argued that the stormwater fee was designed to be equitable, and the town couldn’t afford to risk continually accruing fines from the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality for noncompliance.

On the other complaints, Edgerton said the fact that a large majority of residents who attended a Feb. 1 community listening session on the de-an-

nexation request said they would want to leave the town even if it was able to secure water and sewer service for them shows that there is nothing the town can do to satisfy them.

The town did loosen its manufactured housing rules in March, allowing residents, including those on the west side, to install single-wide trailers on their property, something Parton and others had been pursuing.

“The town has already taken steps to address the residents’ concerns, including changing the zoning as they requested,” Mayfield said April 17. “The town has also requested permission to wrap the stormwater fee into the property tax bill, which will increase the rate of collection and therefore allow them to reduce the fee. I will introduce that bill next week. The town also continues to explore options, funding and working with the necessary partners to extend water. I have encouraged them to help residents who have stormwater and septic

issues find and direct resources as they can. So there is more work to be done to address the residents’ concerns,” she said.

Mayfield encouraged residents to stay engaged with the town and work with officials to make improvements. She plans to check in with residents ahead of the 2025 legislative session to see how things are going.

Parton said signers of his petition represent nearly 300 properties west of the river, and many still aren’t satisfied with the town. He said they were promised a second community meeting before the town voted on the issue, which never happened, and argued that the town would have gotten more engagement had it given more notice for the February meeting, which had about 40 attendees.

Regardless, he says he’ll keep an eye on things to ensure residents of the west side are treated fairly.

— Greg Parlier  X

STAYING POWER: Woodfin Town Council voted 6-0 April 16 to oppose a de-annexation effort by hundreds of its west-side residents. Photo courtesy of Woodfin

Sustaining community

A conversation with Asheville City Council member Sage Turner

Editor’s note: As part of Xpress’ monthlong Sustainability Series, we reached out to all candidates running for Buncombe County Board of Commissioners as well as Asheville City Council. Conversations with those who participated will appear throughout our four April issues.

“As an incumbent, I bring experience, including 10 years of affordable housing expertise and leadership for the city and four years with the county, where I oversaw [administration] of federal funds, housing projects, policies, grants and zoning,” Sage Turner told Xpress during the March primary. Turner, who has served on Council since December 2020, placed second in the primary. Come November, the incumbent will be vying for one of three open seats.

Asheville City Council meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month at 5 p.m. in the Council chambers located on the second

floor of City Hall. The elected body approves the city’s annual budget and determines the tax rate, among other responsibilities. To learn more about Council’s role and authority, visit avl.mx/dkd.

Xpress: What misconceptions do community members have about the role of Asheville City Council?

Turner: There are layers of government in Asheville that can make our management and maintenance understandably confusing and frustrating. For example, many of our major roadways like Patton Avenue, Hendersonville Road, Biltmore Avenue, etc., are owned and maintained by the state of North Carolina. We cannot expand roads, add crosswalks or install speed bumps without the N.C. Department of Transportation taking action.

Affordable housing has layered complications, too. The state of North Carolina prohibits its cities

from requiring affordable units to be built in new complexes. The state also bans rent control and prevents us from accurately monitoring and enforcing illegal short-term rentals.

We often see confusion around tourism taxes, too. The state of North Carolina authorizes an autonomous tourism authority that controls the $40 million in tax revenue, and Council cannot vote on or change how it is spent. To make it more confusing, the county has one piece of control over the situation. The Buncombe County Board of Commissioners can vote to reduce the tourism tax rate at any time. Not how the money is spent, but how much is collected, currently 6%. In my opinion, they should offer to reduce the rate to 2% or move it to the 8% max allowed if and only if the funds are split 50/50.

What can local leaders do to promote thoughtful community dialogue about complex and difficult topics such as the opioid crisis, crime, housing and health care?

Information sharing and ongoing dialogue are critical to community building, particularly around complex issues. We local leaders need to collectively do better to inform the community of our long-term plans, including schools, pools and ballparks. But also sheltering, assistance programs, short-term rentals and changes with our hospital. Cities have access to resources, meeting spaces, online sharing platforms and experienced colleagues both in our area and in other cities that can help inform and educate from their perspectives. We need to continue and improve upon our efforts to host these discussions, engage with the community, go out into the community and provide information and follow up when needed.

What can the city and county do to help small businesses thrive?

Some ways are obvious, including continued investment in and support of programs like Mountain BizWorks, Black Wall Street AVL and Asheville Downtown Association, which incubate, educate and build coalitions among small-business owners.

Less obvious ways are land use, advocacy, purchasing and safety. Safety needs have risen. Workers left to walk alone to remote parking lots at night need increased protections. Shoplifting has risen to a frustrat-

ing and expensive level; business districts need greater public safety presences.

Purchasing is a way everyone can support local. When catering lunches, pick local businesses. When hosting events, rent from locally owned facilities. When ordering supplies, shop local. It matters and it adds up.

Land use is a big one. Asheville has become too reliant on tourism and travel to maintain businesses; we need a land use approach that infuses residential populations throughout business districts and bolsters local support and less tourism and travel reliance.

Advocacy and policy work. When we changed the hotel review process, I urged us to require 50% of the ground floor to be built as commercial space that local businesses could rent. Council then awarded points to hotel review criteria for renting to local businesses. Right now we are evaluating a BID — business improvement district — that would allow the business district to have a special tax collected from the district and with spending controlled by the district businesses.

If you could give raises to one city department, which department would you like to see receive it and why?

Anyone earning below the current living wage. We are still trying to catch up with the increases in living wages.

To learn more about, visit avl.mx/dl8.

SAGE TURNER

April 26 & 27

April 28

County trash rates could increase with new provider

Residents of unincorporated Buncombe County appear destined to have a higher bill for trash collection service next year but could save money over the course of the seven-year contract compared with a proposal from current provider WastePro.

If the county Board of Commissioners approves a contract next month with global waste management company FCC Environmental Services, whose U.S. headquarters are in Texas, residents will see an almost $5 a month increase in their trash bills next year.

In November, WastePro proposed a five-year contract extension with the county, which included multiple rate increases, starting with a rate of $25.16 a month in 2024, up from the $22.55 customers paid last year, which prompted commissioners to seek bids from other vendors. WastePro’s contract expires at the end of 2024. After the county rejected WastePro’s November proposal, the firm increased its 2024 rates to $23.66.

FCC Environmental’s 2025 fee would be $28.65 a month starting Jan. 1, if its proposal is accepted. The contract would allow it to boost prices after the first two years if the consumer price index rises.

By 2031, customers could be paying between $34.03 and $36.57, depending on the consumer price index. Other reasons for possible increases would be if the county increases its landfill tipping fees or if federal or state laws require more work than is laid out in the contract.

WastePro’s extension offer included steeper increases as the contract wore on, with prices reaching $32.05 a month in 2026, compared with FCC’s rate of $28.65 that year. In the final two years of the contract as it was proposed, WastePro could include increases con-

sistent with the consumer price index, similar to FCC’s proposal.

While a representative for Republic Services attended the county’s prebid meeting, FCC and WastePro were the only two firms that responded to the county’s request for proposals for trash pickup service, said county spokesperson Stacey Wood

Commissioner Amanda Edwards asked FCC representatives what starting pay for employees would be at the April 16 board meeting.

Charles Merkley, FCC’s director of municipal sales, said starting pay ranges from $26-$32 an hour for drivers, $22-$27 an hour for helpers and $23-$28 hourly for office workers.

“We don’t, in all of our company, skimp on paying our people. They are the front people of our company. Happy people provide happy customers,” Merkley said.

FCC plans to hire 28 people and has a letter of intent already on file to buy property to house its trucks if the contract is approved, he said.

There are a few other differences between FCC’s proposal and WastePro’s expiring contract, said Dane Pedersen, solid waste director for Buncombe County.

If approved, FCC would provide a low-income program with a 15% discount for up to 700 subscribers earning less than 150% of the federal poverty level.

FCC won’t charge customers to replace rollout carts, while WastePro charges a delivery fee. At the end of the contract, the county will own the carts initially supplied by FCC.

The contract also includes provisions in which the county could penalize the contractor, such as not reporting or cleaning up leaks and spills from FCC trucks, not supplying a subscriber with a new cart within seven days, operating unsafe equipment or failure to meet the contract start date of Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025.

If the contract is approved, a transition plan is due to the county Monday, July 1, a contingency plan Sunday, Sept. 1 and emergency plan Friday, Dec. 6. FCC must have all equipment on-site Saturday, Dec. 20 before service begins Jan. 1, Pedersen said.

FCC is a large company with more than 60,000 employees in more than 30 countries. It earned about $9.8 billion in revenues in 2023, according to its presentation. FCC operates in more than 35 U.S. sites, including Omaha, Neb., and Palm Beach County, Fla. EXPENSIVE TRASH: After rejecting current provider WastePro’s proposed contract extension in November, the county sought bids from other firms. FCC Environmental Services’ rates would be slightly higher in 2025, but save residents money in subsequent years, compared with WastePro. Graph by Scott Southwick

STILL NEGOTIATING: Commissioner Amanda Edwards, right, said negotiations need to continue with FCC Environmental Services, the company that could be Buncombe’s trash service provider in 2025 and beyond. Photo by Greg Parlier

Chuck Stiles, division director of solid waste and recycling for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, urged commissioners to avoid a partnership with FCC Environmental because, he said, “They have a horrible record with labor.” Stiles cited several specific examples of FCC’s track record, none of which could be independently corroborated by Xpress

The contract will be up for first reading Tuesday, May 7 and second reading Tuesday, May 21, when it could attain final approval.

Buncombe’s 911 operators to use machine learning

Calls to one of Buncombe County’s four nonemergency lines will no longer be directly answered by a person, once a new automated answering system is launched.

Instead, callers will interact with Amazon Web Services’ machine learning software, which will direct them to the appropriate human-led department, cutting down on the amount of time operators in the understaffed 911 call center spend on nonemergency calls.

The 911 call center takes 565 emergency calls and 825 nonemergency calls per day, said Lillian Govus, county director of communications and public engagement. Calls to nonemergency lines are for anything from requests for directions to the Blue Ridge Parkway to questions about upcoming fireworks displays and reports of nonthreatening bear activity, Govus said.

“[We’re] trying to figure out a way for our telecommunicators to really focus on the first responder aspect [of the job], especially when the call volume exceeds current staffing capacity,” Govus said.

COMPETITION: Commission Chair Brownie Newman supported the county’s decision to seek alternative bids to WastePro’s contract extension offer in November. He said he is still glad to have FCC Environmental Services at the negotiating table. Photo by

The new software will alleviate the pressure on the 911 call center, which will continue to field all emergency calls.

In Charleston County, S.C., the system cut call volume by 36% for dispatchers, Govus said.

Starting as soon as Monday, April 22, staff will undergo a 30-day training for the system, whereby first a machine and then a human dispatcher will ask callers the same questions, so the software learns how it should direct callers.

Govus stressed that all information provided on the calls will stay with the county, and Amazon will not have access to anyone’s personal information.

The four lines that will be affected are the nonemergency lines for Asheville Police Department, Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office and Emergency Medical Services and fire line, as well as the Department of Social Services’ after-hours line.

— Greg Parlier  X

Greg Parlier

Artist credit: Jennifer Sharkey

ACS puts mental health support at top of budget priority

As the Asheville City Board of Education works through next year’s budget, the annual question is how much money it will seek from the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners at the annual joint budget work session Thursday, May 9. Buncombe County sets the tax rate and approves funding for both local public school districts beyond the state allocation.

As state funding falls with enrollment and $1 million in COVID-era federal funding ends, the district is facing a $5.7 million gap before new funding requests and projected savings are considered, Superintendent Maggie Fehrman reported to the board April 15.

Fehrman projects the district will request $3.8 million more than last year’s $16.1 million allocation from the county.

The budget, in its current form, is a loose framework of priorities, as no projections from any of the district’s funding sources are available at this stage in the process, said Heidi Kerns, ACS’ chief financial officer. Instead of those projections, Kerns is assuming the district will have a revenue-neutral budget except for a loss of state funds due to projected declining enrollment.

Addressing mental health

This year’s request will include $2.1 million to add staff for student mental health and behavior issues. According to listening sessions and surveys of teachers and staff, Fehrman said ACS educators overwhelmingly ranked these matters as the top issues facing the district.

In the 2022-23 school year, there were 131 referrals for school-based therapy at ACS schools. This year, there has already been more than twice that number with a month left in the school year.

Additionally, school staff has referred students to the office 1,914 times this year, half of which are coming from 1% of students, Fehrman said. That means there are students whose needs are not being met, and teachers need more support to address those needs, she added. “We’ve seen the intensity of behaviors significantly increase from preCOVID, to post-COVID. One of the areas that we’ve seen a huge increase in is students with substance abuse.

BUDGET TALK: Despite a $5.7 million shortfall, Asheville City Schools Superintendent Maggie Fehrman, right, has proposed $2.1 million in additional funding for more mental health and behavioral supports for district schools. Also pictured is Board Chair George Sieburg. Photo by

And those always end up as office referrals,” Fehrman told the board. Fehrman is requesting $500,000 to pay two full-time mental health professionals and two full-time behavior interventionists to provide direct services to students and training for staff.

She is also asking for $175,000 to add two social workers to the district’s staff of five. Fehrman hopes to reduce ACS’ ratio from one social worker for every 780 students to one for every 557. The National Association of Social Workers recommends a ratio of 1-to-250 students in most schools and 1-to-150 in areas with more intensive needs, according to Fehrman’s presentation.

There is another $175,000 request to add two full-time school counselors to get ACS’ ratio close to the American Association of School Counselors’ recommended ratio.

ACS also will get two additional school resource officers next school year, supplied by the Asheville Police Department, bringing the total number to five, with a full-time officer at both Asheville High School and Asheville Middle School, said April Dockery, ACS director of operations. The other three officers will be split between the district’s five elementary schools.

The district will pay APD each officer’s salary quarterly, not to exceed a total of $325,000 a year for all five officers, according to the contract.

Dockery reported the change, in part, comes as APD is less understaffed than it has been in recent years, and the relationship between the district and the agency is improving under new APD Chief Mike Lamb

“We see it more as a partnership,” she said.

Projected savings

Fehrman says she believes the district can save $500,000 with a new staffing formula, the details of which are still being worked out. She projects other savings — including $350,000 to reduce the supplies, materials and equipment budget, $475,000 in a central office staff reduction and savings from consolidating the two district middle schools — will help reduce the amount they have to ask county commissioners for.

When pressed on whether these savings will result in staffing cuts, district spokesperson Kim Dechant said the district was working to “right size our district through attrition.”

“As we are working on our K-12 teacher allotments and enrollment, we are moving teachers into new grades to fill vacancies and transferring teachers who have submitted a transfer request to fill positions at other schools,” she said.

Previous superintendents have replaced employees who leave the district without considering enrollment changes at a particular school, while Fehrman is being “extremely intentional in her development of a staffing allotment formula based on student enrollment,” Dechant added.

Fehrman also said the district will use $3 million from the fund balance while still maintaining the gold standard of two months of operating expenses in reserve.

Additionally, Fehrman announced that Jo Landreth , principal at Asheville Middle School, will take over as director of safety and logistics in the central office this summer. The district will begin an external search

for a new principal this spring to lead the reconfiguration as Montford North Star Academy is set to merge with AMS next school year, according to a news release.

Board member Rebecca Strimer asked staff to outline how the budget aligns with requests from the Asheville City Association of Educators, which recently delivered a petition to board members asking for increased pay, more student service supports like behavior specialists and an increase in staff planning time. Fehrman said no significant supplement raises for staff are included in the proposed budget.

District staff is scheduled to meet with the county budget staff to review its requests Monday, April 22, ahead of the May 9 formal presentation to county commissioners.

Bacoate Branch Trail

The school board delayed a vote on granting the City of Asheville permission to extend the Bacoate Branch Trail through Asheville Middle School property after members asked how well the city has communicated with the school’s neighbors about the project.

The proposed unpaved trail would wrap behind the athletic fields on the AMS property and wind through the woods down toward Clingman Avenue Extension near The Grey Eagle. To the north, the trail would wind behind four homes on Charles Street and connect to Aston Park.

Fehrman said the board had received comments from the project’s neighbors, including during public comment April 15, that they were not in favor of the project and had not been contacted by city officials.

Lucy Crown , transportation planning manager for the City of Asheville, presented the project to the school board at its March 4 work session and included information about the city’s public engagement campaign, which she said included two neighborhood group meetings and three meetings with directly adjacent neighbors.

The school board will take the matter up at its May meeting.

— Greg Parlier

Greg Parlier

Sustaining community

A conversation with Asheville City Council member Kevan Frazier

Editor’s note: As part of Xpress’ monthlong Sustainability Series, we reached out to all candidates running for Buncombe County Board of Commissioners as well as Asheville City Council. Conversations with those who participated will appear throughout our four April issues.

“Folks want to be part of a community they feel has their back. That’s the community that I want us to build,” Kevan Frazier told Xpress during the March primary. Frazier, owner of Well Played Games and executive director of Western Carolina University’s programs at Biltmore Park, received the thirdmost votes in the spring race. Come November, he will be vying for one of three open seats.

Asheville City Council meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month at 5 p.m. in the Council chambers located on the second floor of City Hall. The elected body approves the city’s annual budget and determines the tax rate, among other responsibilities. To learn more about Council’s role and authority, visit avl.mx/dkd.

Xpress: What misconceptions do community members have about the role of Asheville City Council?

Frazier: It may be the case that I have misconceptions — I am a community member, and some things you only learn by doing, even if you have studied and trained in advance. This is my first campaign seeking election to serve on City Council. I grew up here and have noticed how the city has and hasn’t changed during my lifetime. I work in community and economic development through my job at WCU, and I am an urban historian. That gives me a perspective that our city is often slower than it needs to be to make changes in service to our community. We often study an issue as if we are the first city to consider it. More often we are the last. We have the responsibility to set a course for our community and rely on city staff to deliver on the objectives and goals that we’ve set together.

What can local leaders do to promote thoughtful community dialogue about complex and difficult topics such as the opioid crisis, crime, housing and health care?

It is important for leaders at all levels, elected and unelected, to

model the behaviors that we want and expect to see from our fellow neighbors. We can begin by listening and treating all our neighbors with respect. We have to let go of whatever preconceived notions we may have about people based on what they look like, where they come from, how they sound, who they are, who they love and what they have to say. Also, leaders have to be in the mindset that we are here to solve problems. Sometimes

we come up with new ideas but more often we facilitate conversations and interactions that surface and allow us to test ideas. Then we choose a path forward. Following dialogue at the City Council level, it’s then the city manager’s responsibility to deliver through policy implementation, management and leadership.

What can the city and county do to help small businesses thrive?

We can take practical steps and be responsive rather than reactionary. For example, the county parking deck program for downtown employees appears to be a popular and useful program that is helping meet a need. The city also made reasonable adjustments to benefit small businesses regarding the use of sidewalks and parking during the pandemic. There are more steps we can take. The city has a great team in the planning and permits office, but they are working with outdated regulations that are hard to navigate and at times contradictory. As a small-business owner, navigating this system has been expensive both in money and time. I see a need to streamline regulations and processes to make them accessible and affordable for small business -

es. City Council needs to dialogue with small-business owners, their employees and their neighbors and give clear direction and support to the city manager.

If you could give raises to one city department, which department would you like to see receive it and why?

To help ensure that residents receive top-quality city services, the City of Asheville must be a model employer in the region in regard to pay, benefits, working conditions, equity and overall job satisfaction. As part of this, the city has already begun a deep review of compensation for all city employees, and if elected, I would support that continued effort to make sure that all city staff receive competitive wages and benefits.

To learn more about, visit avl.mx/dla. —

Xpress Staff

KEVAN FRAZIER

Everyone loves a garden. Sometimes, that’s a problem

BY CHLOE LIEBERMAN

gardening@mountainx.com

Hello to green leaves and delicate blossoms! Gardens are beginning to come alive as the spring unfolds. Yet, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Temperatures likely will continue to rise and fall like the beautiful mountains that surround us for another few weeks, at least. As you get your hands into the soil, send me your gardening questions at gardening@mountainx. com so we can all learn here together

HOW TO DETER BERRY-LOVING CRITTERS

I live in Kenilworth and am thinking about planting blackberries, blueberries and strawberries in my yard. Do you have any advice on dealing with wildlife like bears, birds and squirrels?

