Friends and alumni contributed more than $6 million to Western Carolina University during the 2024 GivingTuesday initiative, nearly quadrupling the previous record set last year and setting the stage for a corresponding challenge gift that would unlock significant additional funding for WCU athletics facilities renovations. 

Featuring professional classical dances and the Ballet Conservatory of Asheville’s celebrated pre-professional company, a magically festive, full-length stage version of “The Nutcracker” will be held at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 6, and 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 7, in the Bardo Arts Center Performance Hall at Western Carolina University. 

Western Carolina University announced the appointment of Matt Henley as the next director of Athletic Bands and director of the Pride of the Mountains Marching Band. 

As fall is slowly transitioning to winter, so, too, comes the holiday cheer. And although Thanksgiving Day, the official kickoff of the Christmas season, is still a week away, there are a handful of events already in motion to get the ball rolling. 

The 15th annual “Handmade Holiday Sale” will be held from noon to 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 21, in the Bardo Arts Center at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. 

Nontraditional students working to earn a degree in an art-related major at Western Carolina University soon will have financial assistance to help them pursue their passion, thanks to a memorial scholarship fund established by the family of a recent WCU graduate who earned his degree after the age of 30. 

Lisa Briggs, director of Western Carolina University’s Human Remains Detection K-9 training program and Emergency Disaster Management program, and Edwin Grant, HRD K-9 program instructor and long-time law enforcement officer, have been deployed with their HRD K-9s since the start of the recovery process for missing persons in Western North Carolina following the devastation left by Hurricane Helene.  

Throughout Hurricane Helene, the slogan going around Haywood County has been, “neighbors helping neighbors.” The personification of those words is nowhere more apparent than at Haywood Pathways Center in Waynesville, where a small group of volunteers gathered on Oct. 5 to minister to some of the county’s most vulnerable residents.

Western Carolina University announced Thursday, Sept. 26 that the 50th Anniversary of Mountain Heritage Day daytime festival, scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 28, is cancelled due to hazardous weather from Hurricane Helene. 

A beloved long-time Western North Carolina tradition, Mountain Heritage Day will spotlight its 50th anniversary from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, on the campus of Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.