8
Writer and naturalist George Ellison dies at 81 Pages 22 & 34
On the Cover:
The Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center in Waynesville was hit as hard as anything by the COVID pandemic shutdowns, but now it’s revved up and ready to get back to serving. (Page 6) A painting of Martin Luther King, Jr. hangs in the PCMDC cafeteria. Cory Vaillancourt photo
News
Haywood jail financing plan pays off ............................................................................4 Tribe will now receive half of Indiana casino profits..................................................5 Residents object to LGBTQ literature at Macon library..........................................7
After two weeks in court, a hung jury leads to mistrial in Knibbs case ..............8
Meet the candidates for Wolfetown special election..............................................17 Macon starts budget process in good financial health..........................................18 Community almanac..........................................................................................................21
Opinion
George Robert Ellison II — Thoreau in a jockstrap..................................................22
It’s time to re-program pop culture’s storyline..........................................................23
A&E
Indigenous Walls Project sparks social dialogue....................................................24
Frozen: A review of ‘The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven’..........................................31
Outdoors
Podcasting the park..........................................................................................................32
Forest management plan now final..............................................................................36
D ESIGN & PRODUCTION: Jessica Murray.
SALES: Susanna Shetley.
Bradley.
N EWS E DITOR: Kyle Perrotti.
WRITING: Holly Kays.
Hannah McLeod.
Cory Vaillancourt.
Garret K. Woodward.
ACCOUNTING & O FFICE MANAGER: Amanda Singletary. . . . . . . . . . .
D ISTRIBUTION: Scott Collier. . .
hannah@smokymountainnews.com
cory@smokymountainnews.com
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. smnbooks@smokymountainnews.com
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C ONTRIBUTING: Jeff Minick (writing), Chris Cox (writing), George Ellison (writing), Don Hendershot (writing), Susanna Shetley (writing)
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How creative are you in the kitchen? What staples do you keep on hand to make quick meals?
key IngredIenTs: Black Beans and graTed cheddar cheese; condIMenT: salsa
• Add cooked white or brown rice to beans and top with cheese and salsa.
• Add a corn or flour tortilla and salsa and make a burrito with beans and cheese.
• Add a baked white or sweet potato and salsa and top with black beans and cheddar cheese.
• Add baked tortilla chips and turn this into nachos. Top chips with beans, cheese and salsa.
• Add chopped onions, garlic, cumin, salt, pepper and a beaten egg to mashed black beans and grated cheese and form into “burgers” and cook.
I’M NOT JUST HERE TO PUT IN THE HOURS. I’M HERE TO PUT IN THE YEARS.
February marks one year of the Russian full invasion of Ukraine and WCU’s Global Spotlight series will mark the anniversary with a panel discussion 4-5:30 p.m. Feb. 23 at WCU Forsyth 101.
Three WCU professors and Smoky Mountain News Political Editor Cory Vaillancourt will discuss the humanitarian crisis and the military and energy security implications of the war. Vaillancourt traveled to Ukraine in December 2022 and reported on the humanitarian crisis of the conflict and how local Western North Carolina organizations are helping in it.
Vaillancourt said it is hard to determine where this war is heading.
“There are many players and many moving parts, politically and militarily. The only certainty in this war — as with all wars — is that civilians will be the biggest losers,” said Vaillancourt.
United States and other international organizations estimate around 12 million people are refugees and internally displaced. More than 200,000 people have been killed in the conflict so far.
WCU history professor David Dorondo will discuss military and energy security from a German perspective; philosophy and religion professor Myron Jackson will address the “Russian Soul: Dugin’s Fourth Way” and political science professor Charles Fagan will detail the military situation in Ukraine.
With the increased military aid promised to Ukraine, Fagan expects Russia to try and speed up its planned spring offensive before the aid gets to Ukraine.
“Whether Russia still has the capability to launch major offensives will be the big question over the next several months,” Fagan said.
The event is a follow-up from last year’s panel at the start of the war in March 2022.
For more information on the event contact Niall Michelsen, professor at the Political Science Department, at michelsen@email.wcu.edu.
BY C ORY VAILLANCOURT P OLITICS E DITORHaywood County commissioners made the right call on jail financing according to County Manager Bryant Morehead, and will proceed with a conventional loan after no opposition was heard during a public hearing held on Feb. 20.
“We had asked in our RFP if the financing — the interest rates — could be held firm for a potential closing in mid-April,” said Carson Wiley, a public finance analyst from Davenport and Company, the county’s financial advisor. “Only one bank, Truist Bank, offered rates that were held firm through that mid-April closing, so through discussions with county staff we decided it would be best to go with the Truist option as it was held firm and not subject to interest rate movement.”
Last month, another representative from Davenport told commissioners during a meeting that of more than 50 financial institutions invited to offer terms for a 15- or 20year loan for the county’s jail expansion, only
five responded. Of those, only Truist would hold the rate, 3.71% over 20 years, while the county deliberated on the other proposals and a possible bond issue.
The county’s demand has already paid off, says Morehead.
“What Mr. Wiley said was, since we opened bids at our 3.71% interest rate, the Federal Reserve has raised rates and they’ve signaled that they would raise again before we close, so I think going with the Truist 20year looked like a really good idea a couple of weeks ago, and now it’s even more favorable to the county, so I was glad that we got that rate locked in.”
During project planning, the county had budgeted for a 5% interest rate, and the 3.71% rate comes in well under that. Since Davenport received the RFPs with the lockedin rate in late January, the Fed has already raised rates by 40 basis points, or .4%.
The current project cost is pegged at $21.5 million, although the true number won’t be known for a few more weeks, according to
Morehead. It isn’t expected to differ greatly from that estimate.
The firm selected to design the project, Moseley Architects, has what Morehead called “unparalleled” experience in the field and has designed more jails in North Carolina than anyone else in recent years. That experience translates to familiarity with general statutes regarding jail operations and standards, but also to strict budgetary controls.
“The other thing that I really liked was that three steps along the way, they have a price estimator to come through and make sure we’re tracking on budget,” Morehead said. “So the last one was done about 30 days ago, and it’s $21.595 million. We’re tracking on the number we’ve targeted since this started.”
The Truist loan terms are based on borrowing $21.8 million. Debt service through 2043 will top $30.2 million and create an ad valorem tax impact of 1.44 cents on top of the current rate of 53.5 cents per $100 in assessed property value.
Once financing is secured, probably in the coming weeks, the county will receive bids from prospective construction companies. It is an uncertain time to be bidding such a large project, Morehead said, but he’s hopeful bids will come in around that targeted price.
Now, commissioners will have to figure out how to ameliorate, or incorporate, the debt service into future budgets. As the county enters budgeting season, commissioners can simply add the total tax impact to the property tax rate, or seek cuts in other areas to lessen the impact of the borrowing.
Over the next few years, the county expects to pay off other long-term debts, freeing up revenues currently appropriated for that purpose.
BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF W RITER
After owning Caesar’s Southern Indiana Casino for a year and a half, EBCI Holdings LLC will increase the share of annual profits sent back to tribal government from 25% to 50%.
The change comes following Tribal Council’s unanimous passage of a resolution to that effect during its Jan. 12 meeting. Since the Indiana Gaming Commission approved the tribal LLC’s purchase of the casino in August 2021, the body had limited the amount of money that EBCI Holdings could remit to the tribe to 25% of profits annually. However, recently the Commission decided to raise the ceiling to 50%, and that higher level became the LLC’s official policy when Tribal Council approved the resolution reflecting it.
Tribal Council green-lighted purchase of the Indiana casino operations in a controversial, closed-door decision in December 2020, approving $250 million for the deal. EBCI Holdings was created at the same time, charged with overseeing the tribe’s commercial gaming ventures. Caesars Southern Indiana was the first of those ventures, but since then EBCI Holdings has broken ground on a $650 million casino in Danville, Virginia, in partnership with Caesars Entertainment, and on a $55 million horse racing facility in Kentucky in which it has a 49% stake. The company has also received approval from Tribal Council to invest up to $12 million in gaming-related technologies and to pursue construction of a sports betting bar on the tribe’s Exit 407 property in Sevier County.
As originally presented, the resolution considered Jan. 12 would have also broadened the company’s purpose to include hospitality, retail, dining, entertainment and related businesses, but that language was stricken prior to passage. Some councilmembers worried that approving it could have caused conflict between EBCI Holdings and Kituwah LLC, another tribally owned LLC that is actively involved in hospitality, retail, dining and entertainment ventures.
Attorney General Mike McConnell told Council that conflict between the two LLCs was unlikely and that hospitality ventures would be a natural extension of EBCI Holdings’ involvement in the gaming industry.
“At the very beginning of the attempt to stand up EBCI Holdings LLC to pursue commercial gaming, I think the understanding was gaming is inextricably tied to hospitality,” McConnell said. “I think it’s rare to see a casino that doesn’t have, say, a hotel associated with it or restaurants in it. Those are all hospitality measures. If the concern is that EBCI Holdings is going to encroach on Kituwah LLC’s ballpark, we don’t want to do that.”
Caesar’s Southern Indiana has a 505room hotel, seven restaurants, six bars, a 1,500-seat entertainment space and 42,000 square feet of meeting space, said EBCI Holdings CEO Scott Barber. As a result, EBCI Holdings has seen more than 32 potential deals come its way, Barber said.
However, the legislation establishing EBCI Holdings requires that any new business or any expenditure for a pre-approved project greater than $25 million must be approved by Tribal Council — so Council would always have the final say on any new venture, regardless of whether a resolution broadens its scope.
“I think we work cooperatively. I don’t think there’s going to be any deal that we disagree on [with Kituwah],” Barber said. “Or if there are, I think we’d work that out prior to coming in here to present it for final approval.”
Yellowhill Rep. T.W. Saunooke, who initially suggested striking the language broadening EBCI Holdings’ scope, said that deleting that language doesn’t change what the company can and can’t do. His intent, he said, was merely to “clean up” the resolution and keep it focused on its main purpose — raising the revenue distribution cap.
“I’m willing and able and open to further discussions about reevaluating, reassessing where both entities are, how do we best collaborate, how do we best move forward,” he said. “So I’m open for those discussions to move forward, but for me this is just to clarify to make it about allocations.”
Like a lot of Americans, Lyn Forney remembers exactly what she was doing when the whole world shut down.
“We were having a fire safety day, where community members come in and talk with the firemen about their homes. The firemen were actually going out and putting up the smoke alarms inside the homes,” said Forney, executive director of the Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center in Waynesville. “It was for the seniors, making sure they were installed properly. That was the last event we had before COVID hit.”
So much of what the Pigeon Center does is personal — in person, meeting the community where they are, providing services they can’t get anywhere else — that the Coronavirus Pandemic hit especially hard, curtailing services and leaving amongst its service population a tremendous void.
Now, nearly three years later, programming and fundraising are ramping back up. Although the Pigeon Center still has some unmet needs, staff there are preparing to return the irreplaceable institution to its pivotal position at the center of the community.
The Pigeon Center operates out of the former Pigeon Street School, which in 1957 replaced the old Rosenwald School across Oakdale Street as Haywood County’s segregated school for Black children. Located in Waynesville’s traditionally Black community, the school became an instructional materials center when North Carolina Schools were desegregated in 1963.
When the county no longer needed the building, the Pigeon Community Development Club began to utilize it, originally as part of another Haywood nonprofit called REACH. With some help from the Center for Participatory Change in Asheville, the Pigeon Center became its own nonprofit in 2009.
Forney began serving as a volunteer in 2003 and became its executive director in 2009.
Since then, Forney has spent a lot of time on the building itself, raising money, writing grants to stave off decay and making it more comfortable in both frigid winters and sweltering summers with the addition of an updated HVAC system in 2020.
“Now we have heat pumps. The boiler is no longer been used at all,” she said. “It saves us a ton of money, but it also increases the electric bill. It’s a help in that we now can come in the building and either it’s cold like it should be or it’s warm like it should be.”
With COVID restrictions in the rearview mirror and community need at an all-time high, the Pigeon Center’s programming is back to moving at full speed.
“We serve mostly the marginalized of Haywood County. We serve people that either don’t feel comfortable going to other
Celebrate Black History Month with some savory soul food at the Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center. Take-out or eat-in meals will be served on Friday, Feb. 24 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., or until food runs out. Choose from fried chicken or fried fish, collard greens, mac and cheese, sweet potatoes, cornbread, dessert and a drink — all for just $12. Proceeds benefit the PCMDC’s after school and summer programs for children, senior fellowship opportunities, the multicultural library and more. Donations and volunteers are appreciated. The Pigeon Center is located at 450 Pigeon St. in Waynesville. For more information, call 828.452.7232 or visit pcmdc.org.
places, or let’s just be honest, are not welcome in other places,” Forney said. “The Pigeon Center, I think, is also specific in that it’s multicultural and we cater to lots of different cultures. When you have a space where people feel welcome, they are more able to come to you with needs that they have, as opposed to just sitting back and suffering because people don’t welcome you.”
Among those program offerings is the summer enrichment program, which only serves 15 students to allow for more one-onone attention. It’s not “child care,” according to Forney, but rather a schedule of events and activities meant to help kids in kindergarten though 9th grade sharpen their academic skills. Cost of the summer enrichment program is based on a sliding scale.
The after-school program is similar in that it’s also priced on a sliding scale, so up to 20 children can get a healthy meal and focus on homework with volunteers. Again, it’s not just “childcare,” but given the skyrocketing cost of childcare of any sort, the program has a tremendous impact on working parents from the county’s most vulnerable communities.
“As a parent, just knowing that your child is in a safe space would allow you to work and to be calm after 3 o’clock,” said Forney. “You can’t work after three o’clock because your mind is on your kids, what’s going on with your kids. This allows the parents an opportunity to work, to do their thing.”
Tausha Forney, Lyn’s daughter and the director of programming at the Pigeon Center, is heavily involved with the hands-on work associated with managing the children.
To Tausha, the pandemic represents almost a clean break from the Pigeon Center’s past, as many of the kids previously involved in the programs have aged out and moved along in their academic careers.
“We are just working real hard to build connections in the community and just get
some new kids in, and also to kind of fight that stereotype that in order to come to the Pigeon Center, you have to be X, Y or Z,” Tausha said. “That’s not it at all. You can just come over. We’re open for any kid in the county, period, regardless of income. We’re just trying to change that message and make sure that it gets out the right way.”
An annual year-end holiday event puts the “multicultural” in the name of the “Pigeon Community Multicultural Developmental Center,” as kids and adults learn about Advent, Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Fiesta de la Griteria, Las Posadas and the Winter Solstice.
Adults aren’t overlooked at the Pigeon Center, either. Computer and internet services are available for a nominal fee and regular senior dinners connect community elders. Emergency food boxes, like those distributed at Haywood Arts Regional Theatre on Feb. 15, make an impact on the growing problem of food insecurity.
“It has gotten worse,” Lyn said. “I think that people have more opportunity and more places to get food so at our site it may seem like things have gotten better, but I don’t necessarily believe they have.”
Funding for all of the Pigeon Center’s programs and services comes from businesses and individuals in the community; aside from some appropriations from the Town of Waynesville to cover utilities, the modest
annual budget of around $125,000 has to pay for everything.
And, there’s still plenty of work to be done on the building, which was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places and still serves as the heart of the Pigeon Community’s ongoing revitalization.
Lyn said the Pigeon Center recently received grants to redo the dining room floor, and to upgrade drafty, leaky windows that are nearly 70 years old, but finding contractors is a challenge.
She also thinks the roof needs some work to ensure it won’t leak any time soon, but the annual budget doesn’t have a lot of room to include major capital projects.
To that end, the Pigeon Center will host a dine-in/take-out fundraiser on Feb. 24, featuring soul food. All proceeds benefit the Pigeon Center’s programs, most of which are back to business as usual now that COVID-19 restrictions won’t impact their operations as much.
“Come play with us this year,” Tausha said. “We’re having some really fun party fundraisers. We’re having a Cinco De Mayo fundraiser, and then we’re going to have another one in the fall, farm-to-table. We’re just kind of expanding our fundraising opportunities and super excited to play with everybody, so we’re going to see everybody and play together.”
Agroup of Macon County residents and library patrons attended a Feb. 7 library board meeting to air a plethora of concerns. Chief among them were that the library is promoting a sexual agenda to minors and the library’s affiliation with the American Library Association and the Fontana Regional Library System.
“We have been courteous and respectful in voicing our concerns to the library board and administrative staff over here,” said Jim Gaston. “They are not listening to us interjecting our community’s concerns.”
The group of concerned citizens have been frustrated that the Board of Trustees of the Fontana Regional Library system has not addressed their concerns in the past. These concerns seem to center primarily on LGBTQ youth literature available in the youth section of the library, but there are also residents concerned with any affiliation or promotion by the library of what those residents consider “political” issues. This largely boils down to time sensitive displays in the library for things like Black History Month, Pride Month, Banned Books Week and other federally recognized months and weeks that serve to promote and celebrate historically marginalized people.
“Very simply put, parents and taxpayers want neutrality at a public place. If you try to spin this dialogue as parents being intolerant or wanting to ban books or shut down libraries or restrict access, you’re going to be lying through your teeth and not have any credibility,” Gaston said to media outlets present at the Feb. 7 meeting.
At its Jan. 10 meeting, the Fontana Regional Library Board of Trustees approved a Collection Development Policy that, according to Jackson County Librarian Tracy Fitzmaurice, has been reviewed by an attorney and is very similar to public library collection development policies all over the nation.
The goal of the collections policy is to “acquire, organize, make accessible and actively promote materials that support the education, information and recreational needs of the community.” The policy provides for the support of intellectual freedom and aims to provide access to information for the community. Ultimately, responsibility for materials selection rests with the Regional Director and the county librarians who operate within the framework of policies determined by the Fontana Regional Library Board of Trustees.
As Gaston stated during his comment, most of the citizens speaking during the library meeting were not in favor of banning books or removing them from the library. However, almost all of them advocated for sequestering books containing LGBTQ content or themes in one way or another. Some residents suggested putting some type of
sticker or label on all these books; others likened them to pornographic material and suggested they be in a restricted area separate from the rest of the library collection.
One mother asked that “the Fontana board put LGBTQ genres stickers on books to help facilitate access to them for those who seek them and to assist all parents in making informed decisions.”
Another man read a letter from a 13-yearold library patron that advocated for a labeling system.
“I noted that many of the books I pick up have something to do with LGBTQ and while I’m not offended by this, it is my choice to read,” the letter read. “My request is that you label these books so that the people searching for them will find them and the people avoiding them can do so without hardship. I appreciate the fact that you label romance novels so that when I don’t want to read a romance novel, I avoid the label.”
