High Country Magazine | Vol 6 Issue 2 | October-November 2010

75 Years

Volume 6 • Issue 2 October/November 2010

The Blue Ridge Parkway

Gary Everhardt

Guiding the Parkway to Completion

100 Candles for Lois The Last Dairy Farms

DI A N N E DAVA N T & A S S O C I AT E S Excellence By Design Since 1979

B A N N E R E L K , N O RT H C A R O L I N A 828.898.9887 S T U A R T, F L O R I D A 772.287.2872 W W W. D A VA N T - I N T E R I O R S . C O M

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High Country Magazine

October / November 2010

October / November

2010

High Country Magazine

1

The Last, Best Place.

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High Country Magazine

October / November 2010

October / November

2010

High Country Magazine

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High Country Magazine

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YEARS

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This is Reynolds Blue Ridge, 6,212 acres of pristine Western North Carolina wilderness located minutes from Blowing Rock, Boone and the Blue Ridge Parkway. With over $100M in infrastructure already complete, Reynolds Blue Ridge–brought to you by the developers of Georgia’s renowned Reynolds Plantation–is debt free and destined to become one of the region’s premier communities.

Right now, we’re offering 10 cottages centrally located near our future mountainside village. These 3br/3.5ba cottages range from 1,800 – 3,200 sf with features unheard of at this price point: hand–cut solid timber frame construction, cedar shake roofs, stacked stone, and available lock and go convenience. Cottages are priced from $399K, 2 acre view homesites from $139K, and custom homes are available from $499K to $2.5M. To learn more, or schedule a visit to discover Reynolds Blue Ridge, please call 828.295.8667 or visit ReynoldsBlueRidge.com.

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Obtain the Property Report required by Federal Law before signing anything. All information is believed to be accurate but is not warranted. This information shall not constitute a valid offer in any state where prior registration is required. This information and features and information described and depicted herein is based on proposed development plans, which are subject to change without notice. Actual development may or may not be as currently proposed. No guarantee is made that the features, amenities, or facilities depicted by an artist’s rendering or otherwise described herein will be built, or, if built will be the same type, size, or nature as depicted or described.

October / November

2010

High Country Magazine

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75 Years

The Blue Ridge Parkway

C O N T E N T S on the cover

An issue featuring the superintendent who finalized the Blue Ridge Parkway wouldn’t be complete without a classic Hugh Morton cover photo of the Linn Cove Viaduct. As we celebrate the Parkway’s 75th anniversary, we can also applaud the archival of Morton’s photography and film in the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill library. The digitization of this body of work has begun and is viewable online at w w w.lib.un c.e d u /d c/m o r to n / in d ex.ht m l.

The article about Gary Everhardt on page 22 features many rarely seen photos from this collection. In addition, another website, “A View To Hugh,” contains insight into the archivists’ progress and features interesting photographic “discoveries” in the collection. The site also includes essays about Hugh Morton’s images by people who knew him, including Randy Johnson, author of our article about Gary Everhardt. Visit: www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/morton.

22

Photo by Randy Johnson

22 The Parkway Under Everhardt

Photo by Karen Lehmann

Gary Everhardt, longest serving superintendent of the 75-year-old Blue Ridge Parkway, oversaw the historic final completion of this national treasure. He was at the helm throughout the construction of the Linn Cove Viaduct, a modern marvel of engineering.

High Country is 36 The Native American Heritage The true stories and traditions of Native Americans who traveled through the High Country years ago are the focus of annual pow wow celebrations, and increasingly, theatrical productions about tribes such as the Cherokee strive to achieve authenticity in their representation.

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High Country Magazine

Photographed by Hugh Morton

October / November 2010

36

READER SERVICES ABOUT US

The first High Country Press newspaper was published on May 5, 2005, and the first issue of High Country Magazine went to press in fall 2005. We publish the newspaper weekly and currently publish the magazine seven times a year. Both are free, and we distribute the newspaper and magazine in Watauga and Avery counties. Our newspaper is packed with information that we present and package in easy-to-read formats with visually appealing layouts.

The magazine represents our shared love of our history, our landscape and our people. It celebrates our pioneers, our lifestyles, our differences and the remarkable advantages we enjoy living in the mountains. Our guiding principles are twofold: quality journalism makes a difference and customer care at every level is of the greatest importance. Our offices are located in downtown Boone, and our doors are always open to welcome visitors.

from our home t o yours

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BACK ISSUES

isit our home and learn how we have been manufacturing America’s finest quality down comforters, pillows and featherbeds in the High Country since 1982, using German downproof fabrics, all European down fills, and DeWoolfson’s quality construction.

PHOTOGRAPHY

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SUBSCRIPTIONS

We are now offering subscriptions to High Country Magazine. A one-year subscription for seven issues costs $40, and we will mail issues to subscribers as soon as they arrive at our offices from the printer. To subscribe, call our offices at 828-264-2262.

Back issues of our magazines are available from our office for $5 per issue. Some issues are already sold out and are no longer available.

Photography and page reprints are available for purchase. For sizing, prices and usage terms, please call our office. Some photos may not be available and some restrictions may apply.

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ADVERTISING

Obtain information about advertising in our publications from our sales representatives by calling 828-264-2262 or emailing us at sales@highcountrypress.com.

Contact us at:

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2010

High Country Magazine

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C O N T E N T S

48 Centenarian Lois Sermons

After moving to the High Country from Louisiana to be near her daughter in 1998, Lois Sermons began volunteering at the Watauga Public Library. This October 8, the beloved community member—who loves pizza, dining out and who still maintains her own apartment—celebrates her 100th birthday.

48

56 Making It in Milk

54

Photo by Peter Morris

While only few traditional dairy farms remain in the High Country, some emerging farmers are taking advantage of demand for specialized dairy products, such as goat cheese. Raw milk, if legalized for sale for human consumption in North Carolina, would be a boon to local dairy producers.

72 Creating Tweetsie’s Ghost Train

Nothing matches the excitement and anticipation of staff and visitors of Tweetsie Railroad’s annual Ghost Train Halloween Festival, a nightly production that masterfully transforms the Wild West theme park from friendly to frightening.

84 A Model Green Home

Wayne and Carol King are proud owners of one of the few LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Design) residential homes in Watauga County. The home includes features for energy efficiency and reduction, air quality, reduced water use, durability and use of renewable resources.

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56

Photo by James Fay

90 Lost Golf Courses—Part III

In the third installment of golf writer Harris Prevost’s series on lost golf courses in Avery and Watauga counties, learn about courses that “would have been”—courses that were designed but never made it to construction.

94 Golf Writer Harris Prevost

Meet the multi-talented businessman, tourism promoter and golf enthusiast who has written about the High Country golf scene for years.

Photo by Kathy Cole

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High Country Magazine

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Photo by James Fay October / November 2010

S E E A D V E R T I S E R S ’ I N D E X O N pa g e 1 0 2

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With over 300 of the 1,000 acres having been designated as a permanent natural Sunalei is truly a community within a park. Carefully balancing homes with the landscape of a giant mountain and its surrounding valleys, Sunalei Preserve is to live within the environment – to experience it, to enjoy it and to protect

preserve, stirring a way it.

Home sites from $200,000 Custom homes from $695,000

BOONE , NORTH CAROLINA • 828.263.8711 www.SunaleiPreserve.com • www.BlueRidgeRealty.net October / November 2010 High

Country Magazine

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FROM T H E PUB L ISH ER

A Publication Of High Country Press Editor & Publisher Ken Ketchie Creative Director Courtney Cooper Production Manager Michelle Bailey Graphic Artists Tim Salt and Patrick Pitzer Advertising Sales Beverly Giles, Bryan McGuire and Tim Baxter

Happy Birthday

T

Ken Ketchie

he Blue Ridge Parkway has been celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, and I’d like to wish this old friend a very happy birthday. I’ve spent countless hours enjoying all that the Parkway has to offer along the section that runs through the High Country. With it practically being in our backyard, it just seems like part of the neighborhood.

I think we sometimes forget that our Parkway is actually part of the U.S. National Park System—and out of the 391 National Park sites across the country, the Blue Ridge Parkway is the most visited of them all. Some 20 million people a year visit the Parkway, and it’s estimated that those numbers add some $2 billion to local economies along its 469-mile route.

During this past year the Blue Ridge Parkway has received a lot of attention in the press leading up to its official 75th birthday on September 11, and there have been many celebrations in towns and communities along its mountaintop route from Rockfish Gap in Virginia to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in southwestern North Carolina. Blowing Rock had its weekend celebration September 17 to 19, during which Main Street was shut down for the first time in 50 years for a street fair, a parade of cars representing the last 75 years and a street dance that lasted into the night.

The goals of the original planners have pretty much remained intact over all these years. The plan called for a “scenic highway” containing a road designed to please viewers with its beautiful scenery. The roadway had been talked about for some time, but it was the Great Depression that finally got the project underway as a way to put people back to work. The first 12-mile section began construction September 11, 1935, near the Virginia-North Carolina border. It would take another 52 years to completely finish the continuous roadway, as the Linn Cove Viaduct on Grandfather Mountain opened on September 11, 1987.

You can see from archive photographs the difference in construction techniques that have been used over those 50 years. But all along the way the process has remained true to its stated policy adopted in 1936: to “conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife…and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

What began 75 years ago as a highway being built through parts of Appalachian mountain country that contained few maps, few roads and areas possibly never before surveyed is now a roadway with civilization bumping up against its boundaries.

Our best birthday present to our Blue Ridge Parkway would be to help protect its viewsheds and preserve the Parkway’s scenic qualities for future generations to enjoy.

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High Country Magazine

October / November 2010

Associate Editor Anna Oakes Contributing Writers Randy Johnson Val Maiewskij-Hay Harris Prevost Bernadette Cahill Celeste von Mangan Eric Crews Contributing Photograhers James Fay Peter Morris Randy Johnson Greg Williams Karen Lehmann Ron Davis High Country Magazine is produced by the staff and contributors of High Country Press newspaper, which serves Watauga and Avery counties of North Carolina

HIGH COUNTRY MAGAZINE P.O. Box 152, Boone, NC 28607 828-264-2262 Follow our magazine online where each issue is presented in a flip-through format. Check it out at:

HighCountryMagazine.com Reproduction or use in whole or part of the contents of this magazine without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Issues are FREE throughout the High Country. © 2010 by High Country Press. All Rights Reserved.

PICK-ME-UP

October / November

2010

High Country Magazine

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Calendarof Events Calendar # 1

October 2010 1-30

Ghost Train Halloween Festival, Tweetsie Railroad, Blowing Rock, 877-TWEETSIE

7

Crossnore Artist Gallery Reception, 828-733-3144

7

Visiting Writers Series: Kelly Cherry, Plemmons

Student Union Table Rock Room, ASU, 828-262-3098

8

Gallery Crawl, West Jefferson, 336-846-2787

8

Best of the Blue Ridge Exhibit Reception, Ashe Arts Center, West Jefferson, 336-846-2787

8

Steely Pan Band, Farthing Auditorium, ASU, 828-262-3020

9

Apple Festival, Horn in the West, Boone, 828-264-2120

9

Festival of the Frescoes, Holy Trinity Church,

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, October 19

Glendale Springs, 336-877-8090

9

Todd New River Festival, Cook Park, Todd,

9

828-964-1362

9

Blowing Rock School Auditorium, 828-964-3392

Mineral City Heritage Festival, Spruce Pine,

9

spmainst@bellsouth.net

9 9

Old English Inn Art and Craft Show, 240 English Road, Spruce Pine, 828-766-7948

ASU Football vs. Elon, Kidd Brewer Stadium, ASU, www.GoASU.com

Mountain Home Music: David Johnson & Friends,

Woolly Worm Ball, Buckeye Recreation Center, Beech Mountain, 828-898-5605

9-10

Oktoberfest, Sugar Mountain Resort, 828-898-4521

“The Perfect Ten” Gallery Artwork Sale, The Art Cellar

10

Gallery, Banner Elk, 828-898-5175

10

Jon Metzger Concert, Meadowbrook Inn, Blowing Rock,

828-295-4300

11

Lecture: Sustainability and the Global Food Crisis, Farthing Auditorium, ASU, 828-262-2683

12

13-16

Distinguished CEO Lecture: Duke Energy CEO James Rogers, Farthing Auditorium, ASU, 828-262-2057 Theatre and Dance Freshman Showcase, I.G. Greer Studio Theatre, ASU, 828-262-3063

15

Newland Car Show, downtown Newland, 828-260-3205

16

Valle Country Fair, Valle Crucis Conference Center grounds, 828-963-4609

High Country Magazine

Mountain Home Music: Little Windows & the Cave Dwellers, Blowing Rock School Auditorium, 828-964-3392

Valle Country Fair, October 16 12

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October / November 2010

DON’T FORGET

EVENTS

Oktoberfest at Sugar Mountain Come hungry and thirsty to the 20th annual Oktoberfest celebration at Sugar Mountain Resort, taking place Saturday and Sunday, October 9 and 10. Enjoy beautiful fall scenery, delicious Bavarian food, a live oom pah band, handmade arts and crafts and plenty of German beverages. Best of all, admission and parking are free.

OCTOBER 9 & 10

Ghost Train Halloween Festival All aboard for frights and fun as Tweetsie Railroad celebrates the 21st season of the Ghost Train Halloween Festival. The thrills begin Friday, October 1, and continue every Friday and Saturday night through October 30. Hop aboard the Ghost Train and let engineer Casey Bones and his crew take you on a scary journey into the night. Visit The Boneyard, the 3-D Maze, the disorienting Black Hole, the Freaky Forest and the Haunted House.

OCTOBER 1 to 30

Valle Country Fair More than 10,000 people traveled to picturesque Valle Crucis last year for the annual Valle Country Fair, an overgrown church bazaar that takes place on the grounds of the Valle Crucis Conference Center. With 135 fine art and crafts booths, there’s no better place to do your Christmas shopping, plus you’ll find hot apple cider and apple butter, homemade jams and jellies, Brunswick stew, barbecue and live entertainment. Mark your calendars for Saturday, October 16.

SATURDAY Oct. 16

October / November

2010

High Country Magazine

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Valle Crucis Punkin Festival, October 23

Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, October 28

October 2010

16

23

Comedienne Lynn Trefzger, Ashe Civic Center,

25-28

Woolly Worm Festival, Banner Elk Elementary School,

18

Grover Robbins Memorial Golf Tournament,

28

19

Plemmons Student Union Table Rock Room, ASU, 828-262-3098 28

Drive By Truckers, Legends, ASU, 828-262-3030

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Legends, ASU,

29

Del McCoury Band and Preservation Hall Jazz Band,

Lees-McRae Theatre: Almost, Maine, Lees-McRae

Haunted Horn Ghost Trail, Horn in the West, Boone,

Avery Tour de Art, Avery County galleries and studios,

November 2010

Farthing Auditorium, ASU, 828-262-4046

828-262-3030 20-21

30 30

23

828-773-3144

23

Valle Crucis Punkin Festival, Mast General Store Annex, Valle Crucis, 828-963-6511

Halloween Extravaganza, downtown Newland, 828-260-3205

828-264-2120

Blowing Rock Halloween Festival, downtown Blowing

Rock, 828-295-5222

College Hayes Auditorium, Banner Elk, 828-898-8709 21-30

Visiting Writers Series: Adrian Nicole LeBlanc,

Elk River Club, Boone, 828-262-9564

Thanksgiving Turkey Treat, Sugar Mountain Resort, 828-898-4521

828-898-5605

Mountain Home Music: Mountain Dulcimer,

Blowing Rock School Auditorium, 828-898-3392

West Jefferson, 336-846-2787 16-17

North Carolina Symphony, November 11

3-7

ASU Theatre: Romeo and Juliet, Valborg Theatre, ASU, 828-262-3098

4

Lecture: The Ecology of Hope and Devastation, Broyhill Inn Powers Hall, ASU, 828-262-2683

5

Downtown Boone Art Crawl, downtown Boone galleries and businesses, 828-262-4532

11

North Carolina Symphony, Farthing Auditorium, ASU, 828-262-4046

18

Visiting Writers Series: Brenda Flanagan, Plemmons Student Union Table Rock Room, 828-262-3098

18-20

North Carolina Dance Festival, Valborg Theatre, ASU, 828-262-3063

19-21

Christmas Show, Boone Mall, 828-733-0675

An Appalachian Concerto, Ashe Civic Center,

20

West Jefferson, 336-846-2787

20

Peabody’s Charity Wine Expo, Broyhill Inn and Conference Center, Boone, 828-264-9476

26

Christmas in the Park & Lighting of the Town, Memorial Park, Blowing Rock, 828-295-5222

Preservation Hall Jazz Band, October 29 14

High Country Magazine

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Thanksgiving Kiln Opening, Traditions Pottery Studio, Blowing Rock, 828-295-3862

October / November 2010

FOR EVERYONE! DON’T FORGET SOMETHING 100 SHOPPES • FOUR FLOORS

EVENTS

GIF TS

T E RY • • P OT

JEWELRY •

F U R N I T U R E • H A N D C R A F T S • A R T • C O L L EC

T IBL E S •

H A NDB

AG S

HANDBAGS AND TOTES

Baggallini • Miche • Bella • Scout Britto • Toss • Cinda B • Emilie Sloan Lilly Pulitzer • Hadaki • Laurel Burch

LOCAL ARTISANS

Turtle Old Man Jewelry Elkland Handwerkes Furniture Moss Creek Jewelry • Don Haywood Jewelry Jay Shiavone Jewelry Evergreen Dreams Chainmaille Jewelry Fall Creek Woods • Tonya’s Bows

Woolly Worm Festival If you love the thrill of a crowd and the excitement of a spectacle, head to Banner Elk on Saturday and Sunday, October 16 and 17, for the famous Woolly Worm Festival, taking place as always on the grounds of Banner Elk Elementary School. One of the quirkiest events in the Southeast, the festival’s main event is the racing of woolly worms to determine which of the furry critters will forecast the coming winter’s weather. There’s arts and crafts, food, live music and much more.

OCTOBER 16 & 17

MADE IN THE USA

Janska Clothing • Arias Windchimes Droll Yankees Birdfeeders • Tervis Tumblers Rada Cutlery • Byers Choice Carolers Old World Ornaments • West Paw Designs

BABY GIFTS

Stephan Baby • Smart Gear Toys • Beba Bean 4Moms-Mamaroo • Mud Pie Baby • Itsy Bitsy

JEWELRY & FOOTWEAR

Crystal Creek Designer Jewelry • Oka B Sandals Me Beads • Andi James Earrings • Sanuk Snoozies • Pali Hawaii Sandals

MON-SAT: 10-6 • SUNDAYS 12-5 • HISTORIC DOWNTOWN BOONE • 828-264-8801

Haunted Horn Ghost Trail

Horn in the West, Boone, 828-264-2120 The Southern Appalachian Historical Society’s Haunted Horn Ghost Trail takes place on the grounds of Horn in the West Thursdays through Saturdays, October 21 to 30. Brave guests will wander along the trail, being surprised with ghouls and ghosts, scared by butcher knives and chainsaws. Because of content, the trail is not recommended for young children.