Everyone loves eating berries, including bears, birds and squirrels. If you live in an area with lots of these critters, you may end up needing to protect your plants from marauding opportunists. However, sometimes folks in residential areas don’t end up having problems with these critters, who may be deterred by pets and human activity. My suggestion is to wait to set up any serious animal-proofing in your berry patch until you actually notice a problem.

If and when you do notice thieves helping themselves, the most effective means of protection will be a physical barrier. And, unsurprisingly, what keeps birds and squirrels at bay is quite different from what will keep bears from filling their bellies. Also, since blackberries and blueberries are bushier, upright plants, and strawberries grow low to the ground, your approaches with these different crops will also be distinct.

To protect blackberries and blueberries from birds, covering the entire plants with bird netting is the simplest and cheapest approach.

Without constructing a support structure for the plastic netting, it will simply rest on the bushes. This means that a few berries may be grabbed right through the netting, but the majority of your crop will remain out of reach. A downside of this most basic approach is that when you want to get in there and harvest, you’ll have to duck underneath the netting or throw it off the plant and then re-cover it after you’re done.

A level up from simply tossing the bird netting over your berry bushes is to build a simple support structure to keep the netting off of the plants. You can do this with wood, tall metal T-posts and wire, or even PVC pipes.

Since the netting is extremely light, your support system doesn’t need to be very strong, but it should be sturdy enough to withstand wind gusts and rainstorms. Ideally, use materials that won’t photo-degrade in the presence of sunlight.

If birds are your primary antagonist and you don’t feel up for using netting, “bird scare” reflective tape is another option. This is basically a disco ball in a roll that will wave about in the breeze, reflecting sunlight and potentially convincing birds that there is something dangerous and unpredictable going on in the berry patch. While this has worked well for me as a short-lived bird defense, in a germinating corn patch for example, I can’t speak to its effectiveness over time with something so delectable as berries.

Strawberries grow close to the ground, so protecting them is a little different. The same bird netting can be thrown over a strawberry patch, supported by small hoops either made of split bamboo, small plastic pipes, or you can buy fiberglass rods specifically for this purpose at a gardening store. If you’re looking online for such hoops, search “row cover hoops” or “row cover support hoops,” as these same rods are used to support row cover that protects crops from bugs and cold. The edges of the bird netting will need to be weighed down somehow if squirrels are your main adversary. Row cover itself (a white spun fabric made for agricultural use) can protect strawberries against birds and squirrels, but it will also trap heat and increase

IRRESISTIBLE: Berry growers have to be resourceful to fend off hungry birds and bears. Photo courtesy of Wild Abundance

the temperature underneath it. Through the winter and at the beginning of the season, this can be great, but as it warms up, you’ll need to pay attention to how the strawberries are faring under there. If it gets too hot, they have a harder time taking up nutrients, and berries may rot.

As for bears … these majestic creatures, my friends, rule the mountains that we call home, and no amount of bear-proofing will completely overcome their wild cleverness. That said, if you end up with a bear problem in your berries (this applies to other crops too, along with beehives), one tool that has been proved somewhat effective is an electric fence. For bears, you’ll need to run two-seven strands of electric fencing from about 6 inches off the ground to about 4 feet up. A key with using electric fencing to deter bears is to bait the fence so that the bears in question get a good strong zap on the nose. Bears have very thick fur and skin, so even a powerful electric fence might not feel like much if they get zapped on the side or behind. Several beekeeper friends of mine swear by baiting bear fences with raw bacon. Once the fence is set up, you simply hang a few slices of bacon on the wires. The aroma will be so enticing that nearby bears will come for the treat and receive a jolt on their nose or tongue that, hopefully, will teach them that the fence is to be avoided.

A final word on berries that’s unrelated to fellow hungry lovers of sweetness: Fall is the best season for planting all of the berries you’re excited about. Fall-planted berries have the whole fall and winter to settle into their new digs, allow their roots to recover from transplanting and get ready for growing again in springtime. You can plant them now, but they won’t grow as well, and they may need more TLC, especially in the form of watering, in order to get established while they’re also growing leaves, flowers and fruits. Taking the time to prepare the soil through cover cropping, adding amendments, etc. during this growing season will end up being worth the effort with these longer-lived, generous plants.

THE VOLE-DAHLIAS STANDOFF

Is it OK to plant dahlias in pots in the ground to deter voles? Will this prevent them from multiplying?

Planting dahlias and other tubers in plastic pots won’t be effective, as voles can easily chew through them. If your vole problem is really bad and you want to put in the effort to protect your dahlias, you can plant them in “baskets” made of stainless steel mesh (often sold as “hardware

cloth”) with quarter-inch openings or smaller. Be sure to use stainless steel if you’re planning to leave them in the ground for more than one season. Other types of metals will rust and corrode to the point of breaking so that vole-sized openings form easily.

Removing such baskets each season is a lot of work, so consider that before you bury them. If you have a spot that you know will be a permanent flower bed, it may be worth investing in the stainless steel and leaving the protection in the ground for several seasons.

It’s true that dahlias and other tubers multiply as they grow, so be sure to construct your wire baskets a little larger than the tubers you plant, to allow for this expansion.

Trapping voles is another approach to this issue. The Top Cat brand stainless steel vole and mole traps can be quite effective. They’re expensive but are also durable and can be reused for many seasons. Additionally, keeping grass and weeds cut short around your garden will reduce the cover that voles take refuge in. They don’t like running out along exposed ground, so a clear and/or close-clipped border around the garden can help reduce their numbers. X

CUSTOM OUTDOOR LIVING SPACES

Call of the wild

WNC is ground zero for wilderness skills education

BY JESSICA WAKEMAN

jwakeman@mountainx.com

Growing up with an Eagle Scout for a father made Annie Egelkraut more knowledgeable about the outdoors than most children. The family spent summers in a pop-up camper in Swannanoa and Montreat, where she and her brothers learned plant and animal safety, as well as how to tie knots, build fires and dig a 6-inch cathole.

As an adult, Egelkraut has continued to expand her skills, thanks to Landmark Learning in Cullowhee. The school focuses on training people who work in the outdoors as rescuers or instructors. The program is just one of many offering wilderness skills in Western North Carolina. Others include Wild Abundance, Holistic Survival School, Nantahala Outdoor

Center and Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards, or SAWS.

And like Egelkraut, countless individuals are taking advantage of these opportunities to learn how to safely camp outdoors, enjoy the region’s water resources or forage for their own food.

While it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact number of wilderness skill schools, businesses and nonprofits that operate in the region, the sector is robust. In February, Mountain BizWorks’ MADE X MTNS partnership, which seeks to expand WNC’s outdoor industry, released a study that noted outdoor activities such as backpacking, day hiking and vehicle camping generated an economic output of $4.9 billion per year for the region and resulted in 48,000 full-time jobs.

Generally, wilderness skills classes fall into two categories: professional training for those who work in the outdoors industry and classes targeted more toward personal empowerment or betterment — with plenty of overlap between the two. Still, no matter a person’s age, gender or expertise, instructors in the field say there are opportunities in the region for anyone to pick up new skills and discover ways to sustain themselves in the wild.

WILD-ING OUT

Wilderness first responder training — particularly if certified by the National Outdoor Leadership School, or NOLS, a nonprofit dedicated to training outdoors leaders — can support careers for people like Egelkraut. Various classes fall under the umbrella of wilderness medicine, which can be geared toward everyone from outdoor activities instructors to emergency medical technicians.

According to Kaitlin de Varona, executive director of SAWS, many people who are drawn to the nonprofit’s training opportunities arrive with previous experience; not everyone is comfortable in the backcountry, so participants are self-selecting to an extent. Some are drawn to SAWS because they want to change careers to work in conservation, while others want to volunteer their time doing conservation work as they pick up new skills.

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Asheville, SAWS hires people to work on trail crews twice a year — fall and spring — in federally designated wilderness areas such as Shining Rock Wilderness and Joyce Kilmer Memorial

SELF-SUFFICIENT: Annie Egelkraut grew up with an Eagle Scout for a father. But she learned even more outdoors skills as an adult, thanks to Landmark Learning in Cullowhee. She’s taken wilderness forest responder certification and CPR courses twice. Photo courtesy of Egelkraut

Forest. Here, members learn land and trail management, master various tools and techniques such as using “loppers” (large pruning scissors that can cut away brush) and gain certification in wilderness first aid.

“We use the traditional tools — crosscut saws,” de Varona explains. “We don’t use chain saws, because they’re prohibited in wilderness.”

De Varona notes that the U.S. Forest Service has less of a field presence in the Southeast than it used to and so it “[relies] on us to be the eyes and ears for them.”

While the nonprofit’s wilderness rangers do not have the authority to write tickets, they are trained to educate guests on the Forest Service’s “Leave no trace” principles and wilderness safety guidelines. These rangers also attend Forest Service meetings and share observations.

As SAWS’ wilderness rangers work closely with the Forest Service, de Varona adds, it presents unique networking opportunities.

De Varona is particularly proud of the Wilderness Skills Institute, a free

two-week training held annually in May at the Cradle of Forestry near Brevard. The program is a collaborative effort involving SAWS, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and the Forest Service. Classes in previous years have ranged from trail design, rock splitting and shaping to crosscut saw certification and crosscut saw sharpening, horse packing, advanced stonework and even water behavior 101.

Unlike some professions, obtaining an academic degree for a career in the outdoors is not a prerequisite for success, continues de Varona. It’s more important to be able to solve problems, handle isolation and exhibit grit. “I can have eight degrees, but if I cannot camp in the woods, it’s not going to be a good fit,” she says.

ANCESTRAL SKILLS

Other wilderness skills classes fulfill a more personal or spiritual need. Through hands-on lessons, individuals can learn about wild edibles, making stone tools, herbal medicine,

bow building, hide tanning, basket weaving or even carpentry. Personal enrichment, gaining competence in survivalism, a desire to “re-wild” — that is, reconnect with nature — or achieving homesteading goals all draw people to these types of courses.

Wild Abundance began in 2010 as a school for primitive skills, permaculture and gardening, says founder and director Natalie Bogwalker. Early on, students took classes on home butchering, meat preservation and foraging.

While the school continues to offer workshops on foraging and growing one’s own food (the online gardening school is taught by Xpress gardening columnist Chloe Lieberman), Bogwalker says its most popular classes currently focus on sustainable building.

A course on constructing tiny houses, which is offered multiple times per year, appeals to people who want “to have a smaller ecological footprint,” she explains. The class mainly attracts “total beginners,” but Bogwalker notes even professional contractors have enrolled.

The other popular course focuses on carpentry and is open to anyone who identifies as a woman. In fact, there is a subgenre of wilderness skills classes, including a women’s rewilding retreat, intended for this specific audience. At the retreat, which Bogwalker began teaching 10 years ago, students gather in an open classroom in Barnardsville to learn about wild foods, plant medicine and “earth-centered self-care” with a focus on the cycles of nature and the phases of a woman’s life.

“It’s really about using skills that our ancestors did,” she says.

Bogwalker notes that she rotates the offerings each year so women can return to the retreat for something new. “I really enjoy connecting in an all-women’s group and talking about

our bodies, the different phases of our lives, talking with other women about the experience of being a woman and a woman as a creature of the earth,” she says. “There’s something special that happens when you get in a group of all women — it’s pretty transformative.”

Nantahala Outdoor Center also offers women-only classes, such as a three-day retreat in Bryson City that is primarily survival-based. The course teaches women how to build shelter, collect water and make it drinkable, create knots and knives, and offers wilderness first-aid certification.

GOING BEYOND COMFORT ZONES

Egelkraut’s love and respect for the outdoors remains as strong today as it did when she was a child digging catholes in Swannanoa. She earned a degree in recreation management at Appalachian State University in Boone and does contract work as a wilderness first responder.

When she spoke with Xpress, she was at Elk Neck State Forest in Maryland; the week prior, she was leading a group of teenagers on an excursion in Joshua Tree in Southern California.

Egelkraut understands that being in the wilderness might not appeal to everyone. But she hopes people will become comfortable developing new skills and use them to give outdoor activities a chance.

“When we can push beyond comfort zones, there’s so much growth that can occur,” she says. “That’s really my favorite part about being immersed in nature — you have to overcome and in the overcoming ... you’re experiencing so much beauty no matter how challenging the situation is.” X

TIMBER! “We use the traditional tools — crosscut saws,” explains Kaitlin de Varona, executive director of Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards. “We don’t use chain saws, because they’re prohibited in wilderness.” Photo courtesy of de Varona

Hoop dreams

Forty years later, UNCA women’s basketball players recall their national championship run

BY JARRETT VAN METER

jarrettvanmeter@gmail.com

For many members of the UNC Asheville women’s basketball team, the March 1984 flight to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, marked their first time on an airplane. But for every member of the squad, the trip represented their debut appearance in the 16-team NAIA national tournament.

The initial excitement was shortlived. In the opening round against Central Arkansas, the entire season looked to be in jeopardy. Trailing by eight points, head coach Helen Carroll told her assistant Myra Sims to fetch the team’s return plane tickets from the bag and stack them on the bench.

Sims obliged, and Carroll called a timeout.

The team huddled around her. The group had been playing together for three years, led by point guard Trish Wyatt from Asheville, Kim Duncan from Gastonia and All-American Sheila Ford (now Ford Duncan) from Clarkton. They knew Carroll planned to retire from coaching at the end of the season. A loss that day would end her career. Carroll wasn’t ready just yet. None of them were.

From the huddle, she pointed to the stack.

“Those are your plane tickets,” she said. “If we lose, we are heading straight home from here.”

Nothing more needed to be said. The Bulldogs willed themselves to a 62-60 victory.

The win earned the team a spot in the quarterfinals and the opportunity to play undefeated Southwestern Oklahoma State. UNCA was the underdog, but momentum was building.

Today, the popularity of the women’s game is booming. Longtime viewers of men’s college basketball and new fans alike are tuning in to watch talented and charismatic stars such as Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Juju Watkins. South Carolina’s April 7 victory over Iowa for the national championship earned 18.7 million viewers — a record for women’s basketball.

This newfound attention is encouraging and empowering but also overdue. Women’s college basketball isn’t new, and 40 years ago, Asheville boasted a championship team and a record-setting player of its own.

ENDEARINGLY SUPERSTITIOUS

The foundation for UNCA’s 1984 NAIA national championship was laid over the course of the preceding three years. When coach Carroll came to Asheville in 1981 from Wayne State University in Nebraska, she inherited a talented roster that included a sophomore rebounding prodigy in Ford and a freshman midrange specialist in Duncan.

But the team was young. It struggled to win games, lacking a true point guard to transport the ball upcourt and facilitate to post and wing players.

The answer came at Christmas break, when Wyatt transferred home after just a semester at King’s College.

The instillation of the feisty freshman at point guard changed everything. The team’s play improved steadily over the next three seasons, and Carroll could feel that an unusually strong bond was forming within the group. They did everything together, from summer softball teams to road trips.

They were also endearingly superstitious. Before home games, the women would pile into the team’s blue van and drive down Merrimon Avenue to Ike’s restaurant (located where Luella’s Bar-B-Que stands today).

“We all got the same thing to eat,” recalls Duncan. “I got the chicken sub. Then there was a hill right there near the restaurant, and we’d take that van down the hill as fast as we could. ... We had to do it because it worked one time, so it worked every time after that.”

And the team needed it to work because, like coach Carroll, the 1983-84 season was to be Ford’s last at UNCA.

“Everything just seemed like we really had it together at that point,” remembers Wyatt. “Sheila [Ford] said, ‘We’re gonna win a national championship this year,’ So we said, ‘OK, Sheila, we got you.’”

‘AIN’T NOBODY’

The team was experienced, talented and … still superstitious. When a heavy snowstorm landed on Asheville ahead of a game against Wilmington, Wyatt wore her snow boots to the Justice Center.

“They were ugly and they had fur around the top,” she recalls.

TROPHY IN HAND: Today, the popularity of women’s college basketball is booming. But the sport is far from new. And 40 years ago, UNC Asheville boasted a championship team. Pictured, from left, Denise Bowman, Beth Krivda (obscured in the background), Dawn Snyder Funderburk, Tawana Rickman Weicker, Kim Duncan, Trish Wyatt, Carrie Baker Montague, Julie Thompson, Helen Carroll, Sheila Ford Duncan and Teri Hall Davenport (kneeling). Photo courtesy of Sheila Ford Duncan

Wyatt took the boots off in the dressing room, changed into her uniform and headed to the floor to warm up. A few minutes later, Duncan followed, wearing Wyatt’s snow boots. They were such a hit that the team kept them on the bench during the game and, following a win that day, continued to bring them out for the remainder of the season.

UNCA lost only five games during the 1983-84 regular season and arrived in Cedar Rapids with belief. At the tournament’s opening banquet, the players swept the doorprize drawings. Among the items was a stuffed animal dog, which Ford saw as a good omen for the Bulldogs’ week ahead.

The next day, while taking the floor for the opener against Central Arkansas, the players were dismayed to discover no warmup music over the PA system. But along with their lucky snow boots and recently acquired stuffed animal, the players brought with them their own warmup tape — the one they listened to before each home game.

Soon, the arena was filled with the sound of Rufus and Chaka Khan’s “Ain’t Nobody.”

“We took over whatever we were doing,” remembers Duncan. “It didn’t matter where we were; we made ourselves at home and just went from there.”

UNCA followed its opening-round win over Central Arkansas by defeating top-seeded Southwestern Oklahoma in the quarterfinals by three points. The Bulldogs then sailed to a 17-point win over Dillard in the semifinals.

Only one team remained: University of Portland.

TOO MUCH FOG

Like Lorenzo Charles ’ 1983 dunk for N.C. State and Christian Laettner’s 1992 shot for Duke, UNCA has its own “One Shining Moment.” With both teams playing their fourth game in as many days, neither the Bulldogs nor the University of

Portland could gain any separation in regulation.

The championship round went to overtime.

Tied at 70-70 with time ticking down, UNCA worked the ball inside to Ford, who was immediately triple-teamed.

“The defense collapsed on me inside,” Ford recalls. “I tossed it back out. Trishy [Wyatt] was wide open, and she shot it, and she made it.”

There was pizza and a few drinks that night at the hotel, but the real party was waiting back in Asheville — albeit, slightly delayed.

The day after their big win, on a connecting flight from Charlotte to Asheville, the team got word from the captain that a crowd was gathering at the airport. Friends, family and community members made the trip out to greet them.

Everybody on the flight was excited.

Until, just before the plane began its descent, the captain delivered another message: too much fog. They would have to return to Charlotte, spend the night and try again the

next day — a Monday, when everyone would be in classes and at work. It was crushing.

“This probably has to be one of the most disappointing things of my basketball career,” Wyatt says when recalling the story.

When the team finally made it back to town, the airport crowd was gone, but there was still plenty of celebrating: a parade through campus, a pep rally, a proclamation by Mayor Larry McDevitt that March 22 was “UNCA Women’s Basketball Day,” and, of course, championship rings.

“We were riding around on top of the van, doing things that you can’t even believe you did,” remembers Wyatt of the parade.

That spring, Ford graduated as the first women’s collegiate player to record 2,000 points and 2,000 rebounds. Wyatt and Duncan returned for another season at UNCA but did not make it back to the national tournament. The 1984 title was the culmination of their basketball lives but just the beginning of adulthood.

ALL THESE YEARS LATER

Four decades later, a team text thread stays active all year. Come tournament time in March, the group’s members take pictures of their championship rings on their fingers and post them in the chat. The women’s game has grown exponentially since UNCA won it all in 1984, and the former Bulldogs are loving every second of the increased coverage and exposure.

“It’s such an amazing game that we play and it is a little different than the men’s game,” says Carroll. “There’s a little more strategy, not quite so much physicality. It’s just such a great game to watch. So, it just thrills me to see that.”

Reunions usually occur when the team is honored by UNCA or when one of its members is inducted into a Hall of Fame.

Carroll, Ford, Wyatt and Duncan have all been recognized by the UNCA Athletics Hall of Fame, and Ford will be inducted into the N.C. Sports Hall of Fame on Friday, May 10.

