Haywood County’s Black Generational Wealth committee is the product of a long-dissolved 2020 book club. 

That year, a white police officer murdered an unarmed Black man named George Floyd with the assistance of three other officers.  Like many COVID-era racial justice collectives, the book club was a response to the horrific act perpetrated in Minneapolis, said committee chair Nancy Thomason.  

When the U.S. Department of Agriculture first announced its intention to rescind the Roadless Rule in August 2025, Southern Environmental Law Center staff received around 8,000 mailed public comments opposing to the decision, which they stuffed into boxes and delivered to the Forest Service. 

In all, the agency received 625,930 public comments, despite a historically short comment window. 

Friends, family and allies dressed in red, some with signs like “no more stolen sisters” and “gun violence is on the rise,” gathered on May 5 at Oconaluftee Island Park. They’d shown up for the Qualla Boundary’s seventh annual missing and murdered Indigenous relatives/people march, coinciding with national week of action events across the country in communities impacted by what some scholars describe as a “a modern form of genocide.”  

Historically, Haywood County Schools has run a tight ship in the face of slim county appropriations. Last year, it pulled from its own fund balance to finance operations; in 2022, it cut 36 positions. 

But for the coming academic year, Superintendent Trevor Putnam made a dire case for additional funding. Any further cuts, he said, would deny HCS students a quality education.

Even ahead of calculating the budget, Swain County’s Fiscal Year 2026-2027 costs are likely to be higher, said County Manager Lottie Barker. 

“It’s across the board, different depending on what the department has asked for, as well as special appropriations.

On May 1, several dozen students, faculty and community members gathered beside Western Carolina University’s “Catafount” in Cullowhee for a May Day action celebrating the history of labor organizing — and demanding the rights workers have yet to be afforded. 

May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day, is an expression of worker solidarity in honor of those who lost their lives in the aftermath of Chicago’s Haymarket affair. 

An April 25 Qualla Boundary town hall about data centers, featuring three speakers instrumental in the fight against hyperscale expansion on Indigenous land, both generated support for a tabled tribal council moratorium and explained the myriad ways these facilities can harm environments and cultures alike.  

Haywood Community College President Shelley White got little pushback for the additional $268,000 she has asked for from county commissioners in HCC’s 2026-27 budget proposal, but Haywood County Schools Superintendent Trevor Putnam’s request for an extra $3 million encountered some resistance. 

On April 24, the N.C. Center for the Advancement of Teaching celebrated the groundbreaking of its 51-bedroom residential expansion at its main campus in Cullowhee. The capital project is underway thanks to a $30 million, five-year grant from the General Assembly and it also includes renovations to NCCAT’s existing facility. The expansion is  expected to partially open by August and the project should be completed by August 2027, according to Adam Caruthers, an architect working on the expansion. 

A special April 9 Tribal Council session was entirely dedicated to a single resolution meant to protect a general contractor by asserting an easement for the right-of-way over leased Qualla Boundary properties involving “a reasonable and common ingress, egress and utilities.”

While the resolution reiterated a clause that had already been established, the meeting exposed a growing rift, present also at the April 2 regular meeting, between business interests and tribal members.

What do you do when the place that seems to best accommodate your child fails them the worst? 

That’s the question Amber Kevlin was grappling with on Sept. 25, 2023, after she was called to pick up her 12-year-old autistic son from the office of Shining Rock Classical Academy School Resource Officer Bryan Reeves.

A March 31 Swain County public hearing for a data center moratorium drew a crowd of around 140 people, a turnout proportionate to 12,900 residents in Wake County, confronting commissioners to plead their case. 

Attendees filled the six rows facing commissioners, leaving a couple dozen straining to watch the event behind the open double-doors. All had shown up to be part of the conversation about hyper-scale data centers and out of concern for about how these facilities could impact every aspect of their livelihoods. 

Just as the members of Qualla Enterprises’ board were all suspended, its attorney and chair may have engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. 

Qualla Enterprises, LLC, owned by the Eastern Band of Cherokee, is the only cultivator of legal cannabis in the state of North Carolina. It sells recreational products to the public through its subsidiary, Great Smoky Mountains Dispensary.

For fiscal year 2026-2027, Haywood County Schools is requesting an additional $3 million in annual county funding. 

The ask is driven by several overlapping needs — offsetting state and federal cuts, avoiding fund balance appropriations, covering a $400,000 increase in annual operating costs, financing salary raises and supporting continued program needs — all while facing a budget shortfall between $700,000 and $740,000. 

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. 

Yousef routinely travels back to the West Bank to see his family. And always, the Hebron City landscape where he was born and raised looks unfathomably different. 

“I typically try to go every year, at least for a month. I was actually planning to be with my family during the fasting month, Ramadan,” said the Asheville resident who, out of concern for his safety, requested The Smoky Mountain News refer to him on a first-name basis. 

On Independence Day 2026, the United States will have reached 250 years of sovereign nationhood, marked by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. 

