North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced new health guidelines for North Carolina public schools on Wednesday. School districts should require masks indoors for all students and staff in grades K-8. In grades 9-12, students and staff who have not been vaccinated should also be required to wear masks indoors. 

After North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced new health guidelines for North Carolina Public Schools, giving local school boards the power to issue and enforce mask mandates, Macon County School board met to discuss the issue. 

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced new health guidelines for North Carolina public schools on Wednesday. School districts should require masks indoors for all students and staff in grades K-8. In grades 9-12, students and staff who have not been vaccinated should also be required to wear masks indoors. 

There were no women at the first modern Olympics in 1896. According to its founder Pierre de Coubertin, women were “not cut out to sustain certain shocks.” Women proved him wrong, muscling their way in to have 22 women compete at the 1900 Olympic Games. By 2012, just over 100 years later, there was at least one woman in every delegation. 

Folkmoot USA, North Carolina’s Official International Festival, returns with Folkmoot Summerfest July 22-25. The theme of this year’s festival is focused on American cultural diversity in music and dance. 

Last week’s Maggie Valley Board of Aldermen meeting was riddled with complaints from residents of a development on Jonathan Creek Road about an alleged encampment of people in the neighborhood. 

The dog days of summer are here (officially July 3 - Aug. 11 according to the Farmer’s Almanac) and although we should be excited about the plethora of fresh produce to cook with, sometimes it can seem like a chore. We’ve compiled a list of summer recipes to get your creative juices flowing. Enjoy!

On July 8, 14-year-old Zaila Avant-garde made history as the first Black winner of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in its 93 years of contest, as well as the first champion from Louisiana. 

Haywood County Schools has made the list of National Board Accomplished Districts recognized by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. 

Nursing homes and assisted living facilities were among the hardest hit during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, they are facing another problem, one whose roots stem from pre-COVID times — staffing shortages. 

A draft text amendment to a Maggie Valley ordinance concerning campgrounds and RV parks has sparked a larger conversation about the future of Maggie Valley itself. 

The signs are everywhere. Now hiring, help wanted, excuse the wait times we’re short staffed and doing the best we can. Every restaurant, bar, hotel and store in town is in need of employees at a time when tourism in Western North Carolina is surging. Where are all the workers? 

At a special called board meeting last week, Haywood County Schools Board of Education considered defying the current mask mandate in place for North Carolina Public Schools.

It seems like every produce stand and farmers market in the south is bursting with soft, fuzzy peaches. This basic, peach salsa recipe is perfect for summer get togethers or relaxing on the porch.

Excitement could be heard in the unconstrained murmuring of elementary school students at Blue Ridge School Monday morning as they filed into the cafeteria. Tables were set with Mason jars, pre-cut vegetables of almost every color of the rainbow, salt, pepper and oregano. 

Cheri Beasley, former North Carolina Supreme Court Justice, announced her campaign for United States Senate in April. On Friday, Beasley visited several small businesses in downtown Asheville to speak with business owners about how they fared during the pandemic and hear what they would have liked state representatives to have done differently. 

“Memory is never a precise duplicate of the original… It is a continuing act of creation.” - Rosalind Cartwright

During the pandemic, Asheville-based artist Pearl Renken wrestled with the pain, isolation and racial reckoning happening in the United States. Her first instinct during that time was to paint, very literally, the pain she was seeing, the hate that felt abundant. 

Maggie Valley Town Board of Alderman passed the proposed 2021-22 budget on June 8. 

The North Carolina Association of Educators’ “We Heart Public Schools Tour’’ stopped in Haywood County Friday. The tour visited every county in North Carolina, finishing in the western portion of the state last week. 

Dusk was just starting to creep down the mountain when Megan rolled into the driveway, up from Charlotte for the weekend. 

Last week, Laurence des Cars was appointed by President Emmanuel Macron of France, to be president-director of the Louvre. She is the first woman to earn the position in its 228 year history. 

When the Coronavirus Pandemic broke out in the United States in March 2020, Congress passed that CARES Act. Part of that legislation included a federal moratorium on evictions. The idea was the United States should keep people sheltered during a global pandemic, regardless of whether they could pay their rent in an economy that was quickly screeching to a halt. 

Students in Haywood County will not be provided normal bus transportation for the robust summer school program intended to address learning loss during the Coronavirus Pandemic. 

Henceforth, Cullowhee Valley School in Jackson County will be represented as the Cullowhee Valley Wolves. 

Folkmoot USA will return with its annual festival for summer 2021. 

