SMN 03 16 16

www.smokymountainnews.com

Western North Carolina’s Source for Weekly News, Entertainment, Arts, and Outdoor Information

March 16-22, 2016 Vol. 17 Iss. 42

School district lines unveiled for Central students Page 5 Tribe wants stronger preference laws for businesses Page 30

CONTENTS On the Cover: As societal landscapes continue to change, local fire departments are finding it more difficult to recruit and retain volunteer firefighters. Though Western North Carolina communities are faring better than more urban areas across the country, they still find themselves short staffed. (Page 6)

News Haywood visitor center moves to Maggie ..................................................................4 New district lines unveiled for Central students ........................................................5 New UNC presidents visits WCU .............................................................................. 10 Director of regional planning commission resigns ..................................................11 ‘Seed money’ being raised for new Swain library ..................................................12 SCC road construction company being sued ........................................................13 Tribe wants strong preference for tribal businesses ..............................................15 Canton proposes downtown pedestrian projects ..................................................16 Sylva leaders plan for future success ........................................................................18

Opinion Maggie Valley should make town center happen .................................................. 22

STAFF EDITOR/PUBLISHER: ADVERTISING DIRECTOR: ART DIRECTOR: DESIGN & WEBSITE: DESIGN & PRODUCTION: ADVERTISING SALES:

CLASSIFIEDS: NEWS EDITOR: WRITING:

ACCOUNTING & OFFICE MANAGER: DISTRIBUTION: CONTRIBUTING:

Scott McLeod. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . info@smokymountainnews.com Greg Boothroyd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . greg@smokymountainnews.com Micah McClure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . micah@smokymountainnews.com Travis Bumgardner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . travis@smokymountainnews.com Emily Moss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . emily@smokymountainnews.com Whitney Burton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . whitney@smokymountainnews.com Amanda Bradley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . jc-ads@smokymountainnews.com Hylah Birenbaum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . hylah@smliv.com Scott Collier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . classads@smokymountainnews.com Jessi Stone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . jessi@smokymountainnews.com Becky Johnson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . becky@smokymountainnews.com Holly Kays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . holly@smokymountainnews.com Garret K. Woodward. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . garret@smokymountainnews.com Amanda Singletary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . smnbooks@smokymountainnews.com Scott Collier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . classads@smokymountainnews.com Jeff Minick (writing), Chris Cox (writing), George Ellison (writing), Gary Carden (writing), Don Hendershot (writing), Susanna Barbee (writing).

CONTACT WAYNESVILLE | 144 Montgomery, Waynesville, NC 28786 P: 828.452.4251 | F: 828.452.3585 SYLVA | 629 West Main Street, Sylva, NC 28779 828.631.4829 | F: 828.631.0789

P:

A&E WCU band becomes nation’s first United Sound chapter.................................. 26

Outdoors Worming towards a better way ....................................................................................34

The Naturalist’s Corner

Smoky Mountain News

March 16-22, 2016

Lake J – even when it’s bad, it’s good ........................................................................47

2

INFO & BILLING | P.O. Box 629, Waynesville, NC 28786 Copyright 2016 by The Smoky Mountain News.™ Advertising copyright 2016 by The Smoky Mountain News.™ All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. The Smoky Mountain News is available for free in Haywood, Jackson, Macon, Swain and parts of Buncombe counties. Limit one copy per person.

Additional copies may be purchased for $1, payable at the Smoky Mountain News office in advance. No person may, without prior written permission of The Smoky Mountain News, take more than one copy of each issue.

SUBSCRIPTIONS SUBSCRIPTION:

1 YEAR $65 | 6 MONTHS $40 | 3 MONTHS $25

March 16-22, 2016

Smoky Mountain News

3

Haywood visitor center makes the move to Maggie

BY B ECKY JOHNSON STAFF WRITER he primary visitor center for Haywood County will be moving this spring from downtown Waynesville to Maggie Valley.

The Haywood County Tourism Development Authority board voted unanimously last week to relocate the visitor center to Maggie after a five-year run on Main Street in downtown Waynesville. The tourism agency has been on the prowl for a new visitor center location for nearly 18 months.

The new location in Maggie meets all the criteria the tourism agency wanted — not only more office space for staff and cheaper rent, but also highway visibility, easy access and ample parking.

“It has been an absolute nightmare for us to find all those components in a location,” said Lyndon Lowe, chair of the tourism board. “It was quite a challenge.”

The move isn’t without downsides, however. For starters, the tourism agency is giving up the vibe of downtown Waynesville, which is one of the single biggest tourist draws in the county.

The interplay between downtown and the tourism agency has been symbiotic. The tourism agency gets front-row access to downtown’s foot traffic — a captive audience to convert into loyal repeat visitors by wowing them with all there is to do in Haywood County.

“It is unbelievable how many people walk through that door,” said Buffy Phillips, director of the Downtown Waynesville Association. “After all of our events and festivals, I go in and ask ‘How many people came through?’ It has been such a convenience to be able to send visitors in. I will certainly miss them and I know that the merchants will also miss them.”

From Maggie Valley’s perspective, the move is great news, however.

“This is pretty exciting for us,” said Mike Eveland, a Maggie alderman and restaurant operator.

The downtown Waynesville visitor center greeted 25,000 walk-in customers last year.

Meanwhile, a second visitor center in Maggie Valley saw only 7,300 walk-ins last year.

“That’s 25,000 sets of eyes. Maggie Valley only had 7,300,” said Mike Graham, the owner of Juke Box Junction diner in Bethel.

Visitor count was so low at the Maggie visitor center the tourism agency shut it down at the end of the year.

But those low numbers won’t necessarily hold true for the new Maggie location, Eveland said. The lackluster volume at Maggie’s visitor center was largely a product of its low visibility in a strip mall.

“I think you will see the visitor count for the new location come in higher than the locations we have had in Maggie in the past,” Eveland said.

How well the new location in Maggie will do compared to downtown Waynesville is hard to predict, said Lynn Collins, executive 4 director of the tourism agency.

Smoky Mountain News

March 16-22, 2016

T

“I think that is one of the unknowns,” Collins said.

A LONG-TERM COMMITMENT Several board members felt it was a mistake to sign a 10-year lease on the Maggie location and lobbied to shorten it during discussion at a tourism board meeting last week.

“The way we promote tourism in Haywood County is changing dramatically right now,” said Ken Howle, a tourism board member who’s with Lake Junaluska Conference and Retreat Center. “We are making a decision today that potentially hinders the future leaders of this organization for the next 10 years.”

Lowe countered that they could sublet the building to another party if they wanted out.

“That is our only out, for 10 years?” asked Laura Leatherwood, a tourism board member with Haywood Community College.

“That’s a long time.”

An escape plan based on subletting the building is inherently risky, since the tourism agency would still be on the hook for monthly rent.

Even those who liked the location were hesitant about the long lease period.

“It has some great perks that are high on our list,” said Beth Brown, a tourism board member from Maggie. But, “It’s a huge commitment. A lot could happen in 10 years.”

Leatherwood said such a long lease would kill any hope of coming together with other tourism, business and economic development groups under one roof, allowing them to tag-team and collaborate more effectively.

“I have not abandoned the idea of a countywide effort with economic development, the chamber and the TDA. If we sign a 10year lease that’s out the window,” Leatherwood said.

Lowe questioned holding out for something that’s just a concept, however.

“Right now we don’t have anything concrete that looks like that will happen,” Lowe said.

“I understand that now, but in 10 years?”

Leatherwood said.

Lowe said they were getting a better deal by agreeing to a 10-year lease. The monthly rent would be higher if they did a shorter lease. And the longer lease offers stability.

“We are getting a very low rate for 10 years,” Lowe said. “At the same time, we will have fixed costs for 10 years and it is a fixed location for 10 years, which we haven’t had for a long time.”

In the end, the tourism board unanimously approved a 10-year lease for the Maggie location.

WHY MOVE The biggest downsides of the downtown Waynesville location were lack of parking, higher rent and not enough office space.

The visitor center doubles as offices for tourism agency staff — a half dozen employees who do everything from courting convention travelers to selling Haywood’s image on social media, as well as the meat-and-potatoes business function of managing a $1 million marketing and promotions budget.

But the open floor plan — with nothing but cubicle partitions separating staff from the walk-in visitors — didn’t make for a conducive work environment.

A task force of tourism board members ultimately looked at more than 40 different sites over the past year.

While four of the five task force members are from Maggie, the task force didn’t limit its search to Maggie, nor intentionally set out to chose Maggie over Waynesville, according to Lynn Collins, executive director of the tourism authority.

“We looked everywhere. To be honest, there is a shortage of move-in ready office space,” Collins said.

The task force continued to come up empty, and it seemed they had no choice but to renew their lease in downtown Waynesville for a while longer when it came up at the end

location a destination in and of itself,” Collins said.

The rent is only slightly cheaper — $800 less a month and $10,000 less a year, although the Main Street location had a 3 percent built-in rent increase each year.

The search for a visitor center has taken several turns.

Early on, tourism leaders were poised to throw in the towel on visitor centers and replace them with digital kiosks. But they concluded visitor centers were not passé yet and still worth the investment.

At one juncture, the tourism agency was ready to stay downtown and move in with a suite of groups working toward tourism, business and economic development growth — namely the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce, Economic Development Commission and Downtown Waynesville Association.

A plan was crafted to house them all in Waynesville’s old town hall, which is mostly empty anyway.

But pushback from a couple Waynesville aldermen scuttled it, and the tourism agency went back to the drawing board.

A volunteer at the Haywood County Visitor Center assists tourists in finding their way around during their stay. File photo of April.

“We were really getting nervous,” Lowe said.

A couple weeks ago, however, the task force learned the building formerly occupied

by Organic Beans Coffee Shop had become available.

While it doesn’t have the draw of downtown Waynesville, it’s strategically located en route to Cherokee, a hop-and-skip from the Blue Ridge Parkway, and an easy detour off Interstate 40. It’s got the potential to attract conference-goers from nearby Lake Junaluska Conference and Retreat Center or elk viewers coming to Cataloochee Valley.

“That location certainly has great visibility,” Collins said. “It will be easy to direct traffic from there.”

It’s also going to be easier to get to — primarily because of ample parking — for tourists specifically seeking out visitor center services for help deciding what to do during their stay.

“It gives us the opportunity to make that

The tourism agency had been operating two visitor centers until recently — the primary one in downtown Waynesville and a secondary one in a strip mall in Maggie.

The consolidation completes an evolution of the visitor center landscape in Haywood County that has been playing out for the past five years.

Historically, the county had four visitor centers: in Waynesville, Maggie Valley, Canton and Balsam. The tourism agency provided annual funding and support for all four.

But five years ago, the tourism agency began consolidating the visitor centers and bringing them in-house — run by the tourism agency’s own staff rather than subsidizing the smorgasbord of visitor centers in each town.

Meanwhile, the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce will continue to keep its visitor center open in downtown Waynesville, filling the void left by the tourism agency pulling out of downtown.

S

Plan advances to convert old hospital to affordable lofts

H

CALL THE SPECIALIST

Book online at:

Let us help you relax

MassageWaynesville.com APPOINTMENTS: 9AM-6PM OFFICE 10AM-5:15PM Haywood Square | 288 North Haywood Street | Waynesville, N.C.

Web extra: For a map of the new school district lines, go to www.smokymountainnews.com and click on this article. more extra classrooms to go around.

Technically, both schools will still be under their capacity on paper, and class sizes shouldn’t swell as a result, with plans to add additional teachers to accommodate the additional students.

“Neither school is going to be overcrowded,” School Board Chairman Chuck Francis said. “We’ve got the capacity.”

The numbers are only projections for now, since families may move around between now and then or seek waivers to attend a different school than the one they are assigned.

An additional bus route will be added to both Hazelwood and Junaluska next year to accommodate the larger student body and additional neighborhoods now feeding the two schools.

incentives, adding more than $1 million to the developer’s cost, and thus cutting in to what the county could get for the building.

“That’s why the county isn’t able to achieve a better return on this property is because the legislature has done away with those credits,” said David Francis, special projects coordinator for Haywood County.

Here’s how the property transfer to Landmark Development Company will work.

The firm will pay the county $200,000 up front.

The county will then make a loan to the firm for $450,000, to be repaid in 30 years, which is the development firm’s financing period.

So the county will be out $250,000 initially, but will realize a net gain of $200,000 when the loan is paid back in 30 years.

It’s still a good deal for the county, however, which has been sinking money into the building every year to keep it from falling into a state of disrepair, from replacing the leaky roof to keeping the power on and air circulating.

The affordable apartment complex will be named Brookmont Lofts, drawing on a historic reference to the neighborhood found in old deeds, Francis said.

The town of Waynesville has pledged to waive any permit fees for the developer and provide in-kind services when it comes to street work and utility tie ins.

Thursday, Mar. 24th Ingles Markets — Hendersonville, NC Howard Gap Road — 3 to 6 p.m.

Meet local farmers, vendors that supply Ingles: • Annie’s Breads (Asheville) • Appalachian Sustainable Development (Abingdon, VA) • Ardenne Farm (Mills River) • Biltmore Gourmet Foods (Asheville) • Brasstown Beef (Brasstown) • Crooked Condiments (Woodfin) • Firewalker Hot Sauce (Asheville) • Hickory Nut Gap Farm (Fairview) • Milkco (West Asheville) • Mimi’s Mountain Mixes (Hendersonville) • New Sprout Organic Farms (Swannanoa) • Postre Caramel Sauce (Woodfin) • Roots and Branches (Swannanoa) • Sunburst Trout (Canton) • Sunny Creek Farms (Tryon)

Smoky Mountain News

BY B ECKY JOHNSON STAFF WRITER aywood County commissioners will hold a public hearing next Monday on whether to give away the “old hospital” to a developer who will turn it into an affordable apartment complex.

Haywood County has wanted rid of the albatross for years, but hadn’t been able to find a taker for the antiquated, four-story brick building with a cobbled floor plan and outdated everything. The county is essentially giving the building away, but will get rid of the liability and see the vacant building put back into productive use.

The county would have been able to get something for the old hospital if it hadn’t been for Republican-led legislation in Raleigh to scale back historic preservation and lowincome housing tax credits.

The county stood to get more than $1 million for the old hospital under an earlier proposal to sell it off to an affordable housing developer. But the state curtailed the tax

Got Back Pain?

March 16-22, 2016

BY B ECKY JOHNSON STAFF WRITER tudents who attend Central Elementary School in Waynesville learned this week what their new school will be come fall.

With the painful decision to close Central in the rearview mirror, sights had turned to how Central’s students would be divvied up among other elementary schools — namely Hazelwood and Junaluska elementaries — with students and parents eagerly awaiting the news of what school district they would end up in.

The job of drawing new school district lines fell to Todd Trantham, Haywood County Schools’ transportation coordinator. Luckily, it was easier than he thought it might be.

Trantham came up with a natural dividing line through the middle of Waynesville — one that bisects the former Central School District — simply by following Main Street and Russ Avenue. Everything to the west of Main Street and Russ Avenue will be in Hazelwood’s district, and everything on the east side will be in Junaluska’s district.

“We wanted to make sure we created a district line that was easy to understand and help make a very difficult transition as easy as possible for these students,” Trantham said.

The natural dividing line follows commercial corridors through town, eliminating the awkward situation of splitting neighborhoods, with kids on opposite sides of the street going to different schools.

When Trantham began putting pencil to paper, he was pleasantly surprised that he could avoid jagged, dog-legged district lines

and still achieve the balanced distribution he was hoping for.

“We wanted to spread those students out in a way we didn’t overcrowd either school,” Trantham said.

Hazelwood will get 111 students from Central, bringing it to a total student body of 573. Now the largest school in the county, Hazelwood will have a total of six third-grade classrooms next year — its largest grade corresponds with a spike in the birth rate during 2007 when the economy was rocking.

Junaluska will get 86 new students, for a total student body of 422.

Hazelwood is getting more students than Junaluska because it’s newer and bigger, with

news

New district lines unveiled for Central Elementary students

5

news March 16-22, 2016

Fire departments across Haywood County came together last year for a training exercise that simulated a fire sweeping through downtown Waynesville. Andy Rogers photo

When duty calls

Smoky Mountain News

A critical shortage of volunteer firefighters threatens a time-honored American tradition

BY B ECKY JOHNSON STAFF WRITER ittle boys worship them. Bruce Springsteen memorialized them. The helpless count on them.

Volunteer firefighters are a symbol of American strength and determination, pillars in their community who answer the call of duty when friends and neighbors need them most.

“When we come in contact with someone, it is usually the worst day of their life and they expect you to help,” said David Blackburn, a mill worker, father and volunteer with the North Canton Fire Department.

“Every call you go on, there is somebody waiting and watching for you. You can see 6 their relief when you pull up,” added Joe Alan

L

James, a volunteer with the Saunooke Fire Department in Haywood County.

Volunteers are the life-blood of rural and small-town fire departments. There’s an estimated 800,000 volunteer firefighters in America. But the number is going down.

Over the past dozen years, volunteer fire rosters have shrunk by roughly 100,000, according to estimates by the National Volunteer Fire Council.

It’s increasingly difficult these days for volunteers to take time away from work and family to answer calls.

“When you are relying on volunteers, it’s a roll of the dice who’s going to show up,” said Waynesville Fire Chief Joey Webb. “People are a lot more busy now. It is a changing culture and changing society. It’s a nationwide problem.

There just aren’t the volunteers anymore.”

Western North Carolina is luckier than most regions of the country. Here, community pride, cultural tradition and tight kinship bonds stir a sense of duty to take care of one’s own.

“When that pager goes off with an address, you know what house it is. Or when you walk up on a wreck, you know whose car that is,” said Stephen Arrington, a volunteer with the Saunooke Fire Department in Haywood County. “It is such an integral part of the community.”

Volunteer firefighters are already a thing of the past in urban cities, but not so in Appalachia, where loyalty is a way of life.

“I think that is a cultural difference in

rural small-town America versus metro areas,” said Jeff Cash, the fire chief of Cherryville, N.C., and a leader with the National Volunteer Fire Council.

Nonetheless, volunteer fire departments across the mountains are struggling to keep

“As our volunteers’ professional lives get busier and busier, it starts to interfere with their volunteer lives. Employers are not as likely to let volunteers off to go fight fires as they used to.”

— Mike Morgan, Waynesville interim town manager

their rosters up. Part of the problem is generational.

“In most areas, the Millennials and the Gen X’ers don’t put community volunteering high on their list. They don’t have that volunteer mindset,” Cash said.

The biggest enemy, however, is the changing labor landscape. It’s harder for volunteers to duck out of their jobs when a call comes in compared to days gone by.

“We don’t have the farmers and factory

workers we used to have, who could quit and come fight a fire. People who work now can’t quit,” said Roland Hamrick, a firehouse consultant who conducted an outside assessment of Waynesville’s fire operations last year.

More people commute out of county for work, too, Webb said.

“They just aren’t here when calls go out during the day,” Webb said.

Volunteer firefighters agree the biggest challenge isn’t a desire to serve, but trying to balance their day job with their volunteer role.

“I have gone to a structure fire at 10 o’clock at night and fought the fire until 4 in the morning and come home and took a shower and gone to work,” said Blackburn, who works at Evergreen Packaging in Canton.

James, a volunteer with the Saunooke Fire Department, is one of lucky ones. He can walk off his job at Balsam Rental and Power Equipment anytime, no questions asked. His boss pays him anyway, even for the hours he’s not there.

In the rare instance James can’t go on a call, it’s sheer torture.

“I hate being gone on vacation when they have a call. We will be texting each other wanting to know how it is going. You can’t stand it. You will be worried and thinking about it until it is all over with,” James said.

“If you put your heart into it, you will never turn that pager off.”

S EE VOLUNTEER, PAGE 8

Desperate for recruits, volunteer firefighters hope to change the perception that their brotherhood is a boys’ club

D

own crew, but from any of the 14 volunteer fire departments in the county.

“People who risk their lives together have a tendency to get really close,” added David Blackburn, one of 45 volunteers with the North Canton Department.

But it’s not a one-size-fits-all club.

“We have everyone from farmers to nurses, to maintenance engineers, grocery store clerks — you don’t have to be a certain type of person to volunteer,” Blackburn said.

The stereotype of a boys’ club can nonetheless be a real hurdle for some departments to break away from, said Jeff Cash, the fire chief in Cherryville, N.C., who’s on the executive council of the National Volunteer Fire Council.

“Cliques form and it is hard sometimes for an outsider to break into those cliques,” Cash said.

Cash spends a lot of time these days preaching to fire departments around the country on how to grow their volunteer roster. Rural volunteer fire departments have historically been all white, and all male.

They need to reach out to women, Latinos, and all walks in a community and make a place for them, Cash said.

“The writing is on the wall,” Cash said.

“The success of your recruiting is a num-

Smoky Mountain News

BY B ECKY JOHNSON STAFF WRITER espite the stereotype of volunteer firefighters as Type A alpha males, knowing your Nascar drivers and driving a pick-up truck isn’t a prerequisite for being a volunteer firefighter.

“We will take them even if they drive a Prius,” said Joseph Massie, a volunteer with Saunooke Fire Department in Haywood County. “We want to encourage people from all walks of life.”

Massie knows, because he’s been there.

When Massie was 30, he was a regular in the Waynesville pub scene and spent his free time playing music with his band.

“I was the hippy of the group really,” Massie said. “It wasn’t necessarily in my blood. But at 30, I hit that stage where I thought, I got to do something different. It totally changes the way you think about everything.”

Massie was readily accepted into the club of volunteer firefighters from the first moment he set foot in the firehouse.

“It’s a brotherhood,” said Ben Caldwell with the Clyde Fire Department.

If Caldwell’s truck breaks down in the middle of the night, there’s a couple hundred guys he could call for help — not just on his

March 16-22, 2016

Jeremy Landt, a volunteer with the Clyde Fire Department, remembers coming home from church one Wednesday night as a child to find the house full of smoke and the attic full of flames.

“I didn’t know if I would lose all my toys. I can remember standing at the bottom the driveway and watching the fire trucks come in. You felt like everything would be alright then, that here is somebody who knows what they are doing.” Becky Johnson photo

news

Come one, come all

respond to a sense of civic duty and being bers game. And the number of white men available to volunteer is lower than in previ- able to do a job that no one else can do.”

There is a pay-off down the road for ous years.” those who put in the years. Volunteers with Cash routinely travels the country doing 20 years of active service can draw $170 a talks on how to recruit and retain volunteer month for life once they hit age 55. firefighters for the National Volunteer Fire It’s an incentive to be sure, but ultimateCouncil. Gobs of research has been conductly, not the reason volunteers do it, ed in hopes of solving the national shortage Waynesville Fire Chief Joey Webb said. of volunteer firefighters.

“It is in their blood to help their neighBased on the studies, the number one bors. They don’t look to a check. They look reason new volunteers don’t join is because to be able to help their community,” Webb they aren’t asked, Cash said. Surveys have said. shown 44 percent of Millennials are open to The real pay-off, however, is intangible the idea of joining a volunteer fire departbut priceless. ment. Often, all they need is an invitation.

Being a volunteer firefighter unlocks the But the way to reach Millennials — on door to self-actualization, the top rung on Facebook or in line at Starbucks — isn’t Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Cash said. intuitive to the older generation of fire“To know you are contributing to somefighters.

Until recently, recruiting and keeping vol- thing bigger than yourself, that’s what we can provide,” Cash said. unteers were seen as one in the same.

Jeremy Landt, a volunteer with the “Now we have separated those into two Clyde Department, admits the first step unique categories,” Cash said.

While free time, work and family are very might not be easy.

“It is always intimidating to walk into a real constraints, a less tangible factor often building where you don’t know anybody,” comes into play.

Landt said.

“If a volunteer doesn’t get their way or But Massie said volunteer fire departdisagrees or there are personality clashes, ments today would welcome anyone with they usually walk,” Cash said. open arms.

It’s up to the chief to make them feel valued, but still avoid the pitfalls of too many cooks in the kitchen.

“It is a very fine line they have to balance,” Cash said.

The National Volunteer Fire Council has focused on leadership training for fire chiefs to help them handle firehouse politics and keep their volunteer base from splintering.

Greg Shuping, the Emergency Services Director for Haywood County, agreed keeping up morale is a critical role for department Joseph Massie, a volunteer with Saunooke Fire Department, leadership. Even small was inspired to join the ranks after nearly losing his grandmother gestures, like buying several years ago. pizza on training nights, can go a long “When I came in she was laid out on the floor and wasn’t way, Shuping said. breathing. I started doing CPR, but when the paramedics came in But ironically, it’s and took over, that is something I will never forget, that feeling of not the perks like free relief always stuck in my mind. From then on, I knew I wanted to gym memberships or give back.” Becky Johnson photo Sunday cookouts that fuel the fire in the belly “Anyone who has this inkling,” Massie for volunteers. Shuping believes qualitysaid. “No one knows what potential they training exercises that bring departments have until they come and see what tools and together outside of the routine calls are the training we can offer them.” best way to keep volunteers motivated.

Even if it’s not in your nature to charge Shuping believes a new $4.1 million fire, into burning buildings, there are plenty of rescue and law enforcement training center support roles that are equally critical, being built at Haywood Community College whether it’s helping with technology, clerical could inspire a new wave of volunteer firework or directing traffic at a scene. fighters. The crowned jewel of the training “Just because you can’t go into a house, I center is a multi-story burn tower where firewill find you something you can do. If you fighters can train on live fire simulations. are willing to do it, I will teach you,” said Joe “These guys want to get outside and get Alan James, a volunteer with Saunooke Fire dirty,” Shuping said. “They want to feel like Department. they are actually doing something. They

7

March 16-22, 2016

news

VOLUNTEERS, CONTINUED FROM 6 Stephen Arrington, also a volunteer with Saunooke Fire Department, has been known to show up for a fire call on his tractor. His family owns Barber’s Apple Orchard, making his job more flexible that most. But there’ve been times when he’s idled the packing house for a couple hours during peak picking season — despite 10 workers standing around on the clock until he gets back — to go answer a call.

“You look at every call and think this may be really serious,” Arrington said.

The notion of letting someone else respond is foreign to him.

“I am the someone else,” he said.

But often, it’s just not possible for bosses to let their employees off on the spur of the moment.

“Not every employer can,” Blackburn said. “Not everybody can be available 24 hours a day.”

Cashiers Fire Chief Randy Dillard said the work balance is particularly tough in his neck of the woods, where a seasonal population explosion creates the perfect storm every summer.

“July is wild to say the least in Cashiers,” Dillard said.

Calls naturally spike in summer when the tourists and second-homers are in town, but that’s also when people are the busiest at work.

“Our guys were leaving four and five times a day during the summer here,” Dillard said.

“If you were running a business and only had two or three months to make your money for the year, could you afford to let an employee go a couple times during the day? You can let them off in the winter when it’s slow, but that’s not when all the calls are.”

Dillard gets it. He was once that guy himself, spending his summer months chained to the levers of an excavator in the fair-weather grading business.

“We’d go to a house fire, and go back to our jobs, and then at the end of the day come back to the station and clean equipment to get the trucks ready to go again,” said Dillard, who’s now paid as the full-time fire chief.

CALL VOLUME ON THE RISE

Smoky Mountain News

The volunteer shortage isn’t always apparent on paper.

The Cullowhee Fire Department has just as many volunteers now as it did in the 1980s.

But back then, there were only 75 to 100 calls a year, said Tim Green, Cullowhee Fire Chief. Now there are 700.

The Cashiers department has more volunteers than ever. But it’s not been enough to keep pace with the increase in demand.

Not every call is a fire. Some are wrecks, some are simply false alarms, and some are serious medical calls where volunteer firefighters are called for back up, or because they are often closer and can get to someone first.

In Cashiers, where the closest emergency room can be an hour away over twisting mountain roads, medical helicopters are often called for quicker transport. Volunteer firemen also pitch in on medical air evacua8 tions to ready a landing zone on the ground.

The Cashiers department had 39 calls to set up helicopter landing zones last year.

From downed trees to gas leaks, the local fire house is the go-to source of help for all sorts of community problems. Sometimes, it’s simply changing smoke detector batteries for an elderly person or getting cats out of trees.

“We get calls like ‘Grandma fell out of bed and we can’t get her back in.’ We call those good intent calls,” Waynesville Interim Town Manager Mike Morgan said.

Volunteers also conduct a never-ending list of community outreach. Waynesville did more than 40 fire safety programs for local schools, churches and daycares last year, along with dozens more talks on sundry subjects — from water safety to car seat protocols — and, of course, the ubiquitous firehouse tours. The department also conducted 51 fire drills.

Another thing on the to-do list for volunteer firemen is testing every hydrant in their service area once a year — there are 140 of them in Cullowhee Fire Department.

“They have to gather in the evenings and on the weekends to test hydrants,” Green said.

The firefighters also double as their own fundraisers. In exchange for donations, they

have 40 right now.

Bringing new firefighters online isn’t a cheap undertaking either.

Green thinks they can find the guys, but even then, the cost to train and outfit them is steep — about $10,000 in turn-out gear, training courses, injury insurance coverage and equipment, from an air pack to radio pagers.

“It is a costly operation,” Green said.

It wouldn’t be right to ask volunteers to pay the start-up costs out of their own pocket.

“We look at it as they are donating their time to help us, so the least we can do is come up with the money somehow or another,” he said.

CALLING IN REINFORCEMENTS Over the past decade, fire departments that were once all-volunteer have been adding a paid guy or two to lighten the load for volunteers — at least those that can afford it.

Most are lucky to have a single paid position, however, usually the fire chief.

Rest assured, he’s not spending his days polishing the truck and doing chin-ups waiting for the bell to ring. His time is mostly filled with unglamorous paperwork, the never-ending pile of insurance reports, call logs, response reports, equipment inspections, hydrant certifications and bookkeeping.

In Cashiers, Dillard now has a core team of paid firefighters to knock out the routine fender benders and alarm checks without sapping the volunteer force.

“There were times you would get a call in the middle of the day and hope and pray someone was going to go,” Dillard said. “Now our volunteers are running more when we really need them. If you have a structure fire or a bad brush fire they are more apt to come if they haven’t already taken off four times that week to work wrecks.”

When a call is cleared, the work still isn’t

“We’d go to a house fire, and go back to our jobs, and then at the end of the day come back to the station and clean equipment to get the trucks ready to go again.”

— Randy Dillard, Cashiers Fire Chief

help people burn brush piles, fill up a swimming pool with water or change the batteries in smoke detectors that are too hard to reach.

“We have to get out here and beat the bushes for donations,” Green said.

As call volume has increased over the years, some sprawling rural fire districts with hard-to-reach hollers have made an effort to build substations to improve response time across their vast footprint.

But the state requires a minimum number of volunteers on the roster for each substation.

Cashiers has added five substations over the past 15 years to cover its 135-square-mile territory.

The biggest hurdle hasn’t been paying for the building or fire trucks, however. It’s the meeting manpower quota required by the state.

“Every time you add a station, that is eight more people you have to have. You can build a station and buy the trucks easier than you can find and outfit eight firemen,” Dillard said.

That’s one thing hampering the addition of a planned substation at Bear Lake in Jackson County, a major residential resort covered by the Cullowhee Fire Department.

To add a substation at Bear Lake, Green needs 46 volunteers on the roster. They only

Volunteer fire departments regularly reach across service lines to help when duty calls.

Here, volunteers from five different departments in Haywood County assess the aftermath of a fire in Clyde. Below: Volunteers with the Saunooke Fire Department practice extricating injured passengers in a field module. Donated photos

FAMILY TIES

Waynesville Fire Chief Joey Webb recently came across an old roster for the department from 1970. It showed eight paid, full-time fighters. Forty-five years later, despite an exponential increase in calls, Waynesville still has only eight paid, full-time firemen.

Out of necessity, Waynesville police are routinely pitching in on fire calls these days.

Patrol officers who are on the roads anyway usually beat volunteer forces to a fire call.

While they can’t enter buildings, they rally to the occasion and start pulling hoses from trucks and hooking them up to hydrants until the volunteer back-up arrives.

Hamrick, the outside consultant who assessed Waynesville’s fire response last year, commended the police officers as auxiliary firemen.

“They were pretty much money on the spot. They jump in to fight fires until enough people get there,” Hamrick said.

But it’s not exactly a best practice.

