To the Editor:

How incredibly serendipitous that your newspaper of Jan. 23 should headline the flooding and landslides that occurred during the four days of local heavy rains while at the same time highlighting the ongoing review of the Jackson County Steep Slope Ordinance by the Jackson County Commissioners and the County Planning Committee. To add spice to the stew, the column by Mr. Don Hendershot (The Naturalist’s Corner) reported the cuts by the N.C. legislature to the landslide mapping program midway through its work in Jackson County, effectively ending that program and leaving the county without a credible evaluation of the slide risks to current and future homeowners and to infrastructure in our county. Mr. Hendershot indicated the resultant savings from those program cuts saved the state ($1.4 million) while also pointing out that the cost of landslide remediation from a single incident in Maggie Valley has already cost the state that same amount.

Page 6 of the paper reported additional slides in Maggie Valley during the past week at Rich Cove (site of the original slide) and at the head of Soco. No casualties this time excepting a car and a few trees falling on a house. My sympathies to those suffering losses, especially the recently retired couple in Macon County who lost their home of one year to a slide.

I would agree that completion of the landslide mapping project in Jackson County will do nothing for those already occupying potential slide sites, except perhaps to warn those occupants to be aware of the consequences of significant rain events in their locale. For those with plans to build, the map would serve to let those people know that alternative building sites might be safer and much less expensive to them at some point in the future, especially in these “big storm” times. Whether the landslide mapping ever resumes in Jackson County is probably moot, but the results of recent weather events should certainly provide critical advice to the Jackson County Planning Committee as they evaluate the slope and cut/fill thresholds to be used in future home and infrastructure building decisions. Someone’s life may depend on it. 

Roy B. Osborn

Cullowhee

Tunnel projects to delay work on I-40

The N.C. Department of Transportation will perform work on three tunnels in the Pigeon River Gorge on Interstate 40 in Haywood County during a two-week period starting Monday, Feb. 4.

• Traffic reduced to a single lane at the tunnel on I-40 West between Exit 7 (Harmon Den) and Tennessee, and traffic through the tunnel on I-40 East will be re-routed on Feb. 4.

• Traffic through the tunnel on I-40 East between Harmon Den and Tennessee will possibly be re-routed on Feb. 5.

• Traffic reduced to single lane at the tunnel on I-40 East between Harmon Den and Exit 15 (Fines Creek) Feb. 5-6.

www.ncdot.gov/travel.

N.C. DOT to resurface I-40, Newfound Road

North Carolina Department of Transportation has awarded an $8.6 million contract to Harrison Construction Co. Division of APAC-Atlantic Inc. of Knoxville, Tenn. to resurface 5.7 miles of Interstate 40 in Haywood County between Exit 15 (Fines Creek) and Exit 20 (U.S. 276/Jonathan Creek). The contract also includes resurfacing 2.9 miles of Newfound Road from the Buncombe County line to south of Johnson Road in Haywood County. Work will start as early as April 15 and is scheduled for completion by Sept. 20.

The Haywood Regional Medical Center Foundation Board of Trustees recently appointed Laura Leatherwood as the new chairman of the board.

Leatherwood is the vice president of Student and Workforce Development at Haywood Community College, where she has worked since 2000. In addition to her new position on the HRMC Foundation board, Leatherwood serves on the Haywood County Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, Habitat for Humanity Board of Directors, Western Carolina University College of Business Advisory Board and WCU Catamount Club Board of Directors.

Leatherwood has a vested interest in MedWest-Haywood and has served as a hospital ambassador to the community during recent years. Having assisted with the opening of the MedWest Health and Fitness Center, which was funded primarily through the HRMC Foundation.

www.medwesthealth.org.

A rain-induced landslide in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park left a gaping hole in U.S. 441, but its impact could leave a lot bigger hole in the local economy if park officials are not able to fix the road in time to save at least part of the tourist season.

A company hired by the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority has found a dozen businesses that have been evading a 4 percent lodging tax.

