The Smoky Mountain News takes a firsthand look inside the National Park Service law enforcement training program at Southwestern Community College. One of only eight programs in the country, SWC provides crucial training for future generations of park rangers. (Page 40)
News
Health, social services consolidation final in Jackson ..............................................3 Free press efforts not dead, Cherokee One Feather says ....................................4 Joey’s Pancake House reopens this month ................................................................6 Cuts coming for HCC horticulture program ..............................................................7 Franklin man shot and killed by Macon deputy ..........................................................8 Student suicide pact, hit list rocks Macon community............................................9 Attorney banned from practicing law in Cherokee ................................................10 Swain mulls putting sales tax hike back on ballot ..................................................12 No tax increase proposed in Haywood budget ......................................................14 The Open Door prepares for ‘next season’ ..............................................................16 Business News ..................................................................................................................19
Opinion
Living in the moment with ALS......................................................................................21
A&E
Haywood County crafter keeps heritage craft alive ..............................................26
The Naturalist’s Corner
Not quite a wrap................................................................................................................55
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S UBSCRIPTIONS
Health and social services consolidation
final in Jackson
Split vote sets up new board, approves director position
BY HOLLY KAYS STAFFWRITER
Apair of party-line votes May 7 triggered the next step in consolidating Jackson County’s social services and health departments, creating a new board to oversee the combined department and approving a new position to manage it.
Consolidation has been a topic of discussion — often heated — since the board flipped to a Republican majority following the 2016 elections. Republican commissioners Ron Mau, Mickey Luker and Charles Elders have been consistently in favor of consolidation, claiming it will streamline the organizational structure, make it easier for citizens to navigate the services offered and provide for potential cost savings down the road.
Democratic commissioners Brian McMahan and Boyce Deitz, meanwhile, have opposed consolidation from the get-go, saying that it makes no sense to change up the structure of an organization that, by all accounts, is doing a commendable job.
Public comment has sided with McMahan and Deitz. During a public hearing Jan. 29, 11 people came to speak on the issue, and not a single one was in favor of consolidation.
“There were 11 very knowledgeable people that came and addressed y’all about their concerns about consolidating these two boards and what were the problems, why do we need to do this,” Henry Dowling, a Jackson County resident who has spent more than 50 years as a worker and volunteer in the social services field, said during the public comment period May 7. “To date I have not seen anything from the commissioners about why this is being done. I hope today I’ll get some light shed on that.”
DIRECTORPOSITIONAPPROVED
Commissioners voted Jan. 29 to consolidate the two departments. However, implementing that change required some more concrete actions, and that’s what occurred during the May 7 meeting. Between February and April, the existing social services and health boards developed nominations for seats on the new, consolidated board, presenting those nominations to commissioners for approval. In addition, the county developed a job description for a director to over-
see the consolidated department, with commissioners required to approve the position before sending it to the state for final approval.
The health and social services departments had directors already, and those positions will remain in place with the consolidation. However, consolidation will bring with it the hire of a separate position to oversee the consolidated departments.
That person will manage Health Director Shelley Carraway and Social Services Director Jennifer Abshire and report directly to County Manager Don Adams. Before consolidation, the individual health and social services boards were the entities charged with overseeing Carraway and Abshire and with making hire/fire decisions regarding those positions. Some counties that have consolidated, including Haywood, have created the director’s position with a dual role — in Haywood’s case, the director of the consolidated department is also the assistant county manager. Such a dual role is not currently in the plans for Jackson County.
A director with the minimum level of experience will draw a salary of $74,000, with a maximum salary of $145,000. The salary range does not include benefits.
Deitz made it clear that he does not support adding such a position.
“There were two reasons that I’ve heard that we’re doing this. One was the word that was thrown out continually at us, that this would be more efficient,” he said.
Paying somebody somewhere north of $74,000 to do a job that’s already being done doesn’t seem to meet that definition, he said.
“Now that may be more efficient, but it doesn’t seem to me like it’s more efficient,” Deitz continued. “We could hire two more police officers and put them in the schools here and be more efficient, and help them protect our schools with that amount of money. There’s a lot we could do with that amount of money.”
In a previous interview with The Smoky Mountain News, Mau said that consolidation will still provide for long-term cost savings, with the director allowing for more strategic planning and the ability to rethink existing positions as staff retire or move on.
NEWBOARDCREATED
The vote to approve the new position passed 3-2, with Deitz and McMahan dissenting — the same breakdown as on the other consolidation-related agenda item of the evening, a vote to approve members of the consolidated board.
“We have two boards here that are very
Architecture contract approved for health building
Commissioners voted unanimously May 7 to approve an architecture contract for upcoming renovations to the health department building.
The firm, McMillan Pazdan Smith Architecture, will complete the work for either 8 percent or 8.5 percent of the cost of construction, depending on how commissioners choose to phase the project. The higher rate will apply if the county opts to leave some workers in the building while renovations are completed, as doing so would make the design a bit more complicated. The 8 percent rate will apply if the county opts to move the entire department off-site while renovations are completed.
Depending on which option the county chooses, architectural costs will run an estimated $445,200 to $490,900, plus expenses.
The renovation will provide greater functionality and privacy for clients using the 1960s building, and the upper floor will feature a one-stop permitting office housing building and code enforcement, environmental health and planning staff.
The project is expected to go out to bid in January 2019, with construction starting that spring and lasting for about one year.
good boards,” Deitz said. “None of us was critical of them. They’re very professional people. They had to be to do what they do.”
“I concur,” agreed McMahan. “Nothing against any of these people, because a lot of them have served many, many years, but like the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
The new board will contain 16 members, eight of whom already sit on the health or social services board. Abshire and Carraway told commissioners that all existing board members were invited to serve on the consolidated board, but that some declined due to health issues or due to the increased time commitment they believed the new board would demand. The board of commissioners nominated Luker to serve in the seat designated for a commissioner.
“This isn’t about looking backward,” Mau said. “It’s about looking forward.”
With changes coming to Medicaid and Medicare, he said, the environment these boards operate in is about to change, and the new structure will be better suited to navigating it.
Deitz disagreed.
“We had people, they had gall enough and temperament enough about them to get up here and speak against what we’re proposing to do, but not one person got up to speak for it, and these weren’t just people off the street,” he said. “These are people their whole life has been involved in this.”
Deitz, a former football coach, compared consolidation to the way new coaches are
often quick to change the look of a team’s helmet.
“It’s almost like we have a new commission come in here and they had to change something, because they got in here and it has to look different,” Deitz said.
IMPACTTOONE-STOP
Deitz took issue with Elders’ assertion that consolidation is necessary to address logistical concerns from contractors. When commissioners originally voted in November 2017 to explore consolidation, Elders stated that his interest stemmed from complaints he’d heard from those in the construction industry about the hassle of needing to go from department to department to get the necessary permits. Creating a “one-stop shop” to get it all done in one place should be a priority, he said.
Commissioners have already approved renovation plans for the health department that include a one-stop shop joining planning, building and code enforcement, and health department personnel involved with permitting. Social services is not involved in permitting, and consolidation plans do not include co-locating health and social services, which are currently located across town from each other.
“We’ll have one-stop,” Deitz said. “If this fails right now, we’ll still have that same plan we voted on here.”
“I still feel like the one-stop is off to a good start, and the way this county’s growing we’re going to find out we’re going to need more help,” Elders replied, adding that “we need a lot of questions answered under one man or woman.”
“Have you ever sent anyone to social services to get sewer or anything?” asked Deitz.
“No, I’ve sent them to talk about other issues,” replied Elders.
“So one-stop doesn’t have anything to do with social services, does it?” said Deitz.
“No,” said Elders.
“I didn’t think it did,” replied Deitz. In a press conference following the meeting, The Sylva Herald asked Elders why he voted for consolidation if that issue is not connected to one-stop.
“I’m basing it on how good it (one-stop) is doing,” Elders said. “If one person has that knowledge of what both departments do, they can feed that information to them at one time.”
The departments to be represented at the one-stop — planning, building and code enforcement, and health — are not being consolidated, just co-located. The Smoky Mountain News asked Elders why consolidating health and social services is necessary when the one-stop is being executed free of consolidation.
“That’s just to make more efficiency for the ones that are going to be using those services,” Elders said. “I had complaint after complaint from carpenters when they had to come up the steps to get that down. Now I’m referring that down to the same things they need from social services and the health department … those services could get explained to them at one time by one person rather than running across town.”
Resolution to reverse Cherokee media ban withdrawn
Free press efforts not dead, Cherokee One Feather says
BY HOLLY KAYS STAFFWRITER
Aresolution seeking to reverse a ban on non-Cherokee media outlets — enacted by the Cherokee Tribal Council Thursday, April 5 — was withdrawn from the agenda when Council convened for its May 3 meeting.
The resolution, submitted by the tribe’s newspaper The Cherokee One Feather, stated that “many ethical, hard-working journalists are being adversely affected by this motion with no due cause” and that the Tribal Council should “hereby rescind the previous motion barring all media outlets, with the exception of the Cherokee One Feather, from the Tribal Council House.”
“Our position on press access to the Chambers has not changed,” reads a statement from Cherokee One Feather Editor Robert Jumper and the paper’s editorial board, posted when the May 5 meeting adjourned. “After discussion with Chief (Richard) Sneed, we see an opportunity to have meaningful discussion regarding not only the outside media ban from Chambers, but other free press issues in a less formal forum with fellow media outlets so open communication may occur and meaningful change may be accomplished.”
Later that week, Sneed sent out an invitation to The Smoky Mountain News, The Cherokee One Feather and various tribal officials for a meeting to take place at 3 p.m. Thursday, May 10. The meeting was later postponed, but according to the initial invitation, it was intended to “bring interested parties together to discuss media access, physically, and with regard to public hearings and information; and to communicate governmental concerns of accuracy in reporting with possible solutions or next steps.”
THEBACKGROUND
The discussion stems from an April 5 move by Councilmember Tommye Saunooke, of Painttown, in which she asked that “the only press allowed in our Cherokee chambers will be Cherokee press.”
No discussion followed the move, but Tribal Council members proceeded to vote 11-1 to support it. Councilmember Lisa Taylor, also of Painttown, was the sole dissenting vote.
While Saunooke did not give a reason for her move during the April 5 meeting, a statement she made during Tribal Council’s April 3 Budget Council meeting does illuminate the issue.
quote, which is a matter of public record, even in Cherokee. Indeed, no such permission is ever necessary ... Tribal Council meetings are recorded on video and available online for all to see and hear (bit.ly/ECBIvideo), and Saunooke’s statement that day is precisely as reported by Kays.”
Following the ban, The Cherokee One Feather has been outspoken in its support of a reversal and concerns regarding the implications for free press on the Qualla Boundary.
“We think this action sends a message that should be concerning to anyone interested in a free press,” the paper’s editorial board wrote in an April 9 editorial. “While the Cherokee One Feather strives to provide unbiased news free of political influence, we will forever be perceived as being swayed by the government because we are a tribal program … we push ever forward to secure protections under the law that will provide the community a truly free press, but, in the meantime, outside media provide the valuable service of assisting the One Feather in the documentation of tribal history.”
A NEEDFORSTRONGERPRESS PROTECTIONS
The issue has spurred statewide interest. A National Public Radio program based in Chapel Hill — The State of Things — invited SMN, The One Feather and Principal Chief Richard Sneed to discuss the ban on an April 27 show. Saunooke was also invited to participate but did not respond, the show’s host Frank Stasio said on air.
“I know there’s freedom of the press and freedom of speech and all that,” Saunooke said, “but Tribal Council, I’m going to ask you to ask (Smoky Mountain News reporter) Holly (Kays) not to enter these chambers, because she called me the other day and said, ‘Can I quote you?’ and I said ‘No, don’t make me look ignorant.’ She had a different quote from what I had said, but she did anyway. There’s an example of what she did. The Smoky Mountain News is not quoting us right, so I’m gonna ask Tribal Council if you’ll ask her to step out. That’d be my suggestion.”
According to a story on the ban written by SMN’s Cory Vaillancourt and published in the paper’s April 11 issue, “Emails to and from Saunooke provided by Kays show Kays wasn’t asking for Saunooke’s permission to use the
In his public comments, Sneed has not clearly stated whether he approves or disapproves of the ban, saying on the NPR segment that while he’s “not in favor of anything to suppress free speech or the press,” it is “Tribal Council’s prerogative who they allow in the Chambers.” He has also pointed out that preventing outside media from sitting in the chambers doesn’t necessarily prevent them from reporting on Council actions, as all sessions are videotaped, livestreamed and archived online. The ban affects only media’s ability to sit in the chambers where meetings take place — members of outside media outlets are still allowed to sit in the council house lobby, which features free wifi and a big screen TV broadcasting the meeting.
A recent vote of the Cherokee Tribal Council prohibited non-Cherokee media outlets from sitting in the Council chambers, but The Cherokee One Feather is hoping to reverse the ban. File photo
However, Jumper said in the same NPR segment, there are some details a reporter won’t be able to capture if not permitted in the meeting room, and the exclusion itself sends a strong message.
“Personally, I think it can be very potentially chilling for media of any type, whether it was the One Feather or any other organization, to be told ‘no, you can’t be here’ while we’re making those decisions,” Jumper said. “It certainly has a chilling effect on a journalist.”
In an interview, Sneed said that he does see a need for stronger laws protecting The One Feather’s independence.
“We can create an ordinance that basically sets the paper out as a standalone with the editorial board as oversight and just simply writing an ordinance that says there can’t be interference from the executive branch or any elected official,” Sneed said.
Current laws already contain many such provisions. One Feather employees are tribal employees, but they fall under the authority of an editorial board. The code stipulates that the editorial board “operate free from political influence” and that the editor and staff “will not be intimidated with their jobs by printing and providing honest weekly publications,” as “it is imperative to have measures in place to ensure the freedom of press and to ensure the tribal publications have the autonomy and independence to report honestly and objectively.”
numerous requests for information, such as meeting minutes from the Tribal Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission, that would be easily accessible to anyone — regardless of citizenship status — in the counties surrounding the Qualla Boundary.
When asked whether possible changes to free press law might include changing the composition of the editorial board, Sneed said that, “it’s certainly something we can look at if for no other reason than to take away any semblance of impropriety or a conflict of interest.” However, he added, during his administration significant changes have been made to laws protecting employees from retaliation and politically motivated firing.
“The One Feather rarely runs up against political direction regarding the reporting of the news. The concern is that the community
“We feel that the more media covering Cherokee news, the better informed our community and readership will be. Each news outlet has its own editorial staff and journalists, with different views of what is relevant to cover. And, that is a good thing.”
— Robert Jumper, Cherokee One Feather editor
However, as The One Feather has written in multiple editorials, those laws aren’t strong enough to truly ensure the paper’s independence in the face of an administration intent on infringing it. For instance, Section 75-2 of the code states that any pieces “dealing with controversial subjects shall be submitted to the editorial board for consideration and approval prior to publication,” and Section 75-3 provides that the paper be “independent from any undue influence and free of any particular political interest.”
“While, on the surface, this may look like clear and ethical law, words like ‘controversial’ and ‘undue’ muddy the waters to the point that Editorial Board members must wonder what will get them into jeopardy and what will not,” Jumper wrote in a May 7 editorial.
The paper’s editorial board is composed of its staff, plus the tribe’s director of marketing and public relations, meaning that potentially controversial decisions about what will and will not run in the tribally owned newspaper are made by people who are themselves tribal employees and who will ultimately be the ones executing any decisions made.
While the tribe can’t control what outside media outlets write, it can control reporters’ access to information. Tribal law is hazy at best about the rights of non-Cherokee reporters to attend meetings and access documents. In addition to being asked to leave Council meetings on multiple occasions, The Smoky Mountain News has been denied
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only gets that benefit because of the ethical behavior of our current leadership,” Jumper wrote in the May 7 piece.
Because of that reality, he said, it’s essential to both strengthen the laws ensuring The One Feather’s independence and bolster the ability of outside media to cover tribal issues as well.
“We feel that the more media covering Cherokee news, the better informed our community and readership will be. Each news outlet has its own editorial staff and journalists, with different views of what is relevant to cover,” Jumper wrote. “While overt biases should be avoided by media at all costs, every news organization will have a different perspective on news items based on their unique situations. And, that is a good thing.”
While The One Feather has withdrawn its resolution seeking to rescind the ban, the paper has stated publicly that it will continue pushing for the ban’s removal.
“We withdrew the resolution in order to have time to work through the issues,” reads the paper’s May 3 Facebook post. “If needed, we will redraft legislation for the Council to consider for the upcoming Tribal Council sessions.”
The ban was created through a vote of Council — overturning it would also require a vote of Council, not just a sit-down discussion like the one planned for May 10. However, Sneed said, he believes having a face-to-face conversation before the matter comes before council for a vote will prove helpful.
“I didn’t want it to continue to fester or turn into a big political storm,” he said.
Question:
What's the difference between “vegetarian” and “plant-based”?
Answer: It’s interesting when terms like “plant-based” come into fashion! Often when celebrities announce they are following a particular (fad) diet or characterize their eating habits in a certain way, we are quick to follow suit. There may be little or no difference between the terms “vegetarian” and “plantbased.” A person who is a vegetarian follows a “meatfree” diet, though some vegetarians may include occasional meat (flexitarian), seafood or fish (pescatarian or pescetarian) or eggs and dairy products (lacto-ovotarian). The diet of someone that claims to be “plantbased” (also sometimes called “plant-focused” or “plant-forward) would typically be composed of primarily fruits, vegetables, grains, seeds and nuts. Some who describe their eating habits in this way may or may not include occasional animal/seafood proteins (meat, eggs, dairy, chicken, pork, seafood/fish, etc.) in their diet.
Here’s an interesting thought.... take a look at the My Plate icon from the USDA Dietary Guidelines - it recommends more than half your plate should be fruits, vegetables, whole grains/grains, nuts/seeds....isn't that basically “plant-based”?
Rebirth of an icon
Joey’s Pancake House reopens this month
BY CORY VAILLLANCOURT STAFF WRITER
Over the past two summers, visitors to the western end of Haywood County have experienced something few others ever have — a Maggie Valley without Joey’s Pancake House.
The venerable breakfast joint closed after 50 years in 2016 leaving behind a void in the small town’s economy and culture, and also leaving behind some degree of uncertainty over the future of the building and the branding.
But after a recent change of heart and a fortuitous pairing years in the making, visitors to the valley will soon once again be able to experience the heapin’ helpings of homey charm and hash brown casserole known to generations of visitors from across the region and the globe.
‘WEJUSTHADTOTRY’
The story of how Joey’s Pancake House came to be is about as random as any other.
“My husband Joey and I were coming through Maggie Valley on our way to Virginia to look at a small business and we had friends that live here and we stopped,” said Brenda O’Keefe from the cozy dining room of her Maggie Valley home.
That fateful stop was the start of a halfcentury presence in the valley for the O’Keefes as the owners of Joey’s Pancake House, the very caricature of a classic American diner with a line out the door and walls decked with lore.
“Immediately this town welcomed us,” O’Keefe said. “And the rest is history.”
When Joey’s opened in the mid-1960s, Maggie Valley was a very different place. Tourists from across the region packed mountaintop amusement park Ghost Town in the Sky and snatched up similarly western-themed hotel rooms along a five-mile
“I just couldn’t find the right person. I had a lot of people over the years want to buy it, but I didn’t think they were the right fit for my business,” she said.
While entertaining offers, Brenda recalled a couple she’d known that was also in the restaurant business.
“I asked them over the years how they operated their restaurant, and the most important thing to them was what they did for their employees,” Brenda said. “So for me, I thought this is what we need. Whether my employees will be working there or not, those were just the kind of people that I wanted.”
Those people are Roy and Sandra Milling, owners of a 24-hour Lexington, Kentucky, establishment that caters to the college crowd.
“This has always felt like home to us, just beautiful and so peaceful,” said Sandra. “We were saddened when the place closed down, having come here every time we’re in town — we have family [that] lives here — so when this place closed, you could feel the
strip of Soco Road that could take two hours to traverse by car during the busy season.
The restaurant became a destination in and of itself, especially for those intrepid families that embarked on ritualistic summer car trips.
“I would say that for the 50 years I’ve had people eat there, we’ve had maybe four generations of families, from all over the country,” she said. “We’ve always had those people that came back no matter what and we had so much support from the local community, the region.”
Even the passing of Joey himself in 2001 couldn’t stop the momentum the establishment had built; Brenda actually increased length of the season and worked harder than ever, as Ghost Town sputtered through fits and starts before closing permanently in 2015.
“I always had in my mind that I was going to make it to 50 years. Whatever it took, I would try to make that mark,” she said.
And she did; but right around that time, health concerns forced her hand. O’Keefe closed the restaurant June 13, 2016, after an emotional announcement that elicited equal parts gratitude and disappointment.
After a special “reunion” event that drew friends, family and former employees from across the globe, Brenda put the building up for sale.
One thing that wasn’t for sale was the
simple yet iconic Joey’s branding; concerned about new owners maintaining the standards customers had come to expect, she refused to entertain the even the notion of a Joey’s without him, or herself.
“I’m sure a lot of that was emotional,” she said. “It was a very emotional time for me, but as the time has passed on I’ve realized that to make it a viable sale it would be crazy not to let them have the name.”
Brenda’s change of heart didn’t mean that just anybody could buy it, however.
“I always had in my mind that I was going to make it to 50 years.”
—
whole presence of the valley was closed down. Being in the restaurant business as we are, we just had to try to get it.”
And get it they did, along with the intellectual property and the mail-order pancake mix business. What the Millings also get is a revered institution at the spiritual core of a once-dwindling tourist town that now appears to be on the upswing.
Despite the languishing Ghost Town in the Sky property remaining on the market for around $6 million, new businesses like Elevated Mountain Distilling, a proposed major chain hotel and a church in the former Eaglenest entertainment venue complement Maggie Valley stalwarts Stompin’ Ground and Wheels Through Time.
In an economic sense, those venues all feed off each other, and spill over onto each other; throwing arguably the best-known one back into the mix later this month — with the endorsement of the formidable Brenda O’Keefe — means meeting some pretty longstanding expectations.
“There’s no reason to change anything,” Sandra said. “There’s no need to change anything. Everything is as it should be, and with all the families that have been coming to the Valley throughout the years, and the townspeople, they know this as their gathering place.”
In an era of celebrity chefs, fine dining and fusion cuisine, it’s the sense of community — across not only space and time but also now death and retirement and the passage of a torch — that kept a simple breakfast joint named after an Irish guy from Philly open at all.
“When you find one,” Sandra said, “you don’t want to let go.”
Iconic Maggie Valley restaurant Joey’s Pancake House will reopen later this month. Cory Vaillancourt photo
Line cooks prepare the last breakfast at Joey’s Pancake House in June 2016. Cory Vaillancourt photo
Brenda O’Keefe, former owner, Joey’s Pancake House
Every rose has its thorns
Cuts coming for HCC horticulture program
BY CORY VAILLANCOURT STAFF WRITER
There’s a bit of pruning taking place at Haywood Community College — specifically, the Horticulture Technology program. And just like pruning a real rose bush, it’s painful and runs the risk of killing the plant altogether, but it may also produce beautiful new growth.
“I don’t expect anybody to be happy about the program being archived,” said Matt Heimburg, dean of arts, sciences and natural resources at HCC. “I’m looking for the ideas or opportunities that are out there so that we can find a way to bring it back [but] when you have a classroom that has somewhere between two and six students in it, that’s not really a sign of a successful program.”
“Archiving” is the word HCC has been using to describe the general phasing out of the program.
“One of the other terms that’s used is mothballing. It’s still there, all we have to do is tell the system we want to bring this program back and we can,” Heimburg said. “This process that we’re going through right now, archiving the program, is going to be basically a big reset button, to see what direction we may go in the future.”
Declining enrollment is a major factor; as Heimburg alluded, the smallest class in the program right now consists of just two students.
“When I started, I think we had upwards, on average, of about 20 people or so per class,” said George Thomas.
Originally trained as an electrical engineer, Thomas thought he’d try something different and joined the community college in 1997 as a horticulture technology instructor after studying at the University of Georgia and University of Nebraska.
“They’re pretty much polar opposites, but it is science-based, so it is similar in some ways,” said Thomas, who will retire this week. “I love engineering, but I love working outdoors, working with my hands.”
For 21 years, Thomas taught HCC horticulture students to do just that.
“This is very hands-on. At a university it’s mostly theory. When I went to Georgia I had a vegetable class and I never saw a vegetable,” he said. “We just learned about them. Here you actually see them grow, then you harvest them.”
HCC was established in the mid-1960s; the horticulture program, in the mid-1970s. Although it’s seen some changes over that
time, there are currently four classes offered in the fall, and four in the spring that culminate in two certificates and a diploma.
“Propagation, pest management, landscape management, botany, soil science, things like that,” Thomas said. “It’s pretty diverse.”
The coursework prepares graduates to work in a variety of fields.
“Our graduates can go anywhere, but most of them focus on landscaping,” Thomas said. “We have people working in greenhouses and nurseries, a lot of our graduates are and have been working at places like the Biltmore. That’s their big interest, horticultural landscaping.”
The job market for people with a degree or diploma in horticulture, however, offers little reward for the credentials, according to Heimburg.
“Part of what we’re looking to do for students who graduate from our programs is to make sure that their quality of life improves, that their wages improve, that they can get a job that’s going to help them and their families prosper,” he said. “[In horticulture] those jobs — while they’re out there — they’re few and far between for many students.”
Heimburg said that back when horticulture was a two-year degree program a few years ago, an advisory board of alumni and local business owners confirmed that to be the case.
Perhaps indicative of that realization, the program saw just one student enroll in the spring 2018 semester, before the decision to archive the program was finalized.
around us,” Heimberg said. “As the region has more of a foodie scene and a farm-to table-focus, there could even be entrepreneurship opportunities there.”
Other regional opportunities include two distinct tracks that would have been hard to imagine when Thomas first joined HCC; Blue Ridge Community College offers brewing technology coursework, and the recent industrial hemp cultivation pilot program has left a huge knowledge gap for cultivators of this once-banned crop.
“That’s a pretty radical shift,” Heimberg said of any major modifications to the horticulture program. “That takes resources, and community colleges don’t necessarily get a lot of funds. Figuring out the best way to allocate the amount of funding we do receive is
offerings could have for the community — if not the job market.
“You have retirees, people who want to grow their gardens and want to make them beautiful,” he said. “Instead of having them come into a curriculum program that’s going to last 16 weeks, we can do a continuing education class that’s shorter and costs less.”
Of all the benefits associated with HCC’s horticulture program, the expansive community outreach will likely be noticed first.
“This is a community college so we’re within the community,” Thomas said. “I think that’s an important aspect of our program. We’ve done and continue to do a lot of things like working with Habitat for Humanity installing landscape plants. We just got through doing some work with
“Anyone that’s in the pipeline will have an opportunity to finish,” Heimberg said, adding that another full-time faculty member will teach the horticulture classes in light of Thomas’ retirement. “The last actual class will be in spring 2019.”
INBLOOM
Heimberg said he was optimistic that HCC would start to evaluate both short-term and long-term prospects for the program as soon as this summer.
One possible long-term outcome of the archiving process is that the program germinates as something related but different, and more relevant to the 21st century economy than landscaping — something that would make more of a difference in the lives of students and their families.
“Do we want to concentrate more on sustainable agriculture, or on agribusiness? There are those opportunities in the region
important, so if we bring this program back it’s going to be something valuable to students. That’s where you’re going to get enrollment.”
Indeed, as the program winds down, there’s no guarantee it will ever come back in any form, but in the short term, there are no immediate plans to tear down the campus greenhouses, the barn-like garage or the lab and classroom combo.
In fact, they’re still being utilized and could end up seeing more traffic as the program ends by summer 2019; currently, a career and college readiness program uses the space, and continuing education classes could begin in the interim as well.
“I have people who take one class,” Thomas said. “I had a 70-some year-old woman take a propagation class a couple years ago. I had an 80-year-old man in class. It’s also for enjoyment, for personal enrichment.”
Heimburg, too, recognized the value such
Folkmoot, and the Town of Waynesville. We did a butterfly pollinator garden at the recreation center.”
The program’s annual plant sale will also wither, and along with it, the surplus that ended up as donations.
“Anything we don’t need that we have left over, we don’t dump it,” Thomas said. “We want to send it to a good home so we donate it. We donate to the Haywood Gleaners, to a lot of our elementary schools so they can have a garden — the Town of Canton, they have a garden at the library over there so we donated a lot of plants to them — we landscaped the Shook House, which is the oldest house in the county, many, many years ago.”
The greenhouse has also seen many a Girl Scout, Boy Scout or Pre-K student come through on tours designed to instill a lifelong love of learning about the natural world. When those tours will again become commonplace remains uncertain.
