By Chris Cooper

I’ve seen Danielle Howle completely abandon the stage and microphone in the middle of a song and wander through the audience while singing, beating on the tables and bar counter as her only accompaniment.

Leonard Cohen

What can you say about a man in his 70’s who is an international sex symbol in Paris, Berlin, London and Dublin? (He doesn’t do badly in Melbourne, Madrid and Stockholm either.) I think I’ll call him a role model. Every time his hoarse, whiskey-marinated vocal chords tells me how he went home with Suzanne (to her place by the river) and “touched her perfect body with his mind,” I vibrate like a tuning fork. Hell, I don’t even know what he means by that, but I’m set a-quiver anyway. Let’s talk a little about vintage Cohen.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

This May 2 voters in Jackson County are faced with choosing a board of county commissioners that will enact and enforce ways to shape growth in the coming years.

One hot button issue seemingly is off the table — zoning. All of the candidates interviewed are against the controlled development measure, often billed as the nail in the coffin of any electoral platform.

By Sarah Kucharski

The heated race for sheriff in Jackson County is closing in on the May 2 primary date in which voters will decide which candidate, incumbent Jimmy Ashe or former sheriff Jim Cruzan, will head up the agency for the next four years.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Democratic candidates running for two District 2 seats on the Macon County board of commissioners squared off at a League of Women Voters meeting last Thursday (April 13) in a growth debate that pitted newcomers against natives.

Back-buying

Have you ever noticed that people, for the most part, solidify their tastes — in music, and clothing, and what they like to eat — at a certain time in their younger years?

I don’t mean that we can’t change and broaden our horizons, but that a lot of folks don’t, after that first rush of choices.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

With growth on the forefront of Macon County’s election issues, commissioner candidates have staked out their stance on land use planning. A majority of candidates have recommended taking a cautious approach — avoiding zoning but enacting ordinances that would address more than just health and safety concerns such as those affecting viewsheds and land preservation.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

They’ve said they want to strengthen the economy. They’ve said they want to help bring in higher paying jobs. They agree that doing it will require local schoolchildren to get the best education possible.

Three candidates are running for Swain County chairman in the Democratic Primary.

Three cheers for crime. If moralists have their way, it will only get worse.

How coincidental that within three short weeks of Justice Sam Alito’s long-anticipated confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, the anti-abortion lobby of South Dakota suddenly convinced state lawmakers to pass a sweeping bill outlawing abortion in all instances, except to save the life of a mother. Gov. Michael Rounds has indicated he will sign the bill into law. How little these people know.

White-tail deer will soon start scouting the fields and forests for hiding places to give birth to their fawns this spring.

After giving birth, the doe leaves the fawn lying on the ground and continues foraging for the crucial calories she needs to nurse. The doe returns to the fawn several times a day to nurse and clean it, staying only a few minutes each time before leaving again to seek food.

Five marinas on Fontana Lake have been certified as Clean Marinas in recognition of their efforts to preserve and protect water quality in the Tennessee River system by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates the dam at Fontana Lake for hydropower.

By Michael Beadle

Helen Keller is an unruly child. She eats food with her fingers, drops her silverware on purpose, kicks and whines, and throws temper tantrums. She also happens to be blind, deaf and mute with very little way to communicate with others.

First, an admission: I didn’t get to talk to Kenny Wayne Shepherd at all. No interview or anything.

Kind of a bummer, because it means I couldn’t ask him how it feels to look back on a performing and recording career that began while he was still in his mid-teens. His debut, 1997’s Ledbetter Heights, went certified platinum, and both Trouble Is ... and Live On earned Grammy nominations in 1999.

Every year when the local tailgate farmers markets begin opening, it’s a good time to ponder just what it means to be able to hop down to some designated spot and buy produce, flowers and other goods fresh from a local farm. More to the point, perhaps, we would do well to imagine what it would be like if we couldn’t.

The sight of bobbing caravans of inflatable kayaks floating down Richland Creek through Waynesville will return on Saturday, May 6 when Whitewater of Waynesville, a.k.a. WOW, opens back up for its second season.

Climbing the 80 rickety feet of metal and wood got my adrenaline flowing a bit.

Once up there, I found it to be a precarious perch, especially since the plywood floor was rotten and some of it missing. I was in the old fire tower atop Mt. Sterling in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. From my vantage inside the tower, I had a great view of most of the northern section of the main crest of the Smokies, which is also the North Carolina/Tennessee state line and the route of the Appalachian Trail.

By Marshall Frank • Columnist

Time to send a message to our government leaders. Our democracy is ruled by the will of the people. It appears our president, and our senators and congressional representatives from both parties have forgotten that.

By Lew Garnett

Without his ever knowing it, Blaine Richardson was one of my heroes.

It was a recent breezy Saturday at our karate school, where over the past few years I’d fought a sharp contest between my 50-year-old body and my 20-year-old expectations.

Beach Trips

My first vacation of any real length is coming up in two weeks’ time. My boyfriend and I are heading south to Delray Beach, Fla. — a place picked solely for being home to the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, and for having the word “beach” in its name.

By Chris Cooper

There’s this thing that can happen when you research an artist for a review. I’m not sure what the technical term for it is, but it goes something like this: you find that many people (usually well respected peers, in this case Rodney Crowell or Todd Snider) have incredibly good things to say about the artist and their latest album.

By Michael Beadle

There’s so much art to see in downtown Waynesville, gallery owners are now offering to keep their businesses open extra hours.

For the first Friday of the month starting this May, the Waynesville Gallery Association is kicking off the fourth season of Art After Dark. The latest evening stroll begins this Friday, May 5, with live music, free snacks and drinks, opening exhibits, and meet-the-artist receptions in a dozen art galleries that line Main Street and adjoining Depot Street.