Haywood Community College Professional Crafts Fiber student Rebecca Porche is the recipient of the Handweavers Guild of America’s Dendel Scholarship for 2012.

Haywood Arts Regional Theatre in Waynesville has raised $160,000 since last summer in a capital campaign to build a second theater.

The total price tag of the second facility is $950,000. The second theater, which is only in preliminary conception stages, would be mid-sized — big enough for full scale productions, but not as big as their current main stage auditorium. It would seat 150-180, compared to the current mainstage, which seats 250.

The possibilities range from small plays to dinner theater, drama camps to acting classes, cabaret to wedding receptions. It seems the avenues of potential are endless. It also allows two plays to run simultaneously, rather than ending a successful run, even if it is continuing to sell out, just because the next show has come up on the schedule, according to Steven Lloyd, executive director at HART.

HART has an economic footprint on the community of $2.4 million dollars a year, with Stage II aimed to double that, according to an economic impact formula developed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Americans for the Arts.

HART has smaller “backstage” theater styled after an upclose theater-in-the-half-round. It seats up to 70 people, mostly used for the winter theater series.

“It’ll look hugely successful because you come in and can’t find a seat. But, if we did it on the main stage, it would look like a failure,” Lloyd said. “We need that middle facility to fit that audience.”

In 2012, the progress of the theatre evolved into a semi-professional community theatre, producing five studio shows and six main stage shows, plus a new production of “A Christmas Carol.”

828.456.6322 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or www.harttheatre.com.

Onlooker John Highsmith takes a gander at “Blue Heron,” the latest metal sculpture from Grace Cathey at the “Fire & Ice: Pottery, Glass and Metalwork” gallery reception on Jan. 27 at the Haywood County Arts Council in Waynesville.

Theatrical productions of “Struggle for Freedom” and “George Washington Carver and Friends” will be put on for local school students at 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 6, in the Bardo Fine and Performing Arts Center at Western Carolina University.

Bright Star Touring Theatre, a national professional touring theatre company based in Asheville, is also taking the production to students in Swain County in during February, which is recognized as Black History Month.

The Jackson County Arts Council is accepting donations that will go toward these performances and the cost of bussing the students to and from the productions.

“Struggle for Freedom” seeks to honor the American Civil Rights Movement by celebrating key moments of the struggle. The life and work of Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. provides the backdrop to scenes that recreate the Montgomery bus boycott, the March on Washington, the Woolworth Sit-ins and much more.

“George Washington Carver and Friends” offers fast-paced and accessible introduction to many influential black Americans who have shaped our nation over the last 150 years, including the lives and accomplishments of Booker T. Washington, Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, Madame C.J. Walker, and other famous leaders.

Bright Star Touring Theatre serves nearly 1,000 audiences annually with a variety of programs ranging from Heroes of the Underground Railroad to Aesop’s Fables. The company is committed to providing professional theatre to audiences at an affordable and all-inclusive rate.

828.507.9820 or www.jacksoncountyarts.org.

A consortium of Western North Carolina public agencies and private organizations will receive a grant of $766,000 from the N.C. Bio-fuels Center, to advance the bio-fuels industry in the region.

Swain County farmers, landowners, and other interested individuals are invited to share their thoughts and idea on a new farmland protection plan to support agriculture in Swain County.

To the Editor:

As someone who has lived in four different countries and traveled to several others over the last 11 years, I can tell you that no people who I have encountered continually demand that their government institutions solve every problem imaginable like Americans do. From the dangers of electric garage doors to the eradication of bed bugs, there seems to be nothing that Washington isn’t charged with fixing.

Then, there are those horrific incidents of violence perpetrated by a mentally unstable person that sends many Americans into a tizzy and raises their collective voices for Washington to do something urgently. Cries of “this can never happen again” call out for new laws to prevent future tragedies.

And so we have the latest episode of hysterics over the tragedy that was the Sandy Hook Elementary School killings.

To be sure, whenever any young children lose their lives it is a tragedy. Whether they are in the classrooms of America’s schools, in cars on America’s streets, or collateral damage from an American drone strike over Pakistan, the loss of the young and innocent hits each of us where we live.

