There’s a story, perhaps apocryphal, about how a bunch of drunks overturned their boat one night in Lake Emory just outside of Franklin.

Macon County’s emergency services and law enforcement turned out en masse. They arrived to discover the drunks bobbing about holding onto the sides of their boat, desperately awaiting rescue. The cops studied the situation for a moment; then cupped their hands around their mouths and hollered out: “Put down your feet.” The drunks did as bidden, and walked unaided to the shore across silt-filled Lake Emory.

That’s an amusing tale — unless your home happens to be situated next to the 174-acre lake, as is the case for Shirley Ches and her husband, Jim.

The couple moved to their lakefront home in Franklin about 20 years ago. They were excited about living in the mountains and alongside water in an area they both loved. While they remain enamored with the beauty of these mountains and the region they call home, these days the couple has soured on the whole lakefront experience.

Shirley Ches, in particular, is frustrated by the silt and downed trees in Lake Emory. She is irritated by years of promises made by county and town leaders that something will be done, only for nothing to ever actually happen. Ches is tired of studies in Macon County that don’t lead to action; of talk that hasn’t led to results.

The silt buildup, Ches said during a guided walking tour along the lake of the couple’s slice of paradise, is the end result of storm damage that started with the blizzard of 1993 and continued with numerous tropical storms in the years that followed.

Before and after pictures tell the story visually. Back at the house, Ches has spread out photo albums on the dining room table for her version of show-and-tell. There are photos of Jim fishing, and of her grandchildren playing in the lake, pictorial reminders of all-around-fun-times in the mountains that people who retire to Western North Carolina dream about when they are living in hot and sandy Florida.

Then came those storms. Silt from development upstream, from the former town dump on Radio Hill nearby, from virtually everywhere that can be conceived, poured down into Lake Emory, Ches said.

SEE ALSO: To Duke’s chagrin, dredging may be in the cards for Emory

The lake is positioned a short distance below the convergence into the Little Tennessee River of the Cullasaja River, Cartoogechaye Creek and smaller tributaries.

Trees, too, were knocked down in these storms. The trees washed into the lake, helping to fill it with more debris and provide still more crevices for silt to build up against.

Ches’ photographs of her grandchildren playing in Lake Emory transition to ones featuring her son. He’s wading in mud, acres and acres of mud, with a chainsaw in hand, cutting trees downed by the storms. Sisyphus-like, really, in his efforts to help his parents reclaim their dream — one man cannot cleanup a lake, however, no matter how determined he might be.

The lake, it seems, is headed for a future as a shallow wetland at best, mudflat at worst, if years of accumulated sediment aren’t dredged by Duke Energy, which owns the lake and dam as part of its hydropower network.

A developer’s dream

Lake Emory doesn’t just represent an implosion of the dream Shirley and Jim Ches once had of the merry life they’d lead once residing on its shores. Lake Emory is one of the first of the many boom-and-bust housing developments that today litter WNC and scar the region’s mountains — dollar signs turned to dust, a ghost lake of sorts.

That said, Lake Emory does have its own beauty, sort of. There is something primordial about this shallow lake — the silt has formed into islands here and there. It’s sort of like watching the earth form. There are large expanses of wetlands, too. Birds, insects and wildlife use the lake, and locals do catch fish here, though it’s not exactly a Fontana Lake-experience. There are not going to be any national bass-fishing competitions anytime soon on Lake Emory, as any large bassboats launched in Lake Emory might run aground.

Like Fontana, and most of the lakes that dot WNC, Lake Emory is manmade.

In the 1920s, a group of residents formed the Lake Emory Company and started pushing for a lake in Macon County near Franklin. They wanted it for fishing, swimming and boating. They also wanted a power dam to generate electricity for the local community, plus a golf course and a 75-room motel to attract tourists, according to a history of the project compiled by Jamie Johnston, the former executive director of the Little Tennessee Watershed Association, a locally based conservation group.

The lake, the group decided, would be stocked with a variety of game fish for sportsmen, and hunters could come and shoot the many ducks that surely would use the lake for nesting and resting on their migration routes to other place.