Whenever they get together, the former teammates pick up where they left off. They go out to eat, have a few cocktails and share stories. Their national title didn’t earn them endorsement deals or magazine covers, but it brought them together and the connection remains.

“Any chance we get to come together, we try to take advantage of it,” says Ford. “We’re getting older now, and time is getting short, so we try our best.” X

APRIL 24 - MAY 2, 2024

For a full list of community calendar guidelines, please visit mountainx.com/calendar. For questions about free listings, call 828-251-1333, opt. 4. For questions about paid calendar listings, please call 828-251-1333, opt. 1.

 Online-only events

 More info, page 44-45

WELLNESS

Community Yoga & Mindfulness

A free monthly event with Inspired Change Yoga that will lead you into a morning of breathwork, meditation and yoga. Bring your own mat.

WE (4/24), 11:30am, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave

Therapeutic Recreation

Adult Morning Movement

Active games, physical activities, and sports for individuals with disabilities ages 17 and over. Advanced registration at avlrec. com required.

WE (4/24, 5/1), 10am, Tempie Avery Montford Community Center, 34 Pearson Ave

Tai Chi for Balance

A gentle Tai Chi exercise class to help improve balance, mobility, and quality of life. All ages are welcome.

WE (4/24, 5/1), 11:30am, Dragon Phoenix, 51 N Merrimon Ave, Ste 109

Free Zumba Gold Fitness program that involves cardio and Latin-inspired dance. Free, but donations for the instructor are appreciated. For more information please call (828) 350-2058.

WE (4/24), noon, Stephens Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave

Tai Chi Fan

This class helps build balance and whole body awareness. All ages and ability levels welcome. Fans will be provided.

WE (4/24, 5/1), 1pm, Dragon Phoenix, 51 N Merrimon Ave, Ste 109

Weekly Zumba Classes

Free in-person Zumba classes. No registration required.

TH (4/25, 5/2), 6:30pm, St. James Episcopal Church, 424 W State St, Black Mountain

Nia Dance Fitness

A sensory-based movement practice that draws from martial arts, dance arts and healing arts.

TH (4/25, 5/2), 9:30am, TU (4/30), Dragon Phoenix, 51 N Merrimon Ave, Ste 109

Tai Chi for Beginners

A class for anyone interested in Tai Chi and building balance, whole body awareness and other health benefits.

TH (4/25, 5/2), MO (4/29), 11:30am, Dragon Phoenix, 51 N Merrimon Ave, Ste 109

Self-care for Immunity, Stress Relief & Deep Reserves of Energy

Using the wisdom of Ayurveda to care for our sense organs, our immunity, and our deep reserves of energy.

TH (4/25), 6:30pm, Alchemy Yoga & Reiki, 900 Hendersonville Rd

GLITZ AND GLAMOUR: Hart Theatre’s latest production, I’ll Eat You Last, plays its last few shows this weekend, starting on Friday, April 26, at 7:30 p.m. The one-woman show offers an intimate glimpse into the life and secrets of legendary talent agent Sue Mengers, portrayed by Lyn Donley. Photo courtesy of Hart Theatre

Qigong for Health

A part of traditional Chinese medicine that involves using exercises to optimize energy within the body, mind and spirit.

FR (4/26), TU (4/30) 9am, SA (4/27), 11am, Dragon Phoenix, 51 N Merrimon Ave, Ste 109

Yoga for Everyone

A free-in person yoga class for all ages and abilities that is led by alternating teachers.

Bring your own mat and water bottle.

SA (4/27), 9:30am, Black Mountain Presbyterian, 117 Montreat Rd, Black Mountain

Yoga in the Park Yoga class alongside the French Broad River, based on Hatha & Vinyasa traditions and led by certified yoga instructors. All experience levels welcome.

SA (4/27), SU (4/28), 11am, 220 Amboy Rd

Magnetic Minds: Depression & Bipolar Support Group

Free weekly peer-led meeting for those living with depression, bipolar, and related mental health challenges. For more information contact (828) 367-7660.

SA (4/27), 2pm, 1316 Ste C Parkwood Rd

Sunday Morning Meditation Group

Gathering for a combination of silent sitting and walking meditation, facilitated by Worth Bodie.

SU (4/28), 10am, Quietude Micro-retreat Center, 1130 Montreat Rd, Black Mountain

Spring Flow w/Jamie Knox

Prepare your body for warmer weather with a yoga practice designed to release toxins and heaviness left over from winter. No need to pre-regis-

"WNC Premier Organizing Team" for home and business

ter, but bring a mat.

SU (4/28), 10:30am, One World Brewing W, 520 Haywood Rd

Mary Magdalene

Circle of Sacred Connection

Step into this sacred space and unlock the divine gifts of Mary Magdalene as we embark on a transformative journey to empower your sacred self-leadership and receive sacred blessings.

SU (4/28), 3pm, Weaverville Yoga, 3 Florida Ave

Introduction to Meditation

Experienced instructors will guide you through a variety of techniques and practices, helping you cultivate mindfulness, reduce stress, and enhance your overall well-being.

MO (4/29), 7pm, Quietude Micro-retreat Center, 1130 Montreat Rd, Black Mountain

Qi Gong for a Healthy Back

Find ease of movement and improve overall well-being with the ancient art of Qigong.

TU (4/30), 10am, Black Mountain Center for the Arts, 225 W State St, Black Mountain

Relational Mindfulness

w/Deborah Eden Tull

Healing the myth of separation through our relationship with self, one another, and our planet.

TH (5/2), 6:30pm, Quietude Micro-retreat Center, 1130 Montreat Rd, Black Mountain ART

Sov·er·eign·ty: Expressions in Sovereignty of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

This exhibition educates visitors about the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ autonomy, its relationship with the federal government, and how the tribe has defined its own relationship with its land,

people, and culture. Gallery open daily, 9am. Exhibition through Feb. 28, 2025.

Museum of the Cherokee People, 589 Tsali Blvd., Cherokee Making Changes Exhibition

Exploring the sentiment that growth is universal, whether planned or spontaneous, material or spiritual. Red House Studios invite all mediums to contribute to a collective exploration of the unawakened and unknown. Open daily, 10am. Exhibition through May 13.

Red House Gallery & Studios, 101 Cherry St, Black Mountain

Please Bug Me

An exhibition that celebrates the importance and beauty of insects while educating the community about what each of us can do to protect bug populations. Gallery open Monday through Friday, 10am. Exhibition through April 26.

Black Mountain Center for the Arts, 225 W State St, Black Mountain

Stellar Picks: A Community Choice Exhibition

This exhibition is for everyone who has a favorite piece of art in the WCU Fine Art Museum collection or would like to discover one. Gallery open Tuesday through Friday, 10am. Exhibition through June 28, 2024. WCU Bardo Arts Center, 199 Centennial Dr, Cullowhee

Asheville’s Naturalist: Watercolors by Sallie Middleton

This exhibition features a selection of botanical and wildlife prints by renowned watercolor artist Sallie Middleton. Gallery open daily, 11am, closed Tuesday. Exhibition through June 10

Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square

Counter/Balance: Gifts of John & Robyn Horn

A presentation of important examples of contemporary American craft, including woodworking, metalsmithing, fiber and pottery by renowned American artists. Gallery open daily, 11am, closed Tuesday. Exhibition through July. 29, 2024.

Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square

Mandala Madness III

A third biannual showcase of Mandala artwork that features collections of hypnotizing, meditative and geometric pieces. Open daily, noon. Exhibition through May 5. Foundation Studios, 27 Foundy St

Agony & Ecstasy: Images of Conscience by Janette Hopper

These linoleum prints show the agony and ecstasy of human life. The love, sorrow, conflict, beauty, enjoyment of nature, contemplation of what is, was and could be and political commentary. Gallery open Monday through Saturday, 11am and Sunday, 1 pm. Exhibition through May 31. Flood Gallery Fine Art Center, 850 Blue Ridge Rd, Black Mountain

Vera B. Williams: Stories

This retrospective will showcase the complete range of award-winning author and illustrator Vera B. Williams' life and work. It will highlight her time at Black Mountain College, her political activism, in addition to her work as an author and illustrator. Gallery open Monday through Saturday, 11am. Exhibition through May. 11, 2024.

Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center, 120 College St

Reception for Stellar Picks: A Community Choice Exhibition

View which objects will be included in our newest exhibition

Stellar Picks: A Commu-

nity Choice Exhibition

Over the last several months, the public was invited to browse the new online database and cast a vote for the object they would most like to see on view

TH (4/25), 5pm, WCU Bardo Arts Center, 199 Centennial Dr, Cullowhee

WNC Bonfire Studios: Cute Native Pollinator

Paint this Appalachian Grizzled Skipper, a once important & prolific local pollinator whose populations are severely declining.

TH (4/25), 6:30pm, Ginger's Revenge Craft Brewery & Tasting Room, 829 Riverside Dr

I Will Tell You Mine

This exhibition features works by 27 artists that work across an  impressive range of applications, methods and materials. Gallery open Tuesday through Saturday, 10am, and Sunday, 11am. Exhibition through May 26.

Tyger Tyger Gallery, 191 Lyman St, Ste 144

Honoring Nature: Early Southern Appalachian Landscape Painting

This exhibition explores the sublime natural landscapes of the Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina and Tennessee.Gallery open daily, 11am, closed Tuesday. Exhibition through Oct. 21.

Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square

The New Salon: A Contemporary View

A modern take on the prestigious tradition of the Parisian Salon with the diversity and innovation of today’s art world. Gallery open daily, 11am, closed Tuesday. Exhibition through Aug. 19.

Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square

Thistle & Pearl Art Show

This exhibition features art from the whole Thistle and Pearl Tattoo crew including BB June, Bill Smiles, Reina Lynn, Doe Bull, Ash Grey and

COMMUNITY CALENDAR

more. Gallery open Monday through Sunday, noon. Exhibition through May 19.

Push Skate Shop & Gallery, 25 Patton Ave

Public Tour: Discovering Art in Asheville

An educator led tour of the Museum's Collection through the featured exhibition Intersections in American Art. No reservations are required.

SU (4/28), 2pm, Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square

Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts Exhibition

Featured in this exhibit are Arrowmont’s nationally and internationally recognized practicing artists and university workshop instructors. Open daily, 10am. Exhibition through May 1, 2024. 10am, Folk Art Center, 382 Blue Ridge Pkwy

Julieta Fumberg: Of Chaos & Peace, Beauty in Both Fumberg's most recent exhibit portrays darkness to see the light and the contrast of things. The Human heart beats, in and out, creating the contrast that it needs to sustain life. Gallery open Monday through Saturday, 10am, and Sunday, noon. Exhibition runs through May 5.

Pink Dog Gallery, 348 Depot St

Western North Carolina Glass: Selections from the Collection Western North Carolina is important in the history of American glass art. A variety of techniques and a willingness to push boundaries of the medium can be seen in this selection of works.

Gallery open daily, 11am, closed Tuesday. Exhibition through September 16. Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square

Spark of the Eagle Dancer: The Collecting Legacy of Lambert Wilson This exhibition celebrates the legacy of Lambert Wilson, a passionate collector of contemporary Native American art. Gallery open Tuesday through Friday, 10am. Exhibition through June 28, 2024

WCU Bardo Arts Center, 199 Centennial Dr, Cullowhee

Daily Craft Demonstrations

Two artists of different media will explain and demonstrate their craft with informative

materials displayed at their booths, daily. These free and educational opportunities are open to the public.

Open daily, 10am.

Demonstrations run through Dec. 31.

Folk Art Center, MP 382, Blue Ridge Pkwy

Focus Gallery Exhibit: Art of Detailing

Featuring both traditional and contemporary craft by five members of the Guild.

Open daily, 10am. Exhibition through May 20, 2024.

Folk Art Center, 382 Blue Ridge Pkwy

COMMUNITY MUSIC

Citizen Swing: Connor Law & Taylor Pierson

The fun starts with some cool, old jazz vinyl, and then continues with live sets by Connor Law and Taylor Pierson.

WE (4/24), 6pm, Citizen Vinyl, 14 O Henry Ave

Mike Rhodes Fellowship

A collective endeavor curated by drummer Mike Rhodes that features a different lineup of talented musicians each performance.

TH (4/25), 6:30pm, Pisgah Brewing Co., 2948 US Hwy 70 W, Black Mountain Blue Ridge Orchestra's Spring Fourth: 1st Performance

The BRO heralds the return of spring with the first and fourth movements of Schumann's Spring Symphony, Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, and the first movement of Dvorak's Cello Concerto in B minor

SA (4/27), SU (4/28), 3pm, Lipinsky Auditorium at UNC Asheville, 300 Library Ln

Anya Hinkle Album Release Show w/The Billy Sea

A special album release party for Anya Hinkle's new album, Oceania. Anya’s music is rooted in the Appalachian mountains and seasoned by travels across the world.

SA (4/27), 7pm, Citizen Vinyl, 14 O Henry Ave

Peter Mayer

Enjoy a live performance by Minnesota’s Peter Mayer, who has been singing and songwriting full-time for over 20 years.

SA (4/27), 7pm, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Asheville, 1 Edwin Place

Superwoman Sundays: Emily Musolino

Each week will highlight a powerful female artists who will perform for an hour before opening the stage for collaboration and open mic.

SU (4/28), 2pm, One World Brewing W, 520 Haywood Rd

Emory University

Candler Singers

The Candler Singers offer church music from around the globe including classical, contemporary, folk, and spiritual.

SU (4/28), 4pm, St. Paul's United Methodist Churc, 223 Hillside St

Sundays on the River Series: Buffalo Rose

A wildly charismatic six-piece modern folk and Americana band from Pittsburgh that will change your entire perspective on acoustic music.

SU (4/28), 4pm, Olivette Riverside Community and Farm, 1069 Olivette Rd

Performance & Community Conversation w/Mike Martinez

Mike Martinez will lead a community conversation followed by a live performance. It’s open to the public and free.

MO (4/29), 6pm, LEAF Global Arts, 19 Eagle St

Blue Ridge Ringers Concert: Swingin' Spring

The ensemble delights audiences with their captivating performances and commitment to musical excellence. From classical masterpieces to contemporary favorites, the Blue Ridge Ringers' repertoire spans a wide range of genres.

TH (5/2), 2pm, Ardenwoods, 2400 Appalachian Blvd., Arden

Let Our Voices Entertain You North Buncombe High School Chorus will play an intimate concert that'll be directed by Jeannie Graeme and

accompanist Linda jones.

TH (5/2), 7pm, First Baptist Church of Weaverville, 63 N Main St, Weaverville

LITERARY

William Matthews

Poetry Prize Reading

This event celebrates 2023 William Matthews

Poetry Prize Recipients. Hosted by Keith Flynn with readings by first prize winner, Kate DeLay, and poet Tina Barr.

WE (4/24), 6pm, Malaprop's Bookstore and Cafe, 55 Haywood St

The World Beyond the Redbud Tree by Madison Brightwell Engage in a thought-provoking discussion of The World Beyond the Redbud Tree, followed by an enlightening presentation by the author, Madison Brightwell.

FR (4/26), 10am, Black Mountain Library, Black Mountain

Book & Art: Keith Haring & Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines

A presentation of Keith Haring’s and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s book, Crossing Lines. Following the book presentation, join a conversation connecting the book to artworks on view in the current exhibition.

FR (4/26), noon, Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square

Pamela Volpert: The Tribes of the Littles Local author Pamela Volpert will read from her book, The Tribes of the Littles.

SA (4/27), 3pm, City Lights Bookstore, 3 E Jackson St, Sylva Timber Hawkeye Sunday Service & Discussion

Bestselling author of Buddhist Boot Camp, Faithfully Religionless, and The Opposite of Namaste will present a Sunday talk and

discussion based on his books.

SU (4/28), 10:30am, Unity of the Blue Ridge, 2041 Old Fanning Bridge Rd, Mills River

Sunday Stories: May Day Edition For International Workers Day, we're hosting a storytime about working class people, jobs, and what it takes to keep a community running.

SU (4/28), 2pm, Firestorm Books, 1022 Haywood Rd

Poets Tina Barr, Catherine Carter & Jane Craven

A poetry reading with Tina Barr, Catherine Carter, and Jane Craven. Free but registration is required.

SU (4/28), 5pm, Malaprop's Bookstore and Cafe, 55 Haywood St

Worry w/Alexandra Tanner

Alexandra Tanner presents her debut novel Worry. Free but registration is required.

TU (4/30), 6pm, Malaprop's Bookstore and Cafe, 55 Haywood St

Black Cat Tales: Story Time w/Cats Families with children age 7 & under are invited to relax in the cat lounge and listen to a cat-centric book surrounded by the resident panthers.

WE (5/1), 4pm, House of Black Cat Magic, Co., 841 Haywood Rd

Tommy Tomlinson: Dogland Tommy Tomlinson will present his book Dogland. The event is free but registration is required.

WE (5/1), 6pm, Malaprop's Bookstore and Cafe, 55 Haywood St

THEATER & FILM

Ritual Mountain Bike Film Tour

The film series highlights incredible athletes, creative filmmakers, engaging storylines and stunning cinematography;

bringing riders together in mountain biking’s greatest cities and venues.

WE (4/24), 7pm, The Orange Peel, 101 Biltmore Ave

Building Bridges

Community Talkback of the Film, 13th

In this thought-provoking documentary scholars, activists and politicians analyze the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom.

TH (4/25), 6pm, The Franklin School of Innovation, 21 Innovation Dr

European Royal Classical Ballet: Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake Set to Tchaikovsky's iconic and groundbreaking score, this poignant drama of true love and sacrifice captivates audiences to this day with it's range of technically and emotionally challenging roles for both Principal dancers and the Corps de Ballet.

TH (4/25), 7pm, Wortham Center For The Performing Arts, 18 Biltmore Ave

Blind Date Live

A special edition of the norotious dating show that will feature MILFs. All ages, all relationship statuses; everyone gets a steaming slice of mama’s famous apple pie.

FR (4/26), 7pm, The Grey Eagle, 185 Clingman Ave

Liars Contest

The most accomplished liars in the region will gather at BMCA to tell their best 5-minute lie in hopes of snagging a prize.

FR (4/26), 7pm, Black Mountain Center for the Arts, 225 W State St, Black Mountain

One Act Festival

This festival features surreal, moving and hilarious scripts from student playwrights. Student directors will bring them to life on the stage.

FR (4/26), SA (4/27),

Early voting for second primary begins April 25

Republicans and unaffiliated voters who cast a Republican ballot in the March 5 primary election have some unfinished business in choosing which candidate will run against Democratic opponents for two state races in November’s general election.

No candidate for lieutenant governor or state auditor received enough statewide votes to win their Republican primary outright, allowing second-place finishers to request a second primary Tuesday, May 14.

Unaffiliated voters who did not vote in the March 5 primary also can vote in the second primary. No new voter registration is permitted between the first and second primaries, including during early voting. In-person early voting starts Thursday, April 25, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR

For lieutenant governor, top primary vote-getter Hal Weatherman, who received about 20% of the vote in March, will face off against Jim O’Neill, who received about 16% of votes. There were nine other candidates in that race who received anywhere from 2%-15% of the votes statewide. In Buncombe County, Weatherman received just 68 votes more than O’Neill, a difference of less than half a percentage point.

Weatherman, who lives in Charlotte, served as chief of staff for former Lt. Gov, Dan Forest and U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick. O’Neill is in his fourth term as Forsyth County district attorney, for which he was first appointed in 2009.

The winner will face Democrat Rachel Hunt in November. Hunt won the Democratic nomination over two opponents with more than 70% of votes cast. Mark Robinson, the current lieutenant governor, won the Republican nomination for governor and will face Democrat Josh Stein in the general election.

Similar to the vice president of the United States, the lieutenant governor’s primary responsibility is to preside over the N.C. state Senate. The position also comes with a seat on the Council of State, the N.C. Board of Education, the N.C. Capital Planning Commission and the N.C. Board of Community Colleges. The lieutenant governor also serves as the chair of the e-Learning Commission.