Local writer Jeanne Nutter, 72, of the Caney Fork Community took first place in the Jackson County Extension and Community Association’ s recent Cultural Arts Contest.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

In a landslide win, Jackson County Sheriff Jimmy Ashe held off challenger and former sheriff Jim Cruzan in what many have called the election’s most heated race.

Former North Carolina Highway Patrolman C.D. Jenkins emerged from a field of three Democrats to win the Macon County Sheriff’s primary and the opportunity to run against incumbent Sheriff Robert Holland.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Sylva residents have decided — it’s time for a good stiff drink.

Voters approved mixed beverage sales 257 to 182. Only 34 voters chose not to cast ballots on the measure.

Political newcomer Ronnie Beale and incumbent Bob Simpson beat two other Democrats in Tuesday’s primary and will move on to the Nov. 7 general election against two Republicans.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Jackson County will usher in a new board of commissioners committed to addressing the county’s growth issues with the election of pro-planning candidates William Shelton, Tom Massie, Joe Cowan and Mark Jones in Tuesday’s primary election.

By Michael Beadle

Incumbent Kirk Kirkpatrick and newcomers Charles “Skeeter” Curtis and Bill Upton have won the top three slots in the Haywood County commissioner Democratic primary. Incumbent commission chairman Mark Swanger and former commissioner Bill Noland were the fourth- and fifth-place vote-getters, respectively, according to unofficial results at the Haywood County Board of Elections.

• Costs — Before you book a reservation at a B&B, be sure you check the fine print and know the total cost of your stay. Inns have room taxes that are added on to the bill and there may be additional charges.

By Michael Beadle

Western North Carolina prides itself as a tourist destination — the mountain getaway where you can hike and shop and rest among the soothing sounds of nature.

By Dawn Gilchrist-Young

(Editor’s note: Writer Dawn Gilchrist-Young is conducting a series of interviews with mountain natives to gauge their reaction to changes taking place in the region and their memories of the past. These stories will appear intermittently in The Smoky Mountain News.)

When you head up Alarka from N.C. 19/74, you see a microcosm of western North Carolina — old home places with mountain pastures, high end real estate development signs every quarter mile, and enough trash to discourage even the most dedicated “Adopt-a-Highway“ group. Like the rest of the region, upper Alarka is a combination of stunning natural beauty, abject disregard for litter laws, and unbridled greed.

By Michael Beadle

Last week, Cherokee students found themselves stretching, swooning, thrusting imaginary swords and spouting 400-year-old Elizabethan English.

All that without textbooks or boring lectures about William Shakespeare being the greatest playwright ever.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

From behind the waist-high counter that divides his studio and gallery in half, potter Mark Karner pauses for a moment to extend a hand and make introductions before getting back to work applying handles to four planters just beginning to dry.

I’m going to take a brief detour from the regular album/show review format and present five CDs that I feel are worth seeking out. The idea started out as a “top 5” of the last year, but apparently I got a little sidetracked. Thus, it evolved into what you’re reading now: a roundup of underappreciated aural gems from the past, well, decade or so.

Spring

One diversion in my life this past month was the weather. Surely this spring is among the most gorgeous of the last two decades. There is a lush, warm quality to the landscape this season, and the very air and sunlight seem to have combined to form a sort of chamber orchestra of beauty from the mountains around us. So if you haven’t looked out your window lately, I’d start there.

Quick Draw in the Mountains raised a record amount of money this year off a live and silent auction that supports budding artists and art in the schools.

When the Rev. Beverly Brock of Canton was diagnosed with cancer, doctors immediately offered her a high percentage cure. Most people would leap at such an option, but to Brock, the cure seemed much worse than the disease.

The American Forest and Paper Association recently announced that Macon County resident Joel Ostroff has received the 2006 Ed Hurley Memorial Paper Recycling Award. The award recognizes an individual who has had a significant and positive influence in advocating paper recycling.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Turn to the classified pages in any Western North Carolina newspaper and the employment section bears similar traits. Jobs listed tend to be those in the growing service sector — housekeepers, night shift hotel clerks, secretaries, wait staff, retail sales. And listings under the “professional” heading are sparse.

By Lee Shelton

Those who stated that Haywood County Commission Chairman Mark Swanger, who lost in last week’s primary election, was “over managing” or interfering are wrong. He was just doing the job that he was elected to do by the public and the majority of the board.

By Michael Beadle

Norma Brown knows how hard it is to get legal citizenship in the United States.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

This summer residents of Franklin will vote on whether to allow restaurants to sell alcoholic beverages, following a town board decision to hold a referendum on the issue.

By Michael Beadle

When Lori McLeod first started teaching English as a Second Language at Tuscola High School in Haywood County, she had two students. They didn’t constitute enough to make a class, so she would pull them out of classes for tutoring.

Rhett Langston with the Buncombe County Parks and Recreation Department has been selected from a pool of 63 applicants to become the new Waynesville Recreation Director.

The Haywood County Health Department has asked for state assistance to conduct tests in two subdivisions after soil samples from a vacant lot tested positive for lead, arsenic and other pesticides similar to those detected in Barber Orchard, which was declared a Superfund site.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

A Dillsboro business owner’s recent attempt to purchase and develop land near the Great Smoky Mountains Railrod tracks has renewed a longstanding debate over railroad right-of-way issues and property owners’ rights.

By Stephanie Wampler • Guest Columnist

Multi-tasking? Not me. Or so I’ve always thought.

By Darcia Bondurant

I would like to think of myself as a healthy, 46-year-old woman. My weight, blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol are all good. I know I need to exercise more, but who doesn’t?

The U.S. Forest Service has been working on a master recreation plan for Panthertown Valley for more than two years now.