Empty desks in the M.C. Nix Horticulture Complex at the Haywood Community College haven’t been full for some time now. Cory Vaillancourt photo
Franklin man shot and killed by Macon deputy
Victim’s family hires law firm to fight back
BY J ESSI STONE
N EWS E DITOR
The lawyer for a Franklin resident killed by a Macon County deputy claims the shooting was not justified and that the victim was just trying to protect his family.
Franklin resident Scott Knibbs is dead after being shot inside his residence by a Macon County Sheriff’s deputy around midnight April 30.
“We will be seeking an independent prosecutor to review this investigation, and demanding that the homicide case against the officer be submitted to a Macon County Grand Jury,” said Mark Melrose, a Waynesville attorney hired by the Knibbs family.
The Melrose Firm has wasted no time rallying community support for Knibbs’ constitutional rights and against the Macon County Sheriff’s deputy who shot him.
Friends, family and supporters of Knibbs were invited to gather outside the Macon County Courthouse at noon Tuesday, May 8, to rally for justice in Knibbs’ death. Melrose claims Knibbs’ Second Amendment right to bear arms and his Fourth Amendment right to be secure in his home and free from unreasonable searches without a warrant were violated.
It’s standard procedure for the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations to step in to conduct an investigation when law enforcement is involved in a shooting, but the sheriff’s office and the Knibbs family are telling two very different stories.
A press release from Macon County Sheriff Robbie Holland states that Deputy Anthony Momphard fired his weapon because Knibbs wouldn’t drop his gun and exhibited aggressive behavior toward the deputy.
“While conducting the investigation, a Macon County deputy was confronted by an armed suspect. The deputy gave repeated commands to drop the weapon. The suspect took aggressive action toward the deputy, prompting the deputy to discharge
the front door, or speak to the officer.”
According to the sheriff’s office, the deputy was dispatched to a home on Pheasant Drive at 11:41 p.m. April 29 after a neighbor called to report that Knibbs had placed boards with nails on a driveway, which was blocking a neighbor’s exit. Upon arrival around 11:55 p.m., Momphard began interviewing the neighbor who placed the call and involved parties.
That’s when Knibbs allegedly confronted the deputy with his shotgun in hand — prompting Momphard to shoot.
“Scott bled to death just a few steps away from the front door in his own dining room. The Deputy did not administer first-aid while he awaited backup from other officers and EMS,” Melrose’s press release stated.
Melrose said the entire event stemmed from a complaint made by the neighbors who were renting a house next door. Apparently there had been a high volume of traffic going up to the neighbor’s house at all hours. As for the spiked boards blocking exits, Melrose said the boards were actually speed bumps placed in the roadway to slow visitors down as they passed the Knibbs home due to the children who frequently played in the front yard.
his weapon in self-defense, which struck and killed the suspect,” Holland wrote in a press release.
However, a press release from Mark Melrose and Adam Melrose with Melrose Law, a Waynesville firm retained by Knibbs’ family, claims Knibbs and his family were caught off guard by the unmarked car and the deputy approaching their home late at night, which is why he had his shotgun in hand.
“The man yelled demands from outside on the porch. Seconds later the Deputy fired multiple shots from outside the Knibbs house, through a front window, striking Scott,” Melrose stated in the press release. “Scott never had a chance to open
According to Melrose, Knibbs was home with his wife, his 13-year-old son, his 22year-old daughter, and his 5-month-old grandson at the time of the incident. Earlier that evening, Scott allegedly told a man who had pulled into the Knibbs’ driveway looking for a house party next door to leave and not return. Around midnight, a man’s voice was heard yelling from the front of their home.
“There was no patrol car parked outside the Knibbs home, no blue lights, and no advance warning that a rookie police officer was approaching their home,” Melrose stated in the press release. “Scott was concerned for the safety of his family. Scott retrieved the shotgun he kept in the bedroom for selfdefense. Scott then walked towards the front door to see who was yelling at his family’s front door.”
According to Knibbs’ family, the man yelled demands from outside on the porch seconds before he fired multiple shots through a front window hitting Knibbs.
“We want to understand why the officer had his weapon out. We want to learn what urgency existed for a solo Deputy to ‘investigate’ a neighbor’s complaint in the middle of the night. We want to learn why this happened when the deputy did not have a search warrant, arrest warrant, or probable cause to enter the home or arrest anyone within the home,” Melrose stated. “We have promised the Knibbs family to learn the truth of why Scott was killed in his own home from shots fired from outside his residence by a rookie officer.”
Despite the conflicting reports, Holland said he stands by his original statement of what occurred that night. Once the investigation is complete, he can share more details.
He did confirm that Momphard is on paid administrative leave “until the outcome of the investigation or when we choose to do otherwise.” Holland also confirmed that Momphard is a new sheriff’s office employee with a military background. As a U.S. Marine, he served two tours in Afghanistan.
Knibbs worked in construction and was married to his wife, Missy, for 25 years. According to Melrose, he had no criminal record and graduated from Basic Law Enforcement Training at Southwestern Community College in the 1990s.
Because the case is under investigation by the SBI, the sheriff’s office is not in a position to disclose any other information until the conclusion of the SBI investigation and subsequent review by the District Attorney’s Office.
Scott Knibbs of Franklin died following an officer-involved shooting at his residence. Donated photo
Student suicide pact, hit list rocks Macon
School system holding social media awareness event May 15
BY J ESSI STONE
N EWS E DITOR
It’s been a difficult couple of weeks for Macon County as school administration and law enforcement try to get to the bottom of a student-led suicide pact and a student-made hit list.
On April 25, Macon County Schools Superintendent Dr. Chris Baldwin sent out an email to parents alerting them that administration and counselors of Mountain View Intermediate and the staff of Meridian Behavioral Health Services had been monitoring a group of students on social media for the past few weeks. Students within that social media group — known as the “Edgy” group or “Edgy Fan Page 101” — were suspected to have made some kind of suicide pact.
“A school nurse learned second hand information from one of our local health care providers that some of the students involved in this group may have some sort of suicide pact or had otherwise indicated suicidal ideations,” Baldwin said. “Upon learning of this information, the families of any student known to be involved with the ‘Edgy’ group were contacted. A Parent-Link message also went out to encourage all MVI parents to monitor their child’s social media accounts and to begin a conversation with their child about dangers associated of this group.”
intended to harm.
“My understanding is there was a vendetta. I believe — what was reported to me — was one of them may have been a victim of a crime and the outcome wasn’t what they expected,” said Sheriff Robbie Holland.
The Franklin High School student who wrote the list — a 16-year-old male — and his girlfriend, also 16, were detained and individuals named on the list, and their parents, were notified.
Macon County Sheriff’s deputies, detectives and school resource officers were on campus and at the student’s house to investi-
being detained in a location where services are being provided to them for evaluation.”
PARENTSINVITEDTOFORUM
To further explain the dangers of social media, Macon County Schools will host a Social Media and Technology Awareness Night from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 15, at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts Center.
Baldwin said the event is meant to create a stronger partnership between the schools and parents to protect Macon County students from the dangers associated with social media.
“In these modern times, children have access to the world — that access is at their fingertips — and this access to information can be valuable in education but it can also be dangerous,” Baldwin said. “As a parent myself, I understand that sometimes children are often ahead of adults in terms of their understanding of technology, social media, the internet and that can be an uncomfortable feeling for parents and educators.”
Jason Smith, pastor of Cowee Baptist Church in Franklin, said the event would feature experts discussing what kids are faced with in today’s world of technology. As a father, he said he understands the many questions parents are faced with — when should my kid be allowed to carry a cell phone? What’s an appropriate age to allow your children to have social media accounts and how can you properly monitor and restrict their internet access?
School resource officers will talk about what students today are facing at school and with technology while representatives with Meridian will be talking about children’s brain development and at what age they might be ready to have social media accounts.
“We’re really just going to come together as a community, as a family, to learn more about how we can impact and protect our most valuable resource — our children,” Smith said.
Many parents and community members have taken to social media to express their shock for what’s been happening in their small town. Many say it’s the result of not allowing God in the public schools more, some blamed the prevalence of bullying in the schools and online while others blamed the parents for not keeping a closer eye on their children.
“This is getting too close to home. Idk (I don’t know) this child or why they had a hit list, but I’m betting on them being a victim of bullying & school administrators didn’t do their job,” Amanda Christine wrote on the Macon County Schools Facebook page following the hit list being found. “This opinion is based on personal experience with Macon County schools in general & what I’ve witnessed first hand. Instead of talking about your ‘zero tolerance policy,’ actually enforce it & quit bullying the kids yourselves.”
“It’s sad and startling. But before any parents go asking for huge punishments (which there should be) those same parents need to ask did my kid hurt this other kid so badly that he/she is that angry?” Justyne Reese wrote.
Meridian Behavioral Health Services, which provides social workers inside school system, is working with students, families and counselors at Macon Middle School and Mountain View Intermediate to learn more about the social media group and provide threat assessments for those students involved.
“We will continue to look for ways to monitor our students activities on social media, educate them and parents about the pitfalls of social media and to protect students from self-harm,” Baldwin said.
Another alarming story out of Macon County just days later made national news headlines. On May 1, school administration were made aware of a student-created “hit list” that included the names of 11 students, Franklin High School Principal Barry Woody and law enforcement officers the creator
gate. Deputies obtained a warrant to search the home and seized an arsenal of weapons to which the student had access.
Weapons seized included a Winchester .22-caliber rifle, a Mossberg 702 .22-caliber rifle, a Mossberg 12- gauge shotgun, a SKS 7.62 X 39 rifle, a .22-caliber revolver, a .45caliber pistol, a .22-caliber handgun and a 9mm handgun.
Holland said only two of the firearms and the knives and swords collected were taken from the student’s bedroom — the others were located in a linen closet secured with a combination lock.
“We collected everything because the firearms were readily accessible to him — they were not in a safe,” Holland said. “There were a lot of high powered rifles and pistols and ammo — all of which he had complete access to and had every intention to utilize whatever he needed to carry out his act.”
Due to HIPAA laws that protect someone’s medical information, Holland could only say, “Charges are pending while they’re currently
Weapons and ammunition seized from a 16-year-old’s home after he created a ‘hit list’ with names of fellow students, school administration and law enforcement officers. Donated photo
Impeachment attorney banned from practicing law in Cherokee
Saunooke plans to appeal decision
BY HOLLY KAYS STAFFWRITER
Cherokee attorney Robert Saunooke will no longer be allowed to practice law on the Qualla Boundary following a recent ruling from the Cherokee Tribal Court.
Temporary Associate Judge Sharon Tracey Barrett issued her ruling May 1 following a March 29 hearing on a November 2017 order, in which the court required Saunooke to show the court why allegations against him shouldn’t result in disciplinary action.
The allegations had come from former Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Attorney General Danny Davis, who on his last day at the job wrote a letter to Chief Judge Thomas Cochran alleging that Saunooke had committed ethical and criminal violations by appearing as legal representation for Tribal Council during the impeachment of former Principal Chief Patrick Lambert and for Councilmember Albert Rose during an October 2017 Board of Elections hearing.
Saunooke, a tribal member, is not licensed through the North Carolina Bar but is a member of the Florida Bar. Tribal law requires that attorneys who want to practice in Cherokee have a valid N.C. law license. However, Saunooke had received permission to appear in the courts pro hac vice — the term means “for this occasion only” — to represent Tribal Council members in a lawsuit Lambert filed alleging the impeachment had violated his due process rights.
When Saunooke addressed the court in March, he acknowledged that he had appeared in hearings before the Tribal Council and Board of Elections but said that the requirement that lawyers be licensed in North Carolina to practice in Cherokee applies only to court proceedings, and that the court does not have the authority to regulate the out-of-court activities in question, especially in the absence of a filed complaint.
“When the Tribal Council gives me permission to appear in front of them and appear in the impeachment as an attorney in front of them or the election board does the same thing, that’s not within the purview of this local rule,” he told Barrett March 29.
In her May 1 ruling, Barrett disagreed.
ing Rose at the election hearing “clearly constituted practice of law,” and that while “less specific information is available in court records defining the precise contours of Mr. Saunooke’s legal work as a prosecutor during the impeachment,” “a single incident of unauthorized practice suffices to support this Order.”
Barrett ruled that Saunooke should not face any criminal charges for unauthorized practice of law, because the court “does not find Mr. Saunooke’s conduct here was blatant and indicates that Mr. Saunooke genuinely, though incorrectly, believed himself to be entitled to practice law here on a limited basis, so long as he does not open a law office or appear continually in court.”
However, Barrett did revoke the pro hac vice order allowing Saunooke to represent the defense in Lambert’s case and ruled that he “cannot undertake representation of clients on the basis that he reasonably expects to be authorized to appear pro hac vice in this jurisdiction.”
no case or controversy before her,” Saunooke wrote. “All her ruling has done is cause further disappointment and distrust on the Tribal court and its competency.”
Saunooke took exception to “non-Indian and non-Indian law-trained attorneys and judges” making rulings on tribal matters and said that it’s “a fiction” that holding an N.C. Bar license indicates any kind of familiarity and competency with Cherokee law.
Saunooke applied to take the N.C. Bar exam in 1998, 2000 and 2001. Outcomes of bar exam applications are not public record, but Saunooke told SMN in November that he opted not to take the exam in 2000 due to the birth of his son and that in 2001 his test was not initially graded because then-Principal Chief Joyce Dugan challenged his admission. He has been a member of the Florida Bar since 1993, with nothing listed on his 10-year disciplinary history, and is admitted to various federal courts.
Due to his level of experience, Saunooke said, he could waive into the N.C. Bar without taking an exam, but he does not plan to do so due to the arduousness of the process. According to Saunooke, gaining admission requires filling out a 25-page form and listing every residence since age 18, every job since age 21, every court case argued and a host of other information.
“I have no desire to practice full-time in North Carolina. To spend the time digging through the past 50 years of my life to make sure I list every one of those items is simply not worth the end result,” he wrote. “I continue to maintain that membership in the N.C. Bar has no bearing or credibility on one’s competency to practice Cherokee Tribal law. The fact that I have never lost a case in the Cherokee Court against any N.C.-licensed attorney would be a good indicator.”
In a Facebook post to his public page, Lambert celebrated the ruling and said that it gives further indication that the process used to remove him from office was illegal.
“The nine broke the law by hiring him to start with!” Lambert wrote. “And I was accused of so much less all the while they broke every law they could along the way and denied me any semblance of due process or a fair hearing.”
“This court has jurisdiction over Mr. Saunooke’s practice of law here,” Barrett wrote. “Mr. Saunooke requested and obtained permission to appear as counsel in this civil action pro hac vice, under the supervision of a member of the Bar of this jurisdiction … Even if Mr. Saunooke was not appearing in court pro hac vice, the Court has the inherent authority to regulate and govern the practice of law in this jurisdiction.”
Barrett wrote that Saunooke’s represent-
In addition, Barrett ruled, Saunooke is prohibited from practicing law on the Qualla Boundary, clarifying that “the practice of law” applies to both in-court and out-of-court legal services.
In an email exchange with The Smoky Mountain News, Saunooke expressed his disappointment with the ruling and said he will be appealing it.
“Judge Barrett seems to think that she has the authority to police the reservation, infringe on administrative hearings and Tribal Council actions even though there is
Saunooke, meanwhile, contends that Barrett’s ruling has nothing to do with the legality of the impeachment, which Saunooke believes was just and within the bounds of law.
“Judge Barrett's ruling is confined solely to my ability to practice going forward,” Saunooke wrote. “It does not impact, affect or otherwise call into question the law already decided, and Judge Barrett's order clearly states that I did nothing wrong in any of the proceedings, including appearing before the Tribal Council. It has no relation to the rulings to date.”
Robert Saunooke (left) talks with Patrick Lambert’s attorney Scott Jones during the May 2017 impeachment hearing. Holly Kays photo
Swain completes recreation master plan
ing facilities like the outdoor pool or the indoor recreation facilities. Since those were the highest-ranked projects on the surveys, commissioners decided to hold off on a PARTF application until next year.
Recreation priorities
BY J ESSI STONE
N EWS E DITOR
Swain County commissioners recently approved a 10-year master plan for its parks and recreation programs and facilities, but it appears any major improvements will have to wait until more grant funding is available.
The county began going through the process of updating its master plan last year by conducting community surveys and setting priorities because it planned to apply for a PARTF (Parks and Recreation Trust Fund) grant from the state this year. However, it was discovered neither Bryson City nor the county had a clear deed of ownership on the recreation center because it was established back in the 1970s by a volunteer commission. With the town of Bryson City and the county trying to work that out, it was too late to submit a PARTF application to the state by the May 1 deadline.
Until the deed is worked out and given over to the county, County Manager Kevin King told commissioners, the county wouldn’t qualify for grant funds to improve exist-
PARTF can provide up to $500,000 for a single project with a 50 percent match from the recipient within three years. The county can use in-house labor costs as part of its match. With only about $450,000 dedicated to recreation in the county budget each year, Commissioner Danny Burns said securing grant funding was crucial to being able to expand and improve facilities and programs.
“We have to have a plan in place to go after grants,” he said.
About 28 percent of respondents in the survey ranked the pool as the No. 1 priority. The county has been making minimum repairs to the pool in the last few years to keep it open to the public, but it is in desperate need of major repairs. Back in 2016, it was reported that the concrete on the bottom of the pool was crumbling underneath the thick layer of vinyl lining. King estimated the total repairs to cost $750,000.
According to the survey, residents would like to see an expanded pool with a portion of it being indoors. They also want new bathroom facilities, expanded hours of operation, a diving board and more pool
Swain County recently asked residents to rank their top priorities for recreation park improvements and 1,167 responded.
• Pool Expansion/Indoor/ New/Repairs..............................28 percent
• Indoor Rec Center
Expansion/Improve...................13 percent
• Park Expansion/ Improvements...........................11 percent
• Greenways/Walking Trails...........6 percent
• Playground Expansion/Improve..5 percent
• Bike Path
Expansion/Development.............5 percent
• Soccer Field Expansion/ Improve.......................................2 percent
facilities for children.
Many residents have also made it clear to commissioners they want to see recreational programming expanded in Swain County for youth and senior citizens. While Swain County’s seniors have been traveling to Jackson County to participate in the annual Senior Games program, commissioners said they are supportive of holding a separate Senior Games in Swain if there is enough interest to justify it.
“We’re definitely going to be bringing back games to Swain County,” said Commissioner Ben Bushyhead.
The recreation master plan identifies several immediate facility/program needs — the pool, the indoor recreation center and the Swain Event Park. The county purchased property at Inspiration Park last year with plans to begin hosting a county fair and other community events. The master plan states that an event stage with electricity, lighting and a sound system is needed. Other useful amenities would include a walking and biking trail, playground, permanent bathroom facilities and parking site.
Expansion of the existing Indoor Recreation Center would include space for expanded services and the ability to offer new program resources. In looking at the expansion of the new facility, the county would have to look at purchasing adjacent property to make room for new basketball gym, weight room, shower and locker rooms and a multi-purpose room.
Looking three to five years out, the master plan identifies the need to create new park facilities, expand greenways and make more improvements to the Swain County Recreation Park fields.
To see the entire master plan, visit www.swaincountync.gov.
Swain mulls putting sales tax back on ballot
BY J ESSI STONE
N EWS E DITOR
As they prepare for the annual budgeting process, Swain County commissioners are considering placing a quarter-cent sales tax increase on the November ballot.
If voters approve the referendum, Swain County’s sales tax would increase from 6.75 percent to 7 percent and the county would designate the funds toward capital improvement needs for the school system. The increase is estimated to generate about $300,000 in additional revenue each year, which would help the school system better plan for improvement projects each year.
The same sales tax referendum was placed on the 2016 general election ballot but it failed with about 58 percent of residents voting against it.
“The school board wants it back on there — we have 90 days before the election to get it on the ballot so I asked them to come address it with us. It needs to be done soon,” said Commissioner Danny Burns. “And we need to help promote it any way we can.”
Commissioners think the increase didn’t pass in 2016 because the board of education and the county didn’t educate the public enough about what it would be used for. Others say Swain County residents are simply adamantly opposed to an increase in any kind of tax.
Commission Chairman Phil Carson said he understands the hesitancy but also realizes that increasing the sales tax is the best way to generate new revenue without placing the entire burden on the taxpayers of Swain County.
“Studies show the majority is paid by the folks who visit here — we’re the last hold out on that,” he said, adding that other counties are already taking advantage of the full 7 percent sales tax allowance. “And the tax is not on food, gas or medicine. Our schools need that money.”
With everything in the news about mass school shooting and recent social media threats that forced Swain County Schools to go into lockdown mode in February, commissioners are hopeful residents have a better understanding of the upgrades needed at the schools to improve safety.
Approving a sales tax increase would also take some pressure off the county’s budget requests from the schools and other departments. Sheriff Curtis Cochran has already asked for funding for two additional school resource officers — one more for Swain Middle and one more for Swain High.
The commissioners have a joint meeting planned with the school board to talk about their budgeting needs on May 15. The commissioners will then hold a budget workshop at 6 p.m. May 22 at the administrative building.
Swain County Schools could see an increase in revenue for capital projects if a quarter sales-tax increase is approved.
Sheriff Curtis Cochran has already asked for funding for two additional school resource officers — one more for Swain Middle and one more for Swain High.
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Catherine Proben
Town of Franklin releases preliminary budget
BY J ESSI STONE
EWS E DITOR
With the 2018-19 preliminary budget in hand, Franklin Town Council will have a week to review it before the board’s May 15 budget workshop.
The preliminary budget does not currently include a property tax increase, though Mayor Bob Scott has brought it up as a possibility considering how tight the upcoming budget will be.
Franklin’s property tax rate is 28 cents per $100 of assessed value and is still one of the lowest in the region. Sylva’s rate is 42.5 cents, Waynesville’s is 48.57, Canton’s is 58 cents and Maggie Valley’s is 39 cents.
“I’m not advocating it but I do think we’re going to have to look at a small tax increase because so much of what we depend on has been cut at the state and federal level and we’re expected to pick up the slack,” Scott said at an April 16 budget workshop. “Do we want to start cutting services or looking at cutting back on the nonprofit funding pool? These are the first things to go.”
Town Manager Summer Woodard said at the time that 1-cent tax increase would produce another $60,000 while a 4-cent increase would generate about $240,000 a year.
Councilmembers seemed hesitant to talk about an increase without seeing the preliminary budget and without having a concrete plan of how they would spend the additional revenue.
Woodard did not include an increase in the proposed budget but she did have to allocate just over $239,000 from the town’s fund balance to balance the budget.
“The town should be cautious when using fund balance,” she wrote in her budget statement.
The fund balance is a reserve fund to use in times of emergency and the state recommends local governments keep at least 8 percent of its annual expenditures in the fund
balance, though Franklin’s fund is much healthier. Woodard said the town has about half a year’s expenditures in reserve.
The proposed budget does call for a 4 percent increase to the town’s water and sewer rates in order to maintain existing infrastructure, to upgrade the water plant and to continue funding the town’s comprehensive improvement plan. The proposed increase would only affect base and volume charges — not tap and connection fees.
The budget also calls for a 2 percent costof-living adjustment and 1 percent one-time payment based on salaries for all positions. Woodard doesn’t anticipate any increase in medical, dental or workers compensation insurance for employees or any major decrease in revenue streams.
“Franchise tax is projected to decrease $10,000. The biggest contributor to the decrease in franchise tax revenue is that more people are eliminating landlines from their homes and relying solely on cell phones,” Woodard said.
The town will continue to work on phase one of the water treatment plant upgrade and expansion project, which is estimated to be completed by December 2018. The first debt payment on the $3.2 million loan is due this coming fiscal year.
The town has also budgeted $23,000 to buy a portable bathroom trailer to be used during town festivals and events, $10,000 to replace the roof on the town square gazebo and $11,000 was budgeted for a snow and ice pretreatment brine sprayer for the streets department.
Franklin plans to invest another $7,500 to make more improvements to Memorial Park, including pouring a new concrete slab for the pavilion area.
The town council will hold a budget workshop at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 15, at town hall. The entire proposed budget may be viewed at www.franklinnc.com/proposed-budget-franklin-nc-2018-2019.html.
The Franklin Town Council will discuss the 2018-19 proposed budget at a 5:30 p.m. May 15 work session. File photo
No tax increase proposed in Haywood
BY CORY VAILLANCOURT STAFF WRITER
It was a good day for Interim Haywood County Manager Joel Mashburn, and will probably go down as a good day for Haywood County taxpayers as well.
“Let me say that it’s an honor to be able to present to the Haywood County Board of commissioners the proposed budget for fiscal year 18-19,” Mashburn told commissioners May 7. “It’s an honor because although I hoped that someday I would have an opportunity to work in my home county, the opportunity never came until I finished my full-time career.”
Mashburn has served as interim county manager since last fall, after a long career as Iredell County manager; Haywood is expected to name a permanent replacement for former manager Ira Dove in the coming months.
“This will probably be my first and last budget presentation to you,” Mashburn said.
Importantly, that budget contains no tax increases, but, per Mashburn’s presentation, that budget is still “fiscally responsible, meets the needs of our citizens and moves our county forward to meet the challenges ahead. “
IT’STHEECONOMY, STUPID
Haywood County is still being impacted by the recession of 2008. During the recession years, almost a decade’s worth of economic growth was erased, and tax increases accompanied by budget cuts became the norm.
Those cuts impacted public safety, facility maintenance and employee salary increases.
“Although each budget since has taken steps to recover, there is still much to be done,” Mashburn said.
Despite a disappointing countywide property revaluation in 2017, an improving local economy has made things slightly easier for commissioners.
Mashburn cited a North Carolina State University index of leading economic indi-
cators that show the state economy has been trending upward since about 2015. The strength of gains over the last two years alone, he said, suggest a high degree of confidence that 2018 will also be a growth year.
More localized indicators suggest a similar degree of confidence — unemployment in Haywood County as measured by the North Carolina Department of Commerce is among the lowest in a low-unemployment state during a low-unemployment period across the country as a whole.
Eight years ago, unemployment in the county was around 12 percent. This past February, it was around 4 percent. Some of that, Mashburn opined, could be attributed to the growth of the tourist industry.
Over the past 15 quarters dating back to January 2014, total payrolls for Haywood’s tourism industry have ranged from a low of $8.4 million in the second quarter of 2014 to a high of $11.69 million in the third quarter of 2016.
The most recently available data from the Department of Commerce’s Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages shows tourism payrolls in the third quarter of 2017 down slightly from the third quarter of 2016 at $10.89 million, however fall of 2017 did mark the sixth consecutive quarter payrolls remained above $9 million.
The growth suggests insulation against the first- and second-quarter dips that would even as recently as 2016 see tourism payrolls drop below $8.5 million.
“It is evident that Haywood County is becoming a year-round destination,” he said.
Building permit activity is on the upswing as well in Haywood County.
Mashburn said that in fiscal year 2016 — the county’s fiscal year begins July 1 and ends June 30 — 492 permits with a total construction value of $51.78 million were issued. For FY 2017, that increased to 543 permits with a
Public hearing, work session set
State law requires a public hearing on each year’s proposed budget, which must be passed by July 1. On May 7, Haywood commissioners set that public hearing for 5:30 p.m. Monday, May 21, in the courtroom of the Haywood County Historic Courthouse. Commissioners also announced a work session — focusing on the budget, and any citizen input received at the public hearing — for 2 p.m. Thursday, May 24, in the training room of the Health and Human Services building on Paragon Parkway.
value of $53.92 million. So far this fiscal year, 421 permits with a value of $44.49 million have been issued, with the busy summer construction season still weeks off.
REVENUES
Overall revenue estimates are coming in about 3.7 percent higher than last year, according to Haywood County Director of Finance Julie Davis.
Ad valorem taxes make up 53 percent of the budget at $43.85 million, and sales tax revenue is projected to climb 5.22 percent, accounting for more than $15.39 million in projected revenues.
“We have reason to believe revenues will continue to grow and will be strong in the coming year,” said Mashburn.
Adding to that — for the first time since 2009 — will be an increase in ambulance fees that will bring costs more into line with current reimbursement rates from Medicare/Medicaid and private insurers, and in turn placing those costs on the backs of the users rather than on the backs of property owners.
Included in Mashburn’s proposed budget are increases in personnel, education and public safety.
If approved, county employees will see a 1percent cost of living increase, a 2 percent merit raise and a 1-percent increase in 401k contributions.
A number of new positions were proposed as well, including a human resources assistant, a custodian, a maintenance technician, two technicians for the county’s new animal shelter, an erosion control specialist, a health educator, a part-time position in the Haywood County Sheriff’s office, and a position in the county land records office.
Half a year’s funding for an assistant county manager position — to replace former Assistant County Manager Stoney Blevins, who left last December — was also proposed.
