WNC’s public lands are its finest treasures. For this week’s cover story, SMN spoke with several of the people who have the most influence over those lands. (Page 30) The view from Waterrock Knob Visitor Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway extends out to Cherokee and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Holly Kays photo
WCU student worker fired following union creation................................................4 West, Cothran seek Haywood tax collector position................................................6
Public asked to help shape Maggie land use plan....................................................7
Five vie for three seats on Haywood Commission....................................................8
Lawsuit will test COVID immunity law for health care providers........................10
Tribe explores pathway to tax-free casino distributions..........................................11
A new sculpture for downtown Sylva..........................................................................12
Building Outdoor Communities Program launches................................................13
Requirements for voter challenge hearing may not have been met..................14
Swain runner advocates for sports equality..............................................................16
Sylva extends take-home vehicle policy for police..................................................17
Support elected leaders who support teachers......................................................20
Elton John and the value of forever friends................................................................21
Highland’s Skyline Lodge combines natural, culinary beauty..............................22
Buddhism and the San Francisco Beats....................................................................29
Tour the Waynesville Watershed..................................................................................32
WNC residents win titles in Mountain State Fair....................................................33
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BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF W RITER
Aiás Magitas, a 20-year-old forensic anthropology student from Charlotte, had been working the guest services desk at Western Carolina University’s A.K. Hinds University Center for nearly two years when he got a “vague” text from his boss around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 30. He wanted Magitas to come in and talk, and Magitas was pretty sure he knew what it was about.
“I knew I was gonna get fired,” he said.
Magitas said he was shown to an interior office and told that “the department is going in a different direction and is no longer in need of your services.”
Later, when he met with Nancy Ford, the university’s director of employee relations, he was given three specific reasons for his termination, apparently gleaned from security footage of his shift the previous Saturday: sitting on the couch in the office suite during a slow part of the day, hanging out with his partner while on shift, and allowing his partner, who had brought him food, to sit behind the desk with him while he ate it. Interestingly, Magitas said, he had overslept his alarm that day and failed to show up for his scheduled shift at 9 a.m., but that mistake was not among the reasons given for termination.
Due to state laws preventing disclosure of most personnel records, WCU could not comment on the veracity of Magitas’ account. But Magitas is convinced none of the above is the real reason he lost his job.
“I got fired because I was pro-union,” he said.
Magitas, whose story was first reported by the student newspaper The Western Carolinian, said he’d become increasingly frustrated with his job over the prior spring semester. Pay was too low, and due to an overlap between spring semester workers and summer hires, there was a shortage of available hours.
“If someone was like, ‘Can someone cover my shift?’ you’d immediately get five texts that come in,” he said.
Magitas said he and his co-workers voiced their complaints last spring, but those complaints “weren’t really heard.” So over the summer, he began organizing his thoughts, creating visuals and infographics. He sent an email to about 50 student workers, but not many people saw it due to the university’s spam filter.
WCU employs more than 2,000 students each year in a variety of on-campus jobs. The university sets wages and descriptions for these jobs, which are subject to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. The university also contracts with Aramark, which hires students for campus dining jobs, and participates in the Federal Work Study Program, which provides students with part-time jobs as part of their financial aid package.
When school started up in August,
meant to be the sole financial support for students.”
That’s not how Magitas saw his job.
“I think what the university believes is going on with the student population is we all have our parents financially supporting us on the side and we’re well-off or something,” he said. “A lot of us are all on our own. I’m all on my own. All of my income comes from me working.”
Magitas decided to try again. On Sunday, Aug. 28, he was working the closing shift solo. He brought with him 40 flyers bearing the headline, “Feeling underappreciated? Overworked? Student workers are the backbone of this university — we have the right to unionize!” The poster assured students that “there is power in numbers” and offered contact information for those interested in “joining the fight for better hours and better pay.”
A pair of QR codes point to articles from NPR and Jacobin about increased unionization efforts among undergraduate workers.
Before leaving for the night, Magitas scattered the 40 flyers among the building’s many bulletin boards and tables set aside for that purpose and left a copy of the email he’d sent over the summer on the Guest Services desk where he worked.
Under North Carolina law employers can fire employees for any or no reason outside of unlawful discrimination.
Jeff Hughes, who as director of campus activities oversees the department Magitas worked for, said in response to emailed questions that student workers for the Department of Campus Activities “are expected to perform the functions of their job duties. If the DCA student worker fails this expectation, they may be separated from the position.”
When asked if union activity would be considered an acceptable reason for terminating a student worker, Hughes responded that, “Our expectation is that DCA student workers follow departmental guidelines, such as but not limited to, attend and complete training, be on time for work, dress appropriately, perform assigned tasks as directed, complete assigned tasks in a timely manner, have a customer service attitude and ask questions about assigned tasks.”
Hughes said it would be “inappropriate” to comment on Magitas’ specific case, and Ford said the law prohibits such discussion.
When asked whether the law permits student workers to unionize, Ford said that WCU “takes no position regarding student interest in forming, joining or recognizing a union.”
Because WCU is a public university, employee rights are governed by state law. While unions are allowed in North Carolina, its right-to-work law limits their power by preventing union membership from being a condition of employment and prohibiting government institutions like WCU from making agreements or contracts with labor unions. However, the law also states that an employee can’t be required to abstain from union membership to keep or gain employment.
While union participation is far from being a tradition among student workers, such organizations have been popping up across the state in recent years. Graduate student workers at Duke University, a private institution, and N.C. State, a public one, have organized unions at their respective institutions.
According to a report from NPR’s “All Things Considered,” unionization is catching on among undergraduate campus workers. Campus union leaders in Grinnell College in Iowa began organizing in 2018 and are now holding trainings to teach other student activists how to unionize. As of June, students from at least 25 different schools had attended these trainings, NPR reported.
Magitas’ complaints about pay and hours echo those of countless other workers in countless other industries. But it’s important to remember that campus jobs have a unique mission, Ford said.
“They’re established basically to provide supplemental income to students where the primary focus is a student’s academic success,” Ford said. “That’s our mission, is that we provide an education for our students.”
To qualify for a campus job, students must be enrolled in at least six credit hours and maintain a 2.0 minimum GPA. Hours are capped at 25 per week.
“It’s a supplement,” Ford said. “It is not
WCU is unique among UNC institutions in that it is not anchored within an existing municipality. Though there is a smattering of private businesses at the outskirts of campus, most off-campus jobs would require traveling west into Sylva. University transit doesn’t run any daily routes out that way, so holding such a job would require a car. Magitas hasn’t had any luck finding another campus job after being fired from A.K. Hinds, and because he doesn’t have a car he can’t look for one off-campus.
At the time of his termination, Magitas was making $9.75 an hour. That’s substantially above the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour but below the university’s average rate for student workers, which is currently $10.15. Some student jobs requiring advanced skill pay as much as $28 per hour based on job responsibilities and experience.
“Some of our lower paid positions are sitting at a desk, and all they do is answer the phone,” Ford said. “They can do their homework while they’re there.”
Ford said she talks with students who work off-campus jobs to get an idea of what those employers are offering. She said she’s spoken with several who are making $15 an hour — though, unlike at campus jobs, FICA and Medicare taxes are deducted from those paychecks.
“It is definitely a job seeker’s market right now,” she said. More than a month into the semester, the university is still advertising to fill 69 non-work study student jobs.
While pay may remain lower than what some off-campus employers offer, the university has increased student wages at a rate even higher than that granted to its full-time faculty and staff. The $10.15 average rate is 7% higher than the $9.47 average last spring, Ford said. Meanwhile, full-time employees have seen their pay rise only 6% between November 2021 and July 2022 — itself a historically large pay hike that doesn’t fully counteract inflation.
“Our students have increased much faster than our employees have,” Ford said.
Magitas wants to see that increase accelerate. He has applied for the union, which he named the Undergraduate Alliance for Student Worker Success, to receive club status and start holding weekly meetings to discuss concerns and learn about worker rights.
“We are making the university run, because everybody who is being fed on this campus is being fed by a student worker,” Magitas said. “Whoever wants to use this building on the weekends, or after hours when the staff isn’t here, we are here.”
Flyers for all manner of student activities cover a bulletin board at the A.K. Hinds University Center. Holly Kays photo
This is probably the only election story you’ll read about a county tax collector’s race in North Carolina, because Haywood is the only county in North Carolina that elects a tax collector.
In the state’s other 99 counties, the tax collector is appointed — i.e., hired — and serves at the pleasure of county commissioners. But not in Haywood.
Six years ago, the nature of Haywood’s tax collector position was the subject of great debate when contention over then-collector Mike
Matthews’ job performance became politicized. Matthews, a Republican, was excoriated for job performance issues by a Democrat-majority commission, but most especially so by Republican Commissioner Kevin Ensley. For a brief time, Matthews was probably the most controversial figure in Haywood County politics, with a number of partisans from both sides of the aisle coming out for and against him.
On Feb. 20, 2017, commissioners passed a resolution unanimously asking Haywood County’s legislative delegation to give Haywood County voters a choice via ballot referendum — elect, or appoint.
The resolution went nowhere, largely due to the opposition of then-Rep. Michele Presnell, a Republican from Burnsville.
During the 2018 election cycle, Matthews was primaried by fellow Republican Andrew “Tubby” Ferguson, but survived the challenge; Matthews wasn’t so lucky against Democrat Greg West, who at the time served as assistant tax assessor. West only prevailed against Matthews by 4.4 points, but saw strong early voting totals as well as a
small win in the Ivy Hill precinct — Haywood’s largest, and Matthews’ base.
Since then, West has pushed his collection rate higher than any rate from his two immediate predecessors, Matthews and David Francis, topping out at 98.35% in 2021.
Collection rate is critical. By law, commissioners have to construct their budgets not based on the total amount of tax that’s levied, but rather based on the levy multiplied by the collection percentage.
Right now, West estimates that 1% in collections is worth around $460,000.
“I believe it is an important job, because the livelihood of the county is derived from the collection of taxes,” West said. “We support, obviously, the sheriff’s office, EMS, Haywood County Schools, our local fire
Year Percentage Amount in millions
2021 98.35 $45.78
2020 98.13 $39.76
2019 97.33 $38.87
2018 97.69 $38.87
2017 97.12 $38.26
2016 97.15 $37.79
2015 96.97 $37.37
2014 97.23 $35.33
2013 96.79 $35.00
2012 96.6 $34.75
2011 96.35 $34.40
Source: Haywood County Tax Collector
departments; they all receive tax dollars and our citizens depend on those services. The better the collection rate means that the tax rate can remain lower.”
It also means commissioners don’t have to dip into the county’s healthy fund balance to make up for shortfalls. Fund balance is always important, but especially so as the county looks for a bond rating upgrade that could save taxpayers thousands when it attempts to secure funding for the forthcoming multimillion-dollar jail expansion project.
West thinks the job is as much about people as it is about numbers.
“I mean, people want to pay their taxes, and I think you notice that sometimes they fall on hard times. It’s important for my office to listen to these people, and do our best to work out something that is win-win for both,” he said. “Our staff is very friendly, customer-oriented. That’s something that I ran on in 2018, on the premise that we could do better as a collection agency, and we have.”
Enter Sebastian Cothran, a 21-year-old Republican from Canton. A 2019 Pisgah grad, Cothran earned an associate’s degree at Haywood Community College and is currently a double major in accounting and political science at UNC-Asheville, where he serves as treasurer for the college Republicans.
“I’ve always been into politics and I like tax accounting, and I’ve been an active poll worker for Haywood County. I’ve been doing that since I was 18,” Cothran said. “I’d give the voters another choice for tax collector, because I think voters should have choices instead of people always running opposed.”
Currently, Cothran’s not working fulltime and has yet to gain any sort of practical experience in the field, even as an intern. However, he’s remarkably educated on the position and its recent history — even calling back to events that occurred when he was still in high school.
“This isn’t necessarily a political job. The tax collector is one of the most important people in the county. They collect revenue for the schools, the EMS, all kinds of other things,” said Cothran. “There’s always room for improvement until you get to 100% [col-
ucmhelp.com or call 828.586.8228.
Haywood Tax Collector Greg West isn’t the only one setting records with his tax collection percentage.
In Canton, Town Manager Nick Scheuer may technically be the town’s appointed tax collector, but he said longtime staffer Wanda Lurvey runs the show, and for that he’s grateful.
“We’re counting on these numbers when we’re budgeting and planning, not just for the next fiscal year, but for longer term plans. We’re banking on receiving 98-100% of revenue. Without that revenue, we’re sunk,” Scheuer said.
“Obviously we would not be able to provide the services we do without Wanda going out and getting those revenues.”
Back in 2011, Canton reached an alltime high in delinquent taxes, at $187,273. As Lurvey took over in 2017, and by the end of the 2020 tax year, had reached an all-time collection rate of 99.27%, with an outstanding balance of just under $22,000.
Canton’s collection rate would be even higher if it weren’t for some tiny troublesome parcels that don’t have readily apparent owners or heirs but aren’t big enough to be worth foreclosing upon by the town.
Currently, Canton’s tax collection rate for the last four years is at least 99.45% for all four years, mostly because of Lurvey’s willingness to work with taxpayers.
“They realize I’m here to help them,” Lurvey said. “The worst thing I can do is let them build up a debt they can’t get out of.”
lection rate] so even a one-hundredth of a percent means thousands of dollars for the county.”
Well aware of the differences between him and West, who was running some of the largest ColorTyme rent-to-own stores in the United States before Cothran was even born, Cothran thinks he has a future in government.
“Not necessarily anything against my opponent, but a lot of people in government have been there for a long time, and you can see how the country is today,” Cothran said. “We need new faces in politics and me being 21 years old, I think I can be a new face in politics.”
United Christian Ministries will hold a food drive on Saturday, Oct. 1at Harold’s Supermarket in Sylva from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The winter months bring increased need for food assistance in Jackson County, and donations of shelf stable foods are needed.
Items needed include peanut butter, jelly, cereal, canned vegetables, canned soups, instant oatmeal, instant hot chocolate, Spaghettios, spaghetti noodles, spaghetti sauce, ramen noodles, and canned fruits. For more information on UCM, please visit
Starting on Monday, Oct. 5, Harris Regional Hospital will be lighting up the exterior of the hospital pink in celebration and memory of Breast Cancer Awareness month.
In conjunction with the town of Sylva, Harris Regional Hospital is excited to turn pink throughout the month of October. Harris Regional Hospital will have a pink ribbon of balloons inside their
main entrance as well as the beloved Tree of Hope at the medical office building. The hospital invites community members to place loved one’s names on the Tree of Hope and share the photo on social media in memory and celebration of that person.
As another act of turning pink in October, Harris Regional Hospital is inviting community members to place a pink flag in front of the hospital main entrance in memory or celebration of a loved one. If anyone wishes to place a flag in the mulch area in front of the hospital entranceway, they may request one from the main registration desk and place it in the designated grass areas in front of the main entrance, or they can submit a website inquiry at myharrisregional.com and the hospital will place it.
Greg West Sebastian CothranThe Town of Maggie Valley is encouraging residents to participate in developing its upcoming land-use plan.
The purpose of the land-use plan is to act as a guiding document that can help the Planning Board and Board of Aldermen make decisions that align with the values of its residents. That’s why town leaders are seeking input from as many residents as possible, beginning with a meeting that will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. Sept. 29 at Dellwood Missionary Baptist Church.
Assistant Town Planner Sam Cullen has been with Maggie Valley for about two months but worked for the Town of Waynesville for about six priors to that. He said it’s vital that the town hears opinions from as many people as possible when shaping its land-use plan.
“The purpose of this will be for the public to talk about how they think the vacant land and redeveloped land should be used in the future,” he said. “While someone’s idea of preservation from Jonathan Creek might be agriculture, someone might have an idea that it could be developed as residential for a higher tax base.”
Meetings similar to the one that will take place at Dellwood Baptist will also be held in October and November.
“That meeting is for them to come to us and give us input on what the future land use in Maggie should be,” Cullen said. “We won’t be answering questions as much as listening.”
In addition, a survey is open at suveymonkey.com/r/MaggieValleyCompPlan. Cullen said that survey is likely to stay open for a few more months.
Once a recently appointed 12-person land-use plan steering committee gathers as
much information from residents as possible, it will create a document that melds as many ideas as possible to best reflect the prevailing public sentiment. That plan will then be passed along to the Planning Board, which will then send it to the Board of aldermen, along with a recommendation. At that point, the aldermen may vote to adopt the plan.
While the plan in theory would provide important guidance when making any decisions regarding development, it is not a binding document like the recently passed Unified Development Ordinance. Nonetheless, the state requires a plan to be in place to adopt and enforce zoning regulations.
“With everything the Planning Board or Zoning Board adopts after the comprehensive plan is adopted, they have to do a statement of consistency. What they have to do is say it is either consistent or not consistent with the land-use plan,” Cullen said. “Just because a comprehensive plan says we’d like to see residential uses on Jonathan Creek doesn’t mean you have to put residential developments on Jonathan Creek.”
Cullen noted that the board will take recommendations seriously, especially as it looks at which areas may be annexed in the future, considering the town has been granted authority from the state to annex all the way up Jonathan Creek to I-40.
“The biggest thing that I would want to get out to Jonathan Creek specifically is we’re not looking to change the use of people’s land, but we want to see what their opinion is,” Cullen said. “If you’re a farmer on Jonathan Creek and you want your land to stay that way, then you can tell us that.”
Cullen said the town is hoping to have the plan adopted by mid 2023.
Q: What are some snack ideas for things I could eat that are low in carbohydrates and lower in sodium?
A: I tend to suggest snacks that have some protein for satiety so here are a few ideas:
• Greek yogurt - there are lower sugar/carbohydrate versionsthese often have a good amount of protein
• nut butters (no added sugar) with celery or a whole wheat/whole grain cracker
• unsalted nuts (small serving) with raisins or some low sugar cereal
• Fairlife milk, it's lower in carbohydrates and higher in protein that unfiltered milk
• frozen mixed vegetables, microwave and top with grated cheese
• berries (one of the lower carb fruits) with plain Greek yogurt or cottage cheese (it's a little higher in sodium but has a good amount of protein)
• Edamame (soy beans) - fiber and protein
• Roasted chickpeas - use canned chick peas (garbanzo beans) and roast w/ olive oil and spices in a hot oven until crispy. Chickpeas have fiber and protein, some carbohydrates but no sugar
• Raw vegetables like celery, cucumber, mini peppers, pepper slices, jicama, cherry tomatoes with hummus or a dip made from Greek yogurt
Sept.