OCTOBER 21 to 30

October / November

2010

High Country Magazine

15

North Carolina Dance Festival, November 18-20

November 2010

Blowing Rock Chiristmas Parade, November 27

4

27

336-846-2787

Holiday Market, Buckeye Recreation Center,

Christmas Parade, Main Street, Blowing Rock,

Mountain Home Music: Puddingstone,

4

27

5

27

10

1-4

ASU Theatre: The Pursuit of Mr. Rockefeller,

Night Before Christmas Carol, Ashe Civic Center, West Jefferson, 336-846-2787

Meadowbrook Inn, Blowing Rock, 828-964-3392

December 2010

Ashe Choral Society, Ashe Civic Center, West Jefferson, 336-846-2787

828-295-5222

Mountain Home Music: An Appalachian Christmas, Grace Lutheran Church, Boone, 828-964-3392

Beech Mountain, 828-387-3003

Holiday Open House, Ashe Arts Center, West Jefferson,

11

Christmas Parade, downtown Newland, 828-260-3205

11

SugarFest, Sugar Mountain Resort, 828-898-4521

11

Holiday Parade, downtown Boone, 828-268-6200

I.G. Greer Studio Theatre, ASU, 828-262-3063

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DON’T FORGET

EVENTS

Thanksgiving Wood Kiln Opening Bolick and Traditions Pottery, located south of Blowing Rock off of Blackberry Road, fire up the old-fashioned woodfired kiln twice a year to create one-ofa-kind pieces.

SATURDAY You’ll want to get there first thing Nov. 27 in the morning on Saturday, November 29, for the best selection. Shoppers can also enjoy food, entertainment and more.

An Appalachian Christmas Each holiday season, the Mountain Home Music concert series winds down for the year with a special Christmas Concert to benefit a local charity. This year, bluegrass band SATURDAY Southern Accent and Harold Dec. 4 McKinney’s brass ensemble will perform, as well as banjo master Steve Lewis, fiddler Scott Freeman and host Joe Shannon. All proceeds from the Saturday, December 4, concert benefit Santa’s Toy Box and the Hospitality House.

October / November

2010

High Country Magazine

17

mountain

echoes

Insider tips, fascinating facts, conversation starters and fun stuff to do

Get Lost in a Maze W

anna get lost in autumn?

trails. He said it took two hours

for adults, $5 for ASU and other

to make the maze, and he and his

students and free for kids under

the New River Corn Maze, where

brother-in-law Thomas Brown,

5. Along with the maze, there is a

you won’t be able to see above

the other owner of the venture,

pumpkin patch with different va-

the 12-foot tall corn stalks after

have gone back and cleaned the

rieties of pumpkins to purchase.

entering. The four-acre maze

path to make it easy to walk.

Costs are $5 to $8.

Look no further than

is open from 10:00 a.m. to dark

But it will still be hard to weave

For more information, call

every Friday and Saturday and

through it in a short amount of

828-264-2986 or click to www.

1:00 p.m. to dark on Sunday until

time and without getting lost.

newrivercornmaze.com.

Halloween.

Tucked beside the New River on Laurel Ridge Road, just off

“You better get a leash on your kids,” Tucker said with a laughing warning.

Highway 421, corn for the maze

To help you traverse the

was planted in July, and then

maze, there are road signs—

maze owner David Tucker cut the

named with local street names—

paths into the field.

to help you figure out where you

He used a special GPS unit at-

By Jason Gilmer

are. There are places in the maze

tached to his lawnmower to make

to sit and rest and two spots

the pattern and said there’s more

where you can leave the maze to

than a mile of pet-friendly trails

enjoy time near the river before

to wander. Tucker watched his

reentering the maze.

position on the GPS as he cut the

The cost to walk through is $7

Peabody’s Charity Wine Expo November 20

I

n November, an otherwise slow time in the High Country wedged between the end of leaf season

ing between 500 and 600 people in attendance.

events of the year takes place. Peabody’s Wine & Beer

Everyone will receive a commemorative etched wine

Merchants hosts its annual Charity Wine Expo, an

glass and a tasting book, which will make it easier for

affair that includes wine tastings, great food and live

wine tasters to find the wines they want to try.

Peabody’s 32nd Anniversary Charity Wine Expo

About a dozen top-notch restaurants from the area will provide food during the event, and a local

takes place this year on Saturday, November 20, from

Latin jazz band will perform. This year’s Charity Wine

6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Broyhill Inn and Conference

Expo again raises money for the Watauga Education

Center in Boone. Tickets are once again $45 and are

Foundation as well as for underwriting at WNCW 88.7,

available at Peabody’s, located at 1104 Highway 105

a public radio station serving Western North Carolina.

in Boone. The dress is mountain casual.

The event will feature 200+ wines to sample, inHigh Country Magazine

The Charity Wine Expo is often a sell-out, draw-

and the beginning of ski season, one of the top social

music—all for good causes.

18

cluding everyday wines as well as collectible bottles.

October / November 2010

For more info, call 828-264-9476.

mountain

Fall’s the Time for Ski Passes

S

echoes

now hasn’t fallen in the High Country

price, you get unlimited skiing or snowboarding

more information, call 828-387-2011 or click to

yet, but there’s a way for snowboarders

at the three High Country slopes and Cata-

www.skibeech.com.

and skiers to drop their expenses for the

loochee Ski Area (Maggie Valley), Sapphire Valley

Early-bird deals for season passes at Sugar

upcoming winter sports season. If you

Ski Area (Sapphire) and Wolf Ridge Ski Resort

Mountain have already passed, but you can still

spend a lot of time on the slopes, it

(Mars Hill). For more information, call 828-898-

pick up passes to save some money if you ski or

4521 or click to www.goskinc.com/goldcard.

snowboard there often. Costs for the first family

might make sense to purchase season passes from the three local

If that’s a little too rich for your blood

member is $700 and drops from there for other

ski mountains, as Appalachian

and you plan to ski one mountain in the area,

family members. For more information, call 828-

Ski Mountain, Beech Moun-

there’s still deals to be had. Appalachian Ski

898-4521 or click to www.skisugar.com.

tain and Sugar Mountain all have deals on season passes.

What if you want to ski them all? And the other three slopes in North Carolina?

Mountain has family and individual member-

There are also deals to be had for

ships available from $370 (junior or senior

season-long equipment rentals at 1st

individual pass) to $725 (two adult family mem-

Tracks in Boone.

bers). For more information, call 828-295-7828

By Jason Gilmer

or click to www.appskimtn.com.

At Beech Mountain, 200 Super Saver passes

Well, there’s a way to do that by purchasing the

were available for $350 for the season. If those

Gold Card for $795. Only 100 were made avail-

aren’t available, the slope still has passes for

able, and there are still some out there. For that

families and individuals starting at $425. For

October / November

2010

High Country Magazine

19

mountain

echoes

Black Cats, Odd Ads, Unique Dates Restaurant Celebrates 10th Anniversary on 10/10/10

O

ctober, the months of spooks,

The interior features a grand

is the time to celebrate the

wood bar and antique bar tables

Black Cat of Boone. It’s time to cel-

genuinely distressed by actual

ebrate the 10th.

customer use and though showing their years, they’ve been regularly

Anniversary, that is. Black Cat Burrito on 127 Depot Street

gussied up and “they’re not going

celebrates its 10th on the 10th of

anywhere.” They’re essential to the

the 10th of the 10th, the 10th on

setting.

10/10/10 for short. But not exactly.

Sometimes on the blackboard at

“The actual first day we oper-

the end of the bar there’s a drawing

ated was the weekend of September

by the staff: a cemetery with burrito

26,” Megan Carmody, Black Cat’s

headstones. This is the food to die for.

owner said. But as she was out of

“My attitude in the food busi-

town that weekend, the unique

ness,” said Megan—she’s been in it

restaurant owner zeroed in on this unique weekend that has followed so

since the grand old age of 11, 25 years in total—“has always been that

soon after.

you can’t be everything to everyone. You have to choose what to do

The main celebration takes place on Sunday night, complete with DJs and a “big party.” On Saturday night, the Extraordinaires and local band the Naked Gods will perform.

“There will be things going on the whole weekend long, and we’ll do

“We have our liquor license, but all we do is margaritas. They’re only four bucks and are super good,” she said.

The Black Cat is Boone’s own unique, out-of-the ordinary eatery. The name came in the middle of the night when Megan was still in Atlanta.

The inside’s different, too. “We like to say ‘slightly divey,’” said Megan.

Black Cat Burrito is a hangout for students from ASU while local business people, firefighters, lawyers and local families gravitate there at all times of the day to feast on the phenomenal fare and partake in the unique ambience.

“It’s down below, not quite street level.”

And the décor? Well, “It’s my style which is little bit all over the place.

Funky, yet comfortable. It’s got brick on the wall.”

To find those bricks they had to remove four layers of sheetrock.

Black Cat is known for its quirky, sometimes odd, advertisements in High Country Press.

High Country Magazine

pretty much in the same realm of food. And I think we do it pretty well.”

The eatery serves beer, wine, and margaritas magicked by Megan.

some specials that week,” Megan said.

20

and do that well and consistently…burritos and quesadillas, they are all

October / November 2010

Black Cat opens at 11:30 a.m. daily and closes at 9:00 p.m. Monday to Thursday, at 10:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 8:00 p.m. Sunday. For info, call 828-263-9511.

By Bernadette Cahill

October / November

2010

High Country Magazine

21

Gary Everhardt

The

“Right Man at the Right Time”

on the Blue Ridge Parkway 22

High Country Magazine

October / November 2010

Story by

Randy Johnson

The longest serving superintendent of the Parkway seems destined to have seen the road through to completion.

N

ations everywhere name buildings to honor pivotal figures, the people whose contributions form the foundation on which the future stands. We all see such structures, but it’s rare to wander the halls of one with the person whose name is chiseled on the plaque and attached to the boulder out front— especially when it’s the headquarters of the most visited unit of the National Park Service.

I did that recently with Gary Everhardt, namesake of the Parkway’s Gary E. Everhardt Headquarters Building.

It’s easy to look back on the history of a monumental movement like the United States’ National Park Service and lose sight of the fact that responsibility for “America’s Best Idea” resides in real people whose very own ideas have led the way. Everhardt— North Carolinian, mountain native—is one of the people responsible for Ken Burns’ recent series.

Everhardt was 1 year old when the Parkway started in 1935, and “if there had been a 25th anniversary celebration, I would have been here for it,” he says. “I was also with the Parkway for the 50th, and now I’m still around for the 75th.” With a smile in his eye, he says, “I won’t speculate on whether I’ll see the 100th.”

Everhardt, the fifth of the Parkway’s eight superintendents, was instrumental in the initiation and completion of significant parts of what the Parkway is today. That list includes the Linn Cove Viaduct and the Grandfather Mountain “missing link” portion of the Parkway. It includes Asheville’s Folk Art Center and the new Parkway Visitor Center, the latter the road’s newest, greenest, indeed principal, visitor facility. The list also includes the headquarters building that sits across a concrete bridge from the new visitor center—Everhardt’s “non-swinging bridge,” he says with a laugh. And don’t forget the new Blue Ridge Music Center near Galax, Virginia.

Everhardt seems Western. Without suggesting that he is “similar to” anyone, he has an almost larger-than-life persona that reminds one of Lyndon Johnson. His white Stetson helps. Though

undoubtedly influenced by his time out West, he speaks with the soft drawl of his native North Carolina mountains. He was born and raised in the shadow of Grandfather Mountain, where he’d later play a major role in completing the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Early Years

Everhardt’s involvement ebbs and flows through the entire history of the high road.

He was born and lived in Lenoir as a child. “When I was growing up, I didn’t know much about parks,” he says. “It just wasn’t a part of our culture back in the late ‘40s or ‘50s.” Nevertheless, he and his brothers “used to go up into Pisgah National Forest to fish and hike around and I remember looking up at Grandfather Mountain.” Back then, “the Parkway stopped far to

The Gary E. Everhardt Headquarters Building is named in honor of Gary Everhardt in part because he completed the long sweeping span of the Linn Cove Viaduct. (Right) Everhardt relaxes beside the name plaque of the headquarters, near the Blue Ridge Parkway’s new Visitor Center, outside Asheville. Viaduct photo by Hugh Morton. Photo courtesy of the North Photo by Randy Johnson

Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library October / November

2010

High Country Magazine

23

“I’m proud of my work on the Parkway...When you add it all up, 42 years with the National Park Service, it’s been sensational.” the north, back about Deep Gap.” At the end of high school, “I pretty much left Lenoir” (he still has family there) to attend N.C. State.” Destiny seemed to be stepping in, even then. Everhardt worked for the National Park Service “the summer of 1956 up in Boone, my junior year. It was kinda like an internship. I worked surveying boundaries around Deep Gap and Grandfather.”

“When I went to college and started looking for a job (with a degree in civil engineering), I wasn’t angling to be a park guy. Today, so many people are,” he says, “which is a very good thing.”

He interviewed with Boeing Aircraft and the Navy Shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia. “Gosh, I didn’t know whether I’d like that too much,” he remembers. “Then I had an offer from the Park Service, for an engineering job. I had that reference from my summer job in Boone and I thought that would be a lot better than sitting at a desk in Seattle, Washington, doing stress analysis on airframes, or working in the Navy Yard at Newport News. I jumped at it.”

“It all kinda happened by accident in some respects,” he says. He accepted an engineering job at a NPS design center in Philadelphia “but stationed on the Blue Ridge Parkway.” His career turned toward maintenance. “That’s a big program,” he says. “It takes a lot of the resources of the National Park Service to maintain the facilities, to keep the grass cut. My best times were spent out in the parks, helping out the staff, getting something fixed, drilling a well so they didn’t have to rely on spring water.”

Everhardt went west, as regional chief of maintenance in Santa Fe. “I loved it out there,” he says. “I didn’t think there was any place like the Southwest. We lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for four years.”

24

High Country Magazine

In 1969, he was named assistant superintendent for operations at Yellowstone, where he was directly responsible for all park operations. He became superintendent at Grand Teton National Park in 1972, earning the Department of the Interior’s Meritorious Service Award for helping to plan and execute a global national parks conference during the National Parks Centennial.

In 1975, Everhardt went to Washington to be sworn in as the ninth director of the National Park Service. Under Gerald Ford, he oversaw a 32-million acre expansion of parkland in Alaska. “It was a key time, essentially determining how Congress was going to divide up these pristine lands between the Park Service, Forest Service, Bureau Of Land Management, and the state.

The Park Service doubled its acreage.”

That brought him into contact with the movers and shakers in Park Service history—and made him one of them.

Home Again

Everhardt was happy to be back in the North Carolina mountains in the late 1970s, and he hasn’t left since.

“You get out to some of those places like Grand Teton and Glacier, and they’re just fabulous,” he says. “They’re forbidding and dark in a way, but they have their own special magnetism. I used to sit on the east side of the Grand Tetons and marvel at those mountains jumping up out of that valley floor for 7,000 feet, right in front of you.”

“It’s a long winter out there,” Everhardt says. “Visitation to those parks falls off like somebody just closed the gate.

There’s great sights to see...but the Blue Ridge is much more inviting. It kinda draws you back. There’s just something about what you’ve grown up with, I

October / November 2010

guess,” he says. “It’s called home.”

“People always ask me, ‘You’re going back to Wyoming aren’t you?’ and I always say, ‘I don’t think so!’” He lives happily near Asheville, in Arden, with his wife Nancy.

“When I started on the Parkway in the ‘50s, headquarters was in Roanoke and Sam Weems was the first superintendent,” he says. “Weems had started with programs like the Works Progress Administration and somehow transferred over to the Parkway.” Just 22 years after the start of the road, Weems was working with the Federal Highway Administration to complete the Parkway. “They were working on Pisgah Inn when I first I came to the Parkway,” Everhardt remembers.

His second arrival on the Parkway coincided with “Parkway headquarters being relocated down to Asheville—our offices were in the NW Bank Building,” he says. “I thought that the most heavily used unit of the NPS needed its own headquarters—and that became my goal.”

Everhardt did it, “with the help of civic groups, Western North Carolina Tomorrow, High Country Host, the Land of Sky Council, a whole bunch of people,” he says. The building, dedicated to Everhardt several years ago, sits by I-40 for easy access. The plan was to eventually have a major visitor center at the same site. When Everhardt arrived, “the Folk Art Center was under contract and we built that.”

Bridge to Somewhere

The completion of the Linn Cove Viaduct and Grandfather Mountain part of the Parkway were major achievements in Everhardt’s career.

Years before, Weems and others had wrestled titanically with Hugh Morton over the route of the Parkway. The Park-

Everhardt addresses the Blue Ridge Parkway symposium held to celebrate the high road’s 50th anniversary in 1985.

Photo by Hugh Morton

Photo courtesy of the North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library October / November

2010

High Country Magazine

25

way proposed a high route that Morton feared would jeopardize the success of his Grandfather Mountain attraction, and he argued that the plan would scar the wilderness of the peak. Later, under Parkway Superintendent Granville Liles, a “lower route” was negotiated. When the Parkway’s “missing link” opened in 1987, Everhardt remembers seeing Morton meet Weems at the ceremony. “My guess,” Everhardt says, “is that was the first time they’d ever met. It was touching to see them talking—two old warriors burying the hatchet. Each had to

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High Country Magazine

know it had all turned out pretty good.”

Everhardt left behind the old controversies and often interacted with Morton while the road was being built, at times actually walking the route of the road and scrambling over the crags of the mountain in the company of Morton and Blue Ridge Parkway landscape architect Bob Hope.

“Hugh was one of the great supporters of the Parkway,” Everhardt says.

“The time that went by [during the route controversy] helped generate opportunities and alternatives. What more fitting

October / November 2010

(Far left) Hugh Morton and an unidentified official are either looking at plans for the Parkway, underway behind them, or possibly even studying the land transfer document that settled the Parkway route controversy. Either way, it was a dress-up day. Photo by Hugh Morton (Left) The final link of the Linn Cove Viaduct is lowered into place on the way to closing the final “missing link” of the Blue Ridge Parkway around Grandfather Mountain. Photo by Hugh Morton Photos courtesy of the North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library

conclusion for the Parkway could there be than the Linn Cove Viaduct? Hugh Morton deserves credit for that.”

The viaduct opened in 1987, but another Parkway idea dawned a few years before in 1985. On the 50th anniversary of the Parkway, Everhardt and others were attending ceremonies near Cumberland Knob. “We’d been listening to all that great traditional music and got to talking one night. You know, spitting into the fire, drinking something, and somebody

said, ‘We need a music center.’”

