The Land Trust for Little Tennessee will hold its annual Fall Celebration from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Nov. 13 at the Mission Farm in the Hiawassee Basin.

The day includes live music, activities for kids, a hayride, a nature walk, native and mountain cultural demonstrations, and the annual conservation award presentation. All activities are free for the entire family, including a delicious cool-weather meal of cornbread, chili and dessert.         

The Mission Farm lies on the Hiwassee River in Cherokee County and is accessible off of U.S. 64, 0.6 miles west of the Clay County line. Macon County residents can reach the farm by traveling west on U.S. 64 through Hayesville.

For more information contact Phillip Moore at 828.361.7884 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Jill Wiggins at 828.524.2711, ext. 209 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

City Lights will host several authors this weekend for a diverse selection of book readings.

At 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 12, retired WCU English professor Marilyn Jody will read from her new memoir titled Letter to Emily.

The book, dedicated to Emily Dickinson in honor of her poem, “This Is My Letter to the World,” tells Jody’s story of a lifetime of love for another woman. While teaching a class on gay and lesbian writers, she found she needed to search her own soul and openly tell her own story for the first time.

At 7 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 13, City Lights will host a joint reading celebrating the small farmer in America. The featured authors, who will each read from their books, are Jim Minick, author of The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family, and Dana Wildsmith, author of Back to Abnormal: Surviving on an Old Farm in the New South.

The Blueberry Years recounts Minick’s experiences as an organic blueberry farmer in southwest Virginia. The intertwined essays in Back to Abnormal spin out from author Wildsmith’s daily life on an old farm in the foothills of the north Georgia mountains, to the regional world of the ESL classes she teaches, to the national scope of her work as a writer and a teacher of creative writing.

For more information contact City Lights at 828.586.9499.

Kathryn Magendie will celebrate the release of her new novel, Sweetie, at Blue Ridge Books at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 13. To add to the celebration, Kathryn’s husband, Roger, will be serving his home cooked jambalaya. The food is free, but if you wish to make a donation, all the money received will go to the Share the Warmth fund through Mountain Projects.

Sweetie is Kat Magendie’s third novel. Her first two books, Tender Graces and Secret Graces, tell the story of Virginia Kate Carey from West Virginia. A third book in this trilogy is planned. Magendie’s books have been praised by the Asheville Citizen-Times, the Baton Rouge Advocate, by bestselling author Wayne Caldwell, and by respected reviewers including Story Circle and the Midwest Book Review.

Blue Ridge Books is located at 152 S. Main St in Waynesville. 828.456.6000.

To the Editor:

I was surprised to see the letter from John Edwards of Wild South proposing the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, hunters, and his organization work together for wildlife habitat. Wild South is primarily responsible for the current lack of habitat. If you’re a hunter lamenting the loss of wildlife and habitat in our national forests, you can thank Wild South. They are proponents of forest preservation and have a “no cut” policy when it comes to our national forests.

Wild South has been a leader in stopping scientific forests management through procedural appeals and legal action. The science is conclusive that forest wildlife need a patchwork of different stages of forest growth to sustain and grow populations. Even the American Bird Conservancy lists loss of young forest growth as one of its Top 20 critical habitats. Still Wild South persists in opposing forest management for wildlife.

To the WRC and hunting groups, remember the old saying: Ii you lie down with dogs, you might get up with fleas. Wild South is no friend of wildlife or hunters.

Don Mallicoat

Asheville

To the Editor:

Veteran’s Day may just seem to be any other day to some, or maybe an extra day off work for others. However, as I think about Veteran’s Day, I feel an overwhelming sense of heartfelt gratitude for the thousands of men and women that have served and represented our country in so many wars, combat and humanitarian situations in various and different ways and times. The gratitude also goes out to the families and significant others of all of them.

I know that most people have limited knowledge of what all of the people I’ve just mentioned actually go through and experience throughout their military service time. I’m sure everyone tries to imagine what it has been like for these men and women and their families, good and bad included. Fortunately, through my work I have had the opportunity to know exactly what they have experienced, and have come to understand and appreciate the many parts of their lives they have sacrificed to keep the human rights and freedom we have.

Take a minute not only on this Veteran’s Day, but every day, to feel the pride, share the gratitude, and say “thank you” to all of these men and women and their families who have contributed so much in making so many lives better. Thank You!

Glenda Sawyer,

Behavioral Health Clinician, MedWest

To the Editor:

First, let me say that it has been an honor and privilege to meet, inform, and represent nearly half of the voting population in Haywood County.  

I would like to extend congratulations to Sheriff Bobby Suttles on his win and to those who have supported my campaign and me over the last 18 months.

Your efforts to vote have made a difference in Haywood County. Together, we have shown that the citizens are watching and are interested in how the sheriff’s department is managed, and that we will continue to do so.

William “Bill” Wilke

Haywood Sheriff’s candidate

To the Editor:

Thank you to the candidates, the many volunteers and the voters in the mid-term elections. Macon County voters turned out in record numbers and Republicans did well here and across Western North Carolina. Well done.

But, we still need major changes in Washington, D.C. The looming presidential election will not be easy. This is a time for all Americans to stand up for fiscal responsibility, for individual accountability and for a lessening of federal power and influence even when it impacts a project that you love and want to keep.  To control spending, to reduce federal government involvement in our lives, to keep taxes at the same level, we must eliminate and reduce federal programs — particularly welfare programs — even when they impact us personally!

Gary Dills

Chairman, Macon County GOP

To the Editor:

Sen. Snow, I am so sorry that people voted based on advertisements rather than on a candidate’s positions. I was appalled to learn of the very misleading mailing saying that you “wanted to give convicted rapists a second chance” right before the election. I was very glad that Scott McLeod of The Smoky Mountain News clearly explained the truth about your position.

I initially looked at such mailings early in the campaign, but when I realized that 90 percent of them were just “hate rhetoric,” I recycled the rest without looking at any of them. Obviously others did read them and were swayed by such rhetoric.

I thank you for your service and wish you the best. Perhaps we’ll see you back.

Marti Senterfit

Cashiers

To the Editor:

Jim Davis, who beat Sen. John Snow in the election, ran one of the filthiest campaigns I’ve ever witnessed in my 40 years of voting. He, or people and organizations working on his behalf, sent several deceptive and downright inflammatory mailers during the course of the campaign. The last one that went out, a takeoff on the infamous Willie Horton ads of the 1980s, was one of the most repulsive pieces of campaign literature I’ve ever seen.

I don’t own a television but I’m told that his TV ads were ubiquitous and annoying. I do have a home phone, so I was subjected to one of the sleaziest political tactics around — the push poll.

In push polling the caller indicates that they are doing a poll for informational purposes. The questions begin innocuously enough, asking which candidate you might favor in a particular race and perhaps what some of your general values might be. Once, however, you are tagged with support of the candidate opposing the one the poll is being conducted for, the questions begin to get a lot uglier. “Would you be more or less inclined to support John Snow if you knew he supported child molesters?” or “Would you be more or less likely to support John Snow if you knew he used state money to buy drugs?”

Notice, the questions don’t actually accuse the candidate of anything evil. What they do is insidiously implant impressions and suggestions.

These polls are hideous for several reasons. First, they obviously use what anyone should concede are questionable tactics and language to advance a candidate, or perhaps more appropriately, destroy an opposing candidate. Second, and perhaps more destructive, is that by masquerading as information gathering and innocuous they undermine honest attempts to survey people and also give some folks the sense that the information presented in the questions is neutral and honest.

They are a noxious tactic and any honest candidate should actively disavow them and anyone who conducts them on his behalf.

Regardless of the tactics that got him there, it appears that Jim Davis is going to Raleigh. As a Republican and someone who embraced Tea Party rhetoric, one would expect that Mr. Davis will seek to shrink government and taxes. Most of the Tea Party rhetoric I’ve heard seems to suffer from an over-abundance of anger and a distinct lack of concrete suggestion. Smaller government, if it’s effective, may be a good thing, but most of what I’ve heard seems to paint government in general as evil. Libertarianism, like most of the other “isms,” relies on a utopian view of society that lacks practicality and the pragmatic recognition that people and markets don’t always behave in predictable ways. Hopefully those taking their places in Raleigh will come to the realization sooner rather than later that government is necessary and that governing is significantly more complicated than a “Don’t Tread on Me” sign would lead us to believe.

Since Mr. Davis is a former county commissioner I hope he’ll remember that indiscriminate cuts at the state level often find their way to the local level in the form of unfunded mandates. There are things government does that he may philosophically disagree with, but those functions won’t be going away soon and dumping the burden on counties is not a solution.

One area Mr. Davis may want to look at — and it’s something that perhaps falls within his professed ideology — is amending a property tax and revaluation system that leads to perverse consequences in rural counties. We have a system that works against preserving land and works against keeping rural folks on the land.

Perhaps too Mr. Davis, in keeping with the philosophy of local decision-making, will find a way to support a move towards at least limited Home Rule. Currently local governments are dependent upon the legislature for anything they do. This limits local creativity and in some cases reduces local government to nothing more than administrators for the state. Rural counties don’t have much of a voice in the legislature, so consequently we are often subjected to policies that better fit the more populated areas of the state.

Mr. Davis takes his seat with dirty hands. Let us hope he finds a way to redeem himself by governing not by ideology or rhetorical prescription but by common sense and concern for the welfare of his constituents. Let us hope that the soul he sold to get elected has at least a bit of humanity left in it.

Mark Jamison

Webster

To the Editor:

In the early 20th century, the Waynesville Town Board purchased the Allens Creek Watershed to assure that the town would have a high quality drinking water supply for future growth and development. Unfortunately, the people considered the board a bunch of spendthrifts and fired them all at the next election. During the ensuing years, various boards allowed logging in the watershed, often with disastrous environmental results. Near the close of the century, the public did not support any kind of logging. Soon the watershed began a remarkable natural recovery from the past logging scars.

By the 1980s, the citizens of North Carolina, and their state government, were becoming alarmed at the loss of quality drinking water supplies throughout the State. Waynesville’s Allens Creek Watershed was given the state’s highest quality drinking water classification — a WS-1 — because of its own outstanding natural recovery and removal of man-made forestry impacts. The original spendthrift board members are now considered historic heroes.

Much to the surprise of many citizens, the 2004 board announced that it favored limited logging in the watershed. A large number of citizens did not agree, and presented to the board a 600-signature petition, protesting any type of tree removal from the area.

