The iconic “flat hat” has been worn by generations of rangers since it was first included in National Park System uniform specifications in 1920, but now people may see fewer as drastic cuts to the federal government have put many employees’ jobs in jeopardy. The Smoky Mountain News spoke to advocates for federal lands to get to the bottom of the chief concerns. (Page 24). Cory Vaillancourt photo
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Swift but uneven recovery from Helene continues....................................................4 Governor appoints new WNC judge............................................................................5
Public safety, tourism impact behind Pless’ TDA bill................................................6 Commissioners push for partisan school board elections without notice..........7 Waynesville Fire Department ‘in good hands’ after Helene response................8 Haywood EMS consider how to navigate I-40 ahead of partial re-open............9 Mark Jones resigns from Sylva Town Board..............................................................10 Collins appointed to TDA board....................................................................................11
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‘An Appalachian Evening’ welcomes Missy Raines................................................16 City Lights hosts upcoming
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Cuts to national parks put safety, economy, legacy at risk ..................................24
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Over the years I’ve done many articles talking about ‘ways to save’ on grocery shopping. Thankfully, being a cost-conscious shopper never goes out of fashion.
Here are 5 reminders on how to save money on your groceries: (Part 1 - look for Part 2 next week!)
1. Make sure you have an Ingles Advantage™ Savings and Rewards Card ingles-markets.com and sign up for AdvantageMail. This can alert you to savings on items you typically buy, and you also accumulate fuel points.
2. Have a plan before you shop. Try and think ahead for the week for what you want to cook/bake for meals. Check your fridge, pantry and freezer so you don’t end up with duplicates and waste money.
3. Check the unit price (the tag on the shelf below the item) and compare similar items to make sure you’re not fooled by the appearance of the box or package.
4. Stock up when shelf-stable pantry or frozen items that you typically buy are on sale.
5. Try store brands like Laura Lynn, Ingles Best and Harvest Farms which have the same (or better) quality than brand name at a lower price.
After a disastrous September and October, some — but not all — counties impacted by Hurricane Helene on Sept. 27 are getting back to business as usual.
Taxable spending in the 28 counties most affected by Helene during September and October 2024 dropped by roughly $380 million compared to the same months in 2023, causing state sales tax collections in those counties to come in more than $18 million shy of previous year totals.
Numbers just released by the North Carolina Department of Commerce for collections made in November 2024 show a quick rebound in most counties, making up for some of the spending that didn’t take place in September and October.
Mitchell, Yancey and Buncombe counties had the worst September of the 28 counties, with sales tax collections down 29.8%, 25.3% and 17.7%, respectively. Rounding out the top five were Transylvania (-17.07%) and Swain (-16.39%) counties.
For October, Avery, Buncombe and Madison counties saw the most drastic decreases of 32.1%, 26.6% and 25.3% year-over-year, respectively. Transylvania (6.8%) and Swain (-17.7%) remained down, but November’s numbers show marked improvement in nearly all storm-ravaged counties.
Avery County was up 15.9% compared to November 2023. Mitchell County was up 3.4%. Yancey County was up 15.9%. Buncombe was still down 2.3%, but that’s a long way from being down nearly 30% for September. Madison County was down 3.1%. Transylvania turned its deficit upside down, growing 2.7% over 2023; however, Swain continues to slump, down 14.4% over November 2023 collections.
Taxable spending in the 28 counties most affected by Helene during September and October 2024 dropped by roughly $380 million compared to the same months in 2023, causing state sales tax collections in those counties to come in more than $18 million shy of previous year totals.
affected area behind Buncombe, was down 12.6% in September and down 1.6% in October for a total decrease in collections of $1.3 million, but a 7.06% surge in November erased almost half of the damage for November and leaves the county down
4.0% for November. The September and October declines resulted in about $959,000 in lost collections, but the November increase produced growth of more than $202,000, leaving the county down about $750,000 in collections for the year.
million in additional sales tax collections.
Against the estimated $380 million in lost taxable spending for September and October, November’s increases helped bring that total down to about $267 million.
Collections, however, don’t translate directly to budget revenue; a complex, convoluted formula determines the amount of sales tax revenue counties receive back after sending the collections to Raleigh.
For example, during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024, Haywood County collected more than $59 million in state sales taxes on $1.24 billion in taxable sales. Over the past few years, the county’s $106 million budget has benefitted from around $16 million in state sales tax distributions each year.
The loss of about $750,000 in collec-
about $667,000.
Henderson County, second-largest in the
The Haywood County Juvenile Crime Prevention Council announced $182,420 in fundsavailable for 2025-27 from the Department of Public Safety for
Similarly, Haywood County, which was down 6.5% for September and 6.8% for October, saw a year-over-year increase of
Overall, taxable spending was up $113.9 million for the 28 counties in November compared to the same month in 2023. That’s a 3.9% increase that resulted in nearly $5.4
services for juvenile court-involved youth in Haywood County. These funds will help the community meet needs previously identified during the annual planning process. Several types of services will be considered. The Haywood County JCPC Allocation Committee will meet on April 2, 2025, at 9 a.m. at the Haywood County Senior Center in Waynesville to hear presentations from applicants and vote on funding for programs for FY 25-27.
tions, therefore, will result in far less than a 2% decrease in actual distributions that make their way into the county’s annual budget.
Here’s a list of the types of services being considered. Donated graphic
Governor appoints new WNC judge
BY KYLE PERROTTI NEWS EDITOR
Haywood County attorney Bill Jones has been appointed to fill a vacant District Court seat in the judicial district made up of the state’s seven westernmost counties. The appointment was announced late last week in a press release sent out by Gov. Josh Stein’s office.
“Bill brings decades of experience as a solo practitioner and Assistant District Attorney, giving him the record to succeed in this role,” Stein said in the release. “As a longtime resident of Judicial District 43, he’s the right person for the job, and I look forward to his service on the District Court.”
Jones grew up in Sylva and received his bachelor’s degree from Western Carolina University and his law degree from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Jones served as an assistant district attorney from 1998 to 2003 before moving into domestic and criminal law, through which he represented defendants in a number of higher profile cases.
Prior to the governor’s decision to appoint Jones to the bench, the bar — made of up of licensed attorneys in the judicial district — got together on Dec. 10 of last year and voted on recommendations to send to Raleigh for consideration. Jones won that vote by a large margin and said that at that point he expected to receive the appointment based on how that process had previously played out. Following the vote, he stopped taking new clients.
“I told all my clients this was on the horizon,” he told The Smoky Mountain News.
Stein’s decision to appoint Jones comes following former Chief District Court Judge Roy Wijewickrama’s appointment to Superior Court to fill the vacancy created when Bradley B. Letts left the bench to become the Chief Justice of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ Supreme Court.
There have also been changes on the district court bench in the last year. Last sum-
judicial position created in last year’s state budget.
Now that Jones has been appointed, because Wijewickrama was the Chief District Court judge, North Carolina’s Chief Supreme Court Justice, Paul Newby, will appoint one of the sitting district court judges to become the chief district court judge, a role that like senior resident superior court judge comes with a number of administrative and policy-setting duties that have an effect on courts across the judicial district.
Following the announcement of his appointment, Jones recalled that when he was a young attorney, the judges on the district court bench at that time — Richie Holt, Steven J. Bryant, Danny Davis and John Snow — helped him grow in his trade by discussing cases with him after their conclusion and offering notes on what could have made him more effective in his arguments.
Jones said that’s a legacy he hopes to uphold.
“Bill brings decades of experience as a solo practitioner and Assistant District Attorney, giving him the record to succeed in this role.”
NC Governor Josh Stein
mer, Kristina Earwood abruptly left the bench due to the sudden onset of a serious health condition. Her seat was filled by Justin Greene, who was sworn in late last year. In addition, because Sellers vacated her District Court seat to gain the superior court appointment, her seat was filled last month by Kristy Parton. Finally, a Republican Primary Election held earlier this year determined that Macon County’s Virginia Hornsby will join the bench to fill a new
“Western North Carolina has been known for having one of the best District Court benches in the state,” he said. “I’ve been doing this 20-some years, and I’ve worked hard and diligently. It means a lot to me to uphold this legacy and continue that mentorship and do a good job for the people of this district.”
Jones will be sworn in at 2 p.m. on March 3 at the Haywood County Courthouse in Waynesville.
Bill Jones. File photo
Public safety, tourism impact behind Pless’ TDA bill
BY CORY VAILLANCOURT POLITICS EDITOR
Last week, Haywood County Republican Rep. Mark Pless filed a bill that would strip the county of its ability to levy room occupancy taxes. Now, he’s revealed that the impact of tourism on public safety and tight county budgets are also a motivating force behind it.
“I think they are mismanaging that money,” Pless told The Smoky Mountain News. “It’s tax money and it’s accountable, but they don’t seem to be accountable; they just do what they want to do, so it’s time to go.”
data on how the TDA had spent money in previous years.
“I found some things that were very concerning,” he said, citing murals in Canton, Frog Level and Waynesville and a sign in Clyde. “That’s not what that’s intended for. That money is supposed to bring people to Haywood County. I understand that they want to use it for local things, but that’s not what this is for.”
Statute expressly permits “expenditures that, in the judgment of the Tourism Development Authority, are designed to increase the use of lodging facilities, meeting facilities or convention facilities in the county or to attract tourists or
Many North Carolina counties assess a tax on each room rented — whether hotel, motel, Airbnb or other such lodging establishment — for every night they’re rented. Those taxes are collected, accounted for and spent by a local tourism development authority that, generally speaking, puts the bulk of the money toward destination marketing efforts designed to put heads in beds.
In some places, like Haywood County, some of that money is spent on capital projects that not only help attract and entertain tourists but also serve residents.
North Carolina tourism development authorities derive their ability to operate from the General Assembly, which can also strip them of that authority.
The bill stems from an incident last year when the Haywood TDA awarded a grant to an organization looking to create a “diversity passport” listing LGBTQ+ friendly businesses in the county. A minor uproar ensued, mostly from businesses that could have religious opposition to such a directory but also from Pless. The grant was ultimately rescinded.
Pless said he was satisfied with how that situation was handled, but at the same time, he requested years’ worth of
business travelers to the county. The term includes tourismrelated capital expenditures.”
The grants for the projects Pless mentioned were approved in accordance with TDA board guidelines, so Pless appears to be questioning the board’s judgement of the ability of the projects to attract or retain visitors.
Haywood County’s current room occupancy tax rate is 4%. Since its inception in January 1984, the TDA has collected exactly $29,980,815 in room occupancy tax revenue through March 2022 — the first year the TDA began making substantial grants for local projects that totaled $500,000.
In subsequent years, collections have averaged roughly $3 million a year, a portion of which has continued to be used for capital projects like the murals, as well as a trail system at Haywood Community College, improvements to Lake Junaluska’s facilities and an auxiliary parking lot for Maggie Valley’s festival grounds.
“It not that the money needs to go away, it just needs to be spent for the proper reasons,” Pless said.
Jim Owens, chair of the TDA and a Maggie Valley alderman, was diplomatic in his response to Pless’ bill. Owens
Haywood GOP convention draws near
retired from a 50-year career in the tourism/hospitality/destination management industry.
“We welcome the opportunity to meet with Rep. Pless or any concerned party to discuss our finances and grant awards. We take our fiduciary responsibility very seriously and ensure that our spending fully complies with state occupancy tax law,” he said Feb. 24. “We remain committed to transparency and accountability in our investments that drive visitors to Haywood County and support our community’s long-term vitality.”
Anthony Sutton, a member of Waynesville’s Town Council, said he was also interested in opening up a dialogue with Pless to learn more about his proposal.
“I look forward to having a discussion with Mark about what alternatives he is proposing for our area if the occupancy tax is taken away and the necessity of a replacement of those funds to assist with the impact of tourism in our communities,” Sutton said.
Chuck Dickson, Sutton’s colleague on council, was characteristically frank in his assessment.
“I doubt that there is any support from the county or any of the towns for this proposal. In fact, the Haywood County commissioners recently praised the TDA plan to invest in long-term improvements for the county. The TDA is actively working to support and promote the local economy with tax money paid by visitors. I am puzzled as to why anyone would want to eliminate this valuable organization that brings in dollars to help the citizens of Haywood County,” Dickson said.
Maggie Valley and Waynesville collect the lion’s share of TDA revenue, owing to the lodging establishments in their respective jurisdictions. Leaders in Waynesville and Maggie Valley have both had their issues with Pless in the past, with Pless stripping Maggie Valley of its authority to regulate its extraterritorial jurisdiction. Pless has, however, been largely responsible for tens of millions of dollars in direct appropriations to Haywood County for recovery from Tropical Storm Fred in 2021.
As what’s called a “local bill,” Pless’ effort would need the assent of the local delegation — in this case, Sen. Kevin Corbin (R-Macon) and Sen. Ralph Hise (R-Mitchell) — and would not make a stop on the governor’s desk for a possible veto. Pless said he hadn’t talked to Corbin or Hise yet, but that he would in due time.
Corbin said he was aware of the issues Pless had with the TDA last year but hadn’t heard from him regarding his latest bill.
“I’d value input from local leaders as to how they think the money benefits Haywood County, and I look forward to discussing it with [Pless],” Corbin told The Smoky Mountain News. Feb. 23.
Pless’ long-term plan, however, is linked to the everincreasing costs of local governance and the impact of tourism on the public services counties and cities provide. The theory is part of an ongoing discussion across the state — and across Haywood County — as to how TDA revenues can legally be spent.
On Feb. 17, Don Smart, president of the Haywood County Farm Bureau, spoke at a meeting of the Haywood County Board of Commissioners.
Smart has been the foremost advocate for preserving farmland and Haywood County’s rural character for some time now, and he told commissioners that while there were some good things about the county’s image as a tourist destination — jobs, mostly — there were some downsides, namely that development pressures are pricing locals out of the housing market and burdening them with the cost of infrastructure upgrades when visitors become residents.
“They build these houses, and we’ve got to upgrade and improve and enlarge, and guess who gets to pay for it? Us people that’s been there,” he said.
