Mountain Xpress 06.21.23

‘NATURE SOLVING NATURE’S PROBLEM’

Goats are being sought out by private companies, local governments and residents to clear properties of invasive species. Unlike other options, these animals create a more environmentally-friendly approach to lawn care. But as property owners have discovered, there’s more to this alternative approach than just letting the goats roam free.

PUBLISHER & EDITOR: Jeff Fobes

ASSISTANT PUBLISHER: Susan Hutchinson

MANAGING EDITOR: Thomas Calder

EDITORS: Lisa Allen, Jessica Wakeman

ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR: Thomas Calder

OPINION EDITOR: Tracy Rose

STAFF REPORTERS: Edwin Arnaudin, Thomas Calder, Andy Hall, Justin McGuire, Sara Murphy, Greg Parlier, Brooke Randle, Jessica Wakeman

COMMUNITY CALENDAR & CLUBLAND: Andy Hall, Braulio Pescador-Martinez

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Mindi Friedwald, Peter Gregutt, Mary Jean Ronan Herzog, Rob Mikulak, Daniel Walton

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS: Mark Barrett, Blake Becker, Morgan Bost, Carmela Caruso, Bill Kopp, Amber Adams Niven, Storms Reback, Daniel Walton, Kay West

PHOTOGRAPHERS:

Staff: Cindy Kunst

Intern: Frances O’Connor

ADVERTISING, ART & DESIGN MANAGER: Susan Hutchinson

LEAD DESIGNER: Scott Southwick

GRAPHIC DESIGNERS: Tina Gaafary, Olivia Urban

MARKETING ASSOCIATES: Sara Brecht, Vicki Catalano, Jamie Knox, Scott Mermel

INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGIES: Hinton Edgerton, Jeff Fobes, Mark Murphy, Scott Southwick

Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. Mountain Xpress is available free throughout Western North Carolina. Limit one copy per person. Additional copies may be purchased for $1 payable at the Xpress office in advance. No person may, without prior written permission of Xpress, take more than one copy of each issue.

To subscribe to Mountain Xpress, send check or money order to: Subscription Department, PO Box 144, Asheville NC 28802. First class delivery. One year (52 issues) $130 / Six months (26 issues) $70. We accept Mastercard & Visa.

CONTACT US: (828) 251-1333

news tips & story ideas to NEWS@MOUNTAINX.COM letters/commentary to LETTERS@MOUNTAINX.COM sustainability news to GREEN@MOUNTAINX.COM a&e events and ideas to AE@MOUNTAINX.COM events can be submitted to CALENDAR@MOUNTAINX.COM

or try our easy online calendar at MOUNTAINX.COM/EVENTS food news and ideas to FOOD@MOUNTAINX.COM

wellness-related events/news to MXHEALTH@MOUNTAINX.COM business-related events/news to BUSINESS@MOUNTAINX.COM

venues with upcoming shows CLUBLAND@MOUNTAINX.COM get info on advertising at ADVERTISE@MOUNTAINX.COM place a web ad at WEBADS@MOUNTAINX.COM question about the website? WEBMASTER@MOUNTAINX.COM find a copy of Xpress DISTRO@MOUNTAINX.COM

WWW.MOUNTAINX.COM FACEBOOK.COM/MOUNTAINX follow us

@MXNEWS, @MXARTS, @MXEAT, @MXHEALTH, @MXCALENDAR, @MXENV, @MXCLUBLAND

WEB: Brandon Tilley

BOOKKEEPER: Amie Fowler

ADMINISTRATION & BILLING: Hinton Edgerton, Mark Murphy

DISTRIBUTION: Susan Hutchinson, Cindy Kunst

DISTRIBUTION DRIVERS: Leah Beck, Marlea Kunst, John McKay, Alexis Miller, Desiree Davis Mitchell, Henry Mitchell, Angelo Santa Maria, Courtney Israel Nash, Carl & Debbie Schweiger, Gary Selnick

COPYRIGHT 2023 BY MOUNTAIN XPRESS

What should we do about homelessness?

Homelessness has become a big issue in Asheville. Actually, it is a big issue around the country. When the pandemic restrictions on evictions ended, people who had been just barely holding on to their housing lost it. We have been increasingly experiencing more and more unhoused people. What is wrong with a country with so much wealth not being able to provide housing for everyone?

The solution most often offered is: “Build more affordable housing.” The fact is that we have plenty of housing; however, much of it is only occupied for a few weeks or months out of the year. Visitors come here to vacation. People with wealth have multiple places to be housed.

And then there are the hotels and Airbnbs with rooms empty much of the time. I doubt there is a time in Asheville when you can’t get a room somewhere. We have tried to take over some of the less attractive hotels for shelter for the unhoused, but then the neighbors scream, “Not in my backyard.” Many of those unhoused might have been your neighbors before some disaster befell them and they were pushed out.

People lose their homes due to foreclosure or eviction. What causes these losses? Often it is medical debt or other unexpected events. Someone loses his job; there is a climate catastrophe; or living from paycheck to paycheck no longer works. The pandemic only made it worse. And when the pause ended, more people were houseless.

How many of the unhoused people have lost their jobs? How many people are working and can’t afford housing? You can’t rent a place unless you can accumulate enough for deposit, first month’s and last month’s rent. That is practically impossible with a minimum-wage job. It is also difficult to get a job if you don’t have an address

and phone number. And if you have no place to get cleaned up, wash your clothes and make yourself presentable.

Still, those of us who have housing resent seeing “tent villages” in our area. We continue to chase people from their temporary homes along the rivers and on unused land. It will discourage tourists who come to fill those hotel rooms and buy food in our restaurants, filling the coffers of those who have the capital to start a business.

We resent the people panhandling downtown or at intersections. We ask, “Why can’t they find a job?” Probably they can’t because they lack an address, adequate facilities to clean up or the ability to work without the security of a home. We say it is their fault for being addicted or in poverty. However, if one has lost one’s job, lost one’s home, perhaps lost the connections that made life livable, it is no wonder that one gives up and takes to using drugs or alcohol to drown

the pain of all that loss. Where are the mental health supports needed to live in this world where poverty is side by side with enormous wealth?

There are many ways that we could address this situation. Presently, Buncombe Decides is asking the tourism council to use some of its money to build affordable housing for service workers. Some have suggested the universal basic income, which has been instituted in several places in the U.S. as an experiment and seems to be quite successful in helping people take a step up. Another suggestion is that we could charge property taxes that reflect the amount of time the property is inhabited. More tax for fewer days occupied. What do you think we should do?

— Kathryn Liss Asheville

Molton cartoon says it all

Congratulations to the artist who drew the cartoon of Ms. Manheimer and Ms. Campbell [“Slow Motion” by Molton, May 31, Xpress]. I shouldn’t say this to those who live by the word, but in this case, one picture is worth a thousand words.

Perhaps it will wake people up to the fact that they really are leading the city over a cliff.

— Marshall De Bruhl Asheville

How can we responsibly reduce the use of fossil fuels?

The book I’m reading isn’t renewable at the library today because

someone else has reserved it. “Great!” I write back to the librarians on the other end of the email chain. It must mean people are paying attention to this issue, hot off the presses, which the Xpress also took a look at in April, at least the campaign toward electrifying everything we ride in and on [“All Charged Up: Is Western North Carolina Ready for the Coming Electric Vehicle Surge?” April 5] and which Matt McClure had some questions about [“How Green Are Electric Vehicles?” April 26, Xpress].

The book is Cobalt Red by Siddarth Kara, and it takes the wind right out of our battery-powered world, where some of us were just beginning to think maybe we had the fossil fuel issue solved, even if it was going to take another generation or two. No solution is as good as it seems in the beginning! Eventually, some kind of limitation is bound to set in. Let’s take the example of electric vehicles since there’s such a big push for them. And how many of us can live without our laptops and cellphones, for that matter?

While feasting in the gravy train of rechargeable batteries, we have become dependent on a process of mineral extraction — at the moment, it’s cobalt ore — trapped in underground veins, most especially in parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kara’s book explains quite graphically how the people of the Congo River and its tributaries have been displaced, impoverished, forced into backbreaking, life-threatening labor, including their children, while the local leaders who learned their cutthroat style from the original predators in the Congo, the armies of King Leopold of Belgium and all the colonizers who followed in their footsteps, ignore the horror.

There are interviews with Kara online — much easier to learn the story than reading the comprehensive study he makes in the book. It doesn’t take much to be convinced. This is what we do, what we are doing. We are plundering the earth and its peoples so that some of us can have it easy for a while.

And one of the ways we try to make it easy for ourselves is to follow ecological choices when we can, like limiting our need for fossil fuels. Not easy, but switching to an electric car, well now, that doesn’t take much “doing” on our part at all. We can vote for electric vehicles for our buses and city vehicles. And we can keep following an endless downturn in resource expulsion, one that we are trying to ignore, instead of setting about the awful, overwhelming,

CARTOON BY RANDY MOLTON

incomprehensible work of redesigning how we live, where we go, who’s responsible — like we haven’t done in millennia, except maybe in small packages of people here and there.

How do we move en masse from our destructive patterns and habits, our expectations that science and engineering will solve it all, that some people will always be at the bottom, oh well …? To reduce the use of fossil fuels, we can try to live near or where we work. Share rides and vehicles. Learn to cook and heat again with wood or, better yet, with modern versions that work on twigs instead of logs. Nourish ourselves on gratitude that we didn’t go all the way to Armageddon riding our Priuses, taking photos with our phones, but learned to settle down and do less, just be less proud witnesses to the beauty of this world and the overwhelming hardships we have managed to endure and allow.

— Arjuna da Silva Black Mountain

Searching for truth about mask studies and more

A letter to the editor published in the April 19 issue [“What the Mask Study Really Said,” Xpress] included several statements that were either incorrect or misleading.

Cochrane did not “correct” the results of the Cochrane Review in question. Instead, it stated its opinion that the conclusions of the study should refer to “interventions to promote mask wearing” rather than “mask wearing” itself. However, opinions are subject to conflict-of-interest pressures, and in this case, it is notable that Cochrane officially partners with the World Health Organization and receives major funding from the National Institutes of Health. Both organizations asserted strongly that masking was an effective way to stop the spread of COVID.

Ironically, the one study that the letter writer championed as proof of masking effectiveness (the “Bangladesh study”) was one in which the researchers were tasked with both promoting mask usage for Bangladeshi policymakers, and evaluating the effectiveness of those promotions with respect to COVID-

related outcomes, a clear conflict of interest.

If you are promoting mask-wearing, then you must communicate the importance of masking for the purpose of preventing COVID transmission. But if your study conclusions do not confirm your claims of effectiveness, then you look a bit foolish, as though the information you distributed was really propaganda, rather than factual. Thus, there is great incentive, at every decision point in the study, to make a decision that favors the claim of mask effectiveness.

To assess that high risk of bias, the Bangladesh study data were re-analyzed by Chikina and others [avl.mx/crz]. They were able to confirm that anomalous differences in sample size were due to study bias, thereby destroying the scientific validity of the Bangladesh study results. Moreover, their unbiased analysis of the data showed there was no valid evidence in the data that masking (or a greater amount of masking) prevented COVID infections, according to the usual scientific standard (95% confidence).

Sadly, the repudiation of the Cochrane Review by Cochrane governance bodies gives only a tiny hint of the unprecedented level of breathtaking censorship that became the new paradigm during the whole sordid COVID affair. Social and mainstream media, political figures, governments, scientific journals, medical licensing boards and academic institutions all participated with gusto, proving that they no longer deserve your trust.

Of all the bad advice and misinformation peddled to you nonstop in the last three years, perhaps the worst advice was that you should not do your own research because you are not smart enough to distinguish between genuine people and hucksters. If you seek out alternative sources of news, you absolutely have the ability to see “red flags,” to understand conflict of interest, to connect the dots and to note who is censoring the data and the truth. And that is exactly why you are dissuaded from doing so.

But how do you find the truth, given a censorship structure that has the goal of destroying the reputations and livelihoods of researchers who

provide tips on the well-known attractions, hidden gems and quirky oddities that make Asheville so beloved.

reach conclusions that differ from the mainstream narrative? For those of you who are willing to think for yourself and trust your own judgment and instincts, I would encourage you to start watching the weekly video episodes posted at TheHighWire.com or the shorter episode segments, such as the recent ones that highlight the stunning censorship and suppression of budesonide and ivermectin, effective COVID treatments that could have saved millions of lives.

Science and censorship cannot coexist. Neither can science and conflict of interest. Follow the money and the censorship, and you will find the truth.

— William Stanish, Ph.D., biostatistics Asheville

Editor’s note: Ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug, is currently not authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of COVID-19, and the National Institutes of Health’s COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel recommends against the use of the drug in the treatment of COVID-19 (avl.mx/cs0).

City should get serious about bearproof bins

Thank you for your article about bear encounters [“Close Encounters

CARTOON BY BRENT BROWN

of the Ursine Kind: Bear-human Conflicts Are Getting More Intense,” June 7, Xpress]. I think one way to increase the number of folks who have bearproof garbage bins is for the city of Asheville to put this high on the priority list and fund it with tourist tax dollars. Businesses need to contribute. The city of Asheville needs to get serious, do more and make the bearproof bins accessible.

If you look at the city’s website about bearproof bins, you will see it is still in pilot project phase. If you want one of these bins, you are put on a waiting list. My neighbor stated that she was on the waiting list for a year and a half!

You also have to sign up by giving your water bill account number. I am a renter and do not have a water bill. Many landlords pay water and trash.

If you buy a bearproof bin yourself, you are looking at paying more than $350. The cost of living here is sky-high — parking, rents and other inflated prices. So it is less likely people will opt to pay that $350-plus for a bin.

This is a citywide issue, a public service issue.

People pay plenty enough in property tax. Stop using tax-dollar income for advertising for more tourism.

— Tamera Trexler Asheville

Down by law

The monumental toppling of Zeb Vance

BY MILTON READY

Frankly, I miss the presence of Zebulon Vance’s granite obelisk, a poignant local landmark on Pack Square for over a century. Whether you’re looking for governors, senators, members of Congress or artists and writers, Western North Carolina really doesn’t have a great many famous Dead White Men or Women or anyone. As a historian, my short list of notables would include Vance, Jeter Pritchard, Robert Reynolds, Wilma Dykeman, David Swain, Thomas Clingman, Frances Goodrich, Floyd McKissick, Lillian “Brother Exum” Clement and one or two others. You can have your own list, but it likely won’t be more than two hands’ worth. The mountains have seldom been important in state and regional affairs.

Moreover, I wish Pack Square hadn’t been historically cleansed by removing such a visible reminder of its past. Instead, perhaps Asheville and Buncombe County should follow the British model of “retaining and explaining” controversial monuments and statuary. Sasha Mitchell of the African American Heritage Commission got it right when she suggested that the monument should be contextualized, not removed.

We live in a time framed by fake news, misinformation, digital tomfoolery, sanitized narratives of the past and outright lies, whereby our history is a bitterly contested, a long-smoldering fire now inflamed by the toppling of monuments like Vance’s. Typically, granite statuary can’t be substantially altered. It either goes or stays. History, however, is far more malleable and can be readily changed.

A MESSY MORAL MIXTURE

Look closely at the rich and powerful people who founded and promoted the Vance Monument Association in 1896. Led by George W. Pack, who had recently moved to Asheville from Cleveland, they included Sen. Mathew S. Quay of Pennsylvania, Sen. Blair Lee of Maryland and businessman James Logan of Massachusetts. Along with Pack’s hefty $2,000 contribution, they raised all but perhaps $200 of the monument’s $3,326 cost. Old

Asheville royalty like Thomas Patton and J.E. Rankin were essentially figureheads on the association’s board, and most mountaineers were indifferent. Those who have the money and power to erect monuments like Vance’s often see them as tools to obscure the real facts of history, in itself a source of misinformation.

Buried with the Vance Monument, you will find buried within it a copper box containing, among other items, a Bible, a muster roll of Vance’s Rough and Ready Guards, an honor roll from the local schools, newly minted U.S. coins and current issues of local newspapers including The Colored Enterprise. Together, these artifacts constitute a microcosm of Asheville’s history. Designed by Richard Sharp Smith, supervising architect of Biltmore Estate, the obelisk was said to be a scaleddown version of Washington’s in the nation’s capital.

Yet perhaps most intriguing is the list of groups that have been involved with Vance’s monument. They include the African American Heritage Commission, Jewish organizations and philanthropic groups like B’nai B’rith, the N.C. Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, American Legion and

the Society for the Historical Preservation of the 26th North Carolina Troops. Together, they illustrate the complicated story of Vance’s life and times. This messy moral mixture included owning slaves and being a Confederate hero, Civil War governor, white supremacist politician and passionate libertarian who, like the late Sen. Sam Irvin Jr., promoted First Amendment rights, especially that of religion. In 2003, local author Steve Rasmussen open-mindedly suggested that the monument should be kept as a “cornerstone for Asheville’s remarkably diverse political views.” Some of those beliefs are downright repellent, yet taken together, they reflect a historical tolerance that is subject to attacks from the right or the left.

CULTURE WARS

Vance’s now hidden blocks of stone still symbolize the monumental divide in America today. Whether the focus is on statues of Dead White Men, Black Lives Matter protests, vaccine mandates or gay rights, all of them represent a continuing cultural war that is a sustained assault on postwar modernism. Since the end of World War II, and most notably during the 1960s, there has been a push to create a society that is more democratic, equal, inclusive and welfare oriented. One of the larger truths in this ongoing “war” is that conservatives are winning, inasmuch as they have “captured” and held “hostage” accounts and narratives of America’s heritage and history, while liberals have yet to fashion a sympathetic alternate narrative. An affirming yet critical appraisal of our heritage and history is both necessary and long overdue.

Retired UNC Asheville history professor Milton Ready lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina. X

MILTON READY

“Vance’s now hidden blocks of stone still symbolize the monumental divide in America today.”

‘Nature solving nature’s problem’

WNC goatscaping services offer sustainable land management

BY EDWIN ARNAUDIN

earnaudin@mountainx.com

According to the slogan of a certain agricultural machinery business, “nothing runs like a Deere.” But for individuals seeking a quieter, more environmentally conscious solution to land management, there’s no substitute for the slow grazing power of a herd of goats.

Sought out by everyone from private companies to local governments to area residents, these cloven-hooved mammals help clear properties of invasive species without the use of harmful chemicals or industrial noise and pollution. But as property owners soon discover, there’s more to this alternative approach than just letting goats roam free.

NO KIDDING

Based in Barnardsville, Megan Naylor launched Mountain Goatscapes in 2014 after returning to her native Western North Carolina from a stint as a raft guide and ranch hand in Idaho. While working on the farm out west, she and her fellow hands were tasked by their boss with managing the property’s thistle problem.

“She wanted us to go around on horseback and dig it up with shovels. It sounds really romantic — it’s not,” Naylor says. “After about three days of that, I said, ‘I’m never going to look at another shovel again.’ My hands were all bloody.”

After a chance encounter with a baby goat at a local feed store, Naylor bought three goats, brought them back to the farm and used them as a

sustainable means of controlling the thistle. When the time came to move back east and rehoming efforts didn’t quite work out the way she’d hoped, Naylor managed to bring one of the goats, Jasper, home with her. Once her Barnardsville neighbors learned of Jasper’s weed-chewing prowess, demand for his services grew, and Naylor saw an opportunity to start her own business.

“I researched it and realized I’m not reinventing the wheel,” she says. “Goats have been used for this for like, 1,000 years. But I thought maybe I can just do a different version and maybe I can do an even better job. There’s plenty of invasives in Western North Carolina.”

Mountain Goatscapes currently sports a herd of 30, and Naylor is able to rent additional goats from friends

if necessary. She accepts any kind of job, from micro-backyards in West Asheville to corporate work to government contracts. Her goats have helped maintain city parks as well as assisted RiverLink and the French Broad Riverkeeper with stream bank restoration work.

Naylor starts booking in the winter but likes to do on-site consultations in early spring or late summer. A visit includes going through a checklist to make sure there aren’t any toxic plants that would be harmful to or even kill the goats; determining the size of the project space; talking with the property owner about the electric netting fence and the solar chargers that power it; and making sure that someone will be living on-site while the goats are there. If the land is in Buncombe County, she’s required to pull a permit through Animal Control.

“I tend to have three or four projects going at once, depending on the size of the projects,” Naylor says. “My job has evolved into wearing all the hats, but mostly doing management and being the front person that talks to clients. And then I go around and do my little rotation.”

These daily checks involve making sure the goats have sufficient water and all the fences are in good shape and determining if she needs to tell someone to please not feed the goats over the fence or, in more extreme circumstances, talk to the city or the Asheville Police Department.

LIVESTOCK IN THE OUTFIELD

Among Mountain Goatscapes’ satisfied clients is Larry Hawkins, general

HERD MENTALITY: Megan Naylor, lead goatscaper for Barnardsville-based Mountain Goatscapes, works with everyone from West Asheville homeowners to the Asheville Tourists. Photo courtesy of Naylor

manager for the Asheville Tourists minor league baseball team. Seeking to clean up the hill behind the outfield wall at McCormick Field, extremely steep terrain that’s not safe for a person to stand and properly maintain the extensive growth of vines, Hawkins looked outside the typical landscaping box — albeit half-seriously at first.

“It initially started as a joke that we needed some goats — until we realized there was actually a company that performs the service,” Hawkins says. “After extensive evaluation of the property and modifications to ensure the safety of the goats, they were able to go to work and do what they do best.”

Hawkins quickly became impressed by how much the herd could accomplish in a few short weeks and was mesmerized by watching “the teamwork they use to reach items that seem out of reach.” As for the Tourists players, they likewise took a shine to their four-legged co-stars.

“They’re like little kids whenever they see the goats,” Naylor says. “It means a lot, too, because it really engages the community. They’re these big, tough guys and they’re all just ‘ooh’ing and ‘ahh’ing over these goats.”

Hawkins describes his experience with Mountain Goatscapes as “nothing short of amazing.” He says that Naylor has been an ideal communicator and that her genuine care for the animals has been evident from the start.

“The goats do a great job,” he says. “The only con I’ve found is sometimes the goats like to eat bark off of specific small trees, and the trees have a tendency to die afterward.”

Occasional bark-stripping is also one of the few qualms that Brock Ashburn, vice president of Highland Brewing Co., has from his experience with grazing goats on the brewery’s East Asheville property. He notes that for many years, well before Highland bought the entire tract in 2012, the 30 acres surrounding the building

and parking lot were neglected. And though plenty of human power was expended in opening up trails and disc golf fairways, the goats have proved essential in clearing steep slopes and hard-to-access areas.

“Our property, though beautiful, has a dizzying array of invasive plants that must go,” Ashburn says.

“Offerings include honeysuckle, multiflora rose, privet, kudzu, bittersweet, poison oak/ivy and English ivy, to name a few. Come to find out, goats love to eat this stuff.”

For his goat needs, Ashburn turned to the married duo Evelia and Alfredo Cedillo, with whom he’d previously worked on Highland’s property-related endeavors. Alfredo procured the goats, and multiple kids have joined the herd along the way.

To support the Cedillos’ efforts, Highland purchased movable solar-powered fencing and currently supplies regularly needed daily materials and provides nightly safe quarters for the goats in an old concrete mechanical room. Corey Harrison, Highland’s land management specialist, also provides frequent support.

“[The goats] are amazing partners that require little maintenance. The mobile fencing is relatively inexpensive and easily installed. If [on-site] nightly confinement is chosen, then there are hay, feed and bedding necessities that need to be considered,” Ashburn says. “The spent material will compost nicely. They can be a bit chatty at times and become quite adamant about treats if you happen to pass by when they are near. But overall, the pros far outweigh the cons.”

SET IT AND (ALMOST) FORGET IT

While goats are certainly low maintenance, Ashburn stresses that they’re not zero-maintenance animals. When the animals finish a CONTINUES ON PAGE 12

section and are rotated to a new spot, humans are needed to clear vines, woody stems and other detritus left behind. And in his words, the goats “occasionally break out of jail” and may start chomping on your garden or a neighbor’s property, so it’s good to be mindful of the kind of damage they’re capable of inflicting.

Hawkins concurs with Ashburn’s assessment and says members of the Tourists staff have come in a couple of times and seen a goat roaming around the field or grounds area.

“You’d better have enough to keep them busy because they get bored and mischievous when they run out of food,” Hawkins says. “All in good fun, but they’re very good at escaping when they aren’t occupied by food.”

Leicester resident Jackie Barnes found out just how much work goes into maintaining grazing goats when he and his partner borrowed a trio of intact billy goats from a landscaper friend. Though Barnes closely manages the annual gardens by their house, pulling weeds by hand daily and judiciously scything down the brush, the farther stretch of their property from the drainage field to the wood line tends to become an impenetrable sea of poison ivy, poison sumac and wild blackberry in the spring and summer.

“In the past, the local electrical company has seen fit to keep this area in shape with a multiyear application of noxious chemicals,” Barnes says. “Since I disagree with the fitness of this strategy and was allowed the opportunity to tend to the area instead — under triennial review — I thought utilizing goats would be a good first step in clearing these more opportunistic, disturbed-area plants to make way for meadow plants to move in from the margins.”

The couple’s responsibilities were limited and mainly consisted of moving the goats’ solar-powered electric fence after the bramble buffet became depleted in each area.

Barnes was soon reminded that “animals are complex creatures with minds of their own” and that when their will aligns with that of humans, as it did in the first few days of having the goats on their property, it can be “a nearly effortless partnership.”

“In those early days, I would come home from my day job, and whole

squares of viny bramble would have been reduced to small piles of goat manure without me ever needing to break a sweat,” Barnes says.

“However, as soon as they figured out that I was an inconsistent electrician and often unable to successfully complete the circuit of my fence setup, the partnership quickly degraded.”

After the illusion of the enclosure had worn away, near-daily escapes and difficult retrievals ensued — “It’s like they’re made out of lead or some other superdense material,” Barnes recalls of his attempts to wrangle the runaways — and they never managed to graze the goats through the whole tract. But two summers later, the areas where the goats did mow the bramble down now enjoy a diversity of native grasses and wildflowers that Barnes says is “greener and more vital from slow-release

goat pellets than any application of ammonium-nitrate could ever yield.”

“Overall, I am a proponent of grazing goats as a method of landscape maintenance. I just think the low ecological impact, added fertilizer benefits and lack of machine noise vastly outweigh any downside,” he says. “That being said, I think it’s just one of those things where, no matter how capable a homesteader you think you are, it might be worth having a professional goat handler regularly on-site to monitor and help adjust their progress.”

Barnes’ broad thinking about environmental conservation is the type of ethical approach that Naylor hopes more people take, regardless of whether they use goats in the process. But with invasive species growing rampant in the region and Naylor wanting to keep Mountain

Goatscapes’ herd to a manageable size, she says there’s room for other similar businesses, which has led to the rise of 2 Studs Ranch in Madison County and A Roxbury Goat Barn, which operates out of Landrum, S.C., but rents its goats for land-clearing jobs in Western North Carolina.