@InglesDietitian
Leah McGrath - Dietitian
Maggie Valley in the distance. A Shot Above photo
Three incumbents, along with two challengers, are all running for the Haywood County Board of Commissioners this year, and there isn’t enough room for all of them. Voters can select up to three candidates and in doing so will determine whether or not the county continues moving in the same direction or embarks on a different path.
Whoever ends up on the five-member board with Chairman Kevin Ensley and Commissioner Brandon Rogers will have to grapple with difficult issues that have no easy answers, and although the candidates have much in common, there are plenty of differences between them — some nuanced, some not.
Homelessness, opioids and mental illness — although they can all exist independently of each other they’re often linked together, with one arising from, or giving rise to, each of the others. As such, viable solutions to one problem may not suitably address all three.
In a place like Haywood County, where resources aren’t exactly abundant, some have openly wondered if county government is doing enough about homelessness, or if it should be doing anything at all.
“Are we doing enough? Absolutely not, only because if we were doing enough, it wouldn’t exist,” said Jeff Haynes, a Democrat and longtime chief deputy in the Haywood County Sheriff’s Office. “We’re certainly not doing everything we can at this point only because of limitations that are put forth with funding. We just need to be creative in how to find that funding, and that all develops through partnerships.”
Homelessness, in this case, is less about the county’s affordable housing crisis and more about individuals who’ve chosen that particular lifestyle, or are so bogged down with substance use disorder and/or mental illness that they’re really not prepared to help themselves.
Terry Ramey, a retired wrecker operator who’s run unsuccessfully for the commission several times in the past but finished third in a five-person Republican Primary Election earlier this spring thinks that government should play a benevolent role in the situation, as does incumbent Republican Commissioner Tommy Long.
Jennifer Best, a Republican commissioner, favors more of a “tough love” approach.
“I think we’ve reached a point that we can no longer as a board put our heads down and say that we don’t have a problem in the county,” Best said. “We have to create an uncomfortable environment for those things. We cannot begin to create a welcoming environment for that, because I wake and look at our neighbors to the east, which would be Buncombe County, and say that by welcom-
ing that in just creates a nightmare of issues.”
Kirk Kirkpatrick, longtime incumbent and two-time chairman of the board, is now the board’s lone Democrat — albeit a relatively conservative one. On the issue of homelessness, Kirkpatrick has staked out a position somewhat to the right of Best, saying that government intervention isn’t warranted unless it affects everyone in the county.
“I don’t need to take everybody else’s money and help homeless people unless the homeless people are causing problems for all the people that are paying taxes,” Kirkpatrick said. “Can we do more? We probably can do more, but what I don’t want to do is do things that enable people to continue the same status that they have.”
The monster’s second head, opioid abuse, appears immune to proactive solutions from state and federal governments, leaving local governments the expensive option to administer reactive measures meant to ameliorate the visibility of the symptoms, if not the disease itself.
Back before Best joined the board, the
Attempting to regulate third-party syringe services programs is a tricky balancing act between the rights of a private business and the desires of a community, but it’s not the only tool commissioners have to combat the opioid epidemic.
“I think it’s a three-pronged issue, too. You have to come through law enforcement, the judicial system, and then local government providing resources for those folks to do their job,” said Long, adding that he favored tougher penalties for dealers.
Ramey looks at it from a public safety perspective and favors a law enforcementbased approach, but echoed Best’s “tough love” philosophy.
people’s ability to change, especially without help. Following President Ronald Reagan’s historic undermining of mental health funding in the 1980s, states have been left to deal with the fallout.
But help may be on the way from an unlikely source — the pharmaceutical companies that benefitted financially from deceptive marketing practices that helped fuel the opioid crisis in the first place.
North Carolina’s county and local governments will soon begin to benefit from
county entered into an agreement with a harm reduction organization to conduct a needle exchange but stopped in late 2020 after complaints from citizens over a perceived increase in needle litter.
Right now, third-party harm reduction nonprofit organizations operate in the county, but without county support or the expenditure of taxpayer monies.
The current practice of the Haywood County Department of Health and Human Services is to provide contact information for harm reduction organizations when people call seeking needles, because it’s been proven to cut down on the transmission of disease.
Best has consistently spoken out against syringe service programs of any sort, and believes that the reduction in disease transmission associated with needle exchanges is outweighed by the possibility that they enable the continuing usage of intravenous drugs.
Kirkpatrick, who was on the board when the needle exchange experiment started and ended, voiced concern in a recent meeting that such third-party organizations aren’t being monitored more strictly. He’s currently looking for a way to tell them to shape up or ship out.
“I think the board now is taking the position that maybe the way [the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition] was approaching it is not the best way to handle it,” he said. “I’m for us establishing some type of ordinance that makes it more difficult to operate these programs here, especially if they’re not complying with the statute.”
“I feel like we could partner with the other police departments and the sheriff’s department and give them the resources that it would take to get these people off of the street where they’re not a danger to the citizens,” Ramey said. “Personally, I don’t think you can make it comfortable for these people because more and more are going to come here when you keep making it comfortable for them to come here.”
Haynes, who’s spent his entire career in law enforcement, probably has more handson experience with the opioid crisis than any other incumbent or candidate.
“I think we are our brother’s keeper. At the end of the day, it’s our responsibility to help,” he said. “I certainly think everyone needs to earn their own way. But some people have circumstances that are beyond their ability to change.”
The third and final head of the threeheaded monster, mental health, is for the most part one of those things beyond most
$26 billion in settlement funds. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a whole lot of money, but it’s better than nothing and does offer limited opportunities for the treatment of mental illness that is often co-occurring with substance use disorder.
“If we can throw our money in with the other seven western counties and maybe have a central location or facility where we can send folks to help them get over this, I think that would be a very good option,” Long said.
Ramey and Haynes also expressed support for the regional
Kirk Kirkpatrick Tommy Long Jeff HaynesI believe that real estate is a free market, and I’m not fond of government getting involved in housing.”
— Commissioner Jennifer Best
model. Best agreed with the need for such a facility, but cautioned that there were many practical and financial questions that would need to be answered first. Kirkpatrick has similar questions, but also wonders if hiring social workers to supplement law local law enforcement could be a prudent use of resources.
“Affordability” isn’t a substantial contributing factor to de facto homelessness in Haywood County, but with inflationary pressures mounting, it could soon become one.
keeps prices high. Thus far, the free market hasn’t solved the problem, which again brings up classic questions — should governments enter into competition with private businesses, and if so, when?
Two candidates, Long and Haynes, both see a limited but valid space for the county to act, as it recently did in matching a $1.1 million grant from Dogwood that will not only open up immediate opportunities for the construction of affordable housing, but will also have an effect far into the future with a revolving loan fund for nonprofits engaged in the affordable housing business.
Long added that the efforts of faith-based groups like Baptists on Mission and Habitat for Humanity often offer more cost-effective solutions.
Ramey didn’t specify the precise approach he’d favor; however, he was far from voicing outright support for county intervention.
“I don’t think it’s the county’s responsibility to actually build them, but I think the county should let people build some apartments or houses or whatever is necessary to for some of these people that that can afford,” Ramey said. “We’ve got a lot of single parents, we’ve got a lot of people who’ve got small kids, and they’ve got to get a start somewhere. If they can’t afford to live in any of these houses that are being built or condos or apartments or whatever, then how are they ever going to get a start?”
Kirkpatrick, on the other hand, doesn’t exactly like to see governments competing with private businesses but does recognize that the free market probably isn’t going to solve the supply issue or the affordability issue.
“If the government doesn’t step in like we’re doing right now, in attempting to get these grants to provide monies to nonprofits so they can build these homes,” he said, “then you you’re not going to have people around to work at all the places you need them work and your whole community starts going down.”
Only Best, a former insurance agent who is now a realtor, explicitly spoke out against government participation in the housing market, affordable or otherwise.
need to keep their eye on, continuously.”
With fluctuating building costs and talk of an impending recession, the much-needed $16 million jail expansion project could become subject to cost overruns or delays, which could cause a significant blemish on the county’s otherwise stellar balance sheet — debt is down, fund balance is healthy and the county’s eyeing another increase to its bond rating.
Ramey and Best both said that public safety would be their number one priority, with Best including mental health in that category and Ramey saying county first responders should be prioritized over recreation. Ramey also mentioned education, which is Kirkpatrick’s main focus.
When asked about his main priority, Haynes brought up a national issue that’s
Long took particular umbrage at the unfounded notion that Haywood County is number one in the state for opioid deaths.
“A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its shoes on,” he said, repeating a statement sometimes credited to Mark Twain. “When you start degrading our county, when you start disparaging our county, when you start running this beautiful place down — Haywood County has got so much to be proud of when you stack it up against the other 100 counties in the state.”
Ramey pledged to research whatever information was presented and find common ground, while Kirkpatrick thinks it might not be a bad thing for the county to hire a public information officer to help respond to misinformation.
However, for now, the affordable housing crisis affects mainly working adults who don’t have problems with drugs or mental illness. They have problems with housing supply.
A recent study by the Dogwood Health Trust estimates that there exists in the county a 1,500-unit deficit. Haywood’s Tourism Development Authority reports around 1,600 short term rental units utilized mostly by tourists.
Although there’s been plenty of new development lately and new units are coming online slowly, their relative scarcity
“I do not think that’s the role of government. If you sell your home, or I sell my home, I’m going to want top dollar for it, I’m going to want what the market will bear. I believe that real estate is a free market, and I’m not fond of government getting involved in housing,” she said. “I would like to see nonprofits or other organizations, maybe the Realtors Association, they’ve had some thoughts about how they could help with workforce housing.”
Once the three winners are sworn in this coming December, they’ll immediately start thinking about next year’s budget, which is usually approved each June. All five candidates have slightly different priorities when it comes to that budget, from the immediate to the long-term.
“It continues to be the jail project,” Long said. “It’s something that commissioners
finally starting to get some traction locally.
“At the end of the day, we need to have school resource officers in each and every school,” he said.
Haynes has ample experience in the granting mechanisms available to local governments that would help pay for full-time SROs at every Haywood County School, but those resources are often limited to funding that will pay for one, two or three years of service.
After that, it’s up to local governments to pick up the cost indefinitely by raising taxes or cutting other critical items from a budget that’s already chock-full of mandated services.
Chairman Ensley recently said he’d explored the possibility of funding those positions years ago, at a cost of maybe $2030 per taxpayer, per year, but couldn’t make it happen.
All five candidates expressed support for finding the money to ensure adequate coverage.
“It’s the responsibility of a responsible board to make sure that they have that sustaining funding afterwards,” Haynes said. “We’re literally talking pennies on the dollar for the safety of our children.”
As a career law enforcement officer, Haynes is used to people lying to him on a daily basis.
As a candidate hoping to take a seat on the commission, he’s prepared to deal with the ever-increasing phenomenon of misinformation during public comment sessions, like when several people took to the podium at a recent commission meeting and offered all sorts of statements that aren’t based in fact.
“I’m very, very confident in confronting anyone with [misinformation],” he said. “I’ve done that for the last 30 years. I think I have rested my entire career on finding the truth, and that’s exactly what I intend to do as a commission member.”
Best maintains that she didn’t contest the incorrect assertions presented during the meeting, particularly the overdose claim, because she still hasn’t “gotten to the bottom of those numbers” presented during the meeting, despite data from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services that puts Haywood County near the top of the bottom quintile in overdose deaths.
While there are some solid differences in how commission candidates will approach pressing political issues, there are none starker than how they approach their personal and business affairs.
Terry Ramey is the only candidate who owes back taxes to the county, per the county’s payment database.
Some candidates still owe current-year taxes, which can also be a function of mortgage company escrow services and aren’t delinquent for a few more months, but Ramey has a history of unpaid personal property taxes dating back to 2013 and totaling $1,028.09.
Ramey claimed that he was double-billed through his now-defunct business, Ramdog Enterprises LLC, and that at least some of the eight unpaid bills were not valid.
Tax accounts from Ramdog, sometimes spelled Ram Dog, show a total of $1,878 in unpaid personal property taxes dating back to 2012.
Ramey did say that if the bills were valid, he’d pay them. After his interview with The Smoky Mountain News, Ramey met with the county manager and tax assessor to investigate the alleged billing issues.
“According to the assessor, he owes the bills,” said Greg West, Haywood’s tax collector, on Sept. 26.
West added that Ramey had discussed payment plans with him, but as of noon on Sept. 27, no plans had been set up and no payments had been made.
Sept. 28-Oct. 4, 2022
Jennifer Best Terry Ramey“A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its shoes on.”
— Commissioner Tommy Long
ACanton woman has filed a lawsuit against HCA Healthcare in which she claims “egregious acts of medical and corporate negligence” during the birth of her son led to his suffering a permanent hypoxic brain injury that will allegedly leave him to deal with cerebral palsy and “associated delays and disabilities” for the rest of his life.
The resolution of the suit could come down to how courts feel about the applicability of a COVID-era law that shields healthcare facilities and providers from civil liability over “harm or damages alleged to have been sustained as a result of an act or omission in the course of arranging for or providing health care services.”
The suit, filed in Buncombe County on Sept. 23, alleges that Mission Hospital “knowingly and intentionally” placed “profits over patient safety by reducing the number of surgical teams working and available at the hospital or on call overnight.”
On March 19, 2020, Ashley Smathers was admitted to Mission Hospital’s labor and delivery unit in anticipation of the birth of her son, Stone.
Ashley, wife of Canton Mayor Zeb Smathers, was an otherwise healthy 32year-old woman and had experienced a normal pregnancy but labored unsuccessfully for more than three hours, pushing for two.
According to the suit, during that process Stone’s fetal heart monitor began to show “increasingly concerning signs” of distress consistent with a lack of adequate oxygen supply.
A c-section was ordered by Ashley’s attending physician; however, that didn’t happen for nearly five hours.
The suit goes on to allege that the accepted standards of care required Mission to “complete this c-section order as soon as possible and within 30 minutes,” and that Mission’s gross negligence and reckless disregard for patient safety caused permanent injuries.
Subsequently, a surgical team was “forced to perform an emergency hysterectomy to save her life,” a procedure that ensures she will never be able to bear
another child again.
“She lost at least ten liters of blood on the operating table,” the suit reads, describing a litany of horrors the family endured during their son’s March 2020 birth.
HCA has been the target of frequent lawsuits in recent months and has been the subject of especially intense scrutiny over its $1.5 billion deal to purchase Mission Hospital, along with five community hospitals. HCA has also faced criticism over the quality of patient care.
modifications meant to guide and assist residents through what were then considered uncharted waters.
In that bill is an immunity clause for the health care industry that grants immunity from civil liability for acts or omissions that result in harm or damages.
“I think it was intended to genuinely protect hospitals that were in the throes of their health care providers dealing with a massive COVID crisis that we were in,” Zaytoun said. “Do I think anybody should
The suit calls for damages in excess of $25,000, which is the minimum amount needed to move the case to Superior Court, although it’s probable that the actual damages being sought will be much higher given the ongoing medical expenses the Smathers family will likely bear in connection with Stone’s ongoing care.
“I think the complaint speaks for itself,” said Robert Zaytoun, a Raleigh-based attorney whose firm filed the complaint. “It’s specific. The Smathers are like anybody else. If they’ve been wronged by healthcare providers, they are entitled to rely on the civil justice system to compensate them and that’s what they intend to bring about here.”
Deeper into the suit, the plaintiffs seem to anticipate what could be a controversial defense that would let Mission and HCA escape responsibility for any harm they may have caused to Stone.
On May 4, 2020, just as states were coming to grips with the reality of the emerging Coronavirus Pandemic, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a wide-ranging 70-page Senate bill that offered economic support, regulatory relief and educational
ever have immunity? Personally no, but I can understand that extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures and there was a time when our hospitals were overwhelmed and our healthcare workers were just getting beaten to death — but that’s not this case, in our view, based upon our factual investigation.”
Western North Carolina legislators that voted for the bill say it wasn’t supposed to be used this way.
“From what I understand from Mr. Smathers, his son’s injuries had nothing to do with COVID,” said Sen. Kevin Corbin (RFranklin). “I don’t think COVID had anything to do with it. Of course, it’s up to the courts to decide, but I don’t think that was the intent of the bill. Those of us who voted for it, the purpose was to shield [medical providers] from liability due to COVID.”
Perhaps the harshest criticism came from Asheville Democratic Rep. Brian Turner, who told The Smoky Mountain News on Sept. 26, “I do not believe that was the intent of the legislation and I think if HCA tries to shield themselves behind that, it is unconscionable.”
Rep. Mike Clampitt (R-Swain)
Mission Hospital and HCA are accused of gross negligence and reckless misconduct.Peter Lewis/Asheville Watchdog photo
Starting in March, members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians may have the chance to sign up for a program that will let them receive casino distributions without reporting them as income on federal taxes.
Because tribal code refers to the twiceyearly distributions as “per capita,” they’re automatically taxable, Secretary of Finance Cory Blankenship told Tribal Council during a Sept. 20 work session.
However, the Tribal General Welfare Exclusion Act of 2014 excludes “any Indian general welfare benefit” from the calculation of gross income as long as several requirements are satisfied. The benefits must be for the promotion of general welfare, not be lavish and extravagant or compensation for services, and available to any tribal members who meets the guidelines. Programs must be administered under specific guidelines and may not discriminate in favor of members of the tribe’s governing body.
Like per capita, the new program, to be called GenWell, would provide tribal members with direct payments. The stated purpose of the payments would be for health and wellness-related expenditures —housing, education, transportation and medical costs, for example.
Combined with an ordinance change eliminating the term “per capita” from tribal law, this would bring the program into compliance with the Tribal General Welfare Exclusion Act. Tribal members would no longer have to pay federal taxes on their
wasn’t in the General Assembly when the bill was passed, but echoed Corbin by saying that wasn’t the intent of the bill. Rep Mark Pless (R-Haywood) wasn’t in the General Assembly either, but agreed with Corbin, Turner and Clampitt.
“The intent, it had nothing to do with anything except COVID and obviously this wasn’t COVID,” said Pless. “They’re using this to cover up a lot of things but that was not the intent the legislature told me they had when this was put into place.”
Nancy Lindell, Public and Media Relations Manager for HCA’s North Carolina Division, did say that “Our hearts go out to the Smathers family. We also believe the care we provided was appropriate and we will defend ourselves through the legal process.”
What Lindell didn’t do was answer why the c-section allegedly took five hours from the time it was first ordered, and if HCA planned to use the COVID immunity law as a defense.
“As a trial lawyer, we hope for the best and plan for the worst,” Zaytoun said, “so I would assume that they will use it, and we’ll deal with it.”
casino distributions or even report them on Tax Day.
