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2024 A Look Back: Audacity award

It makes potheads giggle and cops roll their eyes, and in Western North Carolina this year, the stoner holiday 4/20 became newsworthy.

An event to commemorate the special weekend was held Friday and Saturday, April 19 and 20, at the Smoky Mountain Event Center in Haywood County, and it drew the scrutiny of some in the community. 

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2024 A Look Back: First in flight award

After Hurricane Helene rocked the eastern reaches of Western North Carolina, Crystal Cochran sprang into action.

A resident of Sylva, mother and Gold Star military wife, Cochran jumped at the opportunity to aid in efforts by Operation Airdrop to get supplies into Western North Carolina and distributed to the hardest hit areas in the region. 

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2024 A Look Back: If it ain’t broke award

Following this year’s budget season, Macon County maintains its position with the lowest property tax of any county in the state of North Carolina at $0.27 cents per $100 of assessed property value.

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2024 A Look Back: Building the future award

This year both Jackson and Swain counties received state grants of $52 million to build new middle schools. For Jackson County, this will be the first traditional middle school the county has ever had and will serve middle grade students in place of the four K-8 schools that do so now. 

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2024 A Look Back: Maconians united award

Maconians are known among the citizens of Western North Carolina for robust and regular public input at local government meetings and this year was no different. But there was one issue in particular that galvanized the citizens of Macon County to stand together and speak up — efforts to weaken the county’s floodplain ordinances

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Fake News Freakout: Episode 9

I started this annual feature nearly a decade ago to poke fun at the emerging scourge of fake news — lies, really — that had popped up at local government meetings. It was a prophetic move, unfortunately, and in the intervening nine or so years it’s only gotten worse. 

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A moment to celebrate: Haywood’s Recovery Court graduates second participant

Last Friday wasn’t Mark Beam’s first time facing a judge at the defendant’s table in Haywood County District Court, but it seems like it may have been the last. 

Beam’s defense attorney, Jake Phelps, stood to address District Court Judge Monica Leslie. Phelps’ voice wavered as he evoked his client’s case number, and many in the gallery and the jury box wiped away tears. 

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After fiasco, Congress fails to meet North Carolina’s hurricane recovery needs

Hurricane Helene victims in Western North Carolina have eagerly been awaiting an expected holiday gift in the form of federal aid since the Sept. 27 storm pounded the region, but after nearly three months of wholly insufficient action in the General Assembly and a last-minute House vote in Washington, the only gift under the Christmas tree this year was pink bunny pajamas. 

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School board considers options for Jackson Community School

Jackson Community School — Jackson County’s alternative learning center — is the most expensive school in the district per pupil, and now the Board of Education is considering whether it should invest more money into the aging building or relocate the small student population into a larger school. 

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