In turn, goatscaping is a growing industry because, in Naylor’s words, “it just makes sense: it’s nature solving nature’s problem.”

“They’re machines. That’s just what they’re made to do. It’s so cool to put them on a lot that you can’t see through, you can’t walk through and people are really overwhelmed by and to turn it into a community garden or somebody’s backyard,” she says. “I love making spaces harmonious with nature so that wildlife is happy and so that it’s beautiful and people want to be there.”

FIELD OF (SUSTAINABLE) DREAMS: A crew of Mountain Goatscapes animals gets to work on the steep hill behind McCormick Field. Photo by Megan Naylor

Outdoors for all

New grant offers support for equity-driven recreation

BY BROOKE RANDLE

brandle@mountainx.com

Matthew Kirby says he’ll never forget the time he took a woman biking in Dupont State Forest as a volunteer with Catalyst Sports, a nonprofit that helps people with disabilities get out into the outdoors. He decided to take a short break in a field and explained the history of the woodland. But within minutes, he was eager to get back on the trail.

He asked the participant, “All right, do you want to go do this trail?’” he remembers. “And she said, ‘I just kind of want to hang out here, because I’ve never been in a forest before.’”

That memory still hits Kirby deeply, he says, because it demonstrates so clearly that people with disabilities or other barriers are often left out of activities that many people take for granted.

Catalyst, which offers adaptive mountain bikes and climbing gear, is just one of several local organizations and individuals working to get people of all races, backgrounds and abilities to participate in outdoor recreation throughout Western North Carolina. And a new grant is ready to offer support.

The Outdoor Equity Fund, a $125,000 grant program launched earlier this year, aims to support individuals and organizations who are focused on advancing equity in outdoor recreation. The fund was created by nonprofit Made By Mountains, a collaboration of Mountain BizWorks, Outdoor Gear Builders of WNC and the N.C. Outdoor Recreation Industry Office. It offers microgrants to support skill building and professional development for those working to make the outdoors accessible to all.

“There was some interest in identifying what barriers exist in Western North Carolina for historically marginalized groups. There’s a lot of grassroots initiatives, but there isn’t always the funding support,” says Iliana Hernandez, who is facilitating

the fund’s working group. “This fund came out of the affirmation that there is a lot of that work being done, that there is a need for it and there is motivation.”

LEFT OUT

While the mountains of Western North Carolina are known for their seemingly endless hiking trails, waterfalls, mountain climbing and more, not all people have had the ability to enjoy them. People from marginalized groups, including people of color and those living with disabilities, are often left out of outdoor activities due to social issues or lack of accessible spaces.

“Traditionally, access to outdoor sports has been limited for people with different disabilities,” says Kirby. “A lot of our Western North Carolina trailheads aren’t the most accessible, with chunky gravel parking lots or portable bathrooms that aren’t accessible.”

At Catalyst, Kirby coordinates free monthly group rides that often draw dozens of folks on adaptive bikes. He says that the group has grown over the years.

“We’re definitely gaining visibility in Western North Carolina, which is increasing our ride numbers,” he says. Other groups also feel left out when it comes to enjoying the outdoors. Diana Parra founded the group, Riding in Color, to organize rides for Black, indigenous and other people of color. Parra says the reasons that people of color have been cast out of outdoor recreation are numerous. She notes that as a Latin American immigrant, she “wanted to assimilate as much as possible for the sake of safety” because the potential to stand out, especially when exploring isolated areas while hiking or mountain biking, could pose risks.

“As a person of color, when you’re out in the woods, when you’re out at the river, and you sound different — maybe you are louder because culturally, we just speak differently

and engage differently. Not only are there looks and comments, but often the cops get called on us,” she says. “We are not just made to feel like we don’t belong, but we are explicitly told that we don’t belong.”

Parra started organizing mountain bike rides in 2021 and found that it offered a safe space for nonwhite community members to learn new skills and enjoy the therapeutic benefits of the outdoors without feeling the need to be vigilant about their surroundings.

“There’s the inherent risk of doing something like mountain biking and climbing, where our nervous systems are activated…. And, there is an inherent risk in being a person of color in this country. And so in a fundamental way, people of color are already in a place of activation moving in predominantly white spaces,” says Parra, who also works as a therapist. “And part of what [these rides] do is turn down the volume of activation by creating a space where there’s folks who have parallel experiences of oppression and there’s less having to explain things, less having to feel like you’re on guard.”

OFFERING SUPPORT

While the Made By Mountains partnership has been around since

2013 with the goal of growing and highlighting the outdoor economy in the Western North Carolina, the new Outdoor Equity Fund seeks to empower organizations and groups such as Catalyst and Riding in Color to bring new voices into the industry.

“What I really love about this is that we are seeing a lot of these initiatives coming from community that are exactly for the community,” says Hernandez.

Made By Mountains received 44 applications from individuals, organizations and informal groups in May,

requesting grants anywhere from $300 to $10,000 to expand programming, provide training or purchase equipment.

“We were worried about our own kind of geographical capacity — that it would just be Asheville folks that applied — but it wasn’t,” adds Joanna Brown, communications manager for Made By Mountains. “[The grant applications were] spread out across this entire region. I’m really excited to see a lot of our rural communities represented and people and organizations that are ready to make stuff happen.”

The grant is funded by an Appalachian Regional Commission Power Grant, a partnership between federal and state governments that focuses on 423 counties across Appalachia.

Both Catalyst and Riding in Color applied for grant funding. Parra says her group hopes to become certified mountain biking instructors and purchase a small fleet of bikes for participants to use, while Catalyst would use the funding to expand its adaptive mountain biking program.

“What I think is so meaningful and powerful about this kind of grant opportunity is that it is shifting power by giving money to the people who are closest to creating these spaces right now,” says Parra.

“We’re proud to support the Outdoor Equity Fund’s mission and fingers crossed we get our first win,” adds Eric Gray, founder and executive director of Catalyst Sports.

A MORE EQUITABLE FUTURE

Hernandez says that the seven-member Outdoor Equity Fund working group is reviewing applications. Applicants will be notified in early July and grantees have a year to fulfill projects.

Depending on the outcomes of the grant projects, Brown says that she hopes that the fund will be replenished.

“This is not just giving money, but also that support that comes along with it that says, ‘We see what you’re doing and we believe in it is important for the future of our outdoor spaces,’” she says.

Parra and Kirby see the need.

“There is unwinding of our nervous system that can happen when we find that sense of peace and belonging outside, that doesn’t really happen in the same place, elsewhere,” says Parra.“Spending time outside is something that is so inherently healing to our nervous system. It can be a part of addressing what years of trauma have created in their bodies — in all our bodies.”

“Everybody should have the opportunity to enjoy everything that I enjoy and what brought me to Western North Carolina,” adds Kirby.

RISE UP: Catalyst Sports, which organizes adaptive mountain bike rides and climbs, is just one of several local organizations working to get people of all races, backgrounds and abilities to participate in outdoor recreation throughout WNC. Photo courtesy of Catalyst Sports

READY TO RIDE: Riding in Color WNC organizes mountain bike rides for Black, Indigenous and other people of color. Photo courtesy of Riding in Color WNC

Job entry Organizations

explore new ways to attract teenage workers

BY SARA MURPHY

smurphy@mountainx.com

This year, 17-year-old Parker Taylor is working his third consecutive summer as a lifeguard at Sliding Rock, the popular natural waterslide in Pisgah National Forest. Before that, he helped his grandmother, a lifeguard trainer and swim instructor, and worked as a lifeguard on his own for the Brevard Athletic Club.

“I started talking to my son when he was probably 12 or 13 that he was going to have to start saving up money if he wanted to purchase a car,” says his mother, Allison Taylor, an event planner and assistant chief of the volunteer North Transylvania Fire Rescue. She herself had worked three summers at Sliding Rock as a teen to pay for her own car and college tuition.

“I didn’t have a choice, and my son knew that he didn’t have a choice,” she explains.

Allison agreed to match the money Parker raised above $2,000 and to pay for half of his gas and insurance.

He now drives a 1999 Toyota Avalon with more than 200,000 miles on it. While Allison could not afford to pay for Parker’s car on her own, she also wanted her son to work.

“Whether kids have a necessity to work or not for financial reasons, I feel that it’s so beneficial to start instilling that work ethic,” she says.

According to the Pew Research Center, the number of teenagers working summer jobs has notably declined since the turn of the 21st century. Between 1948 and 2000, about half the teen population worked as lifeguards, waited tables, worked at amusement parks or served as camp counselors, among other jobs. Last summer, the youth employment rate was closer to 32%, up from the pandemic low of 29.6% in 2020.

Here in Western North Carolina, many employers are appealing more to teenagers this summer, hoping to fill hiring gaps created by older workers electing to pursue remote work after COVID-19. “We pivoted into embracing a younger demo-

graphic,” says Jessica Johnston, the facility manager for the Dr. Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Center, after seeing a post-pandemic dip in older seasonal workers applying to staff summer camps.

Whether there are enough teenagers like Parker Taylor with the time and inclination to fill those jobs remains to be seen.

FILLING THE STAFFING GAP

Aimee Kuelling, marketing and communications director for the YMCA of Western North Carolina, is finding it difficult to recruit teenagers to staff the Y’s six pools over five locations: Asheville (two pools), Black Mountain, Corpening, Hendersonville and Reuter. Ideally, the pools are open daily from 6 a.m.8:30 p.m., but in Black Mountain, the pool is still closed on Sundays due to a lack of staffing.

“It’s a lot of hours to fill, which is part of the struggle,” Kuelling says.

She says that pandemic lockdowns played a significant role in the cur-

rent hiring shortage among teenagers. “People who were taking swimming lessons for a couple of years would then graduate into becoming lifeguards. So, you have two, almost three years, to some extent, where class sizes were smaller,” she says.

She also points out that most of the Y’s youth swim and soccer programs stop when kids turn 12 or 13. “We do have some for 14- and 15-yearolds, but by then, they’re starting to be more active at school,” she says. As a result, a gap exists between the oldest youth swimmers and the 15-year-old hiring minimum age for lifeguard positions.

To bridge this gap, the organization is offering a teen-oriented Career Club at the Hendersonville facility. Attendees will learn about different summer jobs, tips for writing resumes and cover letters, and advice on preparing for interviews.

“It’s just getting connected with that age group,” Kuelling says.

It’s also starting to shift its social media outreach away from Facebook to TikTok, as well as in-person out-

SUMMER STAFF: Teens assemble for a photograph during the city’s Parks & Recreation Department’s 2022 summer camp training. Photo courtesy of Jessica Johnston

reach at Asheville High School. A summer job fair takes place every year, and job information is available on the school’s website and digital billboards, says Dillon Huffman Asheville City Schools public information officer. Full- and part-time jobs in areas like retail, restaurants and other small businesses are advertised, as well as internships. Huffman says that money is the primary motivation for students, followed by getting experience for college.

The Y pays beginner lifeguards between $11 and $13.50 an hour, depending on location. In addition, staff members receive the $300 certification for free and earn a summer bonus.

REPEAT ATTENDEES

When Johnston attended the summer job fair at Asheville High, several alumni of the Grant Center’s summer camps came up to her, eager to apply for a position as a camp counselor.

“I have these kids popping up, and they’re like, ‘Miss Jessica, I want to come work,’” she recalls. When the Asheville Parks & Recreation Department staff members interview these students, Johnston says, they frequently mention how much they loved attending camp and how they want to create that experience for other kids.

“They’re just so socially minded,” she says.

One such student is Saril Scott, a senior at the School of Inquiry and Life Sciences at Asheville. She began working at the Grant Center in 2020, when she was 15, and has returned every summer since, as well as working for the after-school programs.

“I have always loved working with kids,” Scott tells Xpress. “The Grant Center especially has shown me the lack of support some of the kids and community get, and my passion is to become a social worker.”

“This job is super fun, super tiring and super impactful,” Johnston says. Even the youngest staff members help shape the campers’ day-to-day activities. “Long term, it helps them to kind of work through trial and error,” she says of this responsibility.

There are other benefits besides the $ 15-an-hour wage. Staff members accompany the campers on exciting field trips like rafting. They also stay on the payroll, so that opportunities for work are open to them anytime they are on college breaks or over holidays.

To lower barriers to hiring, the department greatly simplified its hiring process. Before, all city of Asheville jobs used one standard application that ran multiple pages, requesting work history, references and other information more suited to adult job seekers.

“Odds are, if you’re in high school, I know your teachers,” Johnston says. Now, the application contains only a few basic questions, including the option to request contact via text rather than email or phone.

MONEY MATTERS

Some schools also are teaching employment and financial literacy during the school year in anticipation of students pursuing summer work. In the last few weeks, financial adviser Jim Brunner has shared his financial knowledge with classes at FernLeaf Community Charter School in Fletcher, where his daughter is in seventh grade.

He has fielded questions about everything from how to set money goals and save to how to invest in Bitcoin. Some students already have

summer jobs, he says, such as doing yard work for neighbors or helping out at businesses owned by family or friends.

He wanted to share his perspectives after hearing about the financially focused curriculum his daughter has been doing this year. She’s learning how to create a budget as well as how to talk about money at home.

Brunner already is teaching his children the value of working that he learned from his first jobs detailing cars at an auto dealership and caddying at age 14. When his son asked for $150 Rollerblades to play roller hockey, for instance, he offered to pay him what he would pay outside help to mow the lawn. His son earned the money in four weeks.

“My daughter’s on that track now, too,” he says, eager to earn money for her own Rollerblades.

ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGE

According to the Pew Research Center, many teenagers are replacing summer jobs with unpaid internships, community service projects and sports to enhance their college applications. Scott says this is true of her peers at Asheville High.

“Most of my friends and people I go to school with usually have jobs, but they work a minimal amount of time,” she says.

Allison Taylor says she notices the impact of teens no longer working in the people she hires for her event-planning company.

“That’s part of our workforce issue,” she says. “I just see so many adults that don’t have the endurance to work and do chores and do life.”

“Let’s embrace this challenge and really focus on getting younger kids in here to work for us,” Johnston says. “Let’s help the next generation of Parks & Rec professionals in our centers.”

VACATION PAYCHECK: Teens pose on the job at the YMCA of Western North Carolina. Photo courtesy of the YMCA

Stalled

What happened to the plans for the Thomas Wolfe cabin?

RUSTIC RETREAT: A proposal to rehabilitate the Thomas Wolfe cabin has been on hold for nearly four years. “It’s not an easy site to figure out the perfect adaptive reuse for, but I think there’s a lot of potential to do something,” says Jessie Landl, executive director of the Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County.

BY JUSTIN M c GUIRE

jmcguire@mountainx.com

In the fall of 2019, the city of Asheville unveiled a proposal to secure the future of the century-old Thomas Wolfe cabin in East Asheville’s Azalea Park.

The ambitious plan called for restoring the dilapidated log structure, where the legendary author spent the summer of 1937, and transforming it into a writers retreat. Other ideas included developing the roughly 40 acres surrounding the cabin by adding a pavilion and public restrooms, creating trails and building new housing for visiting writers.

Officials were set to present the proposal to the Recreation Board and the Indiana-based Thomas Wolfe Society in the first half of 2020 and perhaps make a funding request. But then COVID-19 restrictions hit, disrupting those plans. Things were further derailed when project manager Stacy Merten retired from the city’s Planning and Urban Design Department in March 2022.

Now, some wonder whether plans for the site will ever get back on track.

“Every winter that goes by, it’s less feasible that the cabin can be saved, quite honestly,” says local author Terry Roberts, who served on the committee that oversaw the master planning process. “The thing that terrifies people like me is that somebody will go out there and have a party one night on the porch and light up a fire and burn the place down. It’s a miracle it hasn’t happened yet.”

City officials acknowledge that the plan has languished for nearly four years but are hopeful some progress can be made by the end of 2023.

“It’s such a beautiful place, and I think there’s a lot of different ways of looking at how people might want to enjoy it,” says Alex Cole, the city’s historic preservation manager. “I love the idea of focusing on writing, but I also think that it might be more helpful to cast a wider net for how the site could be used, as far as the reality of getting the funding needed for the improvements that are called for in the plan.”

A RETREAT OF ONE’S OWN

In the summer of 1937, Thomas Wolfe came home again.

Eight years after Look Homeward, Angel made him a literary star, the Asheville native wanted to get out of New York and hole up somewhere to write. Wolfe thought his hometown would be just the place, notes Roberts.

“He was alienated from a lot of people in Asheville who thought they recognized themselves or their relatives in the characters in Look Homeward, Angel,” he says. “Turns out, Asheville welcomed him with open arms. And, in fact, so open were the arms that he had to get out of town to find some peace and quiet.”

Looking for a place to rent, Wolfe turned to Max Whitson, a childhood friend and former classmate at UNC Chapel Hill. Whitson had built the secluded, rustic, two-room cabin around 1924 on his family’s property on a bluff near Oteen. At the time, the cabin sat about 5 miles outside Asheville, but it’s now within the city limits and far less secluded than in Wolfe’s day.

That summer, the author revised “The Party at Jack’s,” which was posthumously published as a novella in 1939 and as part of the novel You

Photo by Justin McGuire

Can’t Go Home Again in 1940. Wolfe died of tuberculosis in 1938.

“The cabin represents a piece of Wolfe’s life that’s directly connected to Asheville and Western North Carolina that people just don’t know about,” continues Roberts. “The Wolfeans know about it and keep up with it, but as a general rule, even people who’ve read Wolfe don’t know about the visit back.”

AMBITIOUS VISION

But the cabin is worth preserving for reasons beyond its connection to Wolfe, says Jennifer Cathey, architectural historian and restoration specialist with the State Historic Preservation Office.

“It is a 1920s rustic round-log cabin, which is really iconic to the mountain region,” she explains. “And it’s on a pretty great piece of property that has scenic qualities and recreational value. You have a community asset that is worth investing in and preserving and using.”

Over the years, some additions were tacked on, and the cabin gradually fell into disrepair. The city designated the structure as a local historic landmark in 1983 and bought both it and the surrounding acreage from John Moyer in 2001.

Apart from stabilizing the roof and sealing the cabin, however, nothing further has been done to preserve it. There was an arrangement with the Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County to monitor the property, but it has lapsed, meaning no one is regularly checking on the site.

“One of my biggest concerns is that the master plan identifies several items that need immediate attention in terms of repairs,” says Jessie Landl, the nonprofit’s executive director. “Those things have not been addressed.”

The master planning process began in 2018 with the selection of consultant Lord Aeck Sargent, an Atlanta-based architecture and design firm. Literary scholars, preservationists, community activists, commercial entities and city representatives were involved in the effort.

After a public meeting in 2019, the firm released a master plan that envisioned a multiphase process designed to “return the immediate setting of the cabin to the time when Thomas Wolfe stayed in 1937, while allowing the remainder of the site to satisfy the needs of new programming.”

At the time, it was estimated that rehabilitating the cabin would cost $429,518, and fully funding the plan would cost anywhere from $3.5 million to $9.8 million, depending on a variety of factors. The consultant

recommended that the Planning Department request phase 1 funding in 2020. Income generated by tours, retreats, merchandising and other strategies could offset some of those expenses, the plan suggested.

SHIFTING PRIORITIES

Cole, the city’s historic preservation specialist, became the point person on the project after Merten retired. She says the master plan has been on hold while her office focused on completing two architectural surveys and working to get the Walton Street Park and pool designated as local historic landmarks. Now that much of that work has been done, she hopes the cabin will once again become a priority.

A key step, notes Cole, will be reviving a subcommittee of the Historic Resources Commission that identifies candidates for local historic landmark designation and helps prioritize preservation efforts. Due to COVID-19 shutdowns and Cole’s own workload, the group has been dormant for several years, but she hopes it will become active again within the next six months.

“Their first order of business will be to map out their list of things they need to work on and prioritize that list,” says Cole. “I don’t know what that will look like yet, but I think [the cabin] will probably be high on everyone’s list.” She cautions, however, that other important projects, such as an architectural survey of Asheville’s historically Black neighborhoods, are still ongoing.

Once the subcommittee is reactivated, it will most likely work with

the Preservation Society to try to get the Wolfe project back on track. That might entail things like forming a designated group that could focus on the cabin and updating the cost estimates, which are now 4 years old.

“I think, especially, the cabin restoration estimate would be critical for us to know at this point, because I have a feeling that’s probably where everybody’s going to want to spend the most energy fundraising,” says Cole. “Stabilization and restoration of the cabin are top of mind, because without those things, it loses the historic significance.”

WHAT’S NEXT?

Because of the master plan’s substantial price tag, working with private and nonprofit community partners will be key, she says. One possibility, notes Cole, is Asheville Unpaved, an initiative led by local nonprofits including Asheville on

Bikes that seeks to build a network of multiuse trails throughout the city. The group has identified the Wolfe cabin site as a place to extend an existing trail.

But Landl of the Preservation Society wonders whether the $9 million proposal might simply be too ambitious for Asheville. “The fact that the city hasn’t moved forward with it leads me to believe that there’s some reasoning behind that,” she points out. “And so if they’ve determined in some way that that’s not the right direction, let’s find a nonprofit that could use that as their facility.”

She points to the recently announced Wilma Dykeman Writerin-Residence program, a collaboration between UNC Asheville and the nonprofit Wilma Dykeman Legacy. The program provides a stipend and four weeks at the acclaimed author’s former home, a 1926 structure in Beaverdam. The Buncombe County native’s books chronicled the people and land of Appalachia.

“They really did something very similar, where they took a historic site and turned it into a writers retreat,” says Landl. “I think it’s interesting that there’s sort of a model for it in town.”

“Every winter that goes by, it’s less feasible that the cabin can be saved.”

— local author Terry Roberts

Down Town, Part 12

This is a condensed version of Asheville Watchdog’s “Down Town, Part 12: Affordable Housing Solves Homelessness. Asheville Has a Problem.” For the full version, visit avlwatchdog.org.

In the final installment of “Down Town,” our Asheville Watchdog reporters examine the lack of affordable housing in Asheville and whether efforts to address it are enough. We talk with those experts, Gregg Colburn and Sam Tsemberis, on the causes and solutions to homelessness.

Tsemberis, a psychologist, was a street outreach worker in New York City when he determined that the traditional response to lifting people from homelessness — taking them to detox or mental health clinics or the hospital — did little but return them to the same streets and the same predicaments.

“What we decided we’re going to [do is] involve the person in any plan that is going to have an impact on their life, whether it’s treatment or housing,” Tsemberis told Asheville Watchdog. “‘How can we help you?’ And the person would tell us very clearly, ‘Isn’t that obvious? I need a place to live.’”

The Housing First method he pioneered some three decades ago has proved to be among the most effective responses to homelessness and is in use throughout the United States and other countries.

“Homelessness Is a Housing Problem,” a 2022 book by Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern, is a playbook for local governments to adopt

Affordable housing solves homelessness. Asheville has a problem

long-term solutions to homelessness. Colburn has presented his findings to more than 75 cities and is scheduled to visit Asheville in the fall.

ASHEVILLE NEEDS A ‘PROPER SENSE OF URGENCY’

Asheville has the factors that Colburn and his co-author identified as the perfect storm for homelessness: population growth, high housing costs and low vacancy rates. For multifamily housing in Buncombe County, the vacancy rate was 3.5%, and in Asheville, 2.8%, according to a National Alliance to End Homelessness report presented to local leaders in January.

Asheville’s vacancy rate for subsidized housing was even less — 0.3%.

Asheville had the highest rents in North Carolina. And 46% of renters in Buncombe County were cost-burdened — spending more than 30% of their income on rent — while 1-in-5 were severely cost-burdened, paying more than 50%.

A renter in Asheville would need to make at least $26.50 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment and stay under the 30% mark, the report said. The median hourly wage in Asheville as of 2022 was $15.87.

“There are simply not enough affordable housing options” in Asheville or Buncombe, the National Alliance report said.

That’s not news to Scott Dedman, president and executive director of Mountain Housing Opportunities.

The Asheville-based nonprofit has helped build more than 1,000 affordable apartments since the late 1980s and preserved more than 4,000 units by financing repairs for low-income homeowners, Dedman said. But the need was closer to 10,000 total, he told Asheville Watchdog

“The reason I know that is because right now we have over 7,400 renter households just in Buncombe County alone, including Asheville, who are paying more than half of their income for rent,” Dedman said.

“If we as a community had a proper sense of urgency, we would be moving very rapidly toward addressing the problem,” he said. “We need thousands, not dozens, of safe, attractive, affordable homes in good neighborhoods. And that’s for the working people of Asheville and for retirees and people with disabilities and other people in need.”

DEVELOPER: ‘HARD TO MAKE THE NUMBERS WORK’

From a developer’s standpoint, building affordable housing in Asheville and Buncombe is difficult.

“There’s not that many projects coming to the table because it’s hard to make the numbers work,” said Barry Bialik, a developer and past

AFFORDABILITY KEY: Key Commons, north of Carrier Park, is operated by the nonprofit Homeward Bound and provides apartments for people without homes. The property was purchased and renovated with private and public funds, including a low-interest loan from the city’s housing trust fund. Asheville Watchdog photo by Starr Sariego

chairman of Asheville’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee.

“There’s not one piece of land in the city that you can build a house on right now that costs less than $100,000,” said Bialik, who also owns the Thirsty Monk pub downtown.

Land is generally about 25% of the total cost, “so if there’s no lots for sale for $100,000, that means there will be no houses tomorrow for sale for less than $400,000 unless we take drastic measures to open up the land and bring the land costs down.”

Zoning regulations and infrastructure also make it hard to build, Bialik said.

“Our zoning rules kind of don’t always match up with the density, like just because a property is zoned to have more, it’s zoned multifamily, it doesn’t mean it has the road frontage,” Bialik said. “We have things that are zoned for density that don’t have water or sewer available.”

The city of Asheville “doesn’t extend any of its own infrastructure,” Bialik said. “It has to be on a private developer to do everything.”

Asheville has a housing trust fund that makes low-interest loans to developers to build affordable housing. During a recent funding cycle, the city had about $7.6 million in the fund but only received applications for projects totaling $5.2 million, and approved nearly $4.4 million.

“They put it out as an open call and they didn’t even receive enough applications to total up all the funding that was available,” Bialik said.

“Allocating $4.4 million all at once to four projects is significant for the city,” said Sasha Vrtunski, Asheville’s affordable housing officer. “It also allows us to make additional significant loans in the next round.”

About two-thirds of Asheville’s residentially zoned land is single-family, said Vaidila Satvika, an urban planner with Asheville’s Planning and Urban Design Department.

Asheville has a twofold strategy: trying to keep existing affordable housing from becoming cost-prohibitive and adding more units.

“At this moment, we’re doing everything we can. Of course, we’d like to do more,” Vrtunski said.

IMMEDIATE NEED: HOUSING THE UNHOUSED

Asheville remains out of reach for many. Workers are forced to take in roommates or move farther outside the city because of rising rents and home prices.

Nearly 600 people in Buncombe have no permanent home, with 171 of those living outside, according to the January census of the homeless population.