N.C. AUDITOR

For state auditor, Jack Clark, a registered accountant from Raleigh, surpassed five other candidates in the March primary with more than 23% of the vote. In the second primary, he will face Dave Boliek, a Fayetteville attorney who serves on the UNC Board of Trustees, who finished second in March with 22% of the vote. In Buncombe County, Clark received almost 26% of the vote, beating second-place finisher Charles Dingee by nearly 2 percentage points. Dingee came in third statewide. Boliek finished third in Buncombe, receiving a little over 15% of the vote.

The winner will face incumbent Democrat Jessica Holmes, who was appointed by Gov. Roy Cooper in December after Beth Wood resigned.

The state auditor is charged with reviewing more than $100 billion in state assets and liabilities each year, including ensuring programs such as health, education and economic growth are delivering what they should, according to the Office of the State Auditor’s website. The auditor also compiles the state’s annual comprehensive financial report in an attempt to maintain the state’s AAA credit rating.

In-person early voting takes place at the Buncombe County Election Services Office at 59 Woodfin Place weekdays from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. through Friday, May 10. Polls will be open Saturday, May 4, and Saturday, May 11, from 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Voters who wish to vote by mail must request an absentee ballot by 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 7. Polls will be open on primary election day, Tuesday, May 14, from 6:30 a.m.7:30 p.m. The deadline to return absentee ballots is also 7:30 p.m. on election day. Check your primary election day polling location at avl.mx/6nq. —

Vote For Us!!

SU (4/28), 7pm, Attic Salt Theatre, The Mills at Riverside, 2002

Riverside Dr, Ste 42

Couples Therapy

A unique and clever combination of theatre, stand-up comedy, and improv. Audiences go on a hilarious and interactive ride as a pair of married relationship experts attempt to help couples with their relationships.

FR (4/26), SA (4/27) 8pm, Diana Wortham Theatre, 18 Biltmore Ave

Matilda the Musical

This Tony Award-winning musical weaves the story of Matilda, a young girl with a sharp wit, unbounded imagination, and psychokinetic powers.

FR (4/26), SA (4/27), SU (4/28), 2:30pm, Asheville Community Theatre, 35 E Walnut St

I'll Eat You Last

A captivating one-woman show that offers an intimate glimpse into the life and secrets of legendary talent agent Sue Mengers, portrayed by Lyn Donley. FR (4/26), SA (4/27), 7:30pm, SU (4/28), 2pm, Hart Theatre, 250 Pigeon St, Waynesville

Cat Kid Comic Club:

The Musical

Comics go comically off the rails in this musical adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s hilarious book series. Recommended for grades 1-5. MO (4/29), TU (4/30), 10am and 12pm, Wortham Center for the Performing Arts, 18 Biltmore Ave

MEETINGS & PROGRAMS

The Great Bird Adventure

An expertly guided educational tour that gently leads you through five magnificent exhibits, showcasing rare and endangered birds from every continent of the world.

WE (4/24, 5/1), FR (4/26), SA (4/27), MO (4/29), 10am, Carolina Avian Research and Education, 109 Olivia Trace Dr, Fletcher

Every Black Voice: AVL's Racial Justice Coalition Lunch & Learn

This event will be discussing reparations and the history of black Asheville. Housing, health and wellness and education will also be topics of conversation.

WE (4/24), 12:30pm, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave

Nature Lovers Craft Time

Get crafty and create wonderful pieces of art using natural materials.

WE (4/24), 12:30pm, Asheville Recreation Park, 65 Gashes Creek Rd

3 Practices Solution Circle, For Entrepreneurs: Creativity in Small Business

A process oriented, problem-solving mechanism that business owners can use to get questions answered, holistically, from various perspectives. Free but registration at avl.mx/dl3 is required.

WE (4/24), 1pm, Online

Lil’ Picasso’s Toddler Art

Help little ones embrace their imagination and creativity to develop problem solving, refine motor skills, and creatively to express emotions.

WE (4/24), 1:30pm, Tempie Avery Montford Community Center, 34 Pearson Ave

Eightfold Path Study Group

A group will gather to study the Eightfold Path Program. Kris Kramer will host the group as a fellow participant and student.

WE (4/24), 3pm, Quietude Micro-retreat Center, 1130 Montreat Rd, Black Mountain

Greenway Walking Club

All ages, sizes, and cultural backgrounds are welcome to connect while walking as a group to better health. Advance registration required.

WE (4/24), 5:30pm, French Broad River Greenway

Scattergories Challenge Night

A classic fast-thinking word game. Points are awarded for unique answers that match the category, with the goal of having the most points at the end of the game.

WE (4/24), 5:30pm, Beradu--Specialty Market, Kitchen & Bar, 2 E Market St, Black Mountain

Cultivating Medicinal Mushrooms: Reishi

Discover the art of growing medicinal mushrooms in your own home from Chris Parker who has 30 years of experience of cultivating and wild foraging in the Southern Appalachians. Registration at xavl.mx/dl4 is required.

WE (4/24), 6pm, Online Selling on Shopify

Learn how to establish your brand online with a custom domain name and online store with instant access to hundreds of the best looking themes, and complete control over the look and feel. Registration at avl.mx/dkv is required.

WE (4/24), 6pm, Online National Speakers Association of WNC Meeting

Professional keynote speakers, coaches, trainers, facilitators, and consultants who cover a broad range of topics, skills, & knowledge.

TH (4/25), 10:30am, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave

Kids & Teens Kung Fu

Learn fighting skills as well as conflict resolution and mindfulness. First class is free to see if it’s a good fit for you.

TH (4/25, 5/2), MO (4/29), TU (4/30), 4pm, Dragon Phoenix, 51 N Merrimon Ave, Ste 109 Hiring Autistic Workers Employer Workshop: Asheville

A free workshop designed for employers interested in learning about autism culture, recruiting individuals with autism, interviewing and evaluating candidates with autism, onboarding and training new autistic employees.

TH (4/25), 11am, Hi-Wire Brewing Event Center, 2B Huntsman Place

Access to Capital

Learn why businesses borrow money, what lenders are looking for when reviewing your application, and the importance of having cash flow projections. Registration at avl.mx/dl5 is required.

TH (4/25), noon, Online Change Your Palate Cooking Demo

This free lunchtime food demonstration is open to all but tailored towards those with type 2 diabetes or hypertension and/or their caretakers. Our featured host is Change Your Palate's very own Shaniqua Simuel.

TH (4/25), noon, TU (4/30), 5pm, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave

The Road Ahead Chris Fink will share resources and tools to create the best possible outcomes for you and your loved ones in the mental health system.

TH (4/25), 5pm, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave

Lifestyle Choices

A group discussion for 14 to 19 year-olds that offers an opportunity for young males to engage in open discussion regarding their behaviors and community involvement.

TH (4/25), 6pm, Dr Wesley Grant, Sr. Southside Center, 285 Livingston St

Setting Energetic & Spiritual Foundations

In this workshop, we delve into the essential elements of setting robust energetic and spiritual foundations.

TH (4/25), 6pm, The Well, 3 Louisiana Ave

Dharma talk w/John Orr

John will give Dharma talk and lead discussion on various topics related to meditation and Buddhist teachings.

TH (4/25), 6:30pm, Quietude Micro-retreat Center, 1130 Montreat Rd, Black Mountain

Family Bingo Night Opportunities to win some awesome prizes for the whole family.

TH (4/25), 6:30pm, Tempie Avery Montford Community Center, 34 Pearson Ave

Free Healthy Workplace Culture Workshop

A healthy workplace culture can be an unspoken benefit that supports strong retention rates and serves as a competitive advantage.

FR (4/26), 9am, Continuum Art, 147c Ave East, Hendersonville

Ask a Native Plant Aficionado Plants for Wildlife is hosting experienced native plant gardener volunteers at each of our plant kiosks during the spring planting season.

FR (4/26), 3pm, Town Hardware & General Store, 103 W State St, Black Mountain

Permanent Jewelry w/ Honey Koshka

Permanent jewelry is clasp-less, custom fit jewelry that’s micro-welded to create a seamless flow.

Personalize yours with charms, initials, and gemstones.

FR (4/26), 5pm, Ignite Jewelry Studios, 191 Lyman St, Ste 262

Skate Jam Clinics

Bring your own skates or rent a pair as instructors spread the love of roller skating to beginners.

FR (4/26), 5pm, Linwood Crump Shiloh Community Center, 121 Shiloh Rd

Tarot w/Cats

A 1-hour workshop that will be held in the cat lounge and will show how to incorporate a one- and three-card pull for daily guidance.

FR (4/26), 5:30pm, House of Black Cat Magic, Co., 841 Haywood Rd

Kids Night Out Kids ages 5 to 13 can enjoy festive games, creative works of art and make new friends. Pre-registration is required.

FR (4/26), 6pm, Dr

Wesley Grant, Sr. Southside Center, 285 Livingston St

Montford Teen Fun Night Activities range from gym games to outdoor activities to e-gaming nights. Advance registration required.

FR (4/26), 6:30pm, Tempie Avery Montford Community Center, 34 Pearson Ave

Balsam Mountain

Boojum Hike & Search

Hike the Boojum's native range, discover food sources and habitat, and give the 8 foot tall part-man, part-beast creature a whistle like Hootin’ Annie.

SA (4/27), 10am, Tempie Avery Montford Community Center, 34 Pearson Ave

Find Your Familiar: Black Cat Adoption Event

A black cat adoption event that will feature black cats of all shapes, sizes, and ages. Find your loyal guardians, energy protectors, healers, and the truest of companions.

SA (4/27), 12pm, House of Black Cat Magic, Co., 841 Haywood Rd

AI Genealogy: The Basics & a Bit Beyond Steve Little will explore the fascinating interplay of genealogy, technology and language and how AI tools, like GPT-4, are changing genealogical research and analysis. Register at avl.mx/9ey.

SA (4/27), 1pm, Online

Bid Whist

Make bids, call trumps, and win tricks. Every Saturday for fun competition with the community.

SA (4/27), 1pm, Dr Wesley Grant, Sr. Southside Center, 285 Livingston St

Hands Off Uhuru

Help defend anti-colonial free speech and hear from indicted Uhuru Movement organizers facing Federal charges for supporting African liberation and reparations. Register at avl.mx/dm2.

SA (4/27), 1pm, Online

Coloring w/Cats: Kiddie Edition

A relaxing artistic session with coloring books and markers while you pet cats to reduce stress and anxiety.

Stephens Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave

Coloring w/Cats

Set time for yourself and cuddle with the panthers, meet other cat-lovers, and color a beautiful picture of a cat from our adult coloring books.

SU (4/28), 2pm, House of Black Cat Magic, Co., 841 Haywood Rd

Food as Medicine

Cooking Class

SA (4/27), 1:30pm, House of Black Cat Magic, Co., 841 Haywood Rd

Dreaming Big!: Cuando los Niñes Dominan el Mundo

This event is geared towards 9 years of age and up, based on the discussion topics, self managing a button maker and, cutting materials.

SA (4/27), 2pm, Firestorm Books, 1022 Haywood Rd

Weekly Sunday Scrabble

Weekly scrabble play. All scrabble gear provided.

SU (4/28), 1:30pm,

Get ready to indulge your taste buds with recipe tastings and uncover how everyday ingredients can significantly impact your overall wellness.

SU (4/28), 2pm, Hendersonville Community Co-Op, 60 S Charleston Ln, Hendersonville

Treasure Hunt: Walking Team Scavenger Hunt

Use your treasure map to follow clues, solve puzzles, and crack codes on this unique scavenger hunt through Downtown Asheville. The hunt typically takes about 60 minutes to complete.

SU (4/28), 2pm, Dssolvr, 63 N Lexington Ave

Psychology Infused Marketing

Explore the principles of consumer psychology to create more effective marketing campaigns. Register at avl.mx/dlp. MO (4/29), 11am, Online

Black Men Monday

A local group that has stepped up in the community to advocate for and mentor students through academic intervention. Kids, ages 7 and up, are welcome to join. MO (4/29), 5:30pm, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave

Community Drum Class w/Larry McDowell

Hone your hand drum skills with an experienced local drummer and instructor. All skill levels welcome. MO (4/29), 7pm, The Well, 3 Louisiana

Therapeutic Recreation Adult Crafting & Cooking

A variety of cooking and crafts for individuals with disabilities ages 17 and over each week. Advance registration at avlrec. com is required.

TU (4/30), 10am, Oakley Community Center, 749 Fairview Rd

Queer Cowork

A new cowork space in West Asheville by and for queer folk. Get your work done and some community engagement at the same time.

TU (4/30), 11am, The Well, 3 Louisiana

Kung Fu: Baguazhang

It is the martial arts style that Airbending from the show Avatar: The Last Airbender was based on.

TU (4/30), 1pm, Dragon Phoenix, 51 N Merrimon Ave, Ste 109

Growing Up in Porn

Culture: What Parents

Should Know & How to Talk About It

This talk will explore the most popular social media platforms accessed by young people today, linking the social media and porn industries and the harmful effects of their exposure on young people.

TU (4/30), 6pm, Dr Wesley Grant, Sr. Southside Center, 285 Livingston St

Tango Tuesdays

No partner is required and drop ins are always allowed. No experience needed for

the beginners class. TU (4/30), 6pm, Urban Orchard Cider Co. S Slope, 24 Buxton Ave

Dharma & Discuss w/ David McKay

David will lead a conversation with the group on the dharma, with many opportunities to ask questions, share insights, or listen and learn.

WE (5/1), 7pm, Quietude Micro-retreat Center, 1130 Montreat Rd, Black Mountain

The Beautiful Hiking Trails Around Asheville

With so much land protected by National and State Forests and Parks, learn about the endless hiking opportunities in Asheville.

WE (5/1), 7pm, OLLI/ Reuter Center, UNCA, 300 Campus View Rd

CMDA National Convention

This convention provides a great opportunity for you to transform as you learn about current health and social issues and renew your faith through worship and network with exhibiting organizations.

TH (5/2), Ridgecrest Conference Center, 1 Ridgecrest Dr Black Mountain

Embroiderers' Guild of America: Laurel Chapter

This event allows chapter members an opportunity to both donate unwanted stitching items, and to purchase new ones. All proceeds from the sale go into the chapter’s general fund.

TH (5/2), 9:30am, Grace Lutheran Church, 1245 Sixth Ave W, Hendersonville

Music Bingo Thursdays

Test your music knowledge and your luck with Music Bingo by DJ Spence.

TH (5/2), 6:30pm, Lookout Brewing Co., 103 S Ridgeway Ave, Black Mountain

Swing Asheville: Lesson & Dance

An evening of swing lessons and a dance social with music provided by DJ Hi-Fly.

TH (5/2), 7pm, Fleetwood's, 496 Haywood Rd

LOCAL MARKETS

Bullington Gardens

Annual Spring Plant Market

Discover a wide array of perennials, annuals, bulbs, shrubs, and trees, including new favorites. All plant sale proceeds benefit Bullington’s mission of healing and connecting people with nature through horticultural therapy and education.

TH (4/25), FR (4/26), SA (4/27), 9am, Bullington Gardens, 95 Upper Red Oak Trail, Hendersonville

RAD Farmers Market

Providing year-round access to fresh local foods from over 30 local vendors offering fresh produce, baked goods, pastured meats, cheeses, raw honey, and more. Located right on the Greenway, the market is safely accessible by bike, foot, or rollerblade.

WE (4/24, 5/1), 3pm, Smoky Park Supper Club, 350 Riverside Dr

Friday Market

Produce to the People provides equitable access to nutritious, culturally relevant food through weekly community markets. Come enjoy local staples as well as a live cooking demo and kids activities.

FR (4/26), 205 NC-9, 205 North Carolina 9, Black Mountain

North Asheville

Tailgate Market

The oldest Saturday morning market in WNC, since 1980. Over 60 rotating vendors providing a full range of local, sustainably produced produce, meats, eggs,

cheeses, breads, plants and unique crafts.

SA (4/27), 8am, 3300 University Heights

Mars Hill Farmers & Artisans Market

A producer-only tailgate market located on the campus of Mars Hill University on College Street. Offering fresh local produce, herbs, cheeses, meats, eggs, baked goods, honey, body care and more. Every Saturday through Oct. 26.

SA (4/27), 10am, College Street, Mars Hill

Wallflower Makers' Market

A locally run, BIPOC owned makers’ market focused on supporting artists, growers, and makers in the WNC area. Featuring vintage clothing, handmade jewelry, house plants, fruits & veggies, and more.

SA (4/27), 10am, The Outpost, 521 Amboy Rd

Tuesday Market

Produce to the People provides equitable access to nutritious, culturally relevant food through weekly community markets. Come enjoy local staples as well as a live cooking demo and kids activities.

TU (4/30), 11:30am, 205 NC-9, 205 North Carolina 9, Black Mountain

FESTIVALS & SPECIAL EVENTS

Haywood Community College: Earth Day Celebration

The Earth Day celebration will feature a community partner showcase where HCC’s Environmental Science students will represent local community partners to teach guests about their work and how others can get involved.

WE (4/24), 10am, Haywood Community College, 185 Freedlander Dr, Clyde

Adlib Clothing's Anniversoiree

Beloved Downtown Asheville boutique celebrates their 35th anniversary. The festivities will feature live music by local musicians Mr. Jimmy and Paul McIntire as well as small bites, beverages and door prizes.

WE (4/24), 5pm, Adlib Clothing, 23 Haywood St

Hammerhead Stoneworks' 15th Anniversary

Guests can see the studio, tour the gallery, enjoy light refreshments, and view a photo wall covering creative highlights from the last 15 years.

FR (4/26), 3pm, Hammerhead Studio & Shop, 1001 Riverside Dr, Woodfin

2024 Mountain Science Expo

This science expo feature hands-on demonstrations, guided programs and local STEAM exhibitors. With opportunities to meet local wildlife, design your own inventions, and explore the art and science of azaleas.

SA (4/27), 10am, The North Carolina Arboretum, 100 Frederick Law Olmsted Way

World Tai Chi & Qigong Day

Celebrating World

Tai Chi and Qigong day with classes held outside to introduce new people to the various forms of Tai Chi, or Taiji, practice. This event is free and open to the public.

SA (4/27), 10am, Carrier Park, 220 Amboy Rd

All White Affair Spring Fling Dance

Dress in your White Party best with music and dancing for adults 40 years and older.

Free no advance registration required.

SA (4/27), 4pm, Stephens-Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave

10 Year Anniversary Party w/DJ Dr Filth

An anniversary party featuring music, drink specials, snacks and more. See p44-45

SA (4/27), 8pm, Crow & Quill, 106 N Lexington Ave

3rd Annual: Taste It, Don’t Waste It

Favorite regional Chefs will share creative dishes made from foods and components that might otherwise be thrown away. Guests can sample the three competing bites and vote for their favorite to crown a champion. See p44 SA (4/27), 2pm, The Mule, 131 Sweeten Creek Rd

Jazzfest w/Hustle Souls & Firecracker

This festival will be shutting down 1st Ave and having a party with live music from Hustle Souls and Firecracker. There will also be an art market with Blue Ridge Artisan Market and food.

SU (4/28), 1pm, Oklawaha Brewing Co., 147 1st Ave E, Hendersonville

Festy at the Westy

The Osprey Orchestra will be hosting a festival with live music, beer, vendors, flow and visual arts.

SU (4/28), 6pm, One World Brewing W, 520 Haywood Rd

2024 Festival of Peonies in Bloom

The event is free for all peony lovers to visit the farm and enjoy a blooming peony paradise. Open daily, 10am. Festival through May 31.

Wildcat Ridge Farm, 3553 Panther Creek Rd, Clyde

BENEFITS & VOLUNTEERING

MANNA FoodBank Mobile Market

All markets are free and open to anyone who needs support with groceries. Walk through in just minutes.

WE (4/24), 11am, Fernihurst Mansion, 16 Fernihurst Dr, A-B Tech

Pageant: The Drag Show, A Fundraiser for SeekHealing

A comedic feast of faux drag pageantry where you choose the winner. Prepare for an uproarious evening filled with dazzling queens, unexpected talents, and runway antics . All ages are welcome.

FR (4/26), 7pm, Hi-Wire Brewing RAD

Beer Garden, 284 Lyman St

Woodfin 5k

This run/walk is a funraisder for the Woodfin Elementary School. The elementary school serves a bit over 100 students who are in need of some kind.