Webb has asked the town to fund eight additional full-time firefighters in the coming year — enough to have four on shift at any given time instead of two.

Interim Town Manager Mike Morgan hopes to work it into the town’s budget.

“As our volunteers’ professional lives get busier and busier, it starts to interfere with their volunteer lives,” Morgan recognized.

“Employers are not as likely to let volunteers

— David Blackburn, volunteer with the North Canton Fire Department

volunteers face 300 hours of training to get started, and have to log 36 hours of training every year after that to keep their certification up. Trainings can range from evening sessions at the firehouse with guest instructors to all-day field exercises and practice burns.

For Blackburn, a volunteer with the North Canton department, answering calls is no longer taking him away from his family, but creating a new chance to bond with his 15year-old son, who recently joined the “junior firefighter” program.

“It’s great for us to spend family time together, but it is also instilling a sense of helping others. You are a part of something larger than yourself,” Blackburn said.

Smoky Mountain News

over. The equipment must be cleaned, prepped and ready for the next call, from filling air packs to gassing up power saws.

And, of course, “The truck has to be washed,” Dillard said.

Technically, there’s no rule against it, so “can’t” may not be the right word. But there is an unspoken creed.

“You can’t put a truck up dirty,” Dillard said. “It is just not right. We love them. We like to have them beautiful.”

Now, those back-of-house duties are up to the paid guys with the department — two of them on shift at all times — saving the volunteer workforce for the calls that count.

Dillard still can’t do without his volunteers. It’s critical they don’t think they are being pushed out. And they can still show up on any call they want to.

“We told our guys you will always be welcome to come. You will never be turned away,” Dillard said.

Waynesville also has a core force of fulltime paid firefighters. But volunteers are still the backbone of the department. Waynesville has only two paid firefighters on shift at any given time — it takes a total of eight full-time firemen on the payroll to keep the firehouse staffed with two guys around the clock.

They handle routine calls and keep equipment in shape, but its Waynesville’s 30 volunteers who keep the department going.

“When we come in contact with someone it is usually the worst day of their life and they expect you to help.”

March 16-22, 2016

Joe Alan James (right) grew up across the road from the Crabtree fire department and spent his childhood in awe of what they did.

“You’d hear the sirens and I would ride my bike over there and watch them suit up and pull out. When I turned 14 I told the chief I would like to do this,” James said.

“He said ‘Do you really want to do hard with it?’ and I said I did. I love every minute of it.

It makes you feel good.”

His son, Austin, is now a volunteer, too.

“I remember sitting in church one Sunday and the pagers of all the firefighters went off. I remember the preacher saying ‘God bless them’ as they were running out and I remember thinking, I want to do that one day,” Austin recounted. Becky Johnson photo

The wives of volunteer firemen make a huge sacrifice of their own, doing the heavy lifting on the home front when calls pull their husbands away.

Blackburn remembers leaving midway through his son’s 13th birthday party for a call. Once, James’ wife came out of Walmart only to find his truck wasn’t there anymore.

He had driven away on a call, leaving her to find another ride home.

Arrington cleared his volunteer fire role with his future wife when they were still dating, explaining that it was part of the package if she stayed with him.

“It had been such a big part of my life,” said Arrington.

But it’s not just the calls that cut into fam-

ily time. Going on fire calls is only a fraction of the time commitment.

Training and certifications are a non-stop undertaking. Gone are the days of farmers showing up to their neighbor’s barn with a bucket brigade.

Volunteers today have to meet an arduous training regimen mandated by the state. New

news

off to go fight fires as they used to.”

Fire departments that can afford it have now also started paying their volunteers a nominal amount for each call.

Otherwise, volunteers end up spending their own money on gas to and from calls, on top of giving their time. Better-funded departments are now offering small stipends for each call they go on. Small is the operative word, however — Waynesville pays just $10.40 a call.

Cashiers started paying $12 a call last year, the max that’s allowed to still count as a volunteer.

“I actually had firemen who couldn’t afford the gas to come to a call because it was 20 miles in one direction,” Dillard said.

9

news

A visit from the president New UNC president promises to fight for higher salaries, engage WCU faculty on policy

BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER he mood was jovial as Western Carolina University’s Faculty Senate waited over cookies and coffee for their hour with Margaret Spellings to begin.

Small talk and light jokes made the minutes before her arrival feel less gravity-laden than they really were.

The University of North Carolina’s new system president walked in and made a lap around the table to shake hands before taking her seat.

“We are interested in really just getting to meet you and to know you,” David McCord, chair of the Faculty Senate and a psychology professor at WCU, said when she’d sat down.

In a later interview with The Smoky Mountain News, Spellings would describe her two-day visit at WCU as friendly, respectful, constructive, humbling and inspiring.

That’s a different tenor than the one struck elsewhere in the 17-campus UNC system since Spellings began her new job March 1. On Spellings’ first day on the job, students at UNC-Chapel Hill staged a walkout. When she visited the campus of Fayetteville State University on March 4, sign-bearing protesters showed up to the Board of Governor’s meeting she was attending.

Much of that criticism had stemmed from Spellings’ background working with the George W. Bush administration, including as Secretary of Education for four years with a hefty role in creating the No Child Left Behind Act. Critics also pointed out her paid service on the board of directors for the Apollo Group, parent company of the forprofit Phoenix University. A 2005 incident in which she, as the U.S. Secretary of Education, asked PBS to return federal funds

Smoky Mountain News

March 16-22, 2016

T

10

Margaret Spellings, new president of the UNC system, tries her hand at tapping out a beat with members of the Purple Thunder drumline during her March 10-11 visit to Western Carolina University. Donated photo following a TV show that depicted a gay couple, has also been criticized. All that was set upon the background of the controversial firing by the UNC Board of Governors of her predecessor Tom Ross and a hiring process that some categorized as secretive.

Protestors were absent from the WCU campus, however, and the impression Spellings left after she’d exited the roomful of Faculty Senate members was as warm as the reception she’d received at the start of the hour-long meeting.

“Is she going to be able to deal with the opposing pressure that she has just walked into the middle of? She seems really capable of doing that,” McCord said. “I don’t know anybody who would be better than this woman we just spent the last hour with.”

“Back in October there was a terrible search process,” McCord added. “It was secretive, it was really bad, and it was highly politicized. None of that’s her fault.”

“I think she understands a lot about who we are and our challenges,” said accounting professor Leroy Kauffman.

A conversation with Margaret Spellings Smoky Mountain News: You’ve spoken in support of leveraging private funds to support universities. Where do you see the line between support and dependence? In particular, what are your thoughts on the $2 million gift Western Carolina University has been offered from the Charles Koch Foundation?

Margaret Spellings: We want, enjoy and expect investors from all sectors — the philanthropic and private sector — to elevate and provide resources to the work that we do. It should have no strings attached. It ought to be a gift that is very beneficial to this institution overall and for the long haul, and I’m confident that Chancellor (David) Belcher has negotiated that

“It’s easy for us to get lost over on this side of the state sometimes, and she seemed to understand we don’t stop in Asheville,” agreed social work professor Jeanne Dulworth.

DEFINING WESTERN’S

FACULTY AS INNOVATORS

DIFFERENCE

Spellings listened as the faculty members made their points, agreeing that Western occupies a unique niche in the system and that the on-the-ground professors and instructors probably have the most valuable perspective when it comes to commenting on how state policies manifest in real life.

“The people in the legislature are good, well-intentioned public servants like the rest of us,” Spellings said. “They understand what this institution means to the state. They do.

But we have to give them something to work from. If not, they’ll make it up.”

She challenged the faculty to step up and be the innovators, issuing a similar call to the board of trustees the next morning.

Western and its unique place in the UNC system was a continuing theme of Spellings’ visit, coming up not only at her meeting with the Faculty Senate but in her conversations with staff and student leadership and the board of trustees.

“It’s a uniqueness and a pride,” Spellings said of the spirit she’s picked up at Western.

“It’s not a little sister kind of attitude. It’s an owning of that real difference and a pride in this region.”

Unlike institutions such as UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State, faculty told Spellings, Western is a university that draws highachievers as well as farm kids from the state’s

arrangement with this particular entity and it will mean great things for scholars and students at this particular institution.

westernmost reaches who are attempting to be their family’s first college graduate.

Students come to study philosophy and literature and sociology as well as engineering and nursing and forensic science.

“Part of what gives meaning to my life is we give some scruffy-looking kids from way out west a shot, and many make it,” McCord said. “That’s what is so great about working out here.”

But some of those long shots don’t make it. So, while Western’s freshman-to-sophomore retention rate has improved a lot in recent years, the question is how high WCU could get its rate while still fulfilling its duty to less advantaged populations.

“To say that works against us in retention rates misses some points,” McCord said.

Formulas dictated from higher up, like teacher-to-student ratio, also don’t work too well at Western, argued engineering professor Bill Yang.

“Our teaching task really is much more difficult than some other institutions who have a more uniform type of student,” Yang said — smaller classes are essential to reach the diverse student population.

“It’s not just the class size but the overall ratio and relationship there,” added philosophy and religion professor David Henderson. “You can’t have that kind of relationship with more than so many students, and that I think is really crucial to helping students who are a first-time college student or having their world expanded.”

“Our challenges are around affordability, around completion, around opportunity.”

F

unique mission? We’re in a day and time when we’re all accountable — not all for the same things. How do we know good and how do we know excellent when we see it?

SMN: What is your main takeaway SMN: Since your hiring you’ve from your time at Western Carolina? encountered some opposition. Do you MS: I think what an important part of feel that any of the criticisms are valid the community this institution is. We talk — Margaret Spellings, and how do you see yourself moving on a lot about town and gown, but that’s very, UNC president from that? very powerful in this community. It’s a MS: I think people are going to stop center of intellectual life, it’s a center of services. It’s just a major part of who and what this region is. talking about Margaret Spellings when we start talking about real things that matter to people. Our challenges are around affordability, around completion, around opportunity. Around SMN: How might what you’ve seen here affect what you this (N.C. Connect) bond, around infrastructure. Those are the do going forward? important things people are about. I’ve been well-received MS: It isn’t one size fits all. I think my job is to understand everywhere I go. I think people who love this university system what is your unique mission and how do you want to be held want me to be successful. accountable. How do you want to be resourced around your

Margaret Spellings and Chancellor David Belcher talk before a press conference in Western Carolina University’s natural sciences building, which WCU hopes to replace with funds from the N.C. Connect Bond. Holly Kays photo

There’s one issue Spellings does plan to tackle head-on this spring: salaries.

“Pay is a priority for me in this budget session, period,” she told the Faculty Senate.

“If we lose that advantage, we really undermine what we do as an institution.”

Salaries have been stagnant in the UNC system for years, and faculty are beginning to make career decisions accordingly.

Though it might sound bad for a college professor to be clamoring for pay raises for college professors, it’s not as selfish a request as

— Jeanne Dulworth, social work professor

Don’t how important important Social Social Se Security curity is Don’t underestimate underestimate how to your to y our rretirement etirement income income strategies! strategies!

Do have Do you you h ave questions questions about about Social Social Security Security and and how how it it fits fits into your into y our rretirement etirement planning? planning?

C Call all us us ffor or a ffree ree consultation! consultation! it might sound, McCord said.

“There’s going to be massive losses of talent and major inability to draw new people like we have historically been able to do,” McCord said. “The concern really is for the welfare of this overall institution and less self-serving than one might think.”

Spellings said that getting “some kind of decent raise” in this budget session seems doable and named the task her “top priority.”

Looking a little further ahead, she said, she’ll be making some — cost-neutral — changes to the UNC system’s upper administration pending a strategic planning process begun with Boston Consulting Group.

“It’s well informed and built on observation about what we can and should do more of and where we have duplicated effort,” she said of the report, which relies on 150 interviews with people across the UNC system.

Where Spellings’ administration is concerned, the proof is in a pudding yet to be served. But people at Western Carolina seemed hopeful for what her tenure might bring.

“She’s willing to listen,” Yang said.

“That’s definitely a good first step.”

Helping those in Western NC secure their retirement since 1995.

Grow your money while you work.

Secure it when you retire.

Eric Gaddy, CRPC ®

461 East Main Street Sylva, NC 28779

Smoky Mountain News

PAY IS A TOP PRIORITY

“It’s easy for us to get lost over on this side of the state sometimes, and she seemed to understand we don’t stop in Asheville.”

March 16-22, 2016

While faculty mentioned issues like class size and teaching load as examples of ill-fitting “one-size-fits-all” policies, Spellings focused her rallying cry on the anticipated negative effects of the N.C. Guaranteed Admissions Program, a law that would require some students applying to the UNC system to do two years at community college first. The law aims to improve graduation rates and save the state money, but a recent report studying its impacts for the UNC Board of Governors, Spellings said, found the program would have “serious unintended consequences.”

“While some of the objectives are legitimate objectives — affordability and access are issues — we just don’t think the solution at this time is the right one,” she said.

N.C. GAP, she said, is a case of “right problem, wrong answer.”

Because it usually takes a few years in the world of education to see whether something’s working, she said, she’d rather take some time before combating full-on the issues N.C. GAP seeks to address to get a better baseline on the effect of some more recent policy changes.

BY J ESSI STONE N EWS EDITOR After being at the helm of Region A’s Southwestern Commission, Executive Director Ryan Sherby tendered his resignation on March 1 to the board of directors.

The Southwestern Commission plays a key role in economic development for the seven western counties. Formed by the federal government in 1965, the commission acts as a conduit for local governments to receive federal funding for infrastructure, business development and training or other services. The organization also provides monitoring and oversight of grants and funding given to governments.

Sherby is only the Ryan Sherby third director in the organization’s 50-year history, but now the board will need to begin looking for his replacement. Sherby’s last day will be April 29. In his resignation letter, Sherby cited wanting to spend more time with his family and returning to his passion for cartographic science as his reason for leaving.

“It’s been a pleasure working with you, the elected officials, and all the other partner-

ing organizations in the region over the last nine years. The SWC and region it supports is full of opportunities and ready for prosperity,” Sherby wrote in his letter. “I fully intend to assist in the transition in whatever way the board and executive committee deems fit.”

Sherby spent five years with SWC as a transportation planner before former director Bill Gibson tapped him to take over when he retired. Gibson had spent 40 years with the organization and his departure represented a changing of the guard for the commission.

Waynesville Mayor Gavin Brown, who served as chairman of SWC for two years when Sherby first came on board, said Sherby’s biggest accomplishments during his tenure were the completion of the OptIn project — a regional visioning effort to try and resolve broader transportation and economic development challenges — and the revitalization of the revolving loan fund.

“We must remember that he also oversaw the core services which included workforce development, aging initiatives, community planning, leadership assistance project management, the RPO (Regional Planning Organization) and many other services,” Brown said. “He had a staff of about 20 and a budget of over $7 million. Ryan clearly saw that regionalism is the key to future economic success in the seven western counties that comprise The Southwest Commission.”

The SWC board’s next meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. Monday, March 28, at the Boiler Room Steakhouse in Franklin. No plan or timeline has been announced for finding Sherby’s replacement.

news

Director of regional planning commission resigns

(828) 505-3340 www.EthosWealthGroup.com Affiliated with Capital Investment Advisory Services, LLC. Securities offered through Capital Investment Group, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC. 100 E. Six Forks Road, Set. 200, Raleigh NC 27609 (919)831-2370. Investment products are subject to risk and may lose value. There are no assurances that strategies will meet their objectives.

11

news

The Smoky Mountain News will post 2016 Primary Election results on www.smokymountainnews.com and will have more in-depth coverage of the local and state races published Wednesday, March 16, online.

‘Seed money’ being raised for new Swain library

The seeds on sale are sparkler radish, lemon queen sunflower, state fair zinnia and bouquet dill; plus heirloom varieties Nantahala white half-runner beans, early summer crookneck squash and Boston pickling cucumber.

The new library furnishings fund receives 50 percent of the sales receipts for each packet sold directly. Individuals may also pick up a catalog or go online at SowTrueSeed.com to order different seeds using the code: MBL2016 — the new library fund receives 25 percent of those sales.

Wright said many libraries now have a heirloom seed catalog that allows members to check out seeds to grow each year. It’s a program the Swain Library hopes to get going when the new facility is built.

BY J ESSI STONE N EWS E DITOR he community support behind getting a new public library in Swain County has been impressive, but the fundraising efforts have been slow-moving in the last couple of years.

The project took a major step forward in May 2014 when a local couple, Don and Toni Davidson, donated 9 acres right outside of downtown and gave $50,000 to kick-start the fundraising campaign. Almost two years later and the campaign has raised a total of $55,000 for a project that could cost about $6 million total.

But the New Library Campaign Committee is hoping to pick up momentum once again by hosting a number of fundraisers in 2016. Janis Wright, fundraising committee chairperson, said the clock is ticking to get it done since the Davidson’s land agreement with the county The current Marianna Black Public Library in Bryson City has a specific timeline. is aging and doesn’t provide enough room for the library “The county has seven years to get the library built or the to offer programming for the community. Donated photo land reverts back to the donors,” Wright said. “And we’re two years into that.”

So far, Wright said the county has contributed a typographical For more information about the new library campaign conmap for the library site, which is tact Jeff Delfield, Swain County Librarian at 828.488.3030 required before construction can ext. 128 or by email at jdelfield@fontanalib.org. begin, and has used county equipment to keep the site “We chose Sow True Seed Company of cleared off until the project can begin.

Asheville because of their commitment to There are many reasons surrounding the need for a new library — age, space, location, open-pollinated (non-hybrid and non-GMO) varieties of vegetable, herb and flower programming, parking and more. Wright seeds,” said Wright. “Many of the varieties said the current Marianna Black Public that Sow True Seed offers are heirlooms, Library was built in 1970 and can no longer passed down through generations due to meet the needs of a growing community. their outstanding qualities.”

“They just don’t have any space — they’re crammed to the gills and can’t do any additional programming,” she said. “One big plus UNDRAISING FEAST about the new location is it’s on the way to the high school so we foresee more cooperation The New Library Campaign Committee with the school, and we’re excited about the is hosting a fundraiser dinner at 6 p.m. potential to really live in the 21st century.”

Wednesday, March 16, at Pasqualino’s The current library is only 7,267 square Italian Restaurant, 25 Everett Street, in feet, but a library consultant hired in 2011 Bryson City. reported that the new Swain library would The meal includes chicken Parmesan, need up to 21,349 square feet of space by pasta, dessert and coffee/tea (tips not 2015 and up to 25,000 square feet by 2030. included, no carry-out). Tickets cost $20 per The following fundraisers are planned to person and are on sale at the Marianna Black put money toward furnishings, fixtures and Library, corner of Academy and Rector, and equipment that will be needed inside the at the Friends of the Library Used Book new library.

Store, 35 Everett Street.

“We are excited to kick off our campaign for funds to furnish the new library with a LANTING THE SEEDS dinner at Pasqualino’s,” Wright said. “We would like to thank owners Pascual and Just in time for spring, the campaign Nancy for their willingness to be involved committee is now selling seed packets of and we’d love to see a great turnout from the selected vegetables, flowers and herbs to community in support of this initiative.” raise seed money for a new library.

T

March 16-22, 2016

Lend a hand

Smoky Mountain News

F

P

12

DeVere being sued by bonding company

T

March 16-22, 2016 Smoky Mountain News

BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER here’s another kink in the knot surrounding the ill-fated R-5000 road project connecting N.C. 107 and N.C. 116 in Jackson County — a legal battle raging between DeVere Construction, the company originally hired to build the road, and its bonding company Liberty Mutual.

According to Liberty, which is suing DeVere for $12.5 million, DeVere “willfully breached” its duty to Liberty in the way it spent funds from the bonding company, and the company also “intentionally submitted false, misleading and/or inaccurate information contained in the financial statements submitted to Liberty.”

“As a direct and proximate result of (DeVere’s) Indemnitors’ violation of law, Liberty has been damaged,” the suit alleges.

In its reply, Devere denies many of the allegations, and of the actions it admits — such as spending money from Liberty for overhead expenses rather than directly on the project it was intended for — it casts blame elsewhere. Namely, at the N.C. Department of Transportation.

“After 31 years of successful contracting, we have come to the realization we cannot recover from the damage done to our firm by the North Carolina Department of Transportation,” DeVere’s president Dick Crittenden wrote in a Nov. 24, 2015, letter to Liberty. In the company’s reply to the lawsuit, DeVere points to the “cash flow issue caused by the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s intentional and improper failure to timely pay DeVere for projects it had completed.”

For its part the DOT says that the $4.9 million of payment withheld from DeVere’s North Carolina projects was done according to contract and due to the company’s routine tardiness meeting deadline — the same reason DOT stopped awarding any new projects to DeVere in 2014.

In Liberty’s book, the issue goes back to 2013, when financial statements from the individuals named in DeVere’s indemnity agreement — Crittenden, Cheryl Lumsden and Cynthia Gabara — were submitted to assure Liberty there was enough collateral there to protect Liberty from harm. The statements claimed more than $20 million in total assets.

But when the statements were resubmitted two years later, they reported just about $7.5 million in total assets. The marked difference between the two claims set off red flags for Liberty.

“Had Liberty been aware of the misrepresentations and/or decrease in available assets, Liberty would not have continued with the bonding program it had in place on behalf of DeVere Construction,” the suit reads.

As a result, Liberty sent a Nov. 20, 2015 demand that the indemnitors post collateral and allow the bonding agency access to its books.

According to Liberty, the indemnitors never executed the agreement, never posted the collateral Liberty demanded and denied Liberty access to its books, though DeVere replied that it allowed the access.

DeVere did, however, write a letter four days later asking Liberty to bankroll its overhead for a long list of current projects — and, also, attorney’s fees for claims against the N.C. DOT. According to the letter, DeVere has more than $21 million in pending claims against the DOT. “We are confident that between receipts from the Liberty bonded jobs and the proceeds from our legal actions regarding these

news

R-5000 contractor under suit

DeVere is alleging that the DOT didn’t pay the company on time, creating the bedrock of its troubles with Liberty. But the DOT and DeVere don’t have a rosy history. In 2014, the company was banned from bidding on any new projects with the DOT due to its tendenThe company originally tasked with building cy to miss deadlines. The R-5000 project at the $30 million connector road by Southwestern Community College began in Southwestern Community College has January 2013, before that ban went into defaulted on the project and is under suit by effect, but according to division engineer its bonding company. Holly Kays photo Brian Burch, DeVere deadline issues have been present on that project as well.

The R-5000 project had been scheduled to be driver-ready in November 2015, a deadline that DOT was expecting the company to meet, Burch said. There didn’t seem to be a good reason for the delay.

“From our perspective they didn’t pursue the work toward the end of the season and they were not having subcontractors complete the work, nor were they completing their work, so unfortunately they ended up defaulting,” Burch said.

After DeVere had missed its deadline without being able to convince DOT there was need for an extension, they started getting hit with penalties — to the tune of $1,500 per day. So far, DOT has held $218,000 from the $15.9 million construction contract for damages, Burch said.

The situation with R-5000 pales in comjobs, DeVere will be able to repay all parison to that of other DeVere projects in North Carolina. A bridge project along advances,” the letter reads.

Liberty agreed to advance DeVere $2.5 Interstate 26 in Buncombe County, for example, was supposed to be done by now but is million.

But the requests didn’t stop there. On Jan. only 62 percent complete.

“They didn’t uphold their contract and 5, DeVere asked for an additional $4.1 million to keep its projects going, saying that “with- meet deadlines, and the contract includes out such additional financial assistance from nonpayment of services if you don’t meet cerLiberty they will be unable to satisfy their tain deadlines,” said DOT spokesman Steve obligations on the projects bonded by Abbott.

Now that DeVere has defaulted, it’s up to Liberty,” according to court documents.

Liberty didn’t say no. But it did require Liberty to get the work completed. DOT will that DeVere agree to a stringent set of terms, not have to pay anything above its original including liens on title to an array of eight contract with DeVere and will continue to hold vehicles — including campers, a sailboat and $1,500 per day until the work is complete. a snowmobile — owned by the three indemn- Liberty has secured Waynesville-based WNC itors and a list of all assets contained in trusts Paving to finish the work, something that Burch feels bodes well for the project.

“Based on our history with WNC The situation with R-5000 pales Paving, we expect things will go well,” he said. in comparison to that of other But DeVere’s legal issues could continue even beyond the suit from DeVere projects in North Liberty. During the course of conCarolina. A bridge project along struction, a sudden vibration took hold of SCC’s Balsam Center buildInterstate 26 in Buncombe ing, with cracks appearing afterCounty, for example, was ward. The campus abuts the road project, and it’s widely believed that supposed to be done by now the construction activities caused but is only 62 percent complete. the cracks. The college is currently considering whether to file a suit against DeVere, DOT or both to get the damage fixed. The two entities missed the to which the three had an interest.

DeVere did not comply with the agree- Feb. 19 deadline SCC had issued to receive a ment, and after a charged Jan. 28 email plan for fixing the damage, and the school’s exchange during which Liberty told DeVere board of trustees discussed the issue in a that walking off the project was not its only closed-session meeting last week.

“The college is in discussions with the varoption and DeVere insisted it was, it became clear that Liberty and DeVere would not come ious parties and is diligently trying to work to an agreement. On Jan. 29, DeVere walked out a solution,” said Chad Donnahoo, attoroff its remaining projects with the N.C. DOT, ney for SCC. Crittenden did not return requests for including R-5000 in Webster. By Feb. 8, the DOT had deemed DeVere officially in default. comment.

13

news

‘Big Slow Movers’ plague Cowee Mountain route

BY J ESSI STONE N EWS E DITOR t’s easy to spot the unstable embankments as you drive over Cowee Mountain between Macon and Jackson counties.

Rocks and dirt slowly tumble from the mountain onto the shoulder of U.S. 441, and on occasion, into the roadway. Some of the slides push up under the road, causing the pavement to rise up and make the drive bumpy. While these visuals may cause some concern for drivers, the North Carolina Department of Transportation Geological Unit is aware of these trouble areas and keeps a close eye on the mountain’s movement.

One slide area in particular — located on the right-hand side heading down the mountain on the Macon County side — has been very visible lately due to heavy rains throughout the winter months along with a constant freezing and thawing pattern.

Jack Morgan, planning director for Macon County, said that one area as you come around the last deep curve on U.S. 441 was classified by DOT as a BSM — Big Slow Mover — several years ago when the division mapped out all the slide areas in Macon County. “BSM stands for Big Slow Mover, and is an area recognized that is not small and is constantly moving but very slowly,�

Morgan said. “The DOT monitors this location, occasionally taking correct measures as needed, and would be responsible for any cleanup or repair cause by movement of this mass.�

While the DOT said it is aware of that location, District Engineer Wesley Grindstaff said the area is not currently being monitored on an ongoing basis by the DOT’s geological unit. He said the rock embankment on this particular area was

stable on a global scale and the broad shoulder on the road provides plenty of space to contain debris coming off the mountain from smaller slides. “This shallow rock slide was likely a result of extremely wet winter combined with the effects of freezing and thawing,�

Grindstaff said.

There are other slide areas along U.S. 441 where monitoring and deep rotational failures are taking place. Grindstaff said these areas show up as humps or bumps mostly in the roadway shoulders. Dealing with these kinds of problems has been commonplace since the roadway was completed in May of 1980. “These deep failures act as if a giant ice cream scoop was being used in the embankments above the roadway,� he said.

The most obvious location is near the intersection with Watauga Road where maintenance crews recently removed a large mass of material that had heaved up in the shoulder and outside the travel lane.

Because of this particular failure, NCDOT had to purchase additional right-of-way and a house structure in the early 1980s after acceptance of the highway project. “These failures are slow-moving, not sudden and catastrophic, and therefore pose little risk to roadway users,� Grindstaff said. “The best fix is simply to remove the heaved material from the shoulders every few years or as needed. These types of situations occur where complicated and unusual geology exist — particularly in silty soils with a high mica content.�

The DOT is also monitoring an area just below the runaway truck ramp heading southbound on the Macon County side, another on the west side of Macon County near Winding Stair Gap and one more on the Jackson County side of the mountain.

Dinner with a Doc on March 17

401 Grindstaff Cove, Sylva.

The March 15 primary will be the first implementation of new voter laws passed in 2013. Dr. Enrique Gómez, Jackson County NAACP president, and several members of the Association will give a press conference presenting their concerns about the effects of this legislation on the county’s election process, given studies that have shown that voter ID laws effectively suppress the votes of African Americans, Latinos/Hispanics and college students.

I

March 16-22, 2016

he

TOP 5 REASONS YOU SHOULD JOIN US FOR THE HOME GARDEN & GREEN LIVING SHOW: 1. Test e drive ELECTRIC vehicles (courtesy of the Blue Ridge Electric Vehicle e Club) 2. 200+ exhibitors – THREE LEVELS to explore! Chance to meet with local businesses and experts in ever ything home, garden and green living!

Smoky Mountain News

3. 40+ ALL NEW hands-on home, garden and green living WORKSHOPS – All workshops free with daily admission or weekend pass!

4. Antique & jewelr y APPRAISAL with Bonnie Rose Appraisals – bring your personal property items for appraisals included in general admission (coins and stamps not included)! ''SSJEBZ QN BOE 4BU 4VOEBZ QN 5. Brother Wolf with adoptable PETS. BONUS REASON: Have you seen our SEMINAR SCHEDULE? It’s amazing!

Take a a look online- you’ you’re sure to find something great!

Mark your calendars and join us at the US Cellular Center March 18th – 20th!

Jackson NAACP to discuss voting laws TO JOIN THIS EVENT OR FOR MORE INFORMA MA ATION T VISIT:

14

Dr. Filiberto ColĂłn, a gastroenterologist, will be presenting the Dinner with a Doc seminar “Colon Cancer: Prevention and Screeningâ€? at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 17, at the Haywood Regional Medical Center CafĂŠ.

ColĂłn will speak while patrons enjoy a healthy meal. Afterward, he will circulate to visit with guests and answer questions. To attend this complimentary dinner seminar, call 800.424.DOCS (3627). No children in attendance.

WWW W..GREENASHEVILLE.COM .GREENA l 828.255.2526

The Jackson County NAACP Chapter will hold a press conference regarding the effect of voting laws on the state primary at 5 p.m. March 16 at Jackson County Justice Center Building,

Planning board to discuss food trucks The Waynesville Planning Board will be presented with draft language for how the town should regulate the use of food trucks and food carts on private and public property at 5:30 p.m. Monday, March 21, in the Town Hall Board Room located at 9 South Main Street in Waynesville.

C

Jackson came up to explain that the board is already working on a revision.

Tiger focused the crux of his criticism on Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, pointing at the “lack of accountability, transparency and access to business opportunities for TERO employees at casinos.� In particular, he said, the TERO ordinance should have some kind of limitation on the contract term for nonTERO vendors so that tribal members will have a better chance to get in on rebids.

The TERO ordinance sets out requirements for tribally owned businesses to get licensed through the office and a process by which anyone bidding a project on the Qualla Boundary must abide.

Of 530 vendors at Harrah’s, he said, only 4 percent — about 23 — are TERO-certified. “The people who are overseeing these departments have been given the complete autonomy to do whatever they want to do,�

Tiger said. “They’re acting completely unprofessionally.�

Tiger found support for that position from Councilmember Teresa McCoy, of Big Cove. “I think what disturbs me the most is that

A public meeting will gauge support for a plan to give Jackson County’s Savannah community its first public park at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 22, at the Savannah Community Building.

In January, the county purchased 2.3 acres along Gay Road with the intent of building a park there, a response to requests they’d heard from community members to have some kind of public, outdoor space available in the area. The land cost $37,000, and since then the county has completed a conceptual plan to envision how it might be developed.

The preliminary plan calls for a short nature trail, a playground, swings, a picnic shelter, restrooms, a walking loop and access points to Savannah Creek, which flows along the property’s edge. Developing the park is expected to cost somewhere between $50,000 and $75,000. “The Jackson County Parks and Recreation Department is committed to improving the quality of life for the residents of Jackson County,� said Rusty Ellis, director of Jackson County Parks and Recreation.

County commissioners have repeatedly stated a goal of providing recreational amenities at all of Jackson County’s communities. After the Savannah property was purchased, commissioners began discussing the possibility of a similar project in the Qualla area, though no concrete plans are currently being considered.