The collections policy approved by the Fontana Library Board in January states “no collection materials, book club selections, storytime selections, or library displays will be labeled, restricted, sequestered, or altered because of any controversy about the author, subject matter or intended or potential audience.”
The library does use viewpoint-neutral, genre labeling for mysteries, sci-fi, fantasy, inspirational fiction and paperback romance. Prejudicial labeling can be used for attempts to prejudice, discourage or encourage users and also restrict access to library resources and is generally avoided in public libraries. These types of labels are avoided because using such labels assumes that libraries have the institutional wisdom to determine what is appropriate or inappropriate for its users to access.
Fitzmaurice gave one example; if a person wanted to read a book about LGBTQ relations, but was afraid of the consequences, an obvious labeling may discourage that person from finding the information they need.
The Library Bill of Rights states that libraries do not advocate the ideas found in their collections or in resources accessible through the library. The presence of books and other resources in a library does not indicate endorsement of their contents by the library.
Residents speaking during public comment cited age inappropriate and sexually explicit content as the reasoning for labeling materials, removing them from youth sections, or sequestering them completely.
County Commissioner Danny Antoine, one of two commissioners serving as liaison to the library board, took to the podium during public comment with many of the same concerns as the rest of the public. He specifically called attention to one book, “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” a graphic novel by Maia Kobabe.
“There are books that we have in our library system that are just absolutely unac-
ceptable and beyond reprehensible to even speak of what’s inside of these books,” said Antoine. “This is pornographic material. A child cannot walk into an adult X-rated store and just go get whatever they want. However, the library seems to be one place in America where any child can check out these books without parental consent.”
Antoine read from statutes regarding third-degree sexual exploitation of minors. Because the book “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” involves sex, Antoine seemed to allege the material rose to the level of the statute he cited.
“The library’s duty is to remain neutral and not promote the radical agenda that is coming from the American Library Association known as the ALA,” said one resident. “The library board works for the county taxpayers, not the ALA.”
The American Library Association is the oldest and largest library association in the world, the mission of which is to “provide leadership for the development, promotion and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance and ensure access to information for all.”
While the ALA has opportunities for personal membership, organizational membership and corporate membership, the library board pointed out to everyone present that the Macon County Library is not a member of the American Library Association.
Several people speaking during the meeting also pleaded with the Macon County Library to separate from the Fontana Regional Library System. Most of these arguments hinged on the fact that the Fontana Regional Library Board has, in their view, not been receptive to requests from the community.
The Fontana Regional Library system provides library service to the public of Jackson, Macon and Swain counties.
According to its collections policy, the Fontana Regional library strives to have a balanced collection to represent multiple points of view. This includes having all sides of controversial issues as far as availability of materials, space and budget allow.
The policy states that “the race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, age, disability, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status or political views of an author or creator; offensive language; depictions or descriptions of violence or sexually explicit activity; controversial content of an item; or endorsement or disapproval by an individual or group in the community does not cause an item automatically to be included or excluded from Fontana Regional Library’s collection.”
“A person commits the offense of thirddegree sexual exploitation of a minor if, knowing the character and content of the material, he possesses material that contains a visual representation of a minor engaging in sexual activity,” said Antoine.
Children over eight years of age can check out books from the library, only if they have their own library card. To obtain a library card, parents must present and sign for their child. If parents do not want children to check out books on their own, they can use their personal library card to check out books for their children. Children 8 years old and younger must have a parent or guardian present to be at the library and to check out books.
Several members of the public also advocated for the separation of Macon County Library from the Fontana Regional Library System as well as the American Library Association.
It goes on to say that “all public libraries contain materials that some patrons may find objectionable. Libraries may omit from the collection materials that some patrons feel are important. In either case, Fontana Regional Library has procedures that patrons may use in requesting the reconsideration of materials.”
To request reconsideration of certain materials, patrons may submit a Request for Reconsideration form. The form asks the person submitting the request for basic biographical information, whether they have examined the entire resource, what concerns the submitter has about the resource, whether there are other resources the submitter would suggest to provide additional information on the topic, and what they recommend the library do with the resource.
The Request for Reconsideration Form and all library policies can be found at fontanalib.org.
After two weeks in court, a hung jury leads to mistrial in Knibbs case
It’s the distinct noise a shotgun makes when it’s racked, the action that brings a shell from the magazine into the chamber, where it’s ready to fire.
It’s the sound that around midnight on April 30, 2018, former Macon County Deputy Anthony Momphard Jr. heard while walking up the front steps onto the porch of Michael Scott Knibbs’ house at 164 Pheasant Drive near Franklin right after he announced “sheriff’s office.”
It’s the sound that sent him into an adrenaline-pumping fight-or-flight state. He’d later say what transpired over the next 10-15 seconds felt like about two minutes.
Upon hearing the unmistakable ratcheting sound, Momphard unholstered his Glock Model 22 .40 caliber handgun and his flashlight and shouted “put the weapon down” at least two times.
No response.
Momphard was already on the Knibbs’ porch near their front door and was walled in on two sides. He had two options. He could go back down the steps and seek cover, but he said that option left him exposed too long, and he wasn’t comfortable with turning his back and running or trying to walk backward.
He chose to move to the left toward the edge of the porch. Doing so put him in the line of sight of the Knibbs’ living room windows. Feeling there may be a threat inside, as he crossed to the left, he shined his flashlight into the windows, where he saw Scott Knibbs standing with his shotgun. Momphard said it was pointed right at him. He fired six shots in rapid succession. Four went through the window and two hit Knibbs
Knibbs, bleeding profusely from the gunshots, reeled and fell face down a few feet from where he was shot. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Within a few days, a close friend of Scott Knibbs called the law office of Mark Melrose in Waynesville. Several months later, once the state declined to prosecute Momphard criminally, Melrose filed a suit on behalf of Knibbs’ widow, Missy, claiming Momphard’s actions violated several of her husband’s civil rights, including those protected by the Second and Fourth amendments. Almost five years later, beginning on Feb. 7, the case was heard by a federal jury in Asheville.
At the heart of the trial were two central questions: Were Momphard’s actions leading up to and after the shooting reasonable? And was Knibbs’ shotgun actually pointed at Momphard at the moment he fired his weapon?
However, neither of those questions were answered sufficiently for the jury, who after hearing almost two weeks’ worth of evidence couldn’t reach unanimity, and the case was
declared a mistrial by U.S. District Court Judge Max O. Cogburn Jr. due to a hung jury.
That this trial was even held is rare, as most police involved shooting civil suits are summarily dismissed when the judge finds that the defendant is entitled to qualified immunity.
In this case, Cogburn originally found that Momphard was entitled to qualified immunity because he’d acted reasonably given the facts of the case, but Melrose was granted an appeal by the Fourth Circuit on the basis that Knibbs had the right to have a loaded firearm in his home as long as he did “not aim the weapon at the officer or otherwise threaten imminent deadly harm.” The opinion also stated that an officer must adequately identify themselves to gain qualified immunity.
Although the defense petitioned the United States Supreme Court in hopes it would overturn the Fourth Circuit ruling on the basis that “The cases cited by the Fourth Circuit do not clearly establish a Constitutional violation.”
“The Fourth Circuit erred in judging the facts from Knibbs’ vantage and not Deputy Momphard’s perspective,” the petition reads.
However, the Supreme Court declined to take up the case and it was sent back to Cogburn’s court for trial.
In interviews with The Smoky Mountain News, attorneys who argue these cases weighed in with their definitions of qualified immunity. Sean Perrin, a partner with Womble Bond Dickinson who typically represents defendants, said two things are considered regarding qualified immunity. First, were one person’s constitutional rights violated by another person acting in their official capacity, whether that’s a police-involved shooting, a false arrest or a jail death? Second, did the officer know they were violating that person’s rights?
“If you don’t know you violated someone’s rights, how can you be held liable?” Perrin said. “You can’t hold officers responsible for something they didn’t know was unconstitutional.”
Perrin said the Fourth Circuit’s ruling wasn’t as surprising as it may appear since that body tends to look at cases in a “light most favorable to the decedent.”
Carlos Mahoney, a partner at Durham’s Mills and Mahoney Law Firm who represents plaintiffs, said the key to using a qualified immunity defense in a civil suit is that whoever represents the law enforcement officer must be able to argue that the law was not clearly established when the use of force took place.
Mahoney also helped to interpret the Fourth Circuit ruling, noting that Melrose argued that Cogburn looked at the case wrong and didn’t credit the evidence that shows that the law was clear at that time.
“There’s just a whole smattering of cases that have been decided in the Fourth Circuit in the past 10 to 15 years that deal with an officer who shoots an individual who has a gun in his possession, and what it boils down to is whether the officer reasonably perceived that the suspect posed a threat to the officer’s safety at the time when the shooting occurred,” Mahoney said.
He added that in those cases, certain facts come under scrutiny, like whether the gun was raised, what types of warnings were given and what ability the person had to perceive whether the person was a law enforcement officer and why they were there.
These cases, Mahoney said, are not “prototypical qualified immunity cases.”
“They’re more of a factual dispute as far as what the officer actually perceived at the time he decided to use force and whether individual posed a legitimate threat to his safety,” he said.
Cogburn made it clear that the Fourth Circuit’s decision left a bitter taste, saying he believed if SCOTUS had heard it, that body
would have likely “agreed with the original ruling.”
“I’ve already made my decision in this case,” Cogburn said.
“The Fourth Circuit said there ought to be a trial, so we’re going to do it,” he added.
Cogburn also had harsh words for Melrose.
“We already don’t have any officers in Asheville,” Cogburn said. “I don’t want the Mark Melrose lawsuit fair coming to town suing everyone.”
“Police officers get shot too, but no one talks about that,” he also said. “They talk about the police who shoot.”
When SMN requested transcripts from these brief interactions for the sake of accuracy, the stenographer was informed by Cogburn that she could not provide any transcripts, not even after the trial was over.
Melrose took exception to Cogburn’s candor. Cogburn told Melrose he can take it up on appeal should he lose. While the mistrial can’t be appealed, should the case get tried again, Melrose can request Cogburn recuse himself based on his expressed bias.
Knibbs had been feuding with neighbors in the weeks leading up to the shooting.
On the night of April 29, 2018, the three 20-somethings who lived in the home up the road, dubbed “the double-wide on the hill,” invited a few friends over to drink some beer and enjoy a small bonfire.
There’s some truth to the old cliché that one readily recognizable sound is the ultimate deterrent against a would-be home intruder. Click-clack.Knibbs and his son, Scottie, loved to go down to Florida on fishing on trips. Donated photo
Knibbs, who was 47 at the time, had a run-in with one of the partygoers who mistakenly pulled into his driveway, becoming angry and kicking the man’s bumper as he drove off. After that, Knibbs put out makeshift speedbumps made of old boards. While there were nails in the boards, testimony revealed they were bent down and that Knibbs’ intention was to slow down people driving too fast on the dirt road and not to damage their vehicles.
After a woman tried to drive down and encountered the boards, one of the renters living at the double-wide on the hill, Shelton Freeman, called 911 to have a deputy mediate whatever dispute might be coming. In his 911 call, Freeman specifically states there’s no emergency.
Momphard was dispatched to the scene. He stopped his patrol car when he saw the first set of boards. Although no witnesses could corroborate the next part of his story, he relayed it under oath. Momphard said he went up to Knibbs’ home, thinking it was the complainant’s home and announced “sheriff’s office” twice and knocked on one door.
The people present in the Knibbs’ home when the shooting occurred said they never heard Momphard’s first round of knocking.
The deputy noticed the soft glow of the fire up at the double-wide on the hill. He walked up and spoke with Freeman, who said he’d seen the lights go on and off at the Knibbs home as Momphard came up. The two walked back down to the house, and Momphard told Shelton to wait by the patrol car.
He approached the darkened home.
Earlier that day, after church, Knibbs and a friend, Jeremy Angel, worked on Angel’s Jeep until dusk. After Angel went home at about 7 p.m., Knibbs continued to work in his shop a few hours longer. He’d tried texting and calling the double-wide on the hill’s owner, Mark Berry, to complain about the tenants. Berry testified that his phone was off, and he didn’t see Knibbs’ attempts at contact until after the shooting.
“He was upset with the neighbors and said they’d been partying,” Berry said. “He was not happy with the whole situation.”
At about 11 p.m., Knibbs called Angel.
“They can have their party, but they’ll have to slow down going to it,” Angel testified Knibbs said.
Knibbs showered and crawled into bed with his wife. They heard a noise outside.
“Sheriff’s office,” a voice announced.
“Anyone can say that,” Knibbs said.
Those were his last words.
He grabbed the shotgun from behind the bed, racked it, and walked toward the living room.
Missy heard the outside voice shout “drop the weapon” multiple times, and then came the shots.
After firing his weapon, Momphard kicked the front door in and reloaded his Glock. He kept it pointed at Knibbs’ body to “cover” him. He told Missy to stay back and keep her hands where he could see them before eventually telling her she could check on her husband.
“I was screaming my head off,” Missy said.
Missy wasn’t the only other person in that
home that night. Their daughter, Megan, who slept in one room with her infant son and chihuahua, was also present, as was their son Scottie, who was just 13 at the time. Megan said she was awakened by the last shot and left her room once she heard her mom scream. When she came out, she saw her dad lying face down, her mom sitting off to the side and Momphard with his flashlight and gun out.
“I was confused. I didn’t know what was going on,” Megan said.
Two deputies arrived within minutes. The first was Matthew Canzone. Now a civilian, Canzone recalled that he’d heard Momphard come over the radio and call a 10-33, which meant shots had been fired. Canzone hit the blue lights and got to the Knibbs home in about four minutes. He went around the house to a back door, heard some screaming and kicked the door down.
Shortly after Canzone, Corporal Tony Hopkins arrived. Hopkins, now a sergeant, had been working nights the week of the trial and showed up in uniform to testify.
“As soon as everybody had exited the residence and the scene was secure, we vacated the residence and secured the perimeter,” he said.
Once Missy and Megan were out of the home, they escorted Scottie out, shielding him from the bloody scene with a “tunnel” made of bed sheets. Missy got the family into her car and drove toward her parents’ house. She said she had a frank conversation with her son, who was still unsure of exactly what had happened.
“I told him daddy had gotten shot and didn’t live,” she said.
Before long, Missy was so overcome with shock that she was unable to drive, pulled over and had a friend pick her up.
Most of that narrative was agreed upon by both Melrose and defense attorney Pat Flanagan of Cranfill Sumner, but there was a focused argument on whether Knibbs had his shotgun pointed at Momphard. In addition, both sides theorized why Momphard took the actions he did before and after the shooting.
During a recorded SBI interview 35 hours after the shooting, Momphard showed raw emotion when recalling the tragic events that led to Knibbs’ death. He felt certain Knibbs was going to shoot him with that shotgun through the front door. He even thought Knibbs intentionally turned off the lights inside and outside the home.
“This mother f***** was trying to kill me with a shotgun,” he told the SBI agent.
Missy, who along with Momphard had been sobbing quietly while watching the video, burst into tears and had to leave the courtroom.
In the video, Momphard described what he saw when he illuminated the living room with his flashlight.
“I’ve never seen anybody look at me the same way he was looking at me,” he said anxiously, adding that he thought Knibbs would have tried to kill Freeman and any responding deputies.
Later in the trial, Melrose showed a video deposition he’d conducted with Momphard in Oregon, where Momphard currently serves as a deputy, on Oct. 18, 2019. After graduating high school in 2009, Momphard served seven years in the Marine Corps where he did two tours in Afghanistan. He was a machine gunner the first time around, and the second he was an improvised explosion device detection dog handler. He went out on numerous combat patrols during each tour.
The deposition shifted from learning about Momphard’s background to Melrose
grilling him to try and prove the deputy’s actions the night of the shooting were not objectively reasonable. Melrose questioned why Momphard felt the need to go to Knibbs’ front door at midnight, considering at that point it was just a civil dispute with no obvious criminal infractions.
“If Mr. Knibbs said he put the boards out there to pop their tires, it’d be a criminal matter, and that’s what I wanted to talk to him about,” Momphard told Melrose in the deposition.
After hearing Freeman tell him the lights went on and off before he walked up, Momphard decided to talk to whoever was in that home. Melrose asked whether Momphard thought hearing the shotgun rack was probable cause for him to charge Knibbs with a crime.
“As soon as I announced sheriff’s office and he pumped the shotgun and I told him to drop it and he didn’t drop it, that’s PC,” Momphard said.
Melrose asked more pointed questions with an aim to understand Momphard’s state of mind that night. He asked why Momphard didn’t use his flashlight as he walked onto the property. Momphard said using the flashlight would have been a “tactical mistake” as it’d give away his position, something he said he first learned as a Marine that was later reiterated in BLET.
Momphard also didn’t activate his blue
lights when he parked his patrol car on Pheasant Drive. During his testimony, Momphard said blue lights weren’t necessary because “there was not an emergency.”
Melrose also called into question Momphard’s actions once he entered the home, asking specifically why he didn’t tend to Knibbs’ injuries.
“My first responsibility is to secure the scene,” Momphard said. “Had I been able to secure the scene, I could have rendered aid.”
When the defense called Momphard to testify at the civil trial, he again recalled the tragedy that transpired that night. During the cross-examination, Melrose went back to some of the topics he’d covered during the deposition, raising his voice as he attempted to rattle Momphard. Melrose asked if racking the gun itself was an “aggressive act.”
“I was scared,” Momphard said.
Melrose noted that Momphard had said during the deposition that Knibbs was a right-handed shooter, when other testimony from both those who knew Knibbs and experts said he was a lefty. Melrose used that one misperception to call into question his overall recollection of the night, especially when it came to the central question of whether Knibbs had the shotgun pointed at him or not.
“If your perception is wrong about the distance and left-versus-right, then are other parts of your perception wrong?” Melrose asked.
In trials like this where a few disputed facts could sway a jury one way or another, having strong expert witnesses is a must. In many cases, experts are sworn in by each party who directly contradict each other, meaning the jury must weigh not only which set of facts seem more compelling but also which experts seem most credible.
Melrose put forward three expert witnesses. First up was John Blum, a law enforcement veteran who specialized in policies and procedures.
While Cogburn offered instructions to jurors telling them how to consider testimony from the other experts, he omitted that instruction before Blum’s testimony.
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Melrose laid out the narrative of the night Knibbs was shot, which gave Blum a chance to pick apart Momphard’s actions. Melrose was met with frequent objections. Objections during this and other parts of the trial led to dozens of “side bars” where Cogburn would huddle with the attorneys, his legal clerk and the stenographer to hammer out misunderstandings without the jury hearing their conversations. Some of those sidebars looked heated, and although Melrose and his cocounsel mostly put on their poker faces coming out of the sidebars, there were still indications that didn’t agree with whatever was decided in many.
