The number of homeless school children in Haywood County has risen by nearly 20 percent this year compared to last.

The county uses the definition of homelessness contained in the McKinney-Vento Act — any individual who lacks a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence. That could mean that the children are staying with a relative temporarily, in a hotel, sleeping in a car or at a shelter.

Religion and public schools have never been a black and white matter anywhere in the U.S., but the shades of grey can be even more complicated in the Bible belt.

With more than 15,000 applications for just 1,500 freshman spots last year, Western Carolina University has no difficulty attracting students.

The harder part is getting them to stay.

It was a tranquil Saturday afternoon when the stampede began.

Lines of vehicles, like mechanical horses with flags waving high, hurtle down the highway, resembling some cavalry charging into battle, desperately in search of a cherished parking space near the football stadium at Western Carolina University.

At first glance, this 14-year-old girl with a soft smile and a round face may seem like the all-American kid.

She’s been in Girl Scouts since the first grade. Her dad works in construction. Currently a high school sophomore, she hopes to work in the medical field some day.

Western Carolina University will target transfer, graduate and distance learning students to help grow its enrollment without creating greater strain on its residence and dining halls.

This fall, enrollment at WCU reached a record 9,608, a 2.7 percent increase compared to fall 2011. Of those, 7,500 attend classes on campus in Cullowhee. The number of freshman who returned to the university for their sophomore year has also increased.

Despite rumors to the contrary, Sylva’s bars are not abandoning the town for the student-laden pastures of Cullowhee.

Area residents have heard whispers that the Bone Shack and O’Malley’s Pub and Grill — two bars that count college students among their base of patrons — will close their doors in Sylva and move their operations to Cullowhee.

Chris Graves had just parked a school van in a field, and his wildlife students were filing out for some hands-on, out-of-the-classroom learning when they spotted a flock of about 80 crows clustered together.

No sooner were they out of the vehicle when one of Graves’ pupils began imitating the birds’ call. Chill ran up the students’ spines as the crows, like a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, swarmed toward them.

“Students will remember that,” said Graves, a fish and wildlife management instructor at Haywood Community College.

With the sixth annual Wild Game Dinner rapidly approaching, students will have the chance to raise money while showing off their animal-calling skills to a crowd of hundreds of friends, family and curious community members.

The event also features a calling competition, in which students and others perform their best imitation of various animals’ purrs, clucks, yelps and cackles.

The main purpose of honing your wildlife calls is to draw an animal in when hunting. But outdoor sportsmen — a generally competitive bunch — have taken it to a new level, Graves said.

“It’s fun, but at some competitions, they get pretty serious about it,” he said.

Many of HCC’s students started hunting and learning how to call certain critters since they were young.

“I think they were born in camo,” said Shannon Rabby, a Fish and Wildlife Management Technology instructor. “They love the outdoors.”

Not only does the event provide amusement but it also serves as a good warm-up for the students who soon after battle other schools at the Southeastern Wildlife Conclave in mid-March.

“We are kind of proud of what we do at that,” Rabby said.

The group has snagged third place during the past couple of years despite going head to head with mostly upperclassmen and graduate students from four-year universities, including LSU and Auburn University.

“My students are freshmen and sophomores,” Rabby said with pride.

Haywood Community College is renowned for its various natural resources degrees, a sought after program by students across the South who want to be foresters, game wardens, park rangers and the like.

The annual Wildgame Dinner hosted by the students has outgrown its venue twice in its just six-year history, a reflection of its upstanding reputation in the community.

The school’s Wildlife Club began hosting the wild game dinner in the lower level of HCC’s student center. As the event grew, it moved to the Haywood County Armory.

“Next thing we knew, we had filled up the armory,” Rabby said. “It’s tremendously successful.”

Last year, about 700 people attended the dinner. It is now held at the Haywood County Fairgrounds.

The potluck dinner includes a silent auction with everything from art to live animals, a gun and live music by No Show Jones and the Wildermen. The six-member band first performed at the dinner last year and is made up of HCC students in the Natural Resources Department.

“What shocked me is I had them in class … these guys are very quiet,” Rabby said. But, not when they get an instrument in their hands.

The grand prize for the night is a lifetime hunting and fishing license. Funds raised at the dinner help pay for a scholarship as well as travel to various conferences and competitions.

“We want this to be a celebration,” said Rabby.

Answer the Call

Haywood Community College’s Wildlife Club is hosting its annual benefit dinner, complete with drawings, live music, a silent auction and, of course, food. Attendees are encouraged to bring a dish as the dinner is a potluck and money to bid on items ranging from art to live animals.

What: The 6th annual Wild Game Dinner

When: 6 p.m., March 2

Where: Haywood County Fairgrounds

How Much: Suggested donation of $10 per person or $5 if you bring a dish.

The Haywood County School District will hold its district competition of the Poetry Out Loud (POL) National Recitation Contest at 9:30 a.m. on Dec. 1 in the Tuscola High Auditorium.

The competition will feature school champions from Haywood Early College, Pisgah High School, and Tuscola High School. District winners will move up to the semi-final competition to be held in Greensboro on Saturday, March 24, 2012. Winners of the semi-final competition will compete in Raleigh for the North Carolina Poetry Out Loud state championship.

This is the second year that Haywood County High Schools have participated in Poetry Out loud, a program presented by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, and advanced through partnership with local arts councils like the Haywood County Arts Council. The Haywood County Arts Council supports Poetry Out Loud by providing performance opportunities for students, transportation funds to attend competitions, and gifts for winners.

