The town of Waynesville has rolled out a budget plan for the coming fiscal year that’s nearly identical to the year before.

Two short years ago, Fay Grant was living on the other side of the country, a professional music editor for film and television shows in Los Angeles’ bustling entertainment scene. It was a different world altogether from the sleepier mountain town of Waynesville, where she and her husband Ben now make their home. 

She doesn’t regret the move. 

Something was missing from life in L.A. She wanted to do something different, something that made a difference. So, Grant took a few months off for a road trip across the country, and that drive, she said, “led me to The Tote Project.”

Smoking will soon be banned on sidewalks in Waynesville.

Town aldermen voted unanimously last week to ban smoking on all town property — including parks, ball fields, greenways, public parking lots and the grounds of town buildings.

Calvin Mann can’t make it far across the campus of Haywood Pathways Center without bumping into a friend.

Participation at the Haywood Pathways Center in Waynesville has been holding pretty steady ever since it opened in late 2014, with about 25 people living on campus, 80 percent of them male.

Spend a few hours on the streets in Frog Level, and the heartwarming stories flow like water.

Theoretically, a new homeless shelter that opened across town in Hazelwood last fall should have made things better for Frog Level’s homeless plight.

Teri Siewert picked up a pink Hello Kitty alarm clock by the cord and dragged it out from under the bushes behind her classy art gallery on the outskirts of downtown Waynesville.

“You wouldn’t believe the stuff we find,” she said. “You’ll see wine bottles, you’ll see beer bottles, you’ll see discarded clothing.”

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For 10 years, museum curator Jackie Stephens has prepped The Shelton House for Civil War commemorations.

Union Col. William Bartlett tried to keep his cool as he watched his bitter, battle-hardened Confederate enemies riding down Main Street that May morning of 1865.

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They were flying a white flag, but the town was like a tinderbox waiting to spark. Union men had occupied Waynesville the day before, but Confederate militia were rallying in the hills, ready for blood if the parley wasn’t fruitful.