America250 was spearheaded by a Congressional caucus and supporting nonprofit as “a bipartisan initiative working to engage every American in the 250th anniversary of the United States.” 

Events culminate July 4, inviting the public to “pause and reflect on our nation’s past, honor the contributions of all Americans, and look ahead toward the future we want to create.” 

A tambourine-lover with creative tactics meant to take congregants outside of their comfort zone, Rabbi RuthE Levy of Mountain Synagogue in Franklin doesn’t mess around when it comes to musical shabbat. 

Known in Hebrew as Shabbat Shirah, this service takes place at the beginning of the harvest season, long before the Jewish holiday of Passover — the latter holiday at the start of April 2026, the former portion in late February — but it tells a well-known Passover story.

Former Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Principal Chief Patrick Lambert and Beloved Woman Myrtle Driver proposed a resolution renaming the tribe the “Eastern Cherokee Nation” and later encouraged tribal council to withdraw it. 

In those 30 minutes between Resolution 147’s introduction and withdrawal, tribal council and public commenters engaged in rich discussion centering tradition, history and identity.

The Shining Rock Classical Academy Board of Directors on March 10 unanimously accepted the resignation of Head of School Joshua Morgan, approving 90 days of severance pursuant to an attorney-drafted agreement. After a five-year tenure as Shining Rock school director, Sara Jenkins will serve as the school’s interim executive director, effective immediately.

 Chair Alyson Weimar made both announcements at a March 11 special called meeting, adding that the board will move forward with the support and guidance of Leaders Building Leaders.

On Feb. 16, one teacher and three teacher’s assistants were transferred from the Exceptional Children’s program at Swain West Elementary to the exceptional children program at Swain East following authorization by the county school board. By the end of the second day there, two of these TAs had already allegedly witnessed multiple instances of non-sexual child abuse of several East students.  

At some points, engulfed in the rush of the ride, “your head feels like it’s going to pop off your shoulders,” said 2026 Remember the Removal mentor Freida Saylor. 

Saylor participated in RTR in 2025, a three-week, approximately 950-mile bike ride that traces the northern route of the Trail of Tears — one path of forced removal of the Cherokee people to Oklahoma from their Southern Appalachian homelands — following the 1830 Indian Removal Act signed by President Andrew Jackson.  

The Shining Rock Classical Academy board at its Feb. 25 meeting voted unanimously to end grades 9-11 instruction effective June 30, 2026, and to close grade 12 after the fall 2026 semester, in front of an audience of more than 100 people.  The high school had been consistently running a deficit, and the board argued that it has a fiduciary responsibility to move the organization in the right direction. 

Just after 1 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 26, the drizzle became a downpour — a moment of serendipity for those gathered in what’s now the town of Franklin to watch the deed transfer of the Noquiyisi (Nikwasi) mound to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. 

“Any time it rains, it always washes away anything that’s happened. So, it’s like a cleansing so it’s almost a perfect weather, you know? That this rain is here. It’s kind of washed away for a new beginning,” tribal council member Adam Wachacha said to the audience. 

Democrats Erika Smith and Chris Reed, with 667 and 541 votes, respectively, and Republicans Jason (Jay) Kirkland and Lisa Stevenson Barker, with 1,081 and 721 votes, respectively, will proceed to the General Election. In November, the four candidates will face off for two open spots currently held by Phil Carson and Bobby Jenkins on the board of county commissioners. Carson sought re-election as a Republican but came in last of the three contenders, while Jenkins threw his hat in the ring and finished second in the Primary for chair of commissioners. 

Sheriff's office candidates Democrat David Southards and Republican Brian Kirkland, with 1,279 and 656 votes respectively, will proceed to the November election. Both swept their field; Southards beat outDouglas "Tank" Anthony with 71.46% of the vote, while Kirkland surpassed Wayne Dover with 87.42%. 

Republicans Lisa Loftis, with 983 votes, and Jason Lambert, with 728 votes, have won the Republican Primary for the Swain County Board of Education. In November, they’ll face Democrats Brandy Monteith and Dannie Shuler in a bid for two seats currently held by Loftis and Republican Robert Taylor, who is not seeking reelection. 

Republican Robbie Brown and Democrat Jeramy Shuler, with 510 and 610 votes, respectively, have won their respective Primaries for chair of the Swain County Commissioners and will face each other on the November ballot.  On the Republican side, current commissioner Bobby Jenkins trailed Brown with 443 votes, representing 31% of Republican ballots. Courtney (Wilde) Dills received 24.35%; 8.96% of voters cast their ballots for the withdrawn candidate Eugene Shuler. 

The Shining Rock Classical Academy board at its Feb. 25 meeting voted unanimously to end grades 9-11 instruction effective June 30, 2026, and to close grade 12 after the fall 2026 semester, in front of an audience of more than 100 people.  The high school had been consistently running a deficit, and the board argued that it has a fiduciary responsibility to move the organization in the right direction.

