2023 A Look Back: The Hero You Never Knew You Needed Award

Not all heroes wear capes.

At least not Amanda Seay. She seems more the utility pants and boots type. 

Haywood gets financial reporting award

Haywood County has been recognized with the prestigious Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting by the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada (GFOA). 

Courting disloyalty: New program encourages shoppers to patronize Waynesville businesses

The disloyalty card is here and it’s, in a sense, exactly what it sounds like. 

Up in the air: North Canton Fire Department puts eyes in the sky to save lives

As technology evolves, every entity and industry finds new and innovative ways to use those advances to improve their operations.

Fingers like lightning: A Haywood County banjo retrospective

Editor’s Note: Since first rolling into Haywood County in August 2012 to start work as the arts and entertainment editor for The Smoky Mountain News, Garret K. Woodward has been extensively documenting banjo players around our backyard.

Five strings of fury: New book spotlights Haywood banjo legends

In the mid-1960s, when Bill Allsbrook was a med school student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, he decided to pick up the banjo. 

Haywood County and Waynesville look to stay ahead of cryptocurrency mining

It’s novel, it’s trendy and it’s a great way to become fabulously wealthy — or lose everything you have — but the nuisances associated with the production of cryptocurrency are prompting local governments to regulate them before it’s too late. 

The state of the sheriff’s office: Haywood’s top cop drops data, details from his first year

It’s been just under a year since Bill Wilke became Haywood County’s sheriff, after longtime popular incumbent, Greg Christopher, decided to call it a career.

Haywood sees high turnout, no voter ID issues

Fears that North Carolina’s new voter ID implementation would disenfranchise legitimate voters have proven unfounded — at least in Haywood County, where municipal election turnout was stronger than usual. 

Water quality grants distributed to area organizations

Environmental groups working to improve water quality in Haywood, Buncombe and Madison counties recently received 10 grants totaling $285,190 from The Pigeon River Fund of The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina. 

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