Nontraditional students working to earn a degree in an art-related major at Western Carolina University soon will have financial assistance to help them pursue their passion, thanks to a memorial scholarship fund established by the family of a recent WCU graduate who earned his degree after the age of 30. 

It’s tough for a person to get back up on their feet, no matter how well they may have done in the past. Such was the case for Jeremiah Moynihan, a Florida man who after living in Western North Carolina for the last several years found himself sick and homeless with nowhere to turn. 

There are no hard and fast rules about eating when going through cancer treatment. How someone feels is going to depend on the type of treatment (chemotherapy, radiation, surgery), the type of cancer, the part of the body affected and how the person reacts to the treatment.  

For Jerad Davis, it all started with a dry, nagging cough in the summer of 2022. With shortness of breath, low energy, brain fog and night sweats, he initially chalked it up to long COVID. But, upon going to the doctor and through some medical procedures, he was eventually diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. 

Challenges and trauma impact people in different ways. For Haywood County native J.J. Singleton, who has battled cancer for about nine years now, it presented an opportunity for personal growth, growth he feels would have never otherwise been possible. 

In a few short weeks, 47 people will charge from the shores of the island home to the infamous Alcatraz Prison into the freezing water that isolates it. Those brave souls will battle frigid temperatures, currents, wildlife and weather for two miles in an open water swim race to the California mainland, with little else than a swim cap, goggles and the thick skin of wetsuits to shield them from those unpredictable elements. 

By Allison Johnson • MD, Surgeon, Haywood Breast Center | According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in the U.S., behind only skin cancers. In fact, the ACS puts the average risk as a one in eight chance that a woman will develop breast cancer in her lifetime.

Breast cancer is something that weighs heavy on every woman’s mind. What is my risk? Does it run in my family? Do I carry the gene? When should I get a mammogram? Where do I have to go to get the best care?

Most people would not see a diagnosis of incurable cancer as an invitation to run 1,175 miles. But Kenny Capps is not most people. 

“It’s a cancer that requires you to say on top of it,” he said. “Moving in whatever way you can, that’s invaluable to being able to live with it. Because you can live with it. I know it’s terminal, but so is life. They don’t have a cure for that either.”

Ron and Chrissy Hill were all set for their retirement in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee, having bought a house and moved themselves north from their longtime home in Macon, Georgia. Then they took a quick visit to Haywood County, and things changed pretty quickly. 

“We came over here for the weekend, and I said, ‘OK, this is it,” said Chrissy Hill, 57.