Smoky Mountain News | November 2, 2022

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CONTENTS

STAFF

Scott McLeod. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . info@smokymountainnews.com

Greg Boothroyd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . greg@smokymountainnews.com

: Micah McClure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . micah@smokymountainnews.com

D ESIGN & WEBSITE: Travis Bumgardner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . travis@smokymountainnews.com

D ESIGN & PRODUCTION: Jessica Murray. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . jessica.m@smokymountainnews.com

ADVERTISING SALES: Susanna Shetley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . susanna.b@smokymountainnews.com

Amanda Bradley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . jc-ads@smokymountainnews.com

Sophia Burleigh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . sophia.b@smokymountainnews.com

C LASSIFIEDS: Scott Collier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . classads@smokymountainnews.com

N EWS E DITOR: Kyle Perrotti. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . kyle.p@smokymountainnews.com

WRITING: Holly Kays. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . holly@smokymountainnews.com

Hannah McLeod. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . hannah@smokymountainnews.com

Cory Vaillancourt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . cory@smokymountainnews.com

Garret K. Woodward. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . garret@smokymountainnews.com

ACCOUNTING & O FFICE MANAGER: Amanda Singletary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . smnbooks@smokymountainnews.com

D ISTRIBUTION: Scott Collier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . classads@smokymountainnews.com

C ONTRIBUTING: Jeff Minick (writing), Chris Cox (writing), George Ellison (writing), Don Hendershot (writing), Susanna Shetley (writing)

CONTACT

WAYNESVILLE | 144 Montgomery, Waynesville, NC 28786 P: 828.452.4251 | F: 828.452.3585

SYLVA | 629 West Main Street, Sylva, NC 28779 P: 828.631.4829 | F: 828.631.0789

I NFO & B

| P.O. Box 629, Waynesville, NC 28786

Tribal Council commits $324 million for sports-related brand, resort projects

BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF W RITER

During Annual Council Oct. 24, Tribal Council approved “Project Coda,” a $324 million effort to control “a brand recognized worldwide” and invest in multiple resorts to be developed across the country.

“This tribe has for 20 years almost sought a brand that they could earn brand fees instead of paying brand fees, that they could have a globally recognized brand similar to and in some ways with wider demographics than some of the more popular brands out there,” Kituwah LLC CEO Mark Hubble told Tribal Council during an Oct. 24 meeting. “This certainly meets that criteria.”

The cryptic resolution describes the brand as having 70 years of intellectual property across all major sports and sporting events with a worldwide reach of 70 million people. Tribal Council discussed the request during a 90-minute closed session earlier in the day, brought in as a walk-in resolution submitted by the Kituwah Economic Development Board and Principal Chief Richard Sneed. Attorneys had suggested that Kituwah use a code name for the time being to avoid the opportunity being shopped around, Hubble said.

Hubble said the deal initially came to the LLC as a chance for a minority equity investment at a single resort in Orlando. The investment would have been about $75 million for a project in a “phenomenal site” that touches a busy outlet mall and sits on what will become one of the main seven entrances to Disney World.

“The drop silent moment in this was when it was like, ‘We don’t know you. We don’t know how you treated your other equity investors. We don’t know how you’ve done that,’” Hubble said. “And the only way we’re going to do this is if we can get equal control of the brand itself to protect what are incredibly expensive commitments.”

That led to the project outlined in the resolution, which would allocate $75 million annually over four years to develop multiple

resorts, plus an initial investment of $24.5 million for brand purchase, brand loan and documentation fees. Each individual resort is expected to offer an annual return on investment of 20% and returns on the brand are expected to be “significantly higher” than 25% annually, Hubble said. Enrolled members of the tribe would receive founders benefits to include half off admission to any “Project Coda” branded hotel or resort where the tribe has made an equity investment.

Through Kituwah LLC, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians will receive 80% of the “Project Coda” brand and 37.4% of the equity in the brand itself, the resolution says, in exchange for a $5 million equity investment and a $5 million loan, on which the LLC will receive interest. The tribe will also have “certain rights of first refusal and options” to match best offers on any casino projects in the United States.

While the discussion began as an opportunity to invest in a single resort in Orlando, multiple locations are planned, said Hubble. Each resort will cost multiple hundreds of mil-

lions of dollars to build, and Kituwah will not be the only equity investor in any of them. The LLC will have equity and control rights of each resort proportional to its investment, and the brand owns not just the brand rights but also the development company.

One location already has 1,200 acres involved, with “hundreds of millions, if not billions” of dollars already invested into a development that will include timeshares, condos and hotels.

“It’s also a very sports-based event,” Hubble said. “It is the only project built specifically for the type of sporting event they do here in the United States.”

Another project in Austin will include a full-scale amusement park, he said.

In 10 years, said Hubble, the brand will be worth an astronomical amount of money.

In the past two years, Tribal Council has approved $180 million in allocations to Kituwah LLC, including $55 million earlier in the same Oct. 24 meeting. Of the total, $110 million is dedicated to development

efforts at a 200-acre property off Interstate 40 in Sevier County.

The tribe has approved many other investments as well, including a $275 million expansion to the Valley River Casino in Murphy, $250 million to purchase casino operations at Caesars Southern Indiana; a 30% stake in a $54.5 million hotel project in Pigeon Forge; a 49.5% stake for business arm EBCI Holdings LLC in a $650 million casino development project in Danville, Virginia; and $39 million for the new hotel at the Sequoyah National Golf Club.

With most discussion on the matter apparently having taken place off-air, the resolution passed with little conversation or debate. The entire agenda item, including reading the resolution into the record, took just under 14 minutes.

Tribal Council approved the initiative with broad support. Yellowhill Rep. David Wolfe offered the sole opposing vote. Big Cove Rep. Teresa McCoy was absent for the vote. Sneed has signed the resolution.

Kituwah LLC is the business arm of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and is wholly owned by the tribe. File photo

Major I-40 bridge project starting in Haywood County

Interstate reduced to one lane for two miles through winter

A contractor for the N.C. Department of Transportation will launch a two-year project to completely replace two bridges on Interstate 40 in Haywood County on Monday.

Transportation officials have designed a traffic management plan to retain one lane of travel in each direction between U.S. 276 (Exit 20) and mile marker 18. By maintaining this pattern for six months, the contractor can reduce the overall construction time needed to replace the two bridges over White Oak Road.

Traffic conditions, depending on the number of vehicles on the interstate at one time, will likely mirror conditions travelers experienced last winter when a contractor replaced the I-40 bridge over Harmon Den Road and Cold Springs Creek. The contract calls for traffic to remain in this pattern until May 20 in order for crews to replace the bridges, which have reached the end of their service life.

Drivers to and from Tennessee may choose to merge into one lane or utilize I-26 and I-81 to avoid the work zone on weekends and during periods of heavy congestion. The route between Asheville and Dandridge, Tenn., — through Kingsport, Tenn., — adds about 45 minutes driving time compared to a traditional trip through the gorge. Drivers should plan ahead for delays and visit www.DriveNC.gov before driving through the Pigeon River Gorge.

“A wide variety of factors — the dire need to replace the decks, topography of the area, the proximity of the two bridges and traffic data from last winter — were considered before choosing this traffic management plan,” Division 14 Construction Engineer Mitchell Bishop said. “We hope drivers understand the need to balance infrastructure improvement with travel time

and safety for drivers and workers.”

Crews from Kiewit Construction will work at both bridge locations at the same time. They will remove the two bridges and replace them with new structures. The westernmost bridge will be replaced with one bridge that includes two 12-foot wide travel lanes for both directions. The existing bridge over White Oak Road and Jonathan Creek will be replaced with one eastbound bridge and one westbound bridge. Both will feature two 12-foot travel lanes.

Both locations will feature wildlife fencing, with jump-outs, that create safe passage for bears, deer, elk and smaller animals from one side of I-40 to the other.

These necessary replacements are part of a five-bridge project, the first of its kind the state to be administered in a new method with the intent of forming a partnership between NCDOT, the contractor and design team. The Construction Manager/General Contractor method is designed to lower costs and expedite delivery from the first step in the design phase to the last inspection. Kiewit Construction earned the contract for $84.3 million.

Traffic will return to two lanes in each direction during the summer and through October of 2023, when lane reductions return so crews can complete the future phases.

Transportation officials are alerting drivers of delays well before they reach the work zone. Digital signs as far east as Burke County, as far south as Henderson County and as far west as Knox County, Tenn., will alert drivers of the lane closures and suggest I-26 and I-81 as alternative routes.

“Driving through the work zone will take the least amount of time on most days,” said Chad Franklin, NCDOT Regional Intelligent Traffic Systems Engineer. “But weekends and busy days, going through Kingsport will save drivers the most time. Planning ahead, and anticipating delays, is a very important part of trip planning this winter.”

For real-time travel information, visit drivenc.gov or follow NCDOT on social media.

Deborah Chen, MD, joins Haywood Regional Medical Center

Haywood Regional Medical Center (HRMC) welcomes Deborah Chen, MD, to its staff. She will be offering services in Obstetrics and Gynecology (Ob-Gyn) to patients.

Chen attended the University of Pittsburgh for her undergraduate education. She then went on to Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Chen then completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC) in Asheville. Her clinical interests

include prenatal and postpartum care, contraception counseling, pelvic pain, infertility, urinary incontinence, and more.

“I look forward to adding a strong voice of patient advocacy, with an eye toward improving the systems that impact women’s health. In my opinion, women are the core of a community, and without excellent women’s health care, a community cannot thrive.” She continued that she wants her patients to know “that [her] ultimate goal is to work with them to achieve a state of health where they can feel how they want to feel and do what they want to do.”

Dr. Chen begins seeing patients in November at Haywood Women’s Medical Center. Appointments may be made by calling 828.452.5042.

Ingles Nutrition Notes

written by Ingles Dietitian Leah McGrath

WHEN “NATURAL” ISN’T A GOOD-FOR-YOU CHOICE

Often marketers like to claim that their food, beverage, or supplements are “natural” to make you think that this means it is better for you. This is known as an “Appeal to Nature” logical fallacy. This plays on the mistaken belief that just because something is natural it is better for you; or if something isn’t natural, it is bad or harmful.

We can think of many things in nature that are natural and are bad for us. Eating mushrooms in the woods that may be poisonous or taking “natural” supplements in excess may have a toxic effect and make us ill. Arsenic is in fact a natural substance that can kill you!

The FDA’s definition of the word “natural” on labels is: “… nothing artificial or synthetic (including all color additives regardless of source) has been included in, or has been added to, a food that would not normally be expected to be in that food.”

Bottom Line: Just because a food, beverage or supplement is labeled as “natural” doesn’t necessarily mean it is a better for you choice. Be sure and read the nutrition facts label and ingredients and choose wisely – not based on a marketing label!

Leah McGrath, RDN, LDN Ingles Market Corporate Dietitian @InglesDietitian Leah McGrath - Dietitian

Election deniers are targeting North Carolina elections

BY C ORY VAILLANCOURT P OLITICS E DITOR

With dozens of debunked allegations surrounding a “rigged” 2020 election still fresh on the minds of right-wing conspiracy theorists, Western North Carolina’s election administrators are welcoming unprecedented levels of scrutiny in advance of the 2022 General Election.

But they may not be fully aware of who, exactly, they’re welcoming — a modest confederacy of self-appointed partisan “observers” consisting of election deniers, anti-vaxxers and people who have made racist statements, all hell-bent on gumming up the works so as to cast doubt on election results, no matter what they may turn out to be.

“It’s not just a local organized effort, it’s actually a national event, but as a state, there’s significant recruitment of people to serve as observers for the political parties,” said Robbie Inman, Haywood County’s elections director for the past 16 years.

Inman told The Smoky Mountain News on Oct. 26 that nearly one week into North

Carolina’s in-person early voting period, things have gone off without a hitch despite substantial early voter turnout. His confidence in a free and fair General Election is 100%.

In the past, Inman said, the focus was on cyber security, ensuring that votes couldn’t be changed electronically from inside voting machines or from Italian satellites operating in outer space on behalf of the Vatican, as former NC-11 Republican Rep. Mark Meadows has repeatedly advanced without evidence.

Haywood County recently switched to paper ballots, which should alleviate much of the concern over fantastical hypotheses such as Meadows’.

Now, the focus has shifted to physical security — the physical security of voters and poll workers. On Sept. 2, the North Carolina State board of Election issued a press release calling attention to voter intimidation.

“… we at the State Board will do everything we can to ensure that the county boards of elections and county poll workers understand their authority and procedures to

maintain an orderly and safe voting environment for all voters,” it reads in part.

The release also referred to “disruptive behaviors by some poll observers” that were noted during the May 17 Primary Election.

On Oct. 12, NCSBE issued a 12-page guide with the intent of ensuring that both voters and election workers “can carry out their duties free from harassment, intimidation and interference.”

“The thing that I think all of us have to truly admit to ourselves, a concern that we must at least admit that’s out there, is the threats from the inside, the person or persons who wish to participate and actually turn into bad actors at a particular site, or at a particular time or day, such as Election Day, and their intent is not honorable,” Inman said.

Indeed, Inman said that he’s seen a substantial uptick in the number of public records requests received by his office.

“By hundreds of percent,” he said.

In North Carolina, most documents received or produced by public bodies such as county commissions, city councils,

appointed boards or local government departments like boards of election are public records. Anyone may request them and can be charged a nominal fee, but they’re often delivered for free. Public bodies like Inman’s are obligated to furnish the records in a timely fashion, with certain exceptions for individual privacy.

Because of that obligation, public records requests can used as a sort of cudgel, bogging down staffers who have plenty of other work to do.

“Most of them are template-driven,” Inman said. “What you’re referring to is what we refer to as ‘denial of service,’ when you get to a point in any organization, but especially ours, where we have to spend so much of our human resource time with very limited staff to do the retrieval of some of this information.”

In essence, requestors sometimes create a self-fulfilling prophecy by requesting prohibited information and then using the denial to bolster unsubstantiated assertions of some nefarious plot, like former President Donald Trump’s bogus claims of “suitcases full of ille-

Haywood County Board of Elections Director Robbie Inman says that thus far through early voting, there haven’t yet been any problems with poll observers. Cory Vaillancourt photo

gal ballots” being counted in Georgia in 2020.

“Most of [the requests] are cast vote records, which is not a public document, but they’re being instructed to ask, for whatever particular reason, in such a way to where when I have to tell you that that is not a public record and in the state of North Carolina I cannot reveal those records to you, they become a little angry and hostile and believe that somebody’s withholding information that proves a certain theory correct or incorrect,” Inman said. “Nothing can be further from the case. It’s just, that’s the law.”

Melanie Thibault, elections director in Macon County, said she’s seeing the same things as Inman.

“I’m getting probably two to three a week. Some of that information is public and some of it’s not. It’s a lot of redacting for us. It’s a lot of work on us on top of everything else that we have to accomplish during the day,” Thibault said. “It puts things off. If these records requests continue the way they are, we’re going to have to hire another person in our office just to keep up with it.”

Thibault said that most of the requests she’s getting are for poll tapes — transactional voting records printed on receipt-like rolls of paper, dozens and dozens of feet long. Although portions of the tapes are public record, personal identifying information inked on them is not, nor are machine serial numbers.

“These requests are some of the most troubling because the redaction of certain information is extremely time consuming even with the most advanced software. That’s how you copy these tapes to where that they’re legible but at the same time do not reveal active serial numbers of the equipment that we have,” Inman said. “That may prevent someone that is of questionable intent to do research and import these numbers into particular places and spaces that

are out there in the real technical world. It is not allowed, and we must protect those numbers and information.”

DC ROOTS, LOCAL FRUITS

At least some of those requests are coming from a group that calls itself the “North Carolina Elections Integrity Team,” or NCEIT, which recently held a training on poll tapes — how to get them, and what to do if your board of elections says no.

Laura Lee and Jordan Wilkie, investigative journalists writing for The Assembly, detailed the origins of NCEIT in a story published several weeks ago.

In the story, Wilkie and Lee chronicle the efforts of disgraced Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell, a Republican and a pivotal figure in Trump’s efforts to overturn an election he lost.

Mitchell, along with Meadows, leads a group called the Conservative Partnership Institute. For well over a year, the CPI has been engaged in efforts to use the Big Lie “to recruit conservatives as poll workers for the November elections,” according to a June story in the New Republic.

In January 2021, Mitchell convened a conference in Virginia “to teach people how to legally challenge election legitimacy in real time — giving a veneer of legitimacy to a mission built on conspiratorial beliefs about the 2020 election,” according to Lee and Wilkie’s reporting.

Mitchell’s group reached out to a number of right-wing North Carolina groups, including the Conservative Coalition of NC, Liberty First Grassroots, Asheville TEA Party, Yadkin Valley TEA Party and others to create NCEIT.

In attendance at the Virginia conference was Jim Womack, chairman of the Republican Party in Lee County, North Carolina.

Not long after the Virginia conference, in April 2021, Womack held a “voter integrity

Early voting ends on Saturday, Election Day is Tuesday

BY C ORY VAILLANCOURT P OLITICS E DITOR

The 2022 General Election will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 8 as early voting ends on Saturday, Nov. 5.

Through Nov. 5, sites across Western North Carolina will be open to those who want to cast their ballots in advance of Election Day. No reason is needed for those who wish to use what is called “InPerson Absentee Voting” or “One-Stop Absentee Voting,” and voters can alternatively make their selections by mail as well.

To vote early, voters must appear at the designated early voting site in their home county between those dates. Most voters don’t need to show identification, but those who are voting for the first time or the first time in a new residence might, so it’s probably best just to bring it along just in case.

Vote-by-mail ballots are no longer available. The last day to register to vote or to change party affiliation was Friday, Oct. 14.

To check your registration, to find your polling place or to view all the races you’re eligible to vote in, visit vt.ncsbe.gov/RegLkup.

EARLY VOTING LOCATIONS

Haywood County Haywood County Senior Resource Center, 81 Elmwood Way; Canton Public Library, 11 Pennsylvania Ave.; Clyde Town Hall, 8437 Carolina Blvd. All locations

open from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5. To request an absentee ballot, call the Haywood County Board of Elections at 828.452.6633.

Jackson County

Jackson County Board of Elections, 876 Skyland Drive, open 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5; Cashiers Recreation Center, 355 Frank Allen Road, open 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5; Cullowhee Recreation Center, 88 Cullowhee Mountain Road, open 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5; Qualla Community Building, 181 Shoal Creek Church Loop, open 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5; Western Carolina University, 245 Memorial Drive, open 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5. To request an absentee ballot, call the Jackson County Board of Elections at 828.586.7538.

Macon County

Macon County Community Building, 1288 Georgia Road; Highlands Civic Center, 600 N. 4th St. Both locations open 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday. To request an absentee ballot, call the Macon County Board of Elections at 828.349.2034.

Swain County

Swain County Board of Elections, 1422 Hwy. 19 South; Birdtown Community Center, 1212 Birdtown Rd. Both locations open from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday day through Friday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5. To request an absentee ballot, call the Swain County Board of Elections at 828.488.6463.

boot camp” at the Smoky Mountain Event Center in Haywood County. The so-called boot camp promised to teach attendees how to expose voter fraud. When this reporter registered for the boot camp and paid $15 to attend, he was refunded and turned away.

