Smoky Mountain News | January 4, 2023

A look back at the arts in WNC 2022 Page 22

Page 5

CONTENTS

On the Cover:

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine passes the 10-month mark, support for civilian noncombatants is helping to stave off a humanitarian catastrophe. A pair of stories this week, reported on location by smn’s Cory Vaillancourt, explore the pragmatism and the politics of U.S. humanitarian aid to Ukraine — including some surprising North Carolina connections. Ukrainians wait outside a café in Kherson on Dec. 6 for humanitarian aid in the form of hygiene kits. Cory Vaillancourt photo

News

New boards could mean new plans for Franklin High School..............................4 Brookshire resigns following allegations of sexual harassment..............................5

Bringing Help: WNC’s connection to the war in Ukraine........................................6 Bringing Hope: Nonprofits stave off humanitarian catastrophe..........................14

Opinion

I owe Norman Rockwell an apology............................................................................20 Let speeders pre-pay for the privilege........................................................................21

A&E

Litmus test of a community: A look back at the arts in WNC 2022..................22 Some bookish thoughts for the new year..................................................................29

Outdoors

Old wallet helps archivist breathe new life into Cades Cove history ..............30 Notes from a plant nerd..................................................................................................34

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New boards could mean new plans for Franklin High School

BY HANNAH MCLEOD STAFF WRITER

When Macon County Commissioners authorized LS3P Architectural Design Services to submit plans for the new Franklin High School to local and state agencies for review in October, the project seemed like an ambitious, albeit realistic dream. Now, with several new commissioners and school board members in office following November’s elections, the urgency of that dream appears to be fading.

“Everybody is concerned about the high school,” said Paul Higdon, recently appointed chairman of the county commission. “I can tell you unequivocally, the improvements to Franklin High School are not off

of renovation. The makeup of the Franklin High School campus presented several problems. The campus has seven main buildings. Even with full renovations, a campus made up of many separate parts, each with their own entrances and exits, is inherently less safe for students and staff in the case of an intruder.

The number of buildings also creates ADA accessibility issues that are compounded by the differing levels on which the buildings are situated. Additionally, several buildings have different plumbing, electrical and even emergency alarm systems that would need to be consolidated.

According to designs presented by LS3P, a full renovation of Franklin High School’s

the table. What is off the table is a $120 million tax increase to fund it.”

At a joint meeting on Dec. 21, Macon County Commission and Macon County Board of Education discussed the future of the Franklin High School project, as well as several other capital projects the school board outlined at a meeting in October. While the meeting was intended for introductions of new board members and updates on capital projects in the school system, it devolved into a lengthy discussion about the future of these capital projects and how to fund them.

At this point in time, Macon County has allocated $1.1 million toward the new high school project. Most of that money has gone to LS3P for its work designing the new school on the current Franklin High School property. The last action taken on the project came in October when the county commission authorized LS3P to submit plans for the school to local and state agencies for review.

As designed, the project is estimated to cost the county $118 million, including contingency funds and measures for cost escalation.

Findings presented by LS3P at a meeting in August demonstrated the impracticalities

revenues. Macon County residents voted no with about 55% voting against and 45% voting for.

Without this additional funding, the county would likely have to raise property taxes to fund the new high school. Another possible avenue for funding is the NeedsBased Public School Capital Fund available through the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. The school system can apply for $50 million that would require a 5% local match. Macon County Schools applied last year and was not awarded funds but is applying again this fiscal year.

“We’ve got [plans] on paper, what do we do next?” asked Higdon. “We can either shelve it — we have the option of doing nothing, we’re not forced to do this, our kids are not falling through the floors, there’s no emergency that I recognize in the school system — we don’t want to do that. Y’all have put a lot of time into this, we’ve identified the need of either a new high school or some serious improvements. I think everybody is leaning toward a new high school. I think we can make that happen, but we all need to be working together on it.”

“I agree with what you’re saying, but another liability that you have there is Franklin High School,” said Shields. “With the ADA, IDEA problems, we have to reckon with that. Something will have to be done, a decision will have to be made. Franklin High School, in my opinion, cannot be as it is now. With the ADA and IDEA, Franklin High School, I don’t think it can ever be delivered to the point that those buildings would be renovated where a person in a wheelchair can go from point A to point B without being in harm’s way.”

Shields said that someone could go to court over the issues if things aren’t fixed and because the board knows what is wrong, it is obligated to fix it.

Melissa Faetz is a parent of two sons at Franklin High School. She spoke to the ADA issues at the school that severely impact her son Patrick, who has Cerebral Palsy. She described one of the complex routes her son must take between classes in detail.

campus would fall short by 89,000 square feet for the target space needed for a 1,200student school. Another important factor in deciding between renovation and building a new school was student instruction throughout the process. If buildings were renovated, MCS would have to find alternative instruction space during the renovation; if the school system builds a new high school, there are adequate plans to continue instruction as is throughout the whole process.

With this information in hand, both the board of commissioners and education voted unanimously in favor of accepting the recommendation of the architectural firm to build a new school at the site of the current Franklin High School during the August meeting.

Although the previous board of commissioners approved LS3P to move forward with designing a new school, no decisions have been made about how to fund the project. A referendum on the ballot in November would have increased the sales tax from 6.75 to 7 cents per dollar, impacting out-of-towners and locals alike. All additional revenue from the increase would have stayed in Macon County for use on the school system’s capital projects. It was estimated to generate over $2 million in annual

At the joint meeting in December, there was considerable debate over whether the new high school is an emergency. Both new Commissioners, John Shearl and Danny Antoine, aligned closer with Higdon that the project is not an emergency, while Gary Shields and several members of the public felt the opposite. Among other issues at the school, several people have testified to the difficulty students with physical disabilities face when trying to navigate the campus.

“I think it certainly is an emergency,” said Macon Middle Principal Mark Sutton during public comment. “I mentioned this before, my wife had cancer and now she walks and functions differently. It’s a shame that she can’t go to a ballgame and walk up the bleachers by herself. That’s a crying shame, that’s an emergency… There aren’t walls crumbling, we could last another 30 years there but I don’t know that that’s right for our kids.”

At the October joint meeting of the County Commission and the Board of Education, Shields tried to answer the question he was getting regularly at the time, “what’s wrong with the old Franklin High School?” During that meeting, commissioners streamed a video that showed some of the difficulties students with physical disabilities face daily.

At the Dec. 21 meeting, after other commissioners said the project wasn’t an emergency, Shields again argued that ADA issues at Franklin High School are bad enough that the county urgently needs to take action.

“There are no emergencies; the only emergency I see in the school system is the track down there, that’s a liability waiting to happen,” said Higdon.

“There are buildings on this campus he cannot access,” said Faetz during public comment. “That walk alone takes him 15 minutes; the break between classes is only five. That means he has to miss instructional time. It’s also not safe for him to go alone, so a faculty member, another student, or a staff member has to walk with him. Which also makes those people have to miss instructional time… How many kids like Patrick have to deal with this day in and day out before it becomes important enough to take care of and fund?”

Antoine expressed his support for the new high school.

“I am for a new high school, I’m just not for wasteful spending, I’m not for reckless spending,” said Antoine. “No doubt about it, tons of issues [at Franklin High School]. But these issues are not new issues, these are not issues that just appeared a couple of days ago. These are things that we’ve known about for a very long time. So, I can understand everyone’s frustration, not wanting to kick the can down the road, but we do need to understand some of this will take some time to get to.”

New commissioners and board of education members recently took a tour of Franklin High School to see the state of things up close. While most school board members are strongly in favor of the new high school, Commissioner Shearl expressed more hesitancy.

“I’m not saying that that school don’t need some major renovations, but what I am saying is, I didn’t see any walls there that were crumbling, I didn’t see any floors that you were gonna trip over. I did see the need for ADA compliance, our special needs people, I saw that,” said Shearl. “But it’s not my job to tell you what I want and need, it’s my job to represent you and do the best we can for everybody that’s involved.”

No decisions were made regarding the high school project at the Dec. 21 meeting of the Macon County Commissioners and Board of Education. The next meeting of the Macon County Commission will take place at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 10, in the Commission Board Room. During this meeting the board will schedule its budget meetings.

Brookshire resigns following allegations of sexual harassment

BY HANNAH MCLEOD STAFF WRITER

After multiple allegations of sexual harassment were made against him, Physical Education Teacher and Head Football Coach Chris Brookshire has resigned from his post at Tuscola High School in Clyde.

“First, I want to express my appreciation to the multiple employees that came forward in this matter,” said Superintendent Dr. Trevor Putnam. “I am certain it was not an easy thing for them to do.”

In December, the Human Resources Department received multiple reports of Brookshire making inappropriate and unprofessional comments toward female colleagues. Brookshire was first suspended with pay on Dec. 7, and subsequently suspended without pay on Dec. 16. Putnam accepted Brookshire’s resignation Monday, Jan. 2.

“As superintendent, my office has the responsibility to investigate any allegation of employee misconduct and to protect all employees of the district,” said Putnam.

Following an investigation of this type, it is required that an employee is given the opportunity to review the allegations against them and respond. Brookshire did obtain a lawyer for the process. After reviewing the allegations against him, he submitted a rebuttal and his resignation on Jan. 2, choosing to forgo a hearing before the board of education.

“I have accepted Brookshire’s resignation, which is effective immediately,” said Putnam. “Since this matter was reported in

I want to express my appreciation to the multiple employees that came forward in this matter. I am certain it was not an easy thing for them to do.”

— Dr. Trevor Putnam

the media, I know our community has had a lot of questions and many have raised concerns over how this matter was handled. It is important to remember the school system is limited on what information it may release about employees. State law requires most employee information to remain confidential, which makes it difficult for us to answer questions or address concerns about employee issues. While this may be frustrating for some, I hope our community realizes that every employee has a right for the process to finish before judgment is made.”

Brookshire was hired as physical education teacher, head football coach, weights coach and junior varsity boys basketball assistant coach in January 2020.

“There have been allegations made against me to Haywood County Schools’ Human Resources Department that I have made comments toward female co-workers

that are inappropriate or unprofessional,” said Brookshire in a statement. “I apologize to anyone who I may have spoken with in a way that they deemed offensive or hurtful. It was not my intent to harm or offend anyone. I have determined that it is time for me to resign, as I in no way would want do [sic] anything to compromise the integrity of Tuscola High School, Tuscola football, or myself. I am grateful for my time at Tuscola and the support I’ve received from the school and community. I want nothing but the best for my players and the success of the football program moving forward.”

Tuscola Principal Heather Blackmon was suspended with pay on Dec. 16. She was hired on as principal in July of 2020. No decision has yet been made regarding her employment.

When an employee is suspended with pay, they may be suspended for up to 90 days. If the superintendent does not initiate dismissal or demotion proceedings against the employee within the 90-day period, the employee must be reinstated to their duties immediately and all records of the suspension with pay can be removed from the personnel file. However, if the superintendent and the employee agree to extend the 90day period, the superintendent may initiate dismissal or demotion proceedings against the career employee at any time during the period of the extension.

In the meantime, Assistant Tuscola Principal Jacob Shelton will serve as lead administrator at the school.

FOOD SAFETY AND STORAGE QUESTIONS

I get a lot of different food safety and food storage questions. Last week’s was about Ingles Rotisserie Chicken. A customer wrote asking, “How long can rotisserie chicken be refrigerated before it needs to be thrown out or eaten?”.

Typically any type of prepared (cooked) meat or animal protein needs to be refrigerated and eaten within 3-4 days of purchase. If you don’t plan to eat it within that time period, you should freeze it. For a rotisserie chicken, remove it from the plastic container it was sold in and repackaged it in a freezer bag. Be sure and remove as much air as possible before closing the bag which will reduce the possibility of freezer burn (a vacuum sealer works great for this!). The frozen chicken will keep in the freezer for 4 months.

A good app for this sort of information is the “Food Keeper”. You can also find food safety and food storage information on: Nutrition.gov

BRINGING HELP

Western North Carolina’s connection to the war in Ukraine

BY CORY VAILLANCOURT POLITICS E DITOR

Leaning against a wall in the basement of the train station right about midnight, they were cold and tired and broken, and it quickly became clear that they wished to go no further.

They’d already made it more than 5,000 miles from Asheville to a small, ancient city in eastern Poland, but still had about 700 miles left on two separate overnight trains until they’d reach their destination.

Humanitarian aid workers who’d been laboring in a war zone for nearly eight months were eagerly awaiting their arrival. It would be up to me to drag them across the finish line.

Iwasn’t in much better shape. Jet lag, little to no meaningful sleep for days and the constant physical stress of escorting them halfway across the globe had left me just as exhausted as they were. Staring up at the imposing granite stairwell leading out to the streets, I glanced back down at my two travel companions, who by now had collapsed and were lying in a heap on the icy floor.

We’ll call them Pinkie and Blue.

Blue was nothing but dead weight. Leaving Pinkie at the bottom next to my big black suitcase, I hauled Blue halfway up the stairs. Each step was laborious and awkward. Then, it was back down to Pinkie, who was likewise completely defiant. Yanking Pinkie up the stairs to rejoin Blue, I repeated the process a few times, leapfrogging them along with my suitcase until finally we were all together at the top.

