The contest to fill Waynesville’s town board has drawn a wide crowd this year, a mixture of incumbents, political newcomers and a couple of election veterans.

Seven candidates will vie for four seats in the November election. The town board hasn’t seen an upset in the last two elections.

Sitting Aldermen Gary Caldwell, J. Wells Greeley and Leroy Roberson are all coming back for another try, and given the track record of incumbents in Waynesville elections, the odds seem in their favor. But at least one seat is wide open, as Alderwoman Libba Feichter is not returning for re-election, likely fueling some of the competition entering the race.

The challengers represent a variety of views, some business owners, some retirees, some public servants, but nearly all named the economy and the replacement of retiring Town Manager Lee Galloway as top priorities in the coming term.

Only one, Sam Edwards, expressed open discontent with the current administration, with the rest either backing the board’s positions or staying mum on the issue.

Among the challengers for town board, none are returning from the 2007 contest, however, Mayor Gavin Brown will face competition from Hugh Phillips, assistant manger of Bi-Lo, who ran unsuccessfully against him four years ago.

The general election will be held on November 8. Voter registration closes on October 14.

Gary Caldwell

Age: 58

Occupation: Production manager at Cornerstone Printing in Waynesville.

Time in Waynesville: Caldwell is a lifelong Waynesville resident.

Political Experience: Currently a sitting board member, Caldwell has served four consecutive terms as a Waynesville alderman.

Why he is running: “I just enjoyed being in city government. I just really love it.”

Biggest challenge in the next term: “My challenge is completing the skate park. I’m halfway there. We’ve raised probably close to $160,000 of the $300,000 that we’re trying to raise to break ground on it, and that’s been my goal probably for the past 10 years. Finally we’ve got it really going on great.”

Sam Edwards

Age: 57

Occupation: Clergyman. Edwards spent two decades with the Episcopal church before becoming vicar at St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Waynesville. He is now waiting to be received into the Catholic church.

Time in Waynesville: He lived in Waynesville through high school and returned in 2007.

Political Experience: Edwards unsuccessfully ran as a Republican against N.C. Rep. Ray Rapp, D-Mars Hill.

Why he is running: “I’d been concerned, with a bunch of other citizens, that the current administration in Waynesville is not providing a good climate for small businesses. I thought it was time to give the people a choice.”

What he’d bring to the new board: “Making do with less. We’re going to have to prioritize our budget and wisely spend the public’s money.”

Mary Ann Enloe

Age: 70

Occupation: Retired from Dayco after 37 years, most recently as the senior purchasing agent.

Time in Waynesville: Enloe is a lifelong Waynesville resident.

Political Experience: Enloe was the mayor of Hazelwood, a Haywood County commissioner for two terms and ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic candidate for N.C. House in 2000. She currently serves on the Haywood County Board of Equalization and Review and the Haywood County Fairgrounds Board. She has never run for office in Waynesville.

Why she is running: “It’s my love for this area. I live in the house I grew up in and I just have a real love for the area and a real understanding of how government has to work.”

Biggest challenge facing the new board: “I don’t know that it will be the biggest but it will certainly be at the top, will be hiring the new town manager.”

Julia Boyd Freeman

Age: 44

Occupation: Executive Director of REACH of Haywood County, a non-profit that deals with domestic violence.

Time in Waynesville: She is a lifelong resident.

Political Experience: Freeman has never run for public office, but sits on the Haywood County Department of Social Services Board and the North Carolina Domestic Violence Commission.

Why she is running: “For some time I’ve had an interest in public service and also in serving the community. I’ve got a vested interest in the community from a business standpoint, and there’s going to be a lot of changes in the town coming up in the next couple of years.”

Why she would make a good alderwoman: “I think I bring a youthful perspective, a younger generation connecting with the people. My desire to serve the community and work with diverse populations could make a big difference.”

Wells Greeley

Age: 59

Occupation: Owner of Wells Funeral Home, with locations in Waynesville and Canton.

Time in Waynesville: Greeley is a lifelong Haywood County resident, and has also lived in Canton.

Political Experience: Greeley is currently an alderman. He was appointed to fill the unexpired term of the late Kenneth Moore. He was also an alderman in Canton from 1981 to 1985.

Why he is running: “I did make the commitment when I accepted the appointment to run again, so I’m following through with my word.”

Biggest challenge of his previous term: “I knew it was going to be challenging and I have been pleasantly surprised with how well the town board works together.”

