Two hikers lost in the Shining Rock Wilderness area in Haywood County were rescued Saturday evening thanks to the efforts of helicopter crews and nearly 100 ground based rescuers from over two dozen local, state, and federal agencies.

Throughout my entire life, I’ve awoken on New Year’s Day energized to be more, do more, see more. This year was very different. I woke up wanting to do less, to simplify everything. I woke up feeling steadfast, reflective. 

My mom’s been by my side for 36 holiday seasons, so the first one without her felt strange and melancholy. Thinking back on the last couple of months, there are some bright spots like snuggling on the couch watching movies under the glow of the Christmas tree, making gingerbread houses with the whole family, and visiting my sister and niece in D.C. for a mommy and kid weekend. 

To the Editor:

I very much appreciated your comments about Castro and Cuba, particularly your childhood experience at Guantanamo. I too have had some firsthand experience in Cuba, but have come away with a somewhat different take.

I first went there in 1978 with a delegation of religious journalists, sponsored by the Christian Century magazine, not long after the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion. We visited schools, hospitals, small “family doctor centers” where doctors lived and served their constituencies, neighborhood watch committees, museums, private homes, churches and the ecumenical seminary, and had several long dialogues with church leaders and members. We were left free to arrange these visits on our own with no government direction or surveillance.

Everywhere we went we heard widespread support for Fidel Castro, appreciation for and commitment to the “gains of the Revolution,” resentment against the U.S. embargo and invasion, a sense of alienation from the Cubans who had gone to Miami, and disappointment with the missionaries and pastors who had fled (“the pastors deserting their sheep”). 

Then, in the late 80s and early 90s, while our son Philip was serving a six-year stint there as a United Methodist missionary, I went several times. We traveled across the island, had meetings in churches, distributed medical supplies and bicycles, giving lectures in the seminary, and carrying on conversations with a whole range of people. This was during the “special period” after the collapse of the Soviet Union and withdrawal of its subsidies.

At that time there was economic hardship. It was blamed on Russia, government mismanagement, and especially the U.S. embargo. This had engendered experimentation in organic agriculture, a whole range of inventive “make-dos” (dubbed “resolver”), such as preservation of 1950s U.S. autos, and a bus called “the camel” because of its odd shape. The country operated under a dual economy under which those who had access to U.S. dollars were better off than those limited to Cuban pesos and there was an increased desire to migrate to the U.S. Also, there was a remarkable spurt of church growth (the Methodist Church has more than doubled in recent years).

Some takeaways:

• An Afro-Cuban Ph.D. in biochemistry in a new 11-story science lab doing research on developing new medications. Her father was a cane-cutter, and her potential would never have been developed without the “gains of the Revolution” in providing free universal education from nursery to grad school.

• A black Russian Orthodox priest who had shed his cassock and taken up a rifle to defend his country against the Bay of Pigs invasion.

• A Methodist bishop who had early been required to do forced labor but later, with 30 other church leaders, was invited to meet with Fidel and gained from him permission to invite a missionary (our son), recruit U.S. mission teams and acquire building materials to repair the churches.

• An elderly laywoman who had taken a pulpit to replace a departed pastor (“The shepherds deserted the sheep,” she said), and asserted that, as a Christian, she supported the “gains of the Revolution” in free health care, education and social services.

• A dedicated Cuban doctor who treated me for shingles that developed while I was there would accept no payment, and told me she was satisfied with her monthly salary of U.S. $500, because her life purpose was to “serve the people,” not to make a lot of money.

• An island-wide network of “family doctor centers,” each serving 250 families, where doctors lived, held clinic in the mornings, and made house calls in the afternoon.

• An 8-year-old boy who invited us to see the “museum” in his village, which turned out to be a one-room, dirt-floor, thatched roof hovel where his family had lived before the Revolution, then invited us to their modern three-room apartment with electric lights, refrigerator and TV.

• A museum depicting — among aspects of the armed struggle led by Fidel and Che to oust the dictator Batista — a display of the 60-some attempts by the CIA to assassinate Fidel.