“It looks like it’s us against the world,” Melrose said to Missy Knibbs after one sidebar.
Blum discussed what he thought would be appropriate in Momphard’s precarious situation, saying he would have done a “tactical retreat,” meaning he’d back down the steps with his hand on his weapon as he looks for threats in his field of vision then find cover.
Blum also talked about how Momphard’s emotions took hold, saying an officer should be able to recognize danger while still making sound decisions.
“I believe a reasonable officer would not interpret the mere racking of a shotgun as imminent deadly force,” Blum said.
Next up was Dr. Jonathan Arden, a forensic pathology expert with a lifetime of experience as a medical examiner. Arden talked authoritatively about pseudostippling to frame one of the plaintiff’s key arguments.
Stippling is the term for marks left on flesh from unburnt gunpowder striking the skin and causing superficial injuries. Pseudostippling is basically the same concept but is caused by another source, such as glass, that when struck by a high-velocity item like bullet creates many smaller projectiles that create patterns of red marks on flesh. Using autopsy photos, Arden testified that the pseudostippling present on Knibbs’ body — especially where it appeared his arm was shielding part of his upper body — indicated he was holding the gun safely with the barrel pointed toward the ceiling.
He called the location of the right arm a “pledge of allegiance” position.
The last expert to testify on behalf of the plaintiffs was Hal Sherman, a former NYPD detective who offers opinions on crime scene investigation. While his testimony aided in allowing jurors to have a fuller understanding of the narrative Melrose was putting forward in arguing his case, it also called into question the depth of the SBI’s initial investigation. Along with not taking a gunshot residue sample from the window, which if present could tell investigators how far Momphard was from Knibbs when he shot him, SBI investigators also did no forensic analysis of either of the firearms involved.
The defense only called one expert to the stand — Rodney Englert, who specializes in crime scene reconstruction. However, first they had to call Cheryl Kanzler, an independent contractor who works with Englert, to talk about her analysis of the crime scene evidence that went into Englert’s report since Englert couldn’t make the trip to North Carolina.
She laid out the evidence they analyzed that went into the opinion that Knibbs was
pointing the gun at Momphard. While she talked about small blood stains and a “glasslike particulate” present on the gun, it was Englert who used that information to form an expert opinion.
Englert, a world-renowned crime scene reconstructionist has owned his own consulting company since 1979 and said he’d consulted 575 times on death cases and testified as an expert witness over 400 times. Englert conveyed a strong ethos on the stand as he attempted to bolster not only his credibility, but also his integrity.
“If the evidence is unfavorable to whoever hired us, we’ll let them know,” he told the jury.
Englert referenced the evidence his team discovered on the shotgun using a ProScope capable of 50-times magnification. First, he noted that the blood stains on the gun were less than 1 millimeter in diameter, indicating a “high-velocity mist” like “out of a hairspray container.” That kind of blood can only come at a short distance caused by blowback when a bullet strikes an artery or other large vein.
In addition, he said the “glass-like particulate” on the barrel indicated that the muzzle was facing the window.
“He was holding shotgun in his left hand horizontal and pointed toward the window,” Englert said.
Melrose pointed out that Englert typically testifies in support of the defense in all the civil cases he’s argued.
“Yes, probably 90% of the time,” Englert replied.
Melrose also brought up cases that have ended in Englert getting sued. Even more compelling, he brought up the case of Julie Rea, who after being found guilty of murdering her son in Illinois was eventually exonerated when a serial killer in Texas said he’d committed the crime. Her initial prosecution hinged heavily on Englert’s expert testimony. He denied all allegations and claimed that Wray and the serial killer corresponded prior to his jail-cell confession and said he stands by all his work.
Several of Knibbs’ family and friends testified, not only about the events of that fatal night, but also about the kind of man he was. Cogburn frequently repeated a stern warning throughout the trial regarding testimony from family and friends.
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“If people start weeping up on the stand, we’ll have a problem with that, except for the wife,” Cogburn said.
“We’re not going to have an emotional testimony party,” he later noted. “We’re going to have regular testimony.”
Cogburn even went as far as to warn the family in the gallery not to show too much emotion since it may unduly sway jurors.
“I’ll have a real problem about it,” Cogburn said.
One of the people who testified was Knibbs’ stepdaughter, Ashley Coleman, who was one of the more emotional witnesses throughout the trial. While Knibbs’ son, Scottie, would later testify that they shared a bond over fishing, Coleman shared a different kind of bond with her stepfather.
“The two of us would go on day trips to ride dirt bikes,” she said.
Missy remained stoic on the stand. As she and others testified, Melrose showed the jury photos of Knibbs enjoying time with family, fishing in Florida, shooting guns, riding dirt bikes and hunting.
She said Knibbs moved to Macon County from Ohio to attend Basic Law Enforcement Training school at Southwestern Community College, and that’s when he met her. She said that while a career in law enforcement didn’t work out, he always respected first responders and veterans and would go out of his way to thank them for their service.
Knibbs spent time as a lineman and traveled to disaster areas to work. He also did a series of odd jobs — as a handyman, a gasoline truck driver, and a septic tank installer — and owned his own tree trimming company for a time.
“He worked as much as he could to provide,” she said.
Missy talked about how difficult everyday life has been since the shooting. After selling the house on Pheasant Drive, she and Scottie lived with her parents for a few months before moving into a house they’d owned but had rented out for years. Missy and Megan have been making whatever living they can by cleaning rental homes in Highlands and splitting the proceeds.
While the loss of income has been hard, Missy said it pales in comparison to losing her partner, her companion.
“It’s like cutting off your arm,” she said.
Although he wasn’t on the stand long, Scottie Knibbs, now a senior in high school, talked about things he’d miss out on, especially fishing with his father in Florida. He offered one particularly poignant observation.
“There are things he never taught me, things I never got to learn,” he said.
Scott Knibbs has been dead for almost five years.
That’s five years his family didn’t know whether they’d get the justice they sought. That’s five years Anthony Momphard wondered if the court would clear his name. Coming into the trial, both sides anticipated putting an end to the most uncertain chapter of this tragic saga.
But the fact that it didn’t happen wasn’t for a lack of caring on the jurors’ part.
While only six jurors deliberated — the minimum required by law for these civil trials — there were initially eight selected. Early in the trial, one of those jurors was mistakenly let into the courtroom by a marshal while the judge was discussing certain matters intended to be heard outside the presence of the jury. Another was let go on the last day of the trial because doctors discovered a blood clot in his leg.
The last thing they heard before they deliberated were the attorneys’ closing arguments. Flanagan was measured in delivering his closing argument and stuck to the evidence to convey what he believed was Momphard’s intent.
“He didn’t intend to use force,” Flanagan said. “He intended to find out what was going on.”
“Deputy Momphard had a split second to make that decision as he passed that window and saw the barrel of a shotgun,” he added.
Flanagan also argued that Englert was a far more thorough witness than Melrose’s three experts. Finally, he made a simple emotional plea.
“Police officers have a right to go home to their families like everyone else,” he told jurors.
Melrose was more dramatic, first positing that Momphard was “trained to kill” in his time in the Marine Corps but never had the opportunity to transition to being a “peacekeeper” the way he should have before going out alone on patrol.
He also told the jury Knibbs went from being in bed with his wife to hearing voices
outside to being shot, all within about 15 seconds, “because a rookie cop was triggered by a constitutionally protected activity.”
“The mere possession of a firearm is not against the law,” Melrose said.
Ultimately, Melrose asked the jury to find in favor of the Knibbs family and award them $5.8 million, not only $800,000 for lost wages Knibbs could have brought in over the next 20 years, but also for the family’s “loss of companionship and advice, both spiritual and educational.”
“He was irreplaceable. I’m not asking you to replace him with money. I’m asking you to compensate the family,” Melrose said.
Closing arguments ended late in the afternoon of Feb. 15. Cogburn gave jurors the option to go home and come back fresh in the morning to receive their instructions or to receive it and begin deliberating right then and there. The jury opted to begin right away, and they were able to deliberate a half-hour before adjourning and returning the morning of Feb. 16.
When they came in that morning, they were clearly serious.
“I’ve been thinking and praying about this all night,” one juror said in the hallway to another just before jumping back into deliberations.
But all the good intentions in the world can’t preclude a righteous deadlock. At about 12:30 p.m. Cogburn received a note saying there was a hung jury. He brought the jurors into the courtroom and read a “dynamite charge” meant to strongly encourage openminded deliberation in hopes that folks on one side or the other would come around and find unanimity.
At 2:05 p.m., another note came in.
“This is going nowhere,” the note read. “In fact, I’d say it’s getting worse. Jury is completely divided, and this is going nowhere at all.”
Cogburn called the jury in and declared a mistrial. When the jurors were dismissed and began heading back to the jury room, some already had tears streaming down their faces.
“Sometimes even juries that hang lead to resolution down the road,” Cogburn told them.
In many cases, when a civil jury is deadlocked and a mistrial is called, the plaintiffs and defendants both balk at the notion of expending that tremendous amount of the time, money and emotion again and have more incentive to avoid another trial.
“My guess is it will settle,” Perrin said, adding that neither expert witnesses nor attorneys come cheap. “It’s a business decision.”
Neither Perrin nor Mahoney were willing to say they’ve observed any notable increase in hung juries in these kinds of civil trials, even amid the heightened political divide. However, Mahoney admitted that the recent prevalence of dash and body cams — neither of which were worn by Macon County deputies at the time of the shooting — as well as cell phone cameras, have decreased the likelihood that jurors will be as predetermined to lean toward favoring law enforcement.
“I think the view on law enforcement has changed over the last 10 years … it’s harder now because people have a more nuanced view,” Perrin said.
“Historically, it was hard to get verdicts against law enforcement officers, and that’s changed in the last 10-15 years,” Mahoney said, adding that there have even been large judgments in favor of plaintiffs in the last five years.
While Flanagan chose to not comment on the record, Melrose spoke briefly. He said the hung jury is frustrating since so many people were so emotionally invested in the case but also that there was a silver lining, considering he was told the jurors were split 4-2 in his favor.
“It wasn’t the verdict we wanted, but other than two jurors holding out despite what we believed was overwhelming evidence, we were really close to achieving our goal,” he said. “Even though the family is disappointed, they’re ready to retry the case and present it again and believe another jury of fair-minded people would have a more favorable result.”
For all the hubbub surrounding the emotionally charged trial, Retired Macon County Sheriff Robby Holland, who was in that role when the shooting occurred, summed the whole situation up best. While he provided this statement to SMN prior to the trial’s conclusion, he said afterward that it still stands.
“Although retired as Sheriff and no longer speaking for the Macon County Sheriff’s Office, I remain a strong believer in our system of Justice,” Holland wrote. “In this officer involved shooting case involving one of my former deputies, both sides deserved to have their stories heard. During the last two weeks jurors had an opportunity to listen to all the facts provided before the court. No matter what happens when the jury reaches a verdict, there will be no winners in this case. It is a tragedy for all parties involved, and in the end, it never had to happen.”
On Thursday, March 2, Wolfetown voters will head to the polls for a special election to replace a Tribal Council member who resigned mid-term — for the second time in three months.
Six people have filed to fill the seat Wolfetown Rep. Bo Crowe vacated when he resigned Jan. 30 after facing criminal charges stemming from a Jan. 6 incident at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino. Amy Sequoyah Anders, Frank Dunn, Kathy (Rock) Burgess, Theodore M. Bird “Teddy,” Peanut Crowe and Mike Parker were all certified to run by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Board of Elections following a filing period Feb. 9-10.
Four of the candidates — Anders, Dunn, Bird and Parker — ran in the Dec. 15 special election that placed Andrew W. Oocumma in the seat left vacant when Rep. Bill Taylor resigned after charges were filed against him following a domestic dispute. Parker, Dunn and Anders came in second, third and fourth, respectively, in that election, with Bird finishing eighth out of nine candidates. Both Burgess and Crowe, who is Bo Crowe’s brother, have run to represent Wolfetown in previous election cycles. Crowe launched an unsuccessful bid for principal chief in 2019. Of the six candidates, Parker is the only one who has previously sat on Tribal Council.
The Smoky Mountain News reached out to each candidate, asking about the education and experience that makes them right for the job and their top three priorities should they win the seat. Of the six candidates, five responded. Candidates frequently mentioned transparency in tribal government — particularly regarding finances — housing and increasing opportunities for family-friendly activities in the community as priorities should they be elected to the seat.
Anders, 46, is a married mother of five who has owned Crossfit 2232 in Bryson City for the past 11 years.
A 1995 graduate of Cherokee High School, she received a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Phoenix. Prior to starting her business, she spent 12 years at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, participating in leadership and management training opportunities and developing marketing skills as a casino host and executive casino host.
If elected, her top priorities are to update tribal code to better protect tribal members — especially children and elders — while following through on Tribal Council decisions, especially those impacting language, traditions and fun/healthy activities for families; to keep the community informed on the tribe’s financial decisions while working to
Wolfetown voters will choose one of six candidates during the March 2 election. Their names will appear on the ballot as follows:
• Amy Sequoyah Anders
• Frank Dunn
• Kathy (Rock) Burgess
• Theodore M. Bird “Teddy”
• Peanut Crowe
• Mike Parker
improve their quality of life; and to ensure tribal members receive quick and exceptional service from tribal programs and health care.
Bird, 64, is retired from a 27-year career with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. He previously served one two-year term as a Tribal Employment Rights Office Commissioner. During his career working for the tribe, he held positions as a quality control inspector for Qualla Housing, civil engineer inspector for the Cherokee Department of Transportation, and information of technology technician for the Information Technology Department. He holds an associate’s degree in information technology.
If elected, his top priorities would be improving health care, addressing the drug issue and increasing accountability and transparency in tribal government.
Burgess, 69, is retired from a 32-year career with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and has served three terms on the Cherokee School Board.
She holds an associate’s degree, having attended Bacone College and Arizona State University. During her career with the tribe, she worked in education and training and previously served as manager of the tribe’s parks and recreation program.
If elected, her priorities would include affordable housing, stopping spending and paying off debt, and taking care of the people by keeping funds in Cherokee.
Crowe did not reply to invitations to participate in this voter guide, so information
• Voter registration rolls for the special election close Friday, Feb. 24.
• Polls will be open 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday, March 2. There will be no absentee or early voting.
• Any protests must be filed by the end of the day Friday, March 3. After the protest period expires, the EBCI Board of Elections will certify the results to Tribal Council.
• The top vote-getter will serve through the end of Crowe’s original term Oct. 2. Filing for the regular election selecting a representative for the two-year term beginning on that date starts Monday, March 6.
• Contact the EBCI Board of Elections with any questions at 828.359.6362.
about his candidacy has been compiled from his campaign Facebook page.
Crowe has been a tribal employee for more than 20 years and holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Western Carolina University, with minors in Cherokee studies and hospital management. He and his wife of 30 years have two children and two grandchildren.
If elected, his priorities would be advocating for responsible spending of tribal money, more transparency in tribal spending and government actions, and bringing familyfriendly attractions and activities to the community.
Dunn, 52, owns Audacious Investments Corp and currently serves on the EBCI Police Commission and the MANNA FoodBank Board of Directors.
He holds a master’s degree in business administration and has previously worked for the EBCI’s Project Management Office and Tribal Food Distribution Program. He helped secure more than $5 million in grants to
build a new tribal foods building.
If elected, Dunn said he would serve “from the top of Rough Branch to the top of Dobson Ridge and all the creeks, branches and hollers in between.” His top three priorities are to stay in contact with the people, listen and communicate their needs and wants and move Cherokee forward for all seven generations.
Parker, 58, is the EBCI’s destination marketing director.
Parker holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and recently completed a master’s degree in project management. He has previously served on Tribal Council for a total of 10 years, including appointments as chair and vice chair.
If elected, working with leadership to develop a strategy for reporting and developing a spending plan for external economic development initiatives such as the tribe’s various LLCs would be a top priority. He would also introduce legislation to develop community design standards for housing and local economic development. Rounding out his top three priorities is working with leadership to develop dividend policies and revenue distribution to the tribal government and tribal members while ensuring adequate equity to sustain growth.
As Macon County looks ahead to fiscal year 2023-24, the county has big decisions to make to address the many pressing capital needs in its school system. But it also sits in a healthy financial position, primed to take on debt, if necessary, to address county needs.
“The booming local economy has allowed us to mitigate budget pressures that have been brought about by inflation, growing demand, supply chain compilations, and an extremely tight labor market,” said County Manager Derek Roland. “We’ve been able to take the additional revenue that we have seen generated and mitigate many of these pressures.”
According to Abby Braswell, Macon County’s tax administrator, the county continues to grow its sales tax revenue, this fiscal year for the five-month period between July and November the county collected 12.6% more than the previous year. Though Braswell did point out that the growth rate was down slightly from the year-to-year growth between 2020 and 2021, when sales tax collections were 16.5% higher during the same five-month period.
“We’ve been kind of riding this roller coaster at the top for a couple years now in regards to sales tax,” said Braswell. “That was interesting to me that last year we experienced 16.5% growth, this year for the same five months we only experienced 12.5% growth.”
The county monitors sales tax closely and budgets sales tax conservatively.
“Budgetarily, I think we will be OK, but I
just wanted to point that out,” said Braswell.
This fiscal year revenues collected through December are exceeding expenditures in the county by $11.2 million. During the same period last year the county’s revenues exceeded expenditures by $12.2 million.
Mitch Brigulio of Davenport Public Finance, the county’s financial advisor, pre-
P OLITICS E DITOR
After years of infighting and obstruction, the North Carolina General Assembly is closer than ever to expanding Medicaid after the Republican-controlled House gave its final approval on Feb. 15. Medicaid expansion became mandatory for states in 2010 as a result of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, but the “mandatory” provision was ruled unconstitutional in 2012. By 2014, almost half of U.S. states, plus the District of Columbia, had taken advantage of the opportunity.
North Carolina was not among them. Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) was among the plan’s biggest opponents, and had legitimate concerns about possible effects on the state’s health care industry — chief among them, what would happen if the federal government ever departed from its pledge to cover the cost of 90% of the expansion population.
The Senate passed an expansion bill in 2022, but the House wouldn’t budge and was seen as the last hurdle for expansion
until late last week.
Titled “Access to Healthcare Options,” H76 was introduced by three Republicans and a Democrat on Feb. 8. Just a week later, the bill had passed its third and final reading by a 96-22 vote.
As filed, H76 would begin providing Medicaid coverage on Jan. 1, 2024 to people aged 18 to 64 who earn 133% or less of the federal poverty level. The federal poverty level, which changes each year, is currently set to $13,950 for an individual, so those making up to $18,553.50 would be eligible. Enrollment would begin on Dec. 1.
