Rafting outfitters in the Nantahala Gorge have arrived at a compromise with summer camps and colleges vying for the chance to take kids down the Nantahala River without going through an existing commercial outfitter.

The U.S. Forest Service issues only a limited number of permits for commercial traffic on the river. Camps and colleges that don’t have a permit but want to take their kids paddling have to sign up for a trip with one of the outfitters.

A coalition of summer camps and colleges want to use their own staff, however, which often includes experienced paddlers, and avoid paying a commercial outfitter for the service of a down-river escort. They asked the forest service to up the number of permits issued on the river, setting off a months-long debate over how to balance demand on the Nantahala.

During the thick of summer tourist season, outfitter traffic on the Nantahala is akin to finely tuned, well-oiled clock gears.

An average of 200,000 people a year ran the Nantahala over the last five years — most of that crammed into a mere three months. Between 85 and 90 percent of river traffic is with a commercial outfitter, according to the forest service.

Moving thousands of rafters on and off the river in a day is no small feat given the narrow road, dearth of parking and cramped put-ins and take-outs.

While Nantahala Outdoor Center has its own take-out on its property, the rest of the raft outfitters share two take-outs.

Guides must get their loads of giddy and adrenaline-pumped rafters to the shore, out of their boat, out of their life jackets, then onto a bus — plus the rafts strapped on top — within 10 minutes to make room for the next bus waiting in the wings.

“We all work together to make sure that we are not clogging these places up. We understand the importance to make sure things move smoothly. It is a concerted effort,” said Kevin Gibbs, CEO of Wildwater and president of the Nantahala Gorge Association, an affiliation of rafters.

The same goes for put-ins, which are equally short on space.

The forest service initially considered granting up to 36 new commercial permits — compared to the 16 they have now. Doing so would have also opened the door for new commercial outfitters — not just camps and colleges — to start doing business on the Nantahala.

Rafting outfitters feared an influx of camps, colleges and new commercial guides running their own trips down the river would create an untenable free-for-all.

Guides unaccustomed to the hustle of the river would clog up the works. And guides unfamiliar with the river’s more treacherous spots could also pose safety risks, the existing outfitters argued, pointing to Big Wesser Falls just downstream of the commercial take-out.

“If you miss the take-out, you are going to want to paddle really, really hard to get to shore because there is a very large rapid just below it that no one paddles commercially,” Gibbs said. “It is very difficult, and it can be very dangerous. That is one of our initial concerns.”

Yes to kayaks, no to rafts

After studying the issue for much of the last year, the forest service decided against new commercial permits for raft trips, it announced last week.

But the forest service did make a concession that pleases camps and colleges. The forest service will issue a dozen new permits for guided kayak and canoe trips on the river. The permits will only be good Monday through Thursday, however, avoiding the busy weekends. Group size and the number of trips a year are also limited for those seeking the new permits.

Mike Wilkins, chief forest ranger for the Nantahala District, said the facilities and infrastructure in the Gorge simply can’t accommodate more traffic.

“It is really hard to move lots of people in and out quickly,” Wilkins said.

Both the outfitters and camps say the decision strikes a balance between giving camps more flexibility to take their own kids down the river yet guarding against the type of mayhem outfitters feared.

“I think that Mike listened to everybody’s concerns, not just the folks interested in coming here but the folks who are already here,” Gibbs said.

Wilkins said he wasn’t exactly aiming for a compromise, although that’s what it’s being called.

“I don’t know about a compromise but I was trying to weigh all the factors,” Wilkins said. “I guess in my mind, I wasn’t as concerned about the purely recreational use as the ability to give young people instruction.”

Wilkins didn’t want to deny a summer camp from teaching its kids how to paddle on the river.

After all Sutton Bacon, the CEO of NOC, first learned how to kayak at summer camp.

“We can all personally attest to the value of being introduced to whitewater paddling on the Nantahala at a young age,” Bacon said. “To that end, NOC strongly supports the use of the Nantahala River by a wide variety of groups and camps that expose young people to whitewater paddle sports.”

Gordon Strayhorn, president of the N.C. Youth Camp Association, said the new permits should satisfy camps for the most part. Camps are primarily interested in taking their kids kayaking and canoeing anyway — not rafting, Strayhorn said.

Strayhorn, who is the head of Camp Illahee, said paddling has been part of their summer camp program for decades. “Organized youth summer camps have been using the Nantahala River for more than 60 years and represented the first recreational use of the river, long before permits and outfitters existed,” Strayhorn said.

They have forest service permits on every other river in the region — French Broad, Ocoee, Chattooga, Nolichucky and the Pigeon. The Nantahala was the only they couldn’t run with their own guides but instead had to go through a commercial outfitter, he said.

Strayhorn said the forest service was right to open up new permits on the Nantahala.

River squatters

One logistical concern still troubles the outfitters, however. Unlike the outfitters, camps and colleges don’t have a home base in the Gorge. Where will their van drivers park for three hours while their students run the river? Where will they change into dry clothes afterward?  Where will they use the bathroom?

“Several business owners are concerned these people would come and stop at their outposts,” Gibbs said.

As the largest outfitter in the Gorge and with prime real estate on both sides of the river near the take-out, Nantahala Outdoor Center would likely be a prime target. NOC CEO Sutton Bacon doesn’t want their campus to become a staging area for other groups. Not when parking in the Gorge is at such a premium.

“Of course, we want to be as welcoming as possible, but it is also unfair to expect NOC to bear the entire burden of providing public access for all of these groups, especially if it means there is not enough parking for our own guests,” Bacon said.

That remains one of the biggest outstanding issues: what facilities will these groups use if they don’t go through an outfitters? Bacon said NOC is already getting queries from camps wondering whether they could use NOC as a staging area. But striking deals with up to a dozen individual camps or colleges would be challenging.

Bacon thinks a better solution would be giving an umbrella permit to the Youth Camp Association. NOC could then negotiate usage of its facilities with just one entity. And with one umbrella permit for all the camps, they could better divvy up use on the river to avoid all coming on the same day.

River economics

Outfitters downplayed their financial motive in opposing new commercial permits on the river. But they admitted that there is not an unlimited amount of rafting business on the river.

Wilkins said economic concerns among existing outfitters partly weighed into his decision not to allow new commercial raft companies but instead limit new permits to guided canoe and kayak trips. He realizes the existing outfitters have a lot at stake.

Outfitters made approximately $2.8 million on guided trips on the Nanty in fiscal year 2010, based on forest service data. The number only includes revenue on river trips — not T-shirts, food sales and other purchases rafters likely make.

Outfitters pay 3 percent of revenue made on guided trips to the forest service for a commercial permit.

Outfitters will obviously lose some revenue once camps can take their own kids down river. But Strayhorn said the economic benefits outweigh it.

“I don’t think camps being permitted on the river will negatively impact the economy of the region at all. I think it will improve it,” Strayhorn said.

Summer camps in Jackson, Buncombe, Transylvania and Henderson counties alone have a combined economic impact of $365 million, according to an economic impact study by N.C. State University, he said.

Out in the cold

The decision will essentially put an end to teaching trips the Carolina Canoe Club historically led on the Nantahala, according to Spencer Muse, president of the Carolina Canoe Club.

The Carolina Canoe Club holds paddling workshops and rescue training on the Nantahala River for its 1,000 members. Since participants pay to go on the trips, it counts as a commercial operation and thus needs a permit.

Supportive of the club’s mission, Nantahala Outdoor Center used to let the club do its trips under the auspice of NOC’s permit. But the forest service put an end to that three years ago.

Lacking a commercial permit of its own, Carolina Canoe Club stopped charging its members for the courses so it didn’t count as a commercial trip. But the club can’t indefinitely bear the cost of hosting the trips without being able to charge those who come, Muse said.

Muse said the handful of new permits the forest service has agreed to issue are useless for his group since they aren’t valid on weekends. The club has always done its trips on weekends — since the people going on them as well as the instructors have jobs.

Muse said the club only goes on two trips a year, and would be willing to do them outside the peak summer season, such as early May or mid-September, when crowding isn’t an issue.

“We are only talking about two weekends a year we use the Nantahala,” Muse said.

If they can’t find a solution, the club will likely move its paddling instruction weekends to the Gauley River.

“It is a little odd to have West Virginia be the location for Carolina Canoe Club’s main teaching activities,” Muse said.

How permits on the Nantahala work

Commercial outfitters must have a permit from the forest service to run raft trips on the Nantahala River. The same goes for a guide leading a group of kayakers — or even escorting a single kayaker for a paddling lesson — if money is exchanging hands.

But if your buddy owns a raft and offers to take you and a few friends on a trip down the Nanty and he doesn’t charge you for it, no commercial permit is required.

The number of outfitters on the river has dropped over the years, along with the number of permits. As outfitters have gone out of business, the forest service closed out their permit rather than opening it up to new takers.