“My apologies for the confusion, but we were snowed with reservations the last day or so and Anedot [an online fundraising platform] did not cut off the reservation limits we had imposed before we shut down the link this afternoon,” Womack wrote on April 21, 2021. “Based on reported capacity, reserved headcount and safe distancing requirements, we had to refund those who exceeded the limits this afternoon.”

That may not exactly be true, says Myrna Campbell, chair of the Haywood County Democratic Party.

“I did drive up to the event center that day, and the parking lot on the side of the building was full; however, that shouldn’t constitute a sellout. You know how big that building is? It can easily hold 200-plus peo-

ple,” Campbell said. “I’d estimate that parking lot doesn’t have more than 30 parking spaces, if that many.”

Regardless, the group’s lack of transparency is directly at odds with the stated goal of hosting an educational training seminar that purports to espouse transparency in the elections process.

That lack of transparency again manifested itself when NCEIT held an Oct. 17 poll observer training seminar on popular online conferencing platform Zoom.

When this reporter showed up to the event, which was publicly advertised by NCEIT, he was kicked out after just a few minutes. Upon rejoining the meeting, this reporter watched as meeting hosts struggled for nearly 10 minutes to figure out how to remove him again.

They weren’t successful. During the threehour meeting, host Jane Bilello referred to this reporter as a “creep,” a “creep-and-a-half,” a

The ES&S DS450, a mid-range digital scan ballot tabulator designed for use as a central count scanner by medium-size jurisdictions, awaits action in Haywood County on Election Day. Cory Vaillancourt photo

“yellow journalist from Mountain Xpress,” and a “jackass” who wasn’t welcome.

Bilello also belittled Wilkie, claiming that Mitchell had “mopped the floor with him” during a recent call.

Bilello is probably best known to readers of The Smoky Mountain News as the person behind a failed effort to pass off “official conservative ballot” handouts at polls during the 2020 Primary Election. The sham ballots, which were also photographed in the Haywood County Republican Party headquarters, endorsed Maggie Valley realtor Lynda Bennett in the crowded 11th Congressional District Republican Primary Election. The problem is, the organization issuing the endorsement, “The Official Conservative Ballot Committee of NC,” was only two days old.

Veteran GOP political operatives from across the region told The Smoky Mountain News they’d never heard of it.

When reached for comment, Bilello insisted the group was legitimate, and that it had thoroughly vetted candidates.

“The candidates have been questioned, they have been interviewed and they have passed the smell test,” she said on Feb. 14, 2020.

Then-candidates Joey Osborne and Madison Cawthorn, along with a spokesperson from the Sen. Jim Davis campaign, all said they’d not been given a chance to interview for the endorsement.

“I don’t know what the big brew-ha-ha is,”

Bilello responded, “other than the fact that some of these candidates are annoyed because their guy is not on the ticket, not on the list.”

Interestingly, the ballot didn’t endorse Republican incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis. Bilello told volunteers handing out the ballots to suggest “anybody but Tillis!”

Even Aubrey Woodard, then-chair of the NCGOP’s 11th Congressional District and current campaign manager for NC-11 GOP nominee Chuck Edwards, told SMN that Bilello’s efforts should cease.

“These are transgressions of the rules we should all be following,” Woodard said at the time. “There was no reason for this, and there’s no reason for it to continue.”

Ultimately, an SMN investigation revealed that the ballots were created by a consulting firm with strong ties — roughly $40,000 — to Bennett’s campaign, and that Bilello had taken charge of distributing the ballots to volunteers, and that Bilello was on Bennett’s payroll. An ethics complaint was subsequently filed against Bennett’s campaign. According to public records, the Trump-endorsed Bennett was defended in that claim by none other than Cleta Mitchell.

The complaint doesn’t appear to have gone anywhere after Bennett’s spectacular 2to-1 runoff loss to Madison Cawthorn, who went on to win the seat.

Less than a year later, Mitchell resigned from her firm, Foley & Lardner, after the firm said it was “concerned” about her presence on the infamous Jan. 2, 2021, Trump phone call to Georgia election officials. During the

call, Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, to find him just 11,780 votes.

Mitchell has since been subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 committee and a Fulton County grand jury. Atlanta is in Georgia’s Fulton County.

The sham endorsements weren’t the beginning or the end of Bilello’s dishonest elections-related behavior.

Her LinkedIn profile says she’s chaired the Asheville TEA Party since its 2009 inception. Over those 13 years, the party’s affiliated PAC has been warned of improper activity by the North Carolina State Board of Elections almost half a dozen times.

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In 2010 and 2011, the group failed to file required financial reports by the appropriate deadlines, earning it a $500 fine in 2011. The group was again fined $450 in 2015 for the same thing. In 2019, an NCSBE audit found that the group had incorrectly reported cash contributions. The same thing happened again in October 2021, resulting in the group forfeiting $190.

Currently, the Asheville TEA PAC’s website shows a number of “news” posts that cling to discredited theories about the integrity of the 2020 election, including that 19,000 invalid ballots were counted in Arizona (they weren’t) and that pillow salesman Mike Lindell has “absolute proof” that the election was stolen (it wasn’t, and he doesn’t).

Most recently, Bilello’s been active on Facebook, spreading falsehoods about the 2020 election, lashing out at Democrats, RINOs and “fake media.”

On Jan. 6, 2021, as insurrectionists ransacked the Capitol and smeared feces on the walls, Bilello said that Vice President Mike Pence had a constitutional duty to “send this fraudulent election back to the states.” The election wasn’t fraudulent, and even Pence admitted that no vice president had the power to unilaterally accept or reject electoral votes.

A post by Bilello on Inauguration Day,

January 20, 2021, incorrectly states that Democrat Joe Biden was not elected by Americans, but was rather an “illegitimate fascist bought and paid for by the Chinese Communist Party.”

This past April, Bilello promoted a screening of “2,000 Mules,” a documentary by “highly respected” conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, who in 2014 was convicted on campaign finance fraud charges. D’Souza’s film alleges “ballot stuffing” by Democrats in swing states during the 2020 election, without proof. The film’s companion book was abruptly recalled by publishers in September.

Bilello’s history of deception and her demonstrated unwillingness to entertain facts that differ from her own fanciful version of reality make her an interesting choice as the person chosen to put “integrity” into the “North Carolina Elections Integrity Team,” but she’s not alone in that regard.

During Bilello’s three-hour NCEIT seminar — Haywood GOP Chair Kay Miller was also present — Bilello repeatedly mentioned the group’s efforts to train and mobilize poll observers to file reports of alleged election impropriety through an online app so that their “evidence” can be turned over to the North Carolina General Assembly.

So far, the group has leaders in about 25 North Carolina counties who are charged with coordinating local staffing and reporting efforts.

Bilello, an unaffiliated voter who has pulled only Republican ballots since at least 2008, leads NCEIT efforts in Buncombe and Henderson counties and says the group is non-partisan.

Miller has signed up to serve as an at-large early voting observer, per Haywood BOE records.

Miller also filed a public records request on Sept. 1 on behalf of the Haywood GOP, asking the Haywood BOE for cast ballot records. The request was not fulfilled, because cast ballot records F

Precinct-specific election administrations laptops are readied for their Election Day use in the Haywood County Board of Elections office. Cory Vaillancourt photo

are not public records under North Carolina law.

LeRoy Cossette, a Haywood County Republican who Inman said identifies as an NCEIT member, filed the exact same request as Miller, and has also signed up to be an atlarge early voting observer.

Guy R. Smith, a registered Republican and resident of Shelby, is Cleveland County’s NCEIT coordinator and as such will be in position to observe reports of interactions with voters.

In an Oct. 16 Facebook post, Smith calls one of NASCAR’s few Black drivers, Bubba Wallace, a “house n-word” and “ghetto scumbag.”

Cleveland County is 21% Black.

Bobbi Foley is Halifax County’s NCEIT coordinator. Foley believes that it’s legal to kill a baby in California up to 28 days after birth. Foley’s voter registration could not be located.

Barry Peppers, a registered Republican, is Haywood County’s NCEIT coordinator. Peppers presented misinformation to Haywood County commissioners earlier this year, incorrectly stating that Haywood ranks first in the state in violent crime, that the county emptied its jails during COVID and that 87,000 armed IRS agents are about to be hired.

Linda Harper, a registered Republican, is Wayne County’s NCEIT coordinator. Wayne has posted information labeled false by fact checkers regarding “rigged” voting machines in Georgia.

June Reeves, a registered Republican, is Iredell County’s NCEIT coordinator. Reeves has promoted election conspiracy events hosted by Mike Lindell, who is currently defending himself against a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit from a voting machine company.

Even the extreme right-wing “news” channel OAN refused to screen Lindell’s conspiratorial documentary without first prefacing it with a “hilariously massive” disclaimer.

Reeves has also made posts falsely impugning the legitimacy of the COVID-19 vaccine.

While North Carolina residents have the right to apply to be partisan poll observers, the troubling public statements made by some members of the NCEIT raise legitimate concerns over their ability to remain objective while carrying out their duties.

Democrats, on the other hand, don’t have plans to spend time or resources on poll observers — at least in Haywood County.

“There’s no interest within our executive committee to work as an observer,” Campbell said. “I had one observer who worked at the Senior Center during the May Primary Election and she regretted it — said she’d never do it again — and that it was boring and totally unnecessary. What she observed is how well the voting assistants work together even though they’re from different political parties and how much pride they take in their work. She said that it’s a ridiculous waste of time, and it sends the wrong message to the poll workers, which is, Republicans don’t trust anyone, not even their own.”

SMN News Editor Kyle Perrotti contributed reporting to this story.

Gentlemen:

“I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and to seek out wisdom, and the reason of things.” That shorthands my inquiry into the basis for your vote to appeal Joan Week’s 28 year journey to justice, her prevailing at trial, and your subversion of that Judgment. My futile public records requests to identify and understand the basis for your decisions waylaying that journey, as provided under the law, and your generally feckless response, may be of interest to Swain County citizens.

From the beginning, as I have explained to you in emails ad nauseum, I expected: a letter/memo to the Commission from either Sedgwick Insurance Company’s attorney, or the County Attorney, setting forth the errors of law alleged to have been made by Judge Pope in his Judgment in favor of Joan Weeks; competent minutes of the executive sessions memorializing an oral presentation of such by either attorney, should such have ever occurred; an outline of the appellate brief; some other writing providing you with “reasonable reliance” on the opinion of counsel for your support of an appeal.

Your incompetence/blythe abdication of your responsibilities in the matter, however, is manifested in numerous ways:

1. Failure to insure a record of Commission actions in litigation decisions, where the Commission represents the defendant citizens, as contemplated by the legislature;

2. Failure of any Commissioner to attend the mediation session connected to the appeal, although required by the insurance contract, and demanded by sheer decency, resulting in total abandonment of Commission authority to the attorney for the insurance company;

3. Failure to investigate the “disappearance” of a waiver alleged to have been signed by Weeks regarding the matter;

4. Failure to explain why the Commission paid $5,000 to the insurance company, permitting the reasonable conclusion that the purposes was to buy off the insurance company from proceeding against misfeasance by the Commission or its officials;

5. Failure to at least question why the insurance contract ever provided for the Commission’s surrender to the insurance company of its sovereign authority in all matters related to litigation;

6. Failure to at least review the time and charge sheets of “your” attorney in the matter, even though he more accurately represented the interest of Sedgwick Insurance;

7. Failure to competently employ the actual County Attorney, where the minutes do not reflect her input, while led around by the attorney for the insurance company;

8. And, not least, the dangerously childish Ignorance involved in protesting – two of you at least - that “judicial process” exists equally with either the law or the dispensation of justice. Given the pervasive exercise of the judicial process by the well heeled at the expense of the average person, in this case, the 12 billion dollar capitalized Sedgwick Insurance vs. Joan Weeks, the result, relied upon by practitioners, was the economic bludgeoning of Ms. Weeks into settlement. You should not celebrate your addiction to the “toxic poison of unaccountable power” by preposterously proposing dedication to a process which principal concern is judicial economy; you simply continued the successful bad faith dealing by all the Swain County Commissions in the Weeks matter.

How one of you could not ask relevant questions in the commission of this bad faith perpetration upon one of the county’s more notable employees, one who had finally obtained justice after petitioning for more than two decades, and the expenditure of $15,000 of her own unrecoverable money, is indeed the question. What possibly could have prompted you to just blithely not only disregard the equities of the matter, but also the statistically significant probability of your not prevailing on appeal? Was it misogyny, competence envy, a suppurating arrogance, or simply that you felt your $5,000 investment bought you the excuse for not acting as responsible elected officials?

Your tawdry attention to the matter of Joan Weeks v. Swain County for her retirement benefits, your abandonment of an obligation to deal fairly and as representatives of the people of Swain County, your lack of respect for the law encoding eventual disclosure of the record of your “deliberations” in the matter, is not negated by any possibly commendable acts in other matters, and does make one thing eminently clear: not one of you has either the intellect, decency, or ethical integrity to serve as a representative of a just people.

Frank Peterson

The Swain County Commission, Ben Bushyhead, Chairman

American hero starts new chapter at SCC-PSTC

Arin Canon doesn’t utilize the parking spot reserved for veterans at Southwestern Community College’s Public Safety Training Center.

The retired Army Ranger doesn’t have a whole lot to say about the silver star he earned while serving in Afghanistan. His athletic stride conceals the fact he’s an amputee, and most of his fellow recruits in SCC’s National Park Service-Park Ranger Law Enforcement Academy (NPS-PRLEA) have no idea they’re training alongside a genuine American hero.

“It’s unreal for me to look at him and know what he’s been through, and what he’s seen,” said Kristopher Roberson, 31, who’s originally from Southeastern Missouri. “You can obviously see from the outside that he’s lost a limb in battle, but it’s just so impressive to see the way he goes through all of our physical training. He just never gives up, and you’d never know he’s gone through anything.”

SCC has held more than 100 law enforcement academies for the Park Service since 1978. Canon is the most highly decorated military veteran ever to enroll, according to Zach Dezarn, Southwestern’s NPS-PRLEA coordinator.

That made the decision to name Canon as the “Class Sergeant” — the highest rank available in the class — an easy one.

“What I find so unique about the situation is how accomplished Mr. Canon is, but yet still while being so humble,” Dezarn said. “His experience and training levels are far beyond those of his peers, yet he still treats them with dignity. He coaches and works with them and has been an asset to the class … It’s a pretty special situation we’ve got with this academy.”

During his 26-year military career, Canon rose to the rank of sergeant major - the highest enlisted rank.

The Silver Star medal is one of the highest awards for valor that can be bestowed on a member of the U.S. Military. Canon received his for actions he took during his first rotation to Afghanistan shortly after 9/11.

“There was an incident where we had a Navy SEAL who was separated from his team, and I was one of the leaders of the quick reactionary force that went in to rescue him,” Canon said. “At that point in the

war, it was the longest sustained combat that the U.S. had been in since Mogadishu. I hate to sound cliché, but it was kind of a ‘baptism by fire’ for us as people and us as a nation.”

Canon began his military service after graduating from his Florida high school in 1996, and his first assignment was to the 1st Ranger Battalion in the 75th Ranger Regiment.

His first deployment was in December 2001, and he continued along in Army Special Forces command for the last 24 years of his military career. His deployments were to the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.

“That’s as deep into that as I can get,” he said.

Asked how he feels about the state of the country he’s served, protected and defended for the better part of three decades, Canon said, “I’m as red-blooded as an American can be. The things we have to keep in perspective are that we have access to information at a greater rate and accessibility that no one else has ever had in history. So I don’t think things are vastly different from previous times in our history. I just think it’s more in our face. The more that we look inward and take care of our neighbors, and affect the things you have control over and let that ripple out – the better off we’ll be.”

Canon injured his lower right leg on a battlefield in 2008 and continued to operate for another decade despite the pain and physical limitations that followed.

Finally, in 2018, he underwent an amputation to remove the injured portion of his leg below the knee. He now uses a prosthetic, which has actually bolstered his mobility. He starts working out at 5 a.m. daily and does a full Crossfit training as well as physical therapy before undergoing the academy’s rigorous daily regimen.

His perseverance and humility inspire fellow recruits like Roberson.

“It just keeps you striving for more and lets you know that when you get in a situation, you are never out of the fight,”

Roberson said. “I mean, look at Canon and all the stuff he went through. I feel like if we (fellow recruits) are ever in a fight for our lives in the real world, he’s probably somebody who’s going to pop in our minds and be like, ‘You’re not out of it. Get up.’ He’s just a really good role model and mentor throughout this class.”

Now 45, Canon retired from a 26-year military career this past summer. Soon after, he enrolled in Southwestern’s Park Ranger academy.

“There are certain people that have a calling and find that they have a knack for something,” he said. “And also, I’m not the ‘sit in a cubicle’ or ‘sit on the front porch’ guy. My sons (ages 5 and 7) are both young, so the ability to be in beautiful, idyllic nature settings while being a benefit to the Park Service and letting my sons grow up in that environment is appealing to me.”

He has high praise for the training SCC provides at the Public Safety Training Center.

“[Southwestern’s NPS-PRLEA] is top-

the announcement of the data security plan requirement in 2020.

Experts at the National Association of Tax Professionals and Drake Software, who both have served on the IRS Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee (ETAAC), convened last month to discuss the long-awaited IRS guidance, the pros and cons of the IRS’s template and the risks of not having a data security plan.

notch,” Canon said. “I’ve been involved in some other locations and other schooling, and I think the passion of the instructors here – and the facility – are all in the top level of what I’ve experienced before.”

Likewise, members of Southwestern’s Public Safety Training team have been pleased to have someone with Canon’s background participating as a recruit.

“Our team is always honored to serve those who serve,” said Curtis Dowdle, SCC’s Dean of Public Safety Training. “We are especially honored to serve our veterans. Having a recruit in our academy of Mr. Canon’s caliber is humbling and inspiring, not only for other recruits, but our PSTC Team as a whole as to our mission in delivering “Excellence through Training” to our public safety professionals.”

For more information about Southwestern and all the programs it offers, visit www.SouthwesternCC.edu, call 828.339.4000 or drop by your nearest SCC location.

IRSAC and the IRS’s Commissioner’s Advisory Group working to amplify the importance of data security.

The group also discussed in the virtual roundtable the background of the IRS Security Summit and how the IRS came to release a sample written information security plan (WISP).

Anyone renewing their preparer tax identification number (PTIN) for 2023 will be asked to attest to their data security responsibility and whether they are aware of their obligation to have a data security plan in place to provide protections for all taxpayer information.

Last month, the IRS released a template for tax preparers to use after many requests for more information following

“Being able to share my experience from serving on ETAAC to help tax preparers in advance of the coming season was rewarding, but I also believe it is crucial for preparers to understand the seriousness of this topic and how detrimental it could be to their firm and their clients if they don’t have a data security plan in place,” Larry Gray, NATP’s government liaison, said. Gray served on ETAAC, IRPAC,

“This is such an important topic, and one that preparers will have to grapple with in the coming years, if they haven’t already,” said Jared Ballew, director of government relations for Drake Software. “Data is now a currency and having a plan in place to protect their clients is critical for tax preparers as we prepare for the 2023 tax season.”

