The Marianna Black Library in Bryson City will be hosting The Wonderful World of Bees from 11 a.m. to noon Saturday, July 19. Fred Crawford, local beekeeper, will be presenting on bee conservation and pollination.

In this day and age, when the world seems to be one chaotic situation after another, all while the incessant white noise and constant distraction in the digital age peels away our sanity, I find a genuine urge to head for the mountains and hit the trails. So, I do so, happily. 

Swain County Sheriff Curtis Cochran has been charged with several crimes after allegedly soliciting two women for sexual acts and is now suspended from office.

Cochran, who was first elected to office in 2006, was charged on June 27 with one count of sexual battery, soliciting a prostitute and assault on a female, all misdemeanors, as well as felonious restraint. In addition, Cochran has been charged with violations of the Cherokee Code; specifically, two counts of oppression in office and one count of abusive sexual contact.

It’s the week paddlers from across the state and even the nation look forward to all year; it’s also the week Swain County resident Tom Womble has been working toward for a half-year as the “boots on the ground,” planner. 

Finally face to face amid a simmering standoff over library governance and subjectively inappropriate material in a regional library system that’s served locals for more than 80 years, Jackson County commissioners spent nearly three hours in a joint meeting with the Fontana Regional Library Board of Trustees on June 19 learning just how much they don’t know about running a library.

With the help and cooperation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the North Shore Cemetery Association will be hosting decorations at Bone Valley and Hall cemeteries on Sunday, June 22 with the first boat shuttle leaving at 8:30 a.m. and the last boat leaving at 10 a.m. from the Cable Cove Boating Access Area near Fontana Village. 

My office is cool and our building on Montgomery Street in Waynesville is quiet. Almost everyone who works at The Smoky Mountain News has gone home for a few minutes to tend to kids, dogs, wives and husbands as it’s one hour before the annual first Friday in June birthday bash celebrating another year of putting out this weekly print newspaper (and now a seven-day-per-week news website).  

When Hurricane Helene slammed into Western North Carolina in late 2024, public attention focused on damaged homes, washed-out roads and the rigid bureaucracy meant to help with recovery, but the widespread physical damage was closely followed by a slow-moving economic catastrophe unfolding among the region’s small businesses, farmers and local governments. Now, eight months later, help may finally be on the way. 

Republican Mike Clampitt, currently serving his fourth term as District 119 House Rep., tells The Smoky Mountain News he plans to run for reelection in 2026 despite recent health concerns. In April, Clampitt announced that he had been diagnosed with a rare, serious form of blood and bone marrow cancer known as Myelodysplastic syndrome. 

Prior to its appropriation by communist regimes, International Workers Day — May Day — was first commemorated in honor of Chicago workers killed while striking for an eight-hour workday.