Ten years ago, there were 21 commercial permits. Today, there are only 16.

Most permits are held by commercial raft companies, but a few do belong to institutions. Western Carolina University has a permit, for example, and is able to teach paddling to its students on the river without going through an outfitter.

By the numbers

12: outfitters based in the Gorge

16: permits to entities operating commercial trips on the river

200,000: people going down the river each year

90: percent of river traffic that goes through an outfitter

U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, D-Waynesville, is getting the word out: from now on, he’ll be carrying a gun when meeting with constituents.

Just a short time ago such an announcement from a member of Congress probably would have been considered outrageous, headline provoking, over-the-top political rhetoric.

But not so much now, in the wake of the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Arizona, and the shooting deaths of six people standing nearby and the wounding of 11 others. Giffords was holding what has been described as a routine meeting with residents in her district when the massacre occurred.

“This weekend’s tragedy has touched many of us in a very personal way,” Shuler said. “With our thoughts on this tragedy, many of us are working with local law enforcement and the capitol police to coordinate safety measure for ourselves and our staff.”

Shuler worked closely with Giffords. He is co-chairman of the conservative Blue Dog caucus that Giffords, a former Republican, also belonged to. The two worked closely together on various pieces of legislation.

“I, like many of my constituents and staff in Western North Carolina, strongly support the Second Amendment and do exercise our right to legally and safely carry a firearm,” Shuler said. “In the days and weeks ahead, we will continue to work closely with federal, state and local law enforcement to ensure that our political process is not deterred by the violent acts of a few.”

The shootings, in the words of one local politician, “give pause” to those who currently hold or might seek public office in the future — the price one pays for serving could be very high, maybe too high, given the level of angry rhetoric many believe helped fuel the attack in Arizona.

“As far as this tragic event preventing good citizens from seeking public office, I believe that if the political environment does not improve it will give pause to anyone willing to get in involved on all political levels, which is very unfortunate,” said Ronnie Beale, a veteran county commissioner in Macon County. “I also think this event speaks to the importance of maintaining and improving mental health services on all levels.”

The alleged shooter in the massacre had been expelled from a local community college for exhibiting bizarre behavior. His ramblings on the Internet also seemed incoherent, though a thread of seemingly extreme right-wing beliefs could be discerned.

Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University and an expert on North Carolina politics, said it’s obvious the nation’s political discourse has grown more virulent in the past few decades.

“There are scores of studies to show that incivility is on the rise in Congress and in our political debate in general,” Cooper said. “Although it’s not ‘the media’s fault,’ name-calling and negative attacks are certainly more newsworthy, and thus more covered than stories about politicians who play nicely.

“The problem, therefore, is not just that there’s more negative, toxic rhetoric, but that we’re more aware of it than we’ve ever been. Did this cause the shooting? Of course not,” said Cooper. “Sarah Palin’s crosshairs ad is no more responsible for this shooting than Marilyn Manson was for the Columbine shooting. It does, however, create an environment that doesn’t suppress this kind of thing.”

Bob Scott, a former news reporter who now serves as an alderman in Franklin, said he believes the antigovernment movement in the U.S. is a contributing cause in the Arizona shooting.

“I am concerned that Congress will do one of its knee-jerk reactions and pass bills to provide security for congressmen and senators at a huge cost to the taxpayer,” Scott said. “But if you think about it, most of the attacks on politicians are at the local level such as town halls and school board meetings. Politicians at the federal level are so insulated by staffers that it would be pretty hard to get near them. It is much easier to get to a local politician who has no staffers and is not surrounded by lobbyists.”

Scott, a Democrat, also raised another issue likely to dominate coverage of the shootings: the right to bear arms.

“I believe in gun ownership for target shooting and hunting,” Scott said. “But you don’t need an AK-47 or a Glock 9 mm with a 31-round magazine to go hunting. Those type weapons that the National Rifle Association wants everyone to be able to own, apparently also including those who are unstable, are designed to kill human beings. Not wild game.”

A spokeswoman with the state Department of Transportation said they didn’t intentionally leave out the state’s westernmost counties on an official logo created by consultants paid $434,590.46 by taxpayers.

That amount, in the interest of accuracy, was a lump sum for work done on the Complete Streets project, not just for creating a logo that — despite transportation officials’ assurances to the contrary — fails to include the state’s westernmost counties.

The transportation department adopted a “Complete Streets” policy in July 2009. The policy directs the department to consider and incorporate several modes of transportation when building new projects or making improvements to existing infrastructure.

The transportation department contracted with consultant P.B. Americas — interestingly, the company is headquartered in New York, so how could they be expected to know about counties west of Buncombe? — to lead and assist the Complete Streets project.

“While I can see what you mean about the Complete Streets logo appearing to lop off the far western counties, I can assure you that’s not the intent,” said Julia Merchant, a transportation department spokeswoman.

Merchant, it should in fairness be made clear, is perfectly familiar with the western part of the great state she now serves. Before taking the job in Raleigh, Merchant worked for this newspaper as a reporter and is a graduate of Appalachian State University.                                                                                      

“The logo is simply a sketch/rough outline of the state, and not a to-scale map,” she said. “So while the sketch may seem to exclude the far western counties, I can tell you they were very much included (as was the rest of the state) when it came to developing the Complete Streets guidelines.”                                  

Don Kostelec, senior transportation planner who works for an Asheville consulting firm, wasn’t amused when he saw the pricey logo adorning the new initiative.

“Yeah, it’s probably a little petty,” Kostelec said. “(But the logo) has chopped off the westernmost counties of the state while the coast and Outer Banks still maintain all of their detail. As a native of Macon County, this infuriates me. And they wonder why there is a healthy distrust of Raleigh in the mountains?”

Kostelec suggested the newspaper use the following headline if it pursued a news story: “Complete Streets … Incomplete State.”

By Colby Dunn and Quintin Ellison • Staff Writers

Although retail businesses might have found some relief toward the latter part of the year, homebuilders and real estate agents found fewer reasons for joy in 2010.

For homebuilders, the outlook was pretty bleak, according to Dawson Spano, president of the Haywood Home Builders’ Association. The bleeding in the industry, he said, has slowed but hasn’t altogether stopped, and many contractors around the region are still calling it quits — or at least still feeling the heat of the recession.

“Builders are getting out of the business, but not at the fast rate that it was last year,” Spano said.

The best way to characterize the situation, he said, is that things aren’t yet getting better, but at least they’re not getting worse.

The business they’re seeing now is different than what has long characterized the home building industry in Western North Carolina, with large developments of second and luxury homes on the decline or stopped altogether. And Spano said he’s not certain that kind of construction and housing market will ever return to the area.

“We’re going back to the way it used to be, where you have builders building one, two houses a year,” Spano said. “I think the big developments are dead for a long time. The Balsam Mountain Preserves, the Sanctuaries, those big places — I don’t see people dropping 300 to 400 thousand for a piece of property.”

Homebuilders, though, are seeing a trend towards remodeling, and Spano thinks this may be where the market is going when the country finally drags itself out of the economic slump. Wherever it’s headed, he has no doubt that it will be scaled back.

Phyllis Osborn, executive officer for Haywood’s Home Builder’s Association, said that the numbers bear this out. What they’re hearing from contractors around the region is that work is there, but it’s smaller in scope and opportunities are still sparse, as evidenced by the drop in contractors still in the game.

“We are 136 in our membership and at the end of last year it was 148, so we’re continually dropping,” said Osborn. “And I know in years prior it’s been up almost to 200.”

Spano’s predictions that small building will lead the way out of the recession and beyond are echoed by the National Association of Home Builders, who released a study at the end of December proving that very trend. The NAHB found that 65 percent of builders that are still in business pull in less than $1 million annually.

“We are seeing market conditions returning to normal in many parts of the country after a long, hard downturn, and these companies have the agility to move quickly and start leading the economy forward,” said NAHB Chairman Bob Jones in a December statement.

In the real estate market, the general sentiment seems to be much the same – that things are still languishing, but the sales dips are not quite as deep as they were last year.

Bob Holt, who teaches about real estate for Southwestern Community College, said there are fewer agents than during the pre-recession boom years. The ones that have stuck with it, however, are staying relatively busy, he said.

“It is still slow, but things are turning around,” said Holt, a Franklin resident. “The prices are low, the interest rates are low — it is a good time to buy stuff.”

Holt said the situation would not improve significantly for another year or so, “until we clear out all the foreclosures” and the job situation improves.

In Haywood County, the Board of Realtors is looking to a merger with Asheville as a possible force to help mitigate the loss if the economic hits keep coming. For homebuilders, 2007 was the banner year, and for Western North Carolina’s real estate world, the benchmark for booming business was 2005. But as one real estate agent put it at a recent board meeting, 2005 probably isn’t coming back, so the future may be found in a new business model, not a return to pre-recession growth.