Ellis can be reached at 828.293.3053. — Holly Kays, staff writer

March 16-22, 2016

BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER hange is likely coming to the ordinance outlining preference rules for tribally owned businesses. The rules come into play when bidding contracts for everything from construction projects to office supplies.

The board for the Tribal Employee Rights Office, which has new leadership since Principal Chief Patrick Lambert took office in November, has been “working diligently to fix this law,� board chair Kevin Jackson told Tribal Council this month. “There is a lack all through it,� Jackson said. “It does not benefit the vendors right now. We’re working on an ordinance change.

It’s not going to be 10 or 15 pages like what’s on the books right now. It’s going to be more in-depth, and I believe the changes we’re getting ready to propose will benefit our tribal members.�

In a nutshell, the TERO ordinance sets out requirements for tribally owned businesses to get licensed through the office and a process by which anyone bidding a project on the Qualla Boundary must abide. Basically, if a TERO vendor submits a bid that’s within 5 percent of the lowest bid, that vendor gets the project. If no bid comes in within that 5 percent window, TERO vendors get another chance to bid.

But according to Ernest Tiger, a tribal member and businessman, all is not well in the world of TERO. That’s why he approached Council this month asking for a revision to the ordinance, at which time

Public input wanted on Savannah park plan

news

Tribe looks to strengthen preference laws for tribal businesses

we, the Indian people, the Cherokee people, are paying the total debt on that gaming enterprise and then we turn around and allow that many people who have no affiliation to this tribe do the things at this casino that so many of our Indian people are capable of doing,� she said.

But Jeremiah Wiggins, director of planning and analysis for the casino, sees it differently, calling that 4 percent number “misleading.� “When we can use a TERO vendor, we do use a TERO vendor, but based upon our diverse needs here we have to seek suppliers from all over the country,� Wiggins said.

For example, every year the casino spends several million dollars on gaming machines.

Nobody on the Qualla Boundary makes those.

There are also the orders that go into Pepsi, the power contract with Duke Energy, shipments from USA Foods out of Charlotte and contracts with insurance providers. The list of similar examples is quite long, Wiggins said.

Anyway, compared to the more than 500 vendors the casino engages, TERO-certified businesses number just over 90.

As a Bryson City native, Wiggins said the staff at the casino contains a large proportion of people from the Qualla Boundary and the non-tribal Western North Carolina region. “We look for reasons to keep that money here in Western North Carolina and on the boundary, and right now providing TERO service providers that 5 percent hedge appears to work fairly well,� he said.

However, Jackson and his board are still working to make the law stronger — considering not just preference for tribally owned businesses but also for the hiring of individuals. “We would like to improve on current Indian Preference laws and TERO office so that they are effective in ensuring that native people receive their basic rights to employment, business and entrepreneurial opportunities on and near the Lands of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation,� Jackson said.

Jackson expects to have a draft ordinance ready for council’s consideration in the next month or two.

+DUULV 0HGLFDO $VVRFLDWHV +DUULV 0HGLFDO $VVRFLDWHV

8&-$0.&4 8&-$0.&4 /PX PGGFSJOH TBNF /PX PGGFSJOH TBNF EBZ BOE OFYU EBZ EBZ BOE OFYU EBZ BBQQPJOUNFOUT QQPJOUNFOUT $BMM GPS $ BMM GPS BBO BQQPJOUNFOU O BQQPJOUNFOU )BSSJT .FEJDBM 1BSL %PDUPST %SJWF 4VJUF 4ZMWB /$

ÂœÂŤÂ˘Â˘ ™Â&#x;¨™¢› Â˜Â—Â™ÂĄ ÂŞÂĽ ªž› ž¼ŠŒÂ&#x;ª—¢ —¤š ÂœÂŤÂ˘Â˘ ™Â&#x;¨™¢› Â˜Â—Â™ÂĄ ÂŞÂĽ ªž› ž¼

™¼££¤Â&#x;ÂŞÂŻ ªž—ª Â?—› £› ÂŁÂŻ Šª—¨ª

™¼££¤Â&#x;ÂŞÂŻ ªž—ª Â?—› £› Â&#x;¤ £›šÂ&#x;™Â&#x;¤› ¯›—¨Š —Â?ÂĽ —Š — Œ¨› Â&#x;¤ £›šÂ&#x;™Â&#x;¤› ¯›—¨Š —Â?ÂĽ £›š Šªš›¤ª —ª Â?›Šª›¨¤ |—¨¼¢Â&#x;¤—

£›š Šªš›¤ª —ª Â?›Šª›¨ Ž¤Â&#x;›¨ŠÂ&#x;ÂŞÂŻ ÂŒÂ&#x;¤™› ªž›¤ ‚ › ž—š Š¼

Ž¤Â&#x;›¨ŠÂ&#x;ÂŞÂŻ ÂŒÂ&#x;¤™› ªž›¤ ‚ £—¤¯ Â?¨›—ª ›ŽŒ›¨Â&#x;›¤™›Š —¤š ›š™—ªÂ&#x;¼¤—¢ £—¤¯ Â?¨›—ª ›ŽŒ›¨Â&#x;›¤™›Š —¤š

¼ŒŒ¼¨ª¤Â&#x;ÂŞÂ&#x;›Š  —¨¨Â&#x;Š ‹›Â?Â&#x;¼¤ ¼ŒŒ¼¨ª¤Â&#x;ÂŞÂ&#x;›Š  —¨¨Â&#x;Š ‹›Â?Â&#x;¼¤—¢  ¼ŠŒÂ&#x;ª—¢

ž ž›¢Œ›š £—¥› ªž—ª Œ¼ŠŠÂ&#x;Â˜Â˘Â› ›¢Œ›š £—¥› ªž—ª ÂŚ

——¤š ¤š ¤ ¤¼­ ‚ —£ Â?Â¨Â—ÂŞÂ›ÂœÂŤÂ˘ ž—› ªž› ¼­ ‚ —£ Â?Â¨Â—ÂŞÂ›ÂœÂŤÂ˘

Smoky Mountain News

(SBZ &SMBDIFS . % (SBZ &SMBDIFS . %

‚ª Â&#x;Š ¨›—¢¢¯ ›Ž™Â&#x;ÂŞÂ&#x;¤Â? ÂœÂĽÂ¨ £› ÂŞÂĽ ™¼£› ‚ª Â&#x;Š ¨›—¢¢¯ ›Ž™Â&#x;ÂŞÂ&#x;¤Â? ÂœÂĽÂ¨ £›

¼ŒŒ¼¨ª¤Â&#x;ÂŞÂŻ ÂŞÂĽ Â?Â&#x;› ¼ŒŒ¼¨ª¤Â&#x;ÂŞÂŻ ÂŞÂĽ Â?Â&#x;› Â˜Â—Â™ÂĄ ÄŠÄŠ

/ /FFE B 1IZTJDJBO FFE B 1IZTJDJBO $BMM PVS 1IZTJDJBO 3FGFSSBM -JOF BU %0$4 $BMM PVS 1IZTJDJBO 3FGFSSBM -JOF BU %0$4

15

March 16-22, 2016

news

Canton proposes downtown pedestrian improvements

BY J ESSI STONE N EWS E DITOR hen Canton town officials were notified that the North Carolina Department of Transportation would be repaving all of Main Street starting in May, they knew it was the right time to complete some much-needed pedestrian improvement projects in downtown.

The quick timeline doesn’t leave much time for the town to plan for and execute the improvement projects, but Town Manager Seth Hendler-Voss said completing the projects before the DOT repaves the street will save the town money in the long run by preventing the need to tear up new pavement.

“As soon as (DOT) told us, we realized it was an opportunity for us to address some longstanding issues in downtown related to parking, pedestrians and speed,” he said. “It’s a prime opportunity to put together a design solution that could be implemented by staff crews.”

Hendler-Voss will be presenting conceptual plans for the proposed pedestrian safety, accessibility, drainage, traffic-calming and parking improvements at 5:30 p.m.

Thursday, March 17, at Canton Town Hall.

Members of the public, especially merchants and property owners downtown, are invited to provide feedback on the projects.

“We want to let everyone know what to expect with the proposed improvements and get input,” Hendler-Voss said. “Hopefully we can build consensus so we can start in next month.”

Hendler-Voss has spent the last couple of weeks meeting with downtown merchants and property owners to inform them about the improvements, as they will be impacted the most during the process.

W

RUMORS LEAD TO RUCKUS Even though the Canton Board of Aldermen directed him to gather input from stakeholders prior to having a public input

meeting about it, Hendler-Voss said the approved process got derailed somewhere along the way. Incorrect information about the project details started swirling around town and made it seem like the board wasn’t being forthcoming about it to the public.

Rumors around town made it back to the Feb. 25 Canton board meeting and resulted in what Alderwoman Carole Edwards described as a “nasty exchange” between the board members, the mayor and Hendler-Voss.

It started when downtown business owner Chuck Bates came before the board during public comment to ask for a public meeting to discuss the proposed Main Street improvements because several merchants were concerned that they had not been involved in the planning process.

Hendler-Voss hadn’t had a chance to talk to all the business owners and the board hadn’t even seen the preliminary plans yet.

Alderman Zeb Smathers said he felt rumors were only being spread around town to create unneeded controversy. He also questioned how people could be upset and concerned about a project that hadn’t even been shared with the board yet.

Mayor Mike Ray admitted that he went to town hall one day to ask about the project plans. While Hendler-Voss wasn’t in the office at the time, Assistant Town Manager Jason Burrell showed him the preliminary drawings. Ray also said during the meeting that he didn’t remember the board authorizing the manager to hire Vaughn Melton engineers to complete the conceptual drawings, but all the other board members confirmed that the board did authorize the action.

Feeling that Ray was the source of misunderstanding in the community, board members became visibly irritated with the entire situation.

Smathers banged his fist on the table and demanded that this “back biting” stop.

Canton sets up incentives for downtown businesses Smoky Mountain News

BY J ESSI STONE N EWS E DITOR ven though the money isn’t yet in place, the town of Canton is considering several options for economic development incentives for businesses willing to invest in the downtown corridor.

Town leaders have been working steadily over the last couple of years to revive Canton’s dilapidated downtown by creating an economic development initiative, adopting downtown commercial maintenance standards, completing beautification projects and trying to host more events downtown.

It’s been a slow and steady process, but Town Manager Seth Hendler-Voss said the board of aldermen is beginning to see some 16 good indicators of success — Kobe Express

E

opened another location on the corner of Park Street and Main Street, Smoky Mountain Sub Shop is getting ready to open a location in downtown, more people are getting their vacant buildings ready to sell and more people are interested in buying downtown real estate.

While the board has met many of its economic development goals, Assistant Town Manager Jason Burrell said the next step is to approve a policy for offering economic development incentive options for building and business owners downtown.

“We’re basically throwing everything plus the kitchen sink at folks to help them help us,” Burrell said. “This is everything we can do under the law to help people.”

The proposed policy offers seven different

Canton Board of Aldermen hope an upcoming sidewalk repair and improvement project will help the town reach its goal of a revitalized downtown. Margaret Hester photo Hendler-Voss apologized for any misunderstandings in the community and assured everyone that the plan all along was to hold a public meeting to discuss the plans before anything was set in stone.

Alderman Ralph Hamlett asked merchants to come to the town manager if they had a question or concern about something

Be heard Canton Board of Aldermen will hold a public input meeting for proposed downtown street and sidewalk improvements at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, March 17, at Canton Town Hall on 58 Park Street.

Conceptual plans will be presented for a series of proposed pedestrian safety, accessibility, drainage, traffic-calming and parking improvements in downtown Canton. Downtown property owners, merchants and the general public are encouraged to attend.

grant options for industries, developers and entrepreneurs wanting to start a business in Canton and also grants for existing commercial real estate owners wanting to make improvements to their buildings.

“The size and scope of the potential incentives will be based on a number of factors, including the category of incentive requested; the location of the site; the amount of capital investment in the project; the number of employees and the equity and quality of jobs created,” the policy states. “A major component of the incentive policy is to foster sustainable business and create quality jobs that will in turn stimulate the economy and further economic development potential.”

The incentive plan was put before the board of aldermen and approved during a March 10 meeting.

If the town moves forward with implementing these programs, Burrell said, state law requires that the town designate a Business Improvement District area in order to offer some of the incentives. A public hearing would have to be held before that district

instead of listening to rumors being spread around town.

The argument drew to a close with Smathers saying it was frustrating to see town progress constantly being met with blowback simply because one person — the mayor — is creating conflict when he doesn’t like something.

“Either you lead and do it morally correct with character, or you don’t do it at all,” Smathers said.

Edwards, who left the Feb. 25 meeting early and missed the argument over the sidewalk project, had a statement prepared for her board at the March 10 meeting. After listening to the audio recording of the meeting, she said she was disappointed in how the board handled the situation. She said the board should have addressed Bates’ questions and concerns without questioning where they originated.

“It definitely ended up being a circus, and I’m embarrassed and upset about what went on. I’m not sure how Mayor Ray kept his composure to go on with the meeting,” she said. “If that’s the way we’re going to act, I don’t want to be a part of it. I’ll stand up and walk out.”

is finalized. As the town begins to hold budget workshops in the coming months, the board will discuss possible funding allocations for these programs.

Here are the options laid out in the incentives policy: Economic Development Assistance Program — A financial incentive between the town and a new or existing commercial entity where the town can issue a grant for up to five years in exchange for a new capital investment and a certain number of full-time jobs.

The grant will be calculated and based on the actual value, schedule and payment of property taxes. Under this option, a qualified business would pay its property taxes but would then be reimbursed a portion of the taxes based on the grant agreement with the town.

The grant applicant must renovate an existing building or construct a new building for a minimum investment of $1.5 million. An existing business looking to relocate must have a minimum of 10 full-time jobs with a promise to expand its labor force in whatever way is

F

news

Escape your current wireless plan.

We’ll cover ALL your switching costs.

(ETF or remaining device balance.)

Plus, get $300 back per line in U.S. Cellular® Promo Cards.

You can even turn in a phone with a cracked screen.

March 16-22, 2016 Things we want you to know: Shared Connect Plan, Customer Service Agreement with Retail Installment Contract, Device Protection+ (DP+), port-in and Smartphone turn-in required. Credit approval required. $25 Device Activation Fee applies. Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee (currently $1.82/line/month) applies; this is not a tax or gvmt. required charge. Additional fees (including Device Connection Charges), taxes, terms, conditions and coverage areas apply and may vary by plan, service and phone. Unlimited Contract Payoff Promo: Submit final bill identifying Early Termination Fee (ETF) or final device balance owed within 60 days of activation date to uscellular.com/contractpayoff or via mail to U.S. Cellular Contract Payoff Program 5591-61; PO Box 752257; El Paso, TX 88575-2257. Customer will be reimbursed for the ETF or remaining device balance reflected on final bill subject to the conditions of the offer. Reimbursement in the form of a U.S. Cellular MasterCard® Debit Card issued by MetaBank,® Member FDIC, pursuant to license from MasterCard International Incorporated.

This card does not have cash access and can be used at any merchant location that accepts MasterCard Debit Cards within the U.S. only. Card valid through expiration date shown on front of card. Allow 8–10 weeks for processing after final submission. $300 Switcher Incentive: $100 Promotional Card given at point of sale. Additional $200 Promotional Card will be mailed to customer within 6–8 weeks. Promotional Cards issued

by MetaBank, Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. Valid only for purchases at U.S. Cellular stores and uscellular.com. Turned-in Smartphone must have been active on former carrier’s plan and be in fully functional, working condition without any liquid damage or broken components, including, but not limited to, a cracked housing. Smartphone must power on and cannot be pin locked. DP+ enrollment required.

The monthly charge for DP+ is $8.99 for Smartphones. A deductible per approved claim applies. You may cancel DP+ anytime. Federal Warranty Service Corporation is the Provider of the DP+ ESC benefits, except in CA and OK. Limitations and exclusions apply. For complete details, see an associate for a DP+ brochure. Offers valid at participating locations only and cannot be combined. See store or uscellular.com for details.

Limited-time offer. Trademarks and trade names are the property of their respective owners. ©2016 U.S. Cellular

Smoky Mountain News

agreed upon in the grant. Eligible industries include manufacturing, service industry, distribution, administrative management, transportation, brewing and other tourismrelated businesses.

Small Business Development Incentive — This incentive is designed to provide the same kind of assistance as the first program but specifically for building or business owners wanting to invest in redevelopment projects between $200,000 and $1.49 million.

This program grant can be awarded for a maximum of three years.

Infrastructure Development Program — While this program is not a grant initiative, it will assist new commercial industries with needed infrastructure like road access, sidewalks, waterlines and sewer lines. The town is willing to make site-specific infrastructure improvements up to the point where public property meets the private property when it’s in the best interest of the town. The amount of funding will depend on the amount of increased town property tax revenue generated from the business locating to Canton.

Interior Building Improvement Grant Program — This grant is to offer an incentive program to locate, upgrade or expand the interior of a building otherwise in a state of dilapidation or in danger of becoming a blight. Priority will be given to projects that address safety and health concerns and those that have a clear economic impact in the district. Grant reimbursement would be available for up to $10,000 or 50 percent of the rehabilitation costs depending on which one is less.

Façade Improvement Grant Program — Since the architectural quality and aesthetic appeal in downtown Canton is especially important to the board, this program would assist business and building owners in making improvements to the exterior face of a building in downtown. The town would work with the owner to ensure any façade upgrades are consistent with the historic feel of downtown Canton.

Architectural and/or Design Services Grant Program — This incentive is to encourage professional design projects that will capitalize on the rehabilitation of existing properties or the introduction of new buildings downtown. To be eligible, a building must be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, located in the historic district or within the town’s Business Improvement District. The grant would provide 50 percent of the design cost or up to $1,500 per project, depending on which is cheaper.

Delayed annexation — Town policy states that any commercial customer outside of the town limits wanting a new connection to the town’s water and sewer system must petition for voluntary annexation and the annexation must be final before the business can hook onto the system. However, this incentive would allow commercial businesses to delay annexation for up to five years while the industry is under construction and getting on its feet. As with the other incentives, businesses must be making a substantial capital investment and show proof of project financing.

FIND US AT

facebook.com/smnews

17

news

Envisioning Sylva’s future Town leaders talk economy, recreation and civic engagement

BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER ylva’s town leaders spent a sunny Saturday indoors armed with pen, paper and heads full of ideas for bringing the small town toward a bright future.

And while they may not have left the building with a perfect road map, the four-hour brainstorming session ended with some solid ideas for how to prepare Sylva for success.

Town commissioners laid out a vision of a downtown with buildings full of retail and restaurant businesses, their second and third floors renovated to provide indemand apartment living right in the heart of Sylva. In this ideal future, a cleaned-up Scotts Creek would encounter anglers, paddlers and splashing children on its run through Sylva, and town parks as good as any small town around — perhaps even a skate park for Sylva’s youth — would draw people out-of-doors, with walkable streets making pedestrians abundant.

March 16-22, 2016

S

Aesthetics — power and phone lines buried, aging storefronts renovated, pocket parks prevalent, litter abolished and flowerbeds aplenty — were also at the forefront of the vision. And on the human side, town leaders dreamed of an engaged public — town residents who would come to town meetings, give their input on municipal decisions and take some leadership of their own to make the community the best it could be.

But how to get there?

Arriving at the answer will take far longer than the afternoon board members spent hashing out their ideas, but during

that planning session they laid out their next steps for moving the many balls in play further down the court.

GROWING THE TAX BASE Sylva has long struggled with a shoestring budget that sometime prevents even basic expenditures — like repaving roads in

Smoky Mountain News

Building parks for teenagers

18

Improved parks and public spaces got top billing from Sylva’s commissioners as the board brainstormed through its vision for the small town’s future.

Specifically, parks geared toward teenagers. Like, maybe, a skate park or a teen center boasting couches and video games.

“The high school set is someone who’s very bored around here. There’s plenty to do for a little kid and there’s plenty to do for a big kid,” said Commissioner Greg McPherson, but teens are often left hanging.

“They have to have someplace to go,” agreed Commissioner Barbara Hamilton.

Right now, a lot of the teens who hang out in town are at the basketball court over at Poteet Park, but that’s right next to the playground where little kids and their parents go. Sarah Thompson, the Southwestern Commission’s planning director who led the planning meeting, is also a parent who lives in the area.

She’s had to scold the teens before for using foul language or smoking cigarettes around the children, she said.

“They don’t have anywhere else to go, but they don’t always mix well with what that park was intended for,” Thompson said.

A skate park could fill the void, commissioners postulated.

a timely manner — let alone working on wish list projects.

If that’s going to change, board members agreed, they’ll need to work toward growing the tax base, and the key to growing the tax base will be encouraging residential living, with a robust rental market on Main Street’s upper floors as something of a holy grail.

“The more people that you have living downtown and using downtown as their shopping area, the more likely a business will locate there if they know they’ll have a lot of customers,” said Sarah Thompson, planning and development director for the Southwestern Commission, who led the workshop.

Thompson is a former Sylva commissioner.

If more people live downtown, Thompson said, then Main Street will naturally shift to include more shopping and Sarah Thompson dining options, and fewer ground-level professional offices.

The challenge for Sylva is that its downtown buildings are old and many of their upper floors aren’t renovated. Those kinds of renovations are costly.

Commissioner Greg McPherson knows the conundrum firsthand, as he’s the owner of a building downtown with an unfinished floor. He estimates it would cost him about $2 million to renovate.

“I have to make sure … that we (Sylva) are moving forward, always moving forward and not moving backward, before I make that monumental investment,” he said.

Commissioners threw out ideas as to how they might encourage such investment.

Maybe there are grants available? Perhaps

They admitted, though, that it would also provide some challenges.

“If you had a park where only those kids go, you don’t have any self-regulation,” Nestler said. While curse words might slip and cigarettes might come out at the basketball court by Poteet, he said, having to hang out so close to the little kids might cause the teens to self-regulate more than they would at a skate park.

“We can sit here and josh about those skateboards all we want to, but we also have to talk to our police chief about how you regulate stuff like that,” said Commissioner Harold Hensley.

Hamilton, meanwhile, questioned how much police regulation would need to be involved. From that standpoint, having a skate park might actually be an improvement.

“They have no place to go so they do skate where they shouldn’t sometimes,” she said.

The idea gathered enough enthusiasm for commissioners to support studying it further. They committed to look at possible locations and costs for a skate park, with Thompson reminding them that “skate park” can take many forms, not all of them prohibitively expensive.

“Waynesville put one in that was awesome and expensive and huge. It doesn’t have to be that,” Thompson said. “You can put a skate feature in an existing park and still achieve a little bit of

they could come up with some other way to incentivize building owners? The discussion will likely be one that continues into the future.

And it could be, Thompson said, that Sylva just needs more time for its economy to keep growing, its downtown to keep improving, before it reaches that “tipping point” where building owners feel secure that their investment will pay off.

Tax base growth could extend well beyond the downtown district.

Commissioners expressed interest in continuing an ongoing discussion about allowing smaller lot sizes in town. The town requires minimum lot sizes of 0.18 to 0.4 acres per building, depending on which residential district the area is in. Some commissioners think those required acreages are too large, preventing development of more affordable, higher-density housing.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Besides attracting people to Sylva’s city limits, commissioners discussed how to attract the residents it does have to greater town involvement.

Commissioner David Nestler said he’d like to see “more people involved in local politics. Meetings that are full.”

Meanwhile, Commissioner Barbara Hamilton envisioned “a well-run board who … encourages people to step up for leadership roles.”

Thompson encouraged board members in that vision, reminding them that working with community members who show a desire for leadership — rather than trying to operate in a vacuum — can go a long way toward getting things done.

“Don’t feel like you’re up there in town hall operating all alone,” Thompson said.

The group threw out several ideas for engaging the public, getting them familiar with their town government and feeling like they have a stake in it.

Nestler suggested the town begin a monthly litter pick-up, with a rotating schedule so that each

F

that goal.”

The skate park wasn’t the only project to make it on commissioners’ list of future projects.

They want to fix up Sylva’s three entrances to downtown, make them more welcoming. Water fountains and restrooms downtown would make the town more inviting to tourists. Toward the long-term goal of cleaning up Scotts Creek, fishing piers along its run through Sylva would allow the town to take advantage of all the creek has to offer. And it would be pretty great, commissioner Mary Gelbaugh said, to put in a water feature downtown. Kids love that stuff.

It’s a lengthy list, and the line between which projects become 3D accomplishments and which remain relegated to the world of paper files will likely be determined by the enthusiasm each garners.

“The project that surfaces to the top first is going to be the one that garners the most energy and support,” Thompson said.

“If Mary Gelbaugh goes nuts on a water feature — finds the spot for it, finds a grant for it, talks to TWSA (Tuckasegee Water and Sewer Authority) about it, and then y’all are like, ‘Let’s start raising money for it, maybe that one would happen first.

“You don’t have a fluffy enough budget,” she added, “to say, ‘Let’s prioritize these and build them.”

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

In a recent four-hour planning session, Sylva’s commissioners boiled down buckets of daydreams into a few black-and-white goals and objectives for the town. ■Improve, finish and expand town parks.

Board members agreed to study the possible locations and cost for a skate park, teen center, water fountains, water feature, public restrooms and fishing piers. They will also keep everyone engaged in the Scotts Creek Watershed Plan they’re working to fund. ■Have the town board operate from a cohesive vision toward successful implementation of projects. Board members will stay actively involved in Jackson County’s comprehensive planning process and strive to be thoughtful, considerate and open as a public body. The board will discuss changing its meeting times in April. ■Develop new logo and website.

Commissioner Greg McPherson will provide a possible logo design this summer, and the board will look into the cost of a new website. â– Increase civic participation. The board will organize a community cleanup in April and regularly scheduled cleanups afterward.

They’ll also partner with Western Carolina University for a youth art month next year, and organize a December luminaries and quarterly yard sale event. ■Maintain infrastructure well. Needed road improvements will be prioritized, the pedestrian plan will be implemented, and discussions will start with Duke Energy regarding options for burying power lines downtown. A gateway improvement program will be developed and the board will work with the N.C. Department of Transportation to incorporate town plans into future state projects. ■Grow tax base by increasing housing stock. Change ordinances to allow smaller lot sizes, encourage building renovations downtown, identify neighborhoods ready for revitalization and explore possibilities for water and sewer improvements. ■Grow tax base with business development. Create business-friendly ordinances and assert town interests in the Jackson County Economic Development Department.

Enter the 2016

Business Plan Contest & win up to

10,000

$

INFO: 456.3021 DEADLINE: MAY 12

SUPPORTED BY: Haywood County Chamber of Commerce, Haywood Economic Development Council, Haywood Community College Small Business Center, Haywood Advancement Foundation.

No Need to go to a Big Box Store.

We Have Lower Prices, Higher Quality and Experienced Staff.

www.ThePrintHaus.com

$PMPS $PQZJOH 1SJOUJOH t -PX 1SJDFT # 8 4FMG 4FSWF $PQJFST )JHI 4QFFE -PX $PTU %JHJUBM 8JEF 'PSNBU "SDIJUFDUVSBM &OHJOFFSJOH $PNQMFUF #JOEFSZ t .PVOUJOH t -BNJOBUJOH t $PJM #JOET 3FEVDF &OMBSHF 4DBOOJOH $PMPS PS # 8 t 1SJOU GSPN F ĂśMFT

THE PRINT HAUS INC. GROUP Since 1982

Smoky Mountain News

eyesore, she said. “It’s absolutely an aesthetic issue,� agreed McPherson.

Commissioner agreed to get someone from Duke Energy to come by their meetings soon to talk about what might be involved in getting that done.

The list of to-dos is a long one, the goals and objectives and notes scattered around the room on giant sticky-notes numerous by the time the meeting was over. But commissioners saw plenty to motivate them, plenty of worthy goals to work toward, papering the wall as they left full of dreams for how to bring Sylva toward its potential.

And, perhaps, better prepared to meet the goal that underscored them all: operating from a cohesive vision, striving for the successful implementation of projects to better the town.

NOW’S THE TIME TO START YOUR OWN BUSINESS!

March 16-22, 2016

Town government should also give some thought to updating its image, commissioners said. That starts with the logo and the website.

McPherson, who’s an adjunct art professor at WCU, said the website looks like “1980s Atari� and is in severe need of revamping. He said the angular mountainscape logo at the top of the page isn’t the most modern either.

He offered to donate his skills as a designer to come up with some logo options for commissioners to consider — the board asked him to present some possibilities this summer — and Thompson suggested that they ask for some cost estimates on redoing the website. “We already have all the content we want in there,� McPherson said. It just needs an overhaul to improve Sylva’s digital first impression.

Thompson guesstimated it might cost $6,000 to $8,000 to get a site done the town could be proud of. “It needs to be updated and get a fresh look,� agreed Town Manager Paige Dowling.

Just as the website is the town’s first impression for digital visitors, the road entrances at the Grindstaff and Mill intersection, and at either end of U.S. 23 going through downtown, are the town’s physical first impression. Those need some attending to, board members agreed. “I think we need much better entrances, real inviting entrances, to town,� Hamilton said.

In addition, Mayor Lynda Sossamon added, improving walkability should be a priority.

In the long-term, added Gelbaugh, it would be great to get power and phone lines downtown buried. They’re a bit of an

The town’s to do list

news

month a different commissioner leads it.

That would be “a chance to not only get out there and pick up trash, but meet one of your commissioners,� Nestler said.

What about working with local schools to get kids’ artwork displayed in storefronts downtown — especially during the winter months when reasons to wander downtown are fewer — suggested Commissioner Mary Gelbaugh?

McPherson expressed support for the idea, telling the board what he’s observed following a similar effort at Western Carolina University’s Fine Art Museum, where he works. “Yesterday I was walking around and there were people that you would never see in an art museum, looking at their kids’ artwork,� he said.

Thompson threw a few other suggestions in the mix, such as periodically moving town meetings offsite to locations people might be more comfortable going to, or developing a “civic academy� for people to come to and learn a little bit about how a town actually operates. Hamilton asked that the board consider shifting its meeting times so they don’t conflict with the Jackson County Commissioners’.

R

Authorized ShipCenter

YOUR HOMETOWN PRINT, COPY, DIRECT MAIL, SHIPPING & SIGN SHOP

641 North Main Street, WAYNESVILLE, NC

509 Asheville Hwy., Suite B, SYLVA, NC

828-456-HAUS (4287)

828-586-HAUS (4287)

(3/10 (3/10 Mile Mile North North of of the the Courthouse) Courthouse)

(Located (Located in in the the NAPA NAPA Auto Auto Parts Parts Center) Center)

19

news

;Y` :VTL[OPUN +PɈLYLU[

FISH FRY Friday, March 18th · 5:30

Banking...

Parish Hall at St. Margaret of Scotland Catholic Church Soco Road across from Tube World

Find us on Facebook. Federally Insured by NCUA

$10 Adults $5 Children (under 12) Includes Drink & Dessert

Smoky Mountain News

March 16-22, 2016

Sponsored by Knights of Columbus

THE FAMILY CARE CENTER

Take Control of Your Health We can help you build a custom nutrition plan at the Family Care Center.

Call 828-554-5565 to make an appointment.

20

77 Painttown Road (Hwy. 19) • Cherokee, North Carolina

Community

Smoky Mountain News

MANNA recognizes Jackson County donors MANNA FoodBank recognized Jackson County partner agencies and food industry donors for their unwavering dedication to ending hunger for the residents of Jackson County.

In Jackson County, one in six residents face food insecurity, and one in three children are living in food-insecure homes. In 2015, MANNA partner agencies distributed a grand total of 890,900 pounds of food to Jackson County families seeking emergency food support.

Partners include Fishes & Loaves Food Pantry; Community Bible Church/The Market at the Point; Vecinos Inc. Farmworkers Health Program; Community Table of Jackson County; United Christian Ministries of Jackson County and Whittier United Methodist Church (Grace House).

Second graders and fifth graders at Summit Charter School in Cashiers helped MANNA FoodBank provide meals for people in Jackson County though the Fishes & Loves Food Pantry. Donated photo

Mountain Radiance partners with WOW

Enter Sarge’s annual Pet Photo Contest

Mountain Radiance Medical Spa in Clyde is partnering with Women of Waynesville in an effort to eradicate homeless in Haywood County.