“During my time in Washington,” Everhardt says, “I used to go out to Wolf Trap (America’s National Park for the Performing Arts near DC, in Virginia) and I loved what they’ve done there,” he says. “The National Park Service could say, ‘we ought to stick to preserving natural resources,’ but the Parkway is a kind of music trail. I thought a music center was a great idea.”

The Blue Ridge Music Center is now a reality, at Milepost 213 just north of the

Virginia line. Newly finalized exhibits trace mountain music from 1700s British Isles ballads to 20th century “hillbilly music,” bluegrass, country music and today’s revival of traditional music. Musicians appear daily, and there’s an impressive outdoor amphitheater and concert series.

Looking Back

There’s little wonder why Everhardt qualifies as a “Superintendent Emeritus” of sorts. It only takes one visit to headquarters

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2010

High Country Magazine

27

with him to see the stature and esteem in which the man is held. Other people have made contributions to the Parkway, but if anyone can claim the title, Gary Everhardt may be “Mr. Blue Ridge Parkway.”

“When I think about my career in terms of years, it makes me feel a little old!” he says. “I never have dwelt on it much, but I’m proud of my work on the Parkway, and I have thought about it more recently. When you add it all up, 42 years with the National Park Service, it’s been sensational,” Everhardt says.

“For many of those years I was in other places. But to have come in on the scene, been a part of it, then disappear and come back again, that’s the aspect of it that’s a little interesting.”

Significance of the Parkway

The significance of the Parkway makes Everhardt’s career more than sim-

ply interesting. The Parkway lies within a day’s drive of 50 percent of the U.S. population. “That’s a lot of people,” Everhardt says. “How many people can get to Yellowstone in a day? Most of us are lucky to get there once in a lifetime.”

That makes the Parkway more than a road. For millions of Americans—almost 20 million in most years—it’s a portal, but not just to national parks. The Parkway is a portal to the Southern Appalachian experience, a place where Americans encounter their history and culture with a long drive along the spine of summits that was our country’s first frontier.

Interpretation of that past “was sorely lacking on the Parkway in the 1950s,” Everhardt says. “I’m glad we started to put a lot of emphasis into interpretation back then.”

Everhardt followed up with stellar interpretive facilities that have helped make the Parkway what it is today. “It’s a threelegged stool,” he says. “We have rangers

for resource protection and maintenance to keep the place spruced up. The other leg is interpretation, to impart the value of the lands and cultural resources we protect.

That’s how we teach our children to be the future conservators of our heritage.”

Putting ‘Meat on the Bones’

Throughout his involvement, Everhardt says, “The Parkway was a busy place, engrossed in building the road, the spine of the park. We finished that in ’87—but that’s just the skeleton. Now it’s time to put meat on those bones.”

“I don’t think the Parkway is safe,” says current superintendent Phil Francis.

“We are taking important steps based on the foundation that Gary laid. But we need to greatly accelerate our efforts to preserve the Parkway’s undeveloped viewshed, those ‘borrowed landscapes’ that are

“The National Park Service is loved by a greater percentage of the American people than Ivory Soap is pure.”

Photo by Hugh Morton 28

High Country Magazine

October / November 2010

Everhardt and others prepare to cut the ribbon to open the last portion of the Parkway on September 11, 1987. National Park Service Director William Penn Mott (fourth from left), and then Banner Elk Mayor Charles VonCannon (fifth from left), help out.

so important to the visitor experience.”

“Ninety-seven percent of Parkway visitors come to see the scenic views—but we don’t own those views,” Francis says.

“We’re in a recession now, but the building boom will be back. On the table right now, we have 30 million dollars of land available from people who want to sell [it] and protect the Parkway. We just don’t have the money.”

“If you ask any park manager,” says Everhardt, “the process of protection never goes fast enough. You could name a dozen Parkway priorities today, but corridor protection is number one. It’s critical to keeping the Parkway relevant.”

Under Everhardt’s watch in 1996, the North Carolina Year of the Mountains Commission chose preservation of the Parkway corridor and viewshed as

Photo courtesy of the North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library

a critical mission, urging that property owners along the Parkway grant scenic easements. Morton played a role in that achievement, and earlier along U.S. 221, below the Linn Cove Viaduct, when he and Everhardt orchestrated the purchase of a tract of private land and transferred it to the U.S. Forest Service.

Since then, critical viewsheds have

been identified by Parkway landscape architects. Best of all, says Francis, in the past 15 years, 5,000 acres have been added by conservancy groups.

“The great thing,” says Everhardt, “is that people are starting to act. The conservancy land groups are stepping up to the table with real money. With a little bit of federal partnership, we can work wonders.”

October / November

2010

High Country Magazine

29

“Gary deserves credit for today’s partnerships.

We’re just following his example!” ~Phil Francis, current superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway

Everhardt at the start of the Parkway Visitor Center’s Track Trail, an interpretive path for children and their parents. The path, which Everhardt helps maintain on a volunteer basis, is part of the Kids in Parks program run by the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation. Carolyn Ward, the foundation’s chief operating officer, stands at right; Kids in Parks program director Jason Urroz is at left. Photo by Randy Johnson

In a characteristically colorful turn of phrase, Everhardt says, “The National Park Service is loved by a greater percentage of the American people than Ivory Soap is pure. The American people want to contribute.”

The Stewardship Committee of the 75th Anniversary organization has worked with the Congress “and a bill has been introduced in the House and Senate to raise $75 million,” says Francis. “We’re not likely to get that in the short term.

But hopefully, one day we’ll find a way to raise that money to protect the Parkway.”

There’s more at stake than views.

Francis says the 469-mile, north-to-south range of the road is a critical “transect” of land needed to protect biodiversity and deter habitat fragmentation along the Southern Appalachians. Add to that the fact that the Parkway is adjacent to headwaters of numerous different watersheds, the future need to protect our water supply, and “the importance of lands next to the Parkway increases.”

“If the plan for the future works,” Everhardt says, “we buy a large corridor for the Parkway, maintain it well, interpret the resource, the ranger staff is adequate, and everybody goes home happy.”

30

High Country Magazine

The Challenge Remains

Partnerships with citizen groups and governments will be critical to that future. “I give great credit to the current superintendent—he’s doing a fantastic job fostering partnerships,” Everhardt says.

“Land acquisition is accelerating with the help of organizations like the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation, with their license tag program. We were out beating the drums, but I didn’t do a lot developing partnerships. It’s a more formalized process now. I wish I’d thought up all those funding sources.”

True to Everhardt’s modesty, those who’ve followed him beg to differ. Superintendent Francis says, “Gary deserves credit for today’s partnerships. We’re just following his example!”

At least one great example of that teamwork happened when funding for the viaduct “seemed likely to be lost and there was the fear that something else would be done with the money,” says Everhardt. “But Hugh Morton, Banner Elk mayor Charles VonCannon and other great supporters of the Parkway, went to Washington to testify. Their passionate plea was key. Without their help, we could have lost the funding, been further

October / November 2010

delayed or derailed.”

“Gary brought a unique perspective to the Parkway,” Francis says. “He came here after serving as director of the National Park Service, after serving out west, so he brought to the table connections and political acumen that many people wouldn’t possess. When he arrived here, as he’d done elsewhere, he started developing partnerships and working with our neighbors. That is more important on the Parkway than at many parks because most all the threats to the Parkway originate outside our boundary.”

“Gary knew better than anyone, having served in Washington, how important relationship building is,” Francis says.

“And having stayed here 23 years, being a native of North Carolina, having a degree from N.C. State—all that permitted him to achieve things like finishing the Linn Cove Viaduct.”

Francis pauses, inwardly inventorying the years. “Gary was the right person at the right time,” he says. “Thankfully he stayed here a long time. All that’s why we’re sitting in a building named after Gary Everhardt.”

How appropriate it is that the man who completed the Linn Cove Viaduct is also widely acclaimed for building bridges between people. “I never asked Congress to do anything for Gary Everhardt,” he says. “I was lucky enough to be able to have people like Hugh Morton and the public to ask for those things.”

Looking Back— to the Future

After years working through controversy on the way to redeeming the Parkway’s potential, Everhardt looks charitably on friends and foes (if he has any of the latter).

“I hate to find fault with anybody,” he says. “A lot of people want to fault Congress, or the administration. The good in us is that almost everybody does for parks what they can—given the circumstances, constraints and freedoms that they operate under—at the time they’re there to do it.”

Everhardt’s personal philosophy mirrors his own assessment of other people’s good motives. If the National Parks are “America’s best idea,” they shine as brightly as they do through the best efforts of people like Gary Everhardt.

Everhardt continues to contribute in retirement. After his 23 years (19772000), Dan Brown followed him as superintendent (2000-2005). Brown had himself worked on the Parkway twice, once while Everhardt was boss. Francis says, “Because Gary stayed in the community, he was a resource to Dan. Now here I am (2005-present), having met Gary way back in the ‘70s, spending two weeks here in 1978 learning how to be a park manager. Here we are again, me the new super on the block, getting to take advantage of all the wisdom Gary has to offer.”

“When I joined, there were 150 units of the National Park Service,” Everhardt says. “Today there are nearly 400. There were 5,000 permanent employees. Now, I’ll guess there’s about 22,000. It’s a big job telling people about the parks that are such a big part of our past. If you don’t know the past, how can you look to your future?”

Gary Everhardt is one of the people we’ve charged with preserving that past. He’s done just that on the Parkway—and at the same time, completed a road to the future.

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| about the author | Randy Johnson, in his role as Grandfather Mountain’s backcountry manager, often worked with Gary Everhardt during the construction of the Parkway and its trails. He’s the author of Hiking the Blue Ridge Parkway and other books (randyjohnsonbooks.com).

October / November

2010

High Country Magazine

31

Photo by Hugh Morton

Viaduct to History T

he Linn Cove Viaduct was featured on the History Channel’s Modern Marvels series, for heaven’s sake. Nevertheless, it’s not widely understood why or how it’s noteworthy. The High Country landmark may be nothing less than the combined genius of the 20th century’s two top bridge designers.

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High Country Magazine

The Parkway’s chosen route across the mountain was especially problematical below Black Rock Cliffs where steep slopes and awesome boulders would seem to require massive excavation to build a conventional road. Fortuitously, in part due to Hugh Morton’s battle with the Parkway over placement of the road, by the late

October / November 2010

1970s, when funds came from Congress, the Federal Highway Administration was able to call on unique, previously unavailable technology and technique. Not only was major damage avoided, but the resulting structure can actually claim to be environmentally sensitive.

The viaduct cost more than $8,000 a foot for the 1,243-foot-long bridge.

The bridge may be the best, albeit one of the shortest, examples of designer Figg and Muller’s essential method—described as a “complex precast concrete segmental and cable-stayed bridge design.”

What that means is that each of the viaduct’s 153 50-ton segments was cast abutting its mate to create a perfect fit.

Each section of the bridge was epoxied to the previous segment, then torsioned tighter with cables. A cantilevered construction method was another interesting element. Each piece of the bridge was lowered out from the end of the viaduct and attached. Only the piers that support the road rest on the ground, which means that the viaduct soars over the awesome boulder field with minimal impact. The pieces were tinted with black iron oxide to more closely match the mountainside.

Beyond the use of prestressed concrete segments and cable tensioning, the two men behind the viaduct took advantage of the emergence of commercial computers in the 1970s to reinvent bridge design. As a result, the viaduct winds and weaves in a very unique and graceful way.

In a 40-year career, Eugene “Gene” Figg, Jr. (1936-2002) ultimately won more than 150 national and international design awards, among them the Presidential Design Awards under the National Endowment for the Arts. Just five bridges have been honored by the Presidential Award Program, and Figg Engineering designed three of those (the Linn Cove Viaduct, the I-27 Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Florida in 1988, and in 1995, the Natchez Trace Parkway Arches bridge in Tennessee, the longest precast arch bridge in the country.) Figg cut his teeth on the countless bridges needed to complete the Interstate Highway System.

Figg’s partner, Paris-based Jean Muller (1925- 2005) helped create Figg & Muller Engineering Group in 1978. Muller too was a proponent of building with prestressed and precast concrete, having started his career after WWII as a protege of Eugene Freyssinet, the inventor of prestressed concrete. He also “developed the original concept of precast segmental

(Left) Everhardt addresses the October 19, 1984, event that bestowed the American Society of Civil Engineers’ “Civil Engineering Achievement of Merit” on the viaduct.

(Below) Everhardt stands with the bridge designer, Eugene “Gene” Figg (right), to receive the certificate of merit.

Photos courtesy of the North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library

construction using glued match-marking joints.” Like Figg, Muller refined his skills and techniques in Europe and the United States in the post-War boom in bridge building. Photos of his many projects, including the construction of viaducts in the Alps, include bridge segments and cantilever construction methods that are strikingly reminiscent to photos of the Linn Cove Viaduct.

When Figg and Muller “coupled the precast, prestressed concrete techniques with cable-stayed supports, they...helped change the way bridges were built in

North America,” concluded an engineering journal. Figg once said, “We are designing bridges for 100 years or more...It needs to be a piece of art.”

Despite the $10 million cost of the viaduct, bear in mind that engineers widely praise this type of design for being costeffective as well as environmentally sensitive. Indeed, it’s a shame Figg and Muller weren’t tasked with designing the notorious section of I-40 from Asheville around the Smokies. The company was charged with designing Hanging Lake Viaduct, the last part of I-70 through Glenwood Canyon, Colorado. This pristine skyway soars through a canyon in the Rockies with little environmental impact—and an awesome bike path wanders below along the raging river.

Back here, in the gentle old Appalachians, I-40 is a zigzagging, slow pretender to Interstate status—that’s constantly closed by rockslides.

October / November

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2010

High Country Magazine

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Each pow wow session opens with the Grand Entry. All major participants follow the Eagle Staff, the flag of the United States and the Native American Prisoner of War flag. The flags illustrate the continuing relationships between the original inhabitants and the newcomers to these lands In Horn in the West, Nancy Ward (holding bowl,

and also the cooperation of

played by local actress Meredith Roberts) begins the

the Native Americans with the

celebrations to the Powers for helping to bring the

settlers historically.

“white doctor� to the village to try to drive smallpox away. Photo by Snider Photography 38

High Country Magazine

October / November 2010

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Native American pow wows (above and below left) are crowded with participants wearing full regalia. The pow wows are a colorful, high-energy event and continue a tradition of honoring the Great Spirit. After the opening ceremonies, sacred dancing begins. Our mountains offer several opportunities, including real pow wows, to find out about the first nations of our land.

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High Country Magazine

October / November 2010

Abstract patterns of traditional Native American regalia seen at Spruce Pine pow wow in September 2009.

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Mabel Benjamin, dressed formally in her regalia, is organizer of the Spruce Pine and Fort Hamby pow wows that have taken place in September for the past several years. A descendant of Powhattan and the adopted daughter of a Seminole chief, she runs the nonprofit Blue Ridge Intertribal Pow Wow Association formed to educate the community in the traditions and culture of Native American tribes. The pow wows are central to this education process. So is involving the kids (below).

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October / November 2010

Boone’s annual outdoor drama, Horn in the West, features the interaction of settlers in the High Country with Native Americans. In recent years authenticity in depiction of Native Americans has been an everstronger theme. The fire dance that closes Act I of the drama, which comes from Hopi, not the Cherokee tribe, however, will remain for its spectacular dramatic effect and its part in the legend of Horn in the West.

Every year near the summer solstice, the annual Trade Days Festival takes place

Horn in the West “had already started leaning towards greater authenticity” in its depiction of Native Americans when she came to the play, said Artistic Director Julie Richardson.

For example, costumes were recreated to use more cloth.

When Julie began to examine the script, she wanted real Cherokee language for the Native American characters. The hunt for perfection led her down the Blue Ridge Parkway to the town of Cherokee and to June Smith, a Cherokee and language expert who ensures authenticity in the play about the Cherokee, Unto These Hills.

“I went to her house and sat with the script and my tape recorder, and she tried to teach me [what was correct. She] went through the script…trying to get the words, the meaning, the enunciation, the pronunciation,” Julie said.

“There is one [major] scene that we present [the Native Americans] in,” Julie said. “It is nice to give the Cherokee their flavor on stage.”

Julie also went to the Oconoluftee Indian Village to discover what real Cherokee structures look like in order to depict them properly in Horn, and this was reflected on stage in a canopy over the drummers.

The most spectacular scene in Horn in the West will remain, although it isn’t Cherokee. The fire dance comes from the Hopi, and Hunter likely chose it for his original script because Unto These Hills already had the thrilling Eagle dance.

“We know the Cherokee did not have a fire dance, but it is part of the legend of Horn in the West rather than part of the legend of the Native Americans. We have to go for dramatic effect as well, and that is a good way to end that part,” she said.

w

near the Tennessee/North Carolina state line. One of the most popular features of Trade Days is a traditional Indian pow wow.

October / November

2010

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October / November 2010

(Top left and right) Trading booths at pow wows are a reflection, in modern dress, of trading at traditional pow wows. Native American dreamcatchers are a craft handed down from generation to another.

A young girl shows off the vibrant colors in her regalia at Trade Days 2010.

w A young dancer in regalia takes a break from the ceremony to test some traditional rattles.

October / November

2010

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Native American Events Spruce Pine Pow Wow

September, behind Music, Jewelry and Loan, 12513 South Highway 226, Spruce Pine

Fort Hamby Pow Wow September, Fort Hamby Park, 1534 South Recreation Road, Wilkesboro.

For more information about the pow wows or to volunteer, call Mabel Benjamin at 813-765-3073. For information about Cherokee, click to www.cherokee-nc.com/index. php?page=120

Trade Days Festival Every year near the summer solstice, the annual Trade Days Festival takes place at 228 Modock Rd, Trade, Tennessee, just off Highway 421 South near the Tennessee/North Carolina State Line. Trade Days includes a traditional Indian pow wow.

For more information, click to www.tradedaysfestivaltn.com.

Liberty Liberty, performed each summer in Elizabethton, Tennessee, tells the story of Northeast Tennessee and the State of Franklin and links directly to Horn in the West through the tale of the Overmountain Men whose victory turned the tide of the Revolutionary War. The Battle of King’s Mountain concludes Boone’s own Revolutionary War drama.

For information about the Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area, click to www. sycamoreshoalstn.org.

Hickory Ridge Homestead Hickory Ridge Homestead, beside the Daniel Boone Amphitheater where Horn in the West is staged, shows what a mountain pioneer settlement of the late 18th century was like. It opens on Saturdays till late October, and Dave Davis and Brian Fannon or other docents share the history of Native Americans and pioneers there. Hickory Ridge Homestead is also available for private tours and events year round.