“If the real-estate market doesn’t improve, then neither will my membership,” said Lisa Brown, association executive for the Haywood Board of Realtors. The math is simple, and after taking a hit of more than 25 percent last year, the area’s agents are looking for a better 2011.

But John Keith, a Waynesville real estate agent in his second year in the county, remains optimistic. People are still buying, even if the pace is much slower. People still want to move here, even if they can’t make it happen until their current house sells.

“The market is still depressed, but I’m optimistic,” said Keith. “We still know that this is one of the best retirement relocation areas in the country, and there’s still a lot of people that are trying to get here.”

For his part, Spano takes a more poetic view of what’s coming in 2011.

“We’re in the valley of the shadow of death,” Spano said. “We’re there, except now we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

By Colby Dunn and Quintin Ellison • Staff writers

Despite a sour economy, many businesses in Western North Carolina are not only surviving — they are thriving.

Take Krismart Fashions on East Main Street in Sylva.

While many stores have seen sales decline and continue experiencing downward economic spirals, Krismart Fashions in October enjoyed its best sales month ever in the store’s 40-year history. December, too, showed promise: sales were up 20 percent.

Libby Hall, who owns the store with business partner and sister Jeannie Kelley, credits a diversified inventory featuring quality clothing at reasonable prices, a willingness to work hard, and — most importantly — the loyal support of clientele who make purchases here because they want to see Krismart remain open and do well.

“We are in a niche that hits all income brackets,” Hall said between ringing up purchases from customers eager to take advantage of a sale on New Year’s Day, when Krismart’s and a restaurant or two were practically the only small businesses open in town.

The customers that day reflected the store’s product diversification. Mostly women, in this slice of time ranging in age from 30-something to, perhaps, their late 70s. A sales staff was on hand to offer fashion suggestions and keep everything moving briskly at the cash registers.

It wouldn’t be accurate or fair to paint the economic situation as an all-is-absolutely-rosy picture if only business owners work hard enough, or to ignore the reality that many astute small-business owners have seen their stores go under despite Herculean efforts to prevent just that. But it’s also true many mom and pop stores such as Krismart are doing just fine.

SEE ALSO: Situation still bleak for builders in the region 

Just ask Rob Willey, owner of High Country Style in downtown Waynesville.

He won’t say everything is peachy; 2010 was still a hard year for the upscale women’s boutique. But still, they’re making it. They even opened a new store in Asheville and started offering online sales to serve the large portion of their client base that spend part of their year living away from the stores’ mountain locations.

Willey said 2010 was actually better than 2009, especially the Christmas season.

“For us, business was better as far as overall sales,” said Willey. “People seem a little more willing to spend money this year.”

The last quarter, he said, was promising, and he’s cautiously optimistic that next year will continue to improve. Still, he’s not resting on his laurels; they’re focusing on online sales and improving brand image and customer service to stay relevant and profitable in what are still very tough economic times. But Willey said he feels like those efforts have served him well, and he’s confident that they’ll continue to do so.

“Overall, you know, it was a good year,” he said of 2010. “Not a great year, but still a good one.”

Across the street, Tammy Moseley, manager at Laughter Jewelry, is wishing that the bad economy would stop getting so much airtime. She realizes, of course, that not everyone is having an easy time of it, she said, but churning up fear in customers isn’t going to make them come back.

“It’s just fear, and I don’t know if confidence will be back today or this year or next year,” Moseley said. “Hopefully it’ll be back this year.”

Moseley and her store are 17-year veterans of the Waynesville retail scene. As for 2010, she said it wasn’t the banner year that 2009 was for her store — she, too, was unimpressed by Christmas sales — but in the grand scheme of the store’s history, it was still decent, still profitable.

“You always hope for the greatest year ever, every year,” Moseley said, but it was still a good sales year, and her outlook for 2011 is cautiously optimistic.

And, despite all the dreary financial news, startup businesses also abound. The entrepreneurial dream lives on in WNC.

Getting a handle on what’s happening

Linda Harbuck, executive director of the Franklin Area Chamber of Commerce, has seen the chamber’s net membership, year-over-year, decline by 33. Despite the drop, Harbuck, along with many other business experts in the region, felt the situation began to improve in the latter part of 2010.

“The year ended better than it began,” said Harbuck, citing business startups and expansions.

The Buzz Bus in Cullowhee, a cab service of sorts that ferries Western Carolina University students back and forth from Cullowhee to the bars and restaurants in Sylva, started making runs in October. Franklin resident Tim Crabtree, who owns the business with brother Sam, believes they’ll survive and make their dream of small-business ownership come true.

“Right now, we are just covering costs, but we are picking up business,” said Tim Crabtree, who added that the holidays have put a crimp in the new venture, because his student-customer base hasn’t been on campus for much of the time the service has been offered.

Chris Wilcox is also a new business owner, though he bought a beloved community mainstay with a built-in clientele when he took over City Lights Bookstore on East Jackson Street in Sylva from founder Joyce Moore. Wilcox bought the store about a year ago.

Monday, with the help of a group of volunteers, staff and Wilcox’s mother, Margot, the store closed its doors to customers so that a physical inventory of the 5,000 or so books could take place.

Margot Wilcox does the bookkeeping for her son. His first year has been promising, she said, and the financial future of City Lights Bookstore seems sound. Her son agreed, crediting Moore’s work to build the store as a foundation he can work from.

“Incremental changes,” Wilcox said, is what he’s looking at. Such as offering Google eBooks, so that his customers can shop locally for digital media. City Lights Bookstore has offered ebooks through its website for several years, but Google eBooks, Wilcox said, expands what the store can provide — and helps him compete against corporate-owned bookstores and websites.

Interestingly, another independent bookstore with a different business model is also finding a strong, loyal customer base. The two-year-old Millie and Eve’s Used Bookstore in Franklin, located on U.S. 441 a few miles south of the town, is defying conventional business wisdom and finding it can compete with the big boys.

Eve Boatright and business partner Millie Griffin have a simple financial formula.

“If there’s no money at the end of the week, we don’t get paid,” said Boatright, a transplant from Britain, just outside London.

But they are making it financially, and doing it by offering 62,000 used books through trade (plus offerings by local authors). Additionally, to help drive traffic into the store, the women accept payments for Verizon and Duke Power. There is a Civil War section, classics section, children’s section as well as more conventional offerings such as mysteries and romances.

In neighboring Swain County, several new stores have sprung up and are making a go of the gifts market in Bryson City.

Robert Hoyle is the proprietor of one such establishment. He and his wife decided to open up Nannie’s Country Store on Fry Street in downtown Bryson City, which they bill as “a slice of country life.”

Hoyle and his wife moved to Bryson City from the Atlanta area after their kids were grown and gone, and have started the store as something of a retirement business venture.

The shop sells local gifts and crafts along with novelties and a few other odds and ends, and while Hoyle said he hauled in less this Christmas than he’d hoped, he’s still optimistic about next year’s outlook.

“It was difficult, with all the opening expenses, but it was successful at the same time,” Hoyle said as he looked back at 2010. “In this climate, people are not spending money, they’re just not. But I’m hoping that we do very, very well [in 2011]. We have a lot of new business ideas, some of the business ideas no one in Bryson City has. Hopefully, this next year will be great.”

Just around the corner on Everett Street, Lance Holland is also finishing his inaugural year in the retail business with his gourmet food and gifts shop, Appalachian Mercantile. Holland, too, was disappointed in the Christmas season, but has decided that, overall, 2010 was profitable enough to warrant another year on the lease.

He’s no stranger to the retail industry – his wife is in charge of retail operations at nearby Fontana Village – so he started the venture on a one-year trial basis. And while he said it couldn’t be called a banner year for sales, it’s been decent enough, especially considering that he opened in the grip of an economic slump.

“This is a brand new undertaking for me, and I’ll have to say that I’m kind of enjoying it,” said Holland. “It seems like the economy’s kind of finally turning around a little bit, and if I didn’t think it was going to be a little better, I wouldn’t be continuing.”

He said he’s hoping, too, that once word gets out about his gourmet offerings — which include a range of items from sauces to sweets — that it will become a bigger draw, possibly boosting his Christmas sales next year.

Not all newcomers are finding it so easy, though. In Canton, Johnetta Heil, who owns the Plaid Sheep Yarn Shop, said she too was disappointed with Christmas, but the rest of the year was a pretty mixed bag for her new business as well.

“It’s been up and down,” she said of the year overall, but she’s hoping that 2011 will give her the increased exposure she said her store needs to boost sales.

“People just don’t know I’m here,” said Heil. But she, like Willey at High Country, has been changing her business strategy to fit the economy and draw in more customers. She’s adding new classes monthly and is planning a camp this summer to get local kids interested in fiber arts.

