Holly Kays
Everyone donned purple Monday afternoon to show their Catamount pride as Western Carolina University staff, faculty and students welcomed their new chancellor-elect to campus.
A new chancellor has been chosen for Western Carolina University, with the University of North Carolina Board of Governors unanimously electing Kelli R. Brown, Ph.D., to the position during a special session Thursday, April 25.
No matter what scale of time you’re using, the newly opened Jean Pittillo Nodding Trillium Garden in Cullowhee has deep roots.
“Let’s go back about 400 to 700 million years,” said landowner Dan Pittillo as he began his explanation to the group gathered to experience the wildflower trail’s grand opening April 17.
Work will soon begin on renovations to the Community Services Building in Sylva — which houses the Jackson County Health Department — following commissioners’ unanimous vote April 16 to accept a bid on the project from Western Builders of Sylva and approve a project ordinance.
The Asheville Design Center will soon complete its final recommendations for the N.C 107 project in Sylva, but the document is unlikely to provide any drastic departure from the plan already put forward by the N.C. Department of Transportation.
Towns and counties across Western North Carolina are considering resolutions to oppose a Congressional bill that would pave the way for a casino to be built in Cleveland County, likely delivering a blow to profits at Harrah’s Cherokee casinos in Cherokee and Murphy.
One hundred years ago, the parking area and campground just past the fields in Cataloochee Valley where elk often hang out was better known as Nellie, a remote community in what is now the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
As anybody who’s ever driven the steep and narrow access road from Jonathan Creek can imagine, it was hard to get in and hard to get out in the days when horsepower came mainly from actual horses. People didn’t have much, partly because of how difficult it was to transport outside goods up and over the ridge.
Just as millennia of rain and wind and heat and cold have carved the physical shape of the mountains for which Appalachia is named, so have years of immigration and emigration and peace and war carved the human culture that covers them. Through the centuries, each of millions of lives — men and women, Cherokee and white, black and Hispanic — has added its own chapter to the story.
It’s shaping up to be a big year for the Appalachian Women’s Museum in Dillsboro. The nonprofit is preparing for its second annual Airing of the Quilts event, will get an artistically designed storytelling installation on its grounds if a grant Western Carolina University is working on goes through, and hopes to start regularly opening its doors to the public during Saturdays summer.
Just over two years after forming it, the Town of Sylva has voted to disband its Public Art Committee — but with the intention of reassembling it under the auspices of the Main Street Sylva Association.
After a four-month lapse, services from physicians working for hospitals in Clyde, Sylva and Bryson City will be back in-network with UnitedHealthCare as of May 1. These services had been out-of-network since the previous contract lapsed Jan. 1.
A longtime democracy nonprofit director and self-proclaimed “watchdog” of political activity is calling for an investigation into how the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians reports its donations.
A pair of bills now working their way through the state House and Senate would legalize sports betting on tribal lands, bringing to fruition a possibility that’s been discussed ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the subject in May 2018.
Appeals are underway following the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Board of Elections’ decision not to certify three candidates to run for election.
The Asheville Design Center will present its findings on alternatives to the current plan for N.C. 107 in Sylva during a community meeting 5:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 17, at the Jackson County Public Library.
Hanging was the cause of death for a woman who died Jan. 18 while in custody of the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department, according to documents provided by the N.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Plans for a proposed housing development on South Painter Road in Cullowhee will proceed following the Jackson County Commissioners’ decision to accept a settlement agreement with Atlanta-based Mallory and Evans Development LLC.
As the June 6 Primary Election in Cherokee draws closer, The Smoky Mountain News will be updating this voter guide with responses from the 48 people running for legislative and executive office this year.
In an era when most environment-related news carries a hue of doom and gloom, the saga of air quality trends in Western North Carolina is a welcome exception.
In the 1990s, ground-level ozone was high — Asheville teetered on the edge of violating federal standards, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park actually did exceed them — and white haze emanating from area power plants made visibility so poor that visitors had a hard time seeing the waves of blue mountains for which the region is named. The tourism industry worried that poor air quality would deter travelers from stopping in the Smokies.
Three women who had filed for tribal office this year will not be allowed to run following the April 1 release of the certified candidate list.
Tribal Council got off to an unusual start in April of last year when Councilmember Tommye Saunooke, of Painttown, asked Tribal Council to begin the meeting by voting on a proposal that was absent from the day’s 28-item agenda.
“Mr. Chairman, at this time, I’d like to make a move that the only press allowed in our Cherokee chambers will be Cherokee press,” Saunooke said.
The Jackson County Commissioners tabled a vote March 19 that would have given a nonprofit group in Cashiers the go-ahead to get sidewalks built in that community.
Three candidates were dropped from the list of contenders for tribal office with today's release of a list of certified canddiates from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Board of Elections. The list of certified candidates did not include Teresa McCoy and Missy Crowe, who had both filed to run for principal chief, or Sharon Bradley, who wanted to run for Big Y School Board.