Asheville needs a dual focus, our experts told Asheville Watchdog: adding housing — specifically affordable units — while also expanding options for moving the unhoused off the streets and into homes.

Tsemberis, the psychologist, said that when he worked the streets of New York in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the conventional approach to homelessness involved first trying to treat a person’s problems — a short visit in a mental health clinic or rehab facility or hospital.

“I think we just had it wrong. We sort of got stuck on the first impression of helplessness and vulnerability,” Tsemberis told Asheville Watchdog “‘Oh, they’ve got to be in treatment first. They’ve got to get sober first. We’ve got to get them ready for housing.’ Nobody is more ready for housing than the person on the street.”

And he decided to try something different. “We got a grant for rent and for support services and we started bringing people into an apartment,” he said. “And then we visited people all the time.”

The approach became known as Housing First “because that’s the first priority,” Tsemberis said.

From those early trials some 30 years ago until now, the results of Housing First have been among the most encouraging for ending homelessness.

“We have an 80%-90% success rate of bringing people that no one thinks are ready for housing into housing, providing supports — and they stay housed,” said Tsemberis, who now heads Pathways Housing First Institute and is a professor at UCLA.

Housing First revolutionized “the way we think about and do homeless services in this country,” said Lori Thomas, director of research at the Charlotte Urban Institute, who also is a researcher on housing studies and a former colleague of Tsemberis.

Other models that relied on treating substance abuse and mental illness first were only 30%-40% successful in keeping people in housing, she said.

Despite the track record, not all homeless service providers in Asheville embrace a Housing First approach. The National Alliance to End Homelessness recommended that Buncombe County adopt systemwide Housing First principles.

Colburn in his book concluded, “We encourage the continued funding and construction of permanent supportive housing” for the unsheltered. The conversion of motels into housing that started after the pandemic, the book says, “can meaningfully increase the stock of affordable units in a community.”

Buncombe had more than 530 permanent supportive units as of

January, and all were full at that point, according to Emily Ball , Asheville’s homeless strategy manager. Two former motels are being converted, one by Homeward Bound and the other by the city of Asheville, into 198 apartments for chronically homeless people. They are expected to open in the coming months.

Charlotte has had permanent supportive housing in place for more than a decade.

The first complex, Moore Place — created and operated by the nonprofit Roof Above — opened in 2012. A 2015 evaluation found that 81% of the tenants, who had been homeless an average of seven years, had remained housed.

As of 2022, Charlotte-Mecklenburg had 1,044 permanent supportive housing units, including more than 500 created by Roof Above.

“It’s not housing only. It’s housing plus support, and we find that formula to be critical,” Roof Above CEO Liz Clasen-Kelly told Asheville Watchdog.

The most recently published data from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg dashboard on homelessness showed 1,003 people — 97% — who went from being homeless to having a home either stayed in permanent support-

ive housing or moved to other permanent housing. That rate has been stable within a few percentage points since 2015.

“We’re able to move people with quite a bit of barriers — extensive histories of homelessness and involvement in multiple systems” through housing and supports, said Karen Pelletier, director of housing innovation and strategy with Mecklenburg County’s Community Support Services.

As Colburn travels the country talking to local governments, he sees an opportunity in places like Asheville to turn the tide on homelessness.

“It’s not to minimize the problem, but it’s just nowhere near the scale of what it is on the coasts right now,” he said. “You have the opportunity to get out in front of this and … take the steps now to avoid the unfortunate path that coastal cities have taken.”

Staff writer John Boyle contributed to this report.

Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and surrounding communities. Sally Kestin is a Pulitzer Prizewinning investigative reporter. Email skestin@avlwatchdog.org. Andrew R. Jones is a Watchdog investigative reporter. Email arjones@avlwatchdog.org.

MountainTrue report flags bacterial levels in French Broad

A new report by conservation nonprofit MountainTrue finds that E. coli concentrations in the French Broad River near Asheville regularly exceed eight times the standard considered safe for swimming by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The State of Our French Broad River report reflects hundreds of water samples gathered from across the watershed during the 2022 swimming season. Average E. coli levels in the central French Broad River basin, which includes popular recreation areas such as the River Arts District and Hominy Creek, were over 1,900 colony-forming units per 100 milliliters of water. The EPA standard for safe swimming and tubing is 235 cfu per 100 mL; if ingested, E. coli can cause diarrhea, stomach pain and vomiting.

Other parts of the river showed less contamination but still exceeded EPA guidelines. The Upper French Broad near Brevard and

Hendersonville averaged about 600 cfu of E. coli per 100 mL, while the Lower French Broad near Hot Springs averaged about 400 cfu per 100 mL.

Hartwell Carson, French Broad riverkeeper for MountainTrue, told Xpress those results were somewhat better than the nonprofit’s observations in 2021. However, he noted that the 2022 swim season had seen less rain, which causes runoff and generally leads to higher E. coli measurements.

“Sources of pollution are not a mystery,” notes the report’s executive summary. MountainTrue identifies poor agricultural practices, failing wastewater systems and poorly managed development as the main causes of river contamination. Stress on the river is expected to increase, the report continues, as climate change drives heavier, more frequent storms and their resulting runoff.

The full report is available at avl.mx/crj.

Dawn Chávez leaves Asheville GreenWorks

One of Western North Carolina’s most influential environmental organizations is seeking new leadership following the departure of Dawn Chávez

The executive director of Asheville GreenWorks left the nonprofit June 2 after eight years to become the head of the national nonprofit Environmental Leadership Program.

Edward Macie , Asheville GreenWorks’ board chair, thanked Chávez for her service in a press release announcing the move. He noted that she had tripled the organization’s budget since taking the helm, established the Tree Protection Task Force and spearheaded successful campaigns for the city of Asheville to allocate more resources toward urban forestry. Most recently, Asheville City Council voted May 23 to lease 1.3 acres of city-owned land to GreenWorks for a new native tree nursery at $1 annually.

Eric Bradford, the nonprofit’s operations director, will serve as interim executive director until a permanent replacement is named, likely by January. The new leader will be charged with carrying out GreenWorks’ updated strategic direction, which focuses on building equity and local resilience to climate change.

Good to know

• Through the end of June, the Western North Carolina Nature Center and N.C. Arboretum are each offering free admission for the other’s members. Members of each institution will also receive a discount when buying a membership with the other. More information is available at avl.mx/cpu.

• Haywood Community College in Clyde has opened its newly expanded Dahlia Ridge Trail system. The 3.5-mile hiking network, supported in part by a $66,000 grant from the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority, includes paved, gravel and natural paths throughout wooded areas of the college campus.

• Multiple road projects are taking place along the Blue Ridge Parkway this summer, which may lead to road closures throughout the season. Parkway officials encourage visitors to plan ahead and check the latest closure information at avl.mx/7tw.

• Invest Appalachia, an Ashevillebased impact investment organization, released a new report regarding climate resilience in WNC and other parts of central Appalachia. The analysis, which cites previous Mountain Xpress reporting on climate migration, notes that the region will likely serve as a “climate receiver place” for people from other parts of the U.S. The full report is available at avl.mx/cqy.

Community kudos

• The WNC Nature Center celebrated the birth of nine pups to its resident red wolves, Gloria and Oak. The litter boosts efforts to restore the critically endangered species, once widespread throughout the Southeast, of which fewer than 20 individuals are thought to live in the wild.

• Nikki Jones, the WNC region director for the Brevard-based outdoor education nonprofit Muddy Sneakers, was presented with her N.C. Environmental Education Certification by state Department of Environmental Quality staffers during a May 12 ceremony at Polk Central Elementary in Mill Spring. The honor recognized Jones’ work to restore a nature trail at the school, part of 200 hours of training and community service required for the certification.

• Several local food and farming nonprofits received substantial grants from the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina. The Organic Growers School received $54,000 to coordinate the WNC Food Justice Planning Initiative, as well as $50,000 for farmer coaching and education. The Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy also received $50,000 to grow sustainable agriculture programs at its community farm in Alexander.

• Three local projects got backing as part of the NCDEQ’s inaugural Food Waste Reduction grant cycle. CompostAVL, an Ashevillebased curbside compost service, received $14,000 to increase its food waste hauling capacity and to add new customers. Buncombe and Henderson counties received $30,000 and $20,000, respectively, to expand their composting capacities.

• Members of Flat Rock’s Episcopal Church of St. John in the Wilderness

have established a “Good News Gardeners” group. Volunteers meet monthly at the Kanuga Conference Center’s Foster Educational Garden to help grow produce for the Edneyville Food Bank. More information and volunteer signups are available at avl.mx/cqw.

Learning opportunities

• In honor of National Pollinator Week, the Botanical Gardens at Asheville hosts a bumblebee survey training on Friday, June 23, 10-11:30 a.m. Bryan Tompkins with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service will train participants how to identify different bees and contribute to the newly launched Southeast Bumble Bee Atlas. More information and registration are available at avl.mx/cqx.

• Buncombe County’s Extension Master Gardeners continue to offer a full lineup of classes through the growing season at their Asheville Learning Garden, 49 Mount Carmel Road. Upcoming options include Foodscaping Edible Plants in Flower Beds on Thursday, June 29; Kid-Friendly Gardening on Thursday, July 13; and Disbudding Dahlias for Better Blooms on Thursday, Aug. 3. All programs

start at 10 a.m.; more information is available at avl.mx/ckn.

• Fall enrollment is now open for the N.C. Arborteum’s Blue Ridge Naturalist and Blue Ridge EcoGardening Certificate of Merit programs. Participants in the courses, which generally take one to three years, gain a deep understanding of the region’s ecology, botany and other natural features. More information is available at avl.mx/cpv.

Save the date

• Greenway advocacy group Connect Buncombe partners with the nonprofit RiverLink for a cleanup of the Swannanoa River on Friday, June 23. The cleanup area, in East Asheville along Azalea Road, runs parallel to the planned AVL Unpaved trail network and Swannanoa River Greenway. More information and registration are available at avl.mx/cri.

• MountainTrue holds several guided adventures throughout the region in July. Options include a French Broad River float near Hot Springs from Wednesday-Friday, July 12-14; a hike in the proposed Craggy National Scenic Area near Barnardsville on Friday, July 21; and a river snorkel near Boone on Saturday, July 29. More informa-

tion and registration are available at avl.mx/929.

• The Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project’s annual Farm Tour returns Saturday-Sunday, Sept. 23-24. All farms on the tour are within an hour’s drive of Asheville and showcase the region’s agricultural diversity, from fruits and vegetables to livestock and fiber. More information and passes are available at avl.mx/bt9.

• The WNC Gardening Symposium, organized by the region’s Extension Master Gardeners, comes to Blue Ridge Community College in Flat Rock on Wednesday, Oct. 11. With the theme of “Seeds of Joy: The Evolution of Your Home Garden,” the event will feature YouTube personality Linda Vater and Craig Mauney of the Mountain Horticulture Crops Research and Extension Center. More information is available at avl.mx/bka.

• The Explore Asheville Convention and Visitors Bureau announced that Asheville has been selected as the host city for 2024’s Adventure Travel Trade Association conference. The event, taking place June 11-13, will bring roughly 350 adventure travel professionals to the region. More information is available at avl.mx/cqf.

— Daniel Walton X

TILL THE GOOD NEWS: Volunteers at Flat Rock’s Episcopal Church of St. John in the Wilderness have established a gardening group to help grow produce for the Edneyville Food Bank. Photo courtesy of St. John in the Wilderness

(ADVERTISEMENT REMOVED AT ADVERTISER’S REQUEST)

Impact of water outage ‘largely avoidable,’ says independent committee

After three months of interviews with Asheville city staff, elected officials and water customers, many tours of water facilities and more than 90 requests for information, the Independent Review Committee presented its after-action report on the city’s winter water outage during the June 13 meeting of Asheville City Council.

The nine-member committee was established in January to analyze the cause of the outage, which started Dec. 24 and lasted for some customers through Jan. 4, as well as the city’s communications and emergency response. Chief among the committee’s findings, published June 9, was that the scope of the event was “largely avoidable and preventable.”

“We are committed to taking a much, much deeper dive of the study, understanding, essentially, strengths and weaknesses,” said City Manager Debra Campbell. “And unfortunately — and apparently — there were a couple of weaknesses in our system.”

CLOSED VALVES, HIGH DEMAND

Committee member and engineer Ted Tyree explained that the cold weather that moved into Western North Carolina Dec. 23 wasn’t unprecedented. But it was coupled with “record high” water consumption, which led to 27 main waterline breaks throughout Asheville’s service area.

“We are fairly certain that [the breaks happened] because homeowners let their pipe or let their faucets drip or run to try to prevent them from freezing,” Tyree said. “That worked for a lot of people; for some, it didn’t. So, they had frozen pipes, which resulted in broken pipes and leakage on property.”

Tyree said the Mills River treatment plant in South Asheville, one of three plants operating in the city, was taken offline Dec. 24 due to “cold-induced treatment issues.” Residents in the south and west of the system started to lose water pressure shortly thereafter. “Thousands of customers were affected. We still don’t know exactly how many,” he explained.

Mills River came back online on Dec. 28, and service began to return for much of South Asheville. But many western areas remained without water until Jan. 2, when city staff

discovered a closed 24-inch valve in the River Arts District.

After staffers opened the valve, water began filling storage tanks at Candler Knob, which serves the western part of the system, at a much faster rate, allowing service to be restored. Tyree said that the city had suspected there was a closed valve in the RAD since 2019, but no action had been taken to resolve the issue. City staff had been informed of a “high probability” of a closed valve located on a main waterline Jan. 10, 2022, nearly a year before the outage.

“We asked [city] staff about that. They said, ‘Yes, we did get the presentation. We looked for a closed valve and we simply couldn’t find it,’” Tyree said.

The water committee also found that another nearly closed 24-inch valve in the southern part of the system — the detailed location of which is redacted from the final report — had also contributed to the outage. Tyree said that had the city addressed the two valves earlier, the outage would have been more manageable.

‘JOB-THREATENING’ PRESSURE

Committee member and engineering consultant Mike McGill said that the water outage’s timing over Christmas influenced how the city chose to communicate its severity.

“We found that there was a hope, a belief, that if the water breaks … were repaired, then this situation would not elevate to something of a serious nature like we saw. And that belief informed the communications,” he said.

McGill added that the city took an “operational approach” to informing the public about the outage, which prioritized repairing the issues over communicating the circumstances. “The idea is, if you focus on responding to the crisis — the physical response to the crisis — then you don’t need to potentially panic the public,” he explained.

That strategy backfired after initial attempts to resolve the system’s issues failed. McGill pointed to a direct order and “job-threatening pressure” from Mayor Esther Manheimer for the water department to say on Dec. 27 that service would be restored within 24-48 hours. The command came

despite stated concerns from water department staff that meeting such a time frame would be “highly unlikely.”

The committee found the promise of service restoration to be the city’s most egregious communications misstep. McGill said the claim may have left some residents underprepared to meet their water needs.

Committee members also found that Asheville lacked a crisis communications plan, structure and process, which would have included a “regular, consistent stream of communications.” The city’s institutional “distrust of the news media” also led to communications gaps and unanswered questions. McGill called the city’s approach to using press conferences “not really how you inform the public during a crisis,” and he noted that promises to follow up on unanswered questions were unfulfilled.

The city also notified water customers that about 30,000 people were without service through the AVL Alerts system. McGill said that estimate was based not on any information about the water system but instead on the number of people enrolled in AVL Alerts. (The actual number of those experiencing an outage, he added, was likely lower.)

In examining the role of City Manager Campbell and her involvement in communications, McGill said, the committee found that “contrary to [press] coverage, the city manager performed exactly as she should during this process.” Although McGill did not name specific outlets, Asheville Watchdog columnist John Boyle wrote a widely shared opinion piece Jan. 16 that questioned Campbell’s approach to the crisis.

“The city manager is not a spokesperson during a crisis,” said McGill. “They are a facilitator to make sure the response is going well within the city.”

NEXT STEPS

The committee presented 27 recommendations for the city, including the development of an updated crisis communications plan, the creation of a Water Utility Advisory Panel and employing the National Incident Management System during future crisis events.

Manheimer noted that there was already support among Council members to implement those recommendations.

“I want to caution the community: It’s not going to happen overnight. There’s a lot in this report. And there’s a lot of budgetary considerations that need to be made,” added Campbell. “But we are committed.”

— Brooke Randle X

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN: Committee member and engineering consultant Mike McGill said that the city’s institutional “distrust of the news media” contributed to communications gaps and unanswered questions. Screen capture courtesy of the city of Asheville

Redux: ACS selects Maggie Fehrman as superintendent

The Asheville City Board of Education named Maggie Fehrman district superintendent during a special meeting June 8.

“I am thrilled to be joining the Asheville City Schools community. I can’t think of a better place to serve,” Fehrman said during the meeting.

The move comes after Rick Cruz withdrew from the job due to a “family medical emergency” just three weeks after he was selected as incoming superintendent. Fehrman was one of three finalists previously interviewed by the board.

“We are so excited for what she brings to this district — her commitment to our children, her commitment to staff, her long dedication as a public servant and public schools as a teacher, a principal, a superintendent,” board Chair George Sieburg said during the meeting. “From the first moment when we met her on paper and then on Zoom, how she spoke so passionately about equity in a school system and what that means for our children, is why she has risen to the top.”

According to a June 8 press release from ACS, Fehrman served as superintendent in Decatur, Ga., from 2021-22. Under her leadership, the district achieved a high school graduation rate of 96.73% and secured the top spot in the state for SAT and ACT performance. Before

becoming superintendent, Fehrman served in public education for 23 years as assistant superintendent, executive director of schools, principal, assistant principal and social studies teacher.

“I’m very passionate about public education. I firmly believe that public education is the foundation of our democracy,” Fehrman said. “Everyone deserves that equal chance. And I believe that we will only achieve this when we are steadfast in ensuring that we remove barriers and provide equitable opportunities for every student to meet their full potential.”

But Ferhman’s focus on equity may receive pushback from some in the community. Meetings of the Asheville school board have played host to battles over cultural issues in recent months, including critical race theory and sexuality education.

In November, local pastor Ronald Gates, representing an out-of-state conservative activist group, made inflammatory statements regarding then-school board member Peyton O’Conner , who is transgender.

O’Conner later resigned her position.

In May, a preacher from Wake Forest spoke during public comments to the board about a book that he found sexually inappropriate for children. And on June 12, two speakers criticized the school board for promoting

critical race theory and “gender confusion” within the district.

“[Critical race theory] advocates that American culture is a conspiracy to perpetuate white supremacy. What it does is divide all Americans along lines of race and gender and between oppressors and victims,” said speaker Courtney Blossman during the meeting. “You do not

have free rein over our children. Yet you’re taking the responsibility for teaching programs of racism, gender confusion, and are causing emotional instability and vulnerable students.”

Previous reporting from Xpress revealed that officials at both the county and Asheville City school systems say they do not explicitly teach CRT.

Fehrman’s tenure, which will begin Monday, July 17, is likely to see a continuation of those tensions, along with other issues, such as the residual anger from parents and teachers over the closing of Asheville Primary School and calls for increases in teacher pay. She replaces James Causby, who has served as interim superintendent since former Superintendent Gene Freeman abruptly left the district last summer.

The Asheville school district has had five superintendents over the last 10 years. The district paid Summit Search Solutions $30,000 to conduct a superintendent search that yielded 49 applications. Summit guaranteed that it would repeat the search process for free if the superintendent left for any reason during the first year of employment or was terminated or resigned based on performance-related issues within two years on the job, as part of its contract.

— Brooke Randle X

WELCOME ABOARD: Maggie Fehrman will begin her tenure as superintendent of Asheville City Schools on July 17. Photo courtesy of ACS

What Would What Would You Do You Do Without Without Neuropathy Neuropathy Pain Pain

Several years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer and underwent chemotherapy treatments. I'm now in remission and have felt blessed to be here except for so much pain. My feet and hands were constantly burning – a tingling sensation, almost like when your leg is falling asleep," shares Barbara of Biltmore Forest.

Barbara was suffering from Chemotherapy Induced Peripheral Neuropathy or CIPN. While chemo kills cancer cells, it also causes much bodily damage. Nerves, especially those far from the brain, are among the first to be harmed. 30-40% of cancer patients treated with chemotherapy experience peripheral neuropathy.

"Standing all day was not just a challenge, and it caused me physical agony. Keeping up with my busy schedule – forget about it. I couldn't even go for walks in my neighborhood."

Barbara, like so many others, was prescribed Gabapentin help with the pain and told there was nothing anyone could do. In Doctors’ words, 'there is no treatment for neuropathy.'

Then Barbara found Dr. Autum Kirgan, DACM, C.SMA, L.Ac of South Slope Acupuncture & Wellness. By blending the time–tested science of acupuncture with more modern medical technology, Dr. Kirgan has designed a natural solution for peripheral neuropathy.

"Acupuncture is incredible at restoring blood flow and stimulating damaged nerves, preventing them from dying off," says Dr. Kirgan. "We take our treatments a step further by integrating FSM Therapy which targets specific nerves in the body using microcurrent. FSM Therapy is like watering a plant. This treatment will stimulate the blood vessels to grow back around the peripheral nerves and provide them with proper nutrients to heal and repair.

After only four weeks of treatment, Barbara is already seeing incredible improvement. "I've taken the handicap placard off my rearview mirror and I am finally back to walking my neighborhood. I can't wait to see how I feel at the end of my program! I used to think that this pain was just the price I had to pay for still being alive. Dr. Kirgan has really given me hope for a better life!"

The number of treatments needed to allow nerves to recover fully will vary from person to person and can only be estimated after a detailed neurological and vascular evaluation. If you or someone you love suffers from peripheral neuropathy (of any origin), call 828-575-5904 to schedule a consultation with Dr. Kirgan and her South Slope Acupuncture & Wellness team.

They are waiting for your call.

How public school educators spend their summers

BY EDWIN ARNAUDIN

For years, there’s been a twopronged assumption about how public school teachers spend their summers. The first part is that, like their students, educators get multiple months off for vacation.

“That’s pretty accurate,” says Chris Lengle, a kindergarten teacher at Estes Elementary in South Asheville. “Once we leave for the summer, once my classroom’s packed up, I won’t think about school until mid-August when I have kindergarten orientation.”

But what about the other public perception, that this is paid time off?

“No, there’s no paycheck. $0,” adds Lengle, who’s been teaching for 21 years, the past six at Estes. “I’m trying to impress this upon these young teachers: They should be putting money away. That way you don’t have to work.”

One savings plan is the Summer Cash program through State Employees’ Credit Union. The share account is available to public school, university and community college system employees who are paid nine, 10 or 11 months per year. Teachers choose an amount to transfer from each paycheck during the school year to their Summer Cash account, typically by payroll deduction, then the funds are automatically transferred in one or more payments over the summer based on their salary schedule.

However, if no such plan is enacted or there’s no spouse or partner to pay the bills over the summer, teachers have to keep earning money somewhere — and sometimes that’s back in the classroom.

MINDS AT WORK

This summer marks the third year that Dawn Lory has taught summer school. The third-grade teacher recently finished her 17th year at Estes and 25th overall as an educator. She gets two weeks off before another five-week run in the classroom. After that, it’s only two weeks before she’s back to planning for the new school year. But she says the schedule isn’t as bad as it may sound.

“Summer school is a lot less stressful because you’re not grading and

there are no parent conferences,” Lory says. “You’re still with kids and doing the part you like, but you don’t have to do all that extra stuff that’s so overwhelming — mostly the paperwork, quite honestly. Without all of that, it’s a much easier day, so there’s a bit of rest built into that.”

Other than part-time tutoring, which she continues to offer, Lory didn’t work summers when her children were young, largely because the cost of day care would have offset much of her earnings. But now that they’re in college, she works extra hours to help pay their tuition.

“My daughter started at Appalachian State University three years ago, and college is so expensive now,” Lory says. “I don’t want her to graduate with $80,000 of debt.”

For much of her professional life, Meredith Licht, who’s taught English and social studies courses at Brevard High School since 2001, likewise focused on being a mom while school was out.

“Summers were for my children because most of the school year was for other people’s children,” Licht says. “But our kids are now grown and flown, so I have a little bit more freedom in the summer.”

With that extra independence, however, Licht noticed that she became restless and dissatisfied over the four or five weeks before the new school year began. In hopes of combating those feelings this summer, she plans to work 12 hours per week at Hiker and the Hound, an outdoor clothing and equipment shop in Cedar Mountain.

“It’s going to give me a little bit of a schedule, a little bit of a routine to follow and a little bit of pocket money,” Licht says. “I plan to retire in about four years, and I’m trying to save up for an RV so my husband and I can enjoy our retirement and travel and see all the places and do all the things that we didn’t have the time or money to do when we were younger.”

Before getting married and becoming a father, Lengle kept working during the warm months, often at summer camps. Now, he tutors a few hours a week over the summer and will go to Estes for five “trade days,” spread across the off months. For Lengle, these workdays consist of interviewing teacher candidates; a planning day with his teaching team;

another planning day for the Jump Start to Kindergarten orientation; and one Leader in Me day of professional development. As with the Summer Cash program, the “trade days” do his future self a favor.

“You try to get your five days in the summer because you want those five days off throughout the year,” Lengle says. “You can take them only when the kids aren’t there — an optional teacher workday in December is a good example. No one wants to work two days before Christmas, so you usually want to burn that day.”

REST AND RECHARGE

All three teachers agree that higher pay for public school educators would make true summers off more feasible, and they also feel that yearround school — with multiweek breaks every few months — could lead to more well-rested teachers.

“Every educator I’ve ever spoken to who works in a year-round setting says once you do it, you never want to go back,” Licht says. “It provides the time that everybody needs — not just the educators, but the students. They need a break from each other, not only just to be kids, but also to let the content and the skills that they learned percolate.”

Instead, summers remain the primary time off for teachers in Buncombe and Transylvania County Schools to do what they need to rest and regroup before the following school year — which Lory feels is especially important for educators just getting into a challenging but rewarding profession that she, Licht and Lengle consider a calling.

“The younger teachers, they’re working themselves to death during school year. It’s a hard job,” Lory says. “Some of the veteran teachers, we have the materials, we have the knowledge, we’ve taught the lessons. We don’t spend countless hours trying to learn the curriculum in our evenings. But the people that do have to use that kind of time, they’re fried.”

Even with years of teaching to build on, experienced educators like Licht have valued their time away from the classroom to a greater degree since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. In addition to the amplified pressures heaped on teens via social media and the political, economic and environmental uncertainties of the world they’re about to enter, she notes that the interruptions of a traditional classroom experience over the past three years have taken their toll on students and teachers alike.

“It’s incredibly difficult, and it takes a lot of emotional energy and a lot of psychic energy on top of the

physical energy of managing a class and doing all the things that come with teaching,” Licht says. “So, it’s been incredibly draining these last few years. And if I didn’t have these

summers, I don’t think I could return to the classroom.”

