Haywood County has taken its first formal step forward in pursuit of a proposed $13 million, 40,000-square-foot central administration facility requested by Haywood County Schools. 

Election officials from across the region gathered in Haywood County last week to be among the first to witness public demonstrations of new state-certified voting systems designed to bolster both the efficiency and the security of the state’s elections. 

A powerful voice for Western North Carolina in the North Carolina General Assembly is about to pop the kickstand on a long career in public service, but even though Franklin Republican Sen. Jim Davis has already passed the torch to his heir apparent, at least one other Republican is lining up to take a crack at his seat. 

First steps are being taken on a major new residential development proposed for the site of a former grocery store and strip mall on Waynesville’s busy Russ Avenue. 

After a tumultuous year that saw all manner of controversy — from parental complaints to illegal meetings, transparency issues, secret building projects and dramatically lower enrollment — there’s finally some good news to report from Haywood County’s only public charter school. 

After years of disuse, a hidden gem in the heart of Waynesville’s downtown is finally ready to reclaim its rightful role as one of the community’s social and business hubs. 

Hurricane Dorian has slowly but surely been making its way toward the east coast of the United States, but Haywood County’s already been seeing some positive effects from the massive storm — evacuees seeking high ground, away from the coast. 

Strong growth in winter and Haywood County’s smaller municipalities has local tourism numbers up over last year, in some cases, substantially. 

With a major new administration facility proposed and a shuttered elementary school still sitting empty, Haywood County Schools finds itself at a crossroads as its schools fill up, even before a number of new apartment complexes plan to accept new tenants in the coming months.

As the state of North Carolina moves forward with some bold new changes to how it will administer Medicaid, Haywood County’s Health and Human Services Agency is trying to get out ahead of the makeover by letting beneficiaries know what they can expect.

The next few months could prove fateful for Haywood County’s only public charter school, Shining Rock Classical Academy, as a series of reports and performance reviews come due that will determine if, and for how long, the taxpayer-funded school will be allowed to continue to operate. 

There’s probably no bigger economic development issue in rural America than access to dependable high-speed internet service. 

“One hundred percent,” said Rep. Kevin Corbin, R-Franklin. “It’s the biggest issue in Western North Carolina as far as infrastructure and the economy.”

Shining Rock Classical Academy has a history of transparency problems, but after an Aug. 19 meeting with representatives of local media, it looks like the taxpayer-funded school’s unelected board is finally going to do something about it. 

A proposal to consolidate several aging Haywood County Schools administrative buildings into a single multi-million dollar state-of-the-art facility first discussed months ago has suddenly taken on an unanticipated but not unwelcome urgency.

For years, the town of Canton’s municipal wastewater has been treated, free of charge, by the various operators of the town’s iconic paper mill, but a grant application to be filed by the town wants to study the feasibility of sending that waste to Waynesville’s new treatment plant, once it’s constructed. 

After narrowly losing out in each of the past three years, developers have finally been awarded tax credits that will make redevelopment of the county-owned Historic Haywood County Hospital into 54 residential units financially feasible. 

Just off Waynesville’s North Main Street, in one of the town’s most blighted areas, on top of a small hill sits a little green house that many people drive by each day, without noticing it at all. 

Editor’s note: This is the eighth in a series of stories on Haywood County’s public charter school, Shining Rock Classical Academy, which has been beset by a host of academic and organizational problems since opening in 2015.

Although plans for a new facility proposed by taxpayer-funded Haywood County public charter school Shining Rock Classical Academy have been scuttled due to an unexpected decrease in revenue brought about by dramatically lower student enrollment totals for the current school year, questions about how Shining Rock’s unelected governing board got so far along in the planning process without any public mention of the project continue to linger, and the school’s not talking. 

July 2015: Shining Rock Classical Academy, a brand-new taxpayer-funded public charter school governed by an unelected public board, violates closed-session laws pertaining to property acquisition before it even opens by refusing to name the parcel in question.

Back-to-school time is here again, and at Shining Rock Classical Academy — Haywood County’s only public charter school — it looks like students this year will have lots more room to grow. 

Editor’s note: This is the seventh in a series of stories on Haywood County’s public charter school, Shining Rock Classical Academy, which has been beset by a host of academic and organizational problems since opening in 2015.

Since 2015, Haywood County’s first public charter school, Shining Rock Classical Academy, has used more than $2.75 million in local taxpayer money to educate children to a level far below the county average, and also below the state average.

After a routine surgery, Haywood County native Clayton Suggs ended up hooked on opioids until on the first day alone in his new apartment after a year of sobriety, his addiction eventually cost him his life. 

That empty black and white building on the corner of Branner Avenue and Depot Street is about to be filled — with a touch of green. 

It was finally moving day, and that empty little Greensboro apartment must have seemed like a mansion to 29-year-old Clayton Suggs. 

Fitting, the lack of furnishings; the whole thing was a blank slate, a new start.

Dr. Stephen Wall couldn’t have come to Waynesville at a better time. 

