Haywood County Medical Director Dr. Mark Jaben has been keeping residents updated through the COVID-19 Pandemic with weekly video messages that offer hope and guidance for the future. 

Last week, as demonstrations were taking place across the nation to call attention to police brutality and racial injustice, Canton resident Becky Trull was struck with an idea. 

While much of the nation is talking about removing monuments, the discussion in one Western North Carolina county is also about installing them — and that discussion is no less contentious. 

Seven counties in Western North Carolina have the opportunity to band together and receive money for affordable housing through the Southwestern Commission. As of June 15, several counties have signed on to make up the Southwestern NC HOME Consortium. 

A short video segment featuring NC11 congressional candidate Lynda Bennett that was produced by Asheville-based WLOS-TV at Haywood County’s early voting location violates state election law, according to North Carolina’s top elections official.

Haywood County Commissioner Mark Pless spent 15 years as a paramedic. He’s responded to more drug overdose calls than he cares to count — some people he was able to save, while others were too far gone. 

Since the Coronavirus Pandemic began in earnest in Haywood County in mid-March, emergency physician Dr. Mark Jaben has been the face of the county’s response, so much so that he’s now regularly stopped on the area’s hiking trails by strangers exclaiming, “Hey, you’re the guy from YouTube!”

On May 24, Macon County Public Health announced a cluster of cases centered around the Evangelical Ebenezer Church. As of press time on May 26, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services had reported 18 cases in Macon County, up from four cases May 15. One Macon resident died from the disease, reported April 6.

Every year around this time, local governments, community colleges and public schools are busy crafting budgets for the upcoming fiscal year that begins on July 1. In a normal year, budgeting is a year round process, however this is anything but a normal year.

The debate across the state still simmers — too soon, too late, or, like Goldilocks’ porridge, just right?