The county’s education budget will also see increases, including $15.99 million in current expense funding and a $750,000 capital outlay for Haywood County Schools and a $2.75 million appropriation for Haywood Community College. Both are small increases.
The same goes for Haywood Community College, with a $2.75 million appropriation, up from $2.59 million last year, and a $360,000 capital projects appropriation, up from $116,000 last year.
On the public safety side of things, significant funds are needed for three ambulances — two will be “remounted” onto new chassis at a cost of $150,000 each, and one new ambulance will cost $220,000.
The sheriff’s office has requested $230,000 for six new patrol vehicles, and $350,000 is proposed for security improvements at county facilities, including $191,000 for improvements to the Haywood County Detention Center.
As presented, the proposed budget is based on a total unaudited taxable value of county land of $7.5 billion taxed at the present rate of 58.5 cents per $100 in assessed valuation at the current 97.47 percent collection rate.
Public hearings for Plott Creek development
A proposed 200-unit apartment development off Plott Creek road needs a text amendment from Town of Waynesville Aldermen to proceed, and it looks like that process is beginning.
As The Smoky Mountain News went to print the afternoon of May 8, aldermen were preparing to set a public hearing for May 22. That meeting will come one day after the town’s planning board holds its own public hearing on the matter on May 21. Once that takes place, the planning board could issue to aldermen a recommendation for or against the text amendment, who could then take that recommendation — along with public input from their own hearing — into consideration. For more information on the hearings, visit www.townofwaynesville.gov.
Design input sought on highway
Early design plans for improving U.S. 19/23 between Wiggins Road and Chestnut Mountain Road will be presented at a public meeting on Thursday in Canton.
The initial design includes upgrading the roadway to three lanes for the entire length and adding bicycle and pedestrian facilities on the south side of the road. The plans are far from final and may evolve into a combination of bicycle lane, sidewalk or multi-use path based on public recommendations.
The informal meeting will be held from 47 p.m. at Colonial Theatre Annex at 53 Park Street in Canton. N.C. Department of Transportation representatives will be available to answer questions and listen to comments about the project.
Maps of the initial design are available at www.ncdot.gov/projects/publicmeetings.
WCU event to focus on Civil War
Civil War artifacts and history will be the focus of “Stories from the Past,” an event set for Monday, May 14, at Western Carolina University’s Hunter Library.
Look for May 8 election results online
The Smoky Mountain News is published before the May 8 Primary Election results are reported, but please check out www.smokymountainnews.com on Wednesday, May 9, to read about the results for Haywood, Jackson, Macon and Swain counties.
Any election follow-up coverage will be included in the May 16 issue.
From 6 to 7 p.m., members of the Friends of Hunter Library and the Western North Carolina Civil War Round Table will have an opportunity to examine Civil War artifacts in the library’s Special Collections Reading Room.
From 7 to 8 p.m., local author Michael Hardy will present a program about one of North Carolina’s most storied Civil War brigades. That program will be open to everyone and will be held in the Maps Room on the library’s first floor.
Membership levels in the Friends of Hunter Library start at $25 annually. To become a member of the Friends group, contact the library administrative office at 828.227.7307.
Health series continues at library
A seminar on mental health and suicide prevention will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 15, at the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva.
This seminar was put together by Library staffer Danielle Duffy and WCU graduate student Lynley Hardie in partnership with Nan Fein of Appalachian Community Services, Patty Tiberi with Mountain Projects, and Patrick and Linda Frank. It will feature a personal testimony from the Franks and a panel discussion of the issues of mental health and suicide. After the discussion, attendees will be able to participate in a bevy of hands-on activities.
Mother’s Day Buffet
• Honey Pecan Chicken Breast
• Chef-Carved Smokehouse Ham
• Fried Butterfly Shrimp
• Balsamic Roasted Brussel Sprouts
• Strawberry and Spinach Salad
• Deviled Eggs
• Baked Macaroni and Cheese
• Glazed Fingerling Sweet Potatoes
The Open Door’s ‘next season’
BY CORY VAILLANCOURT STAFF WRITER
One memorable afternoon several years ago, Perry Hines was sitting in the dining room of the Open Door after it had closed for the day, discussing with officials from a nearby church a grant opportunity, when there came a knock at the locked front door.
Hines, executive director of the Frog Level ministry, had himself an awkward dilemma — interrupt the important business meeting, answer the door and get tied up in some sort of problem, or ignore the woman they could all through the sizeable glass windows plainly see standing on the sidewalk outside.
“Guys, if you don’t mind, this is really what we’re all about,” Hines told them. “Let me go see what this lady wants, what’s on her heart.”
He remembers the woman looking emaciated, and weakened.
“May I help you?” he asked her.
“I wanted to come to the Open Door,” she said, “because I knew this was the one place I could get a prayer.”
After more than 16 years, Hines has left the Open Door, but has left the door open; a new executive director will take his place in July, and will attempt to meet the seemingly insatiable demand for services from the area’s impoverished while simultaneously guiding the organization into a bold new future.
CHANGINGPERCEPTIONS
“I guess it just crystallized in my mind what our ministry was all about,” Hines said of the incident when reached by phone last week, shortly after his last day.
He was on his way to Charlotte, where come July, he’ll become an associate pastor at the Central United Methodist Church in Concord; the move was prompted by his wife, who secured a position as the controller for the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church.
“Part of my work, I’m sure, will be missions,” he said.
Hines’ mission for the past 16 years has been to head the Open Door, a ministry of Long’s Chapel United Methodist Church. Established in 1996, the Open Door is funded to the tune of about $250,000 per year, but earns 70 percent of that from its social enterprise, Second Blessing Thrift Shop, located right next door.
In 2016, the Open Door provided more than $33,000 in cash assistance, over a thousand food boxes, hundreds of showers and dozens of haircuts, all while serving exactly 34,367 meals.
In 2017, I was the recipient of one of those meals.
Over Thanksgiving, I embarked on a three-day undercover journey into homelessness, in order to increase my understanding of resource availability here in Haywood County. The Open Door was the first place I stopped, for lunch.
I had finished my meal but was already trying to plan for my next one, so I returned to the counter to ask if dinner would be available later that night.
Behind that counter and washing a dish was a man who I’d later come to learn was Hines himself. The executive director. Washing a dish. On Thanksgiving Day.
At the advice of Hines, I sought out Haywood Pathways, where my story took an interesting turn that led me further afield, to Canton.
Over the course of it all, I’d also come to learn firsthand of the important hublike role Hines and the Open Door play in the lives of Haywood County’s neediest citizens.
Although the Commerce Street building itself sits just feet from the Blue Ridge Southern Railroad tracks that serve as an informal shoe-leather highway between Pathways, Open Door and points beyond, Hines himself earned a reputation as an eager networker and creative problem solver, just as when he literally pointed me to Pathways.
Because homeless women with children can’t be accommodated there — don’t worry, they soon will be — Hines negotiated a partnership with a local hotel that was willing to make certain concessions in working with Hines’ clients.
With his finger on the pulse of Haywood’s most vulnerable citizens, Hines said the need isn’t going away, but it is changing.
“A lot of people share the same heartfelt isolation and emotional distance, and a lot of people face addiction in various ways,” Hines said. “Some are just dressed in different clothing, and you don’t see them so clearly.”
Misconceptions about who, exactly, the Open Door serves
After 16 years, Perry Hines has served his last meal at the Open Door. Cory Vaillancourt photo
are commonplace — it’s the hard-core homeless who come from under tarps in the woods to scrounge up two free meals a day, right?
“A lot of our ministry dealt with people who maybe didn’t even come to eat with us that often, but they came through the door to the office for financial assistance, for rental assistance, for medical assistance or things of that nature,” he said. “That just as easily could’ve been my father, my mother, my brother, my son, my daughter — people just in mainstream society that are really struggling that you don’t realize that the Open Door had a major impact on. There’s a lot of people out there that’s just like us, and I think that puts us in context a lot to the people we minister to.”
Into this role — administrator, networker, problem solver, cleaner of plates, opener of doors — steps Tom Owens.
“He’s been doing some brilliant work in Denver,” said Long’s Chapel Pastor Chris Westmoreland. “He can build on the rich history and tradition of the Open Door.”
A Virginia native, Owens comes to the Open Door after what Westmoreland called an extensive interview process, and also comes, appropriately, with a restaurant background.
“As a pastor, these kinds of opportunities for working outside of a traditional church setting are far too rare,” said Owens in a statement from Long’s Chapel. “When I got the fateful call that I would indeed be a part of the staff, the sense of gratitude and excitement that I felt deep in my soul was confirmation that something very profound was at work in this new ministry relationship.”
Bridging the gap between Hines and Owens will be Assistant Director Mindy Rathbone, who will serve as interim until July. Westmoreland said he thinks that the Open Door is entering the next season of its life, and is ripe for expanding its services to populations that remain underserved.
As an example, he said that the forthcoming women and children facility at Pathways will relieve the Open Door of some of the demand Hines had responded to in the past, freeing up resources to be utilized elsewhere.
“All that is going to happen because Perry has done such a fine job of leading,” Westmoreland said. “And of building that foundation.”
The Open Door’s new Executive Director Tom Owens will begin work in early July. Long’s Chapel photo
The Mountaineer
Macon EDC awards local businesses
Macon County Economic Development Commission recently honored several local businesses during its BizWeek 2018 Awards ceremony.
Deadhead Truck & Trailer, owned by Dustin and Stacey DeLozier, won the 2018 Up & Coming Business Award, while other BizWeek honorees included Highlands Country Club, Wayah Insurance Group.
Outdoor recreation listening session
Smoky Mountain Host is working jointly with the N.C. Department of Commerce to organize a "listening session" for the new Office of Outdoor Recreation, approved by the N.C. General Assembly and housed in the N.C. Department of Commerce.
David Knight was recently appointed to head up the office. He is conducting "listening" tours across the state. He will be in the western region from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. May 10, at Southwestern Commission offices located at 125 Bonnie Lane, Sylva.
Owners of businesses that support the outdoor recreation industry in the region are encouraged to attend and give Knight input on how to raise the profile of the contributions the outdoors industry makes to the state's economy.
Swain chamber recognizes members
The Swain County Chamber of Commerce recently honored several members at its annu-
sidered newsworthy.
Free and open to the public. RSVP to 828.524.3161.
City Lights Café recognized
City Lights Cafe in Sylva has been recognized by the state for its sustainability efforts.
City Lights received a certificate for achieving a green travel business rating of Two Dogwood Blossoms in the Department of Environmental Quality’s N.C. Green Travel Initiative. City Lights joins the Green Energy Park in Jackson County with this designation as well as 47 other restaurants in the state.
Harrah’s donates to hospital foundation
Harrah's Cherokee Casinos recently presented a $25,000 donation to members of the Cherokee Indian Hospital Foundation. The primary goal of the Cherokee Indian Hospital Foundation is to assist the facilities and services of the Cherokee Indian Hospital.
py. Studies suggest this type of salt therapy is more effective than salt lamps or sitting in a salt-covered room. Spagnoli formerly owned day spas and is dedicated to living and promoting a life of wellness.
Halotherapy implements dry salt therapy, which acts like a toothbrush to the lungs. Salt therapy is 100 percent natural, safe and drugfree. It offers support for all respiratory ailments, skin conditions, ADHD, sleep disorders, cystic fibrosis, sinus infections, stress, fatigue, depression, ear infections and more. It can also enhance singing, healing and athletic performance.
Waynesville Salt Room is offering a grand opening special until the end of May at $29 for a single visit. Learn more by calling 828.246.0788 or visit
WaynesvilleSaltRoom.com.
Chamber installs dog waste stations
Answering the need expressed by several downtown merchants, the Swain County Chamber of Commerce purchased and installed six dog waste stations throughout the downtown area.
al banquet at The Fryemont Inn.
Mountain Ford owners Gary and Marcia Jennings received the Business Citizens of the Year award for their contributions to Bryson City, in particular to Swain County Schools.
Bunny Johns received the Duke Energy Citizenship & Service Award for her life-long contributions to the outdoor industry of WNC, as well as her work on as a board member for various community organizations and entities.
Media offers tips for businesses
The Franklin Press Publisher Rachel Hoskins and Macon County News Reporter Brittney Lofthouse will host a forum to help local businesses get better press coverage from 9 to 11 a.m. Thursday, May 10, at the Franklin Chamber of Commerce.
Learn the tricks of the trade and how your business, nonprofit, church or organization can better get your stories heard and spread your message to the community through the local media. Learn about how to submit a press release, newspaper deadlines and what is con-
The ninth Annual Foundation Gala, which featured a chef-prepared dinner, entertainment, dancing and a silent auction, was held April 14 at Harrah's Cherokee Casino Resort. All proceeds from the event, including the sponsorship of Harrah's Cherokee Casinos, directly benefit renovations for all CIH Authority Satellite Clinics. Those clinics include the Immediate Care Center, Cherokee County Clinic and the Snowbird Health Clinic.
New vet makes house calls
Small Things Veterinary House Calls was founded by Dr. Elizabeth DeWandeler in 2013 in order to provide a completely different approach to veterinary care for pets. DeWandeler will come to your home to treat your dog or cat, ensuring a low-stress and fearfree approach to their medical care.
Located in the heart of Western North Carolina, serving Franklin, Sylva and Highlands areas. To schedule an appointment, call 828.634.1838.
Waynesville Salt Room opens
Marisa Spagnoli recent opened Waynesville Salt Room at 32 Montgomery St. in Waynesville and is offering special discounts in May.
The state-of-the art facility offers halothera-
The three already installed are located at the Christmas Tree square, the Heritage Museum square, and the Police Department square. Of the remaining three, two are to be installed at Island Park and one is to go to Riverfront Park.
ALSO:
• Harris Regional Hospital will hold its next Orthopaedic Lunch and Learn Series session from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday, May 10, at Southwestern Community College’s Macon Campus, Room 11. Call Sara Crawford at 828.631.8894 or email Sara.Crawford@medwesthealth.org.
• The Downtown Waynesville Association’s Merchant Appreciation Social will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 15, at The Patio Bistro, 26 Church St., Waynesville. All DWA businesses are invited.
• BCNC Investments of Bryson City recently announced the successful sale of the building and business known as Legends Sports Grill in Maggie Valley, a landmark for over a decade.
• New Vision Gymnastics in Franklin has changed its business name to New Vision Training Center and now also offers bouldering and ninja classes. For more information, call 828.524.1904.
• Keller Williams Great Smokies Bryson City recently celebrated its newest real estate office in Swain County with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house event. The new office is located at 60 Everett St., Bryson City. 828.926.5155.
Living in the moment with ALS
We rode in silence. I glanced at the clock as we came to another stoplight. Already five minutes late, I assured Amy they couldn’t start without her.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get there when we get there,” I said as she stared out the passenger side window. Her white lacy gown filled up the car, blocking my view of the gearshift.
We drove past the small primary school we attended. We passed the daycare where we met when we were 3 years old. We drove past the Methodist church where we went to Vacation Bible School during the summer and where we buried her grandmother and her mother. We passed her childhood home where we rode four-wheelers up and down the dirt roads and where we played in woods that had been scooped out during the gold rush.
Finally, we pulled up to the old farmhouse on the hill bearing her family’s name on the sign — The Stovall House, tucked away in the valley of Sautee, Georgia. She let out a heavy sigh. I couldn’t be sure if it was relief or dread.
“You know it’s not too late to fly to Vegas,” I said. “Just me and you.”
She finally smiled and let out a nervous laugh. I could always make her smile — even through some of the most trying tribulations of our 30-year friendship — but these days it
Rep. Meadows needs history lesson
To the Editor:
In 1804 a Republican-dominated House of Representatives voted impeachment charges against a sitting Supreme Court judge. The Senate had the wisdom to vote this down. This event is considered a landmark victory for the independence of the judiciary and for the separation of powers of the federal government. Up until the present there has not been another serious effort to attack these cornerstones of our democracy. This may have changed.
Rep. Mark Meadows is our Republican congressman from Asheville who represents North Carolina’s 11th District. He is the leader of the Freedom Caucus, the Tea Party faction of the House of Representatives. Under his leadership this group is threatening to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rob Rosenstein for refusing to turn over classified information relating to the Muller investigation. It is established law that investigators are not required to turn over classified information critical to an ongoing investigation. This principle was reaffirmed by a Supreme Court decision in the early 1940s.
Meadows and his Tea Party supporters are seeking the names of individuals currently under investigation by the justice department. Meadows is a close ally of Donald Trump. It is reasonable to assume that he is seeking this information to give to Trump.
has become more rare. She may fake a smile for you, but it’s not the genuine light up a room smile I’ve known.
Many lighthearted moments together have been replaced with anxiety and uncertainty since Amy was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) last June. By that time, she had already experienced complete muscle weakness in her right hand and arm and it was quickly progressing to her left hand and arm. It wasn’t until she started having leg stiffness and spasms that the doctors finally decided it had to be ALS.
Amy drove the two hours to Waynesville to tell me. I just couldn’t accept it. How could this happen to a perfectly healthy 33-year-old woman with her entire life ahead of her? The initial shock started to wear off over the coming weeks and the reality began to set in — my best friend is fighting an incurable disease.
I went to the ALS Association website to research and prepare myself for the journey ahead. I wanted to know what the latest treatments were and find a glimmer of hope amid the overwhelming feeling of dread. That’s not what I found. All I found were more hard truths about ALS.
Doctors don’t know what causes ALS, why the nerves in the spine stop communicating with muscles in the body. As the muscles throughout the body weaken over time, ALS patients eventually become completely paralyzed to the point where they can’t walk, eat or breathe on their own. Someone is diagnosed every 90 minutes with ALS, and the average life expectancy after diagnosis is two to five years. As I said earlier,
LETTERS
Rob Rosenstein has refused to release this information. He has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law. Meadows took an oath to support and protect the Constitution when he entered Congress. If our government leaders betray their oath to uphold our Constitutional democracy, it will be destroyed.
Meadows and his Freedom Caucus may push the country into a constitutional crisis if they continue this path. The founders of our Constitution showed great wisdom in creating a government where the executive, legislative and judicial branches are separate. In this way no one person or group of people could seize power and destroy our democracy.
Meadows and his supporters are threatening to erase the separation between our branches of government. I am ashamed to think he is representing the great state of North Carolina and the district I live in.
Margery Abel Franklin
Yes, we are in danger with a wall
To the Editor:
Yes, we do need a wall to protect ourselves. A couple weeks ago a contingent of Guatemalan men and women escaping from violence stormed our southern border. They arrived accompanied by dozens of crying chil-
there is no cure.
So, how do you find hope after reading that? I found hope through seeing Amy’s resolve to live her life. Amy and I have always had a love for traveling, though our big dreams of seeing Europe had taken a backburner to our jobs and families. But within a month of her diagnosis we booked an 11-day trip to London, Paris and Rome in September. Before that, she and her boyfriend Chris flew to St. Martin for a Caribbean getaway. A few months after we returned from Europe, Amy and Chris traveled to St. Lucia, where Chris proposed. As I write this column, the two of them are newly married and traveling around the coast of Ireland together.
The everyday stuff hasn’t been easy — doctor appointments, prescriptions, battles with the insurance companies, wheelchairs and walkers, falls and broken bones, plenty of tears and panic attacks — but we’re taking it one day at a time.
If nothing else, ALS has taught us to persevere and live in the moment. Life is too short and unpredictable to put things off or dwell on what we can’t control. When you live with ALS, there will be no better day than today. So, you make time for your family, go out with friends, take the risk, plan the trip, live, laugh and love whenever you get the chance.
May is ALS Awareness Month, and I know if this column could inspire you to make a donation to the ALS Association, it would make Amy smile. Learn more and donate at www.alsa.org. (Jessi Stone is news editor for The Smoky Mountain News. Reach her at jessi@smokymountainnews.com)
dren armed with teddy bears. This dangerous contingent took no prisoners, except, apparently, our president, who has been ranting ever since: “We need a wall and we need it now; our southern border is under siege.”
So, if you are as tired as I am of hearing his constant whining about a wall, may I suggest we all send in our contributions so we can make the multi-billion-dollar wall a reality. This will protect him from teddy bear brigades, and it will protect us from further whining.
Just a reminder, one billion equals one thousand millions. So, please be generous.
Paul Strop
Waynesville
State, local GOP need to re-think their role
To the Editor:
I am a 59-year-old disabled veteran and lifelong Christian conservative. And I am appalled at what I see happening in the leadership of the Republican Party.
Even here in sleepy little Haywood County the attacks on grassroots conservatism by the establishment GOP leaders is unsettling to say the least. Over the course of the last few years, these grassroots conservatives in Haywood have spent over $10,000 in legal fees to fight false allegations by GOP leadership.
Charges range from cyberstalking (case dismissed), assault charges (acquitted), and more cease and desist letters than I can count.
Numerous Haywood citizens were served “no trespass orders” without trial or jury by North Carolina Republican Party Chief Legal Counsel Thomas H. Stark, preventing these Republicans from attending GOP events in our own county.
Then, in a kangaroo court held down east at the NCGOP State Convention, a group of at least five Haywood Republicans were charged with party disloyalty! This resulted in several being banned from the Republican Party for five years. The vice chair of the North Carolina Republican Party in a very public Facebook post even called the Haywood Republican Alliance (a group of Christian conservatives made up mostly of veterans and our families) “terrorists.”
Now a civil suit asking for more than $75,000 has been brought by a Haywood GOP official against the conservative Political Action Committee “Haywood Republican Alliance” and several of its members, including six John Does. Grassroots conservatives in Haywood County have had to resort to a “Go Fund Me” page just to fight off the vicious attacks of the progressive establishment GOP. These are the kind of attacks one would expect from far left radicals, not the Republican Party.
The establishment NCGOP bureaucrats down in Raleigh have had their nose in Haywood County politics trying to control us for far too long. It’s high time the NCGOP learns to stay out of our lives and let the peo-
News Editor Jessi Stone
ple of Haywood County run
My question, is when are these attacks going to end? Why does the NCGOP not follow the Republican Party platform? Why does the NCGOP leadership not value their hard-working grassroots conservative volunteers?
My suggestion is get back to your Christian values, support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, and do the job you were elected to do: support our president, our veterans and stand up for America. Long live the Republic.
Eddie Cabe Canton
Plott Creek no place for apartment complex
To the Editor:
As with most newly proposed developments everywhere, all the standard comments come out in newspapers and town meetings, pro and con: “meets community needs;” “NIMBY (not in my back yard);” “increased tax revenue;” “increased traffic and safety issues;” “school overload;” “we can do what we want with our land;” etc. And the list goes on and on.
Then after all that, the town/county leaders appear to ignore all comments and do what they want — typically siding with the developer presumably because the potential increased tax revenue seems too sweet to pass up.
In the case of the proposed apartment complex on Plott Creek Road, there is a real risk that project will go the same path at the expense of the neighboring properties and Hazelwood as a whole. Practically all residents near the proposed development do not support this business venture simply because it is not in concert with the community as a whole.
Towns like Charleston have enacted ordnances that limit the height of buildings in the city; homeowner associations all over the U.S. limit residents from erecting structures that do not fit the neighborhood — all in an effort to maintain a sense of community where a relatively high density of neighbors exist.
Hazelwood and the neighboring streets are essentially single-family dwellings (typically one story) and in the case of the Plott Creek community, relatively low-density. For the land where the three-story apartment complex is proposed, low-density single-family housing (houses with acreage) would probably be welcomed by the neighboring residents and would fit the community needs. A multi-story, multi-building
complex does not fit that mold. The singlefamily home option is most likely less appealing to developers, but in the end what we get should be more about community needs than lining developers’ pockets.
Those near the proposed project hope the community leaders will look beyond the potential tax revenue and develop the area more in line with the needs/wishes of the community as a whole. We highly recommend not approving this apartment complex as proposed and counter with something that is more in line with the Hazelwood and Plott Creek communities. The residents in and around the area will appreciate it and the community-friendly precedent will be set for all other proposals going forward.
Steven Winchester Waynesville
Now or never for the red wolf
To the Editor:
The red wolf, which once ranged from Pennsylvania to Texas, is now battling extinction in the wild for a second time. Less than 30 individuals remain, found only in eastern North Carolina.
Like its gray wolf cousin, the red wolf faced mass extermination for hundreds of
years thanks to human development and widespread misconceptions. By the time they were brought into captivity, only a handful of survivors remained. To restore the species to its rightful place, a small population was released within the North Carolina’s Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge in 1987. The population increased in size for decades, peaking at around 150 animals.
However, over the past few years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, facing political pressure, has lost sight of its mission and turned its back on the red wolf. By eliminating the strategies that allowed them to grow the population, the red wolf population has plummeted. Recently, the agency proposed throwing in the towel and sending most of the last wolves off to zoos.
North Carolinians should be outraged. The red wolf is part of our state’s natural legacy and deserves one last place in the wild, where it can hunt and howl as it has for thousands of years.
If you care about North Carolina’s wildlife and heritage, please do your part to reverse the decline of this species. Call or email USFWS Acting Regional Director, Michael Oetker and urge him to recommit to red wolf recovery. Email: michael_oetker@fws.gov or call 404.679.4000
Christopher Lile Waynesville
Moms, remember to breathe it all in
Last week, I went to a conference in L.A. with 800 other moms who tell their stories through creative outlets, whether it be blogging, writing, photography, video or social media. Flying out on Wednesday, I was feeling significant mom guilt about leaving my boys and indulging in a conference in sunny California.
There were three keynote speakers: Debbie Allen, Kristen Bell and Brene Brown. You may be familiar with one or more of these ladies. They seemingly have little in common, other than they’re women and moms.
Debbie Allen is a world-renowned dancer, actor, choreographer, director and producer. Growing up in the world of dance, my sister and I were very familiar with Allen. She was responsible for impactful movies such as “Fame.” She also directed dance productions for many Academy Award shows. As an African-American in her 60s, she didn’t arrive upon her successes easily, but she arrived nevertheless.
Kristen Bell is a beautiful, popular actress who plays in comedic movies and sitcoms and is perhaps most well-known as the voice of Anna in the Disney movie “Frozen.” This is who she is on the surface. What fans may not realize is that she struggles with depression and anxiety and works in multiple philanthropic ways to combat human suffering.
And then there was Brene Brown, who inspires me daily through her writing and social media posts. She’s a shame researcher and through books and talks, helps individuals push through dark feelings to find joy in life. Several things she said resonated with me.
One, vulnerability and courage are not opposite emotions. They are much more intertwined than we realize. Two, adults have forgotten how to play. Play is defined as unstructured time and results in feelings of peace and happiness. Children are experts at play; hence, a child’s ability to laugh and smile with his entire self.
Ironically, Mother’s Day is this weekend. While nothing or no one will take the place of my mom, these female keynote speakers left me feeling nurtured and encouraged, much like a mom would. I left the confer-
ence empowered and recharged.
As many of my readers know, my mom passed away from cancer in August 2016. This will be my second Mother’s Day without her. I still think of this day as her day, despite the fact that I’ve been a mom myself for over nine years now.
I don’t look forward to this holiday. I’ve never been one who enjoys the spotlight or relishes in celebrating myself, so Mother’s Day just feels like a regular Sunday to me, although I do plan to spend the day with my sweet boys and dad feeling blessed to be a mommy while also honoring and remembering my own mother.
I mentioned the word “guilt” earlier in the column. A lot of us, especially moms, experience guilt and shame if we’re not doing everything “perfectly.” It’s easy to compare ourselves to other moms who seem to be doing things better or more efficiently or with more energy.
But, as they say, comparison is the thief of joy.
When the plane left LAX, the flight attendant did the regular speech about putting on your own oxygen mask before helping others. This is my metaphor for life. It’s hard for moms to put ourselves first, to play and laugh and experience adventures that are primarily for us. It’s even hard for us to sit down for 20 minutes at night and read a book when we know there are lunches to be made or clothes to wash.
But the thing is, we need oxygen before we can breathe life into our kids. We have to be happy, refreshed and recharged before we can parent with maximum ability and delight.
Being a mom is the best gift I’ve ever received. Further, I feel grateful to be part of the most amazing community in the world. Moms have a connection, a knowing that’s deeper than words.
My wish for all moms, myself included, is that we stop feeling bad when we do things for ourselves. It’s a given that our children are the most important people in our worlds. Their happiness comes first 99 percent of the time. But remember, we can’t perform this most important job if we’re suffocating. Figure out what fills your lungs with air and ever so mindfully, inhale.
(Susanna Barbee is a digital media specialist for Mountain South Media and a writer and contributing editor for Smoky Mountain News and Smoky Mountain Living. susanna@mtnsouthmedia.com)
tasteTHE mountains
If you would like to be included in the listing please contact our advertising department at 828.452.4251
AMMONS DRIVE-IN
RESTAURANT & DAIRY BAR
1451 Dellwwod Rd., Waynesville. 828.926.0734. Open 7 days a week 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Celebrating over 25 years. Enjoy world famous hot dogs as well as burgers, seafood, hushpuppies, hot wings and chicken. Be sure to save room for dessert. The cobbler, pie and cake selections are sure to satisfy any sweet tooth.