“The idea is that we would adopt the general language as part of ordinance and Council by resolution would adopt the plan design,” Blankenship said. “Any amendments that are needed in the future to the plan design can only be done by resolution of the council.”
Blankenship aims to offer an annual open enrollment period, with the first one running throughout March 2023. During this period, tribal members could apply to leave the per capita program and enroll in the GenWell program instead. They would also have a choice as to how often to receive distributions. Participants could be paid twice per year when distributions are released or receive $800 per month, with any additional distributions over that amount paid in June and December each year.
The tribal government wants to run the two programs — per capita and GenWell — side by side for a while to familiarize tribal members with the idea. Eventually, Blankenship said, the tribe could eliminate per capita and distribute casino proceeds solely through GenWell.
“If we get the majority of tribal members moved over to the GenWell program, there may be a point in time in the future when we say, ‘Let’s make this change for everyone,’” Blankenship said. “But for now we’ll run these programs side-by-side.”
The program still requires action from Council, which has yet to formally consider the ordinance change and program design.
In the suit, plaintiffs put forth a number of reasons why the immunity provision should not apply to the Smathers suit.
First, Stone was born on March 21, 2020, but the bill was enacted on May 4 of that year and applies retroactively.
Smathers alleges that the retroactive application removes a vested right and violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the U.S. and North Carolina constitutions.
Moreover, the suit claims that the care provided to Stone wasn’t impacted by COVID; that Mission Hospital was not treating a single COVID patient when Ashley was admitted; that Mission did not treat any COVID patients in the labor and delivery ward during Ashley’s delivery; that Mission never informed Smathers that the care they would provide had been impacted by COVID; that Mission did not experience staffing shortages due to COVID during Ashely’s delivery; and, that the actions of HCA constituted gross negligence and reckless misconduct.
A trial date has not yet been set.
News Editor Kyle Perrotti contributed to this report.
As part of its public art initiative, Sylva will host a large, interactive cat sculpture in Bridge Park this fall and winter, after which the Sylva Art + Design Committee will find a more permanent home for the feline.
“It is highly interactive and very clever and cute so I think that anyone coming to Sylva would love to check this thing out,” said Commissioner Greg McPherson.
The sculpture by Paige Tashner is named Scooby Doo and was part of the artist’s Purr Pods installation at Burning Man in 2019, an annual arts and culture festival in northern Nevada. Purr Pods was made up of three large, metal cat sculptures, each one named after one of Tashner’s cats who have passed.
The town is currently planning to install the artwork at Bridge Park during the cooler months, until Sylva Art + Design Committee can decide on a permanent home. Last winter, Sylva welcomed a statue of Harriet Tubman to Bridge Park. McPherson has been a regular advocate for public art during time on the board.
Scooby Doo is made of concentric steel rings fashioned together to make the body of a cat. The interactive sculpture makes purring sounds and vibrations and is equipped with LED lights in the eyes and heart of the cat that glow through the skeleton of the sculpture at night. Tashner said the sculpture is intended to envelop participants in sonic vibrations that will leave them feeling revived.
“Laser eyes of love,” as Tashner describes it. “You’ve seen it. Photos of cats seemingly shooting laser beams back at you.”
Tashner is a native of Oregon who currently lives in California.
Harold Sims, curator of The American Museum of the House Cat, acquired one of these massive, forged felines and has offered it to the Town of Sylva on permanent loan.
“The reason that she made this was, when you sit in it, when you interact with it, it’s sort of meditative,” said Commissioner Greg McPherson. “It’s supposed to give you this sense of calm for the
behind the Purr Pods installation was to help people find a calm place in the midst of a chaotic world, and hopefully to instill the importance of rescuing, adopting, fostering and trap, neuter and return programs for cats and kittens.
The statue is 15 feet long, 6 feet tall, and 5 feet wide; over 500 pounds; and requires at least four people to move. Lights and films on the exoskeleton can project color-changing lights for a variety of themes and seasons which will allow the cat to be festive during the upcoming holiday season.
“Not only is it very cool conceptually, but it’s very impressive,” said McPherson.
According to Town Manager Paige Dowling, town staff will install the sculpture on the existing asphalt between the bridge and the electricity station used for food trucks. The cost for insuring the artwork is $73 annually and the sculpture itself is valued at $14,000.
When choosing where to locate Scooby Doo for now, Economic Development Director Bernadette Peters said “we were considering the visual appearance of it, as well as kids getting on it and moving around it.”
At the Sept. 22 Sylva Town Board meeting, Commissioner Ben Guiney made a motion to accept the sculpture on permanent loan.
viewer, the person who interacts with it. It’s interesting because the campus theme of Western this year is mental health and wellness and this kind of ties right into that.”
According to Tashner, the intention
“It’s a big deal to have something that’s been at Burning Man, on top of the intrinsic value of the art,” said Guiney.
The board passed the motion accepting the artwork by unanimous decision.
Purr Pods debuted at Burning Man in 2019. Paige Tashner photo Purr Pods was made up of three large, steel house cats with LED lights glowing from the eyes and hearts of felines. Paige Tashner photo The frame of the sculpture was constructed by forging together steel rings. Paige Tashner photoPartnership officially launched the Building Outdoor Communities Program (BOC) last week, welcoming over 100 attendees for an introduction to its twoyear outdoor community economic development initiative.
This place-based program is focused on capacity building, technical assistance, training, connectivity and education for communities seeking to advance their outdoor economy goals.
“It was an incredible celebration to host a diversity of stakeholders from across Western North Carolina in the same room to envision opportunities and strategies for thriving outdoor communities,” said Building Outdoor Communities Specialist Bradley Spiegel.
Participants in the two-day launch included community leaders, regional councils of government, economic developers, tourism professionals, land managers, user groups, academics, planners, public health organizations and more, all working together to grow Western North Carolina’s outdoor economy.
“Counties and land managers like the U.S. Forest Service can proactively collaborate, strengthen relationships, and further discuss the importance, uniqueness and value of WNC counties and communities that are intertwined by the National Forest lands. I am very grateful to be at the table and I want to highlight there is plenty of room for others as this program progresses,” said Pisgah National Forest Appalachian District Ranger, Jennifer Barnhart.
Vital partners in this work are Appalachian State University’s Center for Economic Research and Policy Analysis, six regional councils of government, and West Virginia University’s Brad & Alys Smith Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative. Teams will embark on a seven-month deep dive into data collection with community cohorts from September 2022 through August 2024 to strategically assess and prioritize outdoor infrastructure and economic development goals, forge pathways to implementation, and create an outdoor economic impact toolkit, so community leaders can be equipped with data to leverage future project investments.
“The presentations and site visits sparked some great discussions and ideas on how to grow the outdoor recreation economy in our region. The high level of energy in the room confirmed the value and timing of this work,” said Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation North Carolina Development Director, George Ivey.
Communities that successfully participate will gain the crucial user data needed to advance their outdoor recreation planning goals and will be eligible for technical assistance funds through a matching grant program to advance their top priorities.
To stay in-the-know about program updates, key events, and major milestones, join the Building Outdoor Communities mailing list.
meeting scheduled for 10 a.m. on Sept 28 by the Graham County Board of Elections to hear voter registration challenges against John and Tina Emerson will continue as scheduled, despite questions over whether the board issued proper public notice in compliance with state statues.
In North Carolina, there are basically three different kinds of meetings — regular, special and emergency.
The BOE’s website says that regular monthly meetings are held on the second Monday of every month, which in this case would have been Sept. 12.
According to a blog post on the UNCChapel Hill School of Government’s Coates’ Canons authored by N.C. Supreme Court candidate Trey Allen, “A ‘special meeting’ is one that is not part of a public body’s regular meeting schedule.”
Public notice requirements for special meetings are different than for regular meetings.
While regular meetings must be scheduled in advance for the entire year and published with the county clerk, the General
Assembly has authorized local governing boards to hold special meetings in order to conduct business that can’t wait for a regular meeting.
Another School of Government publication, Open Meetings and Other Legal Requirements for Local Government Boards by Freyda S. Bluestein says that “if a public body meets at some time or place other than that shown on its regular meeting schedule,” it must give special meeting notice. That notice must consist of three separate postings.
“First, it must be posted on the principal bulletin board of the public body (or on the meeting room door if there is no principal bulletin board). Second, it must be mailed, emailed, or delivered to any person who has made a written request for notice of special meetings,” Bluestein wrote. “Third, it must be posted on the website of the public body, if it has one.”
The Smoky Mountain News has not verified whether a copy of the notice was posted on the “principal bulletin board” to fulfill the first requirement.
However, a meeting notice was emailed to the BOE’s “sunshine list,” consisting of
people who’ve requested to receive such notices, on Aug. 30, which fulfills the second requirement.
It’s the third requirement that doesn’t appear to have been met. As of 10:01 a.m. on Sept. 26, a notice had not been posted anywhere on the BOE’s website, or on the county’s website.
Each of the three forms of notice for a special meeting must occur “at least fortyeight hours before the meeting,” according to Bluestein’s publication. Per the emailed
announcement calling the meeting for 10 a.m. on Sept. 28, the 48-hour mark would have been at 10 a.m. on Sept. 26.
Requirements set forth in General Statute 143.318.12(e) explicitly state that “If a public body has a Web site that one or more of its employees maintains, the public body shall post notice of any meeting held under subdivisions (b)(1) and (b)(2) of this section prior to the scheduled time of that meeting.”
Section (b)(2) is the section describing the notice require- F
Voter registration challenges were filed against eight people in Lake Santeetlah earlier this year. Cory Vaillancourt photoments for special meetings.
Allen goes on to describe the consequences of holding a meeting — any meeting — without first complying with public notice requirements outlined in statute.
“The remedies available for violations of the open meetings law offer a public body additional reasons to think twice before it risks contravening the notice requirements for special meetings,” he wrote. “Depending on the circumstances, if a court finds that a public body has run afoul of the open meetings law, it may order the public body to refrain from future violations, invalidate any action taken in contravention of the law, or compel the public body or its members to pay all or a portion of the prevailing party’s legal fees.”
Teresa Garland, director of the Graham BOE, said she’d done “everything in her power” to post the notice, but that she doesn’t have access to the website.
“Someone just recently took our website over. It’s supposed to be on it. I sent that request out,” Garland said. “They will not let us have our own website. They will not let us do it. They hire it out to someone. And so our hands are kind of tied.”
Garland said she didn’t know the name of the company or person managing the website, or whether or not that person was a county employee.
“To be honest with you, I don’t know who has taken it over now. In the last four years, we’ve had like six different people,” she said. “I don’t even know who does it now, but I had sent it to our human resources and asked her to do that. And she gave me an email, and I can’t even pronounce the guy’s name. It starts with an ‘H’ and I’m assuming it’s like, ‘Hiramata Shushu’ or something, and so he’s supposed to be the one doing it.”
Additionally, Garland could not provide the name of the current Graham County attorney, who is not listed on the county’s website.
Garland did provide a link to the Graham BOE’s Facebook page, where the meeting notice appears to be posted as of Sept. 23, well in advance of the 48-hour deadline.
Statute, however, makes no mention of Facebook or social media as valid venues for public meeting notices — only the public body’s website.
When asked if she planned to cancel the meeting out of an abundance of caution, Garland was an emphatic “No.”
Bill Cannon, an attorney who represented the Graham BOE during the preliminary voter registration challenge held in early July, told The Smoky Mountain News on Sept. 26 that he believes the notice published on Facebook fulfills the website posting requirement laid out in 143-318.12(e).
Cannon said he reached the determination on his own, without input from other experts, and would issue an opinion to Graham BOE Chair Juanita Colvard stating so.
John Noor, attorney for the challengers, said he couldn’t comment on the matter without authorization from his client, Lake Santeetlah Council Member Diana Simon.
Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church is a canonical Eastern Orthodox Church meeting in Waynesville. Our services are in English, all are welcome to worship with
have a special outreach to the poor and the lost, and to those who seek to love God by loving others.
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Amaya Hicks, Swain County High School senior and captain of the women’s cross country, basketball, indoor and outdoor track teams, came before the Swain County Board of Education on Sept. 12 with a unique, albeit impressive problem. She and her peers had won so many state championships over the last several seasons that the teams were having trouble raising enough money for the state championship rings.
“I would like to briefly talk about our successes in the running programs,” said Hicks in her address to the board.
In June of 2021, Swain County’s women’s track team won the 1A Track and Field State Championship. That fall, the women’s cross country team won the 1A Cross Country State Championship. In February of 2022, the women’s indoor track team won the Indoor Track and Field Championship in the 1A, 2A division, marking the first time a 1A school has ever won this division. This May, the women’s track and field team again won the 1A Track and Field State Championship. Consecutive state titles by the cross country, indoor track and outdoor track teams is known as the “triple crown.” This is the first time a 1A school in North Carolina has accomplished this feat.
In addition to overall team championships, Monica Riordon, Jessica Lohman, Arizona Blankenship, Matthew Gray, Amelia Rogers, Gracie Monteith, Mazie Helpman, Lily Bjerkness and Amaya Hicks all won individual or relay state championships.
All these wins mean that just for the outdoor championships, there are 47 individuals eligible
to receive state rings at a cost of $250 per ring, totaling $11,750. For all the championships brought to the school by those programs, the athletic department is looking at a bill of $16,750 to purchase rings. That price does not include banners for the gym or any apparel.
“My understanding is that we have a remaining balance of $5,000 for our indoor track and field rings,” said Hicks. “The rings for spring 2022 track and field have not been ordered yet due to lack of funding.”
When Hicks spoke to the school board, runners had not received rings from 2022 indoor and outdoor track championships. While the indoor track title rings had been ordered and received by the school system, they had not yet been given to the runners. The team had also been unable to undertake some fundraising requests that seemed to conflict with other sports in the school system.
According to Swain County High School Athletic Director Neil Blankenship, the outdoor championship rings have been ordered and will arrive in November. While the rings have been paid for, the $16,000 has to be recovered back into the athletic fund account. Revenue for that fund comes from sources such as gate receipts and is available for all athletic organizations.
“That’s a substantial amount of money,” said Superintendent Mark Sale. “We need to recover that. Therefore, fundraising opportunities are being undertaken to replenish that.”
“Numerous unsuccessful attempts have been made by our team to fundraise,” said Hicks. “I do not feel that the fundraising structure that is in place is fair to all sports teams. For example, we have been told not to ask certain businesses for donations because if they contribute money to our rings, they won’t
contribute money to the football program.”
Additionally, Hicks said, the teams have asked to sell fifty-fifty tickets during football games and have been unsuccessful.
“I am in no way coming after any individual program or coach, I just think that the systems that are set in place need to be fixed and are broken,” said Hicks. “I strongly believe that as athletes that represent Swain County Schools and are successful at the state level, we should not have to fully fund our state rings.”
Hicks recognizes that this is a good problem to have; in fact, the athletes have been told so by school board members and administration. Be that as it may, it is still a legitimate problem for Hicks and her teammates, and they are seeking resolution.
“Any fundraiser has to be approved, but we are fine there,” Blankenship told the Smoky Mountain News a few days after Hicks’ presentation.
“We are talking about three state championships in a row, cross country, winter track and spring track,” Sale told SMN. “The impact of the cost of that has been substantial because those are consecutive. I don’t recall us having the opportunity to help provide rings at this pace in the past. We have multiple state championships in our football, but even in that, there were only three in consecutive years, all the others were spaced.”
While Hicks was pleased that the spring women’s track and field championship rings have been ordered and some fundraising requests were permitted after word got out that she would be speaking to the board of education, she still hopes to see movement on other issues.
“We need to work harder to become proactive instead of reactive,” said Hicks. “I
am asking for your help in preparing accordingly so that when Swain County students are successful at the state level they are rewarded in a timely manner.”
“I’m just impressed that we have a student coming forward to present something,” said Board Chairman Gerald Mckinney. “That’s good team leadership. First of all, we’ve never had this problem before because we’ve never had this many championships at one time. That’s great. And you’re going to win some more, so we’ve got to have something in place.”
Board member Travis Hyatt also commended Hicks for her leadership.
Sale suggested to the board that he meet with Hicks and her teammates to come up with possible solutions for fundraising.
“Amaya, we will have this problem solved, somehow, if we have to take it out of Mr. McKinney’s salary,” Sale joked.
Other board members inquired about charging admission into track and cross country events. While it is difficult to charge admission at outdoor track meets, usually an open field where people are coming and going from several entrances, indoor track meets can charge admission. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians allows Swain County cross country to host meets at Kituwah on the terms that the team does not charge for admission or make revenue through any concession sales.
“As a senior, as I reflect on my time as a student at Swain, I am filled with mixed emotions,” said Hicks. “As a captain, I am obligated to my teammates and to future athletes to help improve the recognition of success. I know we can do better when it comes to equal treatment of all sports teams.”
Swain County women’s track and field team wins 1A State Championship. Marsha Hicks photo
In the face of a housing shortage and increased competition for employees, the Town of Sylva has updated its policy that allows police officers a take-home vehicle. The board also decided that in the future, updates to this policy would not have to come before the board but would be an administrative decision made within the police department.
“Usually police policies are administrative, but this one is coming before the board because the board adopted it initially and because there is a budget impact of driving farther, fuel costs, wear and tear on the vehicles,” said Town Manager Paige Dowling at the Sept. 22 meeting of the Sylva Board of Commissioners. “But it is a recruitment and retention tool that is an employee benefit.”
While much of the workforce was able to stay remote following changes brought on by COVID-19, police and other emergency service workers have had to be on the job in person. This means daily commuting. Depending on the department, some police officers can use patrol cars to commute to and from work without restriction, while others can only use them if they live within a certain distance of the department.
In 2016, the Town of Sylva adopted a policy that permitted take-home vehicles for officers who lived within 10 miles of city limits. The updated policy now allows takehome vehicles for officers who reside in Jackson County or an adjacent county and are able to regularly arrive at work within a 30-minute travel time. The distance may be extended by 10 minutes in individual cases upon written approval from the Chief of Police and the Town Manager.
“The take-home car is crucial as far as retaining people and attracting people,” said Chief of Police Chris Hatton. “A lot of our local agencies in this area don’t even have a policy for it and they’ll let you drive your car far. I see an Asheville patrol car here regularly.”
Hatton said that he believed the Sylva Police Department could stay within its operating budget even with the updated policy extending the allowable distance for takehome vehicles.
Until recently, the department was fully staffed, a feat in a sector that has seen vast employee shortages in recent years. Mayor Linda Sossamon noted that everyone is having trouble finding employees, and that it had taken the whole time Hatton has been with the Town of Sylva to get a full staff.
“If the town can find officers from surrounding areas that are willing to work here, we need to do everything we can to snag them,” said Sossamon.
Commissioner David Nestler raised a concern that this might result in the town hiring officers from out of town over those that are local.
