By Todd Vinyard • Special to The Smoky Mountain News

Taking over a football program coming off five wins in the previous three seasons before you arrived as coach would certainly require a plan and changing the culture. Mark Speir has relied on both in his past seven years as the head coach at Western Carolina University.

Western Carolina University has reached an agreement with Morris Broadband to expand high-speed internet service to rural, underserved areas of the Cullowhee Valley area near campus through the use of existing power poles owned by the university’s electricity distribution service.

As the yoke of political influence grows ever heavier around the neck of the UNC Board of Governors, Western Carolina University’s chancellor search has gone off the rails and there is not yet any indication when it will get back on track.

Because much of the process used to replace a chancellor is shrouded in secrecy, those who care deeply about this university and its faculty and staff are left guessing as to what exactly happened. But there are many of us who can’t help but suspect the worst kind of chicanery, especially given the brand of politics played by the current legislative leadership. It’s a sad state of affairs, particularly if our great university system becomes just a pawn in this ongoing power play.

Western Carolina University will have to wait a little longer to welcome a new chancellor to Cullowhee following a July 16 announcement from the University of North Carolina Board of Governors. 

With no end in sight to rising enrollment, Western Carolina University is hoping a public-private partnership with Wilmington-based Zimmer Development Company will help meet the housing needs of future upperclassmen.

For the son of a small-town Baptist preacher who studied to become a classically trained pianist — only to find his professional career take an unexpected change of tempo into academia — the Saturday, June 23, memorial service for Western Carolina University Chancellor David O. Belcher hit all the right notes.

In 2013, Western Carolina University cut the ribbon on 7-mile trail system zig-zagging an otherwise unbuildable piece of university property. 

Over the five years since, the trails have become an indispensible resource for mountain bikers — as well as trail runners and hikers — in the Cullowhee area, and last fall a trio of WCU employees set out to back up those observations with hard numbers. 

From the moment Western Carolina University Chancellor David O. Belcher announced he’d been diagnosed with brain cancer — more than two years ago, in April 2016 — the diagnosis ceased to be the burden of an individual person. It became the burden of the entire Catamount community, and when at age 60 Belcher finally lost his battle with cancer on Sunday, June 17, grief rippled quickly through the WCU campus and past the borders of Jackson County, threading through the mountain region and out into all the lives and communities that Belcher had touched during his years on earth. 

Outpourings of support and sadness were in ample supply once news of Western Carolina University Chancellor David Belcher’s death reached the Catamount community at large. From political leaders to staff to students, nearly everyone had a story or a sentiment to share about how Belcher had impacted them. 

An idea to turn the Jackson County Green Energy Park into a campus for creativity, learning and animal adoption now has some legs after commissioners voted unanimously June 18 to spend $45,000 on a master plan for the project.