Everyone who has seen and toured Jackson County’s new public library knows that it’s beautiful, but now the state has put an official stamp on that fact.

The library recently won the Outstanding Facility Award for new libraries larger than 26,000 square feet presented by the N.C. Public Libraries Directors Association.

Library patrons last week said they weren’t the least surprised to hear the facility was a state winner when it comes to beauty, functionality and technology.

“I love this library,” said Karen Wall, who was working on her laptop in the reference section one day last week. She was seated in a comfortable chair at a desk near huge windows affording a bird’s eye view of the Plott-Balsams mountain range.

SEE ALSO: New Jackson library a self-fulfilling prophecy

Wall described herself as a grateful library user. She is a voracious reader, one of those people who have two or more books going at a time. Fiction, nonfiction, it matters not just so long as the books involved are captivating.

“There’s a joy for me to be able to come here,” Wall said, gesturing toward the view.

That sentiment holds true for Becky Foxx of Sylva, too. Foxx’s one complaint is that the books aren’t as clearly labeled, by topics, as they were in the old library on Main Street. She was searching near the audio section for spiritual and self-help books, which were located several shelves from where Foxx actually was hunting. With 5,500 linear feet of shelving capacity — over one-mile of shelving if stretched out end to end — Foxx was finding navigation at the new county library a bit of a challenge.

That one irritant aside, Foxx loves her library. Like Wall, she said it was well worth every penny spent despite some grumbling over the price tag in certain quarters.

Jackson County’s library towers over Sylva — 107 steps up from Main Street — attached to the back of the historic courthouse complex. The new library cost $8 million, a project that also included renovating the historic courthouse as an auditorium and community meeting space.

The Jackson County Friends of the Library raised $1.8 million to outfit and furnish the new library. The cost per square foot was $282, including construction, landscaping, site improvements, architect and consultant fees and the furniture and equipment.

The librarian accept the facilities award last month in Greensboro where she presented a PowerPoint slideshow about the building at a showcase of the state awards given for facilities, programs, staff development and service innovation.

McMillan, Pazdan, Smith Architecture designed the library for Jackson County.

If there’s been one major challenge for Jackson County’s new library, it’s been parking. There just isn’t enough space on the 2.8-acre site, at least close-by, to meet demand.

There are only 73 parking spaces on top of the hill. To save those spots for library visitors, employees park in a lot down below and hoof it up the hill either from a small parking lot on Keener Street or from Mark Watson Park. The county recently improved a trail up leading the back side of the hill from Mark Watson Park and added a handrail to make the route more friendly.

Rumors of an impending closing to the contrary, The Coffee Shop in Sylva is not shutting down, owner Phyllis Gibson said this week.

“We’ve heard it, too,” Gibson said. “I had a woman customer come in this morning and say she’d been praying over it.”

The rumor includes actual nitty-gritty details. That Gibson plans to close the Sylva mainstay for burgers, fries and slices of pie not for economic reasons, but because she and the workers there are tired. The Coffee Shop opened in 1926.

“We are tired,” Gibson said in reply. “But that don’t make no difference — we’re still not closing.”

Gibson said that a slew of recent business shutdowns in Sylva might have fueled the rumor of The Coffee Shop’s imminent demise, particularly the recent shutdown of Annie’s Naturally Bakery on Main Street. Additionally, 49-year-old Cope’s Superette will close next week. The decades-old Kentucky Fried Chicken on N.C 107 closed a few weeks ago, too.

It’s 8 a.m. and the everyday regulars — Sylva’s working class Janes and Joes — are stopping by Cope’s Superette on Mill Street for packs of cigarettes, morning newspapers, soft drinks, candy and other breakfast necessities you grab when on the go and in a hurry.

“Hey, Tanya,” says Jeremy Edmonds. He’s at Cope’s to buy a bag of Bugler tobacco on his way to work at Whittier Automotive. Times are hard. Like many smokers, Edmonds has taken to rolling his own cigarettes to save a few dollars.