Ron Reid

Age: 55

Occupation: Owner of the Andon Reid Inn, a Waynesville bed-and-breakfast. Reid had a law enforcement career and was a health fitness consultant before becoming an inn-keeper in his retirement.

Time in Waynesville: He and his wife moved to Waynesville from the West Palm Beach, Fl., area in 2006.

Political Experience: This is his first run for public office, but has previously served on the board of the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority. He is currently on the board of directors at the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce.

Why he is running: “I’ve got a vision for the community. I like what the town is doing, I like the direction it’s been going in. I wanted  to be a part of that team.”

His top priorities for the next term: “The main thing is the economics. How are we going to keep the young people here, what’s going to be attractive to new businesses? Along with keeping the mountain Appalachian heritage and history. I would hate to see Waynesville just become anytown USA. People come here for a reason. We have to be progressive, manage smartly, but not forget what made Waynesville what it is.”

Leroy Roberson

Age: 67

Occupation: Optometrist at Haywood Optometric Care in Waynesville.

Time in Waynesville: Roberson is a lifelong resident of Waynesville.

Political Experience: He is completing a four-year term on the board and was elected as an alderman once in the past.

Why he is running: “Basically, I enjoy doing it. I think there’s still some things that need to be done, and maybe touch up on the land development standards.”

Greatest success of the current term: “Considering the financial difficulties that have presented themselves, we’ve been able to maintain the services and the town, I think, is being run quite well.”

Charlie Burgin had registered as a candidate last week, but has since decided not to run.

Trevor Hudson has never liked the hymn “I Have Decided To Follow Jesus.”

The world behind me, the cross before me, he says, doesn’t make much sense. Isn’t Christianity about loving the world, not turning your back on them?

Come to mention it, he’s not in love with “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus,” either. Things of earth shall grow strangely dim? But isn’t Jesus supposed to bring the world and its needs into sharper focus?

“It’s blasphemy,” he says of the historic hymns, in an impassioned South African accent.

He’s saying it from the main stage at Stuart Auditorium perched on the edge of Lake Junaluska. His proclamation echoes off the soaring rafters and curving walls of the century-old auditorium, followed by a powerful silence.

Did he just say he hates “I Have Decided To Follow Jesus?” Pins dropping would resound in the silence, before Hudson continues, beseeching the crowd to listen to the world instead of mentally dimming it.

His message might seem unorthodox, but he is not the first to preach global-mindedness from that pulpit, and Lake Junaluska Assembly’s leadership hopes he won’t be the last.

Hudson came to the assembly’s oldest stage this month as part of the summer worship series. It’s a historic tradition that has long brought storied preachers and evangelists to the renowned Methodist conference center in Haywood County.

Actually, visiting preachers have been a part of the history of the place since its inception.

“Of course if you go back in the history — almost since the very beginning in 1913 — they’ve had different labels for the series and services that they had, but there were various pastors coming in from the get go,” says Bill Lowry, resident historian at Lake Junaluska and author of the book The Antechamber of Heaven, a History of Lake Junaluska Assembly.

Through the decades, the assembly has played host to famous clergymen such as Billy Graham and a slew of well-known British preachers.

From the beginning, the services were always well-attended, especially the summer meetings.

“The opening service, which took place in June of 1913, had approximately 4,000 people show up,” says Lowry, which was, he said, thanks in part to the friendly relationship the conference center shared with the local community.

Churches and businesses would get the news about summer preachers, spreading it along their built-in networks, and people came.

From the outset, says Lowry, the focus was worldwide.

“There was a very strong missionary emphasis on the grounds to begin with,” he says. “The very first event was a missionary conference, there were speakers there from China and other countries.”

That outlook is one of the solid foundations the leaders of today’s Lake Junaluska are hoping to build and grow the worship series on in the future.

Because the church is changing, and to stay alive, the assembly has to follow suit.

“I think our largest challenge is to reach a younger community,” says Roger Dowdy, the ministry director. It’s his job to keep things like the summer worship series relevant, and that’s sometimes a challenge — to serve and please the aging group that has long been the pillar of support and simultaneously attract a younger audience that will keep it alive.

“The relevance is by far the most important thing,” says Dowdy. “Preaching is changing in the church, it has become more free from the pulpit, it has become more narrative, whether it’s the preacher’s story or the church story. People want dynamic preaching.”

That’s a truth that can be seen across denominations in the Protestant church writ large in America, from the rise of the house church to the popularity of celebrity pastors and megachurches that focus and rely on the charisma of their leaders.

