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. 

In almost every living American resides at least one sepia-toned memory embellished with song — that perpetual score to a first kiss, or a last dance. 

Last week, students across the country walked out of classrooms to acknowledge the 17 people shot to death at Marjorie Stoneman Douglass High School in Parkland, Florida. 

Two weeks ago marked the 53rd anniversary of a watershed moment in the civil rights movement — the Selma to Montgomery marches, where civil rights leaders including current Georgia Congressman John Lewis were badly beaten by Alabama State Troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. 

With the results of a regional broadband survey now available, leaders have expansive data on the underserved areas in their counties and can seek out public-private partnership opportunities in an effort to expand high-speed internet service. 

The North Carolina Public Utilities Commission has not yet ruled on a rate increase request for Duke Energy customers in Western North Carolina despite conflicting reports.