This discussion is available now for tax preparers to watch for free in preparation of the 2023 tax season. Tax preparers must renew their PTIN by Dec. 31 each year.

After more than two decades of serving in some of the Army’s most elite Special Operations Forces, retired Sgt. Maj. Arin Canon (right) is the Class Sergeant for SCC’s current National Park Service-Park Ranger Law Enforcement Academy in Franklin.

Experts explain IRS’s data security plan template, how tax pros should use it in preparation for 2023 tax season

Rick Buchanan for Sheriff

Now Accepting

WNC mourns Lambert Wilson

he made as a member of our Board of Trustees. He was a true, genuine friend to all of us at Southwestern. Our hearts are heavy; we’ve lost a great man.”

In addition to serving as a trustee, Wilson was instrumental in growing the SCC Foundation’s annual fundraising gala, which raised more than $600,000 during the seven years Wilson co-chaired the planning committee. The money went toward Wilson’s oftstated goal of “providing scholarship funding

BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF W RITER

The Oct. 20 death of Lambert Wilson — a beloved educator, business owner and supporter of Native American art — sent shock waves through communities across Western North Carolina. However, few details are available regarding the circumstances of what his friends and colleagues say was a tragic and unexpected passing.

“Our hearts are broken,” reads an Oct. 21 Facebook post from Swain County Schools, the first official statement on Wilson’s death. “We have lost a colleague, mentor and dear friend. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family at this time.”

In the same post, Swain County Schools states that Wilson was shot and killed the previous day at his motel in Cherokee. The business, El Camino Motel, was the site of an Oct. 20 “incident” under investigation by the Cherokee Indian Police Department and the N.C. State Bureau of Investigations, according to a Facebook post from CIPD. However, the CIPD has so far refused to release any information about the incident or its victims. No charges have yet been filed related to the incident in either the Cherokee Tribal Court or the U.S. District Court in Asheville, according to spokespeople for those courts.

Wilson, 68, was a native of Swain County who spent his life as “an advocate for ‘his’

children of Swain and Jackson counties,” his obituary says. He graduated from Western Carolina University three times — in 1975 with a bachelor’s in middle grade education, in 1977 with a master’s in middle grade education and in 1980 with a specialist degree in school administration.

Wilson started working as a teacher at Almond School in 1975 and became principal of Whittier School in 1980, continuing in that role until the school closed in 1991. Later that year, he opened the newly constructed East Elementary School and served as its principal until his retirement in August 2006.

“Lambert was gentlemen and a gentle man,” his obituary reads. “He never gave up on anyone. He fed the hungry and housed the homeless. He would have given anyone the shirt off of his back, and he did.”

Wilson’s commitment to education continued beyond his retirement. He served on the Swain County Board of Education from December 2008 through November 2020, and at the time of his death he was chairman of the Southwestern Community College Board of Trustees, a body to which he had belonged for 13 years.

“Mr. Wilson poured so much of his time, his resources and his heart into supporting our students, our college and our community,” said SCC President Dr. Don Tomas. “Students were at the heart of every decision

— SCC President Dr. Don Tomas

to every single deserving student who needs a hand-up.” He also helped the Foundation work with multiple donors to set up endowed scholarship funds.

In addition to his leadership efforts, Wilson quietly helped students any way he could.

Heber Najera, a second-year student in Southwestern’s Physical Therapist Assistant program, recalls how Wilson helped him succeed at college despite the 80-mile drive to campus from his home in Polk County. Several nights each week, Wilson provided Najera a free room at his hotel in Cherokee to help lower his travel expenses.

“Mr. Wilson was one of the nicest and most generous men I’ve ever met, and I could never thank him enough for the kindness he showed me,” Najera said. “He put others before himself. I saw him help out so many people who were homeless or struggling and needed a place to stay. At Southwestern, he wanted to help every single student who needed assistance. It was more than words; it was a way of life for him.”

In October 2021, Lambert fulfilled his dream of owning a Native American art gallery when he opened the Queen House Gallery in Cherokee, hoping to encourage young Native American artists and feature renowned artists. Well respected throughout the Native American art community nationwide, Wilson judged several national art competitions. He was a board member at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian.

“Lambert was a devoted supporter of Cherokee artists throughout his life,” reads a statement from the museum. “From his establishment of the Queen House Gallery to his valued time and contributions to the MCI board, his expertise, knowledge, passion and warmth will be dearly missed.”

“Students were at the heart of every decision he made as a member of our Board of Trustees. He was a true, genuine friend to all of us at Southwestern. Our hearts are heavy; we’ve lost a great man.”

Lambert Wilson. SCC photo

Moody’s bond revoked for failure to appear

BY C ORY VAILLANCOURT P OLITICS E DITOR

The Haywood County woman charged with 59 counts of interstate threats and conspiracy to kidnap after sending threatening letters to public officials will now await her trial in jail, after admitting on Oct. 26 that she’d violated the conditions of her pretrial release.

Darris Moody was arrested by the FBI on Sept. 7, after telling The Smoky Mountain News that she was the person behind a series of phony writs from a non-existent court. The writs were faxed to various public officials and offered bounties for their capture if they didn’t comply with the terms.

“I have to admit that I’ve served a few, because my name was on it and it wasn’t supposed to be,” Moody said Sept. 2. “That’s very, very, very unfortunate because these are coming from ‘the people,’ and I’m just one of the people.”

Many of Moody’s assertions during the call revolve around the discredited “sovereign citizen” ideology, and a fixation with the socalled “New World Order.”

During a 45-minute phone call with SMN, Moody elaborated on a number of conspiracy theories, including that satanic pedophile cults traffic children for their organs, that COVID-19 is a psy-op, that the vaccine is a bioweapon, that masks are a tactic of the deep state to obscure the likeness of God and that President Joe Biden has been replaced by a body double.

In the writs, Moody alleged officials were guilty of treason and various other unsubstantiated environmental crimes, and demanded they pay a fine or surrender themselves to a tribunal.

After her initial arrest, Moody asked to represent herself. Upon advisement, she accepted appointed counsel, Asheville attorney Sean Devereux. Devereux is known for initially and briefly representing convicted Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph upon his arrest in 2003.

When Moody first appeared with Devereux in federal court on Sept. 12, FBI Special Agent Bill Gang testified that he’d executed a search warrant on her home and found a copy of one of the writs. Gang also said that at no time during his post-arrest interview with Moody did she disavow her actions or attempt to downplay them.

Gang also said that upon arrival at Moody’s home, there were notices posted asserting that law enforcement had no jurisdiction over her. Moody has consistently maintained that she’s “on common law” and that she does not recognize the authority of the government or the courts.

At the conclusion of that hearing Moody asked for pre-trial release on bond, promising that she would cooperate with the process and participate in her own defense.

Devereux told U.S. Magistrate Judge

Carleton Metcalf he’d made very clear to Moody that if she wasn’t going to “play by the rules,” she was wasting her time, and his. Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Gast said he felt that there was no piece of paper that could compel Moody to appear before a court she repeatedly claimed she didn’t recognize.

In considering Moody’s request for release, Metcalf said he weighed Moody’s lack of criminal history against the fact that Moody attempted to conceal her identity while serving the writs.

Metcalf called the decision a difficult one, but ultimately he opted to release Moody to home confinement, with all the usual conditions including her pledge to appear in court as directed.

When her next hearing came up at 10 a.m. on Oct. 14, Moody failed to appear as promised.

Devereux referenced the court’s prior concerns about Moody’s willingness to show up for proceedings and told Metcalf that he’d “bent over backwards” to ensure Moody understood that she had to comply.

Metcalf gave Moody another 45 minutes or so to present herself; however, that didn’t happen, so she was arrested by the FBI in Haywood County later that day and transported to the Buncombe County Detention Center.

Five days later, Devereux withdrew from the case. Moody asked for appointed counsel. Emily Jones and Mary Ellen Coleman were assigned as federal public defenders.

On Oct. 26, Moody appeared in court for the arraignment that was supposed to take place on Oct. 14; however, Metcalf also conducted an inquiry into the status of her counsel as well as a bond revocation hearing in response to a government motion.

According to court records, Moody again asked to represent herself. Metcalf denied her request.

Moody then pleaded not guilty to the 59 counts against her, and also admitted to violating the conditions of her pre-trial release by failing to appear on Oct. 14. Metcalf revoked her bond and ordered her to be detained pending further proceedings.

Her trial won’t take place until sometime next year, possibly as early as Jan. 4.

MIKE

A P ROVEN L EADER AND VOICE FOR THE C ITIZENS OF W ESTERN N ORTH CAROLINA

P ROMOTER OF P UBLIC SAFETY AND CONSTITUENT

FOR BY FRIENDS TO ELECT JENNIFER BEST

Waynesville housing development makes quick progress

BY KYLE P ERROTTI N EWS E DITOR

Construction on one of Waynesville’s largest ever single-family home development hasn’t been underway for long, and it’s already transformed the previously pastoral landscape known for years as Queen Farm.

The 32.67-acre property is the town’s first subdivision since the adoption of its land use plan. In addition, due to state law changing, the subdivision was the first to go through administrative review rather than a quasi-judicial hearing. Basically, the planning board was directed to simply consider whether the plan was compliant with the town’s litany of development standards.

The plan is to put 115 home sites, which even factoring in the area taken up by infrastructure and civic/recreational space will easily satisfy the town ordinance that stipulates the minimum lot size one-sixth of an acre; there will be around four houses per acre. Home prices are expected to be between $300,000 and $400,000

The project was discussed in detail on Sept. 20, 2021. Meeting minutes indicate that while the plat met the town’s standards for density and dimensional requirements, staff noted some considerations. For example, Town Planner Elizabeth Teague told the board that access to Sunnyside Street is narrow and requires an NCDOT Driveway Permit and recommended putting in a turning lane. She also mentioned that a secondary driveway should be added so emergency vehicles could have two entrances. At that time, it was also noted that a compliant stormwater plan must be provided.

Engineer Patrick Bradshaw of Civil Design Concepts indicated at that meeting that he understood Teague’s concerns at the time and noted that he was already working on some of those items.

During that meeting, 10 members of the public, most nearby residents, expressed different levels of criticism for the project, expressing concerns ranging from its location to its density to traffic impacts to simply the fact that after such a rich history of being used as farmland, the large tract was going to turn into a housing development.

Residents in areas near the former Queen Farm may have noticed that the initial focus of the development, along with moving dirt (known as rebalancing) to level the land, has been digging extensive drainage, including sediment retention ponds.

“As the project is built, there’s a stormwater management plan that has a required maintenance agreement from that point forward,” said Teague.

The stormwater management plan is engineered to capture and treat a “two-year,

sure a state inspector comes out.”

Teague admitted that she has mixed feelings about large developments like the one going up alongside Sunnyside Street, considering neighbors frequently express during public comments how much such land has meant to them. Beyond some properties’ long agricultural histories, people simply love to look out over rolling pastureland with the mountains as a backdrop more than they do rows and rows of houses.

Some who grew up around Queen Farm

almost half-mile stretch of road that features some hills and curves. Teague said she tried to see if NCDOT would consider that turn lane she’d mentioned during last year’s meeting.

“Specifically, I was thinking, wouldn’t it be helpful to at least require maybe a turn lane, one widening the road into the land, in order to be able to accommodate the traffic?” Teague asked rhetorically. “But the DOT have their formulas for their roadways, and when they make those kinds of requirements. They didn’t feel like this rose to that level.”

While Teague said DOT determined through data and its own policies that a turn lane wasn’t warranted, the developer did agree to build a wider entrance to the area that could be more easily navigable by school buses and fire trucks. The other thing the town was adamant about was the secondary entrance that could tie back to another part of Sunnyside to use as secondary entrance and egress — particularly for emergency vehicles — should the other entrance get blocked.

Going forward, Teague said that the next step is to finish rebalancing the site and continue with sediment and erosion control, which may take a few more months. At that point, construction will begin on infrastructure, including water, sewer, utilities and roadbeds.

24-hour” storm.

“There’s going to be a whole drainage system that goes along with the roadways,” Teague said. “And there are designated stormwater areas that will capture and treat that runoff.”

Teague discussed the details of the development, noting that the erosion control efforts, particularly the sediment retention ponds, should prevent any mud from entering nearby Raccoon Creek.

“If someone sees that, they can call the state or call us,” Teague said. “We can make

New grant funding available for tech-oriented small businesses

Applications are now being accepted for a new round of grantmaking from the One North Carolina Small Business Program, a key source of capital for North Carolina’s emerging technology companies.

The One NC Small Business Program works in conjunction with two federal technology grants, the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. Following recent changes, the state program can support North Carolina companies as they prepare and submit initial proposals to the federal government, as well as provide grants to match previously awarded federal grants.

The One North Carolina Small Business Program’s Incentive Funds and Matching Funds initiatives are administered by the North Carolina Department of Commerce on behalf of the North

have families that go back generations.

“There’s no way to talk your way out of that,” Teague said. “It’s just heart wrenching. It truly is. At the same time, there’s all these other parts of the equation. We really don’t have a lot of housing; our housing inventory is low; the town hasn’t kept up with our beyond-normal level of growth through the years; not a lot of single-family housing had been produced, either in Waynesville, or nationally, since 2008.”

Teague talked a bit more about concerns she had with Sunnyside Street, a narrow

Carolina Board of Science, Technology & Innovation (BSTI). Grant awards help small businesses in the state develop and commercialize innovative new technologies, in the process growing jobs and investment in their communities.

The Incentive Funds initiative provides reimbursement to qualified North Carolina businesses for a portion of the costs incurred in preparing and submitting Phase I SBIR or STTR proposals to federal agencies. In the 2022-23 fiscal year, a pool of $314,000 is available for these preparation grants.

The Matching Funds portion of the program, which has been offered for many years, awards matching funds to North Carolina businesses who have already received a federal Phase I SBIR or STTR award. In the current fiscal year, a pool of $2 million is available to support this class of grants.

Federal SBIR and STTR grants are the single largest source of early-stage technology development and commercialization funding for small businesses—more than $3.8 billion annually nationwide.

The One North Carolina Small Business Program supports

“I imagine by the summer or fall, they’re going to start pulling the building permits,” she said. “And we have talked to them about doing it kind of in clusters. Each lot will have a unique building permit. They will probably pull building permits for groups of lots at a time, which helps us because we want to be able to effectively monitor their building. And we only have the four building inspectors that we have, so we want to be able to stay on top of it, and to do it in a way that’s efficient and effective with them.”

“We have other developments we have to monitor, too,” Teague added. “But I imagine about a year from now, you’ll start seeing houses getting built.”

early-stage companies at a critical point, shortening the time between their startup and the point where they become large, sustainable companies. Many past recipients say the vital injection of capital from the state put their companies on a successful trajectory. Since 2006, the Program has helped more than 340 companies in 29 counties, resulting in over one-thousand North Carolina jobs, hundreds of high-tech products, and the generation of more than $2 billion in follow-on capital investments.

Applications to the One North Carolina Small Business Program can be accepted until June 30, 2023, or until funds have been exhausted for the program’s 2022-23 fiscal year funding cycle.

The Office of Science, Technology & Innovation, a division of the North Carolina Department of Commerce, administers the One North Carolina Small Business Program on behalf of the Board.

Details on how to apply for either the Incentive or Matching grant solicitations, as well as information and application instructions, are posted at: commerce.nc.gov/grants-incentives/technology-funds/one-north-carolina-small-business-program.

A large retaining wall has gone up along Sunnyside Street.

Smoky

Community Care

With successful data in hand, Sylva’s pilot police program grows

BY HANNAH MCLEOD STAFF W RITER

When Western Carolina University Professors Katie Allen and Cyndy Caravelis approached Sylva Police Chief Chris Hatton with a proposal for a Community Care pilot program, using social work interns in the police department he was understandably skeptical. Crisis response involving a student intern seemed like a risk he was not willing to take.

“His first response was ‘absolutely not. We can have them here for follow-up, but they will not be responding,’” said Caravelis.

In the end, Hatton agreed to take on the Community Care Program, and the results are beginning to speak for themselves. At an Oct. 27 meeting of the Sylva Board of Commissioners, Caravelis laid out some of those results.

“I want to thank [the chief] for his trust, because this was a pilot program, this was ‘hey can we try this? It’s not going to cost you anything, we would like to train up some interns,’” Caravelis said of the start of the project.

During the summer of 2020, a national conversation erupted around policing in the United States following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

“There was a call in the community for non-sworn personnel to respond to calls and to shift away from a more punitive response to a lot of calls that weren’t necessarily punitive in nature,” said Caravelis.

A lot of that conversation involved the implementation of more non-emergency social workers in the police setting. After deciding they wanted to work through this issue and understand how social workers could fit in the picture, Caravelis, a professor of criminology and criminal justice, and Allen, a professor of social work, spent the next year researching to understand what that would look like.

What they found was that a lot of urban areas with the capacity and budget have crisis response intervention teams that can be deployed. However, 90% of police depart-

ments in the United States look like Sylva’s, with 15 or fewer officers, and there was no model for non-sworn response in these rural areas.

“The vast majority of calls that we get from a law enforcement point of view are typically non-criminal,” said Caravelis. “We have a lot of mental health issues, we have a lot of people that are unhoused, all of the ramifications around drug use and what that leads to. But the only number they know is to call law enforcement, that’s who they call for all of these things. And the problem is, the only tool that law enforcement has is intervention in the form of arrest, citation or warning, and that’s it. They don’t have a lot of tools to respond.”

The Community Care Program began in October of 2021 at the Sylva Police Department. This service consists of placing a senior-level or graduate-level WCU intern from the department of Social Work within Sylva PD to serve in the role of Community Care Liaison. The Community Care Liaison’s primary functions are to follow up with citizens involved in police calls for service and to connect victims with community services. When a police officer encounters an individual that they identify as someone who could use additional attention, the officer submits a referral to the Community Care Liaison.

“When our social work interns come to the department, they are not trying to replace sworn officers; they are trying to work in partnership with us so that we can effectively find out exactly what’s going on,” said Caravelis. “What we say is that we are trying to do pre-crisis intervention. If we see someone who is struggling, before someone calls law enforcement, let’s get someone out there to sit with them and find out what’s going on, how can we maybe help shift things before it becomes something that does require a sworn response.”

Allen and Caravelis thought that Sylva

could work for the program because of its size and the ability, through the university, to have social work interns that were also

trained in criminal justice.

“The other thing is the culture of Sylva PD is so unique in Jackson County in that Chief Hatton was open and willing to try new things,” said Caravelis. “We knew that the citizens of Sylva wanted us to try, they wanted to see something that wasn’t just a straight law enforcement response.”

The program’s mission statement is “to support the Sylva community by offering voluntary social work services in partnership with law enforcement.”

increased opportunities for de-escalation and proactive, pre-crisis intervention. Having a social worker available changes the tenor of the conversation between police and citizens.