“It’s this incredible balance that we have to walk,” says Lake Junaluska Executive Director Jack Ewing. “We absolutely have to find ways to attract younger people so that this can continue going forward into the future.”

Ewing came to this job only a few months ago, with the charge and vision for continuing to usher Lake Junaluska into the modern church era.

With things like the summer worship series, the challenge is staying relevant and also true to the rich history of tradition the practice stands on.

Even before Lake Junaluska Assembly encamped on the lake’s shore almost 100 years ago, the tradition of traveling Methodists was already well established in Haywood County.

There are accounts of Methodist preachers stopping to give sermons here in the early 19th century. Many of their names are scrawled on the walls of the third floor chapel in the historic Shook House in Clyde, where many visiting pastors known as circuit riders made their pulpit pitches.

Fast forward nearly two centuries and the tradition hasn’t dimmed, but the strength of the church in society seems to be fading.

That truth isn’t lost on Ewing, who speaks of lost generations that don’t show up to the summer sermons like they did in decades past.

A 2010 Gallup poll found that 16 percent of Americans claim no specific religious identity. It was next to nothing in 1950. Another found that 70 percent of Americans told pollsters they believe religion is losing influence on American life.

Dowdy and Ewing know this is what they have to contend with.

“We will attempt to straddle this line between our traditional population base at the same time as being relevant to new generations,” said Ewing. “The reality is, what worship will look like in Stuart Auditorium 10 years from now, we don’t really know. But it isn’t about just being faithful to a tradition. We need to be faithful to God, not faithful to our traditions.”

Lake Junaluska Assembly Summer Worship schedule

All services begin at 10:45 a.m. in Stuart Auditorium at Lake Junaluska Assembly, unless otherwise noted.

• Rev. Susan Leonard-Ray - July 17

• Rev. Jeremy Troxler - July 24

• Rev. Mike Slaughter (8:30 a.m.) - July 31

• Rev. Grace Imathiu - July 31

• Rev. Shane Bishop - August 7

• Dr. Leonard Sweet - August 14

In Waynesville, it’s time again for a town board election, marking the end of four-year terms for both the mayor and all four aldermen.

The election will be particularly critical with the impending retirement of longtime Town Manager Lee Galloway next year. His replacement will be chosen by the town board after the fall election.

The board already had one early shakeup, after the death of Alderman Kenneth Moore in 2009. Wells Greeley, owner of Wells Funeral Home, was tapped to fill the vacant seat and has said that he intends to run for it this year.

“I did make the commitment when I accepted the appointment to run again, so I’m following through with my word,” said Greeley. Though he was appointed to his current seat, this won’t be his first try at a political race.

Greeley ran for and was elected to an alderman post twice in Canton.

Elsewhere on the board, first-term incumbent Dr. Leroy Roberson said that he’s also considering a run for re-election, citing the success of the board in passing the town’s new land-use standards and the ease with which the current board runs.

“Basically, I enjoy doing it,” said Roberson, an optometrist with an office on Main Street. “Considering the financial difficulties that have presented themselves [with the economy], we’ve been able to maintain the services and the town, I think, is being run quite well.”

Alderman Gary Caldwell, who has now seen four terms on the board, will be going back for another shot. If he’s successful, this term would give him two decades on the board.

Not all of the longer-term board members, however, will be back for another round. Libba Feichter, who is closing out her third term on the board, won’t be returning in the fall. Feichter was out of state on family business and could not be reached for comment.

In the mayor’s chair, Mayor Gavin Brown is now wrapping up his first term as mayor, but 12th year on the board.

Brown moved up to the job of mayor in 2007 after ousting long-time incumbent Henry Foy. This year, said Brown, he’s ready to settle in for another four years.

“I don’t personally believe in term limits, I believe in limiting yourself,” said Brown, who added that his expertise and long record of service allows him to bring experience to the equation that others won’t have.

“I’ve been very pleased with the things that have happened here over the last four, eight, 12 years that I’ve been on this board. I think Waynesville is one of the best towns in the state.”

While the names of challengers have been circulating, none would confirm intentions to run yet, but there will be at least one new face on the board this fall when Feichter’s successor is chosen by voters in November.

When sewage began flooding out of the floor one January Saturday at Waynesville’s Coffee Zone, Coni Bishop knew things were about to get bad.