• A seaside nature reserve designed to protect from tourists the giant turtles who come up to lay their eggs — one result of a constitutional amendment requiring environmental protections.

• A layman in our son’s church who had just been released from an eight-month prison term assessed for criticizing the government, where he said he was treated well and saw no signs of torture.

• Church people — some supportive, some critical of Fidel and the government — who shared worship and fellowship together in the same congregations. 

Of course, there were the abuses alluded to in your editorial — killings, corruption, confiscation, persecution — such as have been reported by refugees and the U.S. media. But I saw another side to the story, which readers need to know as well.

Doug Wingeier

Waynesville

New cattle working equipment will soon be available for community use in Swain and Jackson counties.

A reward of $5,000 is being offered in the case of a red wolf that was shot and killed around Dec. 19 in Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, located east of Greenville.

Three people have died in a plane crash that occurred Monday, Dec. 26, in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The three victims were David Starling, 41, Kim Smith, 42, and Hunter Starling, 8, all of Bradford County, Florida.

A Smokies biologist will give a glimpse of plans for a brook trout restoration project in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 10, at Rendezvous Restaurant in Maggie Valley.

Members of the Blue Ridge Mountain Quilt Guild in Canton stopped by the Haywood County Sheriff’s Office recently to drop off some unique gifts to help kids caught in tough situations.

Lake Junaluska has announced new leadership of the Lake Junaluska Singers, a choral group that has been part of Lake Junaluska’s history for more than 60 years. Mary Wannamaker Huff began as the interim director of the Lake Junaluska Singers on Jan. 1.

Taste of Local at Ingles Markets on Broad St. in Brevard Thursday, January 5, 3-6 p.m.

Seven trails and one road that have been closed since the Chimney Tops 2 Fire are now open in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Campfires are now legal in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for the first time since Nov. 15.

License plate sales raised nearly $815,000 to support the Great Smoky Mountains National Park this year, with the grand total rising to $13.3 million since the program launched in 1999.

More than 30 years after the first piece of property was donated toward the creation of DuPont State Recreational Forest, the final acres have been added to complete the land donation from the DuPont company.

Environmental quality projects in Western North Carolina will get a boost thanks to grants from the Duke Energy Foundation, whose Water Resources Fund this year doled out $778,000 to environmental and wildlife programs. 

Haywood Community College Continuing Education Creative Arts is expanding its selection of music classes spearheaded by local musicians Julie and Bryan McConnell.

A reconnaissance flight by the Tennessee Army National Guard was able to locate the missing single engine airplane within Great Smoky Mountains National Park at about 4:43 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 27.The plane was found on an unnamed ridge between Cole Creek and Bearpen Hollow Branch. Paramedics on board were hoisted down to the crash site and confirmed that there were no survivors. The identities of the victims have not been confirmed. 

“The plane is positioned on a very steep mountain side and could be at risk of sliding further down into the drainage,” said Chief Ranger, Steve Kloster. “These search and rescue personnel specialize in high angle rescues and have the best knowledge in making sure we conduct our operations in the safest manner possible.”

Ground teams searched the steep and heavily wooded area on foot Tuesday, but were unable to access some areas due to the rough terrain. A single Blackhawk helicopter was able to fly late afternoon and spotted the wreckage along the last known flight path of the missing aircraft. Recovery efforts of the three victims will begin on Wednesday, Dec. 28.

The plane was in route to the Gatlinburg-Pigeon Forge Airport from Florida on Monday, Dec. 26, when it went missing over the park at about 4:01 p.m. The three occupants of the plane, David Starling, 41, Kim Smith, 42, and Hunter Starling, 8, were from Bradford County, Florida. The National Transportation Safety Board will be the lead in the investigation of the plane crash.

The National Park Service worked closely with the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, Civil Air Patrol, Federal Aviation Administration, and Tennessee Emergency Management Agency in this search effort. 