On Jan. 18, Asheville-area Democratic representatives Eric Ager, Lindsey Prather and Caleb Rudow told The Smoky Mountain News in a story previewing the current General Assembly session that they’d follow through on campaign pledges to support expansion. Every House Democrat present voted yes on H76.
Western House reps Mike Clampitt (RSwain), Karl Gillespie (R-Macon) and Mark Pless (R-Haywood) all said they were inclined to support expansion — albeit with
sented commissioners with the overall financial state of the county during its Feb. 9 meeting, as it relates to the county’s credit rating and its ability to borrow money. According to Brigulio the county has a double A rating, two spots from the highest public rating possible.
“You’re starting from a position of strength in terms of your credit rating,” he
said. “You have access to the capital markets, and you have access to borrow money and you can borrow that money at an attractive rate based on your credit rating.”
Not all counties have to have a public credit rating and Macon County did not have one until 2018 when it issued limited obligations bonds to repair Macon Middle School.
Brigulio noted that over the last three years, revenues have exceeded expenditures by an increasing margin, creating a growing unassigned fund balance. Growth in sales tax revenue is the primary driver of the growing revenue.
“The challenge is, how do you budget for that?” asked Brigulio. “Sales tax is such a volatile revenue source, if we hit a recession, what happens to that sales tax? Are you really going to continue to grow at 10, 11, 12% per year on sales tax? It’s hard to be comfortable budgeting at those levels, so there’s really no surprise that we’re seeing this growth in the fund balance. That a challenge, a good challenge.”
It also creates opportunities for the county to use its fund balance on its capital plan in the years to come. While Macon County has historically had an informal policy of keeping a 25% unassigned fund balance, that level continues to grow. Brigulio has suggested formalizing a fund balance policy closer to the current actual level of unassigned fund balance to show lenders that the county is using its money in a productive way. The current median unassigned fund balance for counties nationally is between 3035%, Macon County currently has over 40%.
the bill on Feb. 14, before the first reading. Clampitt said he, like Berger previously, wanted to be sure the federal government wouldn’t leave the state on the hook for the costs of the expansion population.
Berger told NC Health News early in January that he couldn’t see that happening since it hadn’t happened under either Republican or Democratic presidential administrations over the past decade.
The bill also contains a clause that would discontinue expansion if the federal government ever drops below 90%.
Pless told SMN that he was concerned about a shortage of medical care providers in the state, saying that if patients couldn’t get in to see physicians, expanding Medicaid wouldn’t do much good. When the bill came up, Pless offered an amendment meant to address that shortage in rural areas.
reservations — and seem to have gotten what they wanted to earn their support.
Gillespie told SMN he wanted to hear committee recommendations; health and finance committees reported favorably on
“There’s a lot of places that we need physicians, we need nurses, in these hospitals,” Pless said on the floor of the House on Feb. 15. “What this is going to do is, it’s going to help with tuition reimbursements if someone chooses they’re going to go into one of those professions.”
As written, the amendment would appropriate $14 million in nonrecurring funding towards loan
“If you were to set a policy target minimum at 40%, you would still be above the median within that group,” said Brigulio. “You would still be in very good shape compared to your rating category and you would have the ability to spend $15 million on other projects as opposed to just holding it in fund balance.”
Brigulio used that $15 million number to demonstrate examples for funding the Franklin High School Project according to two different scenarios — one in which the county does not receive grant funding, and the other in which the county receives $50 million in needs-based grants from the state.
receive grants.
All scenarios assume the $12 billion tax revaluation. Macon County currently has the third-lowest property tax rate in North Carolina.
“So, pretty impactful there getting that additional grant if you’re able to do it,” said Brigulio.
“In the 10 years that I’ve presented budgets, this is the strongest financial position that Macon County’s ever been in,” said Roland.
As is the typical process for working out a county’s budget, over the next three months Roland will work with department heads and outside agencies on their budget needs, and he will present the recommended budget to the county commission on May 9. The commission will have budget work sessions in June.
At the Feb. 9 budget kick off meeting, commissioner John Shearl inquired about commissioners being more involved in the budget process.
If the county does not receive grant funding, it will need to issue $14 million in debt 2024, and $102 million in debt in 2025. This would require an additional 4.5 cents on the current property tax rate to cover the debt service. If the county does receive grant funding, it would need to issue $14 million in debt in 2024 and $54 million in debt in 2025. This scenario would require an additional 1.17 cents on the current property tax rate to cover the debt service.
If the county were to succeed in passing the article 46 sales tax referendum, it would only need an additional 2.8 cents in property tax for the no-grant scenario; it would need no tax increase in the case that it does
repayment, an amount Pless said would probably be enough for 200 people.
Students earning a doctorate in medicine or nursing would be eligible for $28,000 in repayment for each year they practice on a fill-time basis in a rural area. Nursing students would qualify for $20,000 a year with a master’s degree, $14,000 with a bachelor’s degree and $6,000 with an associate’s degree.
Pless’ amendment passed by a measure of 119-0, but it wasn’t the only amendment offered from the floor.
Deputy Majority Whip Jeffrey McNeely (R-Iredell) also saw unanimous support for a $50 million, one-time appropriation that would be spread across all counties to help with implementation as well as inmate medical costs.
Rep. Keith Kidwell (R-Beaufort), leader of the influential House Freedom Caucus, introduced a work requirement amendment, even though such requirements aren’t currently authorized by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Kidwell’s amendment would take effect if that ever changes and was passed 77-41, with six Democrats joining him.
Macon County Republican Senator Kevin Corbin has supported expansion
“I would like to be a part of meeting the department heads and having them present their budget in front of us as commissioners and the county attorney, county manager, finance officer and the general public to build this budget,” said Shearl. “It would be nice if we participated, and it would be great for the taxpayers if this board sat through this entire budget process. I’d like to help build this $59 million budget.”
After lengthy discussion about the budget process, Shearl made a motion that the board sit through all meetings between department heads and the county manager that create preliminary budget requests, in public meetings. The motion died for lack of a second.
since he was in the House — a rare position for a conservative western Republican. Now entering his second Senate term, Corbin cochairs the Senate’s Health Care committee and the Health and Human Services appropriations committee, meaning he’ll see the bill on its way in and guide it to the floor, if possible.
“I feel sure that we’ll work out a solution,” Corbin told SMN on Feb. 19.
Corbin added that he was supportive of Pless’ amendment, and that he’d spoken to Pless about it before Pless introduced it.
“Part of this thing is making sure our folks in rural areas have access to medical providers,” Corbin said.
But there are other parts of the House bill the Senate is expected to address.
Corbin mentioned there might be some provisions dealing with the state’s stance on certificates of need, as well as on nurses operating without the direct supervision of physicians.
As of press time on Feb. 21, the bill had passed its first reading in the Senate, and will likely head to Corbin’s Health Care committee soon. Corbin said that he would expect the full process to take a couple of weeks before Gov. Roy Cooper gets his chance to sign or reject the full proposal.
Monday & Saturday Dinner Service
Monday 4 p.m.-8 p.m.
Friday 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
Saturday 11 a.m.-8 p.m.
Sunday 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
perfect for all walks of life, from families to golf groups to ladies who lunch. We pride ourselves on using fresh ingredients from our gardens and supporting local farmers. The details are priority.
“It would be great for the taxpayers if this board sat through this entire budget process.”
— John Shearl
Come out to Waynesville’s First United Methodist Church on Feb. 28 for its 68th annual pancake day.
The event will last from 6:30-7:30 a.m. and offers anyone and everyone all-you-can pancakes, bacon and sausage — and best of all, it’s free.
Marylee Sease is a member of the church’s pancake day team and has played a serious role in planning this serious undertaking.
“This is our first pancake day that we feel is normal or traditional since the pandemic,” she said. “We were able to have in 2020 by the skin of our teeth, and then in 2021 we did a ‘virtual pancake day.’ Then in 2022, we had a small pancake day at our Friendship House.”
As this year will be back to the real deal, the team at FUMC is calling the event “Pancake day revival.” Organizers expect vounteers to put in 1,000 man hours and feed between 3,000 and 4,000 people.
“It’s an opportunity for our community to come together and work toward a common good thing,” Sease said.
It’s hard not to smile on pancake day. Donated photo
Girl Scouts Carolinas Peaks to Piedmont (GSCP2P) announced a donation to their organization from Karen and Chester Bartlett of Bryson City.
The donation, in the amount of $20,000, is one of several Leadership Gifts for an upcoming GSCP2P Capital Campaign titled “Pisgah Forever! Pisgah Forever!” will fund enhancements and improvements at Camp Pisgah in Brevard, including:
• Waterfront improvements, including a refresh of the fire circle, landscaping, shelter pavilion, new boat house and boat racks.
• Refreshed signage and entrance using reclaimed wood and stone from the property.
• Memorial celebrating the Raines Brothers and their impact on Camp Pisgah on the site of their cabin.
• Repurposing of the Director’s Cabin into a new space for troop rentals.
Karen Golbek Bartlett comes from a family legacy and history with Girl Scouts as a Girl Scout Brownie, Junior and Cadette, serving as a swimming instructor and waterfront director at summer camps, a council staff member and troop volunteer and now as the current secretary of the GSCP2P Board of Directors.
“’Pisgah Forever!’ is a campaign that is going to help us fund much needed improvements at camp, and the Bartlett’s gift is one step closer to
making those updates a reality,” said CEO of GSCP2P, Jennifer Wilcox. “As Camp Pisgah celebrates its 70th anniversary this year, we want to ensure that we can continue to bring the Pisgah magic to girls in the future and ensure that every girl everywhere has a chance to get outside.”
GSCP2P summer camp registration is also now open. All girls in rising grades 1-12 are welcome to attend any of the upcoming summer programs. Sessions include overnight camp, day camp, horse camp and more. For more information about summer camp programming, please visit https://www.girlscoutsp2p.org/en/camp/summercamp-opportunities.html.
The Marianna Black Library in Bryson City, in partnership with VAYA Health, will host an educational series on adult mental health every fourth Monday of the month throughout the year.
Join in the meeting room for a free course on “Not as Prescribed: Effects of Medication Misuse.”
This course will review how the aging process can lead to unintentional misuse and adverse changes to the brain, discussing interventions and methods available to support the reduction of this evolving concern.
To access the VAYA calendar to sign up for our trainings go to vayahealth.com/calendar All Geriatric and Adult Mental Health Specialty Team
courses are evidence-informed, meaning they are derived from evidence-based research and incorporated into a user-friendly format focused on promoting adaptive outcomes.
All are invited to take part in a Community Lake Cleanup at Lake Junaluska from 9-11 a.m., on Saturday, March 11. The cleanup will focus on clearing debris that has collected along the shorelines and entrance roadways at Lake Junaluska.
To participate, meet outside Stuart Auditorium by 9 a.m. on March 11 to sign in and receive instructions and supplies. Cleanup organizers will provide coffee and light snacks for volunteers, as well as equipment such as garbage bags, litter pick-up sticks and gloves.
The event is organized by The Junaluskans, who work in conjunction with Lake Junaluska staff and in partnership with Haywood County and Haywood Waterways to host the event. The Junaluskans are a volunteer organization of Junaluska residents and other persons who love Lake Junaluska, and Haywood Waterways is a nonprofit organization dedicated to maintaining and improving water quality in the Pigeon River Watershed of Haywood County.
“The removal of trash from Lake Junaluska is important for the continued health of the lake and the downstream waterways,” said Steve Crites, Community Lake Cleanup Project Coordinator with
The Junaluskans. “With the current drawdown of the lake level, volunteers will have easy on-foot access to pockets of trash that are normally accessible only by boat. Also this year, the cleanup effort will be expanded to include the Waynesville Greenway section near Highway 74 along Richland Creek, provided enough volunteers are available.”
Lake Junaluska’s grounds and gardens are open to the public, making the Community Lake Cleanup a great opportunity for all who walk the lakeside trail or fish along the banks to connect with each other and help keep the lake clean.
Helpers of all ages are welcome to be part of the cleanup, but adult chaperones should accompany youth. All work will be done outside, so volunteers should dress accordingly for the weather and potentially muddy lake conditions. Volunteers can bring their own gloves to wear.
Leaders from groups such as scout troops, churches, youth groups and civic organizations interested in helping with this community service work are encouraged to notify event organizers in advance by sending an email to volunteers@lakejunaluska.com.
Visit Highlands, NC announced its latest round of grants and a sponsorship – $72,150 to support three local, nonprofit organizations.
Each year, Visit Highlands, NC supports local nonprofit organizations through its Tourism Grant and Sponsorship Programs. The grants are funded by occupancy taxes collected from guests staying in Highlands’ accommodations. A committee comprised of volunteers and staff reviews the grant applications and recommends approval to the Highlands Chamber of Commerce/Visit Highlands, NC Board of Directors.
On Feb. 10, the organization announced a new grant and two sponsorships:
• $12,150 to Mountaintop Rotary Club to support and promote its Mountaintop Arts and Crafts Shows.
• $50,000 to Highlands Festival Inc. to support and promote the Bear Shadow Music Festival, and
• $10,000 to support the 2023 season performances at the Highlands Performing Arts Center.
“It’s an honor to invest these funds back into our community,” said Kaye McHan, executive director of the Highlands Chamber of Commerce/Visit Highlands, NC. “Our grant and sponsorship recipients provide our residents and visitors with educational and cultural experiences that are vital to a thriving, healthy community. Together, we share the goal of making Highlands a great place to live, work, do business and visit.”
Since July 1, 2022, Visit Highlands, NC has awarded more than $160,150 to local nonprofit organizations through its Tourism Grant Program and sponsorships. The organization awarded more than $250,000 during its last fiscal year.
Editor’s note: George Ellison, a renowned naturalist and writer who lived in Bryson City, passed away on Sunday, Feb. 19. Below is a tribute to Ellison by Don Hendershot. Ellison wrote hundreds of columns for The Smoky Mountain News, which can be read by searching our archives at smokymountainnews.com.
BY D ON H ENDERSHOT G UEST COLUMNISTThere is a space, a void, an empty spot in the soul of Appalachia. It’s like when you’re watching one small ember in a pile of glowing embers and suddenly it burns out — it’s simply gone and nothing will replace it. That peculiar and singular ember — that place in Appalachian history and folklore that will never be filled again — that place was George Robert Ellison II.
I first encountered George in Highlands, N.C., sometime in the mid- to late 1980s; pretty sure it was at a “naturalist’s” program at The Mountain Retreat & Learning Center. Back in the day if a program said “naturalist” you would surely find George’s name. George led trips and/or presented programs for groups and venues ranging from North Carolina Arboretum, University of Tennessee’s Smoky Mountain Field School, North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, to the Intentional Growth Center, Center for Life Enrichment, to the Swag Inn on the Cataloochee Divide, to Snowbird Lodge, etc.
George brought a combination of academia (exhaustive scholarly research), first-hand knowledge (gained through years of tromping over these mountains studying their flora and fauna) and enthusiasm for this “place.” One of George’s most beloved programs was titled “Where are We — The Geologic Past & Present Day Geographic Setting of the Blue Ridge Province.” The program was informative, educational and entertaining, whether you were college professor or a “little ole lady in tennis shoes.”
Suffice it to say George was “the” naturalist when it came to Western North Carolina and the greater Southern Appalachians. George grew up in Danville, Virginia, where he excelled as an athlete. He was a wrestler and a football player. George was an All-State football player and captain of his Danville high school team. He was also captain of University of North Carolina’s freshman squad and played for the Tar Heels until a knee injury against Ohio State sidelined him in 1962. That’s when the football player turned scholar, getting a degree in English; grad school at University of South Carolina; and teaching at Mississippi State before the lure of the Smokies brought him to Swain County.
George and Elizabeth lived in a tiny cabin on 46 acres — surrounded on three sides by the Great Smoky Mountains National Park — where they raised three children in a pioneer-like setting. I believe it was 2004 when they first got electricity in the cabin. They recently placed their beloved homestead in a conversancy, ensuring the cabin, stream and acres they tromped for five or so decades will not be developed.
George’s literary accomplishments are well documented but I will list a few here: He wrote the biographical introductions for the reissues of two Southern Appalachian classics: Horace Kephart’s “Our Southern Highlanders” (Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 1976; originally published 1913) and James Mooney’s “History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees” (Asheville: Historical Images, 1992; originally published 1900). A collection of his essays, “Mountain Passages: Natural and Cultural History of Western North Carolina,” was published in 2005 (Charleston SC: The History Press) and has gone into its
fourth printing. In 2006, the same press published “A Blue Ridge Nature Journal: Reflections on the Appalachians in Essays and Art,” a large format volume that includes 30 of George’s essays on the natural areas, flora and fauna of the southern mountains as well as 40 full-color watercolors and 30 illustrations by his wife, Elizabeth Ellison, and it continued with his prose and poems being recognized. In 2019, Ellison was honored with the prestigious Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award for co-authoring with Janet McCue, “Back of Beyond: A Horace Kephart Biography,” by the WNC Historical Association.
Few naturalists (and I am one) can ascribe to George’s penchant for historical accuracy and documentation. But some naturalists (and I am one) can reflect on George’s enthusiasm for accuracy and documentation. I have had to wade
friends, and I drove over to Victor’s place and went in. I got in the participant line. I recall being a little apprehensive, but not too much since Victor had been de-clawed and had a wire muzzle on his snout.
“When my turn came, I pulled off my shirt, underneath which I had a T-shirt that had a picture of Superman on the back and S-U-P-E-R-M-A-N spelled out on the front. The crowd went wild, but as I was entering the cage the bear’s owner and attendant, whose name was Tuffy Truesdale, leaned over and whispered in my ear: ‘The bear can’t read.’”
That was the George I knew.
Sometime in the mid- to late 90s George posted a pic from Lake Junaluska that he identified as a Bewick’s wren. I studied the photos and replied that it looked more like a Carolina wren. George changed his post, with some “George” demean-
through shin-deep mud with George to verify we were, in fact, hearing sedge wrens at Kituwah. And few naturalists, far too few, ever had the opportunity to spend time with George — I was one of the lucky ones.
My personal eulogy for George — forgetting about his prodigious literary accomplishments and the cementing of his legacy in the tomes of Appalachian literary history: George didn’t talk much about his football career, but was always willing to tell you he was a wrestling star at Danville High School (he had a “take down” move that couldn’t be countered.) He felt so secure about that move that once in the late 1970s he decided to take on “Victor the Wresting Bear” in Cherokee. In George’s words : “You’d suppose that few people would want to wrestle a bear, but in Cherokee in those days there was always a line of guys at the cage door waiting their turn. Most lasted about half a minute. I had wrestled in high school. I thought I saw a weakness in Victor’s technique. I didn’t think I could whip Victor, but I did suppose that maybe I could get his attention and hold my own for several minutes.
