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Smoky Mountain News

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CONTENTS On the Cover In the years leading up to the real estate bust of 2008, tens of thousands of acres of land in Western North Carolina were purchased as part of large, planned developments. Many of those developments went bust, leaving huge tracts of land partially developed and in foreclosure. This week The Smoky Mountain News is kicking off a summer-long series looking at the lingering ramifications of those giddy times and how the fallout is still affecting many parts of WNC’s economy. (Page 8-10)

News Fast-tracked fracking bill OK for supporters, worries detractors… . . . . . . . . . . 6 Craigslist ad leads to alligator recovery in Clyde . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Jail inmate healthcare bills keep rising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Cyclists retrace Trail of Tears route to Oklahoma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 WNC environmental groups find strentgth in merging. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 GOP to meet in Cherokee sans protesters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Jackson TDA mulling pros, cons of hiring executive director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Macon cuts retiremee health care benefits as costs rise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Rep. Presnell takes up cause of Maggie man fighting annexation . . . . . . . . . . 18 Local author and minister grapples with fairness, forgiveness and mercy . . . . 14 Funds needed to convert old prison in Hazelwood into resource center . . . . 17 Cullowhee-based teaching center searches for money in Raleigh . . . . . . . . . 18

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Outdoors Graveyard Fields is loved to death, gets makeover. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

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Drilling, fracking bill speeds through legislature Law paves the way for natural gas extraction, but supply questions remain

BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER atural gas drilling is one step closer to becoming reality after the North Carolina General Assembly delivered a newly ratified bill to Gov. Pat McCrory’s desk on Friday, May 30. The bill wouldn’t allow drilling to begin until 60 days after rules currently being written by the Mining and Energy Commission are adopted, but the act lifts the moratorium on hydraulic fracturing that had been in place in North Carolina and outlines a legal framework to pave the way for energy development in the state.

“I think it’s really important that we use all our resources,” said Sen. Jim Davis, RFranklin, who co-sponsored the bill. “It’s going to be a boon to our economy. It’s going to add more jobs, and we can do all that and be environmentally responsible as well. That bill is going to have the toughest environmental regulations of any state in the country.”

That’s not a universal opinion, however.

Though the bill passed the Senate 33-12, the House vote was closer, 64-50. Rep. Joe Sam Queen, D-Waynesville, believes the bill was pushed through too hastily, including too many concessions to the energy industry and not enough time for constituents to react.

“There are a lot of loose ends and there is no need to rush this at all,” Queen said. “It is foolhardy. The risks far outweigh the gain.”

Smoky Mountain News

June 4-10, 2014

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THE PATH THROUGH THE CAPITAL The first version of the bill was filed in the Senate on May 15, and it passed first reading on May 19. By May 22, it had passed the third and final reading before being sent to the House. The House then took up the bill May 27 and passed the third reading May 29. Later that same day, the Senate concurred on the House’s changes, and by May 30 the Energy Modernization Act was on the governor’s desk.

As of press time, it is still there.

“We had a heck of a time just meeting their deadline, so they succeeded in having our backs to the wall,” Queen said.

“It happened quickly,” said Katie Hicks, assistant director of Clean Water for North Carolina. “It happened without enough time for constituents to make their feelings known

“That whole process is going to be dynamic,” Davis said.

“It’s always going to be open to revision.”

The 26-page bill changes the deadline for the MEC’s rules from Oct. 1 to Jan. 1, 2015, establishes an Oil and Gas Commission under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and reconstitutes the current MEC under the name North Carolina Oil and Gas Commission, with different rules for naming members. It establishes minimum bonding requirements and permitting fees, states that companies will be responsible for water contamination within a half-mile of each well and outlaws injecting waste associated with fracking into the ground, to name some Rigs like this one, at a well in Wyoming, are used in horizontal of the ground it covers.

The bill includes a secwells that may produce natural gas or oil, depending on the forma- tion outlining who will tion. In North Carolina, it would most likely be natural gas. BLM photo have what information when it comes to the to the legislature.” chemical composition of fracking formulas Davis, however, takes issue with that and makes it a misdemeanor to disclose inforassertion. mation protected as a trade secret.

“This has been in the works since at least two years ago,” he said.

EBATING LOCAL CONTROL Over that time, the chief sponsors of the bill visited Pennsylvania and Arkansas, both But it does all this while invalidating any states that have recently become high-pro- local rules that would “prohibit or [have] the ducing gas states, to gather information, effect of prohibiting oil and gas exploration, Davis said, and the Mining and Energy development, and production.” Fracking and Commission has been working on its rules horizontal drilling themselves are hot-button since it was formed in July 2012. issues that bring out passionate people on And this bill isn’t necessarily the starting both sides, but this section of the bill has likegun for fracking and horizontal drilling in wise elicited some heated opinion.

North Carolina, Davis said. According to the “We have totally voted against it, done a bill, no development can happen until per- resolution opposing the fracking bill,” said mits are issued, and no permits can be issued Swain County Commissioner David Monteith. until two months after the MEC’s rules are Monteith, Chairman Phil Carson and County adopted. The rules must be written by Jan. 1, Manager Kevin King even traveled to Raleigh 2015, and they will be subject to legislative to tell Davis and Queen just that. review in the next regular session. That “There’s not enough information, and one means that legislators will be able to intro- of the things we did tell our legislators is that duce bills to disprove any portion of the rules. something that takes place in the eastern part of

The dynamic duo of fracking and horizontal drilling If you’re looking to extract fossil fuels from the ground, you’ve got your pick of ways to do it. But the technology that’s exponentially expanded the U.S.’s energy potential over the past decade or so is the combination of horizontal drilling with fracking, both of which have been the subject of media

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attention and scrutiny. If energy exploration did eventually occur in Western North Carolina, that’s probably how it would be done.

Horizontal wells typically start out plunging one to two miles underground before hitting the oil- or gas-bearing formation, called the pay zone, and then turn to extend horizontally through it, sometimes as far as two miles.

During the fracking stage of the operation, explosives are injected to create fissures in the pay zone rock, and frack

the state may not work on our mountains, and we need to look to make sure,” Monteith said.

“Until there’s more information comes out, our board has instructed me that the county needs to be opposed to it,” King said.

“We alerted our legislators that’s the position Swain County is taking.”

Not all counties are following Swain’s lead, however. The energy industry comes with a steep learning curve, so some leaders are taking the middle road for now, stepping back from an opinion until they’ve had time to educate themselves a little more.

“I think there’s probably a lot of education that needs to take place for a lot of folks, including myself, because I don’t understand the issues enough to know what I should be concerned about,” said Jackson County Manager Chuck Wooten.

“I’m concerned about the environmental aspects of it, and I’ve heard conflicting messages on it,” said Haywood County Commissioner Kevin Ensley. “I’d probably study it more as a commissioner before I made up my mind, but I think it’s America’s future, really, natural gas.”

“Conflicting messages” is probably an accurate statement. When it comes to fracking and horizontal drilling, environmental groups tell horror stories of contaminated drinking water, air polluted from heavy truck traffic and decimated land left behind from irresponsible energy companies walking away from too-low bonds. Meanwhile, proponents promote it as a panacea, a technology that has progressed so far as to be nearly infallibly environmentally safe, an industry that promises easy money and abundant jobs.

“I would like to get evidence that fracking is safe for everyone before it’s done, and I’m not willing to take the industry at its word,” said Robert Smith, acting board chair of the Jackson-Macon Conservation Alliance.

With a nearly limitless number of questions to ask and issues to explore, some local leaders see wisdom in the bill’s clause disallowing counties from banning the industry in their boundaries.

“Local control is the best, but it almost seems like there would be too many things involved to make a decision on,” Ensley said.

“The state has the ability to hire scientists to come in and make a decision, and the county wouldn’t have the expertise. I hate to say the state could make a better decision, but they definitely have more resources.”

“I certainly think the state does have the resources we don’t have,” Wooten agreed.

That’s precisely why, Davis said, the bill includes that provision.

fluid — a combination of water, chemicals and sand — is added to prop the cracks open, allowing any oil or gas the rocks contain to flow into the wellbore and up to the surface.

But while horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing have been around individually for decades — the first experimental hydraulic fracturing treatment in the U.S. took place in 1947 and the first horizontal well was completed in 1929 — it’s only been the last 10 or 15 years that the two have been used together.

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Gas can accumulate associated with shale, coal beds or in a basin. Right: These estimates show the revenues North Carolina could stand to gain using other gas-producing states’ methods of taxation if drilling yielded 100,000 MMcf. North Carolina Oil and Gas Study graphics.

CHANCES FOR DEVELOPMENT

Potential revenue for 100,000 MMcf

Price, director of the Jackson County E c o n o m i c Development Commission.

MAY 15: Bill is filed in the Senate as Senate Bill 786 Though the bill, as MAY 19: S786 passes first reading. written, doesn’t give MAY 21: S786 passes second reading. counties the ability to MAY 22: S786 passes third reading. opt out, local governMAY 27: S786 passes a first reading in the House. It is referred ments do get to decide to the Public Utilities and Energy Committee and then to the how to address whatevFinance Committee. er situation the mineral MAY 28-29: S786 resources below bring passes second and forth in their jurisdicthird reading, with tion. But it will be a seven of 20 proYES while before it’s possiposed amendments Sen. Jim Davis, R-Franklin ble to make a plan. adopted.

Rep. Michele Presnell, R-Burnsville “Right now we MAY 30: S786 is Rep. Roger West, R-Marble don’t know enough to sent to Gov. Pat be able to say, ‘OK, we NO McCrory. feel like this is going to Rep. Joe Sam Queen, D-Waynesville SUMMER/FALL impact Jackson County, 2014: U.S. so let’s take all these Geological Survey steps to be ready for it’ to assess fossil fuel potential in Western North Carolina set to when it might not even begin. be present,” Price said.

JAN. 1, 2015: Deadline for the Mining and Energy Commission to “It’s way too early for us present their rules for drilling in North Carolina. S786 extended the to be able to say anydeadline, which was previously set for Oct. 1, 2014. Permitting thing definitive with could begin starting 60 days after the rules are adopted. how we feel like this is Source: www.ncleg.net going to impact Jackson County.”

“We just have to folresource potential in Western North low the process closely,” agreed Mark Clasby, Carolina. Testing will begin in late summer or Haywood County’s economic development early fall using rock samples taken from director.

Department of Transportation rights-of-way.

And, potential economic impact isn’t limThe General Assembly has appropriated ited to the reality of what’s under the ground. $300,000 statewide in 2014-15 and $250,000 It also depends on the marketplace, and natfor 2015-16, with $11,725 earmarked for the ural gas prices are historically volatile. seven western counties. If the initial work According to the U.S. Energy Information indicates potential for shale gas develop- Administration, the March 2014 citygate ment, an additional $128,000 will become price for natural gas was $6.56 per thousand available for WNC. cubic feet, just about half of its historic high, recorded in July 2008 when natural gas sold $12.48 per thousand cubic feet. But it’s LANNING FOR THE FUTURE for risen substantially from just one year ago, Until those numbers come in, the future when that number was $4.75.

With so many unknowns milling around, will remain an elusive guess to local leaders then, local leaders are waiting for the dust to and planners.

“I would say we’re probably looking settle before they plan for the future.

“It is just a wait and see approach for us through the summer months before we really know how this will impact us,” said Rich now,” Price said.

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243-247

A timeline of the Energy Modernization Act

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But in practice, natural gas drilling won’t necessarily become a statewide reality. When it comes to fossil fuels, not all formations are created equal, and wells cost millions of dollars to drill, so energy companies would concentrate their efforts where a return was most likely.

Though the wells aren’t producing since North Carolina put a moratorium on oil and gas drilling, the piedmont region of the state already has some exploratory wells. That region of the state contains part of the Deep River basin, which the U.S. Geological Survey named in the top three of the five East Coast basins it assessed for energy potential.

“I doubt we’re going to get an commercial enterprise to invest the time and the effort and the money in to harvest that natural gas resource if there’s only a small limiting supply,” Davis said.

However, it’s all but impossible to know for sure what’s under the ground until you start poking holes. Even in a productive region, a well drilled in one location could pump up a fortune while one drilled a mile away comes up dry.

In a few months, though, the USGS will start the research to take its best stab at the

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June 4-10, 2014

“You can’t have different regulations in all 100 counties, so we had to have a template to operate it from the state,” he said. “For example, counties don’t have the experts to know how to deal with this issue. They don’t have the geologist on staff, they don’t have the particular environmental staff, they don’t have the legal issues. This is a complicated issue, and as such it needs to be regulated by the state.”

Queen, however, disagrees.

“There might be some local government issues,” he said, citing needs such as increased law enforcement, fire protection and road crews that could accompany a boomtown. “But they’ve pretty much tied local government’s hands. Local government will have to be first responders, they’ll have to deal with the cleanup.”

An amendment to delete that section of the bill was introduced in the Senate but defeated by a 30-16 party-line vote.

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Who pays when developers walk away?

Picking up the pieces proves costly, time-consuming for local governments

BY B ECKY JOHNSON STAFF WRITER n a region still reeling from damaged land and dented lives in the wake of the real estate boom and bust, signs of salvation are few and far between. But here’s one for the history books.

Twice in the past year, Haywood County has used a little-known clause of financial legalese to hold developers’ feet to the fire after they walked away mid-stream. It’s a minuscule but unprecedented victory in a rocky world of marred up mountains and abandoned developments.

Dozens of developers across the mountains landed in foreclosure and declared bankruptcy when the boom went bust starting in 2008. What they left behind wasn’t always pretty.

Miles of dirt roads were roughed in, zigzagging up mountainsides, over ridges and across farmland in the quest for prime house sites that were supposed to make the developers’ rich. But the seemingly insatiable thirst for mountain getaways dried up as the global mortgage crises widened, and developers’ luck ran out.

“It was risky business,” said Gavin Brown, one of the top real estate attorneys in Haywood County. “They were buying on credit, but didn’t have the credit to buy it, and nobody was checking. But it didn’t matter because the prices were going up. It was a no-fail proposition. Most people never saw the risk.”

The boom was built on the faulty premise of never-ending, ever-appreciating real estate sales, and Brown was trapped in the echo chamber right along with the rest of the bankers, Realtors, attorneys, developers — and most of all, the buyers propping it all up.

“I thought Haywood County land prices were immune. I was dead wrong on that, and here I am an experienced real estate lawyer,” Brown said. “I was feeding the frenzy.”

Subconsciously, however, something seemed amiss.

“I thought, ‘How can this be?’” said Jay 8 Coward, a real estate attorney in Jackson

Smoky Mountain News

June 4-10, 2014

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County. “I felt like there was something wrong with the whole economy when residential lots were going for $250,000, $300,000, $350,000 — and it was just acre lots. But it was crazy everywhere.”

With real estate sales occuring fast and furious, there was little time to worry about the nagging doubt. Coward’s office ballooned to a staff of 26 to handle the volume. But by 2010, he was down to six employees.

“The market was frozen stiffer than a lake in Minnesota in the winter time,” said Brown.

The no-fail proposition had soured.

“The buyers were saying, ‘Wait a minute, something is wrong here. We aren’t buying any real estate today,’” Coward said.

Loose lenders collectively backed hundreds of millions in loans for developers, banking on the sure bet of future lot sales to make it all work.

“If you could fog up a mirror you could get a loan,” said Jack Debnam, the owner of WNC Properties, one of the leading real estate firms in Jackson County.

“Loans were being made to developers that just didn’t have the wherewithal,” said Chip Killian, Haywood County attorney.

“They were left with lots they couldn’t sell.”

And bank notes they couldn’t pay.

Developers took down their shingles, folded up their tents and walked away, many of them bankrupt and foreclosed on, with no means to polish off the vast network of dirt roads, culverts and cleared land they’d engraved on the mountains during the shortlived heyday.

Jennifer Bradish, a Haywood County erosion inspector, surveys road banks in a defunct development that have been slowly eroding and washing down the mountain for a few years. After the developer walked away from the site, the county exercised a safeguard mechanism known as surety bonds against the developer to fix the problems. Becky Johnson photo

FLASH FORWARD Miles of roads now languish on the land in various stages of disarray and disrepair, some still bleeding silt down the mountainside years later. If the developer is out of business, there’s little recourse to fix the environmental damage stemming from half-built roads.

Enter men like Marc Pruett.

Last week, Pruett was scouting a threemile gravel road leading to Crabtree Bald, a 5,000-foot high rolling meadow in Haywood County that was once destined for million dollar houses with million dollar views until the bust drove the developer out.

Twice, Pruett stopped to inspect denuded banks scoured by a recent rainstorm. The gouged out banks were so steep they were crumbling and collapsing like an ocean wave folding over on itself, but in a slow motion.

“You just about can’t build it good enough

Over coming months, join The Smoky Mountain News as we explore the lasting and farreaching implications of the real estate boom and bust in the mountains. The summer-long series will examine what went wrong, what can be learned, and where we go from here.

to keep things like this from happening,” said Pruett, Haywood County’s lead erosion control inspector. “You’re battling natural forces.”

And so far, gravity held the winning hand.

Soil had sloughed off by the dump truck load on the down-slope side. Inching toward the edge, it was soon apparent the road’s shoulder wasn’t a shoulder at all — just an overhang supported by nothing at all after the bank caved in below.

“I wouldn’t stand there if I were you,” Pruett said.

The vertical walls of soil, with nothing to hold them back, would keep on tumbling it seemed until equilibrium was reached, decades or perhaps even epochs from now.

Pruett, a geologist by training, discusses the mountains from a historical perspective, noting that they were formed more than 450 million years ago.

“The Appalachian mountains were in relative harmonic balance until 500 years ago.

Then we come in and manipulate the topography in ways that may be attainable — and may not,” Pruett said.

For a man who loves the mountains, Pruett’s job can’t be easy. The boom was no doubt taxing. All day, every day, he traveled

lize what we can.”

While rare, Haywood isn’t the only county to use a surety bond to fix erosion violations.

Macon County, which makes developers post $3,000 per disturbed acre, called in the financial guarantee for a small development in the Nantahala area.

“It got to where the owner wasn’t responding,” said Matt Mason, Macon County planner. “They went bankrupt and lost the property, so we went through the legal steps to get the bond called in.”

The money, about $15,000, paid for seed and straw to sew groundcover over bare areas that were washing away. At Crabtree Bald in Haywood, the problems are more costly due to underlying stability issues. Road banks will have to be recontoured with a gentler slope before seeding has a hope of stemming the erosion.

In the worst case scenario, unstable roads can be triggers for dangerous landslides, witnessed by a host of such slides in Macon, Jackson and Haywood over the past decade that stemmed from road cuts.

HOLDING THE BAG Unstable roads pose an ecological conundrum, but they have a human side-effect, too.

S EE DEVELOPERS, PAGE 10

A MUDDY TRAIL Meanwhile, however, the issue of steadily eroding road banks wasn’t settled.

“It got really complicated,” Pruett said.

“The property had transferred to a new owner, but the previous owner was the one who conducted the grading work and signed the sediment plan as being financially responsible.”

Pruett tried cajoling Ullmann to come back and fix the erosion problems.

“We had repeatedly requested that certain areas be stabilized,” Pruett said. “A big gulley opened up in a road ditch and sediment has been running off into a tributary that feeds Crabtree Creek.”

Months went by, and soon a couple of years.

Pruett finally issued erosion citations in late 2012.

“The site work appears to be abandoned, and eroding areas have not been repaired,” Pruett wrote in an erosion inspection report in October 2012.

The inspection noted seven violations of sediment and erosion control laws.

Among them: “graded slopes too steep,” “unprotected exposed slopes,” and “insufficient measures to retain sediment on site.”

Pruett had outlined these same issues in past inspections, including one six months prior, but to no avail.

It was finally time to pull the trigger on a never-before-exercised clause in the county’s sediment and erosion law: cashing in a financial guarantee large developers must post before they start grading. It’s a safeguard in the event developers walk away. The county can tap the financial guarantee and use the money to fix erosion problems. The developer can do it one of three ways — put up cash in an escrow account, take out a surety bond from an insurance company, or post a finan-

Smoky Mountain News

The Crabtree Bald tract was one of several amassed by Atlanta-based developer Robert Ullmann in the mid-2000s. Ullmann bought up more than 4,000 acres in Haywood, Jackson, Macon and Swain counties with plans to carry out half a dozen big-time developments, all concurrently.

But they came with big-time bank loans, and his mountain development empire built on borrowed money came crashing down when lot sales dried up, landing him in foreclosure on at least three of the projects.

Ullmann did not return messages seeking

cial guarantee through a bank.

It had been on the books for 15 years, but never before tapped.

“Before the recession we never had any problem. Then we started having developers going under,” said Chip Killian, an attorney for Haywood County.

The county set the wheels in motion to call in the erosion guarantee from Ullmann, about $40,000 in all. The money is now finally in the county’s hands, with a contract pending for work to begin this summer.

There’s a downside, however. Haywood developers only have to put up $2,500 for every acre of soil disturbed, and it only applies to larger developments.

“We will never have enough money from the bonds to fix all the problems up there,” Pruett said. “But it will go a long way. At least we have some level of bonding and can fix the problems that speak to environmental damage.”

The resolution for Crabtree Bald is the best of a bad situation, said Lynn Sprague, executive director of the Southwestern Resource and Development Council, which was contracted by the county to oversee the erosion repair.

“It will not fix the entire problem,” Sprague said. “There is erosion and sediment occurring and it is getting in the waterways.

But it is good we can get up there and stabi-

June 4-10, 2014

CAUGHT IN THE LURCH

comment for this article.

Crabtree Bald was one of Ullmann’s development endeavors, a 760-acre tract straddling the saddle of a high but gentle ridgeline.

He envisioned up to 250 homesites on the tract, but never sold a one before the bust hit.

Ullmann was staring down foreclosure when a buyer emerged. For a cool $3.4 million, Bill Sansom, owner of the Knoxvillebased Hackney Company, a successful wholesale grocery distributor, bought the sweeping Crabtree Bald tract in 2010. The sale likely fell short of what Ullmann had put in to the property, considering the cost of building a threemile road to the top and the initial price tag for the land itself.

Sansom is like many buyers stepping in to buy abandoned or foreclosed subdivisions these days. They aren’t the next wave of developers. Instead, they just want a pretty piece of mountain property to hang on to. And Sansom, one of Tennessee’s wealthiest executives and a heavyweight in the state’s business, political and civic circles, had the means to do it.

He owns an even larger tract bordering the one he bought from Ullmann.

And for now at least, there’s no development plans on the horizon for either, according to Ricky Mull, a local caretaker for the property on Sansom’s payroll.

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the back roads, winding through far-flung coves and over mountain gaps to bear witness to the legions of bulldozers, backhoes, track hoes and excavators digging up the land.

“I remember saying, ‘On any given day there are probably 100 people right now sitting on equipment grading land in Haywood County,’” Pruett said.

It’s an uncanny image — 100 engines cranking up each morning, scattered across every corner of the county like 100 dice thrown on a map, ripping and ramming their way through the mountains.

And when machinery failed, they turned to dynamite, blasting roads through stubborn terrain to reach the prime high-elevation home sites.

“Some of the mountain roads in the 2000s were $1 million a mile,” Pruett said, citing the widespread use of dynamite.

Pruett was often the only outside eyes to see the scope of development playing out tract by tract, but collectively adding up to an unprecedented era of human impact on the land.

“People didn’t understand what was going on in the hinterlands,” Pruett said.

The workload in Pruett’s office is a good barometer for the development boom and bust — the “very busy” time going from about 2000 to 2008.

“It absolutely ran without a breath,” Pruett said.

Pruett works in a much different landscape now. He’s the main mop-up crew for defunct developments with lingering erosion issues.

But Pruett is hardly a foe to developers.

He doesn’t throw the book at them. He doesn’t judge. He doesn’t put the screws to people he doesn’t like. Because Pruett, a Grammy Award-winning mountain banjo player and long-time Boy Scout leader, likes pretty much everyone.

Pruett technically doesn’t care what a developer does to his own land. Mar it up as much as you want, but just don’t let it run, slide, slip or spill onto other people’s land or into the creeks — according to state erosion laws.

“It does not tell you what you can or cannot do on your own property. It tells you what you cannot do to property owned by others, to public property and to natural resources owned by all,” Pruett said.

Pruett is a realist, however.

“We know we are going to lose some mud,” Pruett said.

Crabtree Bald is one of the rare cases, however, where Pruett’s amiable nature and softspoken ways were unable to win compliance.

After a development failed, a Tennessee businessman bought Crabtree Bald (top) and has no plans to develop the tract. With a new team of local developers at the helm, the previously abandoned Avalon subdivision in Haywood County (above) is on the rebound. The county called in surety bonds put up by the original developer to finish off roads. The wide, paved, well-built roads and presence of an active, onsite development team helps set Avalon apart from the glut of lots on the market. Becky Johnson photos 9

lots in those developments to ensure the infrastructure they were promised was provided.”

Road building guarantees weren’t required in Jackson County until 2007 when its first-ever development ordinance was passed. By then, however, it was too late. The county was already awash in subdivisions put in during an anything-goes era, with no rules governing the quality of roads, let alone financial guarantees.

Now, at least, Jackson County requires developers to pony up a financial guarantee, but it’s doesn’t help those who bought during the boom.

Macon County, likewise, didn’t require financial guarantees when it would have mattered most. Macon’s first development regulations came along even later than Jackson’s, not until 2008, and it was only then that developers had to post a bond to ensure roads got built as promised.

June 4-10, 2014

OUNCE OF PREVENTION

Marc Pruett, an erosion inspector in Haywood County, offers a rare insider’s view on the scope of terrain-altering development during the mountain’s real estate boom. “During the good times when the money was flowing, it was all over the map. We had developers from out of state, who never visited their sites. Conversely we had local people who visited their sites frequently — and we had everything in between,” Pruett said. Becky Johnson photo DEVELOPERS, CONTINUED FROM 9

Smoky Mountain News

Buyers who paid top dollar for mountain home sites were counting on developers to build the roads that would lead to their dream lots. But if the road was never built — or was built so shoddily it is barely passable — their dream lot is rendered worthless.

Developers in Jackson County regularly sold lots that had no road leading to them, often to out-of-state buyers who would snatch them up sight unseen during sales blitzes held in big cities across the country, from Miami to Chicago to Las Vegas.

“A lot of real estate got moved that way.

People signed a contract to buy a piece of property they had never even seen,” said Jay Coward, a real estate attorney in Jackson County.

“I feel sorry for people who bought lots at some of those sales,” said Jack Debnam, a Realtor in Jackson County. He occasionally fields calls from out-of-state buyers who got stuck with lots that have no road leading to 10 them.

The plan, of course, was to build the roads later. But developers went broke and walked away.

“A lot of them went into foreclosure before all the roads were built,” said Gerald Green, Jackson County planner.

And now, buyers have no recourse.

“I’ve gotten calls from a lot of lot owners asking what could be done and can the county do anything,” said Green. “But without having any kind of bond or financial guarantee, there is nothing we can do. We can’t do anything about it.”

Surety bonds to safeguard against erosion issues have been on the books in most counties since the late 1990s or early 2000s. But those don’t address roads promised by developers yet never delivered on.

That problem needs a separate type of financial guarantee — one that covers road construction itself. Few counties had that mechanism in place, but in hindsight they wish they had.

“It would have helped,” Green said. “It would have protected the people who bought

Haywood County was one of the few counties that required developers to post financial guarantees for their road network.