Haywood Rep. Mark Pless, seen here in the General Assembly on Jan. 29, has some ideas about TDA spending. NCGA photo
Commissioners push for partisan school board elections without notice
BY HANNAH MCLEOD STAFF WRITER
After a surprise move by Commissioner John Smith at a meeting on Feb. 18, Jackson County is one step closer to partisan school board elections.
But the move, which was approved unanimously by the commission, was not on the agenda, which means the public, and members of the Board of Education, were left in the dark on the issue and the fact that commissioners were even considering the move.
“I was aware that commissioners had been talking about moving school board elections from the primaries to the General Election, but I had not been informed in advance that there would be an effort to change the race to be partisan,” said Board of Education Chairman Wes Jamison. “As far as I know, no one from the school board was consulted or asked for an opinion on this change.”
On the agenda for the Feb. 18 meeting was a resolution to “change the election schedule for municipal elections in Jackson County.” The resolution supported changing municipal elections from odd numbered years to even numbered years.
The original resolution on the agenda stated that only municipal elections are held during odd numbered years in Jackson County, which results in low voter turnout. It said that with all other elections held during even numbered years, moving municipal elections to even numbered years with other elections would reduce the cost of conducting municipal elections and increase the turnout for municipal elections.
The resolution requests that the North Carolina General Assembly establish the date of municipal elections to be held in even numbered years and that the change begin in the next election cycle for Jackson County municipal elections in 2026. The North Carolina General Assembly has to pass a local bill in order for the resolution to become law.
However, the resolution that commissioners approved during the Feb. 18 meeting was vastly different from the one that appeared on the agenda.
When the item came up, Commissioner Smith said he wanted to make an amendment to the resolution.
“I’d like to seek an amendment to add, to make it a partisan election for the school board,” Smith said. “I’d like to amend it to include partisan, make it a partisan election so we have partisan primaries and then partisan election in the fall along with the general.”
Without any further discussion, Chairman Mark Letson asked for a motion to approve the resolution with the amendment. Commissioner Michael Jennings
support of changing the election schedule so that the race for Jackson County Board of Education could take place during the General Election. School board members have previously been up for election during the Primary Election, despite the fact that the board is elected in a nonpartisan race.
That resolution brought forth in 2023 stated that moving the election to November provided voters with more opportunity to research and gain knowledge of the candidates to be better informed before voting. It also points out that historically in Jackson County, voter turnout is significantly higher in the General Election than the Primary Election, so holding the election in November would allow for more representation from the public at large.
“I find it concerning that there was no discussion or reasoning provided by the county commissioners for making this move. This is a major shift in how this board is elected and should have been properly discussed with input from all stakeholders.”
Board of Education Chairman Wes Jamison
made the motion, which was seconded by Commissioner Jenny Hooper and approved unanimously. Commissioner Todd Bryson was absent from the meeting.
“I find it concerning that there was no discussion or reasoning provided by the county commissioners for making this move,” Jamison said. “This is a major shift in how this board is elected and should have been properly discussed with input from all stakeholders.”
This is not the first time the board has discussed changing the date of municipal elections or changing the race for school board from nonpartisan to partisan.
In December 2023, the county commission unanimously passed a resolution in
“There should be a fee on those people. They want to come to Haywood County, and they need to pay for the cost of coming to Haywood County.” Smart went on to call for an impact fee.
Commissioner Tommy Long responded to Smart during the meeting, postulating that occupancy tax revenue could help local governments address the very real impact that tourists have on a small rural county’s services.
“These are very legitimate concerns this gentleman had — the increased traffic on our roads, the increased burden on our infrastructure, on our public county services like EMS, fire, volunteer fire departments, and I suggested part of the TDA funding — we draw all these folks in here and they put an undue burden on all of our volunteer services, all of our full-time services like our sheriff’s department — he called it an impact fee, I call it a user fee,” Long said. “This is something we need to work on in Raleigh. This is something that needs to happen. I and other taxpayers here in the coun-
North Carolina, 17 of them had boards elected on a partisan basis. By the 2024 election cycle, that number had grown to 52.
“Education should not be driven by party platforms,” Jamison said. “A strong school board is one that brings together people with different perspectives, all working toward the shared goal of providing the best possible education for our students. We don’t need a public school system that appears to serve only one part of the community — we need one that represents and serves everyone. It is my hope that our General Assembly representatives, Sen. [Kevin] Corbin and Rep. [Mike] Clampitt, will recognize this and choose not to move forward with the request made by four of our county commissioners.”
School Board Member Gayle Woody, who previously served one term as a county commissioner and spent 25 years teaching in Jackson County, is also opposed to the move.
“It will not serve the interest of our students and teachers,” Woody said. “School board members, unlike other elected officials, must bear sole allegiance to the students and parents they serve and not leaders or platforms of specific political parties.”
Woody noted that school boards have the primary responsibility for setting school policy and hiring teachers and administrators and said that neither of these responsibilities “should be influenced by political party affiliation.”
In the 2024 election cycle, 7,852 ballots were cast during the Primary Election in Jackson County, when school board members were elected, while 22,091 ballots were cast in the General Election.
That resolution passed in December of 2023, also requested that the Board of Education elections remained nonpartisan.
“I think keeping it non-partisan is probably the best thing because then you could get a better group [of candidates],” Letson said at the time.
But Letson had no qualms this time around with voting in support of Smith’s amendment to the resolution to make the school board a partisan race.
In 2015, out of 115 school districts in
ty do not need to continually foot the bill for everybody else that comes in here, uses our stuff and leaves. It’s common sense. I make no apologies for lobbying for that kind of thing.”
Long spoke to The Smoky Mountain News after Pless’ TDA bill came out several days later,
“I’m not really in favor of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think there’s some really practical things that money could be used for. Tourism dollars do help our local economy, it’s part of the fabric of this community,” Long explained. “Our industrial base took a huge hit with mill; farming is a huge segment of our local economy, and tourism is huge. The pure tourism tax could be used for our local infrastructure.”
That, Long said, would take some of the burden off local taxpayers.
“This had act been talked about at North Carolina Association of County Commissioners meeting last year,”
“Education issues decided by school boards are nonpartisan issues, and the board’s judicial and personnel functions must be nonpartisan,” Woody said. “I believe that our board has functioned well over the past 64 years with nonpartisan elections, affording respectful interaction and appropriate focus on a school board’s singular mission, the education of the students of our county.”
In The Smoky Mountain News’ fourcounty coverage area, Haywood and Macon counties have nonpartisan election for Boards of Education; Swain County has a partisan race for school board.
The resolution approved by the Jackson County Commission still has to be passed in a local bill by the North Carolina General Assembly before it becomes law.
said Long, who serves as the NCACC District 17 director and as such communicates with county government officials from across Western North Carolina.
“This is not an original idea from me, but in talking with other communities across the state, this is a very practical way to spend that money.”
Currently, courts have taken a “strict constructionist” approach to language in statute that describes what constitutes a tourism-related expense, and what doesn’t. In 2024, an appeals court told Currituck County that its use of TDA revenue for public safety was improper.
On Feb. 24, Pless said that he’d be behind a push to change that.
“I’m open to changing that legislation, to take some of the burden off local governments,” he said.
If that happens, Pless added that he’d consider reinstating at least part of the TDA’s ability to levy taxes, to be used for that purpose.
Waynesville Fire Department ‘in good hands’ after Helene response
morning of the storm, Webb’s department began receiving storm-related calls and conducted more than 100 rescues, at least 30 of them by boat.
“Due to some preplanning and some forethought and the council’s help in letting us get a boat — that we kind of got some flak on until we needed it — miraculously we got it into service three days before the flood, and as a result we made dozens of rescues along with all the other town departments and we didn’t lose a single citizen,” Assistant Fire Chief Chris Mehaffey told Council. “I think that says a lot about the help y’all gave us.”
Given that none of the 106 killed by Helene were from Waynesville was indeed astonishing given the scale of the devastation that day, however the fire department didn’t lose a single firefighter during the chaos, either.
Waynesville names interim fire chief
The Town of Waynesville has named Assistant Fire Chief Chris Mehaffey as the town’s interim chief.
But Waynesville is a growing community, and WFD’s call volume has increased 37% over the past decade. Town Council authorized adding four more firefighters to the department, which consists of 21 fulltime positions, 17 part-time positions and 16 on-call personnel. Two of the new firefighters have already joined the department, bringing the total number of personnel per 24-hour shift to six. Two more firefighters will be added to the roster in January, to protect a 25 square-mile fire district with a population of more than 14,000 people — all on a budget of about $2.6 million.
Despite the growing call volume, 2024’s 3,349 calls were down slightly from 2023’s all-time high, due in part to the failure of communications infrastructure that left many in Haywood County without cellular service for weeks after the storm.
Some may have laughed when a mountain fire department ordered an NRS 120 rescue boat, but no one was laughing on Sept. 27, 2024. Town of Waynesville photo
BY CORY VAILLANCOURT POLITICS EDITOR
Saying 2024 was an “eventful” year for the Waynesville Fire Department may have been an understatement by Chief Joey Webb, Sr., but so is saying the department “made many great strides forward.”
In his last official presentation to the Waynesville Town Council on Feb. 11, the retiring Webb, who has served as chief for nearly 17 years, said the department does have some needs but also has a solid foundation.
“I feel very comfortable as I leave that it’s in good hands. We have a good staff, you’ve allowed us to add to our staff and we hope that continues,” Webb told Council. “You have a great department and I ask you just to keep investing in those folks. We have good people and like everybody else, we compete with salaries for the surrounding areas, and these guys don’t do
it just for the money. They’re really dedicated.”
When Tropical Storm Fred plowed through eastern Haywood County in 2021, areas within the Waynesville city limits and fire district weren’t really affected, although like many other fire departments, Waynesville’s pitched in where it could. When Hurricane Helene arrived on Sept. 27, 2024 it was a different story — Waynesville got hit about as bad as anywhere else in Haywood County. Frog Level turned into a raging river, Richland Creek topped bridges on Russ Avenue while widespread damage to homes, businesses and town-owned infrastructure was taking place. Fortunately, and with town support, WFD had added a new tanker truck, scuba gear and other water rescue equipment to its toolbox, along with two water rescue boats that proved critical and arrived just prior to Helene. Starting at 3 a.m. on the
“Assistant Chief Mehaffey has demonstrated exceptional dedication and professionalism throughout his tenure, making him a natural choice for this important role,” said Town Manager Rob Hites in a press release. “We are confident in Assistant Chief Mehaffey’s ability to lead our Fire Department during this transitional period. His experience and commitment to public safety will ensure that the Waynesville Fire Department continues to serve our community effectively.”
Mehaffey has 35 years of experience in emergency services and 17 years with the Waynesville Fire Department — the last six as assistant chief. Mehaffey said he’d already applied for the permanent chief position.
The town’s longtime previous leader, Chief Joey Webb, Sr., recently retired after nearly 17 years in the role. Webb also served eight years as chief of the Clyde Volunteer Fire Department.
Of the 2024 calls, 60% were for medical issues, with 40% for fires. For whatever reason, most calls come in the 11 a.m. hour or the 3 p.m. hour, and the busiest months were July, August and September.
Webb’s department also devoted time and resources to community service-type events, educating thousands of children and adults in fire safety, conducting nearly three dozen lockdown drills, installing smoke alarms, checking car seats and teaching CPR.
Down the road, Webb still wants the town to replace the department’s aging ladder truck, which turns 31 years old this year.
“We have specs ready to replace the truck,” Webb said. “It takes three years now to get a replacement.”
Not having a new truck could affect the fire district’s insurance rating, but it will be a heavy lift for Council with a price tag of more than $3 million.
Webb walked off to applause from Council, but before he did, he expressed gratitude and offered a preview of his postretirement plans.
“I’m not going away. I’m still active in the state, and I hope to be around town,” said Webb, who also serves as the president of the North Carolina Association of Fire Chiefs. “I’m always available if I can help in any way.”
Dine Out to Lift Up with Waynesville Rotary Club
The Waynesville Rotary Club will offer a Poor Man’s Supper from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. March 6 at the First United Methodist Church to benefit Waynesville Rotary community projects. The lunch and dinner menu will include pinto beans, taters & onions, cooked cabbage, cornbread, dessert and a beverage. Carry out is available.
In addition to the food provided by Haywood 209 Café, the Cider Ridge Band will provide music from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., and a silent auction will offer an array of items, including a Blackstone grill, an electric canner, local artwork, pottery and much more.
Tickets are $10 per plate for adults; children 8 and under eat for free. Tickets can be purchased at the door.
Proceeds from the Poor Man’s Supper will benefit Waynesville Rotary community projects, including the Manna Backpack Project, providing food to school children, Christmas food baskets, scholarships and more. For more information on the club’s involvement in the community, including their service projects, visit waynesvillerotary.com.
For more information, contact Shelley White, fundraising chair, at 828.627.4516.
Waynesville Fire Department
Chief Joey Webb, Sr. Town of Waynesville photo
Haywood EMS considers how to navigate I-40 ahead of partial re-open
BY KYLE PERROTTI NEWS EDITOR
It’s been about five months since the 20mile stretch of Interstate 40 in Haywood County up to the Tennessee state line has been shut down due to massive damage over a span of about three miles, but as of now, one lane of travel in each direction is expected to be restored next week.
The news is a welcome relief for people who depend on the route regularly, especially commercial truck drivers, as well as business owners in Western North Carolina expecting to see a bit more traffic with the thoroughfare open.
However, ahead of the return of traffic to the Pigeon River Gorge, Haywood County Emergency Services is letting people know that response times in the area are going to be slow, and there are some details still to be ironed out regarding how ambulances and other vehicles will navigate around traffic.
EMS Public Information Officer Allison Richmond said that for now, and quite likely until I-40 reopens entirely, drivers should still consider using alternate routes to reach Eastern Tennessee.
“I think this should really be considered an emergency route and not a primary route at this time,” Richmond said.
“That stretch has always been narrow, and with this just one lane in each direction, it’s going to be even narrower,” she added.
