Smoky Mountain News | December 9, 2020

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Western North Carolina’s Source for Weekly News, Entertainment, Arts, and Outdoor Information

December 9-15, 2020 Vol. 22 Iss. 28

First COVID-19 vaccine will roll out soon in U.S. Page 7 Tribal Council removes casino board chairman Page 11

CONTENTS

STAFF

On the Cover: Ben Guiney, a Sylva commissioner and an ER doctor at Harris Regional Hospital, talks to The Smoky Mountain News about contracting COVID-19 and his subsequent quarantine. Health care workers are under an enormous amount of stress and pressure as hospitals are seeing more COVID patients and nursing homes across the region are experiencing outbreaks.

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News Governor, tribe approve sports betting agreement ..................................................4 Haywood Schools central office relocates ..................................................................5 COVID-19 vaccine begins to roll out ............................................................................7 Forest Hills supports Jackson County namesake change ......................................9 Tribal Council removes casino board chairman ......................................................11 Jackson says goodbye to Mau and Luker ................................................................12 Community Almanac News ..........................................................................................15

Opinion Local government-run broadband a bad idea ..........................................................16

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A conversation with Mike Cooley ................................................................................18 Honoring the old ways......................................................................................................21

Outdoors Bee feeding with a purpose ..........................................................................................22

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Scott McLeod. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . info@smokymountainnews.com Greg Boothroyd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . greg@smokymountainnews.com Micah McClure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . micah@smokymountainnews.com Travis Bumgardner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . travis@smokymountainnews.com Jessica Murray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . jessica.m@smokymountainnews.com Susanna Shetley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . susanna.b@smokymountainnews.com Amanda Bradley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . jc-ads@smokymountainnews.com Hylah Birenbaum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . hylah@smokymountainnews.com Sophia Burleigh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . sophia.b@smokymountainnews.com Scott Collier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . classads@smokymountainnews.com Jessi Stone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . jessi@smokymountainnews.com Holly Kays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . holly@smokymountainnews.com Hannah McLeod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . hannah@smokymountainnews.com Cory Vaillancourt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . cory@smokymountainnews.com Garret K. Woodward. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . garret@smokymountainnews.com Amanda Singletary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . smnbooks@smokymountainnews.com Scott Collier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . classads@smokymountainnews.com Jeff Minick (writing), Chris Cox (writing), George Ellison (writing), Don Hendershot (writing), Susanna Shetley (writing) Boyd Allsbrook (writing)

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Governor, tribe approve sports betting agreement Final approval needed from BIA

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BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER fter a yearlong delay, the effort to bring sports betting to Harrah’s Cherokee Casinos is finally moving forward following Gov. Roy Cooper’s approval of a proposed amendment to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ gaming compact. Tribal Council approved the amended compact by unanimous vote on Thursday, Dec. 3, a move that those present in the chamber greeted with enthusiastic applause.

The General Assembly passed legislation allowing the tribe to pursue sports betting in July 2019, and at the time the casino had expected that its new sports betting area, to be called The Book, would be open in both Cherokee and Murphy by late fall. However, it turned out that the tribe’s gaming compact had to be amended before that could happen, and the tribe began working with Cooper’s office on the document immediately after the law was ratified, delivering a proposed amendment to the governor on Oct. 14, 2019.

State law gave Cooper 180 days to either approve or reject the compact, creating a midApril deadline for action.

However, the deadline came and went without any decision from the governor’s office. Multiple emails sent from The Smoky Mountain News to Cooper’s press office in May requesting an explanation for the delay were not returned, and a similar request sent last week was not returned either. Principal Chief Richard Sneed said that COVID had an impact on the timeline but that the full delay was unnecessary.

“I had a very candid conversation with the governor about that fact that this was only supposed to take 180 days,” Sneed told Tribal Council Dec. 3. “I don’t think he was very happy with my comments, but that’s just too bad. I feel like we were just kind of strung along with this for a year, and there was really no need for it. But thankfully it’s done.”

Sneed submitted an emergency resolution to Tribal Council and received its approval of the amended compact. Next, the document needs signatures from the offices of the governor, secretary of state and attorney general before being sent to the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., which is required to advertise a 45-day public comment period before the document can go into effect.

“The only question I have is when will we be able to do the sports betting? When will it activate at the casino?” asked Representative Albert Rose, of Birdtown.

“If I were a real optimist, I would hope maybe by the end of January, maybe in time for the Super Bowl,” replied Ann Davis, attor-

A

ney for the Tribal Gaming Commercial Enterprise. “Don’t hold your breath though, because we’ve got two issues with the Department of the Interior: COVID and administration change.”

“So at least before March Madness I hope?” asked Rose.

“Absolutely — if we have a March Madness,” said Davis.

EBCI Chief of Staff Ashleigh Stephens said that the amended compact is not available for release until all parties have signed it.

However, Davis did provide some information

limited online betting on tribal lands that are off casino property.

“Once the geofencing software is available, we can geofence the reservation so that bets can be placed outside the casino, as long as they are placed on reservation lands,” said Davis. “The only thing that has to happen is that the Certification Commission has to approve that software.”

The Certification Commission was established in the original 1994 compact and includes three members — one appointed by the principal chief and two appointed by the

Screens will be key at The Book, the new sports betting lounges planned for casinos in Cherokee and Murphy.

JCJ Architecture rendering

as to what the agreement contains, noting that the new amended compact incorporates the amendments of 2011 and 2012 so as to get the entire agreement into a single document.

“The only thing that the governor has asked for monetarily is $191,000 a year to help defray any problem gaming or state costs involved in trying to regulate sports betting,” Davis said. “It’s estimated — and this is only an estimate — but it’s estimated that we should have around $10 million gross revenues as a result of this, so $191,000 is a small price to pay.”

That’s a much better deal than that agreed to in the last compact amendment, completed in 2012. That agreement allowed the tribe to offer table gaming but required it to give a percentage of table gaming revenues to the state, starting at 4 percent and inching up to 8 percent by 2032.

Under the new agreement, sports betting can occur only on tribal lands and only for sporting events that take place outside the reservation. Initially, wagers will have to be placed on-site at the casino. However, eventually there will be an opportunity for some

governor. Under the 2012 compact, members serve five-year terms with an annual salary of $9,000 to $12,000 paid by the tribe, currently set at $10,200 for the chairman and $9,000 for the remaining members. The commission is responsible for testing and approving all video games offered at Cherokee casinos for compliance with state law.

Just prior to its vote approving the amended compact Dec. 3, Tribal Council unanimously confirmed Renissa McLaughlin as Sneed’s new appointment to the commission. McLaughlin will fill a currently vacant term that expires Sept. 30, 2022.

“The Certification Commission plays a big role in this compact. It always has,” said Davis.

“It gets even more important now. One thing that the governor’s office was really wanting was a lot of information being sent directly from the tribe to the governor. And that was a real obstacle for us. We did not want that to happen. So, all of our information about sports betting as far as any problems we’re having, any irregularities, are going to this Certification Commission, of which we have one member. It becomes a really important role.”

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ANSWER: Often I get questions from customers about what it means to be a Registered Dietitian (RD) and what type of education you have to have to be a dietitian.

• Dietitians in the U.S. have a minimum of an undergraduate degree and many have a master's degree.

• Dietitians have to complete and pass an internship that is at least 1200 hours of supervised practice and experience in areas like clinical dietetics, public health, food service and administrative work.

• Dietitians have to pass a nationally administered board exam.

• Dietitians have to maintain this certification by completing continuing education annually.

Macon County School Board has two new members following the 2020 election and a special appointment to fill a recent vacancy.

Board members Jim Breedlove and Melissa Evans were re-elected to their seats following the 2020 election, but then board member Fred Goldsmith announced his resignation to the board on Nov. 16, which left the rest of the board to appoint someone to fill the seat.

The board received four letters of interest to fill the vacancy.

During a special-called meeting Nov. 30, Carol Arnold was chosen to fill Goldsmith’s seat with a 3-1 vote. Arnold is a retired Macon County educator who also once worked in the central office. She will serve out the two years remaining on the term. Board member Stephanie McCall, who chose not to run for re-election this year, was opposed.

Hillary Wilkes will be replacing McCall on the board. All board members were sworn in during a Dec. 7 meeting.

Superintendent Dr. Chris Baldwin expressed sincere appreciation to Coach Goldsmith and McCall for their passion for education as well as their devotion of time and support given of the Macon County School System.

While the majority of dietitians work in clinical (hospital/nursing home/long-term care) settings, many dietitians also work in public health, school nutrition, sports nutrition, culinary nutrition, for food brands ... and of course in supermarkets!

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New members join Macon County School Board

December 9-15, 2020

BY HANNAH MCLEOD STAFF WRITER aywood County Schools Central Office began the process of relocating to Central Elementary last week.

The old hospital building will be redeveloped into low-income housing by Landmark Realty Group. For that reason, Haywood County Schools needed to vacate the building by the end of December.

Central Elementary was closed in 2016 due to budget cuts, and it has remained empty since then. But there are plans to reopen that building as a school as the population of Haywood County increases. This move into the old school building is considered a temporary one. Eventually, central

administrative services will move to the old Medical Arts building.

Because there are plans to reopen Central Elementary as a school later on, there was no construction or renovation done to the inside of the building to make it better for office space.

“We did no construction. This is a school. We think we will need it again as a school. We hope that we will need it again as a school, as the population in Waynesville expands,” said Superintendent Bill Nolte.

“We can probably get students back in here for $3 or $4 million, where the cost buying a piece of property that is sufficient for a school and building a new school is going to cost ten times that.”

The more permanent location in the Medical Arts Building is pending renovation.

According to Nolte, that move could take place sometime around June 2021, but with several outlying factors, this is a best guess.

The move of personnel is complete, but some materials, especially larger ones, will still be moved throughout the month of December.

@InglesDietitian Leah McGrath - Dietitian 800.334.4936 Ingles Markets… caring about your health

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‘Darkest before the dawn’ Sylva doctor contracts COVID amid rising cases, hospitalizations

BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER t was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and Sylva resident Ben Guiney was spending the morning decorating the Christmas tree with his wife and daughter, pondering the possibility of a mountain bike ride to take advantage of the unseasonably warm day.

“I went upstairs to brush my teeth, and I’m like, well, I’ve got to lay down,” said Guiney. “It was like all the energy just drained out of me.”

Then came the clammy skin, the chills.

Guiney had COVID.

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A COURSE OF COVID

Smoky Mountain News

December 9-15, 2020

The week of Thanksgiving, Guiney, an emergency room doctor at Harris Regional Hospital, worked Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday — he has his guesses about how he may have contracted the disease, but really he could have gotten it anywhere. The doctor’s lounge, a COVID patient’s room or even from an asymptomatic person there for some unrelated reason.

To be honest, he was surprised he hadn’t contracted the disease earlier. Guiney encounters the virus on a fairly regular basis these days. Of course, when he’s working closely with somebody who is known to be contagious, he wears full PPE, but not everybody who has COVID knows they have COVID. It’s impossible to wear full protective gear all day long, so much of the time Guiney’s just wearing a surgical mask.

Luckily, Guiney had a moderate case of COVID. His vitals stayed strong, and he didn’t require hospitalization. Still, it was an ordeal.

“Every viral symptom you can think of, I get it, and it doesn’t come all at once,” he said while still in isolation Dec. 3. “It’s a progression.”

First there was the low-grade fever, the exhaustion, the tight chest. Then the congestion, a stuffy, runny nose. Interestingly, he never lost his sense of smell or taste. Not everybody does. By Saturday, he was feeling a lot better and figured he was about done with being sick.

“Then on Sunday things all of a sudden took a turn, and I was really short of breath and really coughing hard,” he said. “It was really weird. That was the only day I was actually worried.”

He was feeling some level of anxiety the whole time, however — wondering, will this remain a moderate case of COVID, or will things suddenly get worse? You never know with COVID. Guiney has seen patients come in who are holding their own, even getting better, and then suddenly wind up on a ventilator.

“You start worrying, what course am I 6 going to have? Am I going to have a bad

course or am I going to have the typical, predicted course for me?” said Guiney, who as a healthy 52-year-old non-smoker had a good chance of a positive outcome.

As Guiney started to feel better, though, the worst part of his diagnosis became apparent — the isolation. Guiney is an emergency room doctor, a Sylva town board member, a mountain biker, a husband, a father. In short, a busy guy who likes to stay in motion.

Somehow, both his wife and daughter had escaped the virus, which meant that he had to spend 10 days in his bedroom, alone. His wife brought his meals to the door and he read his daughter bedtime stories on Facetime. He could hear his family downstairs, but he couldn’t see them. On Tuesday, Dec. 8, he was finally allowed out of isolation — it was a happy day.

At least, he said, he had a family to take care of him, and an employer who would work with him to make up for lost shifts.

There are plenty of people for whom a 10-day isolation period would be emotionally and financially devastating.

“The loneliness thing, I think that’s the take home from the whole pandemic,” he said. “We think of all the folks in the nursing homes who have basically been locked down.

They can’t see their families. It’s awful.”

four COVID-positive people hospitalized across the entire system, all in Asheville.

At Haywood Regional Medical Center, July was the first month when COVID-19 patients were consistently present at the hospital, with an average of three hospitalizations per week.

In November that figure jumped to seven hospitalizations per week. The increase in cases prompted HRMC to suspend visitation for inpatient, outpatient and emergency room patients, effective Dec. 7.

RISING HOSPITALIZATIONS Back in April, when the pandemic was just beginning, Guiney told The Smoky Mountain News that life at a hospital carried an ominous, “calm before the storm” kind of feeling. As headlines told of death and despair in places like New York City and Italy, case counts remained low in Western North Carolina. Not only was the emergency room devoid of COVID cases, it was devoid of most other kinds of cases too — people were staying home, getting into fewer accidents and passing fewer germs, and it’s likely that folks who really should have seen a doctor were putting off seeking help, scared of catching COVID. Now, the situation is quite different.

When Guiney spoke with SMN in April, only 15 cases had been confirmed in all of Jackson County. That number had increased by two orders of magnitude to 1,564 as of Dec. 7, with 155 people in isolation for active infections. It’s a similar story in neighboring counties. Haywood County has had 1,315 cases with 213 people in isolation, and Swain has 467 total cases with 40 in isolation. Macon County had 1,009 total positives with 54 active cases.

The increase in cases is translating to an increase in hospitalizations. As of 6:30 a.m.