Bishop was the coffee-and-sandwich shop’s owner. And when she and some staff were working one weekend and started seeing the kitchen’s floor drains bubbling up with befouled water, she figured she would be closed for a little while. What she didn’t expect was five months out of business and a move out of Waynesville.

While the Coffee Zone is no more, Bishop’s business has been reincarnated as the Copper Leaf Café, located at High Country Furniture on the edge of Maggie Valley.

The revived coffee spot opened last Monday, following a long and arduous few months for Bishop and her staff, most of whom she had to let go.

She’s been able to reopen, thanks to an agreement with High Country, which owns the shop and employs Bishop to run it. That, she said, solved her biggest problem in the wake of the sewage backup.

“I was reimbursed for the product I lost — we had to get rid of every single thing that was in the store — and we were also able to recover our equipment that got damaged from the water, but that’s all we ended up with,” said Bishop. “We lost our business investment. There was no way to recoup that.”

So while she wanted to restart the business soon after, without startup capital, it was impossible.

There was always the option of going back into the Coffee Zone building, which sits in the center of a shopping center plaza on Russ Avenue and was once a bank. But even after the professionals came in and scoured everything sanitary, Bishop said she just couldn’t move her shop back in.

For one thing, there was the smell.

“It was just horrible,” said Bishop. That’s partly because the sewage had seeped up through the floor drains and then promptly poured back down onto the building’s ductwork and air conditioning system, which were under the floors. And then it sat for three weeks while the issue of who, exactly, was responsible for sorting out the mess.

Was it the town, which is in charge of sewage systems? The landlord, who is responsible for making sure the building remains in solid, habitable shape?

As it transpires, the answer is option B, the landlord. And, according to Bishop, the property owner hadn’t really kept the building maintained to code.

“One of my frustrations, what was so difficult, is that there‘s no enforcement agency that goes around to property owners and sees if they’re up to code,” said Bishop. “I feel like this could have been prevented, or at least [have been] a lot less invasive to our business.”

And, said Town Manager Lee Galloway, that’s true. But a policing operation like that would be far beyond what the town could reasonably manage.

“They’re supposed to remain up to code, but they don’t have to go back and retrofit their building unless they’re having major work done on their building,” said Galloway. “It would be pretty much impossible for us to have enough inspectors to go out and check that sort of thing.”

And Bishop concedes this point, though it was little consolation when she had standing sewage in her kitchen.

The town couldn’t really do anything because they only own the collection lines at the very edges of the shopping center. The sewer lines are all private and ancient, and apparently most people there are pretty unclear about where they even are or how to shut them off. That was another contributing factor to the woes of Coffee Zone, as it allowed sewage to flow freely until someone could locate the shut-off valve.

These days, said Galloway, most new builds put in sewer lines that they then dedicate to the town, transferring responsibility into municipal hands.

“That’s more common now than it was 40, 50 years ago, and I guess for this very problem, because property changes hands and no one knows where the lines are,” said Galloway.

For Bishop, she’s no longer angry about what happened on Russ Avenue; she’s positive about her new venture and not too concerned about losing the dedicated customer base she’d cultivated at Coffee Zone.

“I think once people find out and they realize it’s not in Maggie Valley, it’s just a little way past Smackers, I think well be OK,” said Bishop. “There’s no drive-through, and that’s a down side, that’s something that we lost. Drive-through really was 40 percent of our business. But so far it’s getting busier each day.”

The first 2011 sojourn into the Town of Waynesville’s 8,000-plus acre watershed occurred last Saturday (June 11). The town has been sponsoring and coordinating a couple of guided hikes into the watershed each year since 2007. It’s a way for residents and other interested parties to see this wonderful resource that has been placed in a conservation easement to ensure the town has an ample supply of high-quality drinking water for generations to come.

For those of you just awakening from a seven-year coma, there was a bit of a stir back then regarding some of the attributes of the easement. Some areas of the watershed are in a “forever wild” easement — which basically means hands off. However, a large portion of the watershed is in a “working forest” easement — which gives the town the authority (and perhaps even the directive) to actively manage the forest. And “active” forest management includes logging — a term that, justifiably, sends shivers up and down the spine of many environmentalists/conservationists.

There was an immediate hue and cry (some perhaps politically prompted) regarding the motivation for and the consequences of logging in the watershed back in 2004. While emotions fer and agin logging the watershed ran rampant at coffee shops and in “letters to the editor,” the town proceeded in a rational way by creating a public oversight committee and commissioning a study of the condition of the watershed and the creation of a management plan for the watershed. I believe it was during this laborious process of studying the watershed and hashing out the details of a management plan that the idea of hikes into the watershed, where citizens could get a first-hand look, germinated.