When John Mudge opened RollsRite Bicycles in 2002, his grandson Zack Moss was only 9 years old. Moss grew up on the other side of the country in Washington, and he didn’t really know his grandfather, or the bike shop. The first time he visited RollsRite was in 2018, after Mudge’s unexpected death on Nov. 6. Mudge was 71 years old.
In a mirror image of a vote taken seven months ago, the Jackson County Board of Commissioners has voted to reinstate independent boards to oversee its health and social services departments.
Jackson County residents will likely be asked to participate in a survey this spring gauging their support for an indoor pool at the Cullowhee Recreation Center.
Tribal Council approved a pair of appointments March 14 that added new members to two of the tribe’s most influential boards.
Construction on a 1,000-space parking deck expected to be complete at Western Carolina University by August of this year has been delayed for a May 2020 start.
An agreement allowing members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to gather sochan in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is now official following an event Monday, March 25, in which Smokies Superintendent Cassius Cash and Principal Chief Richard Sneed signed the historic agreement.
Every summer for the past seven years, the warmer months have brought opportunity for adventure and learning to the small group of students participating in Camp WILD.
Three years ago, Meg Hanshaw was in full-on planning mode for a camp that she hoped to see grow into something big, but that would — for that summer at least — roll forward hosted in her home with just two campers attending.
A National Park Service ranger who has focused on the scientific and educational significance of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for more than 20 years earned national praise in this year’s Public Lands Alliance awards ceremony, held Feb. 27 in Denver, Colorado.
Susan Sachs, education branch chief for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, received the 2019 PLA Agency Leadership Award for cultivating and leading partnerships, the result of a nomination from the Great Smoky Mountains Association.
Jackson County will likely be making some big changes to its health plan following the realization that it’s headed toward a $1.2 million deficit by June 30 if something doesn’t change.
Nine months after a traffic accident that resulted in a pair of drug possession charges for a lead law enforcement supervisor with the Blue Ridge Parkway, the officer is still barred from performing law enforcement duties — despite the charges being dismissed and expunged from the record.
A Feb. 26 announcement from Superior Court Judge Bradley Letts that he would retire from his seat but would not run for tribal office perplexed many in Western North Carolina. Speculation that Letts, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, would run for chief of that tribe had been widespread, both on and off the Qualla Boundary.
Following the conclusion of candidate filing for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians' 2019 election season, below is the list of people who will be running for tribal office this year:
A Blue Ridge Parkway district ranger was arrested in Tennessee last year following a traffic accident in which he was under the influence of alcohol and in possession of drugs, according to public records. However, charges stemming from the incident were later dismissed.
John W. Bardo, who served as chancellor of Western Carolina University from 1995 to 2011, passed away Tuesday, March 12, at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, Kansas.
After decades roving the backcountry of some of the largest parks in the Western United States, Lisa Hendy is returning to her home state of Tennessee to serve as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s first female chief ranger.
At least, that’s the headline picked up by news outlets across the country, and it’s true. Hendy will start her new job April 8, and it will be the first time a woman has served that role in the Smokies. But to Hendy, it’s not about gender. It’s about her ability to do the job, and do it well.
Despite a government shutdown that lasted most of the month, visitation in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was markedly higher this January than in the same month last year.
As the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority prepares for a $9.5 million sewer expansion project in Cashiers, another big change is under discussion for the plateau — the potential of offering a public water utility.
With the deadline to register getting nearer, the list of people running for tribal office in this year’s elections is getting longer. As of press time Tuesday, 29 people were signed up to run for 14 offices, with an additional four people signed up to run for three school board seats.
The second go-around in the search for the next chancellor of Western Carolina University is nearing completion with the Board of Trustees’ unanimous vote March 1 to approve a list of three names for consideration.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund was permanently reauthorized today following President Donald Trump’s signature on a law that received overwhelming bipartisan in both the House and the Senate.
Summit Charter School in Cashiers has chosen a new director to take over from interim director Billy Leonard, who has served since July 2018.
With nearly than a week left to go in the filing period for this year’s tribal elections, five people have already put their names forward to run for principal chief.
A recently released draft report bodes well for the possibility of removing the dilapidated Cullowhee Dam without compromising the water supply it was designed to protect — but Western Carolina University and the Tuckaseigee Water and Sewer Authority need additional questions answered before agreeing to pursue removal.
Congress voted to permanently reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund following a 363-62 vote of the U.S. House of Representatives Feb. 26.
For the past 79 years, Ella Wachacha Bird has lived a life defined by seasons and relationships rather than months and days.
Bird, the daughter of Rily Wachacha and Ancy Walkingstick, was born in a log cabin in the remote West Buffalo area of Graham County’s Snowbird community in 1939. She was delivered by her grandmother Maggie Wachacha, a midwife at the time who would later become a clerk to Tribal Council and, like Ella, a Beloved Woman in the tribe.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park will have its first female chief ranger following the hire of Lisa Hendy, who currently serves as chief ranger at Big Bend National Park in Texas.