Native American Culture Festival Early each June, the Native American Culture Festival takes place at the Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area, 1651 W. Elk Avenue, Elizabethton, TN 37643. Phone 423-5435808 or click to www.sycamoreshoalstn.org

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October / November 2010

The Amazing,

Awesome, Inspiring

Lois Sermons Story by Celeste von Mangan • Photography by Peter Morris

Watauga Public Library Volunteer Turns 100 This October

I

n the year 1910, William Howard Taft ducing the millionth Model T in 1915 at a was president of the United States. cost of $345.

The average annual salary amounted

Now, in 2010, one hundred years later,

to $750. Milk cost 32 cents a gallon. For Lois is surrounded by the advanced tech7 cents, you could go to the movies. Lois nology and fast-paced lifestyles that deSermons was born on October 8 of that fine this nation, in vast contrast to the year. As a child, Lois lived in an era when slower, more genteel days she experihorses still supplied major transporta- enced as a girl growing up in Louisiana. tion; when the mighty Titanic sank; when What is a centenarian to do? Why, keep World War I raged; and when the first up with the times and keep busy, and that moving assembly line began in 1914, pro- is what Lois has aimed for.

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If you are a patron of Watauga County Public Library in Boone, chances are you have spoken to Lois Sermons. Most people would not guess that the steady, assured voice answering the telephone many mornings and into the early afternoon hours is that of a woman 100 years young.

“I started volunteering at the library 12 years ago, when I was 88 years old,” explained Lois. “I had just moved up here from Louisiana. My daughter Linda Jackson lived here and wanted me to come. I had worked all my life and was working right up until I left—I gave up two good paychecks when I moved from Shreveport!”

But the mountains of North Carolina have been kind to Lois, and she found her niche within the library.

“My husband Mack had died in 1977,” she said. “When I moved here in 1998, I wanted to find a volunteer position, so I started answering phones at the library.”

Lois drove her own car until she was 95 and sold the vehicle five years ago.

Now, the staff at Watauga Library take turns driving her to and from her volunteer job. She has worked fairly regularly, even overcoming several recent bouts

with illness this past summer—a kidney stone that hospitalized her, an infection following that plus a case of food poisoning after she returned home from her hospital stay. The illnesses slowed Lois down for a bit but did not stop her for long.

“Lois is part of our library family,” said Evelyn Johnson, adult special services librarian. “She’s been a very big help. We really miss her when she is not here. We’re glad to go and get her and take her home.”

Lois remembered her 99th birthday bash at the library. “You never saw such a party,” said Lois. “There were signs up at the library that read ‘Lois is 99!’ and it was going to be a surprise. They blew up balloons, 45 of them, then they had to go get a pump to blow up the other 54! Bunches of balloons were taped to the ceiling.”

Ross Cooper, reference staff member, said, “Lois is awesome!” he said.

“She always keeps us going, and she buys us sausage biscuits.”

“I’m always interested in food,” laughed Lois, though her slender physique belies that fact.

“It is wonderful to have Lois work at the library as a volunteer,” said Circulation and Tech Services Manager Randy

(Above) Lois Sermons, 100 years young, is an active volunteer at Watauga County Public Library, often answering the phone. (Below) The amazing, awesome, inspiring Lois, surrounded by her library family. The centenarian began working at the Watauga Library as a volunteer when she was 88 years old.

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October / November 2010

Feimster. “She helps the Circulation Department by answering phones, preparing billing statements, punching out patron cards and generally livening the place up. Her zest for life is infectious, and she helps all of us have a good day.”

“I’ll keep up at the library as long as they want me,” said Lois, “because I really enjoy volunteering. It works both ways: I really appreciate them coming to get me and bringing me home.”

The Story of Lois

Born to Joel “Genie” Eugene and Mary “Mamie” Elizabeth, who were married on December 23, 1909, Lois entered the world in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, located in the northwestern portion of the state; Bienville is also her mother’s birthplace. Her father was born in Haynesville, where the family moved and where she and her younger brother were raised. Haynesville is considered to be the gateway to northern Louisiana, as it sits just south of the Arkansas border in Claiborne Parish.

“We lived on the same side of the railroad track as my daddy’s brother,” said Lois. “They had a large family, and we all played together. We were warned not to

cross the tracks, but my first cousin Hazel would scoot under the stopped train every time and cross the tracks. Our school was not too far from our house, on the other side of those tracks.”

Vivid childhood memories include being run away with while riding a pony.

“My daddy rode horses all the time,” said Lois. “One day he put me on a Shetland pony. That thing ran away with me!

Daddy chased me and mother was yelling ‘Jump!’ and daddy was yelling ‘Don’t jump!’ as he chased me on his horse.

I didn’t jump and daddy got the pony stopped. I never got on that pony again, but daddy did buy me a little horse, and I rode the horse alongside him.”

The family stayed in Haynesville for a time, and her father had a grocery store and meat markets there.

“When I married Mack, we moved to Smackover, Arkansas,” said Lois.

Husband Mack worked in the oil industry, so Lois lived in a number of different places when they first married.

“We lived in Mississippi some after we were married,” said Lois. “Mack helped build a lot of the garrets and went with crews as they drilled all over southern Mississippi.”

“She’s basically amazing and an inspiration to us all.”

Ross Cooper, Reference Staff Member

“Her zest for life is infectious, and she helps all of us have a good day.”

Randy Feimster. Circulation and Tech Services Manager

“She brightens everyone’s day and is such a pleasure to work with and be around.”

Monica Caruso, county librarian

“She’s been a very big help.

We really miss her when she is not here.“ Evelyn Johnson, adult special services librarian

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The Era of Lois Sermons’ Childhood • Just seven years prior to Lois’ birth, gasoline-powered automobiles were first available to the public—an Olds for $650 and a Cadillac for $750.

• A girl born in the United States between 1910 and 1920 had a life expectancy of 51.8 years.

• After William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson was elected president of the United States when Lois was 2 years old.

• World War I began on July 28, 1914, and ended on November 11, 1918, making Lois 3 at the start and 8 by the (Above left) Lois and her younger brother

last day.

J.E. Hardaway Jr. with the family dog, photographed sometime around 1922.

• The 19th Amendment was ratified

The children and pooch were strolling on

in 1919 when Lois was in her 9th year,

a dirt road in Mansfield, Louisiana. This

and by 1920 American women were

photo is all the more precious to Lois as

allowed to vote.

J.E. died while in his 50s. Lois would have been around age 12 in the picture, making

• 1890 to 1920 was known as the

J.E. around four or five. (Right) Lois and

Progressive Era.

husband Mack are pictured here, sitting

• The very first fast food restaurant—a

on the running board of their car, shortly

White Castle in Wichita, Kansas—

after they were first married.

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opened in 1921 when Lois turned 11.

October / November 2010

�I just thank the Lord for every day! �

Lois Sermons, library volunteer, age 100

Besides volunteer work at the library, Lois keeps busy as a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

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The past comes alive for 100-year-old Lois as she reminisces about years gone by with the help of photos.

Traveling because of Mack’s work, the couple bought a permanent home in Atlanta, Texas, to have a stable residence.

“I used to go visit him at Grand Isle,” recalled Lois, “and I loved it there.”

Women’s lib and feminism had not really made an official entrance into the times, but independent women like Lois just took things in stride.

“When we lived in Atlanta, Texas, I used to go shopping in Shreveport, Louisiana, about one hour away,” said Lois.

“One time, it was almost dark and my car got a flat tire.” In typical Lois fashion, she “just got out and changed the tire” and proceeded on with her shopping trip.

After her marriage was seasoned a bit, Mack and Lois lived across the river, from Shreveport, Louisiana. Those years eased along in a kinder, gentler fashion, for many of Lois’ generation, slow and sinuous as the mighty Mississippi River.

“We had to ferry across the Mississippi,” said Lois. “The causeway was not there yet. The men were living on the derricks, and we ladies went shopping, and we went to see Rudy Vallee.” (For the younger population of readers, Rudy Vallee was a famous 1930s singer, bandleader, actor and entertainer.) In the French Quarter, we 54

High Country Magazine

drank coffee and ate donuts. People sold Po’ Boys—sandwiches—on the streets; big old mammies sold pralines there. We shopped and ate all day, went to the movies and had a good time.”

Recalling the bygone era of her youth, Lois remembered, “It was a gentler time.

Our cousins just left their house unlocked and drove 200 miles to our house.”

Music has been ever present in Lois’ life.

“Daddy played the fiddle and mother played the guitar,” said Lois. “I gave Rob, my grandson, daddy’s fiddle, and he still has it. But he plays viola now in the symphony orchestra in Germantown, Tennessee, and in Kentucky.”

Daughter Linda, mother to Rob, is also an accomplished musician, now retired from the music staff at Appalachian State University. She first started teaching music after moving to Memphis, Tennessee, when she married, and taught at Memphis State.

“Linda attended Centenary College of Louisiana,” said Lois. “She plays the French harp, trumpet, trombone, piano, and organ; Linda plays in the community band now. My son Joel also attended Centenary, but he became a lawyer.”

October / November 2010

Lois lives alone. She likes David Holt and the Lightning Bolts. She loves pizza and dining out. And after spending 12 of her 100 years in the mountain town of Boone, Lois is happy that she followed Linda up here from her native Louisiana.

A self-professed city girl and a lover of the “bright lights of the city,” Lois has maintained a sunny, cozy ground floor apartment located in town, choosing to live on her own. Family photographs adorn the walls, and an antique grandfather clock competes for hourly time announcements from a modern clock chirping out bird calls. Friendly neighbors check on her, and one will always bring her mail. Two days per week, Lois has help with everyday household tasks.

“Betty, Evelyn Johnson’s sister, comes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” said Lois.

“I couldn’t do without her. She helps me a lot.”

Besides her volunteer job at the library, Lois is also a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

“We meet at the Golden Corral in Boone, on the second Tuesday of the month,” said Lois, “except July and the winter months.”

A favorite activity of kids, couples and families was to go out “Kodaking” on a Sunday afternoon. This photo of Lois as a young woman was the result of one of those memorable Kodaking experiences, as were the preceding shots. The images were taken with one of the then-popular Kodak Brownie cameras. Developed at the turn of the 20th century, the little Brownie consisted of a simple, small box, so easy to use that a child could take photos.

Costing about one dollar, the Brownie is synonymous with the halcyon days of youth for generations of people, as one model or another was used into the 1960s. The instamatic camera was then popularized, and the faithful Kodak Brownie slid into the past, but not before the camera had firmly conceptualized the “snapshot” photo.

A Century Old on October 8

Though Lois hits the century mark on her birthday, October 8, her family and friends will be celebrating the momentous occasion on October 10.

“They’re flying and driving in from

Texas, from Shreveport, and from Tennessee,” said Lois. “Rob will come from Memphis, my other grandson Randy, an attorney, will drive from Johnson City, Tennessee, with his wife Allyson and my three great-grandchildren Christopher, Emma and Andrew. Rodney is Randy’s brother, and both are my son Joel’s children; Joel lives in Shreveport and so does Rodney, who is a computer whiz, and

they are coming in from there.”

A nephew, Tommy Hardaway, wife Gaylon, plus Tommy’s brother Steve and wife Karla and friends James and Janie Holt from Shreveport, along with Lois’ beloved library family will attend her 100th birthday party, a celebration she is eagerly anticipating.

“I just thank the Lord for every day!” said Lois. w

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Making It in Milk

In the Northwestern Corner of North Carolina, Few Dairy Farms Remain

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October / November 2010

“

H

ow do you get the cheese out of the goats?”

Goat dairy farmer Carol Coulter, in Nathan’s Creek in Ashe County, is repeatedly surprised by some of the questions people pose— which reveals just how separated people are from their food sources today, she remarked.

But it’s easy to see why, especially when it comes to dairy. These days, dairy farms are few and far between in the High Country—out of sight, out of mind. No cow dairies remain in Watauga County. Not in Avery County, either. Ronnie Cooper’s cow dairy is just across the Watauga County line over in Ashe County, home to three cow dairies and Carol’s goat dairy.

Carol, though, is new to the dairy business at a time when many have gotten out. In Ashe County, for example, the number of dairy cows has decreased from 1,500 head in 1980, 1,000 head in 1990, 300 in 2000 to fewer than 200 cows today, said Micah Orfield, extension agent for agriculture at the Ashe Center of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension. Micah said she also knew of some dairy sheep in the county that are not currently in production.

y

The Goat Dairies

s Fa

e m a J y by

ph Story by Anna Oakes • Photogra

Raised in New York City, Carol never had intentions of becoming a dairy farmer, but she grew fond of farm settings through vacations and trips to the upstate New York countryside. When Carol and her husband Lon purchased the hillside property they now call Heritage Homestead 15 years ago, the old dairy fields were covered in thick patches of briars. Lon, whose educational background is in agriculture, wanted space for a large garden; Carol, on the other hand, “really [liked] animals a lot more than plants.” Originally she wanted Jersey cows, but there was no pasture for them at the time. And Lon was hesitant about owning livestock. “My husband was very resistant—he didn’t want to be tied down,” explained Carol.

But he also didn’t want to mow. “Goats were the answer. We got a couple of goats to help eat down the weeds,” said Carol, who eventually convinced Lon to go into the dairy business with their goats.

Carol did plenty of reading and research, attended cheese making classes and joined a dairy goat association. She found other dairy goat farmers to be quite helpful and willing to share information. “Cheese makers kind of enjoy each other,” she added. After having goats on the farm for about seven years, Heritage Homestead was permitted to produce and sell goat dairy products two years ago.

Ten of Heritage Homestead’s 17 acres are in pasture, and 22 of the 41 goats on the farm are milking. Most of the herd are Saanens, a breed that originated in the Saanen Valley in Switzerland. Saanens are white or light cream in color, are October / November

2010

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“You used to be able to make some money at it.”

Ronnie Cooper, cow dairy farmer

Ronnie Cooper’s dairy farm property, located just over the Ashe County line in the Brownwood area, has been in his family for more than 150 years. It is recorded in the National Register of Historic Places.

heavy milk producers and are known for their calm, easygoing temperament.

“Saanens are easy around milking— they know the drill,” Carol said. Multicolored Alpines and one Toggenburg, a brown-shaded, smaller breed, are also members of the herd.

A male goat is a “billy” or a “buck,” or, if castrated, a “wether.” If male goats are to be sold for meat, they’re bought castrated, Carol said, because bucks are aggressive and fight each other, and because they stink—they pee on their heads to attract the females. The loud bleating of the farm’s two billies interrupted Carol as she spoke from her front porch in September—a reminder that breeding season was only a few weeks away. After breeding, the farm will get rid of the ornery and odorous billies. The most exciting time at the farm is in the spring, when the kids are born, Carol says.

The goats aren’t the only animals on the farm. They enjoy the protec58

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tion of five Great Pyrenees—large, fluffy white dogs often used to guard livestock herds. Carol said she knows there are coyotes in the area—the dogs often howl back at them—and they’ve been aware of a bobcat and recently a bear. Domestic dog packs, however, can go on killing sprees and cause more damage than a coyote: “I know some farmers who have lost 10, 14 animals,” Carol said.

The Coulters also have two hogs— Bacon and Pork Chop—several friendly felines, and chickens.

The goats are milked six months out of the year, which doesn’t produce enough milk to meet the farm’s demand for cheeses and other products, so Heritage Homestead purchases milk during the winter months. Heritage

October / November 2010

I.S. “Buck” Cooper, 87 (above), started the Cooper dairy operation in 1946, when electricity came to the area. Today, his son Ronnie (right) runs the farm on his own.

Homestead produces chevre, a creamy goat cheese, in 14 flavors, as well as gouda, feta and bleu cheese. “You can make almost every cheese out of goat milk,” Carol said. The farm also makes a goat’s milk fudge using Ghirardelli chocolate.

Another goat dairy in the High Country area is Liza Plaster and William Early’s Ripshin Goat Dairy, located in Happy Valley between Lenoir and Blowing Rock. The dairy was licensed to make goat cheese in 2006 and currently produces fresh chevre daily from April through November.

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2010

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“I long for the day when I’m here full time.”

Carol Coulter, Heritage Homestead goat dairy

When it comes time to milk at Carol Coulter’s goat dairy farm, the goats have to line up in a certain order, based on personality—some goats don’t like to be beside each when being milked.

Both Heritage Homestead and Ripshin Goat Dairy sell at area farmers’ markets.

The Cow Dairies Rounding the bend on Brownwood Road, which winds its way through the mountains between Deep Gap and Todd, the rolling green landscape is flecked with black and white Holsteins grazing in Ronnie Cooper’s pastures.

Two silver silos rise above the milking barn, gleaming in bright sunshine under blue skies. The farm of about 200 acres is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has been traced back at least 156 years, though Ronnie says it’s been in the family longer.

Ronnie’s father and his brother (Ronnie’s uncle) started the dairy operation in 1946, when electricity came to the area. They held off until power came so they could use electric milkers instead 60

High Country Magazine

of milking by hand, Ronnie said. When Ronnie’s dad was in business, just about every farm around sold some milk.

“Just about everybody around here had a little milk barn,” Ronnie said.

“They were drinking it, if not selling it.”

A lot of High Country dairy farms died out about 10 years ago, he said.

Ronnie grew up helping on the farm and continued to help out parttime while also doing some construction work as an adult. When his uncle was killed in a tractor accident around 1990, Ronnie came on full time at the farm to help his dad. Ronnie, 60, runs

October / November 2010

the farm on his own now, as his dad is unable to help because of his age. His 12- to 14-hour day begins at 4:30 a.m., when the cows are milked and fed until about 8:00 a.m. Milking takes place again between 2:00 and 5:30 in the afternoon. The milk is funneled directly from the cow to a refrigerated storage tank, which maintains the milk at 36 degrees until pickup. Ronnie and the other two cow dairy farmers in Ashe County sell their milk wholesale to Dairy Farmers of America, a cooperative of nearly 17,000 dairy producers in 48 states. A truck driver hired by the co-op picks

up the milk every other day, and from the farm it travels to Winston-Salem or Tennessee to be pasteurized. Ronnie said he wasn’t sure which brands sell his milk or where it is sold, though it most likely stays in North Carolina, a “milk deficit state” that imports more milk than it produces.

Rodney Cheek’s cow dairy is only a few miles east of Cooper, located just across the Ashe and Watauga county line off Highway 221. Growing up, Rodney had an uncle in Pennsylvania that was in the dairy business.

“I thought that would be the life,” he reminisced. And so 31 years ago, Rodney’s father and another uncle helped him convert the family property from a commercial chicken farm to a small cow dairy. Rodney’s herd includes about 40 adult Holsteins and 30 replacement heifers.

His dad, who turned 80 in August, still helps out by mowing and baling hay, but most of his help comes from his two sons, ages 23 and 20.