The hikes have been well received and this year’s first hike was no exception. Alison Melnikova, assistant town manager and watershed hike coordinator extraordinaire, had to halt registration at 65 for this hike. Forty-nine of those registered showed up!

I must say we were quaking in our boots a bit concerning the logistics of providing a quality experience for 65 hikers. But a big shout out to Dan Callaghan, Forest Stewards’ Americorps apprentice forester; Ed Kelley, photographer/naturalist; and Michael Skinner, executive director at Balsam Mountain Trust for answering the frantic pleas for help and volunteering their time to help create a quality outing for participants.

Dr. Pete Bates, professor of natural resources at Western Carolina University, president of the board of directors of Forest Stewards and lead researcher of Waynesville’s Watershed Management plan, has always been one of the leaders for the watershed hikes. In the early years Bates’ groups never got in much of a hike due to all the Q and A regarding the management plan. But Bates is a stalwart and convincing supporter of the plan and the science used to create it and is always happy to discuss the merits and objectives of the watershed management plan.

This year ,Bates got to stretch his legs and obviously had a good hike: “Overall I thought the hike went well. I had about 20 in my group, and we did about an eight-mile, out and back from the water treatment plant.  We saw a variety of forest communities ranging from white pine plantations to rich coves to northern hardwoods at about 4,700-feet elevation. For those in my group, it was a great opportunity to see the watershed and learn more about the town’s efforts to care for its forests.”

We took advantage of Ed Kelley’s photographic skills by offering a last-minute opportunity for those interested in nature photography and had about a half-dozen takers. According to Kelley, “…we did a lot of close-ups and exercises in observation, looking for subject matter, addressed some creative things you can do with your camera when there’s not a lot of great photo subjects, and I answered some technical questions about photography, as well as tried to get them to thinking about using what they saw along the way to plan future photo outings (i.e. a remembering the location of a group of staghorn sumac that will be blazing orange-red in the fall.)”

Michael Skinner kind of floated between groups. Fortunately, he was with my group, with his bird-app, when we had blackburnian warblers overhead. He was able to play the song, coaxing the blackburnian down where most people got good looks. Skinner noted, “I had a few in the group suggest we do this more often.”

As for me, I was doing my usual grand job of spreading misinformation. We encountered some yellow mandarin (not in flower) and I was trying to think of the other common name for it when “cucumber root” jumped out of my mouth. I have no idea why. The plants look nothing alike. There is some similarity in the flowers but even that’s a stretch. I guess I’ll write it off as a senior moment. The other common name for yellow mandarin is fairybells — sounds a lot like cucumber root doesn’t it.

(Don Hendershot is a writer and naturalist. He can be reached a This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

If there’s one thing that runs deep in Appalachia, it’s roots. Whether it’s the roots of its ancient pines or the roots of a unique way of life still celebrated here, the Smokies are steeped in heritage.

And now, with a new festival sprouting up this weekend, Waynesville visitors and residents can celebrate the history and legacy of that singular Appalachian liftestyle.

The Appalachian Lifestyle Celebration is a day-long festival dedicated to the traditions that define the region, like bluegrass music, arts and crafts, and practical crafts like blacksmithing, quilting and wood turning.

Buffy Phillips, executive director of the Downtown Waynesville Association, said a spate of interest in the subject helped spark the idea for the festival.

“There’s a lot of interest in heritage, history and culture. People seem to be really drawn to that throughout the Southeast,” said Phillips.

Festival-goers will have the chance to see live demonstrations of traditional Appalachian handicrafts and practices, such as basket making, blacksmithing, quilting, weaving, wood working, wood carving, pottery, painting and soap making.

Folk toys, old tractors and old tools and other elements of old Appalachia will be on display. Meanwhile, artists and craftspeople still keeping those traditions alive will be on hand to sell their creations.

Even the food, said Phillips, is reminiscent of the old mountain South.

“We’ll have cornbread and beans, corn cakes, iced tea and lemonade,” said Phillips, plus a plethora of other foods that find their roots here.

For mountain music aficionados, however, there will be more than a few acts to choose from.

Headlining the event will be folk musician David Holt. Holt has four Grammys under his belt and a musical resume that spans four decades. He’s played with bluegrass legends like Doc Watson, Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs and spent much of his early career traveling to minuscule mountain communities, learning the finer points of traditional mountain music.