SA (4/27), 9am, Woodfin Elementary, 181 Elk Mountain Rd, Woodfin

Harmonies of Hope

A concert to feed Hendersonville's hungry, featuring folk arrangements from Molasses Creek. All proceeds benefit the Hendersonville Rescue Mission, Interfaith Assistance Ministries, and The Storehouse. SA (4/27), 11am, St. James Episcopal Church, 766 N Main St, Hendersonville

Asheville Music School Presents: Sunday Funday Seven eclectic bands will be playing everything from rock, pop, reggae, to early 70s metal, 90s alternative. Expect photo booths, games, and all sorts of family-friendly fun. Proceeds benefit Asheville Music School scholarships.

SU (4/28), noon, Salvage Station, 468 Riverside Dr

2nd Annual Mosaic Art Walk & Benefit

Take in the eclectic pieces from local, regional and international artists while learning about the fantastic work being done by each nonprofit. Each gallery will contribute a percentage of the evening’s sales to its featured nonprofit.

TH (5/2), 5pm, 14 Participating Downtown Asheville Galleries

Divine's Karaoke Kiki & Fundraiser

Expect plenty of toasts, roasts, singalongs and hilarious banter to keep the audience on their toes while supporting local charities.

TH (5/2), 7pm, Archetype Brewing, 265 Haywood Rd

‘Find your community’

Social opportunities for neurodivergent adults flourish locally

BY JESSICA WAKEMAN

Rebecca Blalock of Hendersonville noticed that she actually felt relieved during the two years she and her family isolated due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As a neurodivergent person, it was kind of nice to have no social obligations,” she explains. Finally, she didn’t have to explain to anyone why she didn’t want to eat in a loud, crowded restaurant.

But by 2023, Blalock wanted to reignite her social life. She knew from experience that she feels most comfortable with other people who are neurodivergent; she can feel stigmatized by neurotypical people who “still have Dustin Hoffman [from] Rain Man in their mind” as an example of a neurodivergent person, she explains. So she put feelers out on Facebook for a support group for neurodivergent-identifying women.

“Tons of people responded,” she recalls. There was a common feeling that while many activities were available for neurodivergent kids, adults didn’t have an outlet to talk about themselves. Blalock started a monthly social for neurodivergent-identifying women, and in the first few meetups, “unilaterally they said things like ‘I haven’t made a new friend in years!’” A few months later, Blalock added a monthly crafting group for neurodivergent-identifying women. Both take place at Full Circle Community Wellness, a mental wellness and counseling center in Hendersonville operated by Blalock’s husband, Dr. Matt Snyder

BUSINESS WITH A HEART: Creating a place of belonging is part of what motivated Ashley Deck to open Madam Clutterbuckets Neurodiverse Universe, a gift shop on Battery Park Avenue staffed by people with developmental disabilities. Her 30-year-old son, Foster, is on the autism spectrum and has a speech disorder and hearing loss. Photo by Jessica Wakeman jwakeman@mountainx.com

It’s tricky to pinpoint exactly how many adults in North Carolina are neurodivergent, a category which includes conditions such as autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia or attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder. Much of the data collected about autism spectrum disorder in North Carolina is about children. However, some people don’t receive a diagnosis until adulthood, and women in particular often aren’t diagnosed until later in life. It’s also

worth noting that any count of adults who are neurodivergent may not include people who’ve self-diagnosed, as Blalock did. (However, a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder from a medical provider or psychologist is required to receive autism services through Medicaid.)

There are numerous therapeutic services in Asheville, and often social activities can grow from those connections. There are also some businesses that cater to kids with sensory processing disorders, like We Rock the Spectrum Kids Gym in Asheville or the Asheville Jewish Community Center’s Camp Tikvah.

Carolina Western Regional Director

Michael LePage. The nonprofit provides support for them along with their families and caregivers, regardless of age or ability to pay.

Founder Michele Louzon started operating Arms Around ASD out of her basement at first, and in 2021 it moved to the Asheville Mall. The new space has multiple treatment rooms, a kitchen for learning skills and an indoor garden. Numerous daily activities include yoga, crochet, gardening, financial wellness classes, line dancing, karaoke, American Sign Language tutoring and art. Some volunteers also bring in their pets, including guinea pigs and dogs. Nine years in, the nonprofit offers 40 different services and has 80 volunteers.

Arms Around ASD also hosts support groups for Autistic Adults United and Autistic Teens United. The latter was started by local activist Danny Landry and provides activities and games.

Louzon found her niche working with adults with autism. “I thought we were going to start this nonprofit and see all these kids — the reality is we didn’t,” she says. Although some middle schoolers and high schoolers participate in activities — which are available to all ages, according to the organization’s public calendar — the clientele is “mostly adults. They’re really not getting these extra things [elsewhere].”

The logistics of being a neurodivergent adult in Asheville, however, can create certain speed bumps when it comes to socializing. “Asheville is the most amazing place because if people are on the spectrum, they speak up and you can find your community,” says Ashley Deck, the mother of an autistic adult. On the other hand, “if you’re neurodivergent, especially if you’re on the spectrum, and you have a social impact in your life from your disability, managing and planning social activity is daunting and overwhelming. My son wants to do that — but he cannot figure out how to do it in a way that’s comfortable to him.”

Some help is emerging to address the needs of neurodivergent adults, but it’s a process.

SOCIAL GROUPS

The activity “hub” for people on the spectrum is Arms Around ASD, according to Autism Society of North

“These extra things” are provided intentionally, Louzon says. She recalls learning at an autism-related conference that “the most important thing for success for adults on the spectrum — and they define success not just as getting but keeping a job — was developing executive functioning.” Therefore all of Arms Around ASD’s activities focus on executive functioning, which Cleveland Clinic describes as planning and problem solving, inhibition control and working memory.

Arms Around ASD also focuses on self-care. Visitors can receive chair massages or acupuncture or get fairy hair or nails done, all with suggested donations to the practitioners. Louzon says she’s noticed that many of the people who want massages are the parents or support staff of people with autism — an indication their needs are perhaps underserved.

Louzon has no personal connection to autism herself, she explains. Instead, she was inspired by friends with a 19-year-old son who has considerable intellectual disabilities and what they’ve

shared about the “struggles of life with a child who needs a lot of supports.”

Socializing “is really tricky — not everybody wants that, or they do but they just don’t know how to make it happen,” Louzon says. Some people who are on the spectrum can have rigid thinking in terms of ideas or interests, and so “it’s not easy to find people who are exactly like you,” she explains. Additionally, some people who are on the spectrum can have hyperfocused interests and the ability to get very deep and detailed about topics that others might not share.

Friendships have grown out of Arms

Around ASD, but just fostering togetherness is important, Louzon explains. “They know they have a place to go that’s just for them and encourages a sense of community and belonging. The belonging is really important.”

‘A CHASM’

Creating a place of belonging is part of what motivated Deck to open Madam Clutterbuckets Neurodiverse Universe, a gift shop on Battery Park Avenue staffed by people with developmental disabilities. Her 30-year-old son, Foster, is on the autism spectrum, has a speech disorder and has hearing loss.

“As my son Foster got older and left school, there’s just this cliff — a chasm — that kids drop off into,” Deck says. “There’s no safety net of connection for folks on the spectrum when they leave [school].” People on the spectrum with more significant challenges may qualify for social services due to their complex needs. “But if you are functioning at levels where you can be employed and go to work independently, there’s less [work] out there,” Deck explains. She thinks some employers find it “intimidating” to accommodate the needs of people who are neurodivergent.

Foster interacts with other people frequently when he plays video games, Deck says. But she’s concerned that screen time isn’t conducive to making real connections. In contrast, Deck saw how beneficial it was when Foster was hired to work at a bowling alley in Atlanta, where the family used to live. “The light started coming out,” she says. “Every day was a new day. If something happened, if he had a meltdown the day before, it wasn’t held against him. They loved him just the way he was.” That “light” came from feeling wanted and needed, as well as having social opportunities with other people at work, his mother explains.

Deck says transportation is a gaping need for adults who are on the spectrum. Some individuals cannot drive, due to not having a driver’s license, anxiety or spatial awareness issues.

And Deck says Buncombe County’s Mountain Mobility services aren’t available in the part of the county where she lives except for doctor appointments. That means adults like Foster have to rely on a parent or sibling to transport them to and from all social outings.

“When you’re planning something or you want to connect people, that’s something you’ve got to think about — how are they going to get there?” Deck says.

‘MAKE THINGS MORE ACCESSIBLE’

Blalock found social niches — crafting, motherhood — with other women who are neurodivergent. However, social needs for people who are neurodivergent vary based on age and other factors. LePage says it’s not enough to provide activities centered around autism, because having autism in common doesn’t mean people’s interests are similar.

He says the better questions to ask about social activities, particularly in

public spaces, are “how do we make other things more accessible? How do we make other things more friendly to someone who thinks or processes information differently?” For example, the western chapter of Autism Society of N.C. hosts a weekly walking group in French Broad River Park. It’s intentionally open to everyone — not only people on the spectrum, LePage explains.

Many businesses and people will be accommodating to a person with sensory-processing needs when asked to adjust overhead lighting, find quiet seating in restaurants or lower noise, says LePage. He sees some establishments increasingly “being comfortable getting that feedback [of] ‘Hey, can you turn the speaker down, because it’s overwhelming the system right now?”

LePage credits the acceptance of these accommodations by the general public to self-advocacy within the autism acceptance movement and disability rights movement. (He notes that he does not have a diagnosis of autism himself.) “Asheville is a great place for [asking for accommodations],” LePage says. “I’ve seen so many times where that compassion to other people has been extended.” X

BY THOMAS CALDER

Over 40 local poets submitted works to our 2024 Xpress Poetry Contest. This year’s competition asked writers to pen an original, previously unpublished piece that explored the theme of our shared humanity.

This year’s judge, Brit Washburn, is an award-winning poet and the author of the poetry collection

Notwithstanding and the essay collection Homing In: Attempts on a Life of

Poetry and Purpose. She was tasked with choosing the top three poems.

Washburn selected “What Can Be Spared” by Jerry Nelms as this year’s third-place finisher. “I love a poem that begins with a question, as this one does in its title,” notes Washburn. “Its opening statement, ‘She didn’t ask for much,’ immediately endears its subject to me and I am listening. … If, as has been said, poems are intimate letters to strangers, this one invites us to be friends.”

James Murphy’s “The Sun Moves North” placed second. “This spare poem employs plain speech to offset

its demands on the reader’s imagination,” says Washburn. “I’m not exactly sure what is happening … but the clarity of the speaker’s voice earns my trust, and I give myself over to experiencing the poem’s imagery. … Like all good poems, this is one to be experienced, not dissected.”

The contest’s top prize went to Mars Hill resident Guy Mead, for his poem “The Waitress and the Carpenter.” Mead notes that the poem was inspired by a true story about his wife, Sue, and himself.

“It is good to have a space set aside from your work life — a space for play, a peaceful place to relax and contemplate,” Mead says. “Play and love are important activities, but so is work. The jobs in the poem are physical and tiring, but there is a sensual, enjoyable side to them. It is an important part of any job to find its humanity. I mean really find its humanity. Is this poem about work?

Is it about sex? Not really. It’s about smelling the unexpected. It’s about opening up moments in your workday and reveling in their tiny joys.”

Washburn adds: “At the heart of the poem is a mixed metaphor (‘They exhume themselves from the clenched fist of their clothing’) that somehow manages to do the work of two: invoking both the soul-crushing and almost violent nature of labor, after which an exquisite vulnerability (‘And stand naked before each other’) is introduced, along with sensory detail and just shy of sing-song rhyme that lull us, like the subjects of the poems themselves, into a kind of intimate submission before the final line seals the deal. So much to admire here. A near-perfect little poem.”

Congrats to this year’s winner and runners-up. And thanks to everyone who submitted to the contest! X

The Waitress and the Carpenter

by Guy Mead

The waitress and the carpenter

Work hard all day

The work has nothing to do with them Or the betterment of anything they come home tired

Out of square & hungry

And if they chance to find the strength They exhume themselves from the clenched fist of their clothing And stand naked before each other and squeeze the soft moment

He finds she smells like the blue plate special And she finds he smells of heart of pine

She is homemade pie

He is turpentine

The fine dust of sanding blocks & sifted flour Coats their lips

And they kiss the workday away

The Sun Moves North

by James Murphy

The sun moves north or my chair moves south. After the first thatching to force dirt into spring.

The creek is making my window stay open. The wood burns out the last sign of heat. It doesn’t work like this. There is an overlap of spring and all the others before.

We share light and water.

What Can Be Spared

by Jerry Nelms

She didn’t ask for much. Only for what could be spared. A soft voice in the street. Suppress the scream.

My few ones and her bag of coins bought us coffee, biscuits, a warm booth and time at the corner diner.

RESTROOMS FOR CUSTOMERS ONLY

Pay to pee.

We know the game.

We sipped, nibbled and talked about what got us there what could be different and what’s next until only coffee stains and biscuit crumbs proved our existence.

Lights dimmed. Closing time. We walked out hand in hand.

The night air was fresh without the chill of solitude.

Two souls walking. Two breaths merging.

We don’t ask for much. Only for what can be spared for lives too thin to be seen, for voices too soft to be heard.

GUY MEAD

JAMES MURPHY JERRY

WITH ERIC BROWN

BY ERIC BROWN

ericjbrown3000@gmail.com

Maybe I’m going out on a limb here, but I think it’s a safe bet that anyone reading a comedy column in Xpress probably recycles, composts and generally gives a hoot and does not pollute. Is it enough though? What else can we do to help keep Earth from becoming a hellish sun-bleached wasteland filled to the brim with microplastics?

That question keeps me up at night. I don’t have all the answers, and all the giant conglomerates of the world don’t seem to have them either (or more likely don’t care). So it falls to us to take care of our home.

With this in mind, I have gathered three of the funniest and most environmentally conscious people that I know to figure things out. So please join the luminary CJ Green, the brilliant Ham Daley, the incomparable Joe Carroll and myself as we finally settle all the dire issues tied to sustainable living.

(Disclaimer: Neither Xpress nor the writers of this comedy article claim that any of these answers will definitively solve matters tied to sustainability, climate change or anything else. Unless, of course, it turns out the following suggestions work, in which case all Nobel Prizes should be forwarded to Eric J. Brown, comedian extraordinaire.)

Eric: Asheville relies heavily on tourism to survive. It’s the industry that keeps us going. But like any industry, we could probably be doing more for the environment. How can we make tourism in our town more sustainable?

CJ: I think since most of us cannot afford to go on vacation, we should enlist the tourists to become our volunteer assistants in the service sector. They won’t get paid, but they will get little discounts on purchases during their vacay. We’ll have them wear a pin that reminds residents to be kind to them because they are simply volunteers. I think this fits in line with a lot of the thinking of those in power, as

Powering Asheville with ‘pisskey’ and solar panel hats

they love having free labor, especially when that labor is paying for itself.

Ham: I see a lot of people (whom I only assume must be from the flatlands of the Midwest and also hate themselves like me) trekking up our lofty mountain roads on bicycles — with pedals. There’s gotta be a way to harness that relentless, self-loathing energy, because otherwise it’s just being used for what? Personal betterment and growth? Pshaw! We’re more industrial than that.

Also, you should be able to hop on and off of those Pubcycle tours. Kind

of like the trolley but fueled by fermentation and force, not fossils (which is also a fairly decent tagline for our city).

Joe: As someone who has been on the frontlines of the Asheville tourism industry for a decade now, I can confirm that it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I am positive that my polyester tour-guide shirt has lasted longer than some of the marriages that it helped to usher in on party buses, party bikes and party sidewalks. Perhaps the best way to cut down on our carbon footprint would be to bring the Asheville experience to them. We

could load up a Toyota Corolla with craft beer, percussive instruments and a massage therapy student named Harmony. Then we send them out to anywhere within 100 miles with a $200 stipend and an Alan Watts book on tape. Think of the experiences you’ll gather along the way, Harmony! It’s too bad that we can’t come with you.

Eric: Tourism is here to stay in Asheville. I would love it if we had more diverse industry in our town and more opportunities for the working class, myself included. That being said, tourism is the biggest industry we have, so I second CJ’s suggestion: Put the tourists to work. Now, tourists are by definition on vacation, so they’re not going to want to work, right? I propose that we trick them into working. We make up some sort of story; something about how much F. Scott Fitzgerald loved to volunteer with wildlife conservation, or maybe that the Vanderbilts were adamantly opposed to plastic waste. After they learn that no trip to Asheville would be complete without honoring the local history, they’ll be sure to pitch in, right?

As I’m reading this over, I realize how stupid that sounds. That’s not gonna work. OK, new plan. We develop Asheville-branded hats with solar panels built into them. At the end of their vacation, the tourists turn the hats back in for a free beer flight at some brewery in exchange for their help with the power grid. Foolproof plan.

Eric: Perhaps the biggest concern for sustainability is energy production and conservation. With power bills at an all-time high and with our state’s reliance on fossil fuels, what do you do to conserve energy around your home?

CJ: See, your boi, he be working a lot. So how I be naturally conserving power is by using the power of my job. Meaning, I’m using their electricity. See, I’m a Tar Heel at heart. So, I’m always looking for ways of getting one over Duke, no matter the branch. It’s all about the love of the game. I bring in to work power strips and charging devices I barely use — hell, some I

THE END IS NEAR: Comedian Eric Brown, top left, is joined by his latest round of fellow local stand-ups to discuss tourism, sustainability and the apocalypse. Also pictured, clockwise from top right, Joe Carroll, CJ Green and Ham Daley. Photo of Brown by Cindy Kunst; photos of Carrol, Green and Daley courtesy of the comedians

don’t even own. It’s also where I prepare all of my air-fry meals.

Ham: I would recommend taking advantage of the many electric car charging stations here in Asheville. Just recklessly bust open the window of that brand-new Tesla and plug your phone in. Probably your laptop, too. The owner shouldn’t be too angry because you’re not technically stealing anything.

Another option: If all your devices are sadly depleted, just fake a fun “sleepover” night at your best friend’s house and use all of their outlets to charge your eight different devices and even your bicycle-car while they’re asleep. Harness that good Disney+/ Max energy of theirs. Play it off as a silly prank if they confront you — that’s what slumber parties are all about, right?!

Joe: As I write this, there is an unopened energy bill sitting on my kitchen counter. It’s facedown as if it’s in trouble and I put it in timeout. It knows what it did but it’s never going to apologize. I think I’m going to wait it out to see who caves first. I also have a dog that is soothed by the sounds of my bathroom vent, so you better believe that thing stays on. I might be the wrong person to ask this question to. What do I do to conserve energy? I don’t know … sleep?

I love watching movies, especially after a long workday. But watching them requires electricity, and my power bills are high enough. So, I will frequently start a movie I know that I’ll hate, get 20 minutes into it and turn it off in disgust. That way I’ll feel like I’ve watched a movie without using too much electricity.

I know what you’re asking — is that fun? No, absolutely not, but it keeps the power bills down. I also find that if you never use water, you never have to pay for the energy your water heater uses. Now, the City of Asheville does charge a base water consumption fee, so you can take a couple of showers here and there just to get your money’s worth, but don’t use hot water. If anyone asks why you frequently stink lately, just tell them you’ve been hiking all day. That excuse always works here.

But I’m pretty sure all of this is a moot point because my solar panel hat idea is going to solve the energy crisis.

Eric: Personally, climate change is the ecological issue that worries me the most. The thought of having to scavenge for gasoline in a sunscorched wasteland a la Mad Max sounds like it would be fun for two or three days tops, but it’s not a future I really want. How do we as comedians get people to care about climate change and actually mobilize?

AROUND THE REGION

Eric: On the completely impossible chance that my solar panel hat idea above doesn’t solve our energy concerns, I guess we’ll have to rely on good old-fashioned energy conservation. So here are some things I personally do around the house to save on electricity.

CONTINUES ON PAGE 40

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CJ: Personally, I can’t get anyone to do diddly squat. What I can get people to do is laugh and think about something later on after I’ve made them privy to it. I also like to think that the climate crisis is a hyperobject in the sense that it involves a huge array of aspects that intersect with social, technological and other issues. What I do is try to find ways to nestle people’s thoughts to those things by observing and highlighting the omitted logic of climate change. Things such as the lack of bugs on our windshields as we drive through the mountains. Or the toxicity of the rain as it is now versus when we were younger. All of these things are my job to catch audiences off guard in what I’m presenting them. All I can hope is that something sticks and it inspires them to dig more.