Tim Dietz, Ridgefield Farm's  Ranch Manager and Steve Whitmire, owner of Brasstown Beef,  are both proud of the fact that Ridgefield Farm is GAP 4 (Global Animal Partnership www.globalanimalpartnership.org) and BQA (Beef Quality Assurance www.bqa.org) certified. These certifications address the humane treatment of animals.

Major reconstruction is underway at the Massey Branch Boat Access Area on Santeetlah Reservoir, meaning the area will be closed through Feb. 1, 2017.

The Whitewater Falls area of the Nantahala National Forest, near Cashiers, will remain closed indefinitely due to severe wildfire damage. 

Jackson County will be getting three new electric vehicle charging stations thanks to a grant from Duke Energy.

To the Editor:

Nothing in a recent letter (“Please, just check the facts,” Dec. 14, The Smoky Mountain News) rings true, factual and correct or adds any genuine evidence to support the assertions made. 

I don’t know about alt-right (or alt-left) people since those are “politically correct” labels whose meanings constantly shift depending on who you are talking to or whether one political stripe or the other is more susceptible to online scams (my sense is that it is evenly distributed among the population). 

It used to be the case when we had three television network news shows, several radio news networks, hundreds of authentic newspapers and a number of high-quality weekly news magazines that most of them made profits, though not huge, for their respective parent companies. If they didn’t they went out of business. 

Of course, that was when readers/viewers/listeners trusted them and had a reason to trust them — because they reported the facts. Since what passes for an educational system no longer trains young men and women to actually think, why shouldn’t they be taken in by fake news, whether it be from the regime or some bipolar con man?

Speaking of con men, neither Jestin Coler or Paul Horner are reputable sources for citing financial figures as they both are paid liars and as such have no credibility.

Just two fairly recent cases where the mainstream media (MSM) was caught with their fake news pants down are the Rolling Stone Magazine/University of Virginia false rape scandal and the Duke University men’s lacrosse team false rape scandal. Interestingly, in both incidents the msm relied upon single source information — always a bad thing whether it be in the news or intelligence businesses. Do an Internet search to check the authority and factuality of these two examples, unless you are just too lazy to do the work.

You can invariably tell a “letters-to-the-editor-charlatan.” They always lead with personal insults (ad hominem attacks), which are the safe space of someone who has no clue about what they’re talking about. Anger, the irrational road to false confidence, which leads directly to boorishness and disordered ideations, often follows closely thereafter.

And yes, the prime hideout from truth and reality for the forward comrades crowd is the false narrative; a fallaciously written script purposely made to twist the facts of a situation to the false meme that progressives are right and anyone who does not agree with them is wrong. These charlatans will always use non-existent facts and outright lies to construct the delusion du jour and you, gentle reader, can be assured that the meme will change, often constantly, as these charlatans are always exposed as they struggle irrationally and impotently to draw the intellectually wary into their nets.

Acquiring knowledge has always been a personal responsibility because despite the angry screechings of the kindergarten crowd, human nature does not change. Therefore, a close, skeptical reading of letters to the editor is essential to wending your way closer to the Truth. Merry Christmas.

Carl Iobst

Cullowhee

To the Editor:

Have we ever seen such hypocrisy? The Russians have now hacked the 2016 election, really? Liberal news media are now very concerned about the Russians destroying our democratic process. 

Wasn’t it the media (CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC), among others, whose “journalists” tried to control the results of the election with biased and skewed reporting against the right? Where was this deep concern when the American people were trying to get objective information about the presidential election?

The Federal Communications Commission has publically stated the press are public trustees. The FCC continued that “broadcasters may not intentionally distort the news and that rigging or slanting the news is a most heinous act against the public interest.” Controlling the news and slanting the facts or reporting innuendos are not portions of a democratic process any more than “hacking” by another country.  

Where is the evidence the Russians hacked the election? The media owes the public this truth. If we cannot trust the information we receive from mainstream media and the content of the news is controlled or skewed, we are no longer operating as a democracy anyway.

Let us protect all aspects of the democratic process, not just the portions that agree with personal opinions or bias.