But, in the case of the reaction to the latest tragedy, the last thing Washington should do is pass any new gun control legislation including legislation banning so-called “assault rifles”

A little perspective is needed to understand why. Less than 400 people a year are killed with rifles of all kinds. According to FBI numbers from 2005 to 2011, hammers and clubs killed more people than rifles in America. Logically then, shouldn’t hammers and clubs be banned before rifles? At the very least, shouldn’t a license be required to own one? Furthermore, why would anyone but construction contractors need to own sledge hammers? Are they not the hammer equivalent to an assault rifle? Could you imagine going to Lowes to purchase a hammer and having to undergo a background check and a seven day waiting period?

Yet, this is the conversation our leaders are having about rifles, which again, kill fewer people than hammers and clubs.

America has not experienced a direct danger from a foreign adversary since the War of 1812. One could argue that Pearl Harbor was about the Japanese only wanting to cripple our Pacific fleet. Yet we have sent millions into harm’s way to “defend” our freedom and have lost thousands doing so.

Were the lives of those young people less worthy than the youth lost at Sandy Hook? Of course not. But our leaders tell us that freedom has costs, and the hundreds of thousands of young men and women that gave their lives “defending” our freedom is a large part of that cost.

So, I submit to you that those 20 children who lost their lives at Sandy Hook Elementary are also a part of the cost of defending freedom. At the end of the day, individuals have a natural right to self-defense. They have a right to defend themselves against criminals, foreign invaders, and their own government if it becomes tyrannical enough. Why should law-abiding citizens be asked to unilaterally disarm because a deranged individual used a gun to murder children? It is nonsensical.

Lastly, children die in car accidents, drown in bathtubs, and are poisoned by ingesting prescription drugs all the time. Does this warrant the banning of these items? Of course not, because they are vitally important to modern life just like the means to protect oneself is.

Kenn Jacobin

Waynesville

To the Editor:

Friends, they’ve out-waited us. And, motivated by the smell of money, they appear to have outlasted us as well and are – right now – in the process of outmaneuvering us.

Jackson County’s land-use ordinances were enacted six years ago at the urging of and with the strong support of county residents; this was accomplished over the vigorous opposition of area developers (some county-based, some not). Now it’s six years later and Jack Debnam and Co., aka the majority faction of Jackson County’s Board of Commissioners, are busily pulling the original ordinances’ teeth and concocting a more developer-friendly set of rules.

Shame on Debnam and his cronies for working hard and quietly to subvert the demonstrated wishes of Jackson County residents, and shame on us for watching it happen and doing nothing about it.

Robert M. Lindy

Cullowhee

To the Editor:

Don’t let anyone tell you there’s no conspiracy or that conspirators are not busily at work here in our “exceptional” country full of “superior” people.

It’s not written anywhere. There’s no agenda to read or way to order your very own printed copy. You won’t find it on a site like Google, where you can select from an assortment of opinions written by various authors (many offer valid research based on facts but, sadly, others promote flawed opinion).

But yes, there is definitely a conspiracy out there working against you and me. It’s organized by those multi-billionaires often called plutocrats or oligarchs. It’s advanced by well-paid minions and media shills, leaders and members of groups like ALEC. Most names are readily available and have been publically reported. They’ve spent billions on past elections to influence your thinking so you’ll slavishly allow them to control you, your children, and the future of our country.

They want you to support a return to prior administration policies of unpaid-for wars instigated for maximum profit by the military-industrial complex. They work to allow Wall Street’s multiple ventures to gamble with America’s capital, and they advocate that health care be in the control of insurance and medical corporatists, while they promote hate and fill you with fear.

These manipulators are counting on your reality show attention span in the hope you won’t notice they’re the creators of our so-called fiscal problems. They encourage you to fantasize a return to the heyday of growth following WWII when European manufacturing was obliterated and we filled that gap. They want you to believe their silly stories until the inevitable day when the country comes to halt, is unsustainable, has another war, and all benefits flow only upward. Trickle down? Not here.

