Through at least fall 2024, applicants to University of North Carolina System schools won’t have to sit for SAT or ACT testing to be considered for admission, following a vote of the UNC Board of Governors Thursday, April 7. 

Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians tribal leaders frequently travel to Washington, D.C., to make their case to lawmakers on a variety of issues, and soon they hope to have their own space to conduct business in the nation’s capital. 

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park today announced a groundbreaking proposal to charge a daily fee for parking and significantly increase existing frontcountry and backcountry fees within the enormously popular national park. A public comment period is now open, and a virtual public meeting is planned for Thursday, April 14.

When Ron Lance found out he’d been chosen for a prestigious Southern Appalachian Botanical Society award, he was astonished.

The friends and family of two Sylva boys who died following a tragic shooting incident Sunday, March 27, gathered in the dark Saturday, April 2, for a candlelight vigil at Sylva’s Bridge Park to commemorate lives ended too soon and show support for the grieving parents. 

Victims of crime on the Qualla Boundary will now have a defined list of rights to rely on as they navigate the legal process, following unanimous passage of an ordinance  before Tribal Council Thursday, March 1. 

The wildfires that ripped through the mountains last week are now mostly under control, but as of Tuesday afternoon, April 5, fire danger remained high in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee — even as the first drops of rain from a large system headed north began to blanket the region.

Crews are getting the Thomas Divide Complex Fire in Swain County and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park under control, with the size of 941 acres measured last night representing a decrease from the 960 acres reported the previous day. The difference is due to more accurate mapping, and the fire is 60% contained.

The Thomas Divide Complex Fire in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is now 60% contained at 960 acres, but a challenging day awaits the 70 people engaged in firefighting efforts.

The 60-day objection period for the Pisgah-Nantahala Forest Management Plan is now over, and while there’s not yet an official tally of how many people are contesting the final plan, it’s safe to say it’s a high number. 

High winds over the weekend felled trees and downed power lines, sparking a wildfire that covers 950 acres straddling the jurisdictional line between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Swain County. Meanwhile, a fire in the Cherokee National Forest near the state line is burning 180 acres.

Two boys, ages 15 and 10, are dead following a shooting in Sylva Sunday, March 27.

High winds over the weekend felled trees and downed power lines, sparking a wildfire that now covers 950 acres straddling the jurisdictional line between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Swain County. Meanwhile, a fire in the Cherokee National Forest near the state line is now burning 180 acres.

UPDATE, March 29: Both Tonya and Tracy Tolliver have been located, and they are safe.

On Monday, March 14, at approximately 11:30 p.m., officers with the Cherokee Indian Police Department responded to a disturbance call at a gravel parking lot near the casino. During that time, CIPD officers had an interaction with Tonya and her husband, Tracy Tolliver.

A Sylva man arrested for his involvement  in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot  at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., pleaded guilty last week to a felony charge.

With just about 2 inches to spare on each side, an 81-seat electric school bus eased into The Cherokee Convention Center exhibit hall last week for a celebration commemorating a milestone for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and both North Carolina. Cherokee is home to the first — and, for now, only — electric school bus in the state.

When a child goes missing, the first 48 hours  are the most critical portion of the response. If it ever happens on the Qualla Boundary, the Cherokee Indian Police Department wants to be ready to hit the ground running the moment the call comes through — and an award from the The AMBER Advocate’s Amber Alert in Indian Country Initiative  aims to ensure officers are ready should the worst occur.

A master plan envisioning campus needs for the decade ahead received unanimous approval from the Western Carolina University Board of Trustees during its March 4 meeting, setting the stage for a long-term effort to reshuffle campus programs into a more logical and efficient configuration.

After tabling  it last month for further discussion, on March 3  the Cherokee Tribal Council unanimously approved two referendum questions that will ask voters to approve term limits and staggered terms for Tribal Council.

The capital of Kazakhstan, Alma Ata, translates to “full of apples” — an homage to the country’s heritage as the birthplace  of the now-ubiquitous fruit. In the approximately three-quarters of a million years since people first discovered wild sour crab apples in a central Asian forest, the apple has traveled the world, splitting into 7,500 varieties as diverse as the orchardists responsible for breeding them, separated by miles and millennia.

On July 21, 2015, Cherokee resident John Michael Arkansas was convicted of violating a domestic violence protective order. He received a year of probation and $1,600 in fines and restitution, with a 75-day sentence hanging over his head should he violate the terms.

Josh Taylor is seven months into his job as chief of the Cherokee Indian Police Department. Asked how it’s going, he pauses, clasps his hands together atop the table, and leans forward.

A requested athletic fee increase at Western Carolina University met approval from the University of North Carolina Board of Governors at its Feb. 24 meeting, but this month WCU trustees passed a resolution pledging that increase would stick around only as long as the debt for the projects it seeks to support.