The streets of Przemysl were deserted and dark but for a warm orange glow emanating from some corner bar just down the way, like a picture some vaguely Slavic version of Thomas Kinkade might paint.

I would’ve been happy to plant myself on a barstool just then but wasn’t eager to mule my companions across the cobblestone streets and simply couldn’t leave them unattended, so I sat down on the ground between them, taking in the frigid winter air, in a pristine sort of silence, waiting for the train.

A shrill, high-pitched blast from an air whistle signified its arrival from Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine more than 350 miles to the east. Passengers disembarked — all women and children, most without luggage — and the quiet station suddenly awoke.

Those lacking joyous reunions proceeded to the station’s waiting room. Half of it had been commandeered for cots perched 6 inches off the floor, topped with fat white pillows and thin wool blankets.

Coats and baby clothes, along with diapers, were piled everywhere. A woman in a red vest that said “medica” on the back weaved her way through it all, dispensing bottled water.

Out of the shadows, a young man came to me speaking what I assumed was Polish. I don’t speak Polish. “No speak-o your language-o,” I said, unsure exactly why I’d put it to him that way.

He whipped out his phone, fired up the Google Translate app, and spoke more of his words into it. They quickly appeared on the screen, in English. He told me he knew of some cheap hotels if I needed one, maybe the kind where you wake up the next morning in a bathtub full of ice, missing a kidney, with a note on your chest telling you to call an ambulance.

An older man wandered about the station, talking to the few random people who were still lingering there. Dangling about his neck was a blue and yellow lanyard with a placard that said “volunteer.”

“Kyiv?” he asked. I nodded.

“Great,” he said in a thick Boston accent. “Your train leaves from right over there. C’mon, I’ll help.”

He grabbed ahold of Blue as another tall man latched onto Pinkie. They led us around the corner of the station into the Polish border guard building and ushered us into the trackside enclosure.

“Good luck,” he said.

A stern-faced policewoman with light brown hair drawn back into a tight ponytail inspected my American passport from her desk inside a tiny plexiglass vestibule. She looked down at it, and then up at me, and then down at it, and then up at me again in silence far less pristine than the street. Scanning my passport through some sort of machine, she made a few percussive strokes on her keyboard.

Located as it was just 5 miles from the Ukrainian border, Przemysl had become something of a jumping-off point for people looking to cross by train and as such had

WAR IN UKRAINE

become a swirling crossroads of spooks and spies, humanitarians and mercenaries, refugees and journalists. It was all very nononsense there.

Without a word she pulled out her stamp, mashed it onto a blank page with a clockwork “ka-CHUNK” and handed it back to me.

Pinkie and Blue didn’t need passports.

You see, Pinkie and Blue aren’t people. They’re thrift-store-class rolling travel suitcases, pink and blue, each filled with 50-some pounds of level 3a anti-ballistic armor.

This all started back in late February, when Russia invaded Ukraine. The reasons for the invasion are both complex and simple — a simmering 1,000-year feud among closely related cultures, and Russian security concerns over a post-Soviet, selfdeterminant Ukraine growing ever closer to the west.

A month or so later, Garret K. Woodward, The Smoky Mountain News’ A&E editor, and I hatched a plan to do some reporting on the situation. He talked to PBS war correspondent Jane Ferguson, and I spoke with several professors at Western Carolina University. One of them, at the conclusion of our interview, said, “You’re going, aren’t you?”

At the time, I hadn’t considered it, but after being asked, I started to think seriously about it. As a politics editor concerned mostly with local, state and sometimes national politics, I had to convince myself that the reporting I’d do would be relevant to my field and my audience. I found my justification in 19th-century Prussian cavalry officer and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz.

“War,” Clausewitz said more or less, “is simply the continuation of politics by other means.”

Through the spring and summer, I planned to explore what happens when politics degrades into “other means.” I had some ideas and some contacts, but by late September they’d all petered out, so I resigned myself to sitting at home during my annual

five-week post-election sabbatical until a chance meeting set things back into motion.

He’s a low-key Asheville businessman. You probably wouldn’t know his name even if I told you, but we’ll call him Andre. A mutual friend gave me his name and his number, scrawled in ball-point blue on a crumpled scrap of yellow paper. Although Andre prefers to stay in the background, he’s been delivering humanitarian supplies to Ukraine pretty

Fesiuk is

much since the war began — clothes, medical supplies and, yes, body armor for aid workers.

In the United States, law enforcement agencies utilize varying grades of personal protective equipment, but the vests carry an expiration date after which they can’t be used anymore. Usually, they’re destroyed.

I first became aware of this when I wrote an August story about a donation of used body armor from the Haywood County Sheriff’s Office that would ultimately end up in Ukraine through the efforts of Samaritan’s Purse and the North Carolina Sheriff’s Association.

In talking to Andre, I learned everything I would need to know about travelling to an active war zone. Underscoring the seriousness of the whole journey, I quickly surmised that the most valuable skill I could acquire was to become an expert in the proper and rapid application of a tourniquet.

I also learned that Andre wasn’t Ukrainian but was involved in relief efforts due to the leadership at his place of worship, AVL City Church, in Arden.

“We’re actually nondenominational. We have maybe 15% Slavic people but we have about a dozen or so other nationalities,” said Lead Pastor Sergio Fesiuk. “We have people that are just newborn a few weeks ago to people in their 80s from all walks of life, quite frankly. Different age groups, different stages in life, a dozen nationalities from Spanish to Polish to Congo from Africa.”

Fesiuk was born in Ukraine in the early

“We did not want to just raise funds and give it to an organization, because of the corruption. Some people ask, ‘So you think Ukraine is corrupt now?’ My response is typically, ‘Which government is not corrupt?’”

— Sergio Fesiuk

I noticed a bomb dog and two other soldiers on the train, checking everyone as we officially crossed the border into a country at war. Now, the possibility of a Russian missile strike — anytime, anywhere — would be constant.

1980s. In 1989, near the end of a 70-year period of Soviet repression, Fesiuk’s entire family fled the religious persecution of communist Ukraine for Buffalo, New York.

“There was a lot of prejudice against those who believed in God and so you were not allowed to attain proper schooling. Your work, they looked at what you believed, and really diminished and not allow you to get ahead because of your faith,” he said.

In 1993, the family ended up in Asheville and started the church. Although they began shipping aid to Ukraine at that time, their efforts ramped up in the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion.

Fesiuk, however, wanted to ensure the aid they were sending would end up going to the people who needed it most.

“We did not want to just raise funds and give it to an organization, because of the corruption. Some people ask, ‘So you think Ukraine is corrupt now?’ My response is typically, ‘Which government is not corrupt?’ You have to put things into perspective, as if all of a sudden Ukraine won’t be corrupt. Of

course it is. So is America and so is every other country,” Fesiuk said. “A lot of the funds that get raised, they go to the people that they’ve always gone to, and that’s typically the people at the top or those who have connections.”

Drawing upon his existing Ukrainian network, Fesiuk began to hand-deliver money and supplies. Then, he started to build a team of people who could go and do likewise. One of them, Andre, asked me if I’d be willing to take a few extra suitcases on my trip.

WAR IN UKRAINE

I met Andre only once, at the Asheville Regional Airport. He paid for Pinkie and Blue’s passage to Krakow, Poland. We shook hands, and that was that.

From Asheville to Chicago to Frankfurt I didn’t have to deal with Pinkie and Blue much, but that all changed once I got to the hotel in Krakow.

My three-hour train to Przemysl wouldn’t leave until the next night, so to avert the whole struggle I took Blue from my hotel to a locker in the train station. Then I returned to my room and repeated the process with Pinkie. Getting them onto the train and into the overhead bins was a herculean task made all the more difficult by Pinkie losing a wheel somewhere along the way. By the time we finally made it onto our overnight train out of Przemysl, to Kyiv, I’d had quite enough of them, to be honest, and dozed off into an uncertain slumber.

I awoke to a tall, blond Ukrainian woman shaking me. She wore camo, a sidearm and a serious countenance.

“Passport,” she said. She wasn’t asking.

I noticed a bomb dog and two other soldiers on the train, checking everyone as we officially crossed the border into a country at war. Now, the possibility of a Russian missile strike — anytime, anywhere — would be constant.

I was a bit worried about Pinkie and Blue.

Sure, they had proper export paperwork,

but I was operating on the word of some total strangers that I wouldn’t get hassled. Thus far, they were right. How long that would continue was still a concern.

There was little more sleep to be had on that 12-hour ride through the Bible-black night of western Ukraine in winter. Out the window, there wasn’t much to be seen for long stretches of time, except for the occasional soft light from some small settlement blazing through the car until, eventually, all would fade to black again.

When the sun began to “rise” behind the thick grey clouds — I only saw it for a few hours the whole two weeks I was in Europe — I began to make out some details.

It struck me how midwestern it all looked, which perhaps explained why the pre-Soviet Slavic diaspora easily adapted from the breadbasket of Europe to the breadbasket of America.

On both sides, the tracks were bordered by small stretches of woodland. Beyond them, through breaks in the tree line, I could see vast empty fields covered in snow and

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Immediately, I heard someone calling my name. It was Viktor, with another man. I didn’t get a good look at them. We shook hands, and that was that. Grabbing hold of Pinkie and Blue, they disappeared off into the silent, grey dawn.

with Czech hedgehogs blocking frontage roads. Czech hedgehogs aren’t animals. They resemble large, six-pointed jacks, are usually made from 3-foot sections of rail and are designed to thwart the advance of mechanized infantry and tanks.

By around 6 a.m., we were approaching the far reaches of Kyiv, a city of 3 million.

Early in the war, Russian troops reached the outskirts but were ultimately repelled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who offered fierce resistance, and the civilians who greeted them with Molotov cocktails. This was perhaps the first indication that Russia’s army wasn’t as strong as the world thought it might be.

Other than the occasional hedgehog or concrete-block checkpoint, there were few signs that intense fighting had raged here just eight months prior. Great smokestacks, soaring into the sky, seemed to sprout from residential neighborhoods where massive highrise apartment buildings, a remnant of communist-era housing policy, loomed ominously.

I was ready to get off the train as soon as it pulled into Kyiv’s sprawling Pasazhyrskyi station at 7 a.m., and it was at this point that the

situation with my two uncooperative travel companions became downright comical.

The platform was busy. Very busy. Mobs. People pushing. Shoving. Walking with intense determination and sense of purpose.

Pulling Pinkie and Blue off the train, along with my own suitcase, was a whole process. Grab one. Move it. Go back for the other. Move it. Get the last one, move it. Pinkie falls down. Prop Pinkie up. Blue falls down. Prop

WAR IN UKRAINE

Blue up. Stack Blue on top of Pinkie. All fall down. Buster Keaton. Charlie Chaplin. Three Stooges.

A gaunt, younger man asked if I wanted a taxi. I told him no.

An old, toothless man who smelled like a river of vodka was next.

“Help. I help,” he said.

I told him no as well, but he grabbed ahold of Blue. Hoisting Blue above his head, he started to walk away. His partner, another old ne’er-do-well, grabbed Pinkie.

“Oh no,” I thought. “Here’s where this all goes haywire.”

I had no idea what they would do, where they were going, or what they would want when we got there. I only knew they didn’t look capable of running off with the heavy suitcases. The taxi guy, who’d been following me, asked me again and out of desperation I said, “Fine.”

It was all a blur. They moved fast, literally tossing people out of the way. I had no choice but to follow in their wake, dazed and apprehensive.

Through a crowded corridor and down an escalator they ushered me out of the station in what seemed like only a few seconds. Sloshing through several inches of grey, salty slush, the two men loaded everything into the trunk of an unlicensed taxi parked outside and then did the most remarkable thing — they simply turned and walked away. No, I wouldn’t have that. I grabbed one of them and slipped a $20 into his palm. That’s almost a day’s wages for the average Ukrainian. Then, I chased down the other guy and did the same.

The taxi driver slowly closed his trunk and opened the passenger door. I slumped

into the seat with a great sense of relief. I’d made it this far with Pinkie and Blue and my suitcase. I was in the home stretch.

“Where to?” he asked.

Weeks before my trip began, Andre, through Sergio, connected me to a guy in Ukraine named Dennis Melnichuk. Through several phone calls with Melnichuk, I learned that he was born in the United States to a Ukrainian family and is currently orchestrating the delivery of some of the cargo the Asheville church has been sending. Melnichuk is part of a nonprofit called Awakened Generation, which coordinates with faith leaders and locals to meet what it calls “the catastrophic surge” of need in the wake of the Russian invasion.

“We do a mix of humanitarian aid and religious work, helping people the best that we know how. We’ve been doing this for years but ever since the war started, that’s been taken up another notch, something that we never expected,” he said. “We’re doing a lot of things that we were not trained for, or would not even consider ourselves qualified for, but we’ve learned a lot along the way and have

been able to help a lot of people.”