“Chief, the emphasis you’re placing on policing is community policing and we want our officers to live in our communities not only because it makes take-home cars cheaper but also that’s a better method of community policing,” said Nestler.
“Keeping the policy as is, or at least amending it to not so far a distance, encourages us to hire local people and have local people apply for the job, but also to move to the area if they get the job. I don’t think we want to give that up.”
Hatton explained that while he agrees with the appeal of local officers, take-home cars are commonplace among other departments in the region. He said that if Sylva could not offer them, they might lose applicants to other local police departments.
“That’s one of the sacrifices that towns are making in order to get quality applicants in, making changes to these policies to try to get more people in” said Hatton “I totally agree with what [Nestler] said, especially for a community like Sylva, if I can find somebody from Sylva, that’s a way better hire than somebody moving here from somewhere else.”
One of the reasons it is difficult to recruit
employees to the Sylva Police Department is the housing situation in Jackson County.
“Housing is not good here; it’s a problem,” said Hatton. “I’ve got two or three officers hired in the last year, one is trying to rent, one is trying to buy. It’s been months and they’re finding zero, they’re just struggling to try to find a place. It affects everybody.”
Hatton said the new policy would be more equitable to officers regardless of where they live. With the previous policy, an officer that lives in Jackson County might drive 35 minutes to work in their take-home vehicle, while another employee who lives 20 minutes away in a different county must drive their own car. Many of the department’s most experienced officers live in surrounding counties.
Police officers in Sylva work an average of 15 shifts per month. Public works director Jake Scott said that the town’s police cars travel an average of 10-12,000 miles per year. In addition to miles traveled, police cars withstand a lot of idling hours throughout the year. Most of the problems in the older police vehicles occur from idling and moving slowly through town for most of the car’s lifespan, rarely going over 45 miles per hour.
“Right now, we average two oil changes a year on these cars,” said Scott. “You’re talking about a round trip to Asheville every day, that’s like 4,000 miles a month. There will be costs there, I can’t comment on whether the retention will offset those costs, I haven’t had time to review that.”
“I think if this is something that you need as a retention tool, then we should modify this policy,” said McPherson.
With Nestler dissenting, the board passed the policy update, 4-1. during its Sept. 22 meeting. After the policy update passed, commissioners discussed whether or not such policy updates should have to come before the board in the future, or be an administrative decision made within the police department.
Commissioner Guiney argued that because the town board approves the police department budget, a decision like takehome vehicle policy updates could be made within the department.
“But this is really a budgeting issue,” said Nestler. “This is a cost. Thirty minutes with an additional 10 minutes allowed as well, this means taxpayer vehicles can travel 40 minutes twice a day to and from Sylva at taxpayer expense and I think that’s why it’s a board decision and it probably should remain that way. That’s a big increase.”
Commissioner Mary Gelbaugh said that while this board vote on the policy update was taken for the sake of transparency, moving forward policy updates could be an administrative decision within the department.
“It comes down to if you all want to review this in the future because of the budget ramifications, or if you’re alright with it being an administrative policy and budget amendments still coming before you,” said Dowling. “I think it is standard for it to be in a police department policy and procedures manual.”
Commissioner Guiney made a motion to make future take-home vehicle policy updates an administrative decision rather than a board decision. The motion passed, 41, with Nestler dissenting.
Asheville,
During a recent meeting, Southwestern Community College’s Board of Trustees unanimously agreed to name the new Health Sciences Center in honor of Dr. Don Tomas – SCC’s President.
The 55,000-square-foot facility will be officially named the Don Tomas Health Sciences Center. New signage is in process and will be installed this fall.
“Dr. Tomas played a pivotal role in securing the funding for, and overseeing the planning and construction of, our beautiful new building,” said Lambert Wilson, chair of SCC’s Board of Trustees. “Thanks to his efforts and the support of our local elected officials and community leaders, we are able to provide the very latest advances in training technology for future generations of healthcare professionals.”
Completed in the summer of 2021, the Don Tomas Health Sciences Center houses 10 of Southwestern’s 16 Health Sciences programs. Five of the remaining programs now enjoy expanded space in the Balsam Center. And Therapeutic Massage has its own dedicated lab and classroom in Founders Hall.
The new construction allowed SCC to add Surgical Technology and Opticianry as career pathways. Southwestern also plans to add Dental Assisting in the Fall of 2023.
“I am especially proud to name the building in honor of Dr. Tomas because he’s done so much for Southwestern and the communities we serve,” said Vance Davidson, vice chair of SCC’s Board of Trustees. “Under his leadership, SCC has been ranked multiple times among the Top 10 community colleges in the country – and we were a semifinalist for the prestigious Aspen Prize this year.”
When Dr. Tomas became SCC’s president in 2011, only a couple dozen students received financial assistance through the SCC Found During the current academic year, 187 students received a total of $210,000 in scholarship support.
Shortly after arriving at Southwestern, Dr. Tomas helped launch the Student Success Campaign – an effort that ultimately yielded the first million-dollar endowment in school history.
The college’s annual fundraising gala has raised more than $530,000 since the inaugural event in 2015. All proceeds support students who might otherwise not be able to afford tuition and fees.
“I like to think about how many students are able to pursue their dreams and enjoy fulfilling careers because of this additional scholarship funding,” said Wilson, who along with Wendy LeMay serves as co-chair of the Gala Planning Committee. “Because Dr. Tomas has made scholarship fundraising a priority, the foundation has been able to enjoy unprecedented growth. That’s just another reason it seems fitting to name this building in honor of Dr. Tomas.”
Haywood Community College’s Small Business Center worked on a unique workforce preparedness project by referring the first intern for the Helping Inspire Gifts of Hope, Trust and Service (HIGHTS) program, funded through the Golden LEAF Foundation.
When local small business owner Chip Singleton reached out to HCC SBC Director Ashley Swanger to see if she could connect him with a student looking for experience through an internship, she saw it as a perfect way to provide hands-on learning to someone just starting in the field. And just as importantly, it was helping a Haywood County small business owner.
“One of the roles of the SBC is to stay con-
nected with resource partners in our region so we can help connect businesses to the resources they need,” Swanger said. “After talking with Chip, I reached out to Linda Lamp with the Southwestern Commission to see who might be able to help. Linda connected me with Caroline BrownWilliamson, the Youth Workforce Development and Education Program Director with HIGHTS.”
The pieces fell into place. Through the project, participants are provided paid internships focusing on in-demand jobs in healthcare, construction, automotive and technology. HIGHTS is a youth organization based in Cullowhee serving seven WNC counties, offering experiential activities, community service projects, job training and goaldriven exercises to help youth develop life skills and instill feelings of community, belonging and purpose.
Student Merit Kuykendall was matched with Singleton for a CNC Machine internship. Through this experience at Custom CNC in Clyde, he worked
daily with Singleton to create a list of tasks. Some days Kuykendall organized materials and parts, and other days he worked with milling software to create files (using 3-D imaging) with specific models for customers, like Sonoco Plastics.
These work-based learning experiences last anywhere from eight to 12 weeks.
“It was a great benefit to have an intern in the shop this summer to help during a busy time,” Singleton said. “However, the greatest benefit is that we will hopefully gain a long-term employee from the experience. I would recommend this option to anyone looking to grow a business.”
Although he says he would “do the work for free just so he could learn,” the internship allowed Kuykendall to benefit from his supervisor’s knowledge and experience while earning a regular paycheck. Ultimately, Kuykendall did real work producing a real product for real pay. This experience will one day pay off in his quest for a career in mechanical engineering.
The Haywood Community College campus is known for its iconic mill pond and natural beauty. Community members frequently use the campus for photographs, walking trails and the disc golf course.
The HCC Foundation is asking community members to dig out their best photo to use in making a 2023 calendar showcasing the campus in its full glory during each season. Only scenic images will be accepted.
Once completed, the calendars will be available for purchase. Proceeds from this fundraiser will benefit Clyde’s Cupboard, an on-campus food pantry. If your photo is selected for the calendar, you will receive photo credit in the calendar as well as a free calendar.
Deadline for photo submissions is Nov. 4 by 4 p.m. Photos must be horizontal and high resolution of 300 dpi. For more information, please visit haywood.edu/foundation/hcccalendar.php. To submit a photo, email hccmarketing@haywood.edu.
The N.C. State Employees’ Credit Union Foundation recently gave Southwestern Community College $18,000 to assist students who enroll in Workforce Continuing Education programs.
Thirty different students will receive $500 scholarships to enroll in short-term workforce programs that lead to a state or industry-recognized credential such as basic law enforcement, emergency medical technician, real estate, phlebotomy or nurse aide.
To qualify for the funding, students must be North Carolina residents who are unemployed or underemployed, adults, military veterans or members of the National Guard.
“We’re extremely thankful to the SECU Foundation for providing a better future for so many of our students,” said Scott Sutton, SCC’s Dean of Workforce Continuing Education. “A lot of people want to change careers but just don’t have the financial resources at this time, so these scholarships will make a tremendous difference.”
The funds can be used to offset the costs of registration fees, required books, uniforms, instructional materials, transportation, childcare and credentialing.
Upon receiving the award, recipients are tracked to determine the number of credentials earned, entry into employment and enrollment in further education.
To inquire about these scholarship opportunities, contact Latresa Shuler, SCC’s Coordinator of Workforce Continuing Education, at 828.339.4425 or ldowns@southwesterncc.edu.
Dr. Don Tomas is starting his 11th year as Southwestern Community College’s President. He’s shown here in front of the Don Tomas Health Sciences Center.Many moons ago, when I attended a seventh-grade sleepover, I met a new girl in town. Her name was Lana. She was from Natchez, Mississippi, and had wild curly blonde hair, a vibrant personality and was a huge New Orleans Saints fan.
During the party, we started talking music. This was the era of New Kids on the Block and Color Me Badd. After a while, Lana chimed in to say she was a fan of Elton John. The other girls furrowed their brows, but my eyes widened and a smile spread across my face. I, too, was a fan of Elton John. In fact, we found out that night that our favorite album was “Elton John’s Greatest Hits 1976-1986.”
The summer before our freshman year in high school, we recorded a rendition of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” on VHS tape, Lana singing the part of Elton and me singing the part of Kiki Dee. This became a pretty hilarious and infamous video among our group of friends. Somehow, after all these years, I still have it in my possession. The footage never fails to make me laugh. I love watching our young, naive personalities singing our hearts out and being silly in my teenage bedroom.
Lana and I roomed together three of our four years at N.C. State University and attended two Elton John concerts during those years. College held a lot of change and metamorphoses for both of us, but two things remained constant — Elton’s music and our friendship.
To the Editor:
It makes me sick to think people would applaud Helping Hands not getting funding from Waynesville after such horrible circumstances occurred.
Nicole Kott is an imperfect human just like the rest of us. She made a mistake, a mistake that has changed her life forever. This mistake should not negate all the amazing work she and Helping Hands have done in this community. This organization stepped in when it was most needed and has been incredibly responsible with the funds it’s been tasked with administering thus far.
Nicole is a caring and giving person that has done so much of this work on her own and without pay and all while she was being harassed and threatened by certain community members. She’s put so much pressure on herself to do everything in her power to help those who have been deemed unworthy of help by others, it’s no wonder she was struggling internally. And now in her time of need and support, it’s devastating to see how she’s being judged. No one is going to be able to make her feel any worse about this situation than she is making herself feel.
Our inability to feel empathy for other human beings will surely be our downfall. My hope is that someone can step into the director role at Helping Hands so that it can continue to provide valuable services in the community and that funding can be restored. I think that’s what Nicole would
In 2006 when my parents’ house burned to the ground during a freak electrical fire, I lost all of my middle school, high school and college photo albums. The following year, Lana gave me a box full of new albums where she had copied every photo she could find from our many years together. This was one of the most special gifts I’ve ever received.
In 2008-2009, she and I both had our first child, and through those exhausting first years of motherhood we routinely stayed on the phone or got together in person, both working through various post-partum struggles. Those little babies are now nearing 14 years old, the same age we were when we sang our duet on video tape.
In 2016 after my mom passed away from cancer, the sound of Lana’s voice on the phone allowed me to freely break down. When you grow up with the same group of kids, all of the mothers and fathers become a collective unit of parents. My mom’s passing was a blow to her heart as well.
Sometime last year, she called and told me that Elton had announced a farewell tour for 2022. Granted, he had a previous farewell tour in 2019, but it sounded like this was the real deal. As soon as tickets went on sale, we bought four tickets for the Charlotte show, one for the two of us and one for each
want. I wish her nothing but love and healing as she continues to recover from this tragic incident.
Jessi Stone WaynesvilleTo the Editor:
The Swain County “Rally for Health, Hope and Recovery” was a huge success. The event included about 30 providers of care who shared information concerning a wide variety of available help that is not readily accessible for most people. In addition, free items such as baby diapers and a hotdog lunch were provided.
As an example, Swain County Congregations4Children and our literacy initiative, Growing Our Future Through Reading, gave gently used books to all the children and spoke with their parents/caregivers about the importance of reading to children. We emphasized the evidence that children who are proficient readers at the end of third grade are less likely to abuse alcohol, take drugs or be incarcerated.
We, as all the other groups, are offering hope at a time when it is sorely needed and vitally important. We appreciate Hope Springs and all its volunteers who made this rally happen!
Linda H. Dills Swain County Congregations4Childrenof our significant others.
When Elton walked out on stage at the concert, it felt like we were watching a living legend. His voice and persona are so iconic that few compare. Despite his personal troubles and the world changing and evolving around him, Elton has stayed true to his music and his fans. He’s truly a Rocket Man.
As I grow wiser, I realize more and more that “family” doesn’t have to be those who share the same genetic makeup. I’ve learned that friends sometimes know you better and appreciate the relationship more than those with the same bloodline. Lana is such a friend to me, and I hope I’m that kind of friend to her.
The universe always has our back, so if it wasn’t Elton John that brought Lana and I together, it would have been something else. I cannot imagine my life trajectory without her.
As Elton sings in his 1971 song, “Friends:”
“Making friends for the world to see
Let the people know you got what you need
With a friend at hand you will see the light
If your friends are there, then everything’s alright.”
(Susanna Shetley is a writer, editor and digital media specialist with The Smoky Mountain News, Smoky Mountain Living, and Mountain South Media. susanna.b@smokymountainnews.com.)
To the Editor:
I became a cyclist in June 2020, and it has changed my life for the better. I got healthier, I made new friends, and strengthened existing relationships around my new hobby. I ride
that cyclists have the right to use the entire lane. As far as auto traffic goes, it is one of the safest roads around.
In the past year I have been riding Caney Fork about 6 to 8 times a month. After my first few rides all the way to the top where the pavement ends, I learned when you get up high enough, dogs become a hazard. Due to that, I usually turn back not long after passing John’s Creek, about half of the way up.
Friday, September 23, was a beautiful day. I started up Caney Fork and decided to go near the top, short of the dogs that I usually encounter a half mile before the top. My caution notwith-
about 3-4 times a week, usually around the back roads around Cullowhee. Anyone who knows about road cycling in Jackson County knows that Caney Fork is the “crown jewel” of the many roads to ride here; it is a designated bike route with signs that notify the very few cars one encounters to be aware of bikes, and
standing, that day I was ambushed (there really is no other word for it) and chased by dogs a total of four times, including within a mile of N.C. 107 where Caney Fork starts. Each time, the offending dog pursued me for some distance, forcing me to put much effort into evading them. Not only is the threat of getting
Columnist Susanna ShetleyTo the Editor:
Why are teachers leaving?
In recent years, we have seen a number of people leaving the teaching profession or moving to other states for higher salaries, among other reasons. According to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, the percentage of teachers leaving the profession increased from 7.53% in 2019-20 to 8.20% in 2020-21. In 2020-21, the most common reason for leaving the profession was personal reasons (44.6%), followed by other reasons (25.5%), beyond control of the district (24%) and initiated by the district (5.9%)
In the early 2000s, North Carolina was near the top in the South in teacher pay and per pupil spending. Its teacher incentive pay tied to end-of-grade and end-of-course testing programs was a model for education reform throughout the country. Soon after that — when Republicans gained control of the General Assembly — they began doing away with extra pay for tenure, teacher pensions, master’s pay and the NC Scholars Program that gave student-teachers a reason to stay and work in NC after college graduation. Democrats were opposed to these changes but they were outnumbered and our education system began to decline.
According to Salary.com, the average teacher salary in North Carolina is $58,910 as of April 26, 2022, but the range typically falls between $51,500 and $68,055. Salary ranges can vary widely depending on the city and many other important factors, including degrees earned and the number of years spent in the profession.
Gov. Roy Cooper’s 2022-23 budget had $526 million for education which includes $90 million to enhance early childhood education and $52 million for pre-K expan-
bitten a problem, but a dog can also be the catalyst for wrecking on a bike which is a much more harrowing proposition, especially when you are sprinting to outrun a dog. Worse yet, it could result in wreck involving a motor vehicle.
If the status quo with respect to our canine friends on Caney Fork is permitted to continue, it is only a matter of time before a cyclist gets seriously hurt; especially unsuspecting tourists and other cyclists that may not be aware of the hazard presented by dogs on that designated bike route. The Jackson County tourism board’s slogan is “Play On,” indicating that Jackson County is a place to hike, run, fish, paddle, rock climb and cycle. I am certain none of these dogs’ “humans” would want their dog to be the cause of serious injury.
There is presently a Jackson County ordinance about “nuisance dogs.” However, it requires the complainant to note the address and notify animal control. This is problematic. First of all, the address of the offending dog(s) is not easily ascertained in a very rural area like Caney Fork. Secondly,
sion. In the final week before the end of the fiscal year, the Republican-led House and Senate agreed to a budget compromise that includes a 4.2% average raise for teachers for 2022-23. Beginning teachers will now start out at $37,000 instead of the slightly more than $35,000 they previously got.
At the March Indivisible Swain County NC meeting, Swain County Public Schools Superintendent Mark Sale said the legislature tells the counties what to pay teachers. We need to tell legislators that teachers require more pay and ask them to increase salaries. Sale said there needs to be a way to provide a supplement for teachers above their salary on the local level. In the recently approved state budget, teachers and school-based instructional staff have been allotted small school supplements.
However, Jackson, Haywood and Buncombe Counties and Asheville are giving a locally supported supplement in addition to the state sponsored supplement. Rep. Clampitt and Sen. Corbin supported the state sponsored supplements. Sale is encouraged.
Teachers shape our children and the future of our country. They often spend more time with the children than the parents/guardians do. Can we afford not to pay teachers what they are worth when the cost to our children’s future is so high? What are we willing to give up to provide equal compensation for Swain County teachers and support staff for their work with our children? The least we can do is support county commissioners and legislators who will increase teachers’ pay. Are you willing to do this?