David Huskins, head of the seven-county regional tourism group Smoky Mountain Host, headquartered outside Franklin, said the tourism industry has faced serious challenges beginning in 2008 and continuing through 2010. But not all is gloomy for this important leg of WNC’s economic chair.

“Our members have shared anecdotal information — they don’t like to give out their numbers, but will give a general impression — that verifies that at best the region has been flat in the tourism economic sector in 2010 compared to 2009 and 2008, which is actually a positive,” Huskins said.

Two vitally important regional businesses, The Great Smoky Mountains Railroad and Nantahala Outdoor Center, are reporting revenues increased year over year. The railroad, Huskins said, is upwards of 15 to 18 percent, though ridership is relatively flat.

“The revenues are up because of some creative repackaging they did this year with their first-class ticket sales and some creative online marketing they implemented to promote the first-class ticket,” he said. “NOC is reporting great success with its new retail outpost in Gatlinburg, which opened early last spring.”

Like Harbuck, the head of Smoky Mountain Hosts said he believes the economic situation began improving toward the end of the year.

“While we don’t have figures for 2010, our members have indicated generally ‘flat’ numbers compared to 2009,” Huskins said. “There is evidence of an upward trend in numbers and revenue this year in October and continuing through the first two weeks of November, which most of our members have indicated was perhaps the best since 2007.

“Going forward, we are optimistic that 2011 will see improved numbers in the region’s tourism economic sector, albeit only slight improvement. We will trend as the entire state does and the nation does. Our concern is with reports that gas prices will approach the $4.50 to $5 per gallon range by late spring-early summer 2011. We are a drive market and if that happens, it will be significant.”

Editor’s note: Here is The Smoky Mountain News’ annual Year in Review, but ours comes with a nod and a wink — and an award. News is serious and sometimes tragic, but in hindsight we can at least try to find a little humor in what the newsmakers endured and we all read about in 2010.

The Sisyphus award

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus is sentenced for eternity to roll a rock up a mountain, only to have it roll back down every time he reaches the top.

The mountain gods showed a similar attitude toward human inhabitants this year, showing a particular inclination to shut down major thoroughfares. At one point, the three primary routes through the southern mountains into Tennessee were blocked with rock slides: Interstate 40 in Haywood County, U.S. 64 between Murphy and Chattanooga, and U.S. 129 running from Robbinsville to Maryville, Tenn.

The only passage was U.S. 441 over Newfound Gap through the Smokies, and even that route was temporarily reduced to one lane following a rock slide of its own.

Mountains have been running amok on the residential side as well. The biggest and most high profile was in Maggie Valley below Ghost Town amusement park, but there were also slides in the Water Dance development in Jackson County and the Wildflower development in Macon County that destabilized road grades and took out lots, as well as a slide in Macon County that led to a man’s home being condemned.

Popeye award

The construction crew restoring the historic Jackson County Courthouse could have used more spinach before tackling the structure’s crowning cupola. The domed top had to be taken down for restoration in June. But when a crowd of onlookers gathered at the bottom of courthouse hill to watch the day it was scheduled to come off, repeated attempts failed. Crews ultimately had to bring in a stronger crane the following week.

The $7 million restoration of the historic courthouse and construction of a new library adjacent to it was supposed to be finished by year’s end, but has been pushed back.

Pork award

When the U.S. Small Business Administration announced $1.4 million in loans for businesses hurt by the I-40 rock slide in Haywood County, business owners far and wide began hungrily licking their chops.

The October 2009 slide shut down the Interstate Haywood County for six months, choking off tourism traffic and commerce. Gas stations and hotels had to cut hours and even lay off workers as business dried up.

But of the 15 businesses that landed federal SBA loans, few were located in Haywood County. Among the more puzzling recipients: the Fun Depot in Asheville, an indoor kid’s amusement center; and an excavating company in Sevierville, Tenn., a business that hardly seems contingent on passersby on the interstate.

One local loan recipient was a bar in downtown Waynesville — a standard that would seemingly qualify every restaurant in the entire county.

Full House award

Despite a recession, Harrah’s Cherokee Hotel and Casino barreled ahead with a $630 million expansion. The casino rolled out a major addition to the gaming floor, debuted a 3,000-seat concert venue and topped off a 21-story hotel tower. A 16,000-square-foot spa in the works is a testimony to Harrah’s mission to transform itself beyond a casino to a full-service resort.

The casino’s two existing hotel towers are consistently full.

The casino hit another milestone this year when it began serving alcohol for the first time in its on-site restaurants and at a new bona fide bar and lounge on the gaming floor.

The expansion began in 2009 and is slated for final completion in 2012. A 400-seat Paula Deen Kitchen restaurant also opened at the casino this year.

Best Power Struggle award

Solar panels. That’s what Haywood Community College and the Haywood County commissioners spent the better part of a year at loggerheads over.

HCC wanted to include green features, from rainwater collection to solar hot water in the design of a new $10.2 million creative arts building that will house its famed craft programs like woodcarving, pottery and jewelry making. But Haywood County commissioners accused the eco-efforts of driving up the cost of the building, and as a result threatened to veto the project. The college spent months trying to convince commissioners the building as designed was both frugal and necessary, while commissioner played hardball in an attempt to send the college back to the drawing board. The biggest sticking point were proposed solar panels on the building, which the college claimed would pay for themselves while commissioners remained skeptical.

In the end, the college won its quest to build a sustainable flagship creative arts building.

Last Laugh Award

To Sylva business owner Dodie Allen, who fought back against being ticketed for parking a van outside her downtown auction under the town’s new law designed to free-up prime parking real estate for visitors and shoppers.

Allen protested the citation — and the $50 fine it carried — for 45 minutes at a town board meeting, saying it infringed on her rights and hampered her ability to make a living. Allen argued she was simply loading and unloading at her auction house on Main Street.

Ultimately, Allen won her battle when it was discovered a key paragraph, the one specifying business owners and their employees can’t park on Main and Mill streets, wasn’t included in the ordinance passed. The town was forced to hold another public hearing and vote again on the town law, this time with the correct language intact.

Extreme Makeover award

Haywood County social workers will soon enjoy new digs. They are trading in a decrepit former hospital dating back decades for an abandoned Wal-Mart store being retrofitted for offices. Their new stripmall-esque working quarters will be a vast improvement over their current accommodations: a four-story brick building that’s cramped and crumbling, with makeshift offices in storage closets, perpetual leaks and rusted window jambs.

The Wal-Mart makeover project will cost the county $12.5 million — about half that to purchase the building and the other half to convert it into an office complex. Critics decried the move as an unnecessary cost in bad times. But county commissioners said the poor state of the DSS building could no longer be ignored, and scoring a bargain price for the old Wal-Mart made it the most attractive solution.

In addition to the Department of Social Services, the renovated building will also house the county health department and the planning department.

Initial construction bids came in higher than expected, so the county trimmed elements of the project to get costs down and then went back out to bid.

Most Creative Accounting

When the public learned Jackson County Sheriff Jimmy Ashe was funneling money seized in drug busts to youth sports teams — and as it happened to teams his own kids played on — he claimed it was all for a good cause.

Drug bust money by law must go toward drug crime prevention and enforcement, and Ashe argued that supporting wholesome diversions for kids keeps them off drugs.

The justification gets a little hazier though when it came to other uses for narcotics money by Ashe, like $20,000 to replace carpet in the sheriff’s office or $400 to get himself listed on a national “Who’s Who” list.

Ashe enjoyed an unsupervised, free rein of how to spend the narcotics fund. He failed to get approval from the county on the expenditures, violating state statutes governing fiscal controls for local government. The state Local Government Commission made Ashe comply with new accounting procedures after media reports brought the issue to light.

Janet Jackson award

Haywood County nearly had its own version of the infamous wardrobe malfunction when a river rafter protesting pollution by the Canton paper mill threatened to pull down his pants and bare his buttocks during a public hearing. He was one of several Tennessee river guides at the hearing who claimed to have sores and skin cancers from being in contact with the Pigeon River tainted by chemicals from the mill, and was willing to prove it until the hearing moderator advised him against such public displays.

Evergreen Packaging is seeking a new water pollution permit for the Pigeon River. The state was forced to ratchet down pollution levels in the proposed permit following objections by the EPA. But it wasn’t enough to abate environmentalists, who have filed a lawsuit to impose even tougher limits.

Evergreen is also facing a class action lawsuit by a group of Haywood County landowners. Downstream landowners in Tennessee have won similar class action suits against the mill.

The paper mill sucks roughly 29 million gallons a day out of the river and uses it in myriad aspects of the paper making process — from cooling coal-fired boilers to flushing chemicals through wood pulp — and then dumps it back in the river again.