APPLE ANDY’S RESTAURANT
3483 Soco Road, Maggie Valley located in Market Square. 828.944.0626. Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; closed Wednesday and Thursday. Serving the freshest homemade sandwiches, wraps, and entrees such as country fried steak and grilled flounder. Full salad bar and made from scratch sides like potato salad, pinto beans and macaroni and cheese. www.appleandys.com
BLUE ROOSTER SOUTHERN GRILL
207 Paragon Parkway, Clyde, Lakeside Plaza at the old Wal-Mart. 828.456.1997
Open Monday through Friday. Friendly and fun family atmosphere. Local, handmade Southern cuisine. Fresh-cut salads; slowsimmered soups; flame grilled burgers and steaks, and homemade signature desserts. Blue-plates and local fresh vegetables daily. Brown bagging is permitted. Private parties, catering, and take-out available. Call-ahead seating available.
BOURBON BARREL BEEF & ALE
454 Hazelwood Ave., Waynesville, 828.452.9191. Lunch daily 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; dinner nightly at 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Closed Sunday and Monday. Wine Down Wednesday’s: ½ off wine by the bottle. We specialize in handcut, all natural steaks from local farms, incredible burgers, and other classic american comfort foods that are made using only the finest local and sustainable ingredients available.
CATALOOCHEE RANCH
119 Ranch Dr., Maggie Valley. 828.926.1401. Breakfast seven days a week, from 8 to 9:30 a.m. – with eggs, bacon, sausage, oatmeal, fresh fruit, sometimes French toast or pancakes, and always all-you-can-eat. Lunch menu every day from 12 noon to 2 p.m. includes homemade soup du jour and fresh-made salads. Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night will feature an evening cookout on the terrace. On all other nights of the week, dinner is served family style and includes locally sourced vegetables, homemade breads, jel-
Columnist
Susanna Barbee
tasteTHE mountains
Events begin at 7:15pm unless otherwise noted. Dinner and Music reservations at 828-452-6000.
FRIDAY, MAY 11
James Hammel guitar, vocals. Jazz, Pop, Originals.
FRIDAY, MAY 12
Jacob Johnson guitar, vocals. Neo Acoustic Folk-Funk. Music fee is $10 per person, plus dinner and drinks.
FRIDAY, MAY 18
Bob Zullo guitar, vocals. Jazz, Rock, Pop.
SATURDAY, MAY 19
Joe Cruz piano, vocals. Beatles, Elton John, James Taylor + More.
FRIDAY, MAY 25
Jay Brown guitar, vocals. Folk-Americana, Blues, Pop, Originals.
SATURDAY, MAY 26
Joe Cruz piano, vocals. Beatles, Elton John, James Taylor + More.
828-452-6000• classicwineseller.com 20 Church Street, Waynesville, NC
lies, desserts, and a wide selection of wine and craft beer. The evening social hour starts at 6 p.m., dinner is served starting at 7 p.m., and cozy rooms and cabins are available if you love us so much that you want to stay for breakfast, too. Please call for reservations. And see our dinner menu online at www.cataloocheeranch.com/dining.
CHEF’S TABLE
30 Church St., Waynesville. 828.452.6210
From 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday dinner starting at 5 p.m. “Best of” Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator Magazine. Set in a distinguished atmosphere with an exceptional menu. Extensive selection of wine and beer. Reservations honored.
CHURCH STREET DEPOT
34 Church Street, downtown Waynesville. 828.246.6505. 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Mouthwatering all beef burgers and dogs, hand-dipped, hand-spun real ice cream shakes and floats, fresh handcut fries. Locally sourced beef. Indoor and outdoor dining. facebook.com/ChurchStreetDepot, twitter.com/ChurchStDepot.
CITY LIGHTS CAFE
Spring Street in downtown Sylva. 828.587.2233. Open Monday-Saturday
7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tasty, healthy and quick. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, espresso, beer and wine. Come taste the savory and sweet crepes, grilled paninis, fresh, organic salads, soups
and more. Outside patio seating. Free Wi-Fi, pet-friendly. Live music and lots of events. Check the web calendar at citylightscafe.com.
THE CLASSIC WINESELLER
20 Church Street, Waynesville.
828.452.6000. Underground retail wine and craft beer shop, restaurant, and intimate live music venue. Kitchen opens at 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday serving freshly prepared small plates, tapas, charcuterie, desserts. Enjoy live music every Friday and Saturday night at 7pm. www.classicwineseller.com. Also on facebook and twitter.
COUNTRY VITTLES: FAMILY STYLE RESTAURANT
3589 Soco Rd, Maggie Valley. 828.926.1820 Winter hours: Wednesday through Sunday 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Family Style at Country Vittles is not a buffet. Instead our waitresses will bring your food piping hot from the kitchen right to your table and as many refills as you want. So if you have a big appetite, but sure to ask your waitress about our family style service.
DELLWOOD FARMHOUSE RESTAURANT
651 Dellwood Rd., Waynesville.
828.944.0010. Warm, inviting restaurant serving delicious, freshly-made Southern comfort foods. Cozy atmosphere; spacious to accommodate large parties. Big Farmhouse Breakfast and other morning menu items served 8 a.m. to noon. Lunch/dinner menu offered 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Come see us. You’ll be glad you did! Closed Wednesdays.
EVERETT HOTEL & BISTRO
16 Everett St.,Bryson City. 828.488.1934
Open daily for dinner at 4:30 p.m.; Saturday & Sunday Brunch from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; dinner from 4:30-9:30 p.m. Serving fresh and delicious weekday morning lite fare, lunch, dinner, and brunch. Freshly prepared menu offerings range from house-made soups & salads, lite fare & tapas, crepes, specialty sandwiches and burgers. Be sure not to miss the bold flavors and creative combinations that make up the daily Chef Supper Specials. Followed by a tempting selection of desserts prepared daily by our chefs and other local bakers. Enjoy craft beers on tap, as well as our full bar and eclectic wine list.
FERRARA PIZZA & PASTA
243 Paragon Parkway, Clyde. 828.476.5058. Open Monday-Saturday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sunday 12 to 8 p.m. Real New Yorkers. Real Italians. Real Pizza. A full service authentic Italian pizzeria and restaurant from New York to the Blue Ridge. Dine in, take out, and delivery. Check out our daily lunch specials plus customer appreciation nights on Monday and Tuesday 5 to 9 p.m. with large cheese pizzas for $9.95.
FRANKIE’S ITALIAN TRATTORIA
1037 Soco Rd. Maggie Valley. 828.926.6216 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Father and son team Frank and Louis Perrone cook up dinners steeped in Italian tradition. With recipies passed down from generations gone by, the Perrones have brought a bit of Italy to Maggie Valley.
Retail Restaurant LIVE Music
HARMON’S DEN BISTRO
250 Pigeon St., Waynesville
828.456.6322. Harmon’s Den is located in the Fangmeyer Theater at HART. Open 5:309 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday (Bistro closes at 7:30 p.m. on nights when there is a show in the Fangmeyer Theater) with Sunday brunch at 11 a.m. that includes breakfast and lunch items. Harmon’s Den offers a complete menu with cocktails, wine list, and area beers on tap. Enjoy casual dining with the guarantee of making it to the performance in time, then rub shoulders with the cast afterward with post-show food and beverage service. Reservations recommended. www.harmonsden.harttheatre.org
J. ARTHUR’S RESTAURANT AT MAGGIE VALLEY
U.S. 19 in Maggie Valley. 828.926.1817
Open for dinner at 4:30 to 9 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday. World-famous prime rib, steaks, fresh seafood, gorgonzola cheese and salads. All ABC permits and open year-round. Children always welcome. Takeout menu. Reservations appreciated.
JUKEBOX JUNCTION
U.S. 276 and N.C. 110 intersection, Bethel. 828.648.4193. 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday; Sunday 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Serving breakfast, lunch, nd dinner. The restaurant has a 1950s & 60s theme decorated with memorabilia from that era.
MAD BATTER FOOD & FILM
617 W. Main Street Downtown Sylva. 828.586.3555. Open Monday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.; Sunday brunch 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Handtossed pizza, steak sandwiches, wraps, salads and desserts. All made from scratch. Beer and wine. Free movies Thursday trought Saturday. Visit madbatterfoodfilm.com for this week’s shows.
MAGGIE VALLEY CLUB
1819 Country Club Dr., Maggie Valley. 828.926.1616. maggievalleyclub.com/dine. Open seasonally for lunch and dinner. Fine and casual fireside dining in welcoming atmosphere. Full bar. Reservations accepted.
MAGGIE VALLEY RESTAURANT
2804 Soco Road, Maggie Valley. 828.926.0425. 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily. Daily specials including soups, sandwiches and southern dishes along with featured dishes such as fresh fried chicken, rainbow trout, country ham, pork chops and more. Breakfast
tasteTHE mountains
all day including omelets, pancakes, biscuits & gravy. facebook.com/carversmvr; instagram @carvers_mvr.
MOUNTAIN PERKS ESPRESSO BAR & CAFÉ
9 Depot St., Bryson City. 828.488.9561
Open Monday through Thursday, 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. With music at the Depot. Sunday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Life is too short for bad coffee. We feature wonderful breakfast and lunch selections. Bagels, wraps, soups, sandwiches, salads and quiche with a variety of specialty coffees, teas and smoothies. Various desserts.
PATIO BISTRO
30 Church Street, Waynesville.
828.454.0070. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Breakfast bagels and sandwiches, gourmet coffee, deli sandwiches for lunch with homemade soups, quiches, and desserts. Wide selection of wine and beer. Outdoor and indoor dining.
PIGEON RIVER GRILLE
101 Park St., Canton.
828.492.1422. Open Tuesday through Thursday 3 to 8 p.m.; Friday-Saturday noon to 9 p.m.; Sunday noon to 6 p.m. Southerninspired restaurant serving simply prepared, fresh food sourced from top purveyors. Located riverside at Bearwaters Brewing, enjoy daily specials, sandwiches, wings, fish and chips, flatbreads, soups, salads, and more. Be sure to save room for a slice of the delicious house made cake. Relaxing inside/outside dining and spacious gathering areas for large groups.
RENDEZVOUS RESTAURANT AND BAR
Maggie Valley Inn and Conference Center
70 Soco Road, Maggie Valley 828.926.0201
Home of the Maggie Valley Pizzeria. We deliver after 4 p.m. daily to all of Maggie Valley, J-Creek area, and Lake Junaluska. Monday through Wednesday: 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Thursday: 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. country buffet and salad bar from 5 to 9 p.m. $11.95 with Steve Whiddon on piano. Friday and Saturday: 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Sunday 11:30 to 8 p.m. 11:30 to 3 p.m. family style, fried chicken, ham, fried fish, salad bar, along with all the fixings, $11.95. Check out our events and menu at rendezvousmaggievalley.com
SALTY DOG’S SEAFOOD & GRILL
3567 Soco Road, Maggie Valley. 828.926.9105. Open seven days a week
from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday. Full service bar and restaurant located in the center of Maggie Valley. Featuring daily $6 lunch specials and daily dinner specials such as $1 Taco Tuesdays and 45¢ Wednesday Wings. Backyard Bar is open every weekend thru October. Join us for every NFL game.
SPEEDY’S PIZZA
285 Main Street, Sylva. 828.586.3800 Open seven days a week. Monday-Friday 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Saturday 3 p.m.-11 p.m., Sunday 4 p.m.-10 p.m. Family-owned for 30 years. Serving hand-tossed pizza made to order, pasta, subs, gourmet salads, calzones and seafood. Also serving excellent prime rib on Thursdays. Dine in or take out available. Located across from the Fire Station.
TAP ROOM BAR & GRILL
176 Country Club Drive, Waynesville. 828.456.3551. Open seven days a week serving lunch and dinner. 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tucked away inside Waynesville Inn, the Tap Room Bar & Grill has an approachable menu designed around locally sourced, sustainable, farm-to-table ingredients. Full bar and wine cellar. www.thewaynesvilleinn.com.
VITO’S PIZZA
607 Highlands Rd., Franklin. 828.369.9890. Established here in in 1998. Come to Franklin and enjoy our laid back place, a place you can sit back, relax and enjoy our 62” HDTV. Our Pizza dough, sauce, meatballs, and sausage are all made from scratch by Vito. The recipes have been in the family for 50 years (don’t ask for the recipes cuz’ you won’t get it!) Each Pizza is hand tossed and made with TLC. You’re welcome to watch your pizza being created.
WAYNESVILLE PIZZA COMPANY
32 Felmet Street, Waynesville. 828.246.0927. Open Monday through Friday; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday, noon to 10 p.m.; Sunday noon to 9 p.m.; closed Tuesdays. Opened in May 2016, The Waynesville Pizza Company has earned a reputation for having the best hand-tossed pizza in the area. Featuring a custom bar with more than 20 beers and a rustic, family friendly dining room. Menu includes salads, burgers, wraps, hot and cold sandwiches, gourmet pizza, homemade desserts, and a loaded salad bar. The Cuban sandwich is considered by most to be the best in town.
Aw, shucks
Haywood County crafter keeps heritage craft alive, vibrant
BY GARRET K. WOODWARD STAFF WRITER
You’ve probably driven by the Red Barn Greenhouse & Garden Center on Dellwood Road between Maggie Valley and Waynesville a thousand times. But, have you ever stopped in?
for children, many from poor families, to entertain themselves in the depths of the isolated mountains.
Taking the longtime Appalachian craft of corn shuck dolls to a whole new and creative level, Karen Collis can spend upwards of 70 hours on one piece, many of which being sold to collectors around the world.
Scouts, where she remembers making the corn shuck dolls. When she was 18, she taught the craft at a Girl Scouts day camp to over 100 children. And throughout most of her life, she kept at it, making dolls here and there to not lose the skill, selling them sporadically at craft shows.
Following a health scare in 2009, Collis got more serious about the craft of corn shuck dolls, seeing as it might have to be a vital source of income if her health worsened and she couldn’t be in the garden center anymore. Luckily, her health improved and she’s still front-and-center in the Red Barn. But, the ball was now rolling real fast in the corn shuck doll world of supply and demand, with certain pieces of hers going for upwards of $1,000.
“What I do is one-of-a-kind, nothing is mass produced,” Collis proudly noted.
In 2014, Collis was selected to become a member of the highly-competitive and prestigious Southern Highland Craft Guild, with her work now on display and sold at the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and also the guild’s renowned craft fair at the U.S. Cellular Center in downtown Asheville each fall. Out of 100 applicants that year, nine were selected, with Collis the only artisan specializing in corn shuck dolls.
“All of the hardcore Appalachian crafts are disappearing completely. It’s the mechanics that need to be continually taught, otherwise it gets forgotten,” Collis said. “Somebody can look at a piece a hundred years from now and say, ‘How did they do that?’ There’s no instruction books step-by-step, especially the creative part of it. Most of what I’ve done I’ve learned from doing, just starting very simple.”
Want to know more?
Tucked between rows of beautiful flowers on one end and the Mountain Museum filled with Appalachian artifacts on the other are several shelves of corn shuck dolls. The intricate doll designs and scenes they’re set in come straight out of the creative mind and nimble fingers of Karen Collis, a highly-sought after artist in this centuries-old craft medium.
“I try to use all corn shucks, not many people make corn shuck dolls and corn shuck accordions,” Collis chuckled. “I enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to do something. [For example], a dog made of corn shucks would take me four hours to make, but it would take me four days to complete because each process has to dry in-between to get the shape you need in the final product.”
Once a common craft in Appalachia, stretching all the way back to the family farms of the 1800s, the corn shuck dolls were a way
“It’s a dying art today,” Collis said. “Back in the 1920s and 1930s, the home demonstration ladies would teach the ladies at home [in Appalachia] how to make them, so that they could make them at home and stay with their children. Then, they would sell the dolls at outlets in New York to ‘benefit the poor of Appalachia.’ It gave the mountain ladies a cottage craft, a home craft, to make money.”
Collis estimates each corn shuck creation of hers can take from three to 70 hours to finish. It all depends on what she wants to do — however simple and intricate of a design — and also what a particular client might have in mind for her.
“I’ve done about 1,200 dolls total over the years. I do a lot of commission pieces, where someone sends me a photograph and I immortalize them in corn shucks, maybe a man playing his instrument or a grandmother in her rocking chair,” Collis said. “I have all of these ideas in my head — we have the whole human race to choose from. I get an idea, sketch it out as stick figures, and start working at it, then see how it evolves.”
Raised in Maggie Valley, Collis opened the Red Barn 45 years ago. Each spring, thousands of eager locals and tourists ready themselves to plant whatever natural beauty she has grown. Aside from her deep love of plants, she also has
For more information on the corn shuck dolls by Karen Collis, visit www.shuckdollsbykaren.com. The Red Barn Greenhouse & Garden Center and Mountain Museum are located at 1856 Dellwood Road in Waynesville. Admission to the museum is free, with donations accepted. 828.926.1901.
a similar passion for Appalachian history, with Collis being able to trace her family’s history in North Carolina back over 200 years. This passion led to Collis launching the Mountain Museum 20 years ago.
“My life’s work is plants and flowers. And I love history, so I go into the museum and tell stories and tales,” Collis said. “I just enjoy creating things. The plants are how I make my living, the corn shuck dolls are the vacation money. [Laughs].”
As a kid, Collis was a member of the Girl
Walking around between the shelves of corn shuck dolls and the elaborate exhibits of the Mountain Museum, one can feel the sincere appreciation Collis has for those who came before her. It’s important to her, and should be, seeing as it’s this history and these heritage crafts that made up the rich and vibrant culture of Western North Carolina and greater Southern Appalachia.
“The museum shows how mountain people really did live. You can get the high-end and the elaborateness with the Biltmore House, but as far as our poor, hardscrabble subsistence farmers, most people come out of our museum and say, ‘How in the world did they live?’ It was hard work every minute of the day just to survive,” Collis said. “A lot of the younger kids aren’t interested in the history at all. But, the 11 and 12 year olds love it. There’s not a lot of people sitting around the dinner table telling stories anymore. This heritage is not getting passed on. I love getting a grandparent in here with a grandkid and something in here sparks a memory, a story to tell them — it gives me a little hope for the future.”
“All of the hardcore Appalachian crafts are disappearing completely. It’s the mechanics that need to be continually taught, otherwise it gets forgotten.”
— Karen Collis
Karen Collis.
This must be the place
BY GARRET K. WOODWARD
Never forget what you made, what made you
It seems like a race against time.
As a longtime arts and entertainment editor, I find myself in the backwoods and along the backroads of Western North Carolina, always in search of a story. Sometimes the subjects are folks I come across over a cold beer at a local watering hole. Sometimes they’re a random name and address with a short description of what they do sent to me via physical or electronic mail. On many occasions, I’ll be simply driving and something or someone catches my eye in the distance.
HOT PICKS
1
The annual WNC QuickDraw will be from 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday, May 19, at Laurel Ridge Country Club in Waynesville
2
Rock/blues group Andrew Scotchie & The River Rats will host an album release party for their latest record at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 16, at Ambrose West in Asheville.
3
The DuPont Brothers (Americana/folk) will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at Nantahala Brewing in Bryson City.
4
The Haywood Arts Regional Theatre in Waynesville will present the Jane Austen classic “Sense and Sensibility” at 7:30 p.m. May 10-12 and at 2 p.m. May 13.
5
The Whole Bloomin’ Thing festival will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 12, in the Historic Frog Level District of Waynesville.
And amid the thousands of people, places and things I’ve interviewed, photographed and written about in over a decade in this business, the stories that meant the most to me were (and remain) those folks who use their hands and make something of worth and value with them. I’m talking about blacksmiths, weavers, woodworkers, boat builders, potters, glass blowers, luthiers (build/fix instruments), and so forth.
One of the core values and traits of culture in our region lies deeply in those heritage crafts and trades listed above. In my years working for this publication, I’ve had the sincere pleasure of crossing paths and interacting with individuals of great skill
relevance to the innovation of mankind can never be understated. “If there’s no metal work, there’s no modern technology,” Muth said.
And then there was that sit-down interview at a loom with weaver Amy Tromiczak in Waynesville: “It’s amazing how easily things can be lost, where a family technique can die out in a generation,” Tromiczak said. “There’s something incredible about working with your hands, and that everything you put into a piece really does matter.”
Or metalsmith William Rogers of Cullowhee, who goes into local elementary classrooms and teaches students how to work with metal in hands on seminars: Rogers’ creativity is about constantly learning something new, always striving to discover something else about you as an individual and as an artist.
“If you’re not learning, you’re not doing much. If you’re not trying something new, you’re not doing anything,” Rogers said. “If you’re doing the same thing over and over again, well, we have robots for that now.”
Those sentiments voiced by heritage craft artisans are something I’ve been told my entire career as a journalist, even way back in 2007-2008 when I was a rookie reporter for a small newspaper in Eastern Idaho, interviewing a blacksmith: Walking around Jim Stevens’ workshop, one notices an array of tools and machinery, anvils here and there, sounds of hammering and the constant hiss of the 2600-degree inferno emitted from the forge Stevens uses to create his work. “Blacksmithing is a lost art,” Stevens said. “It’s easier that horseshoeing but it’s a hard job. Most people wouldn’t want hot steel melting onto and sticking to your hands. But over the years, I guess I’ve built up a tolerance.”
So, when I found myself in front of Karen Collis’ intricate corn shuck dolls for my feature story this week, all of those past experiences rang true in my mind, thinking about how incredible all of these works of art and tools of the trade are, and how these skill sets and traditions will vanish if they aren’t preserved and perpetuated for future generations to harness and create — for pleasure or for profit.
MAY SCHEDULE
and personality. I don’t think you can be an expert in a creative field and not have some kind of unique flare to your presence and persona.
I remember all those names and faces around these parts. Folks like Timm Muth of the Jackson County Green Energy Park in Dillsboro, who I interviewed several years back about the increasing popular blacksmithing classes at the park: A technique thousands of years old, casting metal is at the very foundation of what has led to the achievements of a 21st century society. Though the process has remained largely unchanged for centuries, its importance and
I think of the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown (Clay County) and the Penland School of Crafts in Spruce Pine (Mitchell County). These prestigious institutions are the front lines for instruction and cultivation of heritage crafts and their survival in the 21st century, a digital age where hands are typing and scrolling on a screen, not learning and creating something that doesn’t involve being charged or plugged into a wall with good WiFi nearby. Put down the smartphone, put down the tablet and laptop, and pick up a heritage craft. You may even surprise yourself at something you either enjoy in your free time or a newfound talent that could unlock unlimited doors of possibility in your creative self. If anything, support those who make a living in the heritage crafts, support their stores and purchase their products. Heck, take a class if they offer one. Keep the spirit of creativity and Southern Appalachian culture alive and thriving. Life is beautiful, grasp for it, y’all.
Weaver Susan Morgan Leveille.
On the beat
River Rats release rock record
Popular rock/blues group Andrew Scotchie & The River Rats will host an album release party for their latest record at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 16, at Ambrose West in Asheville.
The band’s third studio album, “Family Dynamo,” is a sonic snapshot of how their honest rock-n-roll brand has evolved, what new spaces can be explored in the studio and who they are as individuals.
Alongside the listening party there will also be a live onstage Q&A with the band and artist Joshua Marc Levy who designed
the album cover. The Q&A will be moderated by Garret K. Woodward, arts and entertainment editor for The Smoky Mountain News.
There will be limited edition posters available at the event and a raffle for two weekend passes to the annual Asheville Barnaroo, a festival in Leicester that is a fundraiser put on by Scotchie to raise money for local youth music programs.
For more information and/or to preorder “Family Dynamo,” visit www.andrewscotchiemusic.com.
AMERICANAACTRETURNSTO WNC
Americana/folk act Redleg Husky will perform at 8 p.m. Friday, May 18, at Nantahala Brewing in Bryson City. The band will also hit the stage at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 19, at Currahee Brewing in Franklin. Both shows are free and open to the public. www.nantahalabrewing.com or www.curraheebrew.com.
DuPonts at Nantahala Brewing
Acoustic act The DuPont Brothers (Americana/folk) will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at Nantahala Brewing in Bryson City.
Based out of Burlington, Vermont, the sibling indiefolk-rock duo has kept busy on the road since 2013. Their
Sylva gets in the tub
Jackson County bluegrass/Americana group Ol’ Dirty Bathtub will perform at 8 p.m. Friday, May 11, at Innovation Brewing in Sylva.
“We’ve always had energy when playing on someone’s porch, but on several occasions lately we have been able to replicate it live,” said ODB guitarist Jerad Davis. “And that’s
what makes this fun — people dancing, rooms getting hot, creating an atmosphere that is as fun for those listening as it is for us onstage. That’s why we do it. And that fuels the passion and creativity.”
The show is free and open to the public. The band’s new album “Pack Mule” is now available for purchase. For more information, click on www.facebook.com/oldirtybathtub or www.innovation-brewing.com.
two records, “Heavy as Lead” (2015) and “A Riddle For You” (2016), have taken them all over the Eastern Seaboard and beyond.
The DuPont Brothers have made festival appearances at Grand Point North and South-By-Southwest (SXSW) and have supported a wide array of national acts including Grammy award winning artists like Sturgill Simpson, Jerry Douglas and Blake Mills.
The show is free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.nantahalabrewing.com.
Water’n Hole find its roots
Asheville-based roots/jam group The Get Right Band will perform at 10 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at the Water’n Hole Bar & Grill in Waynesville.
Led by singer/guitarist Silas Durocher, the ensemble also includes Jesse Gentry (bass) and drummer J.C. Mears (drums). What stands out about this band is the mere fact
that nobody around this region sounds like them. Period. And it’s that “all” factor which puts The Get Right Band into a league of their own. It’s surprising when you stand there watching them perform, where you’re trying to figure out just how they’re able to get that much sound from a power trio.
For more information, visit www.thegetrightband.com.
Andrew Scotchie & The River Rats. Adam McMillan photo
Traditional music at Waynesville Library
Musicians Anne & Rob Lough will perform from 3 to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at the Waynesville Library Auditorium.
Anne Lough brings to the stage the finest of traditional music and culture. Her beautiful clear voice thrills listeners as she brings to life the ballads and folk songs of the Appalachians, American frontier and British Isles. Folk dance, storytelling and shapednote traditions come alive through her skillful presentations and artistry. She holds a Music Education degree from Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky, and a Master of Music Education degree from Western Carolina University.
In addition to being a regular instructor in mountain and hammered dulcimer at the prestigious John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown since 1991, she has taught at the Swannanoa Gathering, Western Carolina Dulcimer Week, Augusta Heritage Dulcimer Week, The Great American Dulcimer Convention and at numerous other festivals throughout the East and Midwest.
Lough is also well known as an instructor and performer in traditional singing, storytelling, folk dance and the shaped note tradition. Her programs have delighted and inspired all ages from day-care and preschool children to Elderhostelers. She is very active bring these traditions to schools throughout the region as a Touring Artist for the North Carolina Arts Council.
Anne and Rob Lough bring to life the songs, ballads and stories of the Appalachian Mountains and have been performing together for over 34 years. Rob is originally from Western Kentucky and accompanies his beautiful baritone voice with fine guitar work. Anne hails from Virginia and in addition to singing, plays mountain and hammered dulcimer, autoharp and guitar.
Brought to you by the Friends of the Library and the Haywood County Arts Council. Free and open to all. No registration is required.
Anne Lough.
On the beat
• Andrews Brewing Company (Andrews) will host the “Lounge Series” with Gabe Myers (singer-songwriter) May 11, Bill Vespasian (singer-songwriter) May 12, The Harmed Brothers (Americana) 7 p.m. May 18 and Alma Russ (Americana/bluegrass) May 19. All shows are free and begin at 5 p.m. unless otherwise noted. www.andrewsbrewing.com.
• Balsam Falls Brewing (Sylva) will host Alma Russ (Americana/folk) May 11 and Bird in Hand (Americana/folk) May 18. All shows begin at 8 p.m. www.facebook.com/balsamfallsbrewing.
• Blue Ridge Beer Hub (Waynesville) will host an acoustic jam with Main St. NoTones from 6 to 9 p.m. May 10 and 17. Free and open to the public. www.blueridgebeerhub.com.
• Boojum Brewing (Waynesville) will host Qwister (roots/reggae) 9 p.m. May 12. Free. www.boojumbrewing.com.
• The Classic Wineseller (Waynesville) will host James Hammel (guitar) May 11, Jacob Johnson (guitar) May 12, Bob Zullo (guitar) May 18 and Joe Cruz (piano) May 19. All shows are free and begin at 7 p.m. 828.452.6000 or www.classicwineseller.com.
