Financial challenges faced by rural hospitals show no sign of a turnaround, prompting MedWest hospital leaders to consider what was once a last resort.

MedWest hospitals are entertaining the idea of selling or merging with a larger hospital system that would bring a cash infusion to the table.

Lights, camera … Haywood County? 

During the past two years, a local reality show has become a phenomenon that’s being broadcast into homes across the country and beyond. The program is “Hillbilly Blood: A Hardscrabble Life,” and it features Western North Carolina outdoor survival experts Spencer Bolejack and Eugene Runkis.

Canton leaders are already asking how they can do better making Camp Hope available to the public after a lawsuit threatened to seize the 100-acre forested tract and rustic camp quarters away from the town.

The number of homeless school children in Haywood County has risen by nearly 20 percent this year compared to last.

The county uses the definition of homelessness contained in the McKinney-Vento Act — any individual who lacks a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence. That could mean that the children are staying with a relative temporarily, in a hotel, sleeping in a car or at a shelter.

Signs are businesses’ equivalent to nuclear weapons.

“Everybody wants them, but you have to agree to live with them,” said Waynesville Town Planner Paul Benson. “I think what we need is a consensus on what is a reasonable approach.”

Haywood County commissioners drew a line in the sand. The Haywood County School Board decided not to cross it. In a nutshell, that’s what happened. 

But what was interesting was the spoken and unspoken back and forth between the two elected bodies about taxes and spending in this era of tight budgets and tax-hike phobia.

It’s the sound of the ancient mountains, the unique people and rich culture of Southern Appalachia.

It’s the sound of Soldier’s Heart.

Filled with the musical attitudes of bluegrass, old-time country and early rock-n-roll, the band is influenced as much by Bill Monroe as The Band, as much by Johnny Cash as The Grateful Dead. It’s about creating something bigger than yourself, about embracing the deep roots of mountain music, incorporating it into modern times, and sharing it with those family and friends you care about most. 

The Haywood County Board of Education has concluded that the cost of putting officers in elementary schools is not worth raising property taxes.

Ghost Town in the Sky amusement park is scheduled to kick off its 2013 season Memorial Day weekend, thanks to the grit, passionate and determination of its new owner and longtime champion Alaska Pressley, who has slogged ahead with her dream despite hoops and hurdles.

Twice in one week, the mountainside along Holder Branch Road in Canton slid away — and that was twice too many for 34-year-old mother of three Dara Parker.