Regardless of the public’s feelings, the board moved forward — with taxpayers money — funding a Western Carolina University flawed “Healthy Forest Study Plan” to selectively log the area. Most of the 2004 town board members ran for the 2008 board, among other goals pursuing the “WCU Healthy Forest Plan” agenda.

Concerned about the future potential danger to the watershed, I ran as a 2008 town board candidate. Although I garnered more than 800 votes, I could not overcome board coalition to obtain a seat. This failure has only encouraged me to fight harder to protect our pure drinking water for future generations.

In the town’s October 2010 report, as I explained and predicted above, the mayor is now requesting public support for the board’s “Healthy Forest Watershed Management Plan.” Public comment will be accepted through Nov. 12.

The board’s present justification to log the decadent, old white pine plantation makes no sense nor has scientific validity. Every citizen, scientist, school child, and informed environmentalist should be speaking out against the proposed plan.

Tell the board to abolish its “Healthy Forest Management Plan” and leave the Watershed to its own ecology. If, however, they follow through with their present stubbornly, greedy plan, then follow the money trail. The Allens Creek Watershed is not a cash cow.

Charles Miller

Waynesville

Guided by tweets and freshly made maps, Western Carolina University students will race against the clock, and each other, in a Twitter-based scavenger hunt Thursday, Nov. 18, as part of Destination: Dillsboro!, an appreciation event hosted by town merchants.

The scavenger hunt is called the Dillsboro Cat-Dash, and it’s a way for students to find out what the town has to offer them while having fun and winning prizes.

Students will be led through participating Dillsboro shops to find the answers to clues as they are sent via the social networking site Twitter. They will then have to respond to the Twitter administrator with the correct clue to receive points during the competition. The teams that finish in the shortest amount of time and with the most correct tweets will receive prizes from Dillsboro merchants.

Winners will receive one of the following prizes: a 25-person Tuckaseigee River tubing trip from Dillsboro River Company; ice cream for 12 at Bradley’s General Store; gift certificates for the Jarrett House, Kostas and the Well House; a Japanese lantern from the Golden Carp; and an opportunity to make a glass Christmas ornament at the Green Energy Park.

In order to participate, students will have to come equipped with a smart phone featuring a Twitter application. Students must represent a WCU student organization. Teams will be given newly printed maps to help navigate the shops during the race.

The Dillsboro Cat-Dash will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the West Carolina Internet Café on Haywood Road.

For more information and to register for the Twitter scavenger hunt, contact Ashley Funderburk at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The town of Dillsboro will host Western Carolina University faculty, staff and students during a special event called “Destination: Dillsboro!” on Thursday, Nov. 18, from 5 to 8 p.m.

Designed to show Dillsboro’s appreciation for WCU, the event will feature merchants staying open late and offering free samples and discounts especially for the WCU community.

The evening will feature a raffle drawing for numerous prizes from Dillsboro merchants for faculty and staff and a scavenger hunt using the social network Twitter for students.

To be eligible for the prizes, faculty and staff will enter their registration forms into a basket at the Jarrett House, which is serving as headquarters for the event. Registration forms are being sent through the WCU e-mail system, and prizes will be drawn throughout the evening. Once visitors register at the Jarrett House, they will be given a new holiday shopping guide that provides an updated map of the town and ideas for holiday gift giving from Dillsboro.

Mayor Mike Fitzgerald will be greeting guests and making an official declaration of appreciation for WCU at the Jarrett House at 6 p.m.

“We’re looking forward to a great night,” Fitzgerald said. “The town will be decorated in purple and gold, but we’re rolling out the red carpet for the Catamounts. We hope WCU folks and their families will come down — if only for a little while — to check out the shops and eat at the restaurants. We’ve made a special effort to provide free child care and activities for the kids, so the whole family can enjoy the event.”

For WCU personnel with children, volunteers will provide free child care services at the Jarrett Memorial Baptist Church on Church Street. There will be 20 spots available from 5 to 6:30 p.m. and 20 spots from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Children ages 3 to 12 are eligible and advance reservations are required. Art activities, games and snacks will be provided. To RSVP for child care, contact Casey Hodges at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Destination: Dillsboro! is the latest event in a recent partnership forged the town and WCU. The overall goal of the partnership is economic revitalization. Numerous faculty, staff and students from across the university are working on a variety of projects including small business counseling, survey research, marketing, public relations, broadcasting, arts, entertainment and special events.

For more information about the Dillsboro/WCU partnership or any of the Nov. 18 activities, contact Betty Farmer, special assistant to the chancellor for Dillsboro, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 828.227.3804.

— By Matthew Hoagland, WCU

The Kids Advocacy Resource Effort (KARE) is holding its first Festival of Trees beginning at 6 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 22, at the Gateway Club in downtown Waynesville.

Festivities begin with a dinner buffet followed by a live auction of uniquely decorated Christmas trees designed by local merchants Blue Ridge Books, Chocolate Bear, Connie Buchanan Plemmons H&R Block, High Country Furniture, Jackson/Haywood Psychological Services, Main Street Artists Co-Op, Mast General Store, The Smoky Mountain News, Vertigo and The Waynesville Kiwanis Club. In addition, pottery, jewelry and much more will be available from local artists. Tickets are $75 per person and attire is festive.

For ticket information call 828.456.8995.

Prospective college students can get a taste of what campus life is all about as Western Carolina University holds Open House on Saturday, Nov. 20.

Hosted by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, Open House gives students and their families a chance to tour the campus, including classrooms, residence halls, the library and WCU’s new Campus Recreation Center. Faculty members will be on hand during an information fair to discuss academic opportunities and career interests, and representatives of student groups will be available to talk about extracurricular activities on campus.

Registration and check-in will be held from 8 to 9 a.m. at WCU’s Fine and Performing Arts Center. After a welcome session from 9 to 9:30 a.m., campus tours will be given from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. The information fair will be held from 10 a.m. until noon in and around A.K. Hinds University Center.

Prospective students will be able to use their meal tickets for a free lunch at the new Courtyard Dining Hall or University Food Court, and all guests may purchase lunch at any university dining location.

For prospective students unable to come to campus on Nov. 20, other Open House events are scheduled for Feb. 19 and March 19.

More information about Open House events and registration for all dates is available by clicking on  or by calling the Office of Undergraduate Admissions at 828.227.7317 or toll-free 877.WCU4YOU

Haywood County High School students can compete in the a oratorical scholarship program, sponsored by Waynesville American Legion Post 47.  

All students, grades 9-12, are eligible to participate. This includes public, parochial, military, private or homeschool students.

The American Legion has sponsored this contest since 1938. It is designed to instill a greater knowledge and appreciation of the U.S. Constitution. Other objectives include the development of leadership skills, ability to think and speak clearly, and the preparation for acceptance of duties, responsibilities, rights and privileges of American citizenship.

Each contestant must give a prepared oration on some phase of the U.S. Constitution, giving emphasis to the duties and obligations of a citizen to the government. Additionally, the contestant must give a short extemporaneous oration on an assigned topic.

On or before Dec. 17, each participating school must have conducted a contest, if necessary, to ensure only one contestant will represent their school.

American Legion Post 47 can sponsor only one candidate to represent Haywood County. Therefore, if more than one school has a candidate, Post 47 will conduct a contest to select one candidate to represent Haywood County. The winner will compete at district. The district winner will  compete at division, and the division winner will compete at state. The state winner will compete nationally in Indianapolis. Winners qualify for college scholarships.

Interested students at Tuscola or Pisgah high schools should contact their counselor for details. All other students should contact American Legion Post 47 Service Officer, Ron Rookstool, at 926.6090.

Wit Tuttell, director of Tourism Marketing for the N.C. Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development will discuss projected travel trends and visitor profiles at the annual meeting of Smoky Mountain Host on Nov. 19 in Maggie Valley.

Tuttell will be joined on the program by Sutton Bacon, president and CEO of the Nantahala Outdoor Center, who will provide a summary of opportunities to grow the region’s tourism economy through the World Freelance Kayaking Championship, an international sporting event which will be held in 2013 in the Nantahala Gorge. The event is expected to attract over 400 athletes from 40 or more countries to the region and more than 100,000 spectators.

The presentations are part of this year’s annual membership meeting of Smoky Mountain Host, Southwestern North Carolina’s regional destination marketing organization for tourism. Also being presented will be the Host’s 2011 tourism marketing plan for the region.

The meeting will be held at the Maggie Valley Club starting at 10:45 a.m. and concluding by 1:30 p.m. Lunch is being sponsored by Smoky Mountain Living Magazine, Blue Ridge Country Magazine and Our State Magazine. It is open to both members and non-members of Smoky Mountain Host.

For meeting registration or further information, contact David Huskins, SMH Managing Director for Operations at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or at 828.691.3300.

Haywood Community College’s JobsNOW program will hold a Reverse Job Fair from 10 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 18, in the Student Services building.

Employers for the Automotive, Green Building Construction and Health Care Professions are invited to meet and conduct mini-interviews with 20 accomplished students who have earned their certifications as Certified Green Building Specialists, Automotive Technicians, Nursing Assistants, Phlebotomists, and Medical Office Administrators.

Reverse Job Fair is a new way to match job-seekers to employers. These eager job-seekers will sit at individual tables displaying resumes, certifications, and letters of recommendation. Employers will then sit and talk with the job-seekers (in “reverse” from the traditional job fair format).

For more informationcall Rinda Green, HCC Director of Corporate and Community Education, at 828.627-4243 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Haywoood Community Connections, an advocacy organization for senior citizens in Haywood County, has updated its website. Visit  and check out the following:

• Resource directory for seniors, caregivers, and persons with disablities. The directory can be accessed in two different formats. Clicking on “Senior Resource Directory” in the upper left hand corner will take the user to a directory that can be searched by categories. This information has been updated. In the center section of the page, under “Finding the Help you Need” is an underlined section that reads “” Clicking on this will take you to the entire pdf version of the Directory that can be printed, placed in a notebook and used as a desk reference.

• A video depicting a Candlelight Reflection is available by clicking on the “News” section.  Candlelight Reflections are held during the month of November in recognition of National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month.  To find out how to host a Candlelight Reflection, contact Area Agency on Aging at 828.586.1962, ext. 218.   