Thursday, Dec. 3, for instance, the Mission Hospital system was keeping 64 people with positive COVID-19 tests at Mission Hospital in Asheville, two at Angel Medical Center in Franklin, and one at Highlands-Cashiers Hospital in Highlands. An additional 17 were being treated at Mission hospitals further east. Wind back the clock seven months to 5 a.m. Thursday, May 7, and there were only

“In the last couple of weeks we’ve really felt an uptick where it’s, ‘Here we go, is this it, is this where we’re going to get crazy?’

We definitely started to see more COVID.” — Ben Guiney

“So far, our staff have responded very well to the changes we have experienced —working together as a team to keep our patients and themselves safe,” said HRMC CEO Greg Caples. “We have adequate levels of PPE and do not expect to experience any shortages.

We are here for you when you need care.”

Across the 17 western counties, 113 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Dec. 6 according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, with that figure trending sharply upward since Nov. 27, when 68 people were hospitalized. Statewide, 2,240 people were hospitalized as of Dec. 6.

Cases are rising, and the hospitals are seeing more demand for COVID-related care.

But, said Guiney, local hospitals have not to date gotten the crazy rush they were expecting when the news from New York started to come out. Of course, that could change, and perhaps already is.

“Now in the last couple of weeks we’ve really felt an uptick where it’s, ‘Here we go, is this it, is this where we’re going to get crazy?’” said Guiney. “We definitely started to see more COVID.”

MAKING IT TO MAY While COVID cases are increasing, mortality from the disease appears to be going down. According to a research paper published in the Journal of Hospital Medicine in October, 25.6 percent of COVID patients at a three-hospital health system in New York died from COVID back in March, but by August that percentage had dropped to 7.6 percent.

“Data from one health system suggest that mortality from COVID-19 is decreasing even after accounting for patient characteristics,” the paper’s abstract said.

According to Guiney, that’s due both to doctors getting more comfortable with treating the disease and to various virus prevention methods succeeding in flattening the curve.

“We got better at taking care of those patients throughout the months since April,” he said. “We’re not as quick to intubate them.

The high-flow oxygen stuff works much better. We know what to look for, so we’ve gotten more comfortable with it.”

That said, there is still no cure for the virus. And should the hospital get a massive influx of patients that strains its ability to care for each individual, outcomes might not be as good as they are now.

“There’s only so many of us, and when things start coming, we get overwhelmed.

You just can’t keep up with everything. It’s just not possible,” he said.

Guiney said he worries about how a COVID surge might impact patients whose ailments have nothing to do with the virus.

“Aside from eliminating human suffering, the big thing really is to make sure that someone doesn’t needlessly die in the waiting room from a heart attack or a ruptured appendix because the place is full of COVID patients and there’s nowhere to put anybody,” he said.

The irony is not lost on Guiney that he got sick with the virus mere weeks before a vaccine likely would have granted him immunity. As a frontline healthcare worker, he would have received one of the first doses. But that just goes to show how important it is for people to continue taking the virus seriously until the vaccine is distributed. That’s why he decided to tell his story publicly, he said — not to garner sympathy but rather to urge the public to do their part to protect others.

“It’s always darkest before the dawn,” he said. “We know dawn is coming for pretty much everybody by around May, but until then, it’s who makes it to dawn. And that is completely dependent on us taking care of each other and taking responsibility that comes with the freedoms we have. That’s the real trick about the whole thing.”

T

According to a New York Times vaccine tracker, 41 vaccines were tested for safety and dosage in phase one, 17 vaccines moved on to phase two for expanded safety trials, 13 vaccines moved into phase three for large-scale efficacy tests and seven vaccines were approved for early or limited use.

In phase three, the vaccine is given to thousands of people to see how many become infected compared to volunteers who were given a placebo. In June, the FDA told vaccine producers that it wanted evidence that the vaccine would protect at least 50 percent of those who received it. According to the CDC, China and Russia approved COVID vaccines before waiting for results of phase 3, which poses serious risks.

North Carolina released its interim COVID-19 vaccination plan on Oct. 16.

According to N.C. Department of Health and Human Services website, vaccine testing was

“thorough and successful” with more than 70,000 people participating in clinical trials for two vaccines and a 95 percent efficacy rate in preventing the virus.

“There is no COVID-19 virus in the vaccine. The vaccine imitates the infection so that our bodies think a germ like the virus is attacking. This creates the antibody defenses we need to fight off COVID-19 if and when the real germ attacks,” the DHHS website stated. “No major side effects. Some people may have temporary reactions after being vaccinated, such as swelling from the injection, tiredness or feeling off for a day or two.”

Once health care workers and nursing home patients receive the vaccine, adults with the highest risk of illness and those at highest risk of exposure receive the next priority. This includes adults with cancer, COPD, serious heart conditions, sickle cell disease, type 2 diabetes and more. Those at highest risk of exposure include front line workers like police, food processing, teachers, those incarcerated in prison, people stay-

• The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority (CMC Enterprise) • University of North Carolina Shared Services Agreement • Wake Forest Baptist Health Expecting “vaccine hesitancy” to be high, N.C. plans to focus on public education to build a foundation of trust. Key initial goals will be to increase knowledge of the vaccine and the development process; set expectations for limited availability at the onset of the vaccine delivery; raise awareness and recognition of historical injustices to mitigate vaccine hesitancy.

There’s also been a lot of talk about whether COVID-19 vaccines will be mandatory either on the state or federal level. The N.C. DHHS has stated it has no plans to make vaccines mandatory, but private businesses do have the ability to mandate employees to get vaccinated if they choose to do so. Many health care providers already require their employees to be immunized for certain diseases and viruses, including influenza.

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NORTH CAROLINA’S PLAN

December 9-15, 2020

On Nov. 9, Pfizer and BioNTech presented preliminary data indicating their vaccine was more than 90 percent effective. Just a week later, Moderna reported similar data and results. Now both companies are requesting emergency use authorization from the FDA before it can begin distributing the vaccine in the U.S. The CDC and the FDA have expanded safety monitoring systems to be able to evaluate the vaccine in real time. V-SAFE is a new Smartphone-based health checker for people to use after they receive the vaccine. V-SAFE will use text messaging and web surveys from the CDC to check in with the health of recipients after being vaccinated. The CDC will also utilize the National Healthcare Safety Network to monitor acute care and long-term care facilities and reporting to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

The FDA will use other large insurer/payer databases, a system of administrative and claims-based data for surveillance and research purposes. There are also a number of

Smoky Mountain News

BY J ESSI STONE N EWS E DITOR he first COVID-19 vaccines have already been administered overseas as FDA approval is still underway in the U.S. A 90-year-old woman in the United Kingdom was the first Briton to receive the first of two doses on Monday at University Hospital in Coventry. The vaccine being administered at the UK hospital is the one released by Pfizer-BioNTech, which still hasn’t cleared all regulatory hurdles here in the U.S. As of Tuesday morning, the Food and Drug Administration website still states that no COVID vaccine has been approved or authorized by the FDA. “We are committed to expediting the development of COVID-19 vaccines, but not at the expense of sound science and decision making. We will not jeopardize the public’s trust in our science-based, independent review of these or any vaccines. There’s too much at stake,” said Stephen M. Hahn, M.D., FDA Commissioner, and Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., Director, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

Back in July, the U.S. announced a deal with Pfizer and BioNTech to purchase 100 million doses of the vaccine, which is enough to vaccinate about 50 million people with two doses each, but that’s only 15 percent of the U.S. population. The U.S. also has a $1.5 billion deal with Moderna to purchase another 100 million vaccine doses.

Johnson & Johnson, Novavax and AstraZeneca have also produced vaccines, but according to a Forbes article, those are unlikely to receive emergency use authorization from the FDA before the end of 2020.

An FDA advisory committee and the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research is set to meet Dec. 10 to discuss the Emergency Use Authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in people 16 and older. Another meeting will be held Dec. 17 to discuss emergency use authorization for the Moderna vaccine.

While the elderly patients in Great Britain were quoted as being honored and happy to be the first to receive the vaccine, many Americans don’t have the same enthusiasm and are concerned about its safety due to the rapid development and testing. Typically, vaccines require years of research and testing before being approved, but the U.S.’s Operation Warp Speed has the COVID-19 vaccine on the fast track.

“We understand that some people may be concerned about getting vaccinated once a COVID-19 vaccine is available in the United States,” the CDC website states. “While these vaccines are being developed as quickly as possible, routine processes and procedures remain in place to ensure the safety of any vaccine that is authorized or approved for use. Safety is a top priority, and there are many reasons to get vaccinated.”

ing at homeless shelters and people with chronic conditions living in migrant housing.

Third priority will be adults 65 and older with chronic conditions; fourth priority will be K-12 and college students and critical industry workers and finally everyone who wants a vaccine can get it in stage 5.

In a recent press conference, Gov. Roy Cooper said he expected to receive about 85,000 doses in the first shipment of the PfizerBioNTech vaccine. The vaccine, which has to be kept in extreme cold storage until it’s used, will first be sent to hospitals across the state that have the greatest capacity for the cold storage.

NCDHHS plans to ship the first doses to • Bladen Healthcare LLC (Bladen County Hospital) • Caldwell Memorial Hospital • CarolinaEast Medical Center • Catawba Valley Medical Center • Cumberland County Hospital System Inc (Cape Fear Valley Health System) • Duke University Health System • Henderson County Hospital Corporation (Margaret R. Pardee Memorial Hospital) • Hoke Healthcare LLC (Hoke Hospital)

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COVID-19 vaccine begins to roll out

existing safety monitoring systems (www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/ vaccines/safety.html) in place for the CDC and FDA to follow.

Access to the vaccine will be limited at first until more doses become available in early 2021. In the meantime, more vulnerable populations will receive first priority for the vaccine. Based on recommendation from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the CDC made an official recommendation Dec. 2 that healthcare personnel and long-term care facility residents should be the first people offered the vaccination.

Vaccine doses purchased with U.S. tax dollars will be free to Americans, but the CDC says providers can charge administration fees for giving someone the shot. The fee may be reimbursed by a patient’s insurance provider.

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COVID-19, a difficult problem for nursing homes

BY HANNAH MCLEOD STAFF WRITER s the holiday season progresses, Western North Carolina has seen a sharp uptick in COVID-19 cases. This rising spread has made its way into long-term care and assisted living facilities, where the elderly are at a higher risk for contraction and death.

According to the Centers for Prevention and Disease Control, long-term care facilities are at high risk of being infected by respiratory pathogens like COVID-19. In Haywood County, one-third of current cases are among residents of long-term care and assisted living facilities.

The North Carolina Division of Public Health defines an outbreak in a long-term care setting as two or more laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 within two incubation periods (28 days) in the same facility.

According to isolation orders, symptomatic individuals who test positive are required to remain in isolation until at least 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared, at least 24 hours have passed since the last fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and symptoms have improved.

Asymptomatic individuals who test positive are required to remain in isolation until at least 10 days have passed since their positive test, assuming they did not develop symptoms after their positive test.

In Haywood County, Autumn Care of Waynesville, Haywood Nursing & Rehabilitation, Maggie Valley Nursing and Rehabilitation, Spicewood Cottages and Silver Bluff all have current outbreaks. Two residents at Maggie Valley Nursing and Rehabilitation died after contracting COVID19 during its outbreak.

In Jackson County, six residents at Vero Health and Rehab of Sylva have tested positive

Smoky Mountain News

December 9-15, 2020

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for COVID-19. On Nov. 30 a new outbreak was announced at Hermitage Assisted Living and Memory Care in Sylva. Skyland Care Center in Sylva has also had an outbreak.

In Macon County, Macon Valley Nursing Home, Eckerd Living Center and Drake Cottage have all had outbreaks.

This marks the second outbreak at Silver Bluff in Canton since the pandemic started. The latest outbreak has caused 11 residents and five staff to tested positive. Back in August during the first outbreak, some 30 Silver Bluff residents died due to COVID-19.

Five of the deaths list COVID-19 as the secondary cause of death (the disease that initiated the events resulting in death.) One lists COVID19 as the primary cause. The individuals were all over the age of 80 and all had underlying medical conditions.

The initial outbreak led to 150 Silver Bluff staff and residents being infected with the virus.

Lisa Leatherwood, administrator for Silver Bluff Village, said the source of the outbreak was a new resident, who most likely contracted COVID at the hospital. She said the new resident tested negative upon admission into the facility and then tested positive six days later.

All new intakes stay in a wing separate from the rest of the village. Each new resident is put on isolation for 14 days upon coming into the facility. They have a private room with a private bathroom. Staff wear full PPE and test new residents every three days for 14 days. According to the CDC, anyone who tests positive within the first 14 days of admission contracted it prior to coming to the facility.

People urged to comply with contact tracing efforts

BY J ESSI STONE N EWS E DITOR ounty health officials are urging residents to comply with COVID-19 contact tracing efforts if contacted by the health department.

Haywood County Health and Human Services reported the county’s 43rd COVID-19 death on Tuesday. COVID-19 was listed as the primary cause of death for this individual who was a resident of Autumn Care and was between the ages of 60 and 65.

“We at Haywood County Health and Human Services extend our deepest sympathies to the family and loved ones during this time of loss,” said Interim Health Director Garron Bradish. “COVID-19 is a serious and sometimes deadly illness, and case numbers are rising rapidly in our community.

We urge everyone to be vigilant about masking and social distancing any time you’re going to be around anyone who doesn’t live in your household. Wash your hands regularly and stay home if you’re not feeling well. Now, more than ever, we

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Leatherwood said Silver Bluff started limiting contact between all departments back in March to mitigate spread among staff. They also require masks at all times. But during an outbreak, things are even more strict. Before entering the room of a resident, staff must sanitize, put on a gown, N-95 mask, face shield that covers the mask, gloves and shoe

covers. Once that resident has been cared for, staff exits the room, peels off all PPE, sanitizes and does the same thing before entering the room of the next patient.

“You do that over and over and over, all day long for 12 hours,” said Leatherwood.

Leatherwood said Silver Bluff Village underwent five infection control inspections by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services during its first outbreak in August and underwent another one last

need everyone in the community using every tool in the intervention toolbox to help slow the spread.”

Between Dec. 1-3, Haywood County received notice of 79 new cases of COVID-19.

There are now outbreaks at five long-term care or assisted living facilities. These outbreaks only represent about onethird of current Haywood County cases, though. The rest are cases of community transmission, COVID-19 in the workplace, or friends and family sharing it amongst themselves.

Another trend that is becoming apparent is people being reluctant to work with contract tracers when contacted. If you get a call from the Health Department or other contact tracers, pick up the phone and participate. Contact tracing is an important tool in breaking the chain of virus transmission. It is a safe and confidential way of reaching out to people who have come into close contact with anyone who’s tested positive for COVID-19.

