Joey Del Bosque scrolled through his appointment book for the week; time slot after time slot was filled, with just enough room to breathe.

Belle On Main, a salon and massage parlor along South Main Street in Waynesville, opened in May and quickly started picking up business.

The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled last week that state lawmakers indeed have the power to ban video gambling in its various forms, including the latest reincarnation known as video sweepstakes.

What to do with a hulking, four-story, run-down, decades-old, now-empty former hospital in Waynesville?

The Haywood County Board of Commissioners have postponed voting on a controversial flag display policy until after the New Year, but that did not keep Confederate flag supporters from protesting outside the county courthouse Monday.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians was accidentally overbilled $2.7 million for IT service over several years by the company that manages Harrah’s Casino.

Two years after being saved from imminent death in the nick of time, WBHN began broadcasting regularly in Bryson City last week.

Lloyd Brown, pastor of Spruce Grove Baptist Church, bought the Swain County radio station in 2010 and has been slowly working to revive the AM frequency.

Western Carolina University’s Board of Trustees approved an 8 percent increase in tuition next academic year — much to the vexation of its student body.

“We came in here, and it was not an easy decision,” said Trustee Grace Battle. “I think everybody in here struggled.”

The North Carolina Department of Transportation is in the middle of buying nearly 40 Haywood County properties that stand in the way of its plans for redesigning “malfunction junction” — the interchange where Lowe’s and Shoney’s are — but there are still a few holdouts.

Most Everett Street business owners support Swain County’s pending investment in the privately owned Great Smoky Mountain Railroad, but some have questions about the mechanics of exactly how the deal will work.

The ongoing Confederate flag tug-of-war in Haywood County took an unusual turn last week.

Maggie Valley’s ABC Board has put any plans to close one of its two liquor stores on the backburner for now.

“It is doing better than we thought it was initially,” said Colin Edwards, an ABC Board member.

Haywood County Schools will lose about $30,000 in yearly revenue now that the Waynesville ABC Board has decided build a second liquor store.

The town shares a cut of profits from liquor sales with the county and law enforcement. Haywood County in turn shares its cut of ABC profits with school system.

Construction on a new ABC store in Waynesville could begin as early as January at the cost of $1.3 million, including the land.

Twice a year, Dorothy Posey arrives for her job at Mountain Credit Union in Cherokee knowing one thing: the lines will be long.

Not the sort of long by normal bank standards, like the 10-person-deep line that might form during the peak of Friday afternoon payday traffic. But so long that the line from the teller’s counter will snake out the credit union’s front door and continue to pile up outside.

When a strange man approached an 11-year-old girl in Waynesville’s Walmart more than a week ago and asked her to take off her clothes, police say the young girl did the right thing — she refused.

Ryan Scot Davis, 48, was charged with taking indecent liberties with a child following an incident at the Waynesville Walmart on Saturday, Nov. 24.

For the elderly, disabled and carless residents of Haywood County, the public transit bus is an indispensable resource that keeps them mobile.

Patty Atkinson took a short break from helping the constant flow of customers at a local family pharmacy in the heart of Hazelwood to talk about the evolution of the community around her — from a bustling blue collar factory town to a mostly deserted streetscape to a quickly changing, thriving pocket of Waynesville.

A $2.5 million expansion at Pisgah High School in Canton will relieve chronic overcrowding and a classroom shortage that forces some teachers to spend their days as “floaters.”

Haywood County is making plans to bring recycling operations back in-house — a move that would eventually mean dollar signs for the county.

Traveling around the world, taking down bad guys and helping exonerate the wrongly accused, Steve Moore’s life sounds glamorous — and he will agree that he has loved every minute.

It’s a dreaded intersection for anyone who frequents downtown Waynesville behind the wheel. You slowly edge the nose of your car forward, inching past the stop sign and bit-by-bit into the oncoming lanes, straining forward in your seat in hopes of getting a clearer view — until finally, biting the bullet you bolt across.

Waynesville seafood restaurant Maggie’s Galley will soon be forced to move from its longtime location at the intersection of Howell Mill Road and Russ Avenue to make way for a road-widening project.