Mary Herr Cherokeeit does nothing to protect those uninitiated to Caney Fork. There are presently no leash laws in Jackson County. I am writing this letter to call upon the Jackson County Commission to pass an ordinance that requires dog owners to protect their dogs, cyclists and other people from an unfortunate incident that endangers both canines and humans. The county commission needs to pass an ordinance requiring dog owners that reside on Caney Fork and related roads to prevent their dogs from becoming a threat to people. This could be done by fence, kennel, leash or electronic barrier.
In a county that prides itself as a location where outdoor sports will foster business and tax revenue by attracting both tourism and new residents, it would be in the county’s best interest to pass an ordinance that would protect people and dogs from such unfortunate encounters. Ideally such an ordinance would be county-wide, but short of that, Caney Fork is a good place to start. The time to act is now.
Peter P. Nieckarz Jr. Sylva
BY GARRET K. WOODWARD ARTS & E NTERTAINMENT E DITOR
Pulling up to the Skyline Lodge, a peaceful silence washes over you while emerging from your vehicle. Walking toward the courtyard entryway, laughter and conversation is heard, whether between old friends or strangers who became fast friends. Soon, the smell of culinary delights wafts from the open doorway to the Oak Steakhouse.
“When you come here, you kind of leave everything behind you,” said Matt Weinstein, executive chef at the Oak Steakhouse. “With how remote it is up here, we have amazing views, everything just super peaceful — this is a pretty unique place.”
Located just a few minutes outside of downtown Highlands, the Skyline Lodge, at around 3,700 feet in elevation, is located smack dab at the crossroads of history and modernity. Designed and built in 1929 by Arthur Kelsey, a pupil and friend of legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the structure itself seamless blends into its natural surroundings of ancient rock and dense forest.
By 1938, the picturesque lodge shut its doors when founder/owner Howard Randall passed away. From there, it reopened in the 1950s and returned to prominence by the 1960s, this beloved destination of travel and leisure welcoming guests for decades.
Recently, Indigo Road Hospitality purchased the property, only to conduct extensive renovations and relaunch the lodge in 2021 to wide acclaim and reverence. As it stands, Skyline Lodge houses 40 rooms, all alongside the artisan brilliance of the Oak
Located at 470 Skyline Lodge Road in Highlands, the Skyline Lodge is now taking reservations, whether to stay or dine (or both). Patrons can also reserve the property for weddings, meetings, and other special events. For more information, click on skyline-lodge.com or call 828.526.4008.
To learn more about Indigo Road Hospitality and its array of renowned restaurants and hotels, go to theindigoroad.com.
“We get most of our produce from local farms in the area,” Weinstein noted. “And one of the beautiful things about living [in Western North Carolina] is driving around to any of these small, mountain towns and there’s all these produce stands on the side of the road — we’re always finding whatever is in season, that’s my inspiration.”
Based out of Charleston, South Carolina, IRH also owns and operates several storied restaurants and hotels around the country, including the Snowbird Lodge (Robbinsville) and soon-to-be-opened Flatiron Hotel (Asheville) in our backyard.
“With the Oak, we’re a modern take on a classic steakhouse. So, we’re making sure those steakhouse classics are on the menu, but we’re also giving them our own spin,” Weinstein said. “I look at food as having fun with it. I don’t want the menu and the presentation to be stuck up and stuffy — it’s about good, well-rounded flavors that are fun and approachable.”
In terms of the lodging itself, there’s this sense of stepping back in time when you’re onsite at the Skyline. Sure, there’s all the modern amenities found at any kind of high-end lodging establishment. Fine dining options. High-speed WIFI. Outdoor fire pits. Heated bathroom floors. Nearby hiking trails. A bar/lounge area with well-seasoned mixologists.
“It’s really gratifying to know that you hard work each day provides this great dining and hospitality experience for our guests,” Weinstein said. “People are spending their money and their time here, and we want to deliver on a quality experience.”
But, with the Skyline, it’s the art deco aesthetic beauty and timelessness of the property and its rooms that isn’t lost on those sentimental and curious of heart. Not to mention, the sweeping views and purposely-placed intimate seating areas opens up an array of happenstance opportunities for friendly banter and genuine connection between guests, whether known or unknown beforehand.
“Everybody wants to talk to each other — where they’re from, why they’re here,” Weinstein marveled. “People from all over the country and around the world, all at different points in their lives, and all coming here to spend time in these beautiful mountains.”
Steakhouse and Butler’s (a casual lunch alternative). Featuring classic cuts of meat and seasonal ingredients, the Oak Steakhouse is open to hotel guests and the general public. The Sprouthouse Agency photo Located just outside Highlands, the Skyline Lodge is a beautiful art deco hotel that was renovated and reopened in 2021 by Indigo Road Hospitality. The Sprouthouse Agency photoWhat’s that feeling you get pulling back up in front of your humble abode after weeks away, wandering and pondering? What’s that feeling of waking up in your own bed after weeks away, and yet the bed, the room and the ambiance seems so oddly foreign, like it was someone else’s apartment and you just so happened to know where the spare key is?
Saturday morning in downtown Waynesville. It had been just about a month since I’ve opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling of my bedroom. Look up at that water stain in the ceiling tile. Gaze over to the painting on the wall from that Vermont artist you knew from his days as a touring rock drummer. Eyes drifting towards the sunlight peeking through the window blinds, the sounds of weekend warrior motorcycles and passerby muscle cars on nearby Russ Avenue.
It was late August when I packed up the ole Tacoma and headed north. Upstate New York, onward to Ottawa, Ontario, and Montreal, Quebec, only to circle back to the south via Lexington, Kentucky. Handful of assignments for Rolling Stone, more so an open window of opportunity to hit the road and disappear into the abyss of time, place, and of absolutely nothing at all. The beauty of the road is the unknowns that fill in the space between the “knowns,” the anchor points of a particular destination or reason to wander and ponder.
The road has, and will always remain, my real home, you dig? It’s the only environment where I can actually think or not think or simply let my mind do its thing and peel back the layers of whatever is the matter at hand. Peel it all back to the basics, only to then try to piece it all back together, but with a sturdier foundation. Thick walls of intuition. Big windows of natural light, of letting in vulnerability and curiosity from the outside world.
Some may say the road is about escapism, about not really facing the reality of your actions and your consequences in the rearview mirror. Pour the gasoline all over that house of intuition. Light the match. Set it ablaze. Turn around and walk away without looking back, all before the fire depart-
ment of public scrutiny can arrive on scene and determine just who you are, what you are, and how it is things came to this crazy, ongoing conclusion playing out in real time.
I hit the road for a myriad of reasons. Love lost, love found. Heartbreak. Heartache. Family fires needing to be put out back up in my native North Country. Friends going through their own hardships. Faces from the past still lingering in carefully placed photos on the shelves of my memory. Mulling over things I’ve said or done in the past that I’d have done different. Of course, you can’t change the past. But, you can carry yourself forward with a better sense of self
1The Smoky Mountain Elk Fest will be held Sept. 30-Oct.1 at the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds.
2A founder and former member of indie juggernaut The Head and The Heart, acclaimed singersongwriter Josiah Johnson will perform an intimate set of music at 7 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 2, at Orchard Coffee in Waynesville.
3The annual ColorFest will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 1, in downtown Dillsboro.
following each passing femme fatale, mistake made, etc.
Shit, maybe I just want to toss on The Rolling Stones’ album “Exile On Main Street” (the song “Soul Survivor” on repeat) on the stereo and just drift down some random dirt road in the depths of Southern Appalachia, just to see where in the hell this road pops out to, “When the waters is rough, the sailing is tough, I can drowned in your love.” Crank up the tunes. Roll the windows door. Inhale deeply. Rinse. Repeat.
Side note, you know that dirt road that leads to Max Patch, the one the brings you to the small parking lot? Well, instead of heading back down the way you came to Interstate 40, go the other way towards Tennessee, and you’ll be happily surprised when (eventually) the legendary Bobarosa Saloon comes into view in Del Rio. One of the largest biker bars in the country, all along the ancient French Broad River. If you go, tell Bob (the owner) Garret from the newspaper says hello.
And yet, “it all” circles back to this postcard I randomly received on my desk in the newsroom a few years back. Mailed from Charleston, South Carolina. No name on it,
A production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Assassins” will hit the stage at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 30, Oct. 1, 7-8, 14-15, 20-22 and at 2 p.m. Oct. 2, 9, 16 and 23 at the Haywood Arts Regional Theatre in Waynesville.
5A world-renowned modern dance company, Pilobolus will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29, in Bardo Arts Center Performance Hall at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.
but it read: "Instead of insight, maybe all a man gets is strength to wander for a while. Maybe the only gift is a chance to inquire, to know nothing for certain. An inheritance of wonder and nothing more." It’s a quote from the seminal novel, “Blue Highways,” by William Least Heat-Moon.
Running has always been my souvenir while wandering and pondering. I've been an active runner since I was 12 (37 now). And, as far back as I can remember, going for a run has, honestly, been my true time stamp of moments in my life — geographically, spiritually, creatively, romantically, etc. I've always felt that you can't really immerse yourself into a particular place without going for a jog in it.
For me, it's about my running shoes traversing whatever surface I'm on, whether it be a large city, small town, backwoods trail or mountaintop. It's about your sweat dripping down your face and soaking into the ancient earth. It's hearing and observing the sounds of the birds, insects, passerby vehicles, the wind, or simply the sound of beautiful silence itself — you alone in that singular time and place.
En route to Lexington, Kentucky, the other day, I pulled off Interstate 71 and jumped on an old railroad line now greenway path, the Jamestown Connector, in the depths of rural Ohio. Nobody around. Cornfields for endless acres. The sounds of the bugs and the songbirds. Butterflies drifting across my field of vision. A farm tractor revving its diesel engine. Old farmhouses off in the distance. All the while, a sense of deep gratitude radiating from my heart and soul for this moment — “An inheritance of wonder and nothing more.”
Life is beautiful, grasp for it, y’all.
Jamestown Connector in Ohio.
Garret K. Woodward photo
A founder and former member of indie juggernaut The Head and The Heart, acclaimed singer-songwriter Josiah Johnson will perform an intimate set of music on Sunday, Oct. 2, at Orchard Coffee in Waynesville.
Doors at 7:30 p.m. The show will begin at 8 p.m. Tickets are $30 per person. With a very limited capacity, this show will sell out. Tickets available for purchase at the shop. 828.246.9264 or orchardcoffeeroasters.com.
For more information on Johnson, click on josiahjohnsons.com.
Renowned act The Isaacs will perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 8, at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts in Franklin.
The Isaacs are a Nashville based, multiaward winning family group, consisting of siblings Ben Isaacs, Sonya Isaacs Yeary and Rebecca Isaacs Bowman, and their mother, Lily Isaacs, who is the daughter of Polish, Jewish
Holocaust survivors.
The band’s unique style showcases tight family harmony and blends their multi-genre musical influences of bluegrass, rhythm and blues, folk, country, and Southern Gospel. And now, The Isaacs invite you to celebrate the traditional and sacred sounds of the Christmas Season, from their family to yours.
Tickets start at $20 per person. For more information and/or to purchase tickets, click on smokymountainarts.com or call 828.524.1598.
A community jam will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 6, at the Marianna Black Library in Bryson City.
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. The jam is facilitated by Larry Barnett of the Sawmill Creek Porch Band.
The community jams offer a chance for musicians of all ages and levels of ability to share music they have learned over the years or learn old-time mountain songs. The music jams are offered to the public each first and third Thursday of the month — spring, summer, fall.
This program received support from the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment of the Arts. 828.488.3030.
• Zonta Club’s annual “Taste of Tuscany” fundraiser will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 8, at the Lodge at Cat Creek in Franklin. An evening of wine tasting by SenAmore Vineyards, home of Slanted Window Wines, music, heavy hors d’oeuvres, silent and live auction. The table sponsor private event will be held at Slanted Window Tasting Room earlier in the week. For more information and/or to purchase tickets, call 828.524.0991.
• “Flights & Bites” will be held starting at 4 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays at Bosu’s Wine Shop in downtown Waynesville. For more information on upcoming events, wine tastings and special dinners, click on waynesvillewine.com.
• A free wine tasting will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. every Thursday and 2 to 5 p.m. every Saturday at The Wine Bar & Cellar in Sylva. 828.631.3075.
• “Take A Flight” with four new wines every Friday and Saturdays at the Bryson City Wine Market. Select from a gourmet selection of charcuterie to enjoy with your wines. Educational classes and other events are also available. For more information, call 828.538.0420.
• “Uncorked: Wine & Rail Pairing Experience” will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on select dates at the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad in Bryson City. Full service all-adult first class car. Wine pairings with a meal, and more. For more information and/or to register, call 800.872.4681 or click on gsmr.com.
The Isaacs.Josiah Johnson. Donated photo
• Balsam Falls Brewing (Sylva) will host an open mic from 8 to 10 p.m. every Thursday. Free and open to the public. 828.631.1987 or balsamfallsbrewing.com.
• Blue Ridge Beer Hub (Waynesville) will host a semi-regular acoustic jam with the Main Street NoTones from 7 to 9 p.m. every first and third Thursday of the month. Free and open to the public. For more information, click on blueridgebeerhub.com.
Night with Kirk” from 7 to 9 p.m. every Tuesday, Open Mic Night every Wednesday and semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. innovation-brewing.com.
• Boojum Brewing (Waynesville) will host karaoke at 8:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, trivia at 7 p.m. on Thursdays and a “Glow Party” Oct. 14. All shows begin at 9 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 828.246.0350 or boojumbrewing.com.
• Cowee School Arts & Heritage Center (Franklin) will host Unspoken Tradition (bluegrass) 5 p.m. Oct. 15. Tickets are $15. 828.369.4080 or coweeschool.org/music.
• Currahee Brewing (Franklin) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 828.634.0078 or curraheebrew.com.
• Farm At Old Edwards (Highlands) will host the “Orchard Sessions” on select dates. Tickets start at $25 per person. For tickets, click on oldedwardshospitality.com/orchardsessions.
• Folkmoot Friendship Center (Waynesville) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. For tickets, click on folkmoot.org.
• Fontana Village Resort Wildwood Grill will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 800.849.2258 or fontanavillage.com.
• Friday Night Live (Highlands) will host The Foxfire Boys (Americana) Sept. 30 and Byrds & Crows Oct. 7 at Town Square on Main Street. All shows begin at 6 p.m. Free and open to the public. highlandschamber.org.
• Frog Level Brewing (Waynesville) will host Virginia Sweet Sept. 30, Shane Meade (Americana/indie) Oct. 1 and Fall Fest (noon to 9 p.m.) Oct. 8. All shows begin at 6 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.454.5664 or froglevelbrewing.com.
• Frog Quarters (Franklin) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows are free and are held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Located at 573 East Main St. littletennessee.org or 828.369.8488.
• Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort (Cherokee) will host semi-regular live music and entertainment on the weekends. For a full schedule of events and/or to buy tickets, caesars.com/harrahs-cherokee.
• Innovation Brewing (Sylva) will host “Trivia
• Innovation Station (Dillsboro) will host “Music Bingo” with Hibiscus Sunshine every Wednesday and semi-regular live music on the weekends. All events begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. innovation-brewing.com.
• Lazy Hiker Brewing (Franklin) will host Scott Low (Americana/indie) Oct. 1 and Red Dress Amy Oct. 8. All shows begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.349.2337 or lazyhikerbrewing.com.
• Lazy Hiker Brewing (Sylva) will host Trivia Night at 6:30 p.m. every Wednesday, Old Time Jam 6:30 p.m. every Thursday and Red Dress Amy Oct. 7. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.349.2337 or lazyhikerbrewing.com.
• Marianna Black Library (Bryson City) will host a Community Jam 6 p.m. Oct. 6. Free and open to the public. 828.488.3030 or fontanalib.org/brysoncity.
• Moss Valley (Franklin) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. Food trucks and beverages available onsite. Bring a lawn chair. Presented by Drake Software.
• Mountain Layers Brewing (Bryson City) will host Open Mic Night with Ivor Sparks every Wednesday and semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows begin at 6 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.538.0115 or mountainlayersbrewingcompany.com.
• Nantahala Brewing (Sylva) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. 828.641.9797 or nantahalabrewing.com.
• Nantahala Outdoor Center (Nantahala Gorge) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows behind at 5 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. noc.com.
• Orchard Coffee (Waynesville) will host former singer of The Head and The Heart Josiah Johnson (singer-songwriter) 8 p.m. Oct. 2. Tickets are $30 and available for purchase at the shop. 828.246.9264 or orchardcoffeeroasters.com.
• Pickin’ On The Square (Franklin) will host Cornbread Creek (Americana) Oct. 1 and Michael Reno Harrell (singer-songwriter) Oct. 15. All shows begin at 6 p.m. at the Gazebo in downtown. Free and open to the public. franklinnc.com/pickin-on-thesquare.html.
• Quirky Birds Treehouse & Bistro (Dillsboro)
The Pic’ & Play Mountain Dulcimer Players will be resuming in-person jam sessions at the St. John’s Episcopal Church basement fellowship hall in Sylva.
The group welcomes all beginners and experienced dulcimer players, including mountain (lap) dulcimer and hammered dulcimer players. Songs played include traditional mountain tunes, hymns, and more modern music. The group meets at 1:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Saturday of every month in the basement of St. John’s.
Pic’ & Play has been playing together since 1995. The more experienced members welcome new players, help them navigate their instruments, and guide them through some of the basics of tuning, strumming, and playing.
The mountain dulcimer, also known as a fretted dulcimer or a lap dulcimer, is a uniquely American instrument. It evolved from the German scheitholz sometime in the early 1800s in Appalachia and was largely known only in this region until popularized more broadly in the 1950s.
For more information, call Kathy Jaqua at 828.349.3930 or Don Selzer at 828.293.0074.
will host Open Mic Night at 7 p.m. every Tuesday and semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 828.586.1717 or facebook.com/quirkybirdstreehouse.
• Rathskeller Coffee Haus & Pub (Franklin) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Shows begin at 8 p.m. Free and open to the public. 828.369.6796.
• Salty Dog’s Seafood & Grill (Maggie Valley) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 828.926.9105.
• Satulah Mountain Brewing (Highlands) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. 828.482.9794 or satulahmountainbrewing.com.
• Saturdays On Pine (Highlands) will host Fancy & The Gentlemen (country/honky-tonk) Oct. 1 and Thirsty Horses (Americana/country) Oct. 8 at Kelsey-Hutchinson Park on Pine Street. All shows begin at 6 p.m. Free and open to the public. highlandschamber.org.