“If people who are positive don’t share their close contact information, we can’t notify or offer testing, safety information, and support resources to the close contacts.

Without contact tracing, close contacts may not be aware that they’ve been exposed and could be actively spreading the virus in their homes and communities, leading to more cases and potentially more deaths. Our COVID team is currently upgrading and streamlining some of our tools and processes to make the contact tracing interviews less timeconsuming for everyone involved. For contact tracing to

week. Inspections are always unannounced.

During these inspections, inspectors will choose a staff member at random, within each department, and observe them carrying out their tasks. Silver Bluff received no recommendations during any of those inspections.

“Especially when we had our big outbreak, you know, we were worn out and they would come and say, ‘we have no suggestions’ and I mean, my director of nursing and I just sat there and cried,” said Leatherwood. “If we’re not doing anything wrong, why has this happened? You know, I think that’s the hardest part.”

With another current outbreak, residents are only allowed to have outdoor visits.

“The residents being stuck in their rooms, that’s been very, very tough on them and there for months they couldn’t have visitors, so they could only do window visits,” said Leatherwood.

She said her staff tried to do a lot of virtual visits with family and loved ones, but because many residents are hard of hearing and/or not familiar with that sort of technology, those types of visits are difficult.

“The thing people need to think about is that maybe it’s no big deal if you get COVID because you’re 23 years old and healthy, but you could have an underlying condition, like the kid that died at Appalachian State, and not know it, or you could give it to your grandparents or the person you love most,” said Leatherwood.

Health care workers and nursing home residents will receive first priority for vaccinations once they are approved by the FDA for use in the U.S.

work, everyone must do their part,” said Bradish.

As of 5 p.m., Dec. 3, Haywood County’s COVID-19 working number, representing individuals who are in isolation or quarantine due to exposure is up again, to 492 people. Of these, 219 cases are in isolation after testing positive (up 42 from Tuesday) and 273 people are in quarantine, having been identified as a close contact of a known case during contact tracing. All are being monitored by the Haywood County COVID-19 contact tracing team.

MACON MIDDLE SUSPENDS IN-PERSON CLASSES In-person instruction at Macon Middle School has been suspended beginning Wednesday, Dec. 9 through Friday, Dec. 11.

The suspension of instruction is due to the loss of staff to quarantine and COVID-19 related symptoms. A positive case of COVID-19 has been confirmed within Macon County Schools support staff as well. The individual is currently under quarantine. Contact tracing is underway through the Macon County Health Department.

The school system has also had recent positive cases at Mountain View Intermediate School, Cartoogechaye Elementary School, Franklin High School, Iotla Valley Elementary School and Macon Middle School.

Sylva, Webster discuss similar resolutions

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its meeting Wednesday, Dec. 2, but because two members of the board were absent the body decided to table further discussion, as well as any vote, until its January meeting.

While the discussion was preliminary, Mayor Tracy Rodes said that feedback from the board members who were present was generally positive.

“I had read the article in The One Feather back in the summer, and I thought it was a clever solution to renaming but not actually having the expense of renaming every map to a completely different name,” she said.

The Town of Dillsboro, meanwhile, has not discussed the issue and is not planning to, said Mayor Mike Fitzgerald. It’s a county decision, he said, and he doubts county commissioners will seek input from the towns.

Walter S. Jackson.

Smoky Mountain News

“If they start mulling it over, I’m sure the constituents will meet them in the store and by phone and by email,” he said. “They’ll get a feel of how people think.”

While resolutions from the towns may carry some persuasive weight, action from the county will be required to actually make the change. Two of the five seats on the county commission changed hands following this year’s election, and new commissioners were sworn in on Monday, Dec. 7.

Due to the transition, the board has not yet discussed the namesake issue.

“It will definitely be a topic for us to discuss at some point,” said Chairman Brian McMahan.

The new board could have that conversation as early as its work session on Thursday, Dec. 10, but McMahan said it’s more likely the discussion will occur at the January work session. There are numerous topics to get new commissioners up to speed on during their first week, and the naming issue is not the most urgent among them, he said.

McMahan said he is not ready at this point to go on the record with an opinion on the renaming proposal. Commissioner Gayle Woody has given her enthusiastic support, and in an interview last month Commissioner Boyce Deitz said he still needed to do some research before reaching a conclusion but that, “I would almost doubt that I would be against that in any way.”

Should the issue come to a vote, newly installed commissioners Mark Jones and Tom Stribling would have a say as well.

December 9-15, 2020

y BY HOLLY KAYS - STAFF WRITER hile the issue has not yet come before f county commissioners, the Village of d Forest Hills has passed a resolution e supporting a request from the Eastern Band s of Cherokee Indians to substitute former k Principal Chief Walter S. Jackson as the county’s namesake. Other towns in Jackson eCounty are considering similar resolutions.

The county’s current namesake is Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the r nUnited States and architect of the Trail of Tears. Tribal Council unanimously passed a resolution requesting the change during Annual Council Thursday, Oct. 29. Cherokee tOne Feather reporter Scott McKie first prodposed the idea in a July 12 editorial. e “I don’t think that I’m alone in saying rthat it is an affront to me as a Cherokee citiezen that half of our boundary is in a county named after the president who signed the kIndian Removal Act and saw our ancestors tas inferior and put in place a policy that dwas responsible for the deaths of tens of gthousands of Native Americans,” Principal tChief Richard Sneed said during the Oct. 29 umeeting.

On Tuesday, Dec. 1, the Village of Forest Hills voted unanimously to pass a resolution ein support of the renaming.

- “I think it’s a really easy fix for a problem rthat we have, in the sense that I don’t know how many people think that naming your county after someone who’s responsible for causing the Trail of Tears and the Indian Removal Act could be someone that we would want to honor in this county, especially since we we’re neighbors to the Cherokee people,” said Nilofer Couture, the Forest Hills councilmember who brought the resolution forward. “It just seems kind of something we should have done a long time ago.

The fact that Chief Jackson has the same last name just makes it so much easier, because it’s not going to cost anything.”

All three councilmembers in attendance voted in favor of the resolution, though Mayor Jim Wallace — who votes only in case of a tie — said that he opposed the idea.

“This was a different culture we’re dealing with, and at that time, that culture thought he (Jackson) was a hero,” said Wallace in a follow-up call. “Our culture is going back and denouncing everyone who was a slaveholder, and they were heroes in their day. It’s a completely different culture, and we’re trying to judge others on our culture, and I don’t think we should.”

The Town of Sylva will consider a similar resolution supporting the namesake change at its upcoming meeting at 5:30 p.m.

Thursday, Dec. 10. The Town of Webster had a preliminary discussion on the matter during

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Forest Hills supports Jackson County namesake change

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Tribal Council removes casino board chairman I

board to a higher standard than other members. It’s not personal, she said — it’s just about trying to make sure that tribal law is followed.

“We all know that being a chair of any committee, body, whatever, they have some greater responsibilities than the rest of the board,” she said. “They’re the ones that execute the decision made on behalf of the board in most cases.”

Several members who voted against the removal cited an ongoing investigation of the TCGE for which the tribe is paying $200,000.

“There is an investigation that I understand is still ongoing,” said Shell. “We paid $200,000 for it — $200,000. I think we’re jumping the gun by voting on this.”

That investigation was initiated in July with passage of a resolution, introduced by Rose, that authorized Tribal Council’s legislative counsel to retain a firm to conduct “a forensic audit and investigation into all TCGE powers and duties described in Cherokee Code 16A-5.”

It passed July 9 by a weighted vote of 4333, with French, Crowe, Sneed, Chelsea Saunooke and Tommye Saunooke all in favor and Shell, Brown, Wahnetah, Wolfe and Wachacha opposed. Rose and Boyd Owle were absent for the vote.

“I agree with Perry (Shell),” said Brown.

“I think we ought to wait on the investigation.”

“If the investigation deems there’s any kind of malfeasance or any illegal activity, then that information will be brought to the board and we’ll handle it then,” Wachacha added.

Legislative Counsel Carolyn Ward told Tribal Council Dec. 3 that she’d gotten a contract for the investigation approved the previous week and expects the active portion of the investigation to begin shortly.

Wachacha said that the accusations against Jim Owle have once more brought up the need for a clear policy as to how Tribal Council should handle board removals. In this case, the removal was brought in as a resolution that was then tabled for a hearing prior to a vote, but the hearing was not required.

“We provide due process to nonenrolled banishments and they get a chance to speak in front, but for some reason whenever we want to throw somebody out there with an accusation, we want to put it in a resolution form without even hearing their side of the story,” he said.

Going forward, Wachacha said, he plans to submit legislation to clarify that process to ensure that board members accused of wrongdoing are given due process prior to removal.

December 9-15, 2020 Smoky Mountain News

ing operations each year,” the resolution alleged.

The document also accused the TCGE of failing to comply with tribal hiring preference laws and pointed out the lack of explanation or backup documentation accompaBY HOLLY KAYS nying the request for a larger loan amount STAFF WRITER for the casino project. n a closely divided vote following an at“All of the above instances show a lack times tense discussion Thursday, Dec. 3, of leadership and a need to remove the the Cherokee Tribal Council removed TCGE chairman,” the resolution reads.

Tribal Casino Gaming Enterprise Chairman Tribal Council held a closed-door hearJim Owle from his post. ing and deliberation on the matter the day “I think the conduct, it’s removable. The before its open-session discussion and vote. conduct is dangerous, what they’ve been Owle declined to speak to the charges outdoing,” said Birdtown Representative lined in the resolution during the open-sesAlbert Rose. “We’re going through an epision discussion Dec. 3. demic right now. We’re cutting funding in Ultimately, the resolution passed with a education and other programs, so I just narrow weighted vote of 48-40. In Tribal Council, each member’s “There is an investigation that I understand is vote is weighted still ongoing. We paid $200,000 for it — based on the population of $200,000. I think we’re jumping the gun by his or her voting on this.” township as of the last — Perry Shell census. So, while a want to stress if this conduct is not removminority of members voted to pass the resoable, then nothing is.” lution, those members carried a majority of The removal resolution, first submitted the weighted vote.

by Wolfetown Representative Bo Crowe In favor of passage were Wolfetown during Annual Council Oct. 29, came in Representatives Chelsea Saunooke and response to the TCGE approaching Tribal Crowe; Painttown Representatives Tommye Council Oct. 26 to say that it needed to borSaunooke and Dike Sneed; and Rose. row up to $80 million more than the $250 Opposed were Chairman Adam Wachacha, million originally budgeted for an expanVice Chairman David Wolfe, Yellowhill sion project currently underway at Harrah’s Representative Tom Wahnetah, Snowbird Cherokee Casino Resort in Cherokee. The Representative Bucky Brown and Big Cove request came without any backup docuRepresentatives Richard French and Perry mentation, and council members were not Shell. pleased about essentially being backed into Birdtown Representative Boyd Owle a corner to approve the funding in order to expressed adamant opposition to the resobring the project to a conclusion. The lution but abstained from casting a decidmajority of them believed they should have ing vote against it, as Jim Owle is his brothbeen told about the impending cost overer. run earlier in the game and felt that the The crux of Boyd Owle’s opposition to project was managed poorly.

Jim Owle’s removal was that the resolution However, Tribal Council’s issues with pointed to actions taken by the board as a the TCGE arose long before the October whole, not to actions attributable to the meeting, according to Crowe’s resolution. chairman individually.

The resolution states that the TCGE “I didn’t see any misconduct from one failed to provide minutes of its meetings person,” he said. “If it was anybody, it was upon request of a Tribal Council member, all of them.” only releasing them four months later after Boyd Owle also took issue with the the Tribal Council chairman made the charges related to the redacted minutes, request. The released minutes were redactstating that while the TCGE did not release ed to obscure “budget items related to gamunredacted copies for council members to ing operations and construction, TERO fee possess, it did allow Tribal Council memissue, compact amendment, to name a few,” bers to come view the minutes at the TCGE Crowe’s resolution said. This violates tribal office. law stating that Tribal Council “shall review Chelsea Saunooke, meanwhile, said that the income and expenses of the Tribal gamit makes sense to hold the chairman of a

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Narrow decision cites lack of transparency, cost overruns as cause

@SmokyMtnNews 11

news December 9-15, 2020

Jackson says goodbye to Mau and Luker

NPS investigates sexual assault case The National Park Service Investigative Services Branch continues to seek information related to sexual assaults that may have occurred within Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

On Dec. 7, Richard L. Graham and Dusty William Oliver were sentenced for aggravated sexual abuse arising out of incidents occurring in 2012 and 2015 within the park. Investigators are seeking information related to additional incidents, if any, that would have occurred prior to their arrest on September 9, 2019.

“I want to express my thanks to ISB investigators, park rangers and the Blount County Sheriff ’s Office for their perseverance and hard work that led to the conviction and sentencing of these two men responsible for heinous crimes within the park,” said Superintendent Cassius Cash. “To ensure that we’ve heard the voices of all victims, investigators continue to welcome any information about additional assaults that may be associated with Graham and Oliver.”

Graham and Oliver were convicted of enticing homeless men into their vehicle from the Knoxville area and then taking them into remote areas of the park where they were raped. Graham and Oliver plead guilty to aggravated sexual abuse occurring in 2012 near the Appalachian Trail and another sexual assault occurring in 2015 at Look Rock. Blount County Sheriff ’s Office and Great Smoky Mountains National Park Rangers assisted ISB in the investigation.

Investigators are seeking additional information from anyone who may have been a victim of sexual assault crimes during this general time period. Call or text the ISB tip line at 888.653.0009, visit www.nps.gov/isb and click “Submit a Tip” or email nps_isb@nps.gov.

and Mickey Luker the last four years,” said Chairman Brian McMahan Dec. 1.

“When you work with people you get to know about their families, get to know about who they are, how they think, how they work, and I have found them both to be great leaders in our community. They just have a great heart in our community to have strived to work diligently to make sure that this board was always focused on doing what was best for this community and the people of this county.”

Mau ended his term by urging all Jackson County residents to be active citizens, tuning in to meetings and keeping Outgoing commissioners Ron Mau (right) and Mickey Luker receive plaques commemorating their service. abreast of upcoming Chairman Brian McMahan (left) holds the plaque for Luker, who attended the meeting virtually. Jackson County photo issues.