“Oftentimes, if someone is having a mental health crisis, these situations have a tendency to, as soon as law enforcement shows up, they start to get nervous, they start to get panicked. The likelihood that this is going to end up in an unsafe situation for either the officer or the citizen increases,” said Caravelis.

The Community Care Program has five major objectives. The first is to expand the law enforcement toolbox by increasing officer response options beyond arrests, citations and warnings.

“What we knew in speaking with our law enforcement officers, is that we have what are called frequent flyers,” said Caravelis. “There are people that law enforcement officers interact with on a literal daily basis. We were talking with the chief about this. We said, ‘What if we could get someone in there to help fix what’s going on and to help give more options?’”

The second objective is to promote longterm solutions for community members in need through connections with appropriate resources. Because of the frequency of calls, officers often don’t have time to sit down with a person and talk about long-term solutions. When a social worker is available, they can make that referral so that the social worker can deal with long-term solutions.

“More today than ever, our guys are finding themselves with what we call stacked calls which means there’s more than one thing happening at one time,” said Hatton. “There’s a lot of times where we don’t have time to spend a whole lot of time with one individual. We do need to fix the problem and we do need to go to the next problem. So that’s where this program really helps.”

The third objective is to promote officer and community member safety through

The fourth objective is to reduce the risk of trauma from negative interactions between law enforcement and community members.

Last, there is efficiency — the goal of reducing officer workload and streamlining officer workflow.

Galadriel Levere is the third WCU student to intern with the Sylva Police Department in the Community Care Program. Thus far, referrals have grown with each passing semester. During the first semester, there were eight referrals to the community care liaison, nine the second and 22 during Levere’s semester, which is still underway.

The vast majority of the issues addressed with community care clients have been related to substance use, mental health, unhoused individuals and poverty.

Community care response data show that for 36% of referrals, the community care program has been able to offer or provide services, and 28% have been referred out to services within the community.

“I spend a lot of time networking, connecting with all the services in the community,” said Lavere. “I’m still learning, I’m still finding new sources and new people that are like ‘oh I can do that, I could help serve that need.’ So it’s really a community effort here to get people on track to heal.”

For 5% of referrals, Lavere has been able to assist people with accessing services, whether that involves F

Levere presented the most common issues addressed with community care clients in Sylva.

transportation or other necessary resources. Around 23% percent of people referred to Lavere are unable to be reached for contact after an event and another 8% are not eligible for services.

Community care outcome data show that almost half of all people referred have voluntarily received services. Those services have mainly involved Jackson County Department of Social Services, Meridian, HERE of Jackson County, Center for Domestic Peace, Jackson Neighbors in Need and Rolling Start.

“We’re finding the value of having somebody that can go out there and sit beside somebody and just talk to them for 30 minutes and figure out, ‘how did you come to this place? If you could have one thing, what would be the most important? What do you see your next step as?’ These kinds of questions that maybe nobody is asking,” said Lavere.

For Chief Hatton, the Community Care Program has been especially useful in helping people experiencing homelessness.

“We’re working the homeless problem here differently than anybody else I know of. We’re working it from the front end instead of the back end,” said Hatton.

The chief says he often asks other police chiefs what they are doing to address homelessness. What he hears is that few of them are doing anything proactive.

“We are going, meeting these people. As soon as we find out we’ve got somebody new in town with these kinds of struggles, we tell our officers to do a referral,” said Hatton. “We’re going to go try and find them, meet them, and try to figure out ‘what direction can we get you in, one, so people won’t call the police on you, and two, what do you really need in your life?’”

Between Hatton and Lavere, there is a plethora of stories to share, whether it’s the woman in search of a place to live whom they were able to connect with an employer in Cashiers that offered housing as part of employment or the man in need of everything who willingly offered up his hands for cuffs, unable to believe a police officer would truly be providing some type of service other than arrest.

The biggest challenge facing the program now is the lack of available resources in Jackson County.

“In large part, the success of this program depends on the level of services that you can connect people to. Do you find those services to be adequate to handle this?” asked Commissioner David Nestler.

The biggest hang-up, according to Caravelis, is the limited services offered by Meridian, which continuse to be underfunded and understaffed. This plays a role in most referrals related to substance use, which are a large portion of all referrals.

“That is a big limitation from what we’re seeing, we know the help they need and we are having a hard time sometimes getting them with expediency, getting them the treatment,” said Caravelis.

Levere also noted the difficulty finding people housing when they need it due to lack of available inventory. Of the 22 refer-

rals she has seen over the last few months, 10 have involved people being unhoused. This only compounds the problem; according to Caravelis, when people have been connected to services that were ultimately unavailable, they are much less likely to accept similar help in the future.

“It would be good to use a lot of the data that you gather not just for helping the police departments but also advising groups like the county that fund the sort of services to do a better job of giving you something to connect people with,” said Nestler.

The Community Care Program may have been in place for only three semesters, but there is already a waiting list of other departments that want Caravelis and Allen to help them implement the program.

“We were just in Boone two weeks ago. They got an intern before they knew what to do with them,” said Caravalis. “We are being very careful and selective on how we expand this because as you all know, one bad scenario, one bad interaction can sink the entire ship.”

The program in Boone is up and running. Western Carolina University is getting a community care liaison in the spring semester. Black Mountain has also expressed interest in using the program model.

“Anyone can get a social worker and give them a seat and say that they have paid lip service to community response — that’s not what this is,” said Caravelis. “We’re not in the business of PR, we’re in the business of actually changing the quality of interactions between our citizens and the officers.”

Allen and Caravelis are seeking grant funding to try and make this position a paid, permanent position within the police department. If they can make that happen, the paid person could still work with an intern each semester to continue growing the program.

This week, the team is going to Indianapolis for the second annual Police Social Work Conference to network with other programs that are implementing similar programs around the nation.

“I’m really glad to hear that you’re going to a conference where lots of people around the country are doing the same research that you’re doing,” said commissioner Greg McPherson. “Where do you see the program in 10 years?”

“I think that everyone hit the same critical point at the same time,” said Caravelis. “They said whatever we’ve been doing isn’t working, the issues that we’re dealing with are consistent, especially in a lot of rural areas. I think we’re going to have similar conversations with lots of people. When you talk about what is needed in the department, the future of this is having a fulltime person.”

Additionally, Allen and Caravelis are already working toward a certificate program for criminal justice and social work students in police social work so that they can be up to speed.

“We are truly creating the next generation of people who can work in policing but with social work experience,” said Caravelis.

Build with Quality, Live with Quality

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Billy

Taylor domestic violence case headed to trial

BY HOLLY KAYS

STAFF W RITER

Tribal Council Rep. Dennis Edward “Bill” Taylor is now facing a fourth charge in the domestic violence case that spurred his Oct. 16 resignation from office representing Wolfetown and Big Y. The charge of impaired driving was announced during a Nov. 1 hearing before Judge Barbara Parker. Court documents allege that Taylor was binge drinking during the Oct. 6 incident and had a blood alcohol content of 192 mg/dL during a court-ordered blood test the following morning.

Initial court documents following the Oct. 6 incident at the center of the case allege that Taylor, 51, had been harassing his wife by constantly texting her while drunk, culminating in a domestic dispute. When she attempted to flee in her vehicle, court documents allege, Taylor got in his truck and struck her vehicle with such force that it was disabled, including damage to the rear passenger bumper and tire. Taylor’s truck was damaged as well. The collision allegedly jarred his wife’s body enough to cause physical harm. Afterward, court documents allege, Taylor fled the scene.

The impaired driving charge joins the three charges he already faces: assault on a female domestic violence, assault with a deadly weapon and reckless endangerment. Taylor has pleaded not guilty, with his attorney Leo Phillips saying that he is “horribly sorry for this accident.”

In addition to the criminal charges, Taylor had been subject to additional restrictions outlined in a domestic violence protective order his wife secured against him. However, during the Nov. 1 hearing she asked that Parker dismiss that order. After verifying that the victim had a safety plan in place should a future domestic violence incident arise, Parker granted that request.

However, Parker said, the criminal case also contains restrictions for Taylor’s conduct until a resolution is reached, and dismissing the domestic violence protective order does not impact those restrictions. The conditions of Taylor’s release include wearing a continuing alcohol monitoring device, submitting to an abuser treatment assessment, and refraining from possessing or using firearms, alcohol or any controlled substances. He is also to refrain from any contact with his wife, who is to reside in the couple’s home.

Phillips asked that Parker amend that no contact order so that the couple could attend marriage counseling together. When Parker asked Taylor’s wife what degree of contact she wished to allow — ranging from phone calls

and texts up through moving back in together — she said that she wished to go “back to normal.”

that in mind, Parker said, she would allow for peaceful contact through phone and text, and for in-person meetings to attend therapy or discuss issues — but not for cohabitation.

Parker said that she “just (doesn’t) feel comfortable doing that” until Taylor has had more time in treatment.

At the victim’s request, Parker set a Nov. 29 court date to reconsider those restrictions, but until then Taylor is not permitted back in the family home.

Ultimately, the case is headed toward trial.

Phillips said he expected the trial to last one-and-ahalf to two days. It is scheduled to

Court has been working with the court in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to better understand how to break dysfunctional cycles in domestic violence cases and that “the key to that tends to be a slower pace than most folks want.” With

begin after small claims court Monday, Jan. 9, and continue through Tuesday, Jan. 10. Should winter weather or some other circumstance prevent the trial from happening that day, it will be rescheduled for Jan. 25-26.

Parker replied that the Cherokee Tribal

Bill Taylor

The case is being handled by the Cherokee Tribal Court. File photo

Crowe announces run for Cherokee chief

BY HOLLY KAYS

STAFF WRITER

Bo Crowe, a fifth-term Tribal Council member representing Wolfetown and Big Y, has announced his intention to challenge Principal Chief Richard Sneed’s 2023 re-election bid.

“During my time serving on Tribal Council, I have listened to the concerns and ideas of how tribal members would like to see our tribe move forward,” Crowe wrote in an Oct. 26 Facebook post announcing his candidacy. “If elected, I will continue to ensure that all tribal members’ voices are heard. We will work together to create a more efficient and effective tribal government.”

Crowe was first elected in 2013, his first two terms in office coinciding with a tumultuous season in tribal government that included controversy over Tribal Council’s vote to drastically raise its pay — Crowe was the sole nay vote on the budget that included the pay raises — and the impeachment and removal of Principal Chief Patrick Lambert. He currently represents Tribal Council on the Housing Improvement Program, Qualla Parks and Rec, Timber and Social Services committees, as well as the Roads Commission. Crowe is Tribal Council’s representative to the

Tribal Council approves anti-panhandling law

BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF W RITER

In a unanimous vote Monday, Oct. 17, the Cherokee Tribal Council passed an ordinance that prohibits begging and panhandling in a variety of locations and situations on the Qualla Boundary.

“In the last several years, an increasing number of tribal citizens have been approached or accosted, sometimes aggressively, by persons who are begging, panhandling or soliciting financial contributions in a public place in a manner that threatens the safety and security of the citizens or of the person doing the begging, panhandling or soliciting,” reads the resolution, submitted by Painttown Rep. Dike. Sneed.

The ordinance bans public begging, panhandling and soliciting contributions within 20 feet of the entrance or exit of a bank, financial institution or ATM; in tribally owned or operated public transportation vehicles or stop locations, or within 20 feet of tribal transit stop locations, stop signs, stop shelters or stop benches; while standing on a road or the shoulder or median of a road; or on property

Cherokee Central Schools Board of Education.

According to his biography on the tribal government website, Crowe worked for the tribe for 13 years prior to his election to Tribal Council, and he remains active in the Big Y and Wolfetown community clubs. He works with free labor groups for both Big Y and Wolfetown. He and his wife, a secondgrade teaching assistant at Cherokee Elementary School, have four daughters.

Crowe’s announcement comes three weeks after Principal Chief Richard Sneed became the first candidate to publicly announce his intent to run for the tribe’s top political office in the 2023 election — but more than four months prior to the start of candidate filing March 6, 2023. A Primary Election Thursday, June 1, 2023, will whittle the list of candidates down to two per seat, with a General Election Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023, determining the winners.

Both Crowe and Sneed have proven popular at the ballot box. In 2021, Crowe received 42.2% of the vote in a four-candidate General Election race, nearly double the 22.8% share of second-place vote-getter Bill Taylor. In 2019, Sneed was elected to office with 55.1% of the vote against opponent Teresa McCoy, securing a majority in every community save McCoy’s home of Big Cove.

The next chief will serve a four-year term extending to October 2027. The 2023 election will also seat a vice chief, 12 Tribal Council members and three school board members. Voters will also weigh in on referendum questions seeking to institute term limits for Tribal Council members and to shift the current twoyear terms to staggered four-year terms.

Filing is currently underway for a special election to fill vacancies left by the death of Painttown Rep. Tommye Saunooke and the resignation of Wolfetown Rep. Bill Taylor. That special election will take place Thursday, Dec. 15.

without written permission from the possessory holder, lessor or permittee.

It also prohibits doing so “in a manner so as to intimidate another person or by accosting another person, or by forcing oneself upon the company of another person.” Under the new law, begging, panhandling and soliciting contributions are not allowed by verbal or written request between sunset and sunrise. The ordinance contains exemptions for properly permitted live music performances and chiefing.

Violating the new rules qualifies as a misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum fine of $50 or maximum sentence of five days.

Principal Chief Richard Sneed has signed the ordinance.

Tribal Council’s action follows an Oct. 13 decision from the Sylva Board of Commissioners to schedule a public hearing to consider a panhandling ban of its own. That proposed ordinance would outlaw such activity within 100 feet of road intersections and banks, within 15 feet of any road’s pavement edge, within 20 feet of any open commercial business, or when the person being solicited is standing in line for a commercial business. The ordinance would also outlaw various forms of threatening behavior while begging.

A public hearing is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10.

Bo Crowe

Community Almanac

Waynesville veteran pinned in special ceremony

Mr. Tobin’s family and friends attended the ceremony, which included the presentation of the Air Force and United States Flags, and a veteran pin honoring his service to his country. Mr. Tobin, who turned 91 this year, served as an Air Force staff sergeant and was stationed in Korea.

“The veteran pinning ceremony is very moving and brings honor where it is due, and we are so grateful to be able to do this for Mr. Tobin,” said Beverly Murray, Hospice Veteran and Volunteer Coordinator.

VFW/American Honor Guard Commander Lt. Jody Keller agreed it is rewarding to honor those who served.

“Mr. Tobin gave of his time and talent to serve his country, and it is right to honor him for his duty and service at this time in his life. Once a soldier, always a soldier,” Keller stated.

ment before collecting trash. Volunteers will receive a light breakfast, a safety vest, gloves, pick-up tools and garbage bags.

Only areas within the Town of Highlands limits will be covered. Groups, families and individuals are welcome.

The event is organized by the Highlands Chamber of Commerce/Visit Highlands, NC.

To participate in “Tidy Our Town,” send an email to events@highlandschamber.org or call 828.526.5841.

Franklin welcomes new life/organization coaching business

Dr. Liza S. Younce with Perseverance WINS has joined the Franklin Chamber of Commerce.

With a mission of helping people gain clarity, take action and get results, Perseverance WINS, LLC is a boutique coaching practice that provides people or organizations with an opportunity to embark on a path of growth, whether in life, relationships or career.

Since launching her practice, Younce’s offerings have evolved to meet the ever changing needs of those she serves. She has worked with young adults who struggle with confidence and communication, college athletes who feel the constant pressure to perform, adults who are stuck, transitioning to a new career, experiencing grief and those tired of their current circumstances and are ready for change.

Food Truck Boot Camp comes to Cherokee

Food is the heart of the community. It defines cultures, bridges gaps between strangers, and calls us home to our families. To cook is to love, and many people dream of sharing their talent and care with neighbors and newcomers alike. But from growing expenses to a dwindling workforce, opening your own restaurant can feel more difficult by the day.

“It’s not for the faint of heart,” Tina GarciaShams, executive director of Street Food Institute out of Albuquerque said. “But if you’re passionate about it, and if you have the resources on the business side that you need, then you’ll be successful.”

What option do people have if it feels like they don’t have the necessary resources? EmPOWERing Mountain Food Systems thinks food trucks could be the answer.

Nov. 7-10, the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Commerce Department, NC Cooperative Extension Cherokee office and EmPOWERing Mountain Food Systems, are hosting the Street Food Institute for the first-ever annual Food Truck Boot Camp for anyone interested in learning how to open or expand a food truck business of their own. This four-day event will be packed with workshops, lectures, and a chance to learn directly from local

resources such as Mountain BizWorks and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Commerce Department.

There will be workshops on how to finance a truck, and where and how to get licensing and permits. A local health inspector will come to talk about the things they’ll be looking for on a food truck. From food concepts to menu design to the importance of social media, all of the basics will be covered.

Street Food Institute has organized classes for Food Truck Boot Camp that will help an already working food truck navigate the ideas and challenges they’ve come up with or against.

The help and education don’t end after the four-day event, though.

Opening a restaurant can be next to impossible, but opening a food truck makes small food business dreams accessible and attainable. For exactly this reason, Food Truck Boot Camp was created for the community by the community. Sign up today. eventbrite.com/e/food-truck-boot-camptickets-404684641657

Living with dementia seminar Nov. 10

On Thursday, Nov. 10, at 1 p.m., the Jackson County Public Library is hosting a free mental health seminar facilitated by Vaya Health. This program is in the conference room and is free of

charge, but registration is required.

Join the Vaya Health Geriatric and Adult Mental Health Specialty Team for a presentation discussing “Neurocognitive Disorder: Living with Dementia.” Commonly referred to as dementia, neurocognitive disorders can affect the way people perceive and engage with the world around them. This course looks at various classifications of neurocognitive disorders, delirium and common changes associated with each type. Tips for caregiving are provided. Registration is required.

Call the Library at 828.586.2016 or email JCPL-Adults@fontanalib.org.

If you’re not able to attend this event, or you’d like to see what else they have to offer, feel free to visit vayahealth.com/calendar to sign up for free webinars offered by Vaya Health.

Volunteers needed for ‘tidy our town’

It’s time to give the Town of Highlands a fall refresh.

Volunteers are needed to help with “Tidy Our Town” (a companion event to spring’s “Plateau Pickup”) on Saturday, Nov. 5, beginning at 8:30 a.m., weather permitting. Volunteers will begin at Kelsey-Hutchinson Founders Park on Pine Street, where they will receive their geographic assign-

Organizations seek her help to build a strengths culture and improve employee engagement, productivity — resulting in improved outcomes. To best meet client needs, services are offered in person, as well as virtual.

To learn more call 828.421.1691, email lisa@perseverancewins.org, or visit perseverancewins.org.

Concert to honor those who served is Nov. 6

The final concert of a highly successful season for the Haywood Community Band begins at 4 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 6, at Long’s Chapel United Methodist Church, 133 Old Clyde Road.

The program will honor those who have served America in the United States military. The preVeterans’ Day music includes “Armed Forces Salute,” “In Honor of the Fallen,” “Bugler’s Holiday,” “Mountain Strong,” “American Salute (variations on When Johnny Comes Marching Home),” “October,” “Campbell River Sketches,” and closes with America’s march, “The Stars and Stripes Forever” by famous march king John Philip Sousa.

