Holly Kays

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

A pair of videos that appeared on social media over the weekend elicited strong reaction from many in the Western Carolina University community who decried their contents as racist. 

Comment

A new COVID-19 dashboard for Western Carolina University is now available online at www.wcu.edu/coronavirus/reporting.aspx.

Comment

Jackson County Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday, Aug. 18, to table a vote terminating its lease agreements with Allison Outdoor Advertising after the company’s president Claude Dicks implored the board to consider other options first.

Comment

A collection of 47,000 plants and animals currently tucked away in various rooms of Western Carolina University’s Stillwell building will soon have a new home thanks to a $517,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. 

Comment

When the 19th Amendment passed in 1920, women throughout the nation began to vote for the first time. But for a long time, the rights granted in that amendment were realized mainly by white women. 

“Our ancestors, our forefathers, they were hurt because they had fought for suffrage too for the 19th Amendment, and it didn’t really do any good,” said Ellerna Forney, a Sylva native who is Black. “But they still kept fighting.”

Comment

In 1930, a young man named Henry Owl traveled to the Ravensford election precinct in Swain County to register to vote. 

Owl was a U.S. Army Veteran, and a college graduate. He held a master’s degree, in fact, having finished the UNC Chapel Hill graduate program in history the previous year. At Lenoir College, where he began his undergraduate studies in 1925, he was elected “Most Popular Boy” and competed as a star athlete in football and baseball, earning posthumous induction to the Lenoir-Rhyne Sports Hall of Fame in 2012. 

Comment

After a July 23 Town of Sylva meeting was cut short following a barrage of racial slurs and other offensive disruptions from some attendees, the Sylva Police Department was quick to issue a press release stating that it was investigating the incident with the goal of identifying and charging the people responsible. 

Comment

A pair of newly erected billboards along U.S. 441 in the Savannah area are calling attention to continued opposition to the Confederate soldier statue in Sylva.

Comment

Western Carolina University will postpone all fall sports this year following an Aug. 13 decision from the Southern Conference Council of Presidents to cancel conference competitions due to COVID-19. 

Comment

Angela Faye Martin’s husband Brent had already left the house to scout a future hike for the guide service they run together when she got a message from a friend. Helicopters were flying the Duke Energy transmission line that goes up the Cowee range, spraying herbicide along the corridor. The friend sent pictures. 

Comment

With the 19th Amendment’s passage now 100 years in the rearview, most American women alive today have been eligible to vote since the age of 18, or 21 for those who came of age before 1971. Balsam resident Luisa Teran de McMahan, however, was 40 years old before she was allowed to cast an American ballot. 

Comment

Seventeen employees at University of North Carolina System schools — including two from Western Carolina University — are suing the university system and Gov. Roy Cooper in a class-action lawsuit demanding a halt to plans to resume residential instruction until such instruction can take place safely. 

Comment

In a nearly split vote held during a special-called meeting Aug. 10, the Western Carolina University Faculty Senate passed a resolution opposing a residential opening for fall 2020 and calling on the state to guarantee funding for the university system should future outbreaks force its institutions to return to online-only instruction. 

Comment

A fifth COVID-19 death has been confirmed in Jackson County.

Comment

Jackson County Commissioners voted 4-1 Aug. 4 to keep Sylva Sam in his place overlooking downtown Sylva, but according to opponents of the 105-year-old Confederate soldier statue, the fight is far from over. 

Comment

The project may still be in its early stages, but plans are beginning to take shape for the 448-acre park that will soon occupy the Chestnut Mountain property just outside of Canton. 

“We’re looking forward to building an amazing place that really helps merge conservation and recreation and just something we can make for future generations,” said Assistant Town Manager Nick Scheuer during a public meeting on the project held July 29 via Zoom. “This is a big idea and a huge project and something that really has the potential to impact our region for not just our lifetime but for our kids and our grandkids.”

Comment

Sylva is a town that’s run by women, both on the board of commissioners and among staff positions in town hall.