Responders and officials from NCDOT and other agencies have been meeting to discuss how to handle the issues that come along with emergency response on such a difficult stretch of road. Along with one lane opening up in each direction, there will also be an emergency lane on what used to be the eastbound side of the highway that Richmond said is almost exactly the width of an ambulance, meaning response will be slow, and swapping paint or kissing side mirrors with others in traffic may become a more regular occurrence.
This makes conditions more dangerous not only for those in the ambulance but also others in traffic.
“Imagine if you have a vehicle sneaking out on the eastbound lane into our emergency lane, then you’re going to have vehicles approaching each other head on,” Richmond said.
With some calls, such as multi-vehicle collisions, often requiring the response of multiple agencies, another question has arisen: how can ambulances with patients onboard turn around and return eastbound toward a
medical facility with a clear path ahead?
“That’s a question we’re still trying to figure out,” Richmond said. “We’re not entirely sure how to get an ambulance turned around other than doing a 300-point turn. There are breaks in the divider that are supposed to enable an ambulance to turn around, but I also imagine there’d be traffic there … we may have to drive up and turn around at the Tennessee line and come back, which is what we’ve had to do sometimes even without traffic.”
On some of the worst calls, collisions or other medical emergencies may require a medivac from Mission Health’s Mountain Area Medical Airlift (MAMA). Before, responders could usually clear a landing zone on a bridge along I-40, but because most bridges near the construction zone are also being worked on, that may not be possible. The landing zone could be established at the rest areas near mile marker 10, but Richmond said even that may not always work out.
“The rest area may still be an option, but that’s also where we’re going to tow cars to,” she said. Basically, depending on how busy that lot is, where to establish a landing zone will have to be a gametime decision.
When it comes to the consideration of whether there will be more collisions necessitating a larger emergency response, some have expressed fear that the narrow roads and 40 mile-per-hour speed limit (the Tennessee section under construction is 35), may lead to more emergencies. However, Richmond was also quick to point out that in the past when there’s been construction in that area that has led to only one lane of travel in each direction, traffic is often slowmoving, meaning the likelihood of serious collisions actually decreases.
“I don’t think you’ll see traffic even getting to (40 mph) unless it’s the middle of the night,” she said.
However, Richmond ultimately wanted to remind people — especially those with potential medical conditions that could necessitate an emergency response — that taking I-40 into Tennessee should probably still be avoided altogether.
“I would really caution people to think about making the best choice for them,” she said. “If you are someone who has a severe heart condition or you’re heavily pregnant, it’s not a good idea for you to be stuck in long traffic or potentially having to wait a long time for emergency services. I would strongly consider what my options were if I needed to drive to Tennessee.”
Mark Jones resigns from Sylva Town Board
BY HANNAH MCLEOD STAFF WRITER
Sylva Commissioner Mark Jones tendered his resignation from the board through a letter during the Feb. 13 meeting, citing health-related reasons.
“Dear Town of Sylva Board of Commissioners and residents, it is with a heavy heart that I’m resigning from the Town of Sylva Board of Commissioners effective today, Feb. 13,” Town Manager Paige Dowling read in a letter from Jones, who was not present at the meeting. “In the last month I’ve had major medical issues that are forcing me to resign, I need to focus on my health and family, and I cannot give this position the full attention that I feel like the town needs.”
and Blitz Estridge join the board. Jones is a lifelong resident of Sylva, working 30 years as a sales manager at a local business.
This will be the third board vacancy Sylva has experienced outside of normal elections since 2023 when Mayor Linda Sossamon resigned in February of that year. At that time
Commissioner David Nestler was appointed by the board to serve as mayor and Brad Waldrop was selected from among a pool of applicants to serve as the newest commissioner. Waldrop went on to win the most votes of any candidate in the 2023 municipal elections.
used when Sossamon and Newman resigned, accepting applications from Sylva residents to fill the unoccupied seat.
Applications are due to town hall by March 5. They will be opened and distributed to town board members during the March 13 meeting. The board will vote by ballot during the March 27 meeting, with the expectation that the candidate selected would participate in the budget work session that is also set to take place March 27. Then the new commissioner will be sworn in on April 10.
“It’s transparent; taking applications, reviewing them … and then giving the board members the opportunity to open and review them in public,” said Dowling.
“It seems to have worked each time the last few times,” said Mayor Johnny Phillips.
year,” Jones said in his resignation letter. “It’s been a pleasure working with all of you. I’m grateful to public works, fire, police, administrative staff and the Town Manager for all of your support and what you do for the residents.”
Phillips said Jones “cared about and loved the Town of Sylva.”
Jones, who received the second highest number of votes behind Waldrop in the 2023 election, said he was grateful to the residents for putting their faith in him.
Jones was elected to the board in 2023, the same election that saw Mayor Johnny Phillips
Just over a year later, in April of 2024, Commissioner Natalie Newman resigned from her position on Sylva’s town board. The town selected Jonathan Brown to fill the vacant seat.
The town will follow the same method it
Apply for Haywood Farm Bureau scholarship before April 15
Haywood County high school seniors who have a serious commitment to community service and some degree of financial need can apply for scholarships through April 15.
Commissioner Brad Waldrop volunteered to replace Jones as a town representative on the Mountain Projects board and was approved to do so.
“I commend the board and staff on everything you’ve been able to accomplish the last
Students must be graduating seniors currently enrolled in a Haywood County School, or enrolled in a two or four-year school and a resident of Haywood County, have a 2.5 GPA or better and plan to enroll in an approved post-secondary program (technical/community, junior college, or a four-year institution) studying some form of agriculture. Haywood County Farm Bureau members will have first priority.
“I appreciate the support from the business community for standing behind our little town,” Jones said in his letter. “It’s going to take the businesses, residents, staff and the board supporting each other and working together to get through the next few years. I hope the commissioner that replaces me will have the best interest of the citizens, staff and business community at heart. I want to wish the town and residents the best. Please keep me in your prayers and stop to say hello when you see me in the street.”
Application forms can be picked up at the Haywood County Farm Bureau, 1520 Asheville Rd., in Waynesville. Applications must be submitted by April 15, 2025, and can be emailed to amanda.stasi@ncfbssc.com, delivered to the Haywood County Farm Bureau in person, or mailed to the Farm Bureau, attention Scholarship Committee Chair, at 1520 Asheville Road, Waynesville N.C. 28786.
Mark Jones. File photo
Collins appointed to TDA board
BY HANNAH MCLEOD STAFF WRITER
Jackson County Commissioners appointed Dale Collins to the county’s Tourism Development Authority Board, filling a vacancy that had been left open since before December.
At the Feb. 4 county commission meeting, the board received two recommendations from the JCTDA for prospective board members — Dale Collins of Tuckaseegee Fly Shop in Sylva and Cathy Busick, a member of the Appalachian Womens Museum Board.
According to Executive Director Nick Breedlove, Collins has served a term on the JCTDA board but has sat out the requisite year required before serving again.
Chairman Mark Letson sought a motion to approve one of the two candidates during the Feb. 4 meeting, but no one made a motion. Commissioner Jenny Lynn Hooper asked why a third candidate, John Faulk, had not been vetted by the TDA. Letson said that while both Busick and Collins had applied to be members of the TDA board, Faulk had not.
Rather than selecting from the two candidates presented at the Feb. 4 meeting, the board decided to delay the appointment until the Feb. 18 meeting so Faulk could be vetted and added to the pool of candidates.
At the Feb. 18 meeting, Letson made a motion to appoint Collins to serve on the board. Commissioner Michael Jennings seconded the motion.
“I’ll make a motion for Mr. Faulk, I know him,” said Hooper.
Letson called for a vote on Collins, who was approved 3-1.
Late last year, commissioners had passed on a recommendation from the JCTDA board to appoint Bernadette Peters to the board vacancy, with Smith claiming Peters had a conflict of interest, even though Letson said he had confirmed none existed.
“I spoke with Mr. Breedlove after our last meeting regarding how they came to Peters being on the Tourism Development Authority, and she’s gone through an extensive amount of vetting, background checks and conflict of interest,” Letson said during a Dec. 17 meeting. “Peters serves more as an economic developer, not necessarily tourism development. So, if there are no objections, I do recommend Peters to be on the TDA.”
In October, the commission approved a request from the TDA to expand career categories permitted to make up the JCTDA board. Because several hotels in the county have consolidated under the same ownership, there has been difficulty getting enough members to fill the board.
Previously, board members had to be hoteliers of establishments with 10 or more rooms, with some representing the northern and some representing the southern portions of the county. However, with the change approved by commissioners, board membership is now open to hospitality and tourism workers more generally.
HCA Middle School Shines at Regional Science Fair
Six Heritage Christian Academy (HCA) middle school students competed and placed in the top of their respective categories at the Region 8 Western Regional Science and Engineering Fair on Feb. 14, at Western Carolina University. HCA students were in competition with students from across 13 Western North Carolina counties in the Junior Division (6th-8th grade).
Kylie White won 1st place in the Engineering category. Laylin Powell won 2nd place in the Earth and Environment category. Paelyn Ingram-Reed and Noah Powell were awarded 3rd place respectively in the Engineering and Technology categories. Cameryn Queen was awarded honorable mention. sixth graders Kylie White and Laylin Powell will advance to the 37th Annual State Science and Engineering Fair at NC State University this March.
“We are so proud of our middle school students for engaging their hearts and minds for Christ. This recognition is a huge achievement that reflects hard work, creativity and scientific skill on the parts of our students and teachers,” remarked HCA Middle School Principal David Powell.
The six middle school students who attended the Western Regional Science Fair advanced from Heritage Christian Academy’s school science fair where 22 students presented projects. Paula Fox, HCA science teacher, organized the school fair where 6 expert judges from across Jackson County interviewed, graded and provided feedback to students.
Head of School Latasha Queen said, “I have truly appreciated witnessing students step out of their comfort zones while presenting before judges and being challenged academically. In these experiences, students not only enhance their academic skillset but also gain confidence in their abilities.”
Spring registration still open at Haywood Community College
Spring and summer registration at Haywood Community College is currently open. Whether it’s time to start your educational journey or pick up where you left off, HCC supports your needs and shapes your new future. Students can still start classes with HCC this spring with an eight-week term beginning on March 11.
In addition to various individual classes available, the computerintegrated machining program will begin during this second eightweek term. Many spring and summer classes are offered online, and courses in the computer-integrated machining program are offered during the evening and online to help accommodate busy schedules. Computer-integrated machining is a program that prepares students with the analytical, creative and innovative skills necessary to take their ideas into a design on various machinery. Students completing this program can pursue careers in high-tech manufacturing, specialty machining shops, fabrication industries and more.
Students attending spring 2025 classes at Haywood Community College can be eligible for free tuition through a variety of funding sources.
One of the spring tuition funding sources includes the Bobcat Resiliency Grant which will provide free tuition and coverage of select fees for all students entering the Spring 2025 semester. These funds are available for new and returning students. The goal is to reduce financial barriers that students may be facing to support their desire to return to the classroom.
As a last-dollar funding source, students must still ensure they have completed the 2024-2025 FAFSA application. This is an exciting opportunity for all students in Haywood County looking to continue or start their educational journey with HCC.
To start the application process, visit haywood.edu/getting-started.
WCU Catamount Commitment to include transfer students
Western Carolina University is expanding its Catamount Commitment program with a new initiative to support transfer students from North Carolina Community Colleges.
WCU launched Catamount Commitment in fall 2023 for first-year students from North Carolina who apply timely and earn fall admission. In fall 2025, a third cohort of high school graduates will reap the financial benefits and savings of this program. Beginning this fall, select North Carolinians who earn degrees and transfer directly from a North Carolina Community College to WCU each fall or spring will receive Catamount Commitment offers.
The program provides North Carolina students with annual financial support based on their academic performance and academic program interests.
To be eligible for the Catamount Commitment program as a transfer student, applicants must meet the following criteria:
• Reside in North Carolina.
• Complete any associate’s degree from a NC community college.
• Achieve at minimum a cumulative 3.0 post-secondary GPA.
• Apply for undergraduate admission as a transfer student by the deadline.
• Enroll full-time in a resident-credit degree program and major in a STEM, health sciences or education field.
Eligible students will be awarded $1,000 annually, and funding is available for up to three years (six semesters) based upon maintaining eligibility.
Remaining semesters of eligibility can be used for graduate school if the bachelor’s degree is completed in fewer than six semesters.
The transfer admission application deadline is April 1 for fall 2025 and Nov. 1 for spring 2026.
For more information about Catamount Commitment, visit catamountcommitment.wcu.edu or contact the admissions office at admiss@wcu.edu.
HCC construction program builds shed for beekeeping class
Haywood Community College offers a variety of beekeeping classes for the amateur or experienced beekeeper. Course offerings for this spring include a backyard beekeeping class, which starts on March 7. This 15-week course is designed for those interested in becoming beekeepers and maintaining a honeybee apiary.
Students will learn about the science behind apiculture, the types of honeybees, how to identify and purchase items needed to start an apiary, how to control pests and diseases and much more.
As this program continues to grow, so does the need for space for necessary beekeeping supplies. In a unique partnership, students from HCC’s construction skills and technology program built a storage shed to house beekeeping essentials onsite right next to the colony.
This new outbuilding not only helps the beekeeping classes, but it was also an excellent way for students in the construction class to apply the knowledge learned in their coursework.
To build this structure, 12 students from the construction technology course used their new framing, siding and roofing skills to complete the project as part of their 22-week curriculum. To truly make this a learning opportunity, the instructor, Joel Henderson, had students experiment with several variations of the shed’s roof system. This project allowed students to create a concept and then turn it into a finished structure for practical use.
Once the storage shed was complete, it had to be relocated from the Regional High Technology Center to HCC’s main campus.
Registration for the backyard beekeeping class is open, and the construction skills and technology program continues to add new classes. For details on these programs and others starting soon, visit haywood.edu/continuing-education/.
WCU ranked No. 3 on Forbes’ America’s Best Midsize Employers list
For many, Western Carolina University is a beloved spot. It’s a special place to learn, a special place to grow — and a special place to work.
For yet another year, the college was nationally recognized as a top place to work, as WCU was ranked No. 3 of 498 on Forbes’ America’s Best Midsize Employers. WCU was also the highest-ranked education employer and top North Carolina organization on the list.
