Thursday morning. Although the sunshine and blue skies over Western North Carolina seemed rather inviting, it was false pretense as I stepped out onto the front porch and realized that flip-flops were not the ideal choice to battle a cold mid-fall breeze across naked toes. 

I’m a ripened 64, and I still love real newspapers. However, my affinity for online browsing is also taking root. Statistics show that many my age are making the same transition. 

This week SMN is celebrating its 25th anniversary as a business. As we mark the milestone, this industry is changing so fast it’s dizzying.

To the Editor:

The only extremists in this country are the people who support publications like yours. Liberals support child groomers and other vile people and live in some fantasy where they think the world belongs to them. 

It’s a lot quieter this week at The Smoky Mountain News. Not just because of the unusually warm weather this past weekend sparking folks to frolic and head for the hills.

When I first arrived in Western North Carolina just after New Year’s Day, 2014, I wasn’t planning to stay. 

To the Editor:

Newspaper editors and owners have an important role in our local communities and for us readers.

If 2024 were a table laid out before you, how would you imagine it: a beautiful, feast-laden smorgasbord of rich and tasty dishes with succulent sides, or an after-dinner wreck piled high with crusted up dirty dishes, overturned wine glasses and already eaten carcasses of dead birds and picked-over porcine bones?