Information regarding the Senior Friendly Business Program is also available by browsing through the “News” section.  This project was a collaboration between Haywood Community Connections and Western Carolina Univerity’s School of Design.

Haywood County Meals on Wheels needs help — there is a shortage of volunteers.

People are needed to deliver hot, nutritious meals to qualifying elderly, homebound and/or disabled adults who cannot prepare their own meals, or do not have someone that can prepare the meals for themselves.

Meals on Wheels has 24 routes with just more than 200 clients.  There are two vans that distribute prepared meals each morning to drop off points throughout the county so that the volunteers will not have to leave their respective communities to deliver the meals.

A volunteer for Meals on Wheels should expect to dedicate two hours, one day per week to deliver meals.  

828.356.2442 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Haywood Community College’s Continuing Education Department is offering a Basic Parliamentary Procedures seminar on Wednesday, November 17 with UNC School of Government faculty member A. Fleming Bell, II.

The seminar will be held from 5 until 8 p.m. in the Student Services Building on campus.

Topics include types of meetings, agendas, motions, action by the board, voting, debate, ratification of actions, quorums and closed sessions. Participants will also discuss common practices and legal standards for comment at public meetings. Government officials, leaders of community groups, corporations, non profits, and cultural religious, social, educational, and professional organizations can all benefit from this seminar.

This workshop is co-sponsored by HCC and the Local Government Training Program in the Department of Political Science and Public Affairs at Western Carolina University. Cost is $30 and includes refreshments, materials, and Bell’s book, Suggested Rules of Procedure for Small Local Government Boards.

828.565.4008.

The Mirari Brass Quintet will present a concert at Western Carolina University on Friday, Nov. 12, as part of the group’s tour of the Southeast.

The quintet will perform at 8 p.m. in the recital hall of WCU’s Coulter Building. Admission is free.

The program will feature music ranging from the Renaissance and Baroque periods to contemporary, jazz and Latin, and will include new compositions written by and commissioned for the quintet.

The concert is sponsored by WCU’s School of Music and the Phi Mu Alpha music fraternity. For more information, contact the School of Music at 828.227-7242.

The Haywood Community Chorus will hold its fall concert at 4 p.m. on Nov. 14, at First United Methodist Church in Waynesville.

For the major choral selection, the 60-voice chorus has prepared the much-acclaimed “Messa di Gloria” by Giacomo Puccini. Soloists are tenor Herbert Kraus and baritone Ed Davis. Also on the program is Randall Thompson’s Testament of Freedom, a perennial patriotic favorite.

The choral Director is J. William Stephenson, with Kathryn Stephenson as accompanist.  An orchestra will provide additional accompaniment.

The leftover Halloween goodies might be still sitting in the candy bowl, but at Western Carolina University it’s already beginning to sound a lot like Christmas.

That’s because WCU’s music students and faculty are getting ready for their annual “Sounds of the Season” holiday concert, and tickets are on sale now.

The popular holiday event will be presented by Western Carolina’s School of Music at 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 5, in the concert hall of the Fine and Performing Arts Center.

The concert will feature performances by WCU’s Wind Ensemble, Jazz Ensemble, Concert Choir, Smoky Mountain Brass Quintet, Flute Ensemble, Early Music Ensemble, Saxophonic Quartet, Clarinet Ensemble, Faculty Woodwind Quintet and Angklung Ensemble.

Ticket prices are $15 for adults; $5 for children and students; and $10 for senior citizens (ages 60 and over) and WCU faculty and staff.

828.227.2479 or visit www.wcu.edu/fapac.

The Revitalization of Traditional Cherokee Artisan Resources is presenting a symposium Nov. 12-14, called “Gathering Places: Traditional Basketmaking and the Environment.”

Gathering Places seeks to bring together basketmakers from diverse tribal and traditional origins to discuss ways of maintaining access to the native materials used in basketry through ecological restoration, propagation of plants, access through public and private lands, education, tree improvement, sustainable harvesting, etc.

Conversations between RTCAR and Joyce V. Coakley, a sweetgrass basketweaver from South Carolina’s low country, about the shortages facing both communities led to the idea of a having a national conference to share strategies.

An important element of the continuation of tradition is teaching the next generation of artisans. A panel discussion of success stories including the basketry class at Cherokee High School will be offered.

The conference will be held at the Great Smokies Conference Center in Cherokee and participants must register ahead of time. More information and registration forms are on the RTCAR website at www.rtcar.org. For more information call RTCAR at 828.554.6925.

The Fine Art Museum at Western Carolina University will host a number of events in November.

The museum is in the Fine and Performing Arts Center on the WCU campus. All events are free and the public is invited to attend.

• Family Day, 10 a.m.-noon Saturday, Nov. 13 — Parents and children are invited to participate in a scavenger hunt and other activities that encourage children’s interest in art. Enjoy popcorn and prizes at the event, which is sponsored in part by the WCU School of Art and Design’s art education program and the Jackson County Arts Council through support from the N.C. Arts Council.

• Handmade Holiday Trunk Show, 2:30-6:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 18 — As part of its 3rd Thursdays at the FAM series, the Fine Art Museum will host the Handmade Holiday Trunk Show, an opportunity to buy directly from artists including WCU students and staff and community members. All items are priced at less than $100 and include silk scarves, jewelry, knitted wear, soaps, note cards and more. Coffee and tea will be available, with wine and cheese served from 5-6 p.m.

• Reception for exhibit by graduating students, 4 p.m. Monday, Nov. 29 — Titled “Oh Sweet Pestilence,” the exhibition will include a mix of ceramics, drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture by 12 students who are part of a class taught by Marya Roland, associate professor of art, that prepares students for entry into the professional art world. Participating students, all earning bachelors of fine arts, are Christine Cady, sculpture; Michael Dodson, sculpture; Lisa Erato, painting; Allyson Greer, printmaking;  Rachael Griffin, painting; Lauren Hill, printmaking; Alexandra Kirtley, printmaking; Sarah Lovell, painting; Michelle McAfee, sculpture; Constance McCormick, ceramics; Janine Paris, drawing; and Traci Pierce, ceramics. The exhibit will run through Friday, Dec. 3.

The Fine Art Museum’s hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday. The museum also is open one hour before Fine and Performing Arts Center Galaxy of Stars performances.

For more information about these events, contact Denise Drury, the WCU Fine Art Museum curatorial specialist, at 828.227.3591 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Visit the museum online at fineartmuseum.wcu.edu.

The Second Sunday Contra Dance will be held from 2:30-5 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 14, at the new Senior Center in Sylva.

This dance will be a fundraiser for the Community Table. Dancers are encouraged to get sponsors to pledge a donation for each dance they will do during the afternoon. Sponsor pledge forms are available from Ron Arps at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. There will be a silent auction and raffle of locally-made handcrafts. Donations will be used for the renovation of the former Golden Age Club in Sylva, which will soon be the new home of the Community Table.

No previous experience with contra dancing is required and all dances will be taught and walked through before dancing. There will also be a short beginners’ workshop at the start of the dance. Some dances for children as well as a waltz or two will also be included in the program. No partner is required.

Local musicians will play music for all the dances. Local musicians are invited to sit in with the band, to jam and learn how to play music for dancing.

There will be a potluck dinner following the contra dance, starting at 5:30 p.m. Bring a covered dish, plate, cup and cutlery and a water bottle.

Contra dancing is a form of English country dancing that has become very popular with people of all ages during the last 20 years. It uses many of the same figures as square dancing such as circles, stars and swings.

Information about the dance and the fundraiser is available from Arps at 828.586.5478.

Haywood Community College recently hosted a regional cosmetology competition on the Clyde campus. In addition to HCC, Blue Ridge Community College and Tri-County Community College also participated. HCC student Haley Walls was the overall student winner.

Following are the top results of each event:  

Salon cut and color

First place, Jalissa Hollis, HCC; second place, Ashley Thomas, Tri-County; third place, Laura Satterfield, Tri-County

Long hair design mannequin

First place, Haley Walls, HCC; second place, Barbara Williams, Tri-County; third place, Mary Ann Hooper, Tri-County

Nail art-mannequin

First place, Nikki Snyder, HCC; second place, Haley Walls, HCC; third place, Kym Whyte, HCC

Evening makeup

First place, Leslie Waldrup, HCC; second place, Holly Lafflin, HCC; third place, Nikki Sims, Blue Ridge

Total trend-team

First place, LeAnn Lewis, Alicia McCurry, Haley Walls, HCC; second place — Christy Bair, Carly Lovinggood, Mary Ann Hooper, Tri-County; third place — Breanna Williams, Holly Lafflin, Elizabeth Caballero, HCC

The November art display at Southwestern Community College’s Balsam Lobby on the Jackson Campus celebrates Native American Month. 

Students from SCC’s Oconaluftee Institute for Cultural Arts will display their recent work through Dec. 1. The work includes examples from the Drawing I, Design I and Printmaking I classes

OICA director Jeff Marley said the prints are significant since they are the first work from the new printing press that was delivered in August. In addition to Bark, students exhibiting work include Carrie Atkinson, Jon Alderman, Deana Burchett, Sheila Creed, Amelia Haynes and Samantha Newhouse. For more information contact Marley at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 828.497.3945.

The Macon County Art Association will hold a collage workshop for children from 9:30 a.m. until noon on Nov. 13 at the Upton Gallery in Franklin.

Materials will be furnished by the Macon County Art Association and a Community Foundation grant. Children must be at least 8 years old. Preregistration required.  For more information on classes and activities at the gallery, call 828.349.4607 or visit This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

“Lilly Oncology On Canvas,” an art exhibition honoring the physical and emotional journey people face when confronted by a cancer diagnosis, will be on display at Carolina Cancer Specialists Nov. 15 through 30.

This free public exhibit, which is touring communities nationwide, will showcase select 25 pieces of art from the 2008 Oncology On Canvas competition.

The exhibition can be viewed during normal office hours, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. Friday at Carolina Cancer Specialists, Mountain Medical Center Suite 2 on Hospital Drive in Clyde.

For more information about the exhibit call Carolina Cancer Specialists at 828.454.0181.

The Rickman Store in the Cullasaja community of Macon County will host two upcoming arts events.

Sylva writer Gary Carden’s play “Bright Forever” will be performed at 7 p.m. on Nov. 19. Carden will attend the show to share and chat with the audience before an after the play. Tickets are $15 and they can be purchase at the Franklin Chamber of Commerce or by calling 828.369.5595.