From March 18 to March 25, Mountain Radiance will be donating 10 percent of spa proceeds to WOW to help the all women organization with its next long-term goal of addressing homelessness in the community.

“The reason we are doing this is that we believe in the good work that WOW is doing. We would like to make a demonstration that Mountain Radiance Medical Spa supports local charities, especially ones that focus on the needs of women, children and cancer victims,” said Dr. Allan Zacher.

Services that Mountain Radiance provides are “age reversal” techniques which include a large variety of non-surgical treatments including Botox, Juvederm, Laser resurfacing, peels, Obagi and other high quality skin care products that can help reduce the appearance of sun, gravity and age-related aging issues.

828.627.2711.

Sarge’s Animal Rescue Foundation is accepting entries for its annual Pet Photo Contest, which is now accepting digital entries.

Winners will be announced by email Friday, April 8, with the awards ceremony Saturday, April 16, at Sarge’s Adoption Center in Waynesville. Gift certificates will be awarded as prizes.

Entry forms and entry rules are available at www.sargeanimals.org/tenth-annualpet-photography-contest or by email at sargesanimalrescuefoundation@gmail.com.

The deadline for entries is Friday, April 1.

828.246.9050.

Haywood Habitat kicks off ‘Women Build 2016’ Haywood Habitat for Humanity will kick off “Women Build 2016” from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, March 19, at its new project in Waynesville, Walton Woods.

The mission of Women Build is to empower women to take action to end poverty housing conditions in our community. Women from all walks of life are invited to get involved and help Haywood Habitat serve more families. No special skills are needed. Training is provided, and so is lunch.

828.452.7960 or www.haywoodhabitat.org.

Sylva church recognized for program The First Baptist Church of Sylva’s After School Ministry has been selected as the 2016 recipient of the Faith-Based Program of the Year award from the North Carolina Center for After School Programs.

The After School Ministry began in 2013 with a small group of middle school children. Since then, the ministry has grown to provide after school care for elementary and middle school children each day of the week to over 35 families in Jackson County. 828.586.2095 or www.fbcsylva.com.

Christian Ministry dedicates building Haywood Christian Ministry, a principal services provider for those in need in Haywood County, announced the dedication and renaming of its physical facilities in honor of Jay and Buckie Somers.

HCM’s Board of Directors voted to name the Haywood Christian Ministry facilities, The Buckie & Jay Somers Crisis Center.

The Somers have been longstanding supporters of the ministry and its mission.

They have been underwriters for the annual HCM Charity Golf Tournament for many years.

A ceremony will be held in the near future celebrating the dedication.

FUR of WNC to hold annual meeting Feline Urgent Rescue of WNC will hold its annual meeting at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 2, at the Waynesville Public Library, 678 S. Haywood Street, in Waynesville.

FUR of WNC is a nonprofit charitable rescue dedicated to the care and placement of displaced cats. FUR operates a 2,600square-foot state-certified sanctuary. The sanctuary can care for 84 cats at any given time, and there is always a waiting list for intakes.

828.421.1290 or email info@furofwnc.org.

Haywood Regional to hold free workshop An upcoming event to address advance directives, share information and answer questions will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday, March 22, at the Senior Resource Center at 81 Elmwood Way, Waynesville.

The free event will include medical personnel, a chaplain and an attorney, along with multiple members of the Haywood Regional Medical Center Hospice and Palliative Care Team, as well as some additional community resources with relevant information.

828.452.5039 or 828.452.2370.

21

• The Community Kitchen in Canton is moving to a new location at 394 Champion Drive and needs to raise $120,000 for the building purchase and needed upgrades to continue the food ministry. Monetary donations can be mailed to: The Community Kitchen, P.O. Box 513, Canton, NC 28716. 828.648.0014 or www.cantoncommunitykitchen.org.

• Harrah’s Cherokee Casino has an agreement with The National Lacrosse League’s (NLL) Georgia Swarm for exclusive field naming rights during Georgia’s home games. The Swarm’s home playing field will now be referred to as “Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Field” at Infinite Energy Arena. Infinite Energy Arena is located near Duluth, Georgia.

• Haywood County Health and Human Services hired Patrick H. Johnson, RN-BC, MPA, Colonel (retired) USAF, to serve as the new Public Health Director for the agency. Johnson spent his military career delivering clinical and administrative medical services around the globe, including tours of duty in both Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

ALSO:

• Haywood County Sheriff’s Deputy Daniel Blagg, who has for the past three years spearheaded the Cops-on-Top fundraising event for Special Olympics, has received special accolades from the state. He will be teaching other law enforcement officers across North Carolina how to plan and organize similar events when he attends the upcoming 2016 Torch Run kickoff conference.

• REACH of Macon County has a new online gift registry that will help highlight items needed to operate the new VanDrake Shelter in Franklin. Visit the registry and scroll through the shopping list to purchase items to donate. www.myregistry.com/public/reachvandrakeshelter.com.

• Stecoah Valley Cultural Arts Center is now accepting donations for Stecoah’s Spring Yard Sale Fundraiser. Donations may be dropped off from 4 to 6 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays; 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, March 12, and on Saturday, April 9. This year’s yard sale is from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, April 23.

• April is Public Health Month and to raise awareness about the important role public health plays in our lives, Macon County Public Health will recognize a “Public Health Hero” in the month of April. Citizens may nominate community volunteers for this award by completing the short nomination form found at maconnc.org. The deadline is April 4.

828.349.2437.

• Angel Medical Center’s Relay for Life Team will have an Easter Basket Silent Auction in the cafeteria March 14-18. The highest bidder will be announced March 21. All proceeds will go to Relay for Life of Franklin.

Opinion Maggie Valley should make town center happen W 22

Smoky Mountain News

Scott McLeod

hen small towns think and act big, amazing things can happen. Anyone who has traveled has come across communities that have taken risks and been rewarded for it, vibrant small towns that are just fun to visit.

I think the town center plan currently being studied in Maggie Valley fits that description.

Everyone who has followed Maggie Valley town issues since the demise of Editor Ghost Town knows there have been fits and starts and some good work toward keeping the town viable as a tourist destination.

But Maggie needs a shot in the arm.

The fairgrounds is a fantastic asset, and one that can be used as part of an anchor to the town center plan. Slowing traffic, encouraging walking and biking, putting in ameni-

ties for children like the splashpad, constructing a median with benches and trees, and finally developing an ice skating rink would all be great draws for visitors.

And it would be new and pretty. Let’s be honest: like many towns, Maggie Valley is a bit rundown in places. Many of its buildings and properties are old, and some aren’t well kept. And the power poles that were installed years ago look more suitable for carrying cross-country transmission lines rather than just normal power lines through a small town.

Maggie Valley’s growth along the Soco Road corridor has been organic and worked for a long time. But today’s travelers want to walk, want to move around outdoors along Main Street type locations, want to get near creeks and playgrounds. Maggie can’t remake its past, but it can take measured steps to create a new feel in its business district.

It will take a protracted, years-long process for Maggie Valley to make something this substantial happen. Money will have to be set aside and loans taken out. But if the town is

smart it can use debt wisely to take steps that will increase its tax base and serve as more of an investment than expenditure.

And that really is the attitude that has to be embraced. Investing in the town’s future will pay dividends. Do nothing and that’s what you’ll get in return.

LOTTERY SCAM We were taken for a ride.

When North Carolina’s citizens were asked to support a lottery and when the legislature passed the measure in 2006, the promise was that it would not take the place of state expenditures on education. It would supplement those dollars and provide money for buildings and for low-income students to attend college.

It was a lie. Our cover story last week showed that school systems throughout the state are now using the lottery money on teacher salaries, money that should come from Raleigh. But since education funding was slashed when the recession hit in 2007,

Donald Trump, you haven’t fooled me

I

president?

“He says what he thinks.”

Yes, he says what he thinks, but is he actually saying anything at all? In my opinion, he pretty much seems to be yelling most of the time or talking out of the side of his mouth. I’m not hearing any clear strategy or solid plans for our country.

Don’t get me wrong. He’s a phenomenal actor, but let’s not get duped, people. We’re better than that.

“He’s going to bring America back to God.” Columnist Really? This one really cracks me up. I just read a news article where Dr. Russel More, head of the influential Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said, “Trump has made his living as a casino mogul in an industry that preys on the poor and incentivizes immoral and often criminal behavior. He is an unrepentant serial adulterer who has abandoned two wives for other women. ... I don’t think this is someone who represents the values that evangelicals in this country aspire to.”

Furthermore, when asked about the sacrament of communion, a recent NPR article quoted Trump as saying, “When I drink my little wine — which is about the only wine I drink — and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness.”

Wow. I understand that people are frustrated. I am one of those people. My family is middle-class, and we get struck from all angles.

We make too much money to catch a break but don’t make

Susanna Barbee

’ve been watching the Trump shenanigans from afar, laughing it off as a collective momentary lapse in judgment, but as he continues to gain momentum, I’m becoming dumbfounded by how many Americans are so easily deceived.

We all remember who was president when we were kids, and if my boys’ childhood memories are muddled whatsoever

by Donald Trump’s bully-like, chauvinistic behavior, I’m going to be heartbroken.

Maybe I’m a blatant conspiracy theorist. Or maybe other people are just desperately naïve, but not for two seconds have I thought Trump possesses the ingenuity, intellect, charisma and minimal level of political knowledge to lead our country.

From moment one, I could see the greed, lust and lack of compassion in his eyes. The shiny under-eye concealer his make-up artist uses can’t hide those characteristics.

Sadly, we may never have another Lincoln or Roosevelt or Kennedy, but can we not do better than a beauty pageant CEO whose vocabulary repertoire pales in comparison to my 7-year old’s?

I view myself as a fair person and always like to assess both sides of a situation, so when I heard rumblings of people actually supporting Trump, my ears perked up. I was truly curious about their reasons for supporting him. Below, in quotations, are some of the remarks I heard followed by my thoughts.

“Trump gets things done!”

What “things” exactly has he done? Yes, he’s accomplished some amazing real estate deals and apparently has a good head for numbers. But then again, presidents have a whole slew of financial analysts and advisors, so a mathematical brain isn’t a necessity. Trump’s show The Apprentice was popular for a while, and he’s done a decent job managing the Miss Universe pageant. Are these the “things” we’re looking for in a

find us at: facebook.com/smnews

more and more of the lottery money is being used for recurring expenses.

Democrats cut education spending in the lean budget years during the recession. Since the GOP took over the legislature, it has increased education spending each year and it is now more than what Democrats were allocating.

But let’s be honest. There is no reason to take pride in the fact that we are now beating recession-level education spending. The perpupil spending coming from Raleigh is woefully short of what is needed despite the recent modest spending increases. And part of that increased education spending is lottery money that should be totally separate.

We are just now past the primary season for state lawmakers and are headed toward the general election in November. Support candidates who promise to make North Carolina one of the top states in the country in terms of its commitment to public schools.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com)

enough to ever get ahead and yes, it’s extremely exhausting.

But Donald Trump is not the answer.

I also want to clarify that this column is not about Democrats vs. Republicans.

Sometimes I agree with views from both parties. In fact, I think I am registered as an Independent. My childhood memories are happily filled with Ronald Regan (a Republican). I supported President Obama (a Democrat) but agree with many that his time in office felt very anti-climactic after such an epic campaign. I may not have loved the Bush family as far as their political prowess, but I liked them as people. They seem to be caring, sweet husbands and great fathers, and that means something to me.

And I can’t conclude this column without mentioning the 35-foot concrete wall Trump proposes. Are there castles and moats around here that I’m not seeing? A concrete wall?

Really? This is 2016, and that’s the best strategy he can come up with?

On the note of Hispanics in America, I have to say that Hispanic students in our schools are a joy. They and their families take school very seriously. One bright, bilingual student I had when I was teaching seventh grade at Waynesville Middle told me that Hispanic parents always dress nicely to meet with teachers and doctors because in their country, these professions are highly regarded. I never forgot that comment and always appreciated being treated with respect by Hispanic parents and students.

Eight hundred years ago, Rumi, a Persian poet, scholar and theologian said, “When we practice loving kindness and compassion, we are the first ones to profit.”

Yet, Donald Trump is profiting by doing the opposite.

I hope the American people will eventually see beyond his escapades, shimmery facade and hollow promises and do what’s right for our country and for our children’s memories.

(Susanna Barbee lives in Haywood County can be reached at susanna.barbee@gmail.com.)

tasteTHEmountains Taste the Mountains is an ever-evolving paid section of places to dine in Western North Carolina. If you would like to be included in the listing please contact our advertising department at 828.452.4251 APPLE CREEK CAFE 111 N. Main St., Waynesville.

828.456.9888. Tuesday through Thursday 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday 10:30 a.m. to midnight. Sunday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. We are excited to be on Main St. serving lunch and dinner with a full bar.

Our menu includes items such as blackberry salmon, fettuccine alfredo, hand-cut steaks, great burgers, sandwiches, salads and more. Join us for live music every Friday and Saturday nights. Friday 6 to 9 p.m. live piano music. Saturday 6 to 9 p.m. live jazz music. No cover charge.

BLUE ROOSTER SOUTHERN GRILL 207 Paragon Parkway, Clyde, Lakeside Plaza at the old Wal-Mart. 828.456.1997.

Open Monday through Friday. Friendly and fun family atmosphere. Local, handmade Southern cuisine. Fresh-cut salads; slowsimmered soups; flame grilled burgers and steaks, and homemade signature desserts.

Blue-plates and local fresh vegetables daily.

Brown bagging is permitted. Private parties, catering, and take-out available.

BOGART’S 303 S. Main St., Waynesville.

828.452.1313. Open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Carry out available. Located in downtown Waynesville, Bogart’s has been long-time noted for great steaks, soups, and salads. Casual family atmosphere in a rustic old-time setting with a menu noted for its practical value. Live Bluegrass/String Band music every Thursday. Walking distance of Waynesville’s unique shops and seasonal festival activities and within one mile of Waynesville Country Club.

BREAKING BREAD CAFÉ 6147 Hwy 276 S. Bethel (at the Mobil Gas Station) 828.648.3838 Sunday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday-Friday 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Chef owned and operated. Our salads are made in house using local seasonal vegetables.

Fresh roasted ham, turkey and roast beef used in our hoagies. We hand make our own eggplant and chicken parmesan, pork meatballs and hamburgers. We use 1st quality fresh not pre-prepared products to make sure you get the best food for a reasonable price. We make vegetarian, gluten free and sugar free items. Call or go to Facebook (Breaking Bread Café NC) to find out what our specials are.

BRYSON CITY CORK & BEAN A MOUNTAIN SOCIAL HOUSE 16 Everett St.,Bryson City. 828.488.1934.

Open Monday-Friday 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday and Sunday brunch 9 a.m. to

Easter Dinner

PER PERSON *Does not include drink, tax or tip

March 16-22, 2016

Family-Style

12.95

$

Enjoy our famous fried chicken, ham, fried fish, vegetables and salad bar Smoky Mountain News

Music by Steve Whiddon “The Piano Man” Reservations are recommended

828.926.0201 Located at Maggie Valley Inn 70 Soco Road, Maggie Valley 828.926.0201 www.maggievalleyhotel.com 336-70

23

tasteTHEmountains Pick Up & Go Lunches 11:30-1:30

Call ahead or walk in Call for delivery info

144 Industrial Park Dr. Ste. D 1 Waynesville

(828) 452-7837 NOW HIRING

REEKSIDE COYSTER HOUSE & GRILL

336-73

LOCAL BEERS FULL BAR

Serving Food until 10 p.m. Weekdays and until 11 p.m. Fri. & Sat. • Closed Mon.

828.586.1985

438 Skyland Drive • Sylva

March 16-22, 2016

Exit 85 to Skyland Dr., two blocks from McDonalds

3p.m., Full Menu 3 to 9 p.m. Serving fresh and delicious weekday morning lite fare, lunch, dinner, and brunch. Freshly prepared menu offerings range from house-made soups & salads, lite fare & tapas, crepes, specialty sandwiches and burgers. Be sure not to miss the bold flavors and creative combinations that make up the daily Chef Supper Specials starting at 5pm every day.

Followed by a tempting selection of desserts prepared daily by our chefs and other local bakers. Enjoy craft beers on tap, as well as our full bar and eclectic wine list.

CHURCH STREET DEPOT 34 Church Street, downtown Waynesville.

828.246.6505. 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Mouthwatering all beef burgers and dogs, hand-dipped, hand-spun real ice cream shakes and floats, fresh handcut fries. Locally sourced beef. Indoor and outdoor dining. facebook.com/ChurchStreetDepot, twitter.com/ChurchStDepot.

CITY BAKERY 18 N. Main St. Waynesville 828.452.3881.

Monday through Friday 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Join us in our historic location for scratch made soups and daily specials.

Breakfast is made to order daily: Gourmet cheddar & scallion biscuits served with bacon, sausage and eggs; smoked trout bagel plate; quiche and fresh fruit parfait. We bake a wide variety of breads daily, specializing in traditional french breads. All of our breads are hand shaped. Lunch: Fresh salads, pani-

Happy Easter

Smoky Mountain News

CITY LIGHTS CAFE Spring Street in downtown Sylva.

828.587.2233. Open Monday-Saturday 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Tasty, healthy and quick. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, espresso, beer and wine. Come taste the savory and sweet crepes, grilled paninis, fresh, organic salads, soups and more.

Outside patio seating. Free Wi-Fi, pet-friendly. Live music and lots of events. Check the web calendar at citylightscafe.com.

THE CLASSIC WINESELLER 20 Church Street, Waynesville.

828.452.6000. Underground retail wine and craft beer shop, restaurant, and intimate live music venue. Kitchen opens at 4 p.m.

Wednesday through Saturday serving freshly prepared small plates, tapas, charcuterie, desserts. Enjoy live music every Friday and Saturday night at 7pm. www.classicwineseller.com. Also on facebook and twitter.

COUNTRY VITTLES: FAMILY STYLE RESTAURANT 3589 Soco Rd, Maggie Valley.

828.926.1820 Open Wednesday and Thursday 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.; closed Monday and Tuesday. Family Style at Country Vittles is not a buffet. Instead our waitresses will bring your food piping hot from the kitchen right to your table and as many refills as you want. So if you have a big appetite, but sure to ask your waitress about our family style service.

Retail Retail

Restaurant Restaurant

Sunday, March 27, 2016 11:30 AM — 2:30 PM Reservations: 828.456.3551

J. ARTHUR’S RESTAURANT AT MAGGIE VALLEY U.S. 19 in Maggie Valley. 828.926.1817.

Winter hours: Thursday through Dunday 12 to 4 p.m. for lunch and 4 p.m. to closing for dinner. Daily luncheon special at $6.99.

World-famous prime rib, steaks, fresh seafood, gorgonzola cheese and salads. All ABC permits and open year-round. Children always welcome. Take-out menu. Excellent service and hospitality. Reservations appreciated.

JOEY'S PANCAKE HOUSE 4309 Soco Rd Maggie Valley.

828.926.0212. Winter hours: Friday-Monday 7 a.m. to 12 p.m. Joey’s is a family style restaurant that has been serving breakfast to the locals and visitors of Western North Carolina since 1966. Featuring a large variety of tempting pancakes, golden waffles, country style cured ham and seasonal specials spiked with flavor, Joey's is sure to please all appetites. Join us for what has become a tradition in these parts, breakfast at Joey’s.

JUKEBOX JUNCTION U.S. 276 and N.C. 110 intersection, Bethel.

828.648.4193. 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday; Sunday 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Serving breakfast, lunch, nd dinner. The restaurant has a 1950s & 60s theme decorated with memorabilia from that era.

THE LUNCHBOX CAFE 100 Spicewood Dr., Clyde, 828.246.6296 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Serving up scrumptious breakfast, lunch and

LIVE LIVE Music Music

This This W Weekend’s eekend’s M Music usic Friday, Friday, Ma March rch 1 18 8@7 7pm pm

Easter Brunch

D Dulci ulci El Ellenberger lenberger g guitar, uitar, v vocals ocals Americana, Americana, pop, pop, originals originals

BREAKFAST & DINNER DAILY SUNDAY LUNCH by reservation

Saturday, Saturday, Ma March rch 1 19 9 @ 7pm 7

J Joe oe C Cruz ruz p piano, iano, v vocals ocals Beatles, Elton Elton John, John, Ja mes T aylor & mo re Beatles, James Taylor more

Paid in part by Haywood County T ourism o www .visitncsmokies.com Tourism www.visitncsmokies.com 828-452-6000 828-452-6000 classicwineseller.com classicwineseller.com 20 20 Church Church Street, Street, Waynesville, Waynesville, NC NC

456.9498 • www.balsaminn.net 336-23

APPÉTIT Y’AL N L BO

Adults: $29.95* • Young at Heart Age 70+: $21.95* Ages 6-12: $12.95* • Under Age 5: Free *Prices Do Not Include Tax & Gratuity.

Further Discounts Do Not Apply to Young-at-Heart Price

176 COUNTRY CLUB DRIVE, WAYNESVILLE, NC 828.456.3551 24

ni sandwiches. Enjoy outdoor dinning on the deck. Private room available for meetings.

828-456-1997 blueroostersoutherngrill.com

— Real Local People, Real Local Food — 207 Paragon Parkway, Clyde, North Carolina Monday-Friday Open at 11am

336-24

tasteTHEmountains MAD BATTER FOOD & FILM 617 W. Main Street Downtown Sylva.

828.586.3555. Open Monday through Wednesday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Handtossed pizza, steak sandwiches, wraps, salads and desserts. All made from scratch.

Beer and wine. Free movies with showtimes at 6:30 and 9 p.m. with a Saturday matinee at 2 p.m. Visit madbatterfoodandfilm.com for this week’s shows.

MAGGIE VALLEY CLUB 1819 Country Club Dr., Maggie Valley.

828.926.1616. maggievalleyclub.com/dine.

Open seasonally for lunch and dinner. Fine and casual fireside dining in welcoming atmosphere. Full bar. Reservations accepted.

PASQUALE’S 1863 South Main Street, Waynesville. Off exit 98, 828.454.5002. Open for lunch and dinner, Tuesday through Sunday. Classic Italian dishes, exceptional steaks and seafood (available in full and lighter sizes), thin crust pizza, homemade soups, salads hand tossed at your table. Fine wine and beer selection. Casual atmosphere, dine indoors, outside on the patio or at the bar.

Reservations appreciated.

RENDEZVOUS RESTAURANT AND BAR Maggie Valley Inn and Conference Center 828.926.0201 Open Monday-Thursday

11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Saturday 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m and Sunday 7:30 a.m to 9 p.m. Full service restaurant serving steaks, prime rib, seafood and dinner specials.

Using only the freshest ingredients in homemade soups, salads and sandwiches. Come in and see for yourself why Smoky Mountain Sub Shop was voted # 1 in Haywood County.

Locally owned and operated.

ROB’S HOT DOG SHACK 42 Montgomery St., Waynesville 828.707.7033. Open Monday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Rob’s serves gourmet hot dogs and has homemade side items. Outdoor and indoor dining, café style restaurant. Locally owned and operated.

Family oriented business.

TAP ROOM BAR & GRILL 176 Country Club Drive, Waynesville.

828.456.3551. Open seven days a week serving lunch and dinner. 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Tucked away inside Waynesville Inn, the Tap Room Bar & Grill has an approachable menu designed around locally sourced, sustainable, farm-to-table ingredients. Full bar and wine cellar. www.thewaynesvilleinn.com.

SAGEBRUSH STEAKHOUSE 1941 Champion Drive. Canton 828-6463750 Sunday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Carry out available. Sagebrush features hand carved steaks, chicken and award winning BBQ ribs. We have fresh salads, seasonal vegetables and scrumptious deserts.

Extensive selection of local craft beers and a full bar. Catering special events is one of our specialties. Local acoustic music on Tuesday nights.

SMOKY MOUNTAIN SUB SHOP 29 Miller Street Waynesville 828.456.3400.

Open from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. A Waynesville tradition, the Smoky Mountain Sub Shop has been serving great food for over 20 years. Come in and enjoy the relaxed, casual atmosphere. Sub breads are baked fresh every morning in Waynesville.

TWIN MAPLES FARMHOUSE 63 North Hill Street, Waynesville.

828.452.7837. Open for Sunday brunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Located just two blocks from downtown Waynesville, Twin Maples is available for weddings, receptions, family reunions, birthday parties, showers, luncheons, corporate meetings and retreats.

VITO’S PIZZA 607 Highlands Rd., Franklin.

828.369.9890. Established here in in 1998. Come to Franklin and enjoy our laid back place, a place you can sit back, relax and enjoy our 62” HDTV. Our Pizza dough, sauce, meatballs, and sausage are all made from scratch by Vito. The recipes have been in the family for 50 years (don't ask for the recipes cuz’ you won't get it!) Each Pizza is hand tossed and made with TLC. You're welcome to watch your pizza being created.

MON.-SAT. 11 A.M.-8 P.M.

34 CHURCH ST. WAYNESVILLE 828.246.6505 twitter.com/ChurchStDepot M C facebook.com/ChurchStreetDepot

3/18 LIVE MUSIC Fri., 7 p.m.

Acoustic Set with Liz Nance

St. Patty’s Weekend Specials including Beer Brat Paninis!

3 E JACKSON ST. • SYLVA, NC

336-60

dinner all made with care in a welcoming environment. Subs, salads, sandwiches and more.

www.CityLightsCafe.com

March 16-22, 2016

Visit Us and Discover MEDITERRANEAN & ITALIAN CUISINE 1863 S. Main Street • Waynesville 828.454.5002 Hwy. 19/23 Exit 98 LUNCH & DINNER TUES. - SUN.

www.pasqualesnc.com

336-06

7-9 P.M.

Free Movies Thurs-Sat

Upcoming Bands:

Phillys Pizzas Wraps Steaks

MARCH 22: Kevin Fuller MARCH 29: Tonology

SAGEBRUSH OF CANTON 1941 Champion Dr. Canton

Scratch-made, local organic ingredients

Check out this week's movies at madbatterfoodandfilm.com

828.586.3555 Beautiful Downtown Sylva

Smoky Mountain News

LIVE MUSIC TUESDAY NIGHTS!

Lunch, Dinner & Sunday Brunch

Cataloochee Ranch

828-646-3750 Sun-Thur 11 AM - 10 PM Fri-Sat 11 AM - 11 PM

25

26

A&E

Smoky Mountain News

WCU reaches out to special needs students t was a year-and-a-half ago that Western Carolina University’s director of athletic bands, David Starnes, was asked by United Sound founder Julie Duty to help put together a board for her nonprofit organization, which provides musical performance experiences for students with special needs.

At the time, United Sound catered only to middle and high school-aged students with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

After serving as chairman of the board for about a year, Starnes came up with the idea of starting a chapter for members of the university’s Pride of the Mountains Marching Band, incorporating it with WCU’s University Participant Program, a two-year, on-campus living and learning experience for collegeaged students with intellectual disabilities.

Last fall, WCU became the first university to form a chapter.

“As soon as I mentioned it to our special education department, they were like, ‘This is exactly what we’ve been looking for,’” Starnes said. “What it’s done is it’s changing some students’ mind from one branch of education to special ed that maybe have a musical background, and they’ve merged the two of those together. It could be lifechanging for those peoDavid Starnes ple.”

Starnes already has seen that in his two chapter representatives, Katelyn Johnson, a senior from Asheville, and Sara Cope, a sophomore from Statesville. Both serve as peer mentors for UP students.

Johnson, a music performance major who plans to pursue a master’s degree in music therapy, said she wants to continue working with those with special needs. The same goes for Cope, who recently changed her major to inclusive education.

“This is what I want to do for the rest of my life, and I didn’t know that until (Starnes) roped me into this,” Johnson said.

“This is something really fantastic that we’ve started. I’ve talked to a number of people who have gone through Western’s (music) program and then gone out to teach, and they told me they would have had no idea how to deal with having special-needs students in their classroom from just the classes they took on campus.”

Not only was Duty excited that Starnes wanted to bring a university chapter to Cullowhee, but she said she was confident WCU was the right university to set the example of how it should be done.

“I was thrilled because, No. 1, Western was

I

ing the new musician’s reactions to some of the things she tells them.

“I have been trying a lot of out-of-the-box teaching things to get them to do what I want them to do,” Johnson said. “I told one of the students to pretend he was blowing a paint ball at me to get him to put enough air through the horn to make a noise, and he cracked up laughing and that immediately fixed everything. It was just great to see him love it and to see it work.”

“I like to see their faces when they finally get something that they’ve been working hard towards,” Cope added. “Like, if there’s a note that they’ve been struggling with and all of a sudden it clicks and they get it, to see their faces light up, it’s just an amazing feeling. They give us a lot of inspiration as the directors of the program. When we see how

has started the process for becoming a chapter in the fall.

“First of all, I’m just so proud of Sara and Katelyn, I can’t stand it,” Starnes said. “This was a dream that happened a year-and-a-half ago, and then we thought, ‘Let’s just pilot it at the university level and see if it’ll work.’ Now that we know it will, I’ll bet I’ve gotten a dozen emails from university directors saying, ‘We heard this is happening, tell us about it,’ which is awesome. That means we did it right and the pilot didn’t crash the plane.

“Julie and I gave a presentation at the state music convention this past fall, and we couldn’t get out of the room with the number of teachers who wanted this at their schools.

Our goal is to make this an optional part of every musical education curriculum.”

Starnes said the next steps could include

our first university,” Duty said. “I have just an unbelievable amount of respect and admiration for the music educator that David is, and I knew that in his hands, it would be the best possible first example of what it should look like and what it could be. There’s a huge part of the music education community that watches whatever David’s doing. And that’s exactly what has happened. We will be at five universities by next fall, and three of the four new ones only know about it from Western, having watched via social media what was going on there.”

Starnes said the program consists of two aspects. First, the peer mentors learn their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to teaching in adaptive education. The second is when special needs students, or “new musicians” as they are called, are not only learning to play an instrument but working toward a goal of performing in a live concert with their peer mentors.

That performance took place on March 8 in the recital hall of the Coulter Building at WCU, where the new musicians teamed up with WCU’s concert band to perform With a little help from their peer mentors, students from WCU’s University Participant Program perform with the “Risk Everything for Pride of the Mountains Marching Band during the Homecoming football game last fall. Donated photo a Dream,” a piece specifically dedicated to the United Sound national initiative.

Last fall, the new musicians got a taste of per“This was a dream that happened a year-and-a-half ago, forming in public as they played the fight and then we thought, ‘Let’s just pilot it at the university song with the Pride of the Mountains Marching Band during the Homecoming level and see if it’ll work.’” football game.

Currently, there are 12 peer mentors at — David Starnes, WCU director of athletic bands WCU working with five new musicians. They meet on Mondays from 7 to 7:45 p.m. The curriculum is based more on visual instruction they react to the new methods they’re learn- inviting students from Jackson County, or posing, it gives us more courage to want to do sibly Haywood County. Smoky Mountain High rather than oral instruction, Starnes said.

School has expressed interest in starting a Johnson said the first 15 minutes are usual- better as well.”

With the success United Sound has had at chapter, Starnes said. ly spent playing a game or getting acquainted, “[WCU] could be a beacon for a lot of with the final 30 minutes devoted to working WCU this year, Starnes said he would like to on the music, with UP students often asking to see it spread to college campuses throughout schools around here to get involved with this,” stay later. Johnson said her favorite part is see- the country. Duty said Marshall University Starnes said.

BY GARRET K. WOODWARD

“They headed down south and they’re still running today…”

CALL Dr. Dean Russell Business Coach For A Free Consultation

828.246.0981 The best prices everyday!

Although timeless, the music of Steve Miller does, in fact, belong to my parents — I was just lucky enough to be present as a kid when they cranked his immortal tunes.

LOSE UP TO 25 LBS IN 1 MONTH

$199

Physician-supervised weight loss program

I N C LU D E S W E I G H T LO S S CO N S U LTAT I O N W I T H P H Y S I C I A N , 3 0 - DAY S U P P LY O F P R E S C R I PT I O N & SUPPLEMENTS, 4 SUPERC H A R G E D B 1 2 , L A B S & E KQ

Complete Laser Clinic BRYSON CITY, MURPHY

completelaserclinic.com

828-482-5030

336-59

Bookstore Saturday, 3/19 • 3 p.m.

Smoky Mountain News

most importantly, how to make the most of your time on this hurtling, orbiting rock in space we call Earth.

