Domestic and international visitors to and within Jackson County spent $468 million in 2023, an increase of 3.4% from 2022. The data comes from an annual study commissioned by VisitNC, a unit of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina. 

To help address the critical workforce shortage in health care, nursing in particular, the University of North Carolina System initiated a call for grant proposals to distribute $40 million over a span of two years to UNC System schools. 

A recent town hall in Cullowhee laid out a heartbreaking problem in our public schools, as well as a sensible solution. The problem is hunger. The solution is to provide free meals to all students in our public schools. But, how do we get there? 

The annual Mountain Artisans “Summertime” Arts & Crafts Show will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 28-29 in the Ramsey Center at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. 

On Friday, June 14, Western Carolina University’s Board of Trustees approved Chris Williams’ selection as its chief information officer. Williams, who comes to WCU after spending the last nine years as the IT director for Student Affairs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will begin his new position Monday, June 24. 

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to cut it up and use it for heat or timber, is it a waste of resources? Or, put another way, are humans the only reason that all other life on Earth was created?

The Catamount School, a laboratory school operating on the campus of Smoky Mountain High School, will relocate to the campus of Western Carolina University next school year after Jackson County Public Schools approved a relocation plan due to the need for more space at Smoky Mountain High School. 

The Western Carolina University School of Nursing in Cullowhee is the recipient of a $2 million contribution from the Bedford Falls Foundation-DAF (“Bedford Falls”) that will provide scholarship support to undergraduate nursing students and enable the hiring of additional faculty to guide them in their clinical experiences. 

Two projects will come to fruition this month that honor the lives of those who were victims of incarcerated labor in Western North Carolina during the Jim Crow era — a highway marker in Dillsboro, and an exhibit at the Mountain Heritage Center in Cullowhee.

For four decades, Western Carolina University has participated in a daylong effort of cleaning up a portion of Jackson County’s Tuckasegee River.