Survivor Award

It was a dismal election year for Democrats, but U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, D-Waynesville, managed to hang on to his seat despite his conservative-leaning mountain district. He handily smashed Republican challenger Jeff Miller and advanced to the next round where he took on none other than House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. He went into the challenge with the intention of losing — or at least knowing he’d lose — because the loss gave him incredible national exposure.

What’s next for the former football player from Swain County? He’s not saying, but former communications director Andrew Whalen left a coveted job as executive director of the N.C. Democratic Party to rejoin Shuler’s staff. Something’s afoot with this fiscally-conservative Blue Dog Republican Democrat, that’s for dang sure.

The Mother of all Irony Award

To the Village of Forest Hills, which incorporated in 1997 for the express and unabashed purpose of keeping rowdy, drunken Western Carolina University students from taking over this residential community, is now considering annexing land at Chancellor John Bardo’s behest so that some unknown developer can build a town so students will keep going to Western Carolina University (there’s a little retention problem) because, finally, they won’t have to drive to Sylva to — is this for real? — get good and soused. They’ll instead drink beer and wine and shots of liquor within walking distance of campus as God intended for university students to do.

Additionally, WCU suggests the Boca Raton, Fla.-reminiscent name of Forest Hills be lost in favor of the name Cullowhee. We can only assume the town sign painted in pastels on U.S. 107 will have to go, too, folks.

Only in Macon Could This Happen Award

Where else would a county board of commissioners appoint a man who openly doesn’t support land planning to the county’s planning board, except in Macon County?

In a move so audacious in its sheer lack of thought and concern for regulating unbridled development, we salute the Republican (and one rogue Democrat) commissioners in Macon County for the appointment of Tea Party member Jimmy Goodman to the planning board. Never mind that he’d not been reappointed to that same board for (allegedly and all that) obstructing the other members in, well, their efforts to plan, those rascally planning-board members.

We take our hats off to you, Macon County, and offer sincere thanks for being in our coverage area. You help us remember that we still can be surprised by what actually does take place sometimes on the local political level.

Boomerang award

Cecil Groves, president of Southwestern Community College since 1997, retired this year and headed to Texas for a relaxing retirement close to the grandkids.

“As for everything and everyone, there is a season. My season has now come,” Groves said of his departure from SCC.

Three months later, Groves announced his return to the area to be the CEO of Balsam West, an entity that controls a 300-mile fiber broadband ring looping the six western counties. Groves helped create the fiber ring while at the helm of SCC and considered it one of his biggest accomplishments, but with few users, it is struggling to realize its potential.

The Garden City award

In Maggie Valley, the new mantra is call on the name of beauty and ye shall be saved. Residents and businesses alike buried thousands of daffodil and tulip bulbs this fall in hopes that the bursts of coordinated color will swoop in this spring to help save the struggling city from economic depression and the gaping financial hole left by the death of Ghost Town.

The idea is being coupled with another aesthetic assault from the town government’s camp. In November, the Board of Aldermen voted unanimously to impose a set of design standards for renovations and new builds that follow a general design plan town planners call “mountain vernacular.”

Officials hope that the visual double whammy will spruce up the town’s face which, they seem to be admitting, is a less-than-pleasant sight to behold.

The Long and Winding Road award

“So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen …OK, I guess I’ll stay a little longer.” That’s the tune sung this year by Maggie Valley’s Dale Walksler, owner and curator of the renowned Wheels Through Time motorcycle museum.

After several years in its current location and several more bouts with local officials over the museum’s value to the town, Walksler threatened to pack up his collection and ship out to another, more friendly, but as yet unnamed, locale. This fall, however, he decided to make those empty threats and chose to keep the storied – and probably unrivaled – collection of American motorcycle memorabilia nestled snugly into its Soco Road home.

No word from local officials on how they’re reacting to the decision, but since sharing his thoughts with us in October, it’s been all quiet on the Walksler front. So maybe 2011 will see a happy ending to the animosity?

The Size Envy award

They say bigger isn’t always better, but Swain County’s Marianna Black Library isn’t so sure about that. After catching a glimpse of Macon and Jackson counties’ new, improved and enlarged library digs, they couldn’t help but want to gain some growth themselves.

So this October, the library system embarked on an exploratory campaign of their own, seeking input from local residents and guidance from the same consultants used by their neighboring counties. Patron suggestions ranged from expanded collections and more special events to requests for outdoor fire pits, presumably not to be stoked with the library’s contents.

Whether the county’s case of library envy has abated remains to be seen; the consultants won’t be back with final recommendations until the new year. But with Jackson County’s new facility opening up soon, it’s easy to hear cries of “but I want one, too,” on the not-too-distant horizon.

The Earmark to Nowhere award

To earmark, or not to earmark – that, of late, is the Congressional question. And for residents of Swain county, it’s the $52 million question. That’s how much they’ve been promised to repay the cash they laid out on the nonexistent North Shore Road over three decades. When the road was flooded for the war effort in 1943, the county took it on the chin, along with a pledge from the federal government that they’d put it back. But time went on, the county kept paying on the road loans and the promised new road was never to return.

Earlier this year, the county agreed to take a cash settlement from the government in lieu of a road they no longer needed, after laborious negotiations and a good bit of lobbying from Swain County native Rep. Heath Shuler.

But those dollars are in danger now that Congress is swooping in to slash earmarks. To some legislators, that’s just what the North Shore money is, an earmark designed to funnel federal money into local projects. But local proponents counter that it’s not just funding, it’s debt service paying off a 66-year-old IOU.

Whether the money will keep rolling into the county hasn’t been decided. But much rests on convincing Congress members that the settlement is an obligation, not an option.

Billy Graham Hall of Fame nominees

County leaders refused to stop praying in Jesus’ name during their public meetings, despite a federal court ruling that such overt prayers were tantamount to government endorsement of Christianity over other religions — and thus were unconstitutional.

A federal judge in Forsyth County found that specific references to Jesus Christ during prayers at county commissioner meetings “display a preference for Christianity over other religions by the government.”

But county commissioners in Macon and Swain counties were undaunted.

“If there was a law that said how I could pray, I think I would have to break it,” said Swain Commissioner Phillip Carson.

Or as Swain Commissioner David Monteith put it, “I guess they would just have to arrest me.”

Macon Commissioner Ronnie Beale said Christian prayers reflect the vast majority of his constituents.

In Haywood County, commissioners chose to drop references to Jesus and stick with more generic, and thus legal, references to Lord or God. Jackson County does not hold a prayer during its county meetings.

S.O.L. award

This is exactly where homeowners down slope of Ghost Town in the Sky amusement park in Maggie Valley found themselves this year. A massive landslide screamed down Rich Cove mountain in February, uprooting yards and bumping into houses on its way. While some residents remain without a well for drinking water and one couple still has not been able to return to their home, they had been unable to hold anyone accountable to cover the damages so far.

But Ghost Town’s liability insurance was canceled a week before the landslide due to late payments, according to the insurance company. Court documents verify that Ghost Town received warnings to pay up to risk cancelation, and eventually received a cancellation notice.

Ghost Town has blamed the slide on a company hired to shore up the slipping mountainside with a series of retaining walls, but the contractors blame Ghost Town for a leaking water line buried behind the wall, according to court documents.

Most Formidable Opponent

As a multi-billion Fortune 500 Company, Duke Energy is used to getting its way. But when it went up against the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians this year and came under fire for desecrating the tribe’s equivalent of an ancestral holy site, it seemed the utility giant had met its match.

Duke Energy had embarked on a $79 million electrical substation on a knoll overlooking an idyllic farming valley in Swain County — a valley that happened to be the home of Kituwah mound, an ancient ceremonial site and political center for the Cherokee. The massive electrical substation threatened to mar the landscape, which Cherokee considered integral to the cultural integrity of the spiritual site.

Duke faced three-fold opposition. The tribe’s government leaders condemned Duke for picking the site and failing to consult with the tribe first. A grassroots activist group formed to challenge Duke before the state utility commission. And Swain County leaders also got mad that Duke had started construction without applying for county permits, and even passed a moratorium barring work on the substation from moving forward.

It didn’t take long for Duke to throw in the towel on the controversial site and instead bought another piece of property in the Swain County industrial park to locate the substation.

Dumbest Criminal

Attorney John Lewis may as well have worn a flashing neon sign when he tried to forge a judge’s name in Jackson County.

Lewis forged a court order in a parental custody case, but no sooner had he filed the fraudulent document with the clerk of court then he apparently thought better of it and asked for it back. The clerk — assuming it was a valid part of the case file — refused. But an agitated Lewis came back twice over the course of the day trying to retrieve the document. As a last resort, he came around the partition in the clerk’s office, snagged the file himself and put a Post-It note on the document declaring it void, arousing enough suspicion to launch an investigation.