The lake was expected to attract thousands of visitors. Estimates of projected income varied from $750,000 to $1 million annually, according to news accounts at the time.

Lured by these promises, the Town of Franklin in 1925 created Lake Emory by funding a $300,000 bond to pay for a 35.5-foot tall, 463-feet long dam on the Little Tennessee River.

The town owned the dam; Lake Emory Company was left to market and develop the surrounding property. That part of the project never really got off the ground, however. There would be no motel, and no golf course — just a small hydroelectric dam that sucked up Franklin taxpayer dollars at an alarming rate.

The town eventually offloaded the dam to Northwest Carolina Utilities, only to see ownership return when the company failed to make a bond payment in the early 1930s.

In 1932, the town transferred title to Nantahala Power and Light Company, which later morphed into Duke Energy. Today, the two hydro generators at Porter Bend Dam on Lake Emory produce just more than one megawatt. This, according to Duke District Manager Fred Alexander, represents a mere 1 percent of the generating capacity of Duke hydroelectric projects in its Nantahala Area of southwestern North Carolina.

Reasons not to dredge

A hop, skip and a jump away in Haywood County, a similar situation developed over the years at Lake Junaluska: silt filled the manmade lake there, too. But unlike at Lake Emory, the question in Haywood County wasn’t whether to dredge, just about how to actually pay for dredging. Once that was solved, dredging promptly took place, and the lake was again a showpiece for those living along its shores. Dredging is now done on a routine schedule every few years.

That, however, isn’t the case in Macon County. Lake Emory, unlike Lake Junaluska, isn’t home to a group of well-heeled Methodists with united will and enough money to get the job done. Lake Emory is a place where everyday people such as Shirley and Jim Ches live in small, modest homes; outsiders, for the most part, without much political clout.

Last month, if there wasn’t already enough to hinder anything being done (and at least two of the town’s aldermen were then pushing for dredging), one of the region’s most respected environmentalists weighed in with his reasons not to dredge Lake Emory.

Macon County resident Bill McLarney, who oversees biomonitoring work for the Little Tennessee Watershed Association, strongly cautioned against digging into the muck that makes up Lake Emory. McLarney, during a noontime luncheon and unveiling of the group’s State of the Streams report at a League of Women Voters’ meeting, said he worried dredging Lake Emory would risk stirring up monsters of the deep — toxic pollutants that could be buried deep in the silt.

There were great amounts of questionable materials being discharged into Lake Emory in the 1960s from plants in neighboring Rabun County, Ga., McLarney said, in those years before federal regulations came into play to prevent toxic spewing.

Churn that stuff up, and you risk the overall health of the 13-mile stretch of the Little Tennessee River below Porter Bend Dam, he said.

“I really hadn’t thought about that before,” Franklin Alderman Bob Scott, formerly a proponent of dredging Lake Emory who was pushing Duke to get off its duff and do just that, said after hearing McLarney.

Scott left convinced a lot more study needs to take place before any silt gets disturbed, if it ever does.

Ches, too, was at that meeting. An avid Democrat, a frequent letter writer to local newspapers on a variety of left-leaning issues, she is frustrated by the reactions of what would normally constitute her natural allies — a liberal such as Scott, an environmentalist such as McLarney. Even the local sportsmen haven’t readily embraced her dream of a lake where they could more easily hunt and fish and play.

Who really can say that dredging wouldn’t actually help the Little Tennessee River? Ches argued. And, she added, while she cares, too, about those little creatures in the river just like McLarney does, she and her neighbors are the ones who have to actually live next to the lake.

With the explosion of outdoor sports over the past few decades in Western North Carolina, perhaps it shouldn’t come as that big a surprise another outfitting store has opened in the region.

But this one is different, in at least two ways: The guys running Outdoor 76 truly use the equipment and clothes they sell; and the gear-oriented store is located in downtown Franklin, a place known more for its older, retired population than its hit-the-woods types.

But things have been changing in Macon County, too. Franklin has bonded during the past few years with hikers on the nearby Appalachian Trail, even to the point of hosting a festival for them each year and winning an official “trail town” designation. And plenty of people here and in the neighboring communities — young, middle-aged and older — seem increasingly eager to experience the outdoor life.