On the morning of Feb. 24, Melnichuk received a phone call from his pastor, who reported explosions in Kyiv. Melnichuk’s first instinct was to head toward danger, in hopes of helping to evacuate civilians, but he was talked out of it.

“I’m glad that I was, because the road was blocked,” he said. “There were people that were in line on the road, stuck on the highway for three or four-plus days. We ended up organizing a group together, we had about 14 vehicles, 20-plus drivers who are driving out into Kyiv in cooperation with other churches that were some of the first responders before any international organizations could really get into position, even before the government really could start implementing mass evacuations.”

Melnichuk’s operation now consists of a number of cargo vans. Since the war began, he estimates that they’ve helped more than 2,000 people flee the conflict for somewhat safer environs in western Ukraine.

“As believers, we really want to make sure that what we do is being led by the Lord and at the time we actually said that this is what the Lord was speaking to us to do,” he said.

Apparently, the Lord had chosen Melnichuk’s crew for one of His toughest battles.

In the early days of the war, when military operations were much more common, the bright red crosses painted on the tops and sides of their vans meant little.

“They were traveling in a convoy together, and they were targeted. This other team was driving back and they saw the cars all burning,” he said. “You just see people’s bodies burned on the ground, and this car, it’s clearly an evacuation vehicle.”

I’d hoped to hitch a ride in one of Dennis’ vans, but the logistics simply didn’t work out for us, so I had no other choice but to book the time-consuming train trips. When I arrived in Kyiv, I was looking at a 12-hour layover with Pinkie and Blue and nothing in particular to do.

Sitting in the cab at the Kyiv train station, I showed the driver an address Dennis had given me; it was a “safe house” of sorts in the suburbs where I could crash for a few hours.

During the ride I learned that my cab driver’s name was Vitali, and that he had worked in air freight before the war. With the subsequent cessation of civil aviation, he found himself without a job and was trying desperately to feed his family of four before the holidays.

At one point, I asked him what he would say to Russian President Vladimir Putin if he had the chance.

“Nothing,” he said through Google Translate. “One cannot have conversation with a madman.”

As we progressed along the 20-minute drive, Kyiv was bustling, albeit without power or traffic signals. There wasn’t much obvious damage apparent.

We soon arrived in a modest, middle-class neighborhood. I gave Vitali all the cash in my pocket and he gave me a hug.

Anya was expecting me and showed me to a bedroom.

I awoke some hours later in the dark and

the cold as Anya called me downstairs for dinner. Spaghetti, bread, parmesan cheese, dill pickles and water. I realized it was my first actual meal in several days, and it was magnificent.

There were six of them now, a makeshift family of drivers who’d just gotten off the road or were preparing to get on the road under cover of darkness. My 9 p.m. departure was approaching. Anya and another man, Grigori, took me back to the train station in one of the vans, helping me drag Pinkie and Blue along.

Inside the cavernous station, which had blacked-out windows, Ukrainian soldiers were everywhere. Some coming, some who had seen things they can’t forget, some going, some who would never return, some patrolling, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Their rifles weren’t like the clean, pristine weapons you see American soldiers carrying. They were Soviet-era Kalashnikovs with wood furniture, dented, scratched, nicked. I wondered how many owners they’d had, how many times over the past half-century they’d been dropped, how many horrors their sights had seen.

Anya and Grigory waited there with me with me until my overnight sleeper train arrived. I’d purchased both bunks in the compartment so I could get some privacy and some rest. After nearly four straight days of travel, I was badly in need of both.

An attendant chastised me for raising the shades on my window, but she was, mercifully, the last person I’d see for the next nine hours. Cracking a bottle of wine I’d bought in Krakow, I did a little reading and was quickly lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking and predictable rhythm of the carriage.

Early the next morning, I awoke to the sound of long-delayed messages pinging my phone as the train re-entered an area with cell service. The messages were from someone I didn’t know, a man named Viktor, who would be waiting for my arrival — or more appropriately, the arrival of Pinkie and Blue.

I stepped off the train at around 6 a.m. in Odessa, an ancient port city at the northern tip of the Black Sea just 70 miles from the Crimean Peninsula seized by Russia in 2014 with nary a peep from the west. It was here that I’d spend the next seven days reporting in recently liberated areas of Ukraine only a few miles from the front lines.

Immediately, I heard someone calling my name. It was Viktor, with another man. I didn’t get a good look at them. We shook hands, and that was that. Grabbing hold of Pinkie and Blue, they disappeared off into the silent, grey dawn.

I was actually a bit sad to see them go and wondered what adventures they’d see next.

Hours later, I got another message from Viktor.

“Thanks,” he said. “Thanks a lot.”

I told him that I’d had plenty of help all along the way — the volunteers in Przemysl, the random drunks in Kyiv, Vitali the cab driver, Anya and Grigori.

“I know,” he said.

Editor’s note: The names of the Ukrainians in this story have been changed to protect their identities.

BRINGING HOPE

In Ukraine, American nonprofits stave off humanitarian catastrophe

BY CORY VAILLANCOURT POLITICS E DITOR

Since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine millions of people have left the war-torn country, with millions more driven from major cities and small villages in the east by the fighting.

International response was swift, in the form of humanitarian aid for people who lost their homes, their livelihoods and all their possessions.

Boxes upon boxes of American taxpayer-funded humanitarian aid are now flowing across the sea to internally displaced Ukrainians by the thousands. But with continuing calls from Congress for strict accountability, keeping track of all those boxes is a constant and dangerous challenge for the nonprofits that play a critical role in its distribution.

The Mykolaiv Business Center, shown here in early December, suffered damage in a July attack. Cory Vaillancourt photo

Around 4 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 6, the small Hyundai cleared a military checkpoint and headed out of Odessa. Inside, a driver and a bodyguard, both Ukrainians, accompanied an American aid worker headed for Kherson, some 160 miles to the east.

The roads were smooth, and traffic was flowing, but as the group passed Mykolaiv about halfway through, the way became much rougher — in spots, still cratered by Russian munitions that had rained down for months. The checkpoints became more frequent, more imposing.

This region was the high-water mark for Russian advances in the south of Ukraine.

They’d tried to capture Mykolaiv but when they failed, they continued to attack civilian targets like the eight-story Mykolaiv Business Center, which still stands spewing its contents into the parking lot below from a gaping hole made by a Russian missile.

As the group drew closer to its destination, buildings in the small roadside villages appeared little more than empty husks, blown out or burnt down.

Veering off the highway onto a makeshift dirt road — Ukrainians were rebuilding an overpass that had been destroyed some months earlier — their car came just yards from bright red skull-and-crossbones signage indicating minefields adjacent to the pavement.

Occasionally, the tails of undetonated rockets could be seen sticking out of the fields like some sort of strange, rusty invasive species.

“We go places no one wants to go. We meet people who have seen things no person should have to see,” said Caine Cortellino, a program director for U.S.-based nonprofit, Project Hope.

Originally from Decatur, Georgia, Cortellino has worked in international humanitarian assistance for 15 years, in places like Nigeria, South Sudan and Sri Lanka.

Kherson, his destination, is still on the front lines no more than 2 miles from Russian-held Ukrainian territory. The atmos-

pheric thump of artillery shells coming and going is sporadic, but never really stops.

“I’ve worked across many different countries in the world and Ukraine is really one of the most intense conflicts that I’ve ever been a part of,” he said.

Cortellino and his Project Hope team are visiting the town to check in on the aid distribution projects taking place there, ensuring that the proper paperwork is being collected by local volunteers.

The way that American humanitarian assistance is distributed throughout the world isn’t well understood except perhaps by those involved directly in the process. From start to finish, every detail is scrutinized, every outcome is recorded, every truckload down to the kilogram is tracked and counted.

WAR IN UKRAINE

“Being a good steward of federal tax dollars is critical to our mission,” he said. “As the only American who’s currently working with Project Hope in Ukraine, it’s my responsibility both professionally and as an American taxpayer to ensure that we are using American taxpayer funds wisely.”

The United States government administers more than half of all foreign aid through the U.S. Agency for International Development, an independent federal agency with a budget of more than $27 billion that was founded in 1961.

USAID, as it’s called, integrates various nongovernmental organizations like Project Hope into its operations. The way it usually works is that the U.S. government will set an objective and invite different NGOs to bid on them by issuing a NOFO (Notice of Funding Opportunity). Those NGOs submit a proposal to USAID, usually through their Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. The BHA then reviews the proposals they think will make the most efficient, effective use of the aid, and then designates the organization as what’s called an “implementing partner.”

“It’s our responsibility to care for the neediest of the needy, and small children are obviously in that group.”

— Caine Cortellino, Project Hope

“Generally, we work as implementing partners,” said Chris Skopec, executive vice president for public health at Project Hope. “In some cases, we receive contracts with a very specific set of deliverables, a very clear set of outcomes that need to be produced, time bound and accountable. We work in the NGO sector as the implementing arm of USAID’s efforts to achieve its development and humanitarian goals.”

Project Hope was founded in 1958 as a peacetime hospital ship called the S.S. Hope, formerly the U.S.S. Consolation. Before its retirement in 1974, the ship traveled to Southeast Asia, Central and South America, Africa and the Caribbean providing medical care during disasters.

Today, Project Hope not only addresses disasters and health crises like COVID-19, but also operates in a variety of other public health sectors.

“We work with the U.S. government when our missions align, but we are not dependent on U.S. government funding to deliver on our mission,” Skopec said. “In the case of Ukraine, we responded in the earliest days and the days immediately following the invasion, doing contingency planning as the Russian military buildup was happening. That was in February of 2022. We didn’t receive our first government funding until summer of 2022.”

That funding, $10 million over 12 months, will allow Project Hope to work in Ukraine at the scale appropriate for the amount of displaced Ukrainians. The need there, Skopec said, is “tremendous.”

Once so designated, an implementing partner then opens a base of operations in the specific country if they don’t already have one and begins gathering and assessing information that will inform the needs-based distribution operation.

“If you’re a health-based sector, you go out and you might talk to hospitals, you might talk to key informants, doctors, ministers of health, other individuals within the Ministry of Health, or the people, to find out what they really need,” Cortellino said.

The information from the original proposal is then merged with the information gathered during the initial assessment to help inform the procurement process. In the health sector, those procurement needs could be anything from hygiene kits to water purification systems.

“It’s very similar to the process you would see in a company where you will seek bids. You can purchase items either on a lowestcost basis or on best value, but we pull together a committee, we issue a tender for whatever it is we’re looking to purchase and then we receive quotes,” Cortellino said. “A committee reviews those to ensure that the quality matches what we’re expecting, that the lead time is appropriate for emergency context, and that it’s going to address the needs of the beneficiary population we’re trying to serve.”

In this case, those little boxes Cortellino’s been chasing all over Ukraine are hygiene kits. They contain everything from hand soap to shampoo to razors, feminine hygiene products and laundry detergent.

Project Hope also distributes baby kits, designed for children under three. They contain tear-less shampoo, diaper rash cream and the like.

“It’s our responsibility to care for the neediest of the needy, and small children are obviously in that group,” he said.

WAR IN UKRAINE

These items serve an obvious and important purpose — preventing a public health emergency that would compound the effects of the war amongst a transient population.

Cortellino, however, recognizes another effect of the kits.

“It is certainly a dignity issue,” he said. “It allows people to reintegrate into society wherever they have decided to settle, or if they’re on the move they can take them with and continue to live a somewhat normal life as they move to their final destination.”

Formerly a city of 300,000, Kherson sits on the banks of the Dnipro River but is also perched on the edge of a humanitarian catastrophe. Those who remained through the Russian occupation have a distinctive look about them, says Cortellino.

“Sometimes it appears that their faces are longer, or there’s a grayness to it. I think that is sort of a physical manifestation of the intense stresses that these people have lived under for so long,” he said.

An 18-year-old Kherson native called Olga is one of them.

“[During the occupation] it was scary, and it was dangerous to go outside,” she said. “Every day you could be taken somewhere to be tortured because these places were here.”

Now, hundreds brave the continued shelling while lining up outside what used to be a Georgian café, hoping to receive one of those boxes Cortellino’s been chasing around the country.

“It is important for people now to get humanitarian help,” Olga said. “They are in despair; they are scared, and they don’t know what will be next. They are just afraid. Also, they have no place to go. Now there are no places to work, they have no money and humanitarian help is the only helping source for people.”

Once they show up, they’re asked for their names and their documents.

“When we organize distributions, one of the things that’s really central to what we do is data collection,” Cortellino said. “Sometimes it’s paper-based, but we also have electronic data collection where we use tablets and collect people’s information such as telephone numbers, or in some cases passport numbers.”

That data is used to prevent fraud and waste; Project Hope even goes so far as to destroy leftover packaging, so that counterfeit goods can’t be resold on the black market.

The distribution at the café is going relatively smoothly, so Cortellino and his team head across town to check on some boxes that ended up at a maternity hospital.

Workers there said that when the Russians left, they stole everything that wasn’t nailed down. Indeed, the hospital was little more than a collection of rooms with examination tables and some beds remaining. There wasn’t an ultrasound wand or computer in sight. Three weeks after Project Hope’s visit to the hospital, the Russians finished it off by destroying the building altogether.

