The straightforward Russ Gilliland is a fifth-generation Haywood County resident, but his path to becoming Maggie Valley’s newest police chief has been anything but.

A new program by the Town of Maggie Valley offers citizens a candid look at what the town does, how it does it and how it pays for it.

As days slid by without rain last fall, and the days stacked into weeks, Neil Carpenter watched the water gauge on Jonathan Creek like the ticking hands of a doomsday clock.

SEE ALSO:
• Haywood water systems join forces to aid each other in times of need
• TWSA reviews water shortage plan following drought
• Haywood water systems by the numbers

Carpenter usually has 4 million gallons of water a day at his fingertips — triple what he needs to serve the 3,800 homes and businesses in greater Maggie Valley.

Maggie Valley Area Chamber of Commerce is responding to criticism in the community by restructuring its membership options for businesses.

Safety and aesthetic improvements are coming to the Soco Road corridor in Maggie Valley, and town officials are looking for input to determine their scope.

Although the closure of Ghost Town in the Sky several years back has left many Maggie Valley businesses struggling just to keep their doors open, others like the half-century-old Joey’s Pancake House and the 15-year-old Wheels Through Time motorcycle museum have continued to succeed despite slowly climbing tourism numbers amidst the lingering aftertaste of the worst recession in living memory.

The year was 1966; “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” was on the big screen, “Bonanza” was on the small screen, and an Irish guy from Philly had just arrived in Maggie Valley to open Joey’s Pancake House.

SEE ALSO: The Book of Joe 

America’s fascination with cowboy culture had not only elevated the Lorne Greene television show and the Clint Eastwood movie to the top of their respective charts that year, but had also elevated a western-themed amusement park called Ghost Town in the Sky more than 4,600 feet up to the top of nearby Buck Mountain three years prior.

Brenda O’Keefe has dozens, if not hundreds, of stories about the people who have passed through her life at Joey’s Pancake House since 1966.

The town of Maggie Valley has been working on cleaning up the U.S. 19 corridor for more than a year, but it needs to beef up its enforcement ordinance to make further progress.