• Currahee Brewing (Franklin) will host Redleg Husky (Americana) May 19. All shows are free and begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. www.curraheebrew.com.
• Frog Level Brewing (Waynesville) will host Keil Nathan Smith Band May 11, Kevin Fuller (singer-songwriter) noon May 12 and Stone Crazy (rock/pop) May 18. All shows are free and begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. www.froglevelbrewing.com.
• Harmon’s Den Bistro at HART (Waynesville) will host karaoke and an open mic at 8 p.m. on Saturdays. All are welcome. www.harttheatre.org.
• Innovation Brewing (Sylva) will have an Open Mic night May 9 and 16, and a jazz night with the Kittle/Collings Duo May 10 and 17. All events are free and begin at 8 p.m. www.innovation-brewing.com.
ALSO:
• Isis Music Hall (West Asheville) will host Shawna Caspi & Steven Pelland (singersongwriter) 7 p.m. May 9, Queen Bee & The Honeylovers (jazz/swing) outside 6:30 p.m. May 10, Rebekah Long (singer-songwriter) 7 p.m. May 10, Freddy & Francine w/Kiernan McMullan (Americana/soul) 8:30 p.m. May 10, Moonlight Street Folk (Americana) outside 6:30 p.m. May 11, Brian Ashley Jones Trio w/Roosevelt Dime (Americana/country) 8:30 p.m. May 11, Damsel & Distress (pop/rock) outside 6:45 p.m. May 12, Eli Cook (acoustic/blues) 7 p.m. May 12, Never A Pal Like Mother (Americana/folk) 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. May 13, Tuesday Bluegrass Sessions 7:30 p.m. May 15, West End Trio (jazz/swing) outside 6:30 p.m. May 16, Wyatt Easterling & Louisa Branscomb w/Jeanette & Johnny Williams (folk/bluegrass) 7 p.m. May 16, Dirty Logic (Steely Dan tribute) 8:30 p.m. May 16, Rahm Squad (jazz/funk) outside 6:30 p.m. May 17 and A Different Thread (Celtic/old-time) 7 p.m. May 17. For more information about the performances and/or to purchase tickets, click on www.isisasheville.com.
• Lazy Hiker Brewing (Franklin) will host Donna Hopkins Band 7 p.m. May 12 and The UpBeats May 19. All shows begin at 8 p.m.
Bryson City community jam
A community jam will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 17, at the Marianna Black Library in Bryson City.
Anyone with a guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, dulcimer, anything unplugged, are invited to join. Singers are also welcome. The jam is facilitated by Larry Barnett of Grampa’s Music in Bryson City.
The community jams offer a chance for musicians of all ages and levels of ability to share music they have learned over the years or learn old-time mountain songs. The music jams are offered to the public each first and third Thursday of the month — year-round. This program received support from the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment of the Arts.
828.488.3030.
unless otherwise noted. There will also be an open mic night at 6:30 p.m. every Thursday. www.lazyhikerbrewing.com.
• The Maggie Valley Rendezvous Tiki Bar will host Stone Crazy (rock/pop) 3 to 6 p.m. May 13.
• Mountain Layers Brewing (Bryson City) will host an open mic night every Thursday, Paul Davis (singer-songwriter) May 11 and 18, and Heidi Holton (blues/folk) May 12. All shows are free and begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. www.mountainlayersbrewingcompany.com.
• Nantahala Brewing (Bryson City) will host Hustle Souls May 11, The DuPont Brothers (Americana/folk) May 12, Redleg Husky (Americana) May 18 and Nick Dittmeier & The Sawdusters (rock/Americana) May 19. All shows are free and begin at 8 p.m. www.nantahalabrewing.com.
• The Oconaluftee Visitor Center (Cherokee) will host a back porch old-time music jam from 1 to 3 p.m. May 19. All are welcome to come play or simply sit and listen to sounds of Southern Appalachia.
• Pub 319 (Waynesville) will host an open mic night from 8 to 11 p.m. on Wednesday with Mike Farrington of Post Hole Diggers. Free and open to the public.
• Salty Dog’s (Maggie Valley) will have Karaoke with Jason Wyatt at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays, Mile High (classic rock) 8 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays, and a Trivia w/Kelsey Jo 8 p.m. Thursdays.
• Satulah Mountain Brewing (Highlands) will host “Hoppy Hour” and an open mic at 6 p.m. on Thursdays and live music on Friday evenings. 828.482.9794 or www.satulahmountainbrewing.com.
• The Strand at 38 Main (Waynesville) will host an “Open Mic” night from 7 to 9 p.m. on Saturdays. 828.283.0079 or www.38main.com.
• The Ugly Dog Pub (Highlands) will host Calvin Get Down (funk) May 12. All shows begin at 9:30 p.m.
• Water’n Hole Bar & Grill (Waynesville) will host The Get Right Band (roots/jam) May 12. All shows begin at 10 p.m.
On the street
Whole Bloomin’ Thing festival
The 16th annual Whole Bloomin’ Thing festival will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 12, in the Historic Frog Level District of Waynesville.
Children’s activities, local growers and artisans/crafters, flowering baskets, herbs, outdoor decor, live music, and more. Businesses in the district will also be open, including a coffee cafe, brewery and art gallery.
Service animals only. Rain or shine. Free to attend. Sponsored by the Historic Frog Level Merchants Association.
For more information, visit www.historicfroglevel.com.
American Girl Tea Party
REACH of Macon County will host its 10th annual American Girl Tea Party “If You Follow Your Dreams You Can Reach The Stars” from 3 to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at the Trinity Assembly of God in Franklin. This is an event forall ages. This year’s tea party will focus on “reaching for the stars.” The staff at REACH will also be raffling off the American Girl Doll of the Year, a stay at the Alpharetta Marriott ‘s American Girl Doll Suite, and an adult prize raffle. There are a variety of ways that you can be involved:
• Become a table host and explore your creative design skills by decorating a table for eight. If you are interested in hosting a table, you would be responsible for eight place settings including plates, silverware, and drinking glasses; linens, decorations; party favors; a tablecloth; and light finger food items for the buffet table. Table set-up will be Friday, May 11. Call to set up a time.
• Become a sponsor. Maybe you cannot attend the event, but would like to “sponsor” a table for other attendees and/or invite your friends to experience the event for free. Sponsored tables are $150 for eight.
• Donate items. If you own your own business or have a special trade, feel free to donate items for door prizes or for the silent auction. Every child will leave with a special gift, but REACH would also like to provide additional items for adults.
• Can you cook? REACH would love to have your recipes on the buffet table.
With a date of Mother’s Day weekend, this event is the perfect opportunity for intergenerational fun for a good cause. Tickets are $25 per adult and $10 per child.
If you are interested in participating in this event or have any questions, contact REACH at: Macon County, 828.369.5544 or reach@reachofmaconcounty.org. Jackson County, 828.586.8969.
Darnell family celebrates their locally grown strawberry
Enjoy local music, local food, fresh fruits and vegetables, craft vendors, plow demonstrations, childrens play area, hayrides, fishing, camping, and much more.
Live music will include The Darnell Family Band, Twelfth Fret, Bill Mize & Beth Brahmell, Strawberry Jam Youth Talent Contest, Tangled Feet Stompers, Auntie Bee’s Jam Band and the Late Night Jam Session with The Darnell Family Band. Admission is free. Donations accepted for the upkeep and maintenance of the farm. 828.488.2376.
Indian village
now open
The popular Oconaluftee Indian Village will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday through Nov. 10.
As you step into the Oconaluftee Indian Village, you’re transported back to witness the challenges of Cherokee life at a time of rapid cultural change. Tour guides help you explore the historic events and figures of the 1760s.
Visitors can interact with villagers as they participate in their daily activities. The Village also hosts live reenactments, interactive demonstrations, and Hands-On Cherokee Pottery for Kids classes
For more information, visit www.cherokeehistorical.org.
‘Exploring the World of Wine’
Bosu’s Wine Shop in Waynesville are hosting a series of class and wine tasting dedicated to “Exploring the World of Wine with Pete Ricci.”
All classes run from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Mondays. Classes are $49 each. Participants will taste six to eight wines in each session. The classes are as follows:
• May 14: “Wine, American Style.” Wine comes to the New World. Ricci will discuss America’s spin on wine. How wine moved from the dinner table to the nightclub, the swimming pool and the college campus. Participants will also explore (1) how marketing and wine ratings affect the wine industry, and (2) how to shop for wine.
• May 21: Wine Regions Explode Around the World: Class & Wine Tasting. The demand for wine exploded with new marketing and wine became an important beverage to American entertaining. This led to the growth of wine regions that could support the higher demand in volume of the world’s consumption of wine. Participants will taste wines from South America, Australia, New Zealand and other wine regions to understand a global view of wine.
For more information and/or to register, visit www.waynesvillewine.com.
‘Mother’s Day Gemboree’ in Franklin
The “Mother’s Day Gemboree” will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 11-13 at the Robert C. Carpenter Community Building in Franklin.
Rough and cut gems, minerals, fine jewelry, supplies, beads, door prizes, dealers, exhibits, demonstrations, and more.
For more information, call 828.369.7831. Sponsored by the Franklin Chamber of Commerce and the Macon County Gem & Mineral Society. www.franklin-chamber.com.
Hook, Line & Drinker festival
The second annual Hook, Line & Drinker festival will be held from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. Saturday, May 19, at the Bridge Park Pavilion in downtown Sylva.
The Farmer’s Market will also run from 9 a.m. to noon. The festival will host two bands: Social Function (classic hits) from 12:30 to 2:15 p.m. and Fireside Collective (progressive bluegrass) from 2:45 to 4:30 p.m. There will be multiple trout fishing vendors, food trucks, craft beer vendors and chil-
Waynesville ‘Great Decisions’ series
The “Great Decisions” series will take place from 5:15 to 6:45 p.m. on Thursdays from through June 21 in the auditorium of the Waynesville Public Library.
“Great Decisions” is America’s largest discussion program on world affairs. Presented by the Foreign Policy Association.
This program provides background information and policy options for the eight most critical issues facing America each year and serves as the focal text for discussion groups across the country.
Schedule is as follows: Russia’s Foreign Policy (May 10), China and America: the new geopolitical equation (May 17), Media and Foreign Policy (May 24), Turkey: A Partner in Crisis (May 31), U.S. Global Engagement and the Military (June 7), South Africa’s Fragile Economy (June 14) and Global Health: Progress and Challenges (June 21)
Questions may be directed to moderator David McCracken at dem32415@aol.com. Registration is required: 828.356.2507 or kolsen@haywoodnc.net.
Sponsored by the Friends of the Library.
• Line Dance Lessons will be held on Tuesdays in Waynesville. Times are 7 to 8 p.m. every
Fireside Collective.
dren’s activities. Admission to the family friendly festival is free with donations encouraged. Reusable “Hook, Line & Drinker” souvenir cups will be available for $5. Souvenir cups are required for beer purchases. A portion of net proceeds from souvenir cup sales will benefit Trout Unlimited’s “Trout in the Classroom” programming for 2018-2019. For more information, call 828.586.2155 or visit www.hooklinedrinkerfest.com.
other Tuesday. Cost is $10 per class and will feature modern/traditional line dancing. 828.734.0873 or kimcampbellross@gmail.com for more information.
ALSO:
• “Laughing Balsam Sangha,” a meeting for Mindfullness in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh, meets will meet from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Mondays at 318 Skyland Drive in Sylva. Included are sitting and walking meditation, and Dharma discussion. Free admission. For more information, please call 828.335.8210, and “Like” them on Facebook.
• There will be a free wine tasting from 1 to 5 p.m. May 12 and 19 at Bosu’s Wine Shop in Waynesville. www.waynesvillewine.com or 828.452.0120.
• A free wine tasting will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. May 12 and 19 at Papou’s Wine Shop in Sylva. www.papouswineshop.com or 828.631.3075.
• Free cooking demonstrations will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on Saturdays at Country Traditions in Dillsboro. Watch the demonstrations, eat samples and taste house wines for $3 a glass. All recipes posted online. www.countrytraditionsnc.com.
On the wall
‘Birdhouse Bash’ in
Frog Level
In celebration of spring and creativity, the fifth annual “Birdhouse Bash” will take place during the Whole Bloomin’ Thing festival on Saturday, May 12, in the Historic Frog Level District of Waynesville. The bash will be hosted by the Daydreamz project to benefit communityart projects and community gardens. The Open Door Garden and the local birds will benefit greatly from your creative offerings.
Youth and adults of all ages are Invited to create or decorate birdhouses for their annual silent auction. Make or decorate your birdhouse with weather resistant, non-
toxic permanent materials. For the birds’ sake, don’t use cardboard, fiberboard, school glue, hot glue, toxic paints or finishes. Birdhouses may be delivered from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. through Friday, May 11, to the Second Blessing Thrift Store in Frog Level. Fill out a registration form identifying your birdhouse donation.
Then, come to Daydreamz booth during the Whole Bloomin’ Thing festival on Saturday, May 12, in Frog Level. Birdhouses will be auctioned by silent bids, with winning bidders will be notified at 3 p.m. Birdhouses may then be taken to their new home or garden.
For more information, contact Daydreamz project at 828.476.4231 or Open Door Community Garden Manager at 828.734.1570.
HCAC ‘Adventures in Acrylic’
The Haywood County Arts Council (HCAC) will host the “Adventures in Acrylic” art classes from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. starting May 15 at Gallery & Gifts in downtown Waynesville.
This is a class to explore different ways of using acrylic paint. Local artist, Dominick DePaolo will provide instruction in using acrylic in the traditional way, in the
watercolor format and also using a palette knife for maximum texture.
The class size is limited to eight students. Each session will be four classes and the attendee will have finished two paintings in each style. All supplies will be provided for each class or you may bring your own.
Come meet DePaolo and learn more about the class at 5:30 p.m. Monday, May 14, at Gallery & Gifts. For more information and/or to reserve your spot, call 828.452.0593.
Haywood Arts ‘Creations in Oil & Handcrafted Mugs’
The Haywood County Arts Council’s exhibit “Creations in Oil & Handcrafted Mugs” will run through May 26.
This exhibit features talented local artists including Melba Cooper, Don Millsaps, Jo Ridge Kelley, Nathan Perry, Mollie Harrington Weaver, Velda Davis, Tina Honerkamp, Sun Sohovich, Cayce Moyer, Susan Phillips, Cory Plott, Cathey Bolton, Dominick DePaolo and Carolyn Strickland.
“Spring is the perfect time to showcase the wonderfully diverse works in oil and also the fun and collectible handcrafted clay mugs produced by our communities’ local artists. Be sure to join us at the May 4 Artist Reception and Art After Dark event,” said Leigh Forrester, HCAC Executive Director
WNC QuickDraw
The annual WNC QuickDraw will be from 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday, May 19, at Laurel Ridge Country Club in Waynesville.
The cocktail social will include an hourlong QuickDraw Challenge, silent auction and refreshments. Live artists will be working in the public eye, creating timed pieces, which will then be auctioned off. Proceeds go to art classroom supplies in schools and college scholarships for art-related studies.
• 4:30 p.m. — Cocktail Social. Register your bidder number and watch artists prep before the shotgun start.
• 5 to 6 p.m. — Artist Stopwatch Challenge. Hour of live creation. Stroll and marvel at the motivated live-action artists painting to beat the clock. Stroll and chat with demonstrator artists using fiber, clay, metals, glass, wood and more, all processintensive mediums that enable them to work
Visit the Haywood County Arts Council at 86 North Main Street in Waynesville to view the variety of art for sale. For more information about the Haywood County Arts Council, visit www.haywoodarts.org.
HCC Professional Crafts Graduate Show
The graduating class of Haywood Community College’s Professional Crafts program will exhibit their best work at the 2018 Graduate Show, which will be held through June 24 at the Southern Highland Craft Guild Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Asheville.
This year’s show has work in clay, jewelry, fiber and wood. This exhibit marks the professional debut for many exhibiting craftspeople. The college makes involve-
and talk. Each demo artist offers a finished original work at silent auction while they showcase techniques on a piece in process.
• 6 p.m. — Breather. Snacks and conversation and live music while artists frame the pieces and set up the auction preview. Live music. Art teachers show off student works.
• 6:30 p.m. — Live Art Auction. Bid on fresh, original art, ready to hang. Become a collector who saw the artist make it. Team with artists to inspire students and creative classrooms, put supplies on teacher shelves, and send kids to college.
• 7:30 p.m. — Heavy hors d’oeuvres meet and greet. Meet your artist over delicious food and monitor your silent auction bids.
$75 per person.
www.wncquickdraw.com or 828.734.5747.
ment in the installation, organization, and publicity of this exhibit as part of the coursework for the professional crafts students.
The Professional Crafts program is a two-year commitment, focusing on all aspects of becoming an independent craft professional. In addition to sharpening their technical and artistic skill in their chosen medium, students also create a marketable line of production work, plan a studio, and become familiar with the craft market.
Mandatory coursework includes photography of finished pieces for gaining entrance into craft shows, creating a business plan, and designing and building a studio tailored to fit production needs.
The Folk Art Center is open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission and parking are both free. The opening reception will be from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday, May 12. For more information, call 828.627.4673 or visit creativearts.haywood.edu.
A painting by Jenny Buckner.
A work by Dominick DePaolo.
On the wall
Haywood Arts
$10,000
challenge
Haywood County Arts Council Board
President Michael Lodico and his wife Mary Alice are giving a great surprise — an endof-year gift up to $10,000 in matching funds for all donations to the HCAC annual fund through June 30, the end of the current fiscal year.
All gifts to the Haywood County Arts Council made between now and June 30 will be matched dollar for dollar up to $10,000. Consequently, when an individual makes a tax-deductible donation of $25, HCAC will receive $50.
• “Paint Nite Waynesville” will be held at 7 p.m. on Thursdays (May 17) at Frog Level Brewing in Waynesville. There will also be a special Mother’s Day paint event at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, May 13. Sign up for either event on the Paint Night Waynesville Facebook page or call Robin Arramae at 828.400.9560. paintnitewaynesville@gmail.com.
ALSO:
• Gallery 1 Sylva will celebrate the work and collection of co-founder Dr. Perry Kelly with a show of his personal work at the Jackson County Public Library Rotunda and his art collection at the gallery. All work is for sale. Admission is free. Children are welcome. Gallery 1 has regular winter hours from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday and Friday, and noon to 4 p.m. Saturday. art@gallery1sylva.com.
• Mad Batter Food & Film (Sylva) will host a free movie night at 7:30 p.m. every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. For the full schedule of screenings, visit www.madbatterfoodandfilm.com.
• The Waynesville Fiber Friends will meet from 10 a.m. to noon on the second Saturday of the month at the Panacea Coffee House in Waynesville. All crafters and beginners interested in learning are invited. Keep up with them through their Facebook group or by calling 828.276.6226 for more information.
“Whether the Haywood County Arts Council receives $5 or $500, every dollar counts when it comes to ensuring that our community’s quality of life is enhanced through a broad array of cultural and artistic activities”, said HCAC Executive Director Leigh Forrester. “We hope this matching campaign inspires individuals, the community and business donors to double the value of their gift between now and the end of the fiscal year.”
Annual fund donations enhance art education, local artists and innovation in art. This year, annual fund gifts supported monthly art exhibits in the HCAC gallery, artist workshops, the Junior Appalachian Musicians program, Mind the Music senior piano lessons, Dance ARIS, Young Artist Concert, art exhibits at the HART and both Waynesville & Canton Libraries, Student Honors Recital, Sunday at the Opry Veterans Day performance, as well as artist receptions and other community events.
“This is a great opportunity for our community to show its appreciation for the Haywood County Arts Council and to get involved in whatever way they can, because every gift of every amount makes a difference.” Forrester said.
To give online, visit www.haywoodarts.org or visit the HCAC gallery at 86 North Main Street in downtown Waynesville to make a cash donation.
• There will be a “Thursday Painters Open Studio” from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. at the Franklin Uptown Gallery. Bring a bag lunch, project and supplies. Free. Membership not required. 828.349.4607.
• A “Youth Art Class” will be held from 10:30 a.m. to noon every Saturday at the Appalachian Art Farm on 22 Morris Street in Sylva. All ages welcome. $10 includes instruction, materials and snack. appalachianartfarm@gmail.com or find them on Facebook.
• Free classes and open studio times are being offered at The Uptown Gallery in Franklin. Join others at a painting open studio session from 6:30 to 9 p.m. every Tuesday or from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. every Thursday. Bring your own materials and join an ongoing drawing course led by gallery artists from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Friday. For information on days open, hours and additional workshops, contact the gallery on 30 East Main Street at 828.349.4607.
• The next meeting of the Western North Carolina Woodturners Club Inc. will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 12, at The Bascom in Highlands. Drive across the covered bridge into the parking lot and come into the main entrance near the covered patio. There will be directions on how to get to the woodturning studio. Visitors are welcome. The club meets in Highlands the second Saturday of every month.
On the wall
Balsam Arts & Craft Show
The spring Balsam Arts & Craft Show will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at the Balsam Fire Department.
With a great selection of local handmade arts and crafts, items available include: baskets, chair caning, crocheted and hand-sewn items, wood-burned gourds, hand-stitched and stamped greeting cards, oil paintings/prints, framed photos, baked goods, homemade fudge, small hand-painted tiles, wooden spoons, jewelry and wood-carvings among many other items.
A portion of the entry fees will benefit the Balsam Fire Department.
Dogwood Crafters workshops
Calligraphy and jewelry making are two upcoming workshops sponsored by Dogwood Crafters this month. Both workshops will be held at the Dillsboro Masonic Lodge.
• A two-day Calligraphy class will be held from 10 a.m. to noon on Wednesday, May 16 and 23. Talented artist Cheryl
Thompson, a longtime member of Dogwood Crafters, will guide participants in learning the basic strokes and lettering techniques used in this beautiful form of writing. Cost for the class is $14 and registration is requested by May 9.
• Judy Wilkey, another talented Dogwood Crafter, will lead a jewelry making workshop from 10 a.m. to noon Thursday, May 17. Participants can learn the basics of beaded jewelry making by creating either a bracelet or a pair of earrings. The instructor will have a supply of beads from which participants can select or they are welcome to bring their own. Cost for the class is $7. Register by May 10.
To register, call Dogwood Crafters at 828.586.2248.
Franklin’s
Airing of the Quilts
The annual Airing of the Quilts will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 12, in downtown Franklin.
An old tradition in the settler days was to air out your quilts after a cold winter in the spring air and sunshine. For information, contact Gwen Taylor at thestreetsoffranklin@gmail.com. www.franklin-chamber.com.
Roadworks: Experiential Arts Opportunities
The Western Carolina University College of Fine and Performing Arts presents WCU Roadworks, a free outreach program offering experiential arts opportunities throughout the summer to the community.
The program began with performances from students in the School of Stage and Screen in 2016 and in 2017, students from the School of Music were featured. This summer, students from the School of Art and Design will be roving around the community in an “Art Trailer.”
The Roadworks Art Trailer will be available for outdoor event opportunities and is managed by four WCU students, two graduate students, and two undergraduates. The Art Trailer will feature an aluminum pour
demonstration, showcasing some of the advanced skills and ideas being implemented by the School of Art and Design. Highlighting the School’s strong connection with the Jackson County Green Energy Park, this opportunity brings metal pouring to individuals that may have never experienced this spectacle before. As the host of the event, Roadworks will gift a 4” x 4” piece of aluminum art to commemorate the experience. The second element of the Art Trailer is a drum painting pop-up tent accompanied with music. Participants will use percussion tools, such as drumsticks, mallets, and brushes, to paint onto a piece of canvas serving as their “drumhead.” At the end of the event, guests are able to take their paintings home. Finally, in another tent from the Art Trailer, Roadworks will offer a small pop-up gallery space to showcase the work of the 4 student artists involved with this project.
If you are interested in learning more about Roadworks or would like to request the Art Trailer for your event, visit arts.wcu.edu/roadworks to read more about the program and fill out our contact form.
Interactive drumhead painting from the WCU School of Art and Design Roadworks Art Trailer.
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HPAC to screen ‘Macbeth’
The Highlands Performing Arts Center will screen “Live via Satellite” the National Theatre of London’s production of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” at 1 p.m. Saturday, May 12. Shakespeare’s most intense and terrifying tragedy, directed by Rufus Norris (The Threepenny Opera, London Road), will see Rory Kinnear (Young Marx, Othello) and Anne-Marie Duff (Oil, Suffragette) return to the National Theatre to play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The ruined aftermath of a bloody civil war. Ruthlessly fighting to survive, the Macbeths are propelled towards the crown by forces of elemental darkness.
Tickets are available online at www.highlandspac.org, at the door or by calling 828.526.9047.
Hawkins returns to Franklin
Christian comedian and singer-songwriter Tim Hawkins will hit the stage at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 18, at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts in Franklin. Hawkins’ unique style delivers gut-punching stand-up, trademark song parodies, and original music that provides for a show suitable for the entire family.
Hawkins is a self-taught guitarist with a knack for impressions. His stand-up material is vigorous and based on real-life experiences.
HART’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’
The Haywood Arts Regional Theatre in Waynesville will be kicking off its 2018 Main Stage Season with a hilarious adaptation of the Jane Austen classic “Sense and Sensibility” at 7:30 p.m. May 10-12 and at 2 p.m. May 13.
The show will be performed in and around the audience in the new Fangmeyer Theater. Expect an immersive experience that is intended to pull you into the world of 18th century England.
The production is being directed by Henry Williamson and is an artistic collaboration with his Mountain Art Theater of Asheville, responsible for some of the most creative adaptations of works by Shakespeare over the past several seasons at HART. They
He speaks about topics such as marriage, parenting, and homeschooling in a way that is easy to relate to, and is always good for a laugh.
Some of Hawkins’ most famous parodies include “Cletus Take the Wheel,” a spin-off of Carrie Underwood’s hit, “Jesus Take the Wheel,” and “The Government Can,” a spinoff of Sammy Davis, Jr.’s, “The Candy Man.”
Show tickets start at $30 each and a special Uber Fan Package is available for $65. It includes preferred seating, concert laminate, $10 merchandise voucher, and a meet-andgreet with Hawkins after the show.
To purchase tickets, visit www.greatmountainmusic.com or call 866.273.4615.
always bring a fresh take and broad talent to what they do.
This playful new adaptation of Jane Austen’s beloved novel, by Kate Hamill, follows the fortunes (and misfortunes) of the Dashwood sisters, the sensible Elinor and hypersensitive Marianne, after their father’s sudden death leaves them financially destitute and socially vulnerable. The play is full of humor, emotional depth, and bold theatricality. “Sense and Sensibility” examines our reactions, both reasonable and ridiculous, to societal pressures. When reputation is everything, how do you follow your heart?
The theater has discounted tickets for the performances on Thursday, May 10. Harmons’ Den Bistro at HART is also open before all performances with a new menu and features karaoke on Saturday nights.
To make reservations, call 828.456.6322 or visit www.harttheatre.org.
251 SHELTON STREET • WAYNESVILLE
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Books
Discovering a writer who sings to my heart
Time to have some fun.
And Adultolescence (Keywords Press, 2017, 248 pages) is just the place to go for that fun.
Before picking up this collection of poetry, random thoughts, and drawings, I had never heard of Gabbie Hanna, author, comedian, singer-songwriter, and YouTube star, where she has well over five million subscribers.
No — I bumbled into Ms. Hanna in the public library, where I have met so many other women, all of them, of course, winking at me from the bookshelves. I picked up Gabbie Hanna — by that, I mean her book of course, and not her — because of the unusual title, opened the book, and found myself smiling at her goofy sense of humor, revealed in both her words and her drawings. Here was a young woman with an edge who could make me laugh.
When I first began turning the pages of Adultolescence, Hanna’s style and format brought to mind Shel Silverstein’s Where The Sidewalk Ends. After taking the book home, I was delighted to find in her “Author Note” credit given for the inspiration of Silverstein.
To give you the flavor of Adultolescence, let’s serve up a few of Hanna’s poems and observations.
Yum
if the world ended tomorrow, what would you do today?
I’d hurriedly make my way to an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Breakfast
did you ever wake up in the morning and really want a bowl of cereal but instead you were out of milk
Former educator releases new work
so instead of milk you used orange juice and instead of cereal you used vodka?
Burn
I smashed my smoke detector because I’d rather die a fiery painful death than listen to it judge me every time I cook bacon.
Some of the more amusing pieces occur when Hanna draws two people in profile looking at each other and speaking. In “Perspective,” for example, we have this dialogue:
Man: I had a nightmare we drove off a highway. A truck was coming straight for us and we were headed for certain death. Woman: That’s not a nightmare, that’s a dream Man: In our final moments, I told you that I loved you. Woman: Ok, that’s a nightmare.
