By Lynda Bennett • Guest Columnist

Protestors in Waynesville recently dismissed Gov. Beverly Perdue’s stimulus grants as simply “baking up” a photo opportunity using pork barrel spending instead of addressing small business concerns. The ruling elite once stated “let them eat cake.” Now they say, “Let them eat Pork Pie.”

The governor’s Main Street Solutions Fund creates more state debt using pork instead of addressing sound economics. The governor is traveling across the state to promote her involvement, including the stop in Waynesville two weeks ago.

The TEA Party protestors offer sustainable solutions that include difficult choices for Raleigh. They assert that “stimulus” spending drains the local economy. The fund is not good for job creation. It does not address the inherent problems in North Carolina’s unattractive taxing structure. The fund creates an unfair advantage for one business at the expense of the other businesses.

For example, one business owner in Waynesville received a $300,000 grant to improve a privately-owned building that will house a brewery, a restaurant and the Haywood County Arts Council. This sounds like a good business plan. But it is not the purpose of state government to spend our tax money on risky business endeavors — at the expense of all other businesses in the region.

This is pork barrel spending, designed to make a media splash at the expense of the taxpayers. It will not help small businesses create jobs across the state.

Sen. Joe Sam Queen, D-Wayneville, and Rep. Phil Haire, D-Sylva, disagree. They voted to expand the program. They endorse even more “incentives” such as the H.E.L.P. program. Incentives take tax money from one group and give it to a special interest ... Allowing government workers to choose who they like best, instead of consumers and buyers picking the best product or business (as in a free market).

The TEA (Taxed Enough Already) movement has a better solution. Several business owners suggest the state could do a better job helping small businesses. The business owners should form an advisory council on free markets to push policies that benefit all businesses instead of a select few. Free markets create jobs, not the government.

Statistics and facts support this claim.

A major problem is the high cost of doing business in the state. The tax hike last year hurt every citizen in North Carolina. North Carolina increased it sales tax by 14 percent during a major recession. Even our local Haywood County commissioners raised property taxes as well. These decisions damage a fragile economy.

“North Carolina has long had one of the top state and local tax burdens in the Southeast and still does,” said author Joseph Coletti, a fiscal and health care policy analyst, writing for the John Locke Foundation. “Residents of the state pay twice as much in state and local taxes, adjusted for inflation, as they did in 1983.”

North Carolina has the fourteenth highest tax structure in the United States. Many say this drain on the economy is a major factor in the state’s high unemployment rate of 10 percent.

“A high tax burden could be justified if it resulted in better performance for the state in health care, education, roads, crime, and income and population growth,” Coletti added.

“But North Carolina’s higher tax burden, to my surprise, has not produced a positive return on investment for taxpayers. Every other state in the South, with the exception of Georgia, has achieved a much better grade for its taxpayers return on investment than North Carolina’s D (grade).”

North Carolina, once a leader in attracting new business, has fallen far behind surrounding states that offer a more attractive tax structure.

Instead, North Carolina offers a “progressive” approach of special “tax incentives” in which government officials choose special interests to receive favorable treatment. This does not create a level playing field. Incentives are not working.

“The combination of a higher in-state tax burden and lower burdens in the rest of the country has put North Carolina at or above the national tax-burden average with increasing frequency and weakened the state’s competitiveness within the United States and internationally,” Coletti said.

Business leaders and TEA protestors suggest that a level playing field would be more attractive to new business and existing business as well.

The level playing field is broad-based: reductions in both business and personal state income tax across the board; lower sales tax on most purchases in the state; reduce or eliminate license fees; a quick start program to fast track the permitting and inspections process for new business; stop all incentives and pork spending.

“Government has far exceeded its proper bounds, both in cost and intrusiveness. It doesn’t deliver on its legitimate promises — to protect our individual rights and ensure the delivery of core public services.

“And it can’t deliver on its illegitimate promises – to fund massive pension, health care, and education entitlements without ruinous tax increases,” states John Hood, of the JLF. (www.carolinajournal.com).

Small Business & Entrepreneurship (SBE) Council President Karen Kerrigan added: “We applaud the political leaders of states who have refrained from raising taxes on the nation’s job creators.”

“States that have kept taxes low will reap rewards as their businesses recover more quickly and shore up durability for the long term. Low-tax states will become even more competitive for investment and business relocation” (www.gcase.org).

Progressive politicians gather on Main Street to hand out money they do not have ... in exchange for photo ops.