After another visit to an outlying suburb — where Russian shelling from across the river was getting uncomfortably close — the team decided to head back to Odessa rather than follow the plan and stay overnight. But first, another visit to another small suburb, Chornobaivka, which has become something of a dark joke among Ukrainians.

Russians tried desperately to conquer the area, but were pushed back time after time, managing to hold the area for only short periods. Ukrainians called it “Groundhog Day,” after the movie in which Bill Murray relives the same series of events, over and over. Purportedly, 96 separate Russian attacks were repelled over eight months.

There, at a community center filled with diapers, potatoes and boxes of aid from Project Hope, the joking stopped.

“When here were occupiers, this was very difficult for people. They lived like they wanted. Robbed. Took people to basements. I suffered by myself. They took my documents, hit me,” said Volodymyr, a 33-year-old man who had to endure the occupation with a broken leg because he wasn’t allowed to leave to seek treatment. “We were afraid to go outside. They were driving through the village [in

armored personnel carriers]. They were frightening people. But after the Ukrainian army came, it became much easier to breathe. The village inhaled.”

An elderly woman named Maria who spoke with The Smoky Mountain News can trace generations of her lineage through Chornobaivka. Speaking through a translator, she painted a gruesome picture of life during the brief periods of Russian control.

“When the occupiers came with the guns we were scared even to go outside, to buy some necessary goods and hygiene because they were driving military cars,” she said. “In first couple of days they killed two people from the village, young boys, for nothing.”

Maria spoke of Russian soldiers confiscating people’s documents and telephones, driving through town, shooting up homes randomly.

“You don’t know where to run and what will be with you in the next minute,” Maria said. “This is very, very difficult.”

She wouldn’t let Cortellino’s team leave Chornobaivka without a dozen or so jars of homemade marmalade as well as pickled fruits and vegetables, including borscht. She also gave Cortellino a dozen or so laminated holy cards, with pictures of Jesus and the Virgin Mary on one side, and a prayer on the other. She urged him to keep it in his car at all times.

“For protection,” she said.

Humanitarians working in public health have become increasingly important as Russia continues to strike civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. Rolling blackouts, along

“Of course, the military aid is what most people talk about, but a significant component of it will be for humanitarian assistance to civilian populations, as it should be.”

— Chris Skopec, Project Hope

with other power interruptions, don’t just impact noncombatants in their homes — it also disrupts the provision of medical care.

“The impact on the health system in Ukraine is not just limited to theft and looting of the equipment,” said Skopec. “There have been over 700 documented attacks on

WAR IN UKRAINE

health care in Ukraine on behalf of the Russian forces, and that includes personnel, infrastructure, hospitals, clinics, ambulances, et cetera. The health infrastructure has been devastated.”

Skopec commended what he called the “tremendous commitment” of health care workers who have remained in Ukraine to serve their country since the invasion began 10 months ago.

“Just put yourself in the mindset of a person with diabetes or hypertension on regular treatment protocol, or somebody that might be dealing with a physical trauma which we see a lot in the war context. You need health care, you need access to good quality care, and you need it immediately. You need it before anything else,” he said.

The role of power transmission infrastructure becomes even more critical where it’s used to filter and pump water. Without clean drinking water, people can become sick very quickly as well as create ideal conditions for waterborne diseases and the host of health issues that arise from them.

“Being able to provide access to good hygiene and hygiene kits is critical to protecting

Aid workers stack Project Hope-branded USAID hygiene kits in a maternity hospital in Kherson, Ukraine, on Dec. 6. The hospital was destroyed by Russian artillery on Dec. 27. Cory Vaillancourt photo

the health of these communities,” Skopec said. International NGOs working in Ukraine are trying to do just that. Groups that utilize U.S. government funding, like Project Hope, are now eyeing the new Republican majority in the House to see what changes, if any, they’ll propose to future aid packages.

Last October, presumptive Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said that Congress shouldn’t write a “blank check” to Ukraine while also calling for more oversight and stricter accountability of the aid that’s already being provided.

“Of course, the military aid is what most people talk about, but a significant component of it will be for humanitarian assistance to civilian populations, as it should be,” Skopec said. “I know within Congress, the appetite is still high. Anecdotally, among the American public, I’m just always blown away by how many flags I see, how much support I see, just in public as I drive around town here in Washington.”

Throughout the trip to Mykolaiv, Kherson and Chornobaivka, the Ukrainians who talked to The Smoky Mountain News said they were thankful for the boxes Project Hope had been bringing them, but their stark parting message was always the same: don’t forget about us.

Cortellino thinks he knows why they’d say that.

“What we’re really bringing,” he said, “is hope.”

Editor’s note: The names of the Ukrainians in this story have been changed to protect their identities.

I owe Rockwell an apology

Working at a newspaper requires thick skin. I’m a columnist and lifestyle writer, so I don’t get nearly as much pushback or rebuttals as the reporters. Nonetheless, I’ll occasionally get a hateful or condescending message from someone who doesn’t agree with an opinion I stated in a column.

In December I wrote a piece called “Your One and Only Christmas 2022.” The sentiment of the column focused on going against the grain and not letting societal pressure dictate how one spends and remembers their holiday season. Those of us who have lost a loved one or experienced a significant shift in family dynamic such as a divorce sometimes have a challenging time during the holidays.

To accentuate this point, I wrote these lines in that column, “I’m not sure where these images come from. Perhaps stereotypes from American sitcoms and movies, or Norman Rockwell paintings where a white middle class family with a dog sit around a perfectly adorned table full of food. Nonetheless, these visuals greatly impact our experiences and our mental health.”

When writing that section, I was thinking about that classic Rockwell painting where the woman is holding the Thanksgiving turkey. The painting is called “Freedom from Want,” and there are actually more than four family members in this painting, but you get my point.

About a week after publishing the column, I received an email from a reader who reprimanded me for portraying Rockwell in a negative light and for calling out the word “white” in my reference.

What I found most interesting is that my inclusion of

Don’t be fooled; climate change is real

To the Editor:

A recent letter in the Waynesville Mountaineer claimed that climate change is a myth. Perhaps the writer carefully studied the issue and conducted on-site evaluations of 10,000-year-old ice cores in Antarctica. Perhaps he has debated the 97% of climate scientists who strongly support the idea that global climate change is happening, threatening disaster for our planet unless we modify our ways.

Or, perhaps our letter writer has repeated some of the distortions spread throughout U.S. media by the American Petroleum Institute. These servants of the petrochemical industry and Saudi princes make excuses for the 40 billion tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere yearly. They are highly paid for their service.

In the same manner, throughout the 1960s and 70s the American Tobacco Institute spent hundreds of millions of dollars to convince the American public that tobacco was completely safe for human consumption. Big Tobacco companies knew that their product was killing millions with lung cancer and heart disease, but money talks.

Likewise, the petroleum industry has known for many years that the burning of fossil fuels is responsible for increasing climate

Rockwell wasn’t about race or American culture of that time, it was about the pressure to create and sustain a perfect family unit, which is simply not a reality for millions of people. Granted, using the word “white” in my descriptor of his painting was probably unnecessary for the context of the column, but I was trying to conjure a specific painting in the minds of readers.

All that being said, her email got me wondering about Rockwell as a person, so I did some research. What I found was captivating and completely shifted my perception of this talented artist whom I have always respected. While studying him, I had several questions in mind. What were his personal views on race and culture during his lifetime? Why are many of his paintings slanted toward the prototypical American Dream?

Come to find out, the reason many of Rockwell’s paintings highlight White American people doing everyday things is because that’s what The Saturday Evening Post expected of him. The editorial constraints and prejudices he worked under honed Rockwell’s allegiance to social commentary, even if that wasn’t always his desire. Because he’s most well-known for his work with The Post, it’s widely assumed he didn’t work to portray themes of racial inequality or discrimination in his work; however, this is untrue.

After leaving The Post in 1963, Rockwell created one of his most famous and important paintings, “The Problem We All

LETTERS

instability. Some of Exxon’s own scientists have testified that they feel remorse that they were part of this massive fraud. (www.theguardian.com/environment/201 5/jul/08/exxon-climate-change-1981-climatedenier-funding)

I suggest folks review material that refutes the absurd idea that climate change is not an immediate danger which human society must deal with decisively. (https://www.draw-

down.org/climate-solutions-101)

Live With” (pictured). This symbolized a moment in the life of Ruby Bridges at six-years old being escorted by U.S. Marshalls to help end segregation in a school in the South, which is arguably the single most powerful painting of the Civil Rights movement. He went on to create many other paintings that highlighted the divide within our nation.

On the surface, Rockwell presented as a happy-go-lucky, genial, pipe-smoking artist but in private, he was deeply depressed and stoic, struggled with obsessive compulsive disorder, and distanced himself emotionally from his three wives, sons, brother, friends, editors and associates. He routinely went to therapy before it was considered commonplace. When it comes to Rockwell, there is much more I could discover. In fact, I’ve become quite enamored by the man from researching him for this column. I feel like I owe him an apology if in any way, my column from several weeks ago portrayed him as a close-minded dispassionate individual when it appears he was anything but. This experience was a gentle reminder to never take things at face value. It’s always worth looking a little deeper.

(Susanna Shetley is writer, editor and digital medial specialist. susanna.b@smokymountainnews.com.)

For example, the recent frigid weather throughout much of the U.S. was a direct result of the hyper warming of the Arctic (which is heating up 4 times as fast as the rest of the world), creating the well-understood polar vortex. This warming northern air mass pushes the jet stream into an unstable orbit around the Earth, forcing Arctic air south, creating historic freezing as far as Texas.

Don’t believe the deliberate misinformation spread by Big Oil. Climate change is the

challenge of our era. Build resilient communities before the next catastrophic weather challenges occur.

A sure sign of our moral decay

To the Editor:

The headlines read — “Texas governor & others bus immigrants to VP house, and drop them in freezing weather.”

Probably the cruelest action I can imagine is busing and dropping immigrants into a violent winter storm with sub-freezing temperatures. On second thought, perhaps nailing them to die on a cross is more cruel. But we’re getting there.

Perhaps Christmas Eve was chosen so the senders could enjoy their sumptuous Christmas dinner while watching less fortunate (therefore, I suppose, less worthy) folks freeze to death.

Much has been written about the moral decline of our nation. And I agree. However, issues like transgender and LGBTQ are often brought up as a red herring to distract people from other major issues like gross inequality and racial discrimination. These are major indications of our moral decline. The recent busing, political stunt being but one example. Paul Strop Waynesville

Let speeders pre-pay for the privilege

R ICH BYERS

G UEST COLUMNIST

Ithink most of you would agree that there are more people speeding, and speeding faster on the highways with less enforcement in evidence than there used to be a while back. Well, I have a suggestion concerning that, and I will ask you all, “Why not?” But first a few caveats.

The first caveat is: this is my wife’s idea. She mentioned it kind of in jest, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. So! If you think, like I do, that it is brilliant, please remember you heard it from me. On the other hand, if you find this silly and ridiculous, well, this was my wife’s idea.

Second caveat: Great ideas come sometimes from brainstorming. True. But I’m soon 74 and most of my thoughts meander. No storms here. But as some of these readers may know, when your mind wanders, you can notice so many treasures that the stormers miss. I hope this is one of the treasures.

Third caveat: We are told to think outside the box for great solutions. So I am going to suggest this; what if you don’t know where the box is? Getting outside is easy. There is a “Ted Lasso” episode where Coach Lasso wants to resign from the team because, having been an American football coach, he has no grasp at all of English football (soccer), the team he has been hired to coach. The owner of the club assures him that he is her secret weapon because none of the other teams will expect what he will do because he doesn’t understand the game. I present my idea with those same credentials. Full disclosure.

Now, I don’t know anything about how law enforcement is hired, I have no idea whatsoever how they much they are paid, where the revenues come from, and certainly not the foggiest as to the process of deploying these valuable resources. So, clearly for me, I have no parameters (box) to make this suggestion (my wife’s idea, remember.)

So, speeding. Why can’t the speeders prepay some sort of fine and be allowed to speed? You could prepay to do 70, 80, or 90! Personally, I think 90 should cost a prohibitive amount, but that’s just my humble opinion.

Look, folks prepaying to speed would generate incredible revenues. Some of this windfall would have to go for the enforcement electronics I’m about to propose, but there should be much more to go toward hiring more law enforcement and paying them better, possibly resulting in safer

roads.

Now I hear some of you saying, “But Rich, how could the roads be safer if you’re allowing people to speed with no fear of getting caught and fined?” Good point. But, I don’t think everyone will ante up the dough to be allowed to speed, and there will be more enforcement to punish those that don’t! Plus, it will be great for the economy.

And some of you are saying, “But Ricky, not everyone can afford to pay that money. It’s not fair to the poor people.” OK, good point. But first of all, our nation is based on democracy where everyone should have the right to vote, and it’s based on capitalism which means not everyone is equal. But, to make this more equitable to everyone, I am suggesting the Snitch Program. Let’s say you want to do 75 mph this year and you don’t have the money. But you know your Cousin Vinnie goes out I-40 everyday about noon doing 90 in a red Volkswagen convertible. You let the State Police know and when they ticket him, you get Snitch Points toward your Speeding Pass. With enough cousins and in-laws, you can speed for free. Plus, enforcement is more efficient. WinWin, right?

