Representatives from the revamped North Carolina Women in Municipal Government visited Maggie Valley last weekend to recruit women from the towns of Western North Carolina. 

The proud communities that make up Western North Carolina were once mountain towns that played host to several successful blue-collar industries. We’re talking about logging, furniture, paper products, auto parts, beverages, textiles, and so on. The country needed things, and needed them fast, and folks here made those products with their bare hands.

These companies found a crucial, much-needed balance alongside the serene beauty and endless natural resources of our forests, rivers and wildlife.

For 15 years Nantahala Outdoor Center instructors have been teaching kids and teens how to maneuver the waters of Western North Carolina during its summer camp programs. 

Church youth groups of all sizes are invited to Lake Junaluska for five Summer Youth Events June 17 to July 31.

With a whole world of mountain beauty to explore, summer leaves no time to waste indoors. 

A YMCA camp in Swain County specifically caters to youth in Western North Carolina by offering an affordable weeklong outdoor adventure experience. 

For Nick Provost and Peter Moyle, co-owners of the startup outdoors brand Gnarcissist Gear, it all started with granola bars in high school history class. Moyle was new at Smoky Mountain High School, and he and Provost became friends over the shared snacks, strengthening their bond as they both took jobs at Cataloochee Ski Area. 

“We worked together all the time, carpooled all the time,” said Moyle, 27. “That’s how this whole ideation came about was talking in the car about what we wanted to do someday.”

It was 1983 when Avram Friedman first rolled into Sylva, driving the repurposed school bus that was home for him, his wife and their 18-month-old son during their cross-country trek from California. They were looking for a more permanent living situation, and while most would have passed over the 3-acre property that is still the Friedman family home, to Avram it was perfect — mainly because the land and the house combined cost only $12,000. 

“We didn’t have any money,” Avram laughed. “We were just poor hippies.”

Mission Health, the largest health care provider in Western North Carolina, could soon become a for-profit health care system if plans to be acquired by Nashville-based HCA Healthcare come to fruition.