When the state government inserts “stimulus” into the market, the effect is the exact opposite. They remove cash from the local economy, creating shortage at the local level. The “stimulus” destroys local jobs in Haywood County.

Keating from SBE added: “Quite simply, economic recovery will be restrained by high and/or increasing taxes, or boosted by low and/or falling taxes. Governors and legislators have a choice.”

In the minds of these protesters, Raleigh created the problem, and pork barrel spending is not the solution. “We the business people” have solutions that work.

The protestors want to be sure this alternate point of view is heard in Raleigh and on Main Street.

(Lynda Bennett is a businesswoman who lives in Maggie Valley.)

Hundreds of chefs gathered in Washington, D.C., Friday, June 4, to launch Chefs Move to Schools, a program designed to get healthy food into cafeterias.

Among their ranks was Charles Hudson, the research and development chef for Sunburst Trout Company in Haywood County.

The chefs, clad in their hats and uniforms, sat in the hot afternoon sun on the White House’s South Lawn as First Lady Michelle Obama spoke about the importance of children eating healthy.

“You all know how the ingredients we put in our bodies can affect the way we feel, the way we think, and how we grow,” Obama said in her speech to the chefs. “This is especially true when we’re talking about our nation’s kids.”

Earlier in the day, Hudson and the other chefs toured the White House garden where Hudson “oohed” and “aahed” about broccoli, yellow cauliflower, an abundance of fresh herbs and a beehive.

“I think that was the most beautiful broccoli I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said.

Hudson learned ways to get children excited about healthy food and expand on some ideas he’s started. He’d like to grow afterschool culinary clubs and partner middle-school students with elementary students.

He’s already cooked for students at Central Elementary School in Haywood County. At first, 90 percent of the kids turned their noses up at trout sausage and wouldn’t try it, he said. But after he gave the kids the chance to cook it themselves, almost all of them liked it.

“The biggest thing is to get them involved with the cooking process,” Hudson said. “It’s something to give them ownership, something they can take pride in.”

He suggests parents let their kids help cook, take their kids to a tailgate market to sample products, or pick produce with their families.

CEO of Sunburst Trout, Sally Eason, hired Hudson to be the farm’s development chef in 2005. His job is to help develop new products, and some of the most recent ideas include fish sticks called “Sunburst Sticks” and frozen dinners.

“It required a serious leap of faith but was a brilliant move,” Eason said. “We’re trying out new products every day.”

Sunburst produces trout burgers, cakes, encrusted fillets, sausage, trout dip, trout jerky and caviar.

While the trout is found on grocery store shelves and restaurant menus throughout the South, as well as in three Asheville retirement communities, Eason said she would like to expand to hospitals, college dining halls and school cafeterias.

“For the first time in my life, there is a possibility that aquaculture will become a viable business, and it’s because fish is so healthy, and people are realizing that,” Eason said.

A river tubing trip on a sunny day ended in tragedy last week when a recent Western Carolina University grad drowned.

Allen Stanley Brisson, 22, of Cullowhee was tubing with friends on the Tuckasegee River on June 3. According to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, the group had been drinking when Brisson fell from his inner tube and disappeared into the water on a stretch of rapids below Dillsboro.

Brisson’s friends searched for him to no avail before one of them ran to a nearby vacant house and called 911.

Rescuers responded to the scene and began a search that lasted late into the evening. The rescue team, which included volunteers from the nearby rafting outfitters Dillsboro River Company and Tuckaseigee Outfitters, erected emergency nets along the river to aid in the search, but the effort was suspended just prior to 11 p.m. due to poor visibility.

Search and rescue efforts resumed at 8 a.m. on June 4 with the help of air support and a swift water rescue team. Brisson’s body was discovered around noon submerged in a deep pool.

A release from the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department said Brisson’s body would be submitted for an autopsy and the investigation into the events leading up to drowning is ongoing.

Brisson, originally from Fayetteville, graduated from WCU in May with a bachelor’s degree in management.

Sam Miller, WCU’s vice chancellor for student affairs, said the university’s thoughts were with Brisson’s family.

“The loss of a life so young and so full of potential is tragic. Our thoughts and prayers are with the members of Allen’s family, and with his friends and classmates,” Miller said.

A 92-acre tract near the Little East Fork of the Pigeon River in the Bethel community in Haywood County has been protected through a conservation agreement by the property owner.