All performances are free. Large crowds have attended and have given the performers a standing ovation at the end of each program. It’s been a fruitful year of 10 concerts with record-breaking donations which are used to assist local music students and to purchase new music scores for future programs.

A special veteran pinning ceremony was held last week in honor of Air Force Veteran Edward Tobin of Waynesville. The event was held at his home and was provided by Haywood Hospice & Palliative Care and the VFW/American Legion Honor Guard.

Haywood Hospice & Palliative Care is a partner with the We Honor Veterans program, which is part of the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization and Veteran’s Administration.

Air Force Veteran Edward Tobin was joined by the Haywood County Honor Guard at a special ceremony.

GOP wants to control our lives

To the Editor:

Rep. Kevin McCarthy has been plainspoken about a tired and failed strategy of cutting taxes and regulations and targeted spending while giving tax incentives to the oil industry.

So what would Kevin and Sen. Mitch McConnell cut? Well, in addition to Social Security and Medicare, look for attacks on the bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and the Inflation Reduction Act.

While many observers note that additional spending has contributed to inflation, it makes no sense to cut programs that are now fighting inflation. A state spokesman recently noted that inflation has severely hampered their efforts to use state funds to pay for a collapsed bridge, but the federal infrastructure funds saved the project and bridge construction is nearly complete.

Sending Republicans to Washington with their slash and burn mentality would only make matters worse. Additionally, Ted Budd has made it clear he will not only continue to deny that Joe Biden is our legitimate president, but also deny women the right to make family decisions themselves. So go vote and support people with concrete plans to reduce costs and protect personal freedoms.

A vote for Jasmine Beach Ferrara as our congressperson and Cherie Beasley as our senator will send a message to keep us out of a recession and Republicans out of our lives.

Ron Robinson Sylva

God bless Elon Musk

To the Editor:

We hear a lot these days about threats to “our democracy,” but we don’t have one to be threatened. It has already been threatened and killed while we were asleep at the switch.

What do we have then? We have an authoritarian oligarchy with American democratic characteristics. Yes, we have two parties, but one is trying to dictate to the other what it is allowed to stand for and for which candidates people are allowed to vote. We have elections, but only one party is allowed to question them while resisting all attempts at ensuring election integrity. When supporters of one party such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa take to the streets and assault police officers and burn buildings, they get bailed out to continue their protests, and if anyone is convicted it is usually a slap on the wrist.

On the other hand, January 6 protesters are rotting in the D.C. gulag and denied bail with harsh sentences contemplated after lengthy trial delays. Anti-abortion protesters are subject to FBI raids and prosecution while firebombers of crisis pregnancy centers are never identified, let alone prosecuted, while

Editor’s note: With mid-term elections looming and voters energized, lots of people are expressing their opinions. That’s a good thing, but unfortunately we’ve received more letters than we have room to print. We publish letters in the order in which we received them, so those published in this issue were received first in our email inbox. If your letter did not make it into print, you should still be able to find it online in our opinion section.

— Scott McLeod, Editor

Attorney General Merrick Garland has the nerve to talk about the rule of law. It’s obvious that some people are above the law while others are going to be consigned under it. One party can have contempt of Congress with no consequences while the other party is convicted and sentenced. The double standard and two-tiered justice is on display everywhere. Doesn’t sound like “our democracy” to me.

Democrats have gotten away with so much because of their ability to shape the narrative through a corrupt media and social media platforms that will never call anyone to account unless he or she is a Republican. Bad news is covered up such as Hunter Biden’s laptop revelations before the last election. People who have something important to add to the conversation have been “deplatformed.”

People who get their news from “trusted” sources might better reconsider. There is a wealth of information available outside these propaganda organs. Their power lies in our willing captivity to their insular world view. Those who are truly concerned with the future of our democracy, such as it is, and have a sense of fair play, check out other sources. I’m eager to see what Twitter will be like when the dust settles. What a shot in the arm for democracy that will be. God bless Elon Musk!

This is only the beginning of what is needed to reclaim our country. We need more people to wake up and elect people that will have the backbone to go after an out-of-control bureaucracy. Departments that will not accept proper oversight should be defunded until they comply. We don’t need a secret police but that’s what the FBI has become. We have some remnants of constitutional protection left but they are fewer than they were just a few years ago and the current trend is bad.

For a democracy to be healthy the leaders must not be insulated and out of touch with the people they are responsible for. This is the reason for Donald Trump’s popularity that the geniuses that are currently in charge can’t figure out. They won’t figure it out either because they are too invested in pushing the top down cramdown of their toxic agenda on an unwilling population that has different priorities. Wake up and vote to save us from the Democrat chaos and hard times. Oh, did I mention nuclear war?

David Parker Sylva

Why I’ll vote for Democrats

To the Editor:

I am voting Democratic this election season and I would like to tell you why. While Donald Trump has been whining about a perfectly legal execution of a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, where classified documents were indeed found, here is what President Biden has been quietly accomplishing: Infrastructure bipartisan deal, which is just beginning to be felt and is so popular that Republicans who voted against it are claiming credit for it; CHIPS and Science Act, which has brought chip manufacturing back to the US; PACT Act for veterans, which helps veterans get the health help they need; Gun Safety Act, Inflation Reduction Act, took out leader of Al Quaeda, historic job growth, historically low unemployment, expanded NATO.

There is a myth out there that Republicans handle the economy better, but the last four Republican presidents have increased the national debt, while the last three Democratic presidents have lowered the national debt. President Biden has paid down the national debt by $1.4 trillion. Yes, inflation is high, all over the globe. The U.S. has one of the lowest rates of inflation worldwide.

If you must blame someone, blame Putin. Yes, supply chain issues are just beginning to get untangled. Gas prices are down since June and prices at the grocery store should reflect that eventually. Crime is up, but eight of the 10 states with the most crime are Republican states, mostly due to lax gun laws. Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare. Do you really want them to do that?

Why not give Democrats a chance this fall to follow up on these accomplishments and let these bills do what they are designed to do — help the middle class. It takes time for any of these things to work their way down to the local levels. The Dobbs decision took away the rights of women to control their own bodies. Whose rights will be next? Our very democracy is at stake this fall. Vote.

Sarah Cifani, Waynesville

Because he knew the local governments would not agree. So his answer was to bully his way to do this behind their backs. He has proven, over and over, that he is the boss and does not need to work with local government. Further, he has backed Frankie Wood in the scam to bring Ghost Town back to life.

The Democratic candidate, Josh Remillard, volunteered to enlist in the Army and served two tours in Iraq. I admire anyone who volunteered to enlist when we have no draft. The training provided in the military is probably not understood by non-veterans. One thing taught in the military is that you work with others, not against them. Pless adheres to the GOP belief that a woman should not have control over her body in determining the right to an abortion, but Josh thinks otherwise. Remillard supports veterans and their rights. He has seen first-hand the impact of PTSD and the need need for state legislators to encourage local leaders for counties to work together to agree on who, what and where to start savings lives (collaborative model). My vote goes to Josh Remillard.

Ron Robinson Sylva

Stop Biden by voting for GOP

To the Editor:

Barack Obama put it succinctly when he said he wanted to “fundamentally transform” our country. His plans were interrupted by the Trump Administration. Now, Obama’s puppet, Biden, needs a Congress that will continue to vote his warped agenda into law. Vote for Ted Budd and Chuck Edwards to help stop Obama and Biden’s plans.

Ted Carr Bethel

Yellow journalism and blue leanings

To the Editor:

Pless is a bully, let’s vote him out

To the Editor:

We need change in North Carolina’s 118th House District. Incumbent Rep. Mark Pless believes he does not answer to local government officials. He has made some big mistakes in not working with local government, i.e., making all Haywood County elections partisan (school board and some municipal governing boards), introducing a bill that would strip Haywood County municipalities of their authority to act in Extra-territorial Jurisdictions located adjacent to municipal boundaries. He tried to have these bills passed behind the backs of local government. Why?

Your October 29 issue titled “Saving the Safety Net” borders on yellow journalism. Conflating the statement of one GOP senator to change entitlements to discretionary programs, to justify the title of the piece, “House GOP majority could target Social Security, Medicare,” is appalling. The Republican Study Committee is quoted as determining raising taxes to prop up the program as “fundamentally immoral.” However, your follow up statement is outside of quotes — “removing mandated funding guarantees is not.” Was that assumed? Made up?

And the timing of the piece and cover art is exquisite. I bet this has been on the story board for months for the week before election. Mr. Scott McLeod, publisher, your blue is showing.

Dan Morgan  Otto

Keep West as tax collector

To the Editor:

With the election date drawing near, I am apprehensive about the Republican candidate for Haywood County Tax Collector. I am a resident of Haywood County and the fact that we have a young man representing us with little life experience concerns me. He is still a college student and has never had a full-time job. The tax collector is a full-time job that requires skills and experience to handle millions of dollars collected for our community. The monies collected are put back into our community for the staffing and operations of important services such as … fire, EMS, police and local school districts. Each of us could possibly rely on one of those services at some point.

When it comes to running such an important office, I expect this person to be someone with experience, understanding and leadership! It also requires being a people person with compassion who sometimes deals with difficult situations that may be the lowest points of our Haywood County citizen’s lives, resulting from a loss of a job or loss of a family member that puts them in a financial downfall.

The Republican candidate is not gallant in his campaign. I have not seen his name appearing anywhere. During the candidate forum he did not demonstrate courage or directness, as he did not look up when speaking or when asked a question. Should this not concern citizens?

The numbers speak for themselves! The current tax collector, Greg West, has the highest collection rate in the history of our county and it has been the highest during his consecutive four-year term. He has managed this from being fair and hands-on to the citizens of Haywood County. I urge you not to vote for someone just because “R” is beside their name. My vote is for the most qualified and most experienced candidate, Greg West!

Stacy Lindsey Haywood County

‘Granny over the cliff’ just doesn’t work

To the Editor:

You have to laugh at the way liberals in the news portray the big bad Republicans. They are all anarchists and should be put in a basket of deplorables. Well that is just a bunch of, to put it lightly, male cow patties.

The front page of The Smokey Mountain New proclaims ‘’House Republicans eye cuts entitlement programs!” Oh my God, we are doomed. How dare those dastardly Republicans try to shove granny over the cliff by cutting spending. I’ve been on Social Security and Medicare for 12 years and never had any benefits cut. The election is days away, let’s try to sway the vote by scaring people more

than we already are.

These so called “entitlements” are not my entitlements because I paid taxes on my wages ever since I was 16 years old and so did my employers. The people who are getting entitlements are the ones coming here illegally and getting free cell phones, free health care, food stamps and the like. No, I’m not a racist! Foreigners come here all the time from other countries and I welcome them, just don’t come here illegally and with your hand out.

So I say to staff writers at SMN, “I ain’t skeered.” I voted early and I voted for the people with common sense and they were not the party of our current mindless President. Listen, history shows Democrats spend spend spend and Republicans have to go behind them and have to cut cut cut.

Dennis Ford Franklin

Get to know Maggie. Between the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains rests one of the best golf courses in North Carolina

GOP wants to cut entitlements

To the Editor:

Who cares if you’re a Republican or Democrat? Who cares if you like Biden? Who cares who will run for President in 2024?

Right now, if the current brand of Republicans win, Social Security will go back on the chopping block … the cap on drug prices will be popped off … victims of rape and incest will be forced into an involuntary choice. As for inflation, that is a worldwide problem because of Putin’s war and his nuclear threats to us all — threats that can’t be ignored. Yes, that means the cost of living has gone up in the USA, but it has skyrocketed in other countries around the world.

Mary Joyce Sylva

Planned Parenthood supports Democrats

To the Editor:

Cheri Beasley is a liar. Without providing any proof she claims that the majority of folks in North Carolina believe that Roe v. Wade should dictate reproductive freedom. I think that the majority of people actually think it’s justified murder. There’s nothing reproductive if you kill the “product,” the child!

For nearly 50 years a law was in the books that came to be after the plaintiff lied about being raped. For 50 years that ruling allowed minorities to be targeted by Planned Parenthood and its leftist supporters. The only reason why the Democrats support it is because Planned Parenthood channels almost $50 million in taxpayer money they get each year back to the Democrats by supporting the DNC and Democrat candidates.

Gino De Neef Franklin

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IT’S WORKIN’ ALL RIGHT FOR ME

Want to go?

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Lilly Hiatt will be one of the performers at the Highlands Food & Wine festival, which will be held Nov. 10-13 at venues around downtown Highlands.

Alongside award-winning executive chefs, world-class cuisine and artisan beverages, other musical artists to appear include Durand Jones & The Indications, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, Old Crow Medicine Show, The California Honeydrops, Lyric, and The Texas Gentlemen.

For tickets, click on highlandsfoodandwine.com.

world, and there are different things that I have to do to maintain that.

SMN: Even though you do perform with a band, you also do a lot of solo gigs. And I was curious about what that setting is like for you, to just be up there all by yourself, guitar in-hand, in front of an audience?

It’s definitely a different experience than playing with a band. But, I love playing solo because that’s how I started, just playing by myself a lt. And so, it feels way comforting to just have a guitar. Playing solo definitely made me a better guitar player and singer because there’s a bit more perspective [in the performance], and you have to really vibe off the crowd in that setting. With my band, you can vibe off the crowd, but you can also vibe off them. [Being solo], it’s me and the people watching, and I want to do right by them. I want to pull them in one way or another, to connect with them in a way where we’re engaged.

BY GARRET K. WOODWARD ARTS & E NTERTAINMENT E DITOR

At the core of all beloved singer-songwriters is this raw honesty and genuine compassion, to conjure the good, bad and ugly of the human condition, all in an effort to put forth solidarity to the listener that, regardless of what happens, tomorrow is another day to get out of bed and push ahead.

That keen sense of self amid an intricate, vibrant lyrical aptitude is something Nashville troubadour Lilly Hiatt holds close to her heart.

Daughter of legendary singer-songwriter John Hiatt, Lilly has carved out her own path as a rising act of immense talent and creative swagger, something continually proven onstage and in the studio.

When you listen to Lilly Hiatt, you find yourself with a little bit more of a kick in your step, where Hiatt will forever radiate the hard truths and hard-fought redemption at the foundation of what it means to be a human being. Hiatt remains a beacon of melodic light on the choppy waters of daily life — this timeless voice of vulnerability and eternal hope.

Smoky Mountain News: Whether it’s conscious or subconscious, I’d always admired the purposeful vulnerability of your songs — you’re

someone completely open to the cosmos.

Lilly Hiatt: Thanks for saying that. My life is in my songs. And, that’s not to say there’s not some fiction in there, but [when something happens in my life], I have to put it in a song. My dad said something cool once to me, “Write your way into clarity.” When I’m going through something, that’s what I do.

SMN: Are you someone who’s actively open to the possibility of whatever is around the corner?

LH: That’s a cool question. Yeah, I think so, actually. I like to stay pretty open, especially lately, just go with the flow. And, the more I’m willing to do that, the more whimsy I experience in my life.

SMN: Which is easier said than done sometimes, where the only thing you can control in life is how you react in a situation.

LH: You’re so right about that. And I’ve def-

initely learned many lessons about that, especially in the last few years. I’m 38, and I’ve really been working on kind of surrendering to what’s happening [in life], and to do your best in it, you know?

SMN: It’s one of those things, too, where I’m 37, and we’re both part of the last generation of the outdoor kids before the internet took over everything.

LH: It’s interesting, because I was thinking about that last night, about what that’s kind of done to us. I’ll just speak for myself, but I feel like we’re in this time to protect our peace of mind. I think for anyone, though, it takes quite a bit of effort because so much is available to investigate. So, in one sense, it’s really great to have access to so much. But, on the other hand, there can be a lot day-to-day, where it’s easy to let a lot of voices get in your head. I just want to be a kind person in the

SMN: You’ve written these personal melodies about love lost and love found. How has your definition of love changed or remained the same as you’ve gotten older?

LH: As corny as this may sound, a big thing I’ve realized about love is that if I can’t love myself, it’s really hard to be loving to other people in the way I’d like to be. And it seems kind of indulgent in a way, “Oh, when you love yourself, you don’t have to think about yourself so much and fixate on what’s wrong with you.” I feel more available to others [when I love myself]. It’s like, “Okay, stop hating yourself, so you can be kind to everybody else.”

SMN: And, as you get older, you start to let go of that stubbornness or unwillingness to commit.

LH: Absolutely. Being married, I’ve realized to get to that place of the deepest love, you have to just be open, and there’s a letting go involved in that — it’s really exciting and it’s really scary. It’s easy to want to control everything, but you can’t. That’s not what love is. Love isn’t about control. It feels better, to me, to keep an open heart, and to give the benefit of the doubt when I can — to try to love and find empathy in there is something special.

“I’ve realized to get to that place of the deepest love, you have to just be open, and there’s a letting go involved in that — it’s really exciting and it’s really scary.”

— Lilly Hiatt

Lilly Hiatt. (David McClister photo)

A conversation with Lilly Hiatt

This must be the place

BY GARRET K. WOODWARD

interactions outweighs the sadness and sorrow of what’s been lost, and lost forever — knowledge, moments, and whatever else that human entity encompassed with their time on this earth.

HOT PICKS

Worldwide sensation Mariachi Sol de México de José Hernàndez will perform at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, in the Bardo Arts Center at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.

Slowly opening my eyes in the waning hours of Sunday morning, I could hear the last of the fall foliage tourist traffic zoom by my apartment on nearby Russ Avenue in downtown Waynesville, heading out of town until this time next year.

Sliding out of bed, I headed for the refrigerator and grabbed some water, a handful of mixed berries from a container, pulled up the blinds on the front window, and sat down at my desk.

Scrolling through Facebook, I came across an article from a journalism colleague, Amanda Petrusich, that she wrote for The New Yorker. It was a recent interview with Anderson Cooper, with both sides of the conversation having an in-depth discussion about their personal dealings with death, and the grief that ensues in the immediate and lingering fallout.

I found such sincere solidarity with the exchange between the duo, each sharing intimate feelings about tragedy in their respective families, and how they found different ways to navigate one’s existence thereafter.

Truth be told, I made amends with death years and years ago. Growing up in an older family, I remember going to several funerals when I was kid. Standing in line amid taller, well-dressed and sad adults, each approaching the casket and kneeling down, peering in at the cold, wrinkled flesh of a former family member now crossing over to the other side, wherever that may be.

Kneel for a minute or so at the casket, say a couple prayers learned from my time attending a Catholic elementary school and countless grueling Sunday masses. Do the sign of the cross, stand up, and head for the door with my parents, little sister, and extended family, ultimately making our way to the post-funeral reception at the Knights of Columbus or American Legion just down the road, depending on the size of the crowd, usually a beer and liquor drinking Irish gathering to celebrate the dead and their impending legacy through song and stories.

Although I’ve always been a deeply sentimental old soul, the notion of one’s passing has always conjured more appreciation for the time spent with that now gone loved one, where the gratitude of memories and

When you’re young, most of us don’t really think or ponder too much about death, or at least about one’s existence in the grand scheme of things. Death seems so far away, this dot on the horizon that won’t come into focus for decades or more, if you’re lucky. When you have youth, death is more of a drag to those ahead of

The WNC Pottery Festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, in Bridge Park in Sylva.