“Once again, WCU’s recognition by Forbes Magazine as one of the Best Midsize Employers in the nation is a true testament to the remarkable talent and dedication of our faculty and staff. These hardworking professionals have a positive impact on our students and our region, throughout North Carolina and beyond,” WCU Chancellor Kelli R. Brown said.
Partnering with market research firm Statista, Forbes said it surveyed more than 217,000 anonymous employees. Survey respondents were asked to rate their employer based on salary, work environment and more.
They were also asked if they would recommend their current employer, previous employers within the past two years and companies in which respondents were familiar with through friends, relatives or peers within their industry to others.
Those responses were counted along with additional survey data from the last three years with more recent data and current employees’ responses being weighed more heavily.
Organizations that employ between 1,000 and 5,000 were considered midsize by Forbes. Companies with more than 5,000 employees were deemed large.
For more information about employment at WCU, visit jobs.wcu.edu.
From left to right, Micah Parson, Cameryn Queen, Paelynn Ingram-Reed, Laylin Powell, Kylie White, Paula Fox (teacher) and Noah Powell at Western Regional Science Fair. Donated photo
Shine the light on backdoor dealings
To the Editor:
Thank you to Smoky Mountain News staff writer Hannah McLeod for the informative article about the leaked email from a library board member who requested a behind-thescenes discussion with the Macon County commissioners. This action is completely reprehensible. The idea of a board is to work together for the benefit of the organization and the general public. I hope the board member is fired from her position and replaced with a true team player.
She did not wish to discuss this with the public because of the “lunatic left” who would create huge controversy and encouraged that it remain behind the scenes. This is a disgraceful action on the part of a board member. I also resent the label as such name calling is what helps keep people divided.
I have lived in our beautiful area for 25 years. The Fontana Regional Library is a tremendous asset to the region. By pooling our shared resources, the counties have access to far more material than any one library would have. I can request a book, and if the Jackson library does not have it, more than likely another will. I was glad to read that Mark Letson reports no discussion about pulling out of the Fontana Regional Library system. It truly would be a “detriment to the citizens.”
As for Leah and Jim Gaston, their intentions are clear. They wish to control what resources and titles the Macon library can offer and what patrons can have access to according to their personal preferences and opinions. These decisions should not be up to them as they are the function of boards where each board member can have an opportunity to participate in decisions that affect the greater community.
Transparency is a critical element in public discourse and function and without it we become the servants to other’s opinions. Shine the light on backdoor dealings because as we know “democracy dies in darkness.”
Jane Finneran Cullowhee
Congress needs to do its job
To the Editor:
I did not vote for Elon Musk, and I am pretty sure that no one else did either as he was not on any ballot. Then, why is this man able to disrupt and make changes in our governmental system and programs? Sens. Tillis and Budd, and Rep. Edwards, do your jobs! Whether I agree with your positions or not is not the issue. The issue is that we have an unelected individual that is quickly disrupting our country while you seem to sit back and watch.
Mr. Musk’s voice is much louder than
Letters reflect engaged community
In the 26 years we’ve been publishing this newspaper, I don’t think we’ve ever had the onslaught of letters to the editor as has been happening since November. No matter one’s political persuasion, it seems everyone is paying attention to the disruption that’s happening in Washington, D.C., and then filtering down to local communities.
People are observing what’s going on and then taking the time to send us their opinions. One of the most cherished ideals in American journalism is that the opinion section should be like the public square, a place where people feel comfortable expressing their views about what’s happening in their community and in their country.
mine. He has more money. I am sure that you fear his monetary influence in the next election. You keep in mind that he injected $280 million into the campaign of Mr. Trump and so influenced that election. You are concerned about losing your next election in the primaries if you disagree with or attempt to stymy Mr. Musk’s actions. You should remember that both the House and the Senate have powers and that the Executive Branch is the administrator of the laws passed by Congress; passed by Congress, not by Executive decree. And just because Mr. Musk is Mr. Trump’s friend does not give him any position or power within our government unless you ignore your duties and allow this to happen. I say again, do your jobs. Be more interested in doing your jobs than you are about fearing to lose them.
Luther Jones Sylva
Me thinks they protest too much
To the Editor:
The recent outrage by an ever-increasing number of Democrat talking heads about actions by Elon Musk and DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) brings to mind a play by William Shakespeare. In “Hamlet,” Lady Gertrude says “me thinks, the lady doth protest too much.” Since then, it has been come to be used as a common expression when someone is guilty of something they are trying to hide or they are being overly defensive or insincere. Could it be that the Democrats are “protesting too much” because they are not really interested in getting rid of all the fraud, abuse and neglect? The most recent government census stated that there are 80,000 people living in the U.S. over the age of 100, but recent news stories have claimed Social Security records show over 20 million people over 100 are receiving SS payments. Recent
Because of the divisiveness of politics today, some newspapers have opted to curtail or completely do away with their opinions section. As a lifelong newspaper reader who cut his teeth reading some of the most influential columnists of yesteryear and today — people like William Buckley Jr., Mike Royko, Molly Ivins, Clarence Page, Anna Quindlen, Charles Krauthammer, George Will — I have an unbridled affection for a well-writ-
LETTERS
reports also show that literally billions of dollars are paid by Social Security to people that don’t even have SS numbers. That is not what the program was designed for, and it is predicted that Social Security will be insolvent by 2037.
Personally, I applaud the work of President Trump and I am glad he has tasked DOGE with rooting out fraud, waste, corruption, inefficiency and mismanagement. Those on the left say that is not the president’s job, it should be done by Congress. Let’s be honest: Congress has been unable to do anything for a long time. The last time they had a balanced budget was almost 30 years ago. And common sense tells us that when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging.
I’m not sure which of the reasons is the real reason for the Democrats’ fear of President Trump’s success. Is it because they don’t want the Republicans to get credit for rooting out fraud and waste, which by the way the majority of Americans agree with? Or is it because it will mess up their plans to continue to “tax and spend” us into further dependence on the government and create tax-wasting programs that match their own political agenda?
Either way, there has been way too many profanity laced meltdowns and too much talk of a “constitutional crisis” and it appears to me that “they doth protest too much.”
David Lawson, MD Lake Junaluska
GOP does not own the Bible
To the Editor:
Trump and his sidekick billionaire know exactly why our Constitution was intentionally designed with three branches of government. The speed with which they look to dismantle our checks and balances is proof that they look to install a government like Victor
ten opinion column. Truth be told there are too few of them today.
And I also believe strongly in those letters to the editor that we are receiving en masse these days. We try to print all we get, try to edit for facts and try to keep irate writers from libeling or slandering anyone so we won’t get sued.
That said, I’ll keep this column short so we have room for your opinions since this is your space. Unfortunately, with the amount of letters we are getting and space in the print edition limited, some letters may take a few weeks before they appear in print.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for writing.
(Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com.)
Orbàn has done in Hungary. One needs only to look at the economic wreck that is Hungary.
Trump and Musk believe that wealthy white men know what is best for a pluralistic society and deliver the hate, misogyny and cruelty to the widows, the orphans, the imprisoned, the hungry and the strangers (a.k.a., immigrants). Those pushing Project 2025 have not read the gospels of Jesus Christ in a very long time and reject the message of Christ with every piece of legislation they try to pass. Jesus is not a Republican or Democrat, yet the Republicans believe they own his Bible.
Kindness is a powerful force
To the Editor:
Political leaders are claiming they want to unite Americans. What they suggest is a topdown system which they can take credit for, rescuing millions of people all at one time. Not much is said about the counterpoint — working from the bottom upward individually, yet as a collective whole. As Willie Nelson moans, “At a time when the world seems to be spinning hopelesslyout of control….” What leaders may see is merely part of the healing we can bring about — the macro. Little is said to remind us we can individually toil on the micro level.
Our outgoing as well as incoming president have each carried out massive pardons to protect people who basically share their views. This is powerful pardoning. But does it evince the tolerance we need toward each other today? Does the individual retain this type of tolerance? Only if we recognize the power of tolerance that each of us has.
Legendary Canadian singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot sang, “ ... but, heroes often fail.” Indeed, they do.
James Tola Clyde
Editor
Scott
McLeod
Especially when they fail to remind us of our individual capability to practice tolerance. Presidents, religious leaders, educational leaders, other people who are blessed with influence need to recognize this fact.
We must choose both systems in America — the macro as we elect leaders as well as our very own individual micro influence with our neighbors.
Remember what the great Glen Campbell sang, “You’ve got to try a little kindness.” Is that not what Biden just did? Trump? Are we safe to judge their motives? As Kathy Mattea said, “You’ve got to come from the heart if you want it to work.” They will have to sleep with their decisions as each of us will on our individual basis.
Kindness may be the mightiest force on earth.
Dave Waldrop Sylva
Big Pharma ads are lies
To the Editor:
Lately there have been video ads on YouTube and TV that say “Biden Raided and Broke Medicare,” that Biden raised the price of pills for seniors. This is beyond the scope of “misinformation,” it is a barefaced lie of the absolute worst kind. The Biden administration closed the “donut hole” for seniors’ medications and put a cap of about $2,000 on out-of-pocket expenses. Furthermore, they were working very hard to institute Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug prices for seniors.
The reason for these ads is nefarious. The call to action is to contact so-called “Seniors 4 Better Care” which is nothing but a scam to get voters to push Congress to reverse the savings and negotiated prices. It’s funded by drug companies that are making billions in profits from taxpayers. This push is a “Black is White” kind of lie. Don’t fall for it.
I’m a certified “Senior Health Insurance Information Program” counselor, so I know what I’m talking about.
Allan Zacher, MD Haywood County
Wake up before it’s too late
To the Editor:
I made granola today. I know that doesn’t sound like news, or even worth a letter to the editor. But it’s pretty significant for me because my anxiety has been so high, that I haven’t been able to do the everyday things I should be doing — like making the granola I’ve been out of for the last two weeks.
The anxiety comes from watching the dismantling of our Constitution and with it the dismantling of America. The Founding Fathers very intentionally made our country with three branches — the legislative to enact the laws; the executive to enforce the laws enacted by Congress; and the judicial branch to make sure the laws were constitutional. They did not say the president had all the power, or that the country was to be run by executive orders and decrees that bypass the legislative branch.
The Founding Fathers also said that Congress has the purse strings for the government — not an unelected South African billionaire, who now has access to all of our personal financial data and all our country’s data. And I don’t think the Founding Fathers ever imagined a vice president basically saying the laws don’t apply to the executive branch. I’m watching Congress abdicate their responsibility to us — the American citizens.
I’m wondering if those congressional members realize that they’ll be let go as soon as they are no longer useful. As a military officer I took the same oath as those in Washington take — to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. In the Constitution our Founding Fathers gave us the tools we need to run our country.
It’s hard for me to believe that anyone can believe taking over government computers, personal data, turning control of our country’s checkbook to an unauthorized civilian has been done to cut back on fraud and saying laws don’t apply to the executive branch. It’s been done as revenge, as simple as that, revenge.
We need to wake up before it’s too late — if it’s not already.
Mary Ford, Major, USAF retired Waynesville
Watch your bank account
To the Editor:
Trump and his puppet master Elon Musk are killing our economy that was recovering better than any other major nation after the terrible worldwide COVID experience, an economy with bipartisan infrastructure investments that were good for working people and poised to take off in a measured and secure way with inflation down and jobs up. Now costs are going back up and we are in total chaos within our own borders and across the world, with hate, mistrust from our allies and anti-civil rights continuing to rise. Keep an eye on your bank accounts folks. Don’t depend on Social Security or Medicare that you’ve worked for your whole life, as the billionaires in charge are gouging the funds, safety and security of all Americans in order to fund their $4 trillion tax cuts for the wealthy. Those that can better grow a garden and share with your neighbor.
Deborah Bryant Cashiers
Thank God for Trump, Vance
To the Editor:
I voted for Donald Trump. I voted for J.D. Vance. I am deeply grateful for them, the wise decisions they are making and the excellent staff they have assembled. Thank God that we dodged a bullet and their outrageous, ridiculous opponents were not elected!
Susan Ivey Stecoah
To here from there
BY GARRET K. WOODWARD ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
With her latest album, “Highlander,” bluegrass/Americana icon Missy Raines takes inventory of where she stands at this current juncture in her storied career — this melodic ode to her native West Virginia, which simultaneously serves as an ideal prism of time and space Raines peers through into the unknowns of tomorrow.
“Making this record and having this band has been sort of a homecoming,” the legendary bassist/vocalist said. “I’m at a point in my life where I’ve been able to look back at what I’ve gone through, what I’ve done, and the path I ultimately wanted to take.”
Captured in Nashville, Tennessee, the 10-song LP once again brings together Raines with producer Alison Brown, a bluegrass star in her own right. The record showcases Raines backed by her steadfast group Allegheny, named after the peaks and valleys of Raines’ homeland in the rural depths of Appalachia via the MidAtlantic.
“Lately, I’ve realized so much of the music I’ve created comes from personal experience,” Raines noted. “Songs about growing up in a small town, songs about making hard choices when you’re coming-of-age — do I stay in this remote area and try to make a living or do I leave my family behind and face what’s out there on my own?”
Choosing the latter, Raines headed for the bright lights of Nashville, ultimately garnering some of the biggest accolades in the music industry, including 14 International Bluegrass Music Association honors, with 10 being awarded for “Bass Player of the Year.” Raines’ 2018 release “Royal Traveller” was also nominated
for a Grammy Award for “Best Bluegrass Album” in 2020.
And amid this existential quest of sorts for Raines emerges a finely-honed internal antenna within “Highlander,” one that places her atop this lyrical platform of personal reflection, cultural observation, and artistic cultivation.
“Maybe it’s because I’m an artist, but the best of me comes out when I feel deeply about something,” Raines said. “And I have to choose things that I feel passionate about, which will allow me to reproduce and translate those feelings musically.”
For Raines, when approaching the sacred art of singing, she’s able to visualize the words and emotions put forth through the selections on “Highlander” — cherished images and vivid scenes from her own continued journey conjured to the forefront of her intent.