Sequoyah National Golf Course, a signature course built and operated by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, is slowly being weaned from tribal subsidies that have helped prop up its operations since it opened several years ago.

This month, tribal council voted not to extend a $500,000 line of credit Sequoyah golf course has through the tribe to help cover budget shortfalls and emergency expenses — symbolizing tribal leaders’ sincerity in seeing the course become self-sufficient.

Ryan Ott, director of golf at Sequoyah National Golf Course, asked tribal council earlier this month to extend the course’s line of credit through fiscal year 2015. The line of credit was scheduled to expire in the fall of 2013.

“It is strictly there for, in case of emergencies,” Ott told the council. In the past, it has been used to pay for utilities or paychecks when cash flow was strained, Ott said.

The line of credit was originally setup to cover Sequoyah National’s budget shortfalls, but as it moves closer to profitability, the credit became a fall back for emergencies. The golf course is still not breaking even, however.

“We are getting closer though,” Ott said.

In addition to the line of credit, the tribe gives the golf course an annual contribution to help keep it afloat. Last year, the amount was $1.2 million.

The course was built both to flesh out Cherokee’s tourism offerings and to provide tribal members with a form of recreation that was lacking.

Last year, tribal council members said they could not justify subsidizing the golf course for too much longer when other operations were forced to take budget cuts. Voting not to extend the expiration date on the line of credit shows tribal leaders intend to stick to their guns and start cutting off financial support for the course.

“After having the budget season that we’ve had, I don’t feel like we can support this,” Tribal Council Member B. Ensley said at the meeting earlier this month.

Without the line of credit, if an emergency arose, tribal council would have to vote to allocate additional money to the golf course.

“If they come to the tribe, the tribe is going to have to find money somewhere,” said Vice Chief Larry Blythe. The line of credit allowed the course to have access to emergency money without coming to tribal council first.

About this time last year, Ott said that the golf course was still about five years away from breaking even. In addition to the start-up costs associated with building the course, maintaining the luscious golf course year-round takes quite a bit of green.

Golf is all about the experience — skimping could cause a course to lose business. In late July, the golf course began selling beer, which has helped business.

“It’s definitely an experience enhancer,” Ott said.

Drinking alcohol is a common activity for recreational golfers. Other golf courses in Western North Carolina sell alcohol somewhere on the country club’s premises or allow people to bring alcohol onto the course with them.

In addition to adding alcohol sales, Principal Chief Michell Hicks in August made first mention of the possibility of building housing around Sequoyah National. Typically, golf courses are part of a larger business, such as a resort or real estate development. Profits made from home sales or room rentals are used to cover the costs associated with upkeep of the course itself.

A riverside park in Swain County was plastered with graffiti two weeks ago, with several cans of spray paint unleashed on the public outdoor recreation area.

Nothing went un-tagged, even the trees were spray-painted at the Old N.C. 288 park, where picnic tables, a shelter, boat launch and fishing docks overlook the Tuckasegee River as it flows into Lake Fontana.

Six months after meeting with Haywood County residents to discuss ways to improve the community, a group called GroWNC is returning to the county to present various scenarios for the region’s future growth.

Wells Funeral Home and Cremation Services in Waynesville has purchased a large building downtown that once housed The Mountaineer Publishing Company’s printing press.

The old press building is located on Wall Street directly behind The Mountaineer’s newspaper office and adjacent to the funeral home.

The two businesses negotiated for a couple of months before the funeral home eventually bought the land and building three weeks ago for $365,000.

The Mountaineer Publishing Company no longer operates its own printing press and instead outsources the printing of its newspapers to a large commercial press in the region, a growing trend within the newspaper industry.

“We just don’t need it,” Jonathan Key, publisher of The Mountaineer, said of the decision to sell off the building. The building had not been used for more than a year.

The funeral home has no concrete plans for the vacant building as of now.

“Our plans are not carved in stone at this time,” said Wells Greeley, owner of the funeral home and a Waynesville alderman.

But, Greeley said that it could be used for an expansion at some point in the future.