• The Scotsman (Waynesville) will host The Carter Giegerich Trio (Celtic/bluegrass) from 2 to 5 p.m. every Sunday, Rene Russel (Americana/rock) Sept. 29, Bridget Gossett (singer-songwriter) Oct. 6, Kevin Dolan & Paul Koptak (blues/country) Oct. 13, Jackson Grimm (Americana/bluegrass) Oct. 20 and Chris Minick (folk/rock) Oct. 27. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.246.6292 or scotsmanpublic.com.
• SlopeSide Tavern (Sapphire) will host Seth & Sara (Americana) 10 p.m. Oct. 6. Free and open to the public. 828.743.8655 or slopesidetavern.com.
• Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts (Franklin) will host The Return (Beatles tribute) Oct. 1 and The Isaacs Oct. 8. Both shows begin at 7:30 p.m. For more information and/or to purchase tickets, click on smokymountainarts.com or 828.524.1598.
• Southern Porch (Canton) will host semiregular live music on the weekends.
828.492.8009 or southern-porch.com.
• Stecoah Valley Center (Robbinsville) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. 828.479.3364 or stecoahvalleycenter.com.
• The Ugly Dog Pub (Cashiers) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. 828.743.3000 or theuglydogpub.com.
• The Ugly Dog Pub (Highlands) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. 828.526.8364 or theuglydogpub.com.
• Unplugged Pub (Bryson City) will host Wayne Bucker Oct. 1, Blackjack Country Oct. 6, Virginia & The Slims Oct. 7 and Genepool Oct. 8. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.538.2488.
• Valley Cigar & Wine Co. (Waynesville) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 828.944.0686 or valleycigarandwineco.com.
• Valley Tavern (Maggie Valley) will host Twisted Trail 3 p.m. Oct. 2 and The Lads 3 p.m. Oct. 9. All shows begin at 6 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.926.7440 or valleytavern.com.
• Water’n Hole Bar & Grill (Waynesville) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows begin at 9:30 p.m. 828.456.4750 or facebook.com/waternhole.bar.
• Whiteside Brewing (Cashiers) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. 828.743.6000 or whitesidebrewing.com.
• Wine Bar & Cellar (Sylva) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. 828.631.3075 or facebook.com/thewinebarandcellar.
• Yonder Community Market (Franklin) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. Donations encouraged. 828.200.2169 or eatrealfoodinc.com.
Sept. 28-Oct. 4, 2022
A production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Assassins” will hit the stage at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 30, Oct. 1, 7-8, 14-15, 20-22 and at 2 p.m. Oct. 2, 9, 16 and 23 at the Haywood Arts Regional Theatre in Waynesville.
A multiple Tony Award-winning theatrical tour-de-force, the musical was created with the late Stephen Sondheim’s signature blend of intelligently stunning lyrics and beautiful music.
“Assassins,” a story about our nation’s culture of celebrity and the violent means some will use to obtain it, opened OffBroadway in 1990 and ran for 73 performances, before transferring to Broadway in 2004 and winning five Tony Awards, including “Best Revival of a Musical.”
From John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey
Oswald, writers Sondheim and John Weidman take us on a rollercoaster ride, in which assassins and would-be assassins of presidents of the United States from different historical periods meet, interact and inspire each other to harrowing acts in the name of the American Dream. Intersecting in unexpected ways, they create a powerful, yet unnervingly funny look at some of the most shocking moments in U.S. history.
Directed by Mark Jones, “Assassins” will feature the amazing talents of local performers and several Western Carolina University students, including Riley Anderson, Leif Brodersen, Holly Caldwell, Bryan Campbell, Javan DeLozier, Charles Dunn, Alexa Edelman, William Tyler Ezzell, Daniel
Gainey, Dillon Giles, Grizel Gonzalez-Jeuck, Hogan McLamb, Eric Martinez, Lilly Mills
All guns used during this performance are replicas that were provided, checked, and rendered inoperable by a weapon’s specialist for the safety of our artists and audiences. All gunshot sound effects are prerecorded. “Assassins” is for mature audiences only and is not suitable for all ages.
To make reservations, call the HART Box Office at 828.456.6322 from 1 to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday or click on harttheatre.org.
A world-renowned modern dance company, Pilobolus will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29, in Bardo Arts Center Performance Hall at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.
Pilobolus will perform their newest show, “The Big Five-OH!,” which celebrates their 50th year in existence, promoting radical creativity and boundary-pushing in dance. Pilobolus was formed in 1971, at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, by Moses Pendleton, Jonathan Wolken, and Steven Johnson after attending a dance composition class taught by Alison Becker Chase.
The “Pilobolus” name comes from Pilobolus crystallinus, a phototrophic (light loving) fungus. Wolken’s father was studying Pilobolus in his lab when the group formed.
Since its beginnings, Pilobolus has toured and created over 120 pieces of repertory in more than 65 countries, and been featured on CBS This Morning, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, NBC’s Today Show, and MTV’s Music Awards.
During “The Big Five-OH!,” Pilobolus will question its own “givens,” turn traditions sideways, and bring its past into the future. “The Big Five-OH!” serves audiences a mix of pieces from vintage and visionary to fresh and electrifying.
In true Pilobolus fashion, the show works to break tradition and dynamically reimagine dance to provide the viewer with a never-before-seen experience. Dancers will become various fantastical characters and transport the viewer to new places and perspectives.
This performance includes partial nudity. The Box Office is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Thursdays.
To learn more about this event at the BAC and/or to purchase tickets, click on arts.wcu.edu/pilobolus. To see the BAC’s full calendar of events, please visit arts.wcu.edu/explore or call 828.227.ARTS.
The Cowee School Arts & Heritage Center is currently seeking applications for Artist Support Grants for 2022–23.
These grants support artists in all disciplines with funding for projects that will have a significant impact on the advancement of their professional artistic careers. The Artist Support Grant program is managed through a partnership with local arts councils to serve artists in Clay, Cherokee, Graham, Jackson, Macon and Swain counties. Funding is provided by the North Carolina Arts Council.
Artists at any stage of their careers, emerging or established, are eligible to apply for grants in all disciplines, such as visual art and craft, traditional art forms, music composition, film/video, literature and playwriting, and choreography and dance. Types of fundable projects include the creation of new work, purchase of equipment and materials, and professional development workshops.
Complete funding guidelines and applications are available online at coweeschool.org. Grant awards generally range from $500-$1,000. Applications must be received by Oct. 15.
Informational workshops for interested artists will be offered online and in person. Please visit coweeschool.org for updated workshop dates and times. For more information, contact Laura Brooks at maconheritagecenter@gmail.com or call 828.369.4080.
Dancers from Pilobolus. Donated photo A cast member of ‘Assassins.’ Donated photo
The “Unto These Hills” stage production will be held at 8 p.m. nightly throughout the summer at the Cherokee Mountainside Theatre.
This decades-old acclaimed outdoor drama traces the Cherokee people through the eons, through the zenith of their power, through the heartbreak of the Trail of Tears, finally ending, appropriately, in the present day, where the Cherokee people, much like their newly re-scripted drama, continue to rewrite their place in the world — a place based on traditional Cherokee values and modern sensibilities.
For more information on show dates and/or to purchase tickets, go to visitcherokeenc.com and click on the “Events” tab.
• “Introduction to Comedy Improvisation” course will be held from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Oct. 4, 11, 18, 25 and Nov. 1 and 8 at the Folkmoot Friendship Center in Waynesville. For more information and/or to sign up for the workshop, click on folkmoot.org/courses.
• “Dracula: The Failings of Men” will be performed on select evenings in October at the Mountainside Theatre in Cherokee. This is an outdoor show. Kids under 12 are not recommended. Join Ada Van Helsing as she pursues something that’s part-myth, part-legend, and fully evil. Only 199 seats are available per show. Performances are Thursday through Saturday, and Monday, Oct. 31. There will be no show on Oct. 14. For more information and/or to purchase tickets, click on greatsmokies.com/events.
• Haywood Arts Regional Theater in Waynesville is currently offering a wide variety of classes in the theater arts for all ages, young and old. Whether you are just starting out or want to hone your skills, HART has opportunities for you. Classes run through Nov. 4. Browse the selection of fall classes at harttheatre.org. For more information, contact Artistic Director Candice Dickinson at 646.647.4546 or email candice@harttheatre.org.
‘Unto These Hills’ explores the Cherokee heritage. File photo
The Cherokee Bonfire & Storytelling will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays through Oct. 31 at the Oconaluftee Islands Park in Cherokee.
Sit by a bonfire, alongside a river, and listen to some of Cherokee’s best storytellers. The bonfire is free and open to the public. There will be no bonfire events in September.
For more information, call 800.438.1601 or click on www.visitcherokeenc.com.
The annual Cherokee Indian Fair will run Oct. 4-8 at the Cherokee Indian Fairgrounds. The Indian Fair Parade kicks off the festivities on Tuesday. Like the typical county fair, Cherokee invites a top-of-the-line carnival to provide amusements all week for the young and old alike. From games to high-tech rides, the carnival is always a welcome feature at the Fair. Community arts and crafts exhibits, Miss Cherokee contest. Nationally known entertainers.
For more information and a full schedule of events, click on greatsmokies.com/events.
• “Scare-Okee Haunted Island Light Show” will be held from dusk to 10 p.m. Sept. 24 through Oct. 31 at the Oconaluftee Islands Park in Cherokee. Walk around the island and enjoy the music and array of lights (including flashing lights), haunted talking trees, and an interactive skeleton keyboard. Fun for all ages. No pets allowed. Free admission.
Get to know Maggie. Between the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains rests one of the best golf courses in North Carolina
The annual ColorFest will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 1, in downtown Dillsboro.
Come spend the day in a walk-about mountain town filled with color and history. Enjoy a day of fun, food, live music, artisan demonstrations, entertainment and shopping.
Over 40 artisans will be displaying authentic Cherokee art, pottery, jewelry, photography, loom beading, handmade soaps, many kinds of needle work, Christmas ornaments, pine cone wreaths, candles, rustic furniture, chair caning, baskets and much more.
For more information, click on visitdillsboro.org.
The Smoky Mountain Elk Fest will be held Sept. 30-Oct.1 at the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds.
First held in 2019, this event was created to celebrate the reintroduction of elk to the Great Smoky Mountains. Elk Fest is a family-friendly, education-based festival with a strong focus on conservation of the elk and the elk habitat.
JOIN TODAY and 100% of yourinitiation fee will be waived!
Offer valid for Full Privilege Golf & Individual Golf Memberships.
Contact Caitlin Bledsoe at 828-926-4831 for information.
After a two-year hiatus, The Haywood County Tourism Development Authority (HCTDA) is excited to welcome people back for two full days of authentic Appalachian experiences, live entertainment, hands-on activities, educational demonstrations, and more.
In addition to elk-related events, other highlights of the festival will include live entertainment featuring Cherokee Indian Dancers, The Bailey Mountain Cloggers, Ol’ Dirty Bathtub, Ricky Gunter, and others.
The festival will also feature a variety of outdoor activities such as The Great Elk Tour Exhibit, creekside demonstrations, a trout race, activities for the kids, a display of elk photo contest winners, an elk bugling
contest, wildlife artists and plenty of food/craft vendors.
Festival events will take place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 30, and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 1. Tickets will be available for advance purchase at the Haywood County Visitor Center (1110 Soco Road, Maggie Valley) or day-of at the festival gates. Tickets are $5 for adults. Children 12 and under are free.
Proceeds from the Smoky Mountain Elk Fest will be used to support programs and projects that benefit elk management and habitats within Haywood County and the Qualla Boundary.
For more information, click on smokymtnelkfest.com.
The Cherokee Bonfire is a familyfriendly gathering. File photo
An artist demonstration at ColorFest. File photo
“Crowded By Beauty” (University of California Press, 2015) is the poetic title of the most recent biography of Philip Whalen. Who was Philip Whalen? As the author David Schneider describes him:
“Poet, then Zen master, and finally one of the Beat poets, he exerted a strong influence on American poetry of the second half of the twentieth century and helped establish Zen Buddhism in the West. He did this through his own writing, and through the force of his own personality and its influence on his students and more famous friends such as Kerouac, Snyder, McClure and Ginsberg. They all, in turn, loved him and admired him. Philip was someone they wanted to talk to, write to, read, dine with, stay with, hike or hang out with; one who gave delight, wisdom, beauty, and spiritual guidance to the world.”
During my own residence in San Francisco during the 1970s, I came to know and work with Philip Whalen on a couple public poetry event projects and lived for a time with one of the bhikkhus (students) who studied under him at the San Francisco Zen Center during those years. So, I was familiar with him through his writing (poetry) as well as from a nearby distance and from people whom I knew and who knew him intimately. One of the most interesting features of this brilliantly conceived biography is that it features the correspondence of Whalen with chapters organized between himself and the four now famous men mentioned above — their friendships and their foibles — giving the reader a letter by letter, year by year seat in the house of Whalen’s life.
“Whalen’s close literary friends pressured and jostled each other very hard. Allen (Ginsberg) and Jack (Kerouac) both were pushy and domineering; Philip was opinionated and explosive: Gary (Snyder) could come on as arrogant and didactic. They were each constantly telling the other what he should be doing, but respecting and loving one another just enough to hold the circle together. Beyond their literary friendships, though mixed up with it, they recognized spiritual capacity in one another alongside strong influences of Native Amrerican, Japanese and Chinese populations.”
It is hard, if not impossible, to separate Whalen’s personal life from his study and practice of Zen Buddhism. As Schneider puts it in “Crowded By Beauty”:
“Whalen — by meditation, long solitary hikes in the mountains, a decided bachelor’s
preference for staying put, for reading, for the quiet life — was somehow able to cobble together an acceptance of all he saw and felt. In the 1950s, Whalen responded to letters from Gary Snyder from a Forest Service lookout in Washington State, saying: ‘By God, next summer, I’m going to have a mountain of my own!’ And this he did, spending three successive summers as a forest lookout, making this by far his steadiest, most satisfying job until many years later, when he became a ‘professional’ man of the cloth.”
Gary Snyder as the Northwest branch of the Beats or of the San Francisco Renaissance. Lew’s and Philip’s work reads differently, but their literary education, the music they listened to, paintings they looked at, contemporaries with whom they bantered — these were very similar,” he writes. Or more specifically, “Lew stated as clearly (and passionately) as anyone that the job of the poet was to express mind: ‘We want the exact transmission of Mind.’” In general, as Schneider states, “Lew, Philip, and Gary were all profoundly unhappy with the military-religio-materialist thinking that ran America in the early part of their lives and declared openly and intelligently against the contemporary lack of support for poets.”
Author Ronald Evans will present his historical novel, “The Odyssey of Robert Peake,” at 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 1, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.
In “The Odyssey of Robert Peake,” Evans explores the story of an English indentured servant, Robert Peake, who set sail for the Virginia colony in 1623. “The Odyssey of Robert Peake” is a novelization about the real-life ancestors of the Peak (Peek) families still living in the North Carolina and Virginia mountains.
Evans is a descendant of the Peek family of Macon County. “The Odyssey of Robert Peake” is his first book of historical fiction. Evans is also the author of two local true-crime volumes, “Swift Justice” and “Frankie: A Life Cut Short.”
To reserve copies of Evans’ books, please call City Lights at 828.586.9499.
Later in the section of the friendship between Whalen and Snyder, Schneider writes: “In Philip he found someone older, familiar, strange, and friendly who’d been studying classics of all kinds for much longer than he had, and who was undeniably already a poet. ‘He first showed me the difference between talking about literature and doing it,’ Snyder writes.” And in Snyder’s eulogy to Whalen at his funeral ceremony he says: “Philip was always the purest, the highest, the most dry, and oddly cosmic, of the Dharma poets we’ve known — we are all greatly karmically lucky to have known him.”
In a section devoted to Lew Welch, Schneider takes the reader deeper into the backgrounds of Whalen’s friends and the psychological essence of what poetry meant to the Beat cadre and to their generation. “Lew and Philip are often grouped with
In the end, “Crowded By Beauty” focuses on Whalen’s life as an ordained Zen Buddhist monk and his residencies in Zen Centers in Japan, San Francisco, Bolinas and Sante Fe. Philip’s mentor and friend Baker Roshi at the San Francisco Zen Center said of him: “When the title of Roshi is given, it means this realization has matured and flowered in practice. Philip understood all of this. He was never really anything but loyal and grateful. I can also remember times in zazen and meditation with Philip sitting there, a tear streaming down his cheek and often saying ‘I’ll never be a bodhisattva’ (a person who is able to reach nirvana, but delays doing so out of compassion in order to save suffering beings).” In June of 2002 and in a hospice facility, Philip slipped into a coma and died soon thereafter. Two months later, a large crowd gathered for a giant Philip Whalen Memorial Reading. As Schneider explains it: “Organizers scheduled at least three hours for the event and involved twenty-five readers — among them Anne Waldman, the McClures, Jane Hirshfield, David Meltzer, Diane di Prima, Leslie Scalapino, and Michael Rothenberg, with Norman Fischer asserting that Philip was ‘the best writer of his generation.’”
(Thomas Crowe is a regular contributer to The Smoky Mountain News and author of the historical memoir “Starting From San Francisco: The Baby Beat Generation and the Second San Francisco Renaissance.”)
The Jackson County Public Library in Sylva is starting a new monthly program.
Each month, a library staff member will be discussing some of the new book titles that the library has received. Particular attention will be paid to “under the radar” titles and authors, new releases, and other books that the staff is excited about.
All are welcome and no registration is required. For more information on when the club will meet, please call the library at 828.586.2016.
This club is co-sponsored by the Friends of the Jackson County Public Library. The JCPL is a member of Fontana Regional Library (fontanalib.org).
The Jackson County Public Library will be presenting a series of lectures/discussions on “Ethics in Philosophy,” which will be led by Clemson professor Todd May, at 6 p.m. Oct. 4, 11, 18 and 25 in the Community Room at the library in Sylva.
May is the Class of 1941 Memorial Professor of the Humanities at Clemson University. He is the author of 16 books of philosophy and was an advisor to the philosophical sitcom “The Good Place.” He is a collaborator with “The Good Place” showrunner Mike Schur on a book of ethics, “How To Be Perfect.”
“A series of four presentations on classical Western ethical theories. We’ll look at Aristotle’s virtue ethics, utilitarianism, deontology, and then Nietzsche’s critique of morality,” May said. “No background in philosophy is necessary — just come as you are. Discussion will be encouraged and enjoyed.”