He’ll bring his old-time banjo skills to the stage, where he’ll perform with young acoustic musician Josh Goforth. Goforth is no novice — he’s already garnered a Grammy nomination — and he’s been playing in the Smokies since his childhood in East Tennessee.

In addition to Holt and Goforth, singer-and-storyteller Michael Reno Harrell will give two performances. The Hominy Valley Boys and The Hill Country Band will provide the lively bluegrass background for three local clogging groups.

For those seeking to get in a few rounds on the dance floor themselves, former North Carolina Senator Joe Sam Queen will call a square dance in the afternoon that is open to all ages.

For readers, there will be local authors, traditional storytellers and readers’ theater spinning tales of Appalachia, old and new.

The celebration, said Phillips, has been long in the making and she’s hopeful it will become a regular feature on Waynesville’s downtown summer calendar.

“We talked about this probably at least three years ago, and this is the first year that we’ve been able to pull it off,” said Phillips. “There’s a lot of history and our culture deserving of our interest in this area.”

Schedule

Main stage (Miller Street)

• 9:45-10:45 — Hominy Valley Boys

• 11-11:45 — David Holt

• Noon-1:15   Hominy Valley Boys (Southern Appalachian Cloggers at 12:30 p.m.)

• 1:30-2:15 — David Holt

• 2:30-3:40 — Michael Reno Harrell

• 3:45-5 — Hominy Valley Boys (Fines Creek Flatfooters Cloggers at 4 p.m. and Smoky Mountain Stompers Cloggers at 4:30 pm.)

Courthouse stage

• 9:45-10:30 — The Ross Brothers

• 10:30-11:15 — Ginny McAfee

• 11:15-12:30 — Michael Reno Harrell

• 12:30-2:30 — Hill Country Band (Southern Appalachian Cloggers at 1:15 p.m. and Flatfooters Cloggers at 2 p.m.)

• 2:30-3 p.m. — McKenzie Wilson

• 3-4 p.m. — Hill Country Band (Smoky Mountain Stoppers Cloggers at 3:30 pm.)

• 4-5 p.m. — The Ross Brothers

Southend area

• 11:30-12:15 — McKenzie Wilson

• 12:30-12:50 — HART Readers Theater

• 1-2 — Ginny McAfee

• 2:15-2:35 — HART Readers Theater

• 2:45-3:30 — Ann Lough

Most people snip flowers, drop them into a jam jar with some water, call it an arrangement and place them on a table or counter to bring some outside loveliness into our homes.

Experts in Japanese flower arrange identical flowers, but in a manner that enhances the perfection of each leaf and blossom. These practitioners of the ancient meditative art of ikebana seem, somehow, to improve upon nature — to make it more than it is. Or, perhaps, to show exactly what it is.

With a more than 500-year history, the basic principles of ikebana were rooted in Japan’s Muromachi period, with the oldest school being Ikenobo.

Ikebana, however, has branched out in many directions, and the people who practice this ancient art are involved for many different reasons, said Beverly Barbour, a Waynesville resident who is president of the Blue Ridge Chapter of Ikenobo Ikebana.

Barbour and her husband Jon were involved in Bonsai, and her transition to ikebana seemed a seamless and natural one, she said. Barbour first studied for about five years with an instructor in Atlanta, Mary Takahashi, and now works with Sensei (Instructor) Emiko Suzuki of Henderson County, who has practiced for 22 years.

Suzuki taught ikebana in Japan for 12 years, and is on her second year of teaching the art here in the U.S.

“In Japan sometimes I don’t have to teach a lot of things, because we can share the culture,” she said. In the U.S., by contrast, Suzuki often finds herself helping students learn about the loveliness of space itself within an arrangement.

Barbour said that regardless of how someone gets to Japanese flower arranging, “you can lose yourself in the serenity and beauty of practicing. All Japanese arts have a spiritual aspect to them.”

Western North Carolina members of Ikenobo Ikebana Society of America practice styles that represent distinct and different schools of thought and technique in the art of arranging flowers. Some of these styles include “rikka,” “shoka” and the modern “free style.”

In rikka, basic parts are arranged with many contrasting but complimentary materials to express the beauty of a natural landscape. Shoka features three main branches — shin, soe and tai — to form a unity which expresses life’s perpetual change and renewal. Free style, the most recent in Ikenobo’s ancient tradition, is a more personal expression suited to contemporary environments and tastes.