“We’ve managed to keep it done with just family ever since we’ve been in it,” Rodney said.

Like Ronnie, Rodney’s milk is sold through Dairy Farmers of America, which furnishes milk to PET, Wal-Mart and several grocery store chains, he said.

The third cow dairy in Ashe County belongs to Ed Seatz and is located in Creston.

CELEBRATING 91 YEARS

The Strength Behind Your Security

Challenges and Opportunities Just as produce farmers in the High Country have benefited from direct sales of their crops at area farmers’ markets, so have dairy farmers—like Carol in Ashe and Liza Plaster in Caldwell County—who produce and sell valueadded products such as cheese, chevre and even chocolate.

But traditional cow dairy farmers like Ronnie and Rodney are at the mercy of wholesale milk prices set by large co-ops such as Dairy Farmers of America. Ronnie said there’s no other co-op he can go with. “Some of the trouble is there used to be competition,” he said.

“Ain’t no competition any more.”

Milk prices hit rock bottom in March 2009, with prices paid to farmers matching levels from 30 years ago, said Rodney. They stayed that way for the rest of 2009, improving some this year, but not much.

October / November

2010

High Country Magazine

61

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“Everybody’s hurting on milk prices,” Ronnie said.

Carol noted that the milk her farm buys during the offseason is sold at three times what farmers are paid for it. “You can see why dairies go out of business,” she said.

The local cow dairies find that it’s too expensive to invest in the infrastructure needed to start a cheese making business or an ice creamery, rendering them unable to tap into area farmers’ markets when demand for local food is high. There is high interest and demand in raw (unpasteurized) milk, which would be easy for farmers to sell locally at much higher prices than they receive from the co-op, but 62

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October / November 2010

North Carolina does not permit the sale of raw milk.

Rodney said he has spent some time looking into bottling his own milk, but he hasn’t reached a decision on that yet.

Ronnie considered a cheese making operation at one time but determined it would be too costly and too much of a hassle to get one going.

In addition to farmers’ markets, Carol is able to sell her goat cheeses directly to High Country restaurants such as Grandfather Country Club; Storie Street Grille and Bistro Roca in Blowing Rock; Hob Knob Café, Vidalia and Our Daily Bread in Boone; and also to Bare Essentials, a natural foods store in Boone, as a member of the New River Organic

To make goat cheese, the curd and whey in goat’s milk must first be separated; the curd will become the cheese. Depending on the hardness of the cheese being made, the cheese is either hung (above) or pressed (below). Some cheeses are also brined, waxed and aged. Creamy chevre only takes a few days to make, while bleu cheese can take between eight and 12 months.

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2010

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63

Dairy’s Black Market: Raw Milk

T

he pasteurization of milk is the process of heating milk to kill harmful bacteria and pathogens that cause diseases. Milk that has not been pasteurized is known as “raw milk.” There is growing demand for raw milk for its health benefits, because it is unprocessed, and as a rejection of confined factory dairy farms and their practices (e.g., dosing cows with antibiotics and hormones) in favor of local farms with pasture-fed cows.

North Carolina state law, however, prohibits the sale of raw milk for human consumption but does permit its sale for pet food. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 800 people in the U.S. have become sick from drinking raw milk or eating raw milk cheese since 1998.

Carol Coulter, owner of Heritage Homestead goat dairy in the Nathan’s Creek area of Ashe County, said raw

milk is full of bacteria and sugar, but if a dairy is sanitary and the milk is cooled down quickly, “it’s really good stuff” full of probiotics—beneficial bacteria that help keep a digestive system healthy.

“I drink it every day,” Carol said.

“I love raw milk.” As long as you own the producing animal, it is not illegal to drink raw milk. Ronnie Cooper, cow dairy farmer in the Brownwood area of Ashe County, said he drinks three to four gallons of raw milk per week.

“It’s much better for you,” Ronnie said. “People swear by it.” Ronnie credits raw milk for his good health at age 60, including never having any cavities, and he said it’s supposed to be good for blood pressure.

“It’s pretty much ruined after they pasteurize it as far as I’m concerned,” he added.

The ban of raw milk sales in North Carolina prevents wholesale dairy farmers like Ronnie from being able to directly sell their product to the consumer at better prices—three or four times as

much, at least—than they can get from dairy cooperatives.

“It’s a huge issue,” Carol said.

Ronnie said he knew of people from Boone traveling to Raleigh to purchase raw milk from someone’s back yard.

“You wouldn’t have to milk but 10 or 15 head to make a good living, but you can’t do it,” he said.

Many farms in North Carolina are getting by in a market of depressed milk prices by selling raw milk labeled as “pet food”—no questions asked. But in recent conversations with government inspectors, “I got the impression they didn’t want anyone selling raw milk for pet food,” Ronnie said.

Twenty-five states, including South Carolina, permit the sale of raw milk in retail or farm locations. In 10 states, including Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia, consumers can “co-own” milk-producing animals in order to purchase their raw milk. North Carolina banned this practice in 2004.

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High Country Magazine

October / November 2010

Growers cooperative. Carol and Lon also take advantage of agritourism and plan to open Heritage Homestead up for tours of the farm as well as Lon’s blacksmith shop and pioneer crafts building, which are also on the property.

As the Coulters have invested quite a bit into getting their dairy operation off the ground, the family and farm are aided by Carol’s income from her fulltime position as director of operations for the National Committee for the New River. Lon started working full time at the farm a few years ago and has built all of the farm’s structures, including the couple’s home over the dairy.

The farm also has two full-time staff members who work about half of the year, but still, Carol said, “right now it’s like having two full-time jobs.”

Other issues facing dairies are rising costs of feeds, fertilizers, equipment and other services that they utilize, Micah said. “[The Cooperative] Extension strives to help and support producers by providing educational programs and meetings…on improved ways to market their product and…to lessen production costs,” she noted.

Dairy’s Future in the High Country?

“Can’t none of us see the future,” Rodney said, but “if prices hold like they are now, we can manage to stay in it.”

Things aren’t as certain over on the Cooper farm. Ronnie’s lost money for the past year and a half, and unlike Rodney, he has no one to pass the dairy business on to when he retires. He sees a lot of people getting out of the business, and “you can’t blame them. You used to be able to make some money at it,” Ronnie said.

In fact, Ronnie may decide to shut down his dairy before winter. “We’ll just have to see,” he said. “Everybody wants me to get out.” Ronnie would keep the farm, though, and keep some of his Holstein-Angus crossbreeds to start a beef herd.

Carol’s goat dairy continues to grow, and she enjoys the interaction with people at the markets and their responses to tasting the Heritage Homestead products.

She sighed. “I long for the day when I’m here full time.”

Carol and Lon Coulter enjoy life on their Heritage Homestead farm with goats, a blacksmith shop and a pioneer craft building.

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October / November

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Fall Dining Guide F

all in love with the High Country’s restaurants this season and enjoy the area’s best dishes, desserts and drinks. From French-Italian cuisine to genuine Southern soul food, these local eateries are gearing up for the cooler weather with hot eats. Read more about these dining destinations to see what’s new with this flavorful fall dining guide . . . Bon appétit!

Bayou Smokehouse Banner Elk. Banner Elk’s own Cajun connection serves up not only Louisiana favorites like gumbo and po’ boys, but also beef BBQ, hand cut ribeyes and spicy shrimp. For those who can’t decide between menu items, try a majority with the Bayou Cajun Sampler featuring tomato-based shrimp Creole, a cup of red beans and rice with smoked sausage and roux-based crawfish etoufee served with choice of shrimp gumbo or a house salad. The Bayou also features cocktails, wine and more than

55 bottled beers and 10 beers on tap.

Sundays feature brunch and a “MakeYour-Own Bloody Mary Bar.” Bayou also provides catering with delivery straight from their kitchens to yours, and is home to a general store that sells kitchenware, cookbooks, authentic Bayou Smokehouse sauces and seasonings, clothing and more.

828-898-8952 • 130 Main St. E. www.bayousmokehouse.com

The Best Cellar Blowing Rock. The Best Cellar restaurant has been a favorite among www.gamekeeper-nc.com 828-963-7400

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* Serving beer and wine * 173 Howard Street in Downtown Boone 828-268-0434 Fax: 828-268-0439 chadathai-nc.com 66

High Country Magazine

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locals for decades. Established in 1975, the original location was in a basement on Main Street, where previous owners sold soups, sandwiches and new and used books.

Now, located in The Inn at Ragged Gardens in downtown Blowing Rock, The Best Cellar offers 11 elegant rooms, seasonal gardens and serves lunch and dinner daily. The menu has evolved from sandwiches and soups to the freshest of meats and seafoods, and all dishes, including bread and desserts, are prepared each day on site. First-timers should try the Roast Duckling, served with

FALL DINING raspberry sauce, or one of the restaurant’s daily specials. Reservations are suggested.

828-295-3466 • 203 Sunset Dr. www.ragged-gardens.com

The BISTRO Boone. The Bistro, a small fine dining restaurant boasting a menu of FrenchItalian cuisine and homemade desserts, is a “collaboration of food and art.” The kitchen staff will complete any dining experience with nightly features of seafood, pasta, chicken and filet mignon, and for those looking for a new pasta dish, the Black ‘n Bleu Pasta with chicken, shrimp and andouille sausage in a Gorgonzola cream sauce will satisfy curious pasta lovers.

The Bistro also features an extensive wine and beer list.

828-265-0500 • 115 New Market Ctr www.thebistrorestaurant.com

Blowing Rock Grille Blowing Rock. Courtyard dining and a friendly atmosphere make this restaurant a Blowing Rock favorite. For lunch, try homemade soups, vegetable plates and sandwiches.

The dinner menu features fresh fish, pasta, steaks and the featured grilled pork chop—a 10-ounce bone-in cut of meat topped with mango and red papaya salsa. A unique wine list completes the dining experience.

828-295-9474 • 349 Sunset Dr. www.theblowingrockgrille.com

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Café Portofino Boone. A favorite of ASU students, Café Portofino offers 5-star dining in a casual atmosphere. The self-described “Garlic House” menu is a creative mix of Thai, Eurasian and Italian influences, and “Aloha Fridays” features an Italian flare of fresh fish specials and Island comradery. Try the Spicy Chicken Fold-Over on a pita with Portofino’s signature sauce. For afterhours entertainment, check out the

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2010

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67

FALL DINING Pleasant Elevated Retreat The Jackson Dining Room -

enjoy dinner with a view Thursday, Friday & Saturday evenings.

Our philosophy is simple; our guests become our friends, and return each season.

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adjoining taproom with billiards, darts, assorted games and over 50 bottle and draft beers from around the world.

828-264-7772 • 970 Rivers St. www.cafeportofino.net

Canyons Blowing Rock. Featuring live music on the weekends, this restaurant serves up not only Southwestern and ordinary America eats, but also one of the finest views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The restaurant’s signature dish is their Chicken Maui, a grilled chicken breast topped with tangy Hawaiian barbecue sauce, crisp bacon, sautéed mushrooms and jack cheese.

Canyons also features an extensive wine and beer list and mixed drinks.

828-295-7661 • 8960 Valley Blvd. www.canyonsbr.com

Casa Rustica Boone. Casa Rustica has been serving the High Country for the past 27 years with some of the area’s finest Northern Italian-American cuisine. This is a true family restaurant, built on original recipes from former owner Peter Pedroni’s mother, Pina, and his own worldly culinary expertise. In addition to menu favorites like the Seafood Fra Diavolo, featuring shrimp scallops, calamari and clams, Casa Rustica also serves free range beef. The restaurant has an extensive wine list and all ABC permits. Enjoy live jazz every Thursday night and classical guitar every Sunday.

828-262-5128 • 1348 Highway 105 www.casarustica1981.com

Cha Da Thai Boone. Cha Da Thai is the only place in the area where you can find authentic Thai cuisine. The menu is a representation of all Thai specialties, from sweet to sour and from salty to spicy.

Cha Da Thai also offers a private dining room for large parties celebrating a special occasion. The restaurant is located on Howard Street in down68

High Country Magazine

October / November 2010

Celebrating 3 years in the High Country

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Char Boone. Voted best bar in 2009, Char offers lively, casual or romantic dining experiences on a roomy covered deck, two stylish indoor dining areas or a sleek, modern bar. Char uses locally grown and organic foods wherever possible and their menu features a unique array of choices, including the Veggie Napoleon, a popular vegetarian menu item, and the southern favorite Shrimp and Grits. Char is open daily from 11:00 to 2:00 a.m. Visit the restaurant’s website for menus, specials and entertainment info.

828-266-2179 • 179 Howard St. www.char179.com

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Blowing Rock. Housed in a 1950s stone cottage, The Gamekeeper is an upscale restaurant offering an eclectic mix of Southern foods and mountain cuisine, including mountain trout, buffalo rib eye, ostrich, duck and beef tenderloin. The restaurant is a favorite destination of both locals and visitors that never fails to make any trip, anniversary or event special.

828-963-7400 • 3005 Shulls Mill Rd. www.gamekeeper-nc.com

Jackson Dining Room at Broyhill inn Boone. ASU’s own inn and conference center boasts 83 guest rooms and suites as well as a fine dining restaurant, the Jackson Dining Room. Dinner is served three nights per week, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings from 5:30 to 9:00 p.m. On Sundays, the restaurant features their showcase buffet with full breakfast and lunch selections available beginning at 10:45 a.m. and ending at 2:30 p.m.

828-262-2204 • 775 Bodenheimer Dr. www.broyhillinn.com October / November

2010

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FALL DINING Mountain Bagels Boone. This fall, enjoy a warm, buoyant and cozy atmosphere when you eat at Mountain Bagels. The restaurant offers lunch specials, soups, freshly baked muffins and bagels made from scratch daily.

Eat breakfast starting at $1.29 and lunch from $3.99. Mountain Bagels also features a Lebanese menu with hummus, baba ghanoush, falafel and more. 828-265-4141 • 211 Boone Height Dr. www.mountainbagels.com

Primo’s Boone. A new Italian restaurant in Boone located at the Boone Mall, Primo’s features hand-tossed pizzas, calzones and strombolis, pasta and sandwiches. Kids can make their own pizza on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the restaurant serves pizza by the slice every day until 4:00 p.m. Primo’s has live music on the weekends and offers a complete bar selection including beer, wine, liquor and mixed drinks.

828-355-9800 • 1180 Blowing Rock Rd. www.primosrestaurantofboone.com

Fresh Italian Cuisine

proper southern food Boone. Serving up genuine southern food including soups, salads, sandwich plates and a delicious Sunday brunch 11:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Proper is also open for lunch and dinner. Try the fried chicken plate with a choice of two side items and corn bread or a biscuit.

828-865-5000 • 142 South Water St. www.propermeal.com

Red Onion café Boone. The Red Onion Café has created its niche in the High Country for more than 30 years by offering a welcoming atmosphere and an extensive menu at affordable prices. The restaurant opens at 11:00 a.m. daily and serves continuously throughout 70

High Country Magazine

October / November 2010

Patio Dining • Live Music • Daily Specials • Located at Boone Mall next to TJ Maxx

828-355-9800 • Tues-Sat 11-9 Sun 12-5:30

www.primosrestaurantofboone.com

FALL DINING the evening. Located across from the ASU campus, the Red Onion is in a convenient location for those hungry after watching the Mountaineers play football.

828-264-5470 • 227 Hardin St. www.theredonioncafe.com

Speckled Trout CafE Blowing Rock. Since 1986, the Speckled Trout Cafe and Oyster Bar has been pleasing both locals and visitors with exquisite choices for dinner.

The house specialty is smoked rainbow trout from local waters, but the extensive menu covers everything from steak to roast duckling to catfish. Reservations are recommended. All ABC permits.

828-295-9819 • 922 Main Street www.speckledtroutcafe.com

Stick Boy Bread Boone. A small, family-owned artisan bakery where high quality baked goods and great service come together, Stick Boy offers everything from breads, cinnamon rolls, chocolate tortes and, of course, coffee. Everything is made fresh daily using the best ingredients and methods. The bakery can even create the wedding cake of your dreams.

828-268-9900 • 345 Hardin St. www.stickboybread.com

Serving

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vidalia Boone. Vidalia is a casual, upscale restaurant featuring “creative American cuisine,” including its one-of-a-kind truffle fries, shoestring cut and served with Creole sauce. Vidalia offers daily specials and wine tastings, and holds all ABC permits and has an extensive, 60+ bottle wine list, craft beers, martinis, whiskeys, scotches and cordials.

On Thursdays, all Napa cellar wines are 30 percent off by the glass, bottle and case.

828-263-9176 • 831 West King St. www.vidaliaofboonenc.com

SERVING A VARIETY OF FRESH SEAFOOD, POULTRY, LOCAL MOUNTAIN TROUT, ANGUS BEEF, SARA’S BABY BACK RIBS, HOMEMADE SOUPS AND SALADS.

828.295.9819 • Main Street, Blowing Rock Serving Dinner Tuesday - Sunday 5:00pm - 9:00pm

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The Frightening Haunts of Tweetsie’s Ghost Train

October / November

2010

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irst opened in 1957, Tweetsie Railroad began as an excursion train ride aboard steam locomotive #12, the only surviving narrowgauge engine of the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad (ET&WNC). Built in 1917 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, #12 is a three-foot, narrow gauge locomotive that was used to haul passengers and freight over the ET&WNC’s 66mile line running from Johnson City over the Appalachian Mountains to Boone. After the narrow-gauge portion of the ET&WNC ceased operations in 1950, the locomotive was purchased by a group of railroad enthusiasts and was taken to Rockingham County, Virginia, to operate as the small Shenandoah Central tourist line in 1952.

Floodwaters from Hurricane Hazel washed out the Shenandoah Central in 1954, and Locomotive #12 was once again put up for sale. Hollywood actor Gene Autry optioned the locomotive with the intent to move it to California for use in motion pictures.

Instead, Grover Robbins, an entrepreneur from Blowing Rock, purchased Autry’s option and bought the locomotive in 1956. Robbins moved

the #12 locomotive back to its native Blue Ridge Mountains as the centerpiece of a new “Tweetsie Railroad” tourist attraction. A three-mile loop of track was constructed near Blowing Rock for the train to run on, and on July 4, 1957, the locomotive made its first public trip over the line.

Tweetsie Railroad became a popular tourist attraction and evolved into one of the nation’s first theme parks.

A western town and saloon were built around the depot area. A train robbery and Indian attack show were added to the train ride, playing off the Wild West theme that was very popular at the time on television and movies. The theme was enhanced by regular visits by WBTV television personality and singing cowboy Fred Kirby, who hosted a popular children’s show. In 1962, a chairlift and amusement ride area was constructed on a mountain inside the rail loop, and over the decades the park has been expanded with additional rides, attractions, shops, a petting zoo and restaurants.