Now you’re asking “Ricardo, how can this be enforced?” Good question. If you have traveled much, you know many areas have toll roads, toll bridges and toll lanes. There is a transmitter you get when you establish your prepay account and as you pass through a toll gate, your passage is noted and deducted from your account. Computers!! So, if you have prepaid to speed every day, when you pass a law enforcement checkpoint, their electronics tell them that you are prepaid, you’re good. But someone doing 80 who is not prepaid is easily cut from the herd and branded. I mean, ticketed.

Now you’re thinking “But Ricky, this means only the wealthy can speed?” Well, there is a long history of wealth privilege. Lucky for us, we are a democracy where everyone should get the right to vote. But, we are a capitalist society where the more successful have advantages. Why not make them share their wealth with law enforcement? A prepay system of speeding helps bring some important revenues to the communities. I’ll leave it to statisticians and accountants to project the wealth. Again, outside my invisible box.

Well anyway, I think my wife had a pretty good idea, so I leave it to you. Just tell me, “Why not?”

(Rich Byers is a retired ESL teacher and tractor trailer driver who lives in Waynesville.)

Litmus test of a community

A look back at the arts in WNC 2022

BY GARRET K. WOODWARD

ARTS & E NTERTAINMENT E DITOR

As it has been stated in this publication many times before, the litmus test of the strength of a community is by how strongly its arts is supported. Whether music or writing, painting or woodwork, clogging or pottery, or any of the endless realms of creative expression, at the core of the culture and ethos of Western North Carolina is a deep, sincere appreciation of the arts.

With 2022 coming to a close, here’s a look back some of the marquee arts stories, profiles and events chronicled in The Smoky Mountain News. And, don’t forget, the more you support the arts in your backyard, the more vibrant the tapestry of life is — for you, me, and all of us.

Buy a concert ticket. Purchase a piece of art. Take a class or workshop. Pick up an instrument. Learn to dance. Be curious and discover a new hobby or passion. Always be hungry to immerse oneself in the ancient healing powers of the arts.

STEVEN LLOYD

STEPS DOWN FROM HART

After 33 years at the helm as the executive director of the Haywood Arts Regional Theatre

in Waynesville — arguably one of the finest community theatre companies in the nation — Steven Lloyd stepped aside and retired when the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve.

Reflecting his time at HART, Lloyd can vividly recall every single performance, with over 400 productions to his credit. But, more importantly, he can still picture and visualize every single actor, director, and stage hand that stepped foot onto the stage — his stage, one of passion, compassion, and inclusivity.

“The buildings are one thing, but the things that happened in these buildings — all the people who met each other, children who have come into this world because of those people meeting, and the shows that were done to bring people together — this theatre changed this community,” Lloyd said in a humbled tone.

BALSAM RANGE

CELEBRATES 15 YEARS, LOOKS AHEAD

In a year that’ll surely end on a bittersweet note, beloved Haywood County bluegrass sensation Balsam Range is not only celebrating 15 years together, the band is also saying goodbye to one of its founding members, mandolinist Darren Nicholson.

“[The timing] feels just right for me,” Nicholson said. “I did [over] 250 performances last year on my own, and almost 40 with Balsam Range. It’s very simple — it’s just gotten hard to do it all.”

Thus, Nicholson’s final bow as a member of Balsam Range came during the ensemble’s annual “Art of Music” festival, which took place Dec. 2-3 in the Stuart Auditorium at the Lake Junaluska Conference & Retreat Center. The weekend long musical gathering also officially marked the 15-year milestone for the quintet.

“Looking back over the [15-year] journey, I’m still amazed at all we’ve accomplished, as so many incredible memories,” said lead singer/fiddler Buddy Melton. “After all the planning, strategizing, long hours, countless miles, and family sacrifices, does it seem worth the effort? The answer is yes — it doesn’t take much reflection to feel proud of our journey.”

NEW DOCUMENTARY CELEBRATES FRED CHAPPELL

As one of the most beloved and acclaimed writers in North Carolina and greater Southern Appalachia, 86-year-old Fred Chappell, a Haywood County native, has accumulated a vast catalog of work, dozens of books poetry and prose.

Throughout his 86 years on this earth, Chappell has received an array of honors, including the Bollingen Prize, the T. S. Eliot Award and the Thomas Wolfe Prize. From 1997 to 2002, he

was the poet laureate of North Carolina.

Recently, Chappell has become the subject of a new documentary about his life and career. Titled, “I Am One of You Forever,” the film, directed by Michael Frierson, takes an in-depth look at one of the most important literary voices to ever emerge from the Tar Heel State.

“It seems to me, [poetry is] the most natural kind of a speech there is. It’s the most natural, the most elevated, and the most fun — poetry is always attractive. Everybody is immersed in poetry, whether they know it or not,” Chappell said.

WNC CLOGGER BECOMES

SOCIAL MEDIA SENSATION

In March 2022, life forever changed for Zeb Ross and his extended family. You see, as a featured member of the J Creek Cloggers — a Western North Carolina traditional Appalachian dance troupe — a short video clip of Ross dancing hit social media platforms, the Haywood County resident quickly going viral with hundreds of millions of views of his fancy footwork.

“Whenever I’m dancing, I’m not really thinking about anything — it’s pure bliss for me,” Ross said. “You’re performing and looking around. You’re seeing the smiles. You’re seeing the clapping. You don’t have to worry about what chores you have to do back home or whatever might be bothering you in life. Everything gets pushed to the side — you’re just enjoying the moment.”

This must be the place

BY GARRET K. WOODWARD

Widespread Panic, Nashville. (Garret K. Woodward photo)

HOT PICKS

1

Appalachian/indie act Jackson Grimm & The Bull Moose Party will perform at 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 13, at The Scotsman in Waynesville.

2

Popular rock/blues act J.J. Hipps & The Hideaway will hit the stage at 9 p.m. Friday, Jan. 6, at The Scotsman in Waynesville.

3

The monthly Creating Community Workshop will continue at 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 7, in the Community Room of the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva.

4

Unplugged Pub (Bryson City) will host Wayne Buckner & The Shooting Creek Band at 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 6.

New Year’s Eve. A little past 9 a.m. in Room 211 of the Holiday Inn Express on the outskirts of Nashville, Tennessee, within earshot of the airport and the bustling Interstate 40.

The room is completely dark from the window shades being drawn down. The only sense of time is the incessant alarm clock on the smart phone on the nightstand. I set it for 9 a.m. due to the mere fact that the hot breakfast included in my room purchase would only be available until 9:30 a.m.

Flick on the bathroom lights and make eye contact in the mirror with the face that, perhaps, had a few too many drinks the night prior all along Broadway in downtown Nashville. Those Coors Banquets sure go down easy when in the midst of honky-tonk tunes and rollicking, knee slappin’ good times at Robert’s Western World. At least I was smart enough to order a cheeseburger at one point for sustenance.

Mosey along the silent hallway. Hit the down button on the elevator. Throw your hoodie up over your head. First floor, please. Emerge back into the world. Get the last of the biscuits and gravy before the breakfast lady closes the doors. Two glasses of apple juice. One cup of coffee. Grab an oatmeal for good measure.

Sit down at a table for two by yourself. Eat with gusto, all while taking inventory of the last year. One more calendar now in the trash can of existence, a fresh one of 365 days, 52 weeks and 12 months to pin up on the wall above the kitchen sink. Every day and page empty, for now. Oh, the endless possibilities, the unknown people, places, and things right around the corner, ready to surprise you with a moment’s notice.

Last night, it was pre-show beers and shenanigans at Robert’s on Broadway. Friends surrounding me from Asheville, Nashville, and beyond. Onward to the Ryman Auditorium for a Rolling Stone

assignment covering Molly Tuttle, who was opening for Old Crow Medicine Show at the Mother Church itself. Interviews. More beers. Immersion in the depths of live bluegrass music — this current, flourishing state of the “high, lonesome sound.”

Leaving the Ryman, I got a message from an Asheville friend who was at Widespread Panic’s gig around the corner and up Broadway at the massive Bridgestone Arena. It was set break and he had an extra floor ticket for me if I was able to get to the main entrance in the next five minutes.

Hurry over and knock on the glass doors. He waves the ticket in the air for me. I’m in. Down the steps to the floor just as a sea of music freaks readied themselves for set two of another rollercoaster rock-n-roll installment of that damn fine band from Athens, Georgia.

Several hours later, I’m finishing the last of the biscuits and gravy by myself at the Holiday Inn. Pack the bags and head for the truck in the parking lot. The plan was to return to Waynesville, maybe onward to Asheville, for when the ball drops at midnight.

But, my best friend in Knoxville called and said he was in need of some quality time to get his mind off the heaviness of the past year and finally move on to 2023. I concurred. I was also in the same boat. Aim the truck nose down I-40 East towards Knoxville.

It’s funny how you find yourself with all these options, or maybe somewhat of a solid plan of what you’d like to do for New Year’s Eve, but one usually tends to find themselves not where they’d thought they be. At least, that happens to me like clockwork, no pun intended.

Heck, maybe that’s just life itself — plans made tend to change amid the mysteries of the unfolding universe. Initially, I had ambitious plans for NYE in Charleston, South Carolina, maybe even Denver, Colorado or Montreal, Quebec. But, alas, there I was standing at the bar counter on the second floor of the Preservation Pub in downtown Knoxville.

Being a massive college football town, the TV behind the bar was showing the end of the wild Georgia/Ohio State game instead of the ball being dropped in Times Square. No matter, the place erupted in chaotic cheers and excitement as the thrilling ending

5

Frog Level Brewing (Waynesville) will host Robbie Rosado (singer-songwriter) 5 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 7.

of the game coincided with the ball drop — it is what it is, just go with the flow, man. There I was, standing with my best friend and other beloved faces. Where else would one want to be, honestly? Wandering up and down the endless levels of the Pres Pub, my mind kept mulling over and processing the past 365 days. It took me a moment to remember what I did last New Year’s Eve, which was spent at the Monopole Bar in my native Plattsburgh, New York, seeing as my truck was in the repair shop for my unexpected extended stay while home for Christmas.

Thoughts and visions of the miles traveled, physically or emotionally. Rolling down to Florida in March, toes in the sand in Saint Augustine. That trip to Montana in April to help my aunt move back to Charlotte, over 2,100 miles in a U-Haul without cruise control, countless memories and inside jokes now between us.

Up to the North Country for the organized chaos of early summer. Festival season and writing assignments from coast-to-coast — Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, New York — with California in October ending this go-round. Innumerable concerts and oneon-one interviews with some of my biggest musical heroes. Gratitude in abundance.

People missed, whether six feet under or 600 hundred miles away. Still making sense of my cousin who left us in June 2021. And that day in June 2022 where I found myself walking into the ICU in Charlottesville, Virginia, to say goodbye to a long-time friend, the sheer weight of that moment still lingering on my shoulders — the emotional toll of that interaction setting the tone for the rest of 2022.

Breathe deeply and exhale the sadness, accept the gladness and hopefulness of what lies ahead, come hell or high water, my brothers and sisters. Crank up the tunes, roll the truck windows down, and turn onto the dirt road, for I’ll be there right beside you — in sickness and in health.

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

On the beat

Rock rolls into Scotsman

Popular regional rock/blues act J.J. Hipps & The Hideaway will hit the stage at 9 p.m. Friday, Jan. 6, at The Scotsman in Waynesville.

Hailing from Lenoir, the power rock trio explores the endless depths of the blues, where a typical whirlwind set touches upon the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers Band, and much more.

Free and open to the public. 828.246.6292 or scotsmanpublic.com.

Interested in learning the dulcimer?

The Pic’ & Play Mountain Dulcimer Players will be resuming in-person jam sessions at the St. John’s Episcopal Church basement fellowship hall in Sylva.

The group welcomes all beginners and experienced dulcimer players, including mountain (lap) dulcimer and hammered dulcimer players. Songs played include traditional mountain tunes, hymns, and more modern music. The group meets at 1:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Saturday of every month in the basement of St. John’s. Pic’ & Play has been playing together since 1995. The more experienced members welcome new players, help them navigate their instruments, and guide them through some of the basics of tuning, strumming, and playing.

The mountain dulcimer, also known as a fretted dulcimer or a lap dulcimer, is a uniquely American instrument. It evolved from the German scheitholz sometime in the early 1800s in Appalachia and was largely known only in this region until popularized more broadly in the 1950s.

For more information, call Kathy Jaqua at 828.349.3930 or Don Selzer at 828.293.0074.

Americana, folk in Waynesville

Appalachian/indie act Jackson Grimm & The Bull Moose Party will perform at 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 13, at The Scotsman in Waynesville.

Grimm marries folk/pop melodies with the lonesome sound of traditional Appalachian music. In a region with a strong music culture, it is no surprise that Grimm’s songwriting is representative of his musical birthplace: Asheville.