They’re plying you with fear! They advocate that you arm yourself because some unspecified others are coming. They say religion and the U.S. Constitution are in danger. They tell you that all government involvement in public benefits like education, police, fire, emergency workers, water resources, roads, farms, prisons, immigration or all similar entities, not forgetting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, must be privatized. By whom? Who benefits?  

There’ll be no outside conspiracy. Mega-corporatist greed will cause the ultimate downfall of the U.S.A. The aim of constant hate and fear messages will be their tool of control, cause dissent and turn us against each other — “divide and conquer.”

Don’t allow control or support to these takers who mask themselves as caring patriots and-or Christians. While telling you they advocate freedom and small government without any regulations, their ulterior motives will necessarily impose huge governance. Theirs! Freedom? Also theirs!

Observe the real conspirators whose only goal is to gain even more wealth without investing in anything, without contributing to the national coffers, and without producing any real benefit to the U.S., or us. Conspiracy? You can count on it.  

And, by the way, it is not sponsored by the U.N.

Shirl Ches

Franklin

To the Editor:

Legislation has created a zone where the only people protected by a “gun free zone” are the evil criminals that come there to break the law. No one can stop them.

Good people are forbidden to carry a gun to protect themselves.

The criminal targets a gun free zone to break the law knowing the good people will not be able to stop him. Progressive legislation creates the problem, and then acts like more bad legislation will prevent it next time. Logic dictates that lawbreakers do not obey the laws.

Gun free zones are dangerous. We can trust the American people to protect our children and ourselves.

Lynda Bennett

Maggie Valley

To the Editor:

We have just been through a holiday season during which the U.S. Postal Service and its workers have served us well. Millions of cards, letters, and packages have passed from city to city, home to home. Stamps have been sold, money orders purchased, heaps of mail delivered to our doorstep. As a nation, we should be grateful for this useful and friendly service. As individuals, I hope we have said “thank you” to postal workers at the counter, in the delivery truck, and at our door.

Each day, USPS letter carriers cover four million miles delivering an average of 563 million pieces of mail. They ride snowmobiles, fly bush planes, run mail boats, and even ride mules to the floor of the Grand Canyon. All for 45 cents per piece! I believe the USPS is a huge bargain, a civic treasure, a public good that links our people and communities into one nation.

But what do we hear about the Postal Service from Congress and other scaremongers bent on privatization of everything within reach? It’s broke, going bankrupt, wasteful, near collapse, superfluous, bloated with too many overpaid workers, unprofitable, in serious crisis.

Hogwash! The Post Office is a service! It is explicitly authorized by the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8). Benjamin Franklin was our first Postmaster General. Our founding fathers never expected it to make a profit; rather, it was created to provide a service. We don’t expect the State Department to make a profit, or the Defense Department, or the Center for Disease Control, or FEMA, or the Park Service. All government agencies exist to serve our people. Why is the Postal Service any different? Answer: It’s not!

Keep in mind that the PO takes no money from taxpayers. It is not going broke. All its 32,000 local offices (more than Walmart, Starbucks, and McDonald’s combined) are paid for by selling stamps and other products. And it made a $700 million profit during the last four years, despite the slumping economy. The so-called “deficit” comes from a 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act that required the Postal Service to pre-pay the health care benefits — not only of present employees, but also of all employees who’ll retire during the next 75 years. Yes, some who haven’t even been born yet!

And the law further required that these benefits be fully funded by 2016. This is costing the Postal Service $5.5 billion a year — money taken from postage revenue that could be going to services. This was a deliberate effort by the then-President and Congress to make it look like the PO was losing money.

Furthermore, through a 40-year-old accounting error, the federal Office of Personnel Management has overcharged the post office by $80 billion for payments into the Civil Service Retirement System. Give the PO back its own postage money and, presto, no more crisis, no more risk of collapse.

