Carlie Nichols has vivid memories of growing up during the Vietnam War — specifically she remembers how poorly Vietnam veterans were treated when they returned home from combat. 

“My father was in the military for 23 years and I vividly remember the way our veterans were treated when they came back from Vietnam,” she said. “I was in college and I remember saying to myself, ‘God forbid something like Vietnam ever happens again — I will not do nothing.’ Back then, there really wasn’t an avenue to do something that I felt would be positive.”

Bill Holbrook has been a lot of things in his 71 years on earth — a factory worker, a manager, a father, a husband — but he’s always been a farmer.

“I enjoy getting my hands dirty. I enjoy the challenge,” said Holbrook, who owns Cold Mountain Farms. “I like it better than working on concrete in a factory.”

A new mental health facility in Asheville is set to open this summer to serve children and teens in Western North Carolina dealing with a mental health crisis and addiction. 

In this mountain region, there are a handful of top-notch public courses, including the Sequoyah National in Cherokee (designed by Robert Trent Jones II) and the historic 27 holes at Waynesville Inn, Golf Resort and Spa. In the Cashiers area of Jackson County, the scenic High Hampton Inn is regarded as one of the most picturesque courses in the country. Other courses include:

Standing on a mountaintop ascending above 10,000 feet — an ancient farming village in the valley below and a Buddhist nunnery behind her — Julie Thorner of Bryson City couldn’t be farther away from the life she’s known in the U.S. Yet each time she returns to Tibet, it starts to feel more and more like where she’s meant to be. 

A new tool that compiles a mind-boggling array of economic and demographic data and presents it in a simple map-based interface will give economic developers, public servants and private citizens the tools to make more informed policy decisions across the region and the state. 

A month of rain capped off by the arrival of Tropical Storm Alberto has caused massive flooding, landslides and loss of life in North Carolina’s western region, but the mountains west of Asheville were mostly able to escape the devastation experienced in Polk, McDowell, Avery and Buncombe counties. 

“I think everyone’s optimistic that we dodged a bullet to have got 20 inches of rain in two weeks and not gotten any more extensive flooding than what we had,” said Joe Deal, agriculture extension agent for Macon County Cooperative Extension.

Darrian Childers is quitting Boy Scouts after joining a local troop about three years ago when his family moved to Waynesville. 

The 16-year-old made his decision not long after the Boy Scouts of America announced its decision to allow girls to participate in more of its programming alongside the boys. While Childers has really enjoyed his time with the Scouts, he doesn’t think the organization is moving in the right direction. 

For generations, American farmers have plowed the fields, milked the cows and slopped the hogs to the seasonal rhythms of nature. In Western North Carolina, a meaty living could be wrest from this hardscrabble land with the constant backbreaking toil associated with a traditional farming lifestyle. 

Could those old farmers of yore ever have imagined people actually wanting to pay money to experience some of the most onerous and monotonous tasks they ever had to perform?

Many farmers today understand they can’t put all their eggs in one basket.