“We are very grateful to everyone involved in this project — and most of all to the landowner — for showing such a great commitment to keeping Bethel rural,” said Steve Eaffaldano, President of the Bethel Rural Community Organization. “We have more work to do to keep Bethel’s rural nature going strong, and we are hopeful that other landowners will consider similar actions to conserve their lands.”

The property owner, who wishes to remain anonymous, entered a conservation agreement with the Haywood Soil and Water Conservation District. The landowner still owns the land and can continue using it, including farming and limited logging, and can also sell it or pass it along to heirs, but the conservation agreement ensures it remains undeveloped forever.

The land includes more than 6,000 feet of headwater streams that provide water for downstream farmers, drinking water people in Canton and Clyde, industrial water for the Canton paper mill, trout habitat, one species of rare fish, two species of rare freshwater mussels and hellbender salamanders.

Project supporters included the Haywood Soil and Water Conservation District, the Southwestern NC RC&D Council, the Bethel Rural Community Organization, and the Pigeon River Fund, which has provided several grants to help protect water quality in the Pigeon River Valley by protecting rural lands.

For more information, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 828. 712.6474.

An 8,000 acre tract in Transylvania County, the largest block of privately owned wilderness in the southern Blue Ridge Mountains, may soon be protected if enough funds can be raised.

The landowner, former Congressman Charles Taylor who is also a logger and cattle rancher, has agreed to sell the land for $33 million to the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy and The Conservation Fund. The selling price is a good deal at less than half the appraised value, but will still require substantial fundraising to make the conservation a reality.

“This is the last opportunity we will have to acquire such a sizable and significant tract in the southern Appalachians for conservation ownership ever again,” said Dick Ludington, southeast regional director of TCF.

The nonprofit land trusts hopes to raise the money to protect the tract, and then transfer the land to a public entity that would allow for public recreation including hunting, fishing, hiking and other uses.

“The Taylor family has offered the opportunity to add another jewel to the crown of conserved land in western North Carolina,” said Kieran Roe, executive director of CMLC.

The tract was owned by Taylor through his corporate entity, Champion Cattle and Tree Farms.

The acquisition project will open up over 50 miles of streams teeming with trout. The tract is home to rare plant communities, including pockets of Southern Appalachian bog, and lies atop the Blue Ridge escarpment, one of the most important biodiversity hotspots in world.

Fred and Alice Stanback of Salisbury, philanthropists that champion land conservation in the mountains, have expressed an interest in donating a portion of the necessary funding.

828.697.5777, ext. 201 or www.carolinamountain.org.

A couple of stories we’ve covered in the last two weeks illustrate better than any data the new face of economic development here in the mountains. Community coordinators paid with tax dollars can help small businesses grow in our post-manufacturing economy.

Joey Bolado, the owner and chef at Grandview Lodge in Waynesville, would like to serve only fresh, local foods on his menu, everything from produce to meat. In today’s marketplace it just doesn’t work, despite his desires.

“Right now, I feel like I have to go out and find it,” Bolado said of the local produce. “They’re not coming to us.”

The Buy Haywood initiative, which is funded by the state’s Golden LEAF Foundation, promotes Haywood’s farms. It has helped market value-added products like salsa, jams and sauces made from local agricultural operations and has produced a map so locals and tourists alike can find farms and farmer’s markets that sell produce.

Now, it is working to connect local restaurants and chefs — like Bolado — to local growers. The new program is called 20-20-20, because its goal is to connect 20 local growers with 20 chefs who will use 20 different products.

The problems for the farmers and chefs are obvious, says Buy Haywood Coordinator George Ivey. Growers need to be in the fields rather than on the phone marketing, so they are much more likely to look for one or two large buyers rather than 20 small ones who only want a few products. Restaurant owners and chefs need convenience and variety, which doesn’t always fit with the production constraints of local growers.

The 20-20-20 project is trying to overcome these obstacles. It will succeed only if both parties can profit from the transaction. It also will take a change of mindset, a realization that there is value in making the local-to-local economy more robust.

Ivey’s efforts are similar to those of the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, which is a sort of regional version of Buy Haywood that promotes farm products from the southern mountain region.

“People mistakenly assume that just because someone has a product and somebody else wants a product, that’s a match,” said Peter Marks, ASAP’s program director. “There are so many other factors, like the ripeness, the uniqueness, the packaging.”

Ivey, Marks and others won’t solve this problem tomorrow, but I have not doubt that this is the future. As the locavore — someone who only eats foods grown locally — movement grows, more people will pay a few cents extra for fresh produce grown by their neighbors a few coves over. This is dovetailing with efforts to create local economies that support businesses down the street instead of across the globe.

