When winter comes now, and I see those familiar pale shafts of sunlight that briefly touch the tops of the Balsams — just before total darkness settles on Rhodes Cove — I find myself remembering a trip to see my great grandmother some 60 years ago.

By David Curtis

College football and presidential primary politics make strange bedfellows, but in this New Year I think they have been sharing the same sheets.

By Michael Sanera • Guest Columnist

In what appears to be a first in Jackson County, planners from a private consulting firm have been invited to teach students at Smokey Mountain Elementary and Cherokee Indian Reservation schools. The consultant will use a one-sided curriculum called Box City that not only ignores the realities of private land ownership, but also encourages students to engage in political activity. The Box City curriculum provides students with small cardboard boxes and maps so they can plan their ideal community.

One is a new law that just took effect Jan. 1, and the other is a hoped-for statute that we believe is absolutely necessary for the continued prosperity of Western North Carolina. Both are good for the region.

The best news about the proposed Cataloochee Wilderness Resort is that it appears that from here on out, there will be at least some public disclosure on whatever progress is made. At least that is what representatives of the development group are saying, and there’s no doubt that media scrutiny will be very high.

So it’s the New Year. The ball has dropped, the parties are all over, your Kool and the Gang album has been tucked away for another year, and Dick Clark has gone back into his jar of formaldehyde. Did you make some New Year’s resolutions? I just bet you did. One great thing about Americans is how plucky we are. Every year, we make various resolutions: to lose weight, contribute more to charities, write more letters, be better neighbors, and watch less television. And every year, let’s face it, we fail miserably.

By Stephanie Wampler

A thick, green sheet of moss is growing across my roof. When I first noticed it the other day, driving home, I grimaced. I thought, “Somebody’s going to have to get up there and spray it off. We’ll get rid of it, but it won’t be gone forever. Oh, no. It’ll come back, next year and the year after and the year after that.

By Tom Jensen • Guest Columnist

John Edwards and Mike Huckabee are the most popular Presidential candidates in their own parties in Western North Carolina, according to recent surveys conducted by Raleigh’s Public Policy Polling. But Rudy Giuliani is the most popular candidate with the public at large in WNC.

By David Curtis

“Hark! the herald angels sing, Glory to the new born King.”

For those of us who have been beating the drum about the need for mountain communities to get serious about land-use planning, it’s been an eventful year. Not only was a lot of real progress made in 2007, but signs point to an even brighter future as many progressive candidates won seats on county and town boards throughout the region.