Last summer, Licht and her husband, Josh Tinsley, a fellow educator who teaches English and serves as the

yearbook advisor at BHS, got a rescue dog and spent much of their summer walking the pup on trails and going camping. She refers to being away from other people and technology as “the ultimate reset” and “incredibly necessary” — sentiments that resonate with the similarly outdoor-minded Lengle, whose wife, Katy Lengle, is a second-grade teacher at IC Imagine Public Charter School.

The Lengles’ daughter, Annie, recently turned 8, and together they take what Chris calls “a big grandiose road trip” each July that always brings them through Eau Claire, Wis., to visit with his in-laws. Later in the summer, Chris and Annie will continue their tradition of taking a daddy-daughter trip.

“After doing this for a while, I’ve figured out the best way to navigate the system and just taking some time for myself over the summer and spending it with the family,” says Lengle, who also works on house projects during his months off. “Last summer was the best summer. My daughter is 8, so I’m just trying to just embrace all the time I have with her before she goes off to college. We just spent the whole summer together, and hopefully, we have another summer like that this summer. That’s what I want to do every summer until I retire.”

MOUNTAIN MEDICINE: Brevard High School teacher Meredith Licht has increasingly turned to nature for rest and recharging each summer. Photo courtesy of Licht

TIME FLIES: Estes Elementary School teacher Dawn Lory, far left, works during summers to help her children, Sadie and Sam, pay for college. Her Estes colleague, Chris Lengle, right, knows those days are coming and spends as much time as he can during the season with his daughter, Annie. Photos courtesy of the educators

Play Ball! Asheville Tourists GM reflects on 25 years

Larry Hawkins, general manager of the Asheville Tourists, has been a Philadelphia Phillies fan, a Colorado Rockies fan and now roots for the Houston Astros. He’s not fickle. But he is loyal to the MLB parent team with which his team is affiliated.

Growing up in Cashiers, he played all the sports but became focused on baseball in high school. He attended his first professional baseball game on a fifth-grade field trip to an Atlanta Braves game, and like many small towns without a team of its own, he grew up watching the Braves on WTBS and the Cubs on WGN.

Nearing graduation from Western Carolina University, where he majored in sports management, Hawkins interned with the Tourists for the 1996 season. Later, he was director of stadium operations for the Clearwater Phillies in the Florida State League. It was legendary Tourists General Manager Ron McKee, credited with saving minor league baseball in Asheville during his tenure from 1980 to 2005, who in October 1998 lured him back to McCormick Field to run stadium operations and food and beverage. Hawkins has been there ever since, being named general manager in 2005.

During his nearly 25 years, Hawkins has seen scores of baby ballplayers come and go from the traditional launching pad of professional baseball, two league championships (2012 and 2014), fielded hundreds of questions about the film Bull Durham and helped team owner Brian DeWine secure funding commitments for the $37.5 million stadium renovation required of minor league teams to remain affiliated with MLB. Here are some of his reflections on the history, legacy and future of Asheville Tourists baseball and McCormick Field.

Xpress: McCormick Field — the third-oldest ballpark in minor league baseball — was built in 1924. What renovations have taken place since then?

Hawkins: The original building and bleachers were mostly wood, and I have heard stories from writers about how precarious it was to get to the press box across a very rickety catwalk. At the end of the 1991 season, the park was essentially torn down, rebuilt in concrete and was ready in time for opening day 1992. It’s pretty amazing that they built in seven months what is still here today.

Does anything remain of the original park and field layout?

Home plate is in the exact same location today as it was in 1924. The outfield wall has been raised, but we can’t go further back because you hit rock, and there is a concrete retaining wall from the time the ballpark was used as a racetrack for stock cars. It’s very unusual.

Are there challenges to a ballpark situated as this one is?

Yes! People from MLB will suggest we do this or do that, and then they get here and realize we are carved into the side of a mountain. That changes their perspective. We want to keep that because it’s unique and we are consistently ranked as one of the top ballparks in America to see a game. But it has its challenges.

Has a move outside the city ever been considered?

It’s been suggested but our goal is to stay where we are. It’s a very vibrant downtown, and we want to be a part of that as long as we can. We like and respect our neighbors and try to be good neighbors to them.

What notable Hall of Fame names have come through McCormick Field?

We have a photo here of three Hall of Fame outfielders playing in the first game in 1924 — Ty Cobb, Harry Heilmann and Heinie Manush. Babe Ruth made two stops in Asheville for exhibition games. On one of those visits, he got sick, and there was a rumor he died, but it wasn’t true. Jackie Robinson came to Asheville in 1948.

In your time with the team, are there players you remember?

During the Rockies era, it was Trevor Story, Todd Helton and Nolan Arenado. At this level, everyone is still in their learning curve. You see some guys who are really advanced and dominate but then level off as their career goes deeper. On the flip side, you see guys under the radar who work hard and succeed. One of my favorites was Juan Pierre. He showed up every day the same time as us, 8:30 in the morning, and would go in the cage and hit off the tee. He worked really hard and had a long career in the major leagues.

What is the Bull Durham connection to McCormick Field?

That’s the question we get asked more than any other. I tell everyone we’re in the last 20 minutes of the movie. Crash Davis (the aging minor league catcher played by Kevin Costner) is finishing his career with the Tourists to break the minor league home run record, which he does. The scene where he walks down the steps into the clubhouse, that’s actually the visiting team clubhouse. It is my favorite baseball movie. The dynamics are so real, and there’s so many great lines.

Why do the Tourists have two mascots?

Ron McKee created Ted E. Tourist after the big renovation. He saw how popular the San Diego Chicken and Phillie Phanatic were. So, he introduced Ted E., who of course was a bear and originally had the Hawaiian

shirt and suitcase, like a tourist. Mr. Moon was added in 2011 when we had our logo changeover and we wanted something new with that.

Is there any competitive rivalry between Ted E. and Mr. Moon?

Well, we basically rotate them out. Ted E. comes on the field for some promotions and Mr. Moon for others, but they’re typically not on the field at the same time. When they have been, we have had no altercations.

Does Thirsty Thursday provoke any mayhem?

Not at all. Ron McKee actually created it in 1983 and trademarked it in 1995. I think every minor league park has a Thirsty Thursday now, but we started it and have a plaque to commemorate it. It attracts a different demographic like all the promotions. Doggies on the Diamond when people can bring their pets is actually a bigger cleanup, not for what you think, but the dog hair is really hard to get off the seats.

What is the most popular promotion?

Fireworks nights, without question. Everyone loves fireworks. A guy told me a long time ago that whatever your troubles, you can lose yourself watching fireworks. They’re mesmerizing, just magical.

What can players and fans expect to see from the approved funding for the park?

Much of what MLB has required of us like new clubhouses with a minimum square footage, changing facilities for women, new batting cages won’t really be seen by the public. Deferred maintenance issues will be taken care of — it’s a 30-year-old park. There will be some new bells and whistles like a new scoreboard. We’ll enhance the picnic areas and main concourse. It’s a well-rounded approach to requirements and fan amenities. We’re in the planning phase now, and construction will begin after the 2024 season.

What’s the best seat in the house?

I don’t think there’s a bad seat in the park, but I don’t sit much. I like to greet people at the gate when they arrive and thank them for coming when they leave. During the game, I’m often standing beside the press box because I can see how everything on both sides of the stands is going. But if I do sit, there’s a spot in the back row of the premium seats in front of the first base stairwell, where there’s always a breeze coming out of the tunnel. It’s a cool spot on a hot night.

CATBIRD’S SEAT: Larry Hawkins, general manager of the Asheville Tourists, sits in his favorite summertime seat where the breeze comes out of the stairwell tunnel. Photo courtesy of Hawkins

COMMUNITY CALENDAR

JUNE 21 - JUNE 29, 2023

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

 Feature, page 49

 Feature, page 50

 More info, page 54

 More info, page 57

WELLNESS

Narcotics Anonymous Meetings

Visit wncna.org/ basic-meeting for dates, times and locations.

Sparkle Time Holistic Exercise

Aerobic, strengthening, balance and flexibility.

WE (6/21, 6/28), MO (6/26), 10:30am, Avery’s Creek Community Center, 899 Glennbridge Rd SE Arden

Tai Chi for Balance

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

WE (6/21, 28), 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 (6/21, 28), 12pm, Stephens Lee Recreation Center, 30 George Washington Carver Ave

Mindfulness, Meditation & Free Yoga w/ Lauren C

A local Asheville yoga instructor who's passion is mental health & mindfulness, will be leading you into an evening of breathwork, meditation and yoga.

WE (6/21), 6pm, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave

Dharma & Discuss People coming together in friendship to meditate, learn and discuss the Dharma. Beginners and experienced practitioners are welcome.

TH (6/22, 29), 7pm, Swannanoa Valley Friends Meetinghouse, 137 Center Ave, Black Mountain

Yoga For Everyone

For all ages and abilities. Instructors are trained to facilitate classes for people standing, or in a chair. Bring your own mat, water bottle and mask. Registration required.

SA (6/24), 9:30am, Black Mountain Presbyterian, 117 Montreat Rd, Black Mountain

Goat Yoga

Move through your sun salutation in a wide open field as baby goats frolic

SCOOP CHALLENGE: On Thursday, June 22, 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Moose Tracks partners with Ingles Markets, Kemps and Mayfield Dairy Farms to bring 10,000 scoops of free Moose Tracks ice cream to downtown Asheville at Pack Square Park. The 10,000 Scoop Challenge hopes to raise $10,000 in just four hours to benefit MANNA FoodBank. Photo courtesy of Moose Tracks ice cream

nearby. Registration is required.

SA (6/24), 10am, Round Mountain Creamery, 2203 Old Fort Rd, Black Mountain

Therapeutic Slow Flow

Yoga

A blend of mediation, breathing and movement. All bodies, genders, and identities welcome. Bring your own mat.

SA (6/24), 10am, Mount Inspiration Apparel, 444 Haywood Rd, Ste 103

Magnetic Minds:

Depression & Bipolar Support Group

Free weekly peer-led meeting for those living with depression, bipolar, and related mental health challenges. Email depressionbipolarasheville@

gmail.com or call or text (828) 367-7660 for more info.

SA (6/24), 2pm, 1316 Ste C Parkwood Rd

Goat Yoga on the Farm

Gentle practice accommodates all levels, children are welcome. Bring your own mat. Register at yogamtgileadfarm@ gmail.com

SA (6/24), 4:30pm, Mount Gilead Farm, 588 Green Valley Rd, Leicester

Free Yoga Outdoors.

SA (6/24), 5pm, Rabbit Rabbit, 75 Coxe Ave

Wild Souls Authentic Movement Class

A conscious movement experience in a 100year old building with a community of women

at all life stages.

SU (6/25), 9:30am, Dunn's Rock Community Center, 461 Connestee Rd, Brevard

Yoga Taco Mosa

Donation based yoga with Clare Desmelik. Bring your mat, a water bottle and an open heart.

SU (6/25), 10:30am, The Grey Eagle, 185 Clingman Ave

Spring Flow w/Jamie

Designed to release heat stored in the body, release excess kapha, and prepare the body for summer. Class is held outside. Bring your mat.

SU (6/25), 11am, One World Brewing West, 520 Haywood Rd

Yoga in the Park

Each class is unique, intertwining movement and breath with a different focus of strength and release. All levels welcomed, but bring your own props and mat. SA (6/24), SU (6/25), 11am, 220 Amboy Rd

Gentle Yoga for Queer & GNC Folks

This class is centered towards creating an affirming and inclusive space for queer and gender non-conforming individuals.

SU (6/25), 1:30pm, West Asheville Yoga, 602 Haywood Rd

Mettā & Meditation

In-person guided meditation focused on benevolence & loving kindness. This event is free to attend and open to beginners as well as experienced practitioners.

The Art of Food: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer & His Family Foundation

This exhibition explores the many identities of food in daily life: whether a source of pleasure, a reason for gathering, a mass-produced commodity, or a reflection of social ideologies and divisions. Gallery open daily, 11am, closed on Tuesday. Exhibition through Oct. 22. See p54

Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square

Wildflower Drawing

Stephanie will guide you through step-by-step drawing and coloring techniques. There will be a handout of photographs of the flower to use as visual references. Each flower will be observed closely to learn more about their parts and unique characteristics.

WE (6/21), 10am, Black Mountain Center for the Arts, 225 W State St, Black Mountain

Year of the Rabbit: Solo Exhibition for Hunt Slonem

can make a creative statement. Gallery open Friday through Sunday, 10 am. Exhibition through July 2.

North Carolina Glass Center, 140 Roberts St, Ste B

Pulp Potential: Works in Handmade Paper

The works in this exhibition reveal the breadth of possibilities and unique qualities that exist when artists choose to employ and even create handmade paper. Gallery open daily, 11am, closed on Tuesday. Exhibition through July 14.

Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square

Black Mountain College & Mexico Exhibition

The exhibition includes original visual works and sound installations by prominent contemporary Mexican artists alongside vintage works by BMC artists and relevant archival materials. Gallery open Monday through Saturday, 11am, closed Sunday. Exhibition through September 9.

MO (6/26), 7pm, Black Mountain Library, 105 N Dougherty St, Black Mountain, NC Zumba

Mask and social distancing required. Registration not necessary. Por Favor usa tu cubre bocas antes de la clase.

TU (6/27), 6:30pm, St. James Episcopal Church, 424 W State St, Black Mountain

ART

Jacqueline Shatz & Margaret Thompson: Eidolon

Features Jacqueline Shatz’s small sculptures of ambiguous and hybridized figures as well as Margaret Thompson’s paintings which are inspired by elements of the symbolist movement and magical realism. Gallery open Tuesday through Saturday, 10am, and Sunday, 11am. Exhibition through July 23.

Tyger Tyger Gallery, 191 Lyman St, Ste 144

Lisa Clague: A Solo Exhibition

Renowned figurative ceramist Lisa Clague presents new sculptural work in a range of scale, from oversized heads to diminutive busts. Clague’s chimeric forms are often an amalgamation of human and animal imagery. Gallery open Monday through Saturday, 10am and Sunday, noon. Exhibition runs through June 24.

Momentum Gallery, 24 N Lexington Ave

Slonem’s opulent textural paintings of his iconic birds and butterflies and his wildly popular rabbits, as well as unique sculptural works, give us a glimpse into Slonem’s colorful maximalist world and artistic empire. Gallery open Monday through Saturday, 10am, and Sunday, noon. Exhibition through June 30.

Bender Gallery, 29 Biltmore Ave

Altruistic Genius: Buckminster Fuller’s Plans to Save the Planet This exhibition brings the inventions and designs of R. Buckminster Fuller to Western North Carolina and introduces visitors to Fuller’s strategies for the sustainability of humans and the planet relating to housing, transportation, mathematics, and engineering. Gallery open daily, 11am, closed Tuesday. Exhibition through August 21.

Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square

McNair Evans: Tomorrow Ever Comes

An installation of photographs taken on Amtrak trains between 2012 and 2022 by San Francisco based photographer McNair Evans.

Gallery open Tuesday through Saturday, 11am. Exhibition through July 15.

Tracey Morgan Gallery, 188 Coxe Ave

Natura a Colori Exhibition

This exhibit explores the wide range of expressive possibilities using various techniques from slumping to "painting" with glass powders. The goal of this show is to share the unexpected ways in which kiln-formed glass

Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center, 120 College St

Izzy Losskarn: There’s Plenty for Everyone

Features large scale pastel drawings which invite the viewers into an imagined household space full of hyperbolic, absurdly manipulated products that are familiar to contemporary domesticity. MO (6/26), 9am, Revolve Studio, 821 Riverside Dr, 179 Art from the Garden Exhibit View the works created during the Garden Tour by the plein air artists. Enjoy complimentary refreshments and mingle with the artists during the last leg of Art in Bloom's festivities. Gallery open Monday through Friday, 10am. Exhibition through July 26.

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

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. Daily, 10am. Folk Art Center, MP 382, Blue Ridge Pkwy

Josh Coté: Inqwiry Opening Reception

This solo exhibition features several large-scale, outdoor wire animals sculptures. There will an opening reception with a meet and greet with the artist and complimentary refreshments. This event is free and open to the public. See p57 SA (6/24), 2pm, Grovewood Gallery, 11 Grovewood Rd, Ste 2

Paint & Sip Bartender and local artist will walk you through how to paint a beautiful mountain scene while you sip on wine and dine on fruit and cheese. All materials are included.

TH (6/29), 6pm, Monte Vista Hotel, 308 W State St, Black Mountain

COMMUNITY MUSIC

The Songwriter Sessions w/Mare Carmody, Ryan Price & Kim Smith

An evening of original songs in natural acoustics and listening room atmosphere. This month's session will feature Mare Carmody, Ryan Price and Kim Smith.

WE (6/21), 7pm, The Brandy Bar, 504 7th Ave E, Hendersonville Pritchard Park Songwriter Series

Each week will feature two songwriters from the community playing songs about life in the 21st century.

TH (6/22, 29), 5:45pm, Pritchard Park, 4 College St

Jazz Jam

An open jam session. Drop-ins are welcome so bring your instruments.

TH (6/22, 29), 7pm, LEAF Global Arts, 19 Eagle St

Acoustic Eidolon

Featuring Joe Scott on double neck guitjo and Hannah Alkire on cello from Colorado. Their original sound is created by the mixing of their diverse musical backgrounds and their unusual instrumentation.

TH (6/22), 7:30pm, White Horse Black Mountain, 105C Montreat Rd, Black Mountain

Min Xiao-Fen's New Film Scores Performed

Live w/River Guerguerian

Min Xiao-Fen's new film scores will be performed live with River Guerguerian. Together, they bring a unique cross-cultural expression and artistic vision to the stage. Both films will be shown during the performance.

TH (6/22), 8pm, Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center, 120 College St Concert Series on the Creek: Gotcha Groove Free concert series for the community with R&B and pop-rock band Gotcha Groove providing the good times this week. These events are free with donations encouraged. Everyone is welcome. There will be food trucks available on most nights.

FR (6/23), 7pm, Bridge Park Gazebo, 76 Railroad Ave, Sylva

Hominy Valley Men's Christian A-cappella Choir Concert

Listen to director Clay Plemmons and his non-denominational group of men of all ages as they perform patriotic favorites, traditional hymns and feel-good songs.

FR (6/23), 7pm, First Baptist Church of Weaverville, 63 N Main St, Weaverville Summer Concert Series

w/Zoe & Cloyd

A gathering of the community for music and camaraderie. Folk and bluegrass duo Zoe & Cloyd will be performing at the series this week. This free event will take place at the library’s amphitheater or an indoor location in the event of rain.

FR (6/23), 7:30pm, Transylvania County Library, 212 S Gaston St, Brevard

Opening Night: Carmina Burana

Principal Guest Conductor, Maestra JoAnn Falletta, kicks off the season on opening night with a performance of Orff’s epic Carmina Burana with the Brevard Music Center Orchestra and Greenville Chorale.

FR (6/23), 7:30pm, Brevard Music Center, 349 Andante Ln, Brevard Nicholas Edward Williams

A multi-instrumentalist and storyteller who is dedicated to "playing it forward" by preserving the songs and styles that have shaped our country.

SA (6/24), 6pm, Rare Bird Farm, 91 Duckett Top Tower Rd, Hot Springs

Patti LuPone

Broadway legend and three-time Tony Award winner, performs in this special BMC Presents concert. Ms. LuPone explores her lifelong love affair with Broadway through indelible interpretations of classic Broadway show tunes.

SA (6/24), 7:30pm, Brevard Music Center, 349 Andante Ln, Brevard WNC/Appalachian Music Series Presents:

The Asheville Dulcimer Orchestra

The Asheville Dulcimer Orchestra will be playing a range of Southern Appalachian to classical music. The program is free and takes place in the library community room.

SA (6/24), 4pm, Enka-Candler Library, 1404 Sandhill Rd, Candler

The Maggie Valley Band

Hendersonville Theatre presents The Maggie Valley Band as June’s intimate Hometown Sound concert. The Maggie Valley Band brings sister-sister harmonies to a mix of indie and folk rock.

SA (6/24), 7:30pm, Hendersonville Theatre, 229 S Washington St, Hendersonville

Mark's House Jam & Beggar's Banquet

Weekly Sunday pot

luck and musician's jam with acoustic and plug in players. It's a family friendly community day so bring a dish to share.

SU (6/25), 3pm, Asheville Guitar Bar, 122 Riverside Dr

Tchaikovsky Symphony

No. 6

Tchaikovsky’s soulful

“Pathétique” Symphony will be performed by the Brevard Sinfonia with Maestra JoAnn Falletta. Virtuoso violinist Simone Porter makes her Brevard debut in Bruch’s soaring Scottish Fantasy.

SU (6/25), 3pm, Brevard Music Center, 349 Andante Ln, Brevard

Fine Tuned Concert Series

These performances are a chance to witness the creative process at play as seasoned musicians collaborate with a select group of emerging artists in WNC to create fresh sounds and new compositions. This special performance includes Bayla Davis with Cary Fridley, Donna Ray Norton with Josh Goforth, and The Allen Boys and Kelley Breiding.

SU (6/25), 4pm, Ebbs

Chapel Performing Arts Center, 281 Laurel Valley Rd, Mars Hill

Café String Quartet

Presents: Canções da América

Cafe String Quartet will perform music with roots deep in the Americas, by Piazzolla, Gardel, Jobim, Joplin, Foster, Dvorak and Bennett.

SU (6/25), 5:30pm, Citizen Vinyl, 14

O'Henry Ave

Sirens of Hominy Series

A collaborative in-the-round, featuring a different set of Asheville songstresses every week. Hosted by CaroMia, genres ranging from soul, R&B, pop, jazz, to country.

TU (6/27), 6pm, FBO Hominy Creek, 230 Hominy Creek Rd

An Evening w/Peia

American born song collector, writer and multi instrumentalist based in the mountains of Appalachia. Peter Klaassen will be joining on double-bass.

TU (6/27), 7pm, AyurPrana Listening Room, 312 Haywood Rd

Free Patriotic Concert

w/Full Throttle

This 8 member popular music ensemble performs classic and current rock and country hits, as well as patriotic favorites.

The performance is family-friendly and open to the public, free of

charge.

TU (6/27), 7pm, Rogers Park, 55 W Howard St, Tryon

Revolution: The Music of the Beatles

This show brings to life the greatest songs of the Fab Four in a BMC symphonic tribute. Expect all of the iconic hits.

TU (6/27), 7:30pm, Brevard Music Center, 349 Andante Ln, Brevard Park Rhythms Concert Series w/Charlie Martin

All shows are free and open to the public. This year’s series features artists from across the nation, including New Orleans, Nashville, and Austin, Texas. The series will also include several artists from North Carolina, along with a few local favorites. Indie rock artist, Charlie Martin kicks off the series. See p57 TH (29), 7pm, Veterans Park Drive, Black Mountain

Sandeep Das & Mike Block Duo

This duo features a combination of the Tabla: a pair of Indian drums used in Hindustani Classical Music, Cello: a bowed string instrument used in European Classical Music, as well as Vocals: both rhythmic and melodic.

TH (6/29), 7:30pm, AyurPrana Listening Room, 312 Haywood Rd

LITERARY

Joke Writing Workshop

Hosted by Disclaimer Stand Up Lounge and moderated by Cody Hughes, weekly. Bring 90 seconds of material that isn't working.

WE (6/21, 28), 6:30pm, Asheville Music Hall, 31 Patton Ave Swannanoa Valley Book Club: George Masa's Wild Vision: A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina

A book club discussion of George Masa's Wild Vision: A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina followed by an author presentation.

TH (6/22), 10am,Black Mountain Public Library, 105 N Dougherty St, Black Mountain Poetry Open Mic Hendo

A poetry-centered open mic that welcomes all kinds of performers every Thursday night.

18+

TH (6/22, 29), 7:30pm, Shakedown Lounge, 706 Seventh Ave E, Hendersonville

Elle Travis: Bee Wise Local author Elle Travis shares stories from her children’s books, including Bee Wise. A scavenger hunt with

A small, local business hand-poured soy candles

Pure grade essential oils

Learn. Taste. Play.

prizes, potted pollinator flowers for sale, an educational bee experience by a local honeybee expert and more will be offered.

SA (6/24), 10am, Horse Shoe Grap Village, 3636 Brevard Rd, Hendersonville

A Conversation About an Artist’s Tools

A conversation with poet Dana Wildsmith. She is a poet, novelist, and essayist whose new collection of poems, With Access to Tools , has at its center the use of traditional, cyber and cerebral tools to work toward whatever balance may be possible in our lives.

SA (6/24), 3pm, City Lights Bookstore, 3 E Jackson St, Sylva Teen Poetry Writing & Slam

Explore styles, work with prompts, flex your voice and share your prose. Unique lesson plans every Tuesday.

TU (6/27), 2pm, The Elephant Door, 126 Swannanoa River Rd

Black Experience Book Club: Jackal

The Black Experience Book Club reads books by Black authors about the many facets of the Black experience. Join other book lovers to discuss this month’s pick Jackal by Erin E. Adams

TH (6/29), 6:30pm, YMI Cultural Center, 39 S Market St

THEATER & FILM

Calendar Girls

A Comedy about friendship as 6 women bare it all for a good cause. Based on the true story of eleven older women who posed nude for a calendar to raise money for the Leukemia Research Fund.

FR (6/23), SA (6/24), TH (6/29), 7:30pm, SU (6/25), 2pm, Hart Theatre, 250 Pigeon St, Waynesville

Hello, Daddy

Featuring songs from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Wicked, La Cage Aux Folles and more. All of your favorite Broadway hits combined with drag queen Delighted’s signature talent, wit and charm.

FR (6/23), 7:30pm, Hendersonville Theatre, 229 S Washington St, Hendersonville

Faun Fables & Toybox

Theatre

Folk rock storytellers

Faun Fables, from Oakland, California, join Toybox, America's Favorite Cartoon Witch for a one-of-a-kind evening of music and puppetry.

FR (6/23), 8pm, Girl And Goblin, 375 Depot St, Ste 201

Rodgers & Hammerstein's: Cinderella Enchanted

The Award-winning Broadway musical from the creators of The King and I and The Sound of Music comes to Flat Rock Playhouse. Multiple showings

Wednesday through Sunday. Visit avl.mx/cs8 for times and dates.

See p50 Flat Rock Playhouse, 2661 Hwy 225, Flat Rock

Twelfth Night

A beloved Shakespearean masterpiece that combines mistaken identities, hilarious pranks and a touch of romance.

FR (6/23), SA (6/24), SU (6/25) 7:30pm, Hazel Robinson Amphitheatre, 92 Gay St

Racist Roots: A Conversation about North Carolina's Death Penalty & a Jewish Response

A panel discussion about the film, Racist Roots, moderated by NCCADP Executive Director Noel Nickle.

MO (6/26), 7pm, Congregation Beth Israel, 229 Murdock Ave

Nature's Wisdom Thru

Native Eyes

This film takes an intriguing look at storytelling, native wisdom and nature's intelligence to help us heal our broken relationship with the living world. All screenings include live music by a native flute player as well as a talk with the director and film participants afterwards.

