Newly elected Haywood County Sheriff Bill Wilke stepped into some big shoes following the retirement of longtime Sheriff Greg Christopher, but earlier this year Wilke showed Haywood County, along with some of its most vulnerable residents, that he wears some pretty damn big shoes himself. 

Maggie Valley is gonna Maggie Valley.

It comes with the territory. To win a seat on that town’s board of aldermen one has to endure some contentious moments, likely over a residential development or (gasp) a park. 

Not all heroes wear capes.

At least not Amanda Seay. She seems more the utility pants and boots type. 

Haywood County has been recognized with the prestigious Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting by the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada (GFOA). 

The disloyalty card is here and it’s, in a sense, exactly what it sounds like. 

As technology evolves, every entity and industry finds new and innovative ways to use those advances to improve their operations.

Editor’s Note: Since first rolling into Haywood County in August 2012 to start work as the arts and entertainment editor for The Smoky Mountain News, Garret K. Woodward has been extensively documenting banjo players around our backyard.

In the mid-1960s, when Bill Allsbrook was a med school student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, he decided to pick up the banjo. 

It’s novel, it’s trendy and it’s a great way to become fabulously wealthy — or lose everything you have — but the nuisances associated with the production of cryptocurrency are prompting local governments to regulate them before it’s too late. 

It’s been just under a year since Bill Wilke became Haywood County’s sheriff, after longtime popular incumbent, Greg Christopher, decided to call it a career.