“It takes work to be a

BY HOLLY KAYS House District 119 but lost the primary elec- citizen, so I’ll continue to be involved one STAFF WRITER way or another,” he said. “It might be just tion to former Rep. Mike Clampitt, who he Jackson County Board of watching meetings on YouTube, but believe ended up winning the contest. Luker did Commissioners said goodbye to outgome I’ll continue to try to keep track and stay not file for any race this year, and his deciing Commissioners Ron Mau and informed. It’s just what I’ve always done.” sion not to seek re-election followed continMickey Luker on Tuesday, Dec. 1, the body’s ued criticism from the public over his ongoLuker said he’s grateful for what he’s last meeting before the swearing-in of new learned and experienced in the past four ing absence from county meetings. His representatives. years. attendance began to drop off in summer Both Mau and Luker were elected in 2016 2019, and though he has attended many “You can be born and raised here and to represent Districts 3 and 4, respectively. until you get into the government section of meetings via speakerphone, his last in-perTheir election flipped the board from a 3-2 son appearance in the board room was Aug. it you really don’t know a whole lot of nothDemocratic majority to a 3-2 Republican ing till that point,” he said. “It’s not a job 20, 2019. majority, though Democrats won back the that I think anybody can take lightly. It’s also On Monday, Dec. 7, District 3 majority in 2018 and strengthened it to a 4-1 Commissioner Tom Stribling and District 4 not a four or five-hour-a-week job either if hold in November. you’re going to do it right. But I’ve enjoyed it Commissioner Mark Jones were sworn in.

Neither man ran for re-election this year. and I appreciate the opportunity to be able “I can say with all sincerity that I have Mau mounted a campaign for the N.C. to serve my county.” thoroughly enjoyed working with Ron Mau

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BY CORY VAILLANCOURT STAFF WRITER alling the stakes dire and the situation “a matter of life and death,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced a new modified “stay at home” order and threatened additional restrictive measures if the startling increase in the state’s coronavirus numbers doesn’t subside.

“We continue to mourn with those who have lost loved ones,” Cooper said during a Dec. 8 press conference, noting the 5,605 North Carolinians who have already died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in March.

Cooper said that public health officials were “shocked” a month ago to see the state reach new levels in daily case counts — more than 3,000 a day. Now, some daily counts have topped 6,000. All-time daily highs for coronavirus cases were broken three times last week alone and more than 10 percent of coronavirus tests are now coming back positive.

Although testing, contact tracing and the supply of personal protective equipment have all been increasing, Dr. Mandi Cohen, Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, said that all other metrics on the state’s coronavirus dashboard were trending upwards “significantly.”

Patients presenting to emergency rooms with COVID-like symptoms are now at the highest level since pandemic began, and the state’s seven-day rolling case average has also increased dramatically.

Almost half of North Carolina’s 100 counties (48) are experiencing “critical” levels of viral spread, and another 34 are experiencing “substantial” levels. Those classifications, Cohen noted, may not even include what’s expected to be a large bump due to Thanksgiving travelers acquiring and/or transmitting the virus.

Effective Friday, Dec. 11, North Carolina will enter into what Cooper called a “modified stay at home order” requiring people to remain at home between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. Alcohol sales for on-site consumption must end by 9 p.m.

Cooper said that if numbers continue to increase, he wouldn’t rule out issuing more restrictive measures related to businesses, but he also called upon President Donald Trump and Congress to provide more help to businesses affected by previous restrictions.

The order also requires restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, personal care businesses and others to close at 10 p.m.

Travel to and from work is still permitted, as is travel to obtain food, medical care, fuel or social services and travel related to the care of a family member.

“We aren’t putting these orders out there to get people in trouble,” Cooper said, leaving enforcement up to local law enforcement officials. “We’re putting them out to save lives.”

Read the full text of Gov. Cooper’s order at https://files.nc.gov/governor/documents/fil es/EO181-Modified-Stay-at-Home-EarlyClosure-Order.pdf.

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December 9-15, 2020 Smoky Mountain News 13

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Smoky Mountain News December 9-15, 2020

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Community Almanac

Smoky Mountain News

Help shelter provide for pets Cashiers-Highlands Humane Society needs help with its fourth annual “Stuff the Stockings” for the more than 100 animals currently in its care.

Each CHHS shelter pet has a personalized stocking and the shelter staff hopes to fill them with food, toys, treats and supplies including: crunchy dog treats such as Milk Bones, bully sticks and Busy Bones; catnip and other cat treats; canned food and dry kibble (Purina dog chow, cat chow, puppy and kitten chow); stuffed toys and durable toys for dogs such as Kongs; interactive toys for cats and kittens; pet supplies including leashes, collars, Sporn harnesses, slow feeder bowls, cat scratching posts, dog and cat beds, and small fleece blankets.

Stuff the Stockings presents can be purchased and dropped off at local participating sponsors in Cashiers (Woof Gang Bakery, Paws on the Mountain, Highland Hiker & Cashiers Valley Pharmacy), brought to the shelter or shipped via UPS or FedEx to: CHHS, 200 Gable Drive, Sapphire, NC 28774.

You can also purchase supplies from CHHS’s Amazon Wish List. Don’t forget to use Amazon Smile and select CHHS as your designated charity and our shelter pets will receive an additional donation from Amazon.

For more information, call CHHS at 828.743.5752.

Farmworker program receives $100K Vecinos Farmworker Health Program was honored to receive $75,000 for COVID funding from Dogwood Health Trust, and an additional $25,000 from their Racial Equity Grant designed to infuse capital into historically underfunded organizations whose primary purpose is serving Black, indigenous and communities of color, to assist with their clinical expansion effort.

Vecinos is a nonprofit health care organization addressing the wellness of farmworkers and their families with health care, education, community partnerships and advocacy, covering about 3,500 square miles across eight counties in Western North Carolina. Its funding is currently limited to provide services to farmworkers and their family members — about 800 people in the region, while the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 demographics estimate this region is home to about 3,500 Latinos.

Funds from the Racial Equity Community grant will be used to assist Vecinos’ strategic planning and expansion of services beyond solely farmworkers. www.vecinos.org.

Vote to support Macon animal services Macon County Animal Services adopter’s story about how their pet has changed their life was selected as one of 50 national winners this year by the Petco Foundation in its annual Holiday Wishes campaign.

Now Macon County Animal Services has the opportunity to earn up to $25,000,but needs the community’s support. From now through noon on

Dec. 16, the public can vote for Macon County Animal Services’ winning Holiday Wishes story in the People’s Choice competition at petcofoundation.org/vote.

“We encourage our community of animal lovers to vote for our story. If 2020 has shown us anything it’s that pets change our lives for the better.

Your vote can help us earn lifesaving funds so we can bring more pets in need together with loving families,” said Jimmy Villiard, administrator at Macon County Animal Services.

Winners will be announced late December. To view all 50 finalist stories and vote for a favorite, visit www.petcofoundation.org/vote.

Grants awarded for racial equity Dogwood Health Trust has awarded more than $2.8 million in Racial Equity Community Grants to a diverse range of 130 nonprofit and government agencies from every county and the Qualla Boundary in Western North Carolina.

Dogwood exceeded its original funding goal of $1 million, funding 65 precent of requests, with the average award amount totaling $21,884.

Racial Equity Community Grants were designed as an initial step from Dogwood to infuse capital into historically underfunded organizations whose primary purpose is serving Black, indigenous and communities of color, and whose leadership is representative of the communities they serve.

Grants awarded will fund immediate needs, program support, general operating support, or purposes that the recipient organizations believe will best support their work and increase their impact. Grants awarded were in alignment with Dogwood’s work to improve health and wellness

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or plasma with the Red Cross by downloading the Red Cross Blood Donor App, visiting www.redcrossblood.org, calling 800.RED.CROSS or enabling the Blood Donor Skill on any Alexa Echo device.

Buster Joins Dogwood Health Trust

and address the social determinants of health in the region. To see a full list of award recipients, visit www.dht.org/regrants.

Dogwood Health Trust recently hired seasoned foundation executive, William Buster to its Impact Team.

Buster is the latest member to join the organization’s leadership team, following the recent addition of Dr. Susan Mims as Interim CEO. As Senior Vice President of Impact, Buster is responsible for the visioning, development, and implementation of ambitious program strategies designed to advance strategic initiatives toward the organization’s goal of dramatically transforming the health and well being of all communities in Western North Carolina.

Buster will help identify and build strategic relationships based on shared objectives with key leaders, community-based organizations, nonprofits, and other funders in order to fund bold and innovative strategies that move the needle on health disparities and inequity in WNC. Dogwood’s Impact Team is responsible for grant making and program-related investment activity.

NAACP offers training for churches

Honors given to WNC community clubs

The Haywood County Chapter of NAACP is offering its Equal Justice Initiative training to organizations and churches in the community.

The Memorial Project has begun building a community coalition at First United Methodist Church in Waynesville by hosting an 11-week series on race with the congregation. It has included book discussions, circle conversations and presentations.

The church will be invited to join the community coalition, which already includes Down Home North Carolina and St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Canton. Other community organizations are welcome to join.

NAACP wants to offer this series to other churches and organizations. For more information, contact Katherine Bartel at bartelkatherine@gmail.com.

In recognition of 71 years of service, the WNC Honors Awards is renamed the George H.V. Cecil Honors.

Cecil, who recently passed, was instrumental in the creation and guidance of the WNC Honors Awards program. The WNC Honors Awards is built on a 71-year tradition of recognizing rural community development clubs for their innovative ideas and grassroots solutions.

The culmination of this year’s program occurred at a virtual event Dec. 3 with community leaders from 14 WNC counties and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The 70 communities participating in this year’s program made a $3 million investment of volunteer time, talent, and effort in WNC with more than 4,500 volunteers investing more than 112,180 hours of their time in outreach programs dedicated to conservation, education, beautification, health, wellness, and economic development.

At least 22 of the clubs, along with EBCI, participated in the USDA Farmers to Families Food Box program, WNC Communities partnership with Baptists on Mission, getting food to those most in need in their communities. More than 50,000 boxes of food were delivered over the past eight months. Additionally, 42 clubs including eight from EBCI, participated in the WNC Communities Get Counted census program in partnership with Dogwood Health Trust. The clubs ensured that an additional 2,907 people were counted; thus, helping the region surpass its 2010 response rate.

Blood donations needed The American Red Cross is urging healthy donors of all blood types to band together to give blood or platelets and help ensure a stable blood supply for patients this holiday season.

The traditional slump in blood donations between Thanksgiving and New Year’s comes as the blood supply already faces challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic. Required medical treatments and emergencies don’t pause for the holidays or a widespread coronavirus outbreak.

Make your appointment to give blood, platelets

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Opinion

Smoky Mountain News

Local government-run broadband a bad idea I

Please adhere to safety protocols To the Editor: Doctors across America are literally begging people to mask, maintain safe distances, avoid large and small gatherings, earnestly pleading with us to follow preventive measures to keep ourselves and our fellow citizens as safe as humanly possible from the deadly virus infecting our planet.

However, even as deaths in the United States soar past 262,000, many Americans continue to minimize and even deny the danger COVID-19 poses, refusing to mask or otherwise avoid the risks of exposure and infection, determined to prove we are indeed “our own worst enemy.”

One gentleman was quoted in a local newspaper as going so far as to state ... “While I think avoiding spreading disease is an admirable goal, there comes a point where you’re giving up more than you’re gaining for your efforts.”

I beg to differ. Giving up (temporarily) conveniences and luxuries we once enjoyed and took for granted before the virus — the loss of human contact, going out to eat with

There are a number of other examples around the U.S. of government-run broadband networks ending up as taxpayerbacked boondoggles.

FAIR COMPETITION CANNOT EXIST WHEN GOVERNMENT IS A MARKET PLAYER An inherent problem with municipal broadband is that government entities are incapable of fairly competing in the market, as they are taxpayer-backed and therefore able to charge less for a service than it actually costs. Private businesses cannot do this, as doing so would result in bankruptcy.

A 2012 study by Widener University’s Joseph Fuhr Jr. found that “many cities and municipalities have entered into the broadband market with disastrous results,” and concluded that government-run networks “have neither the resources nor the expertise necessary to provide conGuest Columnist sumers with reliable state-of-the-art broadband connections.”

This is why North Carolina and Tennessee lawmakers enacted legislation in recent years to prohibit local governments from setting up or expanding municipal broadband networks. Twenty-one states have such laws on the books prohibiting the expansion of municipal broadband.

The Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in April to repeal these state restrictions on local government-run broadband. That bill awaits consideration in the Senate, but is not expected to pass so long as Republicans maintain control of that chamber. Whether or not that’s the case will be determined by the January runoff elections in Georgia.

Patrick Gleason

n times like these, with public resources scarce and taxpayer dollars facing tremendous strain, it’s imperative for state and local officials to focus on core functions of government, of which competing with the likes of Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T is definitely not one. Yet Franklin Mayor Bob Scott penned a guest column in the Asheville Citizen-Times recently arguing for just that, urging the North Carolina General Assembly to permit “local government to compete with bigboy providers” for internet access. Whether Mayor Scott’s advice can become a reality now depends on the two Jan. 5 U.S. Senate runoff elections taking place in Georgia.

There is good reason why local government officials in cities, towns, and counties across North Carolina and in nearly half of the states in the U.S. are not allowed to create or expand a government-owned broadband networks, as Mayor Scott calls for. In fact, Mayor Scott doesn’t have to look far to find examples of how efforts to get municipal government into the broadband business often end in taxpayer tears.

The most recent cautionary tale is KentuckyWired, the statewide government-owned broadband network that is currently being constructed in the Bluegrass State.

KentuckyWired was sold to taxpayers as a $350 million project that would be complete by the spring of 2016. Now, years past the original date of completion, only half of the network has been installed, none of it is usable, and a recent report from the state auditor concluded that taxpayers will lose around $1.5 billion on this redundant network over its 30-year life.

Chattanooga, Tennessee’s Electric Power Board (EBP) began its fiber-to-the-home service in 2008. Even with a $50 million loan from the EBP’s electric power division to finance initial planning, $162 million in local revenue bonds to finance the construction, and a one-time $111.5 million subsidy from the federal government, it would still take more than 680 years — well beyond its useful life — for this government-owned network to break even.

LETTERS friends, to travel, to explore, etc. — seems a small price to pay for a better chance to continue living.

Some people believe that accepting health institution’s attempts to safeguard the quality (indeed the continuance of our lives) is somehow an infringement of our basic rights as Americans. That is incongruous with plain logic.

Yes, to properly combat the coronavirus, sacrifices will be made; financial, economic, personal, emotional, that’s very true. Had this president acted quickly and appropriately when knowledge of COVID-19 was initially known, the situation would not be as severe as it is today and certainly fewer of our citizens would have died.

There are proven ways to gain control over this virus, several nations and world leaders have clearly demonstrated and affirmed that. As a start, I will be more apt to patronize businesses that emphatically state, “No Masks — No Service” and adhere strictly to that and other preventive policies..