TH (6/29), 7:30pm, The Orange Peel, 101 Biltmore Ave

Summer Solstice Film

Screening: Realignments

A film about the physically remote but spiritually connected collaboration of dance, video, and music between Debbie Danbrook and Cilla Vee.

WE (6/21), 8pm, The Center for Connection & Collaboration, 65 Coleman Ave

MEETINGS & PROGRAMS

Asheville SCORE: Tax-Saving Strategies for Small Businesses

This seminar will offer you several ways to reduce your taxable income and shrink your tax liability this year. Bring your questions and our experienced tax preparers will give you ways to keep more of your money working for you. Register at avl.mx/crw

WE (6/21), 11:30am, Online

Competitive Duplicate Bridge

Check bridgeweb.com/ avl for dates, times and special announcements. All are welcome.

WE (6/21, 28), FR (6/23), MO (6/26), noon, Congregation Beth Israel, 229 Murdock Ave

Pritchard Park Series: Summer of Science

Explore hands on activities and experiments while we learn about the Science of Bubbles or the Science of Sound. Every other week we will play and learn together using a variety of tools, instruments, and toys.

WE (6/21, 28), 5:30pm, Pritchard Park, 4 College St

Spanish Club

Spanish speakers of all ages and levels are welcome to join together for conversation to practice the language in a group setting.

WE (6/21, 28), 6pm, Black Mountain Brewing, 131 NC-9, Black Mountain

Rhythm of Women

This is a women only drum circle. Learn East African drumming techniques and enjoy the rhythm and sounds of feminine beats.

Text (828) 777-6787 to reserve your space.

WE (6/21, 28), 7pm, The Elephant Door, 126 Swannanoa River Rd

Butts & Boots: Line

Dancing

Beginner line dance and two-step lessons, every Thursday. No partner or experience needed.

TH (6/22, 29), 6pm, Banks Ave., 32 Banks Ave

Let's Talk Tourism

We’ll chat about Cherokee’s storied tourism history and the future of cultural heritage on the Qualla Boundary.

TH (6/22), 9:30am, Museum of the Cherokee Indian, 589 Tsali Blvd, Cherokee Swing Dance Lesson & Dance

Swing dancing lesson and dance, every Thursday.

TH (6/22, 29), 7pm, Alley Cat Social Club, 797 Haywood Rd

Walk & Talk Fridays

Stroll through the pollinator trail, then stay to explore the woodland nature trail, Sally’s Garden, horticultural therapy gardens and the Fairy Trail. Suitable for all ages; children must be accompanied by an adult.

FR (6/23), 10am, Bullington Gardens, 95 Upper Red Oak Trail, Hendersonville

GEMS Domestic Violence Support Group

This event will focus on Mental Health & Support and feature local community health worker Whitley English. Whitley is a community health worker, peer support specialist and recovery coach. This event is open to all who have experienced

domestic abuse.

FR (6/23), 7pm, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave

Yappy Hour

A summer dog party for your happy tail-wagging buddies. Celebrate your furever friends with a dog costume contest, best dog trick and more. Dogs must be on a leash.

SA (6/24), 11am, Burton Street Community Center, 134 Burton St Mentoring Workshop: How to Join the Southern Highland Craft Guild

Learn what it takes to join our organization of fine craftspeople, and prepare for your application. Existing Guild Members will take you step-by-step to prepare you for the jury process. Be sure to bring at least five pieces of your work and digital images of your work.

SA (6/24), 1pm, Folk Art Center, MP 382, Blue Ridge Pkwy Plants for Birds Outings

Randy Richardson will be your naturalist guide, highlighting blooming wildflowers and notable trees and shrubs, sharing anecdotes about each along with their role in supporting our avian visitors.

SA (6/24), 1pm, Beaver Lake Bird Sanctuary, 1056 Merrimon Ave

Game Day: Perspective Café

Traditional game day with board and card games as well as refreshments from the Perspective Cafe.

SU (6/25), 2pm, Asheville Art Museum, 2 S Pack Square

Computer Lab & Wi-Fi Hours

Each Monday, we will be having computer hours with 2 workspaces. MO (6/26), 11am, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave Sew Co./Rite of Passage Factory Tour

On this 30 minute micro-tour, learn about sustainable and transparent business practices and hear about production processes and client collaborations. Preregister at avl.mx/cec MO (6/26), 11am, Rite of Passage Clothing & Sew Co., 240 Clingman Ave Ext

Chess Club Open to all ages and any skill set. There will be a few boards available, but folks are welcome to bring their own as well.

MO (6/26), 4pm, Black Mountain Brewing, 131 NC-9, Black Mountain World Tavern Poker Poker night hosted by Nikkita. MO (6/26), 7pm, The Getaway River Bar, 790 Riverside Dr

Good News Gardeners

A recent movement in the Episcopal Church, to provide fresh vegetables for those in need. Volunteers of all ages and experience levels are welcome to join the group which meets during the growing season. For more information call (828) 693-9783.

TU (6/27), 9:30am, The Episcopal Church of Saint John in the Wilderness, 1905 Greenville Hwy, Flat Rock

Ikebana International

Asheville: Fun w/Curly Willow

This program will focus on creating ikebana arrangements inspired by the use of curly willow. Ikebana, translated from Japanese as “living flowers,” is flower arrangements known worldwide for its grace and beauty.

TU (6/27), 11am, Folk Art Center, 382 Blue Ridge Pkwy

Astrology: Through The Cosmos

In this 9 series workshop, you will learn to cultivate rich relationships with the planets using the language of astrology ease-fully, invoking the planetary guides with ritual and learning how to translate their guidance intuitively.

TU (6/27), 6pm, Mountain Magic Studio, 3 Louisiana Ave

Pritchard Park Summer Series: Hoop & Flow

Arts Jam

Asheville Hoops provides jammin’ tunes, demo props for all to use and a positive event that promotes movement, creativity, dance and fun.

TU (6/27), 6pm, Pritchard Park, 4 College St

Building Our City Speaker Series: Eric Kronberg the Zoning Whisperer

Eric Kronberg specializes in examining and demystifying zoning ordinances to find ways to make great projects possible and help others navigate through the zoning swamp. WE (6/28), 5:30pm, The Collider, 1 Haywood St

Every Black Voice

The afternoon will consist of relevant, hot topic discussions, educational videos, black history education and more.

WE (6/28), 5:30pm, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave

Homemade Health & Wellness Series w/ Ashley English

A class series focusing on homemade health and wellness items with author, teacher, and homesteader, Ashley English. This weeks topic is Home Canning 101. Class is free to attend, but call (828) 250-4758 to register.

WE (6/28), 6pm, Enka-Candler Library, 1404 Sandhill Rd, Candler

$17 - $20 Hour & Beyond Job Fair

Job seekers are encouraged to attend. Browse through the employer booths and find a great career opportunity.

TH (6/29), 11am, WNC Agricultural Center, 1301 Fanning Bridge Rd Housing Mobility Workshop

Consumers attending will receive assistance in obtaining credit repair, moving from public housing to the private rental market, or starting the process of homeownership. Realtors will be attending to answer questions.

TH (6/29), 5pm, Hillcrest Community Center, 100 Atkinson St

Change Your Palate Cooking Demo

This free food demonstration is open to everyone 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 (6/29), 5:30pm, AmeriHealth Caritas, 216 Asheland Ave

Project Mind Lab

An evening filled with intriguing discussions, captivating crafts, refreshing beverages and the wonders of science. This event is exclusively for adults.

TH (6/29), 7pm, Dssolvr, 63 N Lexington Ave

LOCAL MARKETS

Etowah Lions Club

Farmers Market

Fresh produce, honey, sweets, flowers, plant starts and locally crafted wares. Stop by to chat with vendors, the Lions club, and enjoy the fruits of their labors.

Every Wednesday through Oct. 25.

WE (6/21, 28), 3pm, Etowah Lions Club, 447 Etowah School Rd, Hendersonville

RAD Farmers Market

Providing year-round access to fresh local foods, with 25-30 vendors selling a variety of wares. Handicap parking available in the Smoky Park lot, free public parking available along Riverside Drive. Also accessible by foot, bike, or rollerblade via the Wilma Dykeman Greenway.

WE (6/21, 28), 3pm, Smoky Park Supper Club, 350 Riverside Dr

Leicester Farmers Market Farmers Market with over 30 vendors. Locally grown and sourced selection of meats, produce, eggs, plants and flowers, baked goods, cheese, honey, sauces, crafts, art, and

more. Every Wednesday through Oct. 25.

WE (6/21, 28), 3pm, Leicester Community Center, 2979 New Leicester Hwy, Leicester

Weaverville Tailgate Market

A selection of fresh, locally grown produce, grass fed beef, pork, chicken, rabbit, eggs, cheese, sweet and savory baked goods, artisan bread, fire cider, coffee, pickles, body care, eclectic handmade goodies, and garden and landscaping plants. Open year round.

WE (6/21, 28), 3pm, 60 Lake Shore Dr Weaverville

Enka-Candler Tailgate Market

A grand selection of local foods and crafts, everything from produce to pickles, baked goods to body care, with a hefty helping of made-to-order meals from our food trucks.

Every Thursday through Oct.

TH (6/22, 29), 3pm,

A-B Tech Small Business Center, 1465 Sand Hill Rd, Candler Flat Rock Farmers Market

A diverse group of local produce and fruit farmers, craft-food makers, bread bakers, wild crafters, art-crafters, and merrymakers.

Every Thursday through Oct. 26.

TH (6/29), 3pm, Pinecrest ARP Church, 1790 Greenville Hwy, Flat Rock

Biltmore Park Farmers Market

A wide array of farmfresh seasonal produce, eggs, honey, locally-grown flowers, artisan baked goods, foraged mushrooms, handmade soaps, and more from local farmers, specialty food producers, and crafters. Every Thursday through July 20.

TH (6/22), 3pm, Biltmore Park Town Square, Town Square Blvd

Pack Square Artisan Market

This market will showcase local handcrafted goods in the heart of downtown Asheville.

Every Friday through Oct. 27.

FR (6/23), 1pm, 1 South Pack Square Park

Saluda Tailgate Market

With over a dozen vendors, this agriculture-only market features an assortment of homegrown produce, meat, and eggs within a 25 mile radius.

FR (6/23), 4:30pm, W Main St, Saluda

Henderson County Tailgate Market

Seasonal fruits, fresh mushrooms, vegetables, local honey, meat, eggs, garden plant starts, perennials and much more. Every Saturday through Oct. 28.

SA (6/24), 8am, 100 N King St, Hendersonville

Hendersonville Farmers Market

A vibrant community gathering space with produce, meat, eggs, baked goods, coffee, crafts, food trucks, live music, kids' activities and more. Every Saturday through Oct. 28.

SA (6/24), 8am, 650 Maple St, Hendersonville

North Asheville

Tailgate Market

The oldest Saturday morning market in WNC, since 1980. Over 60 rotating vendors offer fresh Appalachian grown produce, meats, cheeses and eggs - with a variety of baked goods, value added foods, and unique craft items. Weekly through Dec. 16.

SA (6/24), 8am, 3300 University Heights

Northside Community Yard Market

Browse various items at this community yard sale. Make sure to bring cash.

SA (6/24), 8am, The Northside at Merrimon, 600 Merrimon Ave

Asheville City Market

Local food products, including fresh produce, meat, cheese, bread, pastries, and other artisan products. Weekly through Dec. 17.

SA (6/24), 9am, 52 N Market St

Black Mountain Tailgate Market

Featuring organic and sustainably grown produce, plants, cut flowers, herbs, locally raised meats, seafood, breads, pastries, cheeses, eggs and local arts and handcrafted items. Every Saturday through November.

SA (6/24), 9am, 130 Montreat Rd, Black Mountain

Magical Fairy Market

Explore a wide selection of whimsical items, including crowns, unicorn horns, gnome hats, wings, wands, and limited jewelry. There will also be family friendly activities from exploring the Fairy Trail to face painting, art and more. This event is free and open to the public.

SA (6/24), 9am, Bullington Gardens, 95 Upper Red Oak Trail, Hendersonville

Mars Hill Farmers & Artisans Market

A producer-only tailgate market located on the campus of Mars Hill University on College Street. We offer fresh local produce, herbs, garden and landscape plants, cut flowers, cheeses, meats, eggs, baked goods, jams, honey, soaps, tinctures, crafts & more.

SA (6/24), 10am, College St, Mars Hill Midsummer Market

This market will be full of local art, food trucks, body care, clothing, crafts and gifts. There

will also be kid-friendly activities.

SA (6/24), 11am, A-B Tech Small Business Center, 1465 Sand Hill Rd, Candler

WNC Farmers Market

High quality fruits and vegetables, mountain crafts, jams, jellies, preserves, sourwood honey, and other farm fresh items. Open daily 8am, year-round. SU (6/25), 8am, 570 Brevard Rd

Show & Tell Sunday Market

A monthly Sunday market celebrating and supporting local indie craft, design, and vintage. Browse vintage clothes, housewares, handmade jewelry, ceramics, apparel and more. Free and open to the public.

SU (6/25), 12pm, Rabbit Rabbit, 75 Coxe Ave

Meadow Market

Browse goods and gifts from local makers and artisans with different vendors every week, you’ll find specialty items. Shop for handmade jewelry, housewares, vintage goods, and crafts.

SU (6/25), 1pm, Highland Brewing Co., 12 Old Charlotte Hwy, Ste 200

AFBU Asheville Industry Market

The market will showcase the talents of local artisans and crafters, offering a unique and diverse selection of hand-made items, including jewelry, pottery, textiles, and more. In addition, this event also aims to raise awareness and funds for the local worker-led coalition, Asheville Food & Beverage United.

MO (6/26), 1pm, Ben's Tune Up, 195 Hilliard Ave

FESTIVALS & SPECIAL EVENTS

Summer Solstice Celebration

A family-friendly, pop-up fair to welcome

summer. Rogers Park will be buzzing with music, vendors, and family-friendly fun.

WE (6/21), 4pm, Rogers Park, 55 W Howard St, Tryon

Lament with Earth

Five seasonal events featuring original music, poetry, rituals, images, scripture and videos to reflect different seasons of loss through the liturgical year. These free events are interactive, inviting you to pray and sing along. Register at avl.mx/crd

TH (6/22), 7:30pm, Online

Repticon Asheville

This family-oriented, fun-filled event offers guests the opportunity to learn about animals not normally seen in local pet stores. Guests can also shop for a new family pet among the hundreds of reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, arachnids and small exotic animals.

SA (6/24), 9am, SU (6/25), 10am Western North Carolina Agricultural Center, 761 Boylston Hwy, Fletcher

Maggie Valley Fly

Fishing Festival

Featuring two days of fly fishing & outdoor vendors, live music, food and all things fly fishing with a trout derby for kids. SA (6/24), SU (6/25) 10am, Maggie Valley Festival Grounds, 3374 Soco Rd, Maggie Valley Anno X: Burial Beer Co's 10 Year Anniversary Celebration

Celebrate 10 years of introspection, craftsmanship and community building with four killer bands, a myriad of Burial offerings both new and nostalgic, merch, food, and more. All ages event. See p49 SA (6/24), noon, Burial Beer Co. Forestry Camp Taproom, 10 Shady Oak Dr

Psychic & Holistic Expo

The Spiritual Fusions Psychic & Holistic Expo brings together talent-

ed intuitives, mediums, energy workers, artisans of jewelry, pottery, orgone and the ever popular Aura photos. Everyone is invited to come out and enjoy the day with reading sessions from astrology, pet communication, angel card readings, tarot and more.

SA (6/24), SU (6/25), 10am, Blue Ridge Community College Conference Hall, 49 E Campus Dr, Flat Rock

Art Quilts by the Shady Ladies Annual quilt showcase featuring quilting technique demonstrations including surface design, embellishment, appliqué, wool work, traditional quilting methods and more.

This year's quilt theme is "Our Town" a delight of colorful houses and trees created by group members.

SU (6/25), noon, Queen Auditorium, 112 Virginia Ave, Waynesville

BENEFITS & VOLUNTEERING

Moose Tracks Ice Cream: 10,000 Scoop Challenge

Moose Tracks will partner with Ingles Markets, Kemps and Mayfield Dairy Farms to serve 10,000 scoops of free Kemps and Mayfield

Original Moose Tracks

Ice Cream in a citywide ice cream social benefiting MANNA FoodBank.

TH (6/22), 11am, 1

South Pack Square Park

Benefit Show For Rob w/Drunk In A Dumpster, Hex Sign, Codapen & Green

Quams

Benefit show for Rob Owen who lost his home to a house fire in early 2023. Proceeds benefit his family and him.

FR (6/23), 8pm, The Odd, 1045 Haywood Rd

Asheville Hockey League: Golf Tournament Benefit

It will be “best ball”

tournament style play. Sign up as an individual and join a team or put together a team of four. All proceeds will go directly towards youth gear for new kids to participate, loaner gear for first timers, scholarships for both equipment and registration. SA (6/24), 8am, Broadmoor Links Event Center/Golf Course, 101 French Broad Ln, Fletcher

Climb Out of the Darkness

A free community walk and fundraiser bringing support and awareness for Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders within our community. SA (6/24), 10am, Richmond Hill Park, 300 Richmond Hill Dr Historic 7th Avenue

District Annual Pup Crawl

Annual Pup Crawl that benefits Blue Ridge Humane Society. Each stop will feature a pet giveaway or treat and an interactive activity hosted by a local pet-centric business. SA (6/24), noon, Hendersonville's Historic 7th Avenue District

Give to the Music Benefit Concert w/Asheville Rock Academy

The Music Academy Asheville presents a benefit concert featuring Flashback. SA (6/24), 6:30pm, The Orange Peel, 101 Biltmore Ave

AVL Coming Out Monologues Fundraiser

A night of comedians and excerpts of coming out stories to raise funds for the 2023 AVL Coming Out Monologues Fall show and to gain more support to receive submissions from local members of the LGBTQ+ community. See p57 SA (6/24), 8pm, Cascade Lounge, 219 Amboy Rd

Birth center reopens in Asheville

BY JESSICA WAKEMAN

jwakeman@mountainx.com

An independent birth center has reopened in Asheville, ending a period of nearly two years without such a facility in Western North Carolina. Lilac Health Asheville Birth & Wellness Center is in the same location as Western North Carolina Birth Center, which closed in July 2021.

The South French Broad Avenue birth center is staffed by certified nurse-midwives and nurses, and facilitates childbirth in a less clinical, more homelike setting than a hospital’s traditional labor and delivery unit and with more resources available than with an at-home delivery.

Lilac Health welcomed its first baby on May 14 — Mother’s Day — via a water birth. Staff members have delivered two babies since opening, says interim clinical director Gazelle Lange

RESTORING A SERVICE SPACE

Some faces at the center will look familiar. Melissa Poole, a certified nurse-midwife, worked for the center’s predecessor until the very end. “You could walk in and have a baby the day we closed — everything was all set up, up to code. We just had been credentialed again,” she says. The employees had only 30 days’ notice of the WNC Birth Center’s closure, and they helped transition patients who hadn’t yet given birth to other providers and staff members found jobs elsewhere.

During the year and a half after WNC Birth Center’s closure, CNMs and nurses who had worked there primarily worked at local hospitals. “There was a lot of grief when the old birth center closed, and we really felt the loss of it,” says Poole. “It was a really good reminder of what role it held in the community and the hole it left. I think the community had taken it for granted a little bit.” During this time, the CNMs encountered low-risk, healthy people who wanted out-of-hospital births and “would have been great candidates [for a birth center] but there just wasn’t an option,” Poole says.

Local real estate developer David Case , who tells Xpress he cares deeply about providing dignified, intimate settings for major life tran-

sitions, tried to help WNC Birth Center stay open. He found that keeping the business going would be too difficult given the financial realities of operating an independent birth center that primarily provides one service and is therefore strongly dependent on insurance and Medicaid reimbursement rates for childbirth.

Instead, Case purchased the property, thinking it could become a location for The Center for Conscious Living and Dying, a hospice care agency he is closely involved with. When the hospice found a better location in Swannanoa, Case says he wanted to keep the South French Broad Avenue space a birth center. “Not every mother wants to run up to Mission to have their baby,” Case explains, calling the birth center “something that Asheville needs, deserves — something to give [mothers] and fathers choice in Asheville.”

Case now rents the property to Lilac Health, a company owned by Yossi Schlussel of New York that has birth centers in several states.

A FRESH APPROACH

The birth center still provides three themed rooms: the waterfall room, the mountain room and the forest room. Each contains a large bed, a changing station and dresser. Babies are “less than 3 feet away at all times” from their mother, says Lange.

The mountain room has a Pilates bar and a hammock-sized sling hanging from the ceiling. These tools can be used for squats or leg lunges to coax labor along or to ease pain by resting in a different position.

Lilac Health also uses rebozos, “a traditional Mayan wrap,” says Paige Schneider, birth assistant manager and administrative director. “If we’re needing to help rotate a baby during labor, we’ll put it around [the mom’s] belly, and we’ll do little shimmies and shakes and stuff to get the baby in a good position,” she continues. Women also can hang from a rebozo wrap on the Pilates bar to ease lower back pain.

“The midwifery model of care is that we really believe that [birth] is a natural event, that women’s bodies know how to do this,” Lange says.

“So, sometimes when babies aren’t quite in the right position or labor’s

TOOLS OF THE TRADE: Lilac Health certified nurse-midwife Melissa Poole, left, demonstrates how birthing mothers may use a rebozo, a traditional Mayan wrap, and birth assistant manager Paige Schneider, center, shows off a large sling. Both are tools the birth center can use to help coax labor along. Interim clinical director Gazelle Lange stands beside a water birth tub, which was designed to be comfortable both for the birthing mother and the professionals helping her with labor.

taking a little too long, instead of moving into that medical model [as may be pursued in a hospital], we know lots of tricks to help get babies in the right position.”

Schneider adds that the birth center might soon offer the pain reliever nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, as “a little extra something we can use for women.”

Water births are another option for clients and are available in each room. Previously, the birth center’s rooms had inflatable tubs, which resembled small swimming pools.

The insider’s guide

NEW OUTEdition2023 NOW!

Lilac Health’s new water birth tubs resemble jetted bathtubs and were designed by a midwife specifically for laboring or delivering, says Lange. Its depth offers comfort to the laboring mother, and “midwives can reach in without totally breaking their backs,” she adds.

Each room has a private bathroom, which sometimes serves dual purposes if an infant decides it’s time to arrive quickly. “I was doing an orientation for new clients, and we had a woman come in who’d had her previous babies here,” Lange recalls.

Blissful Chiropractic

Experience a 45 minute adjustment that starts with a cranial sacral massage to relax the nerves followed by a gentle hands-on chiropractic adjustment.

Sacral Occipital, Applied Kinesiology, and traditional adjustments also available

| 828.777.1431

“She’s like, ‘Both my babies were born in the shower!’”

MEETING A NEED

Until Lilac Health opened, the only birth center in the state was in Statesville, a two-hour drive from Asheville. A Chapel Hill birth center closed in mid-2022, according to the Daily Tar Heel.

CONTINUES ON PAGE 40

What to do and where to find it!

We provide tips on the well-known attractions, hidden gems and quirky oddities that make Asheville so beloved. Pick up your print copy today in boxes everywhere!

Photo by Jessica Wakeman

Locally, expectant parents could pursue a home birth or at one of the local hospitals. Certified nurse-midwives could attend to births at these facilities, and some labor and delivery units have birthing suites with spa tubs and birth balls.

However, the staff at Lilac Health say a free-standing birth center offers a different experience. The space is cozier with more artwork, quilts and books. Medical equipment, while present, is not as prominent as it would be in a hospital. Women who have given birth at birth centers say the setting is more relaxed, provides more one-on-one care and support, and exerts less pressure to pursue medical interventions during childbirth.

Like other birth centers, Lilac Health works with clients with lowrisk pregnancies. “We were very careful with whom we accept into care,” Lange says. Those with prior cesarean births, pregnancies of multiples or pregnancy complications are advised to pursue their labor and delivery elsewhere. (Mission Hospital has WNC’s only level 3 neonatal intensive care unit.)

The American Accreditation of Birth Centers requires birth centers to regularly drill on skills. Lange says the team undergoes drills every two weeks or so, which creates the “muscle memory that you need.” Recent training topics included dealing with blood loss and neonatal resuscitation. “That’s a huge part of our philosophy — making sure we drill regularly because we don’t see complications that often,” says Lange.

Lilac Health will be inspected in August for compliance with standards from the Commission for the Accreditation of Birth Centers, which offers accreditation of free-standing birth centers. “When a birth center wants to be accredited, that means they want to be held to the highest standards possible,” explains Lange, who has served as

an accreditation specialist for the Commission for the Accreditation of Birth Centers.

MORE THAN BIRTH

While Lilac Health is foremost a birth center, it’s also a wellness center that can provide other reproductive health care, Schneider says. Patients range from adolescents to women who are post-menopause.

All the midwives can see patients for preconception care, family planning, fertility awareness, mammograms and annual checkups, including pap smears, as well as treat urinary tract or yeast infections.

For new parents, the team also supports breastfeeding and chestfeeding. The latter is “a more inclusive term for breastfeeding,” Poole explains. “If they don’t identify as women,” breastfeeding “sometimes seems more feminine oriented.”

The current staff isn’t yet trained in gender-affirming health care for transgender patients, says Poole. However, workers have experience coordinating with other people in the community who work with that group.

The team at Lilac Health also wants to provide education for assisting out-of-hospital births. Buncombe County currently has 22 certified nurse-midwives, Haywood and Henderson counties each have three, and Transylvania County has two, according to Sara A. Griffith, chief nursing officer of the N.C. Board of Nursing.

Demacy Monte-Parker, who works at Lilac Health’s front desk, is trained as both a birth and postpartum doula, and is training to be a birth assistant. The clinic plans to add midwifery internships, fellowships or preceptorships where a student is assigned to an instructor. Says Lange, “We recognize the importance of bringing up the next generation.”

The summer of ’82

PBS North Carolina docuseries recounts teens’ coast-to-coast bike trip

BY AMBER ADAMS NIVEN

amberadamsniven@gmail.com

Over 40 years have passed since the summer of 1982, when Paul Bonesteel asked his mother if he could join a bike ride from Long Beach, Calif., to Cape Hatteras, N.C. He’d seen an ad in the local newspaper from 28-yearold Chuck Williford, an experienced cyclist who had previously biked from coast to coast raising money and advocating for multiple sclerosis patients. After listening to his pitch for “riding for a cause,” the then-16year-old Bonesteel remembers hearing his mom say, “Go for it.”

Williford envisioned annual fundraising cycling tours to drive awareness to certain illnesses; the 1982 cycling tour resulted in 31 teenagers ages 13-18 joining the coast-to-coast journey. Most riders were strangers to each other, and some had little to no cycling experience or proper equipment. One rider confesses on film that she didn’t know how to shift gears.

The trip and what it meant to the young cyclists are memorialized in the docuseries “Shadow of a Wheel,”

produced by Bonesteel’s production company based in Asheville and premiering on PBS North Carolina at 9:30 p.m., Thursday, July 6. Three additional episodes will air on Thursdays July 13, 20 and 27. The docuseries explores how one adventure can have a lasting impact and weaves deeply personal interviews, found footage, period photography and iconic music.