On June 19, the Smoky Mountain District of the United Methodist Church will host a Juneteenth Freedom Celebration at Lake Junaluska. 

Maggie Valley Town Hall Pavilion and the surrounding grassy area were ablaze with the black and blue flags of a Back the Blue Rally on Saturday, May 22, in support of local law enforcement. The event came in response to the message that has been displayed on one Maggie Valley hotel sign for the last several weeks: “ACAB! The Barrel is Rotten.” 

Juices and smoothies are a great way to eat clean and feel fresh during spring and summer. Below is a list of some easy and nutritious juice ideas: 

Students in Haywood County Schools will no longer be required to wear masks outside, where social distancing is possible. Administration made the decision after conferring with local public health officials. 

Last year, Macon County Schools requested a nearly $2 million budget increase to fund additional staff positions. When the pandemic shuttered school doors during budget season last year, the request was dropped. But now, over a year into the pandemic, MCS has again requested the money to fill staffing needs within its schools. 

Graduation ceremonies will be allowed as many spectators as school sporting events this spring, after the Haywood County Schools Board of Education authorized Superintendent Dr. Bill Nolte to use spectator rules for non-athletic, end-of-year programs and ceremonies. 

The sun was shining dry, white hot heat the day my mother and I found ourselves out of money, tired and hungry in a town we’d never stepped foot in before in Northern Spain — for the second time in less than a month. 

Maggie Valley may have the opportunity to create its own Tourism Development Authority for the purpose of promoting tourism in the town if House Bill 412 becomes law. Both the Mayor and the Board of Aldermen have expressed support for the idea. 

Haywood County Schools Local Expense Budget is set to look very similar to years past, with the COVID-19 Pandemic causing only a few exceptions. 

As much of Western North Carolina bounces back from the devastation of COVID-19 — lower case counts, rising tourism numbers , successful vaccination campaigns — schools in the region are looking toward a longer, more intensive summer school program to put its students back on track. 

When we are taking care of ourselves and the people we live with, eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, we can end up with a lot of scraps. Two ends, plus the skins, of every onion you eat, garlic peels, mushroom stems, carrot ends, cauliflower leaves, celery bottoms, parsley and cilantro stems, lemon and lime rinds, pumpkin and winter squash skin… the list goes on. 

North Carolina has about 1.5 million public school students, and according to a report from the Department of Public Instruction, 52.3 percent are minority students, while only 20.5 percent of teachers are minorities. 

Maggie Valley Country Club Estates Property Owners Association has communicated intense opposition to the proposed Waterfall Park on 8 acres of town property off of Old Still Road. 

North Carolina State Superintendent of Public Schools, Catherine Truitt, ended a tour of Western North Carolina Schools today, April 16, with a visit to the Haywood County School System. 

Gathering violets for this Violet Gimlet will be the most time consuming part of the recipe, but it’s well worth it for a light and refreshing cocktail at the end of the warmer days to come.

Pasta is a very important part of life. It’s one of those necessities that lies alongside love, good conversation, music, books that envelope your soul, wine and rainy days. 

People who have been fully vaccinated can start to do some things they had stopped doing because of the pandemic, according to the CDC. This includes gathering indoors with fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask, gathering indoors with unvaccinated people of one household without wearing masks and traveling within the United States without COVID-19 testing or quarantine. 

As spring gets underway, Violet Season is officially here. Violets are some of my favorite spring flowers, for they signal the start to the seasons of abundance. The seasons when a walk in the woods can result in a freshly foraged salad.

J.D. Moore started his first year at Tuscola in 1999. He was an athlete, played football and basketball. He learned pretty quickly the parts of the school that he needed to avoid, parts where the rebel flag was more ubiquitous and racial slurs were directed at him more frequently. 

Jackson County Schools Board of Education has selected Dr. Dana Ayers as its new superintendent beginning June 1. 

Have you ever felt confused when looking at any of the several iterations of the food pyramid? You’re not alone. The servings seem at once mixed up, and more than most people eat in one day. I am a big bread person. I love making homemade bread, it’s one of my favorite foods. But even for me, the 6-11 servings of bread recommended per day in the 1992 version of the food pyramid seem like a bad idea. 

Jackson County Schools Board of Education has selected Dr. Dana Ayers as its new superintendent beginning June 1. 

For students in the nursing program at Western Carolina University, the Coronavirus Pandemic sauntered into their world during spring break 2020. On Wednesday of that week, the university informed students that the break would be extended by one week. By Friday, the news was more dire, students wouldn’t be returning to campus at all.