Comment

While men hold the highest-paying and highest number of jobs in most Western North Carolina governments, Jackson County is a noticeable exception to that general rule. 

Comment

In a resolution passed last month, Tribal Council decided that it will not hold budget hearings this year but will instead delay them until January 2021, after the first quarter of the new fiscal year has passed. The decision comes in response to decreased revenues and increased uncertainty caused by the Coronavirus Pandemic. 

Comment

As states throughout the Southeast consider allowing or expanding commercial gaming in their jurisdictions, Tribal Council has voted to enter into a contract with investment bank Innovation Capital that will allow the company to serve as the tribe’s exclusive financial advisor as it seeks to diversify its holdings in the gaming industry. 

Comment

A new COVID-19 death has been confirmed in Jackson County, bringing the county’s total death toll to four.

Comment

An agenda for the Jackson County Commission meeting slated for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 4, shows that the board will discuss a resolution forwarded from the Town of Sylva asking them to remove the Confederate solider monument currently residing on the steps of the historic courthouse.

Comment

Sylva Town Manager Paige Dowling is currently out on maternity leave, but Sylva will be in experienced hands until her return.

Comment

In the midst of a summer characterized by coronavirus-related disruptions on top of the closing of the public comment phase for the Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest’s much-awaited forest management plan, two new hires have taken the reins in key leadership positions overseeing management of these public lands. 

Comment

In less than three weeks, classes will resume at Western North Carolina’s institutions of higher learning, and while instruction won’t rely entirely on digital learning as occurred this spring, the fall semester will be far from business as usual. 

Comment

Despite the complexity of discussions surrounding reform and accountability in American law enforcement, it’s likely that many issues would disappear if it were possible to consistently follow two simple rules: Hire only good cops and fire all bad cops. 

Comment

Since the Coronavirus Pandemic began, Zoom meetings have become a commonplace replacement for government meetings that would otherwise take place in person. 

Comment

A COVID-19 cluster at Waynesville Pharmacy has been identified after five current or former employees there tested positive for the disease.

Comment

A Haywood County deputy is recovering from surgery and a suspect is dead following an incident July 28 in which the suspect fired at officers responding to the call.

Comment

A final decision is likely on the fate of the Confederate statue looking out over downtown Sylva after the town board voted 3-2 July 27 to approve a resolution officially asking Jackson County Commissioners to remove it from town limits. 

Comment

The environmental community has been celebrating since the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Great American Outdoors Act July 22, sending the landmark legislation to the desk of President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it into law.

Comment

A Town of Sylva meeting in which commissioners intended to discuss a resolution regarding the Confederate monument ended abruptly this morning after multiple people invaded the Zoom call, making racist and sexual comments that forced the board to terminate the call and prompted an investigation from the State Bureau of Investigation. 

Comment

After 20 years at the forefront of clean air efforts in Western North Carolina, The Canary Coalition is no more. 

“I’m not bitter about it at all,” said Avram Friedman, who founded the organization in 1999 and served as its executive director until retiring in December. “I’m grateful that they tried, but at this point The Canary Coalition has served its purpose. I think we’ve made an impact, and now it’s time for the younger generation to take hold.”

Comment

In November, Jackson County voters will weigh in on a proposal to borrow $20 million for an indoor pool complex at the Cullowhee Recreation Center. 

Comment

Five employees at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort in Cherokee have tested positive for COVID-19, and the investigation is ongoing, according to the Jackson County Department of Public Health.

Comment

After a week of impassioned public discussion and protest over the fate of the Confederate solider standing on the courthouse steps in Sylva, Jackson County Commissioners discussed the issue during a regularly scheduled work session Tuesday, July 14.

Comment

July 11 dawned hot and sunny over the 131-year-old town of Sylva, sweltering rays pouring heat in equal fashion over the 106-year-old Jackson County Historic Courthouse on the hill and 12-year-old Bridge Park down below. Also collecting heat was the 105-year-old statue of an unnamed Confederate solider, situated on a pedestal midway between the crest of the hill and the banks of Scotts Creek. 