Producer Amy Chase of Hendersonville thought about her own kids when reading the script. “Would I let my kids do that?” She recalls thinking. “I think there is a real value and importance in getting out of your comfort zone and doing something that is scary,” she tells Xpress. “You absolutely grow in some shape and form from going off the beaten path.”

TAKING OFF

The teenagers were responsible for raising $5,370 to secure a spot on the trip. Half of the money funded their journey, and the other half was donated to the MS Society. Five

adults, including Williford as the leader, accompanied the teens on their journey.

John Patterson, age 19 during the ride, heard of the trip when his mom mailed him a news clipping at his boarding school. As an athlete, he recalls the physical demands weren’t an issue. Patterson says he would “be completely different if I hadn’t done something like that” as a youth and hopes to take a similarly large trip with his son.

Williford’s intention had been for the group of 36 to ride together at all times for 3,600 miles. However, Bonesteel says, “It became very clear that there were too many of us and we were all at different levels that it was never going to work.” Most of the time, the teens rode in small pods or independently, and they gathered at night. “We became very independent,” he says. “We knew where we needed to go.”

MAKING THE SERIES

Can one bike ride really change your life? Bonesteel began pondering this

HOME STRETCH: The documentary Shadow of a Wheel shares the story of 31 teenagers and five adults who cycled from California to North Carolina in 1982 to raise money for multiple sclerosis research. Photo courtesy of Bonesteel Films

question after he completed the ride. Decades passed. For the 30th anniversary of the trip, he reunited with several of his fellow riders. Conversing about how the ride molded their lives, they concluded that, yes, one epic bike ride can change your life.

Bonesteel has directed more than a dozen documentaries, including “Muni” (2020), “The Mystery of George Masa” (2002), and “The Day Carl Sandburg Died” (2011). He decided during the COVID-19 pandemic it was the ideal time to make a story come alive from the footage he collected of the ride. “There comes a time in life when you look back and try to make sense of what has gotten you where you are and what has provided you the things to sustain and survive in this world,” he says.

Although “Shadow of Wheel” is partly autobiographical, Bonesteel sought to make the story larger than his own. He tracked down as many riders as he could and interviewed 31 out of the 33 who are living. He also reached out and connected with the families of Williford, Mike Simone and Tracie Marshall, riders who have since died.

Bonesteel shares that telling the stories of the three deceased riders brought joy to the families. “That’s been really meaningful as a filmmaker to see their reaction to us telling the story — their loved one who is gone did this thing back in 1982 and [the family] has this new story that people can hear about that person,” he says.

SHADOWS

The title of the docuseries, “Shadow of a Wheel,” was inspired by Bonesteel’s shadow moving across the asphalt while cycling one day. “[In] ’82, I stared at that so often,” he says. “I

saw the world from the seat of a bike.” The imagery seems to have changed only slightly over the past 40 years, becoming a symbol with a more significant meaning: the idea that certain life events have a shadow one can’t escape. Bonesteel says, “It’s who you are after it happens. No matter where you go, it’s a part of you — your shadow.”

Episode one opens with an introduction of the cast of riders, diving into their motivations for taking on the ambitious journey. Early footage captured on a dozen VHS that Bonesteel tracked down made it into the docuseries. As a result, viewers can be immersed in the 1980s culture of retro sportswear, equipment and hair as the riders pedal through a chaotic first week and adjust to the stark reality that the road ahead is long. “There will be laughter, and there will be tears,” says Chase.

The story continues throughout episodes two and three as the teens cruise through America, forging bonds through intense challenges, learning lessons and acquiring skills they can lean on for the rest of their lives. Next, the docuseries jumps to the 1990s to tell of a rider who dies of AIDS, and others reflect on how the “shadow” of the ride has impacted them and the course of their lives. In the last episode, titled “Life Goes On,” the group celebrates the completion of a journey and comes to terms with the ending of a transformative summer. Finally, the docuseries concludes with an unexpected death, reflections on the tragedy and key legacies of the trip.

“If someone comes to see it thinking, ‘Oh, this will be a cute story,’ I hope it becomes more than that because it is,” says Bonesteel.

“It’s a deeper story than a bunch of kids riding bikes and drinking beer ... which we did a little of that,” he jokingly adds. X

MIDDLE OF NOWHERE: The cycling crew stopped for lunch in the desert while on their coast-to-coast journey. The cyclists all had different ability levels and tended to ride in small pods, regrouping at night. Photo courtesy of Bonesteel Films

BY GREG PARLIER

Small but mighty

Black Mountain experiences boom in local food and

Richard King had his eye on Pure Oil Co., a dilapidated former gas station on State Street in Black Mountain, for years. When it finally went on the market in 2021, he called local chef Jake Whitman about collaborating on a new project, and The Pure and Proper was born.

Heidi King, Richard’s wife and business partner, says the restaurant fills a niche as an all-day eatery with a seasonal, elevated dinner menu, offering unique options such as venison stew and bestseller okonomiyaki, a Japanese savory cabbage pancake.

According to Sharon Tabor, executive director of the Black Mountain Swannanoa Chamber of Commerce, the restaurant’s launch is one of at least nine new food and beverage openings in the town of roughly 8,500 since the beginning of 2021.

Richard King says the growth is in part due to repeat Asheville tourists seeking somewhere similar but different to explore on vacation.

“If you keep going to Manhattan, eventually you’re going to start spending time in Brooklyn,” he says. “And now that the brewery and food scene is catching up with [Black Mountain’s] local, small-town, Hallmark charm, it’s getting even more popular.”

CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC

While the spillover effect has helped Black Mountain continue to attract new visitors, the town’s proprietors are generally proud of its independence from Asheville, just 20 minutes to its west.

scene

“It’s close enough, but a little more approachable,” Heidi King says.

Richard adds that parking is free, and there are fewer bridal parties stomping around the streets.

The arrival of new venues has local business owners excited, if not a little anxious about the future. Casey McKissick, who has owned and operated Foothills Meats in Black Mountain for more than 20 years, remains cautiously optimistic.

“I suppose as the town grows, I think we’re all wondering if there’s going to be enough visitors to do what we all need to do,” he says. “Because it does feel like a lot right now. May was a little [slow] for everybody. But it’s been getting steadily busier.”

BUILDING COMMUNITY

Just a block south of The Pure and Proper, restaurateur John Richardson wants to build community rather than foster competition with the opening of his latest business, The RailYard. “Rising tide raises all the boats,” he says. “The more the merrier.”

The RailYard — which hosted its grand opening on April 15 in a former furniture warehouse — boasts a long bar, indoor event space, outdoor stage, spacious patio, catering kitchen and the burger concept, SmashBalls, all on 1.2 acres.

No stranger to the industry, Richardson operates several other eateries in town, including Black Mountain Pizza & Ale House, Black Mountain Brewing and the barbecue food truck, Smoke Black Mountain.

But unlike these additional sites, he notes that The RailYard’s indoor event space creates the opportunity to expand his latest business into something that more resembles a community center. Granted, one that serves beer.

He’s already hosted gatherings for his nonprofit PubCorps, whereby volunteers package meals for Black Mountain kids facing food insecurity. In the future, he hopes to host craft and farmers markets outside and envisions yoga classes being held inside.

“What we’re looking to do is build [community],” he says. “I realized that I wasn’t really opening a restaurant. I was opening a community center.”

LET’S WORK TOGETHER

Across Broadway Avenue, McKissisk is expanding Foothills Meats’ downtown footprint while building rapport with other business owners.

At the original Black Mountain Avenue location, Foothills has partnered with Joseph Morris, who now operates his 2-year-old coffee concept Cup of Jomo out of McKissick’s 107 Market & Deli. In March, Cup of Jomo moved from a previous location in the WNC Outdoor Collective, across the street.

The deli sells breakfast and lunch sandwiches featuring locally sourced meats, various provisions from area

purveyors and the whole-animal butcher shop items that Foothills is known for in Black Mountain. Meanwhile, Morris offers his coffee drinks from the same register, a cooperative system that showcases both owners’ collective mindset.

“It’s definitely at the core of my business ethos and this community,” Morris says. “Community over competition.”

The partnership came after McKissick moved Foothills’ burger-focused operation up the street to the more centrally located spot now known as Foothills Grange in September 2022. This largely outdoor space resembles a city park, anchored by its signature burgers, hot dogs and full bar.

“We built this place, specifically, because it’s what [I and wife/business

partner, Amanda] wanted when our kids were little,” McKissick says of the decision to open the Grange.

“We want[ed] to sit at a table with our kids and not care if french fries fall on the ground. And it’s OK if they want to run around and get muddy and it’s relatively safe,” he adds.

The couple succeeded in that mission in part by adding a big dirt pile in the corner of the property, stocked with big yellow Tonka trucks and kidsized shovels.

HAPPY HOUR

Similar to the McKissicks’ collaboration with Morris, other business owners are getting together to discuss issues, complaints, successes and pitfalls.

That group is exactly what makes Hunter Berry, owner of Taco Billy in West Asheville, so excited to be a part of the town’s future. Berry recently opened Taco Billy’s Black Mountain location at 117 Cherry St. The reception from his neighbors has him feeling at home.

During construction, Berry spent a lot of time at Town Hardware & General Store down the street, where he became known as “Mr. Taco Man.” And while he loves his original West Asheville community, there’s nothing there that compares with Black Mountain’s unofficial restaurant-owner happy hour, he says.

“We’ve come together to talk about our similar needs and issues and to potentially work together collectively to try to solve those problems together,” he says.

They’ve considered paying for a linen service collectively, for example, and discussed other collective options to help each other lower costs and improve contract terms, he says.

BEYOND BUNCOMBE

Back at The Pure and Proper, Richard King says word is getting out beyond Buncombe County. He notes that seats are staying full inside his restaurant, and many visitors are coming from beyond Buncombe County.

For these reasons, King believes it would be shortsighted to complain about increasing competition. From his perspective, there are always new people discovering the town.

“As these businesses open, Black Mountain [becomes a] destination. It’s not just a stop on the way to somewhere else,” he says.

“Our hope is that we become a restaurant that draws people not just from Western North Carolina but from neighboring states, and Atlanta, Charlotte and Greenville. And we’ve seen that already,” he adds. X

GROWTH SPURT: A town of roughly 8,500, Black Mountain has seen a series of new restaurants and breweries opening in its downtown over the past three years. Photo courtesy of Explore Asheville

FRESH FACES: Co-owners, from left, Richard King, Heidi King, Ali Whitman and Jake Whitman have seen business boom at Pure and Proper since its opening in January. Photo by Greg Parlier

Family business

BY EDWIN ARNAUDIN

Father’s Day has come and gone, during which millions of greeting cards were exchanged to commemorate the impacts that dads have made in people’s lives.

Though local entrepreneur Greg Harrison’s father, Bill, a distinguished illustrator, passed away 20 years ago, the late artist’s legacy lives on through his son’s new business, Harrison Greetings, which Greg hopes will introduce his father’s work to the current Buncombe County community through, appropriately enough, greeting cards.

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST

Born in Asheville in 1927, Bill attended UNC Chapel Hill in the late 1940s, when his humorous illustrations adorned the covers and pages of the campus comic publication, Tarnation, poking fun at university and community life. Meanwhile, his far more reverent portraitures of the school’s football players wound up on the front of the game programs.

“He was also responsible for the stadium trick where people would have a card underneath their seat and they would hold it up and spell something out,” Greg says.

After graduating in 1949, Bill returned to Asheville and began working as a full-time cartoonist. His single-panel illustrations appeared in Life, The Saturday Evening Post, Boys’ Life, Parade, Collier’s, Look Magazine and other publications. And his “Guess Who” series was syndicated in newspapers across the country via the Chicago Sun-Times syndicate.

“He was very good with domestic situations and family stuff,” Greg says.

In 1953, Bill was honored as one of the top 15 most prolific cartoonists in the U.S., and throughout that decade, his works were regularly selected for the annual Best Cartoons of the Year anthology, where Charles Schultz, Mort Walker (Beetle Bailey) and other household names were featured.

The illustration that Greg feels best sums up his father during that time is a self-portrait of Bill on a golf course. Though the links were the elder Harrison’s primary form of recreation, he often had to balance the game with his other responsibilities. And in this cartoon, he’s not only working on a panel while pushing his golf bag to the

Harrison Greetings draws on the past

groups began hiring him to design fliers and publications, and as he saw his work impact people beyond the comic pages, inspiration struck.

“I imagine he was like, ‘The grocery bill is getting kind of high,’” Greg says with a laugh. “So, he started a greeting card company.”

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS

In 1959, Bill founded Harrison Publishing Co. on Church Street. Using his distinctive character designs, he created a wide range of options from holiday and special occasion cards to what he called “customer cards” — direct mail marketing for businesses that salespeople, real estate agents and other professionals would use to sustain contact with existing clients and introduce themselves to potential new ones.

“If you’re an insurance guy and you’ve got 200 people on your mailing list, you’re going to send all of them birthday cards so they remember you,” Greg says. “So it was really customer retention and customer relationship management through mail.”

next hole, but doing so with his thenfour sons walking right behind him.

With a fifth son soon on the way and the family budget already stretched thin to meet the needs of everyone in

their Malvern Hills home, Bill looked to improve his financial situation while still making a living through his art. Fortunately for him, an increasing number of churches and community

All of these designs were printed on the tall, skinny pieces of paper known as “studio cards.” Due to their unusual size, the card stock was the cheapest option, which made them a favorite of such underground comics as R. Crumb (Fritz the Cat) and therefore gave them an alternative edge that made them stand apart even more from standard greeting cards. But in each case, Bill’s creations remained the true stars.

“Everything that he did was with a crow quill pen and a Higgins bottle of ink — and he was a real master at that pen work,” Greg says. “He developed this style which is very exaggerated caricature but very friendly and grabbed your attention. People started buying the cards by the thousands.”

As demand grew to customers in all 50 states as well as internationally, Harrison Publishing Co. moved to 624 Patton Ave. and had a print shop on-site. Greg says that all five of the Harrison boys worked there at some point, and his brother Tim wound up running the company for over a decade.

Bill’s health struggles, combined with the popularity of online communications, contributed to the company’s closure in 2003. That same year, Bill passed away at the age of 76, and though his name may not be as well-known as the family wishes, the launch of Harrison Greetings, which uses Bill’s

designs, seems destined to change things.

PROLIFIC PEN: Bill Harrison works at his desk. The Asheville-based illustrator was a nationally syndicated cartoonist before launching the Harrison Publishing Co. greeting card company in 1959. Photo © 1959 - 2003, Harrison Inc.

MULTITASKING 101: This Bill Harrison self-portrait captures his many responsibilities and interests prior to launching Harrison Publishing Co. Photo © 1959 – 2003, Harrison Inc.

IN GOOD HANDS

When it comes to candidates to carry on Bill’s legacy, Greg is about as ideal as they get. Following in his father’s artistic footsteps, Greg graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Design and moved to New York City to work for Broadcast Arts, which produced “Peewee’s Playhouse.” Greg designed, built and performed Pee-wee’s robot, Conky 2000, and went on to design and direct music videos, ads and series for MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central

Greg’s music video credits include production design on DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince’s “Parents Just Don’t Understand.” Later, when Will Smith developed “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” sitcom for NBC, Greg was brought on as a collaborator. In the show’s opening credits, the graffiti behind Smith as he spins around in a throne is Greg’s handiwork.

His production design credits grew over the two subsequent decades

after moving to Los Angeles, working primarily for MTV and Nickelodeon. But the opportunity to start Harrison Greetings, spend time with his numerous Asheville-area relatives and, perhaps most importantly, have regular access to “authentic sweet tea and pulled pork barbecue” after a 20-year absence, brought him back east.

Since returning to Asheville and quietly launching the Harrison Greetings’ website in late December, he’s been operating out of his home office just outside downtown. There, he’s busy scanning his father’s vast collection of designs, all of which have been well archived and preserved, and making them available for orders.

In addition to choosing from preexisting cards, people can customize their own greetings using Bill’s classic characters and the multiple distinct hand-drawn alphabets that he developed. Greg has gone through his father’s library, digitized each letter and is working on presenting them as digital font sets — one of several product extensions in the works, including wrapping paper and T-shirts. Greg is also on the lookout for galleries or quirky spaces to potentially hold an exhibition of Bill’s work and more fully reintroduce his art to the Asheville community that he was part of his entire life.

“What my dad did in terms of the type of cartooning he did, the lettering, the dedication he had to create his funny characters, I wanted to get them back out and and let people see them again,” Greg says.

“The other thing that’s driving me is that tactile experience, which you don’t get with digital. In the middle of all this deluge of what we get every day, if you get something you can hold — if somebody goes to the trouble of sending a card, it stands out. People love picking up a vinyl record and looking at it and feeling it, so it seems to be merging with that sensibility at the same time. I guess that’s just kind of serendipitous.”

To learn more, visit avl.mx/crl. X

GENERATIONAL EFFORT: An accomplished artist in his own right, Greg Harrison carries on his father’s legacy with Harrison Greetings. Photo courtesy of Harrison Inc.

Taps and tunes

BY BILL KOPP

Though beer may have been its start, music has always played a major role in Burial Beer Co.’s aesthetic.

“I think it’s evident to most people that music is very much an inspiration for what we do at Burial,” says co-owner Tim Gormley

Not only does it inform the company’s branding and packaging art, Gormley continues, “but we also think a lot about what the soundtrack to our taproom experience sounds like.”

Since launching the brewery in 2013, Gormley and fellow co-owners Doug and Jess Reiser have enjoyed steady growth with the 2019 addition of its Forestry Camp location, as well as two satellite taprooms in Charlotte and Raleigh.

And with the brewery’s 10-year anniversary around the corner, Burial continues to expand its footprint and diversify its business model. On Saturday, June 24, the company will host Anno X, an outdoor beer and music festival, at Forestry Camp from noon-6 p.m., combining its passions for booze and tunes.

FESTIVAL LINEUP

The four nationally touring acts performing at Anno X illustrate Burial’s eclectic approach to music. Automatic, an all-female, post-punk/no-wave trio from Los Angeles (featuring drummer Lola Dompé, daughter of Bauhaus drummer Kevin Haskins) opens the festival with a 1 p.m. performance.

Brooklyn-based Black Marble, the atmospheric, electronica-focused project of Chris Stewart, follows at 2:10 p.m.

Wisconsin-based singer-songwriter Zola Jesus, who skillfully combines dark wave and art rock into a hypnotic swirl, takes the stage at 3:20 p.m.

And the event’s closing act, Beach Fossils, brings its shimmering dreampop sound to festivalgoers at 4:45 p.m.

Along with music, Anno X will showcase 12 new releases to commemorate Burial’s 10-year anniversary, including One of Us Will Bury the Other, a Mexican-style lager done in collaboration with Brooklyn-based Other Half Brewing. The Forestry Camp kitchen will serve items from its menu.

“Ultimately, we hope attendees have a multisensory experience that ends up being joyful, memorable and full of connection with like-minded

Burial Beer Co. celebrates 10-year anniversary with music and beer festival

to Burial’s existing South Slope facility, Gormley says that he and his team “don’t feel a lot of pressure to have [live music] shows every day.”

He estimates that once it’s up and running, the space will host four to five shows each week. The rest of the time, the building at 10 Buxton Ave. will provide plenty of indoor space for beer-drinking patrons.

“There will also be a food concept in that building,” Gormley promises. Burial management hopes that the new venue will be operational and open for business in October, but no official date has been announced. In the meantime, at its Forestry Camp facility, Burial will host a live music show in August as part of the inaugural AVL Fest as well as a hip-hop showcase the following month.

‘SOUL-SHATTERING SOUND’

While celebrating the 10-year mark, the Burial team remains focused on the future.

lovers of craft beverage and live music,” says Gormley. “Additionally, we aim to deepen or solidify attendees’ understanding of the inherent connection that our brand has with music. That connection has been there since day one and has been building through the years.”

‘NATURAL PROGRESSION’

Indeed, music has been an integral component of many previous Burial events — from bands and DJs at its flagship South Slope brewery to the annual Burnpile Harvest Fest at its Forestry Camp facility. And this experience with live music, says Gormley, makes the company’s next venture a “natural progression.”

In early 2021, Burial purchased its latest property at 10 Buxton Ave., immediately north and adjacent to its South Slope brewery. The $2.2 million purchase price was merely the start of a major investment for the company; remodeling the 11,000-plus-square-foot space was necessary to transform the former Asheville Hardware location into the city’s newest live music venue.

In anticipation of both Anno X and the new music venue (its name yet to be revealed), Burial hired Bryce Fanich last fall. Formerly the general manager at The Grey Eagle, Fanich has been a crucial addition, says Gormley. “Bryce has a deep understanding of what it takes to run a music venue,” he explains. “He has that connectivity to bands, and he knows how band and tour management works.”

Gormley adds that his own tastes in music run toward “heavy, dark and psychedelic.” But he emphasizes that the new venue’s approach to booking will cast a wider net.

“We’re always striving to be an inclusive company and brand,” he says, citing Burial’s expansion into making wine, cider and nonalcoholic beverages. “And that approach applies to music as well; the new venue will host a broad variety of genres.”

MORE THAN MUSIC

In addition to music, Burial’s expanded location will house a bottle shop and rooftop patio bar. And because the new space will serve, in part, as an extension

Gormley says that he and the Reisers have been fine-tuning their “five-year vision.” Currently, Burial has been handling its own distribution with a fleet of box trucks and refrigerated vans. “But we’ve reached this impasse,” Gormley explains. “There is a demand out there. People want our beer at places that we can’t get to — even within the state — without a dramatic growth of our distribution model.”

Concrete decisions on distribution plans have yet to be made, but Gormley says that Burial’s looking for ways to expand production as well as grow the number of taprooms it operates.

But one thing is unlikely to change. “Our plan is to stay independent,” Gormley says.

And music, he adds, will remain a major part of the mix.

“Having been a local business for 10 years, it’s very important to us collectively to offer a platform for local musicians,” Gormley says. “We’ve made a lot of relationships with people who make music in this town, so shows featuring local artists will be a big part of what we want to do.”

Furthermore, he adds: “This opportunity will push the long-standing interplay that music has with our brand and our goal of creating immersive experiences to the next level. We will curate with the goal of being inclusive, touching many genres, but always filtering through a lens of transcendent, experiential immersion in soul-shattering sound.”

A DECADE IN: Burial Beer Co. owners, from left, Doug Reiser, Jess Reiser and Tim Gormley prepare for the company’s 10-year anniversary with an outdoor music festival. Photo courtesy of Burial

No glass slipper

BY KAI ELIJAH HAMILTON

kaielijahhamilton@gmail.com

There’s something within us all that occasionally yearns to be swept away into a fairy tale. Flat Rock Playhouse makes that dream possible with its musical production of Richard Rodgers’ and Oscar Hammerstein’s Cinderella: Enchanted , showing through Sunday, July 2.

The beautiful Cinderella (played by Janae Hammond) has lost both biological parents. Now, she lives with her heinous stepmother (Chloe Fox) and two ignoramus stepsisters (Kaley Were and Kaitlyn Louise Smith) who treat her as their servant. When the prince (Xavi Soto Burgos) invites all eligible women to a ball at the castle, Cinderella is hopeful to escape her torturous life for a night of enchantment. But not if her stepmother has anything to do with it. Cinderella’s fate is left up to an unexpected visit from her fairy godmother (Ladonna Burns) to concoct a little magic.

Those perhaps too familiar with Disney’s classic animated version may notice specific deviations. Therefore, attending with a separation from such familiarity may be necessary for some. There is no “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” song, no crucial moment of a broken glass slipper and no talking mice. Here, the silent mice are portrayed via puppetry by visible actors. This decision is creative, and the dedication put in by the actors is apparent. If only they were directed to further personify their characters, this would have given the cute creatures more individuality.

The songs in this version of Cinderella: Enchanted are handled with gusto even though they are not

Flat Rock Playhouse offers new spin on classic fairy tale

very memorable. In fact, most seem to evaporate into thin air from one scene to the next. They just simply aren’t catchy. The exceptions are “Impossible”/Possible” and “Stepsister’s Lament,” which is one of the show’s best moments. Were and Smith are terrific at giving the stepsisters a zany portrayal. Were’s laughter bit is quite hilarious, and she nearly walks away with the production altogether. Fox is memorable, too, with her evil sashay and boldly whimsical makeup.

However, Hammond’s portrayal of Cinderella is the most surprising. The requirement to have the character be humble and meek goes without saying. Had the actress remained in this zone, as most would, it could have been a one-note caricature. The same cannot always be said of Burgos’ portrayal as the prince. He has the lovelorn part down but doesn’t push the boundaries of his performance to show inner turmoil. This hinders their chemistry at times. Nonetheless, Hammond picks up the slack to invigorate the audience with realism, modern twists and an impressive singing voice. This

makes us want to know the performer behind Cinderella. Hammond should be placed on an up-and-coming actor’s list because talent like hers will not go unnoticed for long.

Watching Cinderella: Enchanted, it’s impossible not to imagine what it would be like if a magical fairy or spirit appeared to change our pathways for the better. Burns, as the fairy godmother, brings a massive amount of energy to her role. She also has exceptional vocals — in fact, everyone in the production does. This includes Scott Treadway as Lionel the royal servant, which was another dazzling surprise.

The wonderful vocals are not the only standout, as this is most certainly a costume-focused show. The colors are vivid and pulsating — so much so that Cinderella’s iconic blue dress becomes muted on the dance floor. Perhaps costume designer Ashli Crump or director Christopher Rice-Thomson had that in mind. This makes us see Cinderella for who she is inside and not what she’s wearing.

If indeed this was intentional, the decision was a thoughtful exploration of depth. This could have been fur-

ther explored throughout the production. Cinderella: Enchanted is a great family vehicle, but what a daring production it would have been to create a tone of more authenticity. Regardless, the show is an explosion of joy.

Cinderella: Enchanted manages to wave a wand over us during a time when the world is filled with uncertainty. It reminds us of our youth filled with hope, comfort and the possibility of a little magic. X

WHAT

Cinderella: Enchanted WHERE Flat Rock Playhouse, 2661 Greenville Highway, Flat Rock, flatrockplayhouse.org

WHEN

Through Sunday, July 2. Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. $52-$72.

MAGICAL: Watching Cinderella: Enchanted, it’s impossible

not to imagine what it would be like if a magical fairy or spirit appeared to change our pathways for the better. Featured, starting left, Chloe Fox as the fairy godmother and Janae Hammond as Cinderella. Photo by Scott Treadway

Changing horses

BY EDWIN ARNAUDIN

In December 2020, as COVID-19 continued to rage and people around the world struggled with fear and uncertainty, Tina Collins experienced a series of stunning losses unrelated to the pandemic.

Her marriage to her wife and musical partner, Quetzal Jordan, ended. Three days later, Collins’ grandmother died, then an important paternal figure in her life was murdered, and a close friend died, possibly by suicide.

