Former assistant principal will lead Sylva school
The newly hired principal of the newly formed Catamount School in Sylva won’t be new to the environment at Smoky Mountain High School, where the Catamount School is to be located.
Macon schools reach full capacity
Macon County elementary schools are near, at or over capacity, and administrators can only shuffle students around so much before a more long-term solution will be needed.
Two essays that left a lasting influence
They were both quiet, their voices barely audible even during roll call, and absolutely silent otherwise. Even as a new teacher, I understood that freshman English was a class that most students simply endured, rather than enjoyed. I had not really enjoyed it that much myself when I had been a freshman, so what flint did I have that could generate a spark for writing narrative or comparison and contrast essays among my own students? Neither Steve nor David seemed to express any more interest than I had in the immense possibilities that writing an essay might contain.
Swain band performs at Pearl Harbor Anniversary
The Swain County High School marching band was noticeably absent from the annual Bryson City Christmas Parade last weekend, but they had a good reason.
Bringing in the harvest: Despite drought, students and farmers join forces to feed Haywood’s hungry
Armed with five-gallon buckets and a groundswell of energy, 14 teens from Balsam-based SOAR Camp descended on Eugene Christopher’s Waynesville farm this month with a simple task before them — feed the hungry of Haywood County by collecting as many potatoes as possible.
Clouds hung low over the waning daylight Nov. 11, air slightly hazier than usual from the smoke of nearby wildfires. The leafless November scene could have been a bleak one but for the liveliness of the soundscape, which featured the back-and-forth banter of high school kids freed from the rules of volume control that govern a typical school day. The rumbling of Christopher’s tractor served as the background to their shouts as he traversed the rows, turning the soil for harvest.
Diversity officer discusses differences, exploration and the lost art of respectful debate
When Ricardo Nazario-Colon first stepped onto Western Carolina University’s campus to interview for the new chief diversity officer position, one thing stuck out to him above all else.
Liberty group protests campus speech restrictions; WCU says its policies are reasonable
It was a sunny Constitution Day at Western Carolina University, and the colors shone brightly on the giant beach ball — dubbed the “free speech ball” — that the campus chapter of Young Americans for Liberty rolled from spot to spot.
Western breaks enrollment records
Western Carolina University saw its previous high-water mark for enrollment blasted away this year as final student counts for 2016 came in, with new records set for both total enrollment and freshman class size.
WCU opens $29 million building
With fall classes newly underway, 420 Western Carolina University students are settling into their rooms in brand new Noble Hall, a $29.3 million building that the university just completed.
Connecting a new generation to 9/11
Recently, a group of Waynesville Middle chorus students were at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City, and when they tried to sing the national anthem, they were stopped mid-song by a security guard who told them they needed a permit to perform. Before beginning the song, they had received verbal permission from a different security guard.