It is just a beautiful day, this Memorial Day. I am able to get a little work done in the morning, and then sneak off to the fitness center for a quick workout and a run around Lake Junaluska while Tammy makes a project of the pantry, which has over the past couple of years become “overstuffed” and is about as organized as a cat parade. The kids are now old enough to help us put away the groceries, and they have embraced this new stage of responsibility by developing a truly impressive talent to put things in completely random places. Why shouldn’t a can of beans be flanked on the shelf by a jar of Maraschino cherries and a dozen eggs?

It’s been two years since Bruce Yarrington and his Knights of Columbus buddies started volunteering at the Veterans Restoration Quarters in Asheville. Twice a month the crew makes the trip from Waynesville to cook for the veterans at the center.

A group of Vietnam veterans in Swain County have accomplished their goal. Soon, an Alarka-area bridge will bear the name of three-time Purple Heart recipient Dockie Brendle.

Randall E. Murff remembers the guns shooting at him.

“The Germans really could shoot those guns, they were good,” he said. “If you gave them 17 seconds, they’d knock you right down.”

The breakfast crowd in Bryson City’s Bojangles’ seems to know Dockie Brendle. 

“Hello, Doc,” says a man at a nearby table. “How are you?”

A group of veterans in Haywood County lodged a formal complaint claiming that the hiring process of the county’s veterans service officer was discriminatory.

Following a nine-month undercover investigation, six people were charged with conducting illegal activities, including selling moonshine and gambling, at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post in Waynesville.

As Lieutenant James Rossi took the stage in his fatigues, a toddler’s voice cut across the auditorium, breaking the otherwise formal and borderline somber ceremony marking the imminent deployment of local National Guard troops to Afghanistan.

After struggling through a year of poor fundraising, the veterans’ memorial in Franklin desperately needs to sell some bricks.

An empty eyesore in Canton’s downtown could get a new lease on life.

The former Jackson’s Appliance store, at the corner of Depot and Main streets in Canton, has lived several short lives during the last several years, but owner Terry Simmons could not find a business with staying power. At one point, he even ran the building as a boarding house.