Claudia Knipe

Waynesville

Ashton Zari turns 7 on Christmas Eve, and even though he is in Columbus, Ohio, seeking medical treatment, his only birthday wish is for his community members back home in Macon County to make a donation to a great cause.

Detectives with the Haywood County Sheriff’s Office are looking for two men they believe to be involved with a breaking and entering that occurred in rural Haywood County.

Haywood County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to an alarm call around 8 p.m. Dec. 10 in the Eagles Nest community.

Based on a visit to Brasstown Beef (supplier for Ingles Markets)  for entire post: http://inglesinfoaisle.com/dirty-boots-and-the-basics-of-beef

Summer camps and Envirothon programs in Haywood, Buncombe and Madison counties will benefit from a $25,000 grant awarded to the Southwestern Resource Conservation and Development Council from the Pigeon River Fund.

The Duke Energy Foundation gave a hand toward supporting firefighters battling wildfires this fall with a $100,000 donation.

Last week’s rains caused a downgrading of drought designations across the board in Western North Carolina.

The Haywood County Arts Council (HCAC) and Jackson County Arts Council (JCAC), co-administrating organizations of this year’s program, are pleased to announce the 2016-17 grantees for Regional Artist Project Grant (RAPG), a program of the North Carolina Arts Council (NCAC).

In 2016, the Haywood County Arts Council’s (HCAC) Gallery Committee set out to improve its Gallery & Gifts retail space in Waynesville to include more retail artists throughout the year. Several local artists provided gifts to the HCAC, improving the capacity and aesthetic quality of the space.

To the Editor:

There was a story with the headline “Haywood County wipes the dust off the bottle” in the December 7 edition of The Smoky Mountain News. Along with the headline was a photo of the Jukebox Junction restaurant with the caption, “Restaurants like Jukebox Junction in rural Bethel can now sell alcohol, if owners so choose.”

To the Editor:

In the recent edition of The Smoky Mountain News, Carl Iobst’s letter seems to indicate that traditional media sources are responsible for their own demise, but the references he cites suggest just the opposite. Fake news is easy and profitable — especially when it feeds stories to the ultra-right minded folks.

To the Editor:

To my friends in Western North Carolina, I will be retiring on December 31.

I am writing a fictional spy novel. Here is the draft outline of it.

By Greg Christopher • Guest Columnist

This time of year, as many people are counting their blessings, they also realize they want to publicly share their good fortune to others by ways of different acts of kindness — to family, friends and even complete strangers. Sometimes, it can be easy to take our good fortune for granted as our day-in and day-out routines take over our minds, so I want to use this Christmas and holiday season as an opportunity for a professional yet humble and thankful evaluation.

As fall visitors flocked to Western North Carolina in mid-October, Lake Junaluska Conference and Retreat Center welcomed a distinguished visitor — former First Lady Laura Bush and a group of her childhood friends.

Ingles Markets in Waynesville: Barber Blvd. Thursday, December 15, 3-6 p.m.

To the Editor:

As President Obama’s impressive term winds down and the focus shifts to speculation about an uncertain, perhaps ominous, future, we do well to recall —and celebrate — the achievements of the past eight years. Over fierce, sometimes malicious, opposition, our 44th president is leaving us a significant trove of lasting benefits. In the area of environmental protections alone, as the Sierra Club reminds us:

• The economic stimulus, instituted after the 2008 meltdown left by the Bush administration, invested $90 billion in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and green jobs and technology. As a result, wind-generated electricity has grown three-fold, and solar electricity generation has increased 30-fold (even my wife and I have put 20 solar panels on our roof).

• The auto-industry bailout spurred car and truck manufacturers to agree to increase fuel economy standards to 36.6 mpg by 2017 and 54.5 mpg by 2025, avoiding tons of carbon pollution and pushing a transition to electric vehicles (even I now drive one).

• The EPA has instituted significant air and water safeguards affecting coal-fired power plants, including its Clean Power Plan that calls for cleaning up carbon pollution from existing plants.

