Holly Kays
Jackson County will spend $10,000 on a revised plan to renovate the Health Department building off Hospital Road after commissioners decided they’d like to see the building house the planning and code enforcement departments as well.
The results of a recount in the race for Birdtown Tribal Council sent shock waves through Cherokee from the moment they were announced Sept. 13.
In the lull between summer’s peak and fall’s color arrival, things are on the quiet side at the Highlands Biological Station as the gardens make their transition from summer blooms to autumn vibrancy. But for those who know where to look, a world of change and color waits ripe for discovery.
That’s the world of pollinators — the army of butterflies, bees, moths, flies and wasps whose diet of nectar keeps flowers flowering.
Now in their senior and sophomore years of high school, Karen and José Ramos — ages 18 and 16, respectively — are just starting to imagine how they might make their mark on the world after graduation.
At 21, Teresa Luna holds two associate’s degrees, a freshly minted diploma in dental assisting from AB Tech and dreams of one day becoming a dentist. Add in the fact that she’s been full-time as both a student and an employee for the past two years, and it’s safe to say that Luna is the epitome of the self-motivated achiever.
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But Luna is also an immigrant, having made the dangerous illegal crossing from Mexico as a child and applied for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program when the Obama administration created it in 2012. Now, the program is on the chopping block, and Luna is worried about what that could mean for the future she’s worked so hard to build.
Cherokee voters delivered a clear message to the sitting Tribal Council when they cast their votes in the General Election Thursday, Sept. 7 — they want change.
If Election Day interviews conducted with Cherokee voters swinging by Food Lion the afternoon of Thursday, Sept. 7, are any indication, anti-incumbent sentiment had a big part to play in the outcomes of the 12 Tribal Council races on the ballot that day.
After two weeks of testimony, a jury delivered a verdict of not guilty on all counts in the case of Cody Jenkins, who in 2014 was accused of statutory rape following a Sylva Halloween party that involved underage drinking.
Rising construction costs are causing problems for Jackson County Schools as it attempts to complete $9 million of much-needed capital upgrades. With projects out for bid and work underway, estimates are showing that it will cost 25 percent more than expected — $2.22 million — to carry out the original construction plan.
Yesterday’s Tribal Council elections delivered a blow to incumbents, with only three of the seven councilmembers who both supported the impeachment of former Principal Chief Patrick Lambert and ran for re-election winning another term in office.
Once Jay Ruebel started seeing the billboard, which advertised the 28.3-mile Trailblaze Challenge hike, it seemed like he couldn’t stop seeing it.
Jay likes challenges, and he knew who he wanted to conquer this one with — his 16-year-old daughter, Gracie. Jay’s wife and other daughter both enjoy short hikes, but Gracie’s the one who’s into long excursions and multi-day treks. It’s how they hang out.
A Tribal Council resolution calling for a special election to choose the next Vice Chief sat, unsigned, in the office of Principal Chief Richard Sneed since its passage Aug. 3 — until Sneed announced his decision to veto the decision on Monday, Sept. 4.
The bowling alley construction at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort wasn’t even finished when ground broke on a similar addition at Harrah’s Valley River Casino in Murphy.
A years-long effort to bring a bowling alley to Cherokee has come to an end with the opening of the 53,000-square-foot Ultrastar Multi-tainment Center at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort Sept. 1.
Nine months after a small wildfire in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park metastasized into a deadly blaze that wreaked havoc on Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, a report reviewing the National Park Service’s decisions and actions leading up to the Nov. 28 firestorm has been released.
Ever since an August protest over removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned violent, a nationwide debate has erupted over the part Confederate monuments play in glorifying racism and treason — and the metal-cast Confederate solider standing guard over downtown Sylva is no exception.
Austin Bohanan, 18, had been lost in the wilderness for 11 days when he woke up the morning of Aug. 22 to see boats floating on the water below the ridge where he’d slept.
Those boats were his ticket out of the nightmare that began Aug. 11 when he’d gotten separated from his stepfather Hubert Dyer, Jr., during an off-trail excursion in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Chilhowee Lake. Bohanan scrambled down to the water, which turned out to be the tail end of Abrams Creek, and waved down one of the boats. The boaters gave him a ride down to Shop Creek, where his family was gathered to support the crews searching for him.
Josh Moss’s professional world revolved around property management and vacation rentals at the time he decided to open a CrossFit gym.
For someone who’s spent decades introducing thousands of children to the joy of swimming, Mike Creason’s relationship with water didn’t begin too auspiciously.
Healthy living is a whole-family affair with the Cherokee Turning Point program, a seven-week course that aims to reach kids 7-12 who are at risk of developing diabetes.
After years of discussion, Jackson County is ready to move forward with plans to address the needs of its aging health department building — but the resulting project will likely affect the planning and code enforcement departments as well.
The town of Sylva now has new rules governing when and where parades and demonstrations can take place, with revisions taking place swiftly following the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, Aug. 11-12.
With the election for Cherokee Tribal Council just one week away, The Smoky Mountain News continues its series profiling the 24 candidates running for election to one of 12 Tribal Council seats.
There’s still no guarantee whether a special election will be held to choose the next vice chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, but that hasn’t stopped at least five people from announcing their intention to run for the seat.
Brian McMahan and Johnny Nicholson can both remember boyhood days spent in the mountains, hunting the elusive ginseng plant.