Edmonds is one of many who walk in and greet storeowner Tanya Calhoun-Cope by first name. Ed Cope, her father, and Fred Cope, her grandfather, opened the store 49 years ago.

It’s been left to Calhoun-Cope to shut Cope’s down, for good, come Dec. 23.

Edmonds, at 24, has never known his hometown absent Cope’s Superette. In fact, he worked here for a short time following high school. He managed to accidentally set a trashcan on fire with a smoldering cigarette butt. It’s a story he and Calhoun-Cope joke together about. They are happy, for the moment at least, to have a fresh set of ears to hear their well-honed, practiced tale.

These are difficult times for Calhoun-Cope. She’s been six years coming to grips with her decision — her desire, actually — to close the family’s namesake store. Calhoun-Cope kept Cope’s Superette open during those years since her mother, Anne, died; unwilling to take that step she knew, one day, she must.

“I’m just tired of doing it,” Calhoun-Cope says in explanation. “This is not what I wanted to do. I’m going to go back to the laboratory.”

She wants to return to the medical field, to use the education she acquired at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville after graduating from Swain County High School. To, frankly, do something else with her life rather than operate a corner store. But closing Cope’s Superette feels like a funeral, Calhoun-Cope says. She’s grieving; so are Cope’s many customers.

“Stopping here is almost like a habit,” Edmonds says. “And we’ve had so many small businesses close down. It is sad to see them leave. I sure hope more businesses will come in and rejuvenate the downtown.”

There’s a moment in the film “The Fugitive” when actor Harrison Ford is walking on Mill Street. What you see in that sequence is Cope’s Superette. But the store has been more to this community than just quaint local color.

Before new technology surged, opening fast and more direct flows of information, and before newspapers started their corresponding spiraling declines, Cope’s Superette functioned as a classic newsstand. Cope’s was where you picked up copies of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Charlotte Observer, the Raleigh News and Observer, The New York Times and any of a dozen or so community newspapers in the area. Calhoun-Cope remembers when the store sold 150 newspapers each Sunday.

Atlanta, Charlotte and other metro newspapers stopped delivery to this region as cost-saving measures. Even some of the community newspapers stopped deliveries, Calhoun-Cope said.

There weren’t a lot of these classic newsstands such as Cope’s to begin with. The other well-known one in Western North Carolina was the Curb Market on Main Street in Waynesville. It shut in 2004 following the death of the market’s original owner, Adeline Patrick. The store passed on to her children. They were forced to supplement the store from their own pockets to stay afloat until finally accepting, like Calhoun-Cope, that it was time to say goodbye. Waynesville mourned the loss of the last place on Main Street where a simple loaf of bread, candy bar or boiled peanuts could be found.

Mind you, Cope’s Superette isn’t just a simple newspaper stand. There are magazines, books, T-shirts, party items — the glorious eclectic mix of items every great corner store found in small mountain towns once boasted.

Crystal Styles of Bryson City and Beth Maynor of Whittier work in a medical services practice in Sylva near Cope’s Superette. They aren’t quite sure what they’ll do each morning for their drinks and food once the store closes.

“We’re here almost daily,” Styles says. “We’ll miss it.”

And so will everyone else in Sylva.

With a Billie Holiday-style microphone, an Apple computer camera and her two bandmates on either side, Maggie Tobias transforms from a lively newspaper reporter into a sultry jazz singer.

“You can put on a mask a little bit; it’s very theatrical,” said Tobias, a 23-year-old reporter for The Sylva Herald and Ruralite.

Tobias and fellow musicians Michael Collings and Jeff Savage compose Maggie and The Romantics, a jazz band from Sylva.

Tobias described Maggie and The Romantics as a fusion band. Their original songs always have jazz roots but can also be classified as funk, salsa or singer/songwriter.

Sampling an idea

Last month, the band started an early resolution, the kind typically reserved for New Year’s — to write one original song a week. The exercise helps them hone their songwriting skills and learn to create new tunes quickly.