That helps explain why Outdoor 76, co-owned by Rob Gasbarro and Cory McCall, has gone gangbusters since the store opened on Main Street 10 months ago.

“It’s really overwhelming, though in a good way,” said Gasbarro of the explosion in growth the outfitters are experiencing.

Outdoor 76 carries name brands such as Mountain Hardwear, Marmot, Patagonia, Scarpa, Vasque, Keen, Western Mountaineering, Salomon, MSR and more. Additionally, the two men offer guided hikes and trips, plus carry an impressive array of camping, hiking and paddling equipment. They also rent equipment.

“It’s owned and operated by enthusiasts,” Gasbarro said. “We do this because we love to do it.”

And as if opening a new store wasn’t enough, both Gasbarro’s and McCall’s wives are expecting babies. Each will have their first children, seven weeks apart, in December and February, respectively.

In the meantime, they are putting together an outdoor festival to take place Oct. 8-9 in Macon County, featuring an outdoor triathlon, 5K race, a frisbee-team tournament, disc-golf competitions, plus clinics on flyfishing, paddle sports and more.

How it came about

Gasbarro’s and McCall’s business partnership came about in an unusual fashion: they became buddies through church. Gasbarro, 35, had moved to Western North Carolina from Tampa, Fla., for a job with an engineering company. McCall, 29, a Franklin native, was working in real estate.

When the economic doldrums hit, Gasbarro’s job felt “iffy,” and real estate sales went into the toilet. The two fellows knew they needed to find other ways to make livings.

“If we’re going to struggle, we decided we might as well struggle for ourselves instead of someone else,” Gasbarro said.

And the idea for an outfitter store, jointly owned by these two outdoor enthusiasts, seemed a natural. Gasbarro had an extensive paddling background, and McCall, a longtime runner, had played around in a lot of outdoor sports.

Though many people just didn’t initially get why they’d want to chance on opening one in downtown Franklin. But the two men did their homework: Franklin’s Main Street, Gasbarro said, has the highest traffic count of any municipality west of Asheville.

Then Gasbarro pulled out maps of the region from beneath the store counter — look, he explained excitedly, Franklin is the hub of virtually every outdoor experience one can enjoy in WNC. Kayaking, rock climbing, hiking, trail running — you name it, and you can experience it within a short drive of Franklin. And if that weren’t enough, the major highways essentially all flow through, or connect into, Macon County — U.S. 441 and U.S. 64 principally.

“We’re better positioned to tap the metropolitan areas than anyone else,” he said of Franklin. “Location, location, location.”

McCall, too, felt comfortable about opening the store in his hometown.

“Franklin needed this,” he said between helping a customer decide on what shoes were needed. “Franklin needed an avenue to fulfill the needs of people who are outdoor enthusiasts.”

Other outdoor shops carrying gear, clothing and supplies in the region include Mast General Store in Waynesville, Blackrock in Sylva and Three Eagles in Franklin.

But the closest shop to Outdoor 76, as an outfitter that also offers guided tours and rentals, is the Nantahala Outdoor Center, but that’s far enough away not to pose problems. In fact, Outdoor 76 has a great relationship with NOC, Gasbarro said.

For two decades, the Little Tennessee Watershed Association in Franklin has been monitoring the health of the river’s water basin from north Georgia to Fontana Lake.

Last week, the group released a State of the Streams report, showcasing both its work and what has been found over the years, particularly the trends from 2002 through 2010. The unveiling took place at a noon luncheon of the Macon County League of Women Voters in Franklin, with about 30 people in attendance.

Overall in the upper Little Tennessee River watershed, two worrisome points stand out, according to the report. Monitoring of threatened and endangered species in the mainstream below Franklin suggests that the decline of native mussels is long term and not just cyclical; and a fish species, the Wounded Darter, has almost completely disappeared from the Cullasaja River.

The good news? The most significant development was the closing in 2006 of the Fruit of the Loom plant in Rabun Gap, Ga., which the group said accounted for more than 95 percent of the total permitted industrial discharges to the entire watershed.