Not wanting to risk the spread of COVID-19 among her friends and loved ones, she suffered alone. And along with working through her personal traumas, Collins also began to mourn the loss of Tina and Her Pony as her musical moniker.

“In my mind, it was so strongly branded as a duo. I figured I had to completely let it go, so I grieved it like it was dead — and in a sense, it was, at least in that form,” she says. “I was deeply sad, not only because I was parting ways with my musical partner and wife of 11 years, but also because I’d put over a decade of my blood, sweat and tears into creating and cultivating — for lack of a less soulful term — the ‘brand’ of Tina and Her Pony.”

Moving forward, she assumed that she’d simply play music under the name Tina Collins. (“Which, you have to admit, is not nearly as captivating a name,” she notes.) Eventually, good friends nudged her to consider that maybe she didn’t have to completely let it go.

“I am Tina, after all, and my pony can be whatever I want it to be,” she says. “I figured that even if it was difficult at first to keep the name, in the end, it would be worth it to not have to completely lose all the groundwork and traction I’d created over the last 12 years. And so, the dreaming of the new version of Tina and Her Pony began.”

Fortunately, Collins had already written most of what would become her excellent 2023 album, Marigolds. And while many of the songs are about grief, she notes she “was absolutely feeling them in a new way” and refined them with new lines here and there that spoke to her current pains. Four of the tracks, however, were written during the recording process and focus more on rebirth.

Tina and Her Pony, Andrew Scotchie and Jon Stickley Trio release new albums

“Most of the healing that happened for myself around the making of this album was simply coming to a place where I believed in myself enough to even make the thing in the first place,” Collins says. “I was so used to being a part of a duo that it was hard for me to believe that anyone would want to hear what I had to say musically on my own.”

With help from her close friends, the husband-and-wife team of Ryan Furstenberg and Melissa Hyman (who perform as The Moon and You), Collins rediscovered herself and recalls feeling “absolutely on fire” during the recording process, despite the largely difficult subject matter at hand.

Collins and Furstenberg co-produced Marigolds , pushing her to experiment with more electric elements than on her previous albums, while Hyman contributed bass and cello. In turn, Collins crafted a collection that not only proved cathartic for her but has helped others heal, which she considers the most rewarding.

“Many people have told me that they will put on certain songs from the album if they know they need a good cry or that they shared one of my songs with their grief group,” Collins says. “In a world that can be very numbing and distracting, I want to help move people to authentic emotion. We go through so much in this life, and my hope is that these songs can, if nothing else, be a balm to weary souls. Life moves in spirals, and we are never truly alone. No matter how dark the times, we will always come back around to light.”

To learn more, visit avl.mx/cqg.

BROTHERS IN ARMS

Andrew Scotchie and Logan Fritz seemed destined to become friends and collaborators. Though Scotchie is based in Asheville and Fritz lives in Abingdon, Va., the guitarists and singer-songwriters were aware of each other’s music. Mutual fans also told them they had similar energies and should play together.

After meeting in 2018, the two continued to cross paths. But it wasn’t until Halloween 2021 that the duo — along with drummer Neal Reid — performed a full show together: a tribute to Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York.

“We decided then that we had to keep on playing more music together,” Fritz says of that fateful gig.

The two have plenty in common. Along with shared influences such as Tom Petty and the Rolling Stones, the pair have a shared commitment to community. Throughout their individual careers, they’ve participated in benefit shows and used their music as a vehicle for change.

“The way we write is very heartfelt. It’s honest,” Scotchie says. “I remember when I saw Logan for the first time live, there was no facade. There was no difference between him onstage and offstage, and I’ve always had that at the core of what I do. And he treats his fans good, just like I do.”

With that foundation in place, the two began work on Scotchie’s

COMBO PLATTER: Clockwise from left, Andrew Scotchie (Logan Fritz and Scotchie), Tina and Her Pony (Melissa Hyman, Tina Collins, Ross Montsinger, Ryan Furstenberg) and the Jon Stickley Trio (Lyndsay Pruett, Stickley, Hunter Deacon) thrive on collaborations. Scotchie and Stickley photos by Tom Farr; Collins photo by David Gwaltney

new album, Love Is Enough, which was released on June 9. Before the experience, Fritz says he hadn’t co-written with many people. But within 20 minutes of their first session, they crafted the chorus for “January Blue.” From there their confidence grew.

“It’s rare to find someone that I feel comfortable co-writing with, just because you’ve really got to open up,” Fritz says. “[Scotchie] and I know each other so well and get each other, so that made it so much easier.”

Lyrically mature and featuring a range of styles, traditions and tempos over its expansive seven tracks, Love Is Enough finds Scotchie operating on an impressive new level while still rooted in the pure rock sound that’s made him one of the most exciting forces in music these past 11 years.

Being away from Asheville for a week also helped bring the best out in Scotchie. Removed from the trivialities of daily life, he says he was able to be “100% involved” in the recording process — a “life-changing” experience that makes him want to take that approach with each future project.

“The Bristol community and the history there is so rich,” Scotchie says. “I absolutely think that there’s some energy within those studio walls and from the city that seeped its way into this album. Like, without us trying too hard, it found its way into the album.”

He also hopes that Love Is Enough winds up being the first “of 20 or 25 albums” that he and Fritz make together, which begs the question, “What about the River Rats?” Have no fear: Scotchie’s power trio with bassist Keith Harry and drummer Clark Eden continues to tour and create together but will be doing so simply under Scotchie’s name.

“It’s definitely not because I don’t want a band name attached. It’s just because I want to do what I want to

do under the umbrella of my name, and I don’t want it to be tied to any certain perception of, ‘rock ’n roll: period,’ because I’m more than that,” Scotchie says.

“I put different genres of music on [Love Is Enough] for a reason: to show myself and to show the fans that I’m capable of so much more. And I think that contributes to part of the energy on the album.”

To learn more, visit avl.mx/cqi.

ROLLING WITH THE PUNCHES

Released in late April, Meantime’s Up marks the second Jon Stickley Trio album with its current lineup. In the three years since the group’s previous release, Scripting the Flip, Stickley (guitar), Lyndsay Pruett (violin) and Hunter Deacon (percussion) have come into their own as a unit.

“In the past, I’ve presented them with fully formed demo recordings. But this time around, I purposefully left blanks for them to fill in rhythmically and melodically,” Stickley says. “I’ve learned to trust that they will probably come up with something cooler for themselves to play than I would. In that sense, the record ended up sounding very fresh and more personal to the three of us as individuals.”

The Asheville-based frontman points to a pair of solo drum explorations and a solo violin piece on Meantime’s Up as moments when his talented bandmates’ musicality especially shines. He refers to epic album opener “Riders of the Night Sky” as “a complete departure.” The sound is a result of experimentation with different effects and electronics over the years that have worked their way into some of the band’s compositions.

“‘Riders’ was composed around a specific setting on the delay pedal that creates alternate melodies from

the line I play on the guitar,” Stickley says. “We’re always reaching for new sounds, textures and ideas to add to the mix.”

The trio has also evolved quite a bit on a personal level. In midMarch 2021, following one of her first gigs back since the onset of the pandemic, Pruett noticed an ache in her wrist. It wound up being De Quervain’s tenosynovitis, a particular type of tendonitis in which the tendon that powers a person’s thumb become inflamed. Painful corticosteroid injections followed, and though surgery was recommended if Pruett’s condition didn’t improve, she was hesitant to have the procedure lest it interfere with the band’s busy tour and festival schedule.

“That was a pretty stressful period of time when she was dealing with that. I felt especially guilty about it because the condition was aggravated by a specific thumb motion that she uses to play the bass parts, specifically for the trio,” Stickley says. “After months of physical therapy and rest, the situation didn’t improve. A couple of weeks before we were to start playing again, she had a last-minute surgical proce-

dure to correct it. Thankfully, it was a success, and she’s been playing for almost two years now with no issues.”

Then this past Christmas night, Stickley’s wife, Julianne, had a stroke while they were visiting family in Eastern North Carolina. Thus began a four-month stay in Durham at Duke University Hospital for intervention, followed by inpatient and outpatient rehab. Stickley says the Duke staff was incredible, and both sets of grandparents also stepped up, becoming full-time caretakers for their two grandchildren. Julianne’s condition has improved, but the subsequent months have proved transformational in numerous ways.

“The whole experience put things in perspective for us and made us so incredibly grateful for what we have and how precious life is,” Stickley says. “Leaving home to play shows has a whole new level of complexity to it, and I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions about the future. But right now, when we make it to the show and get to perform for folks, it means more to me than it ever has before. I get the sense that the crowds pick up on that as well.”

To learn more, visit avl.mx/cqh. X

Featuring The Highly Recognized and Multidimensional Artist Dr. Tiffany Renée Jackson

Lorrie Pande writer, director, producer

What’s new in food

Chef Elliott Moss opens Regina’s Westside

Chef Elliot Moss has been busy. This spring he opened Little Louie’s, a hoagie and peirogi joint at 1478 Patton Ave. More recently, on June 1, he launched Regina’s Westside, just a quarter-mile down the road. Its menu, he notes, offers “comfort classics.”

The James Beard-nominated chef took over the former Happy Hill restaurant spot with his partners Michael Piroli, Lisa Wagner and Taylor Godleski. The building, which is over 50 years old, got a makeover with a vintage feminine vibe — complete with custom-made yellow banquettes and a pink exterior. The restaurant’s name, which means “queen” in Latin, is an homage to the strong women in his life.

“I don’t necessarily have a Regina in my life, but I have a lot of strong ladies … that I draw inspiration from — my grandmas, my mother, my aunts,” says Moss. “We wanted the place to feel welcoming and offer some nostalgia,” he adds.

The menu, which consists of Southern comfort food, reflects some of Moss’ favorites, including a daily meatloaf plate. “Meatloaf is one of my bigger comfort foods — I love making it, I love eating it. I don’t know of a lot of places that offer it with the tomato glaze on it. That’s the way my mom made it and the way I like it.”

Some of the dishes came down to Moss from the women who influenced him. For instance, the pound cake — which is started in a cold oven versus a preheated oven — is his aunt’s recipe.

Other items on the menu include deviled crab hushpuppies, baked ricotta gnocchi and cheese, and spaghetti and meatballs. Most of the savory dishes are Moss’ recipes.

On one side of the restaurant is a full bar, The Rumpus Room, where patrons can order classic cocktails. Surprisingly, there is also a view of the Biltmore House from the large windows.

Moss plans to add outdoor dining by the summer behind the restaurant where there was formerly a carport.

Regina’s is currently open Wednesday through Sunday, noon-8 p.m., with a plan to expand hours in the near future. Moss is also adding a grab-and-go breakfast menu in the next few weeks and will add to the lunch and dinner menu as the restaurant grows, as well as seasonally.

Regina’s Westside is at 1400 Patton Ave. For more information, visit avl.mx/crx.

Visually appetizing

Visitors to the Asheville Art Museum can feast with their eyes on a new exhibition focusing on food. The Art of Food: From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation will be on view from Friday, June 16, to Sunday, Oct 22, in the Explore Asheville Exhibition Hall on the third level.

“We are delighted to bring this extraordinary exhibition to Western North Carolina, where we are sure it will inspire residents and visitors alike,” says museum Executive Director Pamela Myers in a press release. “Southern Appalachia is renowned for its food historically, and today, we are fortunate to be surrounded by that uniqueness — from farming to brewing to the creativity and inventiveness demonstrated by our culinary community.”

The exhibition brings together works from postwar and contemporary artists and, with associated programming, will explore the roles food plays in our daily lives. The 37 artists whose work is on display include Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol,

Enrique Chagoya and Jenny Holzer — with more than 100 works in several mediums.

“Exhibition programming will present an opportunity for Western North Carolinians to think beyond food as nourishment and consider ways that food and culture inform one other,” says Kate Faulkner, director of learning and engagement, in the same press release. “[It] will highlight and celebrate topics surrounding our region’s food, people and history.”

Asheville Art Museum is at 2 S. Pack Square. For more information, visit avl.mx/cro.

Mint to bee

Mint grown and tended by students at the Hall Fletcher and Lucy S. Herring elementary school gardens will be used in two flavors at The Hop Ice Cream to promote Bountiful Cities’ Urban Garden Tour and Tasting on Sunday, July 9. The tour, which will be from 1-5 p.m. with the goal of increasing awareness of urban food solutions, is a fundraiser for the local nonprofit.

WESTSIDE STORY: Chef Elliott Moss opens his second restaurant, Regina’s Westside, on West Asheville’s Patton Avenue. Photo by Andy Hall

The first flavor, The Bees Knees, was released on June 9 and consists of the school-grown mint, Haw Creek Honey Co. honey, and rose and lavender water. Inspired by a Dobra Tea drink of the same name, it will remain on the menu for several weeks.

Fresh mint chip, available in both dairy milk and vegan hemp milk, will be released Friday, July 7. The Hop co-owner Greg Garrison says, “An ice cream classic gets some local love to support the community. Mint chocolate chip is almost always available at The Hop, and when mint season comes around, like with most produce, it gets a local upgrade. Fresh mint leaves are pureed into the base, spun and mixed with ethically sourced chocolate chips.”

The school gardens from which the mint was harvested are a product of FEAST Asheville Inc.’s The Edible Schoolyard Project. FEAST is an acronym for Fresh, Easy, Affordable, Sustainable, Tasty.

“The Hop has been involved with the FEAST program for about 10 years or so,” says Garrison.“When we found out that FEAST handled the elementary school gardens at Hall Fletcher and Lucy S. Herring, we started having conversations about making ice cream with what they grew, and mint just made sense.”

“In general, collaborating to make ice cream with other local businesses, organizations and people has proven to be such an awesome way to have a positive impact in our community,” says Garrison. “It allows us to build a greater network of support for each other [and] connect with people to build really transformative relationships. ... Plus, it’s just fun to get together to talk about ice cream.”

At the garden tour, The Hop will offer the Pollinator Sundae, made with FEAST garden figs, local honey and a dusting of house-made honeycomb candy. The event will also include tastings from other local chefs and food purveyors, as well as educational opportunities.

The Hop Ice Cream has several area locations. For more information, visit avl.mx/auf. For more information on the Bountiful Cities Urban Garden Tour, visit avl.mx/crp.

Tastee dinner

West Asheville’s Tastee Diner is now open seven days a week, with new hours including added dinner service.

Chef and owner Steven Goff’s menu of elevated diner food, as well as casual options such as burgers and wings, is now available 8 a.m.-10 p.m. daily, with dinner service starting at 5 p.m.

Some of the new menu items are steamed mussels, whole fried fish, pickled eggs and Slim Jim dip — made with Slim Jims and served with fried pork skins. “As a kid, I loved the gas station charcuterie aisle — Slim Jims, beef jerky, pickled eggs, pickled sausage, giant kosher dills. It was what I asked for instead of candy,” says Goff. “One of my Raleigh teammates always talked about his mama’s sausage dip and made it for us a couple times, so I was kind of combining those memories. I love pork rinds, too, and they fit in that same space.”

Some new beverages are offered, such as the Shift Drink — a bright-colored cocktail served in a plastic quart container. “We did the Shift Drink because we love serving our compatriots in the industry, and the deli container is the drink container of choice in most establishments that use them,” says Goff. “I’m literally getting a tattoo of one because they’re so important and such a symbol of kitchen work and hospitality. It’s a fun way for our bartenders to do something creative, and we also use a lot of different kitchen products that otherwise may be thrown away.”

Tastee Diner is at 575 Haywood Road. For more information, visit avl.mx/cab.

— Andy Hall X

Around Town

Artists bring ’Asheville vibe’ to Candace Pickens Memorial Park playground

Candace Pickens loved yellow, so the color will be incorporated into the design of the North Asheville playground being rebuilt in her honor. She had a dove tattoo, so images of doves will be carved and painted into the playground equipment as well.

And an image of the late Pickens and her son, Zachaeus, painted by her aunt based on a photo chosen by her mother, will be installed at the new Candace Pickens Memorial Park, formerly known as Jones Park.

“I wanted to make sure she is represented in the best possible way,” says the aunt, Jenny Pickens, a painter who serves as the arts and special features coordinator for the park. Candace Pickens, 22, was murdered at Jones Park in 2016. Zachaeus, then 3, survived the shooting but lost his left eye.

The original Jones Park playground was condemned and demolished by Asheville City Schools in September 2021 after more than 20 years of use. The community park sits on school district-owned land and shares a parcel with Ira B. Jones Elementary School.

Shortly after its closing, North Asheville resident David Rodgers spearheaded a fundraising drive to rebuild the playground. His efforts paid off when, in September 2022, the school district struck a deal with the city of Asheville and Buncombe County to rebuild the playground using donations. The Board of Education also voted to rename the park after Pickens.

Rodgers says incorporating art into the new playground has been a priority.

“Other artists have volunteered to collaborate with [Jenny Pickens] to bring an Asheville vibe into the playground honoring the life of Candace,” he says.

Pickens adds, “Artists spread love through creativity. Collaboration and great community are what’s happening.”

Organizers are signing up volunteers now to rebuild the playground from Wednesday, Oct. 4-Sunday, Oct. 8. For more information, go to avl.mx/bo8.

All that jazz

Asheville documentary filmmakers John Alexander and JC Guest get a lot of unsolicited ideas about stories they should pursue. But when they heard a pitch from Florida producer Lea Umberger, they knew it was something special.

“She said she knew what our next project was going to be and that it was all about [legendary jazz musician] Louis Armstrong’s secret daughter, who lived right there in nearby Sarasota,” Alexander says.

“It was a story that seemed almost too good for television to be true.”

After reading Sharon PrestonFolta’s memoir, Little Satchmo, Alexander and Guest decided to collaborate with her on a documentary of the same name.

The film, which aired on PBS stations as part of the “Reel South” documentary series, this month won Best Historical Documentary at the Southeast Emmy Awards. Alexander directed Little Satchmo while Guest and Umberger served as producers.

The book details how Preston-Folta, the product of a two-decade love affair between Armstrong and Harlem dancer Lucille “Sweets” Preston, had no choice but to conceal her identity for decades before making it public. “It instantly struck a chord of genuine heartfelt emotion, a direct from-theheart account which elicits not only interest but empathy from anyone with a heart,” Alexander says. “We figured bringing this to a documentary film format could have the power to make even more people feel these same emotions, even more intensely.”

“The project is very much a homegrown Asheville one,” Alexander adds. “The film was edited entirely in our home studios in Asheville. There were numerous pickup shots meant to take place in New York that we filmed locally around Asheville. All the directing of Preston-Folta’s voice-over narration,

which is the driving force of the film, happened remotely from Asheville.”

For more information, or to watch the documentary, visit avl.mx/crr.

Animal magnetism

Inqwiry , a solo exhibition of works by Bakersville wire sculptor Josh Coté, will run Saturday, June 24-Sunday, Aug. 13 at Grovewood Gallery. An opening reception will be held Saturday, June 24, 2-5 p.m.

The show will feature several largescale, outdoor, wire animal sculptures, including an 8-foot-long rhinoceros filled with blue glass bottles, a 6-foottall penguin, a large wolf and a goat filled with recycled cans.

“The selected works for this exhibition will showcase the culmination of everything I have learned as a wire sculptor,” Coté says in a press release. “So, the title of the show, Inqwiry, seemed a perfect fit as it describes my curiosity and love of wire. I have followed it like a metal thread to wherever it leads, much like an inquiry with a questioning mind.”

Grovewood Gallery, 111 Grovewood Road, Suite 2, is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. For more information, go to avl.mx/crt.

Coming out

Local Color Comedy will present AVL Coming Out Monologues at 8 p.m.

Saturday, June 24, at Cascade Lounge. The event will feature comedy and storytelling from local comedians and will raise money for Local Color Comedy’s fall show.

Cascade Lounge is at 219 Amboy Road. For more information or to buy $10 tickets, go to avl.mx/cru.

Into the woods

The Diana Wortham Theatre will present The American Woodsman, a musical by Asheville playwright Lorrie Pande, from Friday, June 23-Sunday, July 2.

The play, produced and directed by Pande and choreographed by Gary Flannery, tells the love story between John James Audubon , America’s first naturalist, and Lucy Bakewell Audubon.

The Diana Wortham Theatre is at 18 Biltmore Ave. For more information or to buy tickets, go to avl.mx/crs.

Park Rhythms concert series unveils lineup

Black Mountain’s free annual Park Rhythms concert series kicks off Thursday, June 29, with headliner Charlie Martin of the Austin, Texas, indie duo Hovvdy performing with country/indie rock act Fishplate. All concerts take place from 7-9 p.m. at Veterans Park.

Here’s the rest of the schedule:

• July 6: Hubby Jenkins (old-time American music)

• July 13: Jessica Lea Mayfield (singer-songwriter)

• July 20: Lyric (R&B, soul)

• July 27: Jake Xerxes Fussell (folk, blues)

• Aug. 3: Twain (hip hop) with opener Natalie Jane Hill

• Aug. 10: Thomas Dollbaum (rock)

• Aug. 17: Ashley Heath (roots, soul) Veterans Park is at 10 Veterans Park Drive, Black Mountain. For more information, go to avl.mx/crv. Additional reporting by Andy Hall

— Justin McGuire X

MOVIE REVIEWS

THE FLASH: Rampant action and comedy mix well with the return of Michael Keaton’s Batman and Sasha Calle’s fresh take on Supergirl. Grade: B-plus

— Edwin Arnaudin

Low maintenance/lived-in color, vivids, haircuts and extensions. Now offering new Perm and Blonding Services!

10% of all product sales donated to nonprofits helping Ukranians effected by the war. 290 Haywood Road, Suite 102 | W. Asheville 828-713-6921 | www.salonzhenya.com

Magical Offerings

June Stone: Citrine

June Herb: Meadowsweet

6/21: SUMMER SOLSTICE

Reader: Jonathan 1-6pm

6/23: Reader: Krysta 12-7pm

6/25: Reader: Pamela 1-4:30pm Summer Solstice Herb Crafting w/ Lori Jenkins 3-5pm

6/27: Reader: Byron 1-5pm

6/29: Reader: Haley 1-4pm

FULL MOON

July 3rd

Handmade products from over 40 local vendors!

(828) 424-7868 ashevillepagansupply.store

640

Ave. #207

NEW LIFE: The Jones Park playground, closed by Asheville City Schools in 2021, will be rebuilt as Candace Pickens Memorial Park. Photo courtesy of David Rodgers

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21

12 BONES BREWERY

Robert's Totally Rad Trivia, 7pm

27 CLUB

The Russian White, Solemn Shapes, Same St0ry & Kangarot

(dark-electronic, deathwave, punk), 8pm

ALLEY CAT SOCIAL

CLUB

Karaoke Night, 8pm

ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL

Stand-Up Comedy Open Mic, 8pm

BLACK MOUNTAIN

BREWING Jay Brown (roots, blues, jazz), 6pm

FLEETWOOD'S Open Mic Wednesday Night, 7pm

HIGHLAND BREWING

CO. Songwriter Series w/ Matt Smith, 6pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Old Time Jam, 5pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

FBVMA: Mountain Music Jam, 6pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

Latin Night w/DJ Mtn Vibez, 8:30pm

SALVAGE STATION

Rebelution w/Passafire, The Expendables & DJ Mackle (Reggae), 4pm

SHAKEY'S Sexy Tunes w/DJ Ek Balam & Mad Mike, 10pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA Poetry Open Mic, 8pm

STATIC AGE RECORDS

Good Real Estate w/ Feeling Bad & Half Blind Eyes (experimental punk), 8pm

THE GETAWAY RIVER BAR

Asheville FM Live Sessions w/Carpal Tullar (rock), 9pm

THE GREY EAGLE

• Patio: Amanda Neill (Americana), 5:30pm

• Dawn Landes (folk, indie), 8pm

THE ODD

Red Mesa, Doomstress & Bonedozer (metal), 8pm

TWIN LEAF BREWERY

Wednesday Open Mic, 5:30pm

WHITE HORSE BLACK

MOUNTAIN

Irish Music Circle, 7pm

WICKED WEED BREWING

Kipper's Totally Rad Trivia, 6pm

THURSDAY, JUNE 22

AMAZING PUBCYCLE

The Office: Trivia Night, 6pm

ASHEVILLE BEAUTY

ACADEMY

Kiki Thursday: Drag Party w/DJ RexxStep, 9pm

ASHEVILLE GUITAR BAR

The Travelling Pilsburys (acoustic), 8pm

ASHEVILLE MASONIC

TEMPLE

Andrew Marlin String Band (bluegrass), 7:30pm

BLACK MOUNTAIN

BREWING

The Blushin' Roulettes (folk), 6pm

CROW & QUILL

The Burger Kings (rock'n'roll), 8pm

DIFFERENT WRLD

Cat Piss, Acid Jo & Mary Metal (indie-rock, post-punk, metal), 8pm

FLEETWOOD'S

The Silver Doors, Pink Peugeot & Minorcan (psych, synth), 9pm

FLOOD GALLERY

FINE ART CENTER

True Home Open Mic, 6pm

six-piece blues band will play The Outpost on Thursday, June 29, at 7 p.m. This “ruby throated” chanteuse and her band will light up the stage with original material, plus traditional blues, rockin’ blues and swing. Photo by Frank Zipperer

FRENCH BROAD RIVER BREWERY

Jerry's Dead (Grateful Dead & JGB Tribute), 6pm

GINGER'S REVENGE

SOUTH SLOPE

LOUNGE

Modelface Comedy: Cody Hughes, 7pm

GREEN MAN BREWERY

Robert's Totally Rad Trivia, 7pm

HIGHLAND BREWING DOWNTOWN TAPROOM

Not Rocket Science Trivia, 6pm

JACK OF THE WOOD

PUB

Bluegrass Jam w/Drew Matulich, 7:30pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

Paul Edelman (folk, rock'n'roll), 7pm

ONE WORLD BREWING

Jeff Caldwell (folk, pop, R&B), 8pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST Magenta Sunshine (blues, folk, soul), 8pm

SALVAGE STATION

Papadosio's Summer

Seequence w/Marley

Carroll (Electronic), 7pm

SHAKEY'S Karaoke w/DJ Franco & Comedy Show, 9pm

THE DFR LOUNGE

Steve Simon & The Kings of Jazz (Latin, jazz), 7pm

THE GETAWAY TIKI BAR

Karaoke w/Terraoke, 9pm

THE GREY EAGLE Triathalon w/Current Blue (lofi-rock, R&B), 8pm

THE ODD

Jessi Slaughter, DJ GrimmJoi, OreoTh Sage (hyper-pop), 8pm

THE ORANGE PEEL Sold Out: Margaret Cho, 8pm

THE OUTPOST

Sufi Brothers (Americana, blues, folk), 7pm

THE ROOT BAR

Kendra & Friends (multiple genres), 6pm

URBAN ORCHARD

Trivia Thursday, 7pm

URBAN ORCHARD CIDER CO. SOUTH SLOPE

Social Bachata, 8:30pm

WNC OUTDOOR COLLECTIVE Trivia, 6:30pm

WICKED WEED BREWING

The Hillclimbers (Appalachian, bluegrass), 6pm

FRIDAY, JUNE 23

27 CLUB

Assimilation: Dark Dance Party, 10pm

ASHEVILLE BEAUTY

ACADEMY

Venus House Party, 10pm

ASHEVILLE GUITAR BAR

Mr Jimmy's Friday Night Blues, 7:30pm

ASHEVILLE MUSIC

HALL

Souls of Mischief (hiphop, rap), 10pm

BEN'S TUNE UP

EK Balam (reggaeton, hip-hop), 8pm

BIER GARDEN

Blackbeards Truck (rock), 8pm

BLACK MOUNTAIN

BREWING

Billy Presnell (folk, Americana), 6pm

BOLD ROCK

ASHEVILLE

Shed Bugs (rock, blues, funk), 8pm

CATAWBA BREWING CO. SOUTH SLOPE

ASHEVILLE

Comedy at Catawba: Dan Weeks, 7pm

CORK & KEG

One Leg Up (jazz, latin, swing), 8pm

DIFFERENT WRLD

Crywank, Foot Ox & Lurky Skunk (folk, punk, psychedelic), 8pm

FLEETWOOD'S Friday Night Search & Destroy Punk Karaoke, 8pm

GINGER'S REVENGE CRAFT BREWERY & TASTING ROOM

Rachel Angel (alt-country, rock), 6pm

HIGHLAND BREWING DOWNTOWN TAPROOM

Abby Bryant & Friends (Americana, soul-rock), 7pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

• Honky-Tonk Fridays w/Jackson Grimm, 4pm

• Panthertown (Americana, alt-country, rock), 9pm

LA TAPA LOUNGE

Open Mic Night w/ Hamza, 8pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO. Adam & the Testifiers (funk), 8pm

ONE STOP AT ASHEVILLE MUSIC HALL

Bird Dog Jubilee (rock'n'roll), 10pm

ONE WORLD BREWING

5J Barrow Friday Nights (folk), 8pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

Death Nebula, Primordial Tides & the Cardinal Endeavor (acid-doom, metal), 9pm

OUTPOST BLUES: Peggy Ratusz and the Daddy LongLegs

RABBIT RABBIT

Fleet Foxes w/Uwade (alt-indie, pop), 7pm

SALVAGE STATION

Papadosio's Summer

Seequence w/Infected

Mushroom, Tauk Moore, Flamingosis, Lespecial & Sungazer (electronic), 7pm

SHAKEY'S

6 Speed Band (classic covers), 10pm

SHILOH & GAINES

Caged Affair (pop, punk, rock), 9pm

STATIC AGE RECORDS

Austin Royale w/ Roamck (punk, shoe gaze, hard rap), 8pm

THE GREY EAGLE

• Patio: Clay Johnson & The Hard Promises (Southern-folk, country, Americana), 5:30pm

• Joe Pug w/Anna Tivel (country, folk), 8pm

THE MEADOW AT HIGHLAND BREWING CO.