“It protects the person buying the property, buying the lots,” said Kris Boyd, Haywood County planner. “If the developer fails to do it we have money posted to be able to complete the project.”

Only once has Boyd had to call a developer’s hand to finish road work, however. That developer was once again Ullmann, but this time for a different development in his selfdescribed “resort property portfolio” in the WNC mountains.

For this one, Ullmann had amassed 500 acres from various owners for an upscale development known as Avalon, which borders Junaluska Highlands.

He launched Avalon in 2006 and sold about 30 lots — most in the $180,000 to $200,000 range — before the bust hit. When it did, lot sales screeched to a halt and Ullmann fell behind on his financing with SunTrust bank.

When SunTrust foreclosed against Ullmann in 2010, Ullmann owed SunTrust more than $4 million, including interest.

By the end of the year, the bank had unloaded it to a group of local developers for just $900,000.

Keeping the name Avalon, they picked up the development where Ullmann left off. But Ullmann had departed without the final road paving required under the county’s subdivision rules.

“The people who bought the lots were assured the roads would be paved,” Boyd said.

“In order for those folks to get what they were supposed to be getting when they bought their land, we exercised the right to collect surety bonds in the absence of the developer.”

Ullmann had posted $143,000 in cash to an escrow account with the county and took out surety bonds totally another $167,000.

Ullmann fought the county when it tried to cash in the escrow account, however.

“He requested his money back, but the work had not been completed and so the request was denied,” Boyd said.

The county also faced resistance from the insurance company that held Ullmann’s sure-

ty bonds.

“It took a long time to get the money from the bond company,” Boyd said. “You file a claim and then there’s the legal stuff that goes back and forth.”

It took nearly two years for the county to claim the $310,000 initially posted by Ullmann and put it toward Avalon’s road work. The money was finally secured last August, and the road work is now done It was the first time a developer in the seven western counties had been called on the carpet through surety bonds.

Randy Best, a local contractor hired to finish out Avalon’s roads, is glad the county did it.

“It had to be done right and if the developer didn’t do it right they could recall the bond money and hire somebody to do it right,” Best said. “It protects those people who bought lots. They paid high dollar for those lots. When Ullmann went under those people would have been stuck.”

Best is ultimately one of three partners who bought Avalon out of foreclosure.

Today, Avalon is among the rare club of rescued developments. It’s wide roads are pristinely paved, it has an active sales office, and a present developer who’s on site daily.

The confidence of lot owners has returned.

“People were waiting to see what was going to happen. Before we took it over it looked like a ghost town in there,” Best said.

“They are very glad we took it over.”

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

While Haywood has only pulled the trigger twice, the financial guarantees it requires proved a handy tool on several occasions. The threat of calling in surety bonds helped compel developers to step up.

Macon Planner Matt Mason said surety bonds aren’t failsafe. Surety bonds are a type of insurance, and as with most insurance claims, the company holding the policy fights over the payout.

“They want to take it to court and settle it for 50 percent of the value,” Mason said. The payout can fall short of what it really takes to shore up and finish out the development roads.

And, there was another problem.

“When the market crashed, nobody could get bonded to do a subdivision,” Mason said.

War-torn lenders are leery of putting up a financial guarantee for developers.

The more common route for developers now is to post cash in an escrow account with the county — with an extra 25 percent cushion tacked on to engineering estimates for the roadwork.

It certainly ups the ante for developers.

Only the most cash-endowed developer could afford that kind of upfront capital. In Jackson, the developer of the new Cullowhee River Club is one of the few new developments to be launched post-recession. The developer is posting $1.25 million in cash in an escrow account with the county to guarantee completion of the road system, Green said.

The climate is certainly more arduous for developers these days, but perhaps that’s as it should be.

“Hopefully as development starts back up again, people will think things through a little more,” Sprague said.

Craigslist alligator finds a home Reptile confiscated from Clyde following online ad posting

“People I don’t think necessarily know that some of these things are illegal because there was a time maybe 30, 40 years ago that you could go down to Wilmington, catch an alligator, keep it as a pet and nobody really thought anything of it,” Gentile said. However, the post-Endangered Species Act world is a little different.

The alligator isn’t the first confiscated animal to pass through the WNC Nature Center. Though the center contains a permanent collection of native plants and animals that includes the American hellbender,

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Participants will learn from successful local entrepreneurs and develop leadership skills and civic responsibility.

Entrepreneurship campers will tour HCC’s Regional High Technology Center, Creative Arts Building, the Center for New and Expanding Business, and the Student Business Center.

The college’s Small Business Center is partnering with the HCC Foundation and Champion Credit Union to host the Boot Camp. Pre-registration is required and there is a $50 registration fee.

828.627.4512 or kgould@haywood.edu.

Free Admission & Coffee

Presented by Powell Davis and Lucas Brown of Appalachian ENERGY solutions from Waynesville, NC Smoky Mountain News

Haywood Community College registration for Fall Semester 2014 begins June 2.

This registration period is by appointment only with advisor and continues through July 11. Please note the college is closed on Friday, July 4 in observance of Independence Day. Fall semester begins on August 18. The complete schedule of classes is available online at www.haywood.edu. For more information, please call 828.627.4500.

C o m p a s s i o n

June 4-10, 2014

BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER A young alligator is on its way to a new life after the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission discovered it being sold illegally through a Craigslist ad in Clyde. After confiscating the reptile, the NCWRC had to find somewhere to put it while they sought out a more permanent abode.

“They called us and said, ‘Gosh, we really don’t have any place to put this,’ so naturally we were happy to take it,” said Chris Gentile, director of WNC Nature Center.

The alligator, which measures under a foot in length and is estiThe alligator snaps its jaws while being handled. At this age, alligator mated to be about gender is almost impossible to determine. Donated photo 4 months old, stayed at the nature center for five days before the cougar, red fox and screech owl, it also plays NCWRC found it a new home. Though host to animals, like the alligator, in need of Gentile doesn’t know where exactly the repa place to stay — something like a halfway tile is going, he can say that it’s headed to house, Gentile said. an organization that has the proper permits In fact, this is the second alligator that to care for an American alligator.

Gentile has seen come through the doors in In North Carolina, there’s no law prehis five years at the nature center. And, venting people from owning exotic species interestingly enough, the last one came like tigers or lions, but it’s illegal to keep from Haywood County as well. most species native to the state. Alligators “It’s kind of unusual that both had come fall into that category. from the same area,” he said.

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Haywood jail inmates rack up big medical bills

BY B ECKY JOHNSON STAFF WRITER rash of medical complications hit inmates in the Haywood County jail over the past year, socking the county with a $100,000 cost overrun.

Blame lies in part with a handful of big ticket procedures — a major stroke, heart bypass surgery, a heart catheterization following a heart attack for another. But there was also a run on more minor hospitalizations. “For the first nine months this year we had 60 people admitted to the hospital that were inmates,� said Haywood County Sheriff Greg Christopher.

Haywood’s jail had a streak of bad luck, but medical costs for inmates have been trending upwards year after year. “We only seem to bring in people who are very, very unhealthy. There’s very few marathon runners or people who are in good shape when they come to the jail,� said Christopher.

The jail population has its share of drug addicts, alcoholics and smokers. They are more likely to have bad teeth and poor nutrition. And these hallmarks of an unhealthy lifestyle add up to more medical issues.

Christopher can’t help but wonder. “Some people might commit a crime to go to jail just so we’ll be there to fix the problem,� the sheriff said.

Shuttling inmates to the hospital or spe-

June 4-10, 2014

A

cialists has also been a drain on the budget.

And while in the hospital, inmates have to be babysat 24/7 by a deputy. “We have to sit there the whole time they’re in the hospital,� Christopher said.

During a concatenation of inmate medical problems this past year, Christopher had five deputies at the hospital with five different inmates. This contributed to a $56,000 cost overrun for overtime for deputies.

“We only seem to bring in people who are very, very unhealthy.�

Every inmate at Haywood County’s jail gets a medical check-up when they arrive. Holly Kays photo

— Greg Christopher, Haywood County sheriff

Haywood County isn’t the only one seeing rising costs in jails. The budget Macon County Manager Derek Roland recommended for 2014-15 includes a $100,000 increase in the medical treatment line item for inmates, doubling the previous budgeted amount of $100,000 to $200,000. That increase has led the county to find an insurance policy they will be able to purchase for the inmates.

Rising jail costs in Macon also include

S EE I NMATES, PAGE 13

Inmates treated to universal health care on county taxpayer dime Counties are on the hook for medical costs for inmates parked in the county jail awaiting trial. Once they go to court, if found guilty, they enter the state prison system and become the state’s problem.

But as long as they are sitting in the county’s jail — whether it’s just a few days while scrapping together bail or many months while awaiting trial on serious charges — the county is legally responsible for all their medical costs, including dental work, prescription drugs, x-rays, specialist visits, hospitalizations and nurse and doctor evaluations.

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A tug-of-war for control of the Haywood County Republican Party was headed for a showdown this week with a vote by party leaders on whether to oust Chairman Pat Carr.

A take-over of the local party by a faction of conservative ideologues has been brewing for more than a year. The faction has increased its toehold in the party, eventually amassing enough seats on the party’s local executive committee to make an end-run for the Carr’s seat.

Carr, who is backed by mainstream members of the party, orchestrated a failed attempt in March to undo the power hold of the activist faction by stripping them from the executive committee. The faction retaliated in April by calling for Carr’s ousting, with the vote slated for Tuesday night (June 3).

To read a summary of Tuesday night’s developments, go to www.smokymountainnews.com or pick up next week’s print edition for full coverage.

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June 4-10, 2014

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Smoky Mountain News

$50,000 more for jail food service in the 2014-15 recommended budget. Since the last fiscal year, meal costs have increased by 35 cents per day, Roland said, and the average length of stay has risen as well.

“Those are things that at this point are out of our control,” Roland told commissioners at their May 13 meeting.

Jackson County’s burden isn’t quite so severe. During the current fiscal year, the county has spent $27,319.97 for inmate medical services. Another $11,581.92 was spent for medications, bringing the county’s total cost for inmate health care to $38,901.89.

The county’s proposed budget for next fiscal year stays the course with $45,000 for inmate health care.

Two years ago, Haywood County outsourced with a private firm that specializes in overseeing health care in county jails, a common trend nationwide. The county hoped it would save money with a fixed-rate contract.

But it wasn’t all-inclusive. The county still bore the liability of hospitalizations and treatment by specialists. And the rash of major medical issues with inmates squelched hopes of cost savings under the outside provider.

Haywood’s cost overrun of $100,000 this fiscal year seems more dramatic in part due to optimistic budget projections on the front end.

Almost every year, the county budgets for inmate medical care with its fingers crossed.

But by year’s end, the projections prove too optimistic and more money has to be allocated.

• In 2012-2013, $240,000 was spent on inmate medical costs.

• In 2013-2014, $267,000 is the likely tab for inmate medical costs.

• In 2014-2015, $184,000 has been budgeted for inmate medical costs.

13

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Author discusses Cherokee’s forced exodus, American duality

Riding to remember

Author Sarah Vowell is from Oklahoma and is part Cherokee. She estimates her Cherokee heritage at about 1/8 on her mother’s side and 1/16 on her father’s side, and notes that “being at least a little Cherokee in northeastern Oklahoma is about as rare and remarkable as being a Michael Jordan fan in Chicago.”

In the 1990s, Vowell and her twin sister retraced the path of the Cherokee’s forced removal from the Southeast to Oklahoma. The journey was chronicled in 1998 on National Public Radio’s “This American Life.”

Since then, Vowell — a New York Times-best selling author — has written six books on American history and culture. On May 30, she ventured to Jackson County to deliver an address to the Cashiers Historical Society’s ninth annual Jan Wyatt Symposium entitled “Unspeakable Journey: The Removal of the Cherokee.”

“The removal was done at gunpoint by the U.S. Army, it was done be force,” Vowell told attendees.

“Not everyone was happy about it. There was a lot of protest about it. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote some pretty things about it.”

Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians Principal Chief Michell Hicks N joined cyclists at Kituwah Mound recently as the riders prepared to embark on the 950-mile Remember the Removal bike ride.

June 4-10, 2014

Cherokee cyclists retrace tribe’s forced removal

Author Sarah Vowell recently spoke about the 18-century removal of Cherokee people and signed copies of her books at the High Hampton Inn Pavilion in Cashiers.

Smoky Mountain News

After her address, Vowell sat down for some book signings, and also spoke a bit more about her journey retracing the Cherokee removal. The author described the trip with her sister as “scatterbrained,” — “I didn’t really think about it too much” — and recalled how the pair took time to look at points along the way where fallen Cherokee were buried, before getting back in the car, stopping for barbecue and then looking at more Cherokee gravesites.

“What I’ve always been interested in is America, and it turned into such a perfect way to talk about America,” the author said.

Vowell pointed to conflicting dualities common throughout the American landscape. She pointed to a visit she had taken to a museum featuring an exhibit focusing on the 1960s. During the visit, there was a moment when she was confronted with the competing themes of the Great Society — with its goals of eliminating poverty and racial injustice — and images depicting the ravages of the Vietnam War. In the background, the song “Louie, Louie” played over the museum sound system.

“To me, that’s the country,” Vowell said. “You can’t have one of these things without the other if you want to accurately talk about the U.S.” During her presentation, a member of the audience noted the duality of the Cherokee’s historical trajectory — contrasting the group’s forced removal with the modern concept of casinos on Native American reservations — and wondered if some sense of justice could be derived from such an arc.

“That’s called poetic justice,” Vowell answered dryly. “Which is different than actual justice.”

14

BY J EREMY MORRISON N EWS E DITOR On a muddy Friday afternoon they gathered at Kituwah Mound, the Mother Town.

Preparing for the journey. Offering up prayers for the sendoff.

With the surrounding hills looking down on the pavilion, Cherokees recalled the past and spoke of the future. They wished the cyclists well.

“It’s a spiritual event, it’s a historical event,” commented Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians Principal Chief Michell Hicks. “It helps us to remember, ‘Hey, it’s not so long ago that this happened.’”

The May 30 gathering at Kituwah Mound kicked off this year’s Remember the Removal bike ride. The annual 950-mile ride commemorates the 1839 Trail of Tears, or forced removal of the Cherokees from their tribal lands in the Southeast.

“There’s a lot of soul searching that occurs,” said Hicks. “It keeps them closer to their roots, it keeps them solid.”

The bike ride begins in New Echota, Georgia — retracing the historic journey over the course of three weeks — and ends in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the capital of the Cherokee Nation.

This year, six members of the Eastern Band will join 12 members of the Cherokee Nation for the ride.

“Watch over all of our people,” Cherokee Nation member Tommy Wildcatt said as part of a prayer for the journey. “Give us food, keep us safe.”

Eastern Band riders were selected in January and range in age from 15 to 54. In addition to physical training leading up to the journey, riders also take classes in leadership, the Cherokee language and tribal history.

“All of it is such a learning experience,” said Kelsey Owl, a 25-year-old Eastern Band cyclist.

Owl said her husband had gone on the ride previously. This year she was determined to go herself.

“He had such a wonderful experience,” Owl said, “and talked about how many relationships he built and the learning of the history.”

Another local rider, school teacher Richard Snead, is making the trek with his daughter. He feels the 19th-century removal of Native American tribes to lands west of the Mississippi River is a chapter of American history that holds valuable lessons worth remembering.

“It’s really, to me, a cautionary tale for everybody about when a government runs amok,” Snead said, referencing the

fact that the removal conflicted with an earlier Supreme Court decision. “The President of the United States basically said ‘I don’t care.’”

Yona Wade, a member of the Eastern Band who rode in last year’s Remember the Removal ride, said he felt the ride also served to remind people about the Cherokee people’s resilience. Further, he pointed to the Eastern Band — the

The Trail of Tears In the 1830s, numerous Native American tribes were forcibly removed from their homelands and relocated to territories in the West. During the Cherokee’s removal, thousands died en route to Oklahoma.

That journey is commemorated annually with the Remember the Removal bike ride. This year, six members of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians will join 12 members of Oklahoma’s Cherokee Nation for the journey.

Following a local send-off ceremony at Kituwah Mound — the Mother Town, near Cherokee, N.C. — the riders travel to New Echota, Georgia, where their journey begins. The longest stretch of the ride comes on fast, with 82 miles traversed the second day. Two weeks in, the riders travel their shortest stretch of 31 miles. The final day of the journey sees the group ride 70 miles to reach the final destination of Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

Cherokee faction that remained in the East — as proof that the removal had proven ultimately unsuccessful.

“We’re still here. If it’d worked like it was suppose to, we’d all be out West,” Wade said. “Yes, the Trail of Tears was a pivotal point in our history, but we’re still here.”

Speaking to the cyclists and those gathered to support them, Hicks also touched on the survival theme.

“We have survived a lot,” the Chief said. “Our history has not always been pretty, but we’re still here. We are blessed.”

Hicks also spoke about the demands that would be made of the bike riders over the course of their journey. He recalled the struggles of their ancestors and implored them to keep the Cherokee who faced removal in their minds as they retraced the Trail of Tears.

“This is going to be a very emotional trip for you. It’s going to be a physically enduring trip. I know you’re prepared,” the Chief told them. “When it starts to get hot and your body feels weak, I want you to remember the endurance our people had.”

WNC environmental groups plan merger

E

The former Drexel manufacturing plant site in Whittier is a step closer to its future. Jackson County was recently awarded a $10,000 grant, which will be put toward the preparation of a master plan for the site.

The former furniture manufacturing facility — which shuttered in the late 1990s — sits on 36 acres along the Tuckasegee River. Over the course of the past year, several community input meetings have been held in an effort to decide how the county might best use the Drexel site, which it owns. Ideas have ranged from an agricultural center to a recreation site. Currently, the site has been dubbed the Smoky Mountain Agricultural Development Station.

The recently-awarded grant comes from the Southwest Regional Commission. The funds are provided through the Commission’s Toolbox Implementation Fund program and the Appalachian Regional Commission.

The $10,000 grant will be combined with money made from the sale of scrap metal and other materials on the property to pay for the master plan. The county has

The master planning process will rely on community input, including the input already gathered at community meetings. will need to know if any environmental contaminants are present on the site, and how such environmental issues would impact the site’s development.

In the early part of this month, the county will send out RFPs, or Request for Proposals. By the end of June, it’s expected that a firm will be selected to prepare the master plan.

According to Jackson County Planning Director Gerald Green, the master planning process will take a couple of months. He’s looking at a September completion date.

— Jeremy Morrison, news editor

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BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER conomy of scale tends to lean toward effectiveness of action, and that’s a fact that three environmental advocacy organizations in Western North Carolina plan to take advantage of over the coming year. By January 2015, the JacksonMacon Conservation Alliance, Western North Carolina Alliance and the Environmental Conservation Association, known as ECO, hope to have merged into one organization with a new name and a familiar purpose.

“Basically we’re all interested in the same things,” said Robert Smith, acting chair of JMCA’s board. “The priorities are really one priority, and that’s working to protect the environment, and of course that’s a very wide “I think that we will be able to go subject area and some organizations do it in specific ways deeper, and as a result of that we and others do it in a more generalized way. Many times the will be able to mobilize more folks, problems in one area are the engage more folks and as a result same problems in another area, so if you can combine have a deeper impact.” forces that would seem to enable you to better work on — Bob Wagner, co-director of WNC Alliance that problem.”

Once melded, the organization would have offices in Franklin, ECO and JCMA, the group hopes to deepen Asheville, Hendersonville and Boone. its impact, allowing the smaller groups to JCMA, which is based in Highlands, combine their local knowledge with WNC had become interested in the merger about Alliance’s larger resource pool. a year ago when board member Adam “I think that we will be able to go deepBigelow found out that WNC Alliance, a er, and as a result of that we will be able to regional group, and Hendersonville-based mobilize more folks, engage more folks and ECO were talking about joining forces. as a result have a deeper impact,” said Bob At that time, JMCA had lost its execuWagner, co-director of WNC Alliance. tive director and was having a hard time And, also, get that Franklin office up finding a replacement. The recession, too, and running again. WNC Alliance hasn’t had taken a hit on JCMA’s donor base, concentrated much in that area before, making the financial end of environmental Wagner said, because JMCA was pursuing advocacy harder and harder to accomplish. a similar goal in the region. But now they’ll The idea of being able to continue pursube able to reinstate a presence. ing JCMA’s mission without having to “Our goal is by Jan. 1 (2015) that the shoulder the entire administrative legal, financial, staffing types of issues will be headache of running a small nonprofit was resolved and fully functional,” Wagner said. a welcome one.

Over the next few months, leaders of “We spent some time saying, ‘This too the three groups will be doing some stratewill pass and we can regain some of those gic planning, hashing out what the new folks down the road,’” Smith said of the group’s purpose, mission and vision will be post-recession crunch, “but the reality of — and, of course, picking a name. running a small organization is that it “We’re excited about it,” Wagner said.

Drexel site master plan in the works

made about $11,500 from the scrap sales.

The master planning process will rely on community input, including the input already gathered at the community meetings. The planning process will identify compatible uses for the building and property.

As part of the master planning process, a phase one environmental assessment will be performed. The county

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Strength in numbers

requires the same kind of management that a large organization does.”

Reporting, tax forms, all those things that registered nonprofits are required to do still have to happen, no matter the organization’s size. That was time-consuming, and with a staff that’s now down to just a volunteer board, those tasks were taking away from more meaningful work.

“A lot of nonprofits I think are challenged by scale, and in order to have impact you really need to be a certain size and scale,” said Bobby Wagner, co-director of WNC Alliance.

Larger scale means a stronger voice in legislative decisions that affect the environment. It means greater access to people with the specialized knowledge that environmental groups need to analyze policies and get their message out. And it means increased ability to plan events and avenues to get the public involved.

Though WNC Alliance is a much larger organization than the other two and isn’t hurting much from the recession, the merger was attractive to them as well. The 32-year-old Asheville-based organization covers 23 counties with offices in Hendersonville, Boone and Franklin, though the Franklin one has not been staffed for several years. By joining with

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Jackson tourism board weighing executive director option

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The Jackson County Tourism Development Authority is still in the early stages of determining whether to hire an executive director. A committee has been formed and legwork is being completed.

During the group’s May meeting, committee members charged with assessing the possibilities reported that they were beginning their work. Jackson TDA Chairman Robert Jumper described the comJackson’s mittee’s task as “a tourism feasibility study, basically.” authority Committee was formed members are currently arranging last year. interviews with individuals likely to have insight into such matters. They plan to talk to their own board members, as well as the Jackson County and Cashiers chambers of commerce.

The committee also intends to speak with members of neighboring tourism development authorities.

“So they can get an idea, if they have an executive director, how’s that working out for them and what do they do for them?”

Jumper explained.

The chairman said that the process was still in the early stages.

Jackson County’ tourism authority was formed last year. It currently has no paid staff and is comprised of volunteer board members. The authority contracts work, from marketing jobs to daily logistics, to outside firms, as well as to the chambers of commerce of Jackson and Cashiers.

The tourism authority is funded to the tune of $600,000 via a collected lodging tax.

Currently, that money is spent on marketing contracts, as well as for services fulfilled by the respective chambers of commerce and for rent at visitor centers in Cashiers, Sylva and Dillsboro.

— News Editor Jeremy Morrison

Annual Flea market on for Lake Junaluska Things we want you to know: New Retail Installment Contracts and Shared Connect Plan required. Credit approval required. Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee applies (currently $1.57/line/month); this is not a tax or gvmt. required charge. Add. fees, taxes and terms apply and vary by svc. and eqmt. Offers valid in-store at participating locations only, may be fulfilled through direct fulfillment and cannot be combined. See store or uscellular.com for details. $140 Price Plan based on $100/mo. 10GB Shared Connect Plan plus 4 lines with discounted $10 Device Connection Charges each. Retail Installment Contract required to receive discounts, otherwise regular Device Connection Charges apply. Other discounts available for additional Shared Connect Plans. Price comparison based on AT&T Mobile Share Plan and Verizon More Everything Plan for 10GB as of May 7, 2014. Contract Payoff Promo: Offer valid on up to 6 consumer lines or 25 business lines per account, based on credit approval. Must port in current number to U.S. Cellular and purchase new Smartphone or tablet through a Retail Installment Contract on a Shared Connect Plan. Submit final bill identifying early-termination fee (ETF) charged by carrier within 60 days of activation date to www.uscellular.com/contractpayoff or via mail to U.S. Cellular® Contract Payoff Program 5591-61; PO Box 752257; El Paso, TX 88575-2257.

Customer will be reimbursed for the ETF reflected on final bill up to $350/line. Reimbursement in form of a U.S. Cellular MasterCard® Debit Card issued by MetaBank™ Member FDIC pursuant to license from MasterCard International Incorporated. This card does not have cash access and can be used at any merchant location that accepts MasterCard Debit Cards within the U.S. only. Card valid through expiration date shown on front of card. Allow 12-14 weeks for processing. To be eligible, customer must register for My Account. Retail Installment Contracts: Retail Installment Contracts (Contract) and monthly payments according to the Payment Schedule in the Contract required. If you are in default or terminate your Contract, we may require you to immediately pay the entire unpaid Amount Financed as well as our collection costs, attorneys’ fees and court costs related to enforcing your obligations under the Contract. 4G LTE not available in all areas. See uscellular.com/4G for complete coverage details. 4G LTE service provided through King Street Wireless, a partner of U.S. Cellular. LTE is a trademark of ETSI. Kansas Customers: In areas in which U.S. Cellular receives support from the Federal Universal Service Fund, all reasonable requests for service must be met. Unresolved questions concerning services availability can be directed to the Kansas Corporation Commission Office of Public Affairs and Consumer Protection at 1-800-662-0027. Limited-time offer. Trademarks and trade names are the property of their respective owners. Additional terms apply. See store or uscellular.com for details. ©2014 U.S. Cellular

The Junaluskans have done their spring housecleaning and found some treasures that will resurface at the Lake Junaluska Annual Flea Market, 7:30 to 11:30 a.m. June 14 at Nancy Weldon Gym off of U.S. 19 in Lake Junaluska. In addition to furniture, tools, holiday items, kitchenware, home decorations, linens and games, the market will feature an extensive plant department and baked goods as well. Everything is priced to sell, with funds going to improve and maintain various areas, programs and projects at the lake.

828.452.9164.

BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER n its quest to cut the fat ahead of the looming county revaluation, Macon County is turning to its retirement policies. Commissioners recently voted unanimously on a pair of personnel policy changes that will tighten up post-retirement health benefits for county employees.

The first change took away continued health benefits for employees who retire with 15 or 25 years’ worth of service, extending the benefit only to employees who retire after 30 years with Macon County. The revision also removed health benefits for the spouses of 30-year retirees and included a provision that benefits would not kick in for employees who left Macon County for a different fulltime job, if the employer participates in the state’s local government retirement plan.

“You can’t spend more than you’re taking in anything,” Commission Chairman Kevin Corbin said, “and we need to make some changes going down the road.”

Currently, the county provides health insurance to 46 retirees and six spouses at an annual cost of $302,640.

“That number is only going to increase as

I

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Genealogical Society recognizes D-Day veterans

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Macon County tightens retirement benefits

notice don’t get vacation compensation.