Rock/roots group The Get Right Band will perform at 9 p.m Friday, Nov. 4, in The Gem downstairs taproom at Boojum Brewing in Waynesville.

The Folkmoot Friendship Center (Waynesville) will host Eireann’s Call (Celtic/world) 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3.

The Fuzzy Peppers (rock/indie) will be held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8, in the Community Room at the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva.

At Jason’s funeral, I remember walking up to his casket to say goodbye. His parents and little brother were crying on the other side of the freshly dug hole. I grabbed a clump of dirt and tossed it onto the casket before it was lowered, but not before leaning down, kissing the cold container, and muttering under my breath in truth, “Jay, I promise to live a life for the two of us.”

That funeral in that field in the rural Champlain Valley was over 17 years ago. Many of us young kids back then in mourning have moved on with our lives, whether physically or emotionally. But, the photographs and mental images of Jason remain. For me, I’ll always carry my memories of him as a reminder to seek gratitude amid the organized chaos of the unknown universe.

you in line amid that grand march to “the end” — “Can’t stop and reflect, Gramps, I’ve got a hot date waiting for me,” kind of thing, you know?

But, even with my respect and acknowledgement of what death “is,” nothing prepared me for the way my world was shattered with the untimely passing of my childhood best friend, Jason, as a result of a motorcycle accident. He was 19, soon to turn 20. I received the news from my grieving mother the night I had just returned back to my native Upstate New York from the spring semester of sophomore year of college in Connecticut.

Jason had passed away the night before, with word of his accident working its way around our hometown throughout the day, all while I was en route back to the North Country. I’ll never forget carefully making my way up the stairs of my parents’ farmhouse late at night, to not wake anybody up, only to hear my mother sobbing in the dark in her bedroom as I received the news.

And, when I do return home to Clinton County, and find myself passing by the cemetery where he’s buried, I’ll usually make sure to swing in and pay my respects, always saying hello and kissing the headstone before I crank the truck engine and continue on my whirlwind journey to somewhere, anywhere.

Grief never gets easier, where the weight of another passing, whether unexpected or of natural causes, always seems to add layers to the intricate dynamic of your emotions, and to the lens by which you view the world, your interactions and reactions, in your own time and place. As they say, “life is a mystery to be lived, not a puzzle to be solved.”

I, for one, have used my past grief as a way to truly appreciate the present moment, and what the future may hold. Grief makes me aware of “the now,” and to be cognizant of a beautiful and unfolding moments with another kind soul as it happens in real time, where, eventually, you turn to that person and say, “You know, you’re someone I’m supposed to know in this lifetime.”

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

WINE

And we all will die, and even the stars will fade out one after another in time

Big Creek. (Garret K. Woodward photo)

On the beat

Interested in learning the dulcimer?

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.

Mariachi legend to play WCU

Worldwide sensation Mariachi Sol de México de José Hernàndez will perform at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, in the Bardo Arts Center at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.

The Grammy-nominated band is fronted by fifth-generation Mariachi musician, Mastero Hernàndez, who is an internationally recognized musician, composer, and educator. He has recorded with respected names in the industry, including Selena, Vincente Fernandez, Luis Miquel, Bryan Adams, and the Beach Boys.

While his family tree is rooted in the Mariachi musicians that hail from La Sierra del Tigre region of Jalisco, Hernàndez built on that foundation to grow Mariachi music in new territories, musical genres, and in the hearts of new audiences.

After forming Mariachi Sol de Mexico in 1981, Hernàndez charismatic arrangements and first-class musical direction led the group to instant and lasting success: playing in sold out halls from Madison Square Garden to Beijing, China and Pyongyang, North Korea.

Known as the “world’s premiere Mariachi group,” they gained the attention of the White House and have been invited to play for five U.S. presidents from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama.

Hernandez’s classical arrangements have led to them sharing the stage with symphony orchestras such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Santa Rosa Symphony, San Francisco Symphony and Jalisco Symphony.

To purchase tickets, click on arts.wcu.edu/explore.

Blues, roots at Innovation

Americana/folk singer-songwriter Woolybooger will perform at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, at Innovation Brewing in Sylva.

Dubbed “music to grow your hair out to,” the Murphy musician is well-regarded for his mix of blues and roots music into a unique Southern Appalachian tone. Free and open to the public. innovation-brewing.com.

Sylva library welcomes Fuzzy Peppers

A musical concert featuring Fuzzy Peppers will be held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8, in the Community Room at the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva.

Fuzzy Peppers is a band formed by friends and friends-of-friends who worked together at downtown Sylva’s own Guadalupe Cafe. With dashes of influences ranging from the bayous of Louisiana, the high hills of Appalachia, to the strip-malls of suburbia, this band brings a truly eclectic sound to your eardrums.

This program is free and open to the public. The event is co-sponsored by the Friends of the Jackson County Public Library. For more information, please call the library at 828.586.2016. The Jackson County Public Library is a member of Fontana Regional Library (fontanalib.org).

Rock, soul at Boojum

Asheville-based rock/roots group The Get Right Band will perform at 9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 4, in The Gem downstairs taproom at Boojum Brewing in Waynesville.

Led by singer/guitarist Silas Durocher, the ensemble also includes Jesse Gentry (bass) and drummer J.C. Mears (drums). What stands out about this band is the mere fact that nobody around this region sounds like them. Free and open to the public. To learn more, call 828.246.0350 or click on boojumbrewing.com. For more information on The Get Right Band, click on thegetrightband.com.

Woolybooger. (File photo)

The Get Right Band. (File photo)

Mariachi Sol de México de José Hernàndez (File photo)

Fuzzy Peppers. (File photo)

On the beat

• 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. blueridgebeerhub.com.

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 Skies Of Avalon 4 p.m. Nov. 5 and April B. 6 p.m. Nov. 12. All shows begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.349.2337 or lazyhikerbrewing.com.

• The Scotsman (Waynesville) will host The Carter Giegerich Trio (Celtic/bluegrass) from 2 to 5 p.m. every Sunday, Rene Russell (singer-songwriter) 8 p.m. Nov. 3, The Paper Crowns (indie/soul) Nov. 4 and The Jon Cox Band (rock/country) Nov. 12. All shows begin at 9 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.246.6292 or scotsmanpublic.com.

ALSO:

• Boojum Brewing (Waynesville) will host karaoke at 8:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, trivia at 7 p.m. on Thursdays, The Get Right Band (rock/soul) Nov. 4 and Nick Mac & The Noise Nov. 5. All shows begin at 9 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 828.246.0350 or boojumbrewing.com.

• Currahee Brewing (Franklin) will host Roscoe’s Roadhouse 7 p.m. Nov. 12. 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 Eireann’s Call (Celtic/world) 7 p.m. Nov. 3. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. Tickets are $25 in advance, $30 at the door. For tickets, click on folkmoot.org.

• Fontana Village Resort Wildwood Grill will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 800.849.2258 or fontanavillage.com.

• Frog Level Brewing (Waynesville) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. 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 live music every Saturday. 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 Night with Kirk” from 7 to 9 p.m. every Tuesday, Open Mic Night every Wednesday, Andy Ferrell (singer-songwriter) Nov. 3, Woolybooger (blues/folk) Nov. 5 and Alma Russ (Americana/folk) Nov. 10. All shows begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. innovation-brewing.com.

• Innovation Station (Dillsboro) will host “Music Bingo” with Hibiscus Sunshine every

• 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 Skies Of Avalon 5 p.m. Nov. 4. 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) Community Jam will resume in April. 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 w/Ivor Sparks every Wednesday. Free and open to the public. 828.538.0115 or mountainlayersbrewingcompany.com.

• Nantahala Brewing (Sylva) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 828.641.9797 or nantahalabrewing.com.

• Nantahala Outdoor Center (Nantahala Gorge) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows behind at 5 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. noc.com.

• Orchard Coffee (Waynesville) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. 828.246.9264 or orchardcoffeeroasters.com.

• Quirky Birds Treehouse & Bistro (Dillsboro) will host Open Mic Night at 7 p.m. every Tuesday and Shane Meade & The Sound (indie/soul) 7 p.m. Nov. 18. 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.

• SlopeSide Tavern (Sapphire) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 828.743.8655 or slopesidetavern.com.

• Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts (Franklin) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. For more information and/or to purchase tickets, click on smokymountainarts.com or call 828.524.1598.

• 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 Blackjack Country Nov. 3, Genepool Nov. 4, Jason Wilson & James County Nov. 5, Jay Dee Gee Nov. 10, Rock Holler Nov. 11 and Ali Randolf Nov. 12. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.538.2488.

• Valley Cigar & Wine Co. (Waynesville) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows are at 2 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.944.0686 or valleycigarandwineco.com.

• Valley Tavern (Maggie Valley) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. All shows begin at 6 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.926.7440 or valley-tavern.com.

• Water’n Hole Bar & Grill (Waynesville) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows begin at 9:30 p.m. 828.456.4750 or facebook.com/waternhole.bar.

• Wine Bar & Cellar (Sylva) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. 828.631.3075 or facebook.com/thewinebarandcellar.

• Yonder Community Market (Franklin) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. Donations encouraged. 828.200.2169 or eatrealfoodinc.com.

Your Hometown

Newspapers

428 HAZELWOOD Ave. Waynesville • 456-6000

MON-FRI 9-5 | SAT 9-3

Celtic Sunday's

W/The Carter Giegerich Trio - 2-5pm

Incredible Celtic Folk - Every Sunday Relaxation Along With Your Guinness!

Live Music Every Thursday 8pm

Thursday, November 3rd

Live Music w/ Rene Russel 8pm - 10:30pm Americana -Rock-World Music

Friday, November 4 th

First Friday The Paper Crowns Presented by Adamas Entertainment 9pm-12amRock - Americana

Saturday, November 12th

The Jon Cox Band Presented by Adamas Entertainment 9pm-12am - Rock - FolkCountry - Americana

37

Mon-Thurs: 4PM-12AM | Fri & Sat: 12PM-12AM | Sun: 10AM-12AM

On the street

WNC Pottery Festival returns

The immensely popular WNC Pottery Festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, in Bridge Park in Sylva.

Showcasing the work of more than 40 master potters from an array of states. A variety of clay art styles will be presented with over 40 master potters. The event is juried and the lineup of potters are some of the finest in their craft.

The event has been named one of the “Top 20” events in the Southeast for November. Admission is $5. Children under 12 are free. For more information, click on wncpotteryfestival.com.

• The Veterans Day Parade & Ceremony will be held at 10:30 a.m. Friday, Nov. 11, on Main Street in Franklin. The parade will leave from the Franklin Town Hall. The Veterans Ceremony will follow at 11 a.m. in the Gazebo on the Square. Lineup begins at 10 a.m. franklin-chamber.com.

• “Festival of Trees” annual charity gala will be held at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, at Reflections at the Pond in Canton. Proceeds will go to the KARE House: Haywood County’s children’s advocacy center. For tickets or to make a donation, click on secure.qgiv.com/event/ festivaloftrees2022/register.

• “Contra Dance” gathering will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, at the Macon County Public Library in Franklin. Lessons will be offered at 6:30 p.m. Suggested donation of $10. No experience needed. Dances will be taught by a professional caller and accompanied by a live band. 828.524.3600 or fontanalib.org.

• The popular “Polar Express” train ride will resume rides on select dates starting on Nov. 10 from the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad depot in downtown Bryson City. For a complete listing of departure dates and times, call 800.872.4681 or click on gsmr.com.

• “Letters to Santa, Cocoa & Cookies” will be offered by the Swain County Heritage Museum and Visitor Center in Bryson City. Complimentary hot cocoa and cookies. Kids will love the opportunity to write and mail their letters to Santa. Materials provided, with the last day to submit letters being Christmas Eve. greatsmokies.com.

ALSO:

• “Christmas Lights Drive-Thru” will be held Nov. 10-Dec. 31 at the Great Smoky Mountains Event Park in Bryson City. For more information, a full schedule of activities and/or to purchase tickets, click on greatsmokies.com/christmas-light-showbryson-city.

WNC Pottery Festival. (Jackson County Chamber of Commerce photo)

On the wall

• “Holiday Craft Fair” will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 12, at the Memorial United Methodist Church in Franklin. franklin-chamber.com.

• “Pottery Workshop” with Cheryl Thompson will be held from 9:30 a.m. to noon Nov. 10 and from 1 to 4 p.m. Nov. 17 at the Masonic Lodge in Sylva. Hosted by Dogwood Crafters. Instructor will be Cheryl Thompson. Cost is $35 cash day of class. Learn the skill needed to make a hand-built pottery piece. Register by calling 828.586.2248 or stop by Dogwood Crafters in Dillsboro. RSVP by Nov. 3.

• Friends of the Greenway will host its annual arts and crafts fundraising event, FROG Fair, which will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, at FROG Quarters, located at 573 East Main St. in Franklin. Vendor spaces are available. Only registration fees go to FROG. For registration forms, click on littletennessee.org or stop by FROG Quarters. For more information, email frog28734@gmail.com.

• “Fiber Arts Group” will be held from 10 a.m to 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, at the Macon County Public Library in Franklin. Bring your fiber art project, share inspiration, and have fun: quilters, knitters, cross-stitch, and embroiderers. 828.524.3600 or fontanalib.org.

• “Our Mountain Music Traditions” exhibition

will be showcased through Nov. 13 at the Haywood County Arts Council in downtown Waynesville. Works of art that use music as its inspiration, with a focus on bluegrass, Appalachian and mountain music. For more information, click on haywoodarts.org.

• “Cultivating Collections: Glass” exhibition will be on display through Dec. 9 in the Fine Art Museum at the Bardo Arts Center at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. Regular museum hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and until 7 p.m. on Thursday. 828.227.ARTS or visit bardoartscenter.wcu.edu.

• Southwestern Community College Swain Arts Center (Bryson City) will host an array of workshops for adults and kids. For more information on the upcoming classes and/or to sign-up, click on southwesterncc.edu/scc-locations/ swain-center.

• “Holiday Art Market” will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 12, at the Nantahala School for the Arts in Bryson City. For more information, click on facebook.com/scc.nsa

• Dogwood Crafters in Dillsboro will host an array of upcoming art classes and workshops. For more information and a full schedule of activities, click on dogwoodcrafters.com/classes.html or call 828.586.2248.

FREE ESTIMATES

• “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.

On the stage

PBS NC to air Chappel documentary

An hour-long documentary film about the life and times of one of North Carolina’s most influential writers, “Fred Chappell: I am One of You Forever,” will have its broadcast premiere this week on PBS NC.

Chappell is the author of more than 30 works of fiction, criticism, and poetry, and the winner of numerous awards. Some claim that “Fred Chappell is the most important Southern writer ever” (author Lee Smith), while others day he is “one of the most important poets of our time” (author Robert Morgan).

Chappell grew up on a farm in the Great Smoky Mountains. His early life was marked by the struggle between the old ways of Appalachia that lingered due to the region’s isolation, and the new ways of modern industry represented by the Champion Paper and Fibre Company in Canton.

He read pulp magazines as a kid and

• A stage production of the “Beauty & The Beast” musical will be held at 7 p.m. Nov. 45 and 11-12 at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts in Franklin. The classic story tells of Belle, a young woman in a provincial town, and the Beast, who is really a prince trapped under the spell of an enchantress. The enchantment never ends in this romantic and beloved take on the classic fairytale. A two-act musical production presented by The Overlook Theatre Company. Tickets are $13 for students, $17 for adults. To purchase tickets or to find out

wrote science fiction as a teenager. Chappell went on to create one of the nation’s first graduate creative writing programs, and later in his life won the Bollingen Prize for Poetry, an award that puts him in the company of Robert Frost, W. H. Auden and e.e. cummings.

Chappell was also among the first Appalachian writers to challenge the hillbilly stereotype and he remains a galvanizing spiritual leader for the region’s writers. Broadcast times are as follows:

• 10 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3 (PBS NC)

• 4 a.m. Friday, Nov. 4 (PBS NC)

• 8 p.m. Monday, Nov. 7 (North Carolina Channel)

• 1 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8 (North Carolina Channel)

• 9 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8 (North Carolina Channel)

For more on Fred Chappell, click on poetryfoundation.org/poets/fred-chappell.

more information, click on smokymountainarts.com or call 866.273.4615.

• “Calliope Shorts: Campfire Stories” will be held at 7 p.m. Nov. 3-5 on the Calliope Stage at the Full Spectrum Farm in Cullowhee. Admission starts at $16 per person. For more information and/or to purchase tickets, click on calliopestage.com.

• “Introduction to Comedy Improvisation” course will be held from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Nov. 8 at the Folkmoot Friendship Center in Waynesville. For more information, click on folkmoot.org/courses.

Fred Chappell. (File photo)

On the shelf

Lost and found in the woods of Appalachia

Another regional writer has just published a new book. Janisse Ray, whom I know as an original member of the Southern Nature Project (www.southernnature.org) and author of “Ecology of a Cracker Childhood,” is winner of many major national literary awards as well as being inducted as a member of the Georgia Literary Hall of Fame. A Georgia native, she is a neighbor of ours here in the Southern Appalachians, which is where her new book and her first novel takes place.

Set in Fannin County in northern Georgia just over the North Carolina line, and based on a true story that took place in the 1940s, “The Woods of Fannin County” tells the amazing story of eight children who were abandoned in the north Georgia woods by their parents and relatives and left to fend for themselves — “scrounging for food among the pawpaw groves, ramp covers and wild apples of Southern Appalachia” — for four years before they were found and rescued. Having heard this story from her father, Janisse Ray spent the next 10 years researching and actually talking to some of the children who were among the siblings in the Woods family (interestingly ironic family name for this particular story) who had been abandoned so long before.

“I worked closely with the Woods family, who made the decision to leave their names intact. I chose to write this book as a book of fiction to protect the identities of others. Otherwise, the story is as close to the truth as possible,” Ray writes.

In an interestingly constructed and written book, for “The Woods of Fannin County,” Ray alternates between the past and the present and between a third person narrative and a first person account as told by the book’s central character of Bobby. “Sometimes, someone leads you to a jewel of a story, a diamond of a story, that reaches out and grabs you and won’t let go,” writes Ray in her promotional material. This book is one of those “jewels,” those “diamonds,” with unique chapter headings outlining the general storyline and quotes from Bobby supplying the mental and emotional details. We begin the story with the first chapter titled “A forsaken mother sets off with eight children on an inexplicable journey by mule and wagon,

Sylva monthly book club

1945.” From Morganton, Georgia, with no father and with all the children wondering where they were going, and with the townspeople looking on as the wagon rolls down Main Street, the slow arduous journey begins, followed by chapters titled, “The children arrive at a place in the hills they’ve never seen; The children begin to learn the lay of the land; Without fire and matches; Christmas passes unbeknownst and January almost brings disaster; Bobby learns more information about his mother; Bobby wants

sure they put us there to die. I’ve thought about this from all angles and that’s what I come back to, every time. I think they needed to get rid of us and they were too proud to give us away,” he explains later.