“The next Saturday my wife, our three children, several
ing remarks about me and said he believed this was actually a Carolina wren.
I didn’t think much of it until later that spring after one of George’s “Great Smoky Mountain Birding Expeditions” (which I attended religiously) when counters would gather at that tiny cabin in Swain County and have an adult beverage and recount the progress so far. It was then and there that George announced that I had rescinded his posting of a Bewick’s wren and suggested the only way to resolve the issue would be a wrestling match. I immediately jumped up and proclaimed that after further review he (George) could have actually seen a Bewick’s wren.
I believe people who knew George well are cemented by a particular glue, fomented by intelligence, wit, ability and a historian’s desire to get it right. I will wrestle you in heaven or on whatever plane we may find ourselves, but I will know you right away.
(Don Hendershot is a writer and naturalist and the author of the long-running Smoky Mountain News column “The Naturalist’s Corner.” ddihen12@gmail.com)
Pop culture wants to kill us. At the very least, it wants to make us miserable, to ensure that from an early age we are well on our way to a lifetime of chronic disappointment. From the time we become remotely sentient, we are bombarded with lies from every direction: children’s books, fairy tales, movies, kid shows, friends, even our own parents. Your face never really froze that way, did it? Did you ever really put your eye out?
How are we to make sense of the competing narratives that dominate our early childhood, the first that danger is lurking every-damnwhere, and the second that we’ll live happily ever after once we either rescue or are rescued by our prince or princess. If we manage to avoid being eaten by a wolf or a witch, that is. Religion certainly didn’t help. Eat the wrong thing and find yourself naked in front of judgmental peers and a deity who is just livid over an apple. An apple! Do the wrong thing and find yourself in a terrible flood on a boat with 1,500 smelly animals. Or, you know, swimming for it. Even the most innocuous children’s prayer had you repeating every single night: “if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” And you thought fractions were hard!
It is a miracle that all American children are not either heavily medicated or in daily therapy sessions by the time they’re 6 years old. If you do manage to survive childhood and somehow plow your way through the blinding blizzard of adolescence, you find that all the lies of childhood have been conveniently repackaged for you in the form of horror movies and romantic comedies.
You’ll find that you’re secretly in love with that person you couldn’t really stand — you were in love all along, but you were in denial. Or you’ll fall for someone after meeting in the most unlikely way, have a brief period of delirious happiness, then be ripped apart over a misunderstanding, and only then will you live happily ever after once the misunderstanding is resolved.
Have you ever noticed how the credits roll before the movie ever gets into the real issues that drip by drip, day by day, paper cut by paper cut, do a real number on your happily-ever-after? Do you remember that scene in “Pretty Woman” where Richard Gere and Julia Roberts have been married
for eight years and are having a loud argument over whose night it is to cook and which one forgot to go to the liquor store … again? Nope?
How about the scene in “When Harry Met Sally” when Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan have started marriage counseling for the third time because he won’t quit his stupid mugging and making a joke out of everything, while she has taken out a second mortgage on the house to “get work done” because he doesn’t look at her the way he used to. Didn’t see that one either?
Why can’t pop culture do a better job of preparing us for what life is really going to be like?
Instead of “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” and those horrifying Oompa Loompas and the various ways bad little children can die if they are not going to inherit a chocolate factory, why can’t we see a move about why Charlie didn’t get invited to Tommy’s birthday party, when EVERYBODY else in their friend group did? How do we fix it when every friend you thought you had turns out to be a bad egg, Mr. Wonka? Is there a chocolate bar for mass rejection?
Instead of “The Wizard of Oz” and its none-too-subtle rebuke of a young girl for daring to dream of ditching drab Kansas for a world of color, magic, possibility and far more interesting people, why can’t we have a movie about the passive aggressive cruelty of a second-grade teacher who should have retired years ago, but who seems to hang on so she can hurl little verbal darts at the unsuspecting children in her charge? No place like home indeed!
In view of the decades-long high rate of divorce, the multibillion big pharma selfmedication bonanza, a fragrant bouquet of 12-step programs, and our assorted addictions to Facebook, TikTok, iPhone games and other soul-sucking time killers, pop culture is in desperate need of new programming. We have all long since traded in our happily-ever-afters for a patchwork of diversions designed to keep us from peeking into the abyss. Just when we think we’ve escaped the Oompa Loompas, they turn up as dancers in the Super Bowl halftime show. There is no way out.
I bet the prince never imagined the highlight of his day would be eating a whole bag of Sun Chips and leveling up on Golf Clash while the princess is in her canopy bed shopping for mattress pads on Amazon.
And they lived happily ever after!
(Chris Cox is a writer and teacher who lives in Haywood County. jchriscox@live.com)
The human condition frequently subjects us to the lie that every experience we face daily is also what every other person is experiencing, causing a state of willful blindness to our fellow man. Then one day, someone comes along with a spark that claims, “I've got this idea,” and it catches on like wildfire in the eyes of everyone who witnesses it.
When walking around Asheville, you can see that spark in tangible form through the street art and murals of a local art movement known as the Indigenous Walls Project. There are over 15,000 square feet of murals and graffiti scattered throughout the city from Native artists represented by 10 diverse nations, conveying a similar message — “We are still here, and you are on Native land.”
“Land” is a word that Jared Wheatley of the Cherokee Nation stresses is the primary focus of this project. Wheatley is the founder of the IWP, a local activist and founder/key contributor to the “Outsiders Podcast” as well as the owner of Wheatley Construction and Epatage Workwear. On its surface, the IWP is a local street art movement, showcasing a Native artist whose work encompasses all forms displaying their indigeneity and personal messages. However, just below the surface, is where the heart and life of the movement is — “Land Back” and Native sovereignty.
What is “Land Back”? Most have never heard this phrase and those who have can oftentimes misunderstand the objective of the movement and reject it together. Simply put, “Land Back” challenges non-Natives to assist in repairing the damage and exploitation that colonialism and capitalism have
inflicted on Indigenous communities.
“Land Back” can be achieved by reinstating and returning ancestral territories to those who have managed and maintained the lands for thousands of years. This can be presented in many forms such as land return, control or co-management of public lands to indigenous communities, and land transfers.
Some folks misunderstand the movement as a demand for current residents to pick up and flee their homes, which is not the case.
“Land Back” shows that Native governance is achievable, ecologically preferable and longterm will sustain a more positive impact on public lands.
Since the conception of the Indigenous Walls Project last April, Asheville has experienced a large influx of public wall space detected to Native murals that Wheatley and his partners have acquired through their various work and community connections — to use those public spaces to provoke thought and get
To learn more about the Indigenous Walls Project, and to stay updated on the project as it continues to develop, visit indigenouswallsproject.com or follow the organization on Instagram at @IndigenousWallsProject.
the hard conversation started about native sovereignty and other related issues.
In 2022, Wheatley, the IWP, as well as other local business owners, were able to utilize street art, food, intertribal markets, films and open community discussions to successfully catch the eyes and ears of locals and visitors alike. In this coming year Wheatley, his two children and others attached to this project plan to explore more judicial aspects of this movement and the requirements for the return of indigenous lands back to the communities they belong to.
In addition, Wheatley hopes to expand this movement to other cities, continue to integrate art, talk with other organizations to arrange events and future “Graffiti Jams” and involve the younger generations in this vital form of activism. Wheatleys' oldest child, Nex, has already started to take that involvement to heart and added their own awe-inspiring piece to the ever-growing mural gallery situated in Asheville's South Slope.
Seeing the younger generation's involvement to bring change and awareness imparts a bit of hope that the youth will be alright, and when given a platform — or a wall — to amplify their voices, they'll continue on the significant work for generations to come.
‘We are still here’Nex Wheatley (Cherokee Nation) working on her mural at the IWP Open Air Gallery in Asheville. Breanna Delannoy photo
Indigenous Walls Project sparks social dialogue
Hello from Room 1D at the Rathbone Mansion, just a few blocks from the French Quarter in New Orleans. It’s Tuesday (aka: “Fat Tuesday”).
In an abrupt departure from a late-night slumber, I was awakened this morning by the sounds of drums and a horn section, of laughter and friendly banter just outside the bedroom window. It was an early morning Mardi Gras parade passing by the hotel, hundreds of folks all dressed up in wild-nout costumes.
Day three of this last-minute trek to NOLA and the ensuing, unrelenting shock and awe that is Mardi Gras. At this time last week, as I was again kicking the newspaper out the door, I hadn’t planned on being down in Louisiana. But, as I’ve known throughout most of my vagabond life, nothing is for certain, and always say “yes” to curious mischief and unknown adventure.
A friend reached out and asked if I wanted to join her for shenanigans afoot in NOLA. She’s been down here for a couple weeks on a journey of sorts to reconnect with not only herself, but also her intent and purpose in life. And would I, perhaps, run amuck with a cute girl in the capital of all that is responsible enlightenment? Yes. Sold.
Lots of memories flooding my field-ofvision meandering the narrow streets, neonlit bars, fried oyster joints, and blues/funk night clubs. And all while navigating the massive sea of humanity that ebbs and flows throughout the city like waves hitting the shore. Undulating. Powerful. Vibrant. Reckless. And yet, with a method to the madness as spiritual and communal in nature as it is in occurring in real time.
The last time I found myself in NOLA was Feb. 5, 2017. It was my 32nd birthday. The New England Patriots were in the Super Bowl against the Atlanta Falcons. At that time, I was on the tail-end of a whirlwind two-week road trip with my former girlfriend.
We’d just spent the better part of a week bouncing around Texas (Dallas,
Austin, San Antonio, Port Aransas, Houston) before hiking back up the highways and byways of America to Haywood County and greater Western North Carolina. Thus, seeing as it was my birthday, and being a lifelong Patriots fan, it was decided to splurge, to celebrate and get a nice hotel in the French Quarter after many days of truck camping.
I remember how exquisite the hotel room looked, how spicy and delicious the jambalaya was, how cold the beer felt in my hand in the warm Bayou air, how loud and boisterous the funk ensembles sounded on Bourbon Street, and how drunk I must’ve been when I jumped onstage at the karaoke bar to sing a rollickin’ rendition of Merle Haggard’s “Okie From Muskogee.” And I remember how the Patriots overtook the
Falcons in one of the most thrilling events ever to take place in sports history.
That 2017 excursion conjured thoughts and images of the first time that I stepped foot into the French Quarter. Back in 2004, when I was 19 and a sophomore in college, my mother suggested that she and I take a trip together to NOLA. I hadn’t seen much of her since I left the North Country for college in Connecticut some 300 miles away. So, why not head south, track down some seafood, drinks and good times, maybe shake your tailfeather, eh?
I remember the bed-n-breakfast style accommodations just a stone’s throw from Bourbon Street, how deep the wondrous chaos of people and place soaked into the depths of my soul, how happy my mother was to finally make it to “The Big Easy” and experience it for herself, and how she danced the night away to a Cajun group at one corner bar. And I remember her asking what I wanted for a souvenir, skip ahead to an hour later and I’m getting a small tattoo as a memento.
And then, I also remember being in County Kerry, Ireland, in August 2005 while doing a semester abroad during my junior year. It was right before my college friends
Adamas Entertainment will host its celebratory birthday party with J.J. Hipps (rock/blues) at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, at The Scotsman in Waynesville.
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A special 80th birthday celebration and reading for the late Victoria Casey-McDonald will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.
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Are you interested in beginning or refreshing your yoga practice?
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Grammy-nominated wind quintet Imani Winds will perform at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23, in the Bardo Arts Center at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.
Rising singer-songwriter Molly Parden will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, at Orchard Coffee in Waynesville.
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Yoga basics is a 5 week series for beginners or those looking to re-learn the the fundamentals of a yoga practice, and is a solid way to deepen your understanding of your body + your wellness journey.
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Honoring the work of the late Stephen Sondheim, “The Sondheim Tribute Revue” will hit the stage at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 24-25 and 2 p.m. Feb. 26 in the Fangmeyer Theatre at the Haywood Arts Regional Theatre in Waynesville.
and I were to head out the door to the neighborhood pub. I turned on the TV while waiting for the rest of the group to get ready, the news channel exploding with coverage of Hurricane Katrina. I stood there and witnessed a city that I (and we all) adore now under water, Mother Nature showcasing her wrath.
Thus, today is Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2023. I’m 38 years old. It’s been almost two decades since I initially found myself in NOLA. That person (me) back then seems like a million years ago, almost like this dream I once had, where I don’t really remember much, where the memories seem a little blurry, maybe frayed on the edges. But, I do know I had fun, and I did genuinely feel alive and in the moment. And, as Kerouac once said, “I have nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.”
And yet, I’m still that 19-year-old college sophomore, you know? The eternal force of irresponsible enlightenment is as fierce and fiery as ever within my heart. Once again, here I stand in NOLA, this full-circle moment, or more so another layer to add to the ongoing quest for answers to questions that can’t be answered. Besides, the real fun is just being “here” — for there are no answers, just existence.
I remain a curious soul, one hopefully of pure intent and good manners, meandering the narrow streets, neon-lit bars, fried oyster joints, and blues/funk night clubs. And all while navigating the massive sea of humanity that ebbs and flows throughout the city like waves hitting the shore. Undulating. Powerful. Vibrant. Reckless. And yet, with a method to the madness as spiritual and communal in nature as it is in occurring in real time.
Life is beautiful, grasp for it, y’all.
Total Cost: $75
Limited to a very small number of students. Book your spot quickly!
Saturday Feb 25 th
Live Music w/ Jon Cox Band 8pm-11pm Country - Rock - Honky Tonk - Americana
‘And I thought I’ve seen someone who seemed at last to know the truth’Bourbon Street in New Orleans. (Garret K. Woodward photo)
The twice Grammy-nominated wind quintet Imani Winds will perform at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23, in the Bardo Arts Center at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.
The ensemble will present their show “Black and Brown,” an entire program celebrating composers of color such as Wayne Shorter, Paquito D’Rivera and Valerie Coleman. The WCU School of Music and Bardo Arts Center are the sponsors of this public performance.
For over 20 years, Imani Winds has been on an artistic and entrepreneurial journey to becoming role models as a primarily African American wind quintet. The ensemble’s repertoire embraces traditional chamber music. As a 21stcentury group, Imani Winds is devoutly committed to expanding the wind quintet repertoire by commissioning music from new voices that reflect historical events and the times in which we currently live.
Asheville rock act Andrew Thelston Band will conclude its special month-long residency at 9 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, in The Gem downstairs taproom at Boojum Brewing in Waynesville.
In terms of musical ambassadors within the melodic melting pot of a scene that is Western North Carolina, you’d be hardpressed to find an artist as dedicated and inclusive as that of Andrew Thelston.
Throughout his exploration of these mountains and its inhabitants, Thelston has remained a sponge of sorts, always soaking in the knowledge and wisdom of astute musicians, the sacred act of performance, and the ancient craft of creation — either in collaboration, in passing, through a recording or in the presence of live music.
The culmination of these vast, ongoing experiences and interactions remains the
The group has expanded the wind quintet repertoire with it’s many exciting collaborations and commissions and has entertained audiences worldwide for over a quarter of a century. Imani Winds also serves as the faculty wind quintet at the Curtis Institute of Music, and the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival, which brings together young instrumentalists and composers from across North America to New York City every summer.
Doors will open 30 minutes before the concert. Guests may purchase tickets by visiting arts.wcu.edu/tickets, by calling the Box Office at 828.227.2479, or by buying tickets on the day of the performance. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursdays.
Visit arts.wcu.edu/imaniwinds to learn more about the live performance and WCU residency. To see BAC’s full calendar of events, please visit arts.wcu.edu/explore or call 828.227.ARTS.
Storied Americana/folk singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett will perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 4, at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts in Franklin.
A singer, composer and actor, Lovett has broadened the definition of Americana music in a career that spans 14 albums. Coupled with his gift for storytelling, the Texas-based musician fuses elements of country, swing, jazz, folk, gospel and blues in a convention defying manner that breaks down barriers.
Since his self-titled debut in 1986, Lovett has evolved into one of music’s most vibrant and iconic performers. Among his many accolades, besides the four Grammy Awards, he was given the Americana Music Association’s inaugural “Trailblazer Award,” and was named Texas State Musician.
Tickets start at $38, with priority seating available. For more information and/or to purchase tickets, click on smokymountainarts.com or call 866.273.4615.
In honor of its third anniversary, Haywood County-based Adamas Entertainment will host a celebratory birthday party at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, at The Scotsman in Waynesville.
Formed in 2020, Adamas Entertainment is a Western North Carolina event company, specializing in live music gatherings of all shapes, sizes and genres. Recently, Adamas Entertainment held its highly successful “Jingle Jam,” which raised thousands of dollars for REACH of Haywood County.
fire of intent within Thelston to hold steady and navigate his own course, which currently is The Andrew Thelston Band — a rock/soul ensemble of power and swagger. Free and open to the public. For more on Thelston, click on facebook.com/andrewthelstonmusic.
Hailing from Lenoir, J.J. Hipps & The Hideaway will hit the stage at 8 p.m. The group is a power rock trio that explores the endless depths of the blues, where a typical whirlwind set touches upon the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers Band and much more.
The show is free and open to the public. As well, there will be a 50/50 raffle, with proceeds going to REACH of Haywood County.
To learn more about Adamas Entertainment, go to adamasentertainment.com. For more information, call 828.246.6292 or click on scotsmanpublic.com.
• Altered Frequencies (Franklin) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. 828.342.8014 or alteredfrequencies.net.
• Balsam Falls Brewing (Sylva) will host an open mic from 8-10 p.m. every Thursday. Free and open to the public. 828.631.1987 or balsamfallsbrewing.com.
• Blue Ridge Beer Hub (Waynesville) will host a semi-regular acoustic jam with the Main Street NoTones from 7-9 p.m. every first and third Thursday of the month. Free and open to the public. For more information, click on blueridgebeerhub.com.
regular live music on the weekends. All events begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. innovation-brewing.com.
• Lazy Hiker Brewing (Franklin) will host “Music Bingo” 6 p.m. Tuesdays, trivia 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays, Open Mic 6:30 p.m. Thursdays and Lillie Syracuse (singer-songwriter) Feb. 24. All shows begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.349.2337 or lazyhikerbrewing.com.
• Boojum Brewing (Waynesville) will host karaoke at 8:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, trivia at 7 p.m. on Thursdays, Andrew Thelston Band (rock/jam) Feb. 25 and Imij Of Soul March 4. All shows begin at 9 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 828.246.0350 or boojumbrewing.com.
• Currahee Brewing (Franklin) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 828.634.0078 or curraheebrew.com.
• Farm At Old Edwards (Highlands) will host the “Orchard Sessions” on select dates. Tickets start at $25 per person. For tickets, click on oldedwardshospitality.com/orchardsessions.