The series is free and open to the public. For more information, please call the library at 828.586.2016. This seminar is co-sponsored by the Friends of the Jackson County Public Library.
The Jackson County Public Library is a member of Fontana Regional Library (fontanalib.org).
Writer Thomas Crowe
BY HOLLY KAYS OUTDOORS EDITOR
National Public Lands Day dawned crisp and cool Saturday, Sept. 24, a celebration of everything most beloved about fall in Western North Carolina — sunrise pinks and oranges streaking the skies above the ridgeline; clear, dry air carrying an invigorating early-morning chill; bright sunshine focusing the world beneath warm rays as the sky brightened, revealing mountainsides tinged with hints of red and yellow, rogue branches overly eager for the autumnal wardrobe change.
“To see the beauty of the Great Smokies is a spiritual experience,” said National Park Service Director Chuck F. Sams III, speaking to the group of park staff, partners and volunteers — along with representatives from the adjacent Qualla Boundary — gathered on the porch of the Oconaluftee Visitor Center Saturday morning.
Established in 1994, National Public Lands
Day is organized by the National Environmental Education Foundation and is the country’s largest single-day volunteer event for public lands, held annually on the fourth Saturday in September. Last week, nearly 100 volunteers came out to pick up litter, maintain trails and remove graffiti in the Smokies.
Last weekend was Sams’ first time in 33 years standing inside park boundaries, but as an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon, he’s cultivated awareness of the tie between spiritual rejuvenation and natural beauty throughout his life. Since his December 2021 appointment as National Park Service Director — becoming the first Native American to hold the position — he’s been working in pursuit of what he sees as a common goal of the U.S. government and the country’s indigenous nations.
“Our (NPS) mission, under the Organic Act, is to steward America’s resources, to steward those places that are so very special
Nearly 100 people visited the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Saturday, Sept. 24, to give back in recognition of National Public Lands Day. Their impact included:
• 40 tons of gravel spread along Oconaluftee River Trail
• 100-plus pounds of trash removed from roadsides and rivers.
• Almost 1,000 visitors given Leave No Trace information at Sugarlands and Oconaluftee Visitor Centers.
• Graffiti removed from scenic overlooks
• Scientific data gathered by Cherokee Central Schools students at the Appalachian Highlands Learning Center, and new citizen scientists recruited to download the iNaturalist app.
to the American people,” Sams said. “Our job is also to do that in perpetuity. Just as my people must do it for seven generations, the National Park Service must do this for future generations, and not just now.”
With the nation finally emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, speakers placed particular emphasis on the physical and mental health benefits of time spent in nature.
Rear Admiral Denise Hinton, who serves as the country’s Deputy Surgeon General, said that the pandemic birthed “unprecedented mental health concerns,” citing research that found that Feb. 21-March 20, 2021, emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts were 50.6% higher for teenage girls and 3.7% higher for teen boys than during the same period in 2019. While these issues won’t be solved overnight, public lands “are wellpositioned to be part of that solution.”
“Coming out to the parks, taking it all in, it’s free. It’s available to all of us,” she said in an interview with The Smoky Mountain News. “And it’s where we can really, truly all feel connected. And I do believe that the interconnectedness of our great world, it is important. And taking advantage of that, and letting it serve us as we serve it and taking care of it is incredibly important.”
Meri-Margaret Deoudes, president and CEO of NEEF, said that during the pandemic hiking around Great Falls near her home in Washington, D.C., was “one of (her) greatest pleasures,” consistently offering an opportunity for rejuvenation during a difficult time. Likewise, for Smokies Superintendent Cassius Cash, the period following COVID-19’s arrival was “a dark time,” but he sought — and found — solace in the mountains.
“Whenever I go into these mountains, I always come out feeling better than when I went in,” he said. “I understand how indige-
nous people sought that inspiration and that wisdom, because that’s exactly what I needed during that period in my career.”
During that time, Sneed said, many in the United States got a firsthand lesson in a truth that indigenous tribes have known for generations.
“Our connection is first and foremost to the land, and equally as important, or maybe even more important, is our connection to one another,” he said.
It’s a full-circle moment in the history of a nation whose story includes hundreds of years of subjugating indigenous people and dismissing traditional knowledge as fanciful and unscientific.
“Tribes have been managing lands across what is now known as the United States for thousands of years,” Sams told SMN. “Science is based on observation, so who better to actually be at the table than the people who have been observing for the last ten thousand years? Being able to bring traditional ecological knowledge to the table to help in that management will enhance and help the parks flourish even more.”
A recent action from the U.S. Department of the Interior — combined with followthrough from the NPS — aims to ensure that tribes are at the table more often than in the past. This month, the U.S. Department of the Interior released new guidance aiming to strengthen co-stewardship relationships with Native American tribes. The NPS, which falls under the DOI, responded with new guidance of its own.
Requirements that Park Service leaders include tribes in their decision-making processes are nothing new, but the agency’s specific obligations had never been very clear, Sams said. Now, all the regulations dealing with co-man-
Mike Leonard, former chairman of The Conservation Fund board, addresses the crowd at Waterrock Knob. Holly Kays photo A trail runner enjoys an outing on the Bradley Fork Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Holly Kays photoagement, co-stewardship and cooperative agreements are together in one memorandum, making it easier for Park Service staff to understand their responsibilities and be held accountable for fulfilling them.
In Sams’ office in Washington sits a framed photo taken when he was 25 years old visiting with then-Secretary Bruce Babbit to discuss co-management of DOI lands.
“I know for a fact that he took it seriously, but there were a number of impediments internal that were systemic issues, some of them having to do with racism, some of them having to do with not understanding their full federal responsibility and trust responsibility,” Sams said. “So fast forward 27 years, I’ve visited with four sitting secretaries about this issue. And I felt very fortunate to be under the leadership of Secretary (Deb) Haaland, who already understood this issue.”
In 2021, Haaland — a member of the Pueblo of Laguna — and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack signed Joint Secretarial Order 3403, directing all bureaus and subdivisions in their departments to find ways to improve consultation with Native American tribes.
Such consultation is not only respectful toward peoples with millennia-long relationships to the land now managed by the federal government, Sams said, but it also has the potential to improve the health of the entire landscape — through incorporation of traditional ecological knowledge, boots-on-theground volunteerism and Youth Corps participation, and promotion of a landscapescale view of management. He used the example of the indigenous people who once lived between present-day Montana and Mexico, managing meadowlands and waterways for the herds of elk that roamed that entire area. While they didn’t have formal meetings to discuss co-management responsibilities, each tribe understood its responsibility to ensure that the herds remained vibrant and healthy.
“Those are managed landscapes,” Sams said. “What most Americans don’t understand is that the tribes have been managing these landscapes since time immemorial. They used fire, they used replanting of meadows, they ensured that the water quality was there. All of those things are still very important today, and a tribe being at the table can help with those issues.”
Since Cash took the superintendent job in 2015, Sneed said, the EBCI has seen a rekindling of its relationship with the park. The governments’ collaboration to approve an agreement allowing tribal members to gather sochan, a culturally important plant also known as green-headed coneflower, is perhaps a symbol of that renewed relationship. The program has gone well, Sneed said, and he hopes to see additional species approved for gathering in the future. Ramps are the next priority, presenting an example of indigenous knowledge helping to safeguard the landscape for all.
“The harvesting method that people who are not familiar with the traditional way of doing it, is to go in and they pull the whole plant up,” Sneed said. “Our methodology has been for thousands of years, trim it, you leave a little bit of the shoot remaining, and
then you come back next year, and it will be there again. So that’s why consultation is extremely important between the tribes and the Park Service.”
A few hours later, up the mountain and 18 winding miles along the Blue Ridge Parkway from the Smokies, where volunteers labored for lands that have been part of the National Park Service for generations, about 70 people gathered at the Waterrock Knob Visitor Center to celebrate ongoing efforts to preserve additional acreage.
“I think that the average American may not understand that that work is still happening,” said Parkway Superintendent Tracy Swartout. “They think, ‘Well the Smokies, it was set aside, it’s protected. The Parkway, it was set aside, it’s protected.’ But one of the big things that I want us to contribute to the public knowledge about national parks — and the Blue Ridge Parkway is included — is that it is still ongoing.”
In 2016, many of the same people gathered on the same spot to celebrate four conservation groups’ acquisition of 5,329 acres surrounding Waterrock Knob. They planned to transfer the land to the National Park Service, creating a park within a park that would forever preserve rare high-elevation spruce-fir forest and offer ample opportunity for outdoor recreation in some of the most beautiful places in the Southern Blue Ridge.
“A mountain, it’s a cone shape. There’s a lot more land at the bottom, but when you get up high in the spruce fir-forest, there’s less of it and whatever is left is even more
important,” said Brad Stanback, who in addition to being a major donor to the project along with other members of his family is also a board member on the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. “I’m also a big proponent of more wildlife habitat and wildlife connectivity, so one protected block of land can have a corridor at least to another protected block, and animals can migrate through that.”
At the time of the celebration on Aug. 23, 2016, 2,986 acres — 56% of the total — had been officially transferred to the Park Service. This tract came from The Conservation Fund and included land to the east of the existing Waterrock Knob Trail. Additional acreage was still owned by Conservation Trust for North Carolina, The Nature Conservancy and the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy.
Over the last six years, only 368 additional acreage has been transferred, with 3,354 acres of the total 5,329 now in Park Service ownership. Surveying costs and project phasing have proven a major obstacle. Before completing a transfer, an extensive — and expensive — survey of the rugged terrain must be conducted.
“This donation project is requiring $325,000 in survey costs,” Mike Leonard, representative and former board chair for The Conservation Fund, said at the speaking program for the event. “Covering those survey costs was absolutely critical to allowing the nonprofits involved to donate these lands to the National Park Service.”
Mainspring Conservation Trust, The Foothills Conservancy and Conserving Carolina have all donated toward covering
those costs, Leonard said.
Because the Park Service can’t acquire lands that aren’t adjacent to its current boundary, a holdup on one tract can prevent progress on others. Due to survey costs, finalizing the 1,654-acre Yellow Face property, which is owned by The Nature Conservancy and sits opposite the Parkway from the visitor center, took longer than expected, said The Conservation Fund’s North Carolina director Bill Holman. That in turn prevented progress on the transfer of 319 acres that abut the Yellow Face property but do not connect to existing Parkway lands.
“The wheels turn slowly,” Holman said.
However, the partners involved say the final lap is imminent.
“I’m hoping by the end of ‘23 we’ll have all the acquisitions done, and I would think it wouldn’t take a full year,” Swartout said.
On many of the properties, she said, all that remains is to gather final signatures and go through the actual closing process. The project is “very, very close” to completion, despite staffing and workload issues that often make those processes take longer than they otherwise would.
Meanwhile, the Parkway is working on plans for what will happen to the land once the transfer is complete. It recently received a $300,000 grant from the National Park Foundation to start recreation planning for the property. That process will begin with seasonally dependent data collection to better understand what’s on the property now and to map out sensitive resources. Then the Parkway will work with stakeholders and gather public input to determine community priorities for conservation and recreation on the property. The whole process will likely take two or three years, said Parkway Cheif of Resource Management and Interpretation Alexa Viets.
Then, the Parkway and its partners can start seeking funding to implement the plan.
While it may seem that the work never ends, that’s also kind of the point, Swartout said. Conservation is an ongoing task, and it takes philanthropic donations, volunteer labor and community engagement to keep moving forward. As difficult as the pandemic was for everyone, the spotlight it shone on the national parks and their connection to wellness may ultimately prove beneficial to conservation goals.
“Without all those simultaneously, we don’t really have a chance to be standing here 100 years from now,” she said. “So this idea that people are going to the parks for health, I think it helps us to communicate a different set of messages about the value it provides.”
Sept. 28-Oct. 4, 2022
The National Public Lands Day celebration in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park drew several high-profile visitors. From left are NPS Director Chuck Sams III, EBCI Principal Chief Richard Sneed, Deputy Surgeon General Denise Hinton, National Environmental Education Foundation CEO Meri-Margaret Deoudes and Smokies Superintendent Cassius Cash. Holly Kays photoVolunteers are wanted to help the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission stock trout into the West Fork Pigeon River in Haywood County beginning at 10 a.m. Monday, Oct. 3.
The group will meet at the upper Delayed Harvest parking area across N.C. 215 from the gun range, below Sunburst Campground. Volunteers should bring a clean 5-gallon bucket and a friend or two. Waders are recommended but not required.
The NCWRC will bring at least 1,200 pounds of fish. The goal is to help disperse them throughout the Delayed Harvest section to allow for a better fishing experience.
The stocking will take about three hours, with at least 25 volunteers needed. tucataloochee427@gmail.com.
Spend October honing your fly fishing skills with a spate of activities offered through Haywood County Recreation.
■ A combined beginner/intermediate fly fishing course will be held 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fridays, Oct. 7 and 14, led by expert angler Tommy Thomas. No fishing license is required, and loaner rods are available.
■ Fly fishing excursions Thursday evening, Oct. 6, and Saturday morning, Oct. 8, will explore the West Fork of the Pigeon River.
Expert angler Ray Sugg will lead these expeditions for participants who have the basic skills but want some instruction to hone it. A fishing license is required, and anglers should bring their own rod and flies.
■ An eight-week fly tying course will start Wednesday, Oct. 12, held weekly 6-8 p.m. through Dec. 7 at the Folkmoot Center in Waynesville. All supplies and equipment will be provided, with each new skill built on the previous week’s lesson. Taught by Tommy Thomas.
Sign up at bit.ly/haywoodrec.
An event showcasing the intersection of forest management and water quality Tuesday, Oct. 4, will include a trip to the Waynesville Watershed and beers from Frog Level Brewing.
The day will begin with a welcome and talks on the importance of forests for water quality and changing forest effect on water at a location in Waynesville, yet to be determined. The group will then learn about the history of the Waynesville Watershed and stewardship strategies used there, followed
by a provided lunch and tour of the watershed. An optional social will begin at 3 p.m.
The event is hosted by Forest Stewards Guild and the Town of Waynesville, with professionals from those organizations joined by representatives of Coweeta Hydrologic Lab, N.C. State University and Western Carolina University.
The $10 registration fee includes lunch and beer from Frog Level Brewing. Sign up at foreststewardsguild.org/events.
A six-week course on birds and birding will kick off at 3 p.m. Friday, Oct. 7, at the Folkmoot Friendship Center in Waynesville.
Taught by birding expert Don Hendershot, the course will be held 3 to 4:30 p.m. Fridays through Nov. 11. Sessions include: course overview and schedule to learn about resident birds; feeding, food, houses, yards and gardens for backyard birds; birding essentials
such as equipment, resources, tips, the nitty gritty between backyard and getting out there; migration, migrants and interesting bird facts; and birding hotspots around Waynesville.
The course is one of six offerings in Folkmoot’s new Life Long Learning series. Other courses starting next month include Swedish Weaving; History - Haywood County Beginnings; The Civil War in Haywood County; Introduction to Comedy Improvisation; and Introduction to Genealogy. Enrollment is $20 per course. folkmoot.org/courses.
Learn about what the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission does to support trout fishing at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 4, at the First United Methodist Church in Sylva.
Powell Wheeler, District 9 biologist for the NCWRC, will speak during this meeting of the Tuckaseigee Chapter of Trout Unlimited. A meal and dessert will be provided, with the program lasting through 8 p.m.
TU membership is not required to attend. RSVP to Jeff Marcum at jeff.devon.marcum@gmail.com.
Delayed Harvest Trout Water restrictions will take effect in North Carolina on Saturday, Oct. 1.
Until one-half hour after sunset on June 2, 2023, no trout can be harvested or possessed from these waters. Additionally, no natural bait may be possessed, and anglers can fish only using artificial lures with a single hook. An artificial lure is one that does not contain and was not treated with a substance to attract fish with taste or smell.
From fall through spring, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission stocks these waters with high densities of trout to
increase anglers’ chances of catching fish during the season. The waters are posted with diamond-shaped black-and-white signs.
While fishing, anglers should take steps to prevent spreading aquatic nuisance species. Clean equipment of all aquatic plants, animals and mud; drain water from boats, live wells and equipment; dry equipment thoroughly; and never move fish, plants or other organisms from one body of water to another.
For a complete list of Delayed Harvest Trout Waters, information on regulations and trout fishing maps, visit the Commission’s trout fishing page at ncwildlife.org/learning/species/fish/trout/ troutfishing.aspx.
Rocky Branch Lake on the Waynesville Watershed property provides 6,400 Waynesville customers with high-quality drinking water. File photo A young volunteer watches a bucket of trout swim off into the river. Donated photo
The N.C. Mountain State Fair wrapped up another year with a total attendance count of 159,575, a strong showing assisted by near-perfect weather that came in 26.6% above 2021 numbers.
The fair also saw a record number of youth livestock show participants and collected 17,651 pounds of canned food donations.
The western region was well represented at the fair, with a Haywood County woman winning the first two cooking contests of the week. Clyde resident Jennifer Currie took first in both the tomato and trout cooking contests.
Western North Carolina also had a strong showing in the fair’s plethora of livestock competitions.
■ Andi Setser of Macon County was the Reserve Grand Champion in the Saanens category for the Open Junior Doe Show.
■ Montana Boatwright of Macon County was the Junior Showmanship champion for ages 9-13 in Junior Beef Showmanship.
■ Aiden Pitts of Macon County was the Open Feeder Steer Reserve Grand Champion, the Open Feeder Steer Got to Be NC Reserve Grand Champion and the Open Market Steer Got to Be NC Grand Champion for the Open Junior Beef Steer Show. Pitts was named the WNC District Market Steer Grand Champion, the WNC District Junior Feeder Steer Grand Champion, and the WNC District Junior Market Steer Got to Be NC Champion.
■ Cole Williams of Haywood County was the Commercial Reserve Grand Champion Junior Heifer Champion and Commercial Got to Be NC Grand and Reserve Grand Champion, and the Reserve Supreme Got to Be NC Champion Junior Heifer winner in the Open Junior Beef Heifer Show. Williams was named the Commercial Grand Champion Heifer winner in the WNC District Junio Beef Heifer Show.
■ Hannah Smith of Macon County was the All Other Breeds Got to Be NC Reserve Grand Champion Junior Heifer winner in the Open Junior Beef Heifer Show.
Join the Highlands Nature Center at 4 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays throughout October for the Autumn Amble leaf tour exploring the Highlands Botanical Garden.
Staff will lead this free, one-hour excursion to discover which leaves are changing color and the science behind why. No registration is necessary, but tours will be cancelled in case of
■ Logan Ball was the Supreme Champion Junior Heifer winner in the Open Junior Beef Heifer Show. Ball was named the Supreme Champion Junior Beef Heifer winner in the WNC District Junior Beef Heifer Show.