•••

Another partnership was also in the news last week, one that brought Gov. Beverly Perdue to Waynesville and other parts of Western North Carolina. A project that would transform Main Street’s Strand Theater into a restaurant, brewery and entertainment venue got a $300,000 state grant, and it drew a crowd into the Arts Council’s Gallery 86 to hear Perdue discuss efforts to promote jobs in the state’s small downtowns.

Getting that grant required a lot of behind-the-scenes work, and that is what’s worth noting here. Downtown Waynesville Association Executive Director Buffy Messer knows what is going on in the downtown business district, and she knew Richard Miller was looking for a way to jumpstart his vision for the Strand.

She also realized that these Main Street Solutions grants were a good fit, and that time was running out to apply. Messer worked closely with Miller to put the pieces together to get the state grant

“I give her all the credit for bringing this to our attention,” said Miller.

Like Ivey’s work with the local growers and chefs, Messer’s work with small businessmen like Miller is exactly the kind of economic development that will help Haywood and other mountain counties thrive in the future.

Using state grant money — essentially our money — in this manner is certainly more appealing than awarding a multi-million dollar tax break to some huge corporation that could care less about this region. Right now just about all Southern states are way too deep into this game of trying to lure the Googles and the Toyotas of the world through tax breaks that are, to be frank, obscene. Meanwhile, the local factory or small business that’s been around for decades just keeps busting butt to hang on. That scenario always leaves a disgusting taste in my mouth.

Our mountain region is unique for many reasons, but its enduring spirit of independence may be what keeps it strong during the next several decades. This area was living the “buy local” movement before it had a name. We have a good mix of businesses that are helped by a steady flow of newcomers and visitors. It’s a good mix for a strong economy that doesn’t need to sell its soul to some huge manufacturer.

Catch the Spirit of Appalachia and the Appalachian Homestead Farm & Preserve recently presented a hand pieced, appliquéd quilt of Jackson County to the staff of Jackson County Recreation Center for its assistance for the past five years with the Patchwork Folk and Fabric Festival held at he center.

To make the display of the quilt more fun, a scavenger hunt has been created for those who would like to find some of the more than 78 items — sports, towns, lakes, natural showplaces, animals, river and more — depicted within the outline of Jackson County.”

The fifth annual Patchwork Folk & Fabric Festival will take place 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 5, at the recreation center. 828.293.3053.

Many people might say Lilian Parks is a staple to the regional art community. “Lil” as she is known to her students and fellow artists, is originally from San Francisco and has lived in Haywood County for more than 20 years. She came to the mountains by way of New York, Atlanta, Miami, and Hawaii, all the while painting and cultivating a following.

With more than 30 years of experience teaching both private lessons and classes, she is well-suited to teach at Haywood Community College.

“She not only instructs, she inspires,” said Laura Simmons of Community Education at HCC.

Parks says she tries to pass on an appreciation for creating art even if students aren’t pursuing it as a profession.

“This is why I am more thorough in teaching and encouraging the student to develop their own style as an artist,” said Parks. “If a person enjoys creating art, he or she will never be bored. It is a lifetime of learning, and I am still learning.”

Lil is a member of the Blue Ridge Watermedia Society and numerous other organizations. Her work can be found in private and corporate collections and has been recognized locally and throughout the United States.. Lil will soon teach “Journaling for the Artist.”

“You can create a storybook illustrating your travels. It’s a way to capture your memory of what you’ve seen,” said student Wendy Cordwell.

Learn from Lil

Lilian Parks will teach “Journaling for the Artist” from 1 to 4 p.m. June 17 to July 29. Parks will teach Pen and Ink from 9 a.m. until 12 p.m. June 15 to July 20; Finishing Your Masterpiece, a new class in which Parks will give students individual instruction in completing and finishing a work currently in progress or help tackling a new challenge, from 9 a.m. until 12 p.m. June 17 to July 29. All classes are six weeks long and $60 per class.

For more info, call Laura Simmons at 828.565.4244. To register, 828.627.4505 or www.haywood.edu/continuing_education.

Supported by the Golden LEAF Foundation since 2007, Buy Haywood has enjoyed success promoting the county’s farms.

Its first project targeted grocery store chains and successfully enlisted Whole Foods, Ingles, Food Lion, Bi-Lo, Lowes Food and others into carrying tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers grown in Haywood.

Next, it tackled the limitations of a short growing season and encouraged farmers to create “value-added products,” like salsa, jams and sauces to keep their products on the shelves year-round.