“As a singer, it took me a while to find how my voice fits into this music that I love so much,” Raines said. “I try to tap into what I’m feeling, to convey all the energy and the drive that sets bluegrass apart — it’s a personal music, but it’s universal at the same time.”
“Highlander” brings together some of the finest musicians in Nashville and beyond, including country star and fellow West Virginian Kathy Mattea; fiddle virtuosos Michael Cleveland, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, Darol Anger and Shad Cobb; renowned bluegrass vocalists Danny Paisley, Dudley Connell and Laurie Lewis; with dobro wizard Rob Ickes and banjo great Alison Brown also making guest appearances.
And though Raines emerged onto the national scene through the ancient tones of bluegrass music, it’s her unrelenting urge to wander down the rabbit hole and immerse herself into other sonic realms that has led to an abundance of lauded collabora-
tions in the areas of Americana, country and folk.
Peeling back the layers of “Highlander,” Raines returns to her bluegrass roots. Coming into the recording process, Raines found herself, perhaps subconsciously, digging deep into the people, places and things residing at the foundation of her life and career. Reflecting on the tracks selected for “Highlander,” Raines found the gem “Ghost of a Love,” a tune by Virginia-based Big Country Bluegrass.
“Their version was a little different, but I heard it with that classic bluegrass fast-waltz vibe that feels completely genuine to me,” Raines recalled. “It’s the perfect song to feature Dudley Connell, founding member of the traditional iconic band, The Johnson Mountain Boys.”
The number also features Raines’ husband, Ben Surratt, who engineered the album, and the inspiration for the ballad “Looking to You” — a Raines original paying tribute to the couple’s almost 40 years together.
“These songs represent both sides of me,” Raines said. “Even though they’re different grooves and different feels, I believe they each fall comfortably within the context of bluegrass — that’s how I see bluegrass, with a wide lens.”
Whether it was being a kid and heading to bluegrass festivals around the Mid-Atlantic with her family or seeing pillars of the genre onstage — Bill Monroe, Stanley Brothers, Mac Wiseman, Sam Bush — each moment remains etched on the walls of Raines’ memory. And although Raines has ducked down numerous other avenues of sound and scope in recent years, she’s never left bluegrass behind.
“I love so many different kinds of music,” Raines said. “But I cannot describe how bluegrass affects me, and why it affects me so deeply.”
If anything, Raines has always kept the intricate skillset and lifelong adoration for bluegrass in her back pocket amid her adventures into other musical circles. It’s like Monroe said long ago, “If you can play my music, you can play anything.” And so goes Missy Raines, further and farther into her purposeful curiosity and bountiful discovery of self.
“I’m embracing bluegrass again, and it’s all been incredibly good for me,” Raines said. “In every sense of the way, I almost can just go back [in my mind] and rely on those intrinsic things I learned as a 15-year-old in a field at a bluegrass festival — tapping into how I felt back then, and how I still feel today about this music.”
With modern-day bluegrass currently experiencing another high-water mark as names like Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle and Sierra Hull proudly carry the torch of tradition and evolution, Raines finds solidarity in the ongoing growth and progress of the “high, lonesome sound” — this fine line between respect and rebellion that Raines has seamlessly balanced since the beginning.
“I watched that first generation of [bluegrass] people doing all that — creating traditional music, then breaking away from it to do their own thing,” Raines said. “And all of it is still surviving and flourishing. To me, there’s nothing more bluegrass than the act of absolute innovation — and that’s what we’re doing, because that’s what Monroe did from the start.”
Want to go?
A popular annual concert series, “An Appalachian Evening,” has recently announced its return to the Stecoah Valley Cultural Arts Center in Robbinsville.
Kicking off on June 28 with Jeff Little Trio, the series will also include Missy Raines & Allegheny (July 5), Amanda Cook Band (July 12), Kruger Brothers (July 19), Unspoken Tradition (July 26), Special Consensus (Aug. 2), Mean Mary (Aug. 9), Appalachian Smoke (Aug. 16), Liam Purcell & Cane Mill Road (Aug. 23) and Darren Nicholson Band (Aug. 30).
Season passes and individual tickets are now available for purchase. For more information, visit stecoahvalleycenter.com/anappalachian-evening or call 828.479.3364.
Missy Raines will play Stecoah July 5. File photo
‘An Appalachian Evening’ welcomes Missy Raines
This must be the place
BY GARRET K. WOODWARD
The 2002
‘Deep fry your feelings so they can’t escape, disappear into nothing’
HOT PICKS
1
A production of “The Story of My Life” will be held at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 28, March 1 and 2 p.m. March 2 at the Haywood Arts Regional Theatre in Waynesville.
2
“Solstice: A Winter Circus Experience” will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 27, in the Bardo Arts Center Performance Hall at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.
3
Jackson County Americana/folk duo Bird in Hand will perform at 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 28, at Mountain Layers Brewing Company in Bryson City.
Hello from Room 222 at the Comfort Inn, located just off Interstate 81 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. After a couple weeks immersed in a sort of vision quest back up to my native North Country that is Upstate New York, I’ll soon be below the Mason-Dixon Line.
Onward to Western North Carolina. Onward to the hopeful end of winter, where visions of sunshine and warm air swirl around my current thoughts, especially when I’m looking out my hotel window at the snowy ridges of the Pocono Mountains surrounding the city.
The temperature was a crisp nine degrees when I packed up my truck at my parents’ farmhouse on the outskirts of Plattsburgh, New York. The day before, we’d received over a foot of fresh snow, not to mention the howling winds causing whiteout conditions on the highways and backroads of the Champlain Valley.
To that, I’m well-versed in the simple notion that you’re never, ever the same after any road trip or excursion, which is why I am constantly chasing those departures from my humble abode apartment in Waynesville — jettison to somewhere, anywhere, at least for a moment to collect yourself and process just what your life has become.
And this latest wandering and pondering session back to my native Adirondack Mountains, back to the Canadian Border towns, trials and tribulations of my youth has proven bountiful. If anything, it’s become very cathartic, especially in hindsight at this roadside hotel, as I peel back and examine my time not only with family and friends, but also with myself and my purposely vulnerable thoughts.
Thus, my unrelenting thoughts and restless soul hovers wildly around certain things that have either never left my subconscious (implanted years ago) or merely the facts of life that have recently come to light, for good or ill. Such is life, eh? Just when you think you’ve got a slight grip on it, it just slips through your fingers.
For example, as I was gearing up to get ready to return to Western North Carolina, I
received the news of the tragic passing of an old buddy of mine, Tyler. He was 39. I hadn’t seen him in years. A dear friend from elementary school all the way through college, who was also a long-time cross-country teammate as teenagers.
One of those kind, cosmic beings that, no matter how much time has passed, whenever you’d cross paths, it felt like you’d just seen him yesterday. So many adventures and such throughout high school, where I fondly remember one rained out camping excursion with Tyler at Fish Creek following a great hike up Silver Lake Mountain in the heart of the Adirondacks. Not to mention all those wild-nout times in Mooers Forks, New York, in farm fields and backyard gatherings.
I even remember one time when we ran the “Old Home Day” 5K fun run in Chazy, New York. We blew away the competition and just ran side-by-side, ultimately deciding to run across the finish line together as a first-place tie. Winning was never really Tyler’s thing. He could care less about the blue ribbon, where it was more about the experience itself and the lessons learned, especially if that journey was done alongside friends and family.
With his trademark smile and signature laugh, a sincere tone that couldn’t be more genuine and heartfelt if he tried, Tyler was one of the few beautiful souls in my travels that never, ever lost that childlike wonder of creativity, solitude, and discovery. He was a gifted musician and a talented artist. And his friendship was cherished by so many people, myself included.
He also was deeply sensitive and could hold such in-depth conversations about nothing and everything, usually the topics hovering around whatever the intrinsic, existential pondering of the day was. Truth be told, if you were lucky enough to cross paths with and befriend Tyler, well, you were lucky enough.
Anyone who was on those Northeastern Clinton Central School (NCCS) cross-country teams back in the day knows how special,
4
Sandy Benson will host a book reading for her latest work, “Dear Folks: Letters Home 1943-1946 World War II,” at 3 p.m. Saturday, March 1, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.
5
Listening Room (Franklin) will host Danny Schmidt (singersongwriter) 2:30 p.m. Sunday, March 2.
unique, and tightly-knit we were. So much so, many of us remain friends, lifelong in fact, no matter how much time has passed. We truly all loved and championed each other.
And to that point, a lot of those kind hearts have reached out and reconnected with each other because of this latest news, perhaps the one silver lining in all of this. Plans are already in motion to meet up at some point this summer back in the North Country, to go for a hike in the Adirondacks and have some cold beers somewhere afterwards, all in memory of our friend, Tyler.
So, here I sit at this writing desk in a Comfort Inn in Scranton. There’s still over 10 hours of driving and some 700 miles left to go until I’ll be able to put the key in the door of my quaint apartment and turn the lock to cross the threshold of whatever things I’ve decided to carry along with me from my life — photos, books, vinyl records and pieces of art displayed around my cozy bed.
What does it all mean, right? Does anything mean anything anymore? Did it ever? Who knows? Who cares? For what matters most in life are those fleeting moments of genuine interactions of kindness and compassion with one another. Nothing else really counts for anything beyond that, so hold onto that notion as you traverse this big ole world. Remember, kindness breeds kindness, so does compassion.
I think of Tyler. I think of everyone else I’ve lost along the way. And I hold onto those moments shared together close to my heart. Those moments fill the spaces in the beating muscle in my chest that were once pieces I held, that I’ve given away to others, happily, over the decades of my existence on this earth. Other spaces are filled with pieces given to me by others, happily, in their travels, too. Life is beautiful, grasp for it, y’all.
NCCS cross-country team. File photo
Cowee School welcomes Unspoken Tradition
Unspoken Tradition will play Franklin March 9. File photo
• Cataloochee Ranch (Maggie Valley) will host Brian Ashley Jones and Melanie Jean (Americana) 5 p.m. March 9. For tickets and reservations, click on cataloocheeranch.com/ranch-events/live-music.
• Cowee School Arts & Heritage Center (Franklin) will host Unspoken Tradition (Americana/bluegrass) 2 p.m. March 9 and “Open Mic Night” 6 p.m. March 14. 828.369.4080 / coweeschool.org/music.
• Currahee Brewing (Franklin) will host “Team Trivia” Mondays and semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.634.0078 / curraheebrew.com.
• Folkmoot Friendship Center (Waynesville) will host Blue Pipa Trio (jazz/world) 7 p.m. March 13. 828.452.2997 / folkmoot.org.
ALSO:
• Frog Level Brewing (Waynesville) will host “Jazz On The Level” 5:30 p.m. every Tuesday, Kevin Dolan & Paul Koptak Feb. 28 and Ben & The Borrowed Band March 1. All shows begin at 6 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.454.5664 / froglevelbrewing.com.
• Frog Quarters (Franklin) will host live music from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays. Free and open to the public. Located at 573 East Main Street. 828.369.8488 / littletennessee.org.
Unspoken Tradition will perform at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 9, at the Cowee School Arts & Heritage Center in Franklin.
Unspoken Tradition is about new, original bluegrass. Inspired by their own influences and the roots of traditional and newgrass music, this Western North Carolina-based quintet brings a sound that is both impassioned and nostalgic, hard-driving and sincere.
In recent years, their singles have all charted in the Bluegrass Today top 20, including “California” (No. 1) “Irons in the Fire” (No.
Americana, folk at Mountain Layers
Jackson County Americana/folk duo Bird in Hand will perform at 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 28, at Mountain Layers Brewing Company in Bryson City.
The road less traveled has always been the way for husband-and-wife duo Bird in Hand. Bryan & Megan Thurman call the Great Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina home and the region is directly reflected in their music. Bird in Hand is upbeat and new while still rooted in the traditions of American folk.
The two have played all over the Appalachian region, as well as across the country, and share an onstage chemistry that demands attention. They need to be seen live to understand the meaning of “Appalachian Thunder Folk.”
The show is free and open to the public. For more information, go to mountainlayersbrewingcompany.com.
Bird in Hand will play Bryson City Feb. 28. File photo
2) and “Carolina and Tennessee” (No. 4).
A 2019 release, “Myths We Tell Our Young,” debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard Bluegrass charts and has seen five top-charting radio singles, including a #1 spot on the Bluegrass Today chart for “Dark Side of the Mountain.”
Tickets are $15 for adults, $7.50 for kids. For more information and/or to purchase tickets, call 828.369.4080 or visit coweeschool.org.
• Gathering Room (Waynesville) will host an “Open Acoustic Jam” from 6:30-8:30 p.m. the last Friday of every month. All welcome to play or listen. 828.558.1333 / thegatheringroom828.com.
• Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort (Cherokee) will host The O’Jays (soul/funk) 7:30 p.m. March 1 and Joe Bonamassa (rock/blues) 9 p.m. March 7. For tickets, click on caesars.com/harrahs-cherokee.
• Highlander Mountain House (Highlands) will host “Blues & Brews” 6-9 p.m. Thursdays ($5 cover), Zorki (singer-songwriter) 1-3 p.m. Saturdays, “Bluegrass Brunch” 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sundays (free) and the “Salon Series” with Holly Williams (singer-songwriter) 8:30 p.m. Feb. 27 ($28.52 per person). 828.526.2590 / highlandermountainhouse.com.
• Lazy Hiker Brewing (Franklin) will host JR Rund (Americana) March 1, Scott Stambaugh (singer-songwriter) March 7 and Troy Underwood (singer-songwriter) March 8. All shows begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.349.2337 / lazyhikerbrewing.com.
• Lazy Hiker Brewing (Sylva) will host “Music Bingo” 6:30 p.m. Mondays, Cody Marlow (roots/rock) Feb. 28 and Seth & Sara (Americana) March 7. All shows begin at 8 p.m. Free and open to the public unless otherwise noted. 828.349.2337 / lazyhikerbrewing.com.
• WNC Paint Events will host painting sessions throughout the region on select dates. For more information and/or to sign up, click on wncpaint.events.
• Gathering Room (Waynesville) will host a “Makers Market” 3-7 p.m. March 22. All welcome to play or listen. 828.558.1333 / thegatheringroom828.com.
