Holly Kays
Anybody who’s been to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the last few years has seen it — overflowing parking lots, mobbed trails and narrow mountain roads lined with cars. They’re visual symptoms of a national park bursting at the seams with unprecedented levels of visitation, hitting a highwater mark in 2021 at 14.1 million visits.
Maggie Calhoun Bowman’s family has spent the last 17 years making peace with the fact that they will never know how she ended up dead in a rain gully, covered over with leaves and a pink coat.
As Earth Day 2022 bloomed under one of spring’s sunniest skies yet, more than 150 people gathered on a concrete bridge spanning Hominy Creek just outside Canton to celebrate what Mayor Zeb Smathers termed a “gift of genesis” — the long-awaited opening of Chestnut Mountain Nature Park.
Two men are being held without bond in the Jackson County Detention Center after allegedly threatening a mass shooting in a group text conversation on social media.
The 1900s were just a few years along when a young man named Masahara Iizuka stepped on American soil for the first time. Around 26 years old, he’d arrived in California to pursue a career in engineering, having studied the subject at Meiji University back in Tokyo.
Lauded as a “historic game-changer” for wildlife conservation in the United States, the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act last week passed the House of Representatives in a 231-190 vote.
When Chief of Police Josh Taylor’s resignation becomes effective June 27, the Cherokee Indian Police Department’s Captain of Corrections Carla Neadeau will take the helm as interim police chief.
In a unanimous vote Friday, June 10, the Western Carolina University Board of Trustees selected Charlotte-based Jenkins Peer Architects to design renovation efforts at Moore Hall.
While nothing is certain until census day in September, transfer and full-time freshman enrollment for the upcoming fall semester at Western Carolina University appears strong and on par with pre-pandemic levels, Chancellor Kelli R. Brown told the WCU Board of Trustees June 10.
The N.C. House of Representatives last week condemned the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s controversial proposal to enact a parking fee with passage of a resolution that calls on Congress to block the plan.
Baker Perry’s family arrived in Haywood County almost by accident. They’d been living in Bolivia, where his parents operated a nonprofit today called Curamericas Global, when political problems forced them to leave. His grandparents had a house at Lake Junaluska, so not knowing where else to go, the Perry family moved in.
After just shy of a year on the job, Cherokee Police Chief Josh Taylor announced June 13 that he would resign from the post.
A bear has been euthanized after it broke into a tent occupied by a family of five and their dog, injuring a 3-year-old girl and her mother.
The return of dry conditions in Western North Carolina appears to have been temporary after massive rains last week erased all dry spots from the mountain region.
For years, Blue Ridge Parkway staff have been concerned that visitor behavior at Devils Courthouse, a popular overlook on the 469-mile road’s meander along the Haywood-Transylvania county line, is hurting the organisms that live there. A new volunteer program aims to combat the issue through education, one visitor at a time.
Preston Jacobsen has been selected as the next executive director of Haywood Waterways Association following the departure of longtime leader Eric Romaniszyn in February.
A bipartisan bill seeking to designate the Benton MacKaye Trail as a National Scenic Trail has been introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives following a push from the Benton MacKaye Trail Association that launched last year to award the 288-mile trail that prestigious designation.
In 1971, Payson and Aurelia Kennedy were living a successful, stable life in Atlanta. Payson was a librarian at Georgia Tech, Aurelia a schoolteacher. They had four kids, retirement funds, and the deed to their house.
In a narrow vote June 2, the Cherokee Tribal Council voted against a resolution to pursue purchase and removal of the aged Ela Dam — despite a unanimous vote Feb. 3 to have the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians lead a coalition to work toward dam removal and a unanimous vote from the Timber Committee May 16 to recommend the purchase resolution to Council.
A new archival facility, reimagined exhibit space and a website overhaul are all on the horizon for the Museum of the Cherokee Indian as Shana Bushyhead Condill enters her second year leading the organization.
A five-part series exploring free speech and free expression on college campuses wrapped up last week in the University of North Carolina Board of Governors’ Committee on University Governance with a report on the results of a survey examining how those issues play out on UNC campuses.
Mark Singleton was mingling with Outdoor Industry Association colleagues at a 2004 reception in Washington, D.C., when he heard that American Whitewater was looking for a new executive director. It was a moment of destiny. Singleton, now retiring after 18 years leading the organization, had an instant gut response to the news.
