There will be a contra dance class offered from 6:30-9 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Macon County Public Library in Franklin. 

The annual Stecoah Harvest Festival will return Oct. 18-19 to the Stecoah Valley Cultural Arts Center in Robbinsville. 

A beloved long-time Western North Carolina tradition, Mountain Heritage Day will spotlight its 50th anniversary from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, on the campus of Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. 

There will be a contra dance class offered from 6:30-9 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3, at the Macon County Public Library in Franklin. 

There will be a contra dance class offered from 6:30-9 p.m. Saturday, April 6, at the Macon County Public Library in Franklin. 

The Haywood Community College Foundation inaugural “Evening of Art” event to support the needs of HCC’s Professional Crafts program will be held from 6-9 p.m. Thursday, March 14, in the Sycamore building located on the main campus of HCC in Clyde. 

This year, the women’s basketball team of Christendom College, a small school in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, includes a forward, Catherine Thomas, who has averaged 27.7 points and 14.8 rebounds per game. Those are outstanding percentages in any league, no matter its size.

Folkmoot USA, North Carolina’s Official International Festival, returns with Folkmoot Summerfest July 22-25. The theme of this year’s festival is focused on American cultural diversity in music and dance. 

Burlesque dancing may be in my future. 

Some of us gals at The Smoky Mountain News have been invited to attend a burlesque dance class. As we were mulling around the idea recently, I told them I could only do it on a weekend my boys were with their dad. 

Among the groups visiting this year’s Folkmoot Festival from other countries is one from a place that isn’t quite a country, but is perhaps a historical microcosm of current geopolitical and spiritual conflict between East and West. 

“It’s mostly sunny weather, two or three months we live in winter, the rest of the year, around 30 or 40 Celsius degrees,” said Burcin Ozqus, a performer with Kyrenia Youth Centre Association. “It’s green most all the time of the year.”