So, let’s demand that no post offices be closed, no mail processing centers shut down, no jobs cut back, no loss of Saturday delivery or of next-day delivery for first class mail! Stop trying to make the PO into a business. Let’s reclaim it as the Postal Service — like other services the government provides to “we the people” — law enforcement service, military service, diplomatic service, forest service, national parks service, roads and highways service, environmental protection service, food safety service, etc.

 And let’s take special care to express our gratitude to the postal workers who serve us every day.

Doug Wingeier

Waynesville

Carolina Nights, a closed-down dinner theater in Maggie Valley, could make a comeback as an entertainment venue under new owners.

A Haywood County couple with a track record as local business partners bought the building last month for $235,000.

Blues guitarist Husky Burnette will be performing at 9:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 25, at the No Name Sports Pub in Sylva and at 9:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 26, at the Water’n Hole in Waynesville.

Cooks of all things chocolate will square off at the “Sixth Annual Chocolate Cook-Off” from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 23, in Bryson City to raise money for the Swain County library.

Rising country music group Eden’s Edge will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 25, at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts in Franklin.

A six-week discussion course on climate change called “Global Warming: Changing Course” is being put on by the Western North Carolina Alliance Thursday evenings starting Jan. 24.

Learn about the history and science of global warming, personal values and habits as they relate to climate change, and individual actions that can curb the effects of global warming. The course will also cover issues related to energy use and what individuals and communities interested in promoting energy sustainability can do.

Held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Battery Park Book Exchange and Champagne Bar in Asheville. $35 for WNCA members and $40 for non-members. Register by Jan. 18.

828.258.8737 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The Highlands Plateau chapter of the Audubon Society will go birding at Lake Junaluska on Monday, Jan. 21, to mark the first watching excursion of the New Year. The lake is ideal for attracting winter birds and waterfowl. The group will circle the lake by car, with stops to scan and spot such specialties as ruddy ducks, gadwalls, american widgeon, osprey and others.

Participants should bring binoculars, scopes and cameras. Call for meeting time and place, or to carpool with other birders coming from Jackson and Macon counties. 828.526.1939 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The Haywood Waterways Association has named their endowment fund the “Joetta Rinehart Endowment Fund” in honor of one of the organization’s supporters.

Rinehart was actively involved in Haywood Waterways, serving on its board of directors and as treasurer. 

The Endowment Fund was established in 2007 to provide financial security and sustainability for the nonprofit, its programs, and the long-term protection of Haywood County waterways. The organization has been primarily dependent on grants, comprising nearly 80 percent of its budget, but would like to raise $2 million for its endowment. It will begin a fundraising campaign this year.

877.700.7373 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Kevin FitzGerald, deputy superintendent of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park since 2006, retired this month after 34 years with the National Park Service.

While stationed at park headquarters on the Tennessee side of the park, he and his wife plan to eventually live in Western North Carolina now that he has retired.

FitzGerald began his career with the National Park Service as a seasonal fee collector on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Then he worked for the Park service in the Everglades, Maryland, Cape Cod, and Colorado before returning to the Great Smoky Mountains.

While at the Smokies FitzGerald played a key role in guiding the largest infrastructure improvement program in the park since the days of the Civilian Conservation Corps, overseeing $80 million in stimulus projects.

Riders are invited to compete and spectators are invited to watch at the Icycle Mountain Bike Race at Fontana Village on Jan. 26. The seven-mile course consists of varied terrain with rocks, roots, creeks and open passing lanes that make up some of the most notable Western North Carolina singletrack.

Proposed logging below Devil’s Courthouse in the Pisgah National Forest is being widely decried among outdoor recreation groups and environmental advocates.

Western Carolina University will be hosting a week of events from Jan. 21 to 26 celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr.

The comedy “21A” will be hitting the stage at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 18-19 and 3 p.m. Jan. 20 in the Feichter Studio Theater at the Haywood Arts Regional Theatre in Waynesville.

Bryson City husband/wife singer-songwriters Liz and AJ Nance will be performing at 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 18, and Friday, Feb. 22, at City Lights Café in Sylva. Both shows are free and open to the public. www.citylightscafe.com or 828.587.2233.