We have tolerated the naysayers and antagonists too long already. Here’s a narrative and a concept you may have to get used

There are lawmakers in the North Carolina General Assembly who recognize that it is the private sector, not state or local government, that has both the resources and the technological know-how to expand internet access to locations that lack it. North Carolina legislators have wisely exempted telecommunications and cable network equipment from state and local sales taxes, a move that others states are seeking to emulate.

“New technology pushed by those daring enough to innovate, like SpaceX and its Starlink satellite-based Internet service, bring more broadband opportunity to rural areas in our state,” wrote North Carolina Rep. Jason Saine in a recent oped. Recognizing that municipal-run broadband is not the answer, state lawmakers are looking to expand connectivity by promoting private sector investment and getting government out of the way. These actions include the removal and streamlining of regulations that drive up the cost deployment, cutting pole attachment fees and making them less complicated, and lowering franchise fees.

The outcome of the Georgia runoffs could have major ramifications for the way state and local officials look to expand internet access in the coming years. Democrats have maintained control of the House, albeit with a smaller majority, and will soon control the White House. If Democrats are victorious in both Georgia runoffs they will control the U.S. Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaking vote. If that happens Democrats will be able to enact the House-passed bill to preempt state restrictions on municipal broadband that are there to protect taxpayers, just as they’ll be able to overturn state Right to Work laws designed to give workers a say on whether or not to join a union.

Elections have consequences and the policy implications for these two Senate runoffs in Georgia are enormous.

(Patrick Gleason, a Haywood County resident, is vice president of state affairs at Americans for Tax Reform.)

to. Your perceived “rights” do not cancel or Ronald Reagan. supersede my right to live.

As great as this country is, voters can elect David L. Snell a president who can grant a pardon when he Franklin probably can’t meet the moral and truthful qualifications to receive one himself.

Charles Miller Waynesville

Presidential pardons not handed out lightly

To the Editor: It seems that Ali Baba Don intends to pardon his 40 thieves.

If you are an ordinary citizen trying to obtain a presidential pardon, it’s not an overnight process and can take years. You will be investigated by the FBI, the U.S. Treasury Department, and probably other government agencies. You will be interrogated by the FBI with a barrage of questions that goes as far as your family genealogy. Trying to hire a federal attorney or a criminal attorney for help is a waste of time. Your only option then is to pursue amnesty on your own. Character letters from the sheriff, deputy sheriffs, and chief of police are an asset.

My knowledge of this process came from me going through years of this ordeal with success. On Dec. 23, 1982, I was granted a full and unconditional pardon from President

Trump just keeps money rolling in To the Editor: All the hype about President Donald Trump claiming voter fraud and the Rudy Giuliani’s traveling legal circus is just the latest Trump scam. Nobody has come up with any evidence of voter fraud of any extent. Of almost 50 legal challenges the only one Giuliani won was to have observers six feet from poll workers instead of 19.

Trump has come up with about $200 million in donations to “overturn the election” due to the alleged fraud. Most of this money goes into Trump’s pocket via his private PAC. This scam is more lucrative than Trump Steaks or Trump University. It is also safer since bilking the gullible to fund a phony quest is not as illegal as run-

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Standardized testing in a non-standard time

Instead of doing anything positive to address the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump is getting as much mileage as possible out of bilking the faithful out of their money. He and his medical “advisor” with no expertise in infectious diseases have actually done about as much as one can to make the pandemic as bad as possible. The final insult is that the Trump administration has not purchased enough vaccine for even half of the people in the U.S. While we are now seeing the pandemic kill an American every 30 seconds, Trump golfs, rants, and holds rallies. All the while, he just keeps doing what he can to keep the money rolling in.

Norman Hoffman Waynesville

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ning a phony charity.

The Republican Party gets just a small piece of the money. It is not unexpected that those who get their “news” from sources, such as Fox and OAN, would believe the phony news. However, “Suckers” is what a former chairman of the Republican National Committee has called people who donated to Trump’s effort to overthrow the election.

Trump can use the bulk of the money raised for any purpose including propping up some of his failing golf courses. Virtually none of it is going toward changing the outcome of the election, which Biden unequivocally won. Even the rich guy who gave two million to this fraudulent effort to overturn the election wants his money back because it was all a sham effort. Good luck with that.

Apply in person or e-mail your resume to Chris@ThePrintHaus.com

December 9-15, 2020

To the Editor: As a public middle school teacher in the great state of North Carolina, I could expound for pages about the standardized testing model in our public schools. I hold many strong opinions about it, the administration of, and how the scores are used.

However, I am not writing as a teacher. I am writing to you as a parent.

My daughter is in tenth grade at a school that is on the block schedule. Since March 13, 2020, she has had 22 potential face-toface instructional days. Two of those were made into remote learning days when we had Election Day and a hurricane causing high winds and a flooding threat to our roads.

Twenty days of face-to-face instruction.

Since March 13, 2020.

Fortunately, we are in Haywood County and our leaders rallied the troops and our teachers transitioned to online learning within days of going remote last spring. My issue is not with the quality of instruction she has had — Pisgah High School has some incredible instructors.

My issue is not even with the number of face-to-face days she has had with our hybrid model.

My issue is that she is going to be evaluated with an End-of-Course test that was designed to be based on a curriculum that was taught over at least 90 days of instruction. Then, that score has to be computed with her grades for the rest of the term. My daughter, who currently has A’s in her classes, could conceivably be dropped to a B or a C for her final transcript. And it could happen not because she has not worked hard in the class; not because her teachers have failed at doing their job; and not because she did not learn the material. It would be because there is not enough time to cover

90 days of instruction in less than 30 days so she could be testing on material they simply did not have time to cover.

Not only is her grade lying in the balance, but the limited, precious, valuable class time she could have scheduled is being sacrificed on the altar of the “Almighty EOC.” Classes must be re-arranged and schedules altered to allow us to test safely.

And while we are on the subject of safety. Currently, she attends school every other week with the same group of students in small classes where social distancing is potentially possible. Just two weeks ago, Gov. Cooper asked us to keep our traditional Thanksgiving gatherings to 10 people. Businesses must limit the amount of people they serve. Yet, high schools are having to request waivers to be able to test for 10 days instead of 5 to maintain safe environments. This whole testing scenario is absurdity at its finest.

My child, through no fault of her own, is having to take a test that could adversely affect her transcript, in the middle of a pandemic. This is senseless.

I understand that federal guidelines limit some of your decisions. Ideally, EOC and EOGs would once again be waived for the 2020-2021 school year. I understand that is not likely to happen despite what is in the best interest of the students being served.

At a bare minimum, though, please waive the requirement that the EOG score be counted in the final grade. The scores being obtained will be skewed negatively, I predict, simply because of the stress and trauma associated with everything that has happened since last March. There is no reason, whatsoever, to include these in a way that likely will be punitive to many of the students who are trying their best and their teachers who have done nothing short of miracles with what they have been given.

Thank you for your time and consideration, and please remember — do what is best of the children.

Karma Shuford Canton

(Editor’s note: Karma Shuford, a middle school teacher in Haywood Counmty, submitted this letter the the N.C. State Board of Education concerning End of Grade/End of Course testing this year and asked that we publish it as a letter to the editorl.)

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I can’t really get myself in that kind of frame of mind because I’m just waiting for this nightmare to be over. You’re held in that state of limbo where creativity doesn’t even really creep into the picture. My brain is actually doing what movies do — those apocalyptic dystopian type movies — where it keeps flashing back to the “before times.”

SMN: With the two albums the Truckers released in 2020, the band seems to be more overtly political lyrically, rather than using more subjective characters like in past records and songs.

MC: Yeah. I think part of it is coming right out and saying, “This is what this is all about.”

It’s not so much what’s in the songs, but [more so] the fact we said what it was about in interviews, making it very clear up front. In the past, the songs weren’t as blatant.

If we had just put the record out and not said a word about it — which is a dream of mine, by the way — I wonder how many people would have interpreted it as a political

A conversation with Mike Cooley

BY GARRET K. WOODWARD STAFF WRITER or the better part of the last 25 years, the Drive-By Truckers has remained a melodic beacon of truth and light.

A bastion of hard rock and soulful lyrics, the Athens, Georgia-based quintet drags hard truths out of the darkness and into the spotlight for all to see, understand and embrace — realizations that expose decades and centuries of racial injustice, social tragedies and economic strife.

Co-founder of the Truckers alongside Patterson Hood, singer-songwriter Mike Cooley is a striking force of nature, whether it is his snarling rock anthems or sorrowful folk offerings. Known as “The Stroker Ace,” Cooley straps on his electric guitar and blasts into the ears of the listener, a presence and tone unequaled in modern rock.

With his upcoming shows at The Grey Eagle in Asheville, Cooley will be hitting the stage for the first time since the pandemic appeared and the music industry completely shut down. He’ll be reaching for six-string acoustic, all the while radiating the world as seen through his eyes — this hardscrabble, yet deeply intrinsic mind whose fingers trickle up and down the fretboard like the drops of a hard rain.

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A&E

Smoky Mountain News

Mike Cooley.

Want to go?

An acclaimed singer-songwriter and member of the Drive-By Truckers, Mike Cooley will hit the stage at 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m.

Thursday, Dec. 17, at The Grey Eagle in Asheville.

Presented by The Grey Eagle and Worthwhile Sounds, admission starts at $40 per person. Tickets are still available for the early and late performance.

For more information and/or to purchase tickets, visit www.thegreyeagle.com and click on the “Calendar” tab.

Smoky Mountain News: You’re used to being on the road in one of the hardest working bands out there. What was it like to actually have to stand still amid all of this?

Mike Cooley: It was depressing. It’s not just a matter of being on the road, I actually like [being on the road]. I prefer it. It was a kick in the gut. As the weeks roll by, you start realizing how long it was likely going to be before you could get back to it.

That was the hard part. We started out maybe thinking, “Well, OK, we’ll shut everything down and go home for a month or three months.” And it’s like, “No, man, this is going to be a long time.”

SMN: And not being able to tour probably circles back to justifying why it is you love being a performer…

MC: Yeah. I like waking up in a different place every day. I’ve really grown to love that a lot. So, you know, [being in the] same place every day [right now], the comparisons to the “Groundhog Day” movie are so spot on. It’s really been like that.

Waking up in a different place every day, some people can’t deal with that, that it would just be unfathomable for [them]. For me, it’s what I live for. I thrive on it. And that’s just been pulled out from under you.

SMN: Does that provide for good fodder for your songwriting?

MC: It’s kind of frustrating on that front for me. I wasn’t really writing a lot anyways. And you would think, “You got all this time off, you can write a couple of entire records.” No, I’m too bummed out, you know?

“I think part of it is coming right out and saying, ‘This is what this is all about.’ It’s not so much what’s in the songs, but [more so] the fact we said what it was about in interviews, making it very clear up front. In the past, the songs weren’t as blatant.”

— Mike Cooley

record and been offended by it. Maybe they wouldn’t have even noticed if we hadn’t come right out and said it.

I thought about just like writing out every song, you know, going back through the catalog — at least on the stuff I wrote — and pointing out what was political about it. “OK, this line, I know it’s kind of abstract, but this is what it was talking about. This is what it was referencing. And well, this is straight up about income inequality, I just didn’t say those words.” [Laughs].

SMN: With all of the technology, fast-paced distractions and societal noise these days, what is the role of the songwriter in the digital age?

MC: For me, the goal 25 years ago was simply to write the next one. And that hasn’t changed. It may be a little harder these days to slow yourself down enough. Everybody is getting used to taking in and putting out so much data. We’re becoming processors ourselves.

You can see that all around you. And so much of being creative, on any level, is relaxing into [that creative process] — and it’s getting harder to do that.

BY GARRET K. WOODWARD

tepping out of my truck, it was a cold wind rolling off the nearby mountains late Monday afternoon. A stiff breeze pushed across Lake Junaluska as I took the first strides of my four-mile run around the manmade body of water. Heavy snowflakes hit my face. I zipped the jacket closer to my chin.

Pushing along the walking path, up and down the hills, across the dam and back

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around to the highway, the mind kept drifting, my gaze constantly moving across the lake to the snowy mountains to the west, as per usual while in the midst of jog — a Zen zone for many, myself included.

It’s funny how your thoughts can shift wildly in the matter of seconds, all spurred by the simple yet completely unique snowflakes swirling around you. The snow reminded me of my native North Country, as did the Christmas lights on the homes I trotted by. I could see cozy couples and families through living room windows, triggering a flood of memories from my own endeavors.

Those thoughts and memories transi-

December 9-15, 2020

Turn your head to the cries of loneliness in the night

photo of us as a couple, holding each other in front of my locker, a Santa hat on my head. I didn’t realize this image still existed until she messaged me a few months back on Facebook and sent it along.

The rest of high school and that first holiday back home from college were spent with my high school sweetheart. She went to a different school before and after graduation.

It was a long-distance relationship the entire two and a half years together. But, holidays were always when we’d make up for lost time. She’s a doctor now, somewhere in New England, with a growing family.

Most of the holidays in my 20s were spent traveling solo around America, in search of not only myself, but of whatever it was that lay just beyond the horizon. In many ways, I’m still doing that. There were many Christmas celebrations away from home, hundreds and thousands of miles from all things familiar and beloved.

Although, there was that one Christmas when I was 24. I thought I’d marry that girl. I really did. Adored her family. We spent all winter together, bouncing around the vastness of the Adirondack Mountains. I was truly happy back then. Everything looked good on paper, but it just somehow fell apart in method. The last I’d heard, she’d gotten married recently and was putting roots back down as a teacher in her hometown up north.

In my 30s, only one Christmas that I can, honestly, say was spent with a femme fatale.

I’d given up on relationships by that point, but mustered up enough within my heart and soul to try again. Attending holiday parties and family obligations. Handed beers from the garage fridge by her dad. Shaking hands with her uncles, hugging her aunts.

Listen to the old stories from her elderly relatives. Sneak away to sip some whiskey with her siblings and cousins. By the following Christmas, we’d broken up and she moved across the country.

I honestly thought I’d end up with one of those girls. Start a family. Start a life together. Test fate. See what happens, just like everyone else does. But, it all fell apart, as it always seems to do, which is why I jump into the truck and continue on. I’m not jaded, more so avoidant of the inevitable disappointments and cold sunsets that tend to follow the brightest of days. But, head held high, I remain optimistic.

Life is beautiful, grasp for it, y’all.

arts & entertainment

This must be the place

tioned into a sort of existential crisis that surfaced around mile two of the run.

Nothing dreadful, more so a deep reflection of self that usually rears its head this time of year.

