Growing up in Gastonia during the 1960s, Mike Withers would pile into an old Ford sedan with his parents and siblings for the long drive to the now-shuttered Maggie Valley mountaintop amusement park called Ghost Town.

Over generations, Ghost Town left an indelible cultural mark and an enduring economic impact on the Valley, the county, the state and the region.

During a divorce, one person is required to move out of the family home. After months of rigmarole and this and that, I decided that person would be me. No one particularly wants to leave the place where children grew up and memories were made but then again, it’s easier to cope with the emotions when you’re not constantly staring at wedding china or knick-knacks bought on summer vacations. 

With no proposed tax increase, slightly lower spending and a healthy fund balance, the Town of Maggie Valley’s proposed FY 2018-19 budget appears to be one of the strongest in the area. 

Over the past two summers, visitors to the western end of Haywood County have experienced something few others ever have — a Maggie Valley without Joey’s Pancake House. 

A major hotel could be coming to Maggie Valley sooner rather than later after the town recently passed a pair of amendments to its design guidelines to allow for taller buildings.

The territory, and what comes with it.

Being a traveling musician has always been a haphazard and often difficult position to hold down, let alone make a financial and professional go at it. The long nights far away from home. Sometimes empty rooms where there may be more folks onstage than off. Vehicles breaking down to and from shows. Those situations when you stand there, looking up at the sky, wondering if this is the exact spot you’re meant to be at — in that moment, in that time, and in that place, either known and unknown.

A $740 grant from the Jim McRae Endowment for the Visual Arts will fuel efforts to create a Women’s History Trail in Macon County, celebrating the lives and accomplishments of Macon County women with a trail to “walk in her steps.”

It was déjà vu all over again in Maggie Valley, where the Board of Aldermen once again passed the controversial Brunch Bill ordinance by a vote of 3-2, just like it was on Dec. 11.

For all of its bluster and bikers and bling in the summertime, Maggie Valley can be one sleepy little town in the winter.

Traditionally, many businesses in the tiny settlement close during the off-season, a habit no doubt acquired during the heyday of Ghost Town in the Sky, the mountaintop amusement park that since 1965 closed every winter as well, until it closed for good a few years ago.