The Get Down Junkies (funk), 7pm

THE ORANGE PEEL

80's vs 90's Dance Party, 9pm

THE OUTPOST

Pleasure Chest (blues, soul, rock), 7pm

WXYZ BAR AT ALOFT

Christina Chandler Duo (folk, Americana), 7pm

SATURDAY, JUNE 24

12 BONES BREWERY

David Reynolds (acoustic), 5pm

ASHEVILLE CLUB

Mr Jimmy (blues), 7pm

ASHEVILLE GUITAR

BAR

Vince Junior Band (soul, Appalachian, blues), 8pm

GINGER’S REVENGE SOUTH SLOPE

LOUNGE

Andy Ferrell (folk, roots, Appalachian, 4pm

BEN'S TUNE UP

Jaze Uries (house, electronic), 8pm

CORK & KEG

Zydeco Ya Ya (Cajun, Zydeco), 8pm

DIFFERENT WRLD

Rooted w/DJs, Gruntwerk, Morasso, Slowdrip & Eme (dance, electronic, trap), 9pm

FLEETWOOD'S

Bongfoot, Hot Ram & The Beard Cult (metal), 9pm

HIGHLAND BREWING

DOWNTOWN

TAPROOM

Shady Grove String Band (bluegrass, folk), 7pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

• Nobody's Darling

String Band, 4pm

• Laurel Lee & The Escapees (country), 9pm

LA TAPA LOUNGE

Karaoke, 9pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

The Abbey Elmore Band (indie-pop, rock), 8pm

ONE STOP AT

ASHEVILLE MUSIC

HALL GRUB (funk, psych-rock, electronic), 10pm

ONE WORLD

BREWING WEST

• Invitational Blues

Showcase w/Peggy

Ratusz & Daddy Long

Legs Band, 4pm

• Krave Amiko & Santiago y Los Gatos (Southern-soul, indierock, pop), 9pm

RABBIT RABBIT

• Kid Hop Hooray (dance party), 10:30am

• Live DJ & Silent Disco, 6pm

SALVAGE STATION

Papadosio's Summer

Seequence w/Infected

Mushroom, Tauk Moore, Flamingosis & Push/Pull (electronic), 7pm

SHAKEY'S

Partyland Sessions w/DJ

GrimmJoi, 10pm

SHILOH & GAINES

Imij of Soul (Jimi Hendrix Tribute), 9pm

THE BURGER BAR

Best Worst Karaoke, 9pm

THE GREY EAGLE

• Patio: Highland

Reverie (folk, bluegrass, old-time), 5:30pm

• The Arcadian Wild (indie, folk, pop), 8pm

THE MEADOW AT HIGHLAND BREWING

CO.

Relay Relay (indie-pop), 6pm

THE ODD Party Foul Drag: Saturday Night Tease, 8pm

WXYZ BAR AT ALOFT

• Livin’ on the Ledge

Series w/Phantom

Pantone, 2pm

• DJ Molly Parti, 7pm

WHITE HORSE BLACK

MOUNTAIN

Jacob Johnson & Gareth

Pearson (country, folk, rock), 8pm

SUNDAY, JUNE 25

ASHEVILLE BEAUTY ACADEMY

Life's a Drag Brunch, 12pm

ASHEVILLE PIZZA & BREWING CO.

Standup Comedy Feature & Comedy

Open Mic, 6:30pm

BLACK MOUNTAIN BREWING

Sarah With an H (neofolk), 2pm

CATAWBA BREWING

CO. SOUTH SLOPE

ASHEVILLE

Comedy at Catawba: Cortney Warner, 6pm

DIFFERENT WRLD AVL Unplugged w/

Sang Sarah, Rhinestone

Pickup Truck, US

Christmas & Istari (rock, punk, indie), 7pm

Thanks for Voting!

BEST OF WNC Results publish in August

VOTED WNC #1 KAVA BAR

SUN: Aaron “Woody” Wood & Friends 7pm

MON: Ping-Pong Tournament 7pm

TUE: Open Jam w/ house band the Lactones 8pm

WED: Poetry Open Mic AVL 8:30pm/8pm signup

6/22: Stand Up Comedy w/ Justin Blackburn, 8pm

6/23: Mike Rhodes Fellowship, 9pm Jazz / Funk / Rock

6/24: Lo Wolf & Jackie Kelsh, 8pm Alt. Country / Folk

OPEN DAILY • 828.505.8118 • 268 Biltmore Ave • Asheville, NC ASHEVILLEKAVA.COM

HIGHLAND DOWNTOWN

TAPROOM

Mr Jimmy Duo (blues), 1pm

JACK OF THE WOOD

PUB

• Bluegrass Brunch, 1pm

• Traditional Irish Jam, 3:30pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

Eric Congdon (blues, rock, bluegrass), 3pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

Sunday Jazz Jam, 1:30pm

SALVAGE STATION

Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, Ziggy Marley w/Mavis Staples & Robert Randolph (blues, jazz, reggae), 4:30pm

SHILOH & GAINES

Punk Brunch, 10am

SOVEREIGN KAVA

Aaron Woody Wood (Appalachia, soul, Americana), 7pm

THE GREY EAGLE

• Patio: The Old Futures (indie-rock), 5:30pm

• Malcolm Holcombe (Americana, alt-country, folk), 8pm

THE MEADOW AT HIGHLAND BREWING CO.

Kim Jade & The Good Thing (funk, soul, blues), 2pm

THE ODD

K!ng Sh!t: Episode 6: Dads n' Drag, 8pm

THE ORANGE PEEL

David Nihill: We My People, 7pm

THE OUTPOST Outpost: Drip A Silver (Grateful Dead tribute), 4pm

THE RAILYARD BLACK MOUNTAIN

Caged Affair (pop, punk, rock), 3pm

TWIN LEAF BREWERY

Sunday Bluegrass Jam w/The Hillclimbers, 4pm

PLĒB URBAN WINERY

Robert's Totally Rad Trivia, 4pm

MONDAY, JUNE 26

27 CLUB

Karaoke Monday, 10pm

5 WALNUT WINE BAR

CaroMia, Rahm, Daniel Iannuci & Jaze Uries (soul, R&B, folk), 8pm

DSSOLVR

Robert's Totally Rad Trivia, 7pm

GINGER'S REVENGE

SOUTH SLOPE

LOUNGE

Don't Tell Comedy: South Slope, 8pm

GREEN MAN

BREWERY

Traditonal Old Time Jam, 5:30pm

HAYWOOD COUNTRY CLUB

Taylor Martin's Open Mic Mondays, 6:30pm

HIGHLAND BREWING

CO.

Totally Rad Trivia w/ Mitch Fortune, 6pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Quizzo! Pub Trivia w/ Jason Mencer, 7:30pm

NOBLE CIDER

DOWNTOWN

Freshen Up Comedy

Open Mic, 6:30pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

It Takes All Kinds Open Mic Nights, 7pm

ONE WORLD BREWING

Open Mic Downtown, 8pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

Mashup Mondays w/

The JLloyd Mashup Band, 8pm

SHAKEY'S Latinx Night w/DJ Mtn Vibes, 9pm

THE JOINT NEXT DOOR

Mr Jimmy & Friends (blues), 7pm

THE MONTE VISTA

HOTEL

Music Mondays, 6pm

TUESDAY, JUNE 27

ASHEVILLE BEAUTY ACADEMY • Trivia w/Drag Queens, 8pm

• Karaoke w/Ganymede, 10pm

FLEETWOOD'S

Feeling Bad Tuesday Night w/Socialist

Anxiety (experimental, punk), 9pm

FRENCH BROAD BREWERY

Robert's Totally Rad Trivia, 7pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

Team Trivia, 7pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

The Grateful Family Band Tuesdays (Dead tribute, jam band, rock), 6pm

SHAKEY'S Booty Tuesday w/DJ Ek Balam, 9pm

SIERRA NEVADA BREWING CO.

The Motet (funk, soul, rock), 5pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA

Weekly Open Jam hosted by Chris Cooper & Friends, 6:30pm

THE BURGER BAR C U Next Tuesday Trivia, 9pm

THE GREY EAGLE Cruz Contreras w/Samuel Quinn's Cartwright Brothers (Americana), 8pm

THE ODD Open Mic Comedy, 8pm

TWIN LEAF BREWERY Tuesday Night Trivia, 7pm

WHITE HORSE BLACK MOUNTAIN White Horse Open Mic, 7pm

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28

12 BONES BREWERY

Robert's Totally Rad Trivia, 7pm

ALLEY CAT SOCIAL CLUB

Karaoke Night, 8pm

ASHEVILLE MUSIC

HALL

Stand-Up Comedy Open Mic, 8pm

BLACK MOUNTAIN BREWING

Jay Brown (roots, blues, jazz), 6pm

DIFFERENT WRLD

Queer Comedy Party w/ Roman Fraden, 8pm

FLEETWOOD'S Open Mic Wednesday Night, 7pm

HIGHLAND BREWING

CO.

Songwriter Series w/ Matt Smith, 6pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Old Time Jam, 5pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

FBVMA: Mountain Music Jam, 6pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

Latin Night w/DJ Mtn Vibez, 8:30pm

SHAKEY'S

Sexy Tunes w/DJ Ek Balam & Mad Mike, 10pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA

Poetry Open Mic, 8pm

STATIC AGE RECORDS

Reddenhollow w/Claire

Hoke & Night Walks (indie), 8pm

THE GREY EAGLE

Jupiter & Okwess (afrorock, funk), 8pm

THE ODD

Father Figures, The Knife

Kickers, Ripped Tip & Acid Jo (indie-rock), 8pm

TWIN LEAF BREWERY

Wednesday Open Mic, 5:30pm

WHITE HORSE BLACK MOUNTAIN

Irish Music Circle, 7pm

THURSDAY, JUNE 29

AMAZING PUBCYCLE

The Office Trivia Night, 6pm

ASHEVILLE GUITAR BAR

The Tallboys (rock, reggae), 8pm

BLACK MOUNTAIN

BREWING

Hunter Begley (alternative-country, folk), 6pm

CROW & QUILL

Sparrow & Her Wingmen (jazz), 8pm

DIFFERENT WRLD

Welcome to Berlin, A Patchwork, Sean O'Hara, Sayurblaires & Peach Rings (emo, alternative, pop), 9pm

FLOOD GALLERY FINE

ART CENTER

True Home Open Mic, 6pm

FRENCH BROAD RIVER

BREWERY

Jerry's Dead (Grateful Dead & JGB Tribute), 6pm

GREEN MAN

BREWERY

Robert's Totally Rad Trivia, 7pm

HIGHLAND BREWING

DOWNTOWN

TAPROOM

Not Rocket Science Trivia, 6pm

JACK OF THE WOOD PUB

Bluegrass Jam w/Drew Matulich, 7:30pm

OKLAWAHA BREWING CO.

Myron Hyman (classic-rock, blues, country), 7pm

ONE WORLD BREWING

Liz Kelley (jazz, blues), 8pm

ONE WORLD BREWING WEST

Isaac Hadden Organ Trio (funk, jazz, rock), 8pm

SALVAGE STATION

Collie Buddz w/Sammy Adams (reggae), 7pm

SHAKEY'S Karaoke w/DJ Franco, 9pm

SOVEREIGN KAVA Stand Up Comedy for Your Health, 8pm

THE DFR LOUNGE

Steve Simon & The Kings of Jazz (Latin, jazz), 7pm

THE GETAWAY TIKI BAR

Karaoke with Terraoke, 9pm

THE GREY EAGLE

• Patio: Krekel & Whoa (folk, rock'n'roll), 5:30pm

• Greg Ruby, Don Stiernberg, Evan Price & Kevin Kehrberg (hot-jazz, swing), 8pm

THE ODD Graveyard Shift: Goth DJs w/Half Blind Eyes, Bruschetta Delorean & Kangarot (industrial, goth), 8pm

THE OUTPOST Peggy Ratusz (blues), 7pm

THE ROOT BAR

Kendra & Friends (multiple genres), 6pm

URBAN ORCHARD

Trivia Thursday, 7pm

URBAN ORCHARD

CIDER CO. SOUTH SLOPE

• Social Bachata, 8:30pm

WNC OUTDOOR COLLECTIVE

Trivia, 6:30pm

WHITE HORSE BLACK MOUNTAIN

Dana Cooper & Jeff Black (Americana, indie, folk), 7:30pm

WRONG WAY

CAMPGROUND

Don't Tell Comedy: West Asheville, 7pm

FREEWILL ASTROLOGY BY ROB

ARIES (March 21-April 19): When I was still an up-and-coming horoscope columnist, before I got widely syndicated, I supplemented my income with many other jobs. During one stretch, I wrote fortunes for a line of designer fortune cookies that were covered with gourmet chocolate and sold at the luxury department store Bloomingdale’s. The salary I got paid was meager. Part of my compensation came in the form of hundreds of delicious but non-nutritious cookies. If you are offered a comparable deal in the coming weeks and months, Aries, my advice is to do what I didn’t do but should have done: Ask for what’s truly valuable to you instead of accepting a substitute of marginal worth.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): My mentor Ann Davies said that of all the signs of the zodiac, you Tauruses are most likely to develop finely honed intuition. At least potentially, you can tune in to the inner teacher better than the rest of us. The still, small voice rises up out of the silence and speaks to you clearly and crisply. Here’s even better news: I believe you are entering a phase when your relationship with this stellar faculty may ripen dramatically. Please take advantage of this subtly fabulous opportunity! Each day for the next 14 days, do a relaxing ritual in which you eagerly invite and welcome the guidance of your deepest inner source.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): New College

in Oxford, UK has educated students since 1379. Among its old buildings is a dining hall that features beams made of thick oak trees. Unfortunately, most oak wood eventually attracts beetles that eat it and weaken it. Fortunately, the 14th-century founders of New College foresaw that problem. They planted an oak grove whose trees were specifically meant to be used to replace the oak beams at New College. Which they are to this day. I would love you to derive inspiration from this story, Gemini. What practical long-term plans might you be wise to formulate in the coming months?

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In the Northern Hemisphere, the astrological month of Cancer begins with the sun in its greatest glory. Our home star is at its highest altitude, shining with maximum brightness. So then why is the sign of the Crab ruled by the moon? Why do the longest days of the year coincide with the ascendancy of the mistress of the night? Ahhh. These are esoteric mysteries beyond the scope of this horoscope. But here’s a hint about what they signify for you personally. One of your assets can also be a liability: your innocent openness to the wonders of life. This quality is at the heart of your beauty but can also, on occasion, make you vulnerable to being overwhelmed. That’s why it’s so important that you master the art of setting boundaries, of honing your focus, of quaffing deeply from a few cups instead of sipping from many cups.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The coming weeks will be a delicate time for your spiritual unfoldment. You are primed to recover lost powers, rediscover key truths you have forgotten, and reunite with parts of your soul you got cut off from. Will these good possibilities come to pass in their fullness? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on how brave you are in seeking your healing. You must ask for what’s hard to ask for. You’ve got to find a way to feel deserving of the beauty and blessings that are available. PS.:. You ARE deserving. I will be cheering you on, dear Leo.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Whether or not you have been enrolled in a learning institution during the past 12 months, I suspect you have been getting a rigorous education. Among the courses you have almost completed are lessons in intimacy, cooperation, collaboration, symbiosis and togetherness. Have you mastered all the teachings? Probably not. There were too many of them, and they were too voluminous to grasp perfectly and completely. But that’s OK. You have done well. Now you’re ready to graduate, collect your diploma and apply what you have learned.

BREZSNY

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): History has provided contradictory reports about Isabeau of Bavaria, who served as Queen of France from 1385 to 1422. Was she a corrupt, greedy, and indecisive fool who harmed France’s fortunes? Or was she a talented diplomat with great skill in court politics and an effective leader during the many times her husband, King Charles VI, was incapacitated by illness? I bring these facts to your attention, Libra, hoping they will inspire you to refine, adjust and firm up your own reputation. You can’t totally control how people perceive you, but you do have some power to shape their perceptions — especially these days.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The next four weeks will be an excellent time to create and celebrate your own holidays. I recommend you dream up at least four new festivals, jubilees, anniversaries and other excuses to party. Eight or more would be even better. They could be quirky and modest, like Do No Housework Day, Take Your Houseplants for a Walk Day, or Write Bad Poetry Day. They could be more profound and impactful, like Forgive Your Parents for Everything Day, Walk on the Wild Side Day, or Stay Home from Work Because You’re Feeling So Good Day. In my astrological opinion, Scorpio, you should regard playful fun as a top priority. For more ideas, go here: tinyurl.com/CreateHolidays ... tinyurl.com/ NouveauHolidays ... tinyurl.com/InventHolidays

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In Greek mythology, Prometheus was a god who stole fire from his fellow gods and gave it to humans to help them build civilization. His divine colleagues were not pleased. Why? Maybe they feared that with the power of fire, people would become like gods themselves and have no further need for gods. Anyway, Sagittarius, I hope you’re in a fire-stealing mood. It’s a good time to raise your whole world up to a higher level — to track down and acquire prizes that will lead to major enhancements. And unlike what happened to Prometheus (the other gods punished him), I think you will get away with your gambits.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Let’s discuss magical doorways. Each time you sleep, you slip through magical doorways called dreams. Whether or not you recall those adventures, they offer you interesting mysteries utterly unlike the events of your daily life. Here’s another example: A magical doorway opens when an ally or loved one shares intimate knowledge of their inner realms. Becoming absorbed in books, movies or songs is also a way to glide through a magical doorway. Another is when you discover an aspect of yourself, a corner of your being, that you didn’t know was there. I bring these thoughts to your attention, Capricorn, because I suspect the coming weeks will present an extra inviting array of magical doorways.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Psychiatrist

Myron Hofer specializes in the mother-infant relationship. Among his findings: The first emotion that a newborn experiences is anxiety. Struggling to get out of the womb can be taxing, and it’s shocking to be separated from the warm, nourishing realm that has been home for months. The bad news is that most of us still carry the imprint of this original unease. The good news, Aquarius, is that the coming months will be one of the best times ever for you to heal. For optimal results, place a high priority on getting an abundance of love, support, comfort and physical touch.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Curious blends and intriguing juxtapositions are in the works — or at least they should be. Improbable alliances might be desirable because they’re curative. Formulas with seemingly mismatched ingredients might fix a glitch, even if they never succeeded before and won’t again. I encourage you to synergize work and play. Negotiate serious business in casual settings and make yourself at home in a wild frontier.

SERVICES

AUDIO/VIDEO

DISH TV SPECIAL $64.99 for 190 Channels + $14.95 High Speed Internet. Free installation, Smart HD DVR Included, Free Voice Remote. Some restrictions apply. Promo Expires 1/21/23. 1-866-566-1815. (AAN CAN)

ANNOUNCEMENTS

ANNOUNCEMENTS

A-1 DONATE YOUR CAR, RUNNING OR NOT! Fast free pickup. Maximum tax deduction. Support Patriotic Hearts. Your car donation helps Vets! 1-866-559-9123

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: 1-866-370-2939. (AAN CAN)

BCI WALK-IN TUBS ARE ON SALE Be one of the first 50 callers and save $1,500! Call 844-514-0123 for a free in-home consultation. (AAN CAN)

BEAUTIFY YOUR HOME WITH ENERGY EFFICIENT NEW WINDOWS They will increase your home’s value & decrease your energy bills. Replace all or a few! Call now to get your free, no-obligation quote. 844-335-2217

DENIED SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY? Appeal! If you're 50+, filed SSD and denied, our attorneys can help get you approved! No money out of pocket! Call 1-877-707-5707. (AAN CAN)

DIAGNOSED WITH LUNG CANCER? You may qualify for a substantial cash awardeven with smoking history. No obligation! We've recovered millions. Let us help! Call 24/7. 1-866-553-5089. (AAN CAN)

DIRECTV SATELLITE TV SERVICE STARTING AT $59.99/ MONTH 1 Year Price Lock!

155+ Channels available. Call Now to get the Most Sports on TV! 844-719-8927

DON'T PAY FOR COVERED HOME REPAIRS AGAIN! American Residential Warranty covers ALL MAJOR SYSTEMS AND APPLIANCES. 30 DAY RISK FREE/ $100OFF

POPULAR PLANS Call 877707-5518 Monday-Friday 8:30am to 8:00pm EST. (AAN CAN)

MEN'S SPORTS WATCHES

WANTED Advertiser is looking to buy men's sport watches. Rolex, Breitling, Omega, Patek Philippe, Here, Daytona, GMT, Submariner and Speedmaster. The advertiser pays cash for qualified watches. Call 888-320-1052 (AAN CAN)

NEED NEW FLOORING?

Call Empire Today® to schedule a FREE in-home estimate on Carpeting & Flooring. Call Today! 855-721-3269

SAVE YOUR HOME! Are you behind paying your

MORTGAGE? Denied a Loan Modification? Threatened with FORECLOSURE? Call the Homeowner's Relief Line now for Help! 855-721-3269

MIND, BODY, SPIRIT

COUNSELING SERVICES

ASTRO-COUNSELING

Licensed counselor and accredited professional astrologer uses your chart

when counseling for additional insight into yourself, your relationships and life directions. Stellar Counseling Services. Christy Gunther, MA, LCMHC. (828) 2583229

NATURAL ALTERNATIVES

FOOD & SUPPLEMENT

TESTING, LIVE BLOOD MICROSCOPY, & HOLISTIC HEALTH COACHING Lose Weight, Have More Energy, better Habits, Strengthen Your Immune System, Detox/Heal Your Body and so much more! Healing & Vitality is Possible! I can help! Call Now! 8287792293 Natureinhealth@gmail. com

AUTOMOTIVE

AUTOMOTIVE SERVICES

CASH FOR CARS! We buy all cars! Junk, high-end, totaled – it doesn’t matter! Get free towing and same day cash! NEWER MODELS too! Call 866-535-9689 (AAN CAN)

The Cooperative Grading Service is recruiting a seasonal apple grader (Laborer or General Utility Worker) in Henderson County. Position

temporary with full-time hours during harvest season, beginning in August (August – Oct/Nov).

Education and/or experience in the performance of a variety of manual tasks, normal color vision, basic math, and basic computer skills. Laborer salary hourly rate at $15.75. General Utility Worker hourly rate at $16.00. Paid training provided; mileage paid at state rate. A PD-107 (NC State application) is required. EOE.

ACROSS

1 Goes on a mountain run

5 The sun and the moon

9 Inits. in Congress beginning in 2019

12 Body of water between Sicily and Greece

14 Any email that begins “Congrats, you’ve been selected …,” probably

16 Brings to a tie

17 High low voice

19 “Quit it!”

20 Display in a shoebox, maybe

22 Clod

56

61 Makeup of many birdfeed cakes

62 San Bernardino suburb whose name means “beautiful hill”

63 Authors’ submissions: Abbr.

64 Pines (for)

65 A-number-one

DOWN

1 Playable character in an “artificial life” game franchise

2 Hawaiian wood used to build the earliest surfboards

3 Tattoos

4 Rest of the day?

5 Base hit result, maybe

6 Host’s request

7 Stinger

8 Actress Bullock

9 Regarding

10 The “O” of M.O.

11 Unfounded rumor

13 Actor John or Sean

15 Matriarchal nickname

18 Sunshine, so to speak

21 Plant, as an idea, in sci-fi slang

22 Includes on a thread

23 Was sorry about

24 Longest river entirely within Spain

25 States of upheaval

28 “That’s the spot!”

29 Many a Rembrandt

31 New York lake that’s the source of the Susquehanna River

34 Buildings

35 Bwana : Swahili :: : English

36 Holy title with a tilde

37 1982 sci-fi classic with a 2010 sequel

38 Kind of wave

42 Hospital unit

43 Sounds of recognition

44 All ___ Day

45 Stand that a speaker might take

46 To be certain

47 Go a-wassailing

48 Perform spectacularly, colloquially

51 Mountain lions

53 Popular booth in New York’s Times Square

54 Song of celebration

57 Tic-tac finish

58 “Double Fantasy” singer

59 Econ. indicator 60 “___ queen!” (enthusiastic cry)

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS NY TIMES

Are you ready to move beyond false divisions and propaganda to cultivate Unity?