As we get into the second half of the book, certain other characters begin having awkward interactions with some of the children, but even knowing the children’s situation decide for their own illogical or selfish reasons not to do anything about it to alleviate the children’s suffering. “He found Mr. Allen pulling corn off dry stalks in a field near the house.

‘We’re needing some vittles,’ Bobby said.

‘America,’ the old man yelled from the stoop of the house, ‘Those children need some vittles.’ ‘I told you I want no part of that,’ his wife answers back. ‘We’ve got plenty,’ he said. ‘He needs to find that daddy of his’n,’ she replied as she stepped back and shut the door, hard. His grandpa Allen was letting his own grandchildren live in a shanty up a mountain, starving to death.”

‘Where Is Our Prague Spring?’

Sylva resident Louise Morgan Runyon will release her fifth book of poems “Where Is Our Prague Spring?” at 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.

This book examines Runyon’s deep love for the mountains of Western North Carolina; her childhood experience of love here; and her attempts to reconcile this love with the hatred and division found in the present. A great-niece of Lucy Morgan, founder of the renowned Penland School of Crafts, Runyon honors her visionary and activist family in these poems.

Says poet Catherine Carter of Western Carolina University, “…Runyon interrogates the place and her family’s long history there to illuminate a complicated tradition of Appalachian progressivism dating both back to and forward from the Trail of Tears. These thoughtful poems evoke an Appalachia that few outsiders know: simultaneously progressive and conservative, woven into the wider world in unexpected ways, and rooted deeply in the labor and vision of women.”

Kami Ahrens of Foxfire Museum notes, “Runyon’s manner of writing engages the reader in conversations about contemporary themes that reflect stories of the past while providing lessons for the future. A must-read for any lover of Appalachian literature.”

to destroy everything that stands in the way of love; An active moonshine still is the beginning of the end.”

In between these narrative chapters we get to share Bobby’s most intimate memories and thoughts.

“Where we lived up on that mountain was called Loving. I wish someone could explain that. It was a name that sure as hell didn’t fit,” he says early on in the book. “All this brings back memories I didn’t want to think about. A person needs a mother and a father. They damn sure need somebody. I’m pretty

Finally, in the last third of the book, with their mom living in a tourist motel in Morganton working as a “streetwoman” and the children no longer knowing what month it was, they pass the time playing baseball with a stout straight limb for a bat and a pine cone for a ball and riverstones for bases. To survive, they had to constantly seek food in whatever form they could find it, they had to stockpile firewood and they had to teach the little ones what they knew. Or, as Bobby says near the end of the book: “I’d say, knowing what I know now about life, that we were lost in a wilderness. We were part of that mountain and a part of the woods. It wasn’t a dream.”

(“The Woods of Fannin County” can be purchased at your local independent book store. Thomas Crowe is a regular contributor to The Smoky Mountain News and author of the multi-awardwinning non-fiction nature memoir “Zoro’s Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods.”)

Runyon was born and raised in New York City but grew up at Penland School in the summertime. She lived most of her adult life in Atlanta before coming back to Western North Carolina in 2019. A dancer and choreographer as well as poet, she is Artistic Director of Louise Runyon Performance Company. The publication of her new book is supported by the Jackson County Arts Council.

To reserve copies, call the bookstore at 828.586.9499.

Words of appreciation

A special literary gathering, “Transparent Mountain: A Reading and Conversation with Loss Glazier & Brent Martin” will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9, at the Macon County Public Library in Franklin.

Join the discussion about being here in these mountains, observing this wonder, and immersing ourselves into this place.

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).

“Loss Pequeño Glazier’s new epic poem is an incredible statement on the power of observation and attention to place. Much in the spirit of William Bartram, it is full of both love and lamentation for these southern mountains and for all of life on this amazing planet,” said Brent Martin, executive director of the Blue Ridge Bartram Trail Conservancy. To learn more, visit ecopoetrync.com.

Writer

Thomas Crowe

Joining the herd

Family-run bison farm, vacation rental flourishes in Clyde

BY HOLLY KAYS OUTDOORS E DITOR

When Cheryl Hillis started managing vacation rentals in Haywood County 15 years ago, Airbnb didn’t exist, reservations were made with phone calls and mailed checks, and she lived nowhere near Western North Carolina. Hillis was the face of Buffalo Creek Vacations, but she took reservations and managed payments from whichever town her military husband and their four boys lived at the time.

“Sometimes my husband would be deployed, and I had the boys,” she recalled. “I remember one time it was just nuts. They would be banging on the door for food, and I’d be in the pantry making a reservation the

old-fashioned way.”

“We built this with a lot of sweat and love and hard work,” she added.

What Hillis — along with her parents, Harold and Harriet Clackett, husband Jeff and three brothers with their spouses — have built is Trinity Bison Ranch and Buffalo Creek Vacations, a 72-acre enclave in Crabtree that is part vacation destination, part working farm and part petting zoo.

‘WE CALL HIM NOAH’

While Hillis has long been the public face of the family business, the story started with her father Harold, who spent his working years as a UPS truck driver on Long Island, New York. When he retired, he wanted a change. In 1994, Harold and his wife Harriet moved down to Clyde.

“He loved bison,” said Hillis. “He wanted to raise something American-made. So he built his house and got four bison.”

Ten years later, the 40 acres behind them came up for sale, and Harold quickly contacted his daughter and five sons, urging them to pool their money and help buy it. Of the six siblings, four opted in — setting the stage to expand the bison herd, build an ever-increasing number of cabins and acquire a growing roster of other farm animals. In 2005, Cheryl and Jeff invested five additional bison in the herd and in 2007 the first vacation rental opened.

“My dad, we call him Noah because he feels like he has to have every kind of animal,” Hillis said.

Currently, the farm is home not only to the bison herd, which now numbers 38 animals, but also alpacas, llamas, mini donkeys, horses, mini horses, goats, rabbits, chickens and a tom turkey. It also holds 10 cabins — that number is set to increase to 14 by the end of 2024 — and two luxury caboose rentals, with renovations underway on four more. Like the model train exhibit on the top floor of the main building, the renovated cabooses are a nod to Harold’s love of trains.

But the 38 enormous animals at the center of the property are the reason for it all. On Sept. 17, the herd welcomed the annual conference of the Eastern Bison Association, an event typically held further north.

“He (Harold) always just loved bison, and bison are our national mammal,” said Hillis. “He just wanted to preserve and protect them.”

AMERICA’S NATIONAL MAMMAL

The American bison, the largest terrestrial animal in North America, once covered grasslands and prairies across the continent. With males weighing a ton or more, bison provided abundant and healthy meat to the Native American societies in their range, and their various body parts supplied materials for clothing, shelter and tools. Their populations reached into the tens of millions, but European Americans settling the western half of the continent in the 1800s saw the bison as an enemy supply line to be cut off. The U.S. Army launched a campaign to remove Native American tribes by exterminating bison, their main food source. By the late 1880s, the giant herds were nearly gone.

Today, about 30,000 bison live in public and private herds across the continent that are managed for conservation goals, according to the National Park Service — including the 2,300 to 5,500 that are part of the iconic Yellowstone National Park population.

However, approximately 400,000 bison are raised as livestock, as is the case at Trinity Bison Ranch.

While the farm in Haywood County is thousands of miles away from the famed bison herds of Yellowstone and the Black Hills, hundreds of years ago the spot may well have housed native wild bison. The animals’

historical range was not relegated to the American West.

“The buffalo was certainly here long before the Cherokees emerged as a distinctive culture about a thousand years ago. They knew the great beast as ‘yansa,’ and utilized it for clothing and food,” naturalist George Ellison wrote in a 2010 column for The Smoky Mountain News. “According to Arlene Fradkin’s Cherokee Folk Zoology (N.Y.: Garland, 1990), the horns were made into surgical instruments for curing swellings from boils and toothaches as well as for war trumpets. Buffalo hoofs were sometimes worn on warriors’ feet during war expeditions so as to deceive the enemy. To this day the buffalo dance is still a favorite among the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.”

Most experts believe the bison had been extirpated — or made locally extinct — from the mountains of Western North Carolina by around 1865, Ellison wrote, adding that the last reference he could locate came from a 1752-53 diary kept by Bishop Augustus Gottlieb Spangenberg during an exploration of the Blue Ridge. Bison in the Smokies region were usually described as smaller and better adapted to woodland living than the western plains bison, but F

A mother alpaca sniffs her newborn baby. Cheryl Hillis photo

A mini donkey brays on an autumn afternoon.

Holly Kays photo

The bison herd run in for feeding time. Buffalo Creek Vacations photo

NOC offers inaugural Women’s Pedal Fest

An empowering festival for female mountain bikers will come to the Nantahala Outdoor Center Friday, Nov. 11, to Sunday, Nov. 13, the inaugural Women’s Pedal Fest.

The weekend will feature organized rides and clinics at Fire Mountain Trails and Tsali Recreation Area, with riders of all levels encour-

aged to come out for a weekend of improving skills and creating community. Lodging, meals and more will take place on the NOC campus in Swain County.

Registration is $60 and includes an event Tshirt, raffle, rides and live riverside music Saturday night. Optional instruction and mechanic clinics are an additional $75, and the meal package is $54. A variety of lodging options are available.

Learn more or sign up at noc.com/events.

Ellison believes that the animals were more an ecological variant of the plains bison than a genetic one.

Genetically, the bison inhabiting farms like Trinity aren’t distant relatives of their wild cousins like horses and cows are from their wild predecessors, Hillis said. The bison live a domestic lifestyle, but they don’t have a domestic temperament.

“We don’t even pet them. We want to but we don’t,” said Hillis. “They are not aggressive, but they are wild animals.”

On roundup day, which typically takes place on Black Friday, the Clackett family gets about 10 people together to run the bison through the chute, tagging the calves, deworming the whole herd and identifying bulls for next year’s processing. It’s stressful, Hillis said, being that close to such enormous animals. You have to keep your wits about you.

“They don’t really paw the ground like cows or bulls, but when that tail goes straight up, that’s when they’re irritated, and they’re gonna charge you,” said Hillis. “We rarely see that here. Unless you make them mad, they’re just out in the pasture enjoying life.”

JUMPING IN

Harold Clackett didn’t start the bison herd with the goal of producing meat, but as the herd grew processing became a necessity. The property can’t sustain uncontrolled growth. In 2015, the family started processing a few bison each year — currently, the annual number is four, typically bulls.

“If you don’t cull them out, they will,” Hillis said. “The bulls will kill each other

off.”

Each year, they get six or seven calves from the females in the herd. After the bulls are sent off to the processor, they’ll buy some new animals to maintain the herd’s genetic diversity. The meat gets sold and served to the property’s guests, as well as at the Haywood’s Historic Farmers Market and in the Trinity Burger served at Furman’s Burger Bar in Waynesville. The farm also offers farm-fresh eggs and fiber products from the alpacas and llamas.

“We’re just a very small, family-run business,” Hillis said, “so we all jump in and have a part.”

Now, Hillis can play her part in person, rather than using phones and email to maintain her connection from some distant military base. After 27 years of service, Hillis’ husband Jeff retired to civilian life last year. The couple is building a house on the property, nestled amid the fields holding horses and alpacas.

As a 20-something Long Islander helping her dad get the vacation rental business off the ground, Hillis was skeptical of the whole endeavor. Who would come out to Clyde, North Carolina, to sleep in a cabin hidden up a gravel mountain road?

Lots of people, it turns out. The cabins and cabooses are frequently full, especially during leaf season. And while Hillis’ days are busy with answering phones, helping guests and managing the business, just outside the door is the menagerie of animals and the natural beauty that draws millions of people to the mountains each year. Ultimately, it drew Hillis too.

“I love the country,” she said. “I love living here.”

Drought strengthens in WNC

Drought continues to tighten its grip in Western North Carolina, according to the latest update from the N.C. Drought Advisory Council analyzing data through Oct. 25.

Most of Graham County and part of Swain County are now experiencing severe drought, with the number of counties in moderate drought increasing from eight in the Oct. 18 map to 12 Oct. 25. In addition to nine mountain counties, including Swain, that number includes three counties in the southeastern part of the state. An additional 42 counties are designated abnormally dry. Across the

Southeastern U.S., 95.75% of the land area is abnormally dry or in drought.

Fire activity is increasing as dry conditions persist, especially in the mountains and sandhills. The N.C. Forest Service reported 169 wildfires burning 235 acres in the week prior to the Oct. 25 map. Asheville had received only 0.24 inches of rain this month, putting it on pace for its driest October since 2000.

Drought maps are released every Thursday at ncdrought.org based on data collected as of 8 a.m. that Tuesday.

Drought maps are released every Thursday at ncdrought.org. N.C. Drought Advisory Council map

Member of the Clackett family pose on one of the property’s caboose rentals.

Buffalo Creek Vacations photo

Fish the West Fork

A fly fishing excursion Saturday, Nov. 12, will offer the chance to cast the West Fork of the Pigeon River with an expert angler.

Ray Sugg will lead this expedition through Haywood County Recreation and Parks, starting at 9 a.m. A fishing license is required, and participants should bring their own rod and flies. Waders are strongly recommended, with limited sizes available for loan.

Call 828.452.6789 to inquire about loaners. Sign up at bit.ly/haywoodrec.

Learn more about streamer fishing

Eddie Hudon will discuss the ins and outs of streamer fishing during a meeting of the Cataloochee Trout Unlimited chapter beginning at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8, at Valley Tavern in Maggie Valley.

The meeting will begin with storytelling and a swap meet, followed by a 50/50 drawing and raffle for a bamboo fly rod to be given away at the Christmas party Dec. 13.

For more information, contact tucataloochee427@gmail.com.

Hunt safe

A free hunter safety certification course will be offered 6 to 9 p.m. Nov. 8-9 at Haywood Community College.

Offered by HCC’s Department of Arts, Sciences and Natural Resources in partnership with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, the course will be held in room 3322 of building 3300. In addition to firearm safety, it will cover ethics and responsibility, conservation and wildlife management, wildlife identification, survival and first aid, specialty hunting, and tree stand safety.

Participants must come both days to get certified. Free and no age limits, though participants must pass a written test without assistance. The certification is accepted in every state and province in North America. Pre-registration required at www.ncwildlife.org.

Prescribed burn planned for Cades Cove

A prescribed burn covering about 1,200 acres of fields in Cades Cove within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will occur between Nov. 1 and Nov. 22.

Seasonal controlled burns help bolster

scape at Cades Cove.

Help fill the West Fork with trout

Volunteers are wanted to help the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission stock trout into the West Fork Pigeon River in Haywood County beginning at 10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 10.

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.

native plant species that provide cover and food for a diversity of wildlife, including deer, turkeys and ground-nesting birds. For the last 20 years, park managers have conducted spring and fall burns under specific parameters to safely reduce fuels, restore meadows and maintain the historic land-

Hike Cove Forest

Staff closely monitor fire weather conditions, including moisture, wind speed and direction, temperature and relative humidity when timing the burns. Forecasted precipitation in East Tennessee over the next few weeks is expected to improve conditions for safe burning. Visitors should expect to see firefighters and equipment along Sparks Lane, Hyatt Lane and the Cades Cove Loop Road. Delays and road closures may occur. Fire activity and smoke will be visible during burn operations. Motorists should slow down in work zones but refrain from stopping, rolling up their windows and turning on headlights when smoke is present.

Enjoy an easy 2-mile out-and-back hike Nov. 5 with the Nantahala Hiking Club.

The group will meet at 10 a.m. at the Piggly Wiggly in Dillard, Georgia, and carpool to Patterson Gap to hike on the Cove Forest Trail and Anselm Trail. Afterward, they’ll travel a short distance to Barker’s Creek Mill to see the mill operate and eat lunch.

Visitors and well-behaved dogs welcome. Bring food, including lunch, and water. Free, with no reservations required. For more information or in case of foul weather, contact David Stearns at 828.349.7361.

New trail unveiled in Graham County

A trio of recently completed trail projects in the Nantahala National Forest in Graham County offers people of all ages new opportunities for hiking, biking and horseback riding.

Enhancements to an 8.5-mile former U.S. Forest Service road allow access for mountain bikers and horseback riders on the Santeetlah Lake Trail. The project was completed through a partnership with Graham County Travel and Tourism Authority.

Support from the Graham Revitalization Economic Action Team and the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation also allowed installation of two new Kids in Parks TRACK Trails.

■ The 0.7-mile Massey Branch Fitness Trail offers a short uphill warmup through rhododendron thickets, where users can

sample various fitness stations working out various muscle groups. A workout within the forest, the trail allows people to put their athletic skills to the test while surrounded by nature.

■ The 0.25-mile out-and-back CCC Camp Trail honors the Civilian Conservation Corps, which employed young men during the Great Depression. It includes a walk out to an observation camp that overlooks their historic camp, with interpretive signs along the way.

To fund its part of the project, GREAT received a grant from Duke Energy with additional support from Graham County Travel and Tourism and Western North Carolina Community Foundation. Partners of Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness, Inc. also contributed hours of in-kind labor assistance.

More information about recreational opportunities is available at fs.usda.gov/goto/cheoah.

A young volunteer watches a bucket of trout swim off into the river. Donated photo

A map shows where prescribed burning will occur. NPS map

An angler tries his luck in one of the region’s many trout streams. File photo

Watch the Capitol Christmas Tree harvest

After almost a year of planning, the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree, a 78-foot red spruce affectionately called “Ruby,” will be harvested from the Pisgah National Forest in a virtual ceremony at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 2.

The online event will include a musical performance by Woody Platt and Shannon Whitworth, and the Cherokee Legend of the Evergreen Trees told by this year’s Youth Tree Lighter, Coche Tiger, a citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Rodney Smith, a 30-year employee of the Uhwarrie National Forest, will harvest the tree using a STIHL chainsaw. With support from Dover Crane and Bartlett Tree Experts, the red spruce will be carefully maneuvered into placement on a flatbed trailer provided by Hale Trailer. The tree will be transported by a specially decaled Kenworth T680 driven by Ed Kingdon Jr. and Deb Kingdon of North Carolina-based carrier Hardy Brothers Trucking. Afterward, Ruby will hit the road for a 14-day tour from the Pisgah National Forest to Washington, D.C., starting with a Harvest Celebration 3-5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, at the Western North Carolina Agricultural Center.

Watch the harvesting celebration at facebook.com/uscapitolchristmastree. For a complete list of tour times and stops, visit www.uscapitolchristmastree.com.

Tremont announces 2023 programs

Outdoor education programs scheduled throughout 2023 in the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont are now open for registration.

The 2023 schedule features summer camps for kids and young adults, family camps, professional development for teachers, photography workshops, hiking and backpacking adventures, naturalist programs and wilderness emergency

medical courses. The schedule also includes the return of Naturalist Week, a summer camp for adults that includes animal tracking, birding, sketching, stargazing, plant identification and more.

From its campus inside the national park, Tremont provides experiential environmental education programs for people ages four and up. Most programs are residential, ranging from two to ten days long, providing an immersive experience for participants. Program prices include lodging and meals.