The 31-year-old attorney had also faked the signatures on limited privilege driver’s licenses for at least three clients in Swain County who had their real licenses revoked.

Head in the Sand award

When a recession took hold of the country in 2008, most counties got to work cutting costs to head off impending budget shortfalls. But Swain County was nearly a year late to the party.

Swain County continued with business as usual until summer 2009 when its fund balance dipped so low it was put on the watch list by the Local Government Commission, a state agency that monitors the fiscal solvency of counties.

Counties are supposed to have a savings account, known as a fund balance, that’s equivalent to 8 percent of their total annual budget. Swain’s dropped to only 6.67 percent. The county had to play catch-up to restore its fund balance by laying off workers and imposing furloughs, which amounted to pay cuts.

County Manager Kevin King failed to let the Local Government Commission know ahead of time that the county would dip below the safe threshold, but county commissioners said they didn’t know either until it had already happened.

The Life’s not Fair award

As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished. Haywood County nearly doubled its per capita recycling rate in two years under the leadership of a new solid waste director, Stephen King, who is passionate about recycling. The county will save money by saving landfill space in the long run, but in the short run, all those recyclables began to overwhelm the system. Faced with the need for more recycling staff, the county instead chose to simply shut down the recycling “pick line” and laid off workers who manually sorted recyclables before they were sold. Instead, the county started selling the recyclables in bulk without separating them first. They fetch a lower price, but allowed the county to save on salaries.

Biggest Loser(s) Award

The biggest election upset of the year was in Jackson County, where Democrats lost control of the board of commissioners for the first time in 16 years.

In a clean sweep, Democrats Brian McMahan, William Shelton and Tom Massie headed to the house, while the conservative ticket of Jack Debnam, Charles Elders and Doug Cody took over their reins.

The new guys immediately started shuffling the deck. County Manager Ken Westmoreland, a target in the election because, among other reasons, he helped institute a pay raise that most benefited longtime employees such as himself, has gone to the house as well. Chuck Wooten, just retired from Western Carolina University, has stepped into his shoes temporarily until a new manager can be found.

Easy Money award

As a new form of video gambling proliferated across the state this year, several towns decided to get in on a piece of the action by imposing hefty business license fees for establishments sporting the machines.

The fees were hardly a deterrent given the lucrative nature of the video gambling machines. When the Canton town board voted to set the fee at $2,500, a business owner attending the evening meeting pulled out his checkbook on the spot. The town manager advised him to come back the next morning.

State lawmakers banned video poker, but the gambling industry came up with a reincarnated version called “video sweepstakes,” which wasn’t subject to the ban. State lawmakers followed suit by broadening the language of the ban, outlawing the sweepstakes machines as well, effective with the new year. But not before towns cashed in.

Maggie Valley and Franklin also cashed in on licensing fees.

Don’t Have to Win to be a Winner award

Sylva Commissioner Harold Hensley, who lost his seat in last year’s election, landed a spot back on the board anyway. When former town board member Sarah Graham moved outside the town limits and had to step down, it was up to the remaining board members to appoint someone to fill the vacancy. By a 3 to 1 vote, Hensley found himself back in his old seat, a move that shifted power from the progressive voting bloc to a new majority characterized by a more traditional philosophy.

This marked the second time in less than a year that Sylva’s board had to vote to appoint one of their own, the other being the seat of Maurice Moody who left his seat on the board empty after moving up to mayor.

Texas Hold ‘em award

After seven long years, Jackson County finally folded in its protracted and expensive battle against Duke Energy over, well, that’s where things get murky. What started as a noble fight by mountain people to get their due from a utility giant left most people scratching their heads and wondering why Jackson County was still anteing up, long before the game was eventually over.

To casual observers, the fight appeared nothing more than a tug-of-war over the Dillsboro Dam: Duke wanted to tear it down and the county wanted to save it. But the origin of the conflict was philosophical: how much does Duke owe Jackson County in exchange for harnessing the Tuckasegee River with numerous dams?

Duke proposed removing the Dillsboro dam and restoring a stretch of free flowing river as compensation for saddling the Tuck with a handful of dams, but county commissioners believed they were being short-changed and wanted more, including a trust fund based on a percentage of the hydropower revenues.

Jackson County commissioners hoped to bring Duke to the negotiating table, but Duke repeatedly called the county’s bluff. Instead of folding, Jackson kept throwing in for the next hand until finally calling it quits this year.

A recent program brought together business owners and outdoor enthusiasts who shared a common desire — to promote birding while also taking advantage of its potential economic impact

Rob Hawk, the new Jackson and Swain County extension director for the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, presented a program on birder friendly businesses and communities at the Balsam Mountain Inn last Thursday, Dec. 9. Participants included interested citizens, community organizers and businessmen and women.

“It was a good program. I think it was a good way to get resources moving in the right direction,” said Andy Zivinsky and Diane Cutler, owners of Bryson City Bicycles.

Zivinsky said that most of the clientele at Bryson City Bicycles were outdoor enthusiasts and that he believes many would enjoy learning about birding opportunities in the area.

“We’re both birders and we’re outdoors a lot, and I feel like we could point interested bikers in the right direction.”

He said they had even considered outfitting bikes with birding gear or a place to carry birding gear. Zivinsky said that there were great Forest Service roads out there for birding and that biking would be a great way to cover them.

“It’s a lot easier than walking,” he said.

The program

The Birder Friendly Business & Birder Friendly Community programs were created and designed to work in tandem with the North Carolina Birding Trail. Work on the NCBT began in 2003. The trail is presented in a series of three trail guides — the Coastal Guide, The Piedmont Guide and the Mountain Guide.

These guides are great ways for local birders and tourists to find great birding opportunities across the state, from the Outer Banks to the mountaintops of Western North Carolina. The guides provide maps, site descriptions, species list and nearby accommodations and attractions.

Part of the mission of the NCBT is, “To conserve and enhance North Carolina’s bird habitat by promoting sustainable bird-watching activities, economic opportunities and conservation education.” The Birder Friendly programs were designed to help fulfill that mission.

Lena Gallitano, who is retired from N.C. State University, and Dr. Stacy Tomas of N.C. State developed the program and taught training seminars across the state until their funding ran out in 2008. Hawk co-facilitated some of the programs in the western part of the state with Gallitano.

Gallitano said she was happy that Hawk had decided to continue to work to expand the birder friendly concept in the mountains. She said she felt like the mountain region had embraced the concept better than other areas of the state.

Hawk said that while he was introduced to the birder friendly concept in his old role as community resource development agent, he thought it was a perfect fit for his new position as Extension Director in Jackson and Swain counties. He said that he hopes the program allows people to look at the landscape in a different way and learn to appreciate and understand the resources that are already here.

Gallitano and Hawk both noted that while the program was geared to mesh with the birding trail the overarching theme of the program is nature tourism in general and birding in particular. Gallitano said that the NCBT guide series is probably the most extensive list of public and private sites across the state for wildlife watching.

And Hawk said that his role as Extension Director was to encourage the wise use and the appreciation of all the natural resources across the region.

Putting the theory into practice

David Stubbs, the owner of The Waynesville Inn, was also present at last Thursday’s meeting. Stubbs said he was interested in attending the program to help the Inn focus its marketing strategy.

“We are trying to cater to people who are already interested in the natural beauty of the area and want to sustain that, and birding fits nicely into that concept,” said Stubbs.

He said Hawk’s program helped him learn about who birders are and what their needs and wants are and how to meet them. He said the Inn was currently working on it’s marketing and packages for next season and that the birding community was already a part of that dialogue.

He said that planning was in its “infancy stage,” but that guests might see some sort of birder packages and programs.

Why entice birders?

• A 2007 National Survey on Recreation and the Environment noted that 81.1 million Americans participate in some form of birding activity.

• A 2006 U.S. Fish & Wildlife study reported that Americans spent nearly $45 billion in 2006 on bird-related activities.

• A 2006 U.S. Census Bureau survey noted that 71 million people spent more than $44 billion across the country in activities related to feeding and/or watching birds and other wildlife.

• North Carolina reported that 2.6 million wildlife watchers in the state spent $916 million.

• According to a North Dakota Division of Tourism report more than 22 million Americans travel each year to observe, photograph and/or study birds. More than $38 billion are spent each year in these endeavors. The report notes that bird-based tourism in Texas and Florida generates approximately $540 million and $943 million, respectively, each year.

• A study done on the economic impact of the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail in 1999 noted that birders spent an average of $78.50 per person per day while on the trail.

Western Carolina might never be the next Silicon Valley, but experts say improving Internet access could help kick-start the region’s economy.

David Hubbs, CEO of BalsamWest FiberNET, said with the manufacturing sector mostly on its way out in WNC, it’s time to look to a new kind of model for economic development.