• Folkmoot Friendship Center (Waynesville) will host Tim Stafford & Thomm Jutz (Americana/bluegrass) 7 p.m. March 3. For tickets, click on folkmoot.org.
• Fontana Village Resort Wildwood Grill will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 800.849.2258 or fontanavillage.com.
• Frog Level Brewing (Waynesville) will host Wife Island (Americana) Feb. 24, We Three Swing (jazz) 5:30 p.m. Feb. 28, Isaiah Breedlove (Americana/indie) March 3 and Shelly Vogler (singer-songwriter) March 4. All shows begin at 6 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public unless otherwise noted. 828.454.5664 or froglevelbrewing.com.
• Frog Quarters (Franklin) will host Barry Roma (vocals) Feb. 25. All shows are from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Free and open to the public. Located at 573 East Main Street. littletennessee.org or 828.369.8488.
• Innovation Brewing (Sylva) will host “Trivia Night w/Kirk” from 7-9 p.m. every Tuesday, Open Mic Night every Wednesday and Michael Strivelli (singer-songwriter) Feb. 25. All shows begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. innovation-brewing.com.
• Innovation Station (Dillsboro) will host “Music Bingo” on Wednesdays and semi-
• Lazy Hiker Brewing (Sylva) will host trivia 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays, Old Time Jam 6:30 p.m. Thursdays and semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.349.2337 or lazyhikerbrewing.com.
• Meadowlark Motel (Maggie Valley) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Tickets are $20. 828.926.1717 or meadowlarkmotel.com.
• Mountain Layers Brewing (Bryson City) will host Kate Thomas (singer-songwriter) Feb. 24 and Steve Heffker (singer-songwriter) Feb. 25. All shows begin at 6 p.m unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.538.0115 or mountainlayersbrewingcompany.com.
• Nantahala Brewing (Sylva) will host Humps & The Blackouts w/Home Cooked Meal (Americana/country) Feb. 24. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.641.9797 or nantahalabrewing.com.
• Nantahala Outdoor Center (Nantahala Gorge) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows behind at 5 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. noc.com.
• Orchard Coffee (Waynesville) will host Molly Parden (Americana/folk) 8 p.m. Feb. 25. Doors at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 and available at the shop. 828.246.9264 or orchardcoffeeroasters.com.
• Quirky Birds Treehouse & Bistro (Dillsboro) will host Open Mic Night at 7 p.m. Tuesdays and semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 828.586.1717 or facebook.com/quirkybirdstreehouse.
• Rathskeller Coffee Haus & Pub (Franklin) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Shows begin at 8 p.m. Free and open to the public. 828.369.6796.
• Salty’s Dogs Seafood & Grill (Maggie Valley) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 828.926.9105.
• Satulah Mountain Brewing (Highlands) will
Rising singer-songwriter Molly Parden will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, at Orchard Coffee in Waynesville.
Born in Jonesboro, Georgia, to a family of nine children that had little exposure to music apart from a church hymnal, Parden’s career in music is something of a mystery — something that happened to her more than it was ever anything she set out for.
When none of her siblings took a particular interest in music at a young age, Pardon inherited a violin built by her great uncle when she was 8 years old, discovering her lifelong love for music through the haunting simplicity of melodies long before she ever heard pop music, picked up a gui-
host semi-regular live music on the weekends. 828.482.9794 or satulahmountainbrewing.com.
• Sauced (Waynesville) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 828.246.9585 or saucedwnc.com
• The Scotsman (Waynesville) will host Rene Russell (Americana) Feb. 23, J.J. Hipps & The Hideaway (rock/blues) Feb. 24 and Jon Cox Band (country/rock) Feb. 25. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.246.6292 or scotsmanpublic.com.
• SlopeSide Tavern (Sapphire) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 828.743.8655 or slopesidetavern.com.
• Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts (Franklin) will host Lyle Lovett (Americana/folk) 7:30 p.m. March 4. For more information and/or to purchase tickets, click on smokymountainarts.com or 828.524.1598.
• The Ugly Dog Pub (Highlands) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. 828.526.8364 or theuglydogpub.com.
• Unplugged Pub (Bryson City) will host JC
tar or started singing songs of her own.
Parden moved to Nashville in 2013 and soon discovered she could pay her bills as a singer, providing her memorable and uniquely captivating harmony vocals on over 50 records in just a few years.
What resulted is a voice that is as haunting as it is comforting, beautifully raw and yet effortlessly just out of reach, a disarming union of aloofness and intimacy that runs throughout her songs — lulling the listener with its cadence of melancholic melodies and searching phrases that whir in your head long after her songs have gone silent. Tickets are $25 and only available at the shop. 828.246.9264 or orchardcoffeeroasters.com.
“The Parrothead” Feb. 22, Mountain Gypsy (Americana) Feb. 23, Macon County Line Feb. 24 and High Sierra Feb. 25. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.538.2488.
• Valley Cigar & Wine Co. (Waynesville) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows are at 2 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.944.0686 or valleycigarandwineco.com.
• Valley Tavern (Maggie Valley) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. All shows begin at 6 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.926.7440 or valley-tavern.com.
• Water’n Hole Bar & Grill (Waynesville) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows begin at 9:30 p.m. 828.456.4750 or facebook.com/waternhole.bar.
• Wine Bar & Cellar (Sylva) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. 828.631.3075 or facebook.com/thewinebarandcellar.
• Yonder Community Market (Franklin) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. Donations encouraged. 828.200.2169 or eatrealfoodinc.com.
and educational displays, which are available until 4 p.m.
The nonprofit Quilt Alliance and the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva will present two free “Community Quilt Days” in March.
• Saturday, March 4: There will be a talk about quilts in Western North Carolina. Participants will see an interview with a local quilter, learn about historic quilts made in the area and find out how to document the quilts you own and make. Come for the presentation from 12:30-1:30 p.m. and stay for interactive
• Saturday, March 25: Noon to 4 p.m. Sign up for a time slot to bring in your quilts (ones you’ve made or ones you own) to share and document. There will be photo and video stations set up and an interactive station for attaching labels to quilts. A quilt historian will be available to help identify quilt patterns and other details of vintage and antique quilts.
For information on the Quilt Alliance, visit quiltalliance.org/communityquiltdays. You can also call the library at 828.586.2016 or email at jcpl-adults@fontanalib.org. This program is co-sponsored by the Friends of the Jackson County Public Library.
The Jackson County Public Library is a member of Fontana Regional Library. To learn more, go to fontanalib.org.
The inaugural “Fire Arts Festival” will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, March 4, at the Jackson County Green Energy Park in Dillsboro. Amid a slew of activities offered, there will be glassblowing, blacksmithing, artwork for sale, and walk-in classes available. For more information, call 828.631.0271 or click on jcgep.org.
• The immersive installation ”Courtney M. Leonard — BREACH: Logbook | CORIOLIS” is currently being showcased through May 5 in the Fine Art Museum at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. Created by the Shinnecock Nation ceramic artist as part of Leonard’s BREACH series, the exhibition explores cultural and historical connections to water, fishing practices and sustainability. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday. Free and open to the public. arts.wcu.edu/breach.
• Haywood County Arts Council is participating in the Downtown Waynesville Commission’s “Love the Locals” campaign throughout the month of February. Locals can purchase Haywood Handmade merchandise for 20% off, including 2023 calendars, youth craft kits, locally designed and printed T-shirts, and more. The Haywood Handmade Gallery in downtown Waynesville is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays. haywoodarts.org.
• Southwestern Community College Swain Arts Center (Bryson City) will host an array of workshops for adults and kids. southwesterncc.edu/scc-locations/swain-center.
• Dogwood Crafters in Dillsboro will host an array of upcoming art classes and workshops. crafters.com/classes.html or 828.586.2248.
• “Flights & Bites” will be held starting at 4 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays at Bosu’s Wine Shop in downtown Waynesville. For more information on upcoming events, wine tastings and special dinners, click on waynesvillewine.com.
• A free wine tasting will be held from 6-8 p.m. every Thursday and 2-5 p.m. every Saturday at The Wine Bar & Cellar in Sylva. 828.631.3075.
• “Take A Flight” with four new wines every Friday and Saturdays at the Bryson City Wine Market. Select from a gourmet selection of charcuterie to enjoy with your wines. Educational classes and other events are also available. For more information, call 828.538.0420.
• “Uncorked: Wine & Rail Pairing Experience” will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on select dates at the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad in Bryson City. Full service all-adult first class car. Wine pairings with a meal, and more. For more information and/or to register, call 800.872.4681 or visit gsmr.com.
will hit the stage at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 24-25 and 2 p.m. Feb. 26 in the Fangmeyer Theatre at the Haywood Arts Regional Theatre in Waynesville.
An iconic American composer/lyricist, Sondheim wasn’t afraid to weave a tale of the real human experience or even dark themes through his sophisticated and often complex music style.
Sondheim is credited with several Broadway hits, including “Into the Woods,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Company” and “Sunday in the Park with George,” amongst others.
Vocalists Adrianne Blanks, Matt Blanks, Matt Edwardson, Lara Hollaway, Mandy Vollrath and Dominic Michael Aquilino will be paying tribute with songs such as “Pretty Women,” “Being Alive,” “It Takes Two” and many more.
Honoring the work of the
Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for students. Patrons will also be able to enjoy Cabaret style seating with snacks, desserts and wine.
To purchase tickets, visit harttheatre.org or by calling the Box Office at 828.456.6322. Winter Box Office hours are 3-5 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
The Haywood Arts Regional Theater in Waynesville is currently offering a wide variety of classes in the theater arts for all ages, young and old. Whether you are just starting out or want to hone your skills, HART has opportunities for you.
Sign up your youngest one or grandkid who has a ton of creative energy but doesn’t know how to focus it yet. Or sign up that young theatre enthusiast who is looking to learn more and find a group of like-minded friends that will last a lifetime. Or maybe this is the sign you have been waiting for to finally
gain the courage to step on stage. Whatever the desire, HART has a class that is waiting for you.
Classes run through March 2. HART prides itself on offering reasonably priced classes so that they can keep the arts alive in Haywood County. Browse the selection of spring classes at harttheatre.org and sign up today for a chance to change your life and discover your hidden talents and passions. For more information, contact Artistic Director Candice Dickinson at 646.647.4546 or email candice@harttheatre.org.
Western Carolina University’s School of Stage & Screen will host a special stage production of “She Kills Monsters” at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 23-25 and 3 p.m. Feb. 26 in the University Auditorium on campus in Cullowhee.
Directed by faculty member Peter Savage and written by Qui Nguyen, “She Kills Monsters” is a dramatic comedy about the world of fantasy role-playing games and the story of Agnes Evans as she comes to terms with the death of her teenage sister, Tilly.
When she finds Tilly’s “Dungeons & Dragons” notebook, Agnes embarks on an adventure in the imaginary world that was Tilly’s refuge. Come and experience Agnes discover who Tilly truly was while fighting creatures like Bugbears, Beholders and the infamous Gelatinous Cube.
Student tickets are $10, adults $20 and seniors (65+) $15. More information and tickets can be found through the Bardo Arts Center Box Office by visiting arts.wcu.edu/tickets. You can also purchase tickets by calling the Box Office by calling 828.227.ARTS.
One way to enjoy winter is to read about someone who lives north of the Arctic Circle. It’s never going to be that cold here, is the idea.
I was intrigued by the very snowy cover of “The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven” (Back Bay Books, 2022, 336 pages) when I saw it on the “Staff Picks” shelf of local Blue Ridge Books in Waynesville. Seeing it identified as “Jo’s pick” by the bookmark sticking up, I took the book and waved it at Jo, who happened to be manning the counter 6 feet away. “What’s this?” She looked and laughed and answered that it wasn’t a book she would have chosen to read on her own, but that a sales rep had urged her to give it a try. Obviously, she had liked it.
It’s a novel, and the back cover gives the encouraging information that author Nathaniel Ian Miller spent some time in the far North, meaning that he could base some of his writing on actual experience. Also, the back tells us, this novel wants to make the point that humans, no matter where they live, are “not beyond the reach of love.” Good sell. I am not up for hopelessness these days. I bought the book.
Believe me, things don’t look all that promising at the beginning. We meet Sven, telling his own story, when he is at his unhappiest. He lives by himself in Stockholm, working and getting fired from a succession of menial factory jobs, each one of which he hates. He has no friends except his younger sister Olga, and yet despite his true feelings of love for her, is acting increasingly unkind to her. She tries to continue their previous close relationship. He responds with coldness.
His books are a comfort, or at least an escape. They are all concerned with one subject only — life in the Arctic. Even his reading, though, is tainted in this unhappy time. He reads “with a singular, sweaty focus, like an addict reunited with his vice after too long a separation.”
What changes everything is his mother’s
mention, casual on the surface but full of what Sven recognizes as desperation, that sister Olga has stopped taking care of herself. He immediately moves in with her and begins to help raise her two young children. None of this is sappy. He says this of the children: “They learned how stubborn I
pages fell out.”
But then ….
Here is where the fun seeps in. Warm and lively characters make their appearances, and adventures follow, though nothing fantastic or sentimental. We know these people, whether in real life or fiction, like the Scotsman Charles MacIntyre, or the Finnish trapper Tapio, and the others, including a few women. There is great conversation, oh so welcome, and even humor. Tapio, a socialist, a man with a subtle comic intensity, “spent a great deal of time articulating the myriad ways in which one socialist could differ from another …” (“Myriad ways,” isn’t this the truth of every ideology!) New places as well are brought to life with well-informed and interesting writing. How does one live in the Arctic? We find out.
could be, and I learned how stubborn they could be.” But, as you can guess, he begins to open up. Years pass.
Change must come again when the younger of the two children goes to school, and that’s when Sven makes it to the archipelago of Svalbard above the Arctic Circle, signing a 2-year contract with a mining company. It looks for a while that things might be bad all over again. The mining job is demanding and dangerous, and Sven feels no desire to join the after-shift camaraderie of his fellow workers. “There was nowhere to go but a cold empty barracks, a thin mattress on a squeaking cot, a guttering tallow stub, and no books but the precious few I’d brought and read again and again until the
Two big events play important but admirably restrained roles here. The first is the mine shaft collapse that nearly kills Sven and does disfigure his face. The second is the Great War. Sven gets to Svalbard in 1916, in the middle of what we know as World War I. There is a lot for the reader to muse upon with both of these two happenings, beyond what each does to move the plot along, beyond Sven’s personal thoughts about them. A good writer does not spell out everything.
I always hold my breath a little as I get near the ending of a book I am enjoying. Will the ending ruin it for me? Not in this case. It’s surprising and it’s one of my favorites.
In all ways, I’m grateful to Jo for steering me to a modern novel that I like. That’s no mean feat. Blue Ridge Books is a delightful place with a friendly staff in one of the best little spots around, the Hazelwood section of Waynesville. And I might just start a new shelf at home for my “winter books.” This is one I’ll keep.
(Anne Bevilacqua is a book lover who lives in Haywood County. abev1@yahoo.com.)
A special 80th birthday celebration and reading for the late Victoria Casey-McDonald will be held at 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.
Friends and family will share their memories along with readings from her 2022 reissued book, “Just Over the Hill: Black Appalachians in Jackson County, Western North Carolina.”
Casey McDonald (1943-2014) was a teacher, preacher, local historian, storyteller and daughter of Appalachia. She was the author of three other books, “African Americans of Jackson County: From Slavery to Integration, A Pictorial History,” and the novels “Living in the Shadow of Slavery” and “Under the Light of Darkness: Love and Marriage in the Antebellum South for Slaves.”
The event is free and open to the public. To reserve copies of “Just Over the Hill,” please call City Lights Bookstore at 828.586.9499.
Who were they? How did they get here? What were their lives like? These are questions that constantly resonate with me when I gaze upon clouds and mountains and dare to consider the 9,000 years of human history that lie untold within this region that we call home.
Often left out of the popular modern narratives about the Smokies that captivate visitors and locals alike are tales of the African Americans who have made their homes here since the 1500s. To learn about some of them, Great Smoky Mountains National Park is using ground-penetrating radar in the park’s five known cemeteries that contain Black burials — Meigs Mountain, Ravensford, Higdon, Kerr and the Enloe Enslaved Cemetery. Their data reveal definitively that Black people have lived in this region for a long time and that slavery was indeed present in the Smokies.
The African American Experiences in the Smokies Project is an ongoing effort to uncover and share previously untold stories of Black life in the park and its surrounding lands. Leading the charge to document and educate the public about local Black history is Antoine Fletcher, also the park’s science communicator, who says last year marked several milestones for the AAESP.
“The park was able to reach over 500 visitors in-person and virtually last year, telling and asking for African American stories,” he
said. “We conducted programs for local universities, for regional NAACP branches, and for internal staff. We look to add to these numbers next year.”
In 2022, Fletcher and the team updated the AAESP web page on nps.gov with new stories and added historic photos as well as several oral histories to the park archives. They also created and conducted a census records education program to help students understand African American history and worked with the University of Tennessee-Knoxville to hire two African American artists to create illustrations that support stories tied to the project.
“I love the research,” Fletcher said. “It is very similar to being a detective in that you have to put pieces together to create a story. As a park, it is our duty to tell these stories, and as a team, we do it very well.”
With the help of last year’s AAESP intern, Atalaya Dorfield, the team was able to secure $97,700 in funding to help create a fiveminute movie, update exhibits and offer cultural demonstrations during 2023. They also worked with stakeholders in the community to create wayside panels interpreting themes at relevant locations throughout the park. A panel on Job Conservation Corps history will be placed at Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont, and Mingus Mill will feature two new panels sharing information about the Black Mingus family and the nearby Enloe Enslaved Cemetery. A panel on Daniel White, “The Blackalachian” thru-hiker, is slated for the Newfound Gap area, while Elkmont will soon be home to a new panel sharing the story of the Davis family.
BY HOLLY KAYS OUTDOORS E DITOR
Antoine Fletcher’s love affair with podcasts blossomed back in middle school when he made his first one with his best friend. The project didn’t make them millionaires, but it was “the start of something that was really cool,” Fletcher said.
“When I think about a podcast I think about back before TVs when people used to gather around these old listening stations or these old radios, and it helped them envision what was going on in a baseball game or inauguration speech, and things like that,” he said. “And that’s the power of a podcast. The power
is people using their imagination.”
Now the science communicator for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Fletcher is calling on the power of the podcast to bring the Smokies’ wonders to a new audience. “Smoky Signal,” a podcast about the science behind the park, debuted in March 2022 and is set to drop its third episode in the coming weeks.
