Rising singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Alma Russ will hit the stage at 6 p.m. Friday, April 25, at Mountain Layers Brewing Company in Bryson City. 

The West Swain Fire Department — an all-volunteer department — is hosting its 31st annual bass tournament and BBQ dinner.

The event will be held from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on May 3 at the Almond Boat Park at Fontana Lake. 

A community jam will be held from 6-7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 1, on the front patio of the Marianna Black Library in Bryson City.

Anyone with a guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, dulcimer or anything unplugged is invited to join. Singers are also welcomed to join in or you can just stop by and listen. 

Contract crews for the N.C. Department of Transportation will be replacing guardrail along a stretch of N.C. 28 for the next several months. 

Every year, millions of people visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park to experience its clear mountain streams, verdant views, and diverse forms of natural beauty. The mountains exert a powerful spell — but too often, that spell is broken by the sight of plastic bottles and candy wrappers scattered beside trailheads and overlooks, fast food bags and old tires flung along roadsides and plastic bags or balloons hung in treetops. 

You might think people don’t care about local government, but sometimes you’re reminded that they absolutely do.

Bryson City’s town government was served a stark reminder of that concept this year when the town proposed significantly raising the water rates. 

This year both Jackson and Swain counties received state grants of $52 million to build new middle schools. For Jackson County, this will be the first traditional middle school the county has ever had and will serve middle grade students in place of the four K-8 schools that do so now. 

Haywood County rock/country act Outlaw Whiskey will perform as part of the “New Year’s Eve Party” at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 31, at Unplugged Pub in Bryson City. 

“The Polar Express” train ride will roll down the tracks on select dates from the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad depot in downtown Bryson City.

Climb aboard one of the powerful locomotives and historic train cars as it departs the Bryson City Depot for the North Pole to pick up Santa Claus himself.

Walking across the same stage on which they’ll one day receive their college degrees, seventh graders from Jackson, Macon and Swain Counties were inducted into the New Century Scholars program on Thursday, Nov. 7, in Myers Auditorium on Southwestern Community College’s Jackson Campus in Sylva.