The annual ARTSaturday with the Suminksy Family will take place on Nov. 20. This is the third year that the Friends of the Rickman Store and the Macon County Arts Council will start the holiday celebrations with music, art and entertainment. Hours are from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and the public is invited.

Haywood County art teachers gained a boost to their teaching wish lists when members of the QuickDraw Committee met to award mini-grants to elementary, middle school, and senior high art teachers.

The grants were given at the Haywood County School Board meeting in October to fund original creative teaching ideas in school art programs. The grants enable art teachers to brainstorm and design school-specific projects to enhance their teaching curriculum, and often tie in with academic coursework. The art grants are funded through QuickDraw, an annual art fundraiser, reknowned for its lively atmosphere of creation and the chance to meet prominent artists and buy their works.

Since QuickDraw’s inception, $32,000 in teacher grants and $13,000 in scholarships have been donated to benefit art education.

According to Steve Brown, executive director of the Haywood County Schools Foundation, this is the ninth year that teachers have applied for and received funds through the Foundation from QuickDraw donations. QuickDraw’s art scholarships will be awarded in May at the annual Schools Foundation function honoring scholars and athletes receiving scholarship assistance through the Foundation.

QuickDraw is held the last Saturday of April each year. QuickDraw 2011 is slated for Saturday, April 30, at Laurel Ridge Country Club in Waynesville. Over 30 professional artists will work live at the event.

828.456.6584 or  www.wncquickdraw.com.

Waynesville will dedicate its third public art project during a dedication ceremony at 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 19 at Gallery 86.

The project — an artistic railing representing Waynesville’s connection with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park — will be installed at the mini-park at the intersection of Main and Depot streets. Ben Kastner and Richard Coley of Wilmington will install their piece the week of Nov. 15.

The theme for the railing is “Art Connects the Parks.” This Waynesville intersection was once the location of a large arched sign indicating the direction of travel, down Depot Street, to the eastern entrance of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The railing design contains layered mountains, handcrafted trees, a recognizable Waynesville church steeple, and in honor of the designation of the Great Smoky Mountains as the “Salamander Capital of the World,” three salamanders.

Salamander Splash, a very successful fundraising event was held June 24 at HART Theater, and the “Salamander Capital of the World” theme continued with an art auction of more than 48 custom works of art — paintings, jewelry, pottery, quilted wall art and metal made by the artists of Haywood County. The artists contributed their talent and energy to the effort to raise the $20,000 commission for the railing.

All of the $20,000 commission was raised from private individuals, area businesses and a grant from the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority.

This is the third major public art installation in Downtown Waynesville. “Old Time Music,” at the corner of Main and Miller streets, and “Celebrating Folkmoot,” in front of the police station and development ofice, were dedicated in 2008 and 2009 respectively. All money for the artworks come from private donations.

There are few places where scientists probing the mysteries of the natural world would rather be.

The sweeping vistas of the Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center, a remote outpost straddling the Cataloochee Divide, has lured researchers from across the globe to explore the Great Smoky Mountains National Park just outside the station’s door.

Since its addition to the park in 2000, the site at Purchase Knob has become a crown jewel of the national park. The outpost is not only a conduit for research in the park, but provides children in neighboring communities with a window on the natural world. The research station provides an intersection for scientists and students to come together, fulfilling one of its missions of citizen science.

Nearly 5,000 middle and high school students funnel through Purchase Knob on field trips and internships every year, contributing in real ways to scientific research. The researchers themselves often don’t have the financial staying power to gather data year after year.

“A lot only have funding for only one season,” said Park Ranger Susan Sachs, the education coordinator for Purchase Knob.

But sixth-graders visiting Purchase Knob for science fieldtrips have been testing the acidity of soil for seven years now. When they started, the soil averaged a pH of 5.5. Today it hovers between 5 and 4.5 — a trend likely due to acid rain from air pollution.

“We have seen a steady slow decline in our soil pH,” Sachs said.

Students also probe the decomposing leaf litter for insects in the woods surrounding Purchase Knob, counting their finds, examining them under a microscope and then releasing them unharmed back into the forest. With several dozen classes conducting the hunt year in and year out, the data piling up could be a harbinger of environmental changes.

“Over time, especially with climate change, some of these things are going to start changing. We might realize one day ‘When’s the last time you saw a wood roach?’” Sachs said. “We are kind of like a watchdog.”

Not to mention the free labor.

“Sometimes we might have a request from a researcher that says ‘Can you take a group out and do this?’” Sachs said.

Such was the case when scientists were looking for a new species of springtail, a type of insect with a spring board jumping mechanism in its tail. Students working with Sachs found a specimen that appeared to be a new species, but scientists never found another, leaving them to wonder if it was truly a new species or a genetic mutation.

“It was considered a discovered but lost species,” Sachs said. At the request of researchers, Sachs unleashed students to search the woods where the lone specimen had been found and told them to hit up all the springtails they could find.

“They found several to the delight of the researcher,” Sachs said. “It turns out the springtail was a ‘lost’ species that had only been found once before in 1954 in New York state. It’s rediscovery allowed it to finally become a legitimate species.”

High school interns play a vital role in air pollution research at Purchase Knob that measures the impact of ozone on vegetation. The students make daily forays into rows and rows of cut-leaf coneflower and crownbeard — dubbed the ozone garden — to chart the appearance of leaves. As the summer progresses, the sensitive leaves develop purplish spots, wither and die prematurely.

“The researchers are only here one to two weeks during the summer but they want to know ‘When did you first start to see the spots, and once you saw them how quickly did they progress,’” Sachs said. The students record their scientific observations.

Several teachers in the region have jumped on board, planting ozone gardens at their schools. At these lower elevations where ozone pollution is not as bad, the plants don’t suffer the same ailments. Students log their observations into an on-line database, allowing them to compare their gardens to those at Purchase Knob and of those at other schools.

The students learn the scientific method while doing research, as well as gain an appreciation for the ecosystem and its vulnerabilities.

“It gives what they have to learn in the classroom a real world application, a picture in their mind they can refer back to,” Sachs said. “It will answer the ‘so why should I care about this?’ question. They have a connection to something they really do care about.”

The gift of a lifetime

The reality of a research outpost like Purchase Knob could never have been realized without the initial benefactors, Kathryn McNeil and Voit Gilmore.

The two first came into the property by sheer happenstance back in 1964. Gilmore, a prominent businessman and statesman from Southern Pines, N.C., was hunting for commercial property to start an RV park in Maggie Valley when his real estate agent insisted on showing him the Purchase. Gilmore humored the agent and ventured up the mountain for a gander, but was hardly in the market for 500-some acres. He was so taken by the beauty and views, he immediately flew back to Southern Pines to fetch McNeil, who had just given birth to their fifth child. McNeil, too, fell in love.

“We both agreed we had to buy it,” McNeil said.

They built a vacation house on it the following year and it became a family retreat. As the children grew up, however, family visits became less frequent. McNeil summered there, but by the 1990s had tired of spending long weeks alone on the top of a mountain.

“I really thought it was time to give it away,” said McNeil, who’s now 88. “My husband and I knew what would happen if we sold it. It would become a country club or something and we didn’t want that to happen. It was too special.”

Since the property abutted the national park, McNeil called the superintendent of the Smokies at the time, Randy Pope, and invited him for a visit.

“He came and looked at it and said ‘We’ll take it.’ There was no doubt,” McNeil said. “They were so thrilled. They really didn’t know what they were going to do with it, but they knew they needed it. It was just a matter of details.”

Those details took another eight years to accomplish, however. Despite best intentions, the park service — like any federal agency — can become ensnared in its own unwieldy bureaucracy.

And there was still the looming question of what to do with the magnificent property. Along the way, a new superintendent, Karen Wade, arrived in the Smokies. Wade is credited with the idea of a research station where scientists and school children could converge. She developed a brochure outlining the vision, primarily to garner support in surrounding communities.

By happenstance, park officials visiting from Washington, D.C., saw the brochure. They liked the idea so much they began laying plans for a network of research and education centers in national parks across the country. The Smokies suddenly found itself competing against other parks for money to implement its vision at Purchase Knob, but was ultimately chosen as one of five pilot parks to test the idea.

“The Smokies has always had strong connections with research. It is typically the park that has the most research permits in the entire country. We are always in the top three,” Sachs said. The Smokies was also surrounded by public schools, unlike parks out West where neighboring communities are few and far between.

Sachs came on board with the Smokies in 1999 to help develop the education programming for the new Purchase Knob. Sachs tailored programs at the Purchase for middle and high school students and assembled a task force of teachers from the region to help develop a program that would meet their curriculum mandates.

The Purchase continues to be heralded throughout the park service as a model to replicate. Sometimes it seems Sachs spends more time on the speaking circuit than at her own park, leading seminars on how to integrate research and education. There are now 17 research learning centers across the national park system, from Acadia National Park to Point Reyes National Seashore.

Purchase Knob encompasses 530 acres of high-elevation rolling meadows and woodlands, surprisingly gentle terrain for its 4,900-foot altitude. The home built by McNeil and her husband serves as quarters for visiting researchers. When scientists lining up their visit hear the words “park quarters,” they expect little more than a bunk house or cabin, but instead find a mountain top lodge with wrap around decks, sweeping vistas, expansive windows, a giant dining room table and elegant living room.

“It is a beautiful place and inspirational setting coupled with comfortable meeting space and great natural resources,” Sachs said.

The allure of the Purchase could be the tipping point for scientists deciding where to do their research, which in turn benefits understanding of the park over time. “The park has tremendous natural resources they don’t always understand because natural systems are complicated,” said George Ivey, a grant writer for Friends of the Smokies.

One such experiment is a joint venture between NASA and Duke University that required launching weather balloons every three hours around the clock from the meadows at Purchase Knob. The goal: to better understand the microstructure of rainfall in the upper atmosphere and ultimately improve storm predictions.

“It was a very intensive experiment,” said Olivier Prat, one of nine researchers who descended on the Purchase for the project for a week last summer. “It’s important to have a facility like this where we could rest and work.”

As for McNeil, she lives in her hometown of San Francisco now, but flies back to Haywood County every year to visit the Purchase.

“I always have a little picnic lunch with the rangers and see what’s new and different that they’ve added,” McNeil said. “The Purchase is really still part of me. It has had a tremendous effect on my life like nothing else has.