■ Karissa Collins of Macon County was named the WNC District Junior Feeder Steer Reserve Grand Champion.
■ Bentley Stafford of Haywood County was the Youth Bantam Poultry Reserve Champion in the Youth Poultry Show.
■ Reagan Ensley was the Reserve Champion Junior Commercial Does winner in the Junior Market Meat Goat Show.
■ Sol Sutton of Haywood County was the Junior Reserve Champion Female, Senior Reserve Champion Female, Reserve Grand Champion and Junior County Herd winner in the Brown Swiss division of the Junior Dairy Cattle Show.
■ Avery King of Jackson County was the Junior Champion Female and Grand Champion winner in the Brown Swiss division of the Junior Dairy Cattle Show.
■ Heath McGaha of Haywood County was the Junior Champion and Reserve Champion Females and Senior Champion, Reserve Champion Females, Grand Champion, Reserve Grand Champion, Junior Best Three Females and Breeder’s Herd of Five Females winner for the Brown Swiss division of the Open Dairy Cattle Show.
The next Mountain State Fair will be held Sept. 8-17, 2023, at the WNC Agricultural Center in Fletcher.
inclement weather. Check highlandsbiological.org for updates.
Sept.
4,
Highlands Biological Station. Mike Hunter photo
Hiker and backcountry rescuer Nancy East will present her book “Chasing the Smokies Moon: A 948-mile hike fueled by love, loss, laughter and lunacy” at 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29, in the Community Room of the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva.
East retired from a 23-year career as a small animal veterinarian to pursue her interest in outdoor education, guiding and writing. She holds two speed hiking records in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park: fastest known time for walking all 800-plus miles of the park and fastest known time for a mixed-gender team completing all 44 miles of trail to Mount LeConte in 24 hours.
The event is free and co-sponsored by Friends of the Jackson County Public Library. 828.586.2016.
Transform your children into citizen scientist with an ecoEXPLORE program offered at 4 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29, in the Community Room of the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva.
An initiative of the N.C. Arboretum, the program combines science exploration with kid-friendly technology to foster a fun learning environment for children while encouraging them to explore the outdoors and participate in citizen science. This month participants will learn about mushrooms.
Free and co-sponsored by Friends of the Jackson County Public Library. 828.586.2016.
Every five years, the National Forests in North Carolina surveys its visitors to glean a wide range of information, and the process will begin in the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests Saturday, Oct. 1.
The surveys will be conducted by a team
Interviews last for about 10 minutes and include questions such as where visitors recreated, how far they traveled, their party size and their satisfaction with the recreation facilities and services provided. About a third of the visitors will be asked to complete a confidential survey on recreation spending during their trip.
“Although the survey is entirely voluntary, participation is extremely important so we can assess visitor experiences on the Forest and strive to make it a better place to visit.” said Logan Free, Developed Recreation Program Manager on the National Forests in North Carolina
from the University of Tennessee, with the survey period running for a full year, through Sept. 30, 2023. Surveys will take place in developed and dispersed recreation sites along Forest Service roads. Surveyors will be out in all types of weather conditions wearing bright vests and standing near a sign that says, “Traffic Survey Ahead.”
All responses will remain confidential, with no names captured in the surveys.
The information gathered provides forest managers with an estimate of how many people visit the forest, what activities they engage in, how satisfied they were with their visit, and the economic impact of recreation visitation to local communities. This information will help forest managers determine where to focus their efforts and how recreation facilities can be improved to ensure all forest visitors have a clean, safe and high-quality experience.
fs.usda.gov/about-agency/nvum.
These are only the answers.Nancy East. Donated photo A survey site is set up along a U.S. Forest Service road. USDA photo
• The Jackson County Farmers Market meets every Saturday November through March 10 a.m.-1 p.m. and April through October 9 a.m.-noon at Bridge Park in Sylva, 110 Railroad St. Special events listed on Facebook and Instagram.
• The Jackson Arts Market takes place from 1-5 p.m. every Saturday at 533 West Main St. in Sylva with live music and an array of local artists. Shain Weston Lyles will play Oct. 1, Matt Beckler will play Oct. 8, Jared Smith ‘Blue’ will play Oct. 22, Taylor Knighton will play Oct. 29, Wooly Booger will play Nov. 5, Clayton Justice will play Nov. 12.
• Cowee School Farmer’s Market is held Wednesdays from 3-6 p.m., at 51 Cowee School Drive in Franklin. The market has produce, plant starts, eggs, baked goods, flowers, food trucks and music. For more information or for an application, visit www.coweeschool.org or call 828.369.4080.
• “Art After Dark” will be held from 6-9 p.m. each first Friday of the month (May-December) in downtown Waynesville. For more information, go to facebook.com/galleriesofhaywoodcounty.
• Learn to make handmade food gifts 10-11:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 1, at the Waynesville Branch of the Haywood County Public Library. Participants will taste test and receive recipes and instructions, registration is required. Contact Kathy at kathleen.olsen@haywoodcountync.gov or call 828.356.2507.
• The Franklin Chamber of Commerce will host the annual Networking Social 5:30-7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 4, at Currahee Brewing, 100 Lakeside Drive.
• Tech Tuesday will take place 9-11 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 4 and 18 at the Waynesville Branch of the Haywood County Public Library. Staff will be available to answer question and assist you in the use of computers, smartphones, tablets and e-readers.
• Tour a fire truck and learn fire safety and prevention from the Canton Fire Department 3:30-4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 12, at the Canton Branch of the Haywood County Public Library. The program will be held outside, for more information contact Ashlyn at ashlyn.godleski@haywoodcountync.gov or at 828.356.2567.
• Legal Aid will host clinics in October to assist those affected by Tropical Storm Fred. Storm survivors interested in Legal Aid’s services should call 866.219.5262, extension 2657 to learn more about how Legal Aid may be able to help and schedule an appointment for an upcoming clinic. Events will take place 1-5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 16, at Cruso Community Center; 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday, Oct. 17, at Fines Creek Library; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 18, at Transylvania County Library; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 19, at Cruso United Methodist Church.
• Swain County Caring Corner Free Clinic is open Thursday’s 4-9 p.m. at Restoration House (Bryson City United Methodist Church). Office hours are Tuesday, Thursday, Friday 9 a.m.-noon. Call 828.341.1998 to see if you qualify to receive free medical care from volunteer providers.
• The Canton Branch Creative Writing Group meets 10:30 a.m.-noon on the second and fourth Tuesday of
n All phone numbers area code 828 unless otherwise noted.
n To have your item listed email to calendar@smokymountainnews.com
the month. For more information, email Jennifer at jennifer.stuart@haywoodcountync.gov or call 828.356.2561.
• Famed North Carolina hiker Nancy East will present her book “Chasing the Smokies Moon: A 948-mile hike — fueled by love, loss, laughter and lunacy” at 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29, at the Jackson County Library. The event is free of charge. For more information call the library at 828.586.2016.
• Ronald Evans will present his novel “The Odyssey of Robert Peake” at 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 1, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva
• Next Chapter Book Club Haywood is a fun, energetic and highly interactive book club, ideal for individuals and intellectual and developmental disabilities. The group meets every second and fourth Monday of the month. For more information, email Jennifer at jennifer.stuart@haywoodcountync.gov or call 828.356.2561.
• Storytime takes place at 10 a.m. every Tuesday at the Macon County Library. For more information visit fontanalib.org or call 828.524.3600.
• Toddler’s Rock takes place at 10 a.m. every Monday at the Macon County Library. Get ready to rock with songs, books, rhymes and playing with instruments. For more information visit fontanalib.org or call 828.524.3600.
• The Jackson County Public Library is hosting ecoEXPLORE at 4 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29, in the community room. An initiative of the NC Arboretum, the program is designed to let children learn about the diverse ecosystem and become citizen scientists. For more information call the library at 828.586.2016.
• A sidewalk obstacle course challenge will be available at the Canton Branch of the Haywood County Public Library. Fun for all ages. For more information call 828.648.2924.
• Mountain Makers Craft Market will be held from noon-4 p.m. the first Sunday of each month at 308 North Haywood St. in downtown Waynesville. Over two dozen artisans selling handmade and vintage goods. Special events will be held when scheduled. mountainmakersmarket.com.
• Food Truck Boot Camp will take place Nov. 7-10, at multiple locations in Cherokee, North Carolina. For more information contact Laura Lauffer at 828.359.6926 or lwauffe@ncsu.edu.
• BBQ and Live Music takes place at 6 p.m. every Saturday at the Meadowlark Motel. Call 828.926.1717 or visit meadowlarkmotel.com.
• “Flights & Bites” will be held starting at 4 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays at Bosu’s Wine Shop in downtown Waynesville. For more information click on waynesvillewine.com.
• A free wine tasting will be held from 6-8 p.m. every Thursday and 2-5 p.m. every Saturday at The Wine Bar & Cellar in Sylva. 828.631.3075.
• Take a trip around the world with four different wines every Friday 11 a.m.-8 p.m. and Saturday 11a.m.-6 p.m. at the Bryson City Wine Market. Pick from artisan Charcuterie Foods to enjoy with wines. 828.538.0420
• Cooking classes take place at the McKinley Edwards Inn from 6-8:30 p.m. on Thursday nights. To reserve your spot call 828.488.9626.
• Quilters The Musical will be put on at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 8 and 5 p.m. Oct. 9, on the Village Green in Cashiers, by Western Carolina School of Stage and Screen. Contact the Bardo Arts Center Box Office for tickets at 828.227.2479.
• Sew for the planet with Bring Your Own Bag Haywood 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday, Oct. 3, at the Canton Branch of the Haywood County Public Library. Drop in within the allotted hours. Ideal for ages 12 and up. For questions or to register, email jennifer.stuart@haywoodcountync.gov or call 828.648.2924.
• The Coffee Branch Band will perform for a Sunday afternoon concert of bluegrass and gospel from 2-3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 9, at the Canton Branch of the Haywood County Public Library. For more information contact Jennifer at jennifer.stuart@haywoodcountync.gov or call 828.356.2561.
• Smoky Mountain Geek Expo will take place 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Oct. 22 at the Smoky Mountain Event Center. The event celebrates comic books, sci-fi, anime and pop culture. smokymountaingeekexpo.com.
• Karaoke takes place at 7 p.m. every Friday at the Meadowlark Motel in Maggie Valley. Call 828.926.1717 or visit meadowlarkmotel.com.
• Paint and Sip at Waynesville Art School will be held every Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 7-9:30 p.m. To learn more and register call 828.246.9869 or visit PaintAndSipWaynesville.com/upcoming-events.
Registration is required, $45.
n Regional festivals
n Art gallery events and openings
n Complete listings of recreational offerings at health and fitness centers
n Civic and social club gatherings
ing is available 10 a.m.-3 p.m. every Monday in the classroom. A membership meeting takes place on the second Sunday of the month at 3 p.m. All are welcome. Call 828.349.4607 for more information.
• “Thursday Painters” group will be held from 10 a.m.3 p.m. on Thursdays at The Uptown Gallery in Franklin. Free and open to the public. All skill levels and mediums are welcome. Participants are responsible for their own project and a bag lunch. 828.349.4607 or pm14034@yahoo.com.
• The exhibit “Like No Other Place” is open July 16-Dec. 31, in the Joel Gallery at the The Bascom Center for the Visual Arts. For more information visit thebascom.org.
• “Life in Haywood” exhibit will be held through Oct. 2 at the Haywood County Arts Council in downtown Waynesville. The exhibit will showcase work that expresses artists’ connection to their lives in Haywood County. For more information, click on haywoodarts.org/events.
• Highlands Biological Foundation will offer Autumn Amble Leaf Tours 4-5 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays in October. The tours are free, for more information contact Paige Engelbrektsson at 828.526.2623 or paige@highlandsbiological.org.
• Community dance classes for all levels and ages will take place this fall, September through November at the Wortham Center for Performing Arts. For more information and tickets visit stewartowendance.com/classes or worthamarts.org/classes.
• Folkmoot USA will begin its new “Life Long Learning” education initiative the first week of October. Six courses will be available, each lasting six weeks, Swedish Weaving, History — Haywood County Beginnings, introduction to Birds and Birding, The Civil War in Haywood County, Introduction to Comedy Improvisation and Introduction to Genealogy. For more information or to register go to www.folkmoot.org.
• Chess 101 takes place from 3:30-4:30 p.m. every Friday in the Canton Branch of the Haywood County Public Library. No registration required, for more information call 828.648.2924.
• Wired Wednesday, one-on-one technology help is available at 3-5 p.m. every Wednesday at the Canton Branch of the Haywood County Library. For more information or to register, call 828.648.2924.
• Uptown Gallery, 30 East Main St. Franklin, will be offering Children’s Art Classes Wednesdays afternoons. Adult workshops in watercolor, acrylic paint pouring, encaustic and glass fusing are also offered. Free paint-
• Learn about what the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission does to support trout fishing at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 4, at the First United Methodist Church in Sylva. TU membership is not required to attend. RSVP to Jeff Marcum at jeff.devon.marcum@gmail.com.
• A six-week course on birds and birding will kick off at 3 p.m. Friday, Oct. 7, at the Folkmoot Friendship Center in Waynesville. For more information visit folk moot.org/courses .
• Haywood Community College will host a Hunter Safety Course 6-9 p.m. Oct. 11-12, on the HCC campus in building 3300, room 3322. Participants must attend two consecutive evenings to receive their certification. Pre-registration is required. Anyone interested in taking a hunter safety course must register online in order to attend any session. Course registration may be completed at ncwildlife.org.
• The Clawhammer Mountain 50k will take place Oct. 15, starting along U.S. 276 near the Davidson River Campground in Transylvania County. The Front Range Five Miler will take place the same weekend, at the same location and cover 5.75 miles. Visit shiningrockadventure.com to sign up, apply for a scholarship, become a sponsor, or learn about volunteer opportunities.
• MountainTrue is accepting orders for its 6th annual Fall Native Tree Sale Fundraiser through Sunday, Nov. 6. Place orders at mountaintrue.org/event/2022-fallnative-tree-shrub-sale.
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licensing Social Worker. This position is rated as a Social Worker II. This position recruits, trains and licenses foster parents, provides support for foster/adoptive parents, provides adoption services and works with community groups. To a lesser degree, this position will also provide services to a small caseload of families where needs
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will be given to applicants with a Master’s or Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work and/or experience providing Social Work services. The application for employment is available online at: www. jcdss.org and should be submitted to the Jackson County Department of Street, Sylva, NC 28779 or the Sylva branch of the NC Works Career Center. Applications will be taken until September 30, 2022.
is October 7 and to celebrate NCWorks will be hosting our 2nd Annual Manufacturing Day. The event will be held Friday, October 7 at the NCWorks Career Center in Waynesville from 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm. This event is a great opportunity for job seekers to speak with our local employers about their employment possibilities.
Career Center will be available for interviews as well as computers to complete online applications. This event will take place in the parking lot unless it rains. The Holy Cow food truck will arrive at 11 am to serve food and monetary donations to the food truck go to more information call 828.456.6061 or email lisa.morris@commerce. nc.gov.
IN DILLSBORO Boots Steakhouse in Dillsboro is now hiring Bartenders, Servers, Bussers, Cooks and Dishwashers. Our employees earn top wages and we are ranked the #1 Steakhouse by Trip Advisor in the Carapply to: bootssteakhouse@gmail.com to schedule an in person interview. You can also call 828-631-9713 and view our website: www. bootssteakhouse.com
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ACROSS
1 Like ludicrous comedies
9 Ballpark stat
12 Yak it up
15 Dad
19 For all time to come
20 One, in Bonn
21 "Jumbo shrimp," e.g.
23 Classic morning combo
25 Trial software phase
26 Donned
27 1969 film featuring two hippies
29 Downed
30 -- mignons (beef tidbits)
33 "Fighting" NCAA team
34 Beatle buddy Sutcliffe
36 "If you ask me," in texts
37 Rough- -- (unrefined)
39 Group of 20
42 Irritated states
46 Things often dyed and hidden
50 Word often ending in "-ly":
Abbr.
52 Food carton abbr.
53 Mascara mistake
54 "I don't find it that simple!"
59 Republic of China's capital
61 Southern Wyoming city
62 Actress Kazan of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"
63 Charade
64 Roman Cath., e.g.
66 Summer Games gp.
67 Incites
68 Pulls off a difficult feat
effortlessly
73 Tick away
75 Main character in
"Despicable Me"
76 Bank acct. buildup
77 -- -jongg
80 Recording room
81 Be exultant about 84 Madrid's land, in Madrid
87 They're boiled for 180 seconds
90 Zesty flavors
91 Afresh 92 That, in 84-Across 93 Sitting duck
95 Parks and Ponselle
97 Patrol for prey
101 Army division 102 Jai alai cheer
Genetic inits. 105 Henchman of Daddy Warbucks
108 Goes aboard
Large antelope
113 Dish topped with hollandaise sauce, informally
Funny Johnson
117 Be worry-free
119 Food that's literally represented five times in this puzzle
124 Strengthen from below
Bit of mail: Abbr.
Be similar to
Chili tidbit
Common PC file extension
Demure
One doing property appraisal
DOWN
notification
Less civilized
Duncan of Obama's cabinet
Steered
69 "... blackbirds baked in --"
Ice house: Var.
Brisk gait
Good two-pair hand, in poker lingo
Prefix with biology
how much you can save!
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Actress Gardner
Fun, for short
Actor Russell
Answering machine
female sib
harmoniously
74 Tempts
Chutney fruits
San --, Texas
Expedite
Polaris, e.g.
Growl like a dog
"-- -haw!"
83 Grocery chain inits.
Douglas fir, for Oregon
Birdie + 1
e.g.
MSN, e.g.
Wd. in a thesaurus
Striped female stalker
Smile evilly
Gambling parlor, for short
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House
Tricycle parts
100 Duration
Slack-jawed
Mad
-- admin
Abounds
110 Chow
111 Maui goose
112 Meat-stamping org.
E.U. body comprising half a dozen nations
115 "Auld Lang --"
116 Birds' class
118 Decade count 120 Man-mouse link
121 Sit-ups work them 122 -- Poke (candy)
"-- out!"
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Here’s How It Works: Sudoku puzzles are formatted as a 9x9 grid, broken down into nine 3x3 boxes. To solve a sudoku, the numbers 1 through 9 must fill each row, column and box. Each number can appear only once in each row, column and box. You can figure out the order in which the numbers will appear by using the numeric clues already provided in the boxes. The more numbers you name, the easier it gets to solve the puzzle!
Answers
and the library.
Rain Date: Oct 8
