Growing up as an educator’s daughter, I spent afternoons running the halls of my mom’s school with the other teachers’ kids, waiting on our parents to finish grading papers, attend faculty meetings or otherwise close out their duties. My mom was a public school librarian.

As an attorney, I have direct experience and the unique point of view that comes from working with the Social Security Administration daily and remain in awe at its ability to serve millions of Americans with a wide array of needs.

Haywood County Schools Board of Education passed its budget for 2025-26, and despite multiple years of contraction and yet another budget focused on offsetting losses and minimizing expenses, the school system continues to outperform other districts across the state.

Search online for “are more teens today suffering emotional problems,” and a boatload of websites pop to your command. Explore a few of these sites, and you’ll find psychologists and counselors of all kinds writing about the mental and emotional stresses faced by 21st century teens; 32% of these young people, for example, have an anxiety disorder, and 1 in 5 experience depression.  

To the Editor:

The Franklin Social Security office has been closed. It was the only such office west of Asheville. It handled programs such as Social Security, Retirement, SSI, Medicaid and Disability Benefits.

Residents of Jackson County have long voiced their support, organized and fundraised for a skatepark with little to show other than a temporary half-pipe that stood behind Motion Makers in Sylva for just over one year. 

Jackson County has been working to develop a plan it hopes will mend the multigenerational workforce issue that is impacting communities around the country — childcare, and the lack of availability — on the local level. 

To the Editor:

A recent edition of a local paper described the visit of an Israeli envoy to bring relief supplies to our area after Helene.

Yet, the same country, Israel, bombs Gaza daily killing thousands of Palestinians with bombs made in the United States.

Recently I had the opportunity to speak by phone with writer and podcaster Jennifer L. Scott. The author of the Madame Chic books — “Lessons from Madame Chic: 20 Stylish Secrets I Learned While Living in Paris” was the first — Scott is as delightful a conversationalist as we might expect, witty, thoughtful and easily given to laughter.

So I walk into Gary Carden’s room in the ICU and the first thing he says to me in his sonorous growl is, “OK newspaperman, take this down. I want you to turn this into a story.”