Although it may seem daunting, the task is easier than one might think, Tobias said. Just start with a single theme or idea, she said, and form the song from there.

“It’s not going to be perfect. There are going to be some things you wish you changed,” Tobias said.

Each week, a different band member debuts their new song.

“They (Collings and Savage) are really good,” Tobias said. “It always surprised me how they can take this little song I’ve been singing in my head and make it into a real song. That’s pretty cool.”

The group uses the camera on an Apple computer, an external microphone and five or six takes to record the original song and post it to YouTube.

The idea for the weekly song came from Savage, who told them about a more than two-decade-long project by They Might Be Giants, Tobias said.

From 1983 to 2006, the alternative music group They Might Be Giants recorded new songs each week, and sometimes daily, on an answering machine. People would call the answering machine to hear the band’s newest recording.

While Maggie and The Romantics original song project may not last that long, Tobias said the troupe will post “as many as we can.”

As of Monday, their four videos had racked up a few hundred views each and mostly positive comments.

“People have said they like it,” Tobias said.

Like any family, hers had a few critics, she said.

“My mom told me to stop being so sultry in my videos,” Tobias said, adding that one of her sisters thinks she puts on a different voice when she sings.

The trio hopes to include other local artists in their future videos and posted a call for guest musicians on their Facebook page.

Tobias is currently composing a folk song for Kelly Jewell-Timco, a hula-hooper and wife of a coworker, and is making plans to perform a Frank Sinatra-style song with trumpeter Boyd Sossamon.

The band’s genesis

Tobias began singing at the First Presbyterian Church in Sylva, where bandmates Collings and Savage also play.

“I’ve sung my entire life,” said Tobias, who was a member of her college jazz band. “My whole family is very musical.”

However, it wasn’t until high school that her first boyfriend — a fan of music icons Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis and John Coltrane — kick-started her affinity for jazz and blues tunes.

“There is something just kind of sultry about jazz,” Tobias said. “It’s kind of a sexy, evolving art form.”

Some people think that the time for jazz music has come and gone, but artists such as Diana Krall and Corinne Bailey Rae continue to add a modern flair to the genre.

“I think people kind of see jazz as a museum art form,” Tobias said. “It’s like classical music; it’s untouchable. It’s hard to see it as the popular music that it once was.”

Collings, a bassist, and Savage, a guitar player, had performed together as a jazz duo for six years at Sylva establishments like Guadalupe Café, where they play for tips. And after meeting her at the church, Collings and Savage asked Tobias to join them for a jazz cover gig.

Tobias said she thinks being a girl helped with the tips during her first performance with the guys.

“I think that’s kind of why they wanted me to keep playing with them, because after that one show we got so many tips,” Tobias said.

Soon after her first gig with the duet, Tobias started writing original songs, which the troupe performed in addition to traditional jazz standards.

The trio decided to cement their partnership by creating a band name. After receiving such suggestions as Beauty and the Beats, The Lovesick Fools, and Lady and the Tramps did they settle on Maggie and The Romantics.

“It just kind of sounded right,” Tobias said.

The band plays at various Sylva locales for tips about once a week in addition to its weekly YouTube melodies but is looking at branching out to venues in other Western North Carolina communities.

“We really like playing,” Tobias said. “It’s not the main source of income for any of us, so we can just have fun and take our time.”

See Maggie and The Romantics in action

Where: JJ’s Canteen & Eatery on N.C. 107 in Glenville

When: 8 p.m, Jan. 27

What else: Tips are accepted

Like Maggie and The Romantics on Facebook or check out their YouTube channel, MaggieRomanticsMusic.

Permaculture has become something of a catchword in farming and homesteading circles, a grand concept — but one usually unfulfilled in hands-on practice — of layering one’s land with a variety of edible plants that will feed you or your animals.