Sylva Fire Department is requesting funding from Jackson County for the salary of additional paid personnel in the split paid, volunteer fire department. At a March 10 commissioners meeting, Sylva fire chief Mike Beck made his case.

Just six months after Cherokee voters said yes in a referendum election , a liquor store is open on the Qualla Boundary — making the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians the first tribe in the country to have one.

In mid-November 2021, a group of friends was passing the evening gathered around a campfire at Lake Keowee, South Carolina, when the conversation turned to plastic, its tragic overabundance in the world, and how a small group of people might address the issue at home in Western North Carolina.

A Cherokee man was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison after being found guilty of second-degree murder by a federal jury. Shane McKinley Swimmer, 22, will also have to serve eight years of supervised probation following his release from 365 months in prison. 

As the labor shortage at Harrah’s Cherokee Casinos continues to worsen, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is considering dormitory-style employee housing that would allow it to bring in foreign workers on temporary H2B visas to support its cash cow.

Following November’s passage of the “best budget in a decade” for the University of North Carolina System, Western Carolina University has a clean slate for a new wish list. Chancellor Kelli R. Brown presented trustees with the highlights March 4 — an expanded engineering program, salary increases for employees and merit scholarships for in-state students.

A Cherokee man was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison after being found guilty of second-degree murder by a federal jury. Shane McKinley Swimmer, 22, will also have to serve eight years of supervised probation following his release from 365 months in prison.

A Cherokee man is being held without bond after allegedly shooting two people outside McDonald’s in Cherokee on Friday, Feb. 25. 

Carmaleta Littlejohn Monteith has taken countless flights to innumerable destinations during her 86 years on Earth, so she no longer recalls exactly what year it was when she found herself on a flight to Los Angeles making what would later prove to be memorable small talk with the man who settled into the seat beside her.

In a campuswide email sent this afternoon, Western Carolina University announced that its mask mandate will expire on Saturday, Feb. 26, due to declining COVID-19 metrics on campus and in the surrounding community.

A kayaker died yesterday while paddling the Oconaluftee River near Smokemont Campground in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

What started as a groundswell of outrage over a massive sediment dump  from Ela Dam in Swain County has become a united effort to get the nearly 100-year-old structure removed — supported by the company that owns it and led by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

In the Muslim faith, corporate prayer is a pillar of the practice — and in Western North Carolina, there’s only one place to observe that rite. 

Case numbers continue to decline in Western North Carolina and statewide as the Omicron surge subsides.

Representatives of a world-renowned French theme park company met with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Tribal Council this week to discuss a potential partnership at Exit 407 in Sevier County.

The two most visited national parks of 2021 are located right here in Western North Carolina, according to figures released by the National Park Service today.

Nearly two decades ago, Eric Romaniszyn joined the nonprofit world as the new project manager for Haywood Waterways Association .

COVID-19 cases are dropping precipitously both locally and statewide, with hospitalizations now hovering just above the 3,000 mark after hitting a peak of 5,206 on Jan. 26. 

In an unusual sequence of events Feb. 3, the Cherokee Tribal Council passed a resolution outlining a set of referendum questions seeking to bring term limits and staggered terms to the body — only to bring it up for reconsideration minutes later and vote unanimously to table it.

A decade after convening the first meetings to discuss the impending process, the U.S. Forest Service has released a semi-final version of the plan  that will govern management of the 1.04-million-acre Pisgah and Nantahala national forests for the next 15 to 20 years.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is preparing nine red wolves for release into the world’s only wild population of the critically endangered species — an act that will boost the total wild red wolf population by about 60%. The nine wolves include a family group and two breeding pairs that will play a critical role in population recovery. 

When Chad Seger  was reported missing on Friday, Oct. 16, 2020, the Haywood County Rescue Squad’s Wilderness Search and Rescue Team deployed immediately to seek the 27-year-old Asheville man in the Shining Rock Wilderness Area. But even with rescue crews from across the region joining the effort, day after day went by with no sign of Seger.

Waynesville native Zeb Powell, 22, narrowly missed a medal at the X Games in Aspen Jan. 21, coming in fourth on the Wendy’s Snowboard Knuckle Huck event he dominated in the 2020 games. 

After case counts soared to unprecedentedly high levels throughout the month of January, the Omicron wave of COVID-19 appears to be receding in North Carolina — but public health officials in Western North Carolina are hesitant to say that’s yet the case locally. 

Enrollment at Western Carolina University is the lowest it’s been for any spring semester since 2018, according to student census data collected Jan. 24. The school cites the ongoing pandemic and its impact on student finances as drivers of the 2.7% decrease in enrollment between the 2022 and 2021 spring semesters.

Cherokee resident Forrest Cole Stamper, 28, will spend four years in federal prison after pleading guilty in federal court to abusive sexual contact of a minor.