His songs run the gambit from an homage to a traditional country waltz in “If Not For You,” an unrequited love song driven by a Beatles-esque melody in “I’d Hold You (But I Don’t Wanna Hold You),” to a drunken party-grass song à la Old Crow Medicine Show in “Last Train Home.”

The performance is free and open to the public. For more information, click on scotsmanpublic.com.

On the beat

• Altered Frequencies (Franklin) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. 828.342.8014 or alteredfrequencies.net.

• Balsam Falls Brewing (Sylva) will host an open mic from 8 to 10 p.m. every Thursday. Free and open to the public. 828.631.1987 or balsamfallsbrewing.com.

• Blue Ridge Beer Hub (Waynesville) will host a semi-regular acoustic jam with the Main Street NoTones from 7 to 9 p.m. every first and third Thursday of the month. Free and open to the public. blueridgebeerhub.com.

• Boojum Brewing (Waynesville) will host karaoke at 8:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, trivia at 7 p.m. on Thursdays and semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows begin at 9 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 828.246.0350 or boojumbrewing.com.

• Currahee Brewing (Franklin) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 828.634.0078 or curraheebrew.com.

• Farm At Old Edwards (Highlands) will host the “Orchard Sessions” on select dates. Tickets start at $25 per person. oldedwardshospitality.com/orchardsessions.

• Folkmoot Friendship Center (Waynesville) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. For tickets, click on folkmoot.org.

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

• Frog Level Brewing (Waynesville) will host Robbie Rosado (singer-songwriter) 5 p.m. Jan. 7, Kid Billy (singer-songwriter) Jan. 13 and Seth & Sara (Americana) Jan. 14. All shows begin at 6 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public unless otherwise noted. 828.454.5664 or froglevelbrewing.com.

• Frog Quarters (Franklin) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. Located at 573 East Main Street. littletennessee.org or 828.369.8488.

• Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort (Cherokee) will host semi-regular live music and entertainment on the weekends. For a full schedule of events and/or to buy tickets, caesars.com/harrahs-cherokee.

• Innovation Brewing (Sylva) will host “Trivia Night with Kirk” from 7 to 9 p.m. every Tuesday, Open Mic Night every Wednesday and semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. innovation-brewing.com.

• Innovation Station (Dillsboro) will host “Music Bingo” with Hibiscus Sunshine every Wednesday and semi-regular live music on

the weekends. All events begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. innovation-brewing.com.

• Lazy Hiker Brewing (Franklin) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.349.2337 or lazyhikerbrewing.com.

• Lazy Hiker Brewing (Sylva) will host Trivia Night at 6:30 p.m. every Wednesday, Old Time Jam 6:30 p.m. every Thursday and semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.349.2337 or lazyhikerbrewing.com.

ALSO:

• Moss Valley (Franklin) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. Food trucks and beverages available onsite. Bring a lawn chair. Presented by Drake Software.

• Mountain Layers Brewing (Bryson City) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. All shows begin at 6 p.m unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.538.0115 or mountainlayersbrewingcompany.com.

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

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

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

• Quirky Birds Treehouse & Bistro (Dillsboro) will host Open Mic Night at 7 p.m. every Tuesday and semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 828.586.1717 or facebook.com/quirkybirdstreehouse.

• Rathskeller Coffee Haus & Pub (Franklin) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Shows begin at 8 p.m. Free and open to the public. 828.369.6796.

• Saltys Dog’s Seafood & Grill (Maggie Valley) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 828.926.9105.

• Satulah Mountain Brewing (Highlands) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. 828.482.9794 or satulahmountainbrewing.com.

• Sauced (Waynesville) will host semi-regular

Buckner returns to Unplugged Pub

Southern rock/country group Wayne Buckner & The Shooting Creek Band will perform at 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 6, at the Unplugged Pub in Bryson City. Free and open to the public. 828.538.2488.

live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. 828.246.9585 or saucedwnc.com

• The Scotsman (Waynesville) will host Kevin Dolan & Paul Koptak (Americana/folk) Jan. 5, J.J. Hipps & The Hideaway (rock/blues) 9 p.m. Jan. 6, Rene Russell (Americana/rock) Jan. 12, Jackson Grimm & The Bull Moose Party (Americana/indie) Jan. 13 and Bonafide (Celtic/jam) 4 p.m. Jan. 14. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.246.6292 or scotsmanpublic.com.

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

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

• Southern Porch (Canton) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. 828.492.8009 or southern-porch.com.

• Stecoah Valley Center (Robbinsville) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. 828.479.3364 or stecoahvalleycenter.com.

• The Ugly Dog Pub (Cashiers) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. 828.743.3000 or theuglydogpub.com.

• The Ugly Dog Pub (Highlands) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. 828.526.8364 or theuglydogpub.com.

• Unplugged Pub (Bryson City) will host JC Parrothead Jan. 4, DJ Terry Mooney Jan 5, Wayne Buckner & The Shooting Creek Band Jan. 6, Rock Holler Jan. 7, Mountain Gypsy (Americana) Jan. 12, Nick Mac & The Noise Jan. 13 and Keil Nathan Smith (singer-songwriter) Jan. 14. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Free and open to the public. 828.538.2488.

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

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

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

• Whiteside Brewing (Cashiers) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. 828.743.6000 or whitesidebrewing.com.

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

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

Ready to learn contra dancing?

There will be a contra dance class offered from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 7, at the Macon County Public Library in Franklin.

Contra dance is considered the most accessible and sociable of all dances, with participants moving in two long facing lines or in groups, and with frequent partner changes. With its roots in the British Isles and France, contra dance has become a traditional American dance form.

No experience is needed to contra dance. All dances are taught. Beginners’ lessons start at 6:30 p.m., with dancing from 7 to 9 p.m. No need to bring a partner, but you’re welcome to do so. You may also bring a closed water container and snack. Wear comfortable clothes and shoes. Masks are encouraged, but not required. Please don’t wear perfumes or strong scents.

Suggested donation of $10 per person. This project is hosted by the Arts Council of Macon County and supported by a generous gift from The James Edward Hudock Trust.

• “Flights & Bites” will be held starting at 4 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays at Bosu’s Wine Shop in downtown Waynesville. For more information on upcoming events, wine tastings and special dinners, click on waynesvillewine.com.

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

• “Take A Flight” with four new wines every Friday and Saturdays at the Bryson City Wine Market. Select from a gourmet selection of charcuterie to enjoy with your wines. Educational classes and other events are also available. For more information, call 828.538.0420.

• “Uncorked: Wine & Rail Pairing Experience” will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on select dates at the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad in Bryson City. Full service all-adult first class car. Wine pairings with a meal, and more. For more information and/or to register, call 800.872.4681 or click on gsmr.com.

On the wall

Creating Community Workshop

The monthly Creating Community Workshop will continue at 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 7, in the Community Room of the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva.

This month, the workshop will make beautiful three-dimensional snowflakes under the guidance of local artist Joyce Lantz. If you have a good pair of craft scissors, please bring them with you.

To register, call the library at 828.586.2016 or email jcpl-adults@fontanalib.org to register. This class is for people 16 years and older. Registration is required.

This event is co-sponsored by the Friends of the Jackson County Public Library. The Jackson County Public Library is a member of Fontana Regional Library (fontanalib.org).

ALSO:

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

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

11 Trails Open

3 Aerial Lifts

2 Surface Lift 30-40 Inch Base

Weekdays: 9:00am – 10pm

Weekends: 8:30am – 10pm

Some bookish thoughts for the new year

Whatever our political beliefs or affiliations, few of us, I suspect, will look back on 2022 with pangs of nostalgia, at least in regard to events in our country at large. Right now, poor old Father Time has undoubtedly smashed his hourglass and trudged off the stage, while Baby New Year 2023, decked out as usual in a diaper and top hat, has poked his head out from around the curtains, wondering whether he’ll be greeted by applause and fireworks or catcalls and brickbats.

This new year, you’re having thoughts of reviving your old love of watercolors, but need some inspiration to kickstart those dreams. No fear — just grab a copy of Sara Woster’s “Painting Can Save Your Life: How & Why We Paint” (TarcherPerigee, 2022, 304 pages), and off you go.

Fortunately, the hopes for change in the new year have more to do with us as individuals than with broader national issues. This is the season when some of us make resolutions, and some of us even keep them. Shedding some excess pounds, kicking some bad habits, and exercising more are some of the more popular of these vows.

Others look to this date on the calendar with cautious optimism, hopeful perhaps of finding true love in the months ahead, or of finally being able to afford that longed-imagined trip to Paris, or winning their dream job.

And some people regard January 1st as a providential time to develop some new skill or pastime that will increase their happiness and their pleasure in living.

If you’re a member of this gang, keep in mind that for nearly every activity on the planet, there’s a book — indeed, multiple books — that can serve as your guides.

Let’s say you have a yen for some warm weather, an exciting city, and spicy food. You can find all three in “Turkey and the Wolf: Flavor Trippin’ in New Orleans” (Ten Speed Press, 2022, 252 pages). With the assistance of writer J.J. Goode, Mason Hereford, a New Orleans chef and owner of two award winning restaurants, put together this smorgasbord of recipes highlighted by amusing personal anecdotes and tips on cooking. William Hereford deserves special mention as the photographer for “Turkey and the Wolf.” If you could gain weight by looking at pictures, even browsing “Turkey and the Wolf” would add more calories to our waistline than a full-blown Thanksgiving extravaganza.

Or maybe you remember that long-ago art class you took and enjoyed before the demands of life swept you up and out to sea?

Sylva monthly book club

written by Andrews and Hamilton. The book comes with a CD featuring poems read by these two women, which only adds to its delights.

In her Introduction to the book, Woster, who has taught drawing and painting to children and adults, writes that she gave this book its title “in reference to all those important ways that painting can help save a person from loneliness and apathy and the impact of all the stresses we face each day.” She begins by explaining to readers what supplies they’ll need, then moves on to technique and concept. Even those who have little interest in putting a brush to canvas can learn a good deal about art and the power of keen observation from Woster’s lessons.

Suppose you want to make 2023 a year of poetry and song for the little ones in your life? That’s not only a noble resolution, but the Julie Andrews’ “Collection of Poems, Songs, and Lullabies” (Little, Brown and Company, 2009, 192 pages) makes for a beautiful addition to that project. Co-edited by her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, and beautifully illustrated with watercolors by James McMullan, this collection contains songs and poems old and new, familiar and unfamiliar to most readers, including some

Andrews also writes a short introduction to each chapter of the book. In these words, we hear the voice that made famous such films as “The Sound of Music”— sweet, clear as water, and strikingly innocent. The first chapter begins with “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” the second with “Accentuate the Positive,” and those two upbeat songs mark the tone of the entire book. I can’t remember how I stumbled onto this book at the public library, but it’s one I have purchased and am giving to my children for Christmas, so that they may in turn share it with my grandchildren. Here’s a final idea to ring out the old year and ring in the new. Make books and literature more a part of your life. Read a few classics or simply read some older books, best-sellers like the novels of James Michener, Herman Wouk, or Taylor Caldwell. Consider setting a goal for the number of books read and try to meet that number. Give books or book store gift cards to relatives and friends on special occasions. Consider starting a book club for yourself and your friends, or for your children and their friends.

A final New Year’s note to all of you and a reminder to me: no matter what comes down the pike in 2023, let’s be grateful the gifts and treasures we possess. Now is also a good time to recollect that old Twelve-Step prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Happy New Year’s, everyone! (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)

Word from the Smokies

BY S UE WASSERMAN · CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Old wallet helps archivist breathe new life into Cades Cove history

When a wallet talks, Mike Aday listens. At least, metaphorically speaking.

In fact, coaxing such a curious conversation is part of Aday’s job as the archivist for Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Part of my role as the 2022 Steve Kemp Writer in Residence is to learn more about how he

brings history to life in addition to breathing new life into history.

As has so often been the case throughout my residency, I had no idea there was such a place as the Collections Preservation Center.

The six-year-old, climate-controlled, 14,000square-foot building in Townsend, Tennessee, is home to an impressive 1.4 million records, ranging from maps and photographs (35,000 of them) to Cherokee pottery shards and Appalachian farm tools, and so much in between. The collection under Aday’s purview has items dating back to 1780.

“The human history you find in archival holdings is fascinating,” he says. “It’s amazing all the life that happens outside of the public eye.”

Aday is the impassioned gatekeeper, collecting, protecting and sharing the wealth of information, all of which ties back to the national park. The compilation of genealogical information alone is impressive, which is understandable given the fact that the park is comprised of 1,600 separate tracts of land.

“Someone sees their name on a tombstone and wonders if they’re related,” he says. “The question gets back to me to try and answer.”

For Aday, business as usual often involves working with academics digging into various aspects of Southern Appalachian history. You can often find him sharing the collections through his community outreach efforts, helping people understand the park and its history better. He even makes time, and glad-

After the Civil War the Tennessee state legislature passed a law that in order to vote in elections a person had to be a male over the age of 21 and had to provide proof that they had in no way been connected to the Confederacy. These documents issued to Oliver (left) provided that proof. Sue Wasserman photo

ly so, to answer questions from 10-year-olds regarding how The Smoky Mountains got their name.

