Holly Kays
A two-hour work session last week on alleged ballot tampering and security lapses during Cherokee’s 2017 elections yielded arguably more questions than answers.
An audit investigating Birdtown’s disputed 2017 Tribal Council race has concluded that ballot tampering is the likely culprit, with alleged fraud concentrated in the early voting ballots.
An enthusiastic friend of students. A die-hard fan of all things Catamount. An efficient administrator, effective political advocate, willing traveler and collaborative partner in meeting the needs of students, faculty, staff and the region as a whole.
An effort to envision the future of Cashiers is now underway as work begins to create a small area plan for the unincorporated Jackson County community.
It’s been just about 10 years since the day Joe-Ann McCoy, then living in Iowa and working as the national medicinal plant curator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, got a life-changing call from her home region of Western North Carolina.
It was the N.C. Arboretum in Asheville, and they wanted to know if she’d be interested in trading her secure government job for a position funded by grants and contracts, moving to the Asheville area, and starting up a seed bank.
A muralist has been chosen to create the painting that will soon decorate a blank white wall on Mill Street’s Ward Plumbing and Heating building. From a field of 21 applicants, the Sylva Public Arts Committee selected Brevard native Aaron Harris for the job.
An effort to get a no wake zone instituted on Lake Glenville will move forward following a split vote of the Jackson County Commissioners Jan. 29.
An attempt to have Principal Chief Richard Sneed suspended during an investigation into the legality of settlement payouts he approved hit a wall last week when Tribal Council voted to remove the resolution, submitted by a pair of Snowbird residents, from the agenda.
A lifelong potter, storyteller and keeper of Cherokee traditions, 97-year-old Amanda Sequoyah Swimmer was given the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ highest honor last week when Tribal Council named her a Beloved Woman.
What began as an effort to get rid of alcohol permits granted in conjunction with a 2015 state law ended with the Cherokee Tribal Council’s vote to put out a referendum question that will either keep alcohol access the same on the Qualla Boundary — or significantly increase it.
When The Conservation Fund began acquiring the land that would eventually become the William H. Silver Game Lands near Maggie Valley, the idea was that parts of the property could be converted into elk-friendly habitat, hopefully alleviating conflicts between the large ungulates and the farmers whose crops they love to munch.
The doors opened, and the room filled — with hikers, bikers, ecologists, conservation workers, economic development professionals and Cherokee tribal members alike who were intent on making their voices heard during a public form Thursday, Jan. 25, which took input on plans that will impact the future of Waterrock Knob and the Plott Balsams.
Born in the upstairs of the Post Office building his mom ran in Crabtree, Robert Williams, now 87, has always called Haywood County home.
His dad was in the cattle business, and when the family moved to Canton during Williams’ childhood, chores such as feeding cattle, splitting wood and tending the fire kept Williams busy. But his grandfather William Silver’s 1,800-acre tract in the Plott Balsams, while also technically a workplace, provided a respite from the busyness of day-to-day life. Silver and his son — Williams’ uncle — ranged cattle up there, and in the summers Williams would join them.
The Blue Ridge Parkway has a new superintendent following the hire of J.D. Lee, currently deputy superintendent of Florida’s Big Cypress National Preserve.
For the second time in two months, a proposal to kick off the process toward a November referendum vote on building a pool failed to gain traction in Jackson County.
In a party-line vote that came after a lengthy and impassioned public hearing, the Jackson County Commissioners voted Jan. 29 to merge the county’s health and social services departments into a single consolidated human services agency.
Drawing more than 300 million visitors each year, the National Park Service is both a reservoir of natural beauty and an economic anchor for the communities surrounding its lands — and many of those communities are now banding together to demand that Congress address the parks’ $11.3 billion maintenance backlog.
“To know what this means to us — the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park — and for us to have to ask them for some sustainable revenue to keep these parks going, it’s almost like asking somebody to take care of their baby,” Jackson County Commissioner Boyce Dietz said before the board unanimously passed a resolution in favor of sustained funding Dec. 18, 2017.
The Tribal Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission gained its first-ever director with the hire of Terri Henry, who began work on Monday, Jan. 22.
The 21-member committee charged with finding the next chancellor of Western Carolina University kicked off the search process with an all-day meeting Friday, Jan. 19, to discuss the task ahead and their role in completing it.
Development in Cashiers will soon reach the end of a longstanding stalemate following the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority Board’s unanimous vote Jan. 16 to accept a federal funding offer for a new sewage treatment plant.
A recent hearing on a congressional bill that would transfer 76 acres in Tennessee to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has spurred hope that a long-fought battle to bring that acreage into permanent trust could soon come to an end.
An ongoing push to see Jackson County consolidate its health and social services departments will come to a head during a public hearing on the issue scheduled for Monday, Jan. 29, with a vote possible the same day.
Waynesville is in the midst of a makeover on three of its streams, and it’s a renovation that fish, crayfish and tadpoles alike are likely to find satisfactory.
One of the three projects is already complete, a rehabilitation of Shelton Branch at the Waynesville Recreation Park that wrapped up in October, with stream restorations at East Street Park and Chestnut Park poised to start soon.
A state law passed in July 2017 will lead to changes in water and sewer fees across North Carolina this year. In Jackson County that change will come amid what has been an ongoing debate about the particular fee that the law targets — the impact fee.
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has filed a federal lawsuit seeking damages from 23 companies that manufacture or distribute opioid drugs. Listing a total of seven counts, the suit alleges violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act as well as negligence, conspiracy, fraud and creation of a public nuisance.
The infamously steep trail leading up to Blackrock from Pinnacle Park will soon find itself with a gentler incline following the planned reroute of 0.37 miles of the most severely angled piece of the pathway.
