The return of warmer weather means that Jackson County’s cold weather homeless shelter has been closed for two months, but commissioners have some tough discussions ahead as they plan what to do when the weather turns chilly once more.

Jackson County employees are now paying significantly higher premiums for their health insurance following a plan change that went into effect May 1. 

Commissioners voted 4-1 April 2 to make multiple changes to its self-funded insurance plan in hopes of digging itself out of a health plan deficit years in the making. 

A Green Energy Park makeover under discussion in Jackson County could be a good bit cheaper than originally discussed, with a final master plan for the project presented May 7 estimating the five-phase project at $7.56 million — 62.7 percent less than the original $12.06 million projection.

If you want to see an elk, the Elk Capital of North Carolina would probably be a good place to look. Pretty soon, that could mean a trip to Haywood County. 

“I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to promote unique things in our area, our national parks and our beautiful mountains in general,” said Rep. Joe Sam Queen, D-Waynesville. “It’s a way to use really a symbol of North Carolina to promote our region.”

In a region as rich in local lore as this, it may seem like every story’s been told to death, including that of the infamous Cowee Tunnel disaster. 

North Carolina, though, is also home to the old-world tradition of telling stories through song and has an ample supply of musicians like Balsam Range frontman Buddy Melton and his buddies, Haywood native Milan Miller and Piedmont bassist Mark W. Winchester, who on their 2010 album Songs From Jackson County relate the incident about as well as anyone else ever could.

Work will soon begin on renovations to the Community Services Building in Sylva — which houses the Jackson County Health Department — following commissioners’ unanimous vote April 16 to accept a bid on the project from Western Builders of Sylva and approve a project ordinance. 

The Asheville Design Center will soon complete its final recommendations for the N.C 107 project in Sylva, but the document is unlikely to provide any drastic departure from the plan already put forward by the N.C. Department of Transportation. 

Just as millennia of rain and wind and heat and cold have carved the physical shape of the mountains for which Appalachia is named, so have years of immigration and emigration and peace and war carved the human culture that covers them. Through the centuries, each of millions of lives — men and women, Cherokee and white, black and Hispanic — has added its own chapter to the story. 

It’s shaping up to be a big year for the Appalachian Women’s Museum in Dillsboro. The nonprofit is preparing for its second annual Airing of the Quilts event, will get an artistically designed storytelling installation on its grounds if a grant Western Carolina University is working on goes through, and hopes to start regularly opening its doors to the public during Saturdays summer. 

Macon County Schools will be setting up a school-based health center at South Macon Elementary School soon thanks to a $150,000 community health grant from the state Office of Rural Health.