The paper mill has long been a staple of the Canton community, offering generations of residents the opportunity for regular work and steady pay. So it’s no coincidence that Pisgah High School offers three levels of Pulp and Paper Technology classes — a curriculum that provides students the opportunity to learn the basics needed to enter the paper industry.

To visitors, the noise seems strange and maybe even concerning. To folks in Canton, it sounds like home.

The truth, even when it’s staring you down Clint Eastwood style, is easier to ignore than to act on. Just human nature, I guess, but something has to give.

There’s a 1% chance football will be played at Pisgah Memorial Stadium come fall. That is according to an estimation by Haywood County Schools Maintenance Director Josh Mease. 

It was Friday night football on a perfect fall evening under the lights in front of a capacity crowd at C.E. Weatherby Stadium in Waynesville, and as per usual, the rivalry game between the Mountaineers of Tuscola and the Pisgah Black Bears — the county clash, the “Mill versus the Hill,” whatever you want to call it — lived up to the hype. 

Beginning Sept. 20, students at Central Haywood High School will return to part-time in-person learning. These students have been learning remotely since flooding from Tropical Storm Fred caused severe damage to the school building in Clyde. 

It’s not something that happens all that often, but a late fourth-quarter drive by Western North Carolina’s state and local elected officials helped them find pay dirt in the end zone — in this case, raising the coronavirus-related capacity limits on outdoor high school athletic events.

For Chloé Queen, a senior at Pisgah High School, graduation and senior year are turning out drastically different than anticipated. 

A Pisgah High School teacher who had been under investigation by Haywood County Schools since late last year is no longer with HCS, according to Superintendent Dr. Bill Nolte. 

Doug’s in Clyde is a typical manifestation of a stereotypical small-town barbershop in the rural American South. 

Its wooden walls are lined with knick-knacks, claptrap and faded family photos of people and places long gone. Three men stand behind three vintage teal and steel barber’s chairs, while three men sit in them. Others wait on red vinyl couches next to checkerboards beneath the watchful gaze of Andy Griffith and Floyd Lawson.