In 1990, the staff of Tweetsie came up with the initial idea to turn the increasingly popular Wild West show of the Tweetsie Railroad into a spooky train ride.

(From top to bottom) (1) Two skeletons guard the entrance to the Boneyard, Tweetsie’s mind-bending 3-D Maze that features the disorienting Black Hole. (2) The perpetually vibrant Spice Ghouls—a roving troupe of songstresses—strike a pose on Main Street. (3) Got a phobia of spooky clowns? If so, then you might want to avoid this jester and his sidekick. (4) Beware of these Gothic sirens and their chariot of death, the Ghost Train hearse, that waits to take unsuspecting visitors on a swift ride to the underworld. Photos by CathyCole

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~ Chris Robbins, President of Tweetsie Railroad

Steam Billows from the smokestacks as Casey Bones powers the train away from the station and out into the darkness of night. Photo by Cathy Cole

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Joe Clark, the entertainment director of the Ghost Train, plugs his ears before the screaming audition. (Below) During the audition for the Spice Ghouls music group, a group of young women quickly learn the words to the Ghost Train theme song before singing it together as a group. Photos by Ken Ketchie

“It started out fairly small. We had a fairly lame haunted house up in the Palace Saloon, and we had the Ghost Train decked out, and, since then, it’s just gotten better and better every year,” recalls Chris Robbins, president of Tweetsie Railroad. “It’s still small compared to what some of the larger theme parks do, but it’s very specialized—we have a lot of human characters in our Ghost Train presentation rather than utilizing animatronics, so that makes it kind of special, too.”

The Ghost Train makes its way around the haunted grounds only 10 nights out of the year, and when it does it draws a throng of people. The train and the festivities that accompany the Ghost Train weekends regularly draw sell-out crowds to experience the spooks, frights and general ambiance of the most celebrated Halloween attraction in all of the High Country.

But it doesn’t just happen by itself. The 200 or so ghosts, ghouls, vampires and werewolves that swarm into the area every year need a bit of enticing to be drawn into the action, and that process all begins with the audition that takes place at the end of summer at Tweetsie. Hopeful actors and actresses come out in droves to audition for their

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October / November 2010

~ Joe Clark, Ghost Train entertainment director

Joe Clark, the entertainment director at Tweetsie Railroad’s Ghost Train, is the man behind the scenes of one of the area’s largest and most elaborate theater productions. When he isn’t busy orchestrating the event, Clark takes time to make a few special surprise appearances as Elvis Presley. Photo by Ken Ketchie

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(Above left) Lisa Colvard, assistant entertainment director, and Martin Michie, the park’s general manager, are just two of the many people who work nearly nonstop behind the scenes to make the Ghost Train one of the most popular tourist attractions in the High Country. Photo by Greg Williams (Above right) An auditioner tries out his scream. Photo by Greg Williams

chance to take part in the elaborate production that is Ghost Train, and in order to make the cut, they have to showcase their best screams, cries and terrified expressions before a crowd of their peers.

On the small stage, 20 young women scream at the top of their lungs with their most horrified, blood-curdling cries in hopes of making to the next round of the audition process. Meanwhile, the Spice Ghouls—a group of gothic pop-singers modeled after the infamous Spice Girls group, quickly learn the Ghost Train theme—a revision of the early ‘80s hit song “It’s Raining Men” with the chorus reworded to “It’s Halloween, Ride the Ghost Train, It’s Halloween.”

At the same time, a large group of hopeful actors and actresses who will become the ghouls and goblins, werewolves and vampires of this year’s Ghost Train act out their parts. For Joe Clark, the entertainment director of the Ghost 78

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October / November 2010

Train at Tweetsie, these tiny moments of drama that culminate in the elaborate Ghost Train production are what makes the job so enjoyable for him every year.

“It’s the greatest job I’ve ever had,” Clark said before the first audition, as he watched the performers warm up and talk nervously to one another. “I’m not a big fan of Halloween, I’ll tell you that right up front, but this is different,” Clark said. “It’s just the excitement and energy. Look at all these people here—we don’t get nearly the amount of turnout for our regular season [auditions] as we do for the Ghost Train, and I believe it’s all because of the romantic attraction to showbiz—everybody wants to be a star.”

Clark knows a thing or two about bright lights and large crowds. As a young man he worked for a few years as a stand-up comedian who achieved notoriety as part of a comic duo featured

Hailey Moore and Gordon Hensley prepare to work their makeup magic on the Ghost Train employees. Every night, the cast of characters undergoes a brilliant transformation from normal to frightening thanks to the skilled hands of students from Hensley’s staff, who utilize the latest in airbrush paint techniques to bring out the hideous, haunted characters that can be seen roaming down Tweetsie’s Main Street.

Photos by Greg Williams

~ John Setzer

on the cover of the Life section of USA Today and on the cable channel Showtime. But after years of traveling and working as a comedian, Clark decided to take a step away from the lights and into a classroom.

“I started teaching and started making money for the first time in my life,” Clark remembered. “I bought a car, got a couple of credit cards and had to tell [his comedy partner], ‘I don’t think I can do stand up anymore, I’ve got to have a J-O-B.” Since that time, Clark has worked in various capacities as teacher, actor, comedian and more before settling into his role as entertainment director at Tweetsie Railroad.

October / November

While most of the participants do perhaps envision the bright lights and roaring applause of the classic theater stage, Tweetsie’s Ghost Train allows them the opportunity to step away from the light and into the dark to try their hand at being one of the spookiest villains ever imagined.

Every night, the cast of characters undergoes a brilliant transformation from normal to frightening thanks to the skilled hands of professional makeup artist Gordon Hensley and his trained staff. Hensley and his staff utilize advanced airbrush techniques and are able to repeat the hideous looks night after night by using templates and designs Hensley has created. Hensley’s 2010

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Joe Clark sets up the scene for a “screamer,” helping to get the actress into the proper mindset so that she can unleash her best squeals, shrills and screams. Photo by Ken Ketchie

Vampires both young and old can frequently be seen roaming the streets, the Boneyard and Freaky Forests of the haunted grounds of the Ghost Train.

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staff includes Hailey Moore and Jordan Barger, who are Ghost Train novices, as well as John Setzer, a nine-year veteran of Tweetsie and the Ghost Train.

It is this transformation into something strange and unusual that appeals to Setzer, an entertainment assistant at Tweetsie Railroad.

“When you put on the makeup, it totally changes the way you look and even the way you feel,” Setzer explained. “You get to be a completely different person, or even something that’s not even human. It’s a complete transformation.”

It’s the same reason millions of Americans dress up for Halloween every year. “As far as I know, most of the people I talk to really love Halloween because it’s the only time of year where even everyday people, people who aren’t into theater or acting, can dress up and be a different character,” Setzer said. “Whether it’s a superhero or werewolf or a vampire or a Frankenstein or a ghoul or whatever, it gives you a chance to be somebody completely different for a few hours or a few nights. It’s a fun way to escape the confines of everyday life, and for those few hours you don’t have to worry about who you are as a person in your everyday life.”

In this way, the Ghost Train is reality escapism at its finest. The potent mixture of the hauntingly fascinating cast of characters and the nearly limitless opportunities of spooky sights and sounds keep visitors flocking to the Ghost Train every year. But, in addition to the thrills and shrill cries in the night that characterize the evening experience, there is something else, some kind of hardto-explain energy in the air, a buzz of excitement and action, an electric-like feeling that Clark believes is the Ghost Train’s biggest asset.

“It’s the excitement of everybody,” Clark said.

“I’d never experienced anything like it until the first year I was involved with the Ghost Train, in 2005. It’s like a giant party with 2,000 people.

~ Joe Clark, Ghost Train entertainment director

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~ Joe Clark, Ghost Train entertainment director

The Ghost Train casts a frightful image as it barrels down the tracks in the darkness, forging ahead through dark wooded areas, where the scares are so intense that the ride is not recommended for young children or for persons with heart conditions. Photo by Cathy Cole

It’s just amazing. They line up in front of the gate, which is on a hill, and as soon as the gate is opened they run, you know, little old ladies with walkers running up the hill to get in line for the train, because everybody wants to get on the first train.”

While riding the Ghost Train along the three-mile route full of unexpected frights and scares is, undoubtedly, the main draw to the evening’s festivities, there is also a wide variety of other opportunities awaiting those who are courageous enough to venture into the dark of night in search of a moment of fright. Whether visitors find themselves wandering through the Freaky Forest, the 3D Maze, the Boneyard or the Haunted Tweetsie Palace, there is certainly something spooky for everyone brave enough to venture through the crowds of costumed visitors

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around the haunted grounds.

“As we’ve progressed over the years, we’ve added new elements to the show to entertain people while they’re standing in line for the Ghost Train,” Clark said.

“We’ve got so much going on, there is always something to do. You don’t have to wait in line to be entertained, or while you’re waiting in line you can still be entertained. It doesn’t matter that it’s cold, or rainy, or snowy—people are still here having fun.”

“The Ghost Train feels like a totally different place than the normal day-today operations of Tweetsie,” Setzer said.

“A lot of people have asked me on the train ride during the day time, ‘Should I bring my young kids to the Ghost Train?’

And I always tell them that although the

October / November 2010

train ride and the haunted house is for ages 8 and up, we have a lot of other things like the puppet show at the Palace, or the Spice Ghouls and all of the other characters out on Main Street. There’s a lot of entertainment going on that’s directed toward the younger kids. It’s not just for teenagers and young adults who want to be scared; it’s really something that everyone can enjoy.”

“Mainly, we always try to maintain the family focus, where you have something that is both safe and scary, but also fun for the entire family, so there is something for everyone,” Robbins said. “Our main goal is to make sure that everybody can have a good time here—that’s the one part that hasn’t changed over the years.” w

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A Model of Green Construction The LEED Home Comes to Boone Story by Val Maiewskij-Hay • Photography by James Fay

Several green features can be seen here. The three decks provide extended outdoor living space. The solar panels and the walls of windows face directly south and a skylight provides light.

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The kitchen (left) is equipped with Energy Star appliances and granite counter tops (radon-free). The living room (right) seen from the staircase has a wall of windows as part of its solar passive design. The floors are bamboo, a renewable resource.

W

ayne and Carol King live in a house of the future, a house that is energy and water efficient, is healthy for the people who live there and is less damaging to the environment both during construction and occupancy. Built by their son David King, owner of Constructive Solutions, the house at 207 Eastbrook Drive is a model of green construction. Although a computer controls the HVAC, many of the home’s green features are not high-tech but simply more common-sense, quality construction practices.

In the aftermath of the OPEC-caused energy crisis, during the Carter Administration, the United States encouraged energy efficiency and conservation of resources. Many of the concepts and technology used in the model house in Boone, for instance, were developed and rediscovered during the 1970s. But before energy conservation became a way of life,

the energy crisis was over—for the time being—and we resumed over-consuming energy and other resources.

Today there is a growing awareness that resources—especially energy resources—are not limitless and that conservation must be practical. This house shows that green construction can be as comfortable and attractive as conventional construction and has the advantage of lower utility costs—approximately onethird less—and the satisfaction of living in an environmentally sound house.

As interest in and demand for green construction grows, a number of certification rating systems for ecologically sound buildings have emerged. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) was established for commercial buildings by the U.S. Green Building Council in 1998. LEED for Homes began in February 2009. It provides third party verification that a building was designed

and built with energy and water efficiency measures, reduced carbon dioxide emissions, improved indoor air quality and careful use of resources and materials.

Only 1,200 houses in the country have been built and LEED Platinum certified.

Three houses in Watauga County have been built to LEED Platinum specifications and are currently in the certification process, one of which is the model house at 207 Eastbrook Drive.

David King decided to build a LEED Platinum certified house because “I wanted to build a really nice house that people would enjoy living in and also a smart one, one that did less damage to the environment and cost less to live in. I think that sometimes when people hear ‘green’ they think it is going to look odd—different, but that’s not the case. Some day all new construction will use many of these features because it just makes sense.”

Quint David of Building Performance

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The computer-controlled HVAC system has insulated ducts that take air into and out of the rooms. The solar water heater is a great energy saving appliance and is cost effective, paying for itself within five years.

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The “grey” water from the sink drains into a container from which it is pumped into the toilet tank. Using grey water is a good water conservation measure.

Engineering, the only LEED for Homes certifier in the area, said that the house was rated to be a platinum level LEED for Homes. “We’ve inspected and verified that David King’s model house was built to LEED standards and calculated that it will be rated platinum.” Platinum is the highest of the LEED ratings, followed by Gold, Silver and Certified.

Energy efficiency and reduction of CO2 emissions are of primary importance to LEED. Increased levels of CO2—generated by fossil fuel combustion— have been implicated in climate change and ocean acidification.

Hence the concern with the “carbon footprint,” the amount of carbon produced in energy production, manufacturing and transportation.

All LEED buildings are Energy Star (a government-

backed energy efficiency program) certified. The buildings are designed and constructed to be as airtight and as well insulated as possible because most energy loss is from air exchange—air inside a house leaking outside and outside air coming inside the house.

Once the house is almost airtight, indoor air quality is of great importance. Fresh air is pumped into the house at regular intervals and is directed into all the rooms. Because the house is almost a closed system, the materials used in construction have to contain little or no toxins, many of which are common in conventional construction. No products containing formaldehyde are allowed, and very few with Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) are permitted—only those that evaporate quickly and become almost

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The staircase was built using trees from the property—another good resource conservation measure.

inert. Rather than carpet, the Eastbrook Drive house has bamboo floors that have been treated with a quickly drying and less toxic substance. Bamboo is a quickly growing, renewable resource that can take the place of more rare hardwoods.

The first step in building a LEED house is to design and situate the house on the lot. Before construction began, the contractors coordinated and integrated the design of the house to LEED standards. Positioning the house to face directly south is part of the passive solar design, which uses sunlight for light and heat without mechanization.

On the outside, measures were taken to reduce and better use water and to control erosion. Water runoff from the street 88

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was directed into a rock-lined ditch that captures sediment and debris and slows the water flow before it drains into the creek. Rainwater from the roof is collected into an underground tank, which has a faucet at the lower end and provides water for landscaping and other outside uses. Capturing and using rainwater is a common sense water conservation measure that everyone can do.

All the plants are native and drought resistant, and little of the yard is kept as grass, further reducing the need for water. The landscaping materials are made of partially recycled content and are pervious, allowing water to soak into the ground. Other water conservation measures are included inside the house.

October / November 2010

“Grey water” from the bathroom sink drains into a container under the sink and is pumped into the toilet tank and used to flush the toilet. The toilets have two levels of flushes, and all the faucets and showers are low flow.

The house was built to last and to be low maintenance (durability is also an important LEED criterion). Most of the house was constructed using insulated concrete forms (concrete poured into closed cell foam) reinforced with steel bars. The concrete-filled forms were covered in three layers of stucco to give a long lasting, low maintenance exterior.

The metal roof is guaranteed a minimum of 40 years before any chipping occurs.

The almost 3,000-square-foot house has four stories. The high-tech HVAC system, which is controlled by a computer, and the solar hot water heater are located on the lowest level. The solar panels are on the roof, where water with a 2 percent glycol propylene solution is heated and travels through pipes to the water heater, where it heats the water. A solar water heater is one of the most cost-effective, energy-saving appliances, paying for itself within five years. (A standard water heater uses 20 to 30 percent of a house’s total energy cost.)

The next level has a “mother-in-law suite” with a separate entrance. There are also two bedrooms and two bathrooms on the main house part of this floor. The entry level has an open living room and kitchen area and a bathroom. A staircase leads to the master bedroom and bathroom on the top floor. Half way up the stairs is an alcove with an office and sitting area looking down on the living area.

Each floor has a deck that provides outdoor living space. The staircase and wood features were made from lumber from trees that were cut down during clearing.

Typically during construction, trees that are cut down are burned or cut up and removed. Using trees from the construction site is a green practice that had once been common.

On the entry level, a wall of windows faces directly south, part of the passive solar design. In the winter the lower arc

Carol and Wayne King are very happy living in a green house of the future that was built by their son David.

of the sun allows direct sunlight to enter the house. In the summer the higher arc of the sun shines on the overhang above the windows, preventing direct light from entering the house. All of the windows are positioned to take advantage of the sun. Skylights also provide light, reducing the need to use electricity. People have long used the sun to

light and heat buildings. In the High Country, early residents maintained that you should never build a house on a north-facing slope.

David said, “My parents always supported me in this endeavor. My father’s company worked on this house.

He’s an electrician who designed a passive solar house in Watauga County back in 1980. I’m so happy that my parents have the opportunity to enjoy living in this house.”

David and his parents are very happy with the green model home.

“I’m so lucky to live in this beautiful LEED house, and I teach math at the high school—so I work and live in LEED buildings,” said Carol. “Our utility bills are just a fraction of what our neighbors pay, and we get the satisfaction of knowing we’re doing some good.”

Although most of us will never live in a Platinum LEED house, we can incorporate many of the green features, modifying them to fit our particular circumstance. Reducing air exchange by insulating is key to energy efficiency. A whole house energy audit shows where air exchange occurs and needs more insulation. It is common sense to insulate

around doors, windows and in the attic.

Once a house is well insulated, it is important to minimize the toxins in the house. We can reduce our energy costs and our carbon footprint if we pay attention and are mindful of our actions. Over the past few years, we have learned to turn off lights when leaving a room. Now we need to learn other energy saving strategies in our homes and to recognize that conservation of energy and other resources must become a way of life.

w

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Lost Golf Courses of Avery and

Watauga: Part III

‘Would Have Been’ Courses Story by

Harris Prevost

T

he idea for “lost golf courses” started out as a short side story to accompany the main golf story last fall. After a little research into former and would-be courses, the short story quickly developed into a full article. Then it grew into two articles, now three, and next spring, four.

There are some more lost courses out there to be discovered plus a number of “could have been” courses, those where locations were considered for a course but the process didn’t go further.

In this article, we look at “would have been” courses, those designed or laid out but that never made it to construction.

Some areas in the High Country would have looked much different if planned golf courses had reached fruition.

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October / November 2010

Grouse Moor

18 Holes • Sold 1978 Property Became Linville Ridge

I

n 1952, Hugh MacRae, who built North Carolina’s first golf course (Tanglewood in Linville), died, leaving thousands of acres in the Linville area to his grandchildren. Two were Hugh Morton and his cousin George MacRae. Morton inherited Grandfather Mountain, and MacRae inherited neighboring Sugar and Flat Top mountains. George and his wife Chessie were the driving force in a partnership that built one of the finest executive golf courses in the country, the Sugar Mountain Golf Course.

The MacRaes also planned a second course, a magnificent 18-hole championship course on property on top of Flat Top Mountain, which was affectionately known as “George’s cabbage patch.” Chessie said there were actually two fields—“one was a cabbage patch and the other beans.” The private club, called Grouse Moor, would have had homes and condominiums with its own amenities plus access to all the amenities at the MacRaes’ Sugar Mountain ski resort and the executive course.