Register at gsmit.org/program/calendar. Financial aid is available for most programs. Donate to the scholarship fund at gsmit.org/financial-aid.

Haywood Waterways to present Shelton Branch Watershed Restoration Plan

At 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8, Haywood Waterways Association will present a report detailing a watershed restoration plan for the Shelton Brand watershed in Waynesville.

The report was funded through a $27,980 grant that the Southwestern Commission received in collaboration with Haywood Waterways from the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality using dollars that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allocates for states to do water quality planning. Haywood Waterways, together with the Town of Waynesville, contracted with Jennings Environmental to produce the watershed management plan.

The plant doctor is in

Shelton Branch, a subwatershed of Richland Creek, a 2.1-square-mile urban watershed located entirely within town limits. The project team identified priority areas for preservation and restoration projects. Generally, these areas currently contain inadequate buffers, eroding streambanks and sources of nonpoint source pollution and sedimentation. The report summarizes the resulting watershed restoration plan for the Shelton Branch watershed and provides a roadmap for future watershed improvement projects. It includes watershed characterization data, including land cover, soils, and hydrology; specific recommendations for restoration and preservation efforts that would protect and improve water resources; and resources, including conceptual design information and potential funding sources that can be used to facilitate future watershed restoration projects. For more information, contact Haywood Waterways at 828.476.4667 or info@haywoodwaterways.org.

The growing season is winding down, but Haywood County Master Gardeners are available to answer questions about all manner of plant-related issues.

Leave a message at the Cooperative Extension Office at 828.456.3575 or email haywoodemgv@gmail.com with a description of any homeowner gardening issue, including lawns, vegetables, flowers, trees and ornamental plants; disease, insect, weed or wildlife problems; soils (including soil test results) and fertilizers; freeze and frost damage; and cultural and chemical solutions to plant problems. Within a few days, a Haywood County Master Gardener Volunteer will get back to you with research-based information.

Smokies trails closed while black bears eat

Due to a large concentration of bears eating acorns, two trails in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park are closed until further notice. These include the Gatlinburg Trail between Gatlinburg and Sugarlands Visitor Center and Twin Creeks Trail between Gatlinburg and the Twin Creeks Science and Education Center.

Bears depend on fall foods like acorns and grapes to store the fat reserves they need to survive the winter. Some will travel

Celebrate salamanders

more than 30 miles to feed on a particular stand of oak trees, often feeding more than 12 hours per day.

Though generally solitary, in the fall several bears may be seen feeding close together where food is abundant. Normally wary bears may act aggressively to defend these areas.

For more information on what to do if you encounter a bear while hiking, visit nps.gov/grsm/naturescience/blackbears.htm.

Western North Carolina is the salamander capital of the world, and Jason Love, associate director of the Highlands Biological Station, will talk all about it at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, at the Macon County Library in Franklin.

nantahalahikingclub.org

State science grants awarded in WNC

Six science centers in the western region received grant money as part of the $6.3 million recently awarded through the N.C. Science Museums Grant Program.

“The North Carolina Science Museums Grant Program helps fund crucial science education across our state,” said D. Reid Wilson, secretary of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. “This investment of federal funds by the legislature and the governor will increase access to STEM experiences no matter where you live in North Carolina.”

The Highlands Nature Center and Botanical Garden in Macon County received the largest award of the six, at $148,000. The N.C. Arboretum Society and

the Asheville Museum of Science, both in Asheville, received $127,000 and $123,000, respectively. Next were two sites in Transylvania County, the Cradle of Forestry Heritage Site with $118,000 and the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute with $107,000. Friends of the WNC Nature Center in Asheville received $97,000.

The 55 grants awarded statewide ranged in size from $70,000 to $185,000, with funding through the American Rescue Plan Act as directed by the 2021 state budget. Recipients were chosen based on state-legislated criteria surrounding enhancing science, technology, engineering and math education opportunities for the public, particularly in low-resource communities. Awards will cover expenditures at the science centers from 2022 through 2025 according to the federal timeline for ARPA funding.

The talk, titled “Slippery Salamanders of the Southern Appalachians,” is part of the Nantahala Hiking Club’s regular monthly meeting. Membership is not required to attend.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is home to an estimated 2,000 black bears. Donated photo

Notes from a Plant Nerd

BY ADAM B IGELOW

Just as most of the other plants, shrubs and trees in the woods are shutting down and preparing to go dormant for the winter, here comes witch-hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) just beginning to flower for the year. Many will not see their blooms, if they notice them at all, until the leaves are gone. But they begin blooming just in time for Halloween, like any good witch would.

You may not notice the small, yellow, ribbon-like flowers at first because witch-hazel also has yellow fall leaf color, and the flowers blend in amongst the leaves. Once the leaves fall off (or are they pushed?) the yellow flowers of witch-hazel stand out from the branching stems and are more easily noticed. Which is why witchhazels are known as winter flowering plants — their flowers tend to continue to bloom into early winter.

Witch-hazel flowers are pollinated by moths, flies and small native bees. Once pollinated, their seeds take most of a year to ripen before they are ready to be dispersed. And boy, do they disperse. Over the year of ripening, the seed pods build up intense pressure. Once ripe and viable, they are launched out of the pods at speeds approaching 30 miles per hour. This technique is called ballistic seed dispersal, and witch-hazel is not the only plant around us that does this. Others include sourgrass (Oxalis stricta) and jewelweed (Impatiens spp.), but witch-hazel may be the fastest.

I know three different, competing and equally true stories for how witch-hazel got its name. The first comes from its use in dowsing, the mystical science of using one’s intuition to help find things, especially when looking for a good location to dig a well. Dowsing is also known as “witching” for water, which traces its roots back to the Old English word “wych” that means having bendable or pliant branches and may have come from the Germanic word “wik,” which means to bend. The forked branches of the witch-hazel were commonly used to dowse, or witch for water, and you know you’ve found underground water when the branches bend toward the ground.

Another story for the origin of the name witch-hazel comes from the odd growths, or galls, that often occur on top of the leaves in summer. A gall is a term for an abnormal tissue growth in plants, just as a cancer is an abnormal tissue growth in animals. Both can have different causes, and plant galls can be caused by physical damage, fungus or insects. In the case of the witch-hazel

they are caused by an aphid that makes the leaves grow a home for themselves and their offspring. These cone-shaped galls are said to look like witch’s hats.

The third equally true, yet different story for the name witch-hazel was taught to me by my friend and teacher Dr. David

since witch-hazel blooms in the winter, when other plants are dormant or “asleep,” there must be some witchcraft involved in that. David also taught me that, in addition to its commonly known use as a skin toner, the leaves were harvested and sent to vineyards in France. If a wine being produced did not have the tannic quality sought, wine makers could add the tannin-rich leaves of witch-hazel to the wine to improve its flavor.

Regardless of the name origins, witchhazel flowers are a beautiful and welcome sight at the end of the year. Their yellow, ribbon-like blooms look like streamers at a party celebrating the turning of the season. Carrying that metaphor further then, the seeds being launched are like a cannon’s salute. Often, when walking among witchhazel, you can hear the pops of the seed heads exploding and the sound of the seeds whizzing by. But you’ll never hear the one that gets you. So be careful.

(Adam Bigelow lives in Cullowhee and leads weekly wildflower walks and ecotours through Bigelow’s Botanical Excursions. bigelownc@gmail.com)

Witch-hazel flowers are most visible in the late fall and early winter, when the rest of the plant world is done for the season.

Adam Bigelow photo

COMMUNITY EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

• 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.

• Share Your View, a community conversation about local issues, news and information needs will be hosted 5:30-8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 17, at Western Carolina University. For more information, or to register visit tinyurl.com/8uyrec3w.

B USINESS & E DUCATION

• The Environmental Leadership Club at HCC will host a STEM Speaker Series from noon-1 p.m. Thursday Nov. 10. Speakers Baker Perry, Tanya Poole and Tommy Cabe will each give a 30-minute presentation and answer questions for 20 minutes. For more information contact Susan Roberts sroberts@haywood.edu or 828.565.4218.

• Haywood Community College Alumni Gathering will be held 4:30-6:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, at the Shelton House in Waynesville. RSVP by Oct. 28 by emailing hccalumni@haywood.edu or calling 828.627.4544.

• Chess 101 will take place 3:30-5 p.m. Fridays, Nov. 4 and 18, at the Canton Branch of the Haywood County Public Library. Ideal for all ages, no registration required. For more information call 828.356.2567.

• A Socrates Cafe Discussion Group will meet for the first time 7-9 p.m. Monday, Nov. 7, at the Appalachian Tea Company, 300 Everett St, in Bryson City. Thereafter the meeting will be held on the first Monday of every month. For more information call Rick Wirth 614.209.1561 or Matt Huett 917.755.6075.

• A free hunter safety certification course will be offered 6 to 9 p.m. Nov. 8-9 at Haywood Community College. Pre-registration required at www.ncwildlife.org.

• Join Balsam Mountain Trust and learn to leave the leaves in fall 3:30-4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 15, at the Waynesville Branch of the Haywood County Public Library. Ideal for all ages. For more information call 828.356.2511 or email lisa.hartzell@haywoodcountync.gov.

FUNDRAISERS AND B ENEFITS

• Friends of the Greenway will hold its Fall Arts & Crafts fundraising event FROG Fair 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Nov. 5, at the Town Bridge in Franklin. For more information, email frog28734@gmail.com.

• Festival of Trees, annual charity gala in support of Haywood County Children’s Advocacy Center, will take place at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10, at Reflections at the Pond, 489 Wood Lily Drive, in Canton. To purchase tickets visit https://secure.qgiv.com/event/festivaloftrees2022/register/.

CLUBS AND M EETINGS

• The Canton Branch Creative Writing Group meets 10:30 a.m.-noon on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month. For more information, email Jennifer at jennifer.stuart@haywoodcountync.gov or call 828.356.2561.

• Swain County Genealogical Society will hold a meeting at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 3, at the Swain County Regional

n All phone numbers area code 828 unless otherwise noted.

n To have your item listed email to calendar@smokymountainnews.com

Business Education and Training Center, 45 East Ridge Drive, in Bryson City. Free and open to the public. Peter Koch will give a presentation entitled “Migration of The Scots-Irish to Western North Carolina.”

AUTHORS AND B OOKS

• Storyteller Donal Davis will perform at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 16, at the Folkmoot Friendship Center Queen Auditorium. The event is presented by Blue Ridge Books and Folkmoot USA. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door. Visit Blue Ridge Books in store or by phone at 828.456.6000 or Folkmoot USA at 828.452.2997 or at folkmoot.org.

K IDS & FAMILIES

• Join Dana Miller from Haywood County Soil and Water Conservation for Constellations in a Jar 3:30-4:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, at the Waynesville branch of the Haywood County Public Library. Create constellations in a jar to take home and enjoy. Ideal for elementary-aged children. For more information, or to register, contact Lisa at lisahartzell@haywoodcountync.gov or call 828.356.2511.

• Move and Groove Storytime takes place 10:30-11 a.m. every Thursday, at the Canton branch of the Haywood County Public Library. Exciting, interactive music and movement story time ideal for children 2-6 years old. For more information contact Ashlyn at ashlyn.godleski@haywoodcountync.gov or at 828.356.2567.

• Wiggle Worms Storytime takes place 10:30-11 a.m. every Tuesday, at the Waynesville branch of the Haywood County Public Library. Ideal for children 2-6 years old. For information contact Lisa at lisa.hartzell@haywoodcountync.gov or call 828.356.2511.

• Next Chapter Book Club Haywood is a fun, energetic and highly interactive book club, ideal for individuals with 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.

• Contra Dance will take place at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, in the Macon County Public Library Living Room. Lessons will take place at 6:30 p.m. Suggested donation $10, no experience needed.

F OOD AND D RINK

• 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 on upcoming events, wine tastings and special dinners, click on waynesvillewine.com.

• A free wine tasting will be held from 6-8 p.m. every Thursday and 2-5 p.m. every Saturday at The Wine Bar & Cellar in Sylva. 828.631.3075.

• Take a trip around the world with four different wines every Friday 11 a.m.-8 p.m. and Saturday 11a.m.-6 p.m. at the Bryson City Wine Market. Pick from artisan Charcuterie Foods to enjoy with wines. 828.538.0420.

• Cooking classes take place at the McKinley Edwards Inn from 6-8:30 p.m. on Thursday nights. To reserve your spot call 828.488.9626.

CLASSES AND PROGRAMS

• Folkmoot USA and Daydreamz Project will host two lantern making classes from 1-3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 19, at the Folkmoot center. For more information on any of these events, visit daydreamzproject.org or call 828.476.4231 or email info@daydreamzproject.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.

• Chess 101 takes place from 3:30-4:30 p.m. every Friday in the Canton Branch of the Haywood County Public Library. No registration required, for more information call 828.648.2924.

• Wired Wednesday, one-on-one technology help is available at 3-5 p.m. every Wednesday at the Canton Branch of the Haywood County Library. For more information or to register, call 828.648.2924.

• Uptown Gallery, 30 East Main St. Franklin, will be offering Children’s Art Classes Wednesdays afternoons. Adult workshops in watercolor, acrylic paint pouring, encaustic and glass fusing are also offered. Free painting is available 10 a.m.-3 p.m. every Monday in the classroom. A membership meeting takes place on the second Sunday of the month at 3 p.m. All are welcome. Call 828.349.4607 for more information.

Visit www.smokymountainnews.com and click on Calendar for:

n Complete listings of local music scene

n Regional festivals

n Art gallery events and openings

n Complete listings of recreational offerings at health and fitness centers

n Civic and social club gatherings

Outdoors

• Help get rid of invasive plants along the Murphy River Walk and Canoe Trail during workdays 2-4 p.m. Mondays, Oct. 31 and Nov. 7. The group will use hand tools to cut invasive shrubs like Chinese privet and then treat the stumps. No prior experience is needed, with tools and training provided. Sign up at mountaintrue.org.

• Friends of the Greenway will hold FROG Fair, its annual fall arts and crafts fundraiser, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, at FROG Quarters in Franklin. frog28734@gmail.com.

• Jackson County Coon Hunters Association will hold a night hunt and bench show Saturday, Nov. 5, at 44 Oak Hill Drive in Sylva. Contact Matthew Bryson for more information at 828.506.6465.

• Enjoy an easy 2-mile out-and-back hike Saturday, Nov. 5, with the Nantahala Hiking Club. Free, with no reservations required. For more information or in case of foul weather, contact David Stearns at 828.349.7361.

• 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.

• Eddie Hudon will discuss the ins and outs of streamer fishing during a meeting of the Cataloochee Trout Unlimited chapter beginning at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8, at Valley Tavern in Maggie Valley. For more information, contact tucataloochee427@gmail.com.

• “Slippery Salamanders of the Southern Appalachians” will be presented by Jason Love, associate director of the Highlands Biological Station, at 6 p.m. Nov. 10, at the Franklin Library. All are welcome nantahalahikingclub.org.

• Waynesville Parks and Recreation Department will lead a trip to the Lost Sea and Sweet Water Valley Farm Thursday Nov. 10. The Lost Sea is the largest natural underground lake in the United States. Cost for the round trip, plus tickets to the Lost Sea and Sweet Water Valley Farm is $48 for members and $50 for non-members. For more information email tplowman@waynesvillenc.gov or call 828.456.2030 ext. 2508.

A&E

• Paint and Sip at Waynesville Art School will be held every Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 7-9:30 p.m. To learn more and register call 828.246.9869 or visit PaintAndSipWaynesville.com/upcoming-events. Registration is required, $45.

• Mountain Makers Craft Market will be held from noon-4 p.m. the first Sunday of each month at 308 North Haywood St. in downtown Waynesville. Over two dozen artisans selling handmade and vintage goods. Special events will be held when scheduled. mountainmakersmarket.com.

ART SHOWINGS AND GALLERIES

• The reception for “We Will Not Be Silenced: Standing for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women” will be held from 5-7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 2, at the Bardo Arts Center. For more information visit arts.wcu.edu/explore or call 828.277.ARTS.

• “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.

• An empowering festival for female mountain bikers will come to the Nantahala Outdoor Center Friday, Nov. 11, to Sunday, Nov. 13, the inaugural Women’s Pedal Fest. Learn more or sign up at noc.com/events.

• A fly fishing excursion Saturday, Nov. 12, will offer the chance to cast the West Fork of the Pigeon River with an expert angler. Call 828.452.6789 to inquire about loaners. Sign up at bit.ly/haywoodrec.

• Tickets are now on sale for Winter Lights, an open-air walk-through light show of more than 1 million lights running Nov. 18-Dec. 31 at the N.C. Arboretum in Asheville. Ticket prices range from $30 to $60 per car depending on the date and entry time, with members receiving a $5 discount. Flex tickets are $75. For more information or to reserve tickets, visit ncarboretum.org/winter-lights.

Market PLACEWNC

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Real Estate Announcements

PUBLISHER’S NOTICE

All real estate advertising in this newspaper is subject to the Fair Hous ing Act which makes it illegal to advertise ‘any preference, limitation or discrimination based on handicap, familial status or national origin, or an in tention to make any such preference, limitation or discrimination’. Familial status includes children under 18 living with par ents or legal guardians and pregnant women. This newspaper will not knowingly accept any ad vertising for real estate in violation of this law. All dwellings advertised on equal opportunity basis.

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Haywood Co. Real Estate Agents

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• Laura Thomas - lthomas@beverly-hanks.com

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• Randall Rogers - rrogers@beverly-hanks.com

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• Hunter Wyman - hwyman@beverly-hanks.com

• Julie Lapkoff - julielapkoff@beverly-hanks.com

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Emerson Group - emersongroupus.com

• George Escaravage - george@emersongroupus.com

• Chuck Brown - chuck@emersongroupus.com

ERA Sunburst Realty - sunburstrealty.com

• Amy Spivey - amyspivey.com

• Rick Border - sunburstrealty.com

• Randy Flanigan - 706-207-9436

• Steve Mauldin - 828-734-4864

Keller Williams Realty - kellerwilliamswaynesville.com

• The Morris Team - www.themorristeamnc.com

Lakeshore Realty

• Phyllis Robinson - lakeshore@lakejunaluska.com

Mountain Dreams Realty- maggievalleyhomesales.com

• Lyndia Massey- buyfromlyndia@yahoo.com

Mountain Creek Real Estate

• Ron Rosendahl - 828-593-8700

McGovern Real Estate & Property Management

• Bruce McGovern - shamrock13.com

Premier Sotheby's International Realty

• DeAnn Suchy - deann.suchy@premiersir.com

• Kaye Matthews - kaye.matthews@premiersir.com

RE/MAX Executive - remax-waynesvillenc.com

remax-maggievalleync.com

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• Landen Stevenson- landen@landenkstevenson.com

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David Willet - davidwillet1@live.com

Sara Sherman - sarashermanncrealtor@gmail.com

David Rogers- davidr@remax-waynesville.com

Judy Meyers - jameyers@charter.net

Roland Realty

Roland - 828-400-1923

Smoky Mountain Retreat

Johnson - tomsj7@gmail.com

Sherell Johnson - Sherellwj@aol.com

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