Both these nearby counties are a bit looser with their retirement health benefits than Macon County is under its new policy, however. Haywood County, for example, allows its employees to retire with health benefits at 15, 20 or 30 years, depending on the employee’s age, but dependents can remain we have more employees retire who meet the on the employee’s health insurance only qualifications to continue as a member of until the employee turns 65, with the retiree the group,” Mike Decker, the county’s paying the dependent’s coverage premium. human resources director, wrote in a letter In Jackson County, employees must be at to the board. least 60 years old with 20 years of service, have The new policy will kick in on July 1, with put in 30 years regardless of age or have all employees hired before that date still worked there 15 years and qualify for disabilifalling under the old policy. ty retirement coverage to retire with health Commissioners also voted to add a benefits. Slightly different benchmarks apply phrase to the resignato law enforcement tion policy stipulate m p l o y e e s .

The new policy will kick ing that employees Dependents are covwho leave without ered too, if the retiree in on July 1, with all giving a full twopays their premium to employees hired before weeks notice forfeit the county in full, and their longevity pay, as the dependents can that date still falling well as forgoing their keep paying if they vacation compensawant to extend their under the old policy. tion, as already outcoverage after the lined in the policy. retiree’s death. In both Longevity pay is an annual payment given to Haywood and Jackson counties, employment recognize continuous service. elsewhere doesn’t affect retirement coverage.

Though Jackson County does not provide Commissioners favored the new policy, longevity pay, employees do get vacation though, as a way to cut costs while still procompensation when they leave, regardless of viding coverage. notice. Haywood County does not give for“You’re still going to provide people mer employees their longevity pay if they are with coverage over 65,” Corbin said, “but not employed on the day when the sum is to you’re going to save the county thousands be paid, and employees who leave without of dollars.”

The “70th Anniversary of D-Day: Jackson County Remembers World War II and ‘The Longest Day’” will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 12, at the Jackson County Courthouse in Sylva.

A panel of local veterans, including Sylva resident Randall Murff, will share their stories about life during WWII. Murff, 94, flew dozens of missions in a B-26 Bomber including the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944. The event will be the Jackson County Genealogical Society’s June program.

The genealogical society is asking members of the community to join in honoring these veterans for this unique program and to also bring their own stories and pictures to share with the audience. All veterans and their families are especially encouraged to attend.

After the program, cards of appreciation will be made available to send to our military men and women around the world.

All JCGS events are free of charge and the public is welcome.

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Rep. Presnell sponsors de-annexation bill Maggie Valley board protests legislator’s actions

BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER It’s only eight lines long, but a de-annexation bill Rep. Michele Presnell, RBurnsville, has filed with the General Assembly’s Government Committee is drawing ire from some and cheers from others.

The bill would remove a 3.4-acre property owned by Joe Maniscalco, 77, from the town limits of Maggie Valley.

“That’s been voted on,” Maniscalco said.

“That’s been legally voted on that my property should be de-annexed because it’s unservable.”

In 2012, the Maggie Valley Board of Alderman had voted to send a letter to Raleigh recommending that the legislature de-annex Maniscalco’s property, which became part of the town in 2009 during an annexation that included 130 homes on 166 acres. But the bill was never introduced, and four members of the current five-member board feel differently.

“It has come to our attention that Representative Presnell intends to file legislation to de-annex property owned by

he continued. “The town last voted on this with the last board, and that was a 3 to 2 vote, which makes it pretty controversial.

It’s pretty interesting that Ms. Presnell thinks the occupancy bill was a controversial issue when 24 of the 25 elected officials in the county are for it.”

The occupancy bill DeSimone referred to would raise room tax in Haywood County from 4 percent to 6 percent, with the money earmarked for tourism development projects. The increase would require legislative approval, which in turn requires support from the local delegation. Of the 25 elected town board and county commission members in Haywood County, all but Wight do support the measure.

“That’s been voted on. That’s been Wight, legally voted on that my property should be however, said that the letter de-annexed because it’s unservable.” the other board mem— Joe Maniscalco bers sent the representatives isn’t legitimate at all — board memthat Ms. Presnell has filed that bill without bers signed it on their own time, with no any conversation or interaction with our official action taken in a meeting. board or with our town,” said DeSimone, “I wouldn’t change my vote with the correcting himself that Presnell had contactsame evidence presented to me today,” ed Wight but had not spoken with any of the Wight said. four board members who signed the letter.

“It’s a controversial bill to begin with,” Joseph and Dolores Maniscalco from the Town of Maggie Valley,” reads a letter signed by all members of the board save Phillip Wight and sent to Presnell, Rep. Joe Sam Queen, D-Waynesville, and Sen. Jim Davis, R-Franklin. “Please be advised that an overwhelming majority of the current Town Board does NOT support this legislation.”

His opposition to the bill, said Mayor Ron DeSimone, is two-fold: first, the annexation was done according to the proper procedure, so any legal claim against it should be taken up in a court of law rather than in the legislature; and second, the bill does not consider the will of local government.

“First of all, I think it’s pretty incredible

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Maniscalco lives on a gated mountaintop property that was annexed in 2009, one of 130 homes occupying a total 166 acres. In 2012, he finally made some headway with his assertion that his property should remain outside the town when the board decided in a 3-2 vote to send a letter to Raleigh supporting the de-annexation.

However, no such bill was introduced, so the property remained in Maggie Valley.

In 2013, another installment to the saga began when Maniscalco was indicted on a slate of eight charges for presenting falsified papers to support his case.

“He has fraudulently manufactured false letters, misrepresented his case,” said Queen. “So the gentleman, the property owner is not exactly aboveboard on this at all.”

Maniscalco was indicted on five misdemeanor charges and three felony charges for falsifying and eventually took a plea deal to plead guilty to four of the misdemeanor charges. Though he did take a plea deal, Maniscalco contends he did so because mounting a defense would cost more money in attorney’s fees than it would be worth.

“Once you get arrested, it costs you a fortune to undo that arrest,” Maniscalco said, later continuing, “I don’t have a chance in the world to prove my innocence, so I take the plea.”

He was required to pay a $100 fine, complete 24 hours of community service and refrain from contacting the Register of Deeds or Maggie Valley employees unless he needed to complete some official business.

Presnell, however, would not comment on the charges and their relationship to her sponsoring the bill.

“I would just say what I have been saying,” she said. “The town has not kept up their end of the bargain.”

THE CASE After visiting Maniscalco’s home a few months ago, she concluded that the decision boiled down to right versus wrong.

“The person is not getting the services that a town is supposed to provide when you annex them,” she said. “His road is 8 feet wide. There is no trash pickup. There is no snow removal. The man was up there for three weeks and couldn’t get his snow removed.”

Maggie Valley Mayor Ron DeSimone, however, said that’s just because Maniscalco’s sleeping in a bed he made himself.

“He isn’t getting services because he stopped those services,” DeSimone said.

Maniscalco claimed that it wasn’t safe for trash trucks and snow plows to service his property because they then had to back all the way down again.

However, DeSimone said, “The trash truck backs up most roads. He backs up my road and turns around. It’s not unsafe for them to do that.”

A WAITING GAME The bill is currently awaiting hearing in the House Government Committee, where it could stay for some time — or even for the whole session.

“We just have to wait and see if they hear it,” Presnell said. “They may not.”

For a legislative committee to hear a local bill like Presnell’s, it’s typically expected that it have the support of the entire local delegation. In this case, that’s not true. Davis is waiting until the bill reaches the Senate, if it ever does, to state a position, and Queen is opposed to it.

“She is taking one bad apple who has been fraudulent in presenting his case in every way, and she is using that as an excuse for an overreaching bill that could have big consequences statewide,” Queen said.

Such a bill, Queen said, could open a can of worms when it comes to other people, in other localities, who for one reason or another want to be de-annexed from their towns.

Wight agrees, though he doesn’t see that as a negative outcome.

“You could be opening up a case-by-case scenario that most governments would not want to go down,” he said, “but does that mean that you’re going to violate his rights?”

A similar phenomenon happened in Maggie Valley in 2012, after the board voted in Maniscalco’s favor. Within a month of the vote, four people came forward asking that their properties be de-annexed too. However, Presnell said that

No protests planned for Republican Cherokee convention

and also executive director of the non-profit environmental organization the Canary Coalition, said the notion of protesting has been discussed but no plans have been made.

“There’s nothing organized at this point,” Friedman said.

none of those people have contacted her office.

“Not one person up there other than Mr. Maniscalco has contacted my office,” Presnell said. “I have heard not one word, not one phone call from any of them. If they

have an issue, they need to call me.”

However, odds are that no action will come of the bill.

“That’s for me a 2 percent bill,” Wight said. “It would be a long shot for it making it all the way to the floor.”

The North Carolina GOP will hold its annual convention at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino June 6-8. The state Republican Party will consider its plan of organization during the weekend event.

The convention will feature keynote addresses from former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Dennis Hastert (1999-2007) as well as Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor (1996-2007) and 2008 GOP presidential candidate. The convention will also feature N.C. Governor Pat McCrory, U.S. Senate nominee and current N.C. House Speaker Thom Tillis and Bill Bennett, former U.S. secretary of education (1985-1988) under Ronald Reagan.

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The Extra Help program can increase cost savings by paying for all or part of the monthly premiums and annual deductibles and can provide lower prescription co-payments under a Medicare prescription drug plan.

To qualify for Extra Help, income must be limited to $1,458.75 a month for an individual or $1,966.25 a month for a married couple living together. Additionally, the total resources must be limited to $13,440 for an individual or $26,860 for a married couple living together. (Resources do not include a primary residence or a vehicle.)

If you believe someone you know may qualify for the Extra Help program, SHIIP can help them apply. For further information, call John at the Haywood County SHIIP office at 356-2833.

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Smoky Mountain News

One of the reasons no protest plans have been made, Freidman explained, is the locale of the GOP convention. Actions associated with Moral Monday play out in public buildings and parks. Not in a casino or conference center.

“It’s being held at Harrah’s, which is private,” Freidman said. “And we weren’t sure how to handle that.”

Not only is Harrah’s private, it’s also located on the Cherokee reservation. On the reservation, political protesters don’t face the same landscape they do elsewhere.

According to Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians Principal Chief Michell Hicks, any protest-related activity would require a written request be submitted to — and approved by — the EBCI Office of the Attorney General.

“When visitors are on tribal lands they are expected to follow our laws including those that pertain to public protests and demonstrations,” said Hicks, in a statement laying out the request process. “If permission has not been granted through this process any demonstrators will be asked to leave. I anticipate this process would work in any situation occurring in Cherokee.”

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BY J EREMY MORRISON N EWS E DITOR hen North Carolina Republicans arrive at Harrah’s in Cherokee the first week of June for their annual convention, they will likely leave the din of discontent far behind. The rallies — the restless and the rowdies — and the realities of Raleigh will fade in the rearview.

Throughout recent legislative sessions, citizens dissatisfied with the direction North Carolina has taken have made their feelings known. As part of the Moral Monday protest movement, they have descended upon the state capital in droves.

The Moral Monday protests began in the spring of 2013, following the 2012 election, in which voters elected Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and the GOP gained control of both the House and Senate — giving the party a lock for the first time in more than 140 years.

The protests have been driven by legislation pushed by Republicans. They resulted in more than 900 arrests last year, with arrests continuing currently during the legislative short session.

But such protests don’t appear in the plans for the GOP convention in Cherokee June 6-8.

“No, we don’t have any protest plans,” said Sarah Bufkin, spokesperson for the North Carolina chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The state NAACP — and, in particular, its leader Rev. William Barber — is considered a primary driver of the Moral Monday protests. But, Bufkin said, such protests are aimed at legislation — such as recently passed voting laws or cuts to social programs — not at specific legislators or a particular political party.

“We don’t protest specifically against Republicans or Democrats,” she explained.

There doesn’t appear to be any movement on the protest front locally either. Avram Friedman, recently elected first vice president of the Jackson County chapter of the NAACP

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Opinion

Smoky Mountain News

Obstacles to voting and fair elections are intolerable

BY MARTIN DYCKMAN G UEST COLUMNIST ccasions such as Memorial Day and the D-Day anniversary remind us of the fallen and the freedoms they died to protect.

Speeches and commentaries extol the rights specified in the Constitution, religion, speech, assembly and press among them.

But the right to vote is rarely mentioned. If you’re crafting remarks based on the Bill of Rights, voting is nowhere to be found. The architects of the United States left it to the states.

Although subsequent amendments spelled out who could not be barred on account of factors such as race or sex, the states still control whether voting will be convenient or difficult. The Fourteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act apply, but it can be time-consuming and expensive to invoke them.

Voting is our most fundamental right because it is the key to protecting all the others. It is also the most endangered. As we have been seeing, ALEC-infected legislatures like North Carolin’s are ingenious at suppressing opportunities to vote.

Some would make it even harder.

On the radical right — and not just among the Tea Party — there’s a growing fervor to repeal the 17th Amendment and have legislatures rather than the people choose U.S. senators again. Ted Cruz, the Republican front-runner for president, and Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court justice, are identified with this.

Obvious obstacles to the ballot box such as voter ID, limited polling places and restricted voting hours aren’t the only

O

Why not moment of silence, not prayer?

To the Editor: We live in a country where we are free to pray wherever, whenever and within whatever religion we prefer. We are also free to not pray. If one wants a religious blessing on local governmental business decisions, one could do so at home, in the car or wherever they wanted before going to the public business meeting because we are free to do so.

One could also ask for that blessing during their church service in the church they choose to go to. Why, then, would an elected official feel it necessary to have their personal religious-based prayer during a public meeting?

Unlike the higher governments, local governments require citizens of all faiths or no faith to go before the board for business like zoning, permitting, business licenses, variance permission and the like. And so it makes sense that the meetings provide a respectful environment that considers the differences in belief systems within the public that the elected officials serve. Engaging the public in a mayor’s personal religion or even a display of various secular prayers at a public business meeting sets quite an uncomfortable precedent for any mayor or future boards who may have a wildly different belief system (or even a self-declared religion) they “proclaim” as the norm. If deemed necessary, a moment of silence would serve a better solution for all.

Kolleen Begley Cullowhee

devices for subverting your right to vote. The other way is to waste your vote by gerrymandering it into irrelevance. The current court challenge to the congressional district map that North Carolina Republicans contrived offers glaring examples.

A recent Washington Post article identified three of the nation’s 10 most grotesquely gerrymandered districts as being in North Carolina: the First, Fourth, and 12th congressional districts. They look more like slides from a psychiatrist’s inkblot test than anything having to do with responsible government.

All are held by Democrats, which was the point. By cramming them with far more Democrats than it would take to win an election, the Republican map-drawers gave themselves the advantage in most of the rest. Despite polling less than half the votes, the GOP won nine of the 13 seats.

The fourth even bears an uncanny resemblance to the salamander shape that was identified with Gov. Elbridge Gerry’s 1811 Massachusetts outcome-rigging scheme — the original “Gerrymander.”

That one favored Democrats. Currently, according to the Post article, the Democrats are short 18 House seats nationally thanks to Republican gerrymanders like North Carolina’s.

The point, author Christopher Ingraham wrote, “isn’t to draw yourself a collection of overwhelmingly safe seats. Rather, it’s to give your opponents a small number of safe seats, while drawing yourself a larger number of seats that are not quite as safe, but that you can expect to win comfortably.”

LOOKING FOR OPINIONS The Smoky Mountain News encourages readers to express their opinions through letters to the editor or guest columns. All viewpoints are welcome. Send to Scott McLeod at info@smokymountainnews.com., fax to 828.452.3585, or mail to PO Box 629, Waynesville, NC, 28786.

While you were looking the other way To the Editor: With the business of making a living that each of us has to address in any given day, we would expect those who represent us in the North Carolina Legislature — whose salaries are paid by our tax dollars — to be concerned with our overall health and safety without our having to worry about the issue. Well, take a closer look.

Senate Bill 786, which opens the door to fracking — oil and natural gas extraction by hydraulic fracturing methods — in North Carolina, recently went through the N.C. Senate like a greased pig. It is titled Energy Modernization Act (2014), simply a smokescreen for eliminating or weakening the health and safety regulations associated with this intrusive mining process. Our senator, Jim Davis (R-Franklin), is one of the original sponsors of this legislation (as SB-76).

Ingraham rated North Carolina and Maryland as “essentially tied for the honor of most-gerrymandered states.”

Democrats were the culprits in Maryland, which simply makes the point that this form of vote suppression has a bipartisan history. To cure it ought to be a bipartisan cause as well.

Ideally, every congressional election ought to be close. But in 2012, only one of North Carolina’s was. Among those in which votes were cast, according to the public interest group FairVote.org, nearly 1.3-million Democratic votes were “wasted” — that is, surplus to the winning margins. Fewer than 400,000 Republican votes were. The Republicans who drew the maps saw to making their votes count.

For several sessions, there has been bipartisan support in the N.C. House of Representatives for a nonpartisan redistricting process similar to Iowa’s, where nearly every congressional race is fairly contested. But it never gets even a hearing in the Senate, and it didn’t come to a vote even in the House last year.

Thom Tillis was too busy suppressing the right to vote to invest any energy in vindicating it. And now he wants to be a U.S. senator. Never did anyone deserve it less.

Martin A. Dyckman is a retired journalist who lives in Waynesville. He is the author of several books on Florida politics including Reubin O’D Askew and the Golden Age of Florida Politics, Floridian of His Century: The Courage of Governor LeRoy Collins, and A Most Disorderly Court: Scandal and Reform in the Florida Judiciary. He can be reached at dyckmanm@bellsouth.net.

Among other changes, this legislation would: • Shroud in secrecy the chemicals used in the fracking operation, making it a crime to disclose their identity (§113-391A), greatly hampering medical or remedial action in case of groundwater contamination, which has been a recurring problem with fracking operations in other states.

• It is presumed that groundwater contamination can only occur within 2,640 ft of a fracking well-head (§113-421), yet by its very nature, tunneling and fracturing — involving the proprietary chemicals used — move significant distances from the well-head in a horizontal direction.

• Ordinances prohibiting fracking made by any county, city or other political subdivision would become invalid under this new law (§113-415A), overriding the will of the people who originally enacted them.

• Oil and gas prospectors may not be held liable for trespass on your property as long as they collect exploratory data by seismic undershooting from an off-site location (§113395D).

• Any tax on the extraction of oil and gas by fracking shall go to the state of North Carolina, and not to the benefit of the county, city or political subdivision where the resource was extracted (§105-187).

• The Department of Commerce, in conjunction with other state agencies, is authorized to study the feasibility of constructing a liquid natural gas export terminal in North Carolina (Section 22.a).

Foreign exporting?

This bill, shortly to be voted on by the North Carolina House, is based largely on the model of the oil and gas industry itself, failing to address proper disposal of the secret fracking chemicals (supplied by energy behemoth Halliburton), protection of land and water after active fracking has ceased, or safe methods of transporting the resources after extraction.

Our mountain area has been mentioned as one of the “most promising” (industry term) areas of North Carolina for oil and gas shale extraction. As we are all aware, the quality of our mountain water is superb and the rest of the Southeast depends on us as their source of such, not to mention our own needs.

If you are tired of seeing our elected representatives concentrate on profit rather than the health and safety of the folks they represent, let them know that fracking has no place in North Carolina. They expect to start issuing fracking permits in July. Call today, while they are still in Raleigh for the short session, and tell them to vote no on SB 786.

Doug Woodward Franklin

GOP has done real harm to state To the Editor: Look past the claims and misleading “facts” that the Republicans are putting out to see the reality. The net result from four years

‘Group’ is hurting Haywood GOP

LETTERS

Taste the Mountains is an ever-evolving paid section of places to dine in Western North Carolina. If you would like to be included in the listing please contact our advertising department at 828.452.4251 A TASTE OF NEW ORLEANS 67 Branner Ave., Waynesville, 828.246.0885. 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., 7 days a week. Curtis Henry opened A Taste of New Orleans to cater to the locals and become the place that’s always open that you can rely on for different, flavorful dishes every day. Serving Cajun, French and Creole Cuisine in a lovingly restored space, Curtis looks forward to serving you up a delicious dish soon.

AMMONS DRIVE-IN RESTAURANT & DAIRY BAR 1451 Dellwwod Rd., Waynesville.

828.926.0734. Open 7 days a week 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Celebrating over 25 years.

Enjoy world famous hot dogs as well as burgers, seafood, hushpuppies, hot wings and chicken. Be sure to save room for dessert. The cobbler, pie and cake selections are sure to satisfy any sweet tooth.

BLUE ROOSTER SOUTHERN GRILL 207 Paragon Parkway, Clyde, Lakeside Plaza at the old Wal-Mart. 828.456.1997.

Open Monday through Friday. Friendly and fun family atmosphere. Local, handmade Southern cuisine. Fresh-cut salads; slowsimmered soups; flame grilled burgers and steaks, and homemade signature desserts.

Blue-plates and local fresh vegetables daily.

Brown bagging is permitted. Private parties, catering, and take-out available. Call-ahead seating available.

BOGART’S 35 East Main St., Sylva. 828.586.6532.

Sunday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Serving classic American food and drink in a casual environment. Daily lunch and dinner specials. Children’s menu available. Call for catering quotes.

Private room available for large parties.

Accepts MC/Visa, Discover and American Express.

BOURBON BARREL BEEF & ALE 454 Hazelwood Ave., Waynesville, 828.452.9191. Lunch served 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Dinner nightly from 4 p.m.

Closed on Sunday. We specialize in handcut, all natural steaks, fresh fish, and other classic American comfort foods that are made using only the finest local and sustainable ingredients available. We also feature a great selection of craft beers from local artisan brewers, and of course an extensive selection of small batch bourbons and whiskey. The Barrel is a friendly and casual neighborhood dining experience where our guests enjoy a great meal without breaking the bank.

Meat industry pollutes too much

Lunch is Back!

Classic local American comfort foods, craft beers & small batch bourbons & whiskey.

Prime Rib Thursdays.

11:30 A.M.-2:30 P.M. DINNER NIGHTLY AT 4 P.M. MONDAY-SATURDAY Weekly Drink Specials

Margarita Mondays $6 Tini Tuesdays $6 house specialty martini's Winedown Wednesdays 1/2 price bottles ($60 and under)

Smoky Mountain News

To the Editor: I am delighted that EPA has finally moved to abate the disastrous impacts of climate change by regulating carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. But, given the adverse reaction from the coal industry, the EPA should have issued parallel regulations on emissions from meat industry operations.

Each state could than determine its own strategy for curbing greenhouse gases.

A 2006 U.N. report estimated that meat production accounts for 18 percent of manmade greenhouse gases. A 2009 article in the respected World Watch magazine suggested that the figure may be closer to 50 percent.

The meat industry generates carbon dioxide by burning forests to create animal pastures and by combustion of fossil fuels to confine, feed, transport, and slaughter animals. The much more damaging methane and nitrous oxide are discharged from digestive tracts of cattle and from animal waste cesspools, respectively.

In the meantime, each of us can reduce the devastating effects of climate change every time we eat. Our local supermarket offers a rich variety of plant-based lunch meats, hotdogs, veggie burgers and dairy product alternatives, as well as ample selection of vegetables, fruits, grains, and nuts.

Product lists, easy recipes, and transition tips are readily available online.

Wade Moore Waynesville

June 4-10, 2014

of Republican rule is a weaker middle class and a starved education system.

There is absolutely no evidence that a single job has been created in N.C. by the tax breaks to the rich. In fact there is no evidence that any of the Bush tax breaks of the past created any jobs.

The fact is that middle-class incomes are flat and we now will be paying more taxes than before. The so-called tax reform shifted taxes from income tax to new sales taxes. For example, now we have to pay sales tax on the labor charges to service our cars. What the Republicans have done is to shift and hide taxes for the middle class. Only the rich get real tax breaks.

Much has been made of the raises for teachers, but 1,500 teachers will not get raises under the last Gov. Pat McCrory proposal.

The facts are that the total funding for education has been cut drastically. About 7,000 teaching positions have been cut, and the state university system has had cuts of more than 25 percent.

The Republicans claim they have appropriated more money for education, but that does not come close to equaling the funding from the previous sales tax that they cut or the federal funds they lost. The bottom line is that our standing on teacher pay and funding per student have dropped to the bottom of funding in the U.S. Don’t be fooled by the claims. Look at the facts.

Norman G. Hoffmann Waynesville

Monroe Miller’s Blog internet site).

Note that Debbie King’s name appears to have no signature on the form. Her husband Dennie King is running for county commissioner. Debbie King is a central player in the group, but likes to work in the shadows.

These are the same people that seem to cause consistent problems at every meeting, even voting against the meeting agenda.

They accuse Pat Carr of having secret meetings and anything else they consider “out-of-line” in any of the never-ending charges the group dreams up. To my knowledge, Pat Carr has never had any secret meetings, nor committed any action that could be grounds for her removal. The only so-called secret meetings I am aware of are the ones held by many members of this group prior to the county convention where Pat Carr was elected. I attended two of these meetings (they call them dinners) thinking that I was working with a good group of Republicans. Their number one goal was to beat Pat Carr and now they seemed obsessed with it. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds!

The actions this group takes are an embarrassment to the Haywood GOP and to all citizens of Haywood County. In my opinion, these people are more Libertarian than Republican.

Mitchell E. Powell Haywood County

opinion

To the Editor: My name is Mitchell E. Powell and I was elected vice chairman to the Haywood GOP on the same day Pat Carr was elected chairman. I resigned from this position only a few months into my term and only a couple of months after our newly elected treasurer resigned. I resigned because of personal attacks from the same “group” that is currently attempting to remove Pat Carr.

By the time this letter is published, a June 3 Haywood County GOP meeting will have already been held. Those who attended know what this group is doing to the local party. The turmoil this group is causing will have a tremendously negative impact on the local elections in the fall.

The people who are at the root of the effort to remove Pat Carr have been attempting to undo the election that she soundly won. This small – but LOUD – group of socalled Republicans continually attempts to derail the local GOP at every opportunity.

An actual affidavit against Pat Carr was filed with the State of North Carolina and Haywood County by Monroe Miller. The group that signed the “Formal Charges Filed Against Patt Carr” include Monroe Miller, Eddie Cabe, Tomile Cure, Greg Burrell, Ken Henson, Andrew Jackson, Jonnie Cure, Mark Zaffrann, Rebecca Mathews and Eleanor Worley (name information posted on

tasteTHEmountains

Throw Down Thursdays $2 domestic beers $3 specialty beers

Lunch: 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. • Dinner Nightly at 4 p.m. • CLOSED ON SUNDAY 454 HAZELWOOD AVENUE • WAYNESVILLE Call 828-452-9191 for reservations 242-06

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Burgers to Salads Southern Favorites & Classics -Local beers now on draft-

Live Music

SID’S ——————————————————

ON MAIN

117 Main Street, Canton NC 828.492.0618 • SidsOnMain.com Serving Lunch & Dinner

236-50 243-233

tasteTHEmountains BREAKING BREAD CAFÉ 6147 Hwy 276 S. Bethel (at the Mobil Gas Station) 828.648.3838 Monday-Thursday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday & Saturday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. closed Sunday. Chef owned and operated. Our salads are made in house using local seasonal vegetables. Fresh roasted ham, turkey and Roast Beef used in our hoagies.

We hand make our own Eggplant & Chicken Parmesan, Pork Meatballs and Hamburgers.

We use 1st quality fresh not pre-prepared products to make sure you get the best food for a reasonable price. We make Vegetarian, Gluten Free and Sugar Free items. Call or go to Facebook (Breaking Bread Café NC) to find out what our specials are. We are now open for dinner on Friday and Saturday nights by customer request, so come join us and find out what all the talk is about.