While the closing was hard on those whose livelihoods were dependent on the plant (30 percent of the workforce was from Macon County), benefits were almost immediately visible in the downstream ecosystem. This included the recovery of riverweed, an aquatic plant of the Little Tennessee.

Additionally, in Highlands, macroinvertebrates from Mill Creek are showing slow but continual recovery following the late 1990s shutdown of the Highlands sewer plant.

The condition of the river in the now-protected Needmore area (since 1999) also suggests that positive actions have, at the very least, “counterbalanced” negative trends. The Needmore tract, purchased from Duke Energy to protect it from development through a combination of private and public funding, has been under management by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission since 2002.

“Thirteen miles of free-flowing river, no houses or bridges — that’s a pretty unique thing in this part of the world. It’s a really exceptional piece of river,” Bill McLarney, an aquatic biologist who has studied the Little Tennessee River and its tributaries for at least two decades, said of the Needmore stretch of the Little Tennessee River.

Additionally, “we are relatively blessed that we don’t have a lot of point-source pollution,” McLarney said. “Habitat modification and sedimentation is the biggest problem here … that’s what we need to focus the most attention on if we want to see healthier streams.”

Jason Meador, the watershed program coordinator for the Little Tennessee Watershed Association, said the group focuses on a “holistic approach.” The staff and the many volunteers involved don’t just study fish, they also look at and study everything involved in a healthy watershed.

That’s also involved restoration projects, such as taking out culverts and replacing them with bridges, such as the group did on Bradley Creek. The culverts — essentially places where a stream is forced into a giant pipe to pass under a road — often block fish from being able to travel freely up and down tributaries, particularly if the culvert is crumbling, Meador said.

Additionally, the culverts often can’t handle big storm flows, flushing excess sediment.

Where is the Little Tennessee watershed?

The upper Little Tennessee watershed covers 450 square miles of forests, fields, towns and communities in the heart of the Southern Appalachians.

With headwaters in Rabun County, Georgia at the confluence of Billy and Keener creeks, the Little Tennessee River flows north and northwest for 55 miles, unimpeded for its entire length except for Porters Bend Dam, which forms the relatively tiny (250 acre) Lake Emory in the town of Franklin. Before reaching Lake Emory, the river makes its way through a flat, wide valley, dropping less than 50 feet of elevation in more than 10 miles of channel length. Here, the valley is defined by the Nantahala mountains to the west and the Fishhawk mountains and Blue Ridge escarpment to the east.

The stretch of the river between Lake Emory and Fontana Lake is one of the highest quality rivers in the Southern Appalachians, making it unique among the Blue Ridge rivers to have escaped much of the industrial pollution that has degraded so many other rivers in the region, according to the Little Tennessee Watershed Association.

Franklin, long a popular byway for motorcyclists heading to Highlands, or via N.C. 28 to the Tail of the Dragon at Deals Gap in Graham County, wants to capture some of those pass-through dollars.

Next year in August, Franklin’s Tourism Development Authority will host a three-day motorcycle rally. It will take place along U.S. 441 north in a field usually reserved for one of the many gem and mineral shows Macon County is renowned for.

“I think it would be great,” said Doug Hastings, the owner of the Moka Latte Express on Highlands Road just outside of Franklin. “This is ideal motorcycle country. Anytime we can bring revenue into the area that is clean — and most bikers are clean — it’s good.”

Franklin joins a long list of towns trying to court the motorcycle dollar. Maggie Valley is already well-established as a biker-friendly town, with numerous motorcycle festivals every year and a renowned motorcycle museum. Cherokee has been successfully tapping the motorcycle market for years as well, along with the string of communities in closer proximity to the infamous Tail of the Dragon and Hellbender routes, each with dozens of twisty curves per mile.

Mike Grubermann, Franklin town planner who serves as a liaison to the TDA, said a topnotch, reputable promoter with considerable experience in organizing similar shows in Georgia has been hired. Plans call for the event initially to be financially subsidized by the tourism group, but to ultimately become self-sustaining.

Grubermann said a motorcycle rally fits well into Macon County’s push to capture more tourism-related dollars.

