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. 

Lake Junaluska is now offering a new summer swim voucher instead of its traditional Summer Activity Pass to improve swimmers’ experience and value. The new vouchers — similar to a punch pass — can be purchased in increments of 10 to 50 visits, with unused visits rolling over to the next year.

Single day passes can still be purchased for $10 each per person. 

Lake Junaluska and Wilderness Trail, a long-time adventure and backpacking ministry, have joined forces to launch a new satellite program at Lake Junaluska June 6–11.

Based in Troutdale, Virginia, with an office at First United Methodist Church of Waynesville, Wilderness Trail has a 39-year history of leading backpacking trips for middle school and high school students in the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area in Virginia.

The Corneille Bryan Native Garden at Lake Junaluska is offering wildflower walks this spring led by members of the garden’s Board of Directors. The walks will take place at 1 p.m. on Wednesdays, with the exception of one Monday walk, March 30. Participants should meet at the top of Stuart Circle. 

The Human Resources Department at Lake Junaluska will host a recruitment event from noon to 5 p.m. Thursday, March 5; 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, March 19; and noon to 5 p.m. Thursday, April 9, in Room 202 of Harrell Center.  

These events are for potential employees to learn more about Lake Junaluska’s open positions for full- and part-time seasonal opportunities and to interview on the spot. 

Lenten worship services will be held each Wednesday during Lent at Lake Junaluska’s historic Memorial Chapel and include a Maundy Thursday and Good Friday service.

The services, which will include communion, will be at noon and again at 6:30 p.m. starting on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 18, and continue weekly until March 25. Services on Maundy Thursday, April 2, and on Good Friday, April 3, will be at 6:30 p.m. only. 

Join the fun and the community at Lake Junaluska Cleanup Day held from 9-11 a.m. Saturday, March 7, at Lake Junaluska.

The cleanup will focus on clearing debris that has collected along the shorelines of and entrance roadways to Lake Junaluska. Volunteers should dress accordingly for the weather and potentially muddy conditions. All work will be done outside, rain or shine. 

A new EMS base in Haywood County is now operational. 

The base was completed earlier this year. It is part of efforts by Haywood County leaders to improve emergency services coverage and response times. The base, centrally located near the intersection of Russ Avenue and Mauney Cove Road, should do just that with close proximity to Lake Junaluska, Maggie Valley and Jonathan Creek. 

At age 66, legendary singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Darrell Scott is having a career rebirth of sorts. 

Though he’s always been known as a prolific and productive artist — whether in Nashville musical circles as a performer and producer or through endless touring from coast-to-coast and beyond — this current chapter of his storied life has evolved into a full-circle kind of thing, one where Scott is reevaluating just what it means to create and cultivate in your autumn years. 

Normally, when I’m interviewing storied Haywood County musician Darren Nicholson, we’d be talking either about an upcoming gig of his or a new album coming down the pipeline. But, today, we’re talking all things Christmas trees. 

“Well, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Nicholson tells me when I ask him about how to pick out the perfect tree for the holidays.