What do rangers eat for lunch? How did the Great Smoky Mountains get their name? Do rangers have to feed the bears? Are there alligators in the park? What about moose? Dolphins? 

“The kids really want to know,” said Scott Young, a volunteer at Great Smoky Mountains National Park who, together with his wife Jayne, has answered every letter kids from across the country send to the national park since they first took on the task in 2021.

The N.C. Department of Transportation recently awarded a contract to improve travel conditions on N.C. 107 through Sylva.

Buchanan & Sons of Whittier earned the $103 million contract for a transformative project that will improve safety for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.

In a town where history lives not just in the pages of books but on every brick-lined sidewalk, beneath every gabled rooftop and deep within every stately mansion, Waynesville’s Historic Preservation Commission is stepping boldly into the future by leaning into a past that, for many locals, hasn’t yet passed. 

The Town of Canton has taken a major step toward long-term flood recovery with an economic development project at a downtown parcel that could soon serve as the capstone to a broader resiliency effort all along the Park Street corridor. 

To save money after bids for the downtown public restroom project came in over budget, Sylva will move forward without installing the intended solar panels. 

The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded Sara Snyder Hopkins, assistant professor and director of the Cherokee Language Program at Western Carolina University, a grant of $64,905 for her ongoing translation project, Eastern Cherokee Histories in Translation.