Coveted for its myriad medicinal uses, ginseng root harvest is an Appalachian tradition stretching back through generations. McMahan and Nicholson were both taught to dig it in such a way that its numbers would stay strong for generations more — leaving small plants to grow and planting the seed-containing berries of harvested plants in the earth around the dig.
Expectation reigned at Clingmans Dome the morning of Aug. 21 as buses rolled in carrying the 1,325 people lucky enough to snag tickets for the solar eclipse event at the highest point in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Packing to watch the sun disappear felt like packing for work, camping and an emergency evacuation all at once.
The 2017 General Election will choose the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ next slate of Tribal Council representatives following Election Day on Thursday, Sept. 7.
When the Jackson County Commiss-ioners met to discuss construction needs in the health department Aug. 8, the goal for the afternoon was clear.
After more than two years of meetings and mapping and analysis, the comprehensive transportation plan intended to guide Jackson County through the year 2040 will be sent on for regional and state approval if county commissioners give it the green light at their Aug. 28 meeting.
After 11 days missing in the remote backcountry of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Chilhowee Lake, 18-year-old Austin Bohanan walked out on his own about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 22.
Principal Chief Richard Sneed has vetoed legislation that Tribal Council passed in July setting up a program to pay power bills for tribal elders.
Election Day is drawing ever nearer for Cherokee Tribal Council, with all 12 seats up for election Thursday, Sept. 7.
A plan to build a connector between Ledbetter Road and Monteith Gap Road in Cullowhee has been scrapped following the N.C. Department of Transportation’s analysis of comments from a June 15 meeting — but improvements are still coming to the area.
The Jackson County Planning Board approved construction of the 38-home Solitude Development in Cullowhee in August 2016, but following concern over the ridge top development contained the plan, the developer returned this month with a revised plan containing only 33 homes — none of them to be built on a ridge top.
It’s safe to say that a good solar eclipse photo requires a bit more preparation than your average snapshot.
As I stood freezing on the dock above 67.3-degree Lake Logan, the main thought running through my head was a question: Why did I put myself up to this?
Wearing only a swimsuit, I was surrounded by a bunch of wetsuit-wearing athletes who were more intense than I would ever be, and here I was, set to swim, bike and run alongside them in the Lake Logan Sprint Triathlon. My stomach growled, either from hunger or nervousness — it was hard to tell — but either way it seemed an affirmation that I should have slept rather than waking up at 4:30 a.m. to come out here and embarrass myself.
Whittier has been home to Elda Chafoya DePaz and her three children for less than a year, but it’s not their first summer in Western North Carolina.
In November, it will have been 12 years since DePaz, 36, left her native Guatamala to seek a better life in the United States. Life was hard in Guatamala, she said, with poverty everywhere you looked. She worked for a banana company there, tasked with separating 17 bunches per minute from the giant clumps of fruit that come from a banana tree. The work was done manually, with just a knife.
Cherokee came one step closer last week to having a special election to fill the vacant vice chief’s seat, but the resolution narrowly passed by Tribal Council still needs a signature from Principal Chief Richard Sneed to become effective.
A needle exchange program will likely be underway in Cherokee by the end of the year following Tribal Council’s unanimous vote to write the existence of such a program into its code.
Nearly a century old, the aging Cullowhee Dam is at a crossroads — with risk of failure increasing, Western Carolina University must decide whether to renovate the existing structure or remove it completely.
The dam hasn’t been used for power generation since the 1960s, but it creates a reservoir of still water that supplies WCU and the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority. However, some would like to see the dam disappear, offering increased opportunity for paddlers and allowing fish and other aquatic life to travel freely through a more natural, higher-quality river.
Within recent memory, public prayer hasn’t been part of official meetings of the Jackson County or Sylva boards of commissioners.
Jackson County will have enough candidates running to fill the seats available following an extended sign-up period for the Webster Town Council.
Councilmember Teresa McCoy, of Big Cove, has announced her intention to run for vice chief in the special election that Tribal Council approved July 27.
After months in limbo, the fate of Cherokee’s vacant vice chief seat has been decided — following a narrow vote from Tribal Council, a special election will be held to fill the office.
A year after a surgery to remove a malignant brain tumor was deemed successful, Western Carolina University Chancellor David Belcher announced that the cancer is back.
A life of service to country, culture and global community has earned Jerry Wolfe the state of North Carolina’s highest award, the Order of the Long Leaf Pine. Wolfe received the award in a surprise ceremony accompanying the July 25 Folkmoot USA performance at Cherokee Central High School.
The attraction between people and waterfalls is nothing new, with a couple waterfall deaths per year typical between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest.
ALSO: Herculean rescue effort at Yellowstone Falls highlights dangers of waterfall play
The 911 call, coming from a gorge cut high in the Balsam Mountains, was nearly unintelligible. When the connection ended five minutes later, Haywood County Emergency Management was left with two important facts: somebody had fallen from a waterfall, and the caller was saying something that sounded like “Yellowstone.”
SEE ALSO: WNC's deadliest waterfalls
The GPS coordinates showed the call originating in Dark Prong, two drainages over from Yellowstone Falls in the Pisgah National Forest’s Shining Rock Wilderness, but GPS data isn’t always correct in the rugged terrain of Western North Carolina. In the mountains, cell reception is often scant at best — emergency responders had to make a judgment call.
The sign-up period to run for municipal office is over in North Carolina, but the Jackson County Board of Elections voted to extend the deadline to run for Webster Town Council by one week in hopes that at least one more person will decide to run. The new deadline is noon Friday, July 28.