By Dawn Gilchrist-Young

This is an Appalachian story because it is about resourceful people taking care of their own with little trust in institutions or reference to societal expectations. It is also an Appalachian story because it is about people with no money circumventing the status quo and experiencing equal measures of grace and awkwardness. But it is a universal story because it is about preparing a dead human body that you have loved, in this case the body of my aunt, Frances Barbery, in this case at home and with our own hands.

What we did was at Aunt Fran’s request, made possible through the help of a family friend, Julia Hunt, who was Fran’s hospice volunteer and home funeral guide. What we did was the difference, for my family, in incurring debt and remaining solvent, and in saying an intimate good-bye in a language we all understand, as opposed to saying good-bye in the mortuary chapel of kind professionals.

Other than my maternal grandmother, Aunt Fran was the poorest person I have ever loved. Her years of managing convenience stores, traveling with a carnival, selling plants in flea markets, and working in a resort laundry left her with no income in old age other than a social security check of $600 and change. She had cancers, and as they multiplied, she bought an insurance policy that would pay towards her funeral, but the primary expenses, she knew, would fall on my parents, who had taken care of her since she had become bedridden.

Because she had just buried her second husband a few months before, Aunt Fran was aware of the cost. She was congenitally independent, and so she was as delighted as a dying woman can be when Julia offered to guide my mother and Fran in the time leading to Fran’s dying and the death itself. Aunt Fran, my mother, my sisters, Julia, and I all agreed that we would prepare Aunt Fran’s corpse for cremation in the small bedroom where she spent her last months. Julia told us what to expect and that she would lead us through it, and my youngest sister, Camille, who rehabilitates wild animals and has a gift for treating the injured, agreed to be her right hand.

My part was to drive her body to the crematory. So that is how, on Jan. 15, 2009, I came to be driving Aunt Fran’s body from Euchella cove to a crematory in Asheville in my tiny car as part of a small convoy, a convoy that would fit seamlessly in a Flannery O’Connor story or a Jonathan Dayton film, a convoy that Fran would have enjoyed, maybe did enjoy, if any form of consciousness continues. Even though Aunt Fran was in a large cardboard box crowded in the back of a Prius, the box did offer her the dignity of plenty of room for her five foot frame, and she was wearing her favorite peach colored satin pajamas, a gift from one of my brothers.

Aunt Fran, her sense of humor developed from a lifetime’s practice of turning pain into laughter, would have certainly laughed at the absurdity of this journey, at my seat pushed all the way forward and my knees jacked up gracelessly on either side of the steering wheel. She would have laughed at my back seats folded down to slide in her last conveyance, at Camille in a contortionist’s position in the passenger seat, her cheek almost against the windshield in order to allow the hatch to shut. She would have laughed for joy that my mother’s back could begin to heal from long months of lifting and turning her to avoid bedsores. She would have laughed, too, when the entire parade — my mother, two of her siblings, four of her five children, a daughter-in-law, two grandchildren, and the amazing Julia — had to stop at the rest area on Balsam for a bathroom break for the grandchildren and to try to adjust the placement of Fran’s box to prevent permanent neck injury to Camille, already worn from helping to handle Aunt Fran’s increasingly incapacitated form that trapped her still lucid mind.

It was our knowledge of Fran’s mind that allowed us to do what we were doing on that frigid January morning, and that had allowed us to do what we had done since her death two mornings before. Julia’s instructions to my mother and Camille had been to call her as soon as Fran died. To properly begin the in-home process of preparing the body, certain protocols had to be followed. My sister, Regina, and I were also on hand to begin, although we mostly watched as the beautiful as well as unpleasant aspects of preparation ensued. The reality, and the reason this will not be chosen as a last ritual by many, is the obvious: the body is organic matter. Its bowels have to be emptied, its crevices cleaned, and its limbs arranged decently before rigor mortis sets in. The cold weather was a blessing. With the bedroom windows open and frigid air helping to slow the decomposition that begins when cells are no longer replaced, Camille and Julia, with Mom, Regina and I attending, proceeded to wash Aunt Fran with her favorite soap, shampoo her thinned strands of white hair, and powder her quiet body.

Fran’s humor had always leaned towards the earthy, and the washing and powdering recalled her stories and jokes. Bathing her arms and legs showed us her tan lines, retained even in January from a lifetime of gardening, and recalled for us her loves and passions. Bathing her ears showed us her many piercings, and reminded us, for her generation, of her unconventional approach to beauty. Bathing her contorted hands reminded us of the terrible pain of her rheumatoid arthritis, the perseverance and determination she exhibited in doing for herself until she could no longer do. Bathing her feet and applying her scant makeup recalled her concern, until the very last moment, that she always be presentable, if not pretty. And when it was finished, when she was wearing those satin pajamas and her hands were folded in the classic pose of repose, she was pretty.

When friends and family came the following day to pay respects, no one exclaimed with surprise that Fran “looked so natural” because she was in the bed where she had slept when they visited her over the past weeks, because she looked as she had when they last spoke with her. This was the Fran who taught us in those hours we prepared and transported her body that there is no better way to recognize the sacred in life than to love the body even after it dies.

And so this is an Appalachian story about pride, about my aunt’s pride, in life and death, that prevented her from asking for help from institutions or welfare. But it is also a universal story, and it is about humility. Because one individual was willing to ask friends and family for help, her humility taught all those involved about the sanctity and dignity that are possible even in death.

(Julia Hunt’s experience with her own mother’s home funeral moved her to seek further training with Center for End of Life Transitions, a non-profit project that offers assistance, comfort, and support to all faiths with home funeral education and guidance as well as end of life documentation workshops. For more information, contact Caroline Yongue at 828.676.9806 or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Further, a Web site, now currently under construction, may be found at www.centerforendoflifetransitions.org.)

A new hiking book on Western North Carolina puts the regions trails in a new perspective. It weaves together the classic nuts-and-bolts trail instructions with history, stories and anecdotes of the trail and its surrounds.

Hiking North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Heritage was written by Asheville outdoor writer and hiking aficionado Danny Bernstein. The guide packs all the requisite how-to info into the trail write-ups: maps, trail descriptions and driving directions to the trail head. But Hiking North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Heritage brings the trail to life by giving hikers a colorful story about the place they are venturing.

“It gives you something extra: an inside look at the heritage behind the trails that even long-time residents and experienced hikers may not know,” said Penn Dameron, executive director of the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area. “Your hike will be more than just a walk in the woods. You’ll develop an even greater appreciation for these wonderful mountains.”

George Ellison, outdoor writer and naturalist in Bryson City, said the flourishing number of trail guides over the past half century half become “progressively more informative and accurate as to logistics regarding access, length, difficulty, water sources, shelters, regulations, and so on.” Bernstein’s book, however, is a “trail compendium,” Ellison said, that “deftly assimilates” not only the flora and fauna into trail descriptions but even the literary and cinematic heritage of some sites.

At 384 pages, the guide recommends 66 day hikes ranging in length from 1.3 to 13.1 miles and spanning the mountains of Western North Carolina. The book was published by Milestone Press, based in Bryson City. Bernstein’s first hiking book, published in 2007, is Hiking the Carolina Mountains.

“Bernstein sends us out to explore not only the well-known hiking destinations, but also the places...that have been neglected by other guides,” Leonard Adkins, author of Walking the Blue Ridge, wrote in a review of the book.

The book also includes a few hidden gems off-the-beaten path of other trail guides, like the new Gorges State Park and Hickory Nut Gorge area around Chimney Rock.

By Karen Dill

Author’s note: This article is dedicated to our dear friend and neighbor, Louise Bedford, who passed away March 26 of this year. She loved Percy unconditionally and he preferred her house to ours.

On a cool mountain morning, mist will hang around our yard, playing tag with the trees and painting a mystical picture for the early riser. It is one such magical morning in late winter, and I look out the window to our back yard and see, of all things, well, a peacock.

The sight is difficult to comprehend, as peacocks are usually not seen in the mountains of Western North Carolina. I think that this must be a hallucination or a result of too much wine from the night before. Yet, there he is, neither turkey nor wood fowl. It is indeed a male peacock, minus his feathers.

I will learn later through reading the remarkable works of the Southern writer, Flannery O’Connor, that the peacock in our backyard has molted and his feathers were shed in the fall. Around March, he will sprout magnificent feathers and in May, he will begin the search for a worthy peahen.

I assume that like all magical apparitions, the peacock is a one-time sighting. He has simply lost his compass, I think, and will move on to his real home on a peacock farm. Yet, he reappears that evening and again the following morning and his initial shyness gives way to boldness.

Neighbors gather and discuss “the peacock sighting.” I haven’t lost my mind. He is real. So real, in fact, that a couple who live in our neighborhood name him Sir Perceival, Percy for short. He is so named because of his regal manner, his arrogant strut and his fearless nature. Percy behaves as if he belongs here and we, the mere mortals, are somehow his subjects in a royal kingdom.

Unlike the rather demure finches and robins common to our mountains, Percy has not shred of modesty. My mother, a most humble mountain lady, believed that Pride goeth before the fall (or is it before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall?) so I was reared with a healthy dose of modesty and found Percy’s arrogant pride to be a little disconcerting. He was proud as Lucifer, as my mother might say, and I was a wee bit uncomfortable with his arrogant confidence.

The perils of pride were introduced at an early age in my household. Some of first books that my mother read aloud to me were about a young girl named Elsie Dinsmore. Soon after Elsie’s birth, her mother died but the plucky Elsie grew sweet, cheerful and modest in spite of abundant hardships. When her wicked step-mother scolded her (and she was scolded a lot), Elsie modestly “cast her eyes upon the ground” undoubtedly paving her way to a better life in the here-after.

I was taught to strive for modesty and shun prideful behavior. Humility was a virtue and showing off would surely bring pain. My mother had learned this lesson the hard way. After her own mother died, my mother went to live with an aunt and uncle who had little understanding of young girls’ needs and desires. A natural athlete, my mother longed to play basketball and defying her aunt and uncle, made the high school team in the little hamlet of Walnut.

And she was a star basking in the cheers and applause from the crowds in the gym until disaster struck. One afternoon in practice, she jumped for a pass, fell the wrong way, and broke her arm. There was no more basketball but there was also no confession, no revelation. Fearing punishment from her aunt and uncle, my mother said nothing and the broken arm was never set.