Luckily, Sylva native and permaculture expert Zev Friedman is available to help sort the reality from fantasy. Friedman, who lives in Weaverville and runs Urban Paradise Gardening, will hold a two-day workshop this coming weekend, Dec. 3-4, on permaculture practices. The cost of the program is $75, with the workshop running from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. both days. Mountain BizWorks is sponsoring the program.

Friedman focuses on whole-system design of water savvy landscapes that yield valuable foods and medicines and provide for other human needs with a minimum of external inputs.

Friedman’s workshop will take place on a farm owned by Ron and Cathy Arps of Sylva. The couple is well known in the local agrarian community — the Arps pioneered the now popularly used Community Supported Agriculture plan in these westernmost counties. CSA’s are a means for farmers to exchange produce for purchased shares, in practice meaning those participating buy-into the farm by paying for produce at the beginning of the growing season. You then share in the risks and windfalls of that season through the CSA. The Arps have successfully fed families for more than a decade from their intensively managed small farm just off Cope Creek Road.

Friedman toured the farm recently with the couple, laying the framework for the upcoming workshop.

“This could be a pretty good workshop for getting some things done,” Friedman said, adding that it’s important that people who attend get “hands-on” experience with such work as removing invasive plants and so on. This, he explained, will translate to lessons for working their own properties.

The trio let the land help dictate the shape of the workshop, perhaps the first lesson those interested in permaculture must learn. Workshop attendees will learn about site assessment and design, information they can take back to their own properties and, hopefully, put into practice.

A stream beside an existing pasture seemed perfectly destined for a streamside forest garden, Friedman explained, perhaps with raspberry plantings or comfrey replacing the invasives dominating there now.

The existing forest area could transition to a nut, timber, craftwood and animal products system.

In addition to nitty-gritty work, Friedman views the workshop as an opportunity for local farmers, homesteaders and those generally interested in permaculture to discuss economic niches and various business opportunities. Not to mention, he said, the opportunity to network with like-minded people.

Use what works

Touring the Arps’ farm, Friedman quickly identifies what’s there now — along the stream beside the pasture and on up toward the garden, there is a heavy infiltration of walnut trees.

That leaves two choices: cut them out, or plant edibles that can co-exist with these native plants. Sure, walnut trees provide food for people and animals, but walnuts also exude a substance caused juglone, which inhibits other plant growth. Tomatoes and potatoes, particularly, suffer tremendously when grown anywhere near walnut trees — these members of the ultra-juglone sensitive nightshade family show “walnut wilt” just when the gardener believes they might just harvest a beautiful crop.

The Arps aren’t keen on cutting down trees, no matter how inhibiting they might be to other plants. Instead, the couple and Friedman decide co-existence is the way to go. That means that raspberries, elderberries or comfrey, are obvious choices. Raspberries and elderberries provide berries for people and wild creatures. Comfrey provides fodder for animals, plus is an excellent source of potassium in the soil if used for mulching. Both plants defy the presence of juglone.

“Plant big long rows of comfrey, and scythe it down,” Friedman said. “You could harvest it six times a year.”

And this is the type of information homeowners can get through Friedman’s workshop.

Say what? Explaining permaculture

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of modern agriculture. Permaculture aims to create stable, productive systems that provide for human needs; it’s a system of design where each element supports and feeds other elements, ultimately aiming at systems that are virtually self-sustaining and into which humans fit as an integral part.

Source: Wikipedia

Want to participate?

What: Two-day workshop on intensive forest farming.

When: Dec. 3-4 in Sylva, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day.

Where: At Ron and Cathy Arps’ Vegnui Gardens farm.

Why: To learn how to put your land to work in a sustainable fashion.

How much: $75 for each participant. Food and beverages provided, but bring your own eating utensils, plates, and cups. Space is limited and pre-registration is required. Payment of workshop fee will reserve your space.

To register: Contact Sheryl Rudd at 631-0292 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Sylva might hear its local AM radio station WRGC back on the air — but the company involved wants a loan of $289,000 from Jackson County’s economic development fund to make it happen.