Ordinary folks plunge flowers upright into a vase of water. An ikebana practitioner, however, might put flowers in a tall container or one as tiny as a saucer. The flowers will go any direction, usually, but one: it is doubtful they will ever be sticking only straight up. And, in fact, the Ikenobo school considers a flower’s bud more beautiful than the flower — “for within the bud is the energy of life’s opening toward the future.”

Barbour currently is studying the shoka style.

“An arrangement in this style represents the way the plants come out of the earth and grow,” she said, adding that ikebana quickly leads those who get involved into a deeper understanding of plants and plant material.

“A lot of the appeal is that you can take very few flowers and plant materials and create such a simple, but fabulously beautiful, arrangement,” Barbour said.    

Want to join?

The Blue Ridge Chapter of Ikenobo Ikebana is made up of members from Western North Carolina. They particularly are interesting in attracting new members from Jackson, Macon, Swain and Haywood counties. For more information, visit www.blueridgeikebana.com. The chapter meets on the third Thursday of every month at 10 a.m. at St. John in the Wilderness Parish House in Flat Rock.

For Mary Edwards, the owner of Craft Collection in downtown Waynesville, news of a possible Michaels coming to town is devastating.

“Well, that’s the end of me,” said Edwards. “I’m small, so I can’t complete with big stores.”

Edwards is surprised Michaels would consider coming to Haywood County.

“I never thought they would come here. They might be bringing jobs but it will put all the small business owners out of business,” Edwards said. “I’ll have to close.”

Ray Fulp, owner of the small, independent pet supply store Dog House around the corner, was just as dismayed.

“I think it would close us up,” Fulp said after learning Pet Smart may be coming to town. “That’s sad, that’s sad.”

Fulp and his wife have been in business for 24 years. This had always been a fear of theirs.

“The way the economy is right now, with a big pet supply coming in to town, we couldn’t make it,” Fulp said.

Fulp, 61, said he’s not ready to retire.

“I guess I could go work for Pet Smart,” he said.

At 57, Edwards is not ready to retire either. As a struggling small business owner, she can’t afford to yet. But after 18 years of selling brushes, paints, inks, beads, scrap booking supplies, balsa wood and sundry other art and craft supplies, Edwards isn’t sure what else she would do.

SEE ALSO: Plans call for new Belk, a Michaels and PetSmart in Waynesville 

Customer service could be the saving grace for Edwards and Fulp as they prepare to go up against the big chains.

Ann Squirrel, a painter who has shopped at Craft Connection for two decades, said she wouldn’t quit coming.

Squirrel admits to making a trip to Michaels in Asheville every three to four months to stock up on things she can’t get from Edwards, but, “anything I need, I always come here first,” she said.

“Even though prices are a little higher, I would still come. She is so wonderful to her customers,” Squirrel said.

Sometimes customers will call ahead with an order and send their husbands to pick up what they need. Edwards will pull out everything they need and have it waiting on the counter.

“I have actually delivered stuff to people,” Edwards said.

One customer had an ankle replacement and couldn’t get out, so Edwards loaded up pecan resin figurines — which people paint as a hobby — took them to the woman’s house and lined them up for her to pick which ones she wanted.

It’s unlikely Pet Smart shoppers would find expertise at the chain store rivaling Fulp. Fulp knows his customers and their pets and takes the time to help them, such as if a dog has an allergy and the owner can’t figure out what it is.

Fulp’s wife, Sandy, operates a grooming business out of the store. It’s developed a loyal customer base for the retail side, and Melissa Leatherwood said she wouldn’t abandon them for Pet Smart.

“I would rather give local businesses my support than a chain,” she said, as she loved up her freshly groomed shih tzu emerging from the back.

When Best Buy came to town two years ago, also jumping on the Super Wal-Mart train, a locally owned CD store in downtown Waynesville braced for the worst.

“We definitely lost some business to Best Buy,” said Shawna Hendrix, general manager of the Music Box.

It was impossible to compete with the prices of the mega-music retailer across town.

“They can sell them for cheaper than we can purchase them from our warehouse,” Hendrix said.

They survived by offering what Best Buy doesn’t carry: bluegrass, country, blues, jazz, Indy labels and other music genres outside the confines of Top 40 pop. The store also diversified, adding clothing and other retail along with CDs.

When asked if it looked they would make it, Hendrix said the owner is too stubborn to give in.

Belk department store in Waynesville might be moving from its anchor spot beside Ingle's grocery store to a much larger and brand-new building beside Super Wal-Mart.A Michaels craft store and Pet Smart might also join the ranks of big-box chain stores at the Waynesville Commons development on South Main Street, according to building plans submitted to the town's planning office.