“The days of hoping for a factory to come to town, that’s probably not going to happen in the foreseeable future,” said Hubbs. Nurturing a tech-friendly environment would level the competitive playing field and allow students to stay in the area after they graduate, however.

“We’re helping to create an opportunity for people who grow up here,” Hubbs said.

Robin Kevlin, co-owner of Metrostat Communications, a Sylva-based telecom company, provides services to certain companies that would not have stuck around WNC without access to quality Internet service. The Internet can be an important tool in recruiting new businesses and promoting economic development, Kevlin said.

“Because of the way the land is around here, you’re not going to bring in a Dell Computer,” said Kevlin. “But you can bring in the smaller companies.”

For many companies, the Internet is not a luxury but a real need.

“Internet connectivity is as basic as water, sewage and infrastructure,” said Pam Lewis, senior vice president of entrepreneurial development at AdvantageWest, a regional economic development arm.

Preparing for 2013

Earlier this year, the Nantahala Gorge was named as the site for the 2013 Freestyle World Championships in kayaking.

The Nantahala Outdoor Center is equipped with high-speed Internet from BalsamWest FiberNET, but only at its headquarters. Fiber is not an option at branch offices, where Internet is both expensive and unreliable, according to Kevin Sisson, Chief Information Officer at the Nantahala Outdoor Center.

“If it rains, it’ll go down, or if it’s foggy, it’ll go down,” said Sisson. “It really hampers the ability of these branch offices to connect to our reservation system.”

Sisson and others in the rafting community are worried about the Gorge’s preparedness for the kayaking championships. Lack of widespread Internet access might make it difficult or impossible to upload event photos or videos.

“We’re going to have an international community arrive here,” said Juliet Kastorff, owner of Endless River Adventures. “Journalists, competitors, families that get here and have no high-speed wireless.”

The Internet is a necessity even during the regular tourist season. Kastorff says that about 10 percent of tourists anticipate working during their vacation. They sometimes rule out a travel destination if Internet connections are spotty.

Varied uses

The web is not just useful for browsing endlessly on YouTube or Googling for directions.

With the Internet increasingly being used to educate, children in WNC will need better Internet access at home as well as school.

John Howell, owner of Telecommunications Consulting Associates in Waynesville, said students in other regions are receiving laptops as early as the ninth grade. They complete assignments requiring Internet connections and interact with teachers via email.

“If a kid’s got dial-up, he or she can’t compete with kids from more populous areas of the state,” said Howell.

Data-intensive entities, like hospitals and Internet-based companies, also need the Internet to simply operate. The hospital group, MedWest, processes millions of transactions every month. On top of billing and registration data, hospitals need high-speed capacity for sending X-rays, MRIs and detailed medical records to doctors.

Since the creation of MedWest in January, administrators have also discovered a need for video conferencing to avoid excessive travel.

Kevlin said that the Internet is immensely useful for cutting down on pollution.

“If we’re going to be a greener society, more people are going to be working from home,” said Kevlin. “They need the tools necessary to do that, and broadband Internet is part of that.”

A few years ago, Michael Wade was ready to hang up tin cans and have tenants at his Rabbit Ridge Apartments in Cullowhee yell messages at each other — all to avoid the daily aggravation caused by two telecom corporations.

The 170 students who lived at Rabbit Ridge also lived on the Internet, and poor service forced Wade to reset modems at least three or four times a day. No matter how often Wade called each company’s customer service line, there was no end in sight to the infuriating Internet outages.

“They simply did not have the amount of bandwidth needed in the area,” said Wade. “It was a nightmare. Both companies were just a nightmare to work with.”

Then in November 2008, Wade decided to splurge. It cost him $25,000 to buy a high-speed connection to BalsamWest FiberNET, a Sylva-based telecommunications carrier.

Wade footed the entire construction bill for physically hooking up to BalsamWest’s 300-mile fiberoptic network.

“It was the best 25 grand I’ve ever spent,” said Wade, adding that now, there are no more outages at Rabbit Ridge.

But not everyone in Western North Carolina is lucky enough to be within spitting distance from BalsamWest’s fiber network — or rich enough to afford the thousands it would usually take to connect initially.

“If I was just a homeowner, it wouldn’t make sense,” said Wade. “But because I was a business and I had 170 kids, it made total sense.”


See also: Internet could be key to economic development in WNC 

Over in the Nantahala Gorge, Juliet Kastorff, owner of Endless River Adventures, is still struggling with her own Internet woes. The outfitter is still using a snail-paced service via satellite. It’s the company’s one and only option.

“It’s so unreliable and so slow,” said Kastorff. “Considering three years ago, there wasn’t even cell phone reception in the gorge, I’m not entirely surprised.”

Kastorff said she’s encountered high-speed wireless in some of the world’s remote places.

“In South America, wireless and cell phone service is easily 100 percent better,” Kastorff said. “So we’re talking about developing countries that have more progressive infrastructure than we have in WNC.”

In a rural and mountainous area like Western North Carolina, telecommunications service is bound to be a challenge. But solutions, like BalsamWest, are slowly creeping up.

Million-dollar federal grants and millions more matching funds from nonprofits like the Golden LEAF Foundation will slowly bring high-speed Internet to rural counties like Haywood, Jackson, Macon and Swain in the next three years.

WNC can be said to fall into the middle-mile phase on the path to quick and reliable Internet. Most people talk about middle-mile to last-mile connectivity by using road analogies.

“Middle-mile is more like the highway instead of the off-ramp that goes to your home,” said Hunter Goosmann, general manager of the nonprofit ERC Broadband. “The off-ramp is the last mile.”

“You can’t go down the dirt road until you get off the paved road,” said John Howell, owner of Telecommunications Consulting Associates in Waynesville. “And right now, the paved road is being built.”

The high cost of last-mile

Middle-mile solutions, like BalsamWest, usually target anchor institutions in a community, like schools, hospitals, libraries, government offices and only major companies. BalsamWest, which is jointly owned by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and Macon County-based Drake Enterprises, focuses on providing Internet service to businesses found within its fiber footprint in the six counties west of the Balsam Mountains (Jackson, Macon, Swain, Cherokee, Clay and Graham counties).

“We’re not in the business of building out to everybody’s homes,” said BalsamWest CEO David Hubbs.

The reasons that BalsamWest and other telecoms have not tackled the last-mile part are primarily financial. Most companies would have to put up millions of dollars to build infrastructure, only to have a relatively sparse number of customers.

Government help is on the way, however.

Soon, nonprofit MCNC will begin work on a $111 million broadband fiber project that will install 1,448 miles of new fiber through 69 of the most rural counties in North Carolina. BalsamWest and ERC are both major partners in the initiative. Particularly important to WNC will be the fiber link constructed in Haywood County.

Mark Clasby, economic development director for Haywood, said it’s been his priority to get Haywood connected to the fiber networks found east in Asheville and west of the Balsams.

“It’s essential we get this done,” said Clasby. “We’re kind of like the hole in the donut. It’s critical for our future that we have some type of system.”

Gene Winters, CFO of MedWest, a collective of hospitals in Haywood, Jackson and Swain counties, said the connection would save his company at least half a million dollars.

Presently, MedWest is forced to use multiple telecom companies since there is no fiber running from Haywood County to west of the Balsams. If such a connection existed, MedWest would not have to duplicate services.

Winters said MedWest, too, has spent thousands on Internet infrastructure. Recently, the hospital group dropped $18,000 on bringing Internet service from one building to another just 75 yards away.

“You got to look at it as a four- to five-year investment to recoup your cost,” said Winters. “Most small companies don’t have a longer view, and they can’t because cash is tight.”

Gaining momentum

All eyes in the telecommunications community are on the MCNC project, which will expand broadband capability exponentially on the middle-mile scale.

“I think the future is being written right now,” said Howell. “We should see deeper penetration of broadband into at least the business community and anchor institutions.”

“This is truly a game changer,” said Goosmann, whose company is tackling fiber in Buncombe, Madison, McDowell, Mitchell and Avery counties.

Meanwhile, BalsamWest will bring middle-mile broadband to 480 miles in 37 counties. It is also working on a major project connecting its fiber network west to Knoxville and Oak Ridge, Tenn. The link will bring instant access to universities, and scientific and high-tech industries.

In addition, Frontier Communications Company has taken over Verizon’s landline footprint in North Carolina. Unlike Verizon, Frontier markets itself as a telecom company for rural areas of the country. The company promises to bring high-speed Internet to 85 percent of all areas they serve in the next three years.

“We’ve been doing this a long time,” said Brigid Smith, assistant vice president of corporate communications at Frontier. Smith says that her company has brought broadband to the mountains of Moab, Utah, the deserts of Arizona and isolated areas of the Midwest where it takes six hours to reach the next house on the road.