During “Dance, Dance, Dance,” the crowd, full of grey hair or no hair at all, had Miller’s back, as voice after countless voice echoed out of the venue and across the Atlantic Ocean, “I don’t know, but I’ve been told, if you keep on dancing, you’ll never grow old, come on darling, put a pretty dress on, we’re gonna go out tonight…”

And I suppose like the “story about Billy Joe and Bobby Sue,” I, too, will always be on the run, finding currency in the purity of life, which, if you haven’t figured out yet, is meaningful friendship, hearty conversation, immersion in Mother Nature, and a deep well of curiosity you work hard everyday to make sure never dries up within your bountiful soul.

When my eyes flutter open each morning, I roll over and let out a big yawn to that great big world outside of my door. “OK, world, I’m up, I’m up. Time to make the coffee. Time to seize that carp everybody keeps talkin’ about.” The clock ticks away, with every moment a second to decide what direction you will go. But, remember, it isn’t about choosing wisely. It’s about that beating muscle within your chest, that nonstop workhorse that acts like the world’s greatest well witch, just as long as you let it lead the way.

And if you need a soundtrack for your wanderin’ and ponderin,’ hopefully your Steve Miller albums are within reach, “You know you got to go through hell, before you get to heaven...I’ve got to keep on keepin’ on, you know the big wheel keeps on spinnin’ around…”

Life is beautiful, grasp for it, y’all.

ON DELLWOOD ROAD (HWY. 19) AT 20 SWANGER LANE WAYNESVILLE/MAGGIE VALLEY 10-5 M-SAT. 12-4 SUN. 828.926.8778 tupelosonline.com

March 16-22, 2016

HOT PICKS 1 2 3 4 5

As The Steve Miller Band blasted through the hit song The inaugural Folkmoot Music Showcase and “Take the Money and Run” last Spring BBQ will be held from 5 to 10 p.m.

Friday evening at the St. Saturday, March 19, in the Folkmoot Friendship Augustine Amphitheater, I found Center in Waynesville. myself standing there, amid sevLazy Hiker Brewing (Franklin) will host Joe eral thousand roaring fans, in Lasher Jr. (country/rock) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, awe, not only of the music, but of March 26. time and place itself.

When I was 16 years old, I Tipping Point Brewing (Waynesville) will have remember taking off one weekan all-day St. Patrick’s Day celebration with end in 2001 for a Santana conIan Moore (Celtic/Americana) on Thursday, cert at the Saratoga Performing March 17.

Arts Center (Upstate New York).

Hoping into my dad’s minivan, The monthly Creating Community Workshop my best friend, Ben, and I will feature “Adult Coloring” at 10:30 a.m. merged onto Interstate 87 Saturday, March 19, in the Atrium of the South, bluebird skies overhead Jackson County Public Library in Sylva. with junior year of high school The Cut Cocktail Lounge (Sylva) will host a just around the corner.

“Honky Tonk Angel Contest” with the Honky Seeing as the van had a sixTonk Players all night on Thursday, March 24.

CD changer, we stopped at the (now defunct) Peacock Records out forme from that adventure was that in Plattsburgh for some much-needed road something clicked in my head. I wanted to trip music. Wandering the aisles of endless keep moving. I didn’t want to turn around records, I picked up a copy of The Steve right after the show and head back to my Miller Band’s “Greatest Hits 1974-78,” an iconic collection that could easily sum up the childhood home. I didn’t want to go back to high school, or at least hoped for my time 70s in the 14-song LP. there to fly by and stop right at graduation.

Within that two-hour or so drive to I was restless, still am, in many respects.

Saratoga, Ben and I sang along to the entire As Steve Miller famously sung, “Time keeps album. I can still distinctly remember howling to “The Joker,” a cigarette in-between my on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’, into the future, I want to fly like an eagle, to the sea, fly like knuckles atop the steering wheel, the sunan eagle, let my spirit carry me…” so do I roof open and swirling with the summer continue on down the ole dusty trail. breeze of the Adirondack Mountains, “I’m a And while Steve and Co. cruised through joker, I’m a smoker, I’m a midnight toker, I a raucous set in St. Augustine, I couldn’t get my lovin’ on the run, you’re the cutest help but notice the irony, perhaps, of where thing, that I ever did see, I really love your I was. For many, Florida represents the end peaches, want to shake your tree…” of the road, a state (of mind) when you put And though the Santana performance the brakes on your endeavors and try to was stellar, as expected, what really sticks

Do you want to grow your business? arts & entertainment

This must be the place

“live the good life.”

At the amphitheater, I realized, at 31 years old, I was quite possibly the youngest person there, and by at least 20-25 years.

Although timeless, the music of Steve Miller does, in fact, belong to my parents — I was just lucky enough to be present as a kid when they cranked his immortal tunes.

Looking around at the massive audience, it hit me — these folks ain’t stagnant, they’re reclaiming their happiness. Your parents didn’t move to St. Augustine to, well, “die,” they came here to get drunk, get high, make love, all while tossing a handful of glitter and another log onto the bonfire of their winter years.

Not all in attendance dropped their dreams to join the workforce and “keep up with the Joneses.” My parent’s generation, the Baby Boomers, changed the landscape in terms of innovation, culture, equality, progress, sexuality, politics, the arts, and,

Nelda Holder Examines the Michael Brown Jr. case

3 EAST JACKSON STREET • SYLVA

828/586-9499 • citylightsnc.com

27

arts & entertainment

On the beat Lazy Hiker welcomes Lasher

especially in the bluegrass, country, and folk genres. $6 per person.

828.736.3921 or www.greatsmokies.com.

Acclaimed country/rock singer Joe Lasher Jr. will perform at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, March 26, at Lazy Hiker Brewing in Franklin. www.lazyhikerbrewing.com.

Folkmoot Music Showcase and Spring BBQ

Celtic music in Bryson City Celtic band Bean Sidhe will perform at 7 p.m. Friday, March 18, at the Smoky Mountain Community Theatre in Bryson City.

Join Bean Sidhe (pronounced: ban-shee) for a lively evening of traditional music from the British Isles. The group began as a means for members to explore the connections linking traditional music from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales with its contemporary American counterparts,

Americana rides into WNC Gypsy-folk act Outlaw Ritual will perform at 9 p.m. Friday, March 18, at No Name Sports Pub in Sylva. They will also hit the stage at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 19, at the Water’n Hole Bar & Grille in Waynesville. www.outlawritual.com.

Darren Nicholson Band will be one of the performers at the Folkmoot Music Showcase and Spring BBQ on March 19 in Waynesville. Garret K. Woodward The inaugural Folkmoot Music Showcase and Spring BBQ will be held from 5 to 10 p.m. Saturday, March 19, in the Folkmoot Friendship Center at the Historic Hazelwood School in Waynesville.

Musical performances begin at 7 p.m. and will include the Darren Nicholson Band (of Balsam Range), Whitewater Bluegrass Band, Lillian Chase & The Marshall Brothers, and The Garnet Ridge Ramblers. A barbecue dinner will be served by the Haywood Smokehouse with pulled pork, baked beans, coleslaw and rolls. Fresh beer will be provided by BearWaters Brewing.

HIGHLANDS HAS March 16-22, 2016

THE FUNK Popular Asheville pop/funk act Lyric will perform at 9:30 p.m. Saturday, March 26, at The Ugly Dog Pub in Highlands. 828.526.8364 or www.theuglydogpub.com.

On the street

Smoky Mountain News

Fashion, dessert lovers rejoice

28

Tickets for this event cost $20 advance and are available at www.folkmootusa.org or by calling 828.452.2997. Tickets are $30 at the door. Tickets include the barbecue dinner and music. Attendees will be encouraged to share in a half and half drawing and a silent auction of springtime items to support year-round programming administered by Folkmoot.

Folkmoot thanks the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina for supporting Folkmoot’s year-round programming initiatives.

828.452.2997 or info@folkmoot.org.

The “Dresses and Desserts” event will be held from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, March 19, at the Humanite Boutique in Bryson City.

Join the staff and owner of Humanité Boutique in downtown Bryson City as they celebrate their sixth anniversary.

This all day, drop-in event features some of the cutest spring fashions and decadent desserts.

828.538.4180.

‘Trail Magic’ returns to Nantahala Brewing The “Trail Magic Ale #13” release party will be March 1820 at Nantahala Brewing Company in Bryson City.

On Friday at 6 p.m. they will be tapping the first keg of the 13th Trail Magic Ale Release at the Tap Room. At 8 p.m. there will be a bottle swap/beer geek party in the brewery.

On Saturday, beginning at noon there will be a limited bottle release Trail Magic Ale bottles. A portion of the proceeds of the bottle sales will be donated to the Appalachian

Trail Ridgerunner Program via the Friends of the Smokies organization. At 8 p.m. there will also be a free performance

by Somebody’s Child (Americana). www.nantahalabrewing.com.

LEGO Club in Bryson City There will be a LEGO Club meeting at 4 p.m. Thursday, March 24, at the Marianna Black Library in Bryson City.

The library will provide Legos and Duplos for ages 3 and up, the only thing area children need to bring is their imagination. All area children are invited join in and let your creativity shine.

828.488.3030.

• A fish fry dinner will be held on Friday, March 25, at the Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center in Waynesville. The dinner begins at 11 a.m. and serves as a fundraiser for the center’s operating expenses. $8 per dinner. Eat or carry out. Call ahead for large orders. 828.452.7232.

ALSO:

• The Waynesville Public Library is partnering with Haywood County 4-H and will be having yoga classes for kids. The class will meet from 3 to 5 p.m. March 10 in the auditorium.

This class is based on curriculum created by the Arkansas 4-H and designed for ages 5 and up, although younger children are welcome. Children are invited to bring a favorite beach towel and water bottle. Free.

• A wine tasting will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. March 12 and 19 at Papou’s Wine Shop in Sylva. $5 per person. www.papouswineshop.com or 828.586.6300.

• A free wine tasting will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. March 12 and 19 at Bosu’s Wine Shop in Waynesville. www.waynesvillewine.com or 828.452.0120.

• A wine tasting will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. March 9 and 16 at The Classic Wineseller in Waynesville. Free with dinner ($15 minimum). 828.452.6000.

• There will be a “Tasty Tuesday: Winter Seasonals” at 7 p.m. March 15 and 22 at Mad Anthony’s Bottle Shop & Beer Garden.

On the beat

• The Canton Armory will host “Winter Pickin’ in the Armory” at 7 p.m. every first and third Friday of the month. The event includes mountain music, vintage country, clogging and dancing. www.cantonnc.com.

• Canton Public Library will host One Leg Up (jazz/Latin) at 3 p.m. March 20. Free. www.haywoodarts.org.

• The Classic Wineseller (Waynesville) will have Dulci Ellenberger (Americana/folk) March 18 and Joe Cruz (piano/pop) March 19. All shows begin at 7 p.m. 828.452.6000 or www.classicwineseller.com.

• The Cut Cocktail Lounge (Sylva) will host a “Honky Tonk Angel Contest” with the Honky Tonk Players all night on March 24.

Sponsored by Pabst Blue Ribbon.

828.631.4795.

ALSO:

• Innovation Brewing (Sylva) will have an Open Mic night March 16 and 23, and a jazz night with the Kittle/Collings Duo March 17 and 24. There will also be performances by Alexa Rose (singer-songwriter) March 19 and Colby Dietz (Americana/folk) March 26. All events begin at 8 p.m. www.innovation-brewing.com.

• Lazy Hiker Brewing (Franklin) will host Goldie & The Screamers March 19 and Joe Lasher Jr. (country/rock) March 26. All shows begin at 7:30 p.m. www.lazyhikerbrewing.com.

• Nantahala Brewing Company (Bryson City) will host Somebody’s Child (Americana) at March 19 and The Get Right Band (rock/funk) March 26. All shows are free and begin at 8 p.m. www.nantahalabrewing.com.

• No Name Sports Pub (Sylva) will host Outlaw Ritual (Americana) with Chris

• The Rathskeller Coffee Haus & Pub (Franklin) will host Tom Johnson (singersongwriter) March 19, Somebody’s Child (Americana) March 25 and Heidi Holton (blues/folk) March 26. All shows are free and begin at 8 p.m. www.rathskellerfranklin.com.

• Sagebrush Steakhouse (Canton) will host Kevin Fuller (singer-songwriter) March 22 and Tonology (rock/acoustic) March 29. All shows begin at 7 p.m. 828.646.3750.

• Salty Dog’s (Maggie Valley) will have Karaoke with Jason Wyatt on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Mile High (rock) at 8:30 p.m. on Wednesdays. Andrew Rickman (rock/acoustic) will also perform on Saturdays. All events begin at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted.

• Satulah Mountain Brewing (Highlands) will host “Hoppy Hour” and an open mic with Jimandi at 5:30 p.m. on Thursdays, “Funky Friday” with Bud Davis at 7 p.m. on Fridays and Isaish Breedlove (Americana) at 7 p.m. on Saturdays. 828.482.9794 or www.satulahmountainbrewing.com.

• Tipping Point Brewing (Waynesville) will have a St. Patrick’s Day celebration with Ian Moore (Celtic/Americana) March 17, Chris Minick (singer-songwriter) March 19, Kevin Fuller (singer-songwriter) March 25 and LaRue Allegretro (Americana) March 26. www.tippingpointtavern.com.

• Tuck’s Tap & Grille (Cullowhee) will host College Night St. Patrick’s Day Bash at 10 p.m. March 17.

ON MARCH 26, 2016, 1 0 P L AY E R S W I L L W A L K A W AY W I N N E R S !

Our Grand Prize Winner will win $50,000 in Free Slot Play and nine others will share $100,000 in additional Free Slot Play.

Earn entries now through March 26 by using your free Total Rewards® card.* GET 7X THE ENTRIES WHEN YOU VISIT AND PLAY ON MONDAYS, TUESDAYS AND WEDNESDAYS. NEW TOTAL REWARDS® MEMBERS PLAY 50 ON US! Visit and sign up now through May 31.**

caesars.com

Smoky Mountain News

• Marianna Black Library (Bryson City) will hold community music jam from 6 to 7:30 p.m. March 17. Anyone with a guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, dulcimer, anything unplugged, are invited to join. Singers are also welcomed to join in or you can just stop by and listen. Free. 828.488.3030.

• The Oconaluftee Visitor Center (Cherokee) will host a back porch old-time music jam from 1 to 3 p.m. March 19. All are welcome to come play or simply sit and listen to sounds of Southern Appalachia.

$150,000 F R E E S L O T P L AY G I V E A W AY

• The Ugly Dog Pub (Highlands) will host Hurricane Creek (classic rock) March 19 and Lyric (rock/funk) March 26. All shows are at 9:30 p.m. There is also a weekly Appalachian music night from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Wednesdays with Nitrograss.

• The Water’n Hole Bar & Grill (Waynesville) will host Outlaw Ritual (Americana) March 19, PMA (jam/rock) March 25 and Universal Epitaph March 26. All shows begin at 9 p.m.

• Western Carolina University will host a Middle School Choral Festival from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Bardo Arts Center. www.wcu.edu.

March 16-22, 2016

• Frog Level Brewing (Waynesville) will have a St. Patrick’s Day celebration March 17, Bradley Cooper Duo March 18, Jacked Up Joe 8 p.m. March 19, Laura Thurston (Americana/folk) March 35 and Mark Keller (singer-songwriter) March 26. All shows are free and at 7 p.m. unless otherwise listed.

828.454.5664 or www.froglevelbrewing.com.

Blaylock OMB (blues/folk) and Matt Heckler March 18, Wade Baker & Jamie Taylor (jazz) March 19 and Honey & Houston (blues/gypsy) March 25. All shows are free and begin at 9 p.m. www.nonamesportspub.com.

arts & entertainment

• Andrews Brewing Company will host Scott Stambaugh (singer-songwriter) March 19 and Andrew Chastain (singer-songwriter) March 26. Both shows are free and begin at 5 p.m. www.andrewsbrewing.com.

*Qualification period begins Monday, February 15, 2016 at 6am through Saturday, March 26, 2016 at 9pm. **Offer valid for new member signups only. Entries are non-transferable.

Harrah’s reserves the right to modify or cancel this promotion at any time. Must be 21 years of age or older and possess a valid photo ID to enter casino floor and to gamble. Know When To Stop Before You Start.® Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-522-4700. An Enterprise of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation. ©2016, Caesars License Company, LLC.

29

March 16-22, 2016

arts & entertainment

On the wall

Photography exhibit at Penland There will be a contemporary chemical photography showcase from March 22 to May 1 in the Penland Gallery at the Penland School of Crafts. An artist reception will be held from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

March 22.

What does it mean to make photographic images with chemically-sensitized and processed materials in the digital era?

What possibilities do historic photographic processes offer to contemporary artists?

These are some of the questions raised by a fascinating exhibition at the newly renovated and expanded Penland Gallery. Titled “This Is a Photograph: Exploring Contemporary Applications of Photographic Chemistry,” the exhibition was curated by Brooklynbased photographic artist and long-time Penland instructor Dan Estabrook. The exhibition not only reveals some of the arresting possibilities of these processes, it also brings to Western North Carolina work by a number of worldclass image-makers.

The processes employed by the twenty-three artists represented in this show include tintype images made on found metal objects, an

Chris McCaw’s image ‘Sunburned GSP #555.’ This photo was created by exposing photographic paper in a large format camera for enough hours to capture the path of the sun.

almost holographic daguerreotype, images created by painting directly onto photo paper with chemicals, and images made by igniting gunpowder that had been sprinkled directly onto photo paper. The show includes a multiple-image tintype by Sally Mann, who Time Magazine once called “the best photographer in America.”

Penland resident artist Mercedes Jelinek is represented by a series of portraits printed through the platinum-palladium process, one of several antique-printing methods that involve hand brushing a light-sensitive emulsion onto paper. Chris McCaw creates strikingly graphic images by making exposures long enough for the sun to expose a path across the paper in the camera. Two of the artists, Richard Learoyd and Vera Lutter, create large-scale images in cameras the size of a small room.

828.765.6211 or www.penland.org/gallery.

Market.” Sponsored by the Jackson County Arts Council. jacksoncountyfarmersmarket@gmail.com or 828.393.5236.

• The High Country Quilt Guild Meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 17, at the First Methodist Church in Waynesville. The meeting will feature a trunk show by Teri Delano, who won their Fall 2015 Quilt Show. All are welcome. highcountryquilters.wordpress.com.

• An English Smocking Class will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, March 17, at the Jackson County Extension Center in Sylva.

The class is presented by the Jackson County Cooperative Extension Craft Club. Class subject will be the art of English Smocking on an Easter egg. Cost of kit is $10. 828.586.4009.

ALSO:

‘Adult Coloring’ in Sylva The monthly Creating Community Workshop will feature “Adult Coloring” at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, March 19, in the Atrium of the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva.

In this event, Tracy Rodes will demonstrate shading and blending using colored pencils, how to use pastels to create soft backgrounds and will provide various different brands and mediums for participants to test.

Beginners to advanced colorists are welcome.

All necessary materials will be provided, but participants may bring their favorite mediums and finished work to share with the group.

This event is co-sponsored by the Friends of the Jackson County Public Library. This program is free of charge.

828.586.2016 or www.fontanalib.org.

• Starr Hogan, owner of Daydreamz, will host a paper-making workshop for kids of all ages from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, March 19, during the Jackson County Farmer’s Market at The Community Table in Sylva. The program is part of the “Family Art and the

• The “Come Paint with Charles Kidz Program” will be at 4 p.m. March 17 and 24 at the Charles Heath Gallery in Bryson City. $20 per child. Materials and snacks included.

828.538.2054.

• A community art group meets at 10 a.m. every Wednesday at the Hudson Library in Highlands. 828.526.3031.

• The film “Room” will be screened at 7 p.m.

March 16-18, 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. March 19, 1:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. March 20 and 7 p.m.

March 22-25 at The Strand at 38 Main in Waynesville. There will also be a free screening of the The Good Dinosaur at noon and 2 p.m. March 19 and 26. www.38main.com.

• The films “Sisters” (March 17), “Brooklyn” (March 18), “Labyrinth” (March 19) and “Hunger Games: Mockingjay 2” (March 2426) will be screened at Mad Batter Food & Film in Sylva. Screenings are at 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. with a special 2 p.m. matinee on Saturdays. Free. www.madbatterfoodandfilm.com.

Smoky Mountain News

On the stage

30

HART holds over ‘Twelve Angry Men’ The final production of the winter Studio Season, the courtroom nail biter “Twelve Angry Men” will hit the stage at 7:30 p.m. March 18-19 and at 3 p.m. March 20 at the Haywood Arts Regional Theatre in Waynesville.

The drama by Reginald Rose, which centers on an allmale jury’s deliberations in a murder trial, began life as a TV teleplay for “Studio One” on CBS in 1954. It was rewritten again in 1957 as a feature film directed by Sidney Lumet.

Henry Fonda both coproduced and starred in the film. It was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Writing of an Adapted Screenplay. It is now considered a classic.

This is also the last chance for patrons to enjoy the Center Stage Café, which begins serving 90 minutes before

show time. The café, which is on HART’s main stage, will have to close following this performance to make way for the 2016 Main Stage Season. Reservations for the HART Studio and Café are recommended as productions tend to sell out.

Tickets are $10 for adults, $6 for students.

828.456.6322 or www.harttheater.org.

• An “Appalachian Dance” class will be held at the Folkmoot Friendship Center in Waynesville. Classes feature flat-foot dancing, buck dancing, clogging and square dance styles unique to the Haywood County mountains. Classes for ages 16 and up will be March 22 and 29 and April 5 and 12 (first session); and also May 17, 24 and 31 and June 7 (second session). Classes for ages 6 and up will be April 19 and 26 and May 3 and 10. $40 per person for the four-class session. 828.452.2997 and info@folkmoot.org.

ALSO:

On the season

Dillsboro hat parade. Donated photo

Celebrate Easter at Lake Junaluska ll are invited to attend Lake Junaluska's Easter weekend events.

The conference and retreat center offers a number of family-friendly activities, including a children’s Easter egg hunt, a sunrise service overlooking the lake and a 5K road race and walk. Easter weekend lodging is also available at The Terrace, a hotel at Lake Junaluska.

A

SATURDAY, MARCH 26

ith the celebration of Easter around the corner, below are several events in communities around our region, from church gatherings to Easter egg hunts, brunch to live music.

W

CULLOWHEE • The Jackson County Parks and Recreation Department will hold their annual Easter Egg Hunt at noon Saturday, March 19. Held at the recreation park for ages 10 and under.

Prizes awarded to all children who find “Golden Eggs.” There will be a decorated Easter Egg Contest prior to the hunt.

828.293.3053 or go to rec.jacksonnc.org.

DILLSBORO

CASHIERS

FONTANA

• The sixth annual Easter Egg Hunt will be at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 26, at the gazebo at The Village Green. Thousands of eggs will be scattered around the park. The Easter Bunny will also be available onsite for photos. Bring your own basket and camera. The event is sponsored by S’More Kids Klothese.

828.743.3434 or www.villagegreencashiersnc.com.

• The Easter Family Festival weekend will be March 25-27 at Fontana Village Resort. A full weekend of fun including scenic lake tours, sunrise church service, history films, corn hole tournament, egg dying, water balloon toss, scavenger hunt, campfire, marshmallow roast and more, including an Easter feast at the Mountview Restaurant.

800.849.2258 or www.fontanavillage.com.

CANTON

• Sunday Morning Sunrise Service — Begin your Easter Sunday with a powerful

For additional information about Easter at Lake Junaluska, please visit www.lakejunaluska.com/easter or call 800.222.4930.

FRANKLIN

STECOAH

• An Easter Egg Hunt at story time will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday, March 22 and Thursday, March 24, at the Macon County Public Library. For ages up to 10 years old.

828.524.3600.

• An Easter Egg Hunt will be at noon Saturday, March 19, at the Macon County Rec Park.

Admission is one canned food item donation, benefitting CareNet. • There will be children’s activities held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, March 19, at The Factory. The Easter Bunny will be onsite for photos until 3 p.m. Admission is $7.99.

Ceramic painting is also $3 per person.

828.349.8888 or www.thefactory.bz.

• An Easter Egg Hunt and “Peeps on the Creek” duck race will be at 11 a.m.

Saturday, March 19, at the Stecoach Valley Center. Visit by the Easter Bunny, bonnet contest, children’s activities, and more. www.stecoahvalleycenter.com.

MAGGIE VALLEY • An Easter Sunrise Service will be held at 6:30 a.m. Sunday, March 27, in the Maggie Valley Pavilion. There will also be a free pancake breakfast following the service. All welcome. Sponsored by the Maggie Valley Civic Association.

WAYNESVILLE

Smoky Mountain News

• The annual Town of Canton Easter Egg Hunt will be at 10 a.m. Saturday, March 26, at the Canton Recreation Park. The ages for participating in the Easter Egg Hunt are ages 1-5 years old and 6-12 years old. Sponsored by the Town of Canton and the Canton Police Department. 828.648.2376.

• The Bethel Baptist Church will perform an Easter drama at 7 p.m. March 25-27. There will also be a sunrise service at 6 a.m. at Riverside Baptist. www.bethelbaptistcanton.org.

• The 28th annual Easter Hat Parade celebration will be held on at 10 a.m. Saturday, March 26, in downtown. The day begins with an Easter Egg Hunt at 10:30 a.m. on Webster Street, followed with hat making also at 10:30 a.m. at Dogwood Crafters, all while the Easter Bunny will be in attendance for photos. The parade will be at 2 p.m. at Town Hall. 828.506.8331 or www.visitdillsboro.org.

• An Easter Tea will be held by Dogwood Crafters at the Historic Jarrett House on Saturday, March 26. Seatings will be at 1 and 3 p.m. English style finger sandwiches, sweets and tea. $15 per person, with prepaid reservations only. To secure a seat, call 828.586.2248.

SUNDAY, MARCH 27

March 16-22, 2016

BRYSON CITY • The Swain County Easter Egg Hunt will be at 5:30 p.m. March 24 at the Swain County Recreation Park. Hunt for prizes among hundreds of brightly colored eggs. For ages 1-8. www.greatsmokies.com.

• The Peanuts Easter Beagle Express Train will be at 11 a.m. March 25-26 at the Bryson City Train Depot. Easter Egg Hunt, crafts, snacks and more. 800.872.4681 or www.gsmr.com.

• An Easter Sunrise Service will be held at 7 a.m. Sunday, March 27, at the gazebo at The Village Green. Music and scripture.

Attendees are encouraged to bring a lawn chair.

• Friends of the Lake 5K Road Race and Walk — The Easter festivities kick off with a 5K road race and walk at 9 a.m.

Join runners and walkers of all ages and skill levels for this popular annual event around the Lake Junaluska Walking Trail.

As a charitable event, 100 percent of the proceeds go toward supporting recreational opportunities at the lake. Registration is required. To register, call 828.454.6680 or visit www.lakejunaluska.com/run.

• Easter Egg Hunt — Join the Easter bunny to hunt for more than 10,000 eggs. All children ages 12 and under are invited to join the hunt, located near Stuart Auditorium. The eggs are filled with candy and special prizes. There will be three separate hunts according to age, beginning at 11:30 a.m. Please dress your children appropriately for the weather and for outdoor play, bring a basket or bag for collecting the eggs and arrive 15-20 minutes before your child’s designated time.

Ages 1-3 at 11:30 a.m., ages 4-7 at 11:45 a.m. and ages 8-12 at noon.

sunrise service at the amphitheater below the Lake Junaluska Cross. The service, which begins at 7 a.m., features a brass ensemble with special music. The sun peeking over the mountains and the waters shining with morning dew adds a level of intimacy to this already moving worship experience. In the event of rain, the sunrise service will be moved to Memorial Chapel. Rev. Susan Giles, dean of Memorial Chapel, will preside.

• Breakfast Buffet — All are welcome at Lambuth Inn for an Easter breakfast buffet from 7:30 to 9 a.m. Tickets are available at the front desk of Lambuth Inn on Sunday morning, or by calling 828.454.6662 or visiting the Bethea Welcome Center.

• Long’s Chapel Easter Service — Long’s Chapel United Methodist Church will host their annual Easter service at Stuart Auditorium, starting at 10:30 a.m. They encourage everyone to be in their seats by 10:15 a.m. Childcare is provided for children 5 and under. Children older than 5 are encouraged to join their families in worship.

• Easter Lunch Buffet — Bring your family for a special Easter lunch buffet at The Terrace. The menu includes fresh salads, chef carved roast beef, baked ham, chicken Florentine, delicious fruit and vegetables and homemade desserts.

Reservations are required. Call 828.454.6662 or visit the Bethea Welcome Center to make your reservation. Lunch will be served from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

arts & entertainment

Easter in WNC

• An Easter Egg Hunt will be held at 4 p.m.

Thursday, March 24, at the Waynesville Public Library. For children of all ages. In case of inclement weather, the event will be held in the downstairs children’s area.

Refreshments, crafts and other surprises will also be offered. 828.356.2512 or lhartzell@haywoodnc.net.

• The “Holy Land for Easter Week” special event will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday, March 22, at the Dellwood Baptist Church. There will be a potluck (covered dish) luncheon followed by the program about the Holy Land, which will be presented by pastors Bobby Rogers and D. Shawn Porter. All are welcome. 31

32

Books

Smoky Mountain News

Reading great books remains important ent, which extends from Ash Wednesday to Easter, is for many Christians a time of fasting and prayer. Some believers also forego certain pleasures. A child, for example, may give up candy while adults swear off tobacco or alcohol. In recent years, some teens and adults have removed themselves from Facebook or in a more positive approach, set for themselves daily Bible readings.

Keep fasting in Writer mind. We’ll be coming back to that idea in this review.

In Lit Up: One Reporter. Three Schools.

Twenty-four Books That Can Change Lives (Henry Holt and Company, 2016, 257 pages, $30), writer and former film critic David Denby takes us inside three high school literature classes in New York. He tells us of his interactions with the students, gives us vivid descriptions of the teachers he meets, and writes movingly about the books the students read and discuss.

Twenty years ago, Denby ventured into another classroom. In Great Books: My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World, he reported on his return to his alma mater, Columbia University, at the age of 50, where he spent a year in a Great Books class.

To compare these two books — Great Books and Lit Up — is highly instructive. The gap between them may be only a score of years, but it constitutes a canyon in terms of students, reading, and technology. In Great Books, the Columbia students were highly engaged in their reading bringing to classroom discussions other books they have read.

In Lit Up, a few high school students do some outside reading, but most are much more heavily involved in technolog — their computers and iPods, their smart phones and their musical devices. Though separated by

Jeff Minick

L

only 20 years, Great Books and Lit Up stand as markers of radically different eras.

In Lit Up, we along with Denby become increasingly aware of the influence of the electronic screen not just on the lives of these stu-

dents, but on Americans in general. Denby recounts the story of one teacher who realized she hadn’t read a book cover to cover in a long time. That evening she began reading Hermann Hesse’s The Glass-Bead Game. She had to force herself to read the pages rather than just skimming them, to remain seated with the book in her lap when she felt the urge to open the computer. For two weeks, she struggled with her reading until it finally came naturally to her again. As Denby says, her struggles to remain with a book reminded him of an alcoholic trying to get sober.

Which brings me to fasting.

In a class centered around Huxley’s Brave New World, teacher Sean Leon turned the students’ attention to the influence of electronic media. He first had them write down the amount of time they watched television every week, with the totals ranging from three hours to 21. He and the students turned next to total media time, everything from Facebook to music. A class of sen-

iors averaged 70 hours per week. A few students reported breaking 200 hours per week. Leon was baffled by this figure — a week only contains 168 hours — but the students laughed. “Overlapping!

Multitasking!”

His response: “Starting at five today, I’m going to ask you to step away from all this for two days … A digital fast — no cell phones, no TV, no iPod … Some students, when I’ve done this in the past, do nothing with the time. Try to do something.”

Only 14 of the 32 students made it through those two days.

Reading about that experiment made me consider how much I cover myself with media and entertainment. Excluding actual writing time and writing letters via email to my stu-

dents and parents, I figured I spent about 15 hours per week online. Though I gave up my television years ago, I watch movies and television shows online late at night, so let’s call it another seven hours. I do little with my cell phone, so call that an hour. When I am writing or online, I frequently listen to music, as I am right now, so add another 20 hours.