Now, in regard to how I’m coping with climate change: I’ve accepted that I’m going to have to learn to live off the land. Look, I’m athletic and Black, so I know the moment we hit the water wars, I’m going to get taken out or forced into some militia, which I would hate. Racism ain’t going nowhere, so you know I’m going to get all of the “difficult” militia jobs. So, yeah: isolation, baby!

Ham: The reality is I am ready for our impending doom. Always have been. As a lifelong Type 1 diabetic, I’ve had several bug-out bags on standby and have been banking on losing my legs at some point regardless. And if the world does collapse anytime soon, I am definitely not getting those bitchin’ futuristic robot legs about which I’ve always fantasized since the early ’90s — let’s be real. Anyway, I just read an article about a diabetic who turned their sugar-concentrated urine into whiskey (sweet, sweet pisskey, I’d call it). So, if that’s true and I got the apocalyptic goods “down there” (definitely no longer referring to my legs), I can pay people in booze to just cart my dismembered ass around AND fight bad guys to get me the insulin I need to stay alive. So, that is how I will mobilize. Literally. They will call me Sweet Pea. Because I’m a delight. A golden nourishing light in the darkest of days.

Joe: I was just listening to an interview that discussed the decline in popularity of dystopian fiction in recent years. One of their theories was that since our daily life has become more and more comparable to novels like 1984 and A Handmaid’s Tale, audiences are gravitating toward utopian fiction instead. People are more interested in imagining a world where humanity’s problems have been solved and we are able to coexist with nature.

Perhaps the best way to motivate people to care about their environment is to show them what the world could be instead of what it clearly isn’t. That is why I will be trying out a new character at the local open-mic nights. “Stable Stan” once worked to provide basic care for houseless people but now that every human has access to medical care, shelter and food, he spends his days collecting specimens of rare heirloom tomatoes. I know, right!? Hilarious! I’ll let you know how it goes.

Eric: Back in 2020, during the [COVID-19] pandemic lockdown, I learned a valuable lesson: people were willing to die for vacations. I remember seeing people during that summer, breaking quarantine to go on very ill-advised trips. In one viral video, there was a fairly normal-sized swimming pool with conservatively 800 tourists jammed into it like so many highly contagious sardines. Maybe you remember it, too; it was all over the news.

That brings us back to our old friends from the first question: tourists. As the planet’s eventual heat death draws closer and the ice caps continue to melt, the water levels will rise and soon trips to Myrtle Beach, Charleston and the Outer Banks will be impossible, mostly thanks to these locations being completely underwater. So, the tourists will move inland, searching for higher ground, and they’ll probably end up here. It’ll be a real Waterworld situation.

This is not a new thought experiment. It’s been in the public consciousness for years. So why would that motivate people now? I read an article this morning that theorized that over half of all land used for coffee growth will be unsuitable by 2050. People will ignore a lot for their own comfort and convenience, but they will not ignore the death of coffee. Tourism runs on coffee. But 2050 is a long way off, right? I’m 35, so by 2050 I’ll be 62, and there’s a decent chance I’ll be dead by then. Especially if we end up in my theorized Waterworld apocalypse.

So, I say we indulge in one of America’s greatest pastimes: lying. We bump the coffee extinction timeline up to, let’s say, 2026. If you tell people that in two years there will be no coffee to greet them as they force their groggy spouse and two-to-five kids into their 9,000-pound pickup truck at 3 a.m. to go to Asheville to see the Biltmore Estate, they’ll suddenly be incredibly passionate about climate change. Or at least I hope so.

This is my backup plan if the solar panel hats don’t work out. X

Power to the people

Local artist’s new website breaks down barriers to dance

BY EDWIN ARNAUDIN

earnaudin@mountainx.com

Dance changed Melvin AC Howell’s life for the better, so he naturally wants others to experience the joy and confidence he feels through that art form. At the same time, the Asheville-based choreographer, performer and educator understands the barriers many people face in approaching dance.

“In Asheville, no one’s really teaching accessible classes for adults or for teens who age out of studios,” he says. “And on top of that, it can be intimidating. People want to dance, but sometimes taking group classes are very intimidating, even if the class says ‘for beginners.’”

Howell seeks to encourage people’s interest in the art form through HAS Dance (pronounced “ha’s”). Named after his Heart and Soul Dance Company, the online global endeavor offers a variety of beginner-friendly classes, personalized instruction and a supportive network where dancers of all levels and ages can succeed at a sustainable pace.

THE PRODIGY

Howell grew up in the small North Carolina foothills town of Hartland. Not only did his family live below the poverty line but he was also raised to not talk about his emotions and bottle up whatever he was experiencing.

“It ‘worked’ for a while — until it didn’t,” he says. “I was 12 or 13, and after all those years of just holding it in, I just blacked out and I didn’t feel good. It scared me because it was like, ‘That wasn’t supposed to happen.’”

something or perform or do anything dance related, it’s got to make an impact. I have to be telling some part of my personal story in an attempt to reach other people and empower other people.’”

Howell points to that moment as his biggest professional turning point and the seed of HASdance.com. He describes the website as the more global version of his work over the past few years, which has seen him doing more in-person classes — locally and internationally — and connecting with the worldwide dance community, physically and online. He adds that through these interactions, he more fully understands what people want from dance instruction, and he’s elevated his teaching skills out of necessity.

“Teaching online is way more difficult than teaching in person. You can, like, get a vibe of a room. You can look in the mirror and see what people are picking up,” he says. “But online, you have to assume that all the questions that could be asked are being asked and figure out how to put those into something where people feel like they’re supported, even from the other side of the screen.”

While Howell notes that the large number of online dance instructors make entering that world intimidating, his dedication to making a difference outweighs his fears.

“I really don’t have anything to lose, but there are so many people that have a lot to gain,” he says.

STAR PUPILS

Several years earlier at age 9, Howell first discovered dance through films such as You Got Served and Step Up and started learning the art through YouTube videos. While he describes those movies as “inspiring and entertaining,” it didn’t register how much he connected with dance until he hit that low emotional point.

graduating high school in 2013, he started Heart and Soul Dance Company.

“I was like, ‘This is what I want to do. There are more people out there are dealing with what I’m dealing with who don’t have the support or have those resources,’” he recalls. “People want to dance, but they don’t feel like they have permission or feel safe to dance. So I want to change that.”

‘IT’S GOT TO MAKE AN IMPACT’

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“After the blackout, I realized I need a way to deal with [my emotions], and I started to pay closer attention to my dancing,” Howell says. “I realized that whenever I’m feeling upset or even when I’m not feeling upset, I dance, and it always makes me feel more confident in myself. It makes me feel safe. I feel more myself when I’m dancing than any other time, so I ran with that.”

He then moved to New Jersey to live with his mother and was welcomed by a larger, more passionate dance community. Howell says these connections put him “in the right places at the right time,” and while performing at such colleges as Montclair State University, he was noticed by school staff who began inviting the teenager to perform, present and teach independently. After moving back to North Carolina and

Howell moved to Asheville in early 2019 and that December performed a showcase at The Orange Peel. While he says he and the audience had fun, he also had a gnawing sense that he didn’t do his part as an artist.

“I felt like I entertained them, but I didn’t feel like I had impacted someone’s life. I didn’t feel like I had done something that was going to make a change or that gave a particular message,” Howell says.

“Dance is already looked at as just a speculative piece of entertainment. It’s not really valued so much, and it has so much to offer. So, at that point, I was like, ‘Moving forward, any time I teach

Among those whose lives have benefited from Howell’s teaching is Scotti Marsh, who lives in the Chatham County town of Bear Creek. Inspired by videos on YouTube, he took a series of freestyle hip-hop classes at the instructor’s former studio when both lived in Morganton, learning techniques such as popping and a range of styles within hip-hop (e.g., tutting and animating). Looking back, Marsh notes that the experience gave him a more positive outlook on life and made him feel connected to people around the world who partake in the art form.

“Dance helps express how you feel and helped me let go of a lot of negativity,” he says.

Former Asheville resident Holly McCoy likewise had a transformative experience working with Howell. Two years ago, she studied hip-hop with him at WNC Dance Academy twice a week for a month.

“I had always wanted to give dance a try but never had the courage to take the first step, so to speak,” McCoy recalls. “Then in 2022, I was on a journey to better health when I decided to give dance a try. My vision was a huge dance party with all of my close friends, cele-

POSITIVITY NOW: Melvin AC Howell spreads the joy of dance at LEAF Downtown in 2021. Photo courtesy of the artist

brating reaching my weight-loss goal. I wanted the event to feature a surprise choreographed dance, but I didn’t know any dance instructors personally.”

McCoy’s personal trainer, Cynthia Sims, recommended Howell. And though an unexpected move to Limestone, Tenn., negated McCoy’s dance party plans, she says the time spent under Howell’s tutelage continues to enhance her life.

“At times, I had to dance through the fear, but it turned out to be an experience that taught me one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned to this point,” she says. “Fear doesn’t keep me safe — it keeps me stunted. My best life is on the other side of fear. So now, when opportunities arise that stretch me outside of my comfort zone, I don’t retreat in fear. Instead, I remember the fun, fulfillment and freedom I found on that studio floor, and I dance, right on through to the next adventure.”

McCoy continues, “Dance was the perfect teacher for learning this lesson because the only way to fail at dance is to refuse to try.”

LET’S GET IT STARTED

Howell’s HASdance.com work so far is focused on beginner adults who have some or no dance experience but want to feel more confident and comfortable in their bodies. The current core styles he’s teaching revolve around hip-hop and commercial dance, the fundamentals of which, he says, are adaptable to numerous occasions.

“They’re styles that they can take when they go to a wedding or go out dancing — or maybe they’re just dancing at home and they want to feel more rhythm,” he says. “It allows people that freedom of dancing to virtually any music and taking these same foundations. It helps them build a mind-body connection around rhythm and understanding beat patterns and learning how to control your movements to flow better with that music.”

As the website grows and more people begin requesting other styles, Howell plans to collaborate with experts in other areas, such as local tap dancer Amanda Hoyte. But now and in the future, it’s important for him to keep access affordable.

“There are a lot of communities in Asheville, like Hillcrest, where in-person classes are not an option for so many reasons — cost, demographic, maybe they don’t feel comfortable or they don’t have transportation,” he says. “This is one of the options where these communities can take advantage of dance, and they can dance at home or they can take it to school. It’s easier

to learn, and it teaches things that they can take and make their own.”

The $9 per month membership includes access to all existing classes — Howell adds at least five new ones every month — live classes via Zoom and access to the HAS Dance global community via various online platforms.

“You can reach out to these communities and share videos of your progress or ask for tips,” he says. “I think that’s a huge thing because dance is a language of community storytelling, so to have that community sets me apart from other online classes. You just feel so much support from all over.”

Howell says he intentionally goes at a “superslow” pace in the classes, sometimes breaking one choreography piece into two or three videos so it’s not overwhelming for students. And regardless of where dancers are in their progress, they also have direct access to their teacher — at almost any hour.

“It could be someone across the world and it’s, like, 3 a.m. and they send me something. If I happen to hear that ‘ding’ and happen to look at my phone, I’ll probably reply right away because I get so excited about sharing the wealth of knowledge I’ve gained with other people,” Howell says.

To learn more, visit avl.mx/dj8. X

SKY’S THE LIMIT: Dance has taken Melvin AC Howell, center, around the world. Above, he performs as the lead dancer on the Royal Caribbean ship Symphony of the Seas, which toured through Spain, Italy and France in October 2023.

Photo by Katherine Richardson Photography

What’s new in food

Chefs showcase Utopian Seed Project’s work in Trial to Table Live Fire event

People may arrive at Utopian Seed Project’s Trial to Table Live Fire event on Saturday, April 27, unfamiliar with pudgy pies, but thanks to Tiffany Schultz’s dessert course, they may develop the same love for the treat the head chef at Laughing Seed has had since childhood.

“People here don’t know them, so it must be a Midwest thing,” she says with a laugh. “I grew up eating pudgy pies every time I went camping.”

Because the Trial to Table events require participating chefs to use produce items provided by Utopian Seed Project — in this case, Ultracross winter squash, harvested from field trials last fall and stored — this pudgy pie will be next level, a challenge Schultz loves.

In its rudimentary form, a pudgy pie is two slices of sandwich bread placed in opposite sides of a cast-iron press, filled with what’s on hand, closed and cooked over the campfire, just as Schultz will do. She will use the squash plus roasted okra seeds and turmeric to bake her pan de mie, which she translates to “bright yellow, squishy squash bread.” The filling will be local goat cheese sweetened with a syrup made with Japanese knotweed and plum blossoms from her own plum trees, plus chyawanprash, an Indian ayurvedic jam made with local foraged berries, honey and ghee.

“It will be tart, spicy, florally, a little bit of everything in one pudgy pie — basically, a fancy grilled cheese sandwich,” she explains. Schultz’s second dish will be smoked s’more squash brownies with marshmallow fluff made from ube (purple yams). “I have eaten my weight in bread, goat cheese, brownies and purple fluff in the testing process,” she says.

The other three chefs at the event — Michelle Bailey, AJ Gregson (Black Bear BBQ) and Suzy Phillips (Gypsy Queen Cuisine) — will each prepare two savory dishes using the squash.

Trial to Table Live Fire takes place 12:30-3 p.m. Saturday, April 27, at Hickory Nut Gap Farm, 57 Sugar Hollow Road, Fairview. Suggested ticket price is $50 per person, with the option to pay what you can. For more information, visit avl.mx/dlj.

Waste not

Three local chefs will be throwing down instead of throwing away

FIRED UP: Laughing Seed executive chef Tiffany Schultz will join fellow Asheville chefs Suzy Phillips, Michelle Bailey and AJ Gregson in preparing dishes for the Utopian Seed Project’s upcoming Trial to Table Live Fire event. The menu will showcase Ultracross winter squash grown in the nonprofit’s 2023 crop trials. Photo courtesy of Schultz

on Sunday, April 28, at Food Waste Solutions’ popular Taste It, Don’t Waste It! Chef’s Challenge. The third annual awareness builder and fundraiser for the volunteer-based Western North Carolina food waste reduction group will take place 2-5 p.m. at Devil’s Foot Beverage Co.’s taproom, The Mule.

Chefs Don Paleno (DJ’s Pickles), Bobby Nagelberg (Bridge & Tunnel Coffee Co.) and Corey Ballentine (Goldfinch Cocktails & Kitchen) will each prepare one dish using unwanted, “ugly” produce to compete for the coveted trophy. “Vendors at the WNC Farmers Market will pack essentially mystery boxes of surplus produce,” says FWS event coordinator Matthew Vilevac. “The chefs will also use things from their own pantry for their dish, and attendees will vote for their favorite using a token.”

The Mule will offer free tasting flights of Devil’s Foot craft sodas and will create a special mocktail for the event using surplus produce that will be for sale, along with other beverages.

There is no cost to attend, but suggested donations of $10-$20 support FWS’s work and are gratefully accepted.

The Mule is at 131 Sweeten Creek Road. Register at avl.mx/dlk.

Gone fishin’

On Sunday, April 28, at Old North Farm in Shelby, farmer Jamie Swofford and pie baker Keia Mastrianni will host the third annual Fish Pickin’, where a fish camp and pig pickin’ meet and eat. Asheville chefs J Chong, Silver Iocovozzi and Camille Cogswell will be preparing the spread, along with Charlotte’s Awo Amenumey, Atlanta’s Maricela Vega, Vicki Basnight from Lone Cedar Café in Nags Head and Anna Shellem, founder and owner of Shell’em Seafood Co. in Wrightsville Beach.

Tickets are $125 per person and include two drinks (choices from Free Range Brewing and Old North Shrub), seafood appetizers, hush puppies, farm salad, multiple preparations of fresh fish and dessert. Seatings are at 2 and 4 p.m.

Old North Farm is at 3458 Crowder Ridge Road, Shelby. To reserve a seat, visit avl.mx/dlm.

Top 10

On Sunday, April 28, the Crow & Quill will look back fondly upon 10 years of booze (it boasts over 1,000

spirits and 500 whiskeys), cozy corners, dim lights, decadence, burlesque, blind dates, breakups, freaks, geeks, live music and that time West of Roan brought its puppetry to the beloved downtown speakeasy.

The celebration will take place 7-11 p.m. and will include free food, drink specials, music by DJ Dr. Filth and more. Admission is on a sliding scale of $5-$10.

Crow & Quill is at 106 N. Lexington Ave. For more information, visit avl.mx/dlh.

Walk this way

Take a stroll 2-4 p.m. Sunday, April 28, with ethnobiologist Marc Williams through the community garden at the Tempie Avery Montford Community Center (named for formerly enslaved midwife and nurse Tempie Avery, who after the Civil War was bequeathed the property where the community center now stands.)

In partnership with the Bountiful Cities Community Garden Network, Williams will lead participants on an edible plant walk, identifying and sampling both cultivated and wild edible plants in the garden.

which has created a collection of bonbons called Mountain Mamas in collaboration with six female founders of Asheville food and beverage businesses.

The momtrepreneurs and their bonbon babies are Katie Button (Cúrate), sangria roja; Neomi Negron (Buggy Pops), coconut cinnamon; Molly Irani (Chai Pani), mango lassi; Ginger Frank (Poppy Popcorn), butter almond toffee; Sara Stender Delaney (Sarilla), hibiscus green tea; and FBC co-founder and co-owner Jael Skeffington, with chocolate chip cookie.

The signature French Broad-blue boxes contain 12 or 24 bonbons and can be ordered to be shipped the weeks of April 29 or May 6.

For details and to order, visit avl.mx/dlg.

The Jerk(s)

The garden is at 34 Pearson Drive. The event is free to attend, but advance registration is encouraged, and donations are accepted at avl.mx/dld.

Flight plan

Expect no delays, equipment failures, crying babies or air rage on the Beer Flight Drag Queen Bar Crawl presented by the nonprofit Bearded Lady Productions, whose entertainment events raise money for local organizations that promote the acceptance and equity of all people. The fundraiser, for ages 21 and older, took off on April 19 and will zip around town two Fridays a month through the summer.

The two-hour walking tours are led by a drag queen flight attendant and include flights of craft brews, wines, seltzers and sours at downtown breweries. Tickets for the next flight on May 3 and subsequent zany trips are $65-$75 and include all beverages, entertainment and photo ops. Groups receive a discount.

To book your flight or see details on other queenly events, visit avl.mx/dlf.

Mama mia

You can thank us later for the reminder that, in three Sundays, it will be Mother’s Day. So get thee to a card store, flower shop, brunch reservation link or French Broad Chocolates,

No joke — on April 1, Waynesville Soda Jerks rolled out its new ginger soda and cocktail mixer, available — like all its products — in bottles and kegs. Founded in 2013 by Megan Brown and Chris Allen, the company is committed to local farmers, using their produce and products to craft flavors like blueberry basil, apple rosemary and strawberry rhubarb.

The new ginger soda is a mix of locally grown ginger and peppers, cane sugar and lime zest with no artificial colorings, ingredients or preservatives. The ginger is sourced from Rayburn Farm in Barnardsville; Smoking J’s Fiery Foods in Candler provides the cayenne and habanero peppers.

For details, visit avl.mx/dli.

Orange you thirsty?

Devil’s Foot Beverage Co. has released a quartet of craft sodas in partnership with four Asheville music venues. The Soundwave Series launched in March with the Orange Peel Sparkling Orange, small-batch-brewed with navel and blood oranges and organic limes, lightly sweetened with organic cane sugar and South Carolina honey. Rabbit Rabbit Sparkling Cran-Lime is brewed with fresh cranberries and organic limes; Salvage Station Sparkling Mango is made with fresh mangos and organic lemons; and the Don’t Call Me Shirley Cherry Ginger Beer, a partnership with The Grey Eagle, uses organic ginger root and fresh-pressed sour cherries.

All four sodas are available at the venues, as well as at Devil’s Foot taproom, The Mule.

