In recognition of the exceptional public service provided by a trio of radio stations during Hurricane Helene — when nearly all other communication infrastructure had failed — the Town of Canton has named them grand marshals for the annual downtown Christmas parade.

The shuttered paper mill at the heart of Canton is still there — for now. One day it won’t be, but a forthcoming monument will ensure the generations of papermakers that made Canton great won’t ever be forgotten.

In the winter of 1978, Terryll Evans was a ninth grader in Orlando, Florida. But, by March, she and her family would pack up everything and move hundreds of miles away to the mountains of Haywood County — an unknown landscape for the teenager. 

Not far from Main Street in Canton and the bright lights of the nearby football stadium is an unassuming one-story commercial building along Pisgah Drive. With a couple of vehicles in the parking lot last Thursday evening, a lone light radiates from the front window of WPTL. 

In almost every living American resides at least one sepia-toned memory embellished with song — that perpetual score to a first kiss, or a last dance.