While it’s uncommon these days for Aday to get new donations to the collections, it still happens. The aforementioned wallet was just such a donation. It was delivered into the park’s hands by the great-great-granddaughter of Cades Cove resident Elijah Oliver.

“Oliver was born in 1824, the son of the first White European family to settle in Cades Cove,” Aday offers. “He became a prominent figure in the community.”

According to Aday, Oliver’s wallet looked more like a leather pocketbook than a traditional man’s wallet and was crammed full of folded bits of paper.

“Like George Costanza from ‘Seinfeld,’ whose notoriously overstuffed wallet was the fodder for many jokes,” Aday says, “it was pretty clear Elijah had been accumulating these bits and pieces for decades.”

Decades indeed. The oldest piece dated back to 1840 while the most recent was from 1910. Exhilarated by the donation, Aday recounted how he went to work trying to preserve each of the dated documents. The process, he explained, required careful extraction of each item before he could, with equal care, unfold them.

“Each piece had to be meticulously cleaned,” he remembers. “As you can imagine, after all those years, they were filthy. I used special brushes to try and remove the dust.”

Certain he had to humidify the papers to flatten them but unsure how to achieve that, Aday did some online research. The resulting “state-of-the-art” humidifying system was crafted from a white plastic storage container, plastic-coated wire rack and a piece of unbleached muslin paper. Oh, how I wish I could have watched this master at work. I’m not sure I’ve ever used the word “fastidious” before in an article, but I imagine that word clearly applied to Aday’s restoration and preservation efforts.

“I wetted down the muslin, placed the rack on top of it, put the paper on top of the rack, and placed the lid on the container. I checked on it every 15 minutes to see if the fibers had loosened. Then I sandwiched the flattened paper between pieces of blotter paper until it was completely dried. The process took about three weeks during which time I put other projects on hold. When the first batch was completely finished, I texted my wife and told her, ‘Oh my God, it worked!’”

Aday’s efforts yielded serious pay dirt — a window into the past. One document, for example, verified that

Spur tunnel repairs begin

Tunnel repairs have begun on the northbound Spur between Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, with ongoing lane closures expected through April 7.

Concrete barriers placed along the center line of the tunnel allow crews to make repairs within the closed lane while allowing through traffic on the open lane. Drivers should proceed slowly and refrain from honking while traveling through the work zone. Closures will be in place 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the construction period.

Crews will replace drains, clean and paint the tunnel interior, replace sodium lights with new LED lights, install a new lighting control system on Huskey Grove Road and install a propane-powered generator for emergency back-

The plant doctor is in

up. The works is funded through the Federal Highway Administration, which awarded a $10.3 million contract to Bryant’s Land Development of Burnsville. Work should fully complete by June 5, and the contract incentivizes Bryant’s with $10,000 per day for up to 45 days before April 7 to complete work requiring the lane closure early.

The growing season may feel far off, but Haywood County Master Gardeners are available to answer questions about all manner of plant-related issues.

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

During the American Civil War, when East Tennessee was under control of the Union Army it was necessary to carry a pass such as this one issued by the Union military authority, the provost marshal, in order to prove that a person wasn’t a deserter or Confederate spy. Sue Wasserman photo

Oliver had not been involved in Confederate efforts during the Civil War and was thus allowed the privilege of voting in post-war Tennessee. Another was a pass issued by the Union Provost Marshall, after the region came under the Union’s control, allowing Oliver to be on the road.

Cades Cove community members, according to Aday, supported the abolitionist movement. As a result, the community often served as a temporary safe haven for Union soldiers who had escaped from Confederate prisons. A dedicated advocate of education, Oliver even saved correspondence to the school board authorizing teacher pay.

Such correspondence is not an uncommon find in Aday’s world. In fact, he has selected 20 historic letters that he’s researched and written essays about for a

Cataloochee Ski Area lights up for nighttime skiing. Cataloochee Ski Area photo

forthcoming book, Letters from the Smokies, to be published by Great Smoky Mountains Association in 2023.

“Some of the topics were difficult to write about, particularly those concerning the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the African American history in the park,” he says. “These stories have been underexplored in the past but are crucial to our understanding of the park and its history.”

Knowing the painstaking efforts Aday goes through to bring history and historic voices to life, I have no doubt it will be a book well worth reading.

(Sue Wasserman was the 2022 Steve Kemp Writer-in-Residence and is the author of “A Moment’s Notice” and “Walk with Me: Exploring Nature’s Wisdom.” She has also written for the New York Times and Southern Living. She lives in Bakersville, North Carolina.)

Cataloochee offers program for women

A six-week winter sports program aimed at women who learn better with female instructors starts on Wednesday, Jan. 11, at Cataloochee Ski Area in Maggie Valley.

Women on Wednesdays is a six-week program held 10 a.m. to noon Wednesdays

through Feb. 15. After the lesson, which will be taught by Cataloochee’s most advanced female instructors, participants will be able to practice their new skills through 4:30 p.m.

Cost is $125 for lessons only, with an option to pay an additional $289 for a lift ticket or $349 for lift and rentals. Sign up at www.cataloochee.com or contact 828.926.0285 or info@cataloochee.com with questions.

Local EV chapter wins national award

The Blue Ridge Electric Vehicle Club has received the Electric Vehicle Association’s Chapter of the Year Award for the southern region.

According to the EVA, the Blue Ridge chapter was selected for its hard work and dedication to education and advocating for the rapid adoption of electric vehicles. The award will be presented at the association’s annual meeting in Carlsbad, California, on Jan. 28.

The Blue Ridge EV Club is for EV enthusiasts interested in promoting the benefits and joy of driving plug-in electric vehicles. Members are located in and around the Blue Ridge Mountains in Western North Carolina.

Smokies mountain biking plans to move forward

A Finding of No Significant Impact from the National Park Service clears the way for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to start planning a 14-mile trail system in the Wears Valley area that would bring the park its first purpose-built mountain biking trails.

“We understand the public’s desire to have a purpose-built bike trail, and this marks a step for potential future development of a trail in Wears Valley,” said Superintendent Cassius Cash. “Having the signed FONSI allows us the opportunity to explore potential funding paths for both the construction and the annual operational costs.”

The FONSI comes after the NPS prepared an Environmental Assessment examining

alternatives and environmental impacts associated with the proposed mountain bike trail system, which would fall within the Wears Valley portion of Foothills Parkway Section 8D in Tennessee.

The selected alternative plans for 11.8 miles of mountain biking trails, to include 4.2 miles of easy trail, 2.9 miles of moderate trail and 4.7 miles of advanced trail. The project would include an additional 2.3 miles of pedestrian-only trails, as well as a 0.93-mile access road. The trailhead would feature a bike wash and repair station, restrooms and picnic tables, as well as an informational kiosk for orientation, trail etiquette and rules for mountain biking.

The project aims to enhance visitor experience by offering mountain biking opportunities. The park has more than 800 miles of trail, but fewer than 8 miles are designated for biking. Public roads within the park are open to biking, but no purpose-built mountain biking trails currently exist. Previous NPS planning efforts between 1968 and 1984 identified Section 8D as one of the most desirable areas for recreational development.

Next steps include a business analysis by the NPS to examine possible operational strategies for a mountain bike trail system. The selected alternative may also include a concession/bike rental building and/or a fee collection station, depending on the identified operational strategy. No funding for construction has yet been identified.

For more information, visit parkplanning.nps.gov/projecthome.cfm?projectid=91987.

group explores the forest during a previous Wilderness Wildlife Week guided hike.

Migrate to Wilderness Wildlife Week

Make plans to visit Pigeon Forge for Wilderness Wildlife Week Tuesday, Jan. 24, through Saturday, Jan. 28.

This weeklong celebration of the natural features, creatures and cultures of the Great Smoky Mountains will feature a series of classes, seminars, demonstrations, guided hikes, panel discussions and workshops, with a range of options for both children and adults. Guided hikes range in difficulty from easy to challenging, and different classes are geared towards beginners or

advanced students in the different topics. Along with the classes, workshops and guided hikes through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge will feature vendor booths in an exhibit hall. Visitors can browse booths with photography, local art, handmade goods and more. Free. For more information, including a full schedule and class descriptions, visit mypigeonforge.com/event/wildernesswildlife-week.

Appalachian Trail gets longer

The Appalachian Trail is now 4.1 miles longer, with its official length for 2023 set at 2,198.4 miles.

The trail’s total length changes slightly each year due to footpath relocations and more precise measurements. The increased length came from changes on the northern half of the trail, including 3 miles added in New York, 0.9 miles in Connecticut and Massachusetts and 0.2 miles in Maine.

For more information, visit appalachiantrail.org/2023miles.

Exhibit displays Bartram Trail inspiration

Through Jan. 7, an exhibition celebrating the Bartram Trail is open at the Bascom Gallery in Highlands.

“Listening to the Land: Reimagining the Bartram Trail” is a nine-month community celebration of the Bartram Trail, and it starts with this project-shaping photography exhibition, titled “With Rapture & Astonishment.” The exhibit highlights how eleven photographers inspired by William Bartram reimagined the landscape he encountered.

A series of workshops, nature walks and dynamic online conversations will follow

over the coming months, inviting photographers of all levels to create a community archive of the Bartram Trail that celebrates this region’s rich biodiversity while honoring each person’s unique way of seeing and responding to the land.

Participants will be offered the opportunity to have their photographs juried into an online archive and a community exhibition in Fall 2023 that will bring to light the delicate and beautiful ecosystems that often go unobserved in public green spaces.

For more information, visit thebascom.org.

NHC works on Rock Gap Shelter replacement

The Rock Gap Shelter on the Appalachian Trail in Macon County is no more, as the Nantahala Hiking Club works to replace the aged structure.

“The Nantahala Hiking Club is responsible for the maintenance of 10 shelters along our 60 miles of the Appalachian Trail,” club member Victor Treutel wrote on the most recent NHC newsletter. “Some are in great shape, others are a little tired. Rock Gap shelter was the most tired. It had generations of graffiti and a large colony of mice entrenched within its weathered walls.”

NHC volunteers demolished the shelter

and dug up its footers Nov. 9. The next big step was getting the concrete to the building site with a UTV from the U.S. Forest Service. This required a dry trail and coordination with the Forest Service, as well as temperatures above 30 degrees for 48 hours. Due to these constraints, concrete could not be delivered until Dec. 2 and the footers couldn’t be poured until Dec. 10 and 19. A concrete block support wall was built Dec. 21 and the remainder of the demolition debris moved.

To complete the project, the club and USFS must get all the large timber building materials to the site.

Smokies hires three new management team members

Barbara Hatcher, previously a supervisory project manager and engineer for the park, is its new chief of facility management, replacing Alan Sumeriski, who is now the park’s deputy superintendent. She oversees the park’s infrastructure projects, maintenance and operations for 238 miles of paved roads, 848 miles of trails, 10 campgrounds, nine picnic areas and wastewater and water systems. She also partners on projects with the Federal Highway Administration and Denver Service Center. Hatcher’s experience includes working as the transportation branch chief for the Washington Service Office Park Facilities Management Division, serving as acting superintendent of Andersonville National Historic Site and holding several positions in the National Park Service Southeast Regional Office.

Jamie Cupples, the new chief of administration and business services, most recently served as comptroller for Yosemite National

Park. In her new position she manages the park’s budget and finance, property and fleet, employee housing and general administration support services. She is also in charge of the park’s fee and concessions programs.

Cupples began her NPS career in the Washington Service Office before moving to the Alaska Region, where she held a variety of positions in administration and facility management. She has also served as the administrative officer for several small sites in the Northeast Region. Cupples replaces Dawn O’Sickey, who left for a position as associate regional director for administration and business services in the National Capital Region.

Emily Davis, who now occupies the newly created position of public affairs specialist and spokesperson, serves as the first line of contact for news media and public affairs inquiries, and she will develop communication products and messages. Davis most recently worked as public affairs specialist for the U.S. Forest Service’s Eastern Regional Office in Wisconsin and has previously served as a public affairs specialist and park ranger at Grand Canyon National Park and on detail as a public affairs officer for the Bureau of Land Management.

Notes from a Plant Nerd

BY ADAM B IGELOW

Nothing New Under the Winter Sun

Every year on the last night of December, in the dead of winter, the cries go out of “Happy New Year!” We toast our old acquaintance, kiss our sweethearts, celebrate the highs and drown the lows of the previous twelve months in a night of revelry. But is it really a new year? Sure, the calendar changes and suddenly its January. We have to practice writing and saying a new number for our calendar year. But is it really new?

Were you to walk outside and look at the ground on Dec. 31, and then go outside

quite often do not come to fruition is because we are making them at the wrong time of year, in the winter when nothing is changing, when nothing is growing or new. Want to make wholesale changes in your life? Wait until spring. Wait until the year is really new when life bursts forth from the ground and air. Wait until everything is changing and invigorated with vitality. Wait until the wildflowers return from their long winter’s sleep. That’s the time for resolutions and setting new intentions, especially if you want them to succeed.

