How can $1.5 billion transform the health and wellness of Western North Carolina communities for decades to come? That’s the question Dogwood Health Trust’s Board of Directors is currently asking itself since the new foundation was tasked with spending the proceeds from Mission Health’s sale to HCA Healthcare last year. 

What started as a traveling bookmobile 75 years ago has now evolved into a regional system of six library branches. Together they are striving to provide a broad range of services to their communities while defending their relevance in a changing society. 

“I think we need libraries for a lot of reasons,” said Karen Wallace, who serves as the librarian at the Franklin library and also as the director of Fontana Regional Library System. “We always try to respond to the needs in the communities. Where is the lifelong learning coming from if not from a public source like the library?”

A powerful voice for Western North Carolina in the North Carolina General Assembly is about to pop the kickstand on a long career in public service, but even though Franklin Republican Sen. Jim Davis has already passed the torch to his heir apparent, at least one other Republican is lining up to take a crack at his seat. 

Swain County’s tourism industry recently marked a major milestone when the occupancy tax revenue from fiscal year 2018-19 exceeded $1 million for the first time. 

Last year was a good one for the tourism industry in Jackson County, with visitor spending in 2018 increasing by 5.3 percent over 2017 numbers, according to recently released figures from the state tourism office Visit North Carolina.

Strong growth in winter and Haywood County’s smaller municipalities has local tourism numbers up over last year, in some cases, substantially. 

Outdoor recreation continues to be a major factor in Macon County’s steady increase in visitor spending year after year. 

Atop a hill on the western edge of downtown Waynesville, just past the invisible line where the delicious smell of down home food stops wafting from nearby Bogart’s Restaurant & Tavern, sits a picturesque century-old home. 

With a fresh cup of coffee in hand one recent sunny morning, Joe Sam Queen sat in a rocking chair on the side patio of his serene abode and reminisced about the Smoky Mountain Folk Festival. 

There’s probably no bigger economic development issue in rural America than access to dependable high-speed internet service. 

“One hundred percent,” said Rep. Kevin Corbin, R-Franklin. “It’s the biggest issue in Western North Carolina as far as infrastructure and the economy.”

The North Carolina General Assembly has proposed cutting millions of dollars in mental health funding in the recommended 2019-20 budget despite ongoing efforts to fight the opioid crisis and improve these services in rural Western North Carolina.