“The nature and background of motorcyclists have changed over the years — this is not a Hell’s Angels event,” he said.

Grubermann said most tourism-drawing events in Macon County attract about 3,000 people, and that the motorcycle rally is expected to start with 1,000 to 2,000 motorcyclists and build up to the 3,000 number.

“We have some wonderful motorcyclists come through,” said Patti Koch, who owns Peppermint Patti’s Ice Cream & Sweets with her husband, Eric, and supports the concept of a motorcycle rally in Franklin. “They’re all stopping in on their way to the Tail of the Dragon. This year, I’ve seen whole convoys of them.”

Not everybody is enthralled with the idea of bringing in motorcyclists for a rally, however. Alderman Bob Scott said the TDA needs to do more research on holding such a rally, including finding out how such events have gone in other towns. “How does this fit into Franklin’s reputation of being family friendly? I have serious reservations about this expenditure of tax funds.”

Minutes of the TDA meeting show that $14,800 was approved for marketing and promoting the event.

MANNA FoodBank will close its Franklin distribution center by October, putting three part-time employees out of work as the agency moves to streamline its system and cut overall operating costs.

Cindy Threlkeld, executive director of the Asheville-based nonprofit, blamed rising food and fuel costs and potential threats to federal funds the agency relies on. MANNA’s distribution center in Franklin served as a clearinghouse and pass-through point for food supplies bound for “partnering agencies” in the western counties for 20 years.

Franklin headquarters the only branch office of MANNA, located on Depot Street.

The nonprofit had to make hard decisions about how to maintain the same level of service while cutting costs, Threlkeld said.

“We are fully committed to providing the same level of service, or even more,” she said. Online ordering was already used by most of the 250 agencies that tap MANNA’s food stores across a 16-county service area.

MANNA FoodBank Board Member Amy Grimes, executive director of The Community Table in Sylva, said the online system works well. She said the agencies that haven’t made the transition yet seem to understand the difficulties faced by MANNA, “and people seem OK with it. Everyone is having to make hard choices right now.”

But MANNA will still need a pick-up point, a centralized location somewhere in the western counties where pallets of food can passed off to agencies. Threlkeld is currently hunting for such a site. It will not be a formal distribution center, however, such as the one in Franklin. The phase-out of the Franklin center will start in September, Threlkeld said.

On a more positive note, MANNA’s executive director said a couple in Henderson County has donated the entire production from a 5-acre orchard, contingent on MANNA handling the harvesting. Threlkeld said she foresees the agency ending up with some 150,000 pounds of apples, raising possibilities MANNA could trade apples with another food agency for other supplies.

The Franklin Folk Festival will celebrate its 8th year on July 16, continuing the tradition of craft, song, dance and cuisine in the heart of Franklin.

This year’s theme, “Trails, Tales and Settlements” promises more entertaining and educational information than ever about the history of Franklin and surrounding areas. Spotlighted in the tales section will be popular storytellers who will, throughout the day, be telling stories of the mountains that will intrigue both children and adults. On the front porch will be some of the region’s oldest residents sharing stories about their lives growing up here in the mountains.

The Trails Through Time segment will spotlight antiques and many of the items used by early mountain residents at different periods in their lives. Indian Trails and Cherokee Heritage Trails will educate visitors about the Indian names given to various sections of the county. Other trails that will be explored during the festival are Quilt Trails, Hunting Trails, Hiking Trails, Old Railroad Beds, Civil War Trails, Family Genealogy Trails, Logging Trails, Communication Trails and Wagon Trails.

Tied closely to trails is the Settlements portion of the festival, where historians and representatives from various communities will talk about how particular areas got their names, who their early settlers were and how these communities have changed over the years.  Old photographs and displays will help bring these early settlements alive.

Since 2011 begins the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the 25th Infantry Civil War Re-enactors will be on hand to show how this conflict affected the lives of ancestors who lived through it. The re-enactors will be camped throughout the weekend in Frogtown, the site of Franklin’s old drive-in theatre, and camp tours will be offered throughout the day on Saturday. As during past Franklin Folk Festivals, a skirmish which has become known as the Battle of Frogtown — complete with a cannon and other artillery — will take place, and throughout the day, infantry drilling and firing demonstrations will take place.