BRYSON CITY BAKERY AND PASTRY SHOPPE 191 Everett St., Bryson City. 828.488.5390 Offering a full line of fresh baked goods like Grandma used to make. Large variety to choose from including cakes, pies, donuts, breads, cinn-buns and much more. Also serving Hershey Ice Cream. Open seven days a week, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.

SERVING BREAKFAST & LUNCH June 4-10, 2014

DOWNTOWN’S ONLY COVERED DECK

452.3881 OPEN DAILY MAIN STREET WAYNESVILLE WWW.CITYBAKERY.NET

CATALOOCHEE RANCH 119 Ranch Dr., Maggie Valley.

828.926.1401. Family-style breakfast seven days a week, from 8 to 9:30 a.m. – with eggs, bacon, sausage, grits and oatmeal, fresh fruit, sometimes French toast or pancakes, and always all-you-can-eat. Lunch every day from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Evening cookouts on the terrace on weekends and Wednesdays (weather permitting), featuring steaks, ribs, chicken, and pork chops, to name a few. Bountiful family-style dinners on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, with entrees that include prime rib, baked ham and herb-baked chicken, complemented by seasonal vegetables, homemade breads, jellies and desserts. We also offer a fine selection of wine and beer. The evening social hour starts at 6 p.m., and dinner is served starting at 7 p.m. So join us for milehigh mountaintop dining with a spectacular view. Please call for reservations.

CHEF’S TABLE 30 Church St., Waynesville. 828.452.6210.

From 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday dinner starting at 5 p.m. “Best of” Award of Excellence from Wine Spectator Magazine. Set in a distinguished atmosphere with an exceptional menu. Extensive selection of wine and beer. Reservations honored.

Smoky Mountain News

243-198

APPÉTIT Y’AL N L BO

CITY BAKERY 18 N. Main St. Waynesville 828.452.3881.

Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Join us in our historic location for scratch made soups and daily specials.

Breakfast is made to order daily: Gourmet cheddar & scallion biscuits served with bacon, sausage and eggs; smoked trout bagel plate; quiche and fresh fruit parfait. We bake a wide variety of breads daily, specializing in traditional french breads. All of our breads are hand shaped. Lunch: Fresh salads, panini sandwiches. Enjoy outdoor dinning on the deck. Private room available for meetings.

CITY LIGHTS CAFE Spring Street in downtown Sylva.

828.587.2233. Open Monday-Saturday 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Tasty, healthy and quick. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, espresso, beer and wine. Come taste the savory and sweet crepes, grilled paninis, fresh, organic salads, soups and more.

Outside patio seating. Free Wi-Fi, pet-friendly. Live music and lots of events. Check the web calendar at citylightscafe.com.

BRYSON CITY CORK & BEAN A MOUNTAIN SOCIAL HOUSE 16 Everett St.,Bryson City. 828.488.1934.

Open Monday-Friday 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday and Sunday brunch 9 a.m. to 3p.m., Full Menu 3 to 9 p.m. Serving fresh and delicious weekday morning lite fare, lunch, dinner, and brunch. Freshly prepared menu offerings range from house-made soups & salads, lite fare & tapas, crepes, specialty sandwiches and burgers. Be sure not to miss the bold flavors and creative combinations that make up the daily Chef Supper Specials starting at 5pm every day.

Followed by a tempting selection of desserts prepared daily by our chefs and other local bakers. Enjoy craft beers on tap, as well as our full bar and eclectic wine list.

COUNTRY VITTLES: FAMILY STYLE RESTAURANT 3589 Soco Rd, Maggie Valley.

828.926.1820 Open Daily 7 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., closed Tuesday. Family Style at Country Vittles is not a buffet. Instead our waitresses will bring your food piping hot from the kitchen right to your table and as many refills as you want. So if you have a big appetite, but sure to ask your waitress about our family style service.

FRANKIE’S ITALIAN TRATTORIA 1037 Soco Rd. Maggie Valley.

828.926.6216 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Monday-Saturday. Father and son team Frank and Louis Perrone cook up dinners steeped in Italian tradition. With recipies passed down from generations gone by, the Perrones have brought a bit of Italy to Maggie Valley. frankiestrattoria.com FROGS LEAP PUBLIC HOUSE 44 Church St. Downtown Waynesville 828.456.1930 Serving lunch 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; Dinner 5 to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday. 5 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Closed Sunday and Monday. Frogs Leap is a farm to table restaurant focused on local, sustainable, natural and organic products prepared in modern regional dishes. Seasonal menu focuses on Southern comfort foods with upscale flavors. www.frogsleappublichouse.com.

GUADALUPE CAFÉ 606 W. Main Street, Sylva. 828.586.9877.

Open 7 days a week at 5 p.m. Located in the historic Hooper’s Drugstore, Guadalupe Café is a chef-owned and operated restaurant serving Caribbean inspired fare complimented by a quirky selection of wines and microbrews. Supporting local farmers of organic produce, livestock, hand-crafted cheese, and using sustainably harvested seafood.

HERREN HOUSE 94 East St., Waynesville 828.452.7837.

Lunch: Wednesday - Saturday 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday Brunch 11 a. m. to 2 p.m.

Enjoy fresh local products, created daily. Join us in our beautiful patio garden. We are your local neighborhood host for special events: business party’s, luncheons, weddings, showers and more. Private parties & catering are available 7 days a week by reservation only.

J. ARTHUR’S RESTAURANT AT MAGGIE VALLEY U.S. 19 in Maggie Valley. 828.926.1817.

Lunch Sunday noon to 2:30 p.m., dinner nightly starting at 4:30 p.m. World-famous prime rib, steaks, fresh seafood, gorgonzola cheese and salads. All ABC permits and open year-round. Children always welcome.

Take-out menu. Excellent service and hospitality. Reservations appreciated.

JUKEBOX JUNCTION U.S. 276 and N.C. 110 intersection, Bethel.

828.648.4193. 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Serving breakfast, lunch, nd dinner. The restaurant has a 1950s & 60s theme decorated with memorabilia from that era.

New

Specials for June Free Delivery Monday-Friday 9 to 3

828-456-1997 22

blueroostersoutherngrill.com

— Real Local People, Real Local Food — 207 Paragon Parkway, Clyde, North Carolina Monday-Friday Open at 11am

Monday-Saturday: 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. • Sunday:11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

29 Miller Street • Downtown Waynesville, North Carolina 828.456.3400 • www.SmokyMountainSubShop.com 243-263

Café

tasteTHEmountains

MAGGIE VALLEY CLUB 1819 Country Club Dr., Maggie Valley.

828.926.1616. maggievalleyclub.com/dine.

Open daily for lunch and dinner. Fine and casual fireside dining in welcoming atmosphere. Full bar. Reservations accepted.

MOUNTAIN PERKS ESPRESSO BAR & CAFÉ 9 Depot St., Bryson City. 828.488.9561.

Open Monday through Thursday, 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. With music at the Depot. Sunday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Life is too short for bad coffee. We feature wonderful breakfast and lunch selections.

Bagels, wraps, soups, sandwiches, salads and quiche with a variety of specialty coffees, teas and smoothies. Various desserts.

ORGANIC BEANS COFFEE COMPANY 1110 Soco Road, Maggie Valley.

828.668.2326. Open 7 days a week 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Happily committed to brewing and serving innovative, uniquely delicious coffees — and making the world a better place. 100% of our coffee is Fair Trade, Shade Grown, and Organic, all slow-roasted to bring out every note of indigenous flavor.

Bakery offerings include cakes, muffins, cookies and more. Each one is made from scratch in Asheville using only the freshest, all natural ingredients available. We are

Prime Rib with Au Jus Blackened White Fish over mixed green salad

Spaghetti & Meatballs Chicken Cordon Bleu Dinners include salad, starch & vegetable

DINNER SERVED ON FRI. & SAT. ONLY, 5-8 PM

Mon-Thr 8-5 • Fri & Sat 8-8 • Sun Closed PATIO BISTRO 30 Church Street, Waynesville.

828.454.0070. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Breakfast bagels and sandwiches, gourmet coffee, deli sandwiches for lunch with homemade soups, quiches, and desserts. Wide selection of wine and beer. Outdoor and indoor dining.

RENDEZVOUS RESTAURANT AND BAR Maggie Valley Inn and Conference Center 828.926.0201 Bar open Monday thru Saturday; dining room open Tuesday thru Saturday at 5 p.m. Full service restaurant serving steaks, prime rib, seafood and dinner specials.

6147 Highway 276 S. Bethel, North Carolina (at the Mobil Gas Station)

bbcafenc.com • 828.648.3838

DOWNTOWN • SYLVA • NC

243-249

ITALIAN

Mon.-Fri. 7 a.m.-4 p.m. • Sat. 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

SPEEDY’S PIZZA 285 Main Street, Sylva. 828.586.3800.

Open seven days a week. Monday-Friday 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Saturday 3 p.m.-11 p.m., Sunday 4 p.m.-10 p.m. Family-owned for 30 years. Serving hand-tossed pizza made to order, pasta, subs, gourmet salads, calzones and seafood. Also serving excellent prime rib on Thursdays. Dine in or take out available. Located across from the Fire Station.

www.CityLightsCafe.com 243-239

Friday, June 6 • 6 pm

Art Opening - Terry Barnes

STEAKS • PIZZA CHICKEN • SEAFOOD SANDWICHES OPEN FOR LUNCH & DINNER 7 DAYS A WEEK 1863 S. MAIN ST. WAYNESVILLE 828.454.5002 HWY. 19/23 EXIT 98

237-40

UPCOMING EVENTS

TAP ROOM SPORTS BAR & GRILL 176 Country Club Dr. Waynesville 828.456.5988. 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. Enjoy soups, sandwiches, salads and hearty appetizers along with a full bar menu in our casual, smoke-free neighborhood grill.

Soda Shop NOW OPEN!

FRIDAY, JUNE 6:

THE WINE BAR 20 Church Street, downtown Waynesville.

828.452.6000. Underground cellar for wine and beer, served by the glass all day.

Cheese and tapas served Wednesday through Saturday 4 p.m.-9 p.m. or later. info@classicwineseller.com. Also on facebook and twitter.

MEDITERRANEAN

Karaoke w/ Chris Monteith

SATURDAY, JUNE 7: Josh Lane of My Highway 243-194

83 Asheville Hwy. Sylva Music Starts @ 9 • 631.0554

Pretzels Smoothies

Hot Dogs Ice Cream

& More!

11 Memory Lane • 828-454-6769 Game Room • Next to the pool

We’ll feed your spirit, too.

on National Trails Day, Saturday, June 7 Call for reservations.

Dine at 5,000 feet.

COUNTRY INN

243-254

For reservations, please call 828.926.0430 • TheSwag.com • Waynesville, NC

Smoky Mountain News

Join us for guided hiking and lunch

June 4-10, 2014

NEWFOUND LODGE RESTAURANT 1303 Tsali Blvd, Cherokee (Located on 441 North at entrance to GSMNP).

828.497.4590. Open 7 a.m. daily.

Established in 1946 and serving breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. Family style dining for adults and children.

PASQUALE’S 1863 South Main Street, Waynesville. Off exit 98, 828.454.5002. Open for lunch and dinner seven days a week. Classic Italian dishes, exceptional steaks and seafood (available in full and lighter sizes), thin crust pizza, homemade soups, salads hand tossed at your table. Fine wine and beer selection. Casual atmosphere, dine indoor, outside on the patio or at the bar.

Reservations appreciated.

NEW DINNER SPECIALS:

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MAD BATTER FOOD & FILM 617 W. Main Street Downtown Sylva.

828.586.3555. Open Tuesday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Wednesday-Saturday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Hand-tossed pizza, steak sandwiches, wraps, salads and desserts. All made from scratch. Beer and wine. Free movies with showtimes at 6:30 and 9 p.m. with a Saturday matinee at 2 p.m. Visit madbatterfoodandfilm.com for this week’s shows.

Deli & So Much More

proud to offer gluten-free and vegan options.

243-257

LOS AMIGOS 366 Russ Ave. in the Bi-Lo Plaza.

828.456.7870. Open from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. for lunch and 5 to 10 p.m. for dinner Monday through Friday and 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Enjoy the lunch prices Monday through Sunday, also enjoy our outdoor patio.

Cataloochee Ranch 23

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A&E

Smoky Mountain News

Preserving tradition and culture through sport

BY GARRET K. WOODWARD STAFF WRITER With each throw, Scott Medlin is connecting to his ancestors.

“The Scottish Highland Games need to be preserved because most of the gatherings included athletic competitions, with each clan gathered around cheering on their representative of the clan,” the 58-yearold said. “It’s really about the competition and knowing that I too have done this and there’s not many people in the world that can do this.”

President of the Southeastern Highland Athletic Group, Medlin, from Catawba County, said the organization will once again be traveling to Franklin for the Taste of Scotland & Celtic Festival on June 14. Celebrating the rich Scottish heritage and culture of Southern Appalachia, the event showcases traditional foods, attire, activities and, of course, the Highland Games.

“A lot of clans [today] don’t have representatives, but clan tents are still placed around the competition field,” he said. “We have evolved now, where many athletes like to compete, but they must wear a kilt with their family crest if at all possible.”

Within the seven athletic events, there’s the clachneart (stone throw), weight throw, hammer throw, caber toss, sheaf toss and weight over bar. Objects range from a 22-pound hammer and 16pound bag of hay to a 56-pound weight and 120-pound pole. Each event is about sheer brawn, patience and technique, where contestants are judged on their style, distance of throw and technique.

“As an ex-competitor — I still throw some when the wife doesn’t know — I took the positive from previous games and threw away the negative to make the competition field game friendly and positive, making sure the athletes are taken care of and that competition blends nicely with the music, clans, border collies, dancing and others as time permits,” Medlin said.

Having a Scottish background himself, Medlin had an early appreciation for attending Scottish games. He has since traced his genealogy, finding out his last name came from the “Maitland/Lauderdale” families of Scotland.

These days, Medlin is the track and field throwing coach for Lenoir Rhyne University in Hickory. The techniques, skills and events on the 21st century field are not only similar to those of the Highland Games, but they also provide a physical and emotional connection to the competitions of the past.

“I love watching men and women improve from game to game,

and I really like helping them develop a good technique in throwing,” he said. “I do this because I do love the Scottish Highland Games, the athletic competition and the people associated — it’s definitely fun.”

Medlin is proud of once again having the SHAG bring the Highland Games back to the Taste of Scotland & Celtic Festival. To him, the town of Franklin truly encompasses a proud and rich Scottish heritage that still vibrates through the mountains of Western North Carolina.

“I love the area, the town and its affiliation with Scotland,” he said. “I focus on safety, completing a game before 5 p.m. and then return home to post each throwers scores on a board called NASGA, so that all can see their world ranking. This improves as their throws improve. To validate throwers scores, I have judge clinics to train individuals that have the love of the sport.”

Want to go?

The Taste of Scotland & Celtic Festival will be held from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, June 14, in downtown Franklin.

“North Carolina has more residents of Scottish heritage than any other state in the union,” said Doug Morton, event chairman. “In fact, North Carolina has more Scots than Scotland. This festival and supporting events is a sampler of everything Scottish. We have a great weekend planned sure to be enjoyed by every member of the family.”

Patrons of the event will be able to sample traditional Scottish foods, see demonstrations of the Highland Games, shop for authentic Scottish attire, tour the nearby Scottish Tartans Museum, and hear plenty of Scottish/Celtic music. Performances will include My Three Kilts, Calendonia Swing, Dunham Harps, John Mor MacKinsoh Marching Piper Band, Juniper Trio and the Highlands Pipers.

A clan dinner will be held on the evening of Thursday, June 12. The buffet style meal is $20 per adult, $10 for children ages 12 and under.

The Taste of Scotland & Celtic Festival is sponsored by the Franklin Main Street Program, Franklin Tourism Development Authority, Macon County Tourism Development Committee and Franklin Merchants.

For a full schedule of events, visit the festival website at www.tasteofscotlandfestival.org.

Highland games events During the Taste of Scotland & Celtic Festival in Franklin on June 14, there will be several demonstrations of Highland Games. They include, in order, the following: • Clachneart (Stone Throw): This event, the “Stone of Strength,” was introduced in the mid-19th century at Scottish games and is similar to the modern shot putt. Contestants have three tries to “throw” a 16-pound stone with one hand for distance.

• Weight Throw: Two different weights are used in these two events, a 28-pound weight thrown for distance and a 56-pound weight thrown for height and distance. The weights are traditionally block or bell shaped and on a short chain.

Contestants have three tries to throw each weight.

• Hammer Throw: The modern hammer, 22 pounds, in this event is a descendant of the blacksmith’s sledgehammer. The contestant must keep his feet firmly planted until after the throw.

• Caber Toss: The most popular athletic event at any games requires a combination of strength, skill and balance. The Caber is a pole 18 to 20 feet long, weighing from 80 to 120 pounds. It must be tossed end-over-end to land pointing directly away from the athlete. Each contestant gets three attempts.

• Sheaf Toss: A 16-pound bag of hay is tossed by a pitchfork over a cross bar which is raised at two-foot intervals. Each contestant gets three tries at each height. They are eliminated if they miss all attempts.

• WOB: The Weight Over Bar is a 56-pound weight. It is thrown with one hand over a cross bar which is raised at one-foot intervals. Each contestant gets three tries at each height. They are eliminated if they miss all attempts.

For more information on the Southeastern Highland Athletic Group, click on www.throwshagshag.org.

Left: The Taste of Scotland & Celtic Festival will be June 14 in Franklin. Right: Scott Medlin (pictured throwing), president of the Southeastern Highland Athletic Group.

BY GARRET K. WOODWARD

The Way Back When dinner at Cataloochee Ranch in Maggie Valley.

Garret K. Woodward photo

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Bill focuses on a holistic approach and specializes in:

We are excited to now have Bill Morris, pharmacist & nutritionist with us full time!

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Smoky Mountain News

HOT PICKS 1 2 3 4 5

Editor’s Note: The next Way Back When dinner will be held at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 12, at Cataloochee Ranch in Maggie Valley. The cost is $31.95 per person, which includes food and beverage. The dinner is complimentary to guests at the ranch. 828.926.1401 or 800.868.1401 or www.cataloocheeranch.com.

June 4-10, 2014

“Let’s go back to the 1930s,” said Judy “My parents would be proud of us, they’d Coker. be happy my sister and I are still here,” Standing underneath a large manmade Coker said. “It’s always been a family-run birch tent in the backwoods of the business. Even tonight, my grandchildren Cataloochee Ranch last Friday evening, Coker welcomed around 40 people — friends, family and visitors alike — to partake in their inaugural Way Back When dinner.

In celebration of the ranch’s 80th The Haywood County Arts Council’s “Mountain season, Coker and her family Made” exhibit will run June 4-28 at Gallery 86 recreated an old-time trout fishing in downtown Waynesville. An artist reception camp, similar to the one her will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, June 6. father had in the 1930s when he The Jeff Sipe Trio will perform at 9 p.m. June 6 guided trips at Three Forks in the at No Name Sports Pub in Sylva.

Great Smoky Mountains.

“The trout camp was in the heart of the Smokies, in the deepThe Trail Magic No. 8 release party will be est, most remote part of these June 6-7 at Nantahala Brewing in Bryson City. mountains,” she said.

The Three Forks trout camp Author Gary Carden will present his newest itself was land given to “Mr. book Appalachian Bestiary at 7 p.m.

Tom” Alexander, Coker’s father, Thursday, June 12, at the Macon County by a lumber company as payPublic Library in Franklin. ment during the stock market crash of 1929. He would pick up Owner of the Sun will perform at 8 p.m. June clients in Asheville, drive them as 14 at Nantahala Brewing in Bryson City. far as he could into the Smokies, then, either by hiking or horseback, would bring them to the camp, where’d they fish and eat in gusto. It are here helping out. I’m real proud, and feel was that spark of interest in Appalachian very lucky.” hospitality that eventually led Mr. Tom and Pulling into the ranch, guests were welhis wife “Miss Judy” to start the ranch. comed by the staff and soon whisked away Looking out at the enormous meadow on a wagon ride into the backwoods, only to surrounding the tent, Coker, the matriarch pop out into a pristine meadow, one of a byof the ranch alongside her sister Alice gone era, filled with lush vegetation and forAumeen, spoke of how her parents got into est, where joyful voices echo off of the the hospitality business 80 years ago, and ancient landscape of their forefathers. how far the family business has come.

“This truly takes you back in time.

wafts through the scene. Grabbing tin plates, hungry guests are served their traditional dinner and find a seat at the long table.

Laughter and hearty conversation swirl around the air, only to be accompanied by the Appalachian string music of fiddler/banjoist William Ritter.

“It’s always exciting to come up here to the ranch and connect to this history of these mountains,” Ritter said. “I love to see people really try and get after living history.

It’s a great way to learn and experience history, rather than be in a classroom or going on a website.”

With bellies full, there’s just enough room left for a homemade dessert, which that night was blueberry and strawberry rhubarb cobbler. A sing-along emerges, with Ritter holding court at one end of the table.

Eighty years of quality Appalachian hospitality at Cataloochee Ranch, with glasses held high to another 80.

“Eighty years means that I’m very proud of the ranch. Not too many businesses can say they’ve been around 80 years or are still family-run,” said Mary Coker. “Whether you’re a full-time guest or first-timer here, we’re all a family, and we look forward to what the future holds.”

arts & entertainment

This must be the place

Welcome to the past, welcome to 1932,” said Mary Coker, ranch general manager and granddaughter of Miss Judy. “We want our guests to experience something completely new and different, and be able to celebrate 80 years with us.”

Standing around a hearty campfire, guests sip on beverages, taking in the view. And just as the evening sun is about to fall behind the Smokies, a thundercloud swiftly rolls in with dime-sized raindrops. The sturdy birch tent holds strong, as the group huddled closer and saluted the experience.

“Ain’t this the real McCoy, eh?” chuckled Penny Redfern, ranch marketing director.

The storm passes as quickly as it arrived. Sunshine once again peaks through the clouds.

Soon, fresh North Carolina trout is thrown onto the woodstove, slowly cooking, with corn muffins rising in the old oven below. The smell of campfire and trout

366 RUSS AVE | WAYNESVILLE | 828.452.0911 BiLo Shopping Center Find us on facebook: www.facebook.com/kimscompounds

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On the beat arts & entertainment

38 Special to play Franklin

Classic rockers 38 Special will perform at 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 13, at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts in Franklin.

Known for their smash hits “Hold On Loosely,” “Caught Up in You” and “If I’d Been the One,” the band was a recording and touring success through the 1980s and 1990s, selling millions of records along the way. In 2008, they hit the stage with Trace Adkins for CMT Crossroads, and have recently opened for REO Speedwagon, Hank Williams Jr., Lynyrd Skynyrd and Styx.

Tickets are $35 and $40.

866.273.4615 or www.greatmountainmusic.com.

Voices in the Laurel auditions

Smoky Mountain News

June 4-10, 2014

Auditions will be held from 5 to 6:30 p.m. June 3 and 10 at the First Baptist Church in Waynesville.

The organization is a Haywood County based nonprofit choir for young people ranging from 1st grade through 12th grade from Haywood, Buncombe, Jackson, Macon and Swain counties under the direction of Martha Brown. Voices in the Laurel is a program that focuses on providing young people quality choral education in fun and innovative ways.

Ranging from all reaches of Western North Carolina, Voices in the Laurel choristers have the opportunity to participate in a wonderful choir experience starting in the first grade. The choirs of Voices in the Laurel develop healthy singing habits through rehearsals, which focus on teamwork, leadership and introduces choristers to history and to the culture of the music they sing.

Voices in the Laurel will hold auditions June 3 and 10 in Waynesville. File photo Treble Makers is for 1st and 2nd grade singers. This choir is designed to instill a love of music at a young es and an exposure to classic choral music as well as fostering a age and have fun in the process. Concert Choir expands to include knowledge and appreciation for music of all cultures. singers in 3rd through 5th grades. This choir focuses on teaching The 1st and 2nd graders may join without an audition. Singers choristers how to read music and appreciate choral literature in a in 3rd through 12th grades must pass a musical audition fun and exciting way. Chamber Choir encompasses the talents of 828.734.9163.

6th through 12th graders and encourages the growth of their voic-

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• Jeff Sipe Trio, Travers Brothers, Chris Blaylock, Three Sum, Natty Love Joys and Caleb Crawford will perform at No Name Sports Pub in Sylva.

Sipe will play June 6, with Travers Brothers June 7, Blaylock June 8, Three Sums June 13, Naty Love Joys June 14 and Crawford June 15. All shows begin at 9 p.m. Free. 828.586.2750 or www.nonamesportspub.com.

ALSO:

• Sundown will perform during Pickin’ on the Square at 6:30 p.m. June 7 at Town Square in Franklin. 70s classics and oldies. Free. www.franklin-chamber.com or 828.542.2516.

• Dana & Susan Robinson and Dominic Frost

will perform at The Classic Wineseller in Waynesville. Robinson will play June 6, with Frost June 13. All shows begin at 7 p.m. and have a $10 minimum purchase, which includes food, wine and merchandise.

828.452.6000.

• Lady & The Old Timers will perform at 11 a.m. Thursday, June 5, at the Macon County Public Library in Franklin. The group specializes in the classic country and gospel music. www.fontanalib.org.

• The Trail Magic Ale No. 8 release party, Rob Nance and Owner of the Sun will be at Nantahala Brewing Company in Bryson City.

The release party is June 6-7, with William Schmitt on June 6 and The Grove Band on

June 7. Rob Nance will play June 13, with Owner of the Sun June 14. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Free. 828.488.2337 or www.nantahalabrewing.com.

• A comedy show, cornhole tournament, Mangas Colorado, ‘Round the Fire and The Spontaneous Combustion Jam will be at BearWaters Brewing Company in Waynesville.

The comedy show is at 9 p.m. June 6, with the cornhole tournament at 10 a.m. June 7, Mangas Colorado June 13 and ‘Round the Fire June 14. The jam runs from 8 p.m. to midnight every Monday, with all players welcome. 828.246.0602 or www.bwbrewing.com.

• Hurricane Creek will perform at Groovin’ on the Green at 6:30

F

On the beat

Nutrition Facts serving size : ab out 50 p ag es

• Friday Night Jazz! with The Kittle & Collings Duo will be from 6 to 9 p.m. June 6 at Lulu’s on Main. www.mountainlovers.com.

• Craig Summers & Lee Kram, Bohemian Jean, Andrew of River Rats and Chris Minnick will perform at Frog Level Brewing Company in Waynesville. Summers & Kram play June 5 and 12, with Minnick June 7.

Free. 828.454.5664 or www.froglevelbrewing.com.

arts & entertainment

p.m. June 6 at the Village Commons in Cashiers. Free. www.mountainlovers.com.

Am ount per Serving Calories 0 % Daily Value * Tot al Fat 0g

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* Percent Weekly values b ased on Hayw ood, Jackson, M acon, Sw ain and Buncom b e d iet s.

• Paul Constantine and Karen “Sugar” Barnes & Dave McGill will perform at City Lights Café in Sylva. Constantine plays June 7, with Barnes & McGill June 13. Free. www.citylightscafe.com or 828.587.2233.

• The Corbitt Brothers will perform at 8 p.m.

June 6 at the Franklin High School football field. The performance is for the Relay for Life event taking place that evening. www.franklin-chamber.com.

• Eddie Rose & Highway 40 will perform at Concerts on the Creek at 7:30 p.m. June 6 at Bridge Park in Sylva. Free. 828.586.2155.