The new stores have been proposed for a 12-acre commercial site next to Super Wal-Mart that originally was slated for a Home Depot. When the economy tanked, Home Depot pulled out, and has been trying to off-load the tract.

While construction plans under review by the town call for an 85,000-square-foot Belk, the Waynesville store manager said it is still too new to talk about.

"The details haven't quite been published. It is still in the works," said Reasey Johnson, the general manager of Belk in Waynesville.

Plans were filed with the town by CBL & Associates, a commercial property development firm that has been marketing the site for Home Depot. There has not been a sale of the site recorded yet, and the tenants are not yet cast in stone.

"We have nothing official to announce regarding a prospective development in Waynesville," Matt Phillips with CBL & Associates. "We explore a number of opportunities; some that are realized and some that are not. We will be pleased to make an official announcement when we have actual information to share."

County economic development leaders have been working for years to bring development to the former industrial site. A sprawling, rusting, old factory was bulldozed to make way for the retail strip complex five years ago. But new stores have been slow to locate there because of the economy.

"This is what we expected to happened, but the unfortunate three year economic hiatus held us up," said Waynesville Mayor Gavin Brown, also a member of the county's economic development commission. "It is nice to see we are having nationally known businesses locate in the community. I'm not saying there aren't local suppliers of those same products, but it is nice to know Waynesville is recognized as a place to be."

Developers in Waynesville rejoice: your customers may now park in front of your buildings. Sometimes. In some places.

The new rules, passed after nearly two years of deliberation, will allow limited parking in the front of businesses for high-traffic commercial districts, something that was strictly forbidden under the town’s smart growth policies, much to the chagrin of some developers and business owners.

Parking design has been a controversial topic since 2003, when the town’s new land-use plan relegated parking to the side and rear of buildings in favor of a streetscape defined by building façades — a more attractive option than asphalt parking lots.

But a committee tasked with reviewing the town’s land-use plan over the past year recommended the town allow some parking in front buildings.

After two months of debate of their own, the town board was split 3-2 on exactly how much parking should be allowed in front during last month’s town board meeting.

Town leaders ultimately did not allow as much parking in front as the land-use review committee or the town planning board suggested. Instead of allowing two rows of parking spaces in front of the building, the town board cut that down to just one row.

Town board members Libba Feichter, Wells Greeley and LeRoy Roberson voted to limit parking in front to just one row.

Greeley, who wasn’t on the board when the original ordinance was hashed out, said he was pleased with both the process and the result. Greeley said that he knew coming in that the standards would be a challenge — the parking provisions in particular.

He said that he feels like the end result was a good compromise between the pro- and anti-parking factions.

“I think this strikes a compromise as being now commercially friendly but yet still trying to keep the façades and the front of the buildings maintained,” said Greeley.

Roberson said that he was also pleased with the eventual outcome of the months of discussions and debates.

He also came to the board after the initial statutes were penned, but said that the cleaned-up version will lay a good framework for future development.

“I just think it gives it a better look,” said Roberson. “Instead of having another Russ Avenue on South Main, you’ll have something that’s more appealing and something that will function better overall.”

Mayor Gavin Brown and Alderman Gary Caldwell sided with the committee in wanting two rows.

Caldwell said that, while he’d never be completely happy and did vote against the parking proviso, the overall compromises that were reached were workable.

Town Planning Director Paul Benson said the idea was to offer a clean and inviting aesthetic, while still giving businesses, and their customers, workable parking.

“The concept of one row is that it sort-of replaces on-street parking in places where you can’t have on street parking, and still keeps buildings pretty close to the road,” Benson said. “I think [the aldermen] recognized that a limited amount was probably desirable, at least in some locations, but they didn’t want to go too far.”

What that means will differ greatly for businesses and developers on the ground from district to district, and sometimes even from case to case, said Benson.

“It varies from no parking in front, like in the central business-type districts, to maximum parking in front with a controlled-use permit,” said Benson, referring to the new stipulation that allows some developers to ask that their property be made a special zone, with site-specific conditions.

Ingles on Russ Avenue, which is pursuing a major expansion, is the first to be granted such a permit.

Not everywhere in town, of course, would be privy to parking-in-front. For businesses, it’s limited to the town’s three major commercial districts — Russ Avenue, the Elwood-Junaluska district and South Main Street — and certain residential districts.