“There were four pediatricians in Haywood County, and three of them retired all at the same time,” said Wall. “So Dr. Bob Earnest recruited me and another guy, Dr. Garnet Maharajh, to join Haywood Pediatrics, which he started two years prior, in 1987.”

Education, litigation, big pharm, little children, doctors, disease, disability, death — the debate surrounding vaccination thrives at the intersection of some of the most contentious topics of the day.

It’s an emotional subject, to be sure, but it’s also one of the most rigorously vetted and empirically analyzed, owing to the scientific nature of medicine. 

A highly-anticipated reform bill that will open up new revenue streams for the state’s estimated 80 craft distillers has cleared the North Carolina General Assembly and currently awaits the governor’s signature.

Although Republicans still control both chambers of the North Carolina General Assembly, Democratic victories in the 2018 legislative election stripped Republicans of their power to override the veto of Gov. Roy Cooper, D-Rocky Mount. That, said Waynesville Democratic Rep. Joe Sam Queen, has changed the political climate in Raleigh. 

The races for this fall’s municipal elections are set, and depending on where you live, things could get interesting. 

North Carolina’s budget standoff shows no signs of ending, weeks after Gov. Roy Cooper, D-Rocky Mount, followed through on a promise to veto a Republican-crafted budget that doesn’t include Medicaid expansion. 

With the deadline to file for municipal office fast approaching — noon on July 19 —Haywood County voters may end up with few competitive races, and even fewer candidates. 

A pair of local entrepreneurs will soon open a billiard hall in downtown Canton, so long as substantial changes are made to an outdated ordinance that depicts such establishments as a breeding ground for all manner of unsavory behavior. 

Haywood Community College’s “tuition-free guarantee” seems to be off to a solid start but the school also wants residents to know that undocumented students who meet all other requirements can also take advantage of the innovative program. 

It’s been said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but after an overzealous brush-clearing operation behind Frog Level Brewing Company and Panacea Coffeehouse, apparently so are the banks of Richland Creek. 

Incumbents wasted little time in declaring their intentions to defend their seats after municipal candidate filing opened at noon on July 5, but as of press time on July 9, there were already two incumbents hoping to move up in the ranks, if their campaigns are successful.

The Town of Waynesville took another big step toward plotting its long-term future with the draft release of an update to its 20-year-old master planning document, which will attempt to balance the sometimes-competing interests of progress and preservation.

Incumbents wasted little time in declaring their intentions to defend their seats after municipal candidate filing opened at noon today, but there are already two incumbents hoping to move up in the ranks, if their campaigns are successful.

There’s perhaps been no greater ideological clash in American government over the past century than the extent to which the individual, as opposed to the collective, should be prioritized. 

There’s a good reason President Lyndon B. Johnson traveled to Independence, Missouri on July 30, 1965, to sign the legislation that created Medicaid — he wanted to present the first membership card to former President Harry S. Truman. 

Truman had long been a backer of socialized medicine, inheriting the position from his Oval Office predecessor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who established a number of social safety net programs during his 12 years as chief executive.

Transparency and accountability have long been concerns at Shining Rock Classical Academy — since before the troubled taxpayer-funded school even opened its doors in 2015 — and if recent events are any indication, new leadership at the school doesn’t seem interested in doing anything to change that. 

Editor’s note: This is the sixth in a series of stories on Haywood County’s public charter school, Shining Rock Classical Academy, which has been beset by a host of academic and organizational problems since opening in 2015.

More than seven weeks after a series of grievances were filed against Shining Rock Classical Academy’s interim head of school, board members voted to offer him the permanent position.

The three remaining members of the Canton Board of Aldermen/women have decided not to appoint anyone to a board seat left unexpectedly vacant by the resignation of an alderman June 13. 

Calling the $24 billion state budget passed by North Carolina’s Republican-led legislature “an astonishing failure,” Gov. Roy Cooper, D-Rocky Mount, vetoed it June 28. 

A June 27 Supreme Court decision not to get involved with politically gerrymandered congressional districts in Maryland and North Carolina means it’s unlikely Asheville Republican Congressman Mark Meadows’ Western North Carolina district will change before his presumed reelection campaign in 2020.

More than seven weeks after a series of grievances were filed against Shining Rock Classical Academy’s interim head of school, board members voted to hire him for the permanent position.

A regulatory reform bill intended to bring parity for North Carolina’s distillers with its craft brewers continues to make its way through the legislature.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has a budget. The N.C. House of Representatives has a budget. The N.C. Senate has a budget. But as of now, the state of North Carolina does not. 

Editor’s note: This is the fifth in a series of stories on Haywood County’s public charter school, Shining Rock Classical Academy, which has been beset by a host of academic and organizational problems since opening in 2015.

Two weeks after holding an illegal meeting to dismiss parent grievances against Shining Rock Classical Academy Interim Head of School Joshua Morgan, the charter school’s board found itself facing questions from parents who want to know what, exactly, is going on at the troubled school. 

Shining Rock Classical Academy’s 2019-20 budget, passed by the board on June 19, will shrink slightly, due to lower projected enrollment.