In the springtime, all of life and nature is imbued with newness and change. And so are you, for you are also nature. I have a different definition of the start of springtime

would be little to no change, nothing new. The plants are dormant still, no sap is rising, no buds swelling on the bushes and trees. There are no new birds at the feeder, the sun is still low on the horizon, and it still gets dark at 5:30. Seemingly, nothing has changed. Nothing is new.

Yet, we don our party hats and fancy clothes. We pop the corks of Dom Pérignon or bubbly apple cider and await the countdown. And if you’re from the South or are African American and a part of the Black diaspora, who carry on traditions brought to this country and adapted by enslaved people from North Africa, we eat collard greens (Brassica oleracea) and black-eyed peas (Vigna unguiculata) to symbolize wealth, abundance and good fortune. All to honor and celebrate a new year.

And in our modern culture, which is sadly disconnected from nature and natural cycles and rhythms, we set our new intentions. We make new year’s resolutions and wonder why we usually fail to follow through on these changes and lifestyle adjustments. Well, I’m here to suggest that the reason that our New Year’s resolutions

than many others, just as my celebrated New Year differs. For me, spring is the new year. And spring comes with the return and first bloom of the trout-lily (Erythronium spp.) This tends to occur on or around Valentine’s Day, in this one special, sheltered spot way up on Moses Creek in Cullowhee. I admit to being a wildflower stalker. And in early February, depending on the weather, I begin checking that spot for the trout-lily’s emergence. The day before it comes up, the forest floor looks as brown and dormant as it has since the start of winter the year before. And then, one day, seemingly out of nowhere arise the mottled green leaves and beautiful yellow and orange flowers of the trout-lily. And I shout, “Happy New Year!” to my dog and the forest, and my heart swells with hope and joy. Maybe this year, I’ll bring along some champagne. But for now, I’ll continue to hunker down and enjoy the winter. And believe me, there is plenty to enjoy of nature in winter.

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

WNC Calendar

COMMUNITY EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

• The Jackson County Farmers Market meets every Saturday November through March 10 a.m.-1 p.m. and April through October 9 a.m.-noon at Bridge Park in Sylva, 110 Railroad St. Special events listed on Facebook and Instagram.

• The Jackson Arts Market takes place from 1-5 p.m. every Saturday at 533 West Main St. in Sylva with live music and an array of local artists.

• Cowee School Farmer’s Market is held Wednesdays from 3-6 p.m., at 51 Cowee School Drive in Franklin. The market has produce, plant starts, eggs, baked goods, flowers, food trucks and music. For more information or for an application, visit www.coweeschool.org or call 828.369.4080.

• Jackson County Green Energy Park is once again welcoming visitors. It is open to the public each week 10 a.m. 4 p.m. Wednesday through Friday. Public classes will resume this spring. JCGEP will also host live glassblowing demonstrations at Innovation Station during the Lights and Luminaries festival in Dillsboro. For more information email info@jacksonnc.org or 828.631.0271.

FUNDRAISERS AND B ENEFITS

• Haywood Waterways Association and The Town of Canton are hosting the 11th annual Plunge and Plunge Challenge till take place at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, at the Champion Credit Union Aquatic Center (Canton Pool). The event raises funds for Kids in the Creek and other Haywood Waterways’ other community education activities. For more information contact 828.476.4667 or info@haywoodwaterways.org.

H EALTH AND WELLNESS

• Jackson County Public Library will host a Vaya Seminar: Communication 101 at 1 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 12, in the conference room of the library. The seminar is free of charge, but registration is required. For more information or to register call the library at 828.586.2016 or email JCPL-Adults@fontanalib.org.

CLUBS AND M EETINGS

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

• Knit Night takes place at 5:30-7:30 p.m. every second Tuesday of the month at The Stecoah Valley Center. The event is free and open to the public. RSVP is recommended: 828.479.3364 or amber@stecoahvalleycenter.com.

• Sylva Writers Group meets at 10:30 a.m. on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month, starting Jan. 11, at City Lights Bookstore. For more information contact sylvawriters@gmail.com.

LOCAL G OVERNMENT

• The Haywood County Chamber of Commerce will host an elected officials’ reception from 5-7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 9, at the Wells Event and Reception Center in Waynesville. Heavy hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar. For more information or to register visit haywoodchamber.com/events or call 828.456.3021.

n All phone numbers area code 828 unless otherwise noted.

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

meetings in Highlands at the First Presbyterian Church, 471 Main St., at 5:30 p.m. on Monday and at noon on Wednesday and Friday. The Cashiers Valley Group holds open meetings at the Albert Carlton Cashiers Community Library at 7 p.m. Tuesday, 5 p.m. Friday and Sunday, and at 9 a.m. Saturday. Zoom meetings are available at noon on Monday, at 7 p.m. Monday and Wednesday and at 9 a.m. Saturday (ID# 921 817 2966, password CVG2020). For more information, please visit www.aawnc80.org or to speak with a member of AA 24/7 at 828.349.4357.

• The SHARE Project and RISE Resources in Support of Empowerment bring you Smart Recovery Friends and Family at 6:30 p.m. on the third Tuesday of every month in the Haywood Regional Health and Fitness Center Upstairs Classroom.

• Free support meeting for families and friends who are struggling in their relationships with loved ones in addiction. Meetings provide concerned significant others the tools needed to effectively support loved ones without supporting the addictive behavior. These tools help family and friends better cope with loved one’s situation and regain peace of mind. Meetings take place from 6-7:30 p.m. every other Thursday at RISE, located at 926 East Main St. in Sylva. More information at www.risewnc.org or 828.477.4136.

• Dementia Caregivers Support Group, for those providing care for folks who are dealing with dementia, meets from 4:30-6 p.m. on the fourth Tuesday of every month at the Haywood Senior Resource Center (81 Elmwood Way, Waynesville). For additional information call 828.476.7985.

• Grief Gathering, hosted by Haywood Hospice & Palliative Care take place at 1 p.m. on the second Wednesdays of the month at the Haywood Regional Fitness Center. Designed to offer support to anyone in the community who has recently experienced a loss. For more information, contact Haywood Hospice at 828.452.5039.

K IDS & FAMILIES

• The EcoExplore Program about owls with Patrick Brannon will take place at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 18, at the Macon County Public Library. For more information visit fontanalib.org or call 828.524.3600.

• Yoga for kids of all ages will be offered at 4 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 12 and Jan. 26, at the Macon County Public Library. Yoga mats not provided. For more information visit fontanalib.org or call 828.524.3600.

• Creative Writing Club will take place at 3:30 p.m. on the fourth Wednesday of every month at the Macon County Public Library. The first class will take place at Wednesday, Jan. 25. The writing club is intended for ages 8-12. For more information visit fontanalib.org or call 828.524.3600.

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

S UPPORT G ROUPS

• Highlands Mountain View Group holds open A.A.

• Mother Goose Storytime takes place 10:30-11 a.m. every Wednesday, at the Waynesville branch of the Haywood County Public Library. Ideal for children from birth to 2 years old. For more information, contact Lisa at lisa.hartzell@haywoodcountync.gov or call

828.356.2511.

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

• Next Chapter Book Club Haywood is a fun, energetic and highly interactive book club, ideal for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The group meets every second and fourth Monday of the month. For more information, email Jennifer at jennifer.stuart@haywoodcountync.gov or call 828.356.2561.

• Storytime takes place at 10 a.m. every Tuesday at the Macon County Library. For more information visit fontanalib.org or call 828.524.3600.

• Toddler’s Rock takes place at 10 a.m. every Monday at the Macon County Library. Get ready to rock with songs, books, rhymes and playing with instruments. For more information visit fontanalib.org or call 828.524.3600.

• Culture Talk takes place at 2 p.m. on the first Wednesday of every month at the Macon County Public Library. Travel the world from inside your library. This event features guest speakers and food sampling from the location being discussed. For more information visit fontanalib.org or call 828.524.3600.

• Art afternoon takes place at 3:30 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month at the Macon County Public Library. For more information visit fontanalib.org or call 828.524.3600.

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

n Complete listings of local music scene

n Regional festivals

n Art gallery events and openings

n Complete listings of recreational offerings at health and fitness centers

n Civic and social club gatherings

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

CLASSES AND PROGRAMS

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

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

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

A&E

• Maggie Valley Ice Festival will take place from 3-8 p.m. Jan. 28, at the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds.

• Karaoke takes place at 7 p.m. every Friday at the Meadowlark Motel in Maggie Valley. Call 828.926.1717 or visit meadowlarkmotel.com.

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

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

F OOD AND D RINK

• BBQ and Live Music takes place at 6 p.m. every Saturday at the Meadowlark Motel. Call 828.926.1717 or visit meadowlarkmotel.com.

• “Flights & Bites” will be held starting at 4 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays at Bosu’s Wine Shop in downtown Waynesville. For more information on upcoming events, wine tastings and special dinners, click on waynesvillewine.com.

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

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

ART SHOWINGS AND GALLERIES

• “Thursday Painters” group will be held from 10 a.m.3 p.m. on Thursdays at The Uptown Gallery in Franklin. Free and open to the public. All skill levels and mediums are welcome. Participants are responsible for their own project and a bag lunch. 828.349.4607 or pm14034@yahoo.com.

Outdoors

• An exhibit celebrating the Bartram Trail is open through Jan. 7 at the Bascom Gallery in Highlands. A series of workshops, nature walks, and dynamic online conversations will take place over the coming months inviting photographers of all levels to create a community archive of the Bascom Trail. For more information visit thebascom.org.

• Women on Wednesdays is a six-week ski instruction program held from 10 a.m.-noon every Wednesday beginning Jan. 11, and running through Feb. 15, at Cataloochee Ski Area in Maggie Valley. Sign up at www.cataloochee.com or contact 828.926.0285 or infor@cataloochee.com with questions.

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

MarketPlace information:

The Smoky Mountain News Marketplace has a distribution of 16,000 copies across 500 locations in Haywood, Jackson, Macon and Swain counties, including the Qualla Boundary and west Buncombe County. Visit www.wncmarketplace.com to place your ad!

Rates:

• $15 — Classified ads that are 25 words, 25¢ per word after.

• Free — Lost or found pet ads.

• $6 — Residential yard sale ads.*

• $1 — Yard Sale Rain Insurance Yard sale rained out? Call us by 10a.m. Monday for your ad to run again FREE

• $375 — Statewide classifieds run in 170 participating newspapers with 1.1+ million circulation. (Limit 25 words or less)

• Boost Online — Have your ad featured at top of category online $4

• Boost in Print

• Add Photo $6

• Bold ad $2

• Yellow, Green, Pink or Blue Highlight $4

• Border $4

Note: Highlighted ads automatically generate a border so if you’re placing an ad online and select a highlight color, the “add border” feature will not be available on the screen.

Note: Yard sale ads require an address. This location will be displayed on a map on www.wncmarketplace.com

p: 828.452.4251 · f:828.452.3585 classads@smokymountainnews.com www.wncmarketplace.com

PLACE WNC

Legals

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA COUNTY OF HAYWOOD IN THE GENERAL COURT OF JUSTICE DISTRICT COURT

DIVISION

FILE NO. 22 JT 65

In Re: MCCALL a female minor child

NOTICE OF SERVICE OF PROCESS BY PUBLICATION

TO: WHITNEY NOVA PARR

Last Known Address: 252 Francis Asbury Road Waynesville, NC 28785

Take notice that a pleading seeking relief above-entitled action. The nature of the relief being sought is as follows:

The Petitioner, Larry E. McCall, II is seeking to terminate the parental rights of Respondent Mother, Whitney Nova Parr concerning the above named female child that was born on the 25 th day of July, 2019 in Haywood County, North Carolina to Petitioner, Larry E. McCall, II and Respondent, Whitney Nova Parr.

service against you will apply to the court for the relief sought.

This 20TH day of DECEMBER, 2022.

DONALD N. PATTEN, PLLC

Attorney for Petitioner 46 South Main Street Waynesville , NC 28786 828-452-1454

By:_____ Donald N. Patten DONALD N. PATTEN

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA IN THE GENERAL COURT OF JUSTICE COUNTY OF HAYWOOD DISTRICT COURT DIVISION FILE NO. 22-CVD-1024

AMBER DUNCAN, Plaintiff,

v. NOTICE OF SERVICE OF PROCESS BY PUBLICATION

JOHN THADUES HUNTER CHAFIN, Defendant,

Take notice that a pleading seeking relief against

above entitled action. The nature of the relief being sought is as follows:

apply to the court for the relief sought.

This 20 day of December, 2022

NIELSEN LAW, PLLC

Joshua D. Nielsen 413 Walnut St Waynesville, NC 28786 (828) 246-9360

Publication Dates: December 28, January 4, January 11, 2023

NOTICE OF INTENT TO FILE

An application for 2023-2024 Community Services Block Grant funding.

Mountain Projects Inc. Community Action Agency is completing an application for the Community Services Block Grant Program for funding in 2023-2024. Mountain Projects will be requesting $214,681 for Central intake.

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