In 2010-2011, Ann Kram, a senior at Tuscola High School won the district level competition and Pisgah High School senior, Ashley Lee was runner-up. Ann went on to perform at the state POL competition in Raleigh.

Poetry Out Loud, is a national recitation contest that “invites the dynamic aspects of slam poetry, spoken word, and theater into the English class. Poetry Out Loud helps students master public speaking skills, build self-confidence, and learn about their literary heritage.”

Village of Forest Hills leaders are saying no thanks to a Charlotte company that wanted to build luxury student apartments on a 19.5-acre tract in the tiny town across the highway from Western Carolina University.

This does not mean that the 200-unit, $25-million development couldn’t be built elsewhere in Jackson County, just not in Forest Hills’ town limits. Planner Gerald Green said the only restrictions on developments of this type are in Cashiers, the county’s four municipalities and the U.S. 441 corridor.

Developer Shannon King told The Smoky Mountain News late last week that if Forest Hills said no, she would look elsewhere in the area for a suitable site. King needed Forest Hills’ to grant an exemption from the community’s zoning laws for the development to move forward there.

Before settling on the Forest Hills site, Monarch Ventures had scouted the vacant hotel — locally dubbed the ‘ghostel’ — on the main commercial drag of N.C. 107 in Sylva. This was intended to be a Clarion Inn, the town’s first name-brand hotel, but the developers ran out of money and abandoned the project, which was foreclosed on by the bank that held the construction loan. Michelle Masta of Skyros Investments is marketing the unfinished hotel shell, and she confirmed Monarch Venture’s prior interest. The hotel is mired in litigation from a contractor who wasn’t paid in full; it can’t be sold until the legal issues are resolved.

Forest Hills council members, meeting Friday in a more than five-hour visioning session, agreed that this type of student development is at odds with their vision of tranquil life in the village.

The community incorporated in 1997 expressly to keep students out. This included zoning out the possibility of large student complexes, and setting restrictions on the number of students living together in a rental house. That stance has clearly softened during the intervening years for this set of council members, at least. They noted that 50 to 75 students currently do live in Forest Hills (many in a motel there) and are part of that community. But a huge development, as proposed by Monarch Ventures, seemed more than Forest Hills leaders were willing to embrace.

“It’s not that we are anti-student because we are against a complex,” Council Member Suzanne Stone said. “Saying ‘no’ to Monarch would not mean saying ‘no’ to WCU.”

A recent survey sent to Forest Hills residents recorded little support for the development. Out of 59 responses, 38 noted they “strongly disagree” with such a development, eight disagreed, six had no opinion, two agreed and five “strongly agree.”

Track record

Additionally, Forest Hills council members cited concerns about the background — or lack of background — of the company involved, Monarch Ventures.

North Carolina incorporation records show that Monarch Ventures came into existence just 13 months ago, in September 2010; and that it has no record as a company building these types of student-based developments. This raised questions about how Monarch Ventures had presented itself to Forest Hills leaders — as a veteran student-housing development company.

The company might be new, but King, the woman who owns and launched Monarch Ventures, in fact does have an extensive, national background of building private student housing. King, until less than a year ago, was executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Campus Crest Communities, a company also based in Charlotte. Campus Crest developed and owns 32 student-housing complexes nationwide.

The company is the subject of myriad complaints regarding its housing. Additionally, a federal lawsuit filed in Mecklenburg County by a former employee accused Campus Crest of having a sexually hostile and demeaning work environment.

According to court documents, company officers directed top employees to “hire predominantly young, white women to available positions at the company’s various residential rental properties.”

Council Member Clark Corwin showed fellow board members a copy of a newspaper article that quoted from the lawsuit. King, according to court papers, is alleged to have said: “We have Southern investors; they do not like for us to hire blacks.”

“I can’t imagine that in this day and age,” Mayor Jim Wallace said in response.

“I don’t think they need anymore time at our meetings — we’re done,” Stone said.

After some discussion about how best to pull the plug on King’s development plans for Forest Hills, Council Member Gene Tweedy said: “Just tell her, ‘The community is not interested.’”

Problems with Campus Crest buildings, called “The Grove” at the company’s multitude of student housing complexes across the nation, include reports that students trying to move in were told they couldn’t because the apartments weren’t finished on schedule.

An “anti-Grove” group is active on Facebook, primarily populated by disgruntled student renters.

Asheville has a “The Grove” complex on Bulldog Drive, near UNC-Asheville, owned by Campus Crest.

“Student complaints from these complexes are the same across the country,” wrote Peggy Loonan, who is leading an effort to prevent Campus Crest from building in Fort Collins, Colo., in a Feb. 11 guest article for the Northern Colorado Business Report. “Students, not professional leasing agents, manage onsite leasing offices. Maintenance is slow to respond if at all; appliances don’t work; apartments aren’t cleaned between tenancies and mattresses are soiled. Move-in dates on signed leases are pushed back because construction isn’t complete. Students describe hearing other tenants having sex. Students turn off heat to stay within their allotted utility amount and report being denied copies of utility bills.”

King, contacted late last week, was eager to distance herself from Campus Crest and its work record.

“Quite frankly, that’s why I’m no longer with Campus Crest,” she said.

King said that Monarch Ventures is committed to building near Western Carolina University.

“We absolutely want to be in the Western community,” she said.