It was cold, but I was prepared. Leggings and Underarmour, sweatpants and sweatshirt, parka and hiking pants, an array of hats, gloves and scarves — it was safe to say I’d dressed for the forecasted high of 27 degrees.
I’d spent much of the past week indoors, wrapped in blankets against the single-digit chill that assaulted my apartment and dreaming of warmer days. But as the weekend drew near, a realization dawned — all this cold had surely created some beauty out of Western North Carolina’s abundant waterways. I made a decision: I would brave the cold, and I would go find a frozen waterfall.
Principal Chief Richard Sneed is now under investigation following the Cherokee Tribal Council’s unanimous vote Jan. 4 to look into a settlement agreement he signed off on to pay seven former tribal employees a total of $698,000.
An ordinance that would have allowed Sunday morning alcohol sales to begin in Dillsboro died for lack of a motion during the Jan. 8 town meeting.
Jackson County is getting closer to choosing a replacement for former school superintendent Mike Murray after school board members held a four-hour meeting last week to sort through resumés.
War hero and former Principal Chief Robert Youngdeer received the highest honor available in the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians when Tribal Council voted unanimously during its Jan. 4 meeting to name him a Beloved Man.
An alcohol commissioner who was removed from his post last month will get a hearing following the Cherokee Tribal Council’s unanimous decision to grant A.J. Bird’s request to protest the decision.
When people praise the Smokies, it’s often the area’s status as a four-season bonanza of beauty that spurs the discussion. From snow-blanketed winters to vibrant-leafed autumns, these mountains dress to impress year-round.
Increased recreation on Lake Glenville has caused concerns about safety for swimmers sharing the lake with boaters, and despite an N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission officer’s recommendation that the Commission deny a request to establish a no wake zone on the lake, the Jackson County Commissioners are still hoping to secure approval.
Downtown Sylva looks quite a bit different these days than this time last year.
Cherokee inched closer to holding a referendum vote asking how widely available alcohol should be on tribal land with a vote during December’s Tribal Council meeting, but exactly what the implications of such a referendum might be is still unclear.
An Old World delicacy tied to myths of the supernatural, the truffle is often construed as a rare exotic, likely to grace only the most expensive of culinary creations.
But truffle cultivation is seeing a surge in North Carolina, with more than 200 truffle growers popping up across the state since word began spreading in the 1990s.
At 8 a.m. on a December morning, the newly risen sun had barely warmed the air over Franklin from the previous night’s low of 18 degrees when knots of bundled-up birders began gathering across the county to partake in a chilly winter tradition — the Christmas Bird Count.
One of those knots formed at the Big Bear entrance to the Little Tennessee River Greenway, a crew of four birders — plus one Smoky Mountain News reporter — waiting in frosty low-30s weather to receive their marching orders.
An already-tight timeline to get a referendum question about funding an indoor pool on Jackson County’s November 2018 ballot just got tighter when county commissioners opted during a Monday, Dec. 18, meeting to table a vote on the next step in the process.
Seven tribal employees who were fired or demoted when former Principal Chief Patrick Lambert took office in 2015 have received a combined $698,000 in settlement payouts following a November agreement that Lambert made public this week.
A routine board appointment turned contentious last week when Sylva Commissioner Harold Hensley announced that he’d like to see someone else appointed to Commissioner David Nestler’s expiring term on the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Association Board.
When rain finally quelled the wildfires running rampant through the Southeastern U.S. last year, the public was breathing a collective sigh of relief while the scientific community spotted an opportunity. Fall 2016 was a wildfire event unlike anything seen in recent history — in the eastern part of the country, at least — and the blazes left behind a natural laboratory to study what happens on a burned landscape once the flames fade.
“It’s a unique opportunity, because the forested areas — especially the high northern hardwoods areas — burn very infrequently,” said Sarah Workman, associate director of the Highlands Biological Station.
Muted under a blanket of fresh snow, the forests surrounding the Blue Ridge Parkway’s Western North Carolina stretch were quiet, white and cold Saturday morning, the sweeping path of the roadcut soft and unblemished as it wound thousands of feet above nearby Maggie Valley.
Pride-filled pandemonium reigned in Cherokee Saturday night, Dec. 8, as the victorious Cherokee Braves football team returned to town. Police cars and fire trucks from the Cherokee Police Department and Jackson County Sheriff’s Department flashed their lights and blared their horns in an escort that had met the buses all the way back at Balsam, and fireworks filled the air as fans already tired from the five-hour drive back from Raleigh cheered till they were hoarse.
After years of steady upward progress, the freshman-to-sophomore retention rate at Western Carolina University dipped slightly for students who enrolled as first-time, full-time freshmen in fall 2016.
When Chancellor David Belcher asked Sam Miller, Western Carolina University’s vice chancellor for students success, to tell the Board of Trustees about Western’s “terrifyingly good enrollment activity,” he was only half kidding about the word “terrifying” — but he was completely serious about the word “good.”
In a split decision, the Cherokee Tribal Council voted Dec. 7 to remove a member of the Tribal Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission who had been appointed to the board during the Patrick Lambert administration.
At 34, Jennifer Pharr Davis has conquered her fair share of long-distance hikes, and then some. Her 2011 hike of the Appalachian Trail set a speed record that stood until 2015. She’s completed the Pacific Crest Trail, the Bartram Trail, the Colorado Trail and a seemingly endless list of other trails scattered across six continents.
But in some ways, her 2017 hike of the North Carolina Mountains-to-Sea Trail was the most challenging — and most rewarding — of all the routes she’s walked.
Business as usual was a difficult thing to achieve at the Western Carolina University Board of Trustees meeting Friday, Dec. 1.
After leading the Jackson County Tourism Development Authority through what will likely become four of the most formative years in the organization’s history, Robert Jumper’s term on the board has ended.