Elsewhere at the festival will be craftspeople displaying heritage skills, musicians playing and singing mountain songs, square dancers willing to dance for and teach spectators, vendors supplying delicious food and games and contests for all ages.

In addition to exhibits and demonstrations, the festival will host an Antique Car Show, Civil War re-enactments, games and contests for children and adults, and the always popular Heritage Parade.

As in past years, several music venues downtown will feature old time mountain music: Gazebo Main Stage, Church in the Wildwood, featuring gospel music inside First Baptist Church-Chapel, the Jammin’ Tent in front of Town Hall, open to all jamming enthusiasts, as well as other exhibits that include music.

All of this helps the Folk Heritage Association continue to provide living history experiences and to preserve the folk heritage of Macon County for generations to come. Activities and exhibits will be focused in the downtown area in addition to special exhibits at the Community Facilities Building and grounds on US441 south.

For more information call 828.369.7411 or visit www.mcncfha.org.

When Sam Greenwood retired as Macon County’s manager and almost immediately accepted the same position for the town of Franklin in March of 2008, he made sure everyone clearly understood that his time there was limited.

Greenwood wanted to help Franklin make a seamless transition from a mayor-council form of government to a council-manager style. This task now completed, Greenwood is set to retire from public service for a second time.

That means November’s upcoming election in Franklin — where the mayor and four of the six aldermen are up — is particularly critical to the long-term future and wellbeing of the town, the incumbent aldermen and mayor said in a series of interviews last week. To a person, they agreed the key issue for the next board would be finding the right person to replace Greenwood as town manager. Greenwood isn’t the only turn-over the town will see. Terry Bradley, Franklin’s longtime police chief, also is going to retire this year. And several more of the town’s top employees have enough years in that they could opt to leave, too.

“There’s a lot of people who are department heads who are eligible for retirement,” Alderman Bob Scott said.

Mayor Joe Collins, who said he is “strongly considering” running again, has been mayor for four two-year terms, and before that, was an alderman.

Scott said rather than run for another four years, he would instead run for the seat formerly held by Jerry Evans, who passed away this year. Evans’ seat only has two years left on it, rather than a full four-year term.

“Jerry and I were pretty good friends, and I’d like to serve out his remaining time,” Scott said. Scott is finishing out the end of two terms, and he started his tenure of public service as an advocate of term limits — there are some projects Scott said he’d like to see through, however.

Alderman Farrell Jamison, appointed to fill the seat after Evans died in February, said he’d run, too, to keep on serving out Evans’ unexpired term. Jamison wants to focus on economic development issues, bringing more businesses into Franklin, and to help with general revitalization in downtown.

Alderwoman Joyce Handley said she probably plans to run again, although she acknowledged she’s technically supposed to be “sitting on the fence” and weighing that decision because her husband has suggested enough, perhaps, is enough.

Greenwood, Handley said, “has done a marvelous job,” but now a replacement must be found, and it needs to be the right person for the job. She wants to help pick that person.

Alderman Verlin Curtis, who has served two four-year terms, does, too. Curtis said another issue in Franklin is the changes a flood insurance program could bring to some property owners, particularly in the Crawford Branch area. What’s at stake is whether Franklin participates in the National Flood Insurance Program, which could mandate certain property development restrictions in the 100-year floodplain.

Public health officials have reported that a child in Macon County has contracted LaCrosse Viral Encephalitis, a potentially serious illness carried and transmitted by mosquitoes.

While other mosquito-borne diseases such as West Nile Virus are found across the state, LaCrosse is largely confined to Western North Carolina. The disease is rarely fatal, but a Transylvania County girl died as a result of infection in 2001. And in 2009, a child in Cherokee died, adding new emphasis to health officials’ efforts to warn people about the potential dangers of LaCrosse.

There were 13 confirmed and potential cases identified in WNC in 2010.

Cherokee, in particular the Big Cove community, and Black Mountain — for unknown reasons — are recognized in the medical community as hotspots for the illness, said Dr. Penny O’Neill, a pediatrician with Sylva Pediatric Associates. But, as the case in Macon County shows, the dangers exist anywhere in the region.