For someone like myself, you spend most of the year either chasing down story assignments, meeting editorial deadlines or just wandering in pursuit of adventure and dreams grasped in real time. That said, it was a long time ago when I chose the written word (and whatever hardships or aspirations that encompasses) over stable and long-term relationships.

Thus, when the holidays are in full swing, I almost seem caught off-guard by it, this whirlwind of a year now in the rearview mirror after riding shotgun in my truck to destinations unknown each morning and every night. Step outside your front door one morning and it’s freezing cold, your truck covering in a light blanket of snow — winter has arrived, and yet have you?

That question was something at the core of the existential pondering during the recent Lake Junaluska jaunt. I found myself alone on the walking path, lost in thought, cars passing by along frozen roads, windows rolled up and the heat cranked. The anonymous faces kept zooming back and forth, thoughts like a bouncy ball within the depths of my mind.

Seeming out of nowhere, I started to think back on what it was like to have a significant other during the holidays, someone to hold and cherish, to keep warm with when the weather outside is frightful.

There have been a handful of incredible souls I’ve been lucky enough to spend Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve with over the years, with 2020 finding itself in the “dinner table for one” column once again.

What’s sad is that, even at age 35, a lot of those memories of mine of femme fatales from winters long gone are either foggy or, perhaps, glorified in hindsight, just like that high school basketball game junior year where you seem to remember your layup being more important and inspiring to your team and school than it actually was.

There was the first holiday girlfriend when I was 15 and a sophomore. She was a junior. We went to the Christmas Ball together, broken up by the time school resumed in early January. There’s only one

Smoky Mountain News 19

arts & entertainment

On the street • Balsam Falls Brewing (Sylva) will host an open mic from 8 to 10 p.m. every Thursday.

Free and open to the public. www.balsamfallsbrewing.com.

‘Lights & Luminaries’ returns to Dillsboro

• Elevated Mountain Distilling Company will host semi-regular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. www.elevatedmountain.com.

• Frog Level Brewing (Waynesville) will host semi-regular live music on the weekends.

Free and open to the public. www.froglevelbrewing.com.

• Lazy Hiker Brewing (Franklin) will host Shane Meade & Shelly Vogler Dec. 12, Open Mic Night Dec. 17 and Good Bonez Dec. 18. All shows begin at 7 p.m.

For more information and a complete schedule of events, visit www.lazyhikerbrewing.com.

ALSO:

Nick Breedlove photo

Smoky Mountain News

December 9-15, 2020

The 37th annual “Lights & Luminaries” will return to the streets of downtown Dillsboro from 5 to 9 p.m. Dec. 11-12.

Experience the magic as the entire town is transformed into a winter wonderland of lights, candles, laughter and song. Over 2,500 luminaries light your way to shops and studios.

Shopkeepers provide live music and serve holiday treats with hot cider and cocoa.

Carolers sing and children can see Santa and Mrs. Claus as they ride through town in their pickup truck. Write a letter to Santa and drop off at his special mailbox.

For more information, visit www.visitdillsboro.org.

Christmas in Waynesville The annual celebration “A Night Before Christmas” will be held from 6 to 9 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 12, on Main Street in Waynesville.

Shops, galleries and restaurants will be open. Caroling, musicians, luminaries, horse-drawn wagon rides, and more. There will also be “A Living Nativity” scene sponsored by the First Baptist Church.

Sponsored by the Town of Waynesville and the Downtown Waynesville Association. www.downtownwaynesville.com or 828.456.3517.

‘It’s a Small, Small Work’ exhibit

The Haywood County Arts Council annual show, “It’s a Small, Small Work,” will be showcased through Jan. 9 at the HCAC Gallery & Gifts in Waynesville.

The 2020 exhibit will feature 47 artists and almost 300 individual works of art for sale. The show provides a unique opportunity for budding artists to exhibit their work, as well as the opportunity for more seasoned artists to test their boundaries.

All pieces submitted are exactly 12” or smaller in every dimension, including base, 20 matting, and frame. All artwork is for sale,

priced at $300 or less, and must have been created in the last two years. Commission will be the gallery’s usual 60 percent (artist) to 40 percent (HCAC) split. www.haywoodarts.org or 828.452.0593.

Sylva celebrates holiday season The Main Street Sylva Association (MSSA) is working hard to provide a Covidsafe holiday experience for visitors and locals alike in 2020.

The MSSA has already started its annual “Shop Small, Shop Local” campaign. This is in conjunction with the annual American Express campaign, which assists small towns all across the country with marketing materials.

By being Covid safe, the public is encouraged to social distance, wear a mask and frequently sanitize hands.

The MSSA has announced that holiday music will be provided throughout the “Home for the Holidays” season.

Downtown shoppers and diners can expect to hear holiday music on Friday nights in downtown Sylva from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Dec. 11, and Dec. 18.Earlier this year, thridge Park parking lot during the holidays as usual.

For more information, please contact the Main Street Sylva Team at 828.586.2155 or email mainstreetsylvateam@gmail.com.

• Lazy Hiker Brewing (Sylva) will host Tennessee Champagne Dec. 11 and BMLB Dec. 19. All shows begin at 7 p.m.

For more information and a complete schedule of events, visit www.lazyhikerbrewing.com.

• Nantahala Brewing (Sylva) will host semiregular live music on the weekends. Free and open to the public. www.nantahalabrewing.com.

• A special drive-in screening of the classic holiday film “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” will be held at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 11 at the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds. The “Carpool Cinema” will be free of charge to attend.

• An artist demonstration will be held at the Haywood County Arts Council in Waynesville.

“Collage on Wood Panel” with Wendy Cordwell 1 to 4 p.m. Dec. 12. All demonstrations are free and open to the public. www.haywoodarts.org.

• “Paint & Pour” will be held from 7 to 9 p.m.

Dec. 16 at Balsam Falls Brewing in Sylva.

Cost is $20 per person, with all materials provided. RSVP at the Balsam Falls Brewing Facebook page.

• The annual “Handmade Holiday Sale,” which is normally held at Western Carolina University, will have its event go virtual this year. Those interested can view and purchase the handmade items by visiting arts.wcu.edu/handmade.

• The “Mini Holiday Photo Shoot” will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through Dec. 21 at the Marianna Black Library in Bryson City.

Area families are invited to schedule a shoot. The library has set up a festive backdrop, complete with a Christmas tree and stockings hanging above a fireplace.

Appointments can be made the day of the shoot. No walk-ins. Three prints of your

choice will be provided and photos will also be emailed upon request. 828.488.3030.

• An “Outdoor Holiday Market” will be held from 3 to 8 p.m. Dec. 12 at the Innovation Station in Dillsboro. To become a vendor, email beer@innovationbrewing.com. For more information, visit www.innovationbrewing.com.

• “Winter Wonderland Nights” will continue through the holiday season in Franklin.

Downtown will feature living window displays of the holidays, live sounds of the season outdoors at the gazebo and inside stores, free holiday attractions (weather permitting), refreshments, hot cider, great sales from local merchants, and much more. www.franklin-chamber.com.

‘Stories, Songs and Traditions’ Presented by the Overlook Theatre Company, “A Christmas with Family & Friends Dinner” will be held at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 14-15 at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts in Franklin.

Join the group as they honor the season with songs, stories and traditions in this one-of-a-kind dinner show served live on the stage. The menu includes a traditional holiday feast of turkey, stuffing and all the trimmings.

Tables will be available for parties of four to allow for appropriate social distancing. Mask will be required until seated. Advanced reservations are suggested due to the extreme limit of seating available.

Tickets are $30 per person. Dinner seating will begin at 6:15 p.m.

For more information, call 828.524.1598 or visit www.greatmountainmusic.com.

• The annual “Polar Express” train ride is now departing from the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad depot in downtown Bryson City. For a complete listing of departure dates and times, call 800.872.4681 or visit www.gsmr.com.

• “The Bethlehem Experience: A Live DriveThru Nativity” will be held at 6 p.m. Dec. 1113 at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts in Franklin. This seasonal event, presented by Cartoogechaye Baptist Church, is a heart-warming celebration of the birth of Christ and the true meaning of Christmas. This event is free, but donations will be accepted. 828.524.1598 or www.greatmountainmusic.com.

• There will be a free wine tasting from 2 to 5 p.m every Saturday at The Wine Bar & Cellar in Sylva. 828.631.3075.

On the shelf

“I make a prayer for words. Let me say my heart.”

— M. Scott Momaday

Thomas Crowe

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Smoky Mountain News

We must keep the earth.”

Talking poetically about the physicality of water, he says: “The waters tell of time.

Always rivers run upon the earth and quench its thirst. We measure time by the flow of water as it passes us by. If you stand still long enough to observe carefully the things around you, you will find beauty, and you will know wonder. Your mind, your spirit will be nourished and grow. You will become one with what you see.”

And for Momaday, life is not all peaches and cream. He also speaks of loss. “There is no love without loss. Those who came before me did not take for granted the world in which they lived. They blessed the air ... they touched the ground, the trees, the stones with respect and reverence. Will I give my children an inheritance of the earth? Or will I give them less than I was given?”

After pondering and considering the idea of “loss,” Momaday writes more specifically about the times in which we are living. “We

humans have inflicted terrible wounds upon the earth. The scars are everywhere visible.

Will I tell my grandchildren, I wonder, of animals they will never see,” he says. And on this theme he continues: “How are we to ward off the immorality of ignorance and greed, the disease of indifference to the earth?

We humans have done the damage, and we must be held to account. We have suffered a poverty of the imagination, a loss of innocence.

Perhaps the answer lies in the expression of the spirit, in words of a sacred nature. Our songs were informed by our respective oral traditions and a reverence for nature.”

In the end, he writes about recovery and healing in the form of prayer. “O Great Mystery, let us see your likeness in the stars, and let us hear your voice in rolling thunder and in the wind and rain. Be with us forever in the sacred smoke of your being. These are my words, my offering to you, Great Mystery.”

And finally he ends the book with a personal pledge and writes: “May my heart hold the earth all the days of my life. May I chant the praises of the wild land, and may my spirit range on the wind forever. I will keep to the trees and waters, and I will be the singing of the soil. In my truest being I am a keeper of the earth. I will tell the ancient stories and I will sing the old songs. I belong to the land.”

(Thomas Crowe is a regular contributer to The Smoky Mountain News and author of the award-winning non-fiction memoir Zoro’s Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods.

He lives in Tuckasegee in Jackson County and can be reached at newnativepress@hotmail.com)

December 9-15, 2020

s the winner of almost all of the major awards given to American authors, N. Scott Momaday has topped off a long and celebrated career this year with another landmark book, Earth Keeper: Reflections on the American Land (Harper Collins, 2020, 68 pgs), that to me seems like something of an epitaph with which to conclude his list of pubWriter lications. It’s a small book you can hold in your hands and contains only 68 pages. But what it lacks in size it makes up for in quality.

As the title indicates, this is an insightful man looking back on his life and reflecting on the country and the landscape he has called home. Known to most as a novelist and poet, Momaday is a Kiowa elder and a literary wisdom-keeper consolidating, here, those places and things that have affected and effected him the most over the course of his life — in single page prose pieces collected much as one would write a memorial poem honoring a great love in the process of passing. And in a sense, this is exactly what the book Earth Keeper is — a love song, yet also a mourning song, by a Native American writer to perhaps his greatest love: the earth.

Earth Keeper is the kind of book that you can’t really talk about, but one that you have to let speak for itself. It is so full of precious parts of the author himself as well as places that reach deep into his heart and are reflected upon with grace and with loving wisdom.

That being the case, I am going to share with you some of the thoughts, observations and musings included in this book and let the earth speak, through Momaday, as it channels its message to us human beings during a time of great strife and considerable contemplation. A time when such a book as Earth Keeper is more than useful, but perhaps integral to our survival and our need for a greater communion with the ground upon which we stand.

To begin at the beginning (which is always a good place to start), in his Author’s Note, Momaday says: “I was born and grew up in the American West. It is a part of the earth that I have come to know well and love deeply. Here I have written about what I know best, my native ground. This book is a very personal account, a kind of spiritual autobiography. This is a declaration of belonging. And it is an offering to the earth.”

He then, some pages later, goes on to say:

“We humans must revere the earth, for it is our well-being. Always the earth grants us what we need. If we treat the earth with kindness, it will treat us kindly. We must dance in time with the rhythms of the earth.

arts & entertainment

Honoring the old ways

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Outdoors

Smoky Mountain News

They’re also some of its most vital, serving a critical role as pollinators for all manner of crops. Rovecamp’s deep conviction about the importance of pollinators and the need to help them in the face of continued obstacles looms large in the motivation for creating Bee-TANG. “The intent is that the Bee-TANG helps restore the biodiversity that’s kind of been stripped away in nature thanks to civilization and whatnot,” he said.

While he’s not making specific claims about the product, he does see it as helping to “fill the gap.” Anecdotally speaking, Rovecamp can say that despite not receiving any chemical treatment, his Bee-TANG-fed hives are doing “quite well.”

“The premise is that the bees know what they need, and they need the Bee-TANG, and they’ve made that clear — 99.9 percent of the time, they’ll feed it year-round,” said Rovecamp.

Bees buzz around a feeder at Fred Rovecamp’s home in Balsam. Holly Kays photo

For the love of bees Bee feeding is a pastime with a purpose

ones they go to. You have to break it down, put one herb in each one just like I did with the cats.”

BY HOLLY KAYS STAFF WRITER For Ash Rovecamp, keeping honeybees has never been about honey.

“I don’t really consider myself a beekeeper,” he said. “I’m a bee feeder. I hardly even go into my hives, have hardly even gotten honey for myself.”

Instead, he sits on his porch, watches his bees work, and considers how to make their lives happier and healthier. He’s not alone when he does this — 54-year-old Rovecamp, of Sebring, Florida, shares his doublewide with an unspecified number of cats, and it was through his efforts to create supplements and improve the cats’ health that he developed the trial-and-error process he would eventually use to make an herbal mixture that he swears by as an invaluable addition to his bees’ diet.

“At one point I had 30 bowls of food out for the cats with different remedies and herbs,” he said. “I’d let them show me which ones they needed.”

The cats obliged, and Rovecamp wondered if he could use that same approach to figure out a recipe for some bee treats. He began experimenting with adding different mixtures of herbs and oils to the food.

“I had feeders set on every post,” he said.

“I just sit out there, watch it and see which

MAKING THE TANG Over time, Rovecamp noticed that the bees had preferences not only for particular species of herbs or types of oils but for herbs and oils harvested from specific parts of the plant or originating from specific countries.

