Waynesville Mayor Gavin Brown has the public endorsement of six out of the seven alderman candidates running for the town board this fall.

Candidates for the Waynesville town board faced off in a forum last week before a packed crowd in the Haywood County historic courtroom.

Michele Rogers had no job, no college degree, no husband and no place of her own when she pulled up stakes in her hometown of Norfolk, Va., and headed for Haywood County in the winter of 1996.

Turning onto North Hill Street in downtown Waynesville, you’re immediately greeted by overhanging maples sporting the latest in fall colors. Pulling into the Twin Maples Farmhouse, the picturesque property is silent, peaceful, as if pulled from some sort of Norman Rockwell painting.

Historians in Waynesville are building a case to get Green Hill Cemetery listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Officer Dave Clancey has a dicey job, perhaps the most dangerous of any cop in Haywood County. But instead of dodging bullets, Clancey dodges cars.

An explosion of campaign signs so large they could pass for miniature billboards cropped up seemingly overnight in Waynesville last week, creating a tizzy over what’s legal and what’s tasteful.

Waynesville leaders have granted a free pass on many of its aesthetic development standards to pave the way for a large warehouse facility being built by Giles Chemical, the Waynesville-based company that is the largest North American manufacturer of Epsom salts.

It’s all hands on deck this weekend as Waynesville prepares to welcome more than 1,100 cyclists and their families to town for the start of the Cycle N.C. Mountains to Coast Ride. 

Waynesville was fortunate enough to be selected as the starting point for the weeklong, 500-mile bicycle ride across the state, and town and tourism development officials have been prepping for months to make sure the event goes off without a hitch.

SEE ALSO: Haywood wants a share of cycling tourists

Since the first wheels starting turning in 2010’s inaugural Blue Ridge Breakaway bike ride, cycling has been picking up speed in Haywood County. And as more cyclists have flocked to the annual cruise of Haywood’s scenic byways, the county’s reputation as a cycling destination for the remaining 364 days of the year has grown as well. There might not be a lot of hard data on that yet, but the anecdotes flow freely.