For the rest of her life, that arm caused mother considerable pain, especially when it rained. And pride, she was convinced, created the dismal collapse of her basketball days.

The epitome of pride, Percy is almost magical and works his power on us all. When he chases our cat and runs after the lawnmowers, no passerby can resist a smile.

At times, however, Percy tests our patience when he lit in on our little dog, Sam, in a race for a piece of cornbread. Sam won and even proud Percy now concedes Sam’s space. The truce works, I suspect, because Sam gives Percy a wide berth whether there is cornbread around or not.

Come May evenings, Percy appears on our patio like clockwork and we take to eating alfresco to enjoy his company. Somehow he senses when dinner guests are coming and clocks in early to check out the menu and be introduced.

He expects bites from everybody’s plate and when the conversation doesn’t suit the regal bird, his indignant squawks shatter the night air. One evening our friend Thomas Crowe failed to pass along a nibble of chicken and Percy promptly bit him on the arm when he was ignored. Apparently Thomas did not understand that Percy not only expects to be the center of attention but wants to sample all food served from the patio table.

I’m not saying that I’m so taken with Percy that I’ve started cooking for him, but he does love cornbread. And I confess I now bake a “Peacock Gourmet Cornbread” laced with peanuts and sunflower seeds, a dish Percy adores and isn’t about to share. He has even taken a liking for wild mint and one afternoon he happily snapped a mint spring straight out of my glass of lemonade.

A natural for wild mint is the exotic-sounding Middle Eastern dish tabbouleh. While living in Turkey for two years, I learned to love this dish and found that it is easily replicated here in the mountains. Except for the bulgur, olive oil, and lemon juice, tabbouleh ingredients can be gathered from the herb and vegetable gardens — tomatoes, onions, parsley and, of course, mint. Fine as a main dish, tabbouleh also goes well with almost any meat — especially chicken.

Without consulting Percy’s palette or preferences, I snipped a good handful of tarragon for a lemon and yogurt marinade. I’ll marinade the chicken for about an hour before Tom puts the pieces on the grill. Once the grilling is well underway, the leftover marinade is perfect for basting the chicken.

What better summer salad than the layers of sliced garden tomatoes or grape tomatoes and mozzarella cheese balls topped with just-picked basil leaves. I’ll dress the salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, adding a mixture of chopped parsley, ground sea salt and black pepper for a splash of color.

My sturdy rosemary bush and provides the perfect enhancement to a loaf of yeast bread. And when the rosemary aroma wafts out of the kitchen, Percy may appear at the screen demanding to know when we eat! At dinner time, we will scatter bits of this bread on the patio for him and he’ll gobble up every crumb.

Dessert will be an elegant crème brulee with a hint of lavender. The lavender leaves that grow in the herb garden not only emit a wonderful fragrance in the warm sunshine but add a lovely flavor to many dishes when the leaves are crushed. Although the top of this custard dish can be easily browned in the oven for the sugary crust, I will finally have a chance to use my new cooking blowtorch to brown the top of the brulee.

The dishes of this dinner will come together in symphony as all good dinners tend to do. The bright colors and aromas of the herbs used in the meal will fill the senses and as we sit around the patio, Percy will join us and proudly demand his share of the dinner.

Sharing with Percy has been easy for us. Not only has Percy taught us to take notice of the mint in the garden and is the inspiration for this particular dinner, he has also provided other lessons. Each day that Percy strutted around our yard, I would mentally note what might be learned from this strange and exotic bird.

I have learned that modesty may be over-rated — probably is. Watching Percy, I see clearly that it is OK to show off now and again — even to strut. The trick is to strut with delicate grace (think Percy) and with a dose of pride. And casting your eyes to the ground too often may cause you to miss some beautiful sights that are right in front of you.

Percy has taught us that love is not shy. When he flies to his roost and calls for that elusive mate, his cries echo through the valley. It is fine to bellow out your love for your mate and if your mate does not respond, at least no one will doubt that you have the capacity to live and love loudly.

As Percy eagerly samples our food, I am reminded of the importance of curiosity in life. The world is after all, a curious place. By smelling, tasting, and touching the gifts of nature, we learn appreciation for differences. A mountain community can adopt a foreign bird and a mountain girl can learn to serve a Middle Eastern dish for dinner. It seems to begin with curiosity.

Above all, Percy has connected us to so many people. Like the mint that overtakes my herb garden each spring, Percy is best shared with others. Neighbors stop by daily to chat about him. Parents bring their children by as an educational field trip. A delightful young woman brings him leftover walnut wheat bread (his favorite) from Annie’s, the local bakery. Concerned neighbors worry if he is safe and warm on cool nights and offer to take him in, though I’m not sure how one would go about “taking in a peacock.” Percy has taught us that it takes surprisingly little effort to bring people together. All it takes is a big beautiful bird with enormous personality and the ability to believe in just a little bit of magic —and a modest amount of pride.

Grilled Lemon Tarragon Chicken

An intense lemon and garlic-flavored grilled chicken, the addition of the dill-like herb, tarragon, adds a wonderful dimension to the overall taste equation.

Marinade:

1 cup plain yogurt

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons

olive or vegetable oil

2 tablespoons dried tarragon leaves

1 tablespoon fresh garlic, finely minced or crushed

1 teaspoon salt

Freshly ground pepper to taste

Lemon wedges for garnish

6 chicken breast halves (I prefer the bone-less fillets)

In a large zipper-style plastic bag combine all ingredients for the marinade, mixing well. Add the chicken breasts and seal; place bag in a dish as a precaution against leaks. Allow chicken to marinate for several hours in the refrigerator or overnight, turning bag over occasionally.

Drain marinade into a small, nonreactive saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat for several minutes or until reduced by half.

Meanwhile, grill (or broil) chicken over medium-high heat about 8 to 10 minutes on each side or until tested done when juices run clear.

Place the grilled chicken breasts on a serving platter and drizzle with a spoonful or two of the reduced marinade, garnish with lemon wedges, if desired. Pass remaining marinade to spoon atop individual servings.

Tabbouleh

2 bunches of fresh parsley (1 1/2 cup chopped, with stems discarded)

2 tablespoons of fresh mint, chopped

I medium onion, finely chopped

6 medium tomatoes, diced

1 tablespoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 cup bulgur, medium grade

6 tablespoons lemon juice

6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Romaine lettuce or grape leaves to line serving bowl (optional)

Soak bulgur in water for 1 1/2 to 2 hours in cold water until soft.

Squeeze out excess water from bulgur using hands or paper towel.

Combine all ingredients, except for salt, pepper, lemon juice, and olive oil.

Line serving bowl with grape leaves or romaine lettuce, and add salad.

Sprinkle olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper on top.

Serve immediately or chill in refrigerator for 2 hours before serving.

Rosemary Bread Recipe

1 tablespoon white sugar

1 cup warm water

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter, softened

2 tablespoons rosemary (if fresh, chop the little prickly leaves)

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

3 cups bread flour

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 egg beaten (optional)

Dissolve the sugar in warm water in a medium bowl, and mix in the yeast. When yeast is bubbly, mix in salt, butter, 1 tablespoon rosemary, and Italian seasoning. Mix in 2 cups flour. Gradually add remaining flour to form a workable dough, and knead 10 to 12 minutes.

Coat the inside of a large bowl with olive oil. Place dough in bowl, cover, and allow to rise 1 hour in a warm location.

Punch down dough, and divide in half. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Lightly grease paper. Shape dough into 2 round loaves, and place on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with remaining rosemary. Cover, and allow to rise 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

Brush loaves with egg. Bake 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.

**Note: this bread is especially good dipped in olive oil and rosemary leaves.

Lavender-scented Crème Brulee

I N G R E D I E N T S

2 cups heavy cream

2 tablespoons dried lavender flowers

4 egg yolks

1/2 cup plus 8 teaspoons granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

I N S T R U C T I O N S

Preheat oven to 325°F.

Combine the cream and the lavender leaves in a small heavy saucepan over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Remove the pan from the heat and let the mixture stand for 10 minutes.

Whisk egg yolks, 1/2 cup sugar and the vanilla in a medium sized bowl until well blended. Slowly add the cream mixture and whisk constantly until it is blended. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve then divide the mixture between 4 6-oz ramekins. Place the ramekins in a baking pan and add enough hot water come half way up the sides of the ramekins. Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake until the custards are just set, approximately 40 minutes. Do not overcook or the custard will be “tough”.

Two hours before serving:

Preheat broiler. Sprinkle 2 teaspoon sugar atop each custard. Place dishes on small baking sheet. Broil until sugar just starts to caramelize, rotating sheet for even browning, about 2 minutes. Chill until caramelized sugar hardens, about 2 hours.

Note: I used a kitchen blow torch to caramelize the sugar. It is not a necessary gadget but it is fun!

Jackson County commissioners got their first look last week at a master plan for a Dillsboro river park — a plan that prominently features the controversial dam — on the same night they spent nearly three hours in closed session discussing their legal fight with Duke Power over the fate of the dam.

Jackson County and Duke Energy have been locked in a lengthy battle over the dam. Duke wants to demolish it and county leaders want to save it.

The county contracted with Equinox Environmental of Asheville to develop a conceptual design for a park along the river in Dillsboro. The inclusion of the dam and powerhouse as a focal point for the river park surprised some, however, including Commissioner Tom Massie. Massie, who has unsuccessfully prodded the others commissioner to give up in their fight against Duke, seemed perplexed over why the dam appears as a focal point when its demolition is all but imminent

“I’d like to say that Equinox Environmental does wonderful work, and that this is a good plan,” said Massie after a presentation by landscape architect Dena Shelley of Equinox. “But I guess, Mr. Chairman, I’m missing something here. Does this mean that Duke has given in to Jackson County and said the dam could stay?”

Commissioner Chairman Brian McMahan said the park could be built with or without the dam, and Equinox’s Shelley concurred with McMahan.

“We had in mind that the plan could work with or without the dam,” Shelley said.

The park, if built, would radically change the riverfront on both sides of the Tuckasegee in and around Dillsboro. The conceptual design includes river put-ins for boaters, river viewing and fishing areas, parks on both sides of the river connected by a river walk, plus an extended greenway. It was designed to entice anglers, boaters and pedestrians, and would be tied into downtown Dillsboro with footpaths and signage.