He spent years perfecting the ratios and ingredients, ending up with a still-evolving recipe that he now calls Bee-TANG — though he insists that the bees are the recipe’s true creators, having chosen its ingredients and proportions under Rovecamp’s watch.

“I am only here to do some legwork,” he said.

Rovecamp declined to name the specific ingredients or state how many ingredients the current recipe contains but said that it’s a mixture of “superfruit herbs and essential oils” hand-selected by the bees and whittled down to “their favoritist of their favoritist.”

“The first rule of Bee-TANG is they have to work it in nature,” he said. “And then the second is that they have to choose it for themselves.”

Rovecamp loves to sit on his porch and watch the swirls of bees rise and fall around the feeder. Bees are all about love, he said.

They “wrote the book on” communication and cooperation. They’re some of the planet’s most fascinating creatures.

“The funny part is, we think we’re helping the bees, which is good and we are, but they’re really the ones that are going to help us, and are helping us now.”

— Ash Rovecamp

THE BALSAM BEE BUFFET Rovecamp was curious to see how his BeeTANG experiment would translate to a cooler climate, and as a former resident of Asheville and Waynesville, he immediately thought of Western North Carolina. He sent a feeder and some Bee-TANG to his dad, Waynesville resident Fred Rovecamp, and asked him to give it a try.

“He took to it like a fish to water,” said Ash. Since August, Fred has been hosting a continuous bee buffet in his backyard in Balsam.

On warm days, the bees go through as much as 3 gallons per day, doled out using a poultry feeder surrounded by woodchips, which prevent the bees from drowning in the sweet liquid. For Fred, it’s a joyous relationship.

“I was amazed at how wonderful they are,” said Fred. “You have a dog, and you know how you love that dog? Well, I have that love for these bees.”

There’s something beautiful and hypnotic about watching the bees buzz around the feeder or walk along the woodchips. While they’re absent now that the weather is colder, throughout late summer and into fall they were Fred’s constant companions.

“I look forward to getting up before daybreak in the warm weather and putting that feeder out and checking them during the day and seeing how they’re doing,” he said.

Fred and Ash both hope that if people across the country were to follow suit, if bee feeding were to become as commonplace as bird feeding, there could be a real turnaround in the global crisis that pollinators — not just bees — are facing.

Globally, pollinator species are in decline due to a confluence of causes. They have less space to forage due to various types of human development. Non-native plant species often fail to provide native pollinators with the food sources they’re adapted to use, and non-native pollinators can compete with native species for limited pollen and nectar sources.

Pesticides, climate change, parasites and dis-

ease are having an impact too. Honeybees have been extremely hard hit.

Concern about pollinator populations is more than academic. According to the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service, threequarters of the world’s flowering plants and about 35 percent of the world’s food crops depend on pollinators to produce. If people are to keep eating, pollinators need to keep pollinating.

Bee feeding, said Ash, is a “gateway” for people to learn more about bees and become part of the solution.

“The funny part is, we think we’re helping the bees, which is good and we are, but they’re really the ones that are going to help us, and are helping us now,” he said.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE David Tarpy, professor and extension apiculturist at N.C. State University, is skeptical as to whether individual people putting out bee feeders can have much impact on overall honeybee health, simply because a colony needs a large volume of honey to make it through the winter — 35 to 100 pounds.

Additionally, he said, large trough feeding that brings big groups of bees from different colonies together can foster disease spread and aggressive behavior.

However, when it comes to native pollinator species — of which there are more than 4,000 in North America — bee feeding can make a huge difference, he said.

“That could make the difference between one versus two baby bees for a single solitary mother bee,” said Tarpy. “Every little bit helps.”

While Bee-TANG was created specifically for honeybees, said Ash, it does attract some other pollinators as well.

Supplemental feeding is not the only way to support pollinators. Planting native flowering species, especially ones that bloom in the less flowery seasons of early spring, midsummer and fall, goes a long way toward improving things for these species. Alternatively, don’t plant anything at all. Instead, stop mowing and allow the yard to run wild with clover, asters, dandelions and whatever other bee-friendly blooms might pop up.

“If we could change our mindset of having weedy lawns as being attractive, and something that’s good, that will go a really, really long way to help the pollinators instead of having these food deserts where all the flowering plants are killed off with herbicide,” he said.

However, Tarpy said, there has been remarkably little research done into the type of supplemental feeding that Rovecamp conducts.

“Supplementing them with something is better than them starving, so I think there’s a lot of obvious benefits of having food versus no food,” he said. “But to have this type of food over this type of food — there just hasn’t been a whole lot of empirical study on that. Surprisingly so, compared

Coronavirus relief available for farmers

outdoors

The deadline for farmers to apply for the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program 2 is coming up on Friday, Dec. 11.

The program provides financial relief to producers who have suffered from COVID19 impacts such as market disruptions and associated costs. It is a separate program from CFAP 1 and interested producers must complete a new application for CFAP 2.

“Most of the crops and livestock raised in North Carolina, including many of them

raised in our area, are eligible commodities for this program,” said Haywood County USDA Farm Service Agency Executive Director Paula Edwards. “If you haven’t already applied or contacted our office to learn more about the program, now is the time to do so. Our staff will help you through the application process.”

Producers can learn more at by visiting farmers.gov/cfap and clicking on “Eligible Commodities Finder.” An application portal is available there as well. Producers are also encouraged to call their local FSA office for assistance, or to use the call center at 877.508.8364.

Since August, Fred Rovecamp has been feeding bees using an herbal supplement developed by his son Ash. Holly Kays photo a diversity of food sources to thrive. While there hasn’t been much research into supplement recipes, the science is clear on the importance of biodiversity.

“Nutrition definitely is one of those factors that we know can lead to colonies dying off or otherwise not being as healthy

December 9-15, 2020

With temperatures in low 60s, activity at the feeder was slow at the time this photo was taken, but during warmer weather attendance is impressive.

Holly Kays photo

Smoky Mountain News

to a lot of other livestock systems.”

That’s partly because it’s a hard thing to study. Each hive is home to tens of thousands of bees, with workers flying up to 3 miles away in search of food. It’s hard to keep track of exactly which bee is eating exactly which food and then to relate that to a health outcome for the individual or the hive as a whole.

That said, many beekeepers offer their bees some extra food during times of the year when there may not be enough blooms around to keep them full — usually early spring, mid-summer and late fall. It’s unusual for a beekeeper to offer supplemental feed year-round, as Rovecamp does.

It’s also true that bees’ diets aren’t just about calories.

“It’s about the types of calories,” Tarpy explained. “Honeybees need a balance of different resources in order to make sure that those macro and micronutrients are optimized for their health.”

Just as human bodies require a varied diet to stay healthy, honeybees also require

as they could be,” Tarpy said. “It’s been shown, for example, that their immune systems are boosted when they have diversity of floral resources. They grow better. They have a higher chance of survival.”

And in the long run, so do we.

23

outdoors

Give feedback to Panthertown

Conservation projects receive $1.25 million said Executive Director Jordan Smith.

“Since project selection criteria are based on both natural resources and public benefit, these scores reiterate how significant this region is to ensuring clean water and public access for generations to come,” said Smith.

Friends of Panthertown Valley has launched an anonymous survey seeking feedback from those who use the area.

Survey responses will help the nonprofit target its activities and structure its programs in the year ahead. The survey takes five to seven minutes to complete.

Participate at bit.ly/3mIIkId.

Mainspring’s funded projects are: n Acquisition of 24-acre Baliles Wetland on the Little Tennessee River in Macon County, $156,919. n Acquisition of a 157-acre new addition to Pinnacle Park in Jackson County, $310,275. n Acquisition of the 42-acre Ellison Tract on Lower Lands Creek in Swain County, 160,859. n Acquisition of 42 acres in the Tessentee Valley in Macon County, $172,409.

Take the Fire Mountain survey A survey is underway to gather more information about who is using the Fire Mountain Trail System in Cherokee.

The short survey is part of a research study being conducted by faculty at Appalachian State University. The responses will be used to compare groups of people, but never individuals. Data is being collected at multiple times and will be aggregated as part of research procedures.

The survey is open to anyone who is over the age of 18. Participate at https://bit.ly/37e0xr9.

Smoky Mountain News

December 9-15, 2020

facebook.com/smnews

A total of $1.25 million for six projects in far Western North Carolina received funding in this year’s round of grants from the N.C. Land and Water Fund, formerly known as the Clean Water Management Trust Fund. Statewide, the fund awarded

FOR SALE

$14.6 million across 39 projects.

Of the six projects, four came from Mainspring Conservation Trust. Of the 100 applications submitted by organizations statewide, Mainspring’s had the first, sixth, seventh and 13th highest-scoring projects,

Additional funded projects in Western North Carolina are: n Acquisition of the Newman Tract in Jackson County, $47,289, applied for by Conserving Carolina. n Provisional funding of $400,000 for a regional stream restoration project, applied for by Resource Institute. This award is ranked six of 10 in a list of projects that may receive funding pending revenue becoming available before July 1, 2021.

A full list of funded projects is available at nclwf.nc.gov/media/209/open.

FOR SALE

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4894 Soco Road • $375,000

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14 UNRESTRICTED ACRES

255 Sheepback Mountain Rd • $100,000

242 Way Up Yonder • $459,000

FOR SALE

JUST LISTED

79 M & M • $175,000

24

The Little Tennessee River winds through a property in southern Macon County that is part of the conservation grants awarded to Mainspring Conservation Trust. Eric Haggert photo

142 Marquis Lane • $469,000

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Get A Value Added Bonus When You Finance Your Vehicle! outdoors

Get skilled in the outdoors A pair of upcoming workshops will offer an opportunity to get outside and learn some skills at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education in Brevard. n “Primitive Outdoor Skills for Families” will be offered 1 to 4 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 10, for ages 8 and older. n A workshop on using a compass will be held 1 to 3 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 16, for ages 10 and older. n Educational programming at the outdoor trout raceways focusing on hatchery

operations and raising trout is offered daily 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for drop-in visitors, weather permitting.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, all programming will be conducted outdoors and will be limited to pre-registered participants unless specified as a drop-in event. Masks and social distancing will be required of all guests, with inside visitation limited to eight visitors at a time.

Register at www.ncwildlife.org/learning/education-centers/pisgah.

Learn about females in forestry

Comments sought on power line replacement

Elkmont Road closed for bridge repair A section of Elkmont Road in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will be closed to motorists through Friday, Dec. 18, on weekdays from 7 a.m. Monday through noon Friday.

The closure is in place to accommodate repairs to the bridge spanning Little River near the Little River Trailhead. It begins at Elkmont Campground and restricts vehicle access to the Jakes Creek and Little River Trailheads. Day hikers may park at the campground and walk to the trailheads.

Backcountry permit holders may drive through the closure area and pass over the bridge under the direction of the on-site construction crew to access overnight parking. Cemetery access will be accommodated as well.

The work is part of a larger Federal Highway Administration project to replace seven bridges and repair seven others across the park. Repair work includes repointing masonry, sealing cracks and repairing deck joints.

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Learn more when you visit our website: mountaincu.org

Smoky Mountain News

The U.S. Forest Service is taking public comment through Dec. 21 on a proposal to allow Duke Energy to conduct improvements to the electrical distribution infrastructure that crosses national forest lands in Macon County along portions of the Silver Mine Road right-of-way and the U.S. 19 right-of-way in the Nantahala Gorge.

Under the proposal, Duke would remove and replace a segment of power line along the existing road and highway rights-

of-way. A large auger would drill 14 holes approximately 7 feet deep to install new power poles.

Comments should be as specific as possible, including a name and address, a signature and specific substantive comments that include supporting reasons staff should consider in reaching a decision. Comments should also include the title of the project, which is “Duke Energy Silver Mine Project.”

Email comments to sm.fs.r8ncnancom@usda.gov or send hard-copy letters to Steverson Moffat, NEPA Planning Team Leader, Nantahala National Forest, 123 Woodland Drive, Murphy, NC 28906.

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December 9-15, 2020

Learn more about a program geared toward women managing lands for forest stewardship at 2 p.m. Friday, Dec. 11, via Zoom.

Laura Lauffer of EmPOWERing Mountain Food Systems will interview Aimee State about ForestHerNC, which is an initiative conservation organizations in North Carolina created to provide female forest landowners the tools and training they need to help them manage their lands and become more engaged in forest stewardship. State is the program manager for National Audubon Working Lands and a founding board member of ForestHerNC. Free, with registration required at bit.ly/2L8zrdk.

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December 9-15, 2020

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Call 828.506.4112

greatsmokiesstorage.com

See Santa at Chimney Rock Santa Claus will continue his 23-year-old tradition of visiting Chimney Rock State Park to practice for his Christmas Eve chimney-climbing marathon 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Saturdays, Dec. 5 and 12.

At the top of each hour, Claus will make his famous descents with assistance from Fox Mountain Guides. Families are invited to come cheer him on. Claus will not be able to pose for photos this year but will have a great photo op set up for those looking to get some holiday family photos or selfies.

Race at Cataloochee The racing season is back at Cataloochee Ski Area in Maggie Valley, with pre-season clinics underway now and races starting in January.

The setup will be a bit different this year than in previous seasons. Instead of separate middle and high school race nights in January and February, all youth will race on Wednesdays with age category groups of 10 to 12, 13 to 15 and 16 to 18. There will be 100 spots total, so sign up quick.

Clinics are underway now and take place twice a week, consisting of one weekday afternoon in gates and one weekend morning to work on ski technique outside of the racecourse. Clinic days are from 4 to 6 p.m. Dec. 9, 16 and 23 and from 9 to 11 a.m. Dec. 13 and 20. A valid lift ticket and helmet are required, with the group meeting outside the Kidz Ski & Ride Center.

Price varies depending on package purchased. For more program and registration information, visit www.cataloochee.com/programs/school-race-programs. 828.926.0285.

Smoky Mountain News

Meet the authors of 434 Champion Drive, Canton, NC 28716 Creek 21 Hollon Cove Rd, Waynesville, NC 28786 Singing The author of a book starring a talented

26

Puzzles can be found on page 30 These are only the answers.

Local poet Eddie Cabbage will be on hand to help kids put together their Christmas wish lists using his vintage typewriter and parchment paper, and hammered dulcimer player John Mason will provide holiday tunes.

The events will also feature guided hikes with elves, a family animal encounter, s’mores on a bonfire and holiday shopping, as well as warm snacks and holiday treats available for purchase.

Free with admission. Chimney Rock State Park is located in Rutherford County.

crayfish and other aquatic residents of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will hold a virtual book signing at 4 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 10.

Morgan Simmons, author of Singing Creek, and the book’s illustrator Don Wood will join the event moderated by Great Smoky Mountains Association Creative Director Frances Figart.