Much truth is spoken in jest, the old saying goes, and behind the humor of Gabbie Hanna is an examination of her insecurities, fears, and desires, and in some sense, those of her generation, particularly those of other 20something women. Hanna’s tart observations, especially about love and sex, her casual use of what were once called obscenities, her concerns about appearance, friendships, success, death, and the meaning of existence: all are here, if not readily apparent, lurking just beneath the surface of the words. She pokes fun at some of the obsessions of her generation, but always with sympathy and understanding, often
Author Nancy Nason Guss will host a book reading and signing for her new work The Spirit of the Tree and Other Backyard Tales at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at Blue Ridge Books in Waynesville. What if every person could just be at peace for one hour every day in quiet contentment? Then all can experience a moment in joy that costs nothing. Sometimes, we need to forget our wearying world and just reconnect to this creation we have had the privilege to join. Each story in this collection is uniquely written and illustrated with pictures or drawings that bring the words to life.
Guss is a retired educator of 37 years. Prior to retiring, she was a principal at two education centers for five and a half years, an assistant principal at a middle and high school for 11 and a half years, and a middle school language arts teacher for 20 years.
because those same obsessions belong to her as well.
An example: young people under 30 these days are often accused of being self-focused,
lovers of mirrors, victims, in a way, of the selfesteem movement of the last 30 years. In “Self-Help,” Hanna addresses this infatuation with the ego:
they say focus on me, be the best I can be. I think I’ve had enough time to myself; I’m ready to share it with someone else.
She holds a Master’s of Education degree in Educational Leadership and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Speech Communication/ English Education, both from the University of South Florida, Tampa. 828.456.6000 or www.blueridgebooksnc.com.
New book on General Lee
Author Michael Hardy will be presenting and signing copies of his new book, General Lee’s Immortals: Branch-Lane Brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865, at 6 p.m. Monday, May 14, in the Hunter Library on the campus of Western Carolina University. Hardy is a widely recognized expert and author on the Civil War. He is a graduate of the University of Alabama and was named North Carolina Historian of the Year in 2010. His work has appeared in national magazines, and he blogs regularly at Looking for North Carolina’s Civil War.
When he is not researching and writing, Hardy and his family
if I’m honest, I’ve had enough of me.
In “Abuse,” Hanna addresses the “snowflakes” of her generation:
i’m so sorry you were in the blast radius when some delicate flower had his ego shattered.
We also find here the skittishness and uncertainty of adultolescents, young people, again mostly female, with one foot in adolescence and the other in adulthood. Here are the missed connections of the heart, the “two steps forward, one step back” that often make up the time for people between 18 and 30, the awkward, stumbling walk toward maturity. In “Anxiety,” she gives that dread emotion a human persona:
there isn’t a cause that you could explain, but i’ll claw my way in like a cat in the rain.
i don’t pretend to make much sense, but i’ll twist up your nerves like a barbed-wire fence.
if you find yourself without a qualm, i’ll send chills up your spine with my icy palm although your whole to-do list is ticked, i’ll set fire to your cheeks like a match to a wick. no matter the time or the month or the season, i’ll ruin your day without rhyme or reason.
So cheers to Gabbie Hanna! And cheers to the public library, where I find authors like her who sing in my heart.
(Jeff Minick is a writer and a teacher. minicko301@gamil.com)
volunteer as interpreters at several historic sites in Western North Carolina and East Tennessee.
The event will be hosted by the Western North Carolina Civil War Round Table. For more information, visit wnccwrt.blogspot.com.
City Lights poetry reading
Robert Lee Kendrick will read from his new collection of poetry What Once Burst with Brilliance at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.
Kendrick’s poems have been featured in Tar River Poetry, Xavier Review, Louisiana Literature, South Carolina Review, Kestrel, The Cape Rock, The James Dickey Review, The San Pedro River Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, and The Main Street Rag. His first chapbook, Winterskin, was published by Main Street Rag in 2016. To reserve copies of his books, call City Lights Bookstore at 828.586.9499.
Writer Jeff Minick
A firm foundation
SCC graduates 100th class of future National Park Service officers
BY HOLLY KAYS STAFFWRITER
It’s been a full morning on top of a full week, and I’m tired when I file into the fluorescent-lighted classroom Tuesday afternoon. A large, laminated topo map of the Cashiers area is sitting on the table when I arrive at my seat, a dry erase marker and protractor tool arranged on top.
“This session is to get you oriented in the basic use of map reading,” the instructor — an active duty officer who asked he not be named — says once everybody’s seated. “It’s such a critical skill.”
This is day two of woodland tracking, a three-day course offered with Southwestern Community College’s National Park Service Seasonal Law Enforcement Training, headquartered at SCC’s Jerry Sutton Public Safety Training Center in Franklin. The training is a four-month endeavor that covers everything from Constitutional law to woodland tactics, preparing recruits to land a seasonal law enforcement job at one of the nation’s 417 national park units.
For today, I’m posing as a recruit, but tomorrow I’ll go back to my identity as a reporter for The Smoky Mountain News. My classmates, meanwhile, are learning everything they can in preparation for what they hope will be a long and fulfilling career protecting America’s most beautiful places.
MORETHANAGOODTIME
These days, GPS is ubiquitous, but sometimes it fails, the instructor continues. The batteries die, or an ill-timed fall causes the unit to drown in a pool of water. But if you
know how to use a map and compass, you’ll never be lost. Even outside of its basic use for getting from point A to point B, there’s so much you can learn from a map. You can anticipate how wildfire might move across a particular terrain, outline a hiking route to avoid the steepest or muddiest sections, or identify places where the land might form a chokepoint or ambush opportunity when chasing a fugitive.
The longer I listen, the more I begin to see the map in front of me as a magic object, a genie waiting to be unleashed. Its powers seem so vast, and the tools so simple — a laminated sheet of paper, a magnetized needle set in plastic, and a small piece of metal marked with degrees. How hard could it be?
We run through a quick exercise, practicing how to use the protractor to figure out the coordinates of a particular location. Then we leave the classroom, taking our fledgling skills on the road.
Standing in a field alongside the Little Tennessee River Greenway, just behind the Macon County Public Library, I hold a compass and a piece of paper outlining my marching orders. It’s just a list of numbers, with each line saying something like “170 degrees, 220 meters.” Somehow, from that, my partners and I are supposed to locate a tiny marker hidden somewhere 220 meters away from
here, at an azimuth of 170 degrees.
The instructor has prepared us for this challenge in one important way — by laying out a 100-meter transect for me and the other students to walk, counting how many paces it takes to get from one end to the other. With that number in mind, I can figure a reasonably accurate number of steps required to make 220 meters, and the compass in my hand should make the 170-degree measure pretty self-explanatory.
It all proves a lot harder than expected. Following the azimuth requires tromping through knee-high grass, blackberry brambles, fields of poison ivy. It’s hard to keep the compass flat as I raise it to eye level, trying to divine where, exactly, the arrow is pointing when I estimate its trajectory across the landscape. After 90 minutes in the field, my partners and I still haven’t found the final marker in our three-leg course.
“You have to practice,” says John Garrison, another one of the instructors, as he helps my team close the gap to the final marker. “It’s not something in the normal course of our duties that we do every day. It’s one of those things you have to make time. But it can be fun. Orienteering can be a lot of fun.”
He’s right. I had a good time. The mental challenge, the sunshine and the idea that this is a skill that could keep me found even when
“I’ve had the opportunity to hire and work with folks from many of the different programs, but I can tell you that I know that the one at SCC is one of the top programs.
— J.D. Lee, Parkway Superintendent
technology conspires to get me lost — it’s all appealing.
But as the group gathers for a quick wrapup before dispersing toward dinnertime, Garrison reminds them — and me — that these skills are about more than having fun. In the real world for which these students are preparing, these skills can be the difference between life and death.
“I’m encouraging you to find opportunities to practice these skills and take them to a little bit higher level, because what we gave you to do is just kind of a wake-up to there’s a whole other realm of skills out there,” he says. “Like with tracking — do any of you feel comfortable enough with this that you’d like to track a lost child tonight?
“No,” the class replies in unison.
“Neither do I,” says Garrison. “So we need to practice. We need to keep our skills up. It’s an important obligation as a professional.”
ANEVOLVINGPROGRAM
That’s a message that Garrison has been teaching to SCC students for years, and it’s a message he learned himself when he was a student in this same program at SCC, launching a career that culminated with a post as superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway, a job from which he retired in 2009.
Currently, only seven schools in the United States offer the training — of the seven, SCC has the second-oldest program, and it’s widely recognized as going above and beyond to teach recruits skills outside of what the Park Service actually requires. This spring marks SCC’s 40th year offering the program and the graduation of its
With a map, compass and protractor, a skilled officer can navigate even the most remote regions. Holly Kays photo
100th class of seasonal law enforcement trainees.
“This school has been very innovative through the years,” said Garrison. “Like with this block of (tracking) instruction — no one else offers it. But Southwestern has been doing it for many, many years.”
These days, Garrison works as an instructor for Tactical Woodland Operations School, which runs the three-day add-on course that SCC offers to teach tracking and orienteering. Ordinarily, the tracking course is five days, not three — the version trainees receive is a lightning-speed version that hits the high points of map use, tracking and decision-making. But while students might not become masters of the art in such a short time, Garrison said, exposing them to this aspect of the field is vital.
“The subject areas that we hit on, all of them have the potential of being high-risk, and that’s why we call it high-risk woodland ops. The manhunt aspect speaks for itself,” he said. “In my career, five friends, five people I worked with, were shot and killed in the line of duty.”
The danger is real, he said, and it’s imperative that students get the foundation they need to be as proficient as possible at what they do.
Over the past 40 years, the training program has seen some dramatic changes.
Bryson City resident John Mattox, who graduated with the first class in 1978 and went on to a 35-year career with the Park Service — retiring as special agent in charge of the Eastern U.S. — said in a video segment shot by SCC that when he was a student, the program was only 30 days long, compared to the four-month training in place now. The evolution has been continual, and intentional.
“Each year this program has brought in new, innovative ideas. Frankly, I think in a lot of ways they were beating out the federal programs in training,” Mattox said in the video. “They had the flexibility to bring in new stuff, new instructors and new ideas. And the instructors just had so much passion for what they were doing, it was one of the things that really impressed me over the years.”
Current Blue Ridge Parkway
Superintendent J.D. Lee is also a graduate of SCC’s program, completing it in the spring of 1987.
“It set the course for my entire career with the National Park Service,” Lee said.
At the time, Lee had freshly graduated with a bachelor’s degree in natural resources, and he was surprised by how foreign the language and terminology of the training seemed when he first arrived, though he quickly found himself enjoying and excelling at the tasks presented. Lee recalls a program staffed by instructors with years of experience in legal issues and law enforcement. They drilled into him the need to always be thorough, honest and trustworthy when building a law enforcement career.
“I’ve had the opportunity to hire and work with folks from many of the different programs, but I can tell you that I know that the one at SCC is one of the top programs,” Lee said. “I know that the folks that teach there are former rangers that I’m personally
familiar with. I know that their commitment to the National Park Service is partly what makes that program what it is today.”
In 2015, SCC was chosen as the pilot school for the Park Service’s expanded training program, which featured 650 hours of instruction rather than the 400 hours required previously. The Park Service currently requires 679 hours, but SCC’s curriculum includes 727 training hours with an optional 40-hour training in wildland fire after graduation, available for no additional cost.
Despite the program’s quality, SCC is farand-away the least expensive program of the seven available nationwide. For the four months of instruction, tuition is only $180, with a $1,500 charge for supplies. The rest of the cost is tied up in uniform purchases, food and housing. By contrast, the program at Temple University in Pennsylvania — the closest, geographically, of the remaining programs — costs $8,500.
“When I began in ‘93 helping part-time, it was a 10-week program that they were trying to cram 500 hours in,” said Curtis Dowdle, dean of public safety training at SCC. “They were going 10 hours a day, five or six days a week. We were trying to cram so many hours into a short period of time that we were fatiguing not only the students, first and foremost, but the staff and resources we had. When I had the opportunity to affect some change, we went to more of an academy setting.”
It’s still a lot in a short period of time — most weeks, class runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, though there are some six-day weeks as well — but it’s more spread out than it used to be. The goal is to finish up in time for students who have landed summer positions to go take advantage of
those opportunities.
And opportunity, it seems, is something that many of these students have. Of the 22 students in the 100th class, 17 of them had already landed jobs by graduation April 27. Of the five who hadn’t yet, one wasn’t looking for employment that summer and several had applied to parks that hadn’t yet announced their summer hires.
“That’s pretty good placement,” said Tyler Goode, SCC’s director of public relations. “Any university in the world would give anything to have that kind of placement before graduation.”
FUTUREOFTHEFIELD
The future Park Service law enforcement officers who make up SCC’s 100th class represent a diversity of backgrounds.
There are former firefighters and EMS medics, military veterans and fresh college grads. Some grew up in the city, others in the country, and others a little bit of everywhere. Six of them are women, and 16 of them are men. They’re mostly in their midto-late 20s, and they mostly share the same dream — to make a living working in and protecting some of the most amazing places on earth.
“I’ve wanted to be a park ranger for a really long time, probably since I was 12 or so,” said Nicolette Palmer, 25, of Philadelphia. “I haven’t really worked toward it entirely since then, but that’s definitely my goal now, and I’d like for that to be my chosen career path and just do that for the rest of my working days.”
Training has been hard, but it’s been good — especially the outdoors parts, said Palmer’s classmate Dean Hill, 30, of New
Jersey. The academy includes plenty of hands-on lessons in shooting, driving, defense tactics and law enforcement scenarios, but before arriving at that more interactive part of the program, there was a lot of classroom time to endure.
“The first month, two months was pretty slow because it was all classroom, pretty much,” said Hill. “We’re all outdoorsy people. Being stuck in a classroom eight, 10, 12 hours a day sucks. The first month, monthand-a-half it dragged on, but once we started going to the firing range, doing driving and defense tactics, that’s when it sped up, and the last two months have flown by.”
Hill has already experienced two seasons with the Park Service, spending the past couple summers as a firefighter and paramedic at Yellowstone National Park. He loved the place and wanted to go back — conversations with law enforcement rangers there convinced him to enroll in the academy. Now he’s headed for a post-academy position with the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River.
For Murphy resident Joshua Jones, 29, Park Service law enforcement seemed a natural fit to augment his other career, with the U.S. Army Reserve. Though he hasn’t been on active duty for four years, he’s been in the military police for seven years total.
“I figured if I wanted to have the best of both worlds, I could work for the national parks and for the Army Reserves side,” he said.
Because of his military background, certain parts of the law enforcement training have been more like refresher courses for skills he’s already developed. But other sec-
Students adjust their compasses to complete an orienteering course. Holly Kays photo
tions have been full of new information.
“I think at the start I would have been a little nervous had I just been thrown into the job, but now I feel a lot more confident,” he said.
That’s a good thing, because he’s about to put his skills to the test, having secured a position with Little River Canyon National Preserve in Alabama.
CONFIDENCETOACT
The officers move into position, veins coursing with a combination of nervousness and excitement. After a seemingly endless planning process, the complex investigation is about to come to a head. Three teams of six law enforcement officers are poised to serve search warrants, simultaneously, to three involved locations.
A fourth six-person team will be on standby, ready to react should any of the three primary teams need a hand. It’s just three minutes till go time when Team One sends a message — they’ve come across a car accident, and it’s bad, a true mass casualty situation. They’ll need to hang back to provide first aid and scene control, missing the scheduled warrant service. The clock is ticking, but nobody can seem to get in touch with Team Three.
It’s plain that the original plan isn’t going to work. So the question is, what should be Plan B?
Luckily for the roomful of Park Service trainees tasked with making the decision,
this isn’t a real situation — at least, not yet. But before they’re faced with a real crisis, Garrison tells them, they need to spend time nailing down what their thought process should be when forced to shift gears on the fly.
“It’s a continuous process,” Garrison tells the class. “Decision-making is not just a one-
time (thing). It’s ‘if this doesn’t work I’m going to do this.’”
A good officer, he says, should be constantly thinking about contingencies. If the first line of attack fails, an alternate approach should be at the ready.
There are certain cues to look for, aptly named “watch out” situations when it would be easy for something to go wrong. Know what those situations are, Garrison tells the class. Avoid them, and should they prove unavoidable think through a Plan B, Plan C and Plan D to follow should the situation change.
“Situational awareness is a key skill for us to develop,” he says.
communicate so that people will understand the changes?”
There’s another question the officers should ask themselves, Garrison says.
“What are the consequences in each one of those (contingencies), and of course the top consequence we want to think about is the safety of all involved. What’s the worst that could happen?” he asks.
If the two available teams go forward as planned, the subjects of that last warrant served could be alerted that something is up.
“So we might lose some evidence,” Garrison says. “Unless that’s a serial killer, that’s a partial failure of the mission, but it’s not a critical failure. Sometimes the mission is not going to be perfect.”
But practicing those thought processes, those questions that a good officer will cycle through when circumstances change, is essential to ensuring that everybody stays as safe as possible and missions come off as perfectly as possible — even when the most carefully laid plans get blown loose.
When it comes to facing the hypothetical scenario before them, students throw out several different ideas. They could call off the warrant execution and spend the next three minutes trying to get in touch with Team Three — maybe the radio’s only lost signal temporarily, and they’ll be back online soon. They could take a more proactive approach, and go searching for Team Three. They could just move ahead with serving warrants at two of the three locations, and save the third one until more manpower is available. Or perhaps, some teams suggest, the backup team should go in to substitute for Team One, which would then become the new backup team.
To untrained ears, that sounds like perhaps the best plan — all the warrants still get served, and none of the suspects gets a heads-up beforehand, preventing them from destroying evidence and possibly compromising law enforcement’s ability to prosecute.
But Garrison sees it differently.
“That’s a pretty detailed plan,” he says. “So now we’re starting to shuffle the board. Anybody ever played the little shell game? That’s what we’re starting to do now is shuffle everything around. Can we adequately
Because, while learning the mechanics of shooting, tracking, making arrests and using a compass can be fun and empowering — especially for the outdoors enthusiasts who tend to make up each class of trainees — the students are learning them for a real-life purpose. Upon graduation, they’ll go into jobs as commissioned law enforcement officers, working in some of America’s most beautiful and remote places, facing an unforeseeable medley of situations that they must find themselves prepared to handle.
Years later, Garrison still thinks about the five friends he lost during his Park Service career, killed in the line of duty. They create a backdrop that underscores every minute of the training hours he’s responsible for.
“If there’s a very high risk, we need to be as proficient as we can,” he said. “And nobody else is giving them this foundation.”
An instructor shows students the proper way to salute. SCC photo
Red wolf status grim, review says
A five-year red wolf status review, released April 24, showed that only about 40 red wolves are left in the wild with only three known breeding pairs remaining.
The review, released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, recommends no change in the red wolf’s status as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The USFWS is expected to release a new proposed rule by late summer with alternatives for public comment covering future management of the “non-essential, experimental population” of red wolves in eastern North Carolina.
“Currently, the NEP (non-essential, experimental population) is declining more rapidly than the worst-case scenarios … it is obvious that there are significant threats to the NEP in eastern North Carolina and conditions for recovery of the species are not favorable and a self-sustainable population may not be possible,” the review reads.
In September 2016, the USFWS announced that red wolves would be removed from the majority of the five-county area of eastern North Carolina where they’d been reintroduced. The move followed nearly two years of evaluating the feasibility of reintroduction efforts, and a lawsuit in which environmental groups claimed the USFWS was not doing enough to protect the wolves. Reintroduction was once attempted in the Smokies, but failed.
The nonprofit Wildlands Network has issued a statement expressing its disappointment with the review, even as it supports the
A red wolf walks along a roadside in eastern North Carolina. Donated photo
decision to keep red wolves protected under the Endangered Species Act.
“We’re disappointed that the five-year status review appears to take great pains to describe the North Carolina wild population of red wolves as unsustainable, without acknowledging the fact that the decision by FWS leadership to functionally abandon the program is what has led to the striking recent declines in red wolf numbers since 2012,” said Ron Sutherland, conservation scientist for Wildlands Network. “They stopped releasing new wolves from captivity, they stopped managing coyotes, and they’ve sat back and watched as gunshot mortality shredded the red wolf population.”
Adventure through summer
However, the report does state that the agency will look for other places in the United States to reintroduce the red wolf — just not in eastern North Carolina.
“Our goal is to build a network of partnerships that will work together to establish recovery goals, an implementation plan and execute on the groundwork to reach the jointly-established recovery goals for the red wolf,” the review reads. “The red wolf remains a conservation-reliant species. While its genetic viability can be managed through the captive population, there is little chance of a naturally occurring wild population existing without active management.”
An adventure-filled camp for rising seventh and eighth-graders in Jackson County is now enrolling for a session Aug. 6 to Aug. 9. Camp WILD is a day camp that includes an overnight camping trip Aug. 8. Campers meet at the Cullowhee Recreation Center parking lot each morning and then head out to explore creeks, trails and more all around Jackson County. Themes explore soil science alternative energy, forestry, wildlife and aquatics through hiking, snorkeling and various other outdoor adventures. $35 for the week, with scholarships available. Space limited. Funded by the Duke Energy Nantahala Area Soil and Water Conservation Grant Program and sponsored by the Jackson Soil & Water Conservation District. Register with Jane Fitzgerald, 828.586.5465 or janefitzgerald@jacksonnc.org.
HCC students take fifth at national competition
The Haywood Community College student chapter of The Wildlife Society finished fifth place overall against 24 other schools at the 2018 Wildlife Society Conclave.
HCC’s team has placed in the top five seven times over the past eight years. In 2018, the 19 students placed first overall in art competitions, fifth overall in intellectual competitions, fifth overall in team field competitions, ninth overall in physical competitions and twelfth overall in quiz bowl.
The event was held at Louisiana State University. Finishing ahead of HCC were the University of Georgia, University of Tennessee and N.C. State University. HCC was one of only two two-year schools at the event.
The conclave provides college students with valuable hands-on training in wildlife management and conservation, as well as
networking amongst students, faculty and wildlife professionals. Activities include a range of team field competitions, quiz bowl, art and photography contests, guest speakers and opportunities for professional development. A mini-grant from the college’s foundation helped pay for the trip.
Job Corps center expands opportunities
The Oconaluftee Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center is increasing its partnerships and training options, providing more opportunities for the students it works with.
Ranked as one of the Top 50 Job Corps Centers in the country, the center houses 110 students, with about 25 percent of those working locally, statewide or regionally at various jobs. The Job Corps provides advanced training opportunities such as commercial drivers license attainment,
information technology and natural resource career opportunities through partnerships with The Nature Conservancy, Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards, National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs and U.S. Forest Service. Pipelines of employment are available through partnerships with ConMet, Asplundh, Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, Duke Energy, Blue Ridge Health Care, Southwestern Community College, CocaCola and more.
The center is located within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park bordering the Qualla Boundary and is operated by the Forest Service under an interagency agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor. The Job Corps program is the nation’s largest residential, educational and career technical training program that prepares economically disadvantaged youth ages 16 to 24 for productive employment.
For enrollment information, contact Jackson Pierce at 919.954.0691.
Swap your starter plants
Anyone with extra starter plants they’re looking to unload — or swap — is invited to the third annual Starter Plant Exchange, 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Friday, May 18, at the Haywood County Public Library in Waynesville.
The event is hosted by the Seed Library of Waynesville, which is located on the library’s upper floor. Anyone with an N.C. Cardinal Library card can take up to 10 free seed packets from the Seed Library, with seeds donated by area seed savers. Seed donations are welcomed, as long as they are clearly marked and include the donor’s contact information. No hybrids are included, only open-pollinated seeds.
The plant exchange is a drop-in event for flowers, vegetables and herbs only. No regis-
tration is required, but plants must be clearly labeled.
Kathy Olsen, 828.356.2507 or kolsen@haywoodnc.net.
The plant doctor is in
The Haywood County Plant Clinic is open for business, with Master Gardeners on hand to answer plant-related questions of all sorts.
Topics taken on include lawns, vegetables, flowers, trees, ornamental plants, disease, insects, weeds, wildlife problems, soils, fertilizers, frost damage and cultural and chemical solutions to pest problems.
The clinic is open every business day at the Haywood County Extension Center on Raccoon Road in Waynesville. Call 828.456.3575 or stop by.
Flower sale planned for Maggie Valley
Hanging flower baskets and brooms will be on sale over Mothers Day weekend at the Maggie Valley Inn, with proceeds funding various charities.
The Maggie Valley Lions Club will be holding the sale from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, May 12, and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, May 13. Charities supported by the sale will include Brighter Visions and the Haywood Blind Fund.
Keith Kelley, 828.400.6294 or kkelley7278@gmail.com
The N.C. Arboretum will display its bonsai collection for the first time in 2018 on World Bonsai Day May 12. File photo
Bonsais and dahlias coming to arboretum
Bonsais and dahlias will take over the N.C. Arboretum in Asheville on Saturday, May 12, with World Bonsai Day and the annual Dahlia Tuber Sale both held that day.
From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., representatives of the Blue Ridge Bonsai Society will be on site presenting informational programs related to basic bonsai care, also discussing
Search for blue ghosts
desirable bonsai design features. In addition, the arboretum will fully display its outside bonsai exhibit for the first time in 2018.
Meanwhile, the Carolinas Dahlia Society will host its annual dahlia tuber sale 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. inside the arboretum’s education center.
Events are free with standard $14 parking fee.
For a short time each year, blue ghost fireflies hover the forest floor with a lingering bluish glow, and a series of twilight tours at the Cradle of Forestry in America this month will offer a chance to see the show firsthand.
The “In Search of Blue Ghosts Twilight Tour” will be held 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. May 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 30 and 31, and June 1 and 2. The evening will begin with an educational presentation in the outdoor amphitheater, with a walk along the paved Forest Festival Trail beginning at 9:30 p.m. A variety of habitats along the trail host several firefly species in addition to blue ghosts. Gates to the Cradle of Forestry close at 10:30 p.m.
Tickets are $8 for children ages 4 to 12 and $16 for those over 12. Register by selecting a date at cradleofforestry.com/event/blue-ghost-tour.
The Cradle of Forestry is located along U.S. 276 in the Pisgah National Forest, about 35 miles south of Waynesville.
Strive to leave cars behind
A panel exploring themes of shared, sustainable and active transportation will convene 1 to 4:30 p.m. Saturday, May 18, at Sierra Nevada Brewing in Mills River.
The inaugural Strive Beyond Summit, the event is part of a month-long campaign called Strive — formerly Strive Not to Drive — spreading the word about how people can live happier and healthier when they move through the area without cars.
One panel, “The Business of Bicycle and Pedestrian Access,” is moderated by Asheville on Bikes Executive Director Mike Sule and examines ways that the region can build an economy and individual companies can establish more reliable workforces and customer bases by increasing bicycle and pedestrian access.
A second panel, “Shared Mobility from Home to Work to Retirement,” will be mod-
erated by Ritchie Rozzelle, director of Strive and regional transportation coordinator at Land of Sky Regional Council. The panel will explore how shared transportation can improve life for all while allowing those who most need these options to get where they need to go more reliably.
A question-and-answer period, as well as a meet-and-greet, will follow the panels.
Hosted by Sierra Nevada Brewing Company and cosponsored by AARP, Explore Asheville, Land of Sky Regional Council, Biltmore Farms Hotels, MountainTrue and Asheville on Bikes.
Free, but space is limited. Register at www.strivebeyond.org. A list of other events planned in Haywood, Transylvania, Buncombe and Henderson conties is also available at the site.
No Man’s Land Film Festival comes to WNC
Quality Trailers, Quality Prices
The No Man’s Land Film Festival, the only adventure film festival featuring exclusively female athletes, will come to New
boots, strap on a climbing harnesses or hit the trail.” said Julie Mayfield, co-director of MountainTrue, which is co-hosting the event. “Our mountains and rivers need more champions, and those of us who spend time playing in the outdoors are more likely to fight to protect the outdoors.”
Films will feature jaw-dropping stories of women capable of amazing athletic feats, and the stories of those who have risen above stereotype or disability to reclaim agency over their own lives.
Belgium Brewing Company at 8 p.m. Wednesday, May 16, in Asheville.
“Through the film festival, we want to inspire women to lace up their hiking
Glenville no wake zone request denied
Jackson County’s request for a no wake zone on Lake Glenville has been denied following an April 26 vote from the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, but the commission’s law enforcement division will increase boating safety patrols this summer to promote public safety.
The request for a no wake zone originated last summer when a group of Glenville residents told county commissioners they were concerned about the speed with which boats traveled through a narrow area popular with swimmers. Commissioners asked the Wildlife Commission to evaluate the request, but the resulting report recommended that the request be denied.
