A three-week fly-tying course will teach participants to tie flies from the Southern Appalachians, 6-8 p.m. Mondays Jan. 15-29 at the Folkmoot Center in Waynesville. 

As I think ahead to 2024, I can’t help but feel so lucky to live here, in these mountains. 

Newly elected Haywood County Sheriff Bill Wilke stepped into some big shoes following the retirement of longtime Sheriff Greg Christopher, but earlier this year Wilke showed Haywood County, along with some of its most vulnerable residents, that he wears some pretty damn big shoes himself. 

Million-dollar mountaintop vacation homes, phony moonshine from corporate mega-distilleries, dime-a-dozen seedy strip malls — none of these things are Appalachian things, and if one of the hardy old Mountaineers of yore was magically transported through time to the present day, they’d hardly recognize the place. 

With a new year approaching, it’s the perfect time to start setting fitness goals — and to plan for participating in any of the 15 races Glory Hound Events has on its schedule for 2024. 

The disloyalty card is here and it’s, in a sense, exactly what it sounds like. 

Monday mornings have a bad reputation, but for dogs at Sarge’s Animal Rescue Foundation in Waynesville, they’ve become the best part of the week. Since the Adventure Tails program launched Nov. 1, these mornings have been set aside for hiking — and the dogs are all about it. 

It’s novel, it’s trendy and it’s a great way to become fabulously wealthy — or lose everything you have — but the nuisances associated with the production of cryptocurrency are prompting local governments to regulate them before it’s too late. 

A turkey shoot will be held 9 a.m. Saturdays at the American Legion in Waynesville, continuing weekly through mid-April 2024. 

Tuesday, Nov. 7 was an important night for out LGBTQ+ candidates across the country, the state and Haywood County, with more running — and winning — than in any previous odd-year election in U.S. history.