“The idea was to create a destination for recreation and tourism in Dillsboro,” said Shelley.

Commissioner Joe Cowan said he hadn’t had time to study the plans, but on first glance he was impressed.

The plan even incorporated turning the old powerhouse it into a craft center or some other retail business and had dam viewing areas.

Following the presentation, commissioners went into closed session to discuss their legal battle with Duke over the Dillsboro dam. Tearing down the dam would serve as the centerpiece of Duke’s environmental mitigation, required to offset the impacts of its other hydropower operations in the region.

Jackson County, however, wants to keep the dam and force Duke to perform other mitigation instead, such as an environmental trust fund. While Jackson has lost several appeals against Duke, the county’s attorney on the issue claimed Jackson held the ultimate trump card: condemning the dam with the power of imminent domain and taking it over to operate as a source of green power. That idea appeared to die last summer, however.

The closed session last week (May 18) lasted until after 11 p.m. but no action was taken afterward. Among those attending the closed session was Gary Miller, a lawyer who aided Dillsboro Inn owner TJ Walker in his opposition to Duke.

Nantahala Outdoor Center is planning a major new outfitters store in Gatlinburg, tapping into the hub of one of the Smokies’ most bustling tourism markets.

NOC will call the 18,000-square-foot flagship retail store the Great Outpost. The new store will occupy an anchor position in Gatlinburg’s downtown shopping and entertainment district, which draws more than 14 million visitors annually. It will feature a wide selection of top outdoor apparel, camping, climbing, cycling, paddling, hiking and travel brands. It will become the largest retail store in Gatlinburg and add 55 new jobs.

The push not only marks a foray into a new geographic market, but also NOC’s continued diversification beyond rafting into all forms of outdoor adventure.

The Great Outpost will serve as a launching pad for whitewater rafting, whitewater and flatwater kayaking, fly-fishing, guided hiking, mountain biking, outdoor education classes and nature tours in the Smokies. It will also feature educational exhibits on outdoor education, the environment, and connect guests with outdoor clubs and conservation groups that help protect the Smokies.

The new store will follow green principles, including the prestigious LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council that certifies buildings for green design, construction, and energy efficiency.

NOC is the largest outfitter in the nation with half a million visitors every year.

NOC lauded as business hero during recession

The major venture into a new market during a recession landed NOC’s President and CEO Sutton Bacon a spot in the “Heroes of Small Business” Congressional hearing in Washington, D.C., last week.

“A downturn is a terrible thing to waste,” Bacon told the Congressional Committee on Small Business.

Throughout Bacon’s testimony he emphasized “innovating through the recession” by creating new product offerings and refining operational infrastructure to gain strategic advantage in the marketplace. The committee’s objective in the hearing was to examine the important role small businesses play in creating jobs and growing the economy.

According to a recent Western Carolina University study, NOC contributes $48 million to the economy of WNC and supports over 579 full-time jobs in a region that still reeling from a loss of traditional manufacturing jobs.

Bacon’s testimony emphasized the importance of outdoor recreation as a regional economic driver. According to the Outdoor Industry Association — of which Bacon is a board member — the outdoor industry sustains 6.5 million jobs and contributes $730 billion to the nation’s economy.

In his talk, Bacon also emphasized NOC’s commitment as a “green” business, and it’s dedication in connecting youth with nature and the outdoors.

Bacon’s testimony and more information on NOC’s Great Outpost are available at www.noc.com/greatoutpost.html.

By Julia Merchant • Staff Writer

Haywood County jeweler Diannah Beauregard believes that art can change the world.

With that as a starting point, Beauregard is embarking on a project that is quickly gaining interest in the local art community. StudioEarth centers around the concept of creating art for a greater purpose — to benefit local charities and nonprofits, in a way that truly gives back to the community.

StudioEarth will hold its inaugural event, “Gateway to the Arts, Fine Art and Craft Show,” from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, May 30, at the Gateway Club in downtown Waynesville. Proceeds from the $5 ticket sales will fund scholarships to students enrolled in Haywood Community College’s Professional Crafts Program.

The HCC art program seemed like the perfect candidate to serve as the beneficiary of the first StudioEarth initiative, especially since Beauregard and some of the other artists in the show are graduates of the program.

“Sponsoring an art show that supports HCC Professional Crafts students has been on my agenda since I opened my business,” Beauregard says. “I hold the community college in such high regard and want to support and nourish the very thing that gave me the cornerstone of my foundation as a leading jeweler in Haywood County.”

Local artists have created special pieces to sell at the event, ranging from $15 weavings to $15,000 necklaces. Participating artists include Joel Queen, traditional Cherokee potter and sculptor; Kaaren Stoner, ceramicist; Teresa Pennington, “Artist of the Blue Ridge;” Bob Travers, landscape and wildlife paintings; and many more.

A larger vision

The Gateway to the Arts event will kick off what Beauregard considers a culmination of her life’s work. Beauregard, who owns Studio 33 in Waynesville, has already had some foray into using her art to benefit local organizations. Sales of certain pieces she crafts go to benefit environmental efforts in the mountains; the Haywood Animal Welfare Association; and the Haywood County Arts Council.

“Bridging the world of art and social awareness can create a truly wonderful win-win situation,” Beauregard says.

She says Haywood County is the perfect location to expand on that idea. The area serves as a unique incubator for dozens of local artisans and crafters. The existence of HCC’s program means the community is constantly molding new artists. Moreover, the county is a place where many artists are full-time, and make a living from their work. They’re an important part of the local economy. A recently released study found that arts and crafts in the region bring $206 million each year to the economy. Beauregard herself won a Chamber of Commerce contest for small business startups in 2007, which helped her open her studio.

“I believe that art and craft in Haywood County is really a mainstay,” she says. “I want to see art and craft be what drives our community. We are being given a golden opportunity in Haywood County to establish that model.”

A team of state inspectors will arrive at Ghost Town in the Sky amusement park on Monday, May 18, in hopes of getting the rides and chairlift certified for the anticipated opening day of May 22.

Ghost Town barely made the cut-off for requesting an inspection in time to open, and will leave the state inspectors pushed to get it done time.

“To be honest it is going to be a really tough week for us,” said Jonathan Brooks, chief of the N.C. Elevator & Amusement Device Bureau.

Brooks will dedicate a team of five or six inspectors to Ghost Town for the week. The chairlift will be most time consuming, with inspectors physically assessing all 105 chairs, the structural integrity of the support towers and the mechanical functions that run the chair lift. They will also witness the evacuation procedure. The 10 rides on top of the mountain will take less time.

“Barring that we don’t have any unforeseen issues, I feel fairly comfortable with our guys on those rides for a week, the chances are pretty good,” Brooks said of getting the inspections done in time.

Ghost Town has also requested a ride inspection of the roller coaster, which has been out of operation while being rebuilt. The coaster inspection is far more involved.

“It will be a tough, tough haul to get the coaster done. I professionally don’t see it happening by opening day,” Brooks said. It could be done by the following weekend, however, if all goes well and nothing needs fixing or altering.

Some steps in the chairlift and coaster inspection have already been checked off. The chairlift cable has already been certified, as well as aspects of the roller coaster car, including the lap restraint system. The train car is still at the manufacturers in Tennessee, where testing was being conducted, but should arrive at the park by week’s end, Brooks said. Some portions of the track inspection have been completed by a private ride engineer and is supposed to be in the mail to Brooks.

Maggie Valley aldermen will hold a public hearing at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 14, on whether to loan Ghost Town $200,000. The amusement park is currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Susan Livengood of Fines Creek has been awarded a 2009 Regional Artist Project Grant from the North Carolina Arts Council.

Livengood, whose paintings are represented by Art on Depot in Waynesville, used the money to do a three-dimensional installation, loosely referring to a classic triptych. The project is called “Chemo Today” and deals with the moment that a woman with cancer takes to gather herself to face another day battling cancer. The figure is crouched in the bottom of her closet, surrounded by familiar items that have taken on an unfamiliar, alien aspect.

Livengood has shown at Haywood Arts Regional Theatre in Waynesville and the Haywood Public Library. Her next show is in September at the Andrews Art Museum.

Haywood

Waynesville Tailgate Market

8 a.m. to noon Wednesdays and Saturdays at American Legion parking lot near downtown Waynesville. Haywood County grown vegetables, fruits, cut flowers, honey and nursery stock.

Haywood’s Historic Farmers Market

8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays in HART parking lot off U.S. 276 in Waynesville. Produce, plants, baked goods, cheese, meat, fish and more.

Haywood Fairgrounds Farmers Market

7 a.m. to 2 p.m. first Saturday of the month at the Haywood County Fairgrounds (second Saturday in July). Fresh veggies, fruits, plants and more. In conjunction with monthly flea market.

Jackson

Jackson County Farmers Market

9 a.m. to noon Saturdays in the municipal parking lot next to Bridge Park in downtown Sylva. Home-grown vegetable seedlings, native plants, flowers, herbs, vegetables, fruits, honey, jams, jellies, soaps, lotions, baskets, crafts and art.

Swain

Swain County Tailgate Market

9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays starting June 6 in front of Swain County Administration Building in Bryson City. Organic and sustainable growers of produce, plants, herbs and honey; art including jewelry, quilts, pottery, photographs and more.

Qualla Boundary

Cherokee Friday Farmers Tailgate Market

10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Fridays in downtown Cherokee on Acquoni Road one mile from U.S. 19. Fresh produce from local farmers and gardeners; look for organics and heirlooms.

Macon

Franklin Tailgate Market

8 a.m. to noon Saturdays starting June 6 in parking lot on Palmer Street (backside of Main Street across from Drake Enterprises). Homegrown fruits, vegetables, herbs, cut flowers, plants, eggs, locally made cheese, trout, and honey.

Rickman Store Market

3 to 7 p.m. Fridays at old T.M. Rickman Store located on Cowee Creek Road next to Cowee Elementary School. Vegetables, plants, flowers, organic eggs, baked goods and more, as well as local arts and crafts.

By Jim Janke

The purpose of Master Gardener programs is to increase the knowledge of horticulture among home gardeners. Master Gardener Volunteers are trained to answer questions about lawns, fruits, vegetables, trees and ornamental plants. Their efforts in getting information to the public significantly increase the effectiveness of full time agricultural agents.