• Marianna Black Library (Bryson City) will host “ArtWorks” at 1 p.m. every second Thursday of the month. Come create your own masterpiece. The materials for art works are supplied and participants are welcome to bring ideas and supplies to share with each other. Free and open to the public. 828.488.3030 / vroberson@fontanalib.org.
• Marianna Black Library (Bryson City) will host an adult arts and crafts program at 1 p.m. every second Thursday of the month. Ages 16 and up. Space is limited to 10 participants. Free and open to the public. 828.488.3030 / vroberson@fontanalib.org.
• CRE828 (Waynesville) will offer a selection of art classes and workshops at its studio located at 1283 Asheville Road. Workshops will include art journaling, watercoloring, mixed media, acrylic painting and more. For a full list of classes, click on cre828.com. dawn@cre828.com / 828.283.0523.
• Gallery Zella (Bryson City) will be hosting an array of artist receptions, exhibits and showcases. galleryzella.com / 517.881.0959.
• Waynesville Photography Club meets at 7 p.m. every third Monday each month on the second floor of the Haywood Regional Health & Fitness Center in Clyde. The club is a nonprofit organization that exists for the enjoyment of photography and the improvement of one’s skills. They welcome photographers of all skill levels to share ideas and images at the monthly meetings. waynesvillephotoclub@charter.net.
• Haywood County Arts Council (Waynesville) will offer a wide-range of classes, events and activities for artisans, locals and visitors. haywoodarts.org.
• Jackson County Green Energy Park (Dillsboro) will be offering a slew of classes, events and activities for artisans, locals and visitors. jcgep.org.
• Southwestern Community College Swain Arts Center (Bryson City) will host an array of workshops for adults and kids. southwesterncc.edu/ scc-locations/swain-center.
• Dogwood Crafters in Dillsboro will offer a selection of upcoming art classes and workshops. dogwoodcrafters.com/classes / 828.586.2248.
• Cowee School Arts & Heritage Center (Franklin) will host semi-regular arts and crafts workshops. coweeschool.org/events.
NC Arts Council awards Helene grants
The North Carolina Arts Council has awarded $915,000 to nonprofit arts organizations in Western North Carolina affected by Hurricane Helene.
The grants utilize funds from the North Carolina Arts Foundation’s North Carolina Arts Relief Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts and South Art’s Southern Arts Relief & Recovery Fund.
The relief funds will be provided to 69 arts organizations throughout the impacted 26-county region. For The Smoky Mountain News coverage area, the following organizations received funding: Folkmoot USA ($10,000), Highlands Community Theatre ($20,000) and The Bascom ($20,000),
“This much-needed grant funding for Western North Carolina arts organizations signals another important step in the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources’ commitment to recovery in areas affected by Hurricane Helene,” said Arts Council Director Jeff Bell. “The cultural and arts offerings in Western North Carolina are vital to the heritage and economic strength of our entire state.”
The grants support artistic and admin-
istrative functions of WNC arts organizations. Recipients may use them to fund salaries, artists’ fees, production, travel,
promotion, programming expenses, supplies and equipment, office expenses and facility operations.
WCU faculty art showcase
Featuring works from faculty artisans at Western Carolina University, the 2025 School of Art & Design Faculty Biennial Exhibition will be displayed through May 2 in the Bardo Arts Center in Cullowhee. Outside of the classroom, faculty members in the School of Art & Design are active artists and scholars that make significant contributions to the arts. The exhibition provides students and the community with an opportunity to view recent works created by distinguished faculty members whose primary research output is studio-based. The museum’s hours of operation are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and until 7 p.m. on Thursday. For more information, visit wcu.edu/bardo-arts-center.
Rocky Allen showcase in Macon
Collectors of paintings and drawings by Macon County resident/artist Ernest “Rocky” Harvey Allen, Jr. will be exhibiting their “Rocky” pieces at the Macon County Public Library in Franklin during the month of March.
If you have art from Rocky you’d like to share during the exhibit, please bring it by the library before March 1. You may also bring art from 2-4 p.m. Saturday, March 8, during an informal reception with refreshments, which will include a sharing of stories and art.
For more information, call the library at 828.524.3600.
Rocky Allen is a beloved WNC artist. Donated photo
Folkmoot USA is located in Waynesville. File photo
“Desert Gems” is a work by Nathan Ellis Perry. File photo
On the beat
‘From Harlem to Shanghai and Back’
Folkmoot USA will present a special evening of live music with Blue Pipa Trio at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 13, at the Folkmoot Friendship Center in Waynesville.
Dubbed “From Harlem to Shanghai and Back,” the performance is a dynamic fusion of jazz history and Chinese tradition. Led by Min Xiao-Fen, one of the world’s great pipa soloists, and joined by the powerhouse Asheville-based duo of guitarist/composer Jay Sanders and bassist Zack Page.
This project takes you to the Golden Age of jazz in Shanghai during the 1930s, when Buck Clayton’s Kansas City Swing intertwined with the pioneering melodies of Li Jinhui, the father of Chinese popular music.
Admission is “Pay What You Can” ($25, $15, $5). Donations welcome. There will also be a food truck onsite. Doors open at 6 p.m. All ages.
For more information and/or to purchase tickets, visit folkmoot.org.
• Legends Sports Bar & Grill (Maggie Valley) will host an “Open Mic Night” 6:30 p.m. every Wednesday, Karaoke Thursdays (6 p.m.) and Saturdays (7 p.m.), with live music each Friday (8 p.m.). Free and open to the public. 828.944.0403 / facebook.com/legendssportsgrillmaggievalley.
• Listening Room (Franklin) will host Danny Schmidt (singer-songwriter) 2:30 p.m. March 2. Suggested donation $20. Located at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.
• Macon County Public Library (Franklin) will host The Vagabonds (Americana) at 2 p.m. the first and third Monday and a “Song Circle” open jam from 3-6 p.m. the first Tuesday each month. Free and open to the public. 828.524.3600 or fontanalib.org.
• Old Edwards Inn (Highlands) will host live music in the Hummingbird Lounge at 5:30 p.m. every Friday and Saturday. Free and open to the public. 866.526.8008 / oldedwardshospitality.com.
• Otto Community Center (Otto) will host James Thompson (Americana) 4 p.m. March 7. Bring a beverage and snack of your choice. Free and open to the public. 770.335.0967 / go2ottonc.com.
• Peacock Performing Arts Center (Hayesville) will host “Bad Company Experience” (classic rock tribute) 7:30 p.m. March 21. For tickets, 828.389.ARTS / thepeacocknc.org.
• Rathskeller Coffee Haus & Pub (Franklin) will host Karaoke 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Trivia Night 6:30 p.m. Wednesdays and “Open Mic with Dirty Dave” 6:30 p.m. Feb. 28. All shows
begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.369.6796 / facebook.com/rathskellercoffeebarandpub.
ALSO:
• Scotsman (Waynesville) will host Kid Billy (blues/folk) Feb. 27, Second Chance (Americana) March 1, Moonshine State (Americana) March 6 and Appalachian Renegades March 7. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.246.6292 / scotsmanpublic.com.
• Slanted Window Tasting Station (Franklin) will Blue Jazz (blues/jazz) March 1. All shows begin at 5 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 828.276.9463 / slantedwindow.com.
• Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts (Franklin) will host Scott Thompson and Brother Mojo “An Evening of Classic Rock” 7 p.m. March 8 ($15 per person). 866.273.4615 / smokymountainarts.com.
• Trailborn (Highlands) will host its “Carolina Concert Series” with Remedy 58 (blues/soul) Feb. 27 and David Cheatham (Americana/folk) March 6. All shows begin at 6 p.m. Free and open to the public. 828.482.1581 or trailborn.com/highlands.
• Unplugged Pub (Bryson City) will host Second Chance (Americana) Feb. 28, Ellis Haven March 1 and Tricia Ann Band (country/rock) March 7. All shows are $5 at the door unless otherwise noted and begin at 8 p.m. 828.538.2488 / unpluggedpub.com.
• Find more at smokymountainnews.com/arts
Blue Pipa Trio will play Waynesville March 13. Donated photo
On the stage
HART presents ‘The Story of My Life’
ALSO:
‘The Story of My Life’ will be at HART on select dates. Donated photo
A special stage production of “The Story of My Life” will be held at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 28, March 1 and 2 p.m. March 2 at the Haywood Arts Regional Theatre in Waynesville.
An intimate and deeply moving musical, “The Story of My Life” celebrates the power of friendship and the memories that connect us. Following the lifelong bond between two childhood friends, Thomas and Alvin, this poignant tale explores how the stories we share — and the ones we leave untold — define our lives.
With a beautiful score and heartfelt lyrics, this two-person musical invites audiences to laugh, cry and reflect on the relationships that shape who we are. Honest and tender, it’s a theatrical experience that will stay with you long after the final note.
For more information and/or to purchase tickets, visit harttheatre.org or call the box office at 828.456.6322.
• Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort (Cherokee) will host semi-regular standup comedy shows on the weekends. For tickets, click on caesars.com/harrahs-cherokee.
• Haywood Arts Regional Theatre (Waynesville) will host semi-regular stage productions on the weekends. harttheatre.org / 828.456.6322.
• Highlands Performing Arts Center (Highlands) will host semi-regular stage
productions on the weekends. mountaintheatre.com / 828.526.9047.
• Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts (Franklin) will host “Aristocats: The Meow-sical” at 7 p.m. Feb. 28-March 1 and 2 p.m. March 1. smokymountainarts.com / 866.273.4615.
• Peacock Performing Arts Center (Hayesville) will host a production of “Play On!” on select dates March 7-16. thepeacocknc.org / 828.389.ARTS.
‘Solstice: A Winter Circus Experience’
A special stage production of “Solstice: A Winter Circus Experience” will be held at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 27, in the Bardo Arts Center Performance Hall at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.
This captivating circus show unfolds the story of a character who has lost his inner light, plunging him into a wondrous and surreal world where memories come to life and the ordinary becomes ‘extra’ordinary.
“Solstice” blends over eight acrobatic acts with lighting, costumes, music, scenery and snow to create a unique blend of poetry and circus in a 90-minute show. “Solstice” is an unforgettable celebration of the human spirit, where every member of the audience will feel like a kid again and remember what it was like to see snow fall for the first time.
For more information and a full schedule of events at the Bardo Arts Center, visit wcu.edu/bardo-arts-center. To purchase tickets to any of the performances, go to wcuarts.universitytickets.com.
On the table
• Classic Wineseller (Waynesville) will have its wine bar open 4-8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. 828.452.6000 / classicwineseller.com.
• Blue Ridge Beer Hub (Waynesville) will host semi-regular tap-takeovers from local and regional breweries on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 828.246.9320 / blueridgebeerhub.com.
• “Flights & Bites” will be held starting at 4 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays at Bosu’s Wine Shop in downtown Waynesville. There will also be a special “Valentine Wine Dinner” at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 14 ($84 per person).
828.452.0120 / waynesvillewine.com.
• “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. 828.538.0420.
• “Uncorked: Wine & Rail Pairing Experience” will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on select dates at the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad in Bryson City. Full service all-adult first class car. Wine pairings with a meal, and more. There will also be a special “Beer Train” on select dates. 800.872.4681 / gsmr.com.
‘Solstice’ will be at WCU Feb. 27. Donated photo
War, God and children: Two unusual books
The adage “There are no atheists in foxholes” catches our attention, but is too broad and imprecise for universal application. As Phil Zuckerman writes in his online essay “Are There Atheists in Foxholes?” combat can and does turn the thoughts of those on a battlefield to God, yet he then calls our attention to the numerous accounts of soldiers who either lost or simply never acquired a religious faith while under enemy fire. “For some people,” Zuckerman writes, “the horrors they witness or the suffering they endure can render belief in an all-powerful, all-loving deity unsustainable.”
Of course, many people do experience a strengthening and renewal of their relationship with God in the chaos and killing of battle. In “Under His Wings: How Faith on the Front Lines Has Protected American Troops” (Harper Influence, 2024, 272 pages), attorney and media personality Emily Compagno has compiled the stories of just a few American military personnel, veterans who served in combat from the Second World War to our recent engagements in the Middle East, who while facing a human enemy found a friend: God.
Combat medic Jessica Harris was serving in Iraq when her unit was called to the assistance of another outfit under attack, with at least one armored vehicle hit with an EFP (explosively formed projectile). She treated the wounded, two of them with horrific injuries, remaining steady and calm during this ordeal.
Captain Charlie Plumb, United States Navy, was shot down over North Vietnam just five days before the end of his tour and spent the next six years as a prisoner of war. For his first years, he and other Americans kept in solitary confinement found ways of communicating through their prison walls by tapping and codes. During their ordeal they devised small ways of resisting the threats and demands of their captors.
In Korea, Robert Burr fought in the backto-back battles of Bloody Ridge and Heartbreak Ridge. At Bloody Ridge, when his squad leader was killed, Burr was chosen to take his place. Wounded days later when an enemy shell exploded near him, and after a rugged journey through the mountains, he was evacuated to safety and a hospital bed. Harris, Plumb, Burr and the others in
Compagno’s book all speak of an “unseen force at work: the origin of tide-turning courage, the source of ultimate protection, the embrace in which soldiers found comfort.” They found their faith deepened by what they had witnessed and suffered. In addition, because of that faith, they remained cool and collected in emergencies and hardships, and showed “a Christ-like capacity for putting the needs of others ahead of their own, of brotherhood before self, of service before all else.”
and his talent for bringing this story alive on the page makes “The Children’s Civil War” a true treasure for those interested in military history or who simply delight in good writing. Through letters, diaries, newspaper accounts, oral histories and fiction of that era, Marten recreates the home front lives of boys and girls whose fathers and brothers had marched off to fight in previously unremarked places like Shiloh, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Here are accounts of boys playing at pretend battles, of adolescents who hid in basements and survived the sieges of cities like Vicksburg and Atlanta, of the effects of absentee fathers on family dynamics. About halfway through “The Children’s Civil War,” I paused to refresh my memory by looking up some data online. In 1860, the population of the United States, whites, blacks, and “other,” was over 31 million. In the war that followed, 620,000 soldiers, about 2% of the population, lost their lives to combat or disease.