Forty-three hours a week finds me engaged with some sort of media.

I am a reader. I revisit half a dozen books a day, books I’ve already read but come back to as old friends. I read books for review for this column, books and articles for the subjects I teach in school, and books for pleasure.

Yet I also know that electronic media, in my case the computer, have diminished my powers of reading. Rarely, unless a book casts a special spell over me, do I read for long periods of time anymore. Often, too, I find myself dipping into a book, particularly if it’s non-fiction, reading here and there, but not from beginning to end.

The schools observed by Denby were trying to make readers of their students, but nearly all involved — administrators, teachers, students — face a tough battle against the gadgets that have become as much a part of our daily lives as sleeping and eating. And for these students, who have grown up on screens and images, who communicate by text rather than pen, who often lose focus after reading five or six paragraphs, the challenge of becoming a reader is much greater.

Recently, some neurological scientists have expressed concerns about the effect of electronic media on human beings. Those who are deeply involved with a screen often have trouble focusing for long periods of time or approaching a problem in depth. Google “electronic media changing the brain.” The results may shock you.

I am ignorant about such things, but I do agree with Denby’s conclusions. Books are important. Good teachers are important.

Bringing together students and literature students is important.

(Jeff Minick is a writer and teacher. He can be reached at minick0301@gmail.

‘Coffee with the Poet’ celebrates Ireland The Coffee with the Poet series continues with an ode to Irish poets at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, March 17, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, the series is asking folks to come and share the work of their favorite Irish poets. Whether the poet is classic, contemporary or little known, have an Irish coffee if you like, and help celebrate the day.

The Coffee with the Poet series is cosponsored by the Netwest program of the North Carolina Writers Network and gathers the third Thursday of each month.

828.586.9499.

Melton book copes with grief Waynesville author Ann Melton will sign her latest book From Whence Cometh My Help, A Journey through Grief at 3 p.m. Saturday, March 26, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.

From Whence Cometh My Help addresses the challenges she faced when her husband Frank Melton passed away. The book also offers advice for those who want to help a friend or family member who is grieving.

828.586.9499.

We’re on a Roll.

New jobs posting every week.

Visit HarrahsCherokeeJobs.com or call 828.497.8778 Clark Communications, a seasoned firm in the field of printing and marketing technologies, has the right solutions to meet your needs for quality, quantity, customization, and turnaround time. Our commitment to customer service with personal attention and innovative leadership has earned international recognition and numerous industry awards.

PRINTING

Offset, Digital, Variable Data and Bindery

MAILING SIGNAGE AND DISPLAYS STRATEGIC MARKETING

variable print, emails, personalized URLs, social media, analytics & reporting

Visit us online and discover all of our creative communication solutions:

www.oneclearchoice.com

WE ARE LOCATED AT 777 CASINO DRIVE. APPLICANTS CAN PARK ON LEVEL 1 IN THE CASINO GARAGE.

If you have already submitted your application, it will be considered active for 6 months from the date of application. To qualify, applicants must be 21 years or older (18-21 years eligible for non-gaming positions), must successfully pass an RIAH hair/drug test and undergo an investigation by Tribal Gaming Commission. Preference for Tribal members. This property is owned by the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation, managed by Caesars Entertainment. The Human Resources Department accepts applications Mon. - Thur. from 8am - 4:30pm. Call 828.497.8778, or send resume to Human Resources Department, 777 Casino Drive, Cherokee, NC 28719 or fax resume to 828.497.8540.

A Waynesville native, Gary has a solid reputation for maintaining long-term relationships with clients. With the closing of Cornerstone Printing, Gary has joined the Clark team and is committed to customer satisfaction and growth.

Gary Caldwell 828/226-8876

gcaldwell@oneclearchoice.com 2 Westside Dr. | Asheville, NC 28806 | 828/254.1432

336-35

ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP CAMP:

SPRING BREAK CAMP APRIL 4 - 8

WEEK 1: MAY 31 - JUNE 3 WEEK 2: JUNE 6 - 10

SPORTSMANSHIP & PLAY MATTERS CAMP

AFTER CARE CAMP

JUNE 13 - 17

We have supplements to support brain health & memory.

JUNE 13 - 17 12:30 PM TO 5:30 PM

For more information, call the Waynesville Parks and Recreation Department at 456-2030 or email tpetrea@waynesvillenc.gov

828.452.0911 kimsrx.com kimswellnessinfo.org

WAYNESVILLE

PARKS AND RECREATION 828.456.2030 or email tpetrea@waynesvillenc.gov

Smoky Mountain News

DAY CAMP PROGRAMS

Memories should last a lifetime.

March 16-22, 2016

UPCOMING CAMPS

366 RUSS AVE. • WAYNESVILLE (BiLo Shopping Center)

336-22

33

34

Outdoors

Smoky Mountain News

Worming towards a better way Composting project reduces waste, sparks young scientists in Jackson schools

BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER hen the bell rang for the end of school Friday afternoon, Jeff Vamvakias’ room at Cullowhee Valley Elementary emptied a lot less completely than is typical for a middle school on the edge of a weekend. Seven students — six of them eighth-graders, one sixthgrader — hung around after buses left, but they weren’t there for detention or make-up work or mandated study time.

They were there to talk about worms. Their worms.

“It’s interesting to see how the worms help bring the soil back to life by using things that we would normally throw away and turning it into something good,” said K.J. Ammons, an eighth-grader who’s part of Vamvakias’ student worm team.

As Ammons spoke, that’s just what the worms in question — more than 100 of them, the students estimated — were doing. In the black composting bin pushed against the teaching desk at the front of the classroom, they busily munched away at the meal of newspaper and cafeteria scraps the students had fed them, passing the food bits through their system to emerge as worm castings, a fancy name for worm poop.

It’s also some of the highest-quality compost around.

The project is part of a school district’s initiative to stop throwing away so many food scraps and turn them into something useful. This year, the first for the program, one classroom in each of the district’s nine schools is equipped with a worm bin — called vermicomposting — with an eye to expanding it in the future.

“There’s this food that has this weight to it that’s going in the trash,” said Laura Cabe, nutrition director for Jackson County Schools, of the produce served at the cafeteria. “Of course that costs a lot of money too. We started looking into it and saw vermicomposting.

It was just extremely interesting.”

The program’s met an enthusiastic reception, Cabe said, and she’d like to see more classrooms across the district get a worm project going. While the initial bins were purchased commercially, do-it-yourself worm bins cost as little as five or ten dollars.

Aside from the reduced waste, the possibilities for the resulting compost are endless.

W

It could be used on school gardens, school landscaping, or sold as a fundraiser.

“A lot of times in the cafeteria, I look at how kids waste food, and it makes me kind of sad because there are a lot of children in thirdworld counties who don’t have enough to eat,” said eighth-grader Becky Pechmann, a member of Vamvakias’ crew. “I wanted to do something so it wouldn’t just be thrown away.”

Those kinds of speeches are music to

Jeff Vamvakias’ middle schoolers have taken on the worm project with enthusiasm. They are (from left), Cameron Macke, Jake Fox, Maya Sterling, Becky Pechmann, Noah Hinton and K.J. Ammons. Holly Kays photos Vamvakias’ ears. For the second-year science teacher, learning is all about doing. At least, that’s what he’s learned himself through a varied professional past that’s included everything from teaching yoga to doing research in Yosemite National Park to playing in a rock band. He came

to teaching later in life and holds degrees in physics, astronomy and geology.

“My idea about education is that kids learn by doing stuff, human people learn by doing stuff,” Vamvakias said. “You learn because things are relevant to your life and you find some passion in them.”

That’s a maxim he’s lived by even before the worms came along. A 60-gallon tank at the back of Vamvakias’ room holds a hatch of

Redworms are the most commonly used for composting.

Make your own bin When it comes to worms, you can go fancy or you can go simple. Commercial worm composting setups are available, but it takes just a few minutes to get your own vermiculture system going using materials lying around the house.

1. Find a large, plastic container with a lid — rubber totes work well — and drill holes all around it. The goal is to allow air to flow in and out of your compost bin.

2. Make bedding for your worms with newspaper strips, and moisten it with water. You’ll want to end up with 3-4 inches of moist newspaper.

3. Add a layer of soil to give the worms enough grit to aid with digestion and helpful microbes to facilitate the decomposition process.

4. Add the worms.

5. Feed them your food scraps. For best results, cut the scraps up into small pieces before adding them, and don’t overfeed the worms. Worms consume roughly half their body weight each day, so use a 2-to-1 ratio to gauge how many worms you need. But they multiply quickly, so it can be best to start out with a few less than you’ll really need.

6. Cover the bin contents with a piece of newspaper.

7. When the worms have done their work, harvest the compost.

tiny trout, part of a project through Trout Unlimited that has students see the fish through from egg to hatchling to river-ready.

He gets the kids outside doing science fieldwork when he can, and he leverages his friendships with professional scientists around the world to let kids do end-of-unit Skype interviews with experts in the field they’ve just finished studying.

That’s why, when Jackson County Public Schools decided to start exploring the possibilities of vermiculture — the official term for composting with worms — Vamvakias was eager to volunteer his classroom to pilot the program for Cullowhee Valley.

“This project is a way for the kids to see the reality of waste and that waste goes into garbage dumps and it will cost us a lot of money,” Vamvakias said. “But here we have an opportunity to use a natural cycle — worms — to take that waste and turn that waste into soil.”

The school systems’ waste-reduction efforts don’t stop at worms. For instance, schools now have “share tables,” where students can drop off the cafeteria food they’re required to take but know they won’t eat for other students to pick up. Whatever is left over gets donated to The Community Table food pantry, with $2,600 of food donated between August and December of 2015. The system’s also ramped up its recycling efforts, saving $9,000 through a district-wide recycling and waste reduction program during that same timeframe.

F

Duke’s plan to commit WNC to a fossil fuel future,” said D.J. Gerken, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center.

“This oversized gas plant is about making profit, not meeting demonstrated customer need. Worse, it could crowd out opportunities for renewable energy and energy efficiency.”

The new units will serve Duke’s ninecounty western region, which includes more than 350,000 people, and cost about $1 billion to build. The coal plant will be retired by 2020.

“We also have a unique opportunity to work with the community to reduce energy demand and invest in technology that will provide cleaner energy to power the growing region of Western North Carolina,” said David Fountain, Duke Energy’s North Carolina president. “This project will allow us to continue to provide cost-effective, reliable power for all of our customers.”

According to a press release from Duke, the company may file an application down the road to build an additional 186megawatt plant but would cancel those plans if its “efforts to reduce peak load growth” are successful.

The company has also said it will file a future application for 15 megawatts of new solar generation after the Asheville coal palnt is decommissioned and coal ash excavation completed. It will look for approval to install at least 5 megawatts of utility-scale electricity storage as well.

— By Outdoors Editor Holly Kays

Make Easter special for thru-hikers Easter trail magic will spread along the Appalachian Trail around Franklin as the Nantahala Hiking Club’s annual Easter on the Trail unfolds Saturday, March 26.

Volunteers will distribute small bags of fruit, candy and hardboiled eggs — mouthwatering delicacies to trail-weary thru-hikers — to hikers along the trail, with distribution areas assigned according to personal preferences and ability to hike.

To participate, arrive at 8:30 a.m. at the NHC Clubhouse, 173 Carl Slagle Drive, with a contribution of fruit, candy or hardboiled eggs to help make up the bags. Distribution will begin afterward. Donations — except for eggs, which will only be accepted March 26 — can also be dropped off March 21-25 at FROG Headquarters on 573 East Main Street.

Elena Marsh, 828.369.8915.

Call today to learn more about your specific coverage

828.456.3211 smokymtneye.com

50

Save $

Become a ppassholder Become assholder to to enjoy ennjoy a year year of of unlimited daytime admission, exclusive benefits p g and special events including:

March 16-22, 2016

Duke Energy Progress’s plan to replace its coal-fired power plant in Asheville with natural gas has garnered partial approval from the N.C. Utilities Commission.

The Commission has OK’d Duke’s proposal to build two 280-megawatt natural gas units — replacing its 376-megawatt coal plant — but denied its request to build a third unit in 2023.

Duke hoped to get advance approval for the third unit to be built down the road, even though the current load doesn’t warrant it. But the utility commission instead will require Duke to come back to the table for permission to build the third unit, if and when consumer energy demand reaches that point.

The approved request represents a significant trimming down from Duke’s original proposal, which called for a 45-mile transmission line to a planned substation in Campobello, South Carolina. Duke pulled the plug on that plan following loud public opposition and replaced it with the plan for two smaller plants in Asheville — with the option of a third later.

Duke says the plan points to the company’s commitment to clean energy — natural gas burns cleaner than coal — but some environmental advocates say the plan, even though it represents a significant trimming down from the original proposal, points the region in the wrong direction energy-wise.

“We are disappointed that the Commission embraced the remainder of

We are proud to accept insurance plans from these local employers:

outdoors

Scaled-down plans for Duke’s Asheville plant approved

• FASHIONABLE FASHIO ROMANCE: Wedding Gowns in Film exhibition, hibition,

through July 4 • BILTMORE BLOOMS, March 19–May 26

Offer Valid NOW–March 31

Purchase your new Biltmore Annual Pass for $99+ TAX at worms, with Ammons throwing in that the temperature “sweet spot” is between 72 and 74 degrees. He can rattle off specific stats, such as the fact that worms lay about 36 eggs a week and the population in the container can double each month.

“You can see if they’re healthy or not by shining a light on them,” Ammons said. “If they burrow down, that means they’re healthy because they’re sensitive to the light.”

If you were walked into the room blindfolded, you just might be convinced that you were talking to a panel of scientists, not a bunch of eighth-grade kids.

“I’m super proud of these kids and the depth of their knowledge,” Vamvakias said.

BILTMORE.COM/PASSOFFER

or by calling 800-742-6150.

Purchase your new Biltmore Annual Pass for $99, plus tax. Savings based on regular $149 Biltmore Annual Pass. Some restrictions may apply.

Smoky Mountain News

While the worms don’t each eat in comparison to those numbers — a cup or two of scraps a week — they’re the most handson component of Jackson’s waste-reduction efforts, and the results have Vamvakias’ students pretty excited.

“It takes something small that a lot of people overlook and shows how important they are to society, especially with recycling and helping the earth out,” said eighthgrader Maya Sterling.

“I think this is going to help a lot of other people learn how to take care of their planet,” agreed eighth-grader Noah Hinton.

It’s also got the kids learning, a lot.

Cameron Macke can tell you offhand that the earth holds about 6,000 species of earth-

35

outdoors

Volunteers needed in the Smokies

Take in the view from LeConte

March 16-22, 2016

A hike along one of the most-loved trails in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park — to Mount LeConte Lodge via Alum Cave Bluff — will offer park lovers a guided experience on Saturday, March 26.

Part of a series of hikes offered by the Great Smoky Mountains Association in support of the park’s Hike 100 Challenge this year, the 11-mile roundtrip will take in Arch Rock, Eye of the Needle, Alum Cave Bluffs and spectacular views interspersed with oldgrowth forest.

The Smokies Hike 100 Challenge is an initiative encouraging people to log 100 miles of hiking in the park this year as part of the National Park Service’s celebration of its 100th birthday in 2016. $10; free for GSMA Hemlock members.

Space is limited. Register at http://conta.cc/1TBeCng.

As the green season inches closer and visitation ramps up, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is looking for volunteers to engage with visitors and show off the park’s assets.

Three volunteer opportunities are currently available.

■ Volunteers at the Clingmans Dome information center, elevation 6,300 feet, educate visitors about high-elevation spruce-fir forests in addition to providing recreational, trip planning and directional information.

Volunteers work alongside Great Smoky Mountains Association employees, who operate a bookstore out of the same building.

Two training sessions are required to volunteer, held 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, March 19, at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center near Cherokee and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, March 29, at the Sugarlands Visitor Center on the Tennessee side of park. Volunteers work one four-hour shift per week from April 1 to Nov. 30, with help needed Sundays, Mondays and Saturdays.

828.497.1906 or florie_takaki@nps.gov.

■ At Mingus Mill, volunteers will work alongside park employees to educate visitors about the historical role of milling in the Smokies and specifically about the turbine wheel at Mingus Mill, which was built in 1886.

A training 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, March 31, at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center is required for new volunteers. Volunteers will work at least one four-hour shift per week from April to the end of November.

fields, volunteers help park rangers with traffic management.

A training 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, April 5, at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center is required. Volunteers will work one four-hour shift per week from mid-April to midNovember. 828.497.1914 or kathleen_stuart@nps.gov.

A documentary introducing viewers to the people thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail will be screened at 2 and 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 23, at the Macon County Library in Franklin.

“Appalachian Impressions: Hiking the Appalachian Trail” shares the stories and experiences, the thrills and pain that come along with this 2,173-mile foot journey over the course of two hours.

828.524.3600. Sponsored by the Nantahala Hiking Club.

Is a Will Enough?

FREE LUNCHEON SEMINAR Smoky Mountain News

The mill is located a half-mile north of Oconaluftee Visitor Center. 828.497.1906 or florie_takaki@nps.gov.

■ Luftee Rovers wander the trails and fields around Oconaluftee Visitor Center to educate visitors about park regulations protecting wildlife, such as waste disposal and safe viewing distances. When elk are in the

Get the virtual A.T. experience

Diane E. Sherrill, Attorney

April 13 & May 11 11:30 AM

Best Western River Escape Inn Dillsboro • Reservation Suggested

828.586.4051

nctrustlawyer.com 36

Keeping visitors a safe distance away from elk is one of the many functions of volunteers in the Smokies. Rob Wilson photo

28 Maple St. • Sylva

336-49

Vendors of everything from seeds and vegetables to garden statues and used books are sought for Cherokee’s inaugural Spring Garden Fair, to be held April 8-9 at the Cherokee Fair Grounds.

The event aims to educate and excite tribal members about spring, gardening and the new season, offering an array of educational, service and business vendors selling a full range of gardeningrelated items. Festival-goers will learn about beekeeping, living with elk, water safety, composting with worms and more.

The event will also include a photo contest for images of children in gardenthemed costumes, a coffee booth to benefit Cherokee teens’ ecology-themed trip to Costa Rica and a chance for kids to get their picture taken with Smoky the Bear.

For information or to submit a photo to the contest, email legendweaverstudios@gmail.com.

Sell spring in Waynesville

Nutrition Facts serving size : ab out 50 p ag es

outdoors

Ring in spring with Cherokee fair

Am ount per Serving Calories 0 % Daily Value * Tot al Fat 0g

0%

Reg ional New s

100%

Op inion

100%

Outd oors

100%

Art s

100%

Entert ainm ent

100%

Classified s

100%

* Percent Weekly values b ased on Hayw ood, Jackson, M acon, Sw ain and Buncom b e d iet s.

WNC's Largest Selection of Granite & Quartz.

Solid Surface Specialists

62 Communications Dr., Waynesville • Appointments Suggested

(828) 452-4747 WWW.SSS-TOPS.COM

20,000 reasons spring fishing

March 16-22, 2016

Vendors selling plants, flowers and seeds are wanted for the 14th annual Whole Bloomin’ Thing Spring Festival, set for Saturday, May 7, at Frog Level in Waynesville — along with craft and food vendors.

The festival features local growers, nature-related artists and crafters, health and wellness professionals and alternative energy and eco-friendly vendors. The festival is timed to cater to the inner green thumb in everyone before heading into the gardening season.

Applications are due Monday, March 28. joy.b.simmons@outlook.com or www.historicfroglevel.com.

Farmland preservation interest meetings planned in Jackson

Annual Opening Day

Smoky Mountain News

Landowners interested in learning more about how to keep their farmland safe from development are invited to one of the meetings planned by the Jackson County Agriculture Advisory Board.

The meetings will be held: ■ 7 p.m. Thursday, March 17, at the Balsam Fire Department.

■ 7 p.m. Thursday, March 31, at the Savannah Fire Department.

The meetings will discuss the Farmland Preservation Program, which encourages the voluntary preservation and protection of farmland from nonfarm development.

Barry Stevens or Jane Fitzgerald, 828.586.5465.

37

outdoors

Campers stop for a photo at the end of a hike during summer camp. Donated photo

Teen helpers wanted for summer camps

Free ton of pellets delivered with purchase of new pellet stove and installation.

828-333-5456 cleansweepfireplace.com

March 16-22, 2016

Chimney Inspections, Repairs & More

JOIN US FOR ARTS EVENTS AT WCU MAR. 17 | THUR. 7:30PM | BARDO ARTS CENTER | $

PPerformance: erformance RRadio erformance: adio Show: Blackbeard’s Ghost COULTER MAR. 28| MON. 7:30PM | COUL TER | FREE

Guest Recital: Recital: ecital Thomas Jostlein, Horn APR. 5 | TUE. 7:30PM |COULTER COULTER | FREE

Smoky Mountain News

Concert: Smoky Smoky Mountain Brass Quintet APR 16 5-7:30PM | BARDO ARTS CENTER LOBBY | FREE

Friends of the Arts Silent Auction & Benefit Benefit: Friends

SAVE THE DATE: APR 14-16, 7:30PM & APR 17, 3PM | BARDO ARTS CENTER | $

GYPSY GYPSY THE MUSICAL VISIT THE FINE ART MUSEUM FOR ONGOING EXHIBITS | FINEARTMUSEUM.WCU FINEARTMUSEUM.WCU.EDU .EDU

EVENTS ARE BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE COLLEGE OF FINE AND PERFORMING ARTS AT AT WCU. JOIN FRIENDS FRIENNDS OF THE ARTS TODAY! TODAAYY!

828.227.7028 | ARTSCALENDAR.WCU.EDU 38

Teens who want to spend the summer outside can volunteer as “counselors in training” with the summer day camp run by Waynesville Parks and Recreation.

A recruitment meeting for the Volunteer Counselor in Training Program will be held at 6 p.m. Monday, March 21, at the Waynesville Recreation Center. At least one parent or guardian must attend with the

applicant.

Teens who will be between the ages of 13 and 15 by June 1 are eligible, with experience and knowledge about recreational activities a plus. The age group fits the gap between the camps’ age cap and the minimum age to be a paid counselor.

Tim Petrea, tpetrea@waynesvillenc.gov or 828.456.2030.

Whitewater junkies to converge on Nantahala Paddlers at the top of their game will compete on the Nantahala River March 25-27 during the Nantahala Racing Club Whitewater U.S. Open.

The three-day event, hosted by NRC, will include a Class III slalom, a Class III downriver spring and a Class II downriver classic. Spectators are welcome, with vantage points along the river near Nantahala Outdoor Center.

■ Open practice will start things off from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Friday, March 25, with demo runs after 5:30 p.m.

■ Slalom runs will take off at 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, March 26-27.

■ The sprint will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 26.

■ The classic will begin at 11 a.m. Sunday, March 27. nantahalaracingclub.com.

Forest Service considers limiting guided fishing on the Nantahala Complaints about overcrowding on the Nantahala River have led the U.S. Forest Service to consider limiting fishing permits for outfitters and guides.

The proposed rule changes would apply to the 4-mile section stretching from the White Oak Creek confluence to the Nantahala Powerhouse, with the intention of giving priority to the general public while allowing commercial outfitters to have access.

Three alternatives are being considered: ■ Reduce current use. Limit the number of outfitters to 12, with a limit of six on Saturday and six on Sunday from Memorial Day through Oct. 30.

■ Limit use to its current rate. Limit the number of outfitters to 15 with each outfitter allowed a maximum of 125 days on the section. This alternative would not include any day or season restrictions.

■ Make no changes to existing regulations.

Currently, 15 permits are issued to outfitters and guides using this section of the river. There is no limit on the number of

days an outfitter can use the river, but actual use for 2014 ranged from zero to 125 days per year based on self-reporting.

The river section is managed under N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission delayed harvest regulations, making it catch-andrelease only with bait restrictions from Oct. 1 through the first Friday in June.

Comment on the issue will be open through April 11.

Email comment to comments-southernnorth-carolina-nantahalanantahala@fs.fed.us. 828.524.6441.

Fishing tourney coming to Cherokee Cherokee’s schedule of fishing tournaments for the year will kick off with the Opening Day Fishing Tournament, March 26-27.

Tagged fish will be specially stocked into the Qualla Boundary’s rivers for this event — anglers who catch one can redeem them at the Fly Fishing Museum of the Southern Appalachians for cash prizes, with $20,000 total in play. $11 entry. Open to all ages and legal fishing methods. Register anywhere fishing licenses are sold. 828.788.0034 or www.fishcherokee.com.

WNC Calendar COMMUNITY EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS • Living Simply to Enjoy More with Less is the topic of a program offered by Robert Franz at 6:30 p.m. on March 22, at the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva.

586.2016.

• Input is being sought for the Southwestern Rural Planning Organization Transportation Advisory Committee Meeting, which is set for 5 p.m. on March 28, at the Boiler Room Steakhouse in Franklin. Input on top transportation priorities to be considered for future NCDOT funding may be submitted by mail (Rose Bauguess, 125 Bonnie Lane, Sylva, NC 28779) or electronically (rose@regiona.org).

• Help with income tax preparation for seniors over age 60 will be held Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Haywood County Senior Resource Center through March by Bruce Johnson, registered tax return preparer, in exchange for donation to the Senior Resource Center. By appointment only 356.2800.

• Free tax preparation will be available through April 15 at the Jackson County Public Library and Jackson County Senior Center in Sylva. Library hours are 3-6:45 p.m. on Tuesdays or by appointment (586.2016). Senior Center hours are from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on Mondays and Fridays on a first-come, first-serve basis. No charge.

• Heating assistance is available for those who qualify through the Jackson County Department of Social Services, which has almost $90,000 in LIEAP funding.

Applications will be taken daily between 8 a.m.-4 p.m. through March 31 at Jackson County Department of Social Services in Sylva. 586.5546.

BUSINESS & EDUCATION • “Marketing Your Business” – a free seminar presented by Southwestern Community College’s Small Business Center – will be offered from 5:30-8:30 p.m. on March 16, at the SCC Macon Campus. Registration required: www.southwesterncc.edu/sbc. Info: 339.4211 or t_henry@southwesterncc.edu.

• Two lectures about a successful business and its socially conscious reinvestment in the international business community will be offered on March 16, at Western Carolina University’s A.K. Hinds University Center Theater. Classes start at 3 and 4 p.m. Free.

227.7184.

• Registration is underway for an American Red Cross Lifeguard Training certification course that runs from March 17-20 at the Haywood Regional Health & Fitness Center in Clyde. Course fee is $235 for members and $255 for nonmembers. Instruction in lifeguard training, CPR, AED and First Aid. Earn a two-year lifeguard certification and two-year CPR/AED/First Aid certification. Must be 15 years old. Register and get more info by visiting the fitness center or www.myhaywoodregional.com/fitness or by calling 452.8056.

• Registration is underway for a workshop entitled “Building a Memorable Brand,” which will be offered by Western Carolina University from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. on Friday, March 18, at WCU’s location at Biltmore Park in Asheville. $89 per person. learn@wcu.edu.

• A free Quickbooks Series will be offered by the Haywood Community College Small Business Center from 6-9 p.m. on consecutive Tuesdays from March 22April 6. Series covers introduction, intermediate, advanced and payroll sessions. Register or get more info: SBC.Haywood.edu or 627.4512.

• A hands-on computer class on using cloud storage is scheduled for 5:45 p.m. on March 23, in the Computer Lab of the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva. Free; sign-up required. 586.2016.

All phone numbers area code 828 unless otherwise noted.

• A four-week course in “Conversational Spanish” will be offered from 6-7 p.m. on Wednesdays, March 30April 20, in Room 139 of Western Carolina University’s Cordelia Camp Building in Cullowhee. Cost: $79.

Instructor: Garrett Fisher, Spanish instructor in WCU’s Department of World Languages. Info and register at converences.wcu.edu. 227.7397.

• A free Social Media Marketing Summit will be offered by the Small Business Center at Haywood Community College from 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m. on March 30, in Clyde.

Seminars include “Twitter Made Easy” (8 a.m.); “Facebook Made Easy” (10:30 a.m.); “Instagram Made Easy” (1 p.m.) and “Tools for Social Media” (3:30 p.m.).

All seminars are in Room 203 on the HCC Campus.

SBC.Haywood.edu or 627.4512.

FUNDRAISERS AND BENEFITS • An Easter Basket Silent Auction will be held through March 18 in the Angel Medical Center cafeteria in Franklin. Highest bidder will be announced March 21.

Proceeds go to Relay for Life of Franklin.

• A Food Drive is being held throughout the month of March, which is National Nutrition Month, by the Nutrition Education Center at Haywood Regional Health & Fitness Center in Clyde. The center is open from 5:30 a.m.-9 p.m. on Monday through Thursday; from 5:30 a.m.-8 p.m. on Friday; from 7:30 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday and from 1-6 p.m. on Sunday. 452.8092 or http://myhaywoodregional.com/services/nutritioneducation.

• A seed money fundraiser is underway to benefit the new Marianna Black Library in Bryson City. The library furnishings fund receives 50 percent of sales receipts for each packet sold directly or 25 percent sold at SowTrueSeed.com; use the code MBL2016. 488.3030, ext. 128, jdelfield@fontanalib.org.

• The New Library Campaign Committee for Marianna Black Library is hosting a fundraiser at 6 p.m. on March 16, at Pasqualino’s Italian Restaurant in Bryson City.

Tickets are $20 per person and include a meal of chicken parmesan, pasta, dessert and coffee/tea (tips not included, no carry out). Tickets on sale at Marianna Black Library and at Friends of the Library Used Bookstore. Info: 488.3030 or jdelfield@fontanalib.org.

• The seventh-annual pancake breakfast is scheduled for 8 a.m.-noon on March 19, in the Maggie Valley United Methodist Church fellowship hall. $8 for adults; $4 for children under 12. Proceeds support the church’s mission programs and ministries. All-you-can-eat pancakes with bacon, sausage, coffee, milk and orange juice. Tickets available at the door or in advance: 926.9794.

• Voices in the Laurel will host a Bingo Night fundraiser as part of their 20th anniversary season at 7 p.m. on March 19, at the Haywood County Fairgrounds. $20 includes admission, 20 games of bingo, coffee, dessert and a chance at winning door prizes. Tickets can be purchased by calling 734.9163. www.voicesinthelaurel.org.

VOLUNTEERS • Haywood Habitat for Humanity will kick off “Women Build 2016” from 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m. on March 19, at its new project, Walton Woods, in Waynesville. Training and lunch provided. Sign up: 452.7960. www.haywoodhabitat.org.

• A recruitment meeting for the Waynesville Parks and

Smoky Mountain News

Recreation Department’s Volunteer Counselor in Training program is scheduled for 6 p.m. on March 21, at the Waynesville Recreation Center. Applicants must be 13

by June 1. Maximum age is 15. Info: tpetrea@waynesvillenc.gov or 456.2030.

HEALTH MATTERS • “Colon Cancer: Prevention and Screening” will be the topic of “Dinner with a Doc” seminar presented by Filiberto Colon, MD, gastroenterologist, at 6 p.m. on March 17, at the Haywood Regional Medical Center Café. Free. To attend, call 800.424.3627. No children in attendance please.

• A support group for those affected by Essential Tremor will meet at 2p.m. on March 20, at Mission Community Church in Sylva. 631.5543 or tkubit@frontier.com.

• A free education program about tired leg/varicose vein is scheduled for 4-5 p.m. on March 24, at Haywood Regional Medical Center. Led by Dr. Al Mina, MD, FACS and Dr. Joshua Rudd, DO. RSVP required: 452.8346.

• An Advance Directives Workshop is scheduled for 1-4 p.m. on March 22, at the Senior Resource Center in Waynesville. 452.5039 or 452.2370.

• Registration is underway through March 31 for team members for Relay For Life in Haywood County.

Carrie.shuler@cancer.org.

RECREATION AND FITNESS • The Haywood Dancers Ballroom Dance is scheduled for 8 p.m. on March 18, at Angie’s Dance Academy in Clyde. Free. 734.8726 or 734.8063.

• The High Mountain Squares will host their “Shamrock & Gold Dance” from 6:15-8:45 p.m. on March 19, at the Macon County Community Building in Franklin. Jim Duncan of Otto will be the caller. Western-style square dancing, mainstream and levels. All are welcome.

