Heavy rains and high winds associated with strong storms last Sunday night led to plenty of headaches Monday morning, as downed limbs cut power and closed roads while swollen streams slipped their banks, flooding businesses and residences across Western North Carolina.

On the morning of March 26, the Haywood County Board of Commissioners became the latest public body in North Carolina to issue restrictions on movement in an effort to halt the spread of the Coronavirus Pandemic.

As the Coronavirus Pandemic continues to spread, Haywood County and all four of its municipalities will now prohibit non-essential activity through April 16.

If all goes as planned, Canton will soon have a 448-acre park for hiking, mountain biking and other outdoor recreation activities just a mile from town limits. The Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy hopes to close on the property, known as the Chestnut Mountain Tract and currently owned by Canton Motorsports LLC, within the next couple months. 

Efforts to conserve the 488-acre property currently owned by Canton Motorsports got a boost when the N.C. Department of Justice awarded the project a $150,000 Environmental Enhancement Grant.

Abundant Labs CEO Chip Miller looked like a college chemistry professor as he started drawing diagrams and compound percentages on the blackboard while trying to explain what it is the new enterprise is doing in Canton.

The Abundant Labs partners announced this summer they would be opening the $12 million state-of-the-art hemp processing facility inside the NEO Corporation building off I-40 in Canton and has now been in production for a month. 

Much like this summer, a simple real estate transaction has led to important consequences for the Canton Board of Aldermen/women. 

The race to fill an unexpired aldermanic seat in Canton just got a lot easier for Pisgah High School science teacher Tim Shepard.

For years, the town of Canton’s municipal wastewater has been treated, free of charge, by the various operators of the town’s iconic paper mill, but a grant application to be filed by the town wants to study the feasibility of sending that waste to Waynesville’s new treatment plant, once it’s constructed. 

With the deadline to file for municipal office fast approaching — noon on July 19 —Haywood County voters may end up with few competitive races, and even fewer candidates.