Comment

It was a long day, but July 11 was a success from the perspective of law enforcement, said Police Chief Chris Hatton. 

Comment

Jackson County Commissioners saw a precursor to the intense public discussion ahead of them when 16 people gave public comment at their July 7 meeting to talk about the fate of the Confederate statue that stands on the historic courthouse steps. 

Comment

Protests, rallies and marches have become commonplace in Western North Carolina over the past six weeks, but dueling demonstrations in Sylva last weekend featured for the very first time a totally new aspect — the presence of trained legal observers. 

Comment

The Sylva Town Board approved a resolution tonight that creates a policy to prohibit the use of Confederate imagery on town vehicles and property purchased after July 10.

Comment

These days, Brendon Voelker’s life revolves around running, but eight years ago the Texas native was still struggling to complete his first mile.   

He was overweight and out of shape back then, and while he could happily spend a day riding around on his road bike, running a mile was out of the question. But after a weight loss journey that left him 80 pounds lighter, Voelker made it a personal goal to get that first mile under his belt. By the end of 2013, he’d completed a nonstop 5K for the first time, and the distances ballooned from there. 

Comment

Western Carolina University’s Board of Visitors no longer exists following the WCU Board of Trustees’ vote June 5 to repeal its charter.

Comment

After two years in the position, Jackson County Public Schools Superintendent Kim Elliott will retire as head of the school system. 

Comment

The public comment portion of tonight’s meeting of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners drew 16 people who spoke for more than an hour about “Sylva Sam,” the Confederate solider statue who looks over downtown Sylva from the steps of the old Jackson County Courthouse.

Comment

UPDATE: Searchers made contact with the hikers around noon Tuesday, July 7. They were able to walk out with search and rescue personnel. 

Search teams are looking for three hikers in the Black Balsam area of the Pisgah National Forest in Haywood County who have been missing since Monday.

Comment

Back when the trip was a new idea, I don’t think either of us took it seriously. Three weeks on the road, at a time when most American cars were sitting idle in the driveway? Thousands of miles of driving through sand and snow, mountain and desert, far from home? Surely this was just a pie-in-the-sky dream borne from the hunger pangs of quarantine, nothing more. 

Comment

Plans for a $14 million bridge project in Dillsboro have changed, with the project now expected to take nine months instead of three years and to cost $3 million less than originally proposed. 

Comment

The 448-acre woodland property sitting right off U.S. 23/19 and Interstate 40 near Canton was almost a speedway. Then, it was almost an indoor ski resort. It was almost a lot of things over the years, but now it will be a public park and conservation area. 

Comment

The U.S. Forest Service has signed the final decision notice for the Buck Project, which will encompass more than 32 square miles on the Nantahala National Forest’s Tusquitee Ranger District in eastern Clay County.

The project will use commercial timber sales toward the goal of providing young forest habitat and producing more oak and hickory trees over time. It will also use prescribed burning to promote the unique Serpentine Barrens and aim to improve water resource conditions through stream improvement projects. 

Comment

Smokey Mountain News Logo
SUPPORT THE SMOKY MOUNTAIN NEWS AND
INDEPENDENT, AWARD-WINNING JOURNALISM
Go to top
Payment Information

/

At our inception 20 years ago, we chose to be different. Unlike other news organizations, we made the decision to provide in-depth, regional reporting free to anyone who wanted access to it. We don’t plan to change that model. Support from our readers will help us maintain and strengthen the editorial independence that is crucial to our mission to help make Western North Carolina a better place to call home. If you are able, please support The Smoky Mountain News.

The Smoky Mountain News is a wholly private corporation. Reader contributions support the journalistic mission of SMN to remain independent. Your support of SMN does not constitute a charitable donation. If you have a question about contributing to SMN, please contact us.