To the Editor:

I am adamantly opposed to the rescinding or changing of the current steep slope and mountain-top ordinances in Jackson County. It is all is based on greed and amounts to the selling out of our county representatives to the real estate industry.

Most of the houses built at high elevations are second or third homes occupied only a few weeks out of the year. The 2007 ordinances were forward thinking and helped preserve our environment, rivers and water supply — the main reason we all live here!

I want to address the mountain-top comments made in the newspaper. The mere suggestion of having a house color control to allow mountain top construction is ludicrous. Why not paint trees on the sides of the houses and put fake treetops on the roof so you won’t see the big swath cut out of the ridgeline.

The bigger issue is the roads that it takes to get up to these houses for three weeks a year, roads that create more erosion than the actual building site, affecting waterways and our water supply.

Regarding density laws how about only allowing 20 to 30 real estate agents in the county? That’s one of the main problems.

I have lived here for 41 years. We have done a fair job of controlling growth, but you are trying to open things to massive growth. The tax revenue some envision from this growth won’t make up for having to add more services and the destruction of our lifestyle.  Please reconsider your actions and the forces that are behind them.

PS: All you need to do is take a look at Eagles Nest in Waynesville to see million-dollar houses that sit empty most of the year to see what a mess Haywood County allowed.

Randall Lanier

Jackson County

Waynesville native John Ottinger has been named District Conservationist for the Haywood and Madison counties Soil and Water Conservation District.

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy has provided $800 from its specialty license plate funds to help secure backpackers’ food from bears along the Appalachian Trail within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

A half-price book sale will be held from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 19 and from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 20, at the Friends of the Jackson County Library used bookstore in Sylva.

Before the sale opens to the public, members of Friends of the Library will get first dibs on good deals during the “Members Only Half-Price Sale” from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, Jan. 18.

The bookstore will be closed to non-members, but anyone may join or renew at the door to get in to the pre-sale. Members get a great deal and first choice on the books in stock.

The Friends of the Library make a $10,000 quarterly donation to the library from proceeds at their used bookstore.

“Each donation, each sale and each volunteer help make this possible,” said Friends of the Library President Patricia Cowen.

828.586.1221.

To the Editor:

Since the mid 1990s, Mexican criminals have been growing marijuana in our national forests. In recent years these operations have spread to at least 20 states and 67 national forests as well as on private land. We are still a sovereign nation, are we not? If that’s correct it begs the question: why have our national parks been surrendered by our government to Mexican drug traffickers?

An area of 3,500 acres in southern Arizona has been closed to U.S. citizens because of the dangers posed by drug smugglers. We can conclude from this that it is no longer safe for Americans to visit any national park less they inadvertently wander into a pot-growing operation guarded by well-armed drug traffickers who won’t hesitate to kill to protect their merchandise.

Wisconsin has just one national forest (the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest) where the first site in that state was discovered in 2008. Most people arrested there have been illegal immigrants from Mexico with connections in California (a shocker there) where traffickers were discovered in 1995.

Numerous arrests have been made of course, and tens of thousands of plants worth more than a billion dollars have been eradicated over the years. Many cases of arrests are “pending.”  

The relaxation of marijuana laws and now its legalization in some states significantly adds to the problem and sends critically mixed messages to law enforcement agencies.   Considering the experience of the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency and our sheriff in Jackson County recently, perhaps our inability to end (permanently) the desecration of our national forests is tied to our governments failure to obtain ACLU approval before making arrests.

In the end our government’s inability or unwillingness to reclaim our national forests and protect private property from drug traffickers (who are in this country illegally) demands this issue be an essential part of the debate about gun control. This is precisely why the 2nd Amendment was added to The Constitution of the United States. If our government refuses to act decisively, than we must.

David L. Snell

Dillsboro

To the Editor:

Almost everyone has an opinion about how to combat violent, mass killing. My hope is that we will not be distracted by all the static and go for quick solutions that may make us feel safer but will, most likely, be ineffective. We need to keep our eye on the cause here: mental illness. Would that we could pass a law against mental illness!

