Evy Leibfarth may as well have been born on the river. Her parents met while working as raft guides on the Nantahala and had her on the water with them before she could even hold a paddle.

Raymond Valentine has seen a lot of things in his long life, but after 80 years he doesn’t have to wait much longer to see a Pride festival in the rugged Appalachian county where he’s lived nearly his entire life. 

Western Carolina University’s Pride of the Mountains marching band recently returned from its first trip across the pond, where it was invited to perform in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin, Ireland. 

The Sylva Pride celebration will look a little different this year after the Sylva Town Board denied the group’s road closure application for its fourth annual Pride Parade, despite support for the event from much of the downtown business community. 

The third annual Sylva Pride Festival will take place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 9, at Bridge Park in downtown Sylva. 

An application to use Bridge Park and Main Street for the annual Pride event has led the Town of Sylva to a larger discussion about safety and the use of town resources for events held downtown.

Canton’s elected leaders want to ensure that the public knows the last remaining element of the Town of Canton’s 114th annual Labor Day festival — Monday’s parade — has indeed been cancelled. 

Just weeks after a violent “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville last August, complaints arising from the display of Confederate imagery in the Town of Canton’s 111th annual Labor Day parade prompted an alderman to propose regulating the display of controversial speech in town-sponsored events. 

Each year, one of the highlights of the 10-day Folkmoot Festival is the Parade of Nations. This year, 10 groups from across the globe walked down Waynesville’s Main Street, stopping at the Historic Haywood County Courthouse to perform for local dignitaries.

When Canton Alderman Dr. Ralph Hamlett recently proposed a parade entry policy that would limit inappropriate speech during the town’s two annual parades — and in effect limit the display of the Confederate Flag — it understandably generated a substantial amount of negative comments.