Roy Burnette, the CEO of the hopefully formed, embryonic 540 Broadcasting Co., said that he wants the future WRGC to intensely pursue the local part of local radio. But having said that, the geographic designation of “local” for WRGC would change, Burnette said.

Burnette wants to expand the range of WRGC allowing 540 Broadcasting to reach from east of Canton in Haywood County to Topton in Swain County — if he is able to get permission from the Federal Communications Commission for the extra power. The future WRGC would broadcast at 5,000 watts. Asked to explain the expansion of the Sylva-based radio station for the not-so-technical minded potential radio listener, Burnette suggested one mentally compare the light received from a 1,000-watt light bulb to a 5,000-watt light bulb.

“We want to offer in-depth service to Jackson, Macon, Swain and Haywood,” said Burnette on his plans for extensive regional radio reach.

Burnette has been in regional radio for years, including stints in Bryson City and Sylva. Additionally, he worked as a radio instructor for Southwestern Community College.

The Sylva radio station went dead in late August, a victim of dwindling advertising revenue dollars in a hard-knock economy. WRGC was owned by Georgia-Carolina Radiocasting Co. If no one buys it and claims the frequency within a year, the license for that frequency would be lost.

It’s the expansion possibility, which promises a wider net of potential advertisers, that’s attracting notice at the county level.

“The 5,000-watt license is the big interest since the signal area would be substantially greater than current coverage area,” County Manager Chuck Wooten said.

And that, Wooten added, would “provide an opportunity to generate significantly more advertising revenue.”

Regional radio personality and Sylva resident Gary Ayers earlier had expressed interest in buying WRGC. Ayers retreated from the idea after he said local advertising interest seemed tepid.

“I talked to the owners the other day and said if this guy can make it go, then great,” Ayers said Monday. “If not, then let me know and let’s talk again.”

Art Sutton of Georgia-Carolina Radiocasting Co. declined to comment for now on the evolving deal.

Ayers said the most important point to him is that Sylva regains a local radio station.

“We are going to put a huge focus on community-based programming,” Burnette said.

Burnette said he hopes to have WRGC on the air by Dec. 10.

What price local radio?

540 Broadcasting Co. submitted a request for a $289,000 loan from Jackson County. Of that, $250,000 would be used to purchase the radio license from current owner Georgia-Carolina Radiocasting Co., and $39,000 would be used to acquire equipment needed to install the 5,000-watt station. 540 Broadcasting would provide an additional $100,000 in working capital. Payments on the county loan would be deferred until May 2012, and then be paid over ten years (40 quarterly payments) at an interest rate of 2 percent. Jimmy Childress (WRGC’s founder) would rent 540 Broadcasting the building, equipment and property where tower is located; collateral for the loan would be the radio license and equipment.

A public hearing on the loan will be held Dec. 12 at 2 p.m. at the county’s boardroom. Commissioners are scheduled to meet that same day at 2:15 p.m. to consider the request.

Source: Jackson County

Metrostat Communications, the company that pioneered the advent of high-speed Internet in Sylva, will close Dec. 30.

“We’ve been through the screaming, the upset, and we’re at the point we know this is the best decision we can make,” said Robin Kevlin, co-owner of Metrostat with husband John.

Six Metrostat employees will lose their jobs. At one time, the company had 20 employees, but the ever-more difficult economy and increasing competition had taken a toll.

Metrostat was founded in 2002 in Sylva to solve a business problem for the Kevlins’ software company, located on Main Street, which they later sold. The couple needed high-speed Internet, as did other businesses in Sylva’s downtown. After identifying the critical need, they filled it for themselves and others by laying fiber optic cables and selling bandwidth to customers. The Kevlins declined to specify how many accounts they currently manage but described their service as extending throughout Sylva’s downtown area.

The business start-up was a brave foray into a market dominated by big companies such as Charter and Verizon. But here in Western North Carolina, Metrostat also found itself competing against a grant-funded, public-private partnership forged to run high-speed fiber lines through rural mountain counties in the far west.