“We are weighing our options,” Greeley said, calling the lot a “good piece of property.”

The purchase will also ensure that Greeley controls what goes into that space, preventing the possibility of non-compatible business moving in next door.

The Haywood County Board of Commissioners seem poised to adopt a policy that would severely limit the display of Confederate flags on county property.

More than 50 years after Cherokee veteran Charles George died in the Korean War, military medals belonging to the private first class were finally welcomed home Monday — and along with them, the two young boys responsible for their return.

Bryson City town leaders have given a verbal OK to the idea of building a new library — but the when, where and how are all still unknown.

“The library is an essential service for the community,” said Chester Bartlett, chairman of Marianna Black Library’s Board of Trustees and leader of a committee charged with taking the lead on the new library. “We feel there is a huge need for this.”

A Thursday meeting with Maggie Valley business owners and area leaders will serve as the first test to see if the valley can successfully come together for the town’s common good.

During early voting this year, some voters in Haywood County found themselves waiting up to an hour to cast their ballot. But when Election Day rolled around, many walked right into their precinct without delay.

The remnants of Haywood Community College’s old sawmill were still smoldering Tuesday after a fire the night before destroyed most of the building.

Covering everything from bugs’ butts and food for animals to animal tongues and eyes, EarlyLight Books has found a special section of the book world to occupy — science books for toddlers.

Republican Mark Meadows won the 11th U.S. Congressional seat with more than 57 percent of the votes Tuesday.

“We’re obviously humbled by the confidence that everybody has placed in us,” Meadows said.

Commissioners Mark Swanger and Kevin Ensley — a Democrat and Republican respectively — won reelection to the Haywood County Board of Commissioners Tuesday. 

The tribal council for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians recently approved a $28 million upgrade for the sewage treatment plant, which will double the capacity and accommodate demand fueled in part by growth of Harrah’s Cherokee Casino.

Eight new monitoring wells will be drilled an old landfill in Haywood County, the latest step in an ongoing effort to track and measure groundwater contamination emanating from the now-closed landfill.

When Kevin Seagel slipped into Swain County’s courthouse during a mock exercise brandishing a pretend weapon, it only took emergency responders one minute to find him, but by then, he had already killed several people.

Swain County may heighten security measures at the courthouse and administration building to stop guns and weapons from being carried into the lobby.

In an effort to extinguish delinquent vehicle taxes, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a law that will combine vehicle property tax and car registration into one bill.

When it goes into effect, drivers can’t get their tags renewed until they’ve also paid their vehicle property taxes.

A committee of Waynesville residents is putting the community in the term “community policing.”

Maggie Valley is trying to figure out what exactly it wants to be.

Maggie once reigned supreme in the mountain tourist trade, witnessed by the row of restaurants, bars, hotels and gift shops that line the valley’s main drag.

In a debate that focused on everything from Iran and health care to equal pay for women and earmarks, Congressional candidates Republican Mark Meadows and Democrat Hayden Rogers pushed back from the similarities that people draw between the two conservatives.

Looking at Mark Meadows today, it is difficult to imagine him as a self-described “fat nerd” wandering the high school halls in Tampa Bay, Fla.

The Republican candidate for the 11th U.S. Congressional District has come a long way during his life — both in his self-made success and actual distance.

Hayden Rogers grew up hunting, fishing and playing the chasing game ‘Fox and the Hound’ in Robbinsville.

Touting himself as the all-around Western North Carolinian, Rogers reminisced about his childhood in rural Graham County, just a short jaunt from his grandparent’s house.

Both considered conservatives within their own political parties, Republican Mark Meadows and Democrat Hayden Rogers have more in common than just a handful of political similarities.

Both are Christian, came out of humble beginnings to find success, married their high school sweethearts, have two children and are running for the U.S. House in North Carolina’s 11th District. The list could continue.

Haywood Community College employees earlier this month presented the board of trustees with a list of concerns about the college’s protracted search for a new president.

The community college began looking for a president after retiring president Rose Johnson announced her resignation last year. The search made it all the way to three finalists, who visited the college and met with community members as well as HCC employees.