342.1560, 332.0001 or www.highmountainsquares.com.

• Registration is underway for Appalachian Dance Class 101, which will be offered at Folkmoot in Waynesville. Instruction on square dance formation and basic flat-foot and clogging styles unique to Haywood County will be provided by Kim Rose, director of the J. Creek Cloggers. Four-week classes cost $40 and are offered from 6-7 p.m. at the Folkmoot Community Center. Classes start March 22 for ages 16-up; April 19 for ages 6-up; and May 17 for Ages 16-up. Register: 452.2997 or elizabeth@folkmoot.org.

THE SPIRITUAL SIDE • Holy Week activities at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Canton will start with a Liturgy of the Palms and Holy Eucharist 10:30 a.m. on March 20 followed by Maundy Thursday Service at 7 p.m. on March 24 and a 7 p.m.

Good Friday Service on March 25. Holy Saturday service is at 10 a.m. on March 26, followed by Proper Liturgy for Holy Saturday and Great Vigil of Easter at 9 p.m. Easter Day Service is at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, March 27. An Easter egg hunt for children will follow.

• A talk on the Holy Land will be presented by Pastor Bobby Rogers and Pastor D. Shawn Porter of Dellwood Baptist Church at 11 a.m. on March 22, at Hazelwood Baptist Church. Potluck starts at 11 a.m.

• “HIS STORY” – an Easter Drama – will be presented at 7 p.m. on March 25-27 at Bethel Baptist. Free.

648.4106.

• An Easter Sunrise Service is scheduled for 6:30 a.m. on March 27 at the Maggie Valley Pavilion. Free pancake breakfast will follow the service. Everyone is welcome. Sponsored by the Maggie Valley Civic Association.

39

Visit www.smokymountainnews.com and click on Calendar for: ■ Complete listings of local music scene ■ Regional festivals ■ Art gallery events and openings ■ Complete listings of recreational offerings at regional health and fitness centers ■ Civic and social club gatherings • Easter Sunday, March 27, with a powerful sunrise service at the amphitheater below the Lake Junaluska Cross. The service, which begins at 7 a.m., features a brass ensemble with special music. In the event of rain, the sunrise service will be moved to Memorial Chapel. www.lakejunaluska.com/easter or call 800.222.4930.

• Long’s Chapel United Methodist Church will host their annual Easter service, March 27, at Stuart Auditorium, starting at 10:30 a.m. They encourage everyone to be in their seats by 10:15 a.m. Childcare is provided for children 5 and under. Children older than 5 are encouraged to join their families in worship.

• Easter services will be held at 7 a.m. (sunrise), 9 a.m. (contemporary) and 10:55 a.m. (traditional) on March 27 at First United Methodist Church of Sylva.

586.2358.

• Long’s Chapel United Methodist Church will hold its Easter services at 10:25 a.m. on March 27, at Stuart Auditorium at Lake Junaluska. www.longschapel.com; www.facebook.com/LongsChapel; or 456.3993.

• Community Easter Sunrise Service is scheduled for 7 a.m. on March 27, at The Village Green. 734.3434 or www.villagegreencashiersnc.com.

POLITICAL • A press conference on the effect of voting laws on state primary elections will be held by the Jackson County Branch of the NAACP at 5 p.m. on March 16, at the Jackson County Justice Center Building in Sylva.

• Occupy WNC General Assembly will meet at 7 p.m. on March 22, at Dogwood Wellness Center in Sylva.

743.9747.

• The Jackson County Democratic Party will hold its monthly meeting at 6:30 p.m. on March 22, at party headquarters on Mill Street in Sylva. All Democrats are welcome.

AUTHORS AND BOOKS • “The Literary Hour,” featuring poetry and prose reading by Glenda Barrett and Bob Grove, is scheduled for 7 p.m. on March 16, at John Campbell Folk School in Brasstown.

• The Coffee with the Poet series continues with an ode to Irish poets at 10:30 a.m. March 17, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva. To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, the series is asking folks to come and share the work of their favorite Irish poets. The Coffee with the Poet series gathers the third Thursday of each month. 586.9499.

• Waynesville author Ann Melton will sign her latest book From Whence Cometh My Help, A Journey through Grief at 3 p.m. March 26, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva. 586.9499.

SENIOR ACTIVITIES • The Jackson County Senior Center is organizing an outing for 11:30 a.m. on March 16, to Fatz Café and the

• A wellness seminar is scheduled for 1 p.m. on March 16, in the board room of the Jackson County Department on Aging Senior Center in Sylva. Seminar is entitled: Nutrition Information. 586.5494.

• The Happy Wanderers, a senior social group coordinated by the Haywood County Recreation and Parks Department, will travel to the Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte on Tuesday, March 22. Fee is $20; depart at 9 a.m. and return at 7 p.m.

Registration deadline is March 17. 452.6789 or recreation@haywoodnc.net.

David Mesimer (828) 452-2815

Auto ~ Home Life ~ Retirement

283 North Haywood St. Waynesville david.mesimer@allstate.com

Insurance subject to terms, qualifications and availability. Allstate Property and Casualty Insurance Co., Allstate Indemnity Co.. Life insurance and annuities issued by Lincoln Benefit Life Company, Lincoln, NE, Allstate Life Insurance Company, Northbrook, IL, and American Heritage Life Insurance Company, Jacksonville, FL. In New York, Allstate Life Insurance Company of New York, Hauppauge, NY. Northbrook, IL. © 2010 Allstate Insurance Co.

• A free Android 101 class will be held from 1:15-3 p.m. on March 17, at the Jackson County Senior Center in Sylva. 586.5494.

76023

wnc calendar

Protect your world

Franklin Shopping Center. $5 for participants; $10 for non-participants. 586.5494.

Call me today to discuss your options.

Some people think Allstate only protects your car. Truth is, Allstate can also protect your home or apartment, your boat, motorcycle - even your retirement and your life. And the more of your world you put in Good Hands®, the more you can save.

• The Jackson County Senior Center is organizing a trip for 8:30 a.m. on March 22, to The Trolley Company Tour in Hendersonville. $25 for participants; $35 for non-participants. 586.5494.

• A Legal Aide Clinic is scheduled for 2:30-4 p.m. on March 24, at the Jackson County Senior Center in Sylva. Free. 586.5494.

• An “Eco Explorers-Fish Tales” program will be offered for ages 8-13 from 1-3 p.m. on March 28 at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Transylvania County. Learn about fish anatomy, how and what they eat, how and why they grow scales and how they eat. Free. Registration required: http://tinyurl.com/jq4r6x3.

• A Kids’ Introduction to Fly Fishing class for ages 815 is scheduled for 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on March 29 at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Transylvania County. Free. Registration required: http://tinyurl.com/jq4r6x3.

KIDS MOVIES • “The Good Dinosaur” will be shown for free at noon and 2 p.m. on Saturdays through March 26 at The Strand in Waynesville. 38main.com or 283.0079.

• A family movie will be shown at 3:30 p.m. on March 22, at Marianna Black Library in Bryson City.

Animated movie about animals terrified by a campfire story of a werewolf. Free. 488.3030.

KIDS & FAMILIES

A&E

• The “Come Paint with Charles Kidz Program” will be at 4 p.m. March 17 and 24 at the Charles Heath Gallery in Bryson City. $20 per child. Materials and snacks included. 538.2054.

Congratulations to all of this year’s winners!

March 16-22, 2016

Appetizer 1st The Swag 2nd Selu Garden Café 3rd The Farm

Soup Or Salad st

1 Classic Wineseller 2nd The Imperial 3rd Selu Garden Café

st

1 Selu Garden Café 2nd The Swag 3rd The Imperial

Desserts Smoky Mountain News

1st Selu Garden Café 2nd Boojum Brewing Company 3rd The Swag

Main Course

40

People’s Choice

1st The Imperial 2nd The Swag 3rd Balsam Mountain Inn

Many thanks to all of the 2016 participants Balsam Mountain Inn Blossom on Main Thai Fusion Boojum Brewing Company Cataloochee Guest Ranch Classic Wineseller Restaurant Elevated Mountain Distilling Company Frog Level Brewing Lake Junaluska Conference & Retreat Center Laurel Ridge Country Club Selu Garden Cafe at Harrah’s The Farm The Imperial The Swag The Waynesville Inn Golf Resort & Spa Tipping Point Tavern

A big thank you to 2016 our sponors Smoky Mountain News

Champion Janitorial Supply

WNC Magazine The Mountaineer

Visit NC Smokies

AmeriPride Linen & Apparel Services

Buy Haywood

Tryon Distributing

• Western Carolina University will host its 45th annual High School Mathematics Contest on Thursday, March 17, with 415 of the region’s top high school and junior high school mathematics students competing. 227.3829 or afaughn@wcu.edu.

• Entries for a “Peeps Contest” are due by 4 p.m. on March 18, at the Marianna Black Library in Bryson City. Open to ages 4-16. Create a diorama using peeps that represent a book of your choice. Judging is March 24. 488.3030.

• Starr Hogan, owner of Daydreamz, will host a papermaking workshop for kids of all ages from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, March 19, during the Jackson County Farmer’s Market at The Community Table in Sylva. The program is part of the “Family Art and the Market.”

Sponsored by the Jackson County Arts Council. jacksoncountyfarmersmarket@gmail.com or 828.393.5236.

• Students from middle and high schools throughout Western North Carolina will gather at Western Carolina University on March 19, as the WCU History Department hosts a National History Day regional academic competition. Info: jswigger@email.wcu.edu or hrsachs@email.wcu.edu.

• Nature Play Day, a family day dedicated to playing and exploring outdoors, is scheduled for March 19, at the N.C. Arboretum in Asheville. 665.2492 or www.ncarboretum.org/event/nature-play-day.

• Volunteer training sessions are scheduled for a variety of sites in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. For Clingmans Dome, sessions are from 9 a.m.2:30 p.m. on March 19 at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center and from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on March 29 at the Sugarlands Visitor Center. For Mingus Mill, training is from 9 a.m.-3p.m. on March 31, at Oconaluftee. For Oconaluftee Visitor Center, training is from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on April 5, at Oconaluftee. Info for Clingmans Dome and Mingus Mill: 497.1906 or florie_takaki@nps.gov. For Oconaluftee, info: 497.1914 or Kathleen_stuart@nps.gov.

EASTER EVENTS • An Easter Egg Hunt will be at noon March 19, at the Macon County Rec Park. Admission is one canned food item donation, benefitting CareNet. • There will be children’s activities held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 19, at The Factory. Thee Easter Bunny will be onsite for photos until 3 p.m. Admission is $7.99. Ceramic painting is also $3 per person.

349.8888 or www.thefactory.bz.

• An Easter Egg Hunt is scheduled for 11 a.m. on March 19, at the Stecoah Valley Center. Other activities include deviled egg contest, Easter bonnet contest, “Peeps on the Creek” and a chance to meet the Easter Bunny.

• The Jackson County Parks and Recreation Department will hold their annual Easter Egg Hunt at noon March 19. Held at the recreation park for ages 10 and under. Prizes awarded to all children who find “Golden Eggs.” There will be a decorated Easter Egg Contest prior to the hunt. 293.3053 or go to rec.jacksonnc.org.

• An Easter Egg Hunt will be held at 10 a.m. on March 22 and March 24 at the Macon County Public Library in Franklin. For ages 0-10. 524.3600.

• The Swain County Easter Egg Hunt will be at 5:30 p.m. March 24 at the Swain County Recreation Park.

Hunt for prizes among hundreds of brightly colored eggs. For ages 1-8. www.greatsmokies.com.

• An Easter Egg Hunt will be held at 4 p.m. March 24, at the Waynesville Public Library. For children of all ages. In case of inclement weather, the event will be held in the downstairs children’s area. Refreshments, crafts and other surprises will also be offered.

356.2512 or lhartzell@haywoodnc.net.

• The Nantahala Racing Club Whitewater U.S. Open is scheduled for March 25-27 at Nantahala Outdoor Center. NantahalaRacingClub.com.

• The Easter Family Festival weekend will be March 25-27 at Fontana Village Resort. A full weekend of fun including scenic lake tours, sunrise church service, history films, corn hole tournament, egg dying, water balloon toss, scavenger hunt, campfire, marshmallow roast, and more, including an Easter feast at the Mountview Restaurant. 800.849.2258 or www.fontanavillage.com.

• A “Nature Nuts: Wood Ducks” program will be offered for ages 4-7 from 9-11 a.m. on March 28 at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Transylvania County. Free. Registration required: http://tinyurl.com/jq4r6x3.

• The Peanuts Easter Beagle Express Train will be at 11 a.m. March 25-26 at the Bryson City Train Depot.

Enjoy the characters of Charlie Brown, Snoopy and crew. Easter Egg Hunt, crafts, snacks, and more.

800.872.4681 or www.gsmr.com.

• The Town of Canton’s Easter Egg Hunt is scheduled for 10 a.m. on March 26, at Canton Recreation Park.

For ages 1-12. 648.2376.

FOOD & DRINK

• The 28th annual Easter Hat Parade celebration will be held on at 10 a.m. March 26, in downtown. The day begins with an Easter Egg Hunt at 10:30 a.m. on Webster Street, followed with hat making also at 10:30 a.m. at Dogwood Crafters, all while the Easter Bunny will be in attendance for photos. The parade will be at 2 p.m. at Town Hall. 506.8331 or www.visitdillsboro.org.

• There will be an Easter Tea held by Dogwood Crafters at the Historic Jarrett House on March 26. Seatings will be at 1 and 3 p.m. English style finger sandwiches, sweets and tea. $15 per person, with prepaid reservations only. To secure a seat, call 586.2248.

• The sixth-annual Easter Egg Hunt, sponsored by S’More Kids Klothes, is scheduled for 11 a.m. on March 26, at the Village Green in Cashiers. 734.3434 or www.villagegreencashiersnc.com.

• The “Trail Magic Ale #13” release party will be March 18-20 at Nantahala Brewing Company in Bryson City. On Friday at 6 p.m. they will be tapping the first keg of the 13th Trail Magic Ale Release at the Tap Room. At 8 p.m. there will be a bottle swap/beer geek party in the brewery. On Saturday, beginning at noon there will be a limited bottle release Trail Magic Ale bottles. A portion of the proceeds of the bottle sales will be donated to the Appalachian Trail Ridgerunner Program via the Friends of the Smokies organization. www.nantahalabrewing.com.

• The “Dresses and Desserts” event will be held from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. March 19, at the Humanite Boutique in Bryson City. This all day, drop-in event features some of the cutest spring fashions and decadent desserts. 538.4180.

ON STAGE & IN CONCERT

• Easter breakfast buffet at Lambuth Inn located at Lake Junaluska from 7:30 to 9 a.m. on March 27.

Tickets are available at the front desk of Lambuth Inn on Sunday morning, or by calling 454.6662 or visiting the Bethea Welcome Center.

• A Celtic Concert is scheduled for 7 p.m. on March 18, at Smoky Mountain Community Theatre in Bryson City. Tickets are $6. 736.3921 or 488.8227.

• Family Easter lunch buffet at The Terrace at Lake Junaluska. The menu includes fresh salads, chef carved roast beef, baked ham, chicken Florentine, delicious fruit and vegetables and homemade desserts. Reservations are required. Call 454.6662 or visit the Bethea Welcome Center to make your reservation.

• A fish fry dinner is scheduled for 11 a.m. on March

25, at Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center in Waynesville. $8 dinner includes fried fish, baked beans, cole slaw, hushpuppies, drink and dessert. 452.7232.

• The courtroom drama “Twelve Angry Men” will be performed March 18-20, at HART in Waynesville.

Performances are at 7:30 p.m. on March 18-19 and at 2 p.m. on March 20. Tickets: $10 for adults; $6 for students. To buy tickets, call 456.6322.

• Overlook Theatre Company will present a live stage production of “Treasure Island, The Classic Adventure” at 7:30 p.m. on March 18-19, at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts in Franklin. Tickets: $12 each. GreatMountainMusic.com or 866.273.4615.

• Western Carolina University’s Trombone and Euphonium Studio will be hosting trombonist Jim Decker at 5:30 p.m. on March 17, and at 12:20 p.m. on March 18 in the recital hall of Coulter Building on the WCU campus in Cullowhee. Free. 227.7242.

• The Moody Blues will perform at 7:30 p.m. on March 19, at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort. Tickets: Ticketmaster.com or 800.745.3000. Open to guests 21 and older.

• Tickets are on sale now for WCU radio re-creation group’s presentation of “Blackbeard’s Ghost and the Queen Ann’s Revenge.” Tickets: $10 each. Eighth in a series of academic-based entertainment productions mounted in collaboration with three departments and two colleges at WCU. Show will be presented at 7:30 p.m. on March 17, in the John W. Bardo Fine and Performing Arts Center at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. 227.3851.

• Tickets are on sale now for Folkmoot’s spring barbecue and music showcase featuring the Darren Nicholson Band plus Whitewater Bluegrass and Lillian Chase. The event is at 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 19, at the Folkmoot Friendship Center in Waynesville.

Dinner catered by Haywood Smokehouse. Tickets are $20 in advance at http://tinyurl.com/zja85oy or $30 at the door. www.folkmootusa.org or 452.2997.

• The Deitz Family Band will perform mountain folk music at 7 p.m. on March 24, in the Community room of the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva. Free.

586.2016.

CLASSES AND PROGRAMS • Registration is underway for a bladesmith symposium that’s scheduled for March 18-20 at the Haywood Community College campus in Clyde. Knifemaking demonstrations, hands-on blade forging, knife show, auction and more. Fee is $75 for the weekend.

400.7815.

• The High Country Quilt Guild Meeting is at 6:30 p.m. on March 17, at the First Methodist Church in Waynesville. Featuring a trunk show by Teri Delano. https://highcountryquilters.wordpress.com.

• An English Smocking Class will be offered by the Jackson County Cooperative Extension Craft Club from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on March 17, at the Jackson County Extension Center. Instructor is Elaine Haskett, who’ll guide the class in the art of English Smocking of an Easter Egg. $10 for a kit. 586.4009.

wnc calendar

• An Easter Egg hunt is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. on March 26, at Lake Junaluska. All children ages 12 and under are invited to join the hunt, located near Stuart Auditorium. The eggs are filled with candy and special prizes.

• Creating Community Workshop will feature “Adult Coloring” at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, March 19, in the Atrium of the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva.

Free. 586.2016 or www.fontanalib.org.

• An indoor flea market is scheduled for 7 a.m.-2 p.m. on March 19, at the Old Armory in Waynesville. Booths are $10 each for selling items. 456.9207.

• A Creating Community Workshop is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on March 19, in the Atrium of the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva. Free. 586.2016.

• A Wool Applique workshop will be offered by Dogwood Crafters from 10 a.m.-noon on March 24, at the Dillsboro Masonic Lodge. Make a paper-clip bookmark. $11 cost; bring scissors and embroidery needles. Register by March 21: 586.2435 or junettapell@hotmail.com.

• Dogwood Crafters will hold its annual Easter Tea, English style at 1 p.m. on March 26, at the Historic Jarrett House in Dillsboro. Cost: $15 by prepaid reservation only. 586.2248. Easter Hat Parade to follow at 2 p.m.

• Penland School of Crafts is offering upcoming oneweek sessions at half-tuition to area residents. The first session, with spaces in photography and printmaking, runs from March 27-April 2. The second, with space available in a printmaking workshop taught by Aimee Joyaux, runs from April 10-16. Any skill level welcome. www.penland.org or 765.2359, ext. 1106.

Do you experience xp

LEG P PAIN? A AIN? e stairs st Even a short walk up the or doing some shopping can be painful ful for many people.

Problems oblems with veins vein can cause:

March 16-22, 2016

Vein V ein e Education Series

• Aching, cramping ping or burning • Leg numbness ess or o tingling d • Skin changes or discoloration • Restless ss legs le aricose se veins v • Varicose

FREE RE

Guest Speakers: pea . Al Mina, a, M MD, FACS . Joshua a Ru Rudd, DO

Make your appointment today and we will have you on the mend in no time.

Event ent location: ocat ein Clinic Cli i - 2nd floor Clini Haywood Regional al Medical M Center

To register egister ter call

828.456.3211 smokymtneye.com

828.452.VEIN EI (8346)

Smoky Mountain News

Springtime Allergies Got You Down?

Vein ein Education tio Session March 24 4-5 p.m p.m.

ACCEPTING MAJOR MEDICAL & VISION INSURANCE PLANS DON’T FORGET — YOU MAY PURCHASE CONTACTS WITH YOUR HSA

From Hwy. 19/23 take Exit 104 towards Lake Junaluska; continue 1/2 mile to Haywood Medical Park on the left.

336-20

MyHaywoodRegional.com

41

wnc calendar

• A chip-carving demonstration with Bill Johnson will be held from 1-3 p.m. on March 29, at the Jackson County Senior Center in Sylva. Free. 586.5494.

ART SHOWINGS AND GALLERIES • The Stecoah Artisans Gallery is open from 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Friday, throughout March.

• An exhibition entitled “This is a Photograph: Exploring Contemporary Applications of Photographic Chemistry” will be on display starting March 22 at Penland School of Crafts near Spruce Pine. Reception is set for 4:30-6:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 26.

765.6211 or penland.org/gallery.

• New artist and medium will be featured every month at the Haywood County Senior Resource Center in Waynesville. 926.7478.

• The Haywood County Arts Council has partnered with LIFESPAN for their March exhibit at the arts council’s Gallery & Gifts in downtown Waynesville. The art for the March show will be provided by LIFESPAN Arts, an inclusive art studio where artists can experience working with different artistic mediums including painting, pottery, mosaic art, and jewelry. www.haywoodarts.org.

March 16-22, 2016

• An exhibition of photography and a sculpture installation are on display simultaneously with a clothing drive through March 18 at the Fine Art Museum at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. All three are part of a collaboration between the museum and WCU’s Office of Service Learning with local community groups Mountain Projects and Sylva Linings Thrift Store.

Sculptures by Jarod Charzewski; photography by Pedro Lobo. Museum is open from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on weekdays with extended hours to 7 p.m. on Thursdays.

Admission and parking are free.

Fineartmuseum.wcu.edu or 227.3591.

• The artwork of Cherokee sculptor John Julius Wilnoty is on display through March 25 at Western Carolina University’s Fine Art Museum in Cullowhee. Display is open from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on weekdays, with extended hours to 7 p.m. on Thursdays. Admission and parking are free; museum is closed on university holidays and breaks. Digitalcollections.wcu.edu or 227.7211. fineartmuseum.wcu.edu.

• Artists Maureen Simon (photographer) and Bruce Brennan (painter) are exhibiting their work through March 31 at the Haywood County Public Library in Canton. Simon’s photography shows life on the streets of New Orleans (www.ofifoto.photography). Brennan’s work features expressionist land and seascapes (www.rbrucebrennanfineart.com). HaywoodArts.org.

FILM & SCREEN

Smoky Mountain News

• A new movie starring Judi Dench and Bill Nighy will be shown at 2 and 6 p.m. on March 16, in the Macon County Public Library’s Meeting Room in Franklin. As the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has only a single

with clinics by world champion racer Sue Haywood for $70 additional.

Visit www.smokymountainnews.com and click on Calendar for: ■ Complete listings of local music scene ■ Regional festivals ■ Art gallery events and openings ■ Complete listings of recreational offerings at regional health and fitness centers ■ Civic and social club gatherings

• Backyard Birding by Ear will be offered from 9 a.m.noon on March 21 for ages 10 and up at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Transylvania County.

Free. Registration required: http://tinyurl.com/jq4r6x3.

remaining vacancy - posing a rooming predicament for two fresh arrivals - Sonny pursues his expansionist dream of opening a second hotel. 524.3600.

• An Introduction to Fly Fishing will be offered from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on March 21 for ages 12 and older at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Transylvania County. Free Registration required: http://tinyurl.com/jq4r6x3.

• The film “Room” will be screened at 7 p.m. March 16-18, 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. March 19, 1:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. March 20 and 7 p.m. March 22-25 at The Strand at 38 Main in Waynesville. www.38main.com.

• Backyard Birding by Ear will be offered from 9 a.m.noon on March 21 for ages 10 and up at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Transylvania County.

Free. Registration required: http://tinyurl.com/jq4r6x3.

• A classic movie starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara will be shown at 2 p.m. on March 18, in the Meeting Room of the Macon County Public Library in Franklin. An American boxer returns to the village of his birth in Ireland, where he finds love. 524.3600.

• A Fly-Fishing Skills class entitled “Casting for Beginners” is open to participants ages 12 and older and will be held from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on March 24 at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Transylvania County. Free. Offered by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. Registration required: http://tinyurl.com/jq4r6x3.

• The films “Sisters” (March 17), “Brooklyn” (March 18), “Labyrinth” (March 19) and “Hunger Games: Mockingjay 2” (March 24-26) will be screened at Mad Batter Food & Film in Sylva. Screenings are at 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. with a special 2 p.m. matinee on Saturdays. Free. www.madbatterfoodandfilm.com.

• The Cherokee documentary “First Language: The Race to Save Cherokee” will be shown from noon-1:30 p.m. on Monday, March 28, at Southwestern Community College’s Macon Campus in Franklin and from 12:30-2 p.m. on Tuesday, March 29, at the SCC Jackson Campus in Sylva. Executive producer Dr. Walt Wolfram will host both. Lunch provided; open to the public. Register at http://bit.ly/1ouvG0Z or email m_ellison@southwesterncc.edu.

• Adult movie time, 6:30 p.m. Mondays at Jackson County Public Library. 586.2016.

Outdoors • The Nantahala Outdoor Center Raft Guide School will teach participants how to be raft guides during fiveday courses that are offered March 20-25, March 27April 1 and April 3-8. $450 fee includes lodging, meals and equipment. Must be 18 years old.

• The Southern Mountain Bike Summit is scheduled for March 18-19 in Bryson City. $85 for full registration,

• Botanist Tim Spira will showcase his nature photography during “Favorite Spring Wildflowers of the Blue Ridge Mountains,” a presentation from 1-2 p.m. on March 22, at the Waynesville Library Auditorium.

356.2507 or kolsen@haywoodnc.net.

• A series of spring wildflower walks will be offered from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. on Tuesdays starting March 22 and running through April 29 in Jackson County. Led by Adam Bigelow. Cost is $120 for the series. Single-day walks are also available for groups and individuals. bigelownc@gmail.com.

• Cherokee’s schedule of fishing tournaments will kick off with the Opening Day Fishing Tournament on March 26-27. Tagged fish will be specially stocked into the Qualla Boundary’s rivers for the event; caught ones can be redeemed for cash prizes – with a total of $20,000 in play. Entry fee is $11; open to all ages and legal fishing methods. Register anywhere fishing licenses are sold. 788.0034 or www.fishcherokee.com.

FARM AND GARDEN • “Planting for Pollinators” – part of the Gardening in the Mountains lecture series – is March 17. Info: 255.5522 or http://buncombemastergardener.org.

• Landowners interested in learning how to keep their farmland safe from development can attend their choice of a 7 p.m. meeting on March 17 at Balsam Fire Department or March 31 at the Savannah Fire Department. 586.5465.

• A seminar on how to establish and maintain blueber-

• A seminar on how to establish and maintain blueberries and grapevines will be offered from 10-11:30 a.m. on March 18, at the Jackson Extension Center in Sylva.

586.4009 or clbreden@ncsu.edu.

• A Voluntary Agricultural Districts and Farmland Preservation Workshop will be offered from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on March 24 at the WNC Regional Livestock Center in Canton. Free. Registration is required. www.ncadfp.org.

• A Square Foot Gardening program will be presented by master gardener Hughes Roberts at 5:30 p.m. on March 29, at the Canton Library. 648.2924.

• Master gardener volunteer Jim Janke will present a program on “Starting Plants from Seed” at 5:30 p.m. on March 29, at the Waynesville Library. 356.2507.

• The Macon County Poultry Club of Franklin meets at 7 p.m. on the third Tuesday of each month at the Cooperative Extension Office on Thomas Heights Rd,.

Open to the public. 369.3916.

• The Jackson County Farmers Market will be open from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. every Saturday in March at the Community Table in downtown Sylva. SNAP, debit and credit accepted. www.jacksoncountyfarmersmarket.org, jacksoncountyfarmersmarket@gmail.com or 393.5236.

COMPETITIVE EDGE • The Easter festivities kick off with a 5K road race and walk at 9 a.m. Join runners and walkers of all ages and skill levels for this popular annual event around the Lake Junaluska Walking Trail. As a charitable event, 100 percent of the proceeds go toward supporting recreational opportunities at the lake.

Registration is required. To register, call 454.6680 or visit www.lakejunaluska.com/run.

• Registration is underway for the sixth annual Valley of the Lilies Half Marathon and 5-K, which is April 2.

Fees are $60 for the half marathon and $25 for the 5-K if registering by March 29 at http://halfmarathon.wcu.edu. More info: valleyofthelilies@wcu.edu.

• 5K Run and Walk will be held starting at 9 a.m. on April 23, at Mark Watson Park through the Jackson County Parks & Recreation as part of the Greening up the Mountains. $15 pre-registration fee through April 16. Register online at www.imathlete.com or stop by the Recreation Center in Cullowhee. Race day registration begins at 8 a.m., and the cost will be $20.

HIKING CLUBS • The Nantahala Hiking Club will take a three-mile, moderate hike with an elevation change of 600 feet from Wallace Branch to the Bartram Trail on March 19. For info and reservations, Kathy Ratcliff at 349.3380.

336-28

Great Smokies Storage 10’x20’ $

92

20’x20’ $

160

ONE MONTH

FREE WITH 12-MONTH CONTRACT

828.506.4112 or 828.507.8828

42

• An Introduction to Fly Fishing will be offered from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on March 21 for ages 12 and older at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Transylvania County. Free. Registration required: http://tinyurl.com/jq4r6x3.

ries and grapevines will be offered from 6-7:30 p.m. on March 17, at the Swain Extension Center in Bryson City.

488.3848 or clbreden@ncsu.edu.

Conveniently located off 19/23 by Thad Woods Auction

Puzzles can be found on page 46.

These are only the answers.

PRIME REAL ESTATE Advertise in The Smoky Mountain News

AUCTION

MarketPlace information: The Smoky Mountain News Marketplace has a distribution of 16,000 every week to over 500 locations across in Haywood, Jackson, Macon, and Swain counties along with the Qualla Boundary and west Buncombe County. For a link to our MarketPlace Web site, which also contains a link to all of our MarketPlace display advertisers’ Web sites, visit www.smokymountainnews.com.

Rates:

■ Free — Lost or found pet ads.

■ $5 — Residential yard sale ads, ■ $5 — Non-business items that sell for less than $150.

■ $15 — Classified ads that are 50 words or less; each additional line is $2.

If your ad is 10 words or less, it will be displayed with a larger type.

■ $3 — Border around ad and $5 — Picture with ad or colored background.

■ $50 — Non-business items, 25 words or less. 3 month or till sold.

■ $300 — Statewide classifieds run in 117 participating newspapers with 1.6 million circulation. Up to 25 words.

■ All classified ads must be pre-paid.

Scott Collier, phone 828.452.4251; fax 828.452.3585 classads@smokymountainnews.com

Di

sC Ov ER E

ATR

R

Offering:

MAJOR-BRAND TIRES FOR CARS, LIGHT & MEDIUM-DUTY TRUCKS, AND FARM TIRES.

Service truck available for on-site repairs LEE & PATTY ENSLEY, OWNERS

MON-FRI 7:30-5:00 • WAYNESVILLE PLAZA

828-456-5387

ALL THINGS BASEMENTY! Basement Systems Inc. Call us for all of your basement needs! Waterproofing, Finishing, Structural Repairs, Humidity and Mold Control.

FREE ESTIMATES! Call 1.800.698.9217

ABSOLUTE PUBLIC AUCTION Saturday, March 19 at 10am. 199 S. Cherry Rd. Rock Hill, SC. Selling Vehicles, Trucks, Backhoes, Forklifts, Garbage Trucks, Equipment for City of Rock Hill, SC. 704.791.8825.

NCAF5479/SCAL2893r. www.ClassicAuctions.com

INC.

PE

Serving Haywood, Jackson & Surrounding Counties

AUCTIONS (2) Online Bidding Bankruptcy Liquidation Courvette Building Systems.