The big month for outbreaks is usually August, but with one in WNC already identified, “we’ll go from now until the first killing frost” with outbreaks of LaCrosse, O’Neill said.

Stan Polanski, physician’s assistant for Macon County Public Health, said the child with LaCrosse is recovering. The last diagnosed case in Macon County was more than five years ago, he said.

Regionally, about 20 cases are reported each year.

“For every case we confirm, there are probably 20 to 50 unrecognized cases,” Polanski said.

In Cherokee, public health officials have crafted a two-part response to the problem.

On one side, they’ve long been educating parents, kids and the community at large on how to prevent mosquito’s and eliminate standing water that serves as breeding grounds.

“We’ve done mitigation in the community with everything from actually going out and doing community assessments to emptying stale water containers,” said Vickie Bradley, deputy health officer for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Last year, the tribe also started a program in concert with Cherokee Indian Hospital to support families that are struggling with the long-road to recovery from an encephalitis infection. Dr. Anna Eastman, a consultant from the United Kingdom where there is an established post-infection support program, has come to Cherokee to train tribal health workers.

The danger posed by encephalitis is greatest for babies, O’Neill said, because they can have potentially devastating neurological issues. The intensity of the illnesses seem to vary from year to year, she said, but emphasized there is one important step people can take: Use DEET.

O’Neill said parents often express concerns about the mosquito repellent, but “the danger from DEET is potential — the danger from encephalitis is real.”

The object, the pediatrician said, is to eliminate mosquito bites, not just reduce the number received.

By Quintin Ellison and Colby Dunn • Staff writers

LaCrosse Viral Encephalitis

Symptoms occur from a few days to a couple of weeks after being bitten by an infected mosquito. These symptoms include fever, headache, nausea and vomiting. In more severe cases, convulsions, tremors and coma can occur. Children under 16 years of age and the elderly are the most susceptible to the disease.

To reduce mosquito breeding areas:

• Remove any containers that can hold water.

• Keep gutters clean and in good repair.

• Repair leaky outdoor faucets and change the water in birdbaths and pet bowls at least twice a week.

• Use screened windows and doors and make sure screens fit tightly and are not torn.

• Keep tight-fitting screens or lids on rain barrels.

The Golden Dragon Acrobats will grace the stage of the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, May 6. Tickets are $15 to $20.

The Golden Dragon Acrobats feature performers who have been trained in acrobatics since early youth and have appeared around the globe in more than 65 countries since inception in 1985. They are the only Chinese acrobatic company touring year-round in the United States

They combine acrobatics, traditional dance, spectacular costumes, ancient and contemporary music and theatrical techniques to present a unique show for all ages.

866.273.4615 or visit greatmountainmusic.com.

Mike Decker is retracing the steps he made 11 years ago when he left county government for a job across the street in Franklin’s town hall.

Decker is returning to county government as human resource director and deputy clerk to the Macon County Board of Commissioners — essentially a jack-of-all-trades who keeps county government running as a right-hand man to the county manager. Decker worked as the Macon County planner for seven years, then the Franklin town administrator for 11.

County Manager Jack Horton lauded Decker’s experience and familiarity with county and municipal governments, saying the longtime public servant had exactly the right set of complex skills needed for the dual job.

“We’re very happy to have Mike step in,” Horton said.

Decker follows Wilma Anderson, who retired as HR director and assistant to the county manager last month after 36 years.

As director of human resources, Decker — a newspaper reporter and editor before getting into local government work — will help oversee about 360 fulltime employees. As deputy clerk to the board of commissioners, he is responsible for keeping minutes for the elected board and notifying reporters about times and places for the meetings.

“I’m grateful to be here, and I’m very grateful to have had time to work with Wilma before she left,” Decker said.

This fall, Macon County will have to fill another key government position when longtime Finance Director Evelyn Southard retires.

Decker is not the only one who’s played musical chairs between county and town government. When former County Manager Sam Greenwood retired from that job, he was soon hired by Franklin as the town manager.