The couple pointed to BalsamWest FiberNET, a joint venture funded by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and Macon County private businessman Phil Drake, as Metrostat’s major competitor and most daunting business hurdle.

Though repeatedly emphasizing that they did not want to sound bitter or angry toward BalsamWest, the couple said Metrostat simply could not hold its ground against the larger company. Initially, BalsamWest was going to lay a fiber backbone through the mountains and allow smaller companies such as Metrostat to be the actual service providers. But BalsamWest began directly selling service and cherry-picking the customers, undermining Metrostat’s business model, they said.

“We needed the big customers, then BalsamWest came in, supposedly doing the ‘middle mile,’ and they started taking over our last-mile customers,” John Kevlin said. “And any grant money that came into Jackson County, they got 100 percent. I put my personal fortune into (Metrostat), and I got killed.”

Cecil Groves, CEO of BalsamWest, expressed sadness that Metrostat was closing down.

“I do regret that they were not able to sustain it. John and Robin did a very good job in helping this community and region. But I don’t think that falls back on BalsamWest,” the former president of Southwestern College said. “I feel for them. This is a very hard business, and it is changing very, very fast.”

For his part, Groves emphasized that BalsamWest’s business model extends far beyond Sylva where Metrostat focused its efforts.

“We’re trying to put a base in for economic development for this region, for the six western counties,” Groves said.

Groves said the initial goal, the building of the “middle mile,” was accomplished through the use of private money. Connecting the schools, Groves said, did result in BalsamWest tapping grant funding.

In downtown Sylva where Metrostat was known for providing good, fairly priced service, business owners were upset by the news they must now find another Internet carrier. Metrostat users received a Nov. 21-dated letter Monday morning via the postal service that explained the situation.

“Sustainable funding for an independent local utility requires long-term resources and support that we have not been able to identify,” the Kevlans wrote. “While we all love what Metrostat does, we simply do not see a financial path forward to continue operating.”

“I called them and said, ‘What do we need to do to keep you in business? Pay another $30 or $40 a month? Let us know, we’ll rally the troops,’” said Bernadette Peters, owner of City Lights Café in Sylva. “But it was too late. I’m not sure that they realized what people would have done to actually keep them here.”

Amazingly, in this day and age of questionable customer service, Peters said Metrostat was terrific because “you could call them if the server went down, and you’d actually get a call back.”

John Bubacz, owner of Signature Brew Coffee on Main Street and a member of the Downtown Sylva Association board, said he hated to see “hardworking people like Robin and John and all of their staff lose their jobs, and the community lose such superior service. We’ll never replace them.”

That said, Bubacz was anxious to emphasize that despite some recent business closings — Annie’s Naturally Bakery, Metrostat and a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant on N.C. 107 that seemingly disappeared overnight last week — Sylva’s downtown is still doing well.

“No, downtown is not dying,” Bubacz said.

Renovating the old library on Main Street in Sylva for a new police department is on something of a hiatus until a new town board convenes.

The town board will get a new member following this month’s elections. Lynda Sossoman will replace current town Commissioner Ray Lewis. Sossoman said Monday that she fully supports the renovation of the old library for a town police department.

Town leaders must identify where the estimated $700,000 needed for the job will come from, interim Town Manager Mike Morgan said.

“The next thing we would want is to get an architect to do detailed plans — but (commissioners) are not there, yet,” he said.

Until then, the 15-member town police — counting only fulltime employees — will continue to squeeze into the current police department on Allen Street. The officers share just 1,000 square feet. The old library is 6,400 square feet in size.

Jackson County owned the old library, but agreed to a property swap at the town’s request earlier this year. The county gave Sylva the old library building on Main Street, and in exchange the town gave the county the former chamber of commerce building on Grindstaff Cove Road.

As takes place currently, any prisoners detained by police will be transported immediately to the county jail at the administration building instead of being held at the police department.