The group has also published a handy farm map to point tourists and locals alike to scores of Haywood’s farms, farm stands and farmer’s markets.

Now, the project’s organizers are tackling the challenge of connecting farmers with local restaurateurs.

Western Carolina University’s quintet in residence should consider letting the Travel Channel tag along before embarking on its next international tour.

After returning from China last month, the Smoky Mountain Brass Quintet can count 49 first-time foods tasted in 14 days of travel.

The long list includes some intriguing items like yam noodles, lotus root, dragon fruit, and glutinous rice. But other novelties would more likely make stomachs lurch: pig penis, sheep stomach, goose liver, shrimp eggs, turtle, and black fungus, to name a few.

Surpassing all that hands-down and nearly reaching legendary status, though, is the drunken shrimp. Eating that correctly involves biting the head off live shrimp drenched in baijiu, a clear Chinese liquor.

Not all five musicians ventured to experiment as a few feisty shrimp leaped from the bowl, one landing as far as the floor.

As for the verdict, a video capturing the gross-out moment (for Westerners) shows trombonist Dan Cherry declaring that it tasted ... pretty much like you’d expect raw shrimp to taste.

Trumpeter Brad Ulrich, who co-founded the quintet with fellow trumpet player David Ginn in 1993, was brave enough to try the dish first. Ulrich also picked up the skill of opening up a bottle of beer with chopsticks during the trip.

Even with all the bizarre foods, the quintet has come back from their tour raving about Chinese food — the authentic kind. Most meals took place around a large round table with a Lazy Susan in the middle piled with 14 or 15 different dishes. Everything was fresh, healthy and delicious.

“If you order fish [here], it’s been dead for a long time,” said Ulrich. “There, they take it out of an aquarium.”

Every place they visited offered something new, with each province specializing in a different dish.

“I can’t eat Chinese here anymore,” said Ulrich. “It’s not the same.”

Despite a grueling schedule with eight concerts on eight consecutive nights, the quintet obviously didn’t forget to set aside time for fun on the trip.

“We’re like family. It’s rare to have brass faculty that gets along as well as we do,” said Ulrich. “On these tours, it’s nonstop laughter, crying until our ribs hurt.”

The quintet is made up of those who have taught or are teaching at Western, including Travis Bennett on horn and Michael Schallock on tuba.

SMBQ is also a registered nonprofit that has helped raise money for the new library in Jackson County, for the local art council and for the Jackson County band program. It helped raise $14,500 for National Alzheimer’s Day in 2007.

On the China trip, the quintet was accompanied by Will Peebles, director of WCU’s School of Music, and China liaison Tang Cai.

Schallock said there was never a dull moment. “We just went with our eyes wide open from place to place and from person to person ... what we learned was enlightening and exciting.”

Cultural ambassadors

SMBQ’s international tours serve many purposes, but their chief function is to promote Western Carolina University to students and professors who may want to spend a semester or two in Cullowhee.

The idea for a tour came about after Ulrich was invited to perform in an international trumpet festival in St. Petersburg, Russia, about five years ago. Ulrich persuaded his bandmates to join him in performances abroad. It became a tradition, and the next international tour took them to the U.K.

As the quintet experiences the excitement (and exhaustion) of touring internationally, they promote cultural exchange.

SMBQ builds relationships with administrators, faculty and students at sister schools abroad. Those relationships help bring about an increase in the number of students who come to WCU or those who study abroad at sister schools in China.

Though many associate China with business and assume students who study abroad there are interested mostly in economics, Ulrich says art and culture are just as relevant.

“Music, art and dance — it’s all an extremely important part of the way they function and think,” said Ulrich. “You can’t neglect culture when you’re talking about economic development.”

Most of the concerts during the 14-day tour took place in packed halls at Western’s sister schools in China. Despite offering 300 to 500 seats, throngs of people still had to be turned away. SMBQ certainly didn’t spare any efforts to impress the crowd they had.

“We did not leave any performance without being soaked with sweat,” said Schallock. “We gave everything that we had.”

The five would often be swarmed by requests from concertgoers for photographs and autographs after the shows were through. Treated like rock stars, WCU’s resident brass quintet was surprised and amused to find their faces on cardboard cutouts or gigantic posters at the concert halls.

The quintet typically emphasizes pieces from Southern Appalachia and original compositions from WCU faculty, but they added a few Chinese songs to its repertoire, much to the audience’s approval.