The Mule is at 131 Sweeten Creek Road, Suite 10. Find Devil’s Foot products at avl.mx/ajm.

Around Town

RAD gets a new gallery

Local artist Jaime Byrd will unveil a new gallery dedicated to her work in the River Arts District on Friday, May 3, 4-7 p.m.

The Jaime Byrd Art Gallery will be in the recently renovated Aura Arts building, a 2,000-square-foot gallery that showcases over 70 regional artists and has a cafe in the works.

Byrd is a contemporary oil painter and Emmy Award-nominated film editor who has been creating art in Western North Carolina for over 25 years. Her landscapes are known for their rich colors and textures, as well as their prominent subterranean features.

The gallery opening marks a milestone in Byrd’s journey as an artist. “We’re really excited to now have our permanent home in the River Arts District,” says Byrd’s husband, gallery manager and artistic collaborator

Adam Cohen.

“In addition to having a fabulous large space with natural lighting to showcase Jaime Byrd’s artwork, we are now working with a fabulous landlord that is incredibly supportive, which allows Jaime to focus more on creating her art instead of wondering if we’re going to have to find a new space again,” Cohen continues. “Jaime finally feels like she has a gallery and studio space that will keep her creative for years to come.”

The grand opening will be an interactive artistic experience. Attendees are encouraged to bring their cellphones to download the augmented reality app for an immersive exploration of Byrd’s multimedia artwork. The event is free, and food and wine will be available.

The Jaime Byrd Gallery is at 375 Depot St., Suite 105. For more information visit avl.mx/9fv.

New Wilma Dykeman children’s book

On April 16, Reycraft Books released Of Words and Water, a children’s book about the life of Wilma Dykeman written by Shannon Hitchcock and illustrated by Sophie Page.

Dykeman’s life as an environmentalist and her ability to tie environmental protection to economic development made her an important voice in the Appalachian region she called home. The educational book highlights Dykeman’s love for the French Broad River and her efforts to protect it. Written for all ages, it emphasizes Dykman’s legacy as a woman who stood up for what she believed in and memorialized the region with her words.

“Reading Of Words and Water reminded me of the times Ms. Dykeman, and

later her sons, would carry boxes of her books into our bookstore,” says LindaMarie Barrett, executive director of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. “I wish I’d known more about her then and am grateful to Of Words and Water for reminding me of her quiet strength and environmental advocacy.”

Hitchcock resides in Asheville and graduated from Appalachian State University. Of Words and Water is the fourth book in her nonfiction storyteller series, which chronicles the lives of various influential figures and artists from Appalachia, including Ray Hicks and Jean Ritchie. She is also the author of many award-winning children’s books, including Dancing in the Storm, Flying Over Water, Ruby Lee & Me and The Ballad of Jessie Pearl, among others. For more information visit avl.mx/dly.

Baszile named Dykeman writer-in-residence

Speaking of Wilma Dykeman: UNC Asheville announced Natalie Baszile as the Wilma Dykeman writer-in-residence for fall 2024. The residency offers selected writers two months in the historic Dykeman homestead in Weaverville.

According to a press release, Baszile lives in San Francisco and looks forward to the gift of time and space the residency provides. A graduate of Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers, she has written both fiction and nonfiction, and her novel Queen Sugar was produced as a miniseries for the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Baszile’s latest novel, Good People, is forthcoming from Pamela Dorman Books, and she hopes to adapt this work for the screen as well. She is also planning to refine Harvest, a documentary she’s been working on that follows a pair of fourth-generation African American farmers in Louisiana to explore “African Americans and land from Emancipation to the present.”

For more information visit avl.mx/dlx.

UNCA professor pens play

A God in the Waters, a new play by award-winning playwright, poet, memoirist and fiction writer David Brendan Hopes, will run ThursdaySaturday, May 9-18, 7:30 p.m., at the Bebe Theater.

Hopes teaches literature at UNC Asheville and is known to theatergoers for his plays Washington Place and Ben & Angela, which ran at the Bebe Theater last fall.

A God in the Waters follows an egocentric maestro whose family life is upended at the reception for his final performance, exploring themes of family and the making of art. “I’d been working with the Asheville Symphony for a while, and the two things blended together,” says Hopes. “What surprised me most was to discover, through the course of writing, that I really do have strong opinions about what makes good art and bad art. I’d thought that doing it and having opinions about it were somehow inimical.”

Hopes has been an Asheville resident for over 40 years, and the region is responsible for his turn as a writer.

ARTIST ARRIVES: Jaime Byrd has opened the Jaime Byrd Art Gallery in the River Arts District. Photo courtesy of Jaime Byrd

“I never wrote plays or prose until I came here, but whether that was in the air here or just a natural progression is difficult to know. My recent novels The Falls of the Wyona and The One with the Beautiful Necklaces have a fully Appalachian setting, so certainly in the sense of scenery it has made a whole lot of difference.”

A God in the Waters is produced by the Sublime Theater. Seating for the six performances is limited.

The Bebe Theater is at 20 Commerce St. For information visit avl.mx/dlz.

Artists take their skills to market

A Craft in the Courtyard meet-andgreet will be held in a Biltmore Village courtyard on Thursday, April 25, 5-7 p.m.

Artsville USA, Wink Salon, Further Boutique and Fig restaurant are coming together to offer local craftmakers a space for exposure and collaboration. The function, which is part of Artsville’s Virtual Gallery of Artists initiative, will feature jewelry artists Tiffany Payne and Elizabeth Walton, ceramicist Kurt Ross, glassblower Sarah Garrard and weaver Emelie Weber Wade

The artists at Craft in the Courtyard have received a three-month intensive in marketing and branding as part of the VGA mentorship program. The program equips artists with the business skills and relationships that are essential to building an artistic career.

“Being an artist can be very isolating,” says Artsville USA founder and Executive Director Louise Glickman. “We work with these artists to help them create a sustainable business by engaging with and talking to other artists. They need colleagues, and to come out of their studios, and we’re helping them to do that.”

Further Boutique will present Michael Kors’ spring ’24 runway collection with a collection of vintage pieces, and Wink will have a team of experts available to discuss hair products and care. Artsville representatives will be present to discuss their artist initiatives and to provide refreshments.

Craft in the Courtyard will be held at 18 Brook St. For more information about the event or Artsville mentorship programs, visit avl.mx/b61.

Gallery hosts reception for Lubelski exhibit

Tracey Morgan Gallery is hosting an opening reception for Things We Think We Know, a solo exhibition

by visual artist Nava Lubelski, on Friday, April 26, 6-8 p.m.

Lubelski’s latest collection is mixed-media, primarily composed of stitching and collage pieces, incorporating damaged and unused fragments and materials from other projects. The collection gives a nod to other art forms such as paper cutting, graffiti and kintsugi, celebrating the everyday imperfections of the modern world.

Lubelski lives in Asheville, though her work has been exhibited nationally. She has received grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts and the N.C. Arts Council.

Tracey Morgan Gallery is at 22 London Road. For more information visit avl.mx/prxt.

Leicester musician featured on NPR

Bayla Davis, a 16-year-old banjo player from Leicester, will be featured on NPR’s “From the Top,” a nationally syndicated radio program, on Monday, April 29.

The episode was recorded at Asheville’s Echo Mountain Recording Studio as part of the program’s Where Music Lives initiative, which discusses rural musicians who invest in learning classical music without access to the resources provided by larger cities. Davis will also participate in the program’s Learning and Media Lab, which provides young musicians with opportunities to collaborate with and learn from a network of industry professionals.

Davis’ clawhammer playing style has already earned her recognition through the International Bluegrass Music Association Foundation’s Fletcher Bright Memorial Grant and Béla Fleck’s Blue Ridge Banjo Camp.

MOVIE REVIEWS

SASQUATCH SUNSET: The Zellner Brothers’ bizarre comedy features lush natural scenery and is steeped in Bigfoot lore, but its goofy schtick grows old fast.

Grade: B-minus

—

Edwin Arnaudin

For more information, visit avl.mx/dm0.

Home concert raises funds for RiverLink

Simeon Hickman and Louly Peacock are hosting a concert on Sunday, April 28, with 100% of proceeds supporting RiverLink. The concert will be the final performance in a nine-week series that has seen over 70 musicians perform.

Over the past three years, the couple, who are local musicians themselves, have hosted a variety of charity events out of their Montford living room, which they named Peacock Palace. The concert series was designed to spotlight local musicians while supporting important causes and has raised over $13,000, according to Hickman. Recipients include Brother Wolf, Asheville City Schools Foundation, the Ukrainian Red Cross Society, Our VOICE and Helpmate.

Peacock Palace is at 301 Pearson Drive. To learn more about the event, contact Hickman at simeonhickman@ gmail.com.

— Oby Arnold  X

April Stone: Botswana Agate

April Herb: Peppercorn

4/25: MERCURY goes direct Reader: Jessica

4/26: Reader: Krysta 12-7

Beginner’s Tarot, Pt. Two 4-5

4/27: SPRING PSYCHIC FAIRE 11-5 Music Concert

w/ Edna Meren King 5-7:30

4/28: Reader: Andrea 12-5

4/30: Reader: Byron 1-5

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24

ASHEVILLE MUSIC

HALL

Stand-Up Comedy

Open Mic, 8pm

ASHEVILLE PIZZA & BREWING CO.

Trivia Trivia!, 6:30pm

BARLEY'S TAPROOM & PIZZERIA

Trivia Night w/ PartyGrampa, 7pm

DIFFERENT WRLD

Everybody But You Bro

Open Mic, 6pm

EULOGY

Santiago y Los Gatos (indie-rock, pop, soul), 6:30pm

FLEETWOOD'S Busy Weather, The Carolyn & Eaten By Snakes (punk), 8pm

FRENCH BROAD

RIVER BREWERY

Saylor Brothers & Friends (jamgrass), 6pm

HI-WIRE BREWING

BIG TOP

Trivia, 7pm

HIGHLAND BREWING CO.

Well-Crafted Music w/ Matt Smith, 6pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Old Time Jam, 5pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

Bluegrass Jam w/Derek McCoy & Friends, 6pm

ONE STOP AT

ASHEVILLE MUSIC

HALL

Parker Zelter & Friends (Americana), 10pm

ONE WORLD

BREWING WEST

Latin Night Wednesday

w/DJ Mtn Vibez, 8pm

SALVAGE STATION

Hayes & The Heathens (rock, blues, country), 8pm

SHAKEY'S Sexy Service Industry Night, 10pm

SHILOH & GAINES Trivia Wednesdays, 7pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA Poetry Open Mic, 8pm

THE DRAFTSMAN BAR + LOUNGE Trivia Nights, 7pm

THE GREY EAGLE

• Patio: Sara Jean Kelley (Americana, pop, country), 5:30pm

• Wisp (shoegaze, indie), 8pm

THE JOINT NEXT

DOOR

Circus Mutt (Folk, Americana), 7pm

THE MONTE VISTA HOTEL Music Wednesdays, 5pm

THE RAILYARD BLACK MOUNTAIN Dan's Jam (bluegrass), 7pm

URBAN ORCHARD CIDER CO. SOUTH SLOPE Trivia, 6:30pm

THURSDAY, APRIL 25

ASHEVILLE GUITAR

BAR

The Travelling Pilsburys (acoustic), 7:30pm

BATTERY PARK BOOK

EXCHANGE

Mike Kenton & Jim Tanner (jazz), 5:30pm

CROW & QUILL

Naomie April & The Moments (soul, pop & jazz), 8pm

CULTURA

Vinyl Night w/DJ Lil Meow Meow, 8pm

EDA'S HIDEAWAY Karaoke, 8pm

EULOGY

Pageninetynine w/ Massa Nera, Private Hell & Serrate (punkrock, metal), 8pm

FRENCH BROAD

RIVER BREWERY

Jerry's Dead (Grateful Dead & JGB Tribute), 6pm

AUSSIE PSYCH-ROCK: On Thursday, May 2, Australian psychedelic rock band Pond performs on The Orange Peel’s stage, starting at 8 p.m. Utah-based artist 26fix opens the night with a unique blend of psychedelic alternative pop. Photo courtesy of Michael Tartaglia

HI-WIRE BREWING

BIG TOP

Survey Says, 7pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Sour Bridges (bluegrass), 7pm

LAZOOM ROOM BAR & GORILLA

Modelface Comedy

Presents: Simon Fraser, 7:30pm

LEVELLER BREWING CO.

Lou Turner & Little Mazarn (experimental, folk), 7pm

LOOKOUT BREWING CO. Music Bingo Thursdays, 6:30pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

Collin Cheek (Appalachian, Americana), 7pm

ONE WORLD

BREWING

Kid Billy (Americana, blues, indie-folk), 8pm

ONE WORLD

BREWING WEST

Hammock Theory (reggae, funk), 8pm

SALVAGE STATION

Saint Asonia w/Kingdom Collapse (rock, alt-metal, post-grunge), 8pm

SHILOH & GAINES Karaoke Night, 8pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA

Stand Up Comedy for Your Health, 8pm

THE GREY EAGLE

• Patio: The Lads (rock, blues), 5:30pm

• Scott H. Biram (country, metal, bluegrass), 8pm

THE JOINT NEXT DOOR

Creative Differences (Americana, rock), 7pm

THE ODD Elixir Magic Burlesque, 9pm

THE ORANGE PEEL

Nora En Pure (electronic, deep-house), 9pm

THE OUTPOST

Quinn Sternberg & Danny Ianucci Trio (jazz, rock), 8pm

THE RAILYARD BLACK

MOUNTAIN Dan Signor (rock, soul), 7pm

THE STATION BLACK

MOUNTAIN Mr Jimmy (blues), 6:30pm

URBAN ORCHARD

CIDER CO. SOUTH SLOPE

Bachata Thursdays, 8:30pm

WICKED WEED

BREWING

Hope Griffin Trio (Americana, folk), 5pm

FRIDAY, APRIL 26

27 CLUB

Lilith Rising, 4th Horse, Post Chaos & Wesley Lies (rock, metal, 8pm

ASHEVILLE BEAUTY

ACADEMY

P*rn Star Karaoke, 10pm

ASHEVILLE GUITAR

BAR

Mr Jimmy's Friday Night Blues, 7:30pm

BOTANIST & BARREL

TASTING BAR + BOTTLE SHOP

Jason Daniello (electronic), 6:30pm

CATAWBA BREWING CO. SOUTH SLOPE

ASHEVILLE

• Comedy at Catawba: Carter Deems, 7pm

• Roll of the Dice:

A Comedy Show of Chance, 9pm CROW & QUILL

Meschiya Lake & The Moodswingers (jazz), 8pm

EDA'S HIDEAWAY

Pleasure Chest (blues, soul, rock), 8pm

EULOGY

• Kooley High w/C.

Shreve, Mike L!ve & SK

The Novelist (hip-hop, R&B, rap), 8pm

• Dance Floor Rapture w/DJ Lil Meow Meow, 10pm

FLEETWOOD'S

Those Dogs, The Discs & Colossal Human Failure (jazz, rock)), 9pm

GINGER'S REVENGE

CRAFT BREWERY & TASTING ROOM

Office Trivia Olympics, 7pm

HIGHLAND BREWING

CO.

Sender (jazz, indie), 7pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

The Trusty Hucksters (swing-jazz, rock), 9pm

LA TAPA LOUNGE

Open Mic w/Hamza, 8pm

MAD CO. BREW HOUSE

Chris Jamison (Americana, folk), 6pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

Arnold Hill (alt-rock), 8pm

ONE WORLD BREWING

Jake Burns (reggae, rock, folk), 8pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

Living Light, Medisin & Purrriestess (electronic, dance, dubstep), 9pm

SALVAGE STATION

LAMP w/Russ Lawton, Scott Metzger & Ray Paczkowski (jazz), 8pm

SHILOH & GAINES

Andrew Thelston Band (funk, rock), 9pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA

Lo Wolf W/Elizabeth

McCorvery & Dave Desmelik (rock, Americana, blues), 9pm

THE GREY EAGLE

Patio: Barrett Davis (folk), 5:30pm

THE JOINT NEXT DOOR

Hope Griffin Trio (Americana, folk), 7pm

THE ORANGE PEEL

Ty Segall (alt-indie, psych-rock), 9pm

THE OUTPOST

The Lumpy Heads (Phish tribute), 7pm

THE RAILYARD BLACK

MOUNTAIN

Ashley Heath (Americana, blues), 7pm

THE STATION BLACK

MOUNTAIN

Vaden Landers (country), 6pm

WXYZ BAR AT ALOFT

DJ Rab!d Ron!e, 7pm

SATURDAY, APRIL 27

27 CLUB

Drk Wtr, Paddy B, Systematic Devastation, Fifty Flies & The Sawtooth Pack (metal), 8pm

ASHEVILLE CLUB

Mr Jimmy (blues), 6pm

ASHEVILLE GUITAR BAR

The Tallboys (rock, reggae), 7:30pm

ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL

Mystic Grizzly, Arcturus & Trinity Justice (electronic, psybass, glitch-hop), 10pm

BATTERY PARK BOOK EXCHANGE

Dinah's Daydream (jazz), 6pm

CORK & KEG

Bayou Diesel (Cajun, Zydeco), 8pm

DSSOLVR

Last Call: Late Night Comedy Showcase, 10:30pm

EDA'S HIDEAWAY

Sean Newman (bluegrass, country), 8pm

EULOGY

• Don't Tell Comedy: South Slope, 7pm

• Dance Underground w/In Plain Sigh, Jericho & Bunsen Burner (EDM, garage, house), 9pm

FLEETWOOD'S The Dahmers & Fast Eddy (rock'n'roll, garage punk), 9pm

GINGER'S REVENGE CRAFT BREWERY & TASTING ROOM

Jody Carroll (Americana, folk, blues), 6pm

HIGHLAND BREWING CO.

Dysfunktone (funk), 6pm

HIGHLAND BREWING

DOWNTOWN TAPROOM

Derek Johnson (folk, Americana), 6pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

• Bluegrass Brunch w/ Jackson Grimm, 12pm

• Nobody’s Darling String Band, 4pm

Lydia Hamby (Appalachian, bluegrass), 9pm

LA TAPA LOUNGE

Karaoke, 9pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

Abbey Elmore Band (indie, pop), 8pm

ONE STOP AT ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL

Jammy Pac (Ween tribute), 10pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

• Adrianne Blanks & The Oracles (jazz, rock), 4pm

• Big Fur w/Swansgate (Southern-rock, country, bluegrass), 9pm

SALVAGE STATION

Timbalive (Cuban), 8pm

SHAKEY'S

• Friday Late Nights w/ DJ Ek Balam, 12am

• Partyland Sessions w/ DJ GrimmJoi, 10pm

SHILOH & GAINES

The Late Shifters (Southern-rock, Americana, Appalachian), 9pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA

Azul Zapata w/Emily Musolino (jazz, soul, latin-rock), 9pm

SWEETEN CREEK

BREWING

The Candleers (country), 6pm

THE GREY EAGLE

• Patio: Keturah Allgood (Americana, soul), 5:30pm

• Ruston Kelly (punkrock), 8pm

THE JOINT NEXT DOOR

Laron Huntley & Friends (rock, country), 7pm

THE ODD

Party Foul Drag: Saturday Night Tease, 8pm

THE ORANGE PEEL

Hot in Herre: 2000s Dance Party, 8pm

THE RAILYARD BLACK

MOUNTAIN

Muddy Guthrie (rock, Americana), 7pm

THE STATION BLACK

MOUNTAIN Live Music Saturday Nights, 7pm

WXYZ BAR AT ALOFT

DJ Abu Disarray, 7pm

SUNDAY, APRIL 28

CATAWBA BREWING

CO. SOUTH SLOPE ASHEVILLE

Comedy at Catawba: Tom Delgado, 6:30pm

CORK & KEG

The Horsenecks Sunday Matinee (old-time, Southern), 4pm

EULOGY

Aim High (pop, alt-rock, punk), 8pm

FLEETWOOD'S Best Ever Karaoke w/ Chelsea, 6pm

FRENCH BROAD

RIVER BREWERY

• Reggae Sunday w/ Chalwa, 3pm

• Stephen Marley (reggae), 6pm

GINGER'S REVENGE

CRAFT BREWERY & TASTING ROOM

Jazz Sunday's, 2pm

HIGHLAND BREWING CO.

