Having grown up in proximity to a Cherokee community (Little Snowbird in Graham County), I’m familiar with and sensitive to the history and the psychology of Native peoples who have been marginalized and worse from their cultural roots and their homelands.

The Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center in Waynesville has recently announced its 2025 “Pigeon Community Conversations with Storytellers Series.” 

To the Editor:

A significant event in history is being replayed in our time. The Magna Carta was a landmark English document establishing that the power of the English monarchy was not absolute.

Few volunteer service organizations can claim a century of community engagement alongside world-changing influence, but as Waynesville’s Rotary club rolls into its second century, its leaders are looking to bolster the personal, professional and philosophical ties that have brought the organization to where it is today. 

The adage “There are no atheists in foxholes” catches our attention, but is too broad and imprecise for universal application.

Smokies Life received national recognition at the 2025 Public Lands Alliance Partnership Awards for “Letters from the Smokies,” which was named Publication of the Year.

By 1818, despite a growing number of settlers in the region west of the Balsams and along the Little Tennessee River, much of the land continued to be identified as “Cherokee land.”  

“Affrilachia: Testimonies,” by Chris Aluka Berry sets out to document the Black experience in Appalachia. The book is a historical artifact that honors, represents and celebrates a diverse community whose own history is the history of Appalachia, and whose existence has shaped the region. 

The goal of a writer is to pen words that inspire, educate or entertain, but sometimes, when the world feels heavy, it’s challenging to think of a topic that will resonate. As a decade-long columnist for The Smoky Mountain News, my readers have come to mean a lot to me.

Back in the late 1880s, two remarkable men, Wilbur Zeigler and Ben Grosscup, visited Western North Carolina for the express purpose of developing a comprehensive profile of the region’s resources.