The primary way we communicate gardening information to folks in Haywood County is through our plant clinic. From mid-April through October, Master Gardeners are at the Extension Center from 9 a.m. to noon every business day. Any horticultural question is welcome. If we don’t know the answer right then and there, we’ll consult the experts and someone will get back to you with research-based information.

In 2008 the plant clinic answered 450 different questions in many categories:

• Insect and disease damage to plants: 42 percent. (The single most common dealt with Hemlock Woolly Adelgid.)

• General gardening questions: 29 percent.

• Control of insect infestations: 8 percent.

• Control of weeds & invasive plants: 6 percent.

• Wildlife & animal pests: 5 percent.

• Lawns: 4 percent.

• Other: 6 percent.

Some of the “other” questions are quite interesting. Here’s a sample:

• Why does my neighbor plant his tomatoes in a butter tub? Some crawling insects can’t climb over the lip of a butter tub (or any similar plastic container). Neither can they dig under the tub to get at the plant.

Cut out the entire bottom of the container, forming a ring. Place the ring around the stem when you put the plant into the hole. Then fill the hole normally and press the ring into the soil so about half of it is visible. This little trick helps protect tomatoes, peppers, and squash from insects like slugs and cutworms.

• How can I control fall webworms? Poke a hole or two in the fall webworm sacks as soon as they appear. A parasitic wasp will enter the sack to kill the webworm pupae inside. My 18 foot telescoping golf ball retriever is an excellent tool for this, because it can reach a long way up a tree.

• Why is there sometimes frost at lower elevations when there is no frost higher on the mountain? Warm is lighter than cold air, so warm air rises and cold air falls. When there is no breeze to mix the cold and warm air currents, the cold air settles, allowing frost to form on the valley floor. Because it’s a couple of degrees warmer higher on the mountain, there might not be any frost there. Or, put another way, even though there’s no frost at my place, the golf course 200 feet below might still be closed because of frost.

Do you have a gardening question? Give the plant clinic a call at 828.456.3575. We’d love to help!

Jim Janke is a Master Gardener Volunteer in Haywood County. For more information call the Haywood County Extension Center at 828.456.3575.

It looks like the Department of Social Services in Haywood County won’t be getting a new home after all. Haywood County commissioners decided against purchasing the old Wal-Mart building, which would have housed DSS as well as the health department, in a closed session last week (May 4).

“The commissioners decided that now is not the right time in light of everything else what we’ve had to do as a county in response to the global economic crisis,” said County Manager David Cotton.

County officials were seeking a USDA loan between $10 million and $11 million to fund the purchase and renovations to the building.

Finding a new home for DSS has long been on the county’s to-do list. The department is housed in a decrepit, crumbling old hospital, and is so cramped for space that some closets double as offices.

The old Wal-Mart would have been less expensive than building on a new site.

“In our capital improvements plan, we’d actually identified needing $20 million to $25 million to buy a piece of land and build from scratch,” Cotton said.

The old Wal-Mart purchase is not completely off the table, Cotton said. He said the company that owns the building, RBC Ventures, is still open to the idea of if county officials change their mind.

Innovative techniques for dispersing runoff and protecting neighboring streams will be highlighted during a program at 6:30 p.m. Monday, May 11, at Bethel Elementary School.

The grounds of Bethel Elementary School incorporate many environmental features that protect water quality. Haywood Waterways Association worked with the Haywood County school system in the site design for the new school.

Haywood Waterways Association and the environmental engineer that designed the site plan, Equinox Environmental, will share the techniques during a special half-hour program.

The site design allows water running off the school’s roof and parking lots to be absorbed back into the earth rather than shooting into the closest creek. The techniques also keep sediment, chemicals and other pollution from being carried into the creeks with run-off. Run-off during heavy rains is the number one cause of pollution to waterways and is a significant concern to the communities of Haywood County.

Allowing rain to be absorbed into the ground helps recharge the groundwater supply depended on for drinking wells and prevents flooding that occurs when creeks and rivers swell from heavy rains.

The site design at Bethel Elementary offer techniques that can be incorporated into any lot, commercial or residential.

“We needed an example for the county and region to show what could be done with stormwater. Publicly funded projects should set the example for others,” said Bill Yarborough of the Haywood Soil & Water Conservation District.

The program proceeds a school board meeting being held at the school that same night. Bethel Elementary School in located on N.C. 215. 828.452.9077.

By Julia Merchant • Staff writer

One day last October, Bud Dills, a longtime Nantahala Gorge resident, headed down to his favorite fishing spot. The area, located where the Nantahala River empties into Fontana Lake just past Wesser Falls, had long been popular with fishermen and paddlers. Dills, 63, had been fishing there since he was six years old.

But when he arrived, he was surprised to see a large, metal gate blocking the dirt road that was the only means of accessing the river shore.

The gate was erected by the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad. Railroad representatives said people were camping there, trashing the site with beer cans and shooting off guns, forcing the railroad to restrict access.

“We’re not trying to keep the locals out to access the river or to go fishing or hiking,” said Kim Albritten, general manager of the railroad. “That’s not the purpose of the gate. The gate is to deter overnight camping. My concern is that the railroad owns the property, and if we continue to allow camping and gunfire there, what risk does that pus us at the liability level?”

The railroad’s reasoning hasn’t stopped locals from mourning the loss of a beloved fishing and paddling spot. Dills described the area as “extremely popular,” attracting thousands of visitors each year to fish, boat or simply hike. The dirt road allowed vehicles to tow larger boats down to the water. The spot was also popular with the elderly, handicapped, or families with kids, since they could ride down to the water rather than attempting the nearly one-mile trek.

Ken Kastorff, owner of Endless River Adventures, said he’s irked that most people didn’t know the gate was going up.

“The thing that bothers me the most about this is that after the usage for 60 odd years, they all of a sudden close it off, and not even talk to any of the community,” Kastorff said. “If there was a problem down there, the local community, as well as the rafting companies, would have all been more than happy to work with the train to do whatever is necessary to keep that area open.”

Some people, such as Dills, don’t buy the railroad’s explanation that people were trashing the area and shooting firearms.

“The railroad said people were down there dumping garbage,” Dills said. “That’s not true. It’s a very clean area. They said people were shooting, but anyone could have been down there hunting during October.”

Kastorff said regardless of the reasons the gate was put up, it wasn’t the best way to address the problem.

“The problem is that putting a gate up there isn’t going to solve any of that,” Kastorff said. “There are still people that are down there that are camping.”

Indeed that is the case. Just a couple of weeks ago, the sheriff’s department got a call about three men with a beer keg shooting their guns, Albritten said.

“This is an ongoing problem. There’s a lot of trash being left behind by campers — not just a beer can or two, but kegs of beer are being taken down there.”

Albirtten said people are still welcome to walk past the gate to fish or access the area during the day.

Unforeseen consequence

The railroad’s attempts to prevent access to the area have created another dilemma that has only emerged with the start of rafting season. The popular fishing and camping spot also served as a key location for rafting companies to retrieve boats and paddles that had been swept past the commercial boat takeout.

“If we lose a boat or a paddle, or if a boat flips at the falls and goes over Wesser, we used to be able to drive down there and recover it,” said Steve Augustine, manager of Endless River Adventures. “Now, you can’t do that.”

The loss of that access point could present a potential safety issue, since boats that travel over Class V Wesser Falls need to be reached as soon as possible.

“If our boats go over the falls, especially if there’s people in them, we have to get down there immediately,” said Dills.

The railroad has given Nantahala Outdoor Center a key to the gate to be shared by the rafting companies, said Albritten.

Albritten said she told Brenda Dills, president of the Gorge Outfitters Association, about the key’s location at the NOC retail store. Albritten said Dills wasn’t happy that she and other outfitters will have to rely on NOC to open the gate.

“That wasn’t the ideal situation for them,” said Albritten. “They’d like to go down the road and grab rafts or paddles, but I can’t make 19 keys available to all the rafting companies. There has to be some level of control. However, I’m not against having several keys for some of the larger outfitters who may need more access.”

“When I first came into the Smokies the whole region was one of superb primeval forest. My sylvan studio spread over mountain after mountain, seemingly without end, and it was always clean and fragrant, always vital, growing new shapes of beauty from day to day. The vast trees met overhead like cathedral roofs. I am not a very religious man, but often when standing alone before my Maker in this house not made with hands I bowed my head with reverence and thanked God for His gift of the greatest forest to one who loved it. Not long ago, I went to that same place again. It was wrecked, ruined, desecrated, turned into a thousand rubbish heaps, utterly vile and mean.”

— Horace Kephart

As people throughout the mountains and around the country mark the celebration of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s 75th anniversary, Horace Kephart’s role in this park’s creation is once again being thrust into the limelight. While his depiction of “southern highlanders” in his famous book may still be open for debate, two things about Kephart are certain: he was, as the passage above shows, a superb writer; two, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park might not exist had it not been for his advocacy.

Kephart was an outlander, a man who came to the Smokies in his middle age and found people and a place that would consume him for the rest of his life. He cherished his time in the Smokies, and his skills as a chronicler of the ways of the rural mountaineer have earned him a lasting place in Appalachian history.

But it was how he used that fame that is most noteworthy. As he witnessed the sudden change wrought by large-scale logging upon mountain communities and mountain landscapes — again, see the passage above — he began to see the necessity of preserving what at one time had seemed an endless forest.

Kephart began writing articles and advocating to whomever would listen about the need to create a national park in the Smokies. The idea riled many of the mountaineers who had become his friend, for many at that time did not see the benefit of locking away land that had for generations been hunted, fished and used for its bounty to house and feed entire communities. There was also the unheard of controversy of creating a park — in essence, taking the land — of hundreds of families whose farms and homes were in the area being considered for the national park.

As we realize now, Kephart and others who fought relentlessly for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park were visionaries. They carved a jewel out of the remaining mountain wilderness, creating what has become one of the most bio-diverse habitats left in North America and the entire planet.

Early park supporters also gave this region another important legacy — an economy based on tourism rather than taking from the land. Although the logging and timber industry are still important and still a vital part of the mountain heritage, the preserved forests and wilderness also have fed generations of mountain families. People come here to connect with the mountains, to get that same feeling Horace Kephart describes in the above passage.

As we mark the creation of this great park, it’s a proper time to pay homage to those like Kephart who made it possible. This would be a vastly different place had they not prevailed.