Lots of photographs and Compagno’s anecdotes of her own ties with the military from childhood up to the present add to the pleasures of reading “Under His Wings.”
In “The Children’s Civil War” (The University of North Carolina Press, 2000, 368 pages), historian James Marten investigates the effects of that internecine conflict on children and families in both the North and the South. Since adolescence, I’ve read many histories, biographies and novels about America’s deadliest war, yet Marten’s book was an eye-opener for me. Except in passing, I’d never really given much thought to the impact of the war on the children of that time.
Marten’s excellent book filled in this gap in my education. His exhaustive research
Gentry, Hill to present new works
Gentry and Halle
As I read on about those boys and girls living at the time of that horrendous conflict, in my mind I kept coming back to those statistics and to the irreparable damages done to the families of all those dead soldiers: the mothers who had lost a child or a husband, the children who would never again see their fathers or older brothers. Those reflections added an even greater poignancy to the words I was reading.
If you’re in search of some excellent history this winter, I highly recommend “The Children’s Civil War.” Marten has given us a remarkable account of those who until now have remained hidden in the shadows of the past.
(Jeff Minick reviews books and has written four of his own: two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust On Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning As I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” minick0301@gmail.com.)
Studies Program, explores themes of family, addiction and Black women’s experiences in Louisville and the Appalachian South. The reading is free and open to the public. For more information, visit citylightsnc.com or call 828.586.9499.
Writer Jeff Minick
America’s worst idea
Cuts to national parks put safety, economy, legacy at risk
BY CORY VAILLANCOURT
POLITICS EDITOR
Often called “America’s best idea,” the National Park System founded more than a century ago has given generations of visitors from across the country and the world a unique opportunity to come together amid the bountiful natural beauty and historical dignity this nation has to offer. Chronic underfunding, Congressional inaction and proposed cuts to staffing have led to concerns about the operational capacity of the parks at a time when local economies, especially in Western North Carolina, need them most.
Picture this — you and your partner and the kids hop in the car for your annual family vacation, driving down from Kalamazoo, Keokuk, Kenosha or Kokomo with the promise of visiting the pristine, picturesque paradise you saw in a commercial or in a dog-eared magazine at the barber shop. After irritable hours on the interstate, the subtle slopes of the Great Smoky Mountains begin to rise in your windshield. You’re close. The kids are getting restless. Rambunctious even. It’s almost time to begin weaving enduring memories into the gauzy fabric of their childhoods by taking the selfies that will earn you the envy of the whole damn HOA.
When you arrive, the experience is very different from the one you thought you’d bought.
You’re greeted by an hours-long traffic jam like you typically see on your commute to work. There’s been a wreck, slow to clear,
which gives you plenty of time to watch a family from New York struggle to put their toddler on the back of an elk. Your gas tank is nearly empty, someone’s bladder nearly full.
Finally pulling into a trash-strewn parking lot, you discover the unkempt bathrooms are biohazardous.
There are no smiling flat hats in sight. No maintenance personnel. No reenactors demonstrating blacksmithing or quilting or that ol’ mountain music which for centuries has wafted through these hollers and hills. No one to tell your kids the history of these people, of this place, of this nation.
As the hazy summer sun threatens to dip beneath the lush, green peaks above, you head down an overgrown trail worn to obsolescence, crisscrossed with fallen trees. Passing a campsite near a historic wooden cabin given to rot, you catch the acrid smell of plastic burning in a campfire, enveloping campers pounding beers and poaching hellbenders. Further into the woods, stepping over a discarded campaign yard sign, you roll your ankle on a lichen-slicked rock. It’s growing ever darker. No one is coming to help you. And on top of it all, you still had to pay $5 to park.
staffed and underfunded for generations — if further cuts to staffing promulgated by President Donald Trump and his advisor Elon Musk hold true.
“Back in 2010, the annual appropriations for all of the parks around the country was $3.1 billion,” said Phil Francis, chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, a 3,200-member organization comprised mainly of current and former National Parks Service employees.
“The House bill last year was calling for $3.1 billion, and if you look at the adjustment of $3.1 billion over 15 years, it should be $4.6 billion, just to keep even.”
While earning $1.65 an hour working in a textile mill, Francis lucked into a position at King’s Mountain National Military Park about 20 miles west of Charlotte. The job entailed giving walk-and-talks, working the information desk, maybe hiking some trails. It paid $3 an hour.
“That’s how I got started,” Francis said. “After one month had passed, I was in love with it. And after a couple of years of doing it while I was in college, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”
Your experience could serve as an accurate description of the state of any number of the county’s 63 National Parks — under-
Initially hesitant about his public speaking skills, Francis grew into an enthusiastic educator.
“I was dressed in 18th-century clothing with a F
The iconic “flat hat” has been worn by generations of rangers since it was first included in National Park System uniform specifications in 1920. Cory Vaillancourt photo
Phil Francis.
File photo
Kentucky rifle. Kids would come running down the trail, all excited that they were there, and then all of a sudden they would come to a screeching halt and everybody would point toward us and say, ‘Wow, look!’ They would come over, and we would tell them about the American Revolution and the Battle of Kings Mountain,” Francis said. “You’re talking about the history of our country.”
Francis retired in 2013 after a 41-year career with the National Park Service, including stints on some of America’s most hallowed ground. Chickamauga. Shenandoah. Yosemite. He spent 11 years as deputy superintendent of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, including three years as acting superintendent, and also served as superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway beginning in 2005.
Dubbed the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre,” on Feb. 14, the Trump administration terminated approximately 1,000 National Park Service employees. A subsequent email obtained by The Smoky Mountain News from National Park Service leadership to all NPS employees provides guidance on how they should address the firings if they’re asked, by anyone.
“Please use this statement and only this statement. ‘I am not able to share that information at this time.’ This is the only statement that anyone should use,” the email, sent Feb. 19, reads. “Please do not deviate from this language even if you need to repeat it multiple times.”
The layoffs were part of a larger, ongoing, error-plagued effort to look for waste, fraud and inefficiency in all quarters of the nation’s $6.2 trillion annual budget and will affect various NPS roles, including maintenance workers, scientists and educational staff.
“The natural resources of the parks are still going to be present, but it’s going to be hard to maintain the trails. It’s going to be hard to keep restrooms open and clean. It’s going to be hard to have people on board to operate campgrounds and picnic areas. If there’s problems along the highway, we’ve always had law enforcement rangers and even volunteers who drive the roads to make sure everybody is safe and if something happens, they can report it and we can respond,” Francis said. “That may be more difficult to do now, and that’s too bad, because one of the images that we’ve projected over the years is the smiling face of a ranger in a flat hat.”
of one-sixteenth of 1% thinking you’re going to balance our country’s budget.”
Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-Henderson) represents the entirety of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the North Carolina side, but has repeatedly refused to talk to The Smoky Mountain News about the funding issue, including in 2023 when the Park had little other choice than to pass the cost of deferred maintenance on to you, the visitor — by implementing a new parking fee system.
Originally from Stone Mountain, Georgia, Laurey Faye Dean spent decades as a production potter operating within the region’s storied folk art movement. Last winter, the effusive, well-spoken Dean was looking around for something else to do that fit her personality and her love of art and nature.
“There was an interpretive ranger position open at the National Park Service,” Dean said Feb. 19. “I applied for it, and after background checks almighty on me, just all the kinds of things that you have to do to work for the Park Service, I was hired. It was a great experience, talking with people, leading hikes, telling kids about elk, keeping elk and people away from each other, reminding people not to climb on the waterfalls.”
Her job at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center was full-time, albeit seasonal. It had been an eventful, yet productive, first season for Dean.
“When I’d been in the park before, I’d always been a visitor. I’d been a hiker, a camper. So here I am wearing a radio. There’s car chases, there’s accidents, oh my gosh, there was stuff happening every single day. People falling off waterfalls, three, four or five times a day. I had no idea,” she said. “Our visiting public doesn’t know all that is going on, because we want them to have a good experience. They don’t need to know all that. That doesn’t mean all that’s not happening, right?”
In addition to her daily duties, she’d become instrumental in reviving the old-time music jam that had languished somewhat since the Coronavirus Pandemic. After Hurricane Helene, she and others had to face off against semi-trucks unlawfully utilizing the park’s serpentine thoroughfare, U.S. Route 441, in lieu of the damaged Interstate 40.
Since 2010, Francis said, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has lost about 20% of its staff, and the Blue Ridge Parkway has lost 25% of its staff, mainly due to the unwillingness of Congress to fund fully the National Park System.
“You look at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park or the Blue Ridge Parkway, it’s just a small fraction of the total Park Service budget, and the total Park Service budget is only one-sixteenth of 1% of the federal budget,” Francis said. “Surely you can’t be cutting a part
pretation GS-7 position at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Cherokee, North Carolina, at this time, as such, your job offer has been rescinded at management request,” she said, reading the email.
“I felt profound sadness, because I really was giving that job the best of me,” Dean continued. “I also started feeling fear for the repercussions, not just on the Great Smoky Mountains National Park but on all the parks. I saw that having boots on the ground, people smiling, people directing traffic, people interacting with other people, is vital to making the parks work.”
Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina.
Portions of the Parkway remain closed due to damage wrought by Helene, but when it’s open, the Parkway is an even bigger attraction than the 816 square-mile park it at times borders.
In 2023, the Parkway saw more visits than at any time since 2007, 16.7 million, which resulted in visitor spending of nearly $1.4 billion in small communities from Cumberland Knob to Cherokee.
Industry literature on the impact of outdoor recreational spending in North Carolina
Maintenance of Park infrastructure includes everything up to and including signage. NPS photo
“We were just walking out in the road in front of 18-wheelers, going, ‘Stop!’”
Dean’s last scheduled day of work was Dec. 28, 2024, but she’d already applied and been accepted to come back and work again this summer.
“Even bought a new pair of boots,” Dean said.
Less than a month after her last day, on Jan. 23 — three days after Trump’s Inauguration — she received an email telling her that she wasn’t welcome back.
“Rescinding offer of employment for park ranger interpretation with the National Park Service: please be advised, as the National Park Service is unable to fill the park ranger inter-
Repercussions stemming from the physical and interpersonal diminishment of the Park won’t just affect the Park. They’ll also affect the gateway communities around them.
Some in the Smokies, like Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge and Sevierville, have built up sufficient tourism infrastructure to weather the decline of the Park, should that be fated.
Others, like Maggie Valley, Townsend, Waynesville and Wears Valley, have not.
For communities that depend on America’s national parks to drive the region’s tourismheavy economy, even minor decreases in visitation create ever-growing concentric circles of commercial calamity across other economic sectors, like a cinder block in a koi pond.
Systemwide, 325 million visits in 2023 resulted in $26.4 billion in associated spending — nearly double the amount in 2012 — that was directly responsible for 415,000 jobs.
According to the U.S. Department of the Interior’s most recent annual economic effects report, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park logged 13.3 million visits in 2023, its second-highest total after COVID-weary urbanites visited 14 million times in 2021.
In 2023, visitors spent more than $2.2 billion at bars, restaurants, hotels, gas stations, outfitters, trinket shops and the like, with only 4.8% of that coming from locals. The spending supported 33,000 jobs regionally.
Western North Carolina, Haywood County specifically, is fortunate to be one of few places that has two major sites managed by the National Park Service. The Blue Ridge Parkway, a meandering 469-mile scenic drive, links Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the
suggests outdoor enthusiasts spend more and stay longer than the average visitor, and that two of the top four reasons people want to visit — maybe after seeing an ad on the television or in a dog-eared magazine at the barber shop — involve outdoor recreation.
“Scenic beauty from the mountains to the coast has long been a strong suit in North Carolina’s appeal to travelers,” said Wit Tuttell, Visit NC’s executive director. “Our research shows hiking, wildlife viewing and other outdoor pursuits among the most popular activities for our visitors. With mountain destinations recovering from damage and economic setbacks from Hurricane Helene, restoration of the Blue Ridge Parkway, Cataloochee and the recreation areas in our national forests is crucial to the vitality of the tourism industry, a major force in the local and state economies. Given the volume of visitors during the summer, a cutback in services could compound the economic challenges.”
Sales tax collections statistics from the North Carolina Department of Commerce reinforce Tuttell’s assertions (see HELENE, p. 4). For September and October 2024, the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene, taxable spending dropped nearly $400 million in the state’s 28 westernmost counties and occupancy rates tanked right at the start of the busy fall leaf season some businesses depend on to make it through the year.
In Haywood County, population 61,000, visitors spend in excess of $75 million each year on lodging alone, accounting for roughly $3 million in room occupancy tax collections
SEE NATIONAL PARKS, PAGE 27
Laurey Faye Dean. File photo
Underground storage tank loan program available for
those affected by Helene
The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, Division of Waste Management’s Underground Storage Tank Section (NCDEQ-DWM-UST), has launched the Bridge Loan Program to assist owners and operators with testing and repairing surface infrastructure for their petroleum underground storage tanks (USTs) affected by Hurricane Helene. The North Carolina General Assembly has allocated $22 million in emergency disaster recovery funding to this new program.
The Bridge Loan Program provides financial assistance for repairing and testing commercial underground storage
Conservation access plan public session rescheduled
The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) invites the public to attend upcoming forums to discuss implementation of a Conservation Access Pass currently under consideration. It would grant individuals who do not possess a NCWRC-issued hunting, fishing or trapping license, access to and use of NCWRC property, including:
tank systems in affected counties, including Alexander, Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Burke, Cabarrus, Caldwell, Catawba, Cherokee, Clay, Cleveland, Forsyth, Gaston, Graham, Haywood, Henderson, Iredell, Jackson, Lee, Lincoln, Macon, Madison, McDowell, Mecklenburg,
managed shooting ranges
• Over 250 Boating Access areas (BAAs) to more than 100 bodies of water for nonregistered vessel owners
• Over 2 million acres of game lands
• Five NCWRC owned and
In Western North Carolina, the Haywood County forum was rescheduled due to inclement weather last week. That session will now be held from 7-9 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 27, at the Haywood Community College auditorium in Clyde. The virtual forum will be recorded and posted to NCWRC’s YouTube channel. Comments and questions may be submitted online. For more information visit ncwildlife.org/conservation-access-pass.