Sale 1 - Road Tractors, Service Trucks, Box Trucks & More! Sale 2 - Forklifts, Press Brakes, Metal Working Equipment. Bid 3/163/23, Salem, VA - Case #1570825. www.motleys.com. 804.

232.3300x4. VAAL#16.

"ANNUAL PIEDMONT OPEN" Equipment Consignment Auction, April 2nd at 10am. I-77 Speedway, Chester, SC. Accepting consignments now! 803.366.3535, www.theligoncompany.com NCAL 8951 - SCAL1716.

WAYNESVILLE TIRE, COO

HAYWOOD BUILDERS Garage Doors, New Installations Service & Repairs, 828.456.6051 100 Charles St. Waynesville Employee Owned.

ONLINE ONLY AUCTION, Plumbing Contractor Retirement Liquidation: Trucks, Trailers, Tools, Equipment & Much More, Randleman, NC, Randolph County. Auction Ends 3/17/16 at 2pm. www.ironhorseauction.com.

800.997.2248. NCAL3936.

Classified Advertising:

336-42

BUILDING MATERIALS

AUCTION: BID ON-SITE & ONLINE! Construction Equipment & Trucks.

Excavators, Dozers, Dumps & More! 3/22 @ 9am, Richmond, VA. Accepting Consignments Thru 3/18. We Sell/Fund Assets Fast! www.motleys.com.

804.232.3300x4. VAAL#16.

AUCTION Construction Equipment, Farm Equipment, Trucks, Trailers, and Support Equipment. Live and Online Bidding, March 19th, 9:30AM. 279 Crescent Rd., Blairsville, GA. JoeyMartinAuctioneers.com. Call 864.940.4800 or 706.781.4808 for more information or to consign equipment. GA#2627.

RUN YOUR CLASSIFIED In 101 North Carolina newspapers for only $375 for a 25-word ad.

Call this newspaper or 919.516.8009 for details.

CONSTRUCTION/ REMODELING

DAVE’S CUSTOM HOMES OF WNC, INC Free Estimates & Competitive rates. References avail. upon request. Specializing in: Log Homes, remodeling, decks, new construction, repairs & additions.

Owner/Builder: Dave Donaldson.

Licensed/Insured. 828.631.0747 or 828.508.0316 FIND THE RIGHT CARPET, Flooring & Window Treatments. Ask about our 50% off specials & our Low Price Guarantee. Offer Expires Soon. Call now 888.546.0135 SAPA SAFE STEP WALK-IN TUB. Alert for Seniors. Bathroom falls can be fatal. Approved by Arthritis Foundation. Therapeutic Jets. Less Than 4 Inch Step-In. Wide Door.

Anti-Slip Floors. American Made.

Installation Included. Call 800.807.7219 for $750 Off. SULLIVAN HARDWOOD FLOORS Installation- Finish - Refinish 828.399.1847.

CARS DOES YOUR AUTO CLUB Offer no hassle service and rewards? Call American Auto Club (ACA) & Get $200 in ACARewards! (new members only) Roadside Assistance & Monthly Rewards.

Call 800.867.3193.

SAPA DONATE YOUR CAR, Truck Or Boat To Heritage For The Blind. Free 3 Day Vacation, Tax Deductible, Free Towing, All Paperwork Taken Care Of. Call 1.800.416.1496 SAPA TOP CASH FOR CARS, Call Now For An Instant Offer. Top Dollar Paid, Any Car/Truck, Any Condition. Running or Not. Free Pick-up/Tow. 1.800.761.9396 SAPA WE BUY DAMAGED VEHICLES! Top Dollar Offer. From Anywhere.

All Makes/Models 2000-2015 Wanted. America’s Top Car Buyer!

Call Now: 1.800.761.9396 SAPA

MOTORCYCLES CRAZY BOB’S BIKER STUFF Jackets, Chaps, Vests, Helmets, Rain Gear, Saddlebags, Sissy Bar Bags, Tool Bags, Stickers, Patches. We also got you covered with 50 Sizes of Tarps: Heavy Duty Silver, Brown & Green, Blue & Silver, Blue & Camo.

1880 Dellwood Rd., Waynesville 828.926.1177

R

WNC MarketPlace

EMPLOYMENT - HOUSEKEEPING Full Time or Part Time: Maggie Valley Cabin Resort Seeks an Energetic & Experienced Housekeeper. Valid Driver’s License Required. Call 828.926.1388 AVIATION GRADS Work With Jetblue, Boeing, Delta And Others - Start Here With Hands On Training For FAA Certification.

Financial Aid If Qualified. Call Aviation Institute Of Maintenance 1.866.724.5403 SAPA CAN YOU DIG IT? Heavy Equipment Operator Career!

We Offer Training and Certifications Running Bulldozers, Backhoes and Excavators. Lifetime Job Placement. VA Benefits Eligible!

1.866.362.6497.

www.smokymountainnews.com

March 16-22, 2016

COFFEEHOUSE MANAGER Hillside Grind, A Non-Profit, Faith-Based Coffee House on the Campus of Western Carolina University is Seeking Qualified Applications for a Part-Time Manager Position. Competitive Wages and a Flexible Schedule Following the University Calendar Make this a Unique Opportunity. Some Food Service Management Exp. Preferred. Please Submit Resume to: ukirkwcu@gmail.com ATTN: CDL DRIVERS Avg. $60k+/yr. $2k Sign-On Bonus.

Family Company w/ Great Miles.

Love Your Job and Your Truck.

CDL-A Req. 877.258.8782 drive4melton.com NUCLEAR POWER Paid Training, great salary, benefits, $ for school. Gain valued skills. No exp. needed. HS grads ages 17-34. Call Mon-Fri 800.662.7419.

THE JACKSON COUNTY BOARD OF SOCIAL SERVICES Is Recruiting for a Social Services Director. For more information regarding this position, recruitment standards, salary, and application process; Please see “Employment Opportunities” at: www.jcdss.org

EMPLOYMENT MOUNTAIN PROJECTS Is Seeking Estimates For Mowing/Lawn Care at 2251 Old Balsam Road, Waynesville. Must Have Liability Insurance and Work Compensation. For more info call 828.452.1447or visit: mountainprojects.org – Bids and Procurement. Submit estimates in writing to: Alice Ensley, Mountain Projects, Inc. 2251 Old Balsam Rd. Waynesville, NC 28786 by April 1, 2016.

FTCC Fayetteville Technical Community College is now accepting applications for the following position: Digital Content & Social Media Specialist. For detailed information and to apply, please visit our employment portal at: https://faytechcc.peopleadmin.com/. Human Resources Office. Phone: 910.678.8378 Internet: http://www.faytechcc.edu.

An Equal Opportunity Employer.

DELIVERY/STOCKROOM ASSOCIATE - PART-TIME: Individual needed to work 29 hours per week in Thrift Store.

Valid Driver’s License with No Points required. Must be able to support or lift a minimum of 50 pounds. Applications available at Pathways Thrift Store, 3740 US 74E, Unit #10 Sylva, NC 28779. Call Shirley at 828.631.5533 for more information.

NEED MEDICAL BILLING TRAINEES! Doctors & Hospitals need Medical Office Staff! No Experience Needed! Online Training gets you job ready! HS Diploma/GED & Computer needed. Careertechnical.edu/nc.

1.888.512.7122 NOW HIRING Class A CDL Drivers! - Free Healthcare! Regional & OTR positions open. Pay starting at 40cpm. 1yr. experience required. Call 864.649.2063 or visit Drive4JGR.com.

Equal Opportunity Employer.

EMPLOYMENT IMMEDIATE OPENING FOR SHELTER MANAGER PAWS Animal Shelter is a no kill animal shelter located in Bryson City. Prior animal medical care experience required and animal behavioral training skills a plus.

Responsible for management of daily operations of the shelter, including supervision of shelter staff and volunteers, animal intake, medical treatment, adoptions, and foster program. The manager provides staff and volunteer training/recruitment, along with community education about the organization, spay/ neuter programs, and responsible pet ownership. Salary up to $32K, depending on experience.

Send resume to PAWS, PO Box 1814 Bryson City, NC 28713 or email to: pawsbrysoncity@yahoo.com No phone calls please.

ATTN: DRIVERS $2K Sign-On Bonus. Love your $60K+ Job! We Put Drivers First!

Pet & Rider. Avg $1200 Weekly.

CDL-A Req 877.258.8782 drive4melton.com THE NAVY IS HIRING Top-notch training, medical/dental, 30 days vacation/yr, $ for school. HS grads ages 17-34.

Call Monday - Friday 800.662.7419 YOUR AD COULD REACH 1.6 MILLION HOMES ACROSS NC! Your classified ad could be reaching over 1.6 Million Homes across North Carolina! Place your ad with The Smoky Mountain News on the NC Statewide Classified Ad Network- 118 NC newspapers for a low cost of $330 for 25-word ad to appear in each paper! Additional words are $10 each. The whole state at your fingertips! It's a smart advertising buy! Call Scott Collier at 828.452.4251 or for more information visit the N.C. Press Association's website at www.ncpress.com

FINANCIAL BEWARE OF LOAN FRAUD. Please check with the Better Business Bureau or Consumer Protection Agency before sending any money to any loan company.

SAPA SELL YOUR STRUCTURED Settlement or annuity payments for CASH NOW. You don't have to wait for your future payments any longer! Call 1.800.316.0271.

SERIOUSLY INJURED By a Truck or Commercial Vehicle?

Get Justice! We’ve Recovered Millions. No money out of pocket! Call Our Attorneys for a Free Consultation! 1.866.803.2781. SAPA SERIOUSLY INJURED In an Auto Accident? Let us fight for you! If our attorneys don’t win, you don’t pay!! Call today for a Free consultation! 1.866.708.0811.

SAPA SOCIAL SECURITY Disability Benefits. Unable to work? Denied benefits? We Can Help! WIN or Pay Nothing! Contact Bill Gordon & Associates at 1.800.670.4805 to start your application today! SAPA STRUGGLING TO PAY THE BILLS? FDR could reduce your CC debt.

We have helped over 150k people settle $4 billion dollars in CC debt.

Call Today for a Free Consultation! 844.254.7474 SAPA

FURNITURE COMPARE QUALITY & PRICE Shop Tupelo’s, 828.926.8778.

HAYWOOD BEDDING, INC. The best bedding at the best price!

533 Hazelwood Ave. Waynesville 828.456.4240

HEMLOCK HEALERS, INC. Dedicated to Saving Our Hemlocks. Owner/Operator Frank Varvoutis, NC Pesticide Applicator’s License #22864. 48 Spruce St. Maggie Valley, NC 828.734.7819 828.926.7883, Email: hemlockhealers@yahoo.com

REAL ESTATE ANNOUNCEMENT PUBLISHER’S NOTICE All real estate advertising in this newspaper is subject to the Fair Housing Act which makes it illegal to advertise “any preference, limitation or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin, or an intention, to make any such preference, limitation or discrimination” Familial status includes children under the age of 18 living with parents or legal custodians, pregnant women and people securing custody of children under 18 This newspaper will not knowingly accept any advertising for real estate which is in violation of the law. All dwellings advertised on an equal opportunity basis.

BEWARE OF LOAN FRAUD. Please check with the Better Business Bureau or Consumer Protection Agency before sending any money to any loan company.

SAPA

REAL ESTATE ANNOUNCEMENT LEASE TO OWN 1/2 Acre Lots with Mobile Homes & Empty 1/2 Acre + Lots!

Located Next to Cherokee Indian Reservation, 2.5 Miles from Harrah’s Cherokee Casino.

For More Information Please Call 828.506.0578

REAL ESTATE WANTED TO BUY WANTED: OLD BARN, HOUSE, OR Other Building to Salvage, or Tear Down, for Lumber/Building Materials; Terms Negotiable.

Licensed & Insured. Call or Text John 828.380.1232 or email: john@ashevillepropertyservices. com

HOMES FOR SALE BRUCE MCGOVERN A Full Service Realtor, Locally Owned and Operated mcgovernpropertymgt@gmail.com McGovern Property Management 828.283.2112.

STORAGE SPACE FOR RENT CLIMATE CONTROLLED STORAGE FOR YOU 1 Month Free with 12 Month Rental. Maggie Valley, Hwy. 19, 1106 Soco Rd. For more information call Torry

828.734.6500, 828.734.6700 maggievalleyselfstorage.com

HEAVY EQUIPMENT

SAWMILLS FROM ONLY $4397.00 Make & Save Money with your own bandmill- Cut lumber any dimension. In stock ready to ship!

FREE Info/DVD: www.NorwoodSawmills.com. 1.800.578.1363 Ext.300N

PETS HAYWOOD SPAY/NEUTER 828.452.1329 PRECIOUS A LOVELY TORBIE KITTY WITH GRAY STRIPES AND APRICOT SHADING IN HER COAT. SHE IS ONLY ABOUT 1-1/2 YEARS OLD AND IS VERY GENTLE AND SWEET.

Prevent Unwanted Litters!

The Heat Is On! Spay/Neuter For Haywood Pets As Low As $10.

Operation Pit is in Effect!

Free Spay/Neuter, Microchip & Vaccines For Haywood Pitbull Types & Mixes!

Hours:

44

LAWN & GARDEN

Tuesday-Friday, 12 Noon - 6 pm 182 Richland Street, Waynesville

LIL - HAD BEEN WANDERING QUITE A WHILE WHEN SHE WAS FOUND AND LOOKED A LITTLE ROUGH. SHE IS BEAUTIFUL NOW, AFTER A LITTLE TLC AND GOOD NUTRITION AT SARGE'S. WE'RE NOT SURE WHAT HER BREED MIX IS, BUT WE DO KNOW SHE IS EXTRA CUTE WITH HER FOXY FACE AND FLUFFY COAT.

STORAGE SPACE FOR RENT

A PLACE FOR MOM. The nation’s largest senior living referral service. Contact our trusted, local experts today! Our service is FREE/no obligation. CALL 1.800.319.8705 SAPA GOT KNEE PAIN? Back Pain? Shoulder Pain? Get a pain-relieving brace at little or NO cost to you. Medicare Patients Call Health Hotline Now! 800.480.7503 SAPA LIFE ALERT. 24/7.

One press of a button sends help FAST! Medical, Fire, Burglar. Even if you can't reach a phone! FREE Brochure. CALL 800.316.0745.

SAFE STEP WALK-IN TUB: Alert for Seniors. Bathroom falls can be fatal. Approved by Arthritis Foundation. Therapeutic Jets. Less Than 4 Inch Step-In. Wide Door.

Anti-Slip Floors. American Made.

Installation Included.Call 800.701.9850 for $750 Off. SAPA

XARELTO USERS Have you had complications due to internal bleeding (after January 2012)? If so, you MAY be due financial compensation. If you don’t have an attorney, CALL Injuryfone today! 1.800.531.0529 SAPA

147 Walnut Street • WayneSville

828.506.7137

aspivey@sunburstrealty.com

www.sunburstrealty.com/amy-spivey $GM GMMD DFHQ QW WR :D :D\QHVVY YLOO OOOHH &RX XQWU\ QWU &OXE X 9LLLVVX 9LVXDO 9 XDO D 7 7RRXU DW 7RXU D VVKDPUR VKDP KDPURFN FRP RRFN FRP

BORING/CARPENTER BEE TRAPS No Chemicals, Poisons or Anything to Harm the Environment.

Handmade in Haywood County. 1 for $20, 2 or More for $15 each.

828.593.8321 CHAMPION SUPPLY Janitorial supplies. Professional cleaning products, vacuums, janitorial paper products, swimming pool chemicals, environmentally friendly chemicals, indoor & outdoor light bulbs, odor elimination products, equipment repair including household vacuums. Free delivery across WNC. www.championsupply.com 800.222.0581, 828.225.1075.

0/6 0 / 6

$FFUH UHV LLQQ &LWW\\ / /LP LPLWV

%UXFH % U//RFDOO\ XRFFDOHOO\\ 22ZQHG 0F*RYHUQ 0 F*22SHUDW RSSHUYDWHHGUQ ZQHG 2S

3ULY 3 U L Y D WWHH (V ( WWDDDWH W H RRUU ' 'HYHO H Y H O RS R S PHHHQW QW

PFJ P F J R YH Y HUQSURSHU U S UR SH UQ S UUWW \ P PJW#JPDLO FRP JW#JPDLO RP

Jerry Smith 828-734-8765 jsmith201@kw.com

DISH NETWORK New customers save up to $1000!

Free Hopper Upgrade. TV starts at $19.99/mo. Bundle Internet & Save! Call Today 888.283.8693 SAPA

NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS Offering 1 & 2 Bedroom Apartments, Starting at $400 Section 8 Accepted - Handicapped Accessible Units When Available

OFFICE HOURS: Tues. & Wed. 10:00am - 5:00pm & Thurs. 10:00am- 12:00pm 168 E. Nicol Arms Road Sylva, NC 28779

434 Russ Ave. • Waynesville

Office: 828-926-5155 kellerwilliamswaynesville.com 214-64

Emerson Group • George Escaravage — george@emersongroupus.com

ERA Sunburst Realty — sunburstrealty.com • Amy Spivey — sunburstrealty.com Haywood Properties — haywoodproperties.com • Steve Cox — info@haywoodproperties.com kellerwilliamswaynesville.com • Sam Hopkins — samhopkins.kwrealty.com

Lakeshore Realty • Phyllis Robinson - lakeshore@lakejunaluska.com

Committed to Exceeding Expectations

Marilynn Obrig

Residential Broker Associate

(828) 550-2810

mobrig@Beverly-Hanks.com

www.Beverly-Hanks.com 336-53

ROB ROLAND

828-400-1923

RROLAND33@GMAIL.COM

Find the home you are looking for at www.robrolandrealty.com

Mountain Home Properties mountaindream.com • Sammie Powell — smokiesproperty.com

McGovern Real Estate & Property Management • Bruce McGovern — shamrock13.com

Realty World Heritage Realty realtyworldheritage.com • Carolyn Lauter realtyworldheritage.com/realestate/viewagent/7766 • Martha Sawyer realtyworldheritage.com/realestate/viewagent/7769

RE/MAX — Mountain Realty • • • • • • •

remax-waynesvillenc.com | remax-maggievalleync.com Brian K. Noland — brianknoland.com Mieko Thomson — ncsmokies.com The Morris Team — maggievalleyproperty.com The Real Team — the-real-team.com Ron Breese — ronbreese.com Dan Womack — womackdan@aol.com Catherine Proben — cp@catherineproben.com

The Seller’s Agency — listwithphil.com • Phil Ferguson — philferguson@bellsouth.net

Phone# 1.828.586.3346 TDD# 1.800.725.2962 Equal Housing Opportunity

beverly-hanks.com Michelle McElroy - MichelleMcElroy@beverly-hanks.com Marilynn Obrig - MarilynnObrig@beverly-hanks.com Mike Stamey - MikeStamey@beverly-hanks.com Ellen Sither - EllenSither@beverly-hanks.com Brooke Parrott - BrookeParrott@beverly-hanks.com Randy Flanigan - RandyFlanigan@beverly-hanks.com Pamela Williams - PamelaWilliams@beverly-hanks.com Ann Eavenson - AnnEavenson@beverly-hanks.com

smokymountainnews.com

NICOL ARMS APARTMENTS

• • • • • • • •

Keller Williams Realty

336-34

ENTERTAINMENT SCOTTISH TARTANS MUSEUM 86 East Main St., Franklin, Open 10am- 5pm, Mon - Sat. Come & let us find your Scottish Connection!

828.584.7472 or visit us at: www.scottishtartans.org.

• Margie MacDonald - margie@4smokys.com

Beverly Hanks & Associates

WANTED TO BUY CASH PAID For Unexpired, Sealed Diabetic Test Strips - Highest Prices! Shipping prepaid. 1 Day Payment.

1.888.366.0958. www.Cash4DiabeticSupplies.com SAPA

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Lifestyle Properties — vistasofwestfield.com Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Great Smokys Realty

March 16-22, 2016

STOP OVERPAYING For your prescriptions! Save up to 93%! Call our licensed Canadian and International pharmacy service to compare prices and get $15.00 off your first prescription and FREE Shipping.

1.800.265.0768 SAPA

MERCHANDISE

Haywood County Real Estate Agents 336-04

MEDICAL

VIAGRA!!

52 Pills only $99.00! The Original Little Blue Pill, your #1 Trusted Provider for 10 years. Insured and Guaranteed Delivery. Call today 1.888.410.1767. SAPA

SFR, ECO, GREEN

WNC MarketPlace

GREAT SMOKIES STORAGE Conveniently located off 19/23

by Thad Woods Auction. Available for lease now: 10’x10’ units for $55, 20’x20’ units for $160.

Get one month FREE with 12 month contract. Call 828.507.8828 or 828.506.4112 for more info.

MEDICAL ACORN STAIRLIFTS. The Affordable Solution to your stairs! **Limited time -$250 Off Your Stairlift Purchase!** Buy Direct & Save. Please call 1.800.291.2712 for Free DVD and Brochure.

find us at: facebook.com/smnews

TO ADVERTISE IN THE NEXT ISSUE 828.452.4251 | ads@smokymountainnews.com 45

www.smokymountainnews.com

March 16-22, 2016

WNC MarketPlace

Super

46

CROSSWORD

MIXED VEGETABLES ACROSS 1 Reinforcing shoe tip 7 Brand of prescription painkiller 13 Toss out 20 Southern African land 21 Give in 22 Big markets 23 Many an earthen plant holder 25 Vegetable mixed inside 110-Across 26 Dog biscuit, to a dog 27 Bit in a stew 28 Canon - Rebel 29 Bakery item 30 - Paese (cheese) 31 Mall with wholesale goods 34 Speakers of Celtic 36 Put- - (ruses) 37 “- a woman?”: Sojourner Truth 38 Knife cut 39 Writer Oz 43 Diplomacy 45 Food store worker 49 Vegetable mixed inside 72-Across 52 Ranks 54 Gorbachev’s wife 55 Not sleeping 56 Fills untidily 57 Vegetable mixed inside 23-Across and 84-Across 58 Vegetable mixed inside 97-Across 60 It’s charged 61 Like slightly spoiled meat 62 “Ta-ta” 63 Pack-toting beast

64 Dell products 2 Minimal lead in baseball 65 Vast span 3 Some herons 66 DOJ arm 4 - reef 69 Swinging ditty 5 Get - start (be tardy) 71 Toby brew 6 D.C. donor 72 Rapid weight-loss 7 Kind of sail option 8 Circle eighth 75 Vegetable mixed inside 9 Brand of cable modem 23-Across 10 Plains shelter 78 University in Silicon 11 “When is - not ...”

Valley 12 Reno stakes 80 Moray lurer 13 Loses hope 81 Eye-tricking paintings 14 Irreverence 82 Lobbies for 15 Pitcher’s talk 83 Vegetable mixed inside 16 Dupe 45-Across 17 Qatari, e.g.

84 Impact depression 18 Paddy plant near Flagstaff 19 Writer Roald 86 Jedi sage 24 In the work already 87 Begged mentioned: Abbr.

88 Corn units 32 Dash device 89 1950s Ford 33 Snug 92 Vacation site 34 Dells 95 In a strange way 35 Periodic pay 97 Affect one’s emotions 38 Contempt 101 Spinks foe 40 Israel’s Golda 104 Dijon “yes” 41 “In that area” 105 Sauna sound 42 Three-hand card game 106 Part of GPS: Abbr.

43 “Kon- -” 107 Made known 44 “Just -!”

108 Vegetable mixed 46 Tendency to keep inside 31-Across silent 110 Surfs while watching 47 Nondairy spreads TV 48 Overpack 113 Intertangles 49 Broccoli 114 Langston Hughes 50 Cockeyed memoir, with “The” 51 Calendar info 115 Probes into 52 Lodge group 116 TV satirist Stephen 53 Feed lines to 117 Party split 56 Amount paid 118 Double boxing punch 57 See 67-Down 59 Ring of virtue DOWN 61 Urge on 1 Bit of skin art 64 Braid

65 Isn’t right 66 Folder filler 67 With 57-Down, some tavern trash 68 Response to “Nice job!”

69 Texas city 70 “I gotta hand - ya ...”

71 Chart book 72 Bivouac bed 73 Take note of 74 Oscar - Renta 75 Pageantry 76 German car 77 British art gallery 78 Apology word 79 One axing 82 Most flaky 83 RC, say 85 One losing weight 86 “You’ve gotta be kidding!”

90 Puts down, to a rapper 91 Overhead stadium recorder 92 Most irritated 93 Future D.A.’s major 94 Builds on 96 “Irma la -” 97 - law (old Germanic legal code) 98 Femur locale 99 “Emperor of the Air” author Ethan 100 Doorway joint 101 British actor Guinness 102 Jay of TV 103 “- never fly!”

105 Fliers’ mil. posts 109 Key near Q 111 23rd Greek letter 112 Bustle

answers on page 42

PERSONAL A UNIQUE ADOPTIONS, Let Us Help! Personalized Adoption Plans. Financial Assistance, Housing, Relocation And More. Giving The Gift Of Life? You Deserve The Best. Call Us First!

1.888.637.8200. 24 Hour Hotline.

SAPA MAKE A CONNECTION. Real People, Flirty Chat. Meet singles right now! Call LiveLinks. Try it FREE. Call now 1.888.909.9978 18+. SAPA YOUR AD COULD REACH 1.6 MILLION HOMES ACROSS NC! Your classified ad could be reaching over 1.6 Million Homes across North Carolina! Place your ad with The Smoky Mountain News on the NC Statewide Classified Ad Network- 118 NC newspapers for a low cost of $330 for 25-word ad to appear in each paper! Additional words are $10 each. The whole state at your fingertips! It's a smart advertising buy! Call Scott Collier at 828.452.4251 or for more information visit the N.C. Press Association's website at www.ncpress.com

SCHOOLS/ INSTRUCTION AVIATION GRADS Work with JetBlue, Boeing, Delta and others- start here with hands on training for FAA certification.

Financial aid if qualified. Call Aviation Institute of Maintenance 866.441.6890.

SCHOOLS/ INSTRUCTION EARN YOUR High School Diploma at home in a few short weeks. Work at your own pace. First Coast Academy. Nationally accredited. Call for free brochure. 1.800.658.1180, extension 82. www.fcahighschool.org SAPA CAN YOU DIG IT? Heavy Equipment Operator Career!

We Offer Training and Certifications Running Bulldozers, Backhoes and Excavators. Lifetime Job Placement. VA Benefits Eligible!

1.866.362.6497.

SERVICES

SERVICES SWITCH TO DIRECTV And get a $100 Gift Card. Free Whole-Home Genie HD/DVR upgrade. Starting at $19.99/mo.

New Customers Only. Don’t settle for cable. Call Now 1.800.371.5352 SAPA EMERGENCIES CAN STRIKE At any time. Wise Food Storage makes it easy to prepare with tasty, easy-to-cook meals that have a 25-year shelf life. FREE sample.

Call: 800.621.2952 KILL BED BUGS & THEIR EGGS! Buy Harris Bed Bug Killers/KIT Complete Treatment System.

Hardware Stores, The Home Depot, homedepot.com

19.99/mo. DIRECTV HD Channels + Genie HD DVR + 3 months FREE HBO, SHOW, MAX & STARZ + FREE NFL Sunday Ticket!

Call Now 888.437.6598 SAPA

LOWER YOUR TV, Internet & Phone Bill!!! Fast Internet from $15/mo - qualifying service. Limited Offer. Plus, qualified callers get a FREE $300 Gift Card.

Call Today!! 844.613.2228 SAPA

AT&T U-Verse Internet starting at $15/month or TV & Internet starting at $49/month for 12 months with 1-year agreement. Call 800.992.1743 to learn more.

(Not Valid in Virginia).

SAPA

REDUCE YOUR CABLE BILL. Get a Home Satellite System installed FREE with packages starting under $1 per day. Free HD/DVR upgrade to new callers. Call 844.600.8891 Today!!

SAPA

DISH TV 190 Channels plus Highspeed Internet Only $49.95/mo! Ask about a 3 year price guarantee & get Netflix included for 1 year! Call Today 1.800.351.0850 SAPA

SOCIAL SECURITY Disability Benefits. Unable to work? Denied benefits? We Can Help! Win or Pay Nothing! Contact Bill Gordon & Associates at 1.800.371.1734 to start your application today!

WEEKLY SUDOKU Place a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each small 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine.

Answers on Page 42

The naturalist’s corner

BY DON H ENDERSHOT

Lake J – even when it’s bad, it’s good aterfowl have been scarce across Western North Carolina this fall and winter. Traditional haunts like Lake Julian in Asheville, Lake James near Marion and our own waterfowl magnet Lake Junaluska have been mostly vacant this season. Even coot numbers are really low this year.

But you can’t give up on Lake Junaluska.

All it takes is one front and things mysteriously fall from the sky.

I was by there one day last week and saw my first tree swallows of the spring. I called Bob Olthoff and, of course, he had already seen them. Then he told me that he had also seen a male common merganser in the last day or so. Common mergansers are anything but common on Lake J. They are seen occasionally, more often in fall when they are not in breeding plumage. In the fall, males, females and immatures are all more or less gray with a rusty/brownish head. In this plumage they can sometimes be confused with the, more common, red-breasted merganser. But this time of year there’s no

Two male common mergansers.

Robert Johnson photo. See more of Robert’s bird images at https://rljphotography.smugmug.com/Nature/Bird-Species

will nest on ledges and in rock crevices. They can also be enticed to use nest boxes.

The day after I spoke with Bob I (mysteriously?) found myself circling Junaluska again. It was a chilly morning and the bridge was closed. I stopped up at the cross and got

out and glassed the lake. In the middle of the widest part of the lake I saw two white objects. Even at that distance, with binoculars it was easy to tell they were common mergansers.

I called Bob, eager to let him know that “his” mergansers were still present. “I know,” he said, “I’m on the other side of the lake looking at them.”

I drove around the lake and joined Bob. A couple of birders from Atlanta, who have a place in Maggie Valley – Robert and Stacy Johnson – stopped by.

As we chatted, the mergansers began drifting our way. They just kept getting closer and I’m thinking “Murphy’s Law” because today is the day I don’t have my camera.

The big beautiful birds cruised to within a few hundred feet of us and thankfully not all birders are as ill prepared as I. Robert had his camera and was able to snap this shot, which he graciously shared.

(Don Hendershot is a writer and naturalist.

He can be reached a ddihen1@bellsouth.net.)

March 16-22, 2016

336-18

W

mixing up the two males.

Male or drake red-breasted mergansers have – wait for it – red breasts! Actually, the breast is more of a deep chestnut color; the flanks are gray and the back is dark but shows a white wing patch between the gray flanks and top of the back. The glossy green/black head generally shows a shaggy crest. The drake common merganser also has an iridescent green/blackish head sans the crest. The bill is deeper and redder than the red-breasted and the throat, chest and flanks are all solid white. The back is black.

The common merganser is a large duck – mallard size. It is a diving duck and like all mergansers has a serrated bill that makes catching and holding fish easier. Fish make up the bulk of the common merganser’s diet but they also prey on mollusks, crustaceans, insects and amphibians. They breed in the northernmost reaches of North America from interior Alaska to Newfoundland south to New England, the Great Lakes, Minnesota and Michigan East of the Rockies and in the forests of Washington State, Oregon, California, down to Arizona, New Mexico and even Chihuahua.

They are late migrants in the fall and early migrants in the spring. Many are facul-

tative migrants moving only far enough south to find open water. Birds along the east and/or west coast tend to migrate farther distances than interior birds.

Common mergansers are primarily cavity nesters, but in mountainous terrain they

NEED A RIDE? Get to Work, College, Medical Appointments, Shopping and more for as low as

2

$

Smoky Mountain News

Getting you there is what we do.

The event begins on Main Street in beautiful downtown Waynesville & winds through neighborhoods & scenic farmlands to finish in Frog Level, a revitalized railroad district listed on the National Register of Historic Places

Operational Hours Mon-Fri 6am - 5:30 pm Reservations are required — Call 24 hours in advance

828.565.0362

All trips are coordinated with others while in the general area.

We are not a last minute taxi service! Wheelchair Services are available.

EOE Haywood Public Transit will not discriminate against anyone based on race, color, gender, religion, or natural origin.

47

48

Smoky Mountain News March 16-22, 2016