Stare at Smokies stars
A stargazing event with Smoky Mountain skies as the backdrop will begin at sundown Friday, May 18, at the Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center at Purchase Knob in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Live music, desserts and drinks will make the night a festive one on Purchase Knob, a grassy bald at more than 5,000 feet in elevation. After dark, the Astronomy Club of Asheville will provide telescopes to view the night sky.
$75. Organized by Friends of the Smokies, with proceeds funding science education in the park. Sign up online at
This is the festival’s third year and its first screening in Western North Carolina. In its first year of operation, No Man’s Land Film Festival sold out at every screening. Free, and open to all.
The majority of the county commissioners still wanted to pursue the request, and a Jan. 29 public hearing drew seven speakers, some in favor of the no wake zone and some opposed. Following the public hearing, Republican commissioners Charles Elders, Mickey Luker and Ron Mau voted to petition the Wildlife Commission to approve the designation, with Democratic commissioners Brian McMahan and Boyce Deitz voting no.
A no wake zone designation would have required boats to travel at idling speed so as to create no appreciable wake. According to a press release from the Wildlife Commission, in reviewing no wake zone applications the commission balances the need to reduce water safety hazards with the rights of all recreationists to enjoy public trust waters without undue regulation.
Telescopes await a night of stargazing. Donated photo
The Mirnavator is one of the films that will play at the No Man’s Land Film Festival. Donated photo
Improve your tennis game
Tennis season is here, and the Waynesville Parks and Recreation Department is offering a variety of opportunities to hit the courts, with programs for people aged 6 to 106. All events take place at the Waynesville Recreation Park’s Donnie Pankiw Tennis Center.
n Summer tennis camps for kids and teens will be available in June and July.
Juniors Tennis Summer Camp will be 3 to 5 p.m. July 16 to 20, divided into groups for ages 6 to 9 and ages 10 to 13.
Teens
Kakera at 703.966.7138 or rkakareka@me.com.
n Tennis classes for adult beginners will be offered 6 to 7 p.m. on Wednesdays, with one session May 23 to June 21 and a second session July 12 to Aug. 9. The five sessions will cover the essential strokes of the game, scorekeeping and beginning strategies for success. Lessons are taught by PTR-certified tennis teaching pro Rumi Kakareka and cost $60 for five session. Space limited. Register with Kakareka at 703.966.7138 or rkakareka@me.com.
Twelve Mile project moves forward
document and detailed project maps are available under the Scoping tab on the project website, www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=48776.
An open house 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 9, at the Haywood County Extension Center in Waynesville will give the latest on the Twelve Mile Project in Haywood County, to take place within the Appalachian Ranger District of the Pisgah National Forest. Comments are sought as well.
Tennis Summer Camp will be 3 to 5 p.m. June 19 to 24, broken down into beginners and advanced sessions for ages 14 to 18. The camps are taught by PTR-certified tennis teaching pro Rumi Kakareka and cost $10 per session. Space limited. Register with
Join a softball team
n A set time for senior citizens to play tennis will be offered 9 a.m. to noon Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Oct. 28. The sessions are intended for players with an intermediate or higher skill level. $1 per day. Contact Donald Hummel at 828.456.2030 or dhummel@waynesvillenc.gov.
An organizational meeting for summer adult and church softball leagues will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 15, at the Waynesville Recreation Center. The meeting is for all softball players interested in playing for a team in the adult league or the church softball leagues. The season starts Monday, June 18, with games played on selected evenings on the Vance Street softball field. Donald Hummel, 828.456.2030 or dhummel@waynesvillenc.gov.
{Celebrating the Southern Appalachians}
The project aims to improve the diversity of forest age and species, manage for productive wildlife populations, provide a sustainable timber output, improve water quality and passage for aquatic organisms and provide access for public use and access. Activities will include prescribed burning, stand improvement, thinning, timber harvest, woodland management, small patch old growth designation, creation and expansion of permanent wildlife fields, improved stream crossings and other actions.
To be most useful, comments should be submitted by June 2. The proposed action may be modified or other alternatives may be developed if issues are identified as a result of these comments. The proposed action
Submit comments online at https://bit.ly/2ri7bbb. Comments can also be mailed to Appalachian Ranger District, USDA Forest Service, Attn: Jason R Herron, 632 Manor Road, Mars Hill, North Carolina, 28754. Oral or handwritten comments can be delivered to the Appalachian Ranger District Station 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
NHC celebrates 50 years with spaghetti
The Nantahala Hiking Club will celebrate its 50th birthday with its annual spaghetti dinner, 6 p.m. Friday, May 11, at the First Presbyterian Church’s Tartan Hall in Franklin. This year’s program is dedicated to NHC founder Rev. A. Rufus Morgan, with several honorees and guest speakers invited to share.
Smoky Mountain Living celebrates the mountain region’s culture, music, art, and special places. We tell our stories for those who are lucky enough to live here and those who want to stay in touch with the place they love.
Subscribe or learn more at smliv.com
One of NHC’s largest fundraisers of the year, dinner is $10 per person, with attendees asked to bring a dessert to share and their own dishes, eating utensils and cups. www.nantahalahikingclub.org.
Smokies chief ranger retires
After 35 years of service — 30 of them in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park — Chief Ranger Steve Kloster has retired.
“We have been fortunate to have Steve here in the Smokies,” said Superintendent Cassius Cash. “He has admirably served and protected the people of this park, while working in partnership with many federal, state and local agencies that support the park.”
Kloster has worked as chief ranger since May 2015, holding various other law enforcement positions throughout his career in the Smokies and serving as acting chief ranger five times between 2009 and 2015.
Originally from upstate New York, Kloster began his career with the National Park Service in 1983 as a park technician at Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site in Pennsylvania, working at a variety of other parks before arriving in the
Smokies in 1988.
He’s had an illustrious and decorated career, with awards and honors received during his 35 years of service including the Department of Interior’s Exemplary Act Award of 1992 and the Georgia Medal for Valor, both for the rescue of a pilot involved in a mid-air collision. He received the Special Act Award in 1993 for a parkwide marijuana eradication program in the Smokies, the Quality Step Increase for outstanding performance in East District operations in 1998, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Employee of the Year Award and the 2001 National Park Service Southeast Region Harry Yount Award for protecting resources and serving visitors in an exemplary way.
Steve Kloster. NPS photo
Rumi Kakareka swings his racket. Donated photo
The Twelve Mile Project will affect the Pisgah National Forest in northeastern Haywood County. USFS map
COMMUNITY EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
• Special Olympics Opening Ceremonies are scheduled for 10 a.m. on Friday, May 11, on the front lawn of the Waynesville Recreation Center.
All phone numbers area code 828 unless otherwise noted.
Event, which is set for June 2 at Bloemsma Barn in Franklin. 349.3200 or smpregnancycc@dnet.net.
• The I-26 West NC Welcome Center (Mile Marker 6; in Mars Hill) will have its 15th annual Tourism Day from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on Friday, May 11. Featuring fiddler Roger Howell and Friends and the Bailey Mountain Cloggers –23-time national clogging champs. Exhibits and activities. 689.4527 or vsealock@nccommerce.com.
• An “OSHA 10-Hour Certification” class will be held from 4-9 p.m. on May 15-16 at Haywood Community College in Clyde. Cost: $85. Info or to register: 627.4669 or rgmassie@haywood.edu.
• The Haywood Community College 2018 graduation ceremonies will be held Friday, May 11, at 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. Both ceremonies will take place on the Clyde campus in the Charles M. Beall Auditorium, Student Services Building. This year, over 645 certificates, diplomas and degrees will be awarded. 627.2821
• Southwestern Community College will hold three graduation ceremonies on May 12 at its Jackson Campus in Sylva: 10 a.m. for Health Sciences programs, 1:30 p.m. for Arts, Sciences and Early College; and 4 p.m. for Career Technologies. www.southwesterncc.edu or 828.339.4000.
• Western Carolina University will hold its commencement ceremonies on May 11-12 at the Ramsey Center in Cullowhee at the following times: 7 p.m. on May 11 –WCU’s Graduate School; 10 a.m. on May 12 – colleges of Arts and Sciences, Education and Allied Professions and Fine and Performing Arts; 3 p.m. on May 12 – colleges of Business, Health and Human Sciences. Livestream: www.wcu.edu/commencement-stream.aspx.
• Oconaluftee Indian Village will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday through Nov. 10. As you step into the Oconaluftee Indian Village, you’re transported back to witness the challenges of Cherokee life at a time of rapid cultural change. Tour guides help you explore the historic events and figures of the 1760’s. www.cherokeehistorical.org.
B USINESS & E DUCATION
• A workshop entitled “Presenting with Impact” will be offered from 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 10, at WCU’s instructional site at Biltmore Park in Asheville. Instructor is Neela Munoz, consultant and coach with Ignite CSP. For more info or to register: pdp.wcu.edu.
• A forum designed to show you how to spread your message through local media is scheduled for 9-11 a.m. on Thursday, May 10, at the Franklin Chamber of Commerce. Hear from Franklin Press publisher Rachel Hoskins and Macon County News reporter Brittney Lofthouse. RSVP: 524.3161.
• An American Canoe Association Level 4 Swift Water Rescue course will be offered May 12-13 by Landmark Learning in Cullowhee. Register: www.landmarklearning.edu.
• An “Instrument Building (Guitars)” class will be offered from 5-9 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays from May 14-June 20 at Haywood Community College in Clyde. Cost: $380. Info or to register: 627.4669 or rgmassie@haywood.edu.
• An American Canoe Assocaition Level 2 Essentionals of Canoeing Instructor course will be offered May 15-17 and May 24-26 by Landmark Learning in Cullowhee. Register: www.landmarklearning.edu.
• Haywood Community College’s Small Business Center will hold a business jump-start series from 4:30-6:30 p.m. on Tuesdays from May 15-29 at the Canton Public Library. Topics include “How to Start a Business;” “Financing Your Business” and “How to Write a Business Plan.” For info or to register: SBC.Haywood.edu or 627.4512.
• Registration is underway for a “WordPress Summit for the Small Business Owner” that will be offered by Haywood Community College’s Small Business Center on May 15 in Clyde. For info or to register: SBC.Haywood.edu or 627.4512.
• The Downtown Waynesville Association’s annual Merchant Appreciation Social will be held from 5:307:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 15, at the Patio Bistro in Waynesville. 456.3517 or www.downtownwaynesville.com.
• A workshop on hiring effective nonprofit leaders will be offered by Western Carolina University’s Office of Personal Growth and Enrichment from 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 17, at WCU’s instructional site at Biltmore Park in Asheville. Instructor is Alex Comfort, CFRE. For info or to register: pdp.wcu.edu.
• Registration is underway for the Spring Aging Conference that will be presented by the Southwestern Commission’s Area Agency on Aging from 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 17, in the Burrell Building of Southwestern Community College in Sylva. 4 CEU’s offered. Fee: $25. Scholarships available: sarajane@regiona.org.
• A Civilian Marksmanship Program is scheduled for 6 p.m. on May 17 at Mountain Range in Waynesville. mountainrangewnc.com.
• A Conceal Carry Class is scheduled for 9 a.m. on May 22-23 at Mountain Range in Waynesville. mountainrangewnc.com.
• Haywood Community College’s Small Business Center will offer a free E-Commerce livestream series on Tuesday, May 22, in the college auditorium in Clyde. “A Guide to Selling on Etsy for Small Business” is from 1-4 p.m.; “A Guide to Selling on Amazon for Small Business” is from 5-8 p.m. Speaker is Nick Hawks. Register or get info: SBC.Haywood.edu or 627.4512.
• Learn about what “fake news” actually is and how to spot it on Wednesday, May 23 at 2 p.m. at the Waynesville Library. Presented by Katerina Spasovska, Associate Professor of Communications at WCU
• Registration is underway for a Conversational French Language course that will be offered by Western Carolina University’s Office of Professional Growth and Development from 6-7 p.m. on Tuesdays from May 29June 27 in Room 139 of the Camp Lab Building in Cullowhee. Cost: $79. For info or to register: learn.wcu.edu.
• A Wilderness First Responder course will be offered June 2-10 and June 30-July 8 by Landmark Learning in Cullowhee. Register: www.landmarklearning.edu.
• Community Choir will be offered from 7-9 p.m. on Wednesdays through June 13 at Haywood Community College in Clyde. Cost: $60. Info: 627.4669 or rgmassie@haywood.edu.
• Registration is underway for a Wilderness Upgrade for Medical Professionals course that will be offered June 11-15 by Landmark Learning in Cullowhee. Register: www.landmarklearning.edu.
FUNDRAISERSAND B ENEFITS
• The Smoky Mountain Pregnancy Care Center is seeking donations for its silent auction at the Annual Barn
• The second-annual Ducks on the Tuck fundraiser’s duck draw raffle will be held Friday, May 11. Tickets cost $5 each or six for $25. More than 30 prizes including a 49-inch LED Insignia flat-screen television. All funds benefit New Century Scholars program, which helps students in Jackson, Macon and Swain Counties attain their education at Southwestern Community College. Tickets available from New Century Scholars, program coordinators or the SCC Foundation (339.4227 or k_posey@southwesterncc.edu). Info: www.southwesterncc.edu/ducksonthetuck.
• “Birdhouse Bash” silent auction is on May 12. Winners announced at 3 p.m. Bid on birdhouses created by area residents. Info: 476.4231 or 734.1570.
• The Maggie Valley Lions Club will sell hanging flower baskets and assorted brooms on Mother’s Day Weekend, from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday, May 12, and 11 a.m.-3 p.m. on Sunday, May 13. Proceeds benefit various charities. Info: 400.6294 or kkelley7278@gmail.com.
• Friends of the Smokies’ second-annual stargazing event is scheduled for Friday, May 18, at Purchase Knob. Fundraiser for science education in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Tickets: $75. Info and tickets: FriendsOfTheSmokies.org/donate or 452.0720.
• The inaugural Tuck Trout Trot will begin at 8:30 p.m. on Friday, May 18, at the Jackson County Greenway between Sylva and Cullowhee. A portion of proceeds from this self-timed 2.2-mile fun run and walk will benefit Jackson County Parks and Recreation’s outdoor programming. $18. Registration ends May 2. Sign up at www.runsignup.com.
• The annual WNC QuickDraw will be from 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday, May 19, at Laurel Ridge Country Club in Waynesville. The cocktail social will include an hourlong QuickDraw Challenge, silent auction and refreshments. Live artists will be working in the public eye, creating timed pieces, which will then be auctioned off. Proceeds go to art classroom supplies in schools and college scholarships for art-related studies. $75 per person. www.wncquickdraw.com or 734.5747.
• Haywood County Arts Council is matching, dollar for dollar (up to $10,000) it receives through June 30. Donations enhance art education, local artists and innovation in art. To donate: www.haywoodarts.org or visit the gallery at 86 North Main Street in downtown Waynesville.
• The Community Table has a Blue Plate Special fundraiser from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. on the last Wednesday of each month from January through October in Sylva. $7 minimum donation; dine-in or carry-out. 586.6782.
VOLUNTEERS & VENDORS
• Volunteers are being sought to help with Lake Junaluska’s “Beautification Day” from 8 a.m.-noon on Wednesday, May 9. Sign-up for one-hour shifts: www.lakejunaluska.com/volunteer, 454.6702 or rwatkins@lakejunaluska.com.
H EALTH MATTERS
• The American Red Cross will have a blood drive from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. on May 10 at the Swain County Chamber of Commerce in Bryson City. 488.3681.
• The Jackson County Senior Center will offer a Caregiver Education Class at 10 a.m. on the third Monday of every month in the Board Room of the Department of Aging in Sylva. The session on May 21 will focus on providing person-centered care to people with hoarding concerns. 586.5494• The Confident Caregiver Series, designed for caregivers of those with
Visit www.smokymountainnews.com and click on Calendar for:
■ Complete listings of local music scene
■ Regional festivals
■ Art gallery events and openings
■ Complete listings of recreational offerings at regional health and fitness centers
■ Civic and social club gatherings
dementia and Alzheimer’s, will be held from 1-2 p.m. on Thursdays from May 10-24 in the Waynesville Library Auditorium. Registration required: 356.2507 or kolsen@haywoodnc.net.
• A program on “Combat Trauma: The Return to Family and Civilian Life” is set for 3-4 p.m. on Monday, May 14, at the Waynesville Library Auditorium. Learn about combate-related Post Traumatic Stress. Registration required: 356.2507 or kolsen@haywoodnc.net.
• A monthly health series on “Mind and Body: Health, Nutrition & You” continues with a presentation on “Mental Health Awareness and Suicide Prevention” at 6:30 p.m. on May 15 at the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva. 586.2016.
• The International Essential Tremor Foundation support group meets at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, May 16, at the Jackson County Senior Center Room No. 135. Learn coping skills and available products to help. Info: 736.3165 or teddyk1942@gmail.com.
• Registration is underway for affordable health screenings that will be offered on May 22 at LifeWay Community Church in Sylva. Screenings check for plaque buildup in arteries, HDL and LDL cholesterol levels, diabetes risk, bone density, kidney and thyroid function and more. Packages start at $149; payment and other options available. 877.237.1287 or www.lifelinescreening.com.
• Codependents Anonymous meets at 5:30 p.m. on Fridays at the Friendship House on Academy Street in Waynesville. Group of people desiring healthy and fulfilling relationships. 775.2782 or www.coda.org.
• Community First Aid and CPR classes are offered from 6-10 p.m. on the first Tuesday of each month at Haywood Community College in Clyde. Info: 564.5133 or HCC-CPRraining@haywood.edu.
• A support group for persons with Multiple Sclerosis as well as family, friends and caregivers meets at 6:45 p.m. on the third Tuesday of each month in the conference room of the Jackson county Public Library in Sylva. 293.2503.
• A grief support group, GriefShare, will be held from 67:30 p.m. on Wednesdays through May 23 at First Alliance Church in Franklin. Topics include grief’s challenges, guilt, anger, relationships with others, being stuck and what to live for now. $15 cost covers materials; scholarships available. Register: www.franklincma.com. Info: 369.7977, 200.5166, scott@franklincma.com or www.griefshare.org.
• Nutrition counseling and diabetes education are offered through Macon County Public Health in Franklin. 349.2455.
• Western Carolina University’s student-run, Mountain Area Pro Bono Physical Therapy Clinic will be open from 6-8:30 p.m. on Wednesdays of each month. 227.3527.
• HIV and syphilis testing will is offered during normal business hours at Jackson County Health Department.
• A support group for anyone with MS, family & friends meets monthly at 6:45 p.m. on the 3rd Tuesday of each
month at the conference room of Jackson Co. Library in Sylva. No Fee, sponsored by National MS Society. Local contact: Gordon Gaebel 828-293-2503.
• A “Walk With A Doc” program is scheduled for 10 a.m. each Saturday at the Lake Junaluska Kern Center or Canton Rec Park.
MyHaywoodRegional.com/WalkwithaDoc.
• Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families (ACA) meets at noon on Saturdays at the First United Methodist Church Outreach Center at 171 Main St. in Franklin. 407.758.6433 or adultchildren.org.
• The Haywood County Health & Human Services Public Health Services Division is offering a Night Clinic from 4-6:30 p.m. on the third Monday of every month in Waynesville. Services include family planning, immunizations, pregnancy testing, STD testing and treatment. Appointments: 452.6675.
• The Jackson County Department of Public Health will offer a general clinic from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. 587.8225.
• A Food Addicts Anonymous Twelve-Step fellowship group meets at 5:30 p.m. on Mondays at Grace Church in the Mountains in Waynesville. www.foodaddictsanonymous.org.
• Big Brother/Big Sister, a one-evening preparation class for children who are about to greet a new baby into their family, is offered for children ages 3-10 at Haywood Regional Medical Center. 452.8440 or MyHaywoodRegional.com/ParentClasses.
• Mothers Connection, an ongoing social gathering for mothers and their babies, meets from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. on Thursdays excluding holidays at Haywood Regional Medical Center. 452.8440 or MyHaywoodRegional.com/ParentClasses.
• A support group meeting for those with Parkinsons Disease and their caregivers will be held at 2 p.m. on the last Wednesday of the month at the Haywood County Senior Resource Center in Waynesville. 356.2800.
• Dogwood Insight Center presents health talks at 6:30 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month.
• Angel Medical Center’s diabetes support group meets at 4 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month in the AMC dining room. 369.4166.
• A free weekly grief support group is open to the public from 12:30-2 p.m. on Thursdays at SECU Hospice House in Franklin. Hosted by Four Seasons Compassion for Life Bereavement Team. 692.6178 or mlee@fourseasonscfl.org.
• A free, weekly grief support group will meet from 12:30-2 p.m. on Thursdays at the SECU Hospice House in Franklin. 692.6178 or mlee@fourseasonscfl.org.
• “ECA on the Move!” – a walking program organized by Jackson County Extension and Community Association – meets from 9-10 a.m. on Mondays through Thursdays. It’s an effort to meet the American
Heart Association’s recommendation of 10,000 steps per day. 586.4009.
R ECREATIONAND FITNESS
• An organizational meeting for the Independent Sports Association’s adult and church softball leagues is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 15, at the Waynesville Recreation Center. Season starts Monday, June 18. Info: 456.2030 or dhummel@waynesvillenc.gov.
• Registration is underway for adult beginner tennis classes, which will be offered from 6-7 p.m. on May 23-June 21 or July 12-Aug. 9 through the Waynesville Parks and Recreation Department. $60 for five sessions. 703.966.7138 or kakareka@me.com.
P OLITICAL
• A joint campaign kickoff fundraiser for Haywood County’s N.C. House candidates, Joe Sam Queen and Rhonda Cole Schandevel, will be held from 5:30-7 p.m. on Wednesday, May 9, at HART Theatre in Waynesville. Live music and refreshments. Info: 508.2191 (Queen) or 246.2036 (Schandevel).
• The Haywood County Homeowners Association Forum will host a meeting with N.C. Representative Mike Clampitt from 1-3 p.m. on Friday, May 11, in the lower level auditorium of the Waynesville Library. Info: 926.6436.
• The Swain County Democratic Party meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Tuesday, May 15, at the Swain County Senior Center in Bryson City. 488.1118.
AUTHORSAND B OOKS
• Robert Lee Kendrick will read from his new collection of poetry What Once Burst with Brilliance at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva. To reserve copies of his books please call City Lights Bookstore at 586.9499.
• Author Nancy Nason Guss will host a book reading and signing for her new work The Spirit of the Tree and Other Backyard Tales at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at Blue Ridge Books in Waynesville. 456.6000 or www.blueridgebooksnc.com.
• Author Michael Hardy will present and sign copies of his new book “General Lee’s Immortals: Branch-Lane Brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia 1861-1865” at 6 p.m. on Monday, May 14, at Hunter Library in Cullowhee. Hosted by Western North Carolina Civil War Round Table. Wnccwrt.blogspot.com.
S ENIORACTIVITIES
• The Waynesville Parks and Recreation Department has set a time for senior citizens (55-older) to play tennis from 9 a.m.-noon on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays through Oct. 28 at the Donnie Pankiw Tennis
Puzzles can be found on page 54. These are only the answers.
Center in Waynesville. For players intermediate or higher skill level. $1 per day. 456.2030 or dhummel@waynesvillenc.gov.
• The Waynesville Recreation Center will offer additional courts for pickleball for seniors from 7 a.m.-noon on Mondays through Fridays. For ages 60-up. Free for members; $3 for nonmembers. 456.2030 or dhummel@waynesvillenc.gov.
• The Mexican Train Dominoes Group seeks new players to join games at 1 p.m. on Tuesdays and Fridays at the Haywood County Senior Resource Center in Waynesville. 356.2800.
• A Silver Sneakers Cardio Fit class will meet from 1011 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Haywood County Senior Recreation Center. For ages 60 and above. Cost is regular admission fee to the rec center or free for members at the Haywood County Senior Resource Center in Waynesville. 356.2800.
• Book Club is held at 2 p.m. on the third Wednesday of the month at the Haywood County Senior Resource Center in Waynesville. 356.2800
• Senior croquet for ages 55 and older is offered from 9-11:30 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Vance Street Park in front of Waynesville Recreation Center. Free. For info, contact Donald Hummel at 456.2030 or dhummel@waynesvillenc.gov.
• A Hand & Foot card game is held at 1 p.m. on Thursdays at Haywood County Senior Resource Center in Waynesville. 356.2800.
• Senior Sale Day is on the third Friday of every month at the Friends of the Library Used Bookstore. Patrons 60 and older get 20 percent off all purchases. Proceeds benefit the Sylva Library.
• Pinochle game is played at 10 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Haywood County Senior Resource Center in Waynesville. 356.2800.
• Mah Jongg is played at 1 p.m. on Wednesdays at Haywood County Senior Resource Center in Waynesville. 356.2800.
• A Canasta card game is set for 1 p.m. on Mondays at the Haywood County Senior Resource Center in Waynesville. 356.2800.
• A Parkinson’s Support Group is held at 2 p.m. on the last Wednesdays of each month at the Haywood County Senior Resource Center in Waynesville. 356.2800.
K IDS & FAMILIES
• The Jackson County Department of Public Health is now offering “eWIC” cards rather than paper vouchers for the N.C. Women, Infants and Children program. 587.8243.
• REACH of Macon County will host its 10th annual American Girl Tea Party “If You Follow Your Dreams You Can Reach The Stars” from 3-4 p.m. on Saturday, May 12, at the Trinity Assembly of God in Franklin. Tickets:
$25 (adult) or $10 (child). Info. 369.5544 or reach@reachofmaconcounty.org.
• Swim lessons will be offered from 4:30-5:30 p.m. on Mondays through Thursdays from May 14-24 at the Waynesville Recreation Center. $35 for nonmembers; $30 for members. 456.2030 or lkinsland@waynesvillenc.gov.
• A girls volleyball academy will be offered for grades 3-8 on Tuesdays and Sundays from through May 29 at the Waynesville Recreation Center. $5 per session for third through fifth grades. $10 for sixth through eighth grades on Tuesday; $5 on Sundays. Instructor is Tuscola High volleyball coach Pam Bryant. 456.2030 or dhummel@waynesvillenc.gov.
• A program on “Nature Nuts: Fishing” will be offered to ages 4-7 from 9-11 a.m. on May 22 and May 29 at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Brevard. Registration required: https://tinyurl.com/bo4zckn.
• A program entitled “Eco Explorers: Crayfish” will be offered to ages 8-13 from 1-3 p.m. on May 22 and May 29 at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Brevard. Registration required: https://tinyurl.com/bo4zckn.
• Registration is underway for a summer youth event at Lake Junaluska, geared toward grades 6-12, featuring Andy Lambert (speaker) and Jimmy Atkins (worship band) from June 17-21. Register: 800.222.4930 or www.lakejunaluska.com/summeryouth.
• Registration is underway for a summer youth event at Lake Junaluska, geared toward grades 6-12, featuring Charlie Conder (speaker) and The Advice (worship band) as well as an outdoor movie, from June 24-27. Register: 800.222.4930 or www.lakejunaluska.com/summeryouth.
• Registration is underway for Youth Tennis Camps that will be offered this summer through the Waynesville Parks and Recreation Department. Juniors tennis camp is from 3-5 p.m. on July 16-20; Teen camps (ages 14-18) are from 3-5 p.m. on June 19-24. Teacher is Rumi Kakareka, a certified teaching pro with 20-plus years of experience. Register: 703.966.7138 or rkakareka@me.com.
• Registration is underway for Camp WILD – a day camp for students entering seventh or eighth grade –from Aug. 6-9 with an overnight camping trip on Aug. 8. Presented by the Jackson County Soil & Water Conservation District. Registration deadline is July 1. $35 (scholarships available) To register: 586.5465 or janefitzgerald@jacksonnc.org.
K IDSFILMS
• “Avengers: Infinity War” will be showing at 7 p.m. May 9-11, 1 p.m., 4 p.m., and 7 p.m. May 12-13, and 7 p.m. May 14-17 at The Strand on Main in Waynesville. Check website for tickets, 38main.com.
• “Peter Rabbit” will be shown at 6:30 p.m. on May 11 at the Mad Batter Food & Film in Sylva. Free. 586.2016.
• “A Dog’s Purpose” will be shown at 6:30 p.m. on May 23 at the Mad Batter Food & Film in Sylva. Free. 10% of proceeds from sales of food will go to ARF. 586.2016.
• “James and the Giant Peach” will be shown at 6:30 p.m. on June 1 at the Mad Batter Food & Film in Sylva. Free. 586.2016.
• “A Wrinkle in Time” will be shown at 6:30 p.m. on June 9 and 7 p.m. on June 10 at the Mad Batter Food & Film in Sylva. Free. 586.2016.
• The Highlands Biological Foundation will offer a series of nature-themed films and documentaries shown at 6:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Thursday of March in Highlands. For info on each show, call 526.2221.
