Caitlin Bowling
The National Guard’s 211th Military Police Company based in Haywood County is deploying to Afghanistan.
Maggie Valley residents and leaders are questioning how and why town taxpayers ended up footing the bill for a Country music concert at the festival grounds last month — and whether the town will end up holding the bag for some $7,000 after the concert finished in the red.
U.S. Congressman Mark Meadows was appointed as one of the country’ two representatives to the United Nation’s General Assembly last week.
During rehearsal for her church’s band one Monday night, Paula McElroy called home to check on her 82-year-old husband who suffers from dementia. No answer.
Despite fears that the North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center would meet its maker after losing its state funding, the center’s board of directors decided to persevere, albeit in a diminished capacity.
People seeking funds from the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority spend hours filling out grant applications, and all the tourism agency gets for the applicant’s trouble is paper skyscrapers.
A new traveling exhibit is using technology to teach people about traditional Cherokee culture.
Two Maggie Valley aldermen recently indicated that they have a laundry list of grievances against the town’s mayor, but there is one complaint that stands out among the rest.
As the Maggie Valley Board of Aldermen called its monthly meeting to order, it was the last item on the list that had town hall overflowing — a call for a hearing to consider the mayor’s alleged misconduct.
While political candidates are usually quick to point out their differences, this election season Maggie Valley residents are calling on them to come together.
Despite a statewide ban on video sweepstakes machines, the video gambling industry is taking advantage of yet another apparent loophole to introduce the machines back into Western North Carolina, apparently emboldened after local district court judges have dismissed a series of criminal charges against defiant sweepstakes operators.
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.
U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, sporting an Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians button, hosted a town hall meeting last Thursday in Cherokee that he said was the “most vocal” he has held in the district.
There’s only one feasible option for what to do with the abandon Haywood Department of Social Services building: turn it into apartments.
Preliminary sitework on a new Cherokee Indian Hospital could start as early as December.
The hospital has entered contract negotiations with a construction management company that would oversee construction of a new hospital, estimated to run between $50 to $65 million.
Raising children is rewarding, but stay-at-home moms and dads need something for themselves.
The recent three-day trip to Washington, D.C., marks the fourth time Swain County representatives have visited the capital during the last couple years.
The outlook for Swain County doesn’t look any better this year than it did the last three years in its quest to make good on the government’s stale promise of a cash settlement.
Pending changes to Waynesville’s sign laws could pave the way for sidewalk sandwich boards downtown, but they aren’t legal yet.
The chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians wants the town of Franklin to relinquish ownership of the historic Nikwasi Mound, but town leaders may not let it go.
The Moral Monday protests that started in Raleigh and made national headlines are now making the rounds in North Carolina with a stop scheduled in Sylva next Wednesday, Aug. 28.
Waynesville officials will hold a public hearing next week on an ordinance that would pave the way for street performers, known colloquially as “buskers,” to play in the town’s public spaces in hopes of making a buck or two from passersby.
The town of Canton is not out of the woods yet in its fight to keep Camp Hope, a public recreation area in Cruso.
North Carolina is reverting back to paper ballots, forcing Haywood, Jackson and 29 other counties in the state to purchase completely new voting equipment by 2018.
Lake Junaluska community leaders gave residents a first look at how its service fees will increase since its merger with Waynesville was thwarted, at least temporarily.
Female fans of Western Carolina University athletics know three things — which player the quarterback is, when a touchdown is scored and, more importantly, how to tailgate.
A recent government audit of the North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center has divided much of the state.
Western North Carolina business and political leaders are wondering who will go to the mat for them to attract new and expanding businesses now that the N.C. General Assembly has severed ties with two important rural economic development entities.
“Who is going to be our advocate, and where are we going to find funds?” said Ron Leatherwood, a member of Haywood County’s Economic Development Commission. “Someone has got to fill that void.”
The Canton Board of Aldermen is still accepting applications for the open town manager position.
“We’ve interviewed some that we like. We’ve got some good applications, but we still wanted to continue looking,” said Canton Alderman Ed Underwood. “It is still open right now.”
Sylvia Russell remembers how crucial it was to wear the “right” clothes to school, how the “right” outfit could win the acceptance of peers.
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.
About 30 people sat scattered around the 2,800-seat Mountainside Theater in Cherokee, watching the makings of something that has never graced the stage there before.
After debuting its first new play in more than 60 years last year, the Cherokee Historical Association will take another giant leap by premiering the theater’s first historical musical, “Chief Little Will,” in 2014.
At the end of every crop’s season, farmers pick the fruits or vegetables that are pretty enough to sell in the grocery store. Once they are done, they plow under the leftover produce.
A new event center in Waynesville could be just the beginning of the vitalization of Wall Street, said Wells Greeley, owner of Wells Funeral Homes and Cremation Services.
Bryson City’s library has storied yet humble beginnings — born from a suitcase of books toted around town by a lady named Marianna Black in the 1930s.
The recently signed state budget bill will fund the hiring of 19 toxicology analysts for a new western crime lab, expanding available evidence testing in Western North Carolina.
A Ghost Town in the Sky gunfighter wounded during a staged fight has new hope of being compensated for his injury after all, despite initially being told he wouldn’t.
A candidate for Maggie Valley alderman was indicted this month on eight felony charges, including forgery.
The July 19 indictment alleges that Joe Maniscalco forged documents and knowingly tried to pass them off as valid records in an attempt to get out of paying town property taxes.
Western Carolina University will erase 10 degree programs, including women’s studies and the graduate music courses, from its books during the next few years.
Well-known regional tourism expert Steve Morse has been hired by Western Carolina University to head its hospitality and tourism program.
Canton will witness a mysterious mass exodus of its elected town board members following the town election this fall.
Renovating the antiquated, shuttered restrooms at the Waynesville Recreation Park will cost more than town officials anticipated, leaving them to question whether to bother or just scrap the plans altogether.
Street musicians are becoming a common sight in downtown Waynesville, despite a town policy that bans sidewalk performers from playing for tips.
The Waynesville Police Department helped craft and then usher four bills, or some version of them, through the N.C. General Assembly this year, giving law enforcement officers statewide new tools in the fight against drugs.
Eleven bears once confined to concrete pits at Chief Saunooke Bear Park in Cherokee have found greener pastures in Texas after the bear park was shut down following repeated federal violations.
Haywood Community College hoped to recoup $80,000 from the architect behind the new Creative Arts building due to design errors that caused the $10.2 million project to inch up in price.
State officials are investigating Ghost Town in the Sky amusement park after a piece of shrapnel maimed a longtime, well-known Wild West gunfighter during one of the park’s staged gunfights.
The town of Waynesville plans to buy 15 new police cars in the coming year for $500,000, a move that will assign each officer their own vehicle instead of having to share.
Growing up on the Isleta Pueblo reservation in New Mexico, 26-year-old Cody Grant could name off the tribes he descended from — Cherokee, two sects of Pueblo — but he didn’t know anything about them, except their names.
“For me, it was because culturally, I was lacking,” said Grant, who split his time between New Mexico and Cherokee as a child. “I didn’t place big stock in cultural values.”
Waynesville’s South Main Street continues to see slow but steady commercial growth, with a Taco Bell and Mattress Firm soon to join the ranks of the growing retail corridor.
