Despite aiming for a July opening, Ghost Town in the Sky will stay closed for the entire 2015 season.

Illuminated neon lettering indicated full occupancy on many of the hotels in Maggie Valley during the Fourth of July weekend.

SEE ALSO: Ghost Town will remain closed for 2015

“No Vacancy” signs translate into dollar signs for accommodation owners as well as all the other businesses in the valley. Despite Ghost Town in the Sky not opening this year, Soco Road traffic was bumper to bumper, every parking lot was packed and tourists lined the sidewalks on Saturday evening waiting for the fireworks to begin.

There was something markedly absent from the nearly $300,000 in tourism grants awarded by the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority this year: contention.

A new charter school slated to open in Haywood in August has been scrambling the past few weeks to find somewhere to put kids and teachers after its initial facility plan fell through.

A new charter school opening in Haywood County has downwardly revised its projected student count for the coming school year.

Recently recovered from rotator cuff surgery, Haywood County Sheriff Greg Christopher hasn’t popped a single prescription pain pill since the operation. Instead, he’s been using a combination of ibuprofen and acetaminophen, over-the-counter meds that don’t pose the same risks of abuse and addiction as opioids. 

“Just this morning I was at the physical therapist,” he said in a May interview. “She said, ‘I cannot believe you didn’t take prescription meds.’ I said, ‘I didn’t need to.’”

After lying dormant for the winter, Ghost Town in the Sky was once again showing signs of life last week with preparation work under way for a July 2 season opener.

The Mountain Spirit Wellness building in Waynesville’s Frog Level area offers a pair of services that have the same goal — restoring comfort to hurting muscles and joints — but use different methods to get there. Masseuse Lynda Saffell and reflexologist Linda Neff took a few minutes to explain the benefits of their work and how they differ from each other.

A little bit goes a long way. That’s a key philosophy at Blue Mountain Chiropractic Center in downtown Waynesville. Good health doesn’t have to be an uphill battle. Rather, it can be an easy stride with the right preventative measures in place, within your body and mind.

A new animal shelter is in the works in Haywood County despite a major decline in the number of stray and orphaned animals over the past decade.