A crack in an amphitheater canopy column at the Cherokee Indian Fair Grounds could lead to a complete overhaul of the community gathering site — and a two-year relocation of all events typically held there.
In global conversations about climate change, carbon neutrality and green energy, nuclear power plays a pivotal role. It’s responsible for one-fifth of the United States’ annual electricity supply and accounts for more than half of its low-carbon energy . Duke Energy customers in North Carolina get about half their power from nuclear energy.
The U.S. Forest Service is now requiring anybody who stays overnight in Panthertown Valley to use a bear-resistant container or place odiferous items in one of three bear lockers installed in the popular backcountry area. More bear lockers will be installed in the future.
Sandwiched between the flowing waters of Raven Fork and the final southern stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway, a new championship-caliber disc golf course in Cherokee beckons to locals and tourists alike.
Just three days after protesters gathered on the courthouse lawn in Waynesville to demonstrate their support for legal abortion, a nonprofit with a different perspective on the issue that has roiled the nation since May 2 — when a leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court decision showed that the landmark Roe v. Wade precedent is in danger — opened on the other side of Depot Street in downtown Waynesville.
Haywood County Medical Director Dr. Mark Jaben is sounding the alarm that COVID-19 case counts are increasing again, and people should take precautions to avoid contracting or spreading the virus as summer begins.
Henry Owl was the first person of color, and the first Native American, to attend the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Now, 94 years after he first enrolled, a building has been named in his honor — on May 13, UNC’s student affairs building was officially christened the Henry Owl Building.
Preston Jacobsen, a man some know better as the Local Yokel Weather guy, comes by his love of meteorology honestly.
According to public documents filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a decision on whether to pursue removal of the Ela Dam in Swain County is coming up in the next month or so.
One of the world’s top amusement park companies, France-based Puy du Fou, is partnering with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to create a “themed spectacle” centering Cherokee history at the 200-acre property under development by Kituwah LLC, at Exit 407 of Interstate 40 in Sevier County.
Tribal Council voted last week to spend $15 million for the tribal government to acquire 95 acres of trust land for housing and cannabis production.
One of the world’s top amusement park companies will partner with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to create a “themed spectacle” centering Cherokee history at the 200-acre property under development by Kituwah LLC at Exit 407 of Interstate 40 in Sevier County, Tennessee.
With more than 600 people and 70 speakers from 24 states gathering for a four-day event, the 2022 Outdoor Economy Conference held April 4-7 in Cherokee is difficult to sum up in a sentence, a paragraph or even a conversation.
When the first transmission lines began popping up in the mountains 100 years ago, only one type of power provided the energy traveling through them — hydroelectric.
Cherokee Central School was in the home stretch of a $22 million construction and renovation project on the 13-year-old campus when contractors found an unwelcome surprise — dampness on the walls of the old central office building, and inside them, mold.
As Earth Day bloomed under one of spring’s sunniest skies yet, more than 150 people gathered on a concrete bridge spanning Hominy Creek just outside Canton to celebrate what Mayor Zeb Smathers termed a “gift of genesis” — the long-awaited opening of Chestnut Mountain Nature Park .
The decades-old model used to determine state funding requests for University of North Carolina System schools is set to change following a vote the UNC Board of Governors took during its April 7 meeting in Cullowhee. While the current formula looks only at total enrollment when determining funding, the new model will consider performance-based measures, as well.
A parking fee proposed for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has earned support from organizations ranging from the National Parks Conservation Association to the North Shore Cemetery Association — but also opposition from a growing list of governments and elected officials.
Since its official opening in 1934, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has been free to enter, to park, to hike, to explore. The intervening years have made free access a core principle of the park’s identity, cherished by residents of gateway communities like Bryson City and Gatlinburg — many of whom are descendants of the families forced from their homes to make way for the park’s creation.
In a special-called meeting Wednesday, April 13, Tribal Council approved a plan from EBCI Holdings, Inc. , to bid on an opportunity to build two new out-of-state casinos.
Since July 2021, institutions across the University of North Carolina system have been experiencing massive increases in employee turnover — and Western Carolina University is no exception.
Jutting off from the left side of a typically busy Blue Ridge Parkway pull-off overlooking Mills River, an unassuming dirt path dips into the woods and winds its way east, just out of view of the famed scenic drive.