“We just want to reach out to new audiences that may have lost connection with the National Park Service through just growing up where they grew up and things such as that nature,” Fletcher said. “We just want to have a fun way to reach out to
“We will be hiring an intern in March to help with the research,” Fletcher said. “They will focus their efforts on Elkmont’s history but also will be in the park daily to conduct informal pop-up programming.”
Fletcher says there are plans to host an African American bluegrass and country music concert at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center this spring or summer and possibly a spoken-word and music concert at Elkmont in 2024.
Also in 2023, plans are underway to transcribe more oral histories and create an engaging story map for the website that will host videos and new information as it is being discovered.
“The hardest part of telling these stories is that you are dealing with a group of people that was overlooked for a long time, which creates these vast voids when it comes to their history in the region,” he said. “You can research a story for a long time,
The AAESP highlights many experiences, like that of the Davis family (photographed here) recreating in the park in the 1950s. Last year, the AAESP collected an oral history from Ron Davis Sr., whose father, William E. Davis Jr., worked as a butler and prepared his employer’s summer cabin in the historic area known as Millionaires Row in Elkmont. Davis’ time in Smokies inspired him to pursue a fruitful career in forestry. NPSphoto
only to come to a dead end after months of hard work — but that only drives the park to continue this hard work because we know that that void will be filled one day.”
If anyone has oral histories of African Americans or pertaining to the African American story in the Smokies, Fletcher wants to hear from them.
“People can get involved by volunteering their time to help us discover new information,” he said. “Some people become involved by simply supplying information to us or conducting oral histories with us. Soon we will be working on Forgotten Voices, an oral history proj-
ect that will be accessible through our website. If regional African Americans would like to share their voices with our oral history project, that would be great.”
Antoine Fletcher may be reached at antoine_fletcher@nps.gov. Read more at nps.gov/grsm/learn/historyculture/afric an-american-experiences-in-the-smokiesproject.htm.
Frances Figart (rhymes with Tiger) is the editor of Smokies Life and the Creative Services Director for the 29,000-member Great Smoky Mountains Association, an educational nonprofit partner of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Reach her at frances@gsmassoc.org.
them and work with them.”
Using the theme “collections,” the podcast’s first season began a year ago. In March 2022, Fletcher and his co-host at the time, ecologist Alix Pfennigwerth, each led an episode. In “Mysteries of the Museum,” Fletcher explored the park’s natural history collections, featuring an array of park partners and employees — Baird Todd, Mike Aday, Arthur Stupka, Paul Super, Becky Nichols and Janie Bitner — in his quest to find out where these collections come from and how studying decades-old specimens informs park management.
Next, Pfenningwerth investigated the importance of collecting sochan, also known as greenheaded coneflower, and how this plant is helping members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians renew their connection to traditional homelands in the park. The episode featured Smokies botanist Joshua Albritton and Tommy Cabe, tribal forest resource specialist for the EBCI.
In early March, Fletcher expects to release the third and final episode in the first season, this one focused on collection of elk droppings.
“The biggest thing about this episode is showing that we have non-invasive or intrusive ways to research if these elk populations are doing well in the park,” Fletcher said. “And we can do that through the DNA that’s left behind on the fecal pellets the elk are doing.”
Since elk were reintroduced to the park in 2001, the herd has continued to grow and expand. But elk are hard to count, and for years wildlife managers struggled to accurately estimate the herd’s size. A research project expected to conclude this spring is using DNA markers from elk droppings to provide the most accurate estimate yet, along with a host of other information about the herd’s health and habits.
“We try to make our researchers at the forefront, because the Smokies is the second most-researched park in the National Park Service besides Yellowstone,” Fletcher said. “There’s so much cool research going on around everyone, and people just don’t know what’s happening.”
So far, “Smoky Signal” has gotten a positive reception and gathered interest far outside the Great Smokies region. While most listeners are from the Asheville and Knoxville areas, Fletcher said, many are from New York City, the Pacific Northwest and California.
“We were really surprised at the amount of listeners in places like Colorado and
Seattle,” Fletcher said.
Since those initial episodes dropped, Pfenningwerth has left the Smokies for a different opportunity, and Fletcher has a new co-host. Erin Canter, manager of science literacy and research for the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont, will join Fletcher in producing a new season, expected to release this fall.
The theme, “Smokies at Night,” will allow the pair to explore the park at a time of day when few people experience it. Possible topics could include cultural stories of the park’s early inhabitants through astronomy or constellations, frog sounds and the failed red wolf reintroduction effort.
They’re still narrowing it down but expect to produce two episodes this year.
Two to three episodes a year might not sound like a lot, but reporting and producing a complete, high-quality podcast takes time — especially considering the other responsibilities collaborators must satisfy in addition to the podcast.
To create an episode, Fletcher must first interview sources — which often includes driving to various sites in the park — and then spend hours making cut scenes, editing them together, adding music and sound effects, and polishing all the rough edges. Then the episode must be transcribed in order to meet NPS accessibility requirements, and finally sent around to subject matter experts for fact-checking.
“A podcast episode in a perfect world could probably take you about a month to create, but between other things that I do for work, it could take a couple of months — doing a little bit of editing, doing a little bit of music, going back and fact-checking,” he said. “An episode could easily take three months.”
Going forward, Fletcher wants to release new episodes each fall but also lean on partnerships with the park’s nonprofits and with other national parks to expand the impact of Smoky Signal. Over the next year, the Smoky Signal stream could feature episodes from podcasts produced by the park’s nonprofit partners such as the Great Smoky Mountains Association, or even from other national parks that also produce podcasts.
“The good thing about our partners is they are taking the stories from a different lens, stories that we can’t get to,” Fletcher said. “So we can make a really rich
all
George Ellison, a writer and naturalist whose home and inspiration was on Lands Creek in Bryson City, died Sunday, Feb. 19, at the age of 81.
Ellison battled Parkinson’s disease for years and died from double pneumonia while receiving care from Haywood Regional Medical Center and Four Seasons Hospice, according to a Facebook post from his daughter Quintin Ellison. He leaves behind a wife, three children and five grandchildren.
Born Dec. 15, 1941, in Danville, Virginia, George Robert Ellison II was the son of Ruth and George Robert “GR” Ellison, who was killed in World War II. He and his wife, Elizabeth, moved to Bryson City in 1973, following a research trip Ellison took to prepare a publication on Horace Kephart while teaching at Mississippi State University. The Ellisons were ready for a change and saw something special in these mountains. They stumbled upon the Lands Creek property in 1976, and it remained their home ever since. Last year, they placed the property under a conservation easement with Mainspring Conservation Trust, ensuring it will remain undeveloped in perpetuity.
Throughout his career, Ellison produced myriad books and newspaper columns, including “Back Then,” a nature and local history column that appeared in The Smoky Mountain News from 2000-2018. The paper
continued to republish older columns through 2022. Ellison wrote biographical reintroductions for reissues of several Southern Appalachian classics and taught natural and human history workshops for conferences and educational institutions throughout the region.
Many of his books featured watercolor illustrations from his wife, Elizabeth, an accomplished artist. His most recent titles were “Literary Excursions in the Southern Highlands: Essays on Natural History” in 2016 and “Back of Beyond: A Horace Kephart Biography” in 2019, a seminal work that Ellison co-authored with Janet McCue.
“Back of Beyond” earned Ellison and McCue the 2019 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award, one of many honors Ellison accumulated over the years. In 2016, the Great Smoky Mountains Association named Ellison one of the 100 most significant people in the park’s history, and that same year George and Elizabeth received the Blue Ridge Naturalist of the Year award from the Blue Ridge Naturalist Network. He won the 2012 Roosevelt-Ashe Conservation Award for Outstanding Journalist in Conservation from Wild South.
To his family, Quintin Ellison wrote, George was “marvelous, loving and kind.”
“What else can I say?” she wrote. “He died with my brother, his namesake, by his side. He was not always an easy person, but
always he was an interesting one, and we loved and cherished him, just as he did us, exactly how he was and how we are.”
In lieu of a memorial service, the family is asking Ellison’s friends consider planting a
wildflower garden in his honor or supporting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The family plans to build a small cairn in his memory on the family property.
— Holly Kays, Outdoors Editor
Starting March 1, any vehicle parked in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for more than 10 minutes must display a valid parking tag as the “Park it Forward” program takes effect.
Park visitors can buy a $40 annual tag, a $15 weekly tag or a $5 daily tag, with various methods available to purchase each.
■ Annual tags are available online at smokiesinformation.org or at any of the park’s visitor centers.
■ Daily and weekly tags are available online at recreation.gov and at Oconaluftee Visitor Center, Swain County Visitor Center, Gatlinburg Welcome Center, Sugarlands Visitor Center, Townsend Visitor Center, Cades Cove Visitor Center, Cades Cove Orientation Shelter and Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont, as well as Clingmans Dome Visitor Center once it opens for the season. The park will also install automated fee machines at various locations, which have yet to be announced.
Some parties are exempt from the parking tag requirement:
■ Members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians can access free annual parking tags at the Principal Chief’s Office at 88 Council House Loop in Cherokee.
■ Vehicles with valid, state-issued disabled placards or license plates are exempt from
Dana Soehn, a 34-year employee of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park who has been part of its management team for the past decade, will be the next executive director and president of Friends of the Smokies.
The nonprofit’s board of directors chose Soehn after spending months reviewing more than 150 qualified candidates with the national executive search firm Potrero Group. Soehn has a “deep connection and dedication to the park” and has developed “an extraordinary career in the region and in the National Park Service,” said Board of Directors Chair Sharon Pryse.
“Her experience and vision guarantee Friends will continue to make a profoundly meaningful and lasting impact on our beloved park,” Pryse added.
Soehn succeeds Tim Chandler, who left in September 2022 for a position with Flatrock Motorsports Park after leading the organization since November 2018.
“The Friends of the Smokies and I both share a 30-year investment in this remarkable park that I call home,” said Soehn. “As we approach the 100th anniversary of the park in 2034, I am excited to grow support and stewardship that helps ensure a healthy future for our park into the next century.”
the parking tag requirement.
■ No parking tag is required for people visiting the park through a special use permit for burials, cemetery visits including Decoration Days and First Amendment activities.
Each tag is valid only for the vehicle matching the license plate number on the tag. The physical parking tag must be displayed in the vehicle — digital representations are not accepted. Motorcyclists using a daily or weekly tag — which is paper unlike the cling adhesive used for the annual tag — should come prepared to display the tag without it blowing away.
The park expects the program to bring in $5 million for the current fiscal year ending Sept. 30 and $8-10 million on average thereafter. When including other fee increases approved along with Park it Forward — backcountry camping rates doubled, and campground fees rose across the board — total revenue is estimated at $12-14 million each year. All funds will stay in the park, and the money will help bridge a 40% gap between the park’s buying power and spending needs. Restoring staffing levels is a top priority for the revenues.
For more information, including Frequently Asked Questions, visit nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/fees.htm.
— Holly Kays, Outdoors Editor
Soehn, who currently serves as park spokesperson and management assistant in the Superintendent’s Office, began working for the park as a college intern in 1989. Since then, her roles have included biological technician, Parks as Classrooms coordinator and volunteer coordinator. She has been a member of the management team for the past decade, representing the park with congressional delegations, community leaders, descendant groups and partners in North Carolina and Tennessee.
In addition to her work in the Smokies, she has served in leadership roles for the NPS as the acting assistant regional director for communications and legislative affairs and as the acting chief of public affairs and chief spokesperson for the NPS. As the park’s longtime liaison with Friends of the Smokies, she has a strong understanding of philanthropic partnership opportunities. Soehn earned a Master of Science Degree in wildlife and fisheries resources from West Virginia University in 1995.
She starts her new job Monday, April 3, and will continue to live in Gatlinburg with her husband Heath, a retired park ranger. Their two adult sons Grant and Garrett live in Nashville.
Since 1993, Friends of the Smokies has raised more than $80 million to fund historic preservation, wildlife management, environmental education and more in the park. It has offices in Asheville and Kodak, Tennessee.
14 Trails Open
3 Aerial Lifts
2 Surface Lifts
45-57 Inch Base
Weekdays: 9:00am – 10pm
Weekends: 8:30am – 10pm
Volunteers are wanted to help the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission stock trout into the West Fork Pigeon River in Haywood County beginning at 10 a.m. Wednesday, March 1.
The group will meet at the upper Delayed Harvest parking area across N.C. 215 from the gun range, below Sunburst Campground. Volunteers should bring a clean 5-gallon bucket and a friend or two. Waders are recommended but not required.
The NCWRC will bring at least 1,200 pounds of fish. The goal is to help disperse them throughout the Delayed Harvest section to allow for a better fishing experience.
The stocking will take about three hours, with at least 25 volunteers needed. tucataloochee427@gmail.com.
Stocked trout waters in North Carolina will be closed to fishing during the month of March, closing at 11:59 p.m. Feb. 28 and reopening at 7 a.m. April 7.
During the closure, N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission personnel will stock all Hatchery Supported Trout Waters in preparation for opening day, placing about 964,000 trout in the roughly 1,000 miles of water during that time. About 96% of the stocked trout will average 10 inches in length, with the remaining 4% longer than 14 inches.
Hatchery-Supported Trout Waters are marked with green-and-white signs. When these waters open to fishing, anglers are allowed to harvest a maximum of seven trout per day, with no minimum size limit or bait restriction. ncwildlife.org/learning/species/fish/trout/trout-fishing.
After 11 years of work, the U.S. Forest Service released the final, revised Nantahala and Pisgah Forest Plan Feb 17, which will now go into effect to guide future management of national forest land in Western North Carolina. The Forest Service released a proposed final plan in January 2022, heard objections from stakeholders over the last year, and has now finalized the plan.
“The forest plan is a framework to address incredibly complex challenges like climate change and invasive species, impacts from development on adjacent private lands and high levels of visitor use,” said James Melonas, forest supervisor of the National Forests in North Carolina. “Ensuring our forest ecosystems are healthy and resilient is critical to long-term sustainability of all the habitats and ecosystem benefits on which we all depend.”
The Forest Service considers the outcome to be a balanced plan that supports the forest’s multiple uses and multiple benefits, emphasizing the ways people use the forest and the places that are important to them. It allows the Forest Service to partner with Native American tribes to co-manage resources while honoring traditional ecological knowledge and protecting culturally significant places.
The plan is centered around four themes that came out of public engagement during the revision process. These themes are connecting people to the land, sustaining healthy ecosystems, providing clean and abundant water and partnering with others. The plan provides a vision for each ecosystem on the forest and recommends that 49,000 acres be added to the 66,000 acres of designated wilderness already contained in forest lands. Additionally, it recommends nine new Wild and Scenic Rivers to join the three that already exist and 10 that are eligible.
According to the Forest Service, the plan focuses on forest resilience in the face of climate change and makes the biggest commitment to old growth in decades — while
also recognizing the need for more young, open forest and restoration of important species such as oak.
However, several groups that have been heavily involved throughout the planning process issued a strong rejection of the plan
on the same day it was released. A press release from the Southern Environmental Law Center, MountainTrue, Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and The Wilderness Society highlighted what those groups see as “glaring flaws” in a plan that “recklessly opens critical areas of these two forests to logging and roadbuilding.”
These groups say that the plan ignores the forest’s role in fighting climate change and fails to protect more than 100,000 acres of old-growth forests, habitat for rare species and roadless backcountry while “dramatically” expanding logging.
Sam Evans, who leads SELC’s National Forests and Parks Program, called the plan a “step backwards” that puts wildlife habitats, backcountry areas and old growth areas “on the chopping block.”
“We will continue to oppose this plan, and we will certainly oppose any project that will harm old growth, rare species and backcountry areas,” Evans said.
The final plan, environmental impact statement, and record of decision are available at
fs.usda.gov/goto/nfsnc/nprevision.
— Holly Kays, Outdoors Editor
A tree-planting party at Tessentee Bottomland Preserve’s newest tract is planned 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23; and 9 a.m. to noon Friday, March 3, and Saturday, March 4, at the preserve in Macon County.
Mainspring acquired the first portion of Tessentee Bottomland Preserve in 1999 and has since added three additional tracts. This new addition, a 40-acre former cattle pasture, brings the total size of the preserve to over 110 acres. The tree planting is intended
to turn this new section into a haven for wildlife, while also improving aquatic and forest habitat. Selected species are redbud, silky dogwood, false indigo, buttonbush, persimmon, black gum, red mulberry and catalpa.
Volunteers of every knowledge level are welcome to come stay for the whole event or drop in as they’re able. Snacks will be provided, and lunch for those who join for the full day Feb. 23. Sign up at mainspringconserves.org/events.
Phyllis Stiles, founder and director emerita of Bee City USA, will explain how gardening practices can help pollinators make the most of your yard during a talk at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 2, via Zoom.
The North American Pollinator Protection Campaign named Stiles “Pollinator Advocate of the Year for the United States” in 2015, the same year the sister program, Bee Campus USA, launched. She founded Bee City USA in 2012 and today volunteers with Asheville GreenWorks, manager of Asheville’s Bee City USA program.
Organized by the WNC Sierra Club. Register at WNCSierraClub.org. For more information, contact Chair Judy Mattox at judymattox15@gmail.com or 828.683.2176.
Get ready for gardening season with a seminar covering everything from planning to harvest, 10 a.m. to noon Monday, Feb. 27, at the Haywood County Cooperative Extension Center in Waynesville.
Presented by Master Gardener Volunteer Bonnie Refinski-Knight, the program will cover planning garden beds, starting veggies from seeds, following a garden calendar, improving the soil and
composting. Class size is limited, with a signup deadline on Feb. 23. The Feb. 27 session was recently added due to high interest in the originally scheduled Feb. 21 date.
Cost is $10. Makes checks payable to Haywood CEDS and drop off or mail to Extension – Learn to Grow Class, 589 Raccoon Road, Suite 118, Waynesville, NC 28786. Include your email address with the envelope so class materials can be sent in advance.
The N.C. Arboretum in Asheville is looking for volunteers willing to work from the couch. Volunteer processors review observations submitted to the ecoEXPLORE program by validating, encouraging and rewarding points to each child. This includes checking the species ID each child submits against the common name preferred on iNaturalist and making any needed corrections; offering supportive comments to the child; and sending the observation to iNaturalist as a contribution to citizen science.
Processors are asked to give three to four hours of time each week, though this is not a requirement. For more information, contact ecoexplore.volunteers@gmail.com.
• Jackson County Green Energy Park is once again welcoming visitors. It is open to the public each week 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday through Friday. Public classes will resume this spring. JCGEP will also host live glassblowing demonstrations at Innovation Station during the Lights and Luminaries festival in Dillsboro. For more information email info@jacksonnc.org or 828.631.0271.
• Medicare Basics, an informative session with John Chicoine, SHIIP representative, will take place 2-3 p.m. Thursday, March 2, at the Waynesville Branch of the Haywood County Library. For more information, email Kathy Olsen at kathleen.olson@Haywoodcountync.gov.