Haywood Waterways seeks feedback
Haywood Waterways Association is creating a strategic plan for which it is seeking input, advice and opinions from the public.
The survey can be completed in one session and should take 10-15 minutes. When finished, make sure to click “Done” at the bottom of the page to submit responses.
Surveys should be completed by March 2. To access the survey, go to surveymonkey.com/r/hwa-members-volunteers.
Puzzles can be found on page 30
These are only the answers.
Mitchell, Nash, Polk, Rowan, Rutherford, Stanly, Surry, Swain, Transylvania, Union, Watauga, Wilkes, Yadkin, Yancey and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Eligible services include line and tank testing, product removal and disposal, and repair or replacement of aboveground piping, dispensers and electronics.
The loan program is designed to provide temporary financial assistance until federal disaster relief or insurance reimbursement is received. Loans awarded under the program will be interest-free and must be repaid upon receiving disaster relief or by June 30, 2030, whichever comes first.
Interested applicants can submit a loan application at https://edocs.deq.nc.gov/Forms/ustblapp?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery through June 30, 2025. Questions regarding the program can be directed to Meredith Love Gawai at meredith.lovegawai@deq.nc.gov.
Smokies Life receives national recognition for ‘Letters from the Smokies’
Smokies Life received national recognition at the 2025 Public Lands Alliance Partnership Awards for “Letters from the Smokies,” which was named Publication of the Year. Public Lands Alliance honored the winners at a Feb. 5 awards ceremony, held during the 2025 Public Lands Alliance Annual Convention and Trade Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“Letters from the Smokies,” published by Smokies Life in 2023, is a compilation of written accounts from the archives of Great Smoky Mountains National Park that spans more than 230 years. Written by park librarian–archivist Michael Aday with his wife Denise Aday, each chapter of the book centers on a specific document from the park’s archives, pulling from additional records and photos to provide further context.
“I was delighted and humbled when I was told my book won the Publication of the Year award,” Michael Aday said. “To me, it reaffirms the power of storytelling in connecting us to our public lands.”
In his role, Aday has access to nearly 1.4 million historic documents: thousands of pages of government correspondence covering decades of park service management decisions; reams of letters documenting the herculean task of establishing the park; and hundreds of documents chronicling the lives of many of those who lived here before the park existed.
In his role, Michael Aday has access to nearly 1.4 million historic documents. Donated photo
The PLA Partnership Awards program is designed to celebrate the best in public lands partnerships, recognizing individuals, organizations, publications, products, programs and services that embody leading-edge achievements in the preservation of public lands and the enrichment of visitors. Through its awards, the program recognizes excellence in public lands partnerships, innovative solutions to challenges and outstanding programs that enhance visitor experience. The Publication of the Year Award recognizes a book or other publication created in partnership by a nonprofit organization and a land management agency that embodies innovation in educating and interpreting public lands to its readers and impacts a substantial audience.
“Letters from the Smokies” was edited by Frances Figart and designed by Karen Key, both of Smokies Life. It was also awarded the 2024 Project Excellence Award from the East Tennessee Historical Society. The book, a 6-by-9-inch softcover work of nonfiction in full color, is available for $16.99 in the park’s visitor center bookstores and the Smokies Life online store at smokieslife.org.
For additional details on the 2025 Public Lands Alliance Partnership Awards, visit publiclandsalliance.org.
each year.
The HCTDA collects the 4% tax from lodging establishments each month and is mandated to spend two-thirds of the money on marketing and one-third on tourism infrastructure — local projects that put heads in beds and also benefit locals (see TDA, p. 6). Those projects can be anything from events like Canton’s Labor Day Festival to physical improvements like the Dahlia Ridge Trail at Haywood Community College to colorful murals, like the ones that adorn Waynesville Soda Jerks and BearWaters Brewing.
“Tourism is a massive piece of Haywood County’s economy, and frankly, all of Western North Carolina’s economy,” said Corrina Ruffieux, executive director of the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority.
“With the loss of the paper mill a few years ago, we don’t have any large industry here. It’s been shown time and time again through the Visit NC research that tourism is our number one employer by far here in Haywood County, so we definitely want to do absolutely everything we can to keep that tourism economy rolling forward.”
The HCTDA’s most recent master plan, completed substantially last year but issued with amendments due to the ongoing impact of Helene, envisions the organization as more than just a tax collector and rather as a steward for the resources that create visitation. The plan also calls for diversifying outdoor and indoor attractions while pushing to become a four-season destination to generate additional tourist spending that can either augment parkrelated revenue or act as a hedge against potential decreases in park-related spending.
It’s a similar tack taken with another master plan approved by another public body in 2022.
“I remember I had seen in The Smoky
Mountain News there was an ad that Jackson County had paid for, a full-page ad and it described the economic effects of outdoor recreation in Jackson County — fishing, tubing, kayaking, hiking, all of those things. It was in the high $300-million in revenue directly related to outdoor recreation from the surrounding national parks, national forests and their own natural resources within the county,” said Kevin FitzGerald, chair of the Haywood County Recreation Advisory Board. “I’m like, ‘Why are we letting all these people drive past us to Jackson County?’”
FitzGerald, however, isn’t just the chair of that board or a beloved local high school track and cross country coach. He started off in the National Park Service in 1978 as a fee collector at Crabtree Meadows on the Parkway, worked in Cataloochee, moved on to the Everglades, then the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and Cape Cod National Seashore. He managed the first post-9/11 Fourth of July celebration on the National Mall before becoming regional chief ranger in the Rockies and then followed Phil Francis as deputy superintendent of the Smokies for eight years until retiring in 2013. His recreation advisory board crafted their master plan not only with an eye on improving county recreational facilities and offerings, but also on better leveraging the federal lands that surround Haywood County’s municipalities. If those lands become compromised, the hyperlocal economy will also be affected.
ry affected operations at national parks, including the Smokies. The effects are consistent with what happens when superintendents are forced to make due with less. A Congressional showdown over a spending bill will result in a shutdown if a deal isn’t reached by March 14.
“The smart thing would be to close areas so you can contract your resources into high-use areas and unfortunately, that’s what likely would happen to a place like Haywood County,” FitzGerald said. “Cataloochee would probably be closed, I would guess Deep Creek might have to be closed, 20 Mile might have to be closed so the big three — Oconaluftee, Sugarlands and Cade’s Cove — remain open.”
Despite the grim outlook, Laurey Faye Dean says she’s still been involved at Oconaluftee.
“I’ve been going down to the Park and playing with musicians occasionally, just to keep the excitement,” Dean said. “I very badly play clawhammer banjo.”
After she spoke to The Smoky Mountain News on Feb. 19, Dean said she’d heard that she may indeed get her job back, which is something she said she wants very much. As of press time on Feb. 24, she hasn’t received official word. With the raft of false information that continues to trickle out of Washington, seeing is believing.
Reports last week that Trump plans to rehire some terminated employees are encour-
“Every superintendent right now has probably gotten direction from a regional director or from Washington telling them to make plans to deal with reduced staffing or with the shutdown, because that’s looming too — another shutdown,” he said. In 2018 and 2019, the longest, costliest federal shutdown in histo-
RMEF helps conserve wildlife habitat in North Carolina
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation supplied funding to help a collaborative partnership conserve 406 acres of habitat for elk, whitetail deer, wild turkey, grouse and other wildlife in Western North Carolina.The White Oak Mountain acreage was under threat of development and lies at the junction of Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) and the Pisgah National Forest about three miles from the original elk release site in Cataloochee Valley, where RMEF helped return elk to
takes but it takes time, it takes money to do that.”
Seasonal hires like Dean are usually planned months before they begin work. Some who were terminated may have already found new jobs.
“A lot of people don’t realize that the vast majority of people who work for the National Park Service, unlike a lot of other federal agencies, have advanced degrees, so you’re hiring people who have at least a degree, or master’s degrees, in some cases PhDs, for $15 an hour,” FitzGerald said. “I mean, that’s less than what they could make at Chick-fil-A.”
Others may have left the areas where they worked. Dean lives in Haywood County, so if she’s rehired, she doesn’t have to worry about finding housing near her work assignment, but those not so fortunate would find themselves struggling to find affordable housing — another national problem — before they could commit to the job.
Then, there’s the overall disruption in continuity; many of the terminated employees were only just beginning their careers in the National Park Service like FitzGerald and Francis did decades ago. The next generation of rangers, superintendents and regional administrators may now be soured on federal service.
“You know, we’re supposed to protect this stuff for future generations, not just for our generation,” FitzGerald said. “Those are the trickle-down effects that happen when there’s a shuffling of duties.”
Francis lamented the state of affairs, and the state of the parks, but mostly the state of division.
aging; however, the damage may have already been done.
“You have to go through a process that takes time,” he said. “Largely, background investigations are trying to determine whether you can be blackmailed, and a criminal history check, driver’s history check, that’s what it
their historic North Carolina range in 2001.“The land is visible from a variety of locations around the Pigeon River Gorge along Interstate 40, and from the Appalachian Trail where it runs through GSMNP,” said Hanni Muerdter, SAHC conservation director. “
SAHC plans to convey the property to NCWRC later this year or in early 2026, opening the door to public access and future habitat enhancement work for the acreage and if/when managed elk hunting is instituted.RMEF supplied $250,000 for the project, which comes from a 2024 allotment of $2.4 million for a dozen projects scattered across Kentucky, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.
“These parks are owned by all of us, regardless of your political persuasion. It’s the story of our country that we all own and are part of,” he said. “I don’t know, I don’t get it. It doesn’t make sense to me. National parks are a great way of pulling people together, not pushing them apart.”
Paul Stubbs photo
Corrina Ruffieux. File photo
Kevin FitzGerald.
File photo
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park creates an immense amount of visitor spending each year. NPS photo
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NOTICE OF SERVICE OF PROCESS BY PUBLICATION FILE NO.
25CV000213-100
State of North Carolina County of Buncombe In the General Court of Justice District Court Division MELISSA RAINES v. UNKNOWN FATHER File No. 25CV000213-100
TO: UNKNOWN FATHER Take notice that a pleading seeking relief against above-entitled action. The nature of the relief being sought is as follows: Child Custody. The juvenile was born on or about February 20, 2022 , in Buncombe County, North Carolina.
You must answer or otherwise respond to the pleading within forty (40) publication of this Notice
stated below. If you fail to answer or otherwise respond within the time prescribed, an adjudication of neglect and dependency will be sought with custody vested in another person/entity.
You are advised to IMMEDIATELY contact the Clerk of Court of Buncombe County, at (828) 259-3400, to obtain further information about this case, including a herein, the name, and the date(s) and time(s) of scheduled hearings.
First published this the 26 th day of February, 2025.
Jason Hayes Law Firm Attorney for the Plaintiff 140 4 th Ave W, Ste 205 Hendersonville, NC 28792
Telephone (828) 435-3124
NOTICE OF SERVICE OF PROCESS BY PUBLICATION
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, McDOWELL COUNTY IN THE GENERAL COURT OF JUSTICE, DISTRICT COURT DIVISION, FILE # 22 JA 98
In Re: C. Smith, Minor Child
TO: Randall Smith, respondent father of the male child C. Smith, born February 14, 2008, in Haywood County, TN, conceived with Brittany Winchester.
NOTICE OF SERVICE OF PROCESS RE: ABUSE/NEGLECT/DEPENDENCY PETITION
PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that a petition has been
County Department of Social Services alleging that the above-named juvenile is a neglected juvenile.
A pre-adjudication hearing was held on January 8, 2025. The adjudication and dispositional hearings are to be held at the March 5, 2025 session of Juvenile Court at the McDowell County Courthouse (21 S. Main Street, Marion, NC 28752).
You are required to answer the petition within forty (40) days of the (written below), exclusive of such date, or by March 31, 2025. Further notices of hearing, and the date, time, and place of future hearings will be mailed to you on your whereabouts are then known. In the event a terminate your parental written response to the motion within 30 days or a subsequent order may,
You have a right to be represented by a lawyer at all stages of the proceeding. If you want a lawyer and cannot afford to hire one, the Court will appoint a lawyer to represent you. You may hire a lawyer of your choice at any time, or you may waive the right to a lawyer and represent yourself. You may contact the Clerk of Court of McDowell County at (828) 655-4100 to ask for a court-appointed lawyer or for further information.
upon proper notice and based on the criteria set out in N.C.G.S. § 7B-1111, terminate your parental rights as to the child involved:
Name: C. Smith
Date of Birth: February 14, 2008
County of Residence: McDowell County, NC
This the 19th day of February 2025.
Aaron G. Walker
Attorney for McDowell County Department of Social Services PO Box 338 Marion, NC 28752
NOTICE OF ADMINISTRATION
Case No.25E000030-490
Jai Robert Kumar, having of the Estate of Margaret Sabrina Kumar of Jackson County, North Carolina, this is to notify all persons having claims against the Estate to present them to the undersigned on or before May 19 2025, or this notice will be pleaded in bar of their recovery. All persons indebted to said Estate, please make immediate payment.
Executor
c/o Jay Kumar, Executor 705 W Main Street Sylva, NC 28779
NOTICE OF ADMINISTRATION
Case No.25E000069-430
David F Kuehn, having
of the Estate of Curtis S Kuehn of Haywood County, North Carolina, this is to notify all persons having claims against the Estate to present them to the undersigned on or before May 12 2025, or this notice will be pleaded in bar of their recovery. All persons indebted to said Estate, please make immediate payment.
Executor 47 Fern St Canton, NC 28716
NOTICE OF ADMINISTRATION
Case No.25E000028-490
Nancy Silvestri Rivera,
Executor of the Estate of Susan Silvestri aka Susie Silvestri of Jackson
County, North Carolina, this is to notify all persons having claims against the Estate to present them to the undersigned on or before May 12 2025, or this notice will be pleaded in bar of their recovery. All persons indebted to said Estate, please make immediate payment.
Executor
c/o Coward, Hicks & Siler 705 W Main Street Sylva, NC 28779
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