Grouse Moor was derailed when a bad economy doomed the MacRaes’ Sugar Mountain Company in 1974. “A little something called bankruptcy got in the way,” Chessie said. In 1978, the 1,800-acre Grouse Moor property was sold to Florida developer Raymond Lutgert, who brought in George Cobb to design the spectacular Linville Ridge course we know today.

Grouse Moor’s clubhouse would have been located on a knoll to the left of Linville Ridge’s 13th fairway, which is the highest point on a golf course in eastern America (this was the fourth fairway before the nines were reversed last year). The clubhouse was oriented to overlook a beautiful Sugar Topless Mountain and in the distance, Beech Mountain. Two hundred founding

memberships were reserved, with those members receiving special privileges.

The course designer was to be Francis Duane, a leading golf architect in the 1970s and at the time, president of the Society of American Golf Course Architects. Duane and Arnold Palmer were partners in designing golf courses from the late ‘60s to the late ‘70s, but Palmer was not involved in the Sugar or Grouse Moor courses. There was talk among the principals in the development about getting Pete Dye to design the course, but Chessie said they promised Duane he could design the course if he did the Sugar executive course. Also, he was more affordable than Dye. After declaring bankruptcy, George and Chessie personally saw to it that all their creditors were paid in full, a decision that 36 years later still makes Chessie feel very good.

Tater Hill Stymied in 1974

T

he Tater Hill development was a casualty of the oil and gas crisis and the economic recession of the mid-1970s, but to Boone’s Rick Robbins, it will always have a special place in his heart. “This was my first golf course,” Robbins said. “It got me into the golf business.”

A group of doctors in Orlando decided to build a golf course development on top of Tater Hill, and Truby Proctor from Boone would have handled the project’s real estate. Tater Hill is a steep mountain, but on top are bald ridges and a plateau that would make a great golf course with spectacular views. The doctors engaged the international design firm of Von Hagge and Devlin, based out of Miami, to create a master plan with condominiums and home sites surrounding a golf course.

“I was doing survey work for David Stern,” Robbins remem-

Grouse Moor was located on Flat Top Mountain, which is next to Sugar Mountain. The Club at Linville Ridge is located where Grouse Moor would have been. Grouse Moor’s clubhouse would have been located on a ridge overlooking the 13th hole, which is the highest golf hole in Eastern America. It would have had a spectacular view of Sugar and Beech Mountains.

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Tater Hill doesn’t look like it could have a golf course on top when viewing it from the valley, but the terrain is great for a golf course and the scenery is spectacular from on top. This would have been Rick Robbins’ first golf course.

“It really hurt to see Tater Hill not make it but I have great memories. I was able to get my start in the golf business at home.” ~ Rick Robbins bered, “when Karl Litten, chief designer for Von Hagge & Devlin, came into the office looking for someone to show some of their people around Tater Hill. I had spent a lot of time up there as a Boy Scout so I knew the property. I hit it off with Litten, and we became very good friends. It turned out that the firm was looking for a land planner to take the place of a man who left. I guess I was in the right place at the right time. Two weeks later, I was working for them!”

Robbins had a little experience with golf and golf developments. While in school he worked on the construction crew that built the first nine holes at Linville Land Harbor. After graduating from N.C. State in May 1973 with a degree in design and landscape architecture, he began working under Dennis Lehmann at Beech Mountain. Robbins had left to work for Stern when Beech Mountain got into financial trouble.

With Robbins’ background and experience, Von Hagge & Devlin gave him important responsibilities from day one. He was doing design work, routing golf courses and doing land planning. “We came up with a good master plan,” Robbins said.

“Everyone was excited about it. We had the Tater Hill course designed and staked out, but in early summer of 1974, everything bogged down. It really hurt to see Tater Hill not make it, but I have great memories. I was able to get my start in the golf business at home.”

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October / November 2010

Mountain Glen’s Third Nine Still a possiblity

T

he popular Mountain Glen Golf Course in Newland was getting very crowded by the 1990s. The owners of the course, the Avery Development Corporation (mostly those who own property in the development), considered building a third nine holes to open up more tee times for both club members and outside play.

In 1995, Avery Development purchased 500 acres of beautiful land with panoramic views of Hump Mountain and numerous distant peaks. The plan was to leave the existing George Cobbdesigned 18 holes the same and add another nine as an extension of the present back nine, thus making two options for 18 holes that begin and end at the clubhouse. Selling lots surrounding the course would pay for the cost of the extra nine holes.

The present 10th hole would become the first hole on the “new course.” Golfers would play 10 through 12 as the first three holes, then pick up the new nine as holes number four through 12. Players then return to the present 13th and play out the existing 13th through 18th holes to complete an 18-hole round. A snack bar would be stationed at the new ninth hole. Mountain Glen could still play the course as it originally was designed by closing off the

Lehmann said there was still plenty of property to build a great nine holes and that it was the only piece of land where Mountain Glen could build nine holes and make money on it. “The extra nine may come back as an option in time,” Foster said, “but it will be a while.”

Todd Lecka, who is a member of the board and who helped make the golf course a reality by selling the corporation his 400acre farm at well under market value, is excited about the possibility of the third nine. “I hope we build the new nine in my lifetime,” he said.

Diamond Ridge

Developed mid-1980s Ski and Golf Resort

A

beautiful piece of property in Banner Elk was the site of a lost golf course that later had a happy ending. The “happy ending” became one of the great courses in the state and one of Golf Digest’s best new private courses in America. The lost course was Diamond Ridge and the found course

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new nine or include the new nine and play 27 holes.

The Avery Development board of directors, after much deliberation, could not agree to build the third nine so it didn’t happen. Mountain Glen still owns the land but part of the new nine-hole layout was on was on property Mountain Glen had an option to purchase. That land is now protected from development through a conservation easement.

The new nine was designed by Dennis Lehmann, who did most of the design work for Jefferson Landing, ranked as a “Top 100 Golf Course” in North Carolina.

Lehmann also did most of the planning for the Beech Mountain resort and Linville Land Harbor. “It would have been a really good nine holes,” Mountain Glen head golf professional Sam Foster said.

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From Lost Golf Balls to Lost Golf Courses Golf Writer Harris Prevost

Story by Bill F. Hensley

T

he man who writes regularly about golf in this publication is a multitalented businessman. In addition to his writing skills, he is an accounting teacher, a public relations and marketing guru and a highly respected civic leader.

That would be Harris Prevost, a tall, friendly, soft-spoken man with a unique sense of humor and a passion for golf. An accomplished player, he finds time to play once or twice a week if he can squeeze in a game between dozens of meetings that involve tourism, hospitals, economic development and other subjects.

A popular and wellknown Boone resident, Prevost is a busy man, but he shows no signs of easing up at the age of 66.

Harris likes to say he’s being interviewed here Harris hits a tee shot off a ledge at MacRae Peak on Grandfather By day, he earns his keep as vice president of after winning The Masters golf tournament, Mountain, hitting back toward the Mile High Swinging Bridge Grandfather Mountain but we know he’s actually a spectator being and Linville. Photo by Hugh Morton. (Top Left) Hitting off Billy Stewardship Foundation, questioned about who he thinks would win.

Joe’s Tee which was next to the Swinging Bridge. a prestigious title that he’s a part of the team the kids have turned the pastime into a until I was a fifth year senior,” he admits. that runs Grandfather Mountain, a job business venture that produces a little “For a while, it looked like I was going to he has held for more than 30 years. By spending money.” be red-shirted four straight years, which night each fall semester, he is an adPrevost has written two magazine may have been an NCAA record.” junct professor of accounting at ASU. Prevost graduated from UNC in articles telling fellow golfers how to Prevost doesn’t have to look for find lost golf balls. “I am pretty good 1967 with a bachelor of science in acthings to do. If helping run a mountain at finding balls,” he said, “because I counting. He also received a master’s that is one of the state’s oldest and best- know where to look and how to look. degree in business administration from known travel attractions isn’t enough, I find enough that I never need to buy Georgia State. He served in the U.S. he can always fall back on one of his them. The only time I bought a ball was Army infantry for two years. other trades. He serves on a number of when I was 9, and I sold it 30 minutes Prevost’s golf career blossomed aflocal, regional and state boards because later without hitting it. I lost a nickel ter college, and he has earned an enviof his many unique talents. able reputation as a tough competitor. on the deal.”

But golf is his first love. In addition to A native of Waynesville, Prevost be- A reasonably-long hitter with an implaying a good game and writing interest- came interested in golf in high school proving short game, he plays to a five ing and informative golf stories, Prevost and played both golf and basketball. handicap that he would like to lower. spends his spare hours roaming moun- He tried both sports in college at UNC“I’m working on it,” he commenttain golf courses—often with his two Chapel Hill but quickly learned that he ed. “Five years ago I lost my left inner children—looking for lost golf balls. couldn’t match the playing expertise of ear to a nasty virus and was told that “That is one of my favorite hob- Coach Dean Smith’s recruits.

I would never play again. I’m thankful bies,” he declared. “And I enjoy it al“I was on the UNC freshman golf that I can play, and my goal is to have a most as much as playing. My children team but didn’t play much on the varsity zero handicap and shoot an occasional and I enjoy finding balls together, and Continued on page 97

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Diamond Ridge was going to be a ski and golf

167 SUNSET DRIVE in BLOWING ROCK

development, with the course and the slopes designed by Bob Ash. Diamond Ridge never made it, but Diamond Creek, one of the state’s best courses, now occupies the same property.

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is Diamond Creek.

Diamond Ridge was located three miles up Dobbins Road (behind the Best Western Mountain Lodge) along Diamond Creek, which flowed through the property. The headwaters for the creek is at the base of a series of four rock outcroppings below Hanging Rock called Four Diamond Ridge. On the other side of the ridge is Seven Devils.

Retired Air Force General Alexander Andrews, who was a partner in the development of Sugar Mountain, owned the 700-acre property. After the partners lost Sugar Mountain to bankruptcy, Andrews planned a major ski and golf resort of his own, working with legendary snow maker and ski pioneer, Bob Ash. Ash designed the golf course and the ski slopes and created a master plan that would have about 1,000 house and condominium sites. The slopes would occupy 200 acres with the most spectacular being one that dropped 1,700 feet down the Valle Crucis side of the mountain toward Dutch Creek.

The property contained a rock quarry built by Maymead Construction Company that had provided gravel to build roads for Beach Mountain, Sugar Mountain and Grandfather Golf & Country Club.

A pond at the base of the quarry was built to be the reservoir for Ash’s snow making equipment and for the golf course.

Len Fawcett, construction manager of Diamond Ridge in 1984-86, then head golf course superintendent at Roaring Gap and now assistant superintendent at Grandfather Golf & Country Club, remembers Ash. “Bob was a genius. Everything he touched was wonderfully designed. He did a great job routing his golf course along the five ski slopes and avoiding chair lift intrusion through all playing areas,” Fawcett said. Fairways and ski slopes were shared on at least nine holes. The course location was more to the northern part of the property than Tom Fazio’s Diamond Creek.

The course stayed away from the ski area’s base lodge, which was next to the quarry. The clubhouse for golf would have been near Diamond Creek’s present clubhouse. The first hole was a par three, and the front side location was where Diamond Creek’s backside is. Irrigation for the front side was shared with snowmaking for the ski slopes.

Fawcett remembered that General Andrews also considered other designers for the course. “The name Jack Snead immediately comes to mind,” he said, “but I October / November

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don’t remember much more.” Jack is what Sam Snead, Jr. is called, and he is involved in golf course design.

Jack was very close to his famous father, and he tried to incorporate his father’s design philosophy into his work. Snead liked gently sloping greens, not flat or tiered.

He strongly felt golf was a fun game so he believed high handicappers shouldn’t have to face forced carries. He didn’t want high grass immediately around the fringes of greens. A Snead course would be “friendly off the tee with a challenging approach.”

Father and son worked together, along with highly respected architect Ed Carton, a disciple of Tom Fazio’s, to design the Poplar Grove Golf Club in Amherst, Virginia.

Carton worked with Sam Snead on the front nine and Jack on the back. If development had continued and Jack selected to design Diamond Ridge, no doubt Sam would have been at his side as part of the team.

A couple of the slopes were cleared and were ready for the installation of the snow making equipment when construction came to a sudden standstill. Because of advancing age and serious health issues, Andrews was unable to continue the project. Not long afterwards, he died and the property was put into his estate.

John McNeely, who at the time was director of golf at Grandfather Golf & Country Club, was looking for a site to build his dream course, and a friend told him about the property. He fell in love with it and signed a contract to purchase it from the estate the next day. The Tom Fazio-designed course that is Diamond Creek today is very different from the Bob Ash-designed Diamond Ridge. Construction on the course began in 2000 and was completed in 2003.

Also, the 1,000+ home sites planned were reduced to 40 to eliminate any adverse environmental impacts on the property.

The Boone / Appalachian State Golf Course

9 Holes To Be Built by Works Progress Administration • Derailed by WWII

I

n 1940, Boone civic leader Wade Brown dreamed about having a golf course for residents of Boone and for Appalachian State Teachers College. He convinced college president B.B. Dougherty, who was not

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Harris (in red shirt) tees off on #8 at Grandfather Mountain Country Club. This picture has been used many times by North Carolina to promote golf and tourism. Photo by Hugh Morton

Harris and Scotty, married 26 years, have two children. Although Scotty is not a sports enthusiast, she lets Harris play golf.

Continued from page 94 round in the 60s.”

His lowest score ever was a 64 at the Waynesville Country Club. He once had a 67 at Grandfather Golf and Country Club from the regular tees and a 69 at Linville, a 72 at Grandfather and a 72 at Diamond Creek from the championship tees.

Prevost’s golf game hit a new low in the mid-80s, when he suddenly lost his swing and couldn’t break 80. “I talked with Dale Morey, one of the game’s great players, and he mentioned three outstanding teachers he felt could help me,” he explained. “I picked Joe Cheves of Morganton because he was nearby.

He was an incredible teacher and an inspiring person to be around.”

Three lessons later, Prevost won the inaugural Mountain Glen Invitational and then went on to win a tournament in Maggie Valley and the Iron Duke Classic in Durham.

Each year he hosts the Atlantic Coast Sportswriters Coaches and Sports Media golf outing in the High Country, and he serves as a member of the North Carolina Golf Panel that selects the state’s top 100 courses.

Golf has brought Prevost considerable fame during his illustrious career, but that has been secondary to his reputation as an astute business execu-

tive. “I have been most fortunate,” he remarked. “And blessed.”

He first heard of Hugh Morton when he was living in Fayetteville and listened to a Morton interview on the local television station. “I liked what he had to say. My grandfather once told me how much I could learn and grow by working for a good man.,” he

“My

golf course articles really aren’t about the golf courses...The stories are about the people who made the course a reality and those who make it work today.

”

said. “I applied for a job with him, got it, sold my recording studio and moved to the mountains.” That was in 1973.

“Working for Hugh Morton was a dream come true,” he beamed. “My office was next to his for 25 year and I learned so much from him, both by his example and by his advice and counsel. He was a visionary and totally unselfish.”

Prevost ran Grandfather Mountain for Morton from 1992 until 2005 and now is involved in many of the worthy causes that were so important to

Morton. He has served as president of several tourism organizations including High Country Host, the Southern Highlands Attractions, the North Carolina Travel Industry Association and the Blue Ridge Parkway Association.

He also was chairman of the board of trustees at Cannon Memorial Hospital and an elder in the Boone First Presbyterian Church.

In 1993, Prevost received the Tourism Excellence award for his many contributions to the North Carolina tourism industry. He has also received the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce Community Service Award and the Boone chamber’s Sue Wilmoth Award for his tourism service.

“Harris is a tireless and enthusiastic worker who has made countless contributions to the High Country,” offered friend and fellow travel promoter Spencer Robbins. “He is a great corporate citizen, and we are fortunate to have him. He is a winner on and off the golf course.”

Prevost is married to the former Scotty Hood of Pinehurst, and the couple has two children. Daughter Hillary is an ASU sophomore, and son Tom is a high school senior. In addition to golf, he enjoys collecting stamps and following the athletic exploits of UNC and ASU. About his writing for High Country Magazine, Prevost said, “My golf course articles really aren’t about the golf courses. No one wants to read a description of each of the course’s holes.

It’s more fun to talk about the history of the property and how the golf course came about. The stories are about the people who made the course a reality and those who make it work today.”

And, if you need a slightly-used Titleist golf ball or two, give Prevost a call…

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a golfer, that learning to play golf fit into the mission of the college in its development of coaches and physical education teachers.

Brown, a visionary, also felt the Boone/Appalachian State Golf Course would help boost the community’s emerging tourist industry and attract summer residents, just as the golf courses in Linville and Blowing Rock had done. Boone was still trying to recover from the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Dougherty liked Brown’s idea and made available land from Rivers Street up to what is now the Broyhill Inn and Conference Center. The property also included the present football stadium, Farthing Auditorium, parking lots and surrounding dormitories.

Appalachian’s football stadium at that time was located on the other side of Rivers Street in the area between the present Raley Hall and the new dining hall.

Brown arranged for a nine-hole course and a clubhouse to be built by the federal government’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) as a Depression recovery project. He got Blowing Rock Country Club golf professional George Blagg to design the course and the State of North Carolina architect Frank Simpson to design the clubhouse. The state office for the W.P.A. approved the course and clubhouse designs and the project was ready to go.

World War II derailed the project, though. As the country moved into a wartime mindset, building a golf course was out of the question. Looking back on the course that almost came to be, Brown said, “It was best that this plan did not materialize.”

The terrain was too steep for a golf course, and the growing college had better use for the land. Brown also said a nine-hole course might have meant there would be no 18-hole Boone golf course later.

Brown and Blagg then looked at a site on Tater Hill that Blagg had been considering for a course. That site fell through, but the two didn’t give up. In 1952, they decided the Councill property, which extended from behind the Lutheran Church and the Earth Fare grocery store up and over the hill to the Councill Oaks subdivision, would make a nice nine-hole golf course.

They contacted Jim Councill about building the course on his property, and he expressed a strong interest. Blagg designed the layout and he, Brown and Councill felt it would work.

Brown called a meeting of local citizens in January 1953, and there was enthusiastic support to go forward. Brown drew up a charter and legally organized the group. They began negotiations to purchase the property, but Councill decided not to sell but to “make it available for a 10-year lease with a possibility of renewal.” Brown was not interested in a lease, so the site was dropped from consideration.