The Knockin’ Boots (country, honky-tonk), 2pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

• Bluegrass Brunch w/ Bluegrass Brunch Boys, 12pm

• Traditional Irish Jam, 3:30pm

ONE STOP AT ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL

Sun of Stars (bluegrass), 9pm

PISGAH BREWING CO.

Pisgah Sunday Jam, 6pm

RABBIT RABBIT

Red Clay Strays w/Troubadour Blue (country, rockabilly), 7pm

S&W MARKET

Mr Jimmy (blues), 1pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA

Cosmic Appalachian Soul Sundays, 7pm

THE DRAFTSMAN

BAR + LOUNGE

Karaoke Nights w/Lyric, 7pm

THE GREY EAGLE

• Patio: Beth Snapp (folk, Americana), 5:30pm

• The Local Honeys (folk, country), 8pm

THE ODD

K!ng Sh!t Drag Presents: Spr!ng Sh!t, 8:30pm

THE ORANGE PEEL

Sold Out: Pete Davidson, 7pm

THE OUTPOST

Dirty Dead (Grateful Dead tribute), 4pm

THE RAILYARD BLACK MOUNTAIN

Dan Signor (rock, soul), 7pm

MONDAY, APRIL 29

27 CLUB

Karaoke Monday, 9pm

5 WALNUT WINE BAR

CaroMia, Rahm, Iannuci & Jaze Uries (dreampop, soul, R&B), 8pm

HI-WIRE BREWING

RAD BEER GARDEN

Thousands of items to choose from 20% off One Item Expires April 30,

Hot Mic w/Taylor Knighton, 6pm Largest inventory selection in Western North Carolina for over 25 years

HIGHLAND BREWING CO.

Geeks Who Drink Trivia, 6pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Quizzo! Pub Trivia w/ Jason Mencer, 7:30pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

Takes All Kinds Open Mic Nights, 7pm

ONE WORLD BREWING

Open Mic Night, 7:30pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

Mashup Mondays w/ JLloyd, 8pm

THE GREY EAGLE Flight Attendant w/¿WATCHES? & Fantømex (rock, punk, indie), 8pm

THE JOINT NEXT DOOR

Mr Jimmy & Friends (blues), 7pm

THE RIVER ARTS DISTRICT BREWING CO.

Trivia w/Billy, 7pm

TUESDAY, APRIL 30

27 CLUB

Smile More: DJ Night, 9pm

ARCHETYPE BREWING

Trivia Tuesday, 6:30pm

CITIZEN VINYL

Hear Here w/Pink Beds & Caged Affair (rock, indie, experimental), 7pm

EULOGY

The Ballroom Thieves (indie-folk), 8pm

FLEETWOOD'S Punk Record Nite, 8pm

FRENCH BROAD

RIVER BREWERY

Robert's Totally Rad Trivia, 7pm

FUNKATORIUM

Trivia w/Billy, 7pm

HI-WIRE BREWING

Themed Trivia w/Not Rocket Science Trivia, 7pm

LOOKOUT BREWING CO.

Team Trivia Tuesday's, 6:30pm

OKLAWAHA

BREWING CO.

Team Trivia, 7pm

ONE WORLD

BREWING WEST

The Grateful Family Band Tuesdays (Grateful Dead tribute), 6pm

SHILOH & GAINES

Open Mic, 7pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA

Tuesday Night Open Jam, 8pm

THE GREY EAGLE

Aaron Lee Tasjan (country-rock, blues), 8pm

THE JOINT NEXT DOOR

The Lads (rock, blues), 6pm

THE ORANGE PEEL

Sold Out: Waxahatchee w/Good Morning (alt-indie, lo-fi), 8pm

WEDNESDAY, MAY 1

ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL

Billy Allen & The Pollies (rock, funk), 9pm

BARLEY'S TAPROOM & PIZZERIA

Trivia Night w/ PartyGrampa, 7pm

EDA'S HIDEAWAY

Sounding Arrow & Dub Cartel (indie-folk, reggae), 8pm

EULOGY

Sadburn w/Greg Freeman & Sinai Vesell (folk-rock, indie), 8pm

FLEETWOOD'S

The Last Laugh, 9pm

FRENCH BROAD

RIVER BREWERY

Saylor Brothers & Friends (jamgrass), 6pm

HI-WIRE BREWING

BIG TOP Trivia, 7pm

HIGHLAND BREWING CO.

Well-Crafted Music w/ Matt Smith, 6pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Old Time Jam, 5pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

Bluegrass Jam w/Derek McCoy & Friends, 6pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

Latin Night Wednesday w/DJ Mtn Vibez, 8pm

SHAKEY'S Sexy Service Industry Night, 10pm

SHILOH & GAINES Trivia Wednesdays, 7pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA Poetry Open Mic, 8pm

THE DRAFTSMAN

BAR + LOUNGE Trivia Nights, 7pm

THE GREY EAGLE

Chris Smither (folk, blues, jazz), 8pm

THE JOINT NEXT DOOR

Rod Sphere (soul, rock, reggae), 6:30pm

THE MONTE VISTA

HOTEL Music Wednesdays, 5pm

THE ODD Free Terraoke Karaoke Takeover, 9pm

THE ORANGE PEEL Metric (alt-indie, electronic, rock), 8pm

THE OUTPOST Copperhead (Americana-jam), 6pm

THE RAILYARD BLACK MOUNTAIN Dan's Jam (bluegrass), 7pm

URBAN ORCHARD CIDER CO. SOUTH SLOPE Trivia, 6:30pm

THURSDAY, MAY 2

27 CLUB

Heart Break Club

Presents: May Day Burlesque, 9pm

ASHEVILLE GUITAR BAR

MGBs (Americana), 7:30pm

ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL

Joslyn & The Sweet Compression (soul-funk, R&B), 9pm

CROW & QUILL

The Deltaz (blues, Americana), 8pm

EDA'S HIDEAWAY

Karaoke, 8pm

EULOGY

Cigarettes @ Sunset w/ Yesterday's Clothes & Paprika (alt-rock, indie), 8pm

FRENCH BROAD

RIVER BREWERY

Jerry's Dead (Grateful Dead & JGB Tribute), 6pm

HI-WIRE BREWING

BIG TOP Survey Says, 7pm

JACK OF THE WOOD

PUB

• Bluegrass Jam w/ Drew Matulich, 7pm

• Pat Byrne (Irish, Americana), 9:30pm

LAZOOM ROOM BAR & GORILLA

Modelface Comedy

Presents: Ryan Thomas, 8pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

Freeway Jubilee (rock, blues, funk), 7pm

ONE WORLD BREWING

The Knotty G's (Americana), 8pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

Annie in the Water (Americana, indie-rock), 8pm

PISGAH BREWING CO.

The Greenliners (Americana, bluegrass), 6pm

RABBIT RABBIT

Portugal. The Man w/ Reyna Tropical (pop, rock), 7pm

SALVAGE STATION

Get The Led Out (Led Zeppelin tribute), 7:30pm

SHILOH & GAINES

Karaoke Night, 8pm

THE GREY EAGLE

• Patio: Stella Prince w/Old Sap & Jackson Grimm (Americana, folk, country), 5:30pm

• John Paul White (indie-rock, folk, Americana), 8pm

THE JOINT NEXT DOOR

Soul Blue (soul, blues, R&B), 7pm

THE ORANGE PEEL Pond w/26fix (psychrock, indie, electronic), 8pm

THE OUTPOST

Flashback Fringe (psych-rock), 7:30pm

THE RIVER ARTS DISTRICT BREWING CO.

Peggy Ratusz & Kelly Jones (blues), 6pm

THE STATION BLACK

MOUNTAIN Mr Jimmy (blues), 6:30pm

URBAN ORCHARD CIDER CO. SOUTH SLOPE Bachata Thursdays, 8:30pm

WICKED WEED BREWING Stephen Evans (folk, rock), 5pm

Cosmic Appalachian Soul Sundays, 7pm MON: Ping-Pong Tournament, 6pm TUE: Open Jam w/ house band the Lactones, 8pm WED: Poetry Open Mic AVL, 8:30pm/8pm signup 4/25 THUR STAND UP COMEDY, 8pm Feat. Hilliary Begley 4/26 FRI

FREEWILL

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Have you ever gotten your mind, heart, and soul in sweet alignment with the spiritual beauty of money? An opportunity to do that is available. During the next four weeks, you can cultivate an almost mystical communion with the archetype of well-earned wealth. What does that mean? Well, you could be the beneficiary of novel insights and hot tips about how best to conduct your finances. You might get intuitions about actions you could take to bring more riches into your life. Be alert for help from unexpected sources. You may notice that the more generous you are, the more the world’s generosity will flow your way.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Bordering the Pacific Ocean for a thousand miles, Chile’s Atacama Desert is a place of stark and startling beauty. Unfortunately, its pristine landscape is also a dumping ground for vast amounts of discarded clothes that people bought cheaply, wore out quickly, and didn’t want anymore. Is there any other place on earth that more poignantly symbolizes the overlap of sacred and profane? In the coming weeks, Taurus, you will possess a special aptitude for succeeding in situations with metaphorical resemblances to the Atacama. You will have an enhanced power to inject ingenious changes wherever messiness is mixed with elegance, wherever blemished beauty requires redemption, and wherever lyrical truths need to be rescued from careless duplicity or pretense.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): My Gemini friend Alicia thrives on having a quick, acute, whirlingdervish-like intelligence. It’s one of her strong points now, but it wasn’t always. She says she used to be hyperactive. She thought of serenity as boring—“like some wan, bland floral tea.” But after years of therapy, she is joyous to have discovered “a kind of serenity that’s like sweet, frothy hot chocolate spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg.” I’m guessing that many of you Geminis have been evolving in a similar direction in recent months—and will climax this excellent period of relaxing growth in the coming weeks.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): All Cancerians who read this oracle are automatically included on the Primal Prayer Power List. During the next 13 days, my team of 13 Prayer Warriors and I will sing incantations to nurture your vigor, sovereignty, and clarity of purpose. We will envision your dormant potentials ripening. We will call on both human and divine allies to guide you in receiving and bestowing the love that gives your life supreme meaning. How should you prepare for this flood of blessings? Start by having a long talk with yourself in which you describe exactly why you deserve these gifts.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): A meme on Instagram said, “The day I stopped worrying about what other people think of me was the day I became free.” This sentiment provokes mixed feelings in me. I agree it’s liberating not to be obsessed with what people think of us. On the other hand, I believe we should indeed care about how we affect others. We are wise to learn from them about how we can be our best selves. Our “freedom” includes the discernment to know which ideas people have about us are worth paying attention to and which are best forgotten and ignored. In my opinion, Leo, these are important themes for you to ruminate on right now.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia is a holy place for Islam. Jerusalem is the equivalent for Judaism, and the Vatican is for Catholicism. Other spiritual traditions regard natural areas as numinous and exalting. For instance, the Yoruba people of Nigeria cherish Osun-Osogbo, a sacred grove of trees along the Osun River. I’d love it if there were equivalent sanctuaries for you, Virgo — where you could go to heal and recharge whenever you need

BREZSNY

to. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to identify power spots like these. If there are no such havens for you, find or create some.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In my astrological opinion, you are entering a period when you can turn any potential breakdown into a breakthrough. If a spiritual emergency arises, I predict you will use it to rouse wisdom that sparks your emergence from numbness and apathy. Darkness will be your ally because it will be the best place to access hidden strength and untapped resources. And here’s the best news of all: Unripe and wounded parts of your psyche will get healing upgrades as you navigate your way through the intriguing mysteries.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): According to my astrological perspective, you are entering a phase when you could dramatically refine how relationships function in your life. To capitalize on the potential, you must figure out how to have fun while doing the hard work that such an effort will take. Here are three questions to get you started. 1. What can you do to foster a graceful balance between being too self-centered and giving too much of yourself? 2. Are there any stale patterns in your deep psyche that tend to undermine your love life? If so, how could you transform or dissolve them? 3. Given the fact that any close relationship inevitably provokes the dark sides of both allies, how can you cultivate healthy ways to deal with that?

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I feel sad when I see my friends tangling with mediocre problems. The uninspiring dilemmas aren’t very interesting and don’t provoke much personal growth. They use up psychic energy that could be better allocated. Thankfully, I don’t expect you to suffer this bland fate in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. You will entertain high-quality quandaries. They will call forth the best in you. They will stimulate your creativity and make you smarter and kinder and wilder. Congratulations on working diligently to drum up such rich challenges!

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In 1894, a modest Agave ferox plant began its life at a botanical garden in Oxford, England. By 1994, a hundred years later, it had grown to be six feet tall but had never bloomed. Then one December day, the greenhouse temperature accidentally climbed above 68 degrees F. During the next two weeks, the plant grew twice as tall. Six months later, it bloomed bright yellow flowers for the first time. I suspect metaphorically comparable events will soon occur for you, Capricorn. They may already be underway.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Have you felt a longing to be nurtured? Have you fantasized about asking for support and encouragement and mentoring? If so, wonderful! Your intuition is working well! My astrological analysis suggests you would dramatically benefit from basking in the care and influence of people who can elevate and champion you; who can cherish and exalt you; who can feed and inspire you. My advice is to pursue the blessings of such helpers without inhibition or apology. You need and deserve to be treated like a vibrant treasure.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In his book

Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception, Thom Hartmann theorizes that distractibility may have been an asset for our ancestors. Having a short attention span meant they were ever alert for possible dangers and opportunities in their environment. If they were out walking at night, being lost in thought could prevent them from tuning into warning signals from the bushes. Likewise, while hunting, they would benefit from being ultra-receptive to fleeting phenomena and ready to make snap decisions. I encourage you to be like a hunter in the coming weeks, Pisces. Not for wild animals, but for wild clues, wild signs, and wild help.

food. music. beer. community. and maybe a train or two .

Wednesday, 4/24 at 7pm

Dan's Jam - open bluegrass jam

Thursday, 4/25 at 7pm live music with dan signor

Friday, 4/26 at 7pm

live music with ashley heath

Saturday, 4/27 at 7pm live music with muddie guthrie 4.25 thru 4.27 - nfl draft

EVERY PICK FOR ALL NFL TEAMS LIVE AT THE RAILYARD!

Details, food menus and more at railyardblkmtn.com

live music + 15 screens of sports + full bar + tasty eats + ice cream sammies + fun for the family open til 11 pm | kitchen closes 10 pm on fri and sat

Do

have an extra car that needs a new home?

donated car can open the doors to independence, increased income, and higher education for a hardworking member of our community. Vehicles of all types and conditions are welcomed and appreciated! The donation is tax-deductible. The process is simple. The impact is real.

RENTALS

HOMES FOR RENT

ASHEVILLE SHORT-TERM

FURNISHED RENTAL 10 mins to downtown. First home is a 3-2 at $1500 per week or $300 per night. Second home is a 1-1 at $600 per week or $150 per night. 3 night minimum. 828-380-6095

NEW DUPLEX UNIT

FOR RENT

New fully furnished private 1500 sq. ft. 1 bedroom unit in West Burnsville. Easy access to I-26. 45 minutes to Asheville. $1500 long or short term. Utilities included. 2 person maximum. Discount for seniors. Call or text Red at (954) 496-9000

EMPLOYMENT

SKILLED LABOR/ TRADES

TLC SCHOOL FACILITIES AND LAND MANAGER

Maintenance, development of facilities, land. Bachelor's in environmental science, resource/facilities management, or related field. 2 years experience. Knowledge of landscaping, horticulture, sustainable practices. Chainsaw training, engine repair, trail construction, ability to lift 50#. thelearningcommunity.org

SALES/ MARKETING

SALES PROFESSIONAL WORK FOR A LOCAL COMPANY THAT HAS COVERED THE LOCAL SCENE FOR OVER 20 YEARS! This is

a full-time position with benefits in a supportive, team-oriented environment in a community-service, locally-owned business. Ideal candidates are personable, organized, motivated, and can present our company with confidence. Necessary skills include clear and professional communications (via phone, email, and in-person meetings), detailed record-keeping, and self motivation. While no outside sales experience is required, experience dealing with varied and challenging situations is helpful. The position largely entails account development and lead generation (including cold-calling), account management, assisting clients with marketing and branding strategies. If you are a high energy, positive, cooperative person looking to join an independent media organization, please send a resume and cover letter (no walk-ins, please) explaining why you are a good fit for Mountain Xpress to: xpressjob@mountainx. com.

TEACHING/ EDUCATION

KINDERGARTEN/FIRST

GRADE ASSISTANT TEACHER Qualifications: 2 years of experience in elementary classroom, conversational Spanish skills, willing to drive a 14-passenger van daily (to/ from downtown Asheville), bonus coaching middle school XC, flag football, and/or basketball teams! thelearningcommunity.org

PIANO & VOICE TEACHER AT ASHEVILLE MUSIC SCHOOL Asheville Music School is looking for an experienced teacher specializing in both voice

and piano private lesson teaching. Submit resume to info@ashevillemusicschool. org 8282526244 ashevillemusicschool.org

XCHANGE

SPORTING GOODS

CANOE FOR SALE (GRUMMAN) 13 foot all aluminum double ender. Excellent condition. Paddles and truck rear receiver rack included. $380. Text 772-285-3333

HOME IMPROVEMENT

HANDY MAN

HANDY MAN Ex Professional Brewer has 25+ years experience in the trades, with every skill/tool imaginable for all trades with the exception of HVAC. $30 an hour. Carl (828) 551-6000 electricblustudio@gmail. com

ANNOUNCEMENTS

ANNOUNCEMENTS

24/7 LOCKSMITH We are there when you need us for home & car lockouts. We'll get you back up and running quickly! Also, key reproductions, lock installs and repairs, vehicle fobs. Call us for your home, commercial and auto locksmith needs!

1-833-237-1233. (AAN CAN)

AGING ROOF? NEW HOMEOWNER? STORM DAMAGE? You need a local expert provider that proudly stands behind their work. Fast, free estimate. Financing available. Call 1-888-292-8225 Have zip code of property ready when calling! (AAN CAN)

BATH & SHOWER UPDATES

In as little as ONE DAY! Affordable prices - No payments for 18 months!  Lifetime warranty & professional installs. Senior & Military Discounts available. Call: 1-877-510-9918. (AAN CAN)

NEED NEW WINDOWS? Drafty rooms? Chipped or damaged frames? Need outside noise reduction? New, energy efficient windows may be the answer! Call for a consultation & FREE quote today. 1-877-248-9944. You will be asked for the zip code of the property when connecting. (AAN CAN)

PAYING TOP CA$H FOR MEN'S SPORT WATCHES Rolex, Breitling, Omega, Patek Philippe, Heuer, Daytona, GMT, Submariner and Speedmaster. Call 1-855-402-7109 (AAN CAN)

PEST CONTROL

Protect your home from pests safely and affordably. Roaches, Bed Bugs, Rodent, Termite, Spiders and other pests. Locally owned and affordable. Call for service or an inspection today! 1-833-237-1199 (AAN CAN)

STOP OVERPAYING FOR AUTO INSURANCE A recent survey says that most Americans are overpaying for their car insurance. Let us show you how much you can save. Call now for a no obligation quote: 1-866-472-8309

TOP CASH PAID FOR OLD GUITARS! 1920-1980 Gibson, Martin, Fender, Gretsch, Epiphone, Guild, Mosrite, Rickenbacker, Prairie State, D'Angelico, Stromberg. And Gibson Mandolins / Banjos. 1-855-402-7208. (AAN CAN)

WATER DAMAGE CLEANUP & RESTORATION

A small amount of water can lead to major damage and mold growth in your home. Our trusted professionals do complete repairs to protect your family and your home's value! Call 24/7: 1-888290-2264 Have zip code of service location ready when you call! (AAN CAN)

YOU MAY QUALIFY For disability benefits if you have are between 52-63 years old and under a doctor’s care for a health condition that prevents you from working for a year or more. Call now! 1-877-247-6750. (AAN CAN)

GOT AN UNWANTED CAR? Donate it to Patriotic Hearts. Fast free pick up. All 50 States. Patriotic Hearts’ programs help veterans find work or start their own business. Call 24/7: 1-855402-7631. (AAN CAN)