It is with an extremely heavy heart that I share the news of the passing last Friday morning of Brian Power (aka: “Mr. P”) after a long, debilitating illness. 

The COVID-19 death count in Jackson County nearly doubled over the holiday season, increasing from 10 as of Nov. 25 to 18 as of Jan. 4. One of the lives lost was that of 66-year-old Darrell Woodard, a fixture in the community who led the Savannah Fire Department as chief for 36 years. 

An Alabama man is dead following a fall from an overlook in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Haywood County Health and Human Services is reporting its 38th and 39th COVID-19 deaths. 

Haywood County Health and Human Services is reporting its 37th COVID-19 death. The individual died at home and COVID-19 was listed as the primary/immediate cause of death. 

Joseph William Lomas, 25, of Cherokee, died while being detained at the Swain County Detention Center on Aug. 28. 

A COVID-19 outbreak at Silver Bluff Village in Canton has resulted in 24 deaths in the last couple of weeks, bringing the virus’s devastation too close to home as families have lost their loved ones. 

Maybe we should have named our beagle-mix Lazarus, so often did he seemingly come back from the dead over the years. But we named him Walter and we figure he must have turned 18 earlier this year. There have been days when we didn’t think he could get up, days we found him on the porch flat on his belly, his legs splayed in opposite directions like a beginning skier who has fallen and can’t figure out how to get back up. We’d sit with him, give him more Glucosamine, scrub his ears, discuss our options, and hope for the best.

Jackson County reported its first coronavirus death on Monday, May 4. 

The defendants in a lawsuit filed in response to the death of Jackson County Detention Center inmate Melissa Rice have submitted their response to the complaint against them, denying several key facts contained in the original lawsuit and asking that the case be dismissed completely.