• A family movie will be shown at 10:30 a.m. every Friday at Hudson Library in Highlands.
eight wines in each session. First session was April 23. For more information and/or to register, click on www.waynesvillewine.com.
ON STAGE & I N CONCERT
• HART will present “Sense and Sensibility” through May 13 in Waynesville. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. on May 10-12; and at 2 p.m. on May 13. Reservations: 456.6322 or www.harttheatre.org.
• Musicians Anne & Rob Lough will perform from 3 to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at the Waynesville Library Auditorium.
• The Highlands Performing Arts Center will screen “Live via Satellite” the National Theatre of London’s production of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” at 1 p.m. Saturday, May 12. www.highlandspac.org or 526.9047.
A&E
FESTIVALSAND S PECIAL EVENTS
• The 16th annual Whole Bloomin’ Thing festival will take place from 9 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 12, in the Historic Frog Level District of Waynesville.
Children’s activities, local growers and artisans/crafters, flowering baskets, herbs, outdoor decor, live music, and more. Businesses in the district will also be open, including a coffee cafe, brewery and art gallery. Service animals only. Rain or shine.
www.historicfroglevel.com.
• The Migratory Bird Festival will be held from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on Saturday, May 12, by the Balsam Mountain Trust at Bridge Park in Sylva. Interactive games, crafts and live birds of prey demonstrations. https://bit.ly/2GTGR1e.
• No Man’s Land Film Festival is at 8 p.m. on May 16 at New Belgium Brewing Company at 21 Craven Street in Asheville. Mountaintrue.org.
• The Icons of Hotrodding Festival is scheduled for May 18-19 at the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds. Featuring 1950s and ‘60s hotrod and custom car and truck event, contests and more. http://kustomkempsofamerica.com.
• The Strawberry Jam festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, May 19, at Darnell Farms in Bryson City. Enjoy local music, local food, fresh fruits and vegetables, craft vendors, plow demonstrations, childrens play area, hayrides, fishing, camping, and much more. 488.2376.
• The 2nd annual Hook, Line & Drinker festival will be held from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. Saturday, May 19, at the Bridge Park Pavilion in downtown Sylva. Admission to the family friendly festival is free with donations encouraged. Reusable “Hook, Line & Drinker” souvenir cups will be available for $5. Souvenir cups are required for beer purchases. 586.2155 or www.hooklinedrinkerfest.com.
• The Maggie Valley Spring Rally in the Smokes – a bike rally, car show, bike & trike show and more – is May 24-26 at the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds. www.maggievalleyrallys.com.
F OOD & D RINK
• Bosu’s Wine Shop in Waynesville will be hosting a six-session class and wine tasting dedicated to “Exploring the World of Wine with Pete Ricci.” All classes run from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Mondays. Classes are $49 each. Participants will taste six to
• Christian comedian and singer-songwriter Tim Hawkins will hit the stage at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 18, at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts in Franklin. Show tickets start at $30 each and a special Uber Fan Package is available for $65. It includes preferred seating, concert laminate, $10 merchandise voucher, and a meet-and-greet with Hawkins after the show. www.greatmountainmusic.com or 866.273.4615.
• Franklin Church of the Nazarene will present Mountain Joy Gospel Singing Group at 11 a.m. on May 20. 550.5460.
CLASSESAND PROGRAMS
• “Russia’s Foreign Policy?” – part of the “Discuss the World! Great Decisions series – will be held from 5:15-6:45 p.m. on Thursday, May 10, in the Waynesville Library Auditorium. Registration required: 356.2507 or kolsen@haywoodnc.net. Questions: dem32415@aol.com.
• Western North Carolina Woodturners Club will meet at 10 a.m. on the second Saturday every month at the Bascom in Highlands.
• The “Mother’s Day Gemboree” will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 11-13 at the Robert C. Carpenter Community Building in Franklin. Rough and cut gems, minerals, fine jewelry, supplies, beads, door prizes, dealers, exhibits, demonstrations, and more. 369.7831. www.franklin-chamber.com.
• The Spring Balsam Arts/Craft Show is from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on Saturday, May 12, at the Balsam Fire Department. Local handmade arts and crafts. Portion of entry fees benefits the fire department.
• “Paint Nite Waynesville” will be held at 7 p.m. on Thursday May 17 at Frog Level Brewing in Waynesville. There will also be a special Mother’s Day paint event at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, May 13. Sign up for either event on the Paint Night Waynesville Facebook page or call Robin Arramae at 400.9560. paintnitewaynesville@gmail.com.
• Civil War artifacts and history will be presented at “Stories from the Past” from 6-8 p.m. on Monday, May 14, at Western Carolina University’s Hunter Library in Cullowhee. Memberships to the Friends of the Hunter Library start at $25 annually. 227.7307.
• “Natural Perfume” class will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 15 at Directions Salon in Clyde. Come learn how to make a personalize perfume using essential oils and protect your skin from chemicals of other perfumes. Cost is $18 and includes wine & cheese and a personal blended perfume in a pretty glass bottle. RSVP by calling Wende Goode at 246.2256 or by email at goodeoils@gmail.com.
• The Haywood County Arts Council (HCAC) will host the “Adventures in Acrylic” art classes from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. starting May 15 at Gallery & Gifts in downtown Waynesville. This is a class to explore different ways of using acrylic paint instructed by local artist, Dominick DePaolo. Come meet DePaolo and learn more
about the class at 5:30 p.m. Monday, May 14, at Gallery & Gifts. 452.0593.
• A Social Media & Technology Awareness Night is scheduled for 6-7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 15, at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts.
• A two-day Calligraphy class will be held on Wednesday, May 16th and the following Wednesday, May 23rd, from 10:00 a m. to 12:00 noon at Dogwood Crafters. Talented artist Cheryl Thompson, a long-time member of Dogwood Crafters, will guide participants in learning the basic strokes and lettering techniques used in this beautiful form of writing. Cost for the class is $14.00 and registration is requested by May 9th. 586.2248.
• “China and America: The New Geopolitical Equation” – part of the “Discuss the World! Great Decisions series – will be held from 5:15-6:45 p.m. on Thursday, May 17, in the Waynesville Library Auditorium. Registration required: 356.2507 or kolsen@haywoodnc.net. Questions: dem32415@aol.com.
• A jewelry making workshop will be offered on Thursday, May 17th from 10 a.m. to noon at Dogwood Crafters. Judy Wilkey, will lead participants in learning the basics of beaded jewelry making by creating either a bracelet or a pair of earrings. Cost for the class is $7.00. Register by May 10th. 586.2248.
• The Cartoogechaye Christian Fellowship Craft Fair is scheduled for May 19. Yard sale is from 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Bake sale and country breakfast as well. Setup: 7 a.m. Spot for yard sale is $10. Info: 369.5834 or cvvanhook@gmail.com.
• Registration is underway for a “Warhammer Class” that will be led by Brock Martin of WarFire Forge from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on May 26-27 at Jackson County Green Energy Park in Dillsboro. Cost: $400; materials included. Preregistration required: 631.0271. Info: www.JCGEP.org.
• “Media and Foreign Policy” – part of the “Discuss the World! Great Decisions series – will be held from 5:15-6:45 p.m. on Thursday, May 24, in the Waynesville Library Auditorium. Registration required: 356.2507 or kolsen@haywoodnc.net. Questions: dem32415@aol.com.
• Registration is underway for a “Kukri Making Class” that will be led by Brock Martin of WarFire Forge from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on May 12-13 at Jackson County Green Energy Park in Dillsboro. Cost: $400; materials included. Preregistration required: 631.0271. Info: www.JCGEP.org.
• Registration is underway for an “Axe-Making Class” that will be led by Brock Martin of WarFire Forge from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on June 9-10 at Jackson County Green Energy Park in Dillsboro. Cost: $380; materials included. Preregistration required: 631.0271. Info: www.JCGEP.org.
• Registration is underway for a “Beginning Bladesmithing Class” that will be led by Brock Martin of WarFire Forge from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on June 23-24 at Jackson County Green Energy Park in Dillsboro. Cost: $300; materials included. Preregistration required: 631.0271. Info: www.JCGEP.org.
• An indoor flea market will take place every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday in March at Friends Of The Greenway Quarters at 573 East Main St. in Franklin. Registration fee will go to FROG.
• The Old Armory will host an indoor flea market from 7 a.m.-2 p.m. on every third Saturday. Booths are $10 each for selling items. 456.9207.
ARTSHOWINGSAND GALLERIES
• Gallery 1 Sylva will celebrate the work and collection of co-founder Dr. Perry Kelly with a show of his personal work at the Jackson County Public Library Rotunda and his art collection at the gallery. All work is for sale. Admission is free. Children are welcome. Gallery 1 has regular winter hours from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Wednesday and Friday, and noon to 4 p.m. Saturday. art@gallery1sylva.com.
• A “Creations in Oil & Handcrafted Mugs” exhibit will be on display through May 26 at the Haywood County Arts Council in Waynesville. HaywoodArts.org.
• An art reception for Pearl Tait’s “Down to Earth” exhibit is scheduled for 2-4 p.m. on Saturday, May 19, in the Macon County Public Library in Franklin. Exhibit on display throughout May.
• Graduating students of Haywood Community College’s Professional Crafts program will exhibit their best work at their graduate show through June 24 at the Southern Highland Craft Guild Folk Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Asheville. It’s open from 9 a.m.6 p.m. daily. Opening reception is from 3-5 p.m. on Saturday, May 12. Info: 627.4673 or creativearts.haywood.edu.
• The annual Airing of the Quilts will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 12, in downtown Franklin. An old tradition in the settler days was to air out your quilts after a cold winter in the spring air and sunshine. thestreetsoffranklin@gmail.com or www.franklinchamber.com.
• The Franklin Uptown Gallery has opened for the 2018 Season. The artist exchange exhibit will feature artwork created by members of the Valley River Arts Guide from Murphy. 349.4607.
• New artist and medium will be featured every month at the Haywood County Senior Resource Center in Waynesville. 356.2800.
FILM & S CREEN
• “The Insult” will be shown at 7:30 p.m. on May 10 at the Mad Batter Food & Film in Sylva. Free. 586.2016.
• “Black Panther” will be shown at 7:30 p.m. on May 17, 6:30 p.m. on May 18, 7 p.m. on May 19, 6:30 May 25 and 7 p.m. on May 26 at the Mad Batter Food & Film in Sylva. Free. 586.2016.
• “Game Night” will be shown at 7:30 p.m. on May 24 at the Mad Batter Food & Film in Sylva. Free. 586.2016.
• “Monty Python & The Holy Grail” will be shown at 7:30 p.m. on May 31 at the Mad Batter Food & Film in Sylva. Free. 586.2016.
• “Red Sparrow” will be shown at 7 p.m. on June 2 and 7:30 p.m. June 7 at the Mad Batter Food & Film in Sylva. Free. 586.2016.
• Free movies are shown at 7:30 p.m. every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at Mad Batter Food & Film in Sylva. Madbatterfoodfilm.com.
Outdoors
• An open house will offer the latest info on the Twelve Mile Project in Haywood County from 5-7 p.m. on Wednesday, May 9, at the Haywood County Extension Center in Waynesville. Project aims to improve the diversity of forest age and species and more. Proposed documents and maps: www.fs.usda.gov/project/?project=48776. Comments accepted at https://bit.ly/2ri7bbb.
• The Swain County Farmer’s Market is held from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. every Friday through October on Island Street in downtown Bryson City. 488.3681 or chamber@greatsmokies.com.
• Jackson County Farmers Market runs from 9 to noon on Saturdays at Bridge Park in downtown Sylva.
• A program on peregrine falcons will be offered from 8-11 a.m. on May 16 at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife
Education in Brevard. For ages 8-older. Registration required: https://tinyurl.com/bo4zckn.
• A “Basic Neotropical Songbird” workshop will be offered on May 12 and May 17 - at Alarka Laurel. $55. Register: www.paypal.me/cedartree. Info: alarkaexpeditions@gmail.com, 371.0347 or alarkaexpeditions.com.
• “Strive Beyond,” a presentation on local transportation alternatives, will be held from 5-7 p.m. on Thursday, May 10, at Boojum Brewing in Waynesville. 734.2743.
• Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute will present Dr. Stella Kafka, director of the American Association of Variable Star Observers on the evening of Friday, May 11, in Rosman. Reservations required. Cost: $20 per adult (or $35 including dinner); $15 for seniors/military ($30 including dinner); or $5 for ages 6-10 (or $13 including dinner). Children 5-under are admitted free with dinner. Register: www.pari.edu and search for event calendar. Info: cblythe@pari.edu.
• The Nantahala Hiking Club will celebrate its 50th birthday with its annual spaghetti dinner at 6 p.m. on Friday, May 11, at the First Presbyterian Church’s Tartan Hall in Franklin. $10 per person. www.nantahalahikingclub.org.
• The N.C. Arboretum will observe World Bonsai Day and hold its annual Dahlia Tuber Sale on Saturday, May 12, in Asheville. Dahlia sale is from 9 a.m.-2 p.m.; representatives of Blue Ridge Bonsai Society will present informational programs from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. $14 parking fee.
• A series of rabies vaccination clinics will be offered at the following locations/times in Franklin and Highlands on May 12: 9-11 a.m. at East Franklin Elementary; 10 a.m.-noon at Iotla Valley Elementary; 13 p.m. at South Macon Elementary; 1-3 p.m. at Mountain View Intermediate; 1-3 p.m. at Cartoogechaye Elementary; 9-10:30 a.m. at Highlands Community Center; 11 a.m.-noon at Scaly Mountain Post Office. $10 (cash only) per pet. Info: 349.2106.
• An “Outdoor Skills Series” program on wild edibles and securing water will be offered for ages 12-up from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on May 14 at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Brevard. Registration required: https://tinyurl.com/bo4zckn.
• Cradle of Forestry in America will host an “In Search of Blue Ghosts Twilight Tour” from 8:30-10:30 p.m. on May 15-19; May 22-26 and May 30-June 2, near Brevard. Tickets: $8 for ages 4-12; $16 for 13-up. Register: cradleofforestry.com/event/blue-ghost-tour.
• An “On the Water: West Fork Pigeon River” program will be offered for ages 12-up on May 15 at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Brevard. Registration required: https://tinyurl.com/bo4zckn.
• A program on “Butterflies of the Southern Appalachians” will be offered on May 19 in Macon County. Led by naturalist Jason Love. $65 per person. Register: www.paypal.me/cedartree. Info: alarkaexpeditions@gmail.com, 371.0347 or alarkaexpeditions.com.
• Registration is underway for a “Women in the Woods” trip that’s scheduled for 9 a.m. on Friday, May 19 and will be led by professional naturalist Liz Domingue in the Greenbrier area. Preregistration required: www.smokiesinformation.org/info/backpacking-2018 or 865.436.7318, ext. 349.
• A program on “Fly-Tying for the Beginner” will be offered for ages 12-up from 9 a.m.-noon on May 19 at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Brevard. Registration required: https://tinyurl.com/bo4zckn.
• A program on “Nature Nuts: Fishing” will be offered to ages 12-up from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. on May 21 at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Brevard. Registration required: https://tinyurl.com/bo4zckn.
• A program entitled “Casting for Beginners: Level I” will be offered to ages 12-up from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on May 23 at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Brevard. Registration required: https://tinyurl.com/bo4zckn.
• A rabies vaccination clinic will be offered from 9-10 a.m. on Saturday, May 26, at the Macon County EMS Station in Nantahala. $10 (cash only) per pet. 349.2106.
• A program on Tackle Rigging for Fly-Fishing will be offered to ages 12-up from 9 a.m.-noon on May 26 at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Brevard. Registration required: https://tinyurl.com/bo4zckn.
COMPETITIVE E DGE
• The Lake J 5K Glow Run will embark from Clyde Elementary School at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 11, with crazy glow wear encouraged. Proceeds will support the missions group at Lake Junaluska First Baptist Church. $25 registration through May 10. Register at www.runsignup.com.
• The Cherokee Choices Mothers Day 5K will return to Kituwah Mound near Bryson City at 9 a.m. on Saturday, May 12. Seasoned runners, first-timers and walkers are all welcome. $20 registration, with proceeds benefitting the Cherokee Dialysis Support Group/Dialysis Center. Register at www.runsignup.com.
• The Broyhill 5K will begin at 9:15 a.m. on Saturday, May 12, in Clyde. Proceeds support children at Broyhill Baptist Children’s homes. $20 through May 7. Register at www.imathlete.com.
• The HOSA Med Dash 5K will offer a challenging loop on the campus of Western Carolina University on Saturday, May 19. Proceeds will benefit Smoky Mountain High School students participating in the school’s HOSA chapter. $20. Register at www.imathlete.com.
• Registration is underway for the Merrell Adventure Dash, which features a series of natural and man-made obstacles along a 5K course. The event is May 26 at the Nantahala Outdoor Center. https://tinyurl.com/y8zt5hh5.
FARMAND GARDEN
• A starter plant exchange is scheduled for 11:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. on Friday, May 18, at the Waynesville Library Auditorium. Info: 356.2507 or kolsen@haywoodnc.net.
• The Haywood County Plant Clinic is open every business day at the Haywood County Extension Center on Raccoon Road in Waynesville. To discuss any gardening problem, call 456.3575 or stop by.
• Local farmers can stop by the Cooperative Extension Office on Acquoni Road from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. every fourth Friday to learn about USDA Farm Service Agency programs in the 2014 Farm Bill. Info: 488.2684, ext. 2 (Wednesday through Friday) or 524.3175, ext. 2 (Monday through Wednesday).
• The Macon County Poultry Club of Franklin meets at 7 p.m. on the third Tuesday of each month at the Cooperative Extension Office on Thomas Heights Rd, Open to the public. 369.3916.
H IKING CLUBS
• Nantahala Hiking Club holds monthly trail maintenance days from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. on every fourth Saturday at 173 Carl Slagle Road in Franklin. Info and to register: 369.1983.
• Hike of the Week is at 10 a.m. every Friday at varying locations along the parkway. Led by National Park Service rangers. www.nps.gov/blri or 298.5330, ext. 304.
• Friends of the Smokies hikes are offered on the second Tuesday of each month. www.friendsofthesmokies.org/hikes.html.
• Nantahala Hiking Club based in Macon County holds weekly Saturday hikes in the Nantahala National Forest and beyond. www.nantahalahikingclub.org
• Carolina Mountain Club hosts more than 150 hikes a year, including options for full days on weekends, full days on Wednesdays and half days on Sundays. Nonmembers contact event leaders. www.carolinamountainclub.org
MarketPlace information:
The Smoky Mountain News Marketplace has a distribution of 16,000 every week to over 500 locations across in Haywood, Jackson, Macon, and Swain counties along with the Qualla Boundary and west Buncombe County. For a link to our MarketPlace Web site, which also contains a link to all of our MarketPlace display advertisers’ Web sites, visit www.smokymountainnews.com.
Rates:
■ Free — Lost or found pet ads.
■ $5 — Residential yard sale ads,
■ $5 — Non-business items that sell for less than $150.
■ $15 — Classified ads that are 50 words or less; each additional line is $2. If your ad is 10 words or less, it will be displayed with a larger type.
■ $3 — Border around ad and $5 — Picture with ad or colored background.
■ $50 — Non-business items, 25 words or less. 3 month or till sold.
■ $300 — Statewide classifieds run in 117 participating newspapers with 1.6 million circulation. Up to 25 words.
■ All classified ads must be pre-paid.
Classified Advertising:
Scott Collier, phone 828.452.4251; fax 828.452.3585 classads@smokymountainnews.com
AUCTION
PUBLIC AUCTION
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CREDITORS Having qualified as Executor of the Estate of MARY ANITA BEATTY, deceased, late of Haywood County, North Carolina, this is to notify all persons, firms and corporations having claims against the estate of said deceased to exhibit them to the undersigned on or before the 2nd day of August, 2018, or this Notice will be pleaded in bar of their recovery. All persons indebted to said estate will please make immediate payment.
the 2nd day of May, 2018.
SUBSTITUTE TRUSTEE'S NOTICE OF
THIS ACTION BROUGHT PURSUANT TO THE POWER AND AUTHORITY
Contained within that certain Deed of Trust executed and delivered by Dorothy Anne Mertz dated April 25, 2006 and recorded on May 5, 2006 in Book 327 at Page 699 in the Office of the Register of Deeds of Swain County, North Carolina. As a result of a default in the obligations contained within the Promissory Note and Deed of Trust and the failure to carry out and perform the stipulations and agreements contained therein, the holder of the indebtedness secured by said Deed of Trust made demand to have the default cured, which was not met. Therefore, the undersigned Substitute Trustee will place for sale that parcel of land, including improvements thereon, situated, lying and being in the City of Whittier, County of Swain, State of North Carolina, and being more particularly described in the heretofore referenced Deed of Trust. Said sale will be a public auction, to the highest bidder for cash, at the usual place of sale at the Swain County Courthouse, Bryson City, North Carolina on May 14, 2018 at 11:00AM. Address of property: 330 Cherry Tree Road, Whittier, NC 28789. Tax Parcel ID: 669300878078. Present Record Owners: The Heirs of Dorothy Anne Mertz. The terms of the sale are that the real property hereinbefore described will be sold for cash to the highest bidder. A deposit of five percent (5%) of the amount of the bid or Seven Hundred Fifty Dollars ($750.00), whichever is greater, is required and must be tendered in the form of certified funds at the time of the sale. The successful bidder will be required to pay revenue stamps on the Trustee's Deed, any Land Transfer Tax, and costs for recording the Trustee's Deed. The real property hereinabove described is being offered for sale "AS IS, WHERE IS" and will be sold subject to all superior liens, unpaid taxes, special assessments, and other encumbrances. Other conditions will be announced at the sale. The sale will be held open for ten (10) days for upset bids, as by law required. The sale will not confirm until there have been ten (10) consecutive days with no upset bids having been filed. If for any reason the Trustee is unable to convey title to this property, or if the sale is set aside, the sole remedy of the purchaser is the return of the bid deposit. Furthermore, if the validity of the sale is challenged by any party, the Trustee, in its sole discretion, if it believes the challenge to have merit, may declare the sale to be void and return the bid deposit. In either event, the purchaser will have no further recourse against the Mortgagor, the Mortgagee, the Mortgagee's attorney, or the Trustee. Additional Notice Required for Residential Real Property with Less Than Fifteen (15) Rental Units: An order for possession of the property may be issued pursuant to G.S. 45-21.29 in favor of the purchaser and against the party or parties in possession by the clerk of superior court of the county in which the property is sold. Any person who occupies the property pursuant to a rental agreement entered into or renewed on or after October 1, 2007, may, after receiving the notice of sale, terminate the rental agreement by providing written notice of termination to the landlord, to be effective on a date stated in the notice that is at least 10 days, but no more than 90 days, after the sale date contained in the notice of sale, provided that the mortgagor has not cured the default at the time the tenant provides the notice of termination. Upon termination of a rental agreement, the tenant is liable for rent due under the rental agreement prorated to the effective date of the termination. Albertelli Law Partners North Carolina, P.A., Substitute Trustee David W. Neill, Esq. By: Albertelli Law Partners North Carolina, P.A. David W. Neill, Esq. NC State Bar No. 23396 205 Regency Executive Park Drive Suite 100 Charlotte, NC 28217
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EMPLOYMENT ANNOUNCEMENT
SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS HAYWOOD COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA
The Haywood County Consolidated School System Board of Education is seeking a Superintendent to lead the Haywood County Schools (“HCS”) in their continual goal of excellence. Currently, the System is ranked 11th (top 10%) in the State’s End of Grade Testing. Candidates must have or be qualified to hold a Superintendent license in North Carolina. Three years of Associate Superintendent or equivalent level experience is preferred but not required. A doctorate degree or progress toward a doctorate degree is also preferred but not required. Haywood County Schools enjoy and strongly encourages community support. The System has a close working relationship with County Government, all Municipalities in the County, and Haywood Community College. A successful candidate will be required to live in the boundaries of Haywood County.
A successful candidate must demonstrate ability and success in (1) visionary educational leadership; (2) curriculum and instruction; (3) goal-setting and monitoring achievement; (4) fostering community and intergovernmental partnerships; (5) organization and administration of short-term and long-term strategic planning, budgeting, and personnel and facilities management; (6) strong communication skills and effective team-building; (7) procuring additional funding; (8) visibility and involvement in community activities; (9) leadership in maintaining safe and orderly school environments; (10) planning and funding of school facilities; and (11) decision-making, delegation, and follow-through. Haywood County is located in the western part of the mountain region of North Carolina. The County is centrally located in the Southeast region of the United States and easily reached from most places, either by automobile or plane. Haywood County is located 20 minutes west of Asheville, NC. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Pisgah National Forest comprise some 40 percent of the county's land area and are key elements in the county's economy and culture. Municipalities in Haywood County include the county seat of Waynesville, Canton, Clyde, Maggie Valley, and Hazelwood. With a population of 60,000, Haywood is the third largest county in Western North Carolina. It is home to 546 scenic square miles of mountain vistas, fertile river valleys and rolling foothills. The School System has approximately 7,500 students in 16 schools. Of those, three are high schools, three are middle schools, nine elementary schools, and one Early College High School. HCS is governed by an elected nine member Board of Education. The Board is searching for a Superintendent who will continue the tradition of academic achievement and excellence, with strong school community support and involvement. Applications may be downloaded from the Haywood County Schools’ website: www.haywood.k12.nc.us, or by contacting the School Board Attorney, Patrick U. Smathers at the address, phone number, or email listed below.
Applications must be received in the office of the School Board Attorney, Patrick U. Smathers, by mail or email, no later than May 14, 2018. Questions should be directed to: Patrick U. Smathers, Smathers & Smathers, Attorneys at Law, 118 Main Street, Suite B, Canton, NC 28716; Phone (828) 648-8240 or email: patsmathers@smatherslaw.com. All inquiries will be kept confidential. The Board hopes to make a selection by June 11, 2018.
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FTCC
Fayetteville Technical Community College is now accepting applications for the following positions: Early Childhood Education Instructor (10-Month Contract), Dept. Chair Of Office Administration & Senior Network Communication Technician. For detailed information and to apply, please visit our employment portal at:https://faytechcc.peopleadmin.com
910.678.7342
Internet:http://www.faytechcc.edu
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Place a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each small 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine. Answers on Page 48
The naturalist’s corner
BY DON H ENDERSHOT
Not quite a wrap
The starting date for my annual bird survey for the U.S. Forest Service is May 1. All of our nesting species should be on territory by this date. Some, like Canada warblers, may not be here in great numbers but they will be represented in appropriate habitat.
But just because our nesting neotropical migrants are busy setting up housekeeping doesn’t mean spring migration is over. There are still some northern nesters passing through and could be a few stragglers till nearly the end of May.
One of those late neotropical migrants birders should be keeping an eye — and an ear — out for is the blackpoll warbler. The blackpoll is the most northern nesting of the wood warblers. It has an annual migration of around 12,000 miles. The blackpoll nests from Alaska across Canada and to the Great Lakes and New England and overwinters in northern South America. It can be found nesting in alder thickets north of the Arctic Circle.
A quick note about keeping an ear out for blackpolls: these birds sing almost constantly while they are foraging, which can be
a blessing or a bane to birders. This warbler’s thin zeet-zeet-zeet-zeet song is one of the highest frequency songs in the avian world, coming in at around 10,000 hertz. Birders like myself, who are getting a little longer in the tooth, are always happy to hear that thin zeet-zeet-zeet. Not only because it means blackpolls are about, but because it means that high-frequency hearing is still there.
At first blush, the idea of long-distance migrants being late migrants is a little counterintuitive. I mean, if you’re planning a long trip odds are you want to get an early start because you have lots of ground to cover. But wait, if you’re going out to eat it doesn’t make any sense to get to the restaurant before it opens, right.
Most neotropical migration is timed so birds reach their nesting territories as trees and shrubs begin to leaf out and insects begin to hatch. You only need to take a ride up the Blue Ridge Parkway to around 5,000 feet now to get an idea of what Canada and Alaska look like with regards to buds and bugs.
So with the greening of the mountains, our resident bneotropical migrants are unpacking and setting up housekeeping. Their northern cousins, however, still have
their bags packed and are just passing through. Some other northern nesters still moving through our area now, along with blackpolls include Cape May warbler, magnolia warbler, bay-breasted warbler and others.
So, don’t give up on migrants just yet. One of the neat things about living in Western North Carolina is we can follow
spring up the mountains. And as the lower elevations leaf out and blackburnians, northern parulas and other tiny treetop dwellers disappear in the foliage, just head up another thousand feet and you can once again catch them foraging on buds about to burst.
(Don Hendershot is a naturalist and a writer who lives in Haywood County. He can be reached at ddihen1@bellsouth.net)