Sylva merchants have repeatedly requested a greater presence by town police on Main Street. In addition to the prospect of having the department located physically there, a new police officer was recently assigned to foot patrols downtown.

It’s not everyday that you can shop at the local feed and seed store for organic foods and produce, but that’s the case these days in Sylva.

Last year at almost exactly this time, Deb and Randy Hooper took a significant business risk. The couple used the back portion of their building on N.C. 107 and expanded the 40-year-old Bryson Farm Supply by adding a small organics grocery. That means folks can pick up their fertilizers and shovels and other gardening needs from Randy Hooper, then shop in the Natural Food Store section of Bryson’s for that night’s dinner from his wife.

The Natural Food Store carries such hard-to-find delicacies as grass-fed local beef, natural pork, goat cheeses, free-trade coffee from the Cherokee-based Tribal Grounds, bins of grains and beans, locally raised trout and more.

Time has proven the Hoopers’ business hunch a good one: There is a definite local clientele for organics and naturally and locally produced foods, as also evidenced by the rapid growth of the county’s popular Saturday farmers market on backstreet in Sylva and at St. John’s Church during winter months.

The community has been hugely supportive, Deb Hooper said. That includes some free help from residents eager to see the business survive and thrive. Kolleen Begley of the Village of Forest Hills helped build a website for the business, www.brysonfarmsupply.com, free of charge.

“I did their website as a type of community service and really had fun doing so,” Begley said. “I’m thrilled to see this small, local, family owned business carry the local foods as well as organic and Amish foods, and I support that — I hope to see them expand that part of their business.”

Deb Hooper also has her hopes set, perhaps, of one day growing the store still larger. The size of Earth Fare in Asheville, she said, referring to one of the region’s largest natural food-based grocery stores.

But, don’t expect that kind of growth anytime soon: the couple wants to build the organics portion of their business slowly and wisely.

“This is still a work in progress,” Deb Hooper said, gesturing out toward the Natural Food Store, complete with its large coolers, stock laden wooden shelves and bulk bins. “We want to move forward with even more here, first. But I’d love to get big.”

It’s that kind of willingness, one of being open to forward motion after carefully calculating business opportunities, that often spells the difference among local businesses that endure and survive this tough economy and those that don’t, said Paige Roberson, head of the Downtown Sylva Association and head of economic development for the town.

“They’ve changed as needed over the years,” Roberson said of Bryson’s, which Deb Hooper’s parents opened in 1972. “They try and meet customers’ desires for certain products.”

Roberson knows a good bit about the hardware store business: her family once ran Roberson Supply, a hardware store then located a mile or two on N.C. 107 from Bryson’s.

Deb Hooper said opening and running a Natural Foods Store has proven quite an education. She and her husband are eating more local and naturally grown foods themselves these days, supplementing vegetables raised in their home garden.

“He settled right into it,” Deb Hooper said of her husband’s agreeability to try new foods that the expansion into organics has led to.

In addition to meats and bulk foods, the Natural Foods Store purchases and sells local honey and fresh eggs. Deb Hooper tried selling vegetables but discovered that her clientele is apparently made up of the same people who visit and support the farmers market. Seeing no need and little business opportunity, Hooper reversed course on the vegetables, limiting herself at least for now to other product lines.

Running a grocery store seems to come easily to Hooper. Though she openly acknowledged “I never thought I’d be doing any of this stuff,” her grandparents in fact owned and managed one of Sylva’s most popular groceries, Ensley Supermarket, for years.

“This is really my heritage,” Hooper said.

Annie’s Naturally Bakery, the beloved coffee, bakery and gathering place in Sylva that helped launch a Main Street renaissance of sorts here when it opened more than a decade ago, will close Thursday.

The closure comes as a surprise to many in this Jackson County community, who said they simply can’t imagine visiting downtown Sylva without stopping at Annie’s.

“This gave the community a place to gather where we felt welcomed,” said Susan Anspacher, who was at Annie’s Naturally Bakery on Monday staving off the day’s autumn chill with a hot bowl of southwestern bean and chicken soup. “I think it takes an inner strength and beauty to be able to do that.”