For months, Jackson County commissioners have been making material decisions to advance a costly and widely criticized plan to pull its two libraries from the Fontana Regional Library system.

Nonetheless, in 2025, the Jackson board proposed three amendments which, contingent on passage by fellow FRL-member counties Macon and Swain, might convince commissioners to change their course. 

The University of North Carolina Board of Governors is expected to vote on a new academic freedom policy at its Feb. 26 meeting — though to many UNC-system professors, the proposed changes do little to encourage academic freedom and instead risk suppressing it. 

Vincent Russell, assistant professor in Western Carolina University’s Department of Communication and president of the WCU chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said the policy that’ll likely be deliberated this Thursday doesn’t align with the AAUP definition — one that has been the foundation of academic freedom since 1940. 

A teacher at Swain County East Elementary School is under investigation for alleged non-sexual child abuse, according to The Swain County Sheriff’s Office. 

Swain County commissioners held a Feb. 3 work session with updates about animal shelter funding and the interim county manager. But since neither process was explicitly spelled out to the public, audience members may have left with remaining questions. Here’s a breakdown of some potential questions. 

What happened regarding the labor cost of the animal shelter? Did commissioners do anything wrong?

The U.S. Census Bureau on Feb. 2 announced that it was cutting four of six 2026 nationwide test sites aimed to inform the 2030 decennial count — Colorado Springs, Fort Apache Reservation, western Texas and Western North Carolina. It will now conduct operations in only Huntsville, Alabama, and Spartanburg, South Carolina. 

The most powerful person in any North Carolina county is the sheriff, an elected position mandated by the state constitution. 

County elections determine who will don the badge and serve the four-year term in office. Such a system ostensibly ensures sheriffs are accountable to voters, but a 2024 Ballotpedia analysis of all United States’ elections excluding the presidency found that 7 8% of law enforcement races had only one candidate. 

 The head seat of the Swain County Board of Commissioners was a topic of discussion long before this year’s Primaries. 

After Republican Chairman Kevin Seagle announced his resignation, effective Aug. 31, 2025, the role went to Commissioner Tanner Lawson during an appointment process that included individual applications, Republican Party nominations and the late October 2025 selection of Jay Kirkland. 

On March 3, six candidates — three Democrats and three Republicans — will compete for Swain County commissioner. The winner of each primary race will move to the General Election Nov. 3, where they’ll face the opposing party in a bid for the seat held by current commissioner Philip Carson. 

Haywood County School Board at a Jan. 12 meeting officially gave the new Haywood Innovative middle school the green light to open its application to prospective students. 

“We are looking for students who choose to be here, who are motivated to be here, who would benefit from a rigorous and accelerated middle school experience,” said Lori Fox, principal of Haywood Early College and Haywood Innovative. 

On March 3, incumbent Lisa Loftis and Republican challengers Jason Lambert and Josh Oliver will compete in the Republican primaries for the Swain County Board of Education. The candidates who receive the most votes will advance to the General Election, where they’ll face Democrats Brandy Monteith and Dannie Shuler in a bid for two seats currently held by Loftis and Republican Robert Taylor, who is not seeking reelection. 

John Burgin Construction, LLC workers arrived at Haywood Community College’s Poplar Building Jan. 5, marking the start of an estimated 120-day renovation process driven by the addition of middle school called ‘Haywood Innovative’ and managed by the county school system. 

Haywood County Schools is renting the building to do “a tenant upfit … They’ve hired an architect, and they’re overseeing that,” said Brek Lanning, the college’s vice president of infrastructure, campus development and technology. 

For nearly 20 years, the United States Department of Education has helped fund Full-Service Community School programs in “high-poverty” and “high-poverty rural” schools across the nation, while coalitions and existing community partners ensure on-the-ground, local implementation. 

This story was updated Dec. 24 to include a quote from  NC DHHS. 

Between 2017 and 2025, Swain County Law Enforcement Center failed 13 of 16 biannual inspections, according to Disability Rights North Carolina. 

The existence of one or more documented violations requires the sheriff to submit a plan of correction to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services detailing the steps that will be or already have been taken to remediate each issue.

The National Defense Authorization Act cleared the House with bipartisan support last week, prompting the Senate’s Dec. 15 procedural vote — which all but guarantees that the $901 billion spending bill will be at the president’s desk before the holidays. This year, the “must-pass” annual legislation will represent the largest single sum of funds devoted military programs in the nation’s history. And yet, those appropriations have nothing to do with the strong opposition voiced by a community in Western North Carolina. 

For decades, college athletes generated millions of dollars in revenue for universities in exchange for a full tuition scholarship, at best. But a series of lawsuits beginning in the late 2000s — and a cultural shift toward athlete equity — paved the way for a monumental National Collegiate Athletic Association decision. The policy change, effective July 1, 2021, allowed these players to profit from any promotional use of their name, image and likeness, known as NIL, in company marketing.