• The Blue Ridge Big Band and Korey Warren will perform at The Strand at 38 Main in Waynesville. The Blue Ridge Big Band will play at 2 p.m. June 8 ($10 per person), with Warren at 7:45 p.m. June 12 ($12 person).

828.283.0079 or www.38main.com.

June 4-10, 2014

• The Love Medicated, Humps & The Blackouts and Anthony Harp will perform at the Water’n Hole Bar & Grill in Waynesville.

The Love Medicated will play June 6, with Humps & The Blackouts June 7 ($5 cover), and Harp June 14. All shows begin at 9 p.m.

828.456.4750.

• A community music jam will be held from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 5, at the Marianna Black Library in Bryson City.

Anyone with a guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, dulcimer, anything unplugged, are invited to join. Singers are also welcomed to join in or you can just stop by and listen. The music jams are offered to the public each first and third Thursday of the month.

828.488.3030.

Even our storytelling is an

outdoor adventure.

Smoky Mountain News

• A community dance will be held at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, June 8, at the Jackson County Public Library in Sylva. All dances are taught and walked through before the event begins.

No previous experience or partner necessary.

Ron Arps will be the caller, with live music

by Out of the Woodwork. Potluck to follow at 5 p.m. ronandcathy71@frontier.com or 828.586.5478.

• Karaoke with Chris Monteith and Josh Lane of My Highway will perform at O’Malley’s Pub & Grill in Sylva. Monteith will play June 6, with Lane June 7. 828.631.0554.

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arts & entertainment

Cullowhee Mountain ARTS summer series kicks off

First Friday of each Month Second Friday in July 6-9 p.m.

May through December

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Smoky Mountain News

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OPEN MON-SAT 8 A.M.-6 P.M.

www.lakejunaluska.com/bookstore

facebook.com/smnews 28

On the wall The Cullowhee Mountain ARTS summer series will commence June 15-20 at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.

The five-week series includes art and creative writing workshops, youth art camps and the FAM-CMA invitational art exhibit. CMA brings a distinguished faculty, with national and international reputations, to teach fiveday workshops offered in book arts, ceramics, creative writing, mixed media, painting and printmaking. The workshop environment provides an immersion experience in a specific area, supplemented with lectures, demonstrations, portfolio talks, readings and presentations. Instruction and sharing among attendees takes place within the WCU Bardo Arts Center and the School of Art and Design.

Workshops are offered for all levels of artists and writers, including beginners.

Youth programs include two, four and five-day art camps for ages 5-12. This year, artist Kjeltsy Hanson will lead two special camps that combine mask making, puppet making and performance. Two-day workshops will let young artists create themselves as super-heroes with super powers.

In concert with the Summer ARTS Series,

• The Haywood County Arts Council’s “Mountain Made” exhibit, featuring an array of local crafters and artisans, will run June 4-28 at Gallery 86 in downtown Waynesville. The showcase will also include prints, paintings and photographs from the Bethel Rural Community Organization. An artist reception open to the public will be held at the gallery from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, June 6 during Art After Dark.

• The hit reality television program “What’s in the Barn?” will return for season two at 10 p.m. June 10 on Velocity TV. The production follows host Dale Walksler crisscrossing the country in search of rare motorcycles.

Walksler is the owner/operator of the widely successful Wheels Through Time Museum in Maggie Valley.

• The Village Square Art & Craft Show will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 14-15 at KelseyHutchinson Park in Highlands. Regional artisans, demonstrations, live music, food vendors, and children’s activities. Free.

Sponsored by the Macon County Art Association and the Highlands Area Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center.

• Jewelry maker Diane Herring and potter Connie Hogan will be the featured artists for the month of June at Tunnel Mountain Crafts in Dillsboro. From 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, June 7, Hogan will host a pottery demonstration.

From 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 14, Herring will explain the traditional healing properties of the minerals she uses.

• The films “North by Northwest” and “Cataloochee” will be screened at The

The Cullowhee Mountain ARTS summer series begins June 15. File photo

The Fine Art Museum at WCU is hosting the 2nd annual FAM-CMA Invitational Exhibit, June 16 – July 25. The exhibit features the work of Cullowhee Mountain ARTS summer faculty, contemporary artists from all points in the United States. Expect an invigorating compilation of art in a multitude of mediums.

Enrollment is open for most workshops and youth programs. Details are available at www.cullowheemountainarts.org or by calling 828.342.6913.

Cullowhee Mountain ARTS receives sponsorship from the College of Fine and Performing Arts at Western Carolina University.

Strand at 38 Main in Waynesville. “North by Northwest” will be screened June 6-7, with “Cataloochee” June 13-14. Screenings are at 7:45 p.m. on Fridays and 2 p.m., 5 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. on Saturdays. Tickets are $6 per person, $4 for children. 828.283.0079 or www.38main.com.

• A two-day course in hammered copper by Cullowhee metalsmith William Rogers will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. June 13-14 at The Bascom Center for the Visual Arts in Highlands. Class participants will make a copper pendant or badge that can be worn, using methods practiced by prehistoric Americans to form copper panels and gorgets. For more information about the class and to register, call 828.526.4949.

ALSO:

• A landscape-painting workshop by Doreyl Ammons Cain will be held at 2 p.m. June 7 at a local farmstead in Tuckasegee. The workshop will cover the basis in pastel painting. $36 per person, which includes all art supplies. 828.231.6965 or www.facebook.com/muralistdoreyl.

• The film “Divergent” will be shown at 9:30 p.m. June 5 in the Central Plaza at Western Carolina University. Free. corelli@wcu.edu or 828.227.3618.

• An introduction to rug hooking class will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Masonic Lodge in Dillsboro. The class will be led by Claudia Lampley. Participants will make a “mug rug.” $12 per person.

828.586.2435 or junejpell@hotmail.com.

On the wall

Western Carolina University’s Mountain Heritage Center will open two new exhibits highlighting the 125th anniversary of the university’s founding and the 40th anniversary of Mountain Heritage Day. An opening reception for the exhibits will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, June 12. Both exhibits will be on display through Dec. 12.

An exhibit titled “The Dearest Spot of All: Western Carolina University’s 125th Anniversary” showcases the development and growth of the university over the decades, with artifacts and memorabilia that tell the stories of the many dedicated individuals who shaped the institution into the multifaceted regional university that it is today.

The exhibit “Y’all Come, the Best Kind of Get-Together: 40 Years of Mountain Heritage Day” showcases the evolution of the festival. The event now known as Mountain Heritage Day began as Founders Day in 1974 to celebrate the inauguration of Chancellor H.F. “Cotton” Robinson. The day ended with a barbecue and square dance, and discussions about holding a similar event the next year. The celebration is now held on the last Saturday each September.

The reception will be capped off with a presentation by university archivist George Frizzell, who will speak about the early years of Western Carolina University and its growth from a high school to a statewide model of teacher training.

The Mountain Heritage Center is open to the public free

The Mountain Heritage Center will offer two exhibits celebrating its 40th anniversary of Mountain Heritage Day and the 125th anniversary of WCU. Mark Haskett photo of charge and is located on the ground floor of H.F. Robinson Administration Building.

828.227.7129 or www.mhc.wcu.edu.

Western Carolina University is accepting nominations for the 2014 Mountain Heritage Awards, honors bestowed annually on one individual and one organization that have played a prominent role in the preservation or interpretation of Southern Appalachian history and culture.

Nominations for the awards will be accepted through Monday, June 30.

The awards are presented at Mountain Heritage Day, the university’s celebration of traditional Appalachian culture that takes place on the last Saturday each September.

The festival will be held on Sept. 27 and celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, which also is the 125th anniversary of WCU’s founding.

Letters of nomination should not exceed five pages and should include the full name of the individual or organization being nominated, with a website address if applicable; the mailing address of the nominee; the nominee’s birth date or founding date; a list of the nominee’s accomplishments; a list of the awards and other recognitions received by the nominee; information about the nominee’s influence in the relevant field of expertise (such as crafts, music or organizational cause); and information about the nominee’s role as a teacher, advocate, leader or preserver of mountain culture.

Nomination letters may be hand-delivered to the Mountain Heritage Center, located on the ground floor of WCU’s H.F. Robinson Administration Building; mailed to this address: Scott Philyaw, 151 H.F. Robinson Administration Building, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, N.C. 28723; or emailed to philyaw@wcu.edu.

RELAX RELA AX THIS T SUM SUMMER MME R

June 4-10, 2014

America’s America’s Ho Home me Plac Placee

arts & entertainment

WCU accepting nominations for Mountain Heritage Awards

WCU, Mountain Heritage Day anniversary exhibit

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Smoky Mountain News

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On the stage

On the street

arts & entertainment

• Author Gary Carden will present his newest book Appalachian Bestiary at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 12, at the Macon County Public Library in Franklin. Carden will showcase the book, which draws from the oral traditions of the southern mountains. www.fontanalib.org.

Jim Gaffigan to play Harrah’s

ALSO:

• The comedy/horror production “Little Shop of Horrors” will hit the stage June 12-29 at the Highlands Playhouse.

Showtimes are 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, with a 2 p.m. Sunday matinee.

The story is about a hapless florist shop worker who raises a plant that feeds on human blood and flesh. The musical is based on the low-budget 1960 black comedy film “The Little Shop of Horrors,” directed by Roger Corman. $32.50 per person, $15 for children up to age 12. www.highlandsplayhouse.org or 828.526.2695.

June 4-10, 2014

Acclaimed comedian Jim Gaffigan will perform at 7:30 p.m. June 14 at Harrah’s Cherokee.

Gaffigan has proven to be a major talent beloved to a wide range of audiences, achieving accolades and awards for his stand-up comedy, acting and writing. His clever, quiet style has made him one of the top-five most successful touring comedians in the country.

He has had breakout guest appearances on comedies and dramas ranging from Portlandia, Flight of the Concords and Bored to Death to dramatic roles in all three versions of Law & Order. In recent years, Gaffigan has also become a mainstay on the big screen.

Tickets are $34.50, $44.50 and $54.50. www.harrahscherokee.com.

• Auditions for “Lost in Yonkers” will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. June 8 and 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. June 9 at the Highlands Performing Arts Center. The comedydrama, written by Neil Simon, tells the humorous and insightful story of a family in the 1940s.

Rehearsals start July 7, with performances Aug. 21-24 and 2831. 828.526.4904.

Appalachian Lifestyle Celebration is June 14 The 4th annual Appalachian Lifestyle Celebration will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Saturday, June 14, in downtown Waynesville.

During the event, there will be local

Civil War reenactment at The Shelton House A Civil War reenactment will be June 13-14 at The Shelton House in Waynesville.

Enjoy lectures, Civil War reenactments, displays of period clothing, replicas of the Southern Cross of Honor, museum tours, barbecue and Contra-dancing.

At 7 p.m. Friday, June 13, there will a lecture by Jule Morrow, Captain of the 25th N.C. State Troops, titled, “The Civil War in Haywood County in 1864.” All day Saturday, June 14, there will be a Living History Camp, filled with military and civilian re-enactors, camp music

by Anita and Zach Pruett, and Butts on the Creek BBQ available. Museum tours will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Starting at 10 a.m. Saturday, there will be Civil War Infantry Drill & Musket Firing, followed by a lecture and public demonstration by Jule Morrow titled Civil War Weapons, as well as a Civil War fashion show. The day will be capped off by a performance from 7 to 10 p.m. featuring Whitewater Bluegrass Company, with contra and square dancing to be showcased The reenactment is free and open to the public. www.sheltonhouse.org or 828.452.1551.

• A Father’s Day Banquet will be held at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 12, at the Jackson County Senior Center in Sylva. Men of all generations are encouraged to come out and celebrate with other fathers at this community-wide celebration. Reservations must be made by 4 p.m. Monday, June 9.

Free. 828.586.4944.

Smoky Mountain News

ALSO:

Fresh. LOCAL. Yours.

Visit your local Farmer’s Markets.

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To learn more about your local farmer’s markets, visit

mountainwise.org

authors, demonstrations and crafter booths including basket making, blacksmithing, quilting, weaving, wood working, wood carving, pottery, painting and soap making.

Live music will be offered on both ends of downtown. Music groups include The Darren Nicholson Band, E.T.S.U. DIRT Band, The Ross Brothers, Michael Pilgrim, Anne and Rob Lough, Productive Paranoia, Radio Hill Jam and Michael Reno Harrell. The J Creek Cloggers and Fines Creek Flatfooters will also kick up their heels for crowd excitement.

If a square dance is your thing, join Joe Sam Queen as he gives a special demonstration and invites crowd participation. Bob Plott, with a Plott Hound, will speak of frontier hunters. Food vendors will feature barbecue, smoked sausage, homemade ice cream, fried apple pies, kettle corn and more.

Volunteers are currently needed for setup and take-down. The event is sponsored by The Downtown Waynesville Association.

828.456.3517 or www.downtownwaynesville.com.

• The Coweeta Listening Project will be held from 3:30 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 10, at the Cowee Farmers Market. The event includes a presentation about special places in the region, types of environmental changes, as well as a live performance by the Dog House Duo, who play the Native American flute and mountain dulcimer. www.franklinchamber.com.

• The Spirit of the Smokies car show will be held at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, June 7, at the Harris Regional Hospital in Sylva. Proceeds from the annual event are used to benefit the cardiopulmonary rehabilitation department and the WestCare Foundation.

Registration is $15 per car in advance, $20

the day of the event. 828.631.8924 or andrea.robbins@haymed.org.

• The “Weird Animals Vacation Bible Camp” will be from 6 to 8:30 p.m. June 14-18 at the Bryson City First Baptist Church. The camp will teach about God’s most creative creatures. Camp is for children ages 6-11.

828.488.2679.

• The Bike Fest & Swap Meet will be June 1315 at the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds.

828.736.2217 or www.maggievalleybikefest.com.

• A bingo fundraiser for KARE will be from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. June 14 at the Waynesville Armory. All ages welcome. The benefit is for KARE to help expand their mission of ending child abuse and neglect. $10 per set of nine games. 828.456.8995.

• The Ole Smokey Tractor Club Spring Farm Fest will be from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. June 6-8 at the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds. Antique tractor and engine show, flea market, crafters, tractor rides for children, food vendors.

828.734.1510 or schramm125@aol.com.

Books

Smoky Mountain News

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Dark story explores love, retribution have always been drawn to authors who can seize your attention in the first paragraph and like a pit bull, refuse to let you go. Ron Rash can do that (Serena). So can Philipp Meyer (The Son). These guys are so good, they can set the hook and play you the way a seasoned fisherman handles a trout, (Whoa, that is a mixed metaphor, I guess!) for 40 pages, forcing you to abandon chores and your social life, intent on riding out what the critics call “a riveting Writer narrative.” Well, here is another one. Let me summarize the beginning of The Kept by James Scott.

It is the winter of 1897 and Elspeth is struggling through a snowstorm in upstate New York. She has been working in a distant town and now, burdened with food and gifts for her family, she trudges through the snow with several months wages hidden in to toes of her shoes. When she tops the last ridge before home, she hopes to see her family waiting for her. Instead, she sees the lifeless bodies of five children in the front yard.

When she reaches the house, she rushes to her bedroom where she finds her husband’s bullet-riddled body. The only child missing is Caleb, a 12-year-old boy who has taken to staying in the barn with the livestock at night.

Elspeth rushes to the barn in the hope that Caleb has survived. He has. Caleb witnessed the murders of his brother and sisters, and now, terrified that the killers might return for him, he crouches behind a closed door with an Ithica, double-barreled shotgun. When Elspeth opens the door, he fires.

Although Elspeth’s wounds are grievous, they are not fatal, and Caleb manages to treat her wounds. Slowly, haltingly, Elspeth learns some vague details about the attack. Three armed men, all with distinctive red scarves,

Gary Carden

I

killed Elspeth’s husband and all of the children.

In the terrible days following the massacre, Caleb burns the house, cremating the dead.

she has decided to seek work that will make her a kind of surrogate mother. She begins working as a midwife, a job that brings her into contact with newborns, many of which are unwanted. By working for doctors, Elspeth manages to earn wages that support her “family.” In addition, she sometimes discovers her work provides her with opportunities to “steal” babies. Elspeth simply vanishes into the night and leaves no clue as to who she is and where she has gone. In this manner, she has acquired a family.

As Elspeth and Caleb struggle toward a refuge, they forge an agreement. They will find the three killers and wreck vengeance on them. This bizarre duo finally finds an elderly couple who tends to Elspeth’s wounds and feeds them. In the short time that Elspeth and Caleb spend with their benefactors, they learn that the killers have been there before them and had frightened and abused the aging pair. Elspeth asks for directions. Which way did the killers go when they left? And so it is that this maimed woman and a troubled boy with a shotgun find their way to a town called Waterbridge ... a place with which Elspeth is familiar, for it is the town from which she stole Caleb some 12 years ago.

The Kept by James Scott. HarperCollins, 2014. 357 pages In time, Elspeth and Caleb find their way to Waterbridge, and As the farm animals starve, Caleb and Elspeth both the journey and the town acquire the decide to abandon the barn and undertake a qualities of a dark parable. Desperate to find trek through a daunting frozen wilderness in work, Elspeth takes a room in a local hotel, the hope of finding help. As this painful jourdisguises herself as a man and manages to get ney progresses, the reader learns a series of and retain a position cutting ice from Lake surprising facts. None of the children are Erie. Elspeth is poorly qualified to perform Elspeth’s. In actual fact, the children have all the torturous job of lifting, hauling and storbeen “stolen.” ing great slabs of ice, but she manages to surSince Elspeth is unable to have children, vive despite the pain of her wounds, largely

Summer reading in Bryson City Readers of all ages will enjoy exploring all things scientific this summer at the Marianna Black Library in Bryson City.

This year’s Summer Reading Program will have children from birth to 5th grade participating in “Fizz, Boom, Read.” Tweens and teens, ages 12-18, will be participating in “Spark a Reaction.” Activities will include science experiments, robot building, grossology fun and more.

The program includes a variety of prizes and incentives for reading.

There will also be special presenters including visits from Snakes Alive and Birds of Prey presented by Balsam Mountain Trust.

Registration will begin on June 9. Stop by the library to pick up a registration form and a calendar of events. All programs are completely free and open to everyone.

828.488.3030 or aplatt@fontanalib.org.

due to the assistance of a fellow worker.

However, the most horrendous event in this novel is the graphic description of wreck and bloodshed attending the collapse of the ice house ... an event that culminates in a mass funeral for the crushed workers.

Caleb, left to his own devices, seeks work at “another kind of hotel,” the Elm Inn, where he sweeps and does chores as he watches patrons come and go. It is here that Caleb acquires a brutal introduction to adulthood.

There is gambling, violence, knife fights, 12year-old prostitutes and occasional murders.

Young Caleb witnesses scenes so bizarre that they could easily qualify as some kind of purgatory, chapters out of Candide, or a perverse version of Pilgrim’s Progress. Especially noteworthy is the balcony of the Elm Hotel from which drunk, and wounded or dying customers often fall (or are cast) into the field of snow. Caleb watches as the Elm Inn prostitutes “make snow angels” in the field where the drunk and/or dying customers lie covered with snow.

When the guilt-ridden Elspeth finally tells Caleb that she is not his “birth mother” and that his “real parents” are somewhere in Waterbridge, the bewildered boy begins to slowly alter his mission of vengeance. Instead of finding the killers, he now wants to find his parents. Who are they? How does he find them? Is it possible that, when he confronts them, he will realize that Elspeth is his “true mother”? The irony in this situation is disturbing because the identity of his true family and the revelation regarding the identity of the three killers are linked.

The Kept is a dark novel that investigates the roots of obsession. All of the characters in James Scott’s novel are driven by emotions that can make people helpless pawns to forces beyond their control. Love and retribution are twisted together into a self-destructive force.

If you have a taste for a well-written, unrelenting search for retribution, a search that reads like a an Old Testament parable, you might love The Kept. I did.

Thackston returns with a mystery Conversation with Poetry Author Lawrence Thackston will present his new mystery Tidal series focuses on parents Pools at 6:30 p.m. Friday, June 6, at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva.

In the Galeegi Islands along the coast of South Carolina, the former prime suspect in a 40-year-old, controversial murder case is found dead of a questionable suicide. Tyler Miles, a newly recruited patrolman with the Galeegi Police Department, becomes an unlikely part of the investigation and is immediately swept up in a tidal wave of violence and deceit that threatens to impact the entire Lowcountry.

Working side-by-side with Chloe Hart, a research biologist for the EPA, Tyler must find a connection between the suicide and the old murder, all the while facing a new rash of killings and an imminent, destructive threat to the islands and the surrounding marshlands.

828.586.9499.

The Conversations with Poetry series will continue with “It’s Personal; It’s Complicated: Poems About Parents” — a five-part series — from 4 to 6 p.m. June 12 at the Haywood Public Library in Waynesville.

Poets, like all people, wrestle with complex relationships and the emotions attached to them. There may be no more complicated, life-defining relationship than the one shared with parents. How can poetry help to find the language to navigate this world of connection, aging and acceptance?

The five-part series, run by poet/educator Michael Beadle, will run every Thursday except, for July 4.

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Outdoors

Smoky Mountain News

How you can help

Resurrecting Graveyard Fields Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation funds makeover for popular recreation site View from Graveyard Fields overlook. Holly Kays photos

BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER hododendrons are opening deep pink blooms along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and new spring foliage blends into a bright blue sky dotted with puffy clouds. At the Graveyard Fields overlook this Friday morning, chirping birds and the occasional passing car are the only sounds. “Idyllic” is the word that comes to mind, but this peaceful scene is far from the norm for this pull-off near mile marker 418.

“If this was open, you’d have cars parked in every one of these spaces and they would be parallel parked up here, and parking parallel all the way down there [to the sign some 100 yards away] and double parked on both sides downhill,” said David Anderson, landscape designer for the Blue Ridge Parkway, gesturing across the gravel-and-roofing-littered construction site.

Though the parking lot accommodates only 18 vehicles, he’ll often see 100 cars parked around the overlook on a given summer weekend.

“Maybe more,” chimes in Debra Flowers, acting chief ranger for the parkway.

The overlook and parking area are closed at the moment, surrounded by a padlocked chain link fence.

The construction crew has taken a day off, the prefabricated toilet partially installed and the soon-to-beexpanded parking lot still in progress. More fencing closes off the trailheads. The present quietness of the area is no fluke.

Winter weather and delays stemming from higherthan-anticipated bids forced construction to happen during the busy summer season, but Anderson is aiming for a July 4 reopening. And he’s looking forward to the result.

Anyone visiting the site that day will probably first notice the newly installed toilet, complete with a roofed breezeway and bench, with eyes next sliding to the parking lot, more than doubled in size from 18 spaces to 40. Subtler changes will include new educational signage to teach visitors the basics of resource protection, and an expanded boardwalk on the trail to prevent further erosion of a particularly vulnerable section.

Anybody arriving after the parking lot is full, however, would have a hard time finding a spot elsewhere.

The Graveyard Fields project includes installing a battery of No Parking signs along the roadside, with park law enforcement doling out fines to people who ignore them.

R

LOVED TO DEATH The goal, though, isn’t to spoil anybody’s fun. Rather, it’s to re-create the site to provide a better experience for all visitors, both in the present and in the future.

“One hundred cars may want to come here, but if there were only 40, everybody’s experience would be better, in my opinion,” Anderson said. “I’d rather go to the mall now than Black Friday.”

In addition to packing down the soil and creating a traffic hazard as people, dogs and kids walk across a curvy road used by cars, motorcycles, bikes and everything else, having too many people on site takes away from its basic appeal. Graveyard Fields is home to unusual birds such as the belted kingfisher, peregrine falcon and indigo bunting, and it provides habitat for 7 rare animal species and four rare plant species. But when there are too many people, nobody gets to enjoy them.

“If there’s so many people at an area, you don’t get that feeling of solitude and you don’t see wildlife because they’ve already been driven from the area,” Anderson said.

Then there’s the impact to the land itself.

Graveyard Fields is closed until the project’s end, scheduled for July 4.

The soils in this area are extremely erodible, so once the ground gets torn up, the rainwater just keeps channeling through, carrying the fragile soil with it. That, in turn, impacts the plant community.

But Graveyard Fields is more than just an overlook with a couple of spur trails.

The parking lot is only 150 feet away from the boundary of the Pisgah National Forest, and trails leaving from the overlook hook directly into the Mountains to Sea Trail.

The site offers easy access to backcountry camping, blueberry picking and three popular waterfalls.

“It is one of the most well-loved sites on the Blue Ridge Parkway,” said Willa Mays, chief development officer of the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation.

It’s also, perhaps, one of the most overloved sites. With no bathroom available, tufts of toilet paper were surfacing all over the area, and erosion was setting in heavily in some places. Something had to be done, so a little over five years ago, the foundation, the parkway and the U.S. Forest Service began talking about what could be done.

“The traffic up there and the people that want to enjoy Graveyard Fields at every time of the year, I don’t think the people who first designed that site could have ever dreamed how important it would become,” said Leesa Brandon, the parkway’s public information officer.

PLANNING A REVIVAL So, the planning and fundraising began.

Finding money is always a challenge for the parkway, perhaps more so than for other national parks. Though the Blue Ridge Parkway often pulls in more visitors per year than any other national park, it doesn’t charge any entrance fee. And competing against big parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite for park service dollars can be tough, so the nonprofit Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation is often essential in finding the money for projects like Graveyard Fields.

The construction project at Graveyard Fields is scheduled to wrap up by July 4, but the park service needs some help in the meantime: ■ Don’t try to enter the closed site before it reopens. Doing so is both a safety hazard and a resource issue.

■ Don’t slow down to look at the progress while driving past. Graveyard Fields is on a curvy section of road that requires full attention to maneuver.

■ Do help the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation finish funding the project, which is still $50,000 short. To donate, contact Willa Mays at 866.308.2773 ext. 305 or wmays@brpfoundation.org.

“We’re appreciative of the foundation for their leadership rule in helping making this a reality,” Brandon said.

The parkway needed about $330,000 to get the project done, and a Scenic Byways grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation took care of $261,000 of that. The foundation has raised about $20,000 of the remainder, but it’s still looking for about $50,000 more. Raising the cash will be a challenge, but Mays believes that the process of doing so will do about as much for the parkway as the project itself.

“It’s more than just raising money and going out and building a project,” Mays said. “It’s about a long-term investment in making sure it stays beautiful and safe for everyone who visits there.”

Accomplishing that depends on the collective decisions that the park’s 13 to 15 million yearly visitors make when no one else is watching. And influencing people’s decisions, in turn, requires education and engagement. It’s the first piece of this puzzle that is Flowers’ bread and butter, those exchanges with visitors who are in the middle of taking a souvenir rock home or picking themselves a bouquet, not thinking about what the place would look like if everyone did the same thing.

“It’s watching that light bulb moment of ‘I haven’t thought about it before,’” Flowers said. “It takes education.”

By educating the community and then relying on them to help with the site’s revival, Mays theorizes, those people get caught up in the mission of the parkway for good.

“At the foundation, we’re really trying to build a community of stewards, people who are attracted to a particular place,” she said.

THE BALANCING ACT There’s still a ways to go. Over at mile marker 418, dirt paths border the chain link fence where people have tried to skirt the boundary. Next

Audubon sponsors study of endangered warbler One of the most prized bringers of spring song in Western North Carolina is the golden-winged warbler, and Highlands Plateau Audubon Society has awarded a grant to help increase human knowledge of these beautiful and endangered birds.