SEE ALSO: Whitman’s closing leaves downtown Waynesville ‘hungry for a bakery’

Annie Ritota, who owns the namesake bakery with husband Joe, grew teary frequently while describing the painful process the couple worked through before deciding to close the retail portion of their business. The Ritotas last year moved the wholesale side of their bakery business to Asheville.

The two businesses previously “shared” costs — the wholesale side helped subsidize overhead at their Main Street store. Ingles grocery stores across Western North Carolina and North Georgia sell Annie’s bread, as do many restaurants in the region.

“We separated the numbers, and realized that it was going to be harder for the retail to make it on its own,” Ritota said.

Yes, the faltering economy played a part in making sourdough out of yeast bread, and triggered a slowdown in summer tourist traffic.

“But if we had the energy and time, we could turn this around,” Ritota said. “This is more so that Joe and I can have a life together again. Joe is in Asheville, driving an hour there everyday, and I’m here mostly.”

Kim Roberts-Fer, who lives in Waynesville and works in Sylva, is being hit with a double whammy — Whitman’s bakey on Main Street in Waynesville is coincidentally closing down as well as Annie’s in Sylva.

“We so love a good bakery,” Roberts-Fer said.

There will be a void in the towns now, she said.

“There is something so nostalgic about a bakery,” Roberts-Fer said.

When she married her husband, the couple went to Italy for a honeymoon, “and there were bakeries there to give you that certain feel of relaxation and comfort,” Roberts-Fer said.

The Ritotas moved the wholesale side of Annie’s business to Asheville because the 75 or so accounts they were handling at the time were mostly in that region, not in the state’s westernmost counties, and too much money was being lost in buying gasoline and through wear-and-tear on the delivery vehicles. Wholesale demand for their breads also had outgrown their kitchen space in downtown Sylva.

Subsequent rapid growth on the wholesale end since that shift to Asheville has taken energy from the retail portion of Annie’s, Ritota said.

The Ritotas started Annie’s Naturally Bakery in 1998 in their garage in Franklin. They rented space on Main Street in September 2001, and the retail side of Annie’s was born.

Annie Ritota grew up in Bristol, Va., and comes from a family of cooks. Later, she learned the restaurant business in her brother’s restaurant and studied vegetarian and healthy cooking while living in Colorado. She opened a vegetarian, health food restaurant in Greenville, S.C. in 1985, where she met Joe, a fourth-generation Italian baker.

Once together, Joe Ritota wanted to move to a small town, which brought the couple to Franklin and then Sylva.

When Annie’s Naturally Bakery opened, the community flocked through the doors, and never wavered over the years in their support of the bakery, Ritota said.

“The local clientele remained,” she said, adding that she hopes someone will buy the business and continue it as a bakery.

That’s Paige Roberson, the new executive director of the Downtown Sylva Association’s hope, too.

“The ideal thing would be to have the space providing the same services to the downtown and county,” Roberson said, who then stepped out of her official DSA costume and added her own personal lament for the loss of Annie’s. “I absolutely hate that it’s going out. It was such a neat place, and had such great baked goods and coffee.”

Catt Tyndall is hoping for the sudden appearance of a fairy godmother to take over the bakery and keep Annie’s Naturally Bakery running. She’s worked for two years this week at the downtown shop.

“Where are people going to get their cannoli? And their pumpkin cookies — they are like crack. To not have that anymore, I just hate it,” Tyndall said.

Up to nine employees will lose their jobs with the shutdown, Annie Ritota said, her eyes filling with tears once again. Most are college students, or have such strong ties to the community, that commuting to Asheville isn’t feasible, she said.

Tyndall plans to start school at Western Carolina University in January, explaining the job loss prompted her to go back to WCU and finish her education.

Asked if it’s as cool to work at Annie’s as it appears, Tyndall responded: “it’s probably even cooler — everyone who works here brings their own bit of character to it.”