The Republican parties of Jackson, Swain and Transylvania counties, during a joint meeting, selected a replacement for Rep. Mike Clampitt (R-Swain), who passed away March 18 at age 71 following a prolonged battle with cancer.

A special performance, “North Carolina Symphony: Classical Favorites Celebrating America 250,” will take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 16, at the Bardo Arts Center on the campus of Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. 

Silicon Valley and Sylva are about as different as any two places can be, but they do share at least one thing in common. 

In Cupertino, billion-dollar office buildings rise within sight of tents and tarps. People sleep in cars or on bare ground backdropped by a landscape where extreme wealth and extreme poverty exist side by side. 

The question of who will control one of Jackson County’s most visible public assets is beginning to draw clear lines, and on March 26, Sylva’s Board of Commissioners stepped firmly onto one side. 

In a unanimous vote, commissioners adopted a resolution supporting continued control of the Jackson County Library Complex by the Jackson County Public Library, signaling opposition to any effort that would shift authority elsewhere. 

Full-time residents of Haywood, Jackson and Buncombe counties can save money playing golf at Lake Junaluska Golf Course with a seasonal rate discount card.

With the purchase of a $50 discount card, residents can save $9 on 18-holes of golf with a cart, $4.50 on nine-holes of golf with a cart and $5 off each nine-hole round walking the course. The discount is good May 1 through Oct. 31. 

Before the chants started and long before the first speaker took the microphone, people were already drifting toward one another — introducing themselves, comparing stories, soaking up the quiet relief of being in a crowd where, for once, they didn’t feel outnumbered. 

What emerged in those early moments of the March 28 “No Kings 3” rallies in Haywood and Jackson counties wasn’t just a protest but a kind of recognition, a temporary reordering of identity where private beliefs, often muted in churches, social circles or workplaces, could be expressed openly and without hesitation. 

The Community Table is in a small and unassuming brick building nestled between Sylva’s Municipal Drive and Poteet Park. It’s also a local lifeline. Every year, tens of thousands of community members visit the nonprofit — which since 1999 has envisioned a Jackson County in which no one “goes to bed hungry” — and are welcomed inside its doors. 

Two complaints filed with the North Carolina State Board of Elections against Jackson County Board of Elections Chair Bill Thompson were dismissed after they were given initial consideration at a March 25 meeting of the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

A pair of complaints have been filed against a Jackson County Board of Elections official, alleging he made inappropriate comments inside the Cullowhee polling site during early voting.

Mike Clampitt, the Republican State House representative for Swain, Jackson and Transylvania counties, has passed away at the age of 71.

The conservative legislator was particularly dedicated to wildlife conservation issues, as well as combatting impaired driving.