Graduate student Jamie Harrelson, of Western Carolina University, will conduct a twopart study at sites in private and national forest land in Macon, Jackson, Haywood, Graham and Clay counties. The project will assess known and potential golden-winged warbler sites and look at how male aggression relates to population density and habitat quality. Her work will help fill in some holes about where this species can be found in this region, as well as in understanding critical aspects of their behavior as it relates to their surroundings.

Research suggests that the majority of golden-wings nesting in North Carolina travel from their wintering grounds in the South American country of Colombia, typically returning to the same areas year after year to raise their young.

However, golden-wings have been declining throughout their range. They prefer to breed in areas with a mix of grassy fields and hardwood forest edges.

Appalachian forests are becoming older on average, so this habitat is declining. As the golden-wings become increasingly rare, their importance as a conservation target for Audubon and the state of North Carolina also increases.

outdoors

Golden-winged warbler.

Donated photo

Through her project, Harrelson hopes “to engage private landowners in discussions about habitat management techniques that increase availability of suitable breeding habitat for the species.

Conservation of golden-winged warblers across their breeding range depends on appropriate habitat management on both public and private lands.” www.ncaudubon.org

June 4-10, 2014 Smoky Mountain News

tures and stores rainwater to use for cleaning — is not yet operational, a portable one sits onsite for the construction crew to use. to the blocked-off steps descending the trail It is padlocked. is a path of dirt made from the feet of visi“They came back from a long weekend tors determined to hike the trail anyway, and it was almost overflowing,” Anderson regardless of the signs announcing its cloexplains. So they had to lock it up. sure. Anderson shakes his head and bends That balancing act of catering to a pubdown to snap a documentary photo. lic that is sometimes overeager to love their “This is an example of why this area is natural resources while also providing educlosed,” he said. cation and resource protection is sometimes Such informal trails disturb the fragile frustrating. But it’s also rewarding. soil, yes, but there’s also the danger stem“There is no place I would rather be,” Flowers said. “You think about the people that are doing the wrong thing.

The folks that are really enjoying the parkway and everything we have to offer completely outweigh the negatives.”

And the hope is that Visitors enjoy the Lower Falls at Graveyard Fields. File photo David Anderson, as Western left, and Debra Flowers stand amid the construction debris while envisioning North the project’s completion. Holly Kays photo Carolina grows in population, it will also grow in stewardship education. For both the parkway and the foundation, this project is just one step toward the future both hope to see for the Blue Ridge Parkway.

“You want to invite people to explore the parkway, and you want them to have a ming from an active construction site in a wonderful experience,” Anderson said, “but remote area with little to no cell service that you also want to keep them safe and you gets very dark at night. want to make sure they go home happy and “You can’t protect people from themeducated. But you do have to balance the selves,” Anderson said. park service mission of preservation and While the permanent vault toilet — a protection for future generations.” solar-powered three-stall affair that cap-

STORY, CONTINUED FROM 32

Dinner for the birds The Highlands Plateau Audubon Society’s first program of the season will include a potluck for the bird-brained at 6 p.m. Monday, June 9, at the Highlands Civic Center. Dinner-goers should bring a dish to share and then settle in for a program titled “Bird-gardening: How Your Yard Can Help Birds,” to begin at 7 p.m. from Kim Brand of Audubon North Carolina. www.highlandsaudubonsociety.org or 828.743.9670.

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outdoors June 4-10, 2014

Rangers to hold court at Devils Courthouse

Free fly fishing workshops offered A lineup of free fly fishing workshops and classes offered through the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission will be given at Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education near Brevard this month. “Introduction to Fly Fishing� will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 13.

Experienced instructors will teach participants ages 12 and older the basics of equipment, knots, casting techniques and aquatic entomology. Limited to six participants. Equipment and materials are provided, but lunch is not.

The schedule continues with “Casting: Level 1� from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., May 15, at Lake Imaging in DuPont State Recreational Forest. Anglers 12 and older will receive instruction tailored to their own pace. Equipment and materials are provided, but lunch is not. “Introduction to Tankara 101,� taught 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., May 17, will feature guest presenter Jason Sparks of Appalachian Tenkara, who will introduce students 12 and older to this form of traditional Japanese fly fishing. History, equipment orientation, Japanese flies and time in the water will all be included.

Equipment provided.

Future fly fishing programs include: “Family Fly Fishing Day,� 9 a.m. to noon, May 20; I“ntroduction to Fly Fishing: Lake Fishing,� 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., May 22; “Introduction to Tenkara: Level II,� 9 to 11 a.m., May 23; “Fishing Clinic,� 10 a.m. to noon, May 24; “On the Water,� 9 a.m. to noon on May 26 and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., May 30.

Register at 828.877.4423 or www.ncpaws.org/reservations/pisgah

Parkway rangers will lead a hike to the panoramic, fourstate view at Devils Courthouse at 10 a.m. Friday, June 6. The hike is moderate, 1-mile roundtrip excursion. Rangers will teach participants about the high elevation forest and delve into all the details of what makes Devils Courthouse such a special place.

Meet at the Devils Courthouse Overlook at Milepost 422.2. Bring water, wear good walking shoes, and be prepared for changeable weather.

828.298.5330, ext. 304.

Kids night hike takes off in the Great Smokies

Devils Courthouse. NPS photo

Food preservation workshop planned in Haywood A food preservation workshop on Thursday, June 5, at the Haywood Cooperative Extension Office on Raccoon Road will teach participants research-based information to help them preserve food safely.

Two sessions will be offered: 10:30 a.m. to noon and 5:30 to 7 p.m. Judging requirements for county and state fair home-canned food entries will be part of the class. Free. A second set of June classes will follow up with reduced sugar recipes for jams and jellies, to be held

A weekly Junior Ranger night hike will give kids a chance to learn about the creatures that move outside when darkness sets in. The ranger program will begin at 8:45 p.m. on Sundays throughout the summer, beginning at the Bradley Fork Trailhead on the D loop of Smokemont Campground in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It will last about one hour and cover less than 1 mile.

Free, but limited to 25 participants. Register up to four days in advance at 828.497.1904.

5:30 to 8:30 p.m. June 19 and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

June 20. The fee for that class will be $14.

Julie Sawyer, 828.456.3575.

Natural products to take stage at WCU Western North Carolina’s growing natural products industry will be the focus of a gathering held 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, June 10, at Western Carolina University in the Blue Ridge Conference Room.

WCU now has a professional concentration in natural products as part of its master’s degree program in chemistry, and participants will work to identify opportunities

for collaborations between the new concentration and the region. “WCU Summit on Natural Products: Education, Innovation and Vision� will include a keynote address titled “A Vision for Changing the World from Western (North) Carolina� from Floyd “Ski� Chilton, WCU biology alumnus and professor of physiology and pharmacology at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Then, a panel discussion on natural products development will be followed by a luncheon and remarks

by WCU Chancellor David O. Belcher. An optional tour of WCU’s Millennial Campus will be offered after lunch.

Free, with pre-registration required at the summit link at www.graduate.wcu.edu.

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The annual open house of the Macon County Master Gardeners Association from 1 to 4 p.m. June 7 will give the public a chance to see the gardeners’ blooming gardens during self-guided tours.

During the open house, members will share their gardening knowledge and discuss the variety of plantings and beds they tend year around as part of the Horticulture Education section of the county’s Cooperative Extension Service.

Free, with light refreshments served. The event will be held at the Environmental Resource Center, 1624 Lakeside Drive just east of Macon County Landfill in Franklin.

828.349.2046.

243-237

The Bug Lady

outdoors

Macon masters to display gardens

of WNC, Inc. PEST CONTROL CALL KAREN

828-243-9318 thebugladyofwnc@gmail.com thebugladyofwnc.com

T-shirt design contest uncovers artist

The Master Gardeners of Haywood County present their biennial garden tour — “Forests, Flowers & Food” — from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 21, rain or shine. The tour will include three extensive private gardens, a perennial garden maintained by church volunteers and an elementary school teaching garden.

Tickets are $15 and may be purchased in advance by calling 828.456.3575. Or reserve your tickets for the day of the tour by emailing mgtour2014@charter.net. And ask about how to win a handcrafted birdbath and stand. Proceeds fund educationrelated horticultural projects in Haywood County.

come out and play.

Cherokee Voices Festival

Smoky Mountain News

Garden tour to patch the green fix

11,000-year-old

June 4-10, 2014

Shelby Reece from Waynesville Middle School won Haywood Waterways’ Kids in the Creek T-shirt design contest. Her winning design, “Jumping Trout,” will be featured on 800 T-shirts when the program occurs this fall.

September will mark the 17th year of the eight grade Kids in the Creek program, Shelby Reece which to date has reached nearly 10,800 students. The program gets students into the aquatic environment where they learn hands-on about watersheds, water chemistry, macro-invertebrates, and fish found in our local streams.

The event is cosponsored by Haywood County Schools with funding from the Pigeon River Fund of the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina and private donations.

Eric Romaniszyn, info@haywoodwaterways.org or 828.476.4667.

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Landowners will have the chance to get a better handle on managing their woodlands responsibly with a lineup of summer workshops between July 16 and Aug. 22, each focusing on a different aspect of land stewardship. Locations include Cradle of Forestry, the N.C. Arboretum and Bent Creek Experimental Forest.

Each workshop will entail one-and-ahalf days of hands-on field activities and classroom instruction from natural resources and land management specialists: ■ Discovering Your Land: Basic Land Management Skills, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 16 at Cradle of Forestry and 9 a.m. to noon July 17 at Bent Creek Experimental Forest ■ Woodscaping Your Woodlands and Firewise Management, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. July 17 and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 18 at Bent Creek Experimental Forest ■ Native Landscaping and Water Management, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 20 and 9 a.m. to noon Aug. 21 at N.C. Arboretum.

■ Stewardship, Recreation and Liability, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 21 at N.C. Arboretum and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 22 at Cradle of Forestry.

Addie Thornton, addie_thornton@ncsu.edu or 919.515.5065. www.woodlandstewardsnc.org.

File photo

Pisgah Area SORBA is asking the mountain bike community to dig a little deeper with a slate of trail work planned on the lower Black Mountain Trail at 1346 Pisgah Highway in Pisgah. The effort will include a June 7 celebration of National Trails Day, with a variety of work projects lasting from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and a cookout planned afterwards.

Professional contracted work was performed on lower Black Mountain Trail in 2010, but much of that work has failed, in part due to record rainfall in 2013. A new prescription of work has been developed which entails a full road-to-trail conversion.

Participants must wear long pants, good footwear, work gloves, eye protection and a hard hat, which PAS can provide. The group will meet next to the work station at Black Mountain trailhead.

In addition to the June 7 date, work days include bridge building June 4-5, 5:30 to 8 p.m. and final touches 2 to 5 p.m. June 8. A

Volunteers to hit the trail June 7 is National Trails Day, and The Wilderness Society’s SAWS program, the Southern Appalachian Backcountry Horsemen, Benton MacKaye Trail Association and the Southeastern Foot Trails Coalition will spend it by giving back out on the trails — though they’ll end a day of hard work with a celebration cookout.

The group will meet at 8 a.m. at the Indian Boundary Campground Pavilion in Tellico Plains, Tenn., before splitting into smaller groups to work a variety of trail projects.

Volunteers must bring a daypack, raingear, lunch, at least 2 quarts of water and wear durable, full-length pants and cutresistant pants with ankle coverage. Hard hats, safety glasses, and gloves are required and will be provided.

Register online at www.trailcrews.org/volunteer-opportunities.

Braveheart 5K to step off in Franklin The Braveheart 5K and Rob Roy Fun! Run will take off in Franklin on June 14 with the Fun Run starting at 8:30 a.m. and the 5K at 9 a.m.

Packet pick up starts at 7:30 a.m. for the fun run and at 8 a.m. for the 5K. Event T-shirts will be given away to the first 50 5K registrants and the first 25 Fun Run registrants, and awards will wait at the finish line. Overall male and female winners will receive a free entry in the Moonlight Moonshine 10K on July 12, and age division awards will go to first-, second- and third-place finishers in those categories. $25 online 5K registration; $15 online Fun Run registration through June 11.

Register at www.active.com. bringingit2life@gmail.com or 828.421.7637.

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volunteer appreciation and chapter meeting will be held at Oskar Blues Brewery in Brevard June 10. chris@pisgahareasorba.org

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outdoors June 4-10, 2014 Smoky Mountain News

Land management series planned

Bikers making a big dig on Black Mountain

SAHC Community Farm. Donated photo outdoors

Shopping for conservation Shopping at Mast General Store in Waynesville on Saturday, June 7, will be a plus for the planet.

Mast is joining a list of other area businesses to donate a percentage of sales to the

Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy for Land Trust Day. This land trust works to preserve productive farmland, scenic mountains and clean streams and has so far protected more than 63,000 acres. “We are very grateful to our partners in the business community for supporting our conservation work on Land Trust Day,� said Carl Silverstein, SAHC’s executive director.

Local environmental knowledge sought The Coweeta Listening Project will come to Cowee Farmers Market from 3:30 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 10, to collect individual stories about special places in the region and the types of environmental changes that locals have seen over the years.

The group will give an informational presentation about how climate change is expected to affect southwestern North Carolina. In addition to its typical vendors, the June 10 farmers market will also feature mountain dulcimer and Native American flute music from Dog House Duo and an informational booth from Friends of the Greenway, or FROGS. The market is held at 51 Cowee Creek Road outside of the Macon County Heritage Center at Cowee School off of N.C. 28 in Franklin. info@coweefarmersmarket.com.

June 4-10, 2014

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37

38

WNC Calendar

Smoky Mountain News

COMMUNITY EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS • WCU Surplus Sale, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday, June 4, The Warehouse on WCU Campus. Miscellaneous items sold as is. Cash and carry.

• Franklin Board of Realtors Relay for Life Team Dog Obedience and Behavior Training Classes, 6 to 7 p.m., Mondays, June 9, 16, 23, $80 for all four classes.

421.4587.

• Affordable Care Act Workshop, 10 a.m. Wednesday, June 4, Jackson County Public Library, Sylva. 586.2016.

• Franklin Open Forum, “Is America an Oligarchy?” 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 4, Rathskeller Coffee Haus & Pub, 58 Stewart St., downtown Franklin. Moderated discussion group, dialog not debate. 371.1020.

• Jackson County Genalogical Society’s June program, “The 70th Anniversary of D-Day: Jackson County Remembers World War II and “The Longest Day” 7 p.m.

Thursday, June 12, Community Room Jackson County Courthouse, Sylva. 631.2646.

• “Cars and Cornmeal II,” fundraiser for Francis Mill Preservation Society, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 7, Francis Grist Mill, 14 Hugh Massie Road, Waynesville.

Barbecue by Friends of the Mill and Mama Moody’s Fried Pies. $5 spectator tickets; $15 to show your antique cars or street rod. www.francismill.org.

• 16th Annual Spirit of the Smokies Car Show, Saturday, June 7, Harris Regional Hospital, Sylva to support WestCare Foundation. Registration is $15 per car in advance, and $20 the day of the show.

Registration, 8:30 a.m. to noon. Awards. Lunch available. Andie Robbins, 631.8924 or andrea.robbins@haymed.org.

• Open House, 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, June 8, United Christian Ministries of Jackson County, 191 Skyland Drive.

• The NC ABC Commission free Responsible Alcohol Seller/Server Program class, 9 to 11 a.m. Wednesday, June 11, Meeting Room, Jackson County Recreation Center, 88 Cullowhee Mountain Road, Cullowhee.

586.2345 Ext. 24 or jharrison@mountainprojects.org, http://abc.nc.gov/education/RASP/.

• The NC ABC Commission free Responsible Alcohol Seller/Server Program class, 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., Thursday, June 12, Meeting Room, Murphy Public Library, 9 Blumenthal St., Murphy. 586.2345 Ext. 24 or jharrison@mountainprojects.org, http://abc.nc.gov/education/RASP/.

• Free sports physicals by Carolina West Sports Medicine, 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. (each grade staggered) Monday, June 9, Harris Regional Hospital, Sylva. For Smoky Mountain High School and Cherokee High School athletes, and 7th and 8th grade Jackson County middle school athletes participating in the 2014-2015 school athletic season. 586.7934.

• Cherokee School Teachers Reunion potluck lunch, 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturday, June 14, Cherokee Youth Center, for all current and former staff of the Cherokee Central School Syste. Dee Smith, 736.3391, Betty Allen, 206.909.4354, Frela Beck, 497.4761, or Mary Wachacha, 497.5350.

• North Canton Fire Department will test fire hydrants and water lines June 17 in the Upper Beaverdam area (Great Oak Drive to Rice Cove Road).

• Smoky Mountain Model Railroaders work session, 7 to 9 p.m. every Tuesday and public viewing session from 2 to 4 p.m. the second Sunday of the month, 130 Frazier St., in the Industrial Park near Bearwaters Brewery, Waynesville. http://smokymountainmodelrailroaders.wordpress.com.

All phone numbers area code 828 unless otherwise noted.

BUSINESS & EDUCATION • Business After Hours season kick off, 5 to 7 p.m.

Thursday, June 5, Laurelwood Inn 58 N.C. Highway 107 North, Cashiers. Cashiers Chamber of Commerce members free. Guests, $10 per person, credit applicable to annual membership. RSVP, 743.5191.

• Free 90-minute computer class: Excel I, 5:45 p.m.

Monday, June 9, Jackson County Public Library, Sylva.

Register, 586.2016 • Quick Books for Small Business, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., June 9 and 16, Jackson Campus Southwestern Community College, Founders Hall 123. Free. Register, 339.4211 or t_henry@southwesterncc.edu.

• “WCU Summit on Natural Products: Education, Innovation and Vision,” 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, June 10, Blue Ridge Conference Room on the Cullowhee campus. Register at graduate.wcu.edu • Free 90-minute computer class: Excel II, 5:45 p.m.

Wednesday, June 11, Jackson County Public Library, Sylva. Register, 586.2016 • Haywood Community College registration for Fall Semester 2014 underway by appointment only with advisor, continues through July 11. Fall semester begins August 18. www.haywood.edu. 627.4500.

FUNDRAISERS AND BENEFITS • Macon TRACS 7th annual Rummage Sale, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, June 6, and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 7, Macon County Fairgrounds, rain or shine. 100 percent of profits go to MaconTRACS Scholarship Fund. 369.8975.

• Cornhole tournament by Women of Waynesville to benefit Big Brothers, Big Sisters, 10 a.m. June 7, BearWaters Brewing, Waynesville. 545.6879, 627.2390.

• Annual Caney Fork Community Barbecue, 4 to 7 p.m.

Saturday, June 7, Caney Fork community building.

Adults, $8 per plate and kids, $4 per plate. Music, cake walk and raffle. Takeout available. 293.5225.

Department on Aging, Senior Center, 100 County Services Park in Sylva. Free, but reservations must be made by Monday, June 9, 586.4944 or see someone in the Lobby of the Senior Center.

KIDS & FAMILIES • Breastfeeding Mothers’ Support Group, 10:30 a.m.

Saturday, June 7, Training Annex Building at MedWest Harris Hospital, Sylva. Brandi Nations, 770.519.2903 or Teresa Bryant, 587.8214.

• Vacation Bible School at Iotla Baptist Church, Agency D3: Discover, Decide, Defend, 5:30 (dinner), VBS, 6:15 to 8:30 p.m., June 8-12, 1537 Iotla Church Road, Franklin.

• Voices in the Laurel Choirs Audition, 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday, June 10, First Baptist Church, 100 S. Main St., Waynesville. Open to singers from any county in the area in first through 12th grade. 734.9163, www.voicesinthelaurel.org.

• ‘Weird Animals Vacation Bible School,’ 6 to 8:30 p.m.

June 14-18, Bryson City First Baptist Church, for children age 6 to 11. 488.2679.

• Family nature activities, 3 to 4 p.m. Tuesdays, Highlands Nature Center, Highlands. For ages 4 and older. www.highlandsbiological.org or 526.2623. $1 per person.

• Storybook Science Program, nature lesson based on a children’s book, 2:30 to 3 p.m. Wednesdays, Highlands Nature Center, Highlands. Free, all ages. www.highlandsbiological.org or 526.2623.

• Swim lessons for children ranging in age from six months to teens, various times, beginning June 16, Western Carolina University. Taught by Mike Creason, retired faculty member of health, physical education and recreation at WCU with 34 years of experience teaching swim lessons to individuals of all ages and certified by the American Red Cross. http://swim.wcu.edu, 227.7397.

Summer Camps • Smoky Mountain Sk8way summer day camp, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. June 16- Aug. 15. Registration, 11 a.m. June 7 and 7 p.m. June 11. 246.9124.

Visit www.smokymountainnews.com and click on Calendar for: ■ Complete listings of local music scene ■ Regional festivals ■ Art gallery events and openings ■ Complete listings of recreational offerings at regional health and fitness centers ■ Civic and social club gatherings 2030 or email recathletics@townofwaynesville.org.

• Haywood County Arts Council Jam Camp, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, July 8 – Friday, July 11, Canton Middle School, 60 Penland St., Canton. Classes in mountain instruments, mountain dance (clogging, buckdance, flat-footing and square dance) and mountain songs and storytelling. $75. For students in grades 4th through 8th. Register at Haywood County Arts Council, 452.0593.

• Innovative Basketball Training Summer Basketball Camp, 9 a.m. to noon, July 7-9, Waynesville Recreation Center, Waynesville. Register from 8 to 9 a.m. July 7 at the Waynesville Recreation Center. 246.2129 or 456.2030.

• Summer Soccer Day Camp, July 14-18, Swain County Recreation Park, for players age 5 to 18. Half day or full day sessions. scline@sclinesoftware.com, 736.0455, or www.ncsoccer.org/recreation/recCamps/.

• The Jackson Soil and Water Conservation District Camp WILD (Wilderness, Investigating, Learning, Discovery) for rising 7th graders in public, private, charter or home schools. 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. most days, July 28 through Aug. 1, Jackson County Recreation Center parking lot in Cullowhee. $25, register with Jane Fitzgerald, 586.5465 or email janefitzgerald@jacksonnc.org.

• Summer Writing Adventure for Swain County rising freshmen students, 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. and noon to 3 p.m. (one session only required), Aug. 4-8. Register by June 25. Sonya Blankenship, 488.3129 ext. 240 or email at sblankenship@swainmail.org.

Literary (children)

• Hot dog lunch and bake sale to benefit the North Canton Fire Department, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 7, Beaverdam Community Center, 1620 N. Canton Road. Yard sale starts at 10 a.m.

• Western Carolina University’s Division of Educational Outreach is hosting numerous camps for children this summer: www.wcu.edu/academics/edoutreach/conted/campsand-programs-for-kids/.

• BINGO fundraiser for KARE, 1:30 TO 4:30 P.M. Saturday, June 14, Waynesville Armory. $10 per set of nine games. 456.8995.

• Western Carolina University’s Athletics is hosting a sports camp for children this summer: www.catamountsports.com/camps/wcar-camps.html.

• Summer Reading Program Registration begins, Monday, June 9, Jackson County Public Library, Sylva.

586.2016.

• Summer Day Camp for elementary school children, ages 6 to 12, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 12 to Aug. 8, Cullowhee United Methodist Church. www.cullowheeumc.org/summer-camp-2014/.

• Lego Club, 4 p.m. Tuesday, June 10, Jackson County Public Library, Sylva. 586.2016.

HEALTH MATTERS • “Healing Your Heart” workshop, 10 a.m. to noon, Saturday, June 14, auditorium, Haywood County Library, Waynesville. Registration, required, www.tappingintohappiness.com/. 768.4252.

THE SPIRITUAL SIDE • Life in the Spirit Seminar, 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesdays, through June 4, St. Margaret Catholic Church, Maggie Valley. Don or Janet Zander, 926.2654.

• Connecting with God in Nature with Sr. Fran Grady, SCL AND Freeman Owle, Monday, June 16 – Sunday, June 22, Living Waters Catholic Reflection Center, Maggie Valley. 926.3833 catholicretreat.org.

SENIOR ACTIVITIES • Father’s Day Banquet, 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 12,

• Cullowhee Mountain ARTS Summer Youth ARTS Series, 2, 4 and 5-day art camps for ages 5 – 12, Western Carolina University’s Bardo Arts Center and the School of Art and Design. Details at www.cullowheemountainarts.org or 342.6913.

• Ms. Arty Pants Creation Station , half day Summer Art Camps, 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. June 16-20, July 14-18 and Aug. 44-8, in Waynesville. Ms. Arty Pants Creation, S. Main St., Waynesville. 400.6232.

• TetraBrazil Soccer Camp, half-day camp 9 a.m. to noon; full-day camp 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., June 23 – 27, Waynesville Recreation Center. 456.2030 or email recathletics@townofwaynesville.org.

• 22nd annual Crossfire Basketball Camp, 1 to 4:30 p.m. June 30 to July 3, Waynesville Recreation Center.

For boys and girls age 6 to 12. $75 per person. 456-

• Children’s Story time, 11 a.m. Friday, June 6, Jackson County Public Library, Sylva. 586.2016.

• Children’s Story time, 2 p.m. Saturday, June 7, Jackson County Public Library, Sylva. 586.2016

• Registration begins June 9 for “Fizz, Boom, Read,” Summer Reading Program at Marianna Black Library, Bryson City, for children age from birth to fifth grade.

Tweens and teens, ages 12 -18 will participate in “Spark a Reaction.” Activities include science experiments, robot building, grossology fun, and more. Amber Platt, 488.3030 or email aplatt@fontanalib.org.

ECA EVENTS Extension and Community Association (ECA) groups meet throughout the county at various locations and times each month. 586.4009. This month’s meetings, listed by date, include: • 9:30 a.m. Thursday, June 5– Lampshades, Potpourri ECA, Conference Room of Community Service Center, Sylva.

• Noon Thursday, June 12 – Decorate Gift Bags, Lunch

GOP • NC GOP State Convention, June 6-7, Harrah’s Casino, 777 Casino Drive, Cherokee. www.ncgop.org.

Others • Haywood County Libertarian Party meeting, 7 p.m.

Tuesday, June 10, Organic Beans Coffee Shop, Maggie Valley.

• Occupy WNC General Assembly, 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Tuesday, June 10, Room 246, Jackson County Justice Center, Sylva.

SUPPORT GROUPS Haywood • Prepared Child Birth Class, 6 to 8 p.m. Thursdays, June 5, 12, 19 and 26, Angel Medical Center Dining Room. 369.4421 or email Elizabeth.penningtontrip@msj.org.

Macon • Four Seasons Compassion for Life Lunch and Learn event, “Introduction to Palliative Care 101,” noon Wednesday, June 11, at Highlands Recreation Center.

Callie Walston, 233.0304.

A&E FESTIVALS, SPECIAL & SEASONAL EVENTS

• Ole Smokey Tractor Club Spring Farm Fest, June 6— 8, Maggie Valley. 734.1510. www.maggievalley.org.

• Taste of Scotland & Celtic Festival Clan Dinner, Thursday, June 12, Tartan Hall, First Presbyterian Church, Franklin. Tickets, $20, adults and $10, children 12 and under. TasteofScotlandFestival.org.

• Taste of Scotland & Celtic Festival Ceilidh (kay-lee), 7 p.m. Friday June 11, Stewart Street just off Main Street in downtown Franklin, featuring music of Juniper Trio. TasteofScotlandFestival.org.

• Bike Fest & Swap Meet, June 13-15, Maggie Valley Festival Grounds. 736.2217 or www.maggievalleybikefest.com.