“Terrain issues are not new to us,” said Smith, adding that Frontier is also “very financially healthy.”

Smaller telecom companies like Sylva-based Metrostat Communications are also devoted to bringing Internet to the most unlikely places. The company says its goal is to bring Internet service to everybody, not just the big companies.

“My goal is to serve Annie’s Bakery and all the little guys on Back Street … I’ll use any means I can to do it,” said co-owner John Kevlin. “Sometimes we use radios, sometimes a fiber network. It depends on what’s cheapest and easiest.”

The company receives calls daily from bewildered new residents of WNC who expected Internet service to be just a phone call away.

“They are not understanding that not every place in the world has broadband Internet,” said Metrostat co-owner Robin Kevlin.

“I know people who can’t even get telephone access, and this is 2010,” said John Kevlin.

At times, Metrostat has to use admittedly quirky methods that aren’t always available to bigger corporations. For example, the company will ask someone if it’s OK to install a radio in their house to help a neighbor down the street.

“We have to look for creative ways to spend a smaller amount of money to get to the most people,” said Kevlin.

Hubbs says that extraordinary progress has undoubtedly been made in WNC in the last decade.

“You can get the same kind of connectivity in Franklin, N.C., that you can get in Atlanta, New York or Washington, D.C.,” said Hubbs. “In economic development terms, that is part of the most critical infrastructure that large 21st century knowledge-based companies have to have.”

Clasby calls the quest for reliable Internet complicated but also one of the most exciting issues he is working on.

“I see light at the end of the tunnel,” said Clasby. “It’s still probably two, three years away, but we’re getting there inch by inch.”

According to Goosmann, it will take time for the average citizen to benefit from the progress being made. But that progress is coming.

“It’s going to be years before we really see the full scope of what this is going to do for the mountains,” Goosmann said. “But the ball is starting to roll downhill, and it’s going to gain momentum.

Teenage fashion continues marching onward in its evolution, leaving school administrators constantly scrambling to modernize dress codes. Keeping up with the times while maintaining a distraction-free learning environment has become a delicate dance school leaders take up year after year.

That endless tug-of-war has prompted two Haywood County high schools to take strides in opposite directions this fall.

After an experimental year with a decidedly vague dress code, Tuscola High School in Waynesville is clamping down with strict, clear-cut guidelines. All students need to comply is a card — an ID card, a driver’s license, a debit or credit card — used to measure everything from the height of skirts above the knee cap to the width of tank top straps.

Meanwhile, Central Haywood High, an alternative school in Clyde, has created a more liberal dress code, no longer requiring its students to wear belts or tuck in their shirts.

Other area schools are sticking to their stricter-than-average policies. Smoky Mountain High School in Sylva requires all skirts and dresses to be knee length or longer, while Swain County High School prohibits all tank tops or sleeveless shirts of any sort.

“Knee-length is an easy measurement,” said Jay Grissom, principal at Smoky Mountain High. “There’s no extra steps involved.”

“When spring has sprung, we get a lot of cleavage,” said Regina Mathis, who recently left her post as principal of Swain County High. “Tops are too low, shorts are too short.”

No matter how strict or liberal, though, dress codes were brought up as the number one concern of teachers in at least three WNC schools last year.

The case for stricter codes

Parents found it hard to believe their eyes as they drove up Tuscola School Drive to drop off their kids last year.

Girls donning strapless shirts and scandalously short skirts, shorts and dresses. Guys wearing tank tops and pants that were practically falling off their bodies.

“There was a lot to be seen,” said Stephanie Goodwin, assistant principal at Tuscola.

“We get to lunch, and we got half-naked bodies it seems,” said Dale McDonald, Tuscola’s principal. “It’s fine if you’re going to Myrtle Beach.”

School leaders had just debuted a radical new dress code that simply barred anything that was “disruptive.” Teachers were charged with writing up students and sending them straight to the office.

While some teachers faithfully reported dress code violations, others turned a blind eye to inappropriate outfits. That inconsistency worked against students who didn’t know what to expect with each new class. It also worked in favor of students who argued to their fourth period teacher that there hadn’t been an issue with their short shorts during homeroom.

By the end of the 2009-2010 year, Tuscola administrators acknowledged the failure of their liberal policy and got to work coming up with a replacement.

They thoroughly researched dress codes in surrounding counties and came up with what they believed constituted the middle of the road.

The basics: Students cannot wear anything shorter than a card’s length above their knees. Their tops cannot be lower than a card’s length below their collarbones. Pants must be worn at the waist with no undergarments in view and no holes above the knee. Leggings worn underneath provide no excuse for any violations of the above.

A few of the schools Goodwin looked at had dress codes that prohibited facial piercing, mascara, flip-flops and hair dye — all of which are allowed on Tuscola’s campus.

“A girl here today, her hair was rainbow,” said Goodwin. “That’s fine. That’s her way of expressing something.”

At the same time, Goodwin sees the need to set clear boundaries for attire, whether or not students agree.

“They may be used to dressing that way,” said Goodwin. “At the same time, is it the time or is it the place? School is not a time to look like you’re at the beach.”

Students fuming

Most Tuscola students were angry, or apathetic at best, over the new policy. They often echoed each other in their reactions to the new dress code.

“I think it’s stupid,” said junior Alex Dotson. “We didn’t have a dress code last year. They’re so strict on us this year.”

Dotson is particularly displeased with the longer shorts requirement.

“You can’t find any cute shorts like that unless you cut off your jeans,” Dotson said.

Like a few of her fellow students, Dotson is outright opposed to a dress code on principle.

“I think they should just let us be who we want to be and wear what we want to wear,” Dotson said.

Other students see a need for a dress code, but say the latest one is too strict.

“It’s pretty ridiculous. It think they went overboard with it,” said sophomore Brooke Ferguson. “I like the fact of having a dress code, just not one like we have. Everyone’s talking about it.”

“It doesn’t really affect me, but I know tons of girls are furious about it,” said senior Joey Cutting. “It’s hard for a lot of people. They don’t want to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe.”

“I think that a Mormon church bought our school,” joked Arron Gibson, a 17-year-old senior.

Gibson said he knew many students who had to head back to the stores to replace their wardrobes.

Eli Haynes, 15, was one of them. Many of the shorts that she bought at the beginning of the summer were suddenly prohibited at school. Her mother, Leah Crisp, wasn’t thrilled when she received notice of the new dress code six weeks before the school year started.

Though she was able to afford new clothes for Eli, Crisp pointed that not all families were as fortunate.

“What about children who may not have a lot of money?” said Crisp. “If they had told us at the end of the school year, then we would have been prepared.”

Tuscola’s latest dress code seems stricter than the one Waynesville Middle School had when Eli was attending, according to Crisp.

Though she doesn’t agree with every aspect of the code, Crisp acknowledged it would help prepare students for a professional environment once they graduate.

Principal McDonald, too, emphasized that part of the school’s job is to teach character education.

“Integrity, confidence, self-respect, all those things play into that,” said McDonald.

Gibson remains unconvinced that the stricter dress code is necessary, however.

“They claim it’s because of distraction,” Gibson said. “Any time you have a coed school, there’s going to be distraction regardless.”

The flip side

Donna Parris, lead teacher at Central Haywood High, estimates that 30 percent of the students refused to comply with the dress code last year.

It was a source of nonstop disruption in classrooms. One student after another would be removed from class, and teachers had to sacrifice breaks to monitor students’ attire during lunch.

At the heart of the problem was that students were forced to tuck in their shirts and wear belts — rules that even teachers weren’t thrilled about enforcing.

“We did not feel passionate about keeping this up and letting it interfere with our school,” Parris said. “We want to teach the kids. We don’t want to be so concerned about how they dress, as long as they’re appropriate.”

“We were spending more time on the dress code than we was on the kid getting an education,” said Tara Leatherwood, secretary for Central Haywood.

Modernizing the dress code seemed like the best option moving forward.

“We know it’s the 21st century. It’s not the 1950s,” said Jeff Haney, Central Haywood’s new principal.  “We know they want to dress with style, but we also want to keep it modest.”

Many alternative schools see students only for a short stay before they return to their original schools. It isn’t uncommon for these schools to require uniforms for their temporary students. But most of the students at Central Haywood continue their education there until they graduate.

“We’re not a punishment place. We’re long-term,” said Parris. “The kids feel at home. They also wanted to feel comfortable.”

The school had required all students to wear collared shirts and khakis about six years ago. But dress requirements have been loosened ever since. Students still must wear collared shirts, but jeans, shorts and skirts in solid colors are now allowed.

With the more lenient dress code in place, Central Haywood teachers have already noticed a major improvement just a few days after school started this year.

“A couple of shorts too short, other than that, it’s been a pretty good deal,” said Parris. “The teachers are like, ‘Whew! This is so much better.’ We’re all happier.”