The death of Haywood County Sheriff John Phillip Noland — a murder story set against the backdrop of the American Civil War — sounds as if it belongs in the pages of Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain.

A company hired by the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority has found a dozen businesses that have been evading a 4 percent lodging tax.

The Haywood County Tourism Development Authority has launched a new website with information specifically for lodging owners.

Three men, all with impressive law enforcement backgrounds, are vying to be Haywood County’s next sheriff.

The current Sheriff, Bobby Suttles, is retiring next month, but with two years to go until the next sheriff election, a replacement must be named in the meantime. Since Suttles is a Democrat, leaders in the Haywood County Democratic Party will pick his successor.

Canton leaders are pondering how much time and money to invest in an abandoned summer camp and mountain property left to the town under one condition — its use benefit Haywood County residents.

After it was deeded the 100-acre Camp Hope, the town leased it to a private weight-loss camp. But now, amid fall-out from a legal tug-of-war over Camp Hope, the weight-loss camp is pulling out, leaving Canton to run and manage the property on its own.

Officer Michael Harrison has confiscated everything from buck knives and Airsoft pistols from students at Swain High — but never a real gun. Until last week.

Harrison and the principal discovered a .22 Remington rifle and assorted ammunition in the tool-box of student’s pick-up truck left behind in the school parking lot after the 17-year-old was arrested for unrelated charges.

Beer had been flowing from the taps of Headwaters Brewing Company in Waynesville for just a few months when the bad news arrived — a cease-and-desist letter from another brewery claiming rights to Headwaters’ name.

Victory Brewing Company out of Pennsylvania makes a beer called Headwaters Pale Ale, and while Headwaters Brewery had its name first, Victory Brewing beat them to the trademark punch.

Haywood County Rev. Lamont Foster still remembers the day he learned what it meant to be black.

It was the early 1960s; Foster was five years old at the time, living on a military base in North Carolina. His best friend, Timmy, was white.

Pulling into a row of unimposing metal garage-sized storage units on Frazier Street in Waynesville, the sound of buzzing is heard.

You think maybe the truck heater is finally kicking on and combating the cold December morning, or it’s the usual hustle and bustle of traffic on the highway bypass. Yet, the source of the noise seems to be echoing from a slightly cracked garage bay at the end of the row.

Lake Junaluska and the town of Waynesville are pressing ahead with the possibility of a merger. The two entities have put the wheels in motion to introduce a special bill in the N.C. General Assembly in March that would bring Lake Junaluska into Waynesville’s town limits.