There is a new director at the head of the Jackson County Parks and Recreation Department, after commissioners made their selection official late last month. 

United Christian Ministries of Jackson County has appointed a new Executive Director.  

Located up a narrow mountain road in a building about the size of an average single-family house, the Balsam Mountain Trust Nature Center is tiny compared to Executive Director Michael Wall’s last professional home, the San Diego Natural History Museum in California. 

United Christian Ministries of Jackson County has appointed a new Executive Director.  Ann Selby replaced retiring Director, Karen Johnson.

Sylva taxpayers may be looking at a one-cent tax increase in the coming 2023-24 fiscal year. In return for that increase, the town would see the Main Street Sylva director’s position move from half-time to full-time with greatly expanded responsibilities. 

In June, Morgan Beryl took over as executive director of the Haywood County Arts Council. She has lived all over the United States and studied an array of subjects, but her love for the arts and the outdoors brought her to Haywood County. 

Like any organization that brings people together, Folkmoot USA had a difficult 2020. Without the ability for travel or gathering, there was no chance for the annual international festival or any of the other in-person programming planned throughout the year. During that time of cutbacks, former Executive Director Angie Schwab resigned to begin other work. 

Nikwasi Initiative, a new nonprofit established in 2018 with the mission of preserving the Nikwasi Mound in downtown Franklin and expanding access and educational activities, has hired its first executive director. 

Sharon Taylor was in her mid-30s when she left her office gig to return to school, hoping to pursue a career that would allow her to spend more time outdoors and less time handling fluorescent-lit paperwork.

After graduating from Western Carolina University with a degree in natural resources management, Taylor found a job at the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in Macon County, where she worked as a research technician and enjoyed the full menu of retirement and health benefits to which she was entitled as an employee of the University of Georgia. Things were going well, and if she gave UGA the next 20 years, they’d give her a comfortable retirement. 

The Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority will have a new executive director on the job by March 19 after the TWSA board voted unanimously during its Feb. 18 meeting to hire engineer Daniel Manring.