• The Defense Department has recognized climate change as a security risk, and put in place a growing number of energy-saving practices.

• Over 20 new national monuments have been designated, protecting 265 million acres of land and water — more than any previous president.

• Prompted by a 2014 agreement between the U.S. and China, a breakthrough global climate agreement has been reached in Paris.

• The Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline has been rejected, a big step toward keeping large parts of our earth home from becoming uninhabitable in our lifetimes by keeping more and more fossil fuels in the ground.

• The Interior Department has placed a moratorium on new coal mining leases on public lands.

And the list goes on.

While we have President Obama to thank for taking these steps to protect our environmental habitat, we know that he could not have done it without the support — and pressure — from the people’s climate movement. That’s us!

So, now with a new administration peopled by climate deniers about to enter the stage, we must redouble our efforts to maintain these gains, keep our global commitments, and protect our planet and our children’s future — already threatened by ever-worsening climate disasters. Here in Western North Carolina we can look to — and support — organizations like the Creation Care Alliance, Mountain True, Appalachian Voices, Haywood Waterways Association, Dogwood Alliance, Southern Environmental Law Center, North Carolina League of Conservation Voters, and Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, as they lead us in this crucial effort.

Doug Wingeier

Waynesville

To the Editor:

The traditional news media (newspapers) have killed themselves through poor writing, a lack of balanced reporting, advocacy journalism and an all-around snooty attitude toward their readers/listeners/viewers (“shut up and read/listen/view what we tell you to because we know best”). Increased per issue costs, constant advertisements and big juicy scandals such as the plagiarism affair with Jayson Blair at the Grey Lady (New York Times) 13 years ago didn’t help the industry either.

The two names who lately have seemingly contributed the most towards the demise of traditional media (which started with the opinionated disinformation by Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News television broadcast after the Tet Offensive in 1968 http: //tinyurl.com/hsyrfvg) are Jestin Coler and Paul Horner.

Coler was highlighted recently in a piece that NPR did last Wednesday (http://tinyurl.com/hfrquso) on his company Disinfomedia and the various Internet fake news platforms he has created. Coler is a registered Democrat and he “got into fake news around 2013 to highlight the extremism of the white nationalist alt-right.” That hate-filled aspiration doesn’t seem to have worked out very well for Jestin.

Horner, another leftist, runs the Internet fake news site National Report where he attempted to torpedo Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions except it backfired on him when Trump managed to get to 270 electoral votes despite Horner’s Soviet-style agitprop campaign. Horner, who allegedly expressed chagrin with that outcome evidently doesn’t understand the meaning of blow-back. Tisk, tisk.

To the forgotten man, the media actually is easily defined. It is whatever media platform purports to write/speak the news; and yes, The Smoky Mountain News gets lumped in with rags such as Fuzz Busted, because anything in 2016 that is not too blatantly trying to sell stuff to the forgotten man is the media. 

I remember as a boy what it was like to watch my grandfather read the papers on a Sunday afternoon, and I came to do so also. He became informed on events near and far and derived great pleasure from the experience. Today, I subscribe to two newspapers and pick up from the box another two free papers regularly. This is mostly for reasons of nostalgia, as it doesn’t seem to be as pleasurable to read the papers for me as it was for my grandfather. And so it goes.

Nota bene: Jon McNaughton’s painting “The Forgotten Man” is probably the inspiration for the phrase in current usage and as such is entirely apropos.

Carl Iobst

Cullowhee

Steady rains over the past week have caused the N.C. Forest Service to lift burning bans for 32 counties, including Haywood, Jackson, Macon and Swain.

As December unfolds, birders across the globe will embark on a quest to tally as many birds and species as possible over the course of a single day in a 15-mile radius. The Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count, now in its 117th year, will feature a variety of local opportunities for expert and novice birders alike to participate in this annual birding experience.

A new-to-science lichen species discovered in March 2016 has been named after Fontana Dam due to its discovery in the forest above Fontana Village.