• Receive help with the job search during NCWORKS: Job Search Assistance from 2-4:40 p.m. Friday, March 3, at the Waynesville Branch of the Haywood County Public Library. No appointment necessary. For more information, call 828.456.6061 or visit ncworks.gov.
• Celebrate the history of African Americans in Haywood County with “Lift Every Voice!: African American History in Haywood County” from 3-4:30 p.m. Sunday, March 12, at the Canton Branch of the Haywood County Public Library.
• Haywood Community College Foundation is hosting a concert to support student needs on Saturday, March 4, at 3 p.m. in the HCC Charles Beall Auditorium. The Blue Ridge Orchestra will showcase Musique Ménage, a concert of contrasts, featuring Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 — “The Great” — and original music by local artists Fancy and the Gentlemen. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.haywood.edu/orchestra
• Haywood Pathways Center’s 5th annual Empty Bowls fundraiser will take place 5:30-7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 23, at Long’s Chapel United Methodist Church in Waynesville. For more information visit https://www.haywoodpathwayscenter.org/empty-bowlsfundraiser/ or call 828.246.0332.
• The NC Guardian ad Litem Program is holding certification classes in Macon and Haywood Counties in March. Volunteers are needed to advocate for the best interest of children who have been alleged to be abused and/ or neglected. Applications can be filled out at volunteerforgal.org. For more information call Brad Renegar at 828.454.6395.
• Juice + Jams Yoga class with Jake (BYOB) will take place 5:30-6:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, at the Waynesville Yoga Center. The theme is Cheryl Crow and other 90s. Cost is $22 or one class credit. To see the class calendar or to register visit http://waynesvilleyogacenter.com/class-schedule/.
• Yoga for Special Considerations, a weekend-long workshop will take place Friday through Sunday, Feb. 24-26, at the Waynesville Yoga Center. https://waynesvilleyogacenter.com/event/yoga-for-special-considerations/.
• “Waking up Your Inner Goddess: 8 Week Series” will begin 5:30-6:30 p.m. Wednesday, March1, at the Waynesville Yoga Center. For more information visit https://waynesvilleyogacenter.com/event/waking-upyour-inner-goddess-8-week-series/.
n All phone numbers area code 828 unless otherwise noted.
n To have your item listed email to calendar@smokymountainnews.com
• A Shamanic Breathwork workshop designed to support the process of change will be held 1-5 p.m. Saturday, March 4, at the Waynesville Yoga Center. Cost is $88, for more information or to register visit https://waynesvilleyogacenter.com/event/yoga-shamanic-breathwork/.
• Yoga for Posture, a weekend-long workshop will be held Friday through Sunday, March 10-12, at the Waynesville Yoga Center. Cost is $250 for the weekend. For more information or to register visit https://waynesvilleyogacenter.com/event/yoga-for-posture-immersion-workshop/.
• Mountain Area pregnancy Services and the WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counselor work together to provide a casual support group for prenatal and breastfeeding individuals from 1-2 p.m. on Tuesdays at Mountain Area Pregnancy Services, 177 N Main St. Waynesville, NC. All are welcome, registration is recommended. For more information please call 828.558.4550.
• Chess 101 takes place every 3:30-4:30 p.m. every Friday at the Canton Branch of the Haywood County Library. For more information, email Ashlyn Godleski at ashlyn.godleski@haywoodcountync.gov or call 828.356.2567.
• The Canton Branch of the Haywood County Public Library Creative Writing Group meets 10:30 a.m. - noon on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month. For more information, email Jennifer at jennifer.stuart@haywoodcountync.gov or call 828.356.2561.
• Knit Night takes place at 5:30-7:30 p.m. every second Tuesday of the month at The Stecoah Valley Center. The event is free and open to the public. RSVP is recommended: 828.479.3364 or amber@stecoahvalleycenter.com.
• Sylva Writers Group meets at 10:30 a.m. on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month at City Lights Bookstore. For more information contact sylvawriters@gmail.com.
• Professor Bart D. Ehrman, Biblical scholar and author of six New York Times bestselling books including “Jesus” and “The Triumph of Christianity,” will speak and answer questions at 7 p.m. Friday, April 14, at the Queen Auditorium in the Folkmoot Friendship Center at 112 Virginia Ave. in Waynesville. Tickets are $10 in advance or $15 at the door Tickets may be purchased at Blue Ridge Books or by calling 828.226.5921.
• Tremont Writers Conference, an intensive five-day retreat for writers of fiction, nonfiction and poetry will take place Wednesday, Oct. 25-29. Applications to participate in the event may be submitted online now through April 30 at writers.gsmit.org.
information or to purchase tickets visit harttheatre.org or call the box office at 828.456.6322.
• Helena Hunt will play traditional tunes for a Sunday afternoon concert from 3-4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 26, at the Canton Branch of the Haywood County Public Library. For more information contact Jennifer at jennifer.stuart@haywoodcountync.gov or call 828.356.2561.
• Green Energy Park will celebrate its reopening with the “Fire Arts Festival” from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, March 4, at the Green Energy Park, half-mile past Huddle House in Dillsboro. For more information visit www.JCGEP.org.
• A watercolor class will be held 10 a.m. to noon Monday, March 13, at the Waynesville Branch of the Haywood County Public Library. Registration is required. To register, email Kathy Olsen at kathleen.olson@haywoodcountync.gov.
• Paint and Sip at Waynesville Art School will be held every Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 7-9:30 p.m. To learn more and register call 828.246.9869 or visit PaintAndSipWaynesville.com/upcoming-events. Registration is required, $45.
• Mountain Makers Craft Market will be held from noon-4 p.m. the first Sunday of each month at 308 North Haywood St. in downtown Waynesville. Over two dozen artisans selling handmade and vintage goods. Special events will be held when scheduled. mountainmakersmarket.com.
• “Flights & Bites” will be held starting at 4 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays at Bosu’s Wine Shop in downtown Waynesville. For more information on upcoming events, wine tastings and special dinners, click on waynesvillewine.com.
• A free wine tasting will be held from 6-8 p.m. every Thursday and 2-5 p.m. every Saturday at The Wine Bar & Cellar in Sylva. 828.631.3075.
• Take a trip around the world with four different wines every Friday 11 a.m.-8 p.m. and Saturday 11a.m.-6 p.m. at the Bryson City Wine Market. Pick from artisan Charcuterie Foods to enjoy with wines. 828.538.0420
• Cooking classes take place at the McKinley Edwards Inn from 6-8:30 p.m. on Thursday nights. To reserve your spot call 828.488.9626.
• Chess 101 takes place from 3:30-4:30 p.m. every Friday in the Canton Branch of the Haywood County Public Library. No registration required, for more information call 828.648.2924.
• Wired Wednesday, one-on-one technology help is available at 3-5 p.m. every Wednesday at the Canton Branch of the Haywood County Library. For more information or to register, call 828.648.2924.
• Uptown Gallery, 30 East Main St. Franklin, will be offering Children’s Art Classes Wednesdays afternoons. Adult workshops in watercolor, acrylic paint pouring, encaustic and glass fusing are also offered. Free painting is available 10 a.m.-3 p.m. every Monday in the classroom. A membership meeting takes place on the second Sunday of the month at 3 p.m. All are welcome. Call 828.349.4607 for more information.
n Complete listings of local music scene
n Regional festivals
n Art gallery events and openings
n Complete listings of recreational offerings at health and fitness centers
n Civic and social club gatherings
Free and open to the public. All skill levels and mediums are welcome. Participants are responsible for their own project and a bag lunch. 828.349.4607 or pm14034@yahoo.com.
• Explore a section of the Art Loeb Trail at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, with Haywood County Recreation and Hikes. All hikes are $10. Sign up at bit.ly/haywoodrec.
• Start off the year with an early-season slalom race Saturday, Feb. 25, on the Nantahala River at the Nantahala Outdoor Center. Racing will take place 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Entry fee is $20 payable at check-in, with registration required by noon Feb. 24. Learn more at nantahalaracingclub.com/glacier-breaker.
• Get ready for gardening season with a seminar covering everything from planning to harvest, 10 a.m.-noon Monday, Feb. 27, at the Haywood County Cooperative Extension Center in Waynesville. Cost is $10. Makes checks payable to Haywood CEDS and drop off or mail to Extension – Learn to Grow Class, 589 Raccoon Road, Suite 118, Waynesville, NC 28786. Include your email address with the envelope so class materials can be sent in advance.
• Phyllis Stiles, founder and director emerita of Bee City USA, will explain how gardening practices can help pollinators make the most of your yard during a talk at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 2, via Zoom. Organized by the WNC Sierra Club. Register at WNCSierraClub.org. For more information, contact Chair Judy Mattox at judymattox15@gmail.com or 828.683.2176.
• A tree-planting party at Tessentee Bottomland Preserve’s newest tract is planned 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23; and 9 a.m. to noon Friday, March 3, and Saturday, March 4, at the preserve in Macon County. Sign up at mainspringconserves.org/events.
• The annual Haywood County Extension Master Gardener plant sale is now underway, with pre-paid orders due by March 3. Find order forms online at haywood.ces.ncsu.edu, pick them up at the Extension Office on Raccoon Road in Waynesville or contact 828.456.3575 or mgarticles@charter.net.
• Registration is open for two upcoming sessions of Outdoor Adventure Kids, or OAK, at the N.C. Arboretum in Asheville. OAK is open to kids ages 6-13 and runs Fridays 12:30-4:30 p.m., with the first session March 331 and the second session April 14 through May 12. Learn more or sign up at ncarboretum.org/educationprograms/youth-family-programs/oak-drop-offprogram.
• Stephen Sondheim Tribute Revue will show at HART Theater Friday - Sunday, Feb. 17-26. For showtime
• “Thursday Painters” group will be held from 10 a.m.3 p.m. on Thursdays at The Uptown Gallery in Franklin.
• The inaugural Land and Lake Relay will be held Saturday, March 4. This 63-mile race is set up for fourperson and six-person teams, starting at Warren Wilson College in east Asheville and finishing at Fonta Flora Brewing at Lake James. Registration is limited to 60 teams. For more information or to register, visit gloryhoundevents.com.
The Smoky Mountain News Marketplace has a distribution of 16,000 copies across 500 locations in Haywood, Jackson, Macon and Swain counties, including the Qualla Boundary and west Buncombe County. Visit www.wncmarketplace.com to place your ad!
Rates:
• $15 — Classified ads that are 25 words, 25¢ per word after.
• Free — Lost or found pet ads.
• $6 — Residential yard sale ads.*
• $1 — Yard Sale Rain Insurance
Yard sale rained out? Call us by 10a.m. Monday for your ad to run again FREE
• $375 — Statewide classifieds run in 170 participating newspapers with 1.1+ million circulation. (Limit 25 words or less)
• Boost Online — Have your ad featured at top of category online $4
• Boost in Print
• Add Photo $6
• Bold ad $2
• Yellow, Green, Pink or Blue Highlight $4
• Border $4
Note: Highlighted ads automatically generate a border so if you’re placing an ad online and select a highlight color, the “add border” feature will not be available on the screen.
Note: Yard sale ads require an address. This location will be displayed on a map on www.wncmarketplace.com
p: 828.452.4251 · f:828.452.3585
classads@smokymountainnews.com www.wncmarketplace.com
NOTICE OF ADMINISTRATION
Case No.17 E 616 Teresa B. Summey, Ernest Lee Summey May 08 2023
May 22 2023
Fiduciary 325 Jacks Holler Marshall, NC 28753
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS
LAND CLEARING LOWER OLD #4 HOUSING
Teresa Summey
Greer, P.C. 366 Merrimon Avenue Asheville NC 28801
NOTICE OF ADMINISTRATION
Case No.2023 E 000053
Donald R Simerly
Great Smoky Mountains Railroad, LLC (GSM) is seeking bids for upcoming FRRCSI grant projects. Work is to be performed April - June of 2023.
Evaluation Criteria:
-
Bid should include mobilization, ultrasonic testing, demobilization, per diem, mileage, lodging
This is a formal sealed bidding processYOUR PROPOSAL IS DUE NO LATER THAN 5:00PM Deadline on Friday, March 24, 2023. Formal Public Bid Opening Date: Monday, March 27, 2023 at 2:00pm. All Kim
Haywood Lodge & Retirement Center has been devoted to helping those that need assistance with daily routines and care for more than 19 years in Waynesville, NC, in three separate facilities.
Since 1979, Four Seasons has maintained a commitment to providing exceptional serious illness and end-of-life care. Four Seasons provides care to those within our community through: Care Navigation, Home Care, Palliative Care, Hospice Care, Grief Services, and Clinical Research & Innovation. A national leader in high-quality person-centered care and innovations in care, Four Seasons consistently ranks in the top 10% of service providers for family satisfaction and is one of a handful of palliative and hospice organizations nationwide that contributes to clinical research studies and trials.
“We are honored to co-create the best care possible for those we serve. Daily, we listen, learn, and love, showing compassion and respect to all and responsiveness when our community needs us the most. Recently recognized with national awards for the provision of quality
care and for creating an excellent culture for our employees, our commitment to positively impacting lives expands,” says Dr. Millicent Burke-Sinclair, President and CEO of Four Seasons.
Four Seasons is supported by generous community donations to the Four Seasons Foundation and the Hospice Home Stores. Foundation donations and purchases from any of their three Hospice Home Stores located in Hendersonville, Arden and Brevard, enable all patients to have access to the care they need, regardless of the ability to pay.
Four Seasons currently serves 13 counties in Western North Carolina: Buncombe, Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Macon, Madison, Polk, Rutherford, Swain, and Transylvania
To learn more, visit wwwFourSeasonsCFL.org or call (866) 466-9734.
- paid advertisement -
WE OFFER:
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❖ Up to 3 weeks paid time off
❖ 401k
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❖ 90 day and yearly evaluations
❖ Referral bucks - $250
❖ Uniform allowance - $100 annually
❖ 1 Free meal per shift - Split shift
》 Med Techs – starting @ 16.00 & up (based on exp)
》 CNA’s - starting @ $15.00 & up (based on exp)
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》 Housekeeping – starting @ $12.00 & up (based on exp)
》 Maintenance
Apply online at: www.haywoodlodge.com or in person at 251 Shelton Street, Waynesville, NC 28786
Phone: 828-456-8365
Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate- Heritage
• Carolyn Lauter - carolyn@bhgheritage.com
Beverly Hanks & Associates- beverly-hanks.com
• Billie Green - bgreen@beverly-hanks.com
• Brian K. Noland - brianknoland.com
• Anne Page - apage@beverly-hanks.com
• Jerry Powell - jpowell@beverly-hanks.com
• Catherine Proben - cproben@beverly-hanks.com
• Ellen Sither - esither@beverly-hanks.com
• Mike Stamey - mikestamey@beverly-hanks.com
• Karen Hollingsed- khollingsed@beverly-hanks.com
• Laura Thomas - lthomas@beverly-hanks.com
• John Keith - jkeith@beverly-hanks.com
• Randall Rogers - rrogers@beverly-hanks.com
• Susan Hooper - shooper@beverly-hanks.com
• Hunter Wyman - hwyman@beverly-hanks.com
• Julie Lapkoff - julielapkoff@beverly-hanks.com
• Darrin Graves - dgraves@beverly-hanks.com
ERA Sunburst Realty - sunburstrealty.com
• Amy Spivey - amyspivey.com
• Rick Border - sunburstrealty.com
• Randy Flanigan - 706-207-9436
• Steve Mauldin - 828-734-4864
EXP Realty
• Ashley Owens Rutkosky - ashley.rutkosky@exp.realty
Keller Williams Realty - kellerwilliamswaynesville.com
• The Morris Team - www.themorristeamnc.com
• Ron Breese - ronbreese.com
• Landen Stevenson- landen@landenkstevenson.com
Lakeshore Realty
• Phyllis Robinson - lakeshore@lakejunaluska.com
Mountain Dreams Realty- maggievalleyhomesales.com
• Lyndia Massey- buyfromlyndia@yahoo.com
Mountain Creek Real Estate
• Ron Rosendahl - 828-593-8700
McGovern Real Estate & Property Management
• Bruce McGovern - shamrock13.com
Premier Sotheby's International Realty
• DeAnn Suchy - deann.suchy@premiersir.com
• Kaye Matthews - kaye.matthews@premiersir.com
RE/MAX Executive - remax-waynesvillenc.com remax-maggievalleync.com
• The Real Team - TheRealTeamNC.com
• Dan Womack - womackdan@aol.com
• Mary Hansen - mwhansen@charter.net
• Billy Case- billyncase@gmail.com
Rob Roland Realty
• Rob Roland - 828-400-1923
Smoky Mountain Retreat Realty
• Tom Johnson - tomsj7@gmail.com
• Sherell Johnson - Sherellwj@aol.com
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS GUT REHAB SERVICES FOR 2 HOUSES
SECOND REQUEST-
ts:
Evaluation Criteria: Par---
YOUR PROPOSAL IS DUE NO LATER THAN 5:00PM Deadline on Friday, March 24, 2023. Formal Public Bid
Opening Date: Monday, March 27, 2023 at 3:00PM.
RFP Contact : Kim
Request For Proposal
Great Smoky Mountains Railroad (GSM) is seeking bids for upcoming FRRCSI grant projects. Work is to be performed in November of 2023.
Scope of work:Contact the GSMR for a full scope of work, materials and geotesting report.
Location: Milepost 76.20
Time Frame to complete work: November 1 - 30, 2023
Bid should include mobilization, materials, materials transport, compacting, demobiliza tion.
Contractor Requiremen
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS GUT REHAB SERVICES FOR 2 HOUSES BIG COVE HOUSING SECOND REQUEST-
... Employs over 200 highly trained, professional caregivers, dedicated to providing the best quality care
... Provides EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES to develop skills and learning with highly trained mentors promoting staff empowerment. Employment, volunteering, shadowing and internships are available in a variety of career choices that include health care, therapy, dietary, food service, nutrition, grounds keeping, maintenance and management. We offer health benefits, PTO, education assistance, and many incentives.
... On Site Certified Nursing Assistant Course and Entry Level Geri-Tech positions are available to get started
CURRENTLY HAS OPENINGS FOR dietary aides, geri-techs, med aides, nursing assistants, housekeepers, LPNs, and RNs
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Here’s How It Works: Sudoku puzzles are formatted as a 9x9 grid, broken down into nine 3x3 boxes. To solve a sudoku, the numbers 1 through 9 must fill each row, column and box. Each number can appear only once in each row, column and box. You can figure out the order in which the numbers will appear by using the numeric clues already provided in the boxes. The more numbers you name, the easier it gets to solve the puzzle!
Answers on 38
