With the help of Swain County commissioners, Mountain Discovery Charter School is about to begin a capital campaign to build a new gymnasium at the school that can also be utilized by the community at large.

Running through the hearts of Dillsboro and Sylva on its tumble down from Balsam, Scotts Creek has star potential. It could be a centerpiece of both downtowns — a magnet for anglers, kayakers and kids looking for a place to splash around.

Canton’s outdoor pool has given the community a place to gather, play, exercise and relax for more than 70 years.

It has cost Canton half a million dollars to keep ownership of a piece of property it already owns.

Plans are underway to relocate Waynesville’s disc golf course from the sprawling recreation park along Richland Creek to a more secluded forest setting, eliminating the risk of a wayward disc hitting a hapless jogger.

It’s been more than two years since Jackson County finished a recreation master plan declaring an indoor pool a top priority, and leaders of the county’s Parks and Recreation Department and Recreation and Parks Advisory Board are itching to see the idea move closer to reality — this fall they voted to make getting a feasibility study done their number one goal.

Cherokee is one step closer to having an Olympic-sized outdoor pool following Tribal Council’s unanimous vote this month to purchase property for the project.

“We have an identified site with contract negotiations with those landowners,” said Jason Lambert, director of planning and development for the tribe. With the site nailed down, he said, “we can get into more specific due diligence and more specific planning in order to get to that hard construction.”

It’s shaping up to be an exciting year for water-lovers in Western North Carolina.

After more than a decade of hydropower relicensing negotiations and years more of permitting and construction, Duke Energy is finishing a slate of river accesses that will make the Tuckasegee one of the most accessible rivers in the Southeast. At the same time, a collective effort to create an interactive map showing where and how to recreate on Western North Carolina waterways — using a tool called Smoky Mountain Blueways — is wrapping up, further boosting WNC’s future as a Mecca for outdoors lovers of all skill levels.

Maggie Valley resident June Johnson wants the town’s recreation plan to go far beyond fixing up an old playground behind town hall. She envisions the park renovations as just the beginning of greater things to come in the valley.

When Jim Brendle put together the first Smoky Mountain Relay in 2009, it was a pretty small affair. With only 48 runners representing six teams, the 200-plus-mile foot race didn’t draw a lot of attention.  A lot has changed since then. 

“It’s grown to where this year if we don’t have 50 teams, I’m going to be really upset,” Brendle said.