Four years later, Brown called a meeting of interested citi-

zens to review two new possibilities: the Bolick property on U.S. 421 east of Boone where the present landfill is located and the Neal Blair farm. The Bolick family was interested, but would lease rather than sell, so that left the Blair property, which was Brown’s favorite all along. Through Brown’s persuasiveness and persistence, he was able to secure the Blair farm plus enough surrounding property to build a championship quality 18-hole course. In 1957, he called his third citizens meeting, and the present Boone Golf Club was on its way to becoming a community treasure.

The Summit

Began late 1980s • Included Tennis, Equestrian Centers The Summit golf development began in the late 1980s. It was located in the Deep Gap area and it had two entrances, one off Brownwood Road (the entrance would have had a waterwheel) and the other Cranberry Springs Road. The property was a cattle farm owned by car dealer Mack Brown, and it included his old home place. Jim Hastings of Boone and retired Marine Bill Horner, who now lives at Mountain Aire Golf Course near West Jefferson, tried to develop the property.

“We got an option on 535 acres from Mack,” Hastings said.

“He wanted $2 million cash plus some golf course lots in a straight purchase instead of joining us as a partner. We didn’t have the money to pay the $2 million, so we took out an option.

Mack was very good to us. He extended the option when it took us longer to develop the master plan than we thought.

“In addition to a golf course, we were going to have a tennis center and an equestrian center,” Hastings continued. “We planned to build 100 condominium residences around the tennis, equestrian and golf centers of the development. In the first phase, there were 50 single-family lots. The first phase was platted and our lot prices were reasonably priced.”

Tom Jackson, a member of the Carolinas Golf Hall of Fame for his design work, designed the Summit course. Jackson is no stranger to the area. In addition to designing new holes at Hound Ears and Blowing Rock, plus designing the Willow Valley par three course, he has the unfortunate distinction of designing five of our lost courses (Summit, Beech Mountain’s West Bowl and Buckeye Creek, and two designs on the former Broyhill property in Blowing Rock, now Sweet Grass).

“Bill and I never had been in the golf course business,” Hastings said, “so we were learning as we were going. We discovered that prospective residents, when looking at property, were more

“We had a good team assembled. I am sorry the

development didn’t work out but I don’t feel badly about it. We made a good effort. The land is still there and it would make a beautiful golf course.” ~ Jim Hastings, designer of The Summit

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Jim Hastings, one of the partners of The Summit, still has the original master plan of the proposed golf development that would have been in Deep Gap.

interested in our higher elevation lots that were not platted and ready for sale. They wanted to know what they were selling for, and we didn’t know. We wanted to sell these lots in our last phase.

“We had a sales force that operated out of offices at Colony Place off State Farm Road in Boone. They did our advertising and went to consumer shows to promote the property. We spent around $250,000 to design the course, develop our master plan and do start-up marketing. We got 25 purchase contracts with deposits, but the banks wanted us to have 50 contracts before they would loan us money.

“We estimated it would cost an additional $500,000 to build the infrastructure and continue the development plus do the marketing to get 25 more contracts. We had already spent some good money on marketing. We made a sobering decision to stop there. We returned everyone’s money, plus interest. Horner added, “We had over $1 million in property sales, but it was put in escrow and we couldn’t touch it. We couldn’t take title to the land until we paid Mack off, so the bank loan was critical. We had a good plan, it just didn’t work out. Interest rates at the time were 18 percent, and the economy was in serious shape. Our timing was bad.”

Tom Kelly, who had been head professional at Grandfather Golf & Country Club, would have been The Summit’s head golf professional and club manager. “He even bought a lot there,” Horner said.

“The Summit was going to be an affordable private club for local

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“It would have been a real

mountain course with rough terrain, but it would have worked.” ~ Tom Kelly, on his preliminary sketches for a golf course on Flannery Fork, about four miles up Winkler’s Creek Road.

During a three-year period in the mid-1980s, former Grandfather Golf & Country Club head professional Tom Kelly made serious efforts at 23 sites to build a golf course.

people, a place they could call their own,” Hastings explained.

“We were surprised that few local people showed any interest; 90 percent of the sales contracts were from outside of Boone.

Since the Boone Golf Club was so successful and was getting crowded, we thought local people would want a course to play where they could get a tee time when they wanted it. We had a good team assembled. I am sorry the development didn’t work out, but I don’t feel badly about it. We made a good effort. The land is still there, and it would make a beautiful golf course.”

Tom Kelly’s Efforts

The person who tried hardest to build a golf course in Avery and Watauga counties was never able to make it happen. During a three-year period in the mid-1980s, former Grandfather Golf & Country Club head professional Tom Kelly made serious efforts at 23 sites to build a golf course. Four of those sites made it to the preliminary design stage. (The others will be included in next spring’s issue.)

In addition to The Summit, Kelly was involved with another course that did reach beyond the formal design stage. His first effort was to try to purchase the John D. Broyhill property in Blowing Rock (now the Sweet Grass development) with partners Keith Webber and Claude Vannoy, but Broyhill decided not to sell (see Puffin’ Pebble story in August’s “Lost Courses—Part II article). Webber said, “It was Tom’s and my dream to build a golf course development. We would work together with our backgrounds—Tom in golf and me in real estate. We checked out property in Virginia and Myrtle Beach, too.”

One site Kelly considered for a golf course was the Austin family property on Flannery Fork, which is about four miles up Winkler’s Creek Road. There were 26 different landowners of the 321 acres, including the Adams family (Austin, Sam and Tom). “I did some sketches of a possible layout,” Kelly said. “It would have been a real mountain course with rough terrain, but it would have worked. No one wanted to sell so I tried to establish a 50-year land lease. It would have been neat, but that didn’t work, either.”

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Sam Adams was sympathetic to Kelly’s efforts, saying that it was hard to get all the Austins to agree on the weather, much less any other decisions. “There could have been some really pretty holes there,” Sam said.

Kelly also set his sights on National Park Service property located on the west side of the Blue Ridge Parkway and intersected

by Holloway Mountain Road, about five miles south of Blowing Rock and a mile away from the Broyhill Property. The Park Service has lease agreements with two or three private businesses to supply lodging, gas and food along the Parkway, so Kelly said to himself, “Why not a golf course?” The property’s gently rolling hills and its central location to close-by Foscoe, Banner Elk, Boone and Blowing Rock would have been a perfect site.

His efforts to secure a 99-year lease ended in frustration. “I must have talked to the National Park Service 50 times,” Kelly said. “No one could make a decision. Every time I talked to someone, they told me to talk to someone else. I didn’t know there were that many people in government. The course would have been public. I drew up the course. It would have been neat and it was on both sides of Holloway Mountain Road.”

The 160-acre Cook property off George Hayes Road provided a great location for a course. The course would have been located in the valley across from the dramatic overlook near Parkway School. “I made a preliminary design of the course and secured backing from a couple of Grandfather members and then made an offer but got turned down,” Kelly remembered.

Another piece of property Kelly liked was the ASU maintenance area on State Farm Road, which now includes the Greenway. “I had several conversations with Bob Snead at ASU,” Kelly said. “I offered to build the course for ASU and sign a contract to develop, lease and operate the course for 25 years. It would have been nice for the community. I even designed the layout of the course.

“ASU was not comfortable with a public/private partnership. It would have been a problem making it work organizationally,” he said. “I think they had plans to use the property for other things.”

“It would have been nice to have the golf course,” Snead said, “but there were too many obstacles. ASU was concerned about not creating competition with private enterprise. It would have

been an awkward fit. We try to be a good community citizen.

Also, the university was not prepared to do the government work down in Raleigh to make the public/private project a reality. We just felt there was little chance the course would happen. I’m not sure there was enough land anyway. We needed the parking, and we are very pleased with how the land is used today.”

Dennis Lehmann’s Designs

Around 2001-02, Lehmann, who developed the upscale housing development in Banner Elk called “The Farm,” decided to build a golf course next to his development. The property runs along Dobbins Road and up to and behind the Best Western Mountain Lodge. Lehmann said, “I designed a golf course going up through the orchard and back down into the meadows, into the cow pasture and across the road on the north side of Dobbins.

Our clubhouse would have been where the old barn is.

“The property was owned by William Pucket. He ended up selling the orchard to someone else who made it a residential development. It would have made a nice golf course; we were just too late with our idea.”

“I also did a golf course layout on land near the Elk River and Wilderness Trail courses but more toward Elk Park,” Lehmann continued. “The property was owned by a man from Florida.

The course would have been routed along the top of several mountain ridges, which extended over to Blevins Creek and the highway between Elk Park and the Mountain Glen golf course.

“It would have made a lousy golf course because the land was

Dennis Lehmann designed a golf course next to his upscale development called The Farm in Banner Elk. The course would have gone alongside Dobbins Road and behind the Seventh Day Adventist Church and Best Western Mountain Lodge and up into an apple orchard. He felt like the course would have been a very good one, so he decided to buy the property but it was too late—it was in the process of being sold to another buyer.

too steep and rugged. A goat couldn’t make it around there, but that’s what he wanted so I did the layout. The Lord made things to be the way they are, but certain tracts were not meant to be a golf course no matter how much dirt you moved. This one had twice the cross slope as the old Seven Devils course.” The idea to build the course on top of the ridges never went forward.

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Headwaters at Banner Elk, The...................... 866-200-3290 ������������������������� 3 Hearthstone Tavern & Grille.............................. 898-3461 ���������������������������� 4 Jackson Dining Room at the Broyhill Inn........... 262-2204 �������������������������� 68 Jo-Lynn Enterprises, Inc................................... 297-2109 �������������������������� 89 Julia Tyson DDS............................................... 265-1112 �������������������������� 83 Logs America, LLC........................................... 963-7755 ��������������������������� 4 Mack Brown Chevrolet...................................... 264-9051 �������������������������� 21 Maple’s Leather Fine Furniture ........................ 898-6110 ������������������������� 87 Mast General Store .....................................866-FOR-MAST ���������������������� 11 Mountain Bagels.............................................. 265-4141 �������������������������� 68 Mountain Construction Enterprises, Inc............ 963-8090 ������������������������� 62 Mountain Dog & Friends.................................. 963-2470 �������������������������� 96 Mountain Home & Hearth................................. 262-0051 �������������������������� 77 Mountain Land............................................. 800-849-9225 ����������������������� 46 New Lifestyles Carpet One................................ 898-8586 �������������������������� 65 One Vendeu Range / Jim Watts..................... 843-709-4969 ����������������������� 99 Page Dentistry.................................................. 265-1661 �������������������������� 51 Parkway Craft Center........................................ 295-7938 �������������������������� 93 Pet Place, The.................................................. 268-1510 �������������������������� 62 Performing Arts Series..................................... 262-4046 ������������������������ 103 Planet Tan........................................................ 262-5721 �������������������������� 44 Play It Again Sports.......................................... 264-8955 ���������������������������� 4 Precision Cabinets........................................... 262-5080 �������������������������� 33 Primo’s............................................................ 355-9800 �������������������������� 70 Professional Property Maintenance, Inc............ 898-6162 �������������������������� 47 Proper Southern Food...................................... 865-5000 �������������������������� 68 Red Onion Cafe................................................ 264-5470 �������������������������� 69 Reed Orthodontics........................................... 268-9797 �������������������������� 13 Reynolds Blue Ridge........................................ 295-8667 ���������������������������� 5 Rustic Rooster.................................................. 898-5161 �������������������������� 41 Seven Devils.................................................... 963-5343 �������������������������� 89 Shannon’s Curtain, Bed & Bath........................ 264-8321 �������������������������� 34 Shoppes at Farmers Hardware.......................... 264-8801 ������������������������� 15 Ski Country Sports........................................... 898-9786 �������������������������� 93 Speckled Trout Cafe & Oyster Bar..................... 295-9819 �������������������������� 71 Stick Boy Bread Company................................ 268-9900 �������������������������� 70 Sugar Top Resort Sales.................................... 898-5226 �������������������������� 65 Sunalei Preserve.............................................. 263-8711 ���������������������������� 9 Superior Spas.................................................. 963-6624 ������������������������� 15 Tatum Galleries & Interiors............................... 963-6466 �������������������������� 47 Todd Bush Photography................................... 898-8088 ������������������������ 101 Vidalia............................................................. 263-9176 �������������������������� 70 Watauga County Christmas Tree Association..... 264-3061 �������������������������� 17 Watauga Insurance Agency, Inc........................ 264-8291 ������������������������� 61 Watsonatta Western World................................ 264-4540 �������������������������� 83 Woolly Worm Festival......................... 898-5605 or 800-972-2183 ������������ 99

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Parting Shot... By Richard Tumbleston

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our years ago, Boone artist Richard Tumbleston began contemplating his now-completed acrylic painting of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

“I was not sure I had the energy and commitment to undertake such an involved and complex image,” Richard remembers.

But one night in mid-March, the painting would not let him sleep. The next morning he began; in late September, it was finished after more than 1,200 hours.

“My love and reverence for the Parkway kept me at the easel,” he said.

In the painting, vignettes of animal and plant life flank and frame a few of the Parkway’s structures and landscapes. Richard selected places he loves and has vis104

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ited many times, including Cone Manor, Linville Falls, the Black Mountain range, the Peaks of Otter, the tunnel at Craggy Gardens, Mabry Mill and Brinegar Cabin, the famous Linn Cove Viaduct and the beloved Grandfather Mountain.

“I simply felt like the Blue Ridge Parkway called for a painting that would require a bit of traveling for the viewer’s eye,” said Richard. “The painting, like the Parkway itself, I thought, should not be experienced in one glance. It calls for a wandering eye; surprises were essential.”

The stone arch grounds the painting and invites the viewer to travel on.

“The Parkway is a road that releases the restraints of a destination,” Richard

October / November 2010

said. “This meandering ribbon of highway invites us to wander, and the journey is as much inward and private as external and grand.

“Built during hard times, the vision of it stands eternal, reminding us of the good that can be born of hardship,” he continued. “Now 75, though young by time’s measure, the Blue Ridge Parkway for many is already an archetype. For generations, may she nurture our wanderings through the beauty of the Blue Ridge.”

Signed and numbered giclee prints in three sizes on paper and in three sizes on canvas will be available by mid-October.

Contact Richard Tumbleston at 828-2647147; his studio-gallery is open by request.

FAULKNER: UNOBSTRUCTED VIEWS in Blowing Rock area! Quality custom-built home with walking trails and extensive landscaping.

End-of-the-road privacy with substantial acreage protected by National Park Service and Conservation Trust Lands. $899,000 STUART: ADORABLE MOUNTAIN COTTAGE with flat yard with sweeping long range views of John’s River Gorge. Phenomenal mountain views to Charlotte. Turn key cottage is being sold furnished desirable Misty Mountain neighborhood. $399,000 (Additional view lot available for $99,000.)

LANGLEY: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION near the new high school, walking trails, sports complexes and parks. Brand new w/one year builder’s warranty. Smart construction with 4 bedrooms/ 3.5 baths, hardwood oak floors, cherry cabinetry, stainless appliances, granite countertops, and 2 beautiful stone fireplaces $589,000 ISENHOUR: SPECTACULAR LONG RANGE VIEWS with spacious covered decks, stone fireplace and open floor plan. Kitchen/ Dining/Living all open to the view. New stainless steel appliances, new granite countertops, and charming slate/stone ceramic tile.

Located in desirable Misty Mtn area with beautiful perennial gardens. $499,000 GIFFORD: Rare upstairs condo at The Cones with vaulted ceilings and loft/family room. Spacious rooms and tons of natural light. Excellent location—less than one mile to the Village of Blowing Rock. Short walk to Bass Lake and Cone Park. Pets allowed. $399,000 FREEMAN: VIEW, VIEW, VIEW! Unsurpassed views of John’s River Gorge sweeping all the way around to Grandfather Mountain!

Beautifully renovated with wide plank pine floors, granite countertops, slate and ceramic floors, and two enormous stone fireplaces. Extra-deep decks for entertaining and enjoying 100 mile views. Fully furnished. $895,000 FLANAGAN: Immaculate & comfortable home in well established neighborhood with amazing amount of square footage. Spacious rooms, large decks, gentle yard, 2 woodburning stone fireplaces and a separate wood stove. Recent renovations include Cleanspace in crawlspace, new windows, exterior doors, and new well pump. $350,000 COUCH: Unique and private ridge top estate. Beautiful high pastures with 360 long range views. 113-acre mix of timberland and newly fenced pasture, ATV trails, and 1-acre spring fed stocked fishing pond. Two cabins already on site: 3BR/2BA cabin built in 2006 w/stone fireplace, master, kitchen, and laundry on main.

Nestled in pines: Addi’l 1BR/1BA cabin for guest. $2,395,000 CAHILL: MAIN STREET BLOWING ROCK with Johns River Gorge and Grandfather Mountain views. Walk to shops, restaurants etc from this custom built 4 bedroom/4 bath gem. $799,000 ELLIS: Beautiful condo with terrific upgrades including Cambria quartz counter tops and stainless appliances including a gas range. Enjoy a cozy wood fire in the two story stone fireplace. The vaulted ceilings in the great room are inspiring and the view of Moses Cone Estate from the covered porch is but part of the beautiful view. $548,500 COX: TOP-OF-THE-MOUNTAIN location in desirable Misty Mountain.

Unparalleled long range views of Grandfather Mountain, Johns River and Linville Gorge! Soaring ceilings overlook 132 ft. of spacious covered porches. 3300 ft. of living space, 4-Car garage, elevator, central vac, security system, Kohler fixtures, custom Craftmaid kitchen cabinetry, 2 stone fireplaces. $995,000 COHN: WHAT A VIEW!! Tranquil and private setting close in to town of Boone. Lovely deck and covered porch are focused on the view.

Vaulted ceilings and dramatic glass draw your attention to the beautiful site. Also a small stream on the property. $337,500

Blowing Rock Properties, inc

800-849-0147 • 828/295-9200

www.BlowingRockProperties.com October / November

2010

High Country Magazine

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Actual morning view from Echota on the Ridge overlooking the Watauga River Valley.

IT’S MORE THAN A NEW PHASE OF DEVELOPMENT— IT’S A NEW PHENOMENON. Introducing Chalakee, The Best Echota Yet.

Echota became the most successful community in the history of the High Country with 70-mile views, the perfect location between Boone, Banner Elk and Blowing Rock, and a host of resort-style amenities. Now comes Chalakee, a new community of condominiums and townhomes resting on a dramatic plateau moments from Echota On The Ridge. Views will be incomparable. Interior finishes will dazzle. Surprising features will include built-in grills on spacious decks. One-, three- and four bedroom residences are available with one-bedroom condominiums starting at just $199,900.

Call 800.333.7601 to arrange a visit.

Or visit EchotaNC.com/Chalakee for more information.

C HALAKEE THE BEST E CHOTA YET

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Visit one of our sales offices located at Hwy 105 S, the entrance to Echota at October / November 2010 133 Echota Pkwy, Boone, NC or 1107 Main St, Suite C, Blowing Rock, NC.

High Country Magazine