When county jails are constantly at or over capacity, the easiest answer seems to be to build a bigger one.

Taxpayers aren’t the only ones paying the price for the growing number of incarcerations and overcrowded jails. 

As The Smoky Mountain News embarks on a yearlong investigative project to explore the rural jail crisis, we wanted to first take a look at how much incarceration is costing the taxpayers in Western North Carolina. 

Financial data was collected from the four counties in our coverage area — Haywood, Jackson, Macon and Swain — to analyze how much each spends annually on local detention centers and how it impacts the overall county budget. What we’ve found is that costs are rising annually and budgeting can be difficult with so many fluctuating expenses to consider. 

LifePoint Health, the parent company of three regional hospitals in Western North Carolina, recently announced its plans to merge with RCCH Healthcare Partners.

Though the sale of nonprofit Mission Health to for-profit HCA isn’t official yet, the Mission Health Board of Directors hasn’t wasted any time setting up a health care foundation that will receive proceeds from the sale. 

Rolf Kaufman was there, at the beginning, 35 years ago. Now approaching 88, he’s spent nearly 40 percent of his life involved in the Folkmoot Festival.

Many rural county jail populations are growing at a higher rate than urban county jails or even state prisons, according to research done by the Center on Sentencing and Corrections at the Vera Institute of Justice.

For even the most woods-savvy of plant lovers, a blooming mountain camellia is a rare to non-existent sight. 

A member of the tea family, it’s picky about its habitat, easily susceptible to drought and fire, and reticent to reproduce. All that adds up to a tenuous existence in scattered, isolated populations through the Southern Appalachians. To find a mountain camellia, you’ve got to know where to go and what to look for, and be willing to tromp through the backcountry until you see it. 

In addition to several referenda as well as federal, state and local legislative candidates that will appear on Haywood County’s General Election ballots this November, a number of other candidates will also seek to gain or retain elected positions within the state’s judiciary. 

A Cherokee resident will spend four years in federal prison for his involvement in the 2015 stabbing death of 25-year-old Tyler Gaddis, of Whittier.