Jackson County leaders are moving ahead with plans to open a liquor store in Cashiers, despite up to $200,000 in start-up costs that could take more than five years to recoup before seeing a profit.

It was a moment that forever stuck with Don Schoendorfer.

While on vacation in Morocco several years ago, the southern California engineer/inventor witnessed a disabled woman dragging herself across a busy street. She had no wheelchair. Nobody seemed to even notice her, let alone provide her assistance. 

Ten suspects have been charged in connection with a rash of property crimes in the Cashiers and Glenville area.

Nestled deep in the mountains between Sylva and Cashiers, the scenic U.S. Forest Service Balsam Lodge is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year with a makeover. Throughout the summer and fall, portions of the lodge were restored by student carpentry and facilities maintenance crews from the Oconaluftee Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center, a job training center for at-risk teens located in the nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

A Jackson County resident has taken it upon himself to show county decision-makers that a Cashiers ABC store is a must.

Smaller, independent hospitals across the nation have increasingly sought partnerships with larger hospitals in recent years, a trend largely driven by financial challenges.

For Highlands-Cashiers Hospitals, the latest hospital in the region to jump on board with Mission Hospital in Asheville, cost savings were certainly a large motivator, although not the only one. While Highlands-Cashiers Hospital loses money on operations every year, that doesn’t mean it is in the red.

Highlands-Cashiers Hospital will soon join the growing number of small hospitals in Western North Carolina to come under the management of Mission Hospital in Asheville.

A task force charged with creating guidelines for a joint Jackson County Tourism Development Authority is still struggling to figure out exactly how everything will work — and the deadline for making recommendations to the county leadership is drawing nearer.

Jackson County has two tourism agencies — one for the county as a whole and one for Cashiers — that oversee room tax money collected from overnight visitors by the lodging industry. Whether to merge the two entities has been a point of contention since last year.

Jackson County commissioners in the coming months will weigh whether to open a liquor store in Cashiers, outside Cherokee — or both — but the road to a decision will take a lot of number crunching.

Namely, Jackson County must decide whether it’s likely to sell enough booze to cover the overhead of an ABC store.

Artists from around the Southeast will set up their easels and ready their colors in an outdoor painting spree around Cashiers for the weeklong Arts on the Green, a plein air art festival held from July 15-21.