• 4th annual Appalachian Lifestyle Celebration, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, June 14, Main Street, downtown Waynesville. Barbecue, ice cream, music.

456.3517.

• Village Art & Craft Show, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 1415, 5th St. and Pine St., Kelsey-Hutchinson Park, Highlands.

LITERARY (ADULTS) • Lawrence Thackston, presents his book, The Devil’s Courthouse, 6:30 p.m. Friday, June 6, City Lights Bookstore, Sylva.

• Conversations with Poetry, with Michael Beadle, local poet and educator, for five Thursdays, beginning June 5, Waynesville branch of the Haywood Public Library auditorium. 452.5169, www.haywoodlibrary.org, beadlewriter@yahoo.com.

and

SMOKY MOUNTAIN Living

Invite you to our

OPEN HOUSE and

Quinceañera

ON STAGE & IN CONCERT • Lady & The Old Timers, 11 a.m. Thursday, June 5, Macon County Public Library, Franklin. www.fontanalib.org.

• Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, featuring the music of Neil Sedaka, 7:30 p.m. June 6-7, June 13-14; and 3 p.m. June 8 and 15, HART Theater, Performing Arts Center at the Shelton House, 250 Pigeon St., Waynesville. www.harttheatre.org.

• Unto These Hills outdoor drama, 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday, through Aug. 16, Mountainside Theater, Cherokee. 866.554.4557 or www.visitcherokenc.com.

• Auditions for Neil Simon’s “Lost in Yonkers,” 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday, June 8, and 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Monday, June 9, Highlands Performing Arts Center, Chestnut Street, Highlands. Scripts may be read in Hudson, Cashiers, and Macon Co. libraries. Director Virginia Talbot, 526.4904.

FRIDAY

JUNE 6th 5-7pm Tour our new location at 144 Montgomery St.

Waynesville

Free Beverages & Hors d'oeuvres

• Highlands Playhouse production of Little Shop of Horrors, 8 p.m. June 12-14 and June 16-21, and 3 p.m. June 15 and 22, 362 Oak St., Highlands.

526.2695 or at the Box Office, 362 Oak St., Highlands.

• Balsam Range, 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 13, Isis Music Hall Upstairs Lounge, 743 Haywood Road, Asheville.

• 38 Special, 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 13, Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts, Franklin.

GreatMountainMusic.com, 866.273.4615.

• Jim Gaffigan, 9 p.m. Saturday, June 14, Harrah’s Cherokee Event Center 777 Casino Drive, Cherokee. www.Ticketmaster.com.

NIGHT LIFE • Craig Summers & Lee Kram, June 5 and June 12; Chris Minnick, June 7, Frog Level Brewing Company, Waynesville. Free. 454.5664 or www.froglevelbrewing.com.

• The Love Medicated, June 6; Humps & The Blackouts, June 7; and Anthony Harp, June 14; 9 p.m., the Water’n Hole Bar & Grill in Waynesville. 456.4750.

15

Celebration

Bringing the news to WNC

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2 Call 565-0362

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BOARDING FARE

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Smoky Mountain News

• Taste of Scotland & Celtic Festival, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Saturday, June 14, downtown Franklin. Scottish foods, see demos of Highland Games, Scottish apparel and goods, plus Scottish and Celtic music.

TasteofScotlandFestival.org.

• Author Gary Carden will present his newest book Appalachian Bestiary, 7 p.m. Thursday, June 12, Macon County Public Library, Franklin. www.fontanalib.org.

June 4-10, 2014

• Reality television show “What’s in the Barn?” 10 p.m. June 10 on Velocity TV, features host Dale Walksler, owner of Wheels Through Time Museum in Maggie Valley, crossing the country in search of rare motorcycles.

• “Write What You Don’t Know,” 10:30 a.m. to noon, June 12, Haywood County Public Library, Waynesville.

Potluck lunch. Register, 356.2507.

• The Trail Magic Ale No. 8 release party, June 6-7, Nantahala Brewing Company, Bryson City, featuring William Schmitt, 8 p.m. June 6; The Grove Band, 8 p.m. June 7; Rob Nance, 8 p.m. June 13; and Owner of the Sun, 8 p.m. June 14. Free. 488.2337 or www.nantahalabrewing.com.

• Comedy show, 9 p.m. June 6; cornhole tournament, June 7; Mangaas Colorado, 8 p.m. June 13; and ‘Round the Fire, 8 p.m. June 14, BearWaters Brewing Company in Waynesville. Spontaneous Combustion jam, 8 p.m. to midnight every Monday, all players welcome. 246.0602 or www.bwbrewing.com.

• Jeff Sipe Trio, June 6; Travers Brothers, June 7; Chris Blaylock, June 8; Three Sum, June 13; Natty Love Joys, June 14; and Caleb Crawford, June 15; all shows 9 p.m., No Name Sports Pub in Sylva. Free. 586.2750 or www.nonamesportspub.com.

wnc calendar

POLITICAL GROUP EVENTS & LOCAL GOVERNMENT

• Book signing reception for interior designer and author Lynn Monday her new book, Southern Mountain Living, 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 10, Monday House Of Design, 334 U.S. Highway 64 East, Cashiers.

YEARS

and Learn ECA, Conference Room of Community Service Center, Sylva.

Within Haywood County A Division of Mountain Projects, Inc.

243-220

39

wnc calendar

• Dana & Susan Robinson, 7 p.m. June 6, and Dominic Frost, 7 p.m. June 13, The Classic Wineseller, Church Street, Waynesville. $10 minimum purchase. 452.6000.

Haywood County Real Estate Agents Beverly Hanks & Associates — beverly-hanks.com • • • • • • •

Michelle McElroy — beverly-hanks.com Marilynn Obrig — beverly-hanks.com Mike Stamey — beverly-hanks.com Ellen Sither — esither@beverly-hanks.com Jerry Smith — beverly-hanks.com Billie Green — bgreen@beverly-hanks.com Pam Braun — pambraun@beverly-hanks.com

• Friday Night Jazz! with The Kittle & Collings Duo, 6 to 9 p.m. June 6, Lulu’s on Main, Sylva. www.mountainlovers.com.

• Corbitt Brothers, 8 p.m. June 6, Franklin High School football field. www.franklinchamber.com.

• Blue Ridge Big Band, 2 p.m., June 8 ($10), Korey Warren, 7:45 p.m. June 12 ($12), The Strand, 38 Main, Waynesville. 283.0079 or www.38main.com.

• Rendezvous, Maggie Valley Inn. Pianist Steve Whiddon every Thursday evening and noon to 3 p.m., Sundays. 926.0201.

• Frog Level Brewing Company, Waynesville.

Free. 454.5664 or www.froglevelbrewing.com.

• Comedy show is at 9 p.m. June 6; cornhole tournament, 10 a.m. June 7, The Spontaneous Combustion Jam, 8 p.m. to midnight, every Monday, BearWaters Brewing Company, Waynesville. 246.0602 or www.bwbrewing.com.

ERA Sunburst Realty — sunburstrealty.com

• Summers & Kram, June 5 and Chris Minnick, June 7, Frog Level Brewing Company, Waynesville. Free. 828.454.5664 or www.froglevelbrewing.com.

Haywood Properties — haywoodproperties.com • Steve Cox — info@haywoodproperties.com

• Paul Constantine, June 7; Karen “Sugar”Barnes & Dave MaGill, June 13; Carolina Dusk, June 21; and Eric Hendrix & Friends, July 5, City Lights Café, Sylva. 7 p.m. www.citylightscafe.com or 587.2233.

Keller Williams Realty kellerwilliamswaynesville.com • Ron Kwiatkowski — ronk.kwrealty.com

Mountain Home Properties — mountaindream.com • Sammie Powell — smokiesproperty.com

• Miss Brown to You, 7:45 p.m. June 5, The Strand, 38 Main, Waynesville. $12 per person. www.38main.com.

Main Street Realty — mainstreetrealty.net

DANCE June 4-10, 2014

McGovern Real Estate & Property Management • Bruce McGovern — shamrock13.com

Preferred Properties • George Escaravage — gke333@gmail.com

Prudential Lifestyle Realty — vistasofwestfield.com

• Second Sunday Community Dance, 2:30 p.m.

Sunday, June 8, Community Room, second floor of the old courthouse in the Jackson County Library Complex, Sylva. Circle, square and contra dances. Potluck follows at 5 p.m. Ron Arps, ronandcathy71@frontier.com.

FOOD & DRINK • Underground Yard Sale, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Saturday, June 7, the Classic Wineseller, Church St., Waynesville. Discontinued wines, beer, T-shirts, etc.

Realty World Heritage Realty realtyworldheritage.com • Carolyn Lauter realtyworldheritage.com/realestate/viewagent/7766/

• Thomas & Christine Mallette

ART/GALLERY EVENTS & OPENINGS

realtyworldheritage.com/realestate/viewagent/7767/

Smoky Mountain News

RE/MAX — Mountain Realty • • • • • • • • •

remax-waynesvillenc.com | remax-maggievalleync.com Brian K. Noland — brianknoland.com Connie Dennis — remax-maggievalleync.com Mark Stevens — remax-waynesvillenc.com Mieko Thomson — ncsmokies.com The Morris Team — maggievalleyproperty.com The Real Team — the-real-team.com Ron Breese — ronbreese.com Dan Womack — womackdan@aol.com Catherine Proben — cp@catherineproben.com

The Seller’s Agency — listwithphil.com • Phil Ferguson — philferguson@bellsouth.net 243-252

TO ADVERTISE IN THE NEXT ISSUE 40

828.452.4251 | ads@smokymountainnews.com

• Haywood County Arts Council’s “Mountain Made” exhibit, featuring local crafters and artisans, June 4-28, Gallery 86, 86 N. Main St., downtown Waynesville.

• “FLORA: Contemporary Botanical Prints from the FAM’s Littleton Studios Vitreograph Archive,” on display through Sept. 5, Fine Art Museum, John W. Bardo Fine and Performing Arts Center, WCU. 227.3591 or fineartmuseum.wcu.edu.

• Art After Dark, Main Street, Depot Street and Frog Level galleries, Friday, June 6, Waynesville. Artist reception, 6 to 9 p.m., Gallery 86, Haywood County Arts Council. www.waynesvillegalleryassociation.com.

• Opening reception, 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, June 12, Mountain Heritage Center, ground floor of H.F. Robinson Administration Building at Western Carolina University, for two exhibits, “The Dearest Spot of All: Western Carolina University’s 125th Anniversary” and “Y’all

Come, the Best Kind of Get-Together: 40 Years of Mountain Heritage Day.” 227.7129 or visit mhc.wcu.edu.

Black Library, Bryson City, to celebrate the “Fizz, Boom Read” Summer Reading Program theme. 488.3030.

• “North Carolina Art Educators” exhibit, through July 18, Fine Art Museum, John W. Bardo Fine and Performing Arts Center, WCU. 227.3591 or fineartmuseum.wcu.edu.

• New movie based on a Henry James novel, 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 11, Macon County Public Library Meeting Room.

Rated R for some language.

• Haywood Community College’s Professional Crafts department 2014 Graduate Show, through Sept. 14, Southern Highland Craft Guild Folk Art Center, Mile Post 382, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Asheville. 565.4159.

• Classic 1961 movie based on the Henry James novel, The Innocents,” 2 p.m. Friday, June 13, Macon County Public Library Meeting Room.

• What? No Camera? Exhibit by Award-winning photographer Barbara Sammons. Sammons leaves her camera behind for a flatbed scanner. Through July 6 at The North Carolina Arboretum, 100 Frederick Law Olmstead Way, Asheville.

• Cullowhee Mountain ARTS 2014 Summer ARTS Series, June 15 – July 18, five weeks, Western Carolina University. Includes art and creative writing workshops, youth art camps and the FAM-CMA invitational art exhibit.

Youth programs include 2, 4 and 5-day art camps for ages 5 – 12. www.cullowheemountainarts.org or 342.6913.

CLASSES, PROGRAMS & DEMONSTRATIONS • Wheel thrown pottery demonstration with Connie Hogan, 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 7, Tunnel Mountain Crafts, 94 Front St., Dillsboro.

• Landscape-painting workshop by Doreyl Ammons Cain, 2 p.m. Saturday, June 7, at a local farmstead in Tuckasegee. $36 per person, which includes all art supplies. 231.6965 or www.facebook.com/muralistdoreyl.

• MCAA membership meeting, 6:30 p.m.

Monday, June 9 meeting room, Macon County Library, Franklin. Demonstration of “Fabric Art” will be presented by Bonnie Abbott.

• Two-day course in hammered copper by Cullowhee metalsmith William Rogers, 1 to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday, June 13 and 14, Bascom Center for the Visual Arts. Class participants will make a copper pendant or badge that can be worn. 526.4949 to register.

• Introduction to Rug Hooking, 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, June 10, Masonic Lodge, Dillsboro. $12. Register, 586.2435 or junejpell@hotmail.com by June 9.

• Western North Carolina Woodturners Club monthly meeting, 6 p.m. Thursday, June 12, Blue Ridge School, 95 Bobcat Drive, Cashiers (Glenville). Drive to the back of the school to the woodworking shop.

• Summer ARTS Series, June 15 – July 26, Western Carolina University in the Bardo Fine and Performing Arts Center. Details, www.cullowheemountainarts.org or 342.6913.

FILM & SCREEN • “Divergent,” 9:30 p.m. Thursday, June 5, Central Plaza at Western Carolina University.

Free. corelli@wcu.edu or 227.3618.

• “North by Northwest,” 7:45 p.m. Friday, June 6, and 2 p.m., 5 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. Saturday, June 7, The Strand, 38 Main, Waynesville.

“Cataloochee,” 7:45 p.m. Friday, June 13, and 2 p.m., 5 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. Saturday, June 14, The Strand, 38 Main, Waynesville. Tickets, $6 per person, $4 for children. 283.0079 or www.38main.com.

• Family movie, an animated science adventure, 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 10, Marianna

Outdoors OUTINGS, HIKES & FIELDTRIPS • Franklin Bird Club bird walk, 8 a.m.

Wednesday, June 4, along the Greenway. Led by Paula Gorgoglione. Meet at 8 a.m. at Salali Lane, Franklin. 524.5234.

• Land Trust Day Open House and Guided Hike at SAHC’s Community Farm, 10 a.m. Saturday, June 7.

• Beginner’s walk with Highlands Plateau Audubon Society, Saturday, June 7, to the Biological Station in Highlands. Leader, Brock Hutchins. Meet at 7:30 a.m. in the parking lot behind the Highlands Town Hall near the public restrooms at 7:30 AM to carpool. www.highlandsaudubonsociety.org or 743.9670.

• Nantahala Hiking Club moderate four-mile hike, Saturday, June 7, on the AT from Wayah Crest to Siler Bald. Meet at 9 a.m. at Westgate Plaza, Franklin. Leader Mary Stone, 369.7352, for reservations.

• Nantahala Hiking Club moderate-to-strenuous five-mile hike, Saturday, June 7, from Deep Gap trail head to Tallulah River trail head.

Meet at 9 a.m. at Westgate Plaza, Franklin.

Leaders Bill and Sharon Van Horn, 369.1983, for reservations.

• Highlands Plateau Audubon Society’s Pot Luck Dinner and first program of the season, 6 p.m. Monday, June 9, Highlands Civic Center.

Bring a dish to share. Drinks provided.

734.9670 or www.highlandsaudubonsociety.org.

• Marina Classic Bass Tournament, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 7-8, Fontana Lake. Registration fee, $150 per boat. $5000 purse. 498.2129, www.fontanavillage.com/events/pdfs/basstourney2014A.pdf.

• Bike Trials Nantahala Open, 10 a.m.

Saturday, June 14, Nantahala Outdoor Center. $20. http://noc.com/events/bike-trials-nantahala-open.

• Friends of the Smokies interpretive hike, Tuesday, June 10, to Hazel Creek in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Includes boat ride across Fontana Lake. Register at outreach.nc@friendsofthesmokies.org, or 452.0720 • Franklin Bird Club bird walk, 8 a.m.

Wednesday, June 11, along the Greenway. Led

by Karen Lawrence. Meet Macon County Public Library parking area. 524.5234.

• Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy June Jamboree Challenge, five hikes, Saturday, June 14. Anna Zanetti at anna@appalachian.org, 253.0095 ext 205 to register.

PROGRAMS & WORKSHOPS

• Pesticide Disposal Day, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday, June 4, Macon County Environmental Resource Center, between the landfill and the Sheriff’s Department on Lakeside Drive. Cooperative Extension Center, 349.2046.

• Moth party, “Join the Dark Side: Studying the Fabulous Diversity of Local Moths to Understand Environmental Changes,” 9 p.m. Thursday, June 5, Highlands Biological Station, Highlands. Free. www.highlandsbiological.org, 526.2221.

• “Nightlife Exploration,” 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 7, Metcalf Bottoms picnic shelter, Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Limited to 20 participants.

SmokiesInformation.org or call 888.898.9102, Ext. 325, 222 or 254.

• Hazards in the Outdoors: Poisonous-Plants-andVenomous-Animals, 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, June 18, The North Carolina Arboretum, 100 Frederick Law Olmsted Way, Asheville. $45 member/$55 non-member. www.ncarboretumregistration.org.

• Hummingbirds, 1 to 4 p.m. Monday, June 30, The North Carolina Arboretum, 100 Frederick Law Olmsted Way, Asheville. $31 member/$41 non-member. www.ncarboretumregistration.org.

COMPETITIVE EDGE • Braveheart 5K and Rob Roy Fun, 7:30 a.m. Saturday, June 14, Franklin. $25 online 5K registration; $15 online fun run registration through June 11. www.active.com, bringingit2life@gmail.com or 421.7637.

• Square-Foot Gardening with Master Gardener Hughes Roberts, 1 p.m. Thursday, June 5, Waynesville Library Auditorium, 678 S. Haywood St., Waynesville. 356.2507.

• Landscape Design in North Carolina Mountains: A Talk on Hedges, 10 a.m. Thursday, June 5, Dovecote Porch & Gardens, Cashiers. 743.0307.

• Food Preservation 101, 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday, June 5 and 10:30 a.m. to noon Friday, June 6, Haywood County Cooperative Extension, 589 Raccoon Road, Suite 118, Waynesville. 456.3575, Julie_sawyer@ncsu.edu.

• Macon Master Gardeners Open House, 1 to 4 p.m.

Saturday, June 7, Environmental Resource Center, Macon County landfill, 1624 Lakeside Drive. 349.2046.

• Simple Sewing Sessions, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday, June 16 and June 20, Haywood County Cooperative Extension, 589 Raccoon Road, Suite 118, Waynesville.

456.3575, Julie_sawyer@ncsu.edu.

• “Landscape Design in North Carolina Mountains: A Talk on Hedges,” 10 a.m. Thursday, June 5, Dovecoat Porch & Gardens, Cashiers, http://dargan.com/dovecote-events/. 743.0307.

• Free class on garden structures and vertical gardening, 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 17, Canton Branch Library, with Tim Mathews, coordinator of the Haywood County Extension Master Gardener Volunteer Program.

648.2924.

• Adult Education Class: Designing a Pollinator Garden, 10:30 a.m. to noon, Wednesday, June 18, The North Carolina Arboretum, 100 Frederick Law Olmsted Way, Asheville. $20 member/$29 non-member, www.ncarboretumregistration.org.

• Haywood County Plant Clinic, 9 a.m. to noon MondayFriday, Haywood County Extension Center on Raccoon Road, in Waynesville. 456.3575.

• The Master Gardeners of Haywood County present their biennial garden tour: “Forests, Flowers & Food,” 9

a.m. to 4 p.m., rain or shine, Saturday, June 21.

Tickets, $15, at 456.3575.

FARMERS & TAILGATE MARKETS Haywood County Canton Farmers Market and Heritage Crafts 3 to 7 p.m. Thursday through Oct. 31, municipal parking lot of downtown Canton. Robin Smith, 734.9071 or Michaelrobin07@yahoo.com.

Haywood Historic Farmers Market 8 a.m. to noon Wednesday and Saturday through midDecember at 250 Pigeon St, Waynesville, parking lot HART Theatre. Carol James, 280.1381 or haywoodfarmersmarket@gmail.com.

Maggie Valley Farmers Market 8 a.m. to dusk Fridays and Saturdays through the first frost beside Organic Beans Coffee Co., 1098 Soco Road, Maggie Valley. Adam Capparelli, 209.8061 or adam@organicbeanscoffee.com.

The Original Waynesville Tailgate Market 8 a.m. to noon, Wednesdays and Saturdays through Oct. 29 at 171 Legion Dr., Waynesville, behind Bogart’s restaurant. Judy West, 648.6323. www.facebook.com/pages/Waynesville-TailgateMarket/117024646020.

Jackson County Cashiers Tailgate Market 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays May through October.

Anglican Church parking lot next to Macon Bank on U.S. Highway 64 East. Donna Few, 226.9988 or blueridgefarmers@gmail.com.

Jackson County Farmers Market 9 a.m. to noon April to October at Bridge Park in Sylva; 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. November to March at Community Table. Jenny, 631.3033 or jacksoncountyfarmersmarket@gmail.com.

Cowee Farmers Market 3:30 to 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Oct. 28 at Old Cowee School, 51 Old Cowee School Dr., Franklin. Susan Ervin, info@coweefarmersmarket.com, 524.8369.

Franklin Farmers Tailgate Market 8 a.m. to noon Saturdays through November on East Palmer Street across from Drake Software. Alan Durden, 349.2049 or alan_durden@ncsu.edu, www.facebook.com/franklinncfarmersmarket.

Swain County Swain County Farmers Market 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Fridays through Oct. 31. 210 Main St. at the corner of Main St. and Everett St. in Bryson City.

Christine Bredenkamp, 488.3848 or christine_bredenkamp@ncsu.edu. www.facebook.com/pages/SwainCounty-Farmers-Market/104853346226504.

HIKING CLUBS • Carolina Mountain Club hosts more than 150 hikes a year, including options for full days on weekends, full days on Wednesdays and half days on Sundays. Nonmembers contact event leaders. www.carolinamountainclub.org • High Country Hikers, based in Hendersonville, plans hikes Mondays and Thursdays weekly. Participants should bring a travel donation and gear mentioned on their website: main.nc.us/highcountryhikers. 808.2165 • Nantahala Hiking Club based in Macon County holds weekly Saturday hikes in the Nantahala National Forest and beyond. www.nantahalahikingclub.org • Mountain High Hikers, based in Young Harris, Ga., leads several hikes per week. Guests should contact hike leader. www.mountainhighhikers.org.

• Smoky Mountain Hiking Club, located in East Tennessee, makes weekly hikes in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park as well as surrounding areas. www.smhclub.org.

For a limited time, get a 1-year subscription for

June 4-10, 2014

Make Smoky Mountain Living part of your life.

Macon County wnc calendar

• Volunteers needed to work with the Little Tennessee Land Trust on a breeding bird survey along the Little Tennessee River. June 11 at the Tessentee Bottomland Preserve and June 12 at the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indian’s Cowee Mound property in Cowee (Macon County). www.ltlt.org.

FARM & GARDEN

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MarketPlace information: The Smoky Mountain News Marketplace has a distribution of 16,000 every week to over 500 locations across in Haywood, Jackson, Macon, and Swain counties along with the Qualla Boundary and west Buncombe County. For a link to our MarketPlace Web site, which also contains a link to all of our MarketPlace display advertisers’ Web sites, visit www.smokymountainnews.com.

- 3 LARGE ESTATES Thursday, Friday & Saturday 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Antiques, Housewares, Furniture Something for Everyone!!

Located at 10 Commerce St., Waynesville. Rain or Shine!

POOR MAN’S SUPPER/FUNDRAISER June 7, 5pm - 7pm, at Old Waynesville Armory. Sponsored by Friends to Elect Jim Moore District Attorney.

Tickets Available at Democratic Headquarters, or at the Door.

Rates: ■ Free — Residential yard sale ads, lost or found pet ads.

■ Free — Non-business items that sell for less than $150.

■ $12 — Classified ads that are 50 words or less; each additional line is $2.

■ $12 — If your ad is 10 words or less, it will be displayed with a larger type.

■ $3 — Border around ad and $5 — Picture with ad.

■ $50 — Non-business items, 25 words or less. 3 month or till sold.

■ $300 — Statewide classifieds run in 117 participating newspapers with 1.6 million circulation. Up to 25 words.

■ All classified ads must be pre-paid.

THE MAGGIE VALLEY SWAP MEET And Car Show is coming June 27, 28 and 29th to the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds. A swap meet, car show and craft show.

Come as a spectator or vendor.

Contact Rodney Buckner at 423.608.4519 www.maggievalleyswapmeet.com

Classified Advertising: Scott Collier, phone 828.452.4251; fax 828.452.3585 | classads@smokymountainnews.com

WAYNESVILLE TIRE, COO

Serving Haywood, Jackson & Surrounding Counties

ARTS AND CRAFTS

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ATR

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THE SOUTHEASTERN GAS & PETROLEUM EXPO Is coming July 18 - 19th to the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds.

Gas station items, toys, tags/plates, old signs, gas pumps, etc. Come as a spectator or vendor. Contact Rodney Buckner at 423.608.4519. www.southeasterngasandpetroleum.com

Offering:

MAJOR-BRAND TIRES FOR CARS, LIGHT & MEDIUM-DUTY TRUCKS, AND FARM TIRES.

Service truck available for on-site repairs

243-216

LEE & PATTY ENSLEY, OWNERS

MON-FRI 7:30-5:00 • WAYNESVILLE PLAZA

828-456-5387

LOCAL ARTIST LIQUIDATION Art Materials, Alter Boards, Bead, Feather, Stone, Fabrics, Bone, Multiple Creations with Indigenous Earth Honoring & Old School Cherokee Applications.

For Inquiries & Viewing Appmnts.

Call 678.943.7523.

ALLISON CREEK Iron Works & Woodworking. Crafting custom metal & woodwork in rustic, country & lodge designs with reclaimed woods! Design & consultation, Barry Downs 828.524.5763, Franklin NC

AUCTION AUCTION June 12th @ Noon. Former Vance Co. National Guard Armory Building on 1.74 Acres. Dabney Dr., Henderson, NC. High Traffic Volume. RogersAuctionGroup.com.

800.442.7906. NCAL#685.

HARPER’S AUCTION COMPANY Spring is Here and Time to Start Those Pesky Spring Cleaning Projects. Need Some Help Cleaning Out Your Garage, Barn or Attic? Too Busy to do it All? Give us a Call, Liquidation = $$$ 828.369.6999, Debra Harper NCAL# 9659 NCFL# 9671 47 Macon Center Dr. Franklin, NC RESTAURANT EQPMNT. AUCTION Wednesday, June 11 @ 10am.

4707 South Blvd. Charlotte, NC. Complete Fine Dining Restaurant & Piano Bar. Refrigeration, Gas Cooking Equipment, Bar Equipment, Seating. 704.791.8825. ncaf5479. ClassicAuctions.com.

BANK OWNED, ONLINE ONLY, Auction, Subdivision & Wooded Lots, Comm. Buildings, Acreage & Homes, 48 Lots in 14 Counties, Ends June 5th at 3pm. Bid Center At: Iron Horse Auction Co. Office. ironhorseauction.com.