In the last 10 to 20 years, we have made great progress in our understanding and approach to brain disorders and now recognize that these are treatable illnesses. We are now on the verge of some significant breakthroughs. I hope we will put our money and our minds where it will have the most benefit: early identification and adequate treatment of mental illness, and hopefully, at some point, prevention. Look what we have done with cancer, heart disease, and polio. Let’s not do the typical “knee-jerk” reaction and think we can pass a few laws and see this problem in the rear view mirror. Let’s do the hard work. Let’s fund research and treatment of mental illness.

Ann Nandrea

Franklin

Those vying to be the next sheriff of Haywood County have until 2 p.m. Jan. 17 to get their applications turned in.

Haywood Sheriff Bobby Suttles is stepping down with two years left to go on his term. Because Suttles is a Democrat, the Democratic Party gets to appoint a successor to serve out the remaining two years. Suttles’ last day is Feb. 8.

So far, Chief Deputy Larry Bryson, second in command at the sheriff’s office currently, has publicly said he will seek the appointment. N.C. Highway Patrol Trooper Lt. Greg Christopher is expected to announce soon whether he will submit his name also.

An interesting twist is the announcement last week by a Republican contender for the seat. Bill Wilke, a sergeant with the Asheville Police Department who ran for sheriff against Suttles in 2010, will formally seek the appointment.

It could be a long shot, especially given the language in a press release issued by the Haywood Democrats calling for applications stated “Democratic candidates for the office of Haywood County Sheriff” may now pick up an ‘Intent to Run’ form … , a testament to the low probability a Republican would win the Democratic Party’s nod.

The Haywood County Democratic Executive Committee will hold a meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 14, at the Democratic headquarters to discuss the process for naming a replacement. Those seeking the office can call 828.456.4942 or 828.734.9056 for details on how to apply.

Western Carolina University has agreed to a $600,000 out-of-court settlment in a civil suit brought by the family of Ja’Quayvin Smalls, a junior defensive back from Mount Pleasant, S.C. who died during an off-season football practice in July 2009.

Singer/songwriter Ben Wilson will be featured at the Friday Night Live music series from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, Jan. 11, at the Classic Wineseller in Waynesville.

Renowned performer Tim Hawkins will be taking the stage at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 18, at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts in Franklin.

Hawkins is best known for parodying popular songs and stand-up material on topics such as marriage, home schooling and parenting. His performances are vigorous, well timed and honed to perfection. The dad of four children has more than 100 million views on YouTube and more than 120 sold out shows each year.

Tickets $25 and VIP passes (which include a talk back session with the artist) are $40. www.GreatMountainMusic.com or 866.273.4615.

Legendary rock group STYX will be performing at 9 p.m. Friday, Jan. 18, at Harrah’s Cherokee Event Center.

Tommy Shaw, James “JY” Young, Lawrence Gowan, Todd Sucherman and Ricky Phillips have had more live performances since 1999 than all of the combined previous years of STYX. With two Super Bowl appearances, Pollstar Box Office chart-topping tours with Def Leppard, Journey, Boston, REO Speedwagon and Bad Company (to name only a few) and two more studio albums, STYX continues to conquer the planet. Hits include “Lady,” “Come Sail Away,” and “Mr. Roboto,” among others.

www.ticketmaster.com or 800.745.3000.

Electropop trio Stereospread, based in Waynesville, is releasing their highly-anticipated first album, The Heart & the Thief, this month.

An opening reception for “Ball Mason Jar Art” by Brent Martin will be held at 6 p.m. Friday, Jan. 11, at City Lights Café in Sylva.

Last year was a promising year for local food production and farm education in WNC, according to the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project. ASAP provided some year-end figures to paint a picture of different milestones and achievements in 2012 and the preceding decade.

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission has announced the winners of the eighth annual Wildlife in North Carolina magazine outdoor photo competition.

A comprehensive U.S. Forest Service report released last month examines how expanding populations, increased urbanization, and changing land-use patterns could impact natural resources, including water supplies, nationwide during the next 50 years.