“We couldn’t get through a piece, and they would be applauding wildly,” said Ulrich.

Ulrich says the Chinese viewed the visiting quintet’s performance of traditional folk songs as a sign of respect.

“We learned a lot about their culture doing it,” said Ulrich.

The quintet took the time to arrange the popular folk songs played on traditional Chinese instruments into pieces suitable for brass.

The musicians researched on YouTube and listened to CDs, but it wasn’t until they reached China that they got an authentic feel for the songs.

“We heard people singing and humming some of these tunes on the street,” said Schallock. “Folk players who would play traditional flutes in the park, we’d hear them playing these tunes.”

After visiting the Terracotta Warriors, the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and Chinese cities sometimes four times bigger than New York, SMBQ are once again back home in Western North Carolina.

Less than a week later, they were performing a Sunday concert in Clyde. Their eyes are already set on the next stop abroad: Germany.

Visit www.smbq.org for more information, photos and the infamous drunken shrimp video.

The Cherokee uses and ecology of river cane will be discussed during a guided walk from 10 a.m. to noon on Wednesday, June 9, in Franklin.

“We Brake for River Cane” will discuss biology and ecology of canebrakes, and the cultural and historic importance of this plant to the Cherokee Indians, who had more than 30 traditional uses for the plant. A demonstration will feature one of those uses.

The program along the Little Tennessee Greenway will be led by David Cozzo, an ethnobotanist; Darry Wood, a Native American earth skills expert; and Dennis Desmond, stewardship director for Land Trust for the Little Tennessee.

Meet at the Rotary Shelter at the Airport Trail entrance behind Macon News. 828.349.5201.

It doesn’t get much fresher than this.

Horticulture students at Smoky Mountain High School in Sylva are helping to feed their peers by supplying the school cafeteria with lettuce.

Students are growing lettuce hydroponically in a greenhouse, where plant roots grow in a nutrient-rich water rather than soil.

“Our students are really benefitting from this program,” said Jeremy Jones, the horticulture teacher. “Not only are they learning about an important agricultural process, they’re also getting to see the results of their work as the lettuce ends up in salads in the cafeteria where they eat.”

The idea was initiated by Jackson County Schools Nutrition Director Jim Hill, who brought the idea with him from Haywood Community College. Horticulture students there do the same thing.

It took a while to perfect the growing system and experiment with varieties of leaf lettuce that would produce the most yield.

Students in the horticulture class learned how to harvest the leaves for the first time recently. By taking the outside leaves and leaving the new growth in the center, the plant will continue to produce a harvest for quite some time. Students have also had the benefit of a visit from Jackson County Farmer William Shelton, owner of Shelton Family Farms, who has been growing hydroponic bibb lettuce for commercial sale for 24 years. His firsthand experience has encouraged several students to consider this as a successful alternative to conventional farming.

The Haywood Arts Regional Theatre kicks off summer with a hilarious backstage romp “Falling in Like” an “almost romantic comedy” written and directed by the playwright Jerry Sipp.

This performance is a unique opportunity to have a playwright come into the community as a guest artist to oversee the production. Sipp has had a long association with HART and its executive director Steve Lloyd.

“Falling in Like” premiered a few years ago in Raleigh and opened to rave reviews. It went on to win the North Carolina New Play Project Award and was awarded “Best New Script” by The Independent in Raleigh.

The show tells the story of leading man Frank who helps Abbie go from intern to ingénue when the leading lady pops a kneecap in rehearsal. The good deed leads to a romantic pursuit, and Frank has to fend off Abbie’s increasingly insistent attempts to get to know him. The show crackles with one liners and backstage antics.

Lloyd and Sipp met in 1983 when both were studying theatre at UNC-Greensboro. They were cast opposite one another in “Deathtrap” and became close friends almost immediately.

While living in L.A., Lloyd wrote a play about brothers Edwin and John Wilkes Booth and sent it to Jerry. The two-character piece was intended as a vehicle for the two of them. Sipp liked it and so did the head of the UNC-G professional summer theater, who agreed to hire them as guest artists and produce the premier. “The Actor and The Assassin” was picked up by an agent in Atlanta then later New York, and Lloyd and Sipp toured in the show for the next 17 years, performing in Europe, at the Kennedy Center and in New York.

Lloyd became a Visiting Artist at Haywood Community College which brought him to HART. Sipp became a Visiting Artist at Catawba Valley Community College and later the Executive Director of the Playhouse Theatre in Rocky Mount, NC.

The Playhouse and HART became sister theatres for