800.997.2248, NCAL3936 HOME IMPROVEMENT AUCTION Saturday, June 7 at 10am, 201 S. Central Ave., Locust, NC. Cabinet Sets, Doors, Carpet, Tile, Hardwood, Bath Vanities, Windows, Lighting, Patio Sets, Name Brand Tools. NC Sales Tax applies. www.ClassicAuctions.com 704.507.1449. NCAF5479 ONLINE ONLY AUCTIONS. May 16th-June 10th. NC Commercial Land; Lots; Warehouse; Home.

Others in SC & FL. Rogers Realty.

Details: RogersAuctionGroup.com.

Facebook. 800.442.7906. NCAL685

BUILDING MATERIALS HAYWOOD BUILDERS Garage Doors, New Installations Service & Repairs, 828.456.6051 100 Charles St. Waynesville Employee Owned.

CONSTRUCTION/ REMODELING ALL THINGS BASEMENTY! Basement Systems Inc. Call us for all of your basement needs! Waterproofing, Finishing, Structural Repairs, Humidity and Mold Control. FREE ESTIMATES! Call 1.800.698.9217 DAVE’S CUSTOM HOMES OF WNC, INC Free Estimates & Competitive rates. References avail. upon request. Specializing in: Log Homes, remodeling, decks, new construction, repairs & additions.

Owner/Builder: Dave Donaldson.

Licensed/Insured. 828.631.0747 or 828.508.0316 SULLIVAN HARDWOOD FLOORS Installation- Finish - Refinish 828.399.1847.

AUTO PARTS AIR BRAKE CHAMBER Haldex-Anchorlok Gold Seal, model #3636. Looks New/Rebuilt, will email pics, make offer. Please call 828.400.5119 - Waynesville.

DDI BUMPERS ETC. Quality on the Spot Repair & Painting. Don Hendershot 858.646.0871 cell 828.452.4569 office.

CARS DONATE YOUR CAR, Truck or Boat to Heritage for the Blind. Free 3 Day Vacation, Tax Deductible, Free Towing, All Paperwork Taken Care Of. 800.337.9038.

TOP CASH FOR CARS, Call Now For An Instant Offer.

Top Dollar Paid, Any Car/Truck, Any Condition. Running or Not. Free Pick-up/Tow. 1.800.761.9396 SAPA

LAWN & GARDEN HEMLOCK HEALERS, INC. Dedicated to Saving Our Hemlocks. Owner/Operator Frank Varvoutis, NC Pesticide Applicator’s License #22864. 48 Spruce St. Maggie Valley, NC 828.734.7819 828.926.7883, Email: hemlockhealers@yahoo.com

R

NEW PAY-FOR-EXPERIENCE Program pays up to $0.41/mile.

Class A Professional Drivers. Call 866.291.2631 for more details or visit SuperServiceLLC.com AVERITT EXPRESS New Pay Increase For Regional Drivers! 40 to 46 CPM + Fuel Bonus! Also, Post-Training Pay Increase for Students! (Depending on Domicile) Get Home EVERY Week + Excellent Benefits. CDL-A req. 888.362.8608 Apply @ AverittCareers.com Equal Opportunity Employer - Females, minorities, protected veterans, and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply.

FINE GRADE MOTOR GRADER Operator to work in Goldsboro or Fayetteville area. Minimum 5 years experience. All applicants are subject to background/drug/health screening. Excellent benefits.

Competitive wages. Contact Charles Rose, Call Now at 252.813.0193.

EOE. EARLY HEAD START TEACHER Jackson County- An Associate Degree in Early Childhood Education is required for this position, must also have the ability to work well with families and coworkers, 2 yrs. experience working with birth to 3 yrs. and have good judgment/problem solving skills. Prefer someone with Infant/Toddler CDA credentials and basic computer skills.

This is an 11 month position with benefits.

HEAD START-PRE-SCHOOL ASSISTANT TEACHER - Jackson County-2 Positions AvailableAssociate Degree in Early Childhood Education is required for this position, must be able to assume the responsibilities of classroom when the teacher is absent, work well with parents and community leaders, and have good judgment/problem solving skills. Basic computer skills are required. Two years classroom experience preferred.

This is a 10 month position with benefits.

Applications for these positions will be taken at Mountain Projects, 2251 Old Balsam Rd, Waynesville, NC or 25 Schulman St, Sylva, NC or you may apply online at line at: www.mountainprojects.org Pre-Employment drug testing is required. EOE/AA.

HIGHLANDS-CASHIERS HOSPITAL Positions now available: Med/Surg and ER Registered Nurses, Clinical Informatics Specialist, Clinical Coordinator, Certified Nursing Assistnat, Unit Clerk, Maintenance Mechanic, Physical Therapist, and Physical Therapist Assistant.

Benefits available the first of the month following 60 days of full-time employment. PreEmployment screening required.

Call Human Resources.

828.526.1376, or apply online at: www.highlandscashiershospital. org PRIME, INC. Company Drivers & Independent Contractors for Refrigerated, Tanker & Flatbed NEEDED! Plenty of Freight & Great Pay! Start with Prime Today! Call 877.736.3019 or apply online at driveforprime.com ATTN: DRIVERS Be a Name, Not a Number $$$ Up 50cpm $$$ BCBS + Pet & Rider Full Benefits & 401K + Quality Hometime Orientation Sign On Bonus. CDL-A Required. Call now 888.592.4752, or visit us at: www.ad-drivers.com SAPA NEED MEDICAL BILLLING TRAINEES Obamacare creating a large demand for Medical Office Assistants! NO EXPERIENCED NEEDED! Online Training gets you job ready!

HS Diploma/GED & Computer needed. Careertechnical.edu/nc.

1.888.512.7122

WANT A CAREER Operating Heavy Equipment? Bulldozers, Backhoes, Excavators.

"Hands On Training" & Certifications Offered. National Average 1822 Hourly! Lifetime Job Placement Assistance. VA Benefits Eligible.

1.866.362.6497

FINANCIAL BEWARE OF LOAN FRAUD. Please check with the Better Business Bureau or Consumer Protection Agency before sending any money to any loan company.

SAPA

BEST PRICE EVERYDAY

10-5 M-SAT. 12-4 SUN.

ON DELLWOOD RD. (HWY. 19) AT 20 SWANGER LANE WAYNESVILLE/MAGGIE VALLEY 828.926.8778

243-264

243-205

The Real Team

JOLENE HOCOTT • LYN DONLEY MARLYN DICKINSON

INJURED? IN A LAWSUIT? Need Cash Now? We Can Help!

No Monthly Payments to Make. No Credit Check. Fast Service and Low Rates. Call Now 1.866.386.3692. www.lawcapital.com (Not available in NC, CO & MD) SAPA

Real Experience.

Real Service. Real Results.

828.452.3727

www.The-Real-Team.com

MOUNTAIN REALTY 1904 S. Main St. • Waynesville

PETS HAYWOOD SPAY/NEUTER 828.452.1329

Jim’s Sew & Vac Repair & Service

TOUCH Prevent Unwanted Litters!

The Heat Is On! Spay/Neuter For Haywood Pets As Low As $10.

Operation Pit is in Effect!

Free Spay/Neuter, Microchip & Vaccines For Haywood Pitbull Types & Mixes!

$59999 Regular Price TM $39999 Sales Price $34999 Our Price

The Oreck Touch™ is a full-powered, high performance bagless vacuum cleaner that brings easy to bagless.

It is designed with a four-stage multi-cyclonic filtration system that ensures no loss of suction*

110 DEPOT ST. WAYNESVILLE | 456-9314

MON - FRI 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM |

ORECK, BISSELL & DYSON WARRANTY REPAIRS

Cleaner, Clearer and Healthier water at every tap in your home

Hours: Tuesday-Friday, 12 Noon - 6 pm 182 Richland Street, Waynesville

An EcoWater Water System can remove

ALICE AN ADORABLE BABY WITH HER LITTLE WHITE SOX AND THE WHITE STAR ON HER FOREHEAD! SHE'S SPAYED AND READY TO FIND HER FUREVER HOME.

BUG A VERY HANDSOME LITTLE FELLOW WITH A GREAT PERSONALITY. HE'S VERY FRIENDLY, PLAYFUL, LOVES TO BE HELD AND I GETS ALONG VERY WELL WITH OTHER DOGS.

Lease to Own

Bad Taste & Odors Iron/Rust Sediment/ Silt Bacterias Harmful Chlorine Balance pH

smokymountainnews.com

HOSPITAL CAREERS BEGIN HERE Get trained in months, not years with small classes. Financial aid for qualified students. Call Now Centura College 877.575.5627 AIRLINE JOBS START HERE Get Trained As FAA Certified Aviation Technician. Financial Aid For Qualified Students. Housing And Job Placement Assistance. Call Aviation Institute Of Maintenance.

1.844.210.3935. SAPA

Applications will be taken at Mountain Projects, 2251 Old Balsam Rd, Waynesville, or 25 Schulman St, Sylva, NC or you may go to our website: www.mountainprojects.org and fill out an application.

$1,000 WEEKLY!!

Mailing Brochures From Home.

Helping home workers since 2001.

Genuine Opportunity. NO Experience Required. Start Immediately. www.MailingMembers.com SAPA

Your Local Big Green Egg Dealer

EMPLOYMENT

June 4-10, 2014

FULL-TIME AND PART-TIME TEACHER OPENINGS AT HAYWOOD CHRISTIAN ACADEMY (1) Full-time Middle School Math/Science Teacher. Grades 79. Looking for vibrant personality passionate about middle grades to be Lead Teacher. Bachelor’s degree required and 3 years minimum experience. (2) Full-time Elementary School Teacher.

Grades 3-5. Bachelor’s degree required, 1 year experience preferred. (3) Part-time Elementary School PE Teacher. (4) Part-time Middle/High School PE/Health Teacher. Bachelor’s degree required. Applications found at: www.haywoodchristianacademy. org. Submit with resume to: mbane@haywoodchristianacademy.org or by fax at 888.880.8447 by June 16.

Phone: 828.627.0229, ext. 102.

HEAD START/NC PRE-K TEACHER - Haywood County Two PositionMust have a Birth-K or BS related field with course work, and teaching license. This position also requires computer skills, the ability to work with diverse population/community partners, 2 yrs. experience in Pre-K classroom, good judgment/problem solving skills, lead role in classroom and time management skills. Candidate will be responsible for classroom/paperwork. This is a 10 month positions with benefits that include health, dental, vision, short term/long term disability, and life insurance.

EMPLOYMENT

WNC MarketPlace

FTCC Fayetteville Technical Community College is now accepting applications for the following INSTRUCTORS: Art Instructor. Philosophy.

Culinary Arts. Business Admin.

Networking Technology. Paralegal Inst/Dept. Chair. For detailed information and to apply, please visit our employment portal at: https://faytechcc.peopleadmin.com Human Resources Office. Phone: 910.678.8378. Internet: http://www.faytechcc.edu. CRC Preferred Employer. An Equal Opportunity Employer.

EMPLOYMENT

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EMPLOYMENT DRIVERS: Local/Regional/OTR. Excellent Pay/ Benefit Package. Great Pay/Consitent Miles. Daily/Weekly/Bi-Weekly Hometime. CDL-A 1yrs OTR Exp. Req. 855.842.8498.

828.452.3995 | americanwatercareinc.com

find us at: facebook.com/smnews

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WNC MarketPlace

FURNITURE

REAL ESTATE ANNOUNCEMENT

COMPARE QUALITY & PRICE Shop Tupelo’s, 828.926.8778.

LEASE TO OWN 1/2 Acre Lots with Mobile Homes & Empty 1/2 Acre + Lots!

Located Next to Cherokee Indian Reservation, 2.5 Miles from Harrah’s Cherokee Casino.

For More Information Please Call 828.506.0578

HAYWOOD BEDDING, INC. The best bedding at the best price!

533 Hazelwood Ave. Waynesville 828.456.4240 REMAINING CHERRY & WALNUT Lumber, $15/Board. For more information call 828.627.2342

NICOL ARMS APARTMENTS NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS Offering 1 & 2 Bedroom Apartments, Starting at $400 Section 8 Accepted - Handicapped Accessible Units When Available

OFFICE HOURS: Tues. & Wed. 10:00am - 5:00pm & Thurs. 10:00am- 12:00pm 168 E. Nicol Arms Road Sylva, NC 28779

Phone# 1.828.586.3346 TDD# 1.800.725.2962 Equal Housing Opportunity

REAL ESTATE ANNOUNCEMENT PUBLISHER’S NOTICE All real estate advertising in this newspaper is subject to the Fair Housing Act which makes it illegal to advertise “any preference, limitation or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin, or an intention, to make any such preference, limitation or discrimination” Familial status includes children under the age of 18 living with parents or legal custodians, pregnant women and people securing custody of children under 18.

This newspaper will not knowingly accept any advertising for real estate which is in violation of the law. Our readers are hereby informed that all dwellings advertised in this newspaper are available on an equal opportunity basis.

REAL ESTATE ANNOUNCEMENT NC MOUNTAIN FINAL CLOSEOUT Save over 60% on these properties with waterfront, stunning views, EZ access, wooded, level building site and more 2.57acs 15,900 or 1.84acs 23,900. 1.866.738.5522 Hurry Won't Last! brkr.

BANK OWNED, ONLINE ONLY, Auction, Subdivision & Wooded Lots, Comm. Buildings, Acreage & Homes, 48 Lots in 14 Counties, Ends June 5th at 3pm. Bid Center At: Iron Horse Auction Co. Office. ironhorseauction.com.

800.997.2248, NCAL3936 ONLINE ONLY AUCTIONS. May 16th-June 10th. NC Commercial Land; Lots; Warehouse; Home.

Others in SC & FL. Rogers Realty.

Details: RogersAuctionGroup.com.

Facebook. 800.442.7906. NCAL685

HOMES FOR SALE BRUCE MCGOVERN A Full Service Realtor shamrock13@charter.net McGovern Property Management 828.283.2112.

HOMES FOR RENT UNFURNISHED WAYNESVILLE - UNFURNISHED Charming Efficiency Bungalow, Walking Distance to Town. Living Space is One Large Room, Plus Kitchen & Full Bath. 2 Floors, 1st Floor - Large Storage Area & W/D Hookup. 2nd Floor - Living Space, with Deck. Suitable for 1 Tenant. $325/mo. + Utilities & Sec. Dep. For More Info Call 340.473.8617 or 828.508.7155

VACATION RENTALS CAVENDER CREEK CABINS Dahlonega, GA. GAS TOO HIGH? Spend your vacation week in the North Georgia Mountains! Ask About Our Weekly FREE NIGHT SPECIAL! Virtual Tour: www.CavenderCreek.com Cozy Hot Tub Cabins!

1.866.373.6307 SAPA FLAGLER BEACH FLORIDA Oceanfront Vacation Rentals.

Furnished Studio, 1, 2, & 3 Bedrooms, Full Kitchens, FREE WiFi, Direct TV, Heated Pool. Call 386.517.6700 www.fbvr.net SAPA

VACATION RENTALS NORTH CAROLINA Beat The Heat & Head to the Mountains! Book your vacation now. Pets welcome! Weekly & Monthly rentals. Best rates.

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SAPA

COMM. PROP. FOR SALE APARTMENT COMPLEX FOR SALE 14 - 2/BR Units. Excellent Rental History. Sylva Area. Call Broker, Robert A. Kent, NC Broker Lic. #274102, The R.A. Kent Co., LLC 828.550.1455

LOTS FOR SALE 2 TRACTS AVAILABLE IN CLYDE #1 - 2.819 Acres, Has Great Building Lot, City Water, Has 2 1/2 Story Building. Property Near HCC. $62,750. #2 - Available in the Fall. Has 3 Acres and House. For more info call 828.627.2342.

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Great Smokies Storage June 4-10, 2014

10’x20’

92

$

20’x20’

160

$

ONE MONTH

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Conveniently located off 19/23 by Thad Woods Auction

44

Puzzles can be found on page 46.

These are only the answers.

STORAGE SPACE FOR RENT Convenient Location 19/23 Between Clyde and Canton

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Call Brian

828.342.8700 CLIMATE CONTROLLED STORAGE UNITS FOR RENT 1 Month Free with 12 Month Rental. Maggie Valley, Hwy. 19, 1106 Soco Rd. For more information call Torry

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Get one month FREE with 12 month contract. Call 828.507.8828 or 828.506.4112 for more info.

MEDICAL

SAFE STEP WALK-IN TUB. Alert for Seniors. Bathroom falls can be fatal. Approved by Arthritis Foundation. Therapeutic Jets. Less Than 4 Inch Step-In. Wide Door.

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CHAMPION SUPPLY Janitorial supplies. Professional cleaning products, vacuums, janitorial paper products, swimming pool chemicals, environmentally friendly chemicals, indoor & outdoor light bulbs, odor elimination products, equipment repair including household vacuums. Free delivery across WNC. www.championsupply.com 800.222.0581, 828.225.1075.

FOR SALE: Two Crypts at Eye Level.

Located at Garrett Hillcrest New Mausoleum. $8,000. For more info call 828.454.0247 LARGE BIRD CAGE Wrought Iron on wheels, 37x21, height of 60�, bottom has shelf. $100. Call 828.944.0030.

ROLLING OFFICE CHAIR Excellent Condition, $30. For more info call 828.246.3167.

DINNING ROOM TABLE Rectangular - 6’ with 2’ extension.

4 Chairs Included, $120. For more info call 828.246.3167.

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Michelle McElroy

WHITE MALE, NON-DRINKER, Looking for a live-in girlfriend for companionship & light housework. Any age, kids okay. 2/BR in a nice neighborhood. For more info call Donnie at 706.335.6496 or write to PO Box 411, ILA, GA 30647.

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MOUNTAIN REALTY

SCOTTISH TARTANS MUSEUM 86 East Main St., Franklin, 828.584.7472. www.scottishtartans.org. Matthew A.C. Newsome, GTS, FSA, SCOT., Curator & General Manager, Ronan B. MacGregor, Business Assistant.

Mieko

Thomson ROKER/R /REALTOR EALTORÂŽÂŽ BBROKER

Cell (828) 226-2298 Cell

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2177 Russ Avenue Waynesville NC 28786

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243-209

Mike Stamey

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243-211

Mountain Realty

Ron Breese Broker/Owner 2177 Russ Ave. Waynesville, NC 28786 Cell: 828.400.9029 ron@ronbreese.com

www.ronbreese.com Each office independently owned & operated.

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ANTIQUE WOOD BURNING STOVE Victorian, ‘Belmont’, 6 Burners. $600. For more information call 828.550.1302

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PERSONAL

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FOR SALE AIR BRAKE CHAMBER Haldex-Anchorlok Gold Seal, model #3636. Looks New/Rebuilt, will email pics, make offer. Please call 828.400.5119 - Waynesville.

MERCHANDISE TELIVISION 26� Orion, with remote: $50. Call 828.944.0030.

WNC MarketPlace

BULLFROG STORAGE

MEDICAL

www.selecthomeswnc.com 239-114

Residential and Commercial Long-Term Rentals

45

www.smokymountainnews.com

June 4-10, 2014

WNC MarketPlace

Super

46

CROSSWORD

Nuku’alofa?

68 Foe in Aden?

71 Snick-a- - (combat ACROSS knife) 1 Earth clump 72 Yule quaff 5 Congenial 73 Ear buildup 12 Stopped the flow of, 74 Note after fa as blood 20 Old Claude Akins sit- 75 Tony winner Burrows 76 Like British soldiers com in the Revolution 21 Acorn creator 80 Amer. currency unit 22 2009 animated film 82 Old sitcom guy in featuring the voice of Aarhus?

Dakota Fanning 23 Soap opera in Haifa? 86 Stimulants, in slang 87 Suffix with Bronx 25 Mileage recorder 88 “- the season ...”

26 “Sirens” actor Sam 89 Tall, lanky types 27 Break off 91 Verbal exams 28 Gadabout 93 Ancient Brit 29 Parishioners in 95 Aloe Milan?

96 Lucy of film 33 Onion roll in 99 Jet in Katmandu?

Benghazi?

102 Regime in Niamey?

37 With 110-Down, 105 Verdict scamming guys 106 Prefix with plop 38 Style expert Klensch 107 Match venue 39 RCA rival 108 Overlay, as an ID 40 As hoarse as 111 Comparable thing in 41 Show’s star Huambo?

44 Third degree 46 Quotation mark shape 115 Short play 116 Collection of frond47 Goner’s cry ed plants 50 Royal trappings in 117 Pulled apart Oran?

118 Big leopards 54 Spiny, yellow-green, 119 Couple tart-tasting fruits 120 Not yet paid 56 Name of four Pharaohs 57 “Sliver” writer Levin DOWN 1 Mini-hospital 58 Entertainer Brynner 59 “- for Evidence” (Sue 2 Be beaten by 3 Actor Hugh Grafton book) 60 Morning lawn wetness 4 Multiskilled worker 5 Comcast competitor 61 Kind of sword 6 More, in Madrid 65 Ballroom dance in NATION REORGANIZATION

7 Prez Eisenhower 8 How goods are sold to the public 9 Of the sea 10 Element with the symbol Pb 11 Wriggling fish 12 - -Doo 13 Sooner than tomorrow 14 Nice smell 15 Convention ID tag 16 Priest, e.g.

17 Top 10 tune 18 Lansing-to-Flint dir.

19 Article in Germany 24 TV Tarzan Ron 28 - Tin Tin 30 Direct to the exit 31 City official: Abbr.

32 Dots in the sea, in Spain 33 Peter of “M” 34 Asia’s - Sea 35 Loughlin of “90210” 36 Female youth org.

39 Looks like 41 That female 42 Class that’s a cakewalk 43 Mystery author Marsh 44 Superior skill 45 Worked (up) 47 “Virtue - own reward” 48 Dimwit 49 An Allman brother 51 Part of CPI 52 “Uh, excuse me ...”

53 With the stroke of 55 - constant (tiny number in physics) 59 Hollywood’s Samantha

62 Norman Vincent 63 Imprison 64 Ones looking 66 Bacterium 67 Small recess 68 When tripled, “and so on” 69 Occurring in small knots 70 Split to unite 73 “Haven’t - somewhere before?”

77 Has a midday meal 78 Soft & - deodorant 79 Ikea item 80 Take wooden pins out of 81 DJ’s stack 82 Celine of pop 83 Raison d’84 Type of tide 85 Vicinity 90 10-Down source, e.g.

92 Calf catcher 93 Chair weavers 94 Language of N. Amer.

96 Stay in hiding 97 Brush aside 98 Not mature 100 Meal holder 101 Cola quantity 102 United - College Fund 103 Took off 104 Poetry Muse 106 Was sure of 108 Chop (off) 109 California’s Santa 110 See 37-Across 111 At the rear 112 Zodiac feline 113 Recliner part 114 Certain vote

answers on page 44

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FLEA MARKETS PEDDLER’S SQUARE FLEA MARKET Smoky Mountain Expressway, 23/74, Across From Edesto Gas. Available: Outdoor Space Friday Saturday & Sunday, 9a til 4p, $10/Day or $25 for 3 Days.

Indoor Space Year Round, $80 and Up per Month, Heat & Air Included. For More Info Call Terry 828.276.6377

YARD SALES HUGE 3RD ANNUAL YARD SALE: Saturday 6/7, 8a.m. to 1p.m.

Benefiting Cowee Community Development Organization, at the Historic Cowee School, 51 Cowee School Dr. Franklin, NC. All kinds of gently used stuffclothing, household, furniture.

Spaces available for $10.

Call Leon at 313.590.1482 for additional info or to reserve a space. We will be accepting donations on Friday 2:00 to 6:00 at the school.

MACON TRACS Is having our 7th Annual Indoor Rummage Sale at Macon County Fairgrounds in Franklin, NC. Friday June 6th & Saturday June 7th, from 8am to 3pm, Rain or Shine!

- 3 LARGE ESTATES Thursday, Friday & Saturday 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Antiques, Housewares, Furniture Something for Everyone!!

Located at 10 Commerce St., Waynesville. Rain or Shine!

WEEKLY SUDOKU Place a number in the empty boxes in such a way that each row across, each column down and each small 9-box square contains all of the numbers from one to nine.

Answers on Page 44

Some ‘Indian Caves’ were very likely the real thing

E

George Ellison

verywhere you go in Western North Carolina there are secluded places reputed to have been used as hideaways by the 500 or so Cherokees seeking refuge during the removal era of the late 1830s. Most of these legends are oft-told tales connected to dank holes in the ground.

In point of fact, caves were not favored by the Cherokee as shelters even during the removal. They preferred overhanging rock shelters they were familiar with from centuries of upland hunting.

To be sure, they sought out secluded Columnist nooks away from the main routes, but they also wanted a dry site that offered good water and warming sunlight, especially during the long winter of 1838-1839.

The complex of so-called “Indian Caves” and the adjacent rock shelter in the Nantahala Gorge meet those criteria. But they may not have been used because of the proximity of Fort Lindsay at the mouth of the Nantahala River.

Tsali’s Rock on the Left Fork of Deep Creek in the high Smokies under Clingmans Dome is the most famous shelter, and may indeed have been the actual spot where the

BACK THEN Cherokee martyr Tsali was apprehended.

But as a shelter it’s not very impressive, consisting of an overhanging rock maybe 15-feet high that would provide dry quarters for not more than four adults.

One of the most impressive sites is the shelter at Rockhouse Knob in the Nantahala Mountains about 10 miles southwest of Franklin (“Prentiss NC” topo map). The top of the mountain is covered in thick rhododendron, but the southwest face consists of an extensive granite outcrop that forms a vertical wall several hundred yards long and well over 100-feet high in places.

The first portion of the outcrop provides little, if any, shelter. The southern end, however, separated from the main wall long ago creating a room-like space about 150-feet long, 50-feet wide, and 150-feet high.

The overhanging cliff keeps out precipitation while allowing afternoon sunlight to strike and warm the granite interior. One portion of the “room” sits high and dry, while a lower portion contains a spring. A round fireplace of stones maintained by hikers and hunters may well be situated where the old campfires of the early Cherokee hunters were placed.

There can be little doubt that the Cherokee knew the site. It’s too good for them to have missed, and it’s situated near

one of the trails that led from their towns in “I was taken to it by great uncle Jim present north Georgia to the Nantahala setWilliams,” Brown recalled. “The story nartlements and those on the Valley River near rates that three Indians occupied the shelter present Murphy. ... during the time that it was illegal for The alleged use of Rockhouse Knob during the removal is not Tsali’s Rock far-fetched, even if absolute documentation is probably impossible. The southern Nantahalas were a remote, rugged area that the Indians knew well. The region was also away from the network of forts and stockades constructed by the U.S. Army.

North Georgia native Beatrice Jefferson Stubbs, in a chapter titled “This Was Indian Country” in her 1986 volume Views from Valley Front, recalled that the Dillard, Ga., settlers “took pity on the plight of the refugees” and “supplied grain and Cherokee to remain in these mountains. other necessities over a period of years, or Furthermore, these Indians were thought to until it was legally safe for the Indians to be members of Wayah Katoga’s family.” appear in public.”

It seems unlikely the Rockhouse Knob The spring 1989 issue of “Foxfire” magasite would have gone unused during that zine contains an article titled “The sad period. There is — to my knowledge — Cherokee Cave,” with photographs of the no natural upland shelter in Western North the shelter. The student authors interCarolina better suited for that sort of viewed “Doctor” John M. Brown, an area extended refuge. resident, who was told as a child about the Readers can contact George Elison at existence of the Rockhouse by two older P.O. Box 1262, Bryson City, N.C., 28713, or at woodsmen. info@georgeellison.com.

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