Readers will learn about the book’s creation and see the evolution of the illustrations contained in this chapter book for young readers. Participants who purchase the book will receive a signed bookplate that can be placed within the front cover of their copy of Singing Creek.

Singing Creek tells the story of a talented crayfish named Molly McPhee who hopes to record her very own music album and recruits other native aquatic species to join her band. Just as they’re about to record, however, a mysterious stranger with a bad reputation appears, and Molly’s dreams take an unfortunate turn.

Musicians themselves, Simmons and Wood have recorded two pieces of music — an instrumental and a song from the book, which will be played for the first time during the event The event, to be held via Zoom, will last about an hour. Register at https://bit.ly/3olmhtp.

The book is published by GSMA and available at www.smokiesinformation.org/singing-creek.

WNC Calendar COMMUNITY EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS • A warm clothing give away will take place at 9 a.m.

Thursday, Dec. 17, in the lower parking lot of Canton First Baptist Church. Ten adults will be allowed at one time, masks are mandatory and children not allowed.

Food Box Distribution will begin at 11 a.m. in CFBC upper parking lot. Coats of all sizes, blankets, gloves and warm socks are all needed. Volunteers will be greatly appreciated. Items can be left at CFBC Monday thru Friday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., or anytime if in plastic bags or dropped into clothes boxes.

BUSINESS & EDUCATION • In November and December, on the first and third Fridays, a Career Advisor from the Swain County NCWorks Career Center will be at the library to assist job seekers with their job search efforts. Assistance filling out job applications, creating professional resumes, and preparing for interviews will be provided. For more information or to make an appointment, call the Marianna Black Library at 828.488.3030 or visit www.fontanlaib.org.

A&E

• Lazy Hiker Brewing (Franklin) will host Shane Meade & Shelly Vogler Dec. 12, Open Mic Night Dec. 17 and Good Bonez Dec. 18. All shows begin at 7 p.m. For more information and a complete schedule of events, click on www.lazyhikerbrewing.com.

• Lazy Hiker Brewing (Sylva) will host Tennessee Champagne Dec. 11 and BMLB Dec. 19. All shows begin at 7 p.m. Free and open to the public. For more information and a complete schedule of events, click on www.lazyhikerbrewing.com.

• “Paint & Pour” will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Dec. 16 at Balsam Falls Brewing in Sylva. Cost is $20 per person, with all materials provided. Please RSVP at the Balsam Falls Brewing Facebook page.

HOLIDAY EVENTS • The annual “Polar Express” train ride is now departing from the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad depot in downtown Bryson City. For a complete listing of departure dates and times, call 800.872.4681 or click on www.gsmr.com.

• Long’s Chapel presents a Drive-Thru Christmas Story from 5-8 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 19 and Sunday, Dec. 20. The drive-thru Christmas story will take place on the church grounds located at 133 Old Clyde Road, Waynesville, NC 28785. There is no charge to attend.

For additional questions, please contact the church office at 828.456.3993 ext. 101 or Communications@LongsChapel.com • The annual “Handmade Holiday Sale,” which is normally held at Western Carolina University, will have its event go virtual this year. Those interested can view and purchase the handmade items by clicking on arts.wcu.edu/handmade.

• “Winter Wonderland Nights” will continue through the holiday season in Franklin. Downtown will feature living window displays of the holidays, live sounds of the season outdoors at the gazebo and inside stores, free holiday attractions (weather permitting), refreshments, hot cider, great sales from local merchants, and much more. www.franklin-chamber.com.

• A special drive-in screening of the classic holiday film “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” will be

n All phone numbers area code 828 unless otherwise noted. n To have your item listed email to calendar@smokymountainnews.com held at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 11 at the Maggie Valley Festival Grounds. The “Carpool Cinema” will be free of charge to attend.

• The 37th annual “Lights & Luminaries” will return to the streets of downtown Dillsboro from 5 to 9 p.m. Dec. 11-12. For more information, click on www.visitdillsboro.org.

• The annual celebration “A Night Before Christmas” will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 12, on Main Street in Waynesville. For more information, www.downtownwaynesville.com or 828.456.3517.

• An “Outdoor Holiday Market” will be held from 3 to 8 p.m. Dec. 12 at the Innovation Station in Dillsboro. To become a vendor, please email beer@innovationbrewing.com. For more information, click on www.innovation-brewing.com.

• “The Bethlehem Experience: A Live Drive-Thru Nativity” will be held at 6 p.m. Dec. 11-13 at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts in Franklin, presented by Cartoogechaye Baptist Church. This event is free, but donations will be accepted. 828.524.1598 or www.greatmountainmusic.com.

• Presented by the Overlook Theatre Company, “A Christmas with Family & Friends Dinner” will be held at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 14-15 at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts in Franklin. Tickets are $30 per person. Dinner seating will begin at 6:15 p.m. For more information, call 828.524.1598 or click on www.greatmountainmusic.com.

• The “Mini Holiday Photo Shoot” will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through Dec. 21 at the Marianna Black Library in Bryson City. Area families are invited to schedule a shoot. The library has set up a festive backdrop, complete with a Christmas tree and stockings hanging above a fireplace. Appointments can be made the day of the shoot. No walk-ins. Three prints of your choice will be provided and photos will also be emailed upon request. 828.488.3030.

Smoky Mountain News

ART SHOWINGS AND GALLERIES • An artist demonstration will be held at the Haywood County Arts Council in Waynesville. “Collage on Wood Panel” with Wendy Cordwell 1 to 4 p.m. Dec. 12. Free and open to the public. www.haywoodarts.org.

• The Haywood County Arts Council annual show, “It’s a Small, Small Work,” will be showcased through Jan. 9 at the HCAC Gallery & Gifts in Waynesville.

Outdoors

• Learn more about a program geared toward women managing lands for forest stewardship at 2 p.m. Friday, Dec. 11, via Zoom. Free, with registration required at bit.ly/2L8zrdk.

• Santa Claus will continue his 23-year-old tradition of visiting Chimney Rock State Park to practice for his Christmas Eve chimney-climbing marathon 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 12. Free with admission. Chimney Rock State Park is located in Rutherford County.

• The author of a book starring a talented crayfish and other aquatic residents of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will hold a virtual book signing at 4 p.m.

Thursday, Dec. 10. The event, to be held via Zoom, will last about an hour. Register at https://bit.ly/3olMHtp. The book is published by GSMA and available at smokiesinformation.org/singing-creek.

• Help eradicate invasive plants from Island Park in Bryson City with a workday slated for 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 12. The workday will include opportunities to learn how to identify and control non-native invasive plants, and a chance to bring native plants back to Island Park. No experience is necessary, and tools and training will be provided. Register at www.mountaintrue.org/event/island-park-project.

• Get certified in stream bank repair with an in-person workshop 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 16, in Hendersonville. N.C. State University faculty and other local experts will provide practical, cost-effective solutions using natural materials and native plants to create a healthy streamside. A certification exam will be provided electronically following the workshop, offering the opportunity to receive a Stream Bank Repair certification from N.C. State. The event has been approved by the university with attendance limited in keeping with Gov. Cooper’s mandates concerning maximum group sizes for outdoor gatherings. Register before Dec. 14 at https://bit.ly/3qeihuC .

• Friends of Panthertown is hosting a series of trail work days this fall, and all are invited to come pitch in.

Scheduled work days are Friday, Dec. 11; Saturday, Dec. 12; Saturday, Dec. 19. To sign up, visit www.panthertown.org/volunteer.

• The Southeast Regional Fruit and Vegetable Conference, typically held each year in Savannah, Georgia, will be offered virtually this year Jan. 5-7. For more information, visit www.seregionalconference.org, or call 877.994.3842.

Providing Exceptional Cancer Care, ^ Close to Home Sti BOARD CERTIFIED DOCTOR ON SITE EVERY DAY

KIDS CLASSES AND PROGRAMS • Waynesville Art School will host “Let's Paint! It's A Teatime for A Baby Raccoon” from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Thursday, Dec. 10. The Classes is available for children 6 years and older. Registration is required, cost is $25.

• Waynesville Art School will host “Baby Yoda and Griffins, Cardboard Sculptures” from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 11. The class is available for children eight years and older. Registrations is required, cost is $25.

• Waynesville Art School will host “Christmas Crafts: Pine Cone Creatures” from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 12. The class is available to children six years and older. Registration is required, cost is $25.

• Waynesville Art School will host “Let's Paint! Mystical Birds & Angels” from 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 12. The class is available to children 10 years and older.

Registration is required, cost is $25.

• Waynesville Art School will host “Handmade Christmas Cards” from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 15. The class is available to children of all ages and older. Registration is required, cost is $25.

• Waynesville Art School will host “Christmas Village” from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 16. The class is available to children eight years and older. Registration is required, cost is $25.

Jennifer Heaberlin, DO BOARD CERTIFIED MEDICAL ONCOLOGY, HEMATOLOGY

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Rebecca Roques-Davis, MD BOARD CERTIFIED MEDICAL ONCOLOGY

HAYWOOD INFUSION CENTER 49 SPICEWOOD DR., SUITE 10B • CLYDE

(828) 456-5214

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(M-F 8am8pm Central) 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

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Jerry Lee Mountain Realty • Jerry Lee Hatley- jerryhatley@bellsouth.net • Pam James - pam@pamjames.com

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TO ADVERTISE IN THE NEXT ISSUE 828.452.4251 | ads@smokymountainnews.com

December 9-15, 2020

WNC MarketPlace

29

SUPER

CROSSWORD

PUZZLING-LY ACROSS 1 Like many announcers' private side comments 8 Glistening 14 Give a cue to 20 Sounded like a frog 21 Durbin of old Hollywood 22 Worrier's cry 23 Deeper level of longing?

25 Walk like a little 'un 26 Coll. website suffix 27 Slandered really badly 28 "Uh-uh" 30 Legal claim 31 White water whereabouts 35 Give it a go 36 Place to bathe on the grass outside a house?

38 "Marvy!"

40 They cause actions 42 Really boring chairs, desks and tables?

47 Two-grid vacuum tube 52 Cry to a matador 53 Manning of the Giants 54 Far-off 56 Of charged particles 57 Extreme type 59 Lysol target 61 What 1066 is famous as?

64 Territory split in 1889 66 Pertaining to 68 Bad, to Jules 69 Viral malady 70 "Allow me to provide a leavening agent, if nothing else"?

76 Blvds. and aves.

78 China's Long March

79 80 83 88 90 91 92 94 96 97 100

103 105 106

110 112 116 117 118 121 122 124 129 130 131 132 133 134

leader Aquatic bird -- Leone "Pray that I find some cool gross stuff!"?

Isle of Man man, e.g.

Scout unit -- pittance (hardly any) Garage job Atop, to bards Short snooze Bit of voice mail Hankerings to take pictures of small and distant objects?

Places for milk products Bored feeling Measure of how much a ship swerves off course?

2000-15 TV series Facet Horror film lab aide With 108-Down, deteriorate Pre-entree dishes Lanai wreath Join the club Chatter that's engaging?

Entertainer Uggams Give kudos Arms depot Abides Breadwinner What vets provide

DOWN 1 Earthy color 2 Artist Kahlo 3 Mist over

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 24 29 32 33 34 36 37 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 48 49 50 51 55 58 60 62 63 65

-- -jongg Mamie's man Plunk lead-in Haeagen-Dazs rival Storied fireman Red Microbe-ridden Byway Camelot wife Raggedy --- opus Road hazard Sorority "P" In a curious way Word before circus or blitz More ashen Latest thing Singer John Be next to Small hotel Conquers Writer Bellow Connect with Match well Duo + one Tally a total 1982 Disney cyberfilm "-- better believe it!"

Penne -- vodka Sloppy smooches Wry twisting -- Haute Acuff of song Like a swap Radio tuner Hose color Otter's kin "Bosh!"

Go extinct Bub " 'Tis so sad" "You lookin' --?"

67 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 81 82 84 85 86 87 89 93 95 98 99 101 102 104 106 107 108 109 110 111 113 114 115 118 119 120 123 125 126 127 128

Nosh Stable stock Seamless transition Von -- family ("The Sound of Music" clan) -- oxide (anesthetic) The, to Hans Emulated a fish 1 p.m. is one Horse color iPad downloads Oct.'s 744 Union general George Darling type Bodily joint Aquatic bird Lofty trains Tall volcano in Sicily Groups of geese Dubliner's land Model Klum Dog's bark Key in anew Give in (to) Nixon veep Spiro See 117-Across Dryly comical In the vicinity Not as risky Kagan of justice Romero of "Batman" Work's name Lasting mark Related (to) Take a pic of -- Abner Legendary coach Parseghian Three, in Bari D.C. winter hrs.

Remote button abbr.

ANSWERS ON PAGE 26

status includes children under 18 living with parents or legal guardians and pregnant women.

This newspaper will not knowingly accept any advertising for real estate in violation of this law. All dwellings advertised on equal opportunity basis.

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SUDOKU Here’s How It Works: Sudoku puzzles are formatted as a 9x9 grid, broken down into nine 3x3 boxes. To solve a sudoku, the numbers 1 through 9 must fill each row, column and box. Each number can appear only once in each row, column and box. You can figure out the order in which the numbers will appear by using the numeric clues already provided in the boxes. The more numbers you name, Answers on 26 the easier it gets to solve the puzzle!

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December 9-15, 2020

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December 9-15, 2020

Smoky Mountain News

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WAYNESVILLE OFFICE 74 North Main Street | (828) 634 -7333

Smoky Mountain News

December 9-15, 2020

Get details on any property in the MLS. Go to beverly-hanks.com and enter the MLS# into the quick search.

Canton | 3BR, 1BA, 1HB $278,900 | #3655928

Clyde | 1BR, 1BA $284,000 | #3641309

Royal Park | 2BR, 2BA $299,000 | #3647052

Stoney Brook | 3BR, 3BA $398,900|#3660312

Grimball Park | 3BR, 3BA $467,000 | #3662355

Waynesville | 3BR, 2BA, 1HB $475,000 | #3665192

Canton | 4BR, 1BA, 1HB $650,000 | #3655173

Villages Of Plott Creek | 3BR, 4BA $669,000 | #3661559

Whittier | 2BR, 1BA $700,000 | #3656920

Eagles Nest | 3BR, 3BA $750,000 | #3651928

Eagles Nest Mountain | 4BR, 5BA, 1HB $865,000 | #3643331

Waynesville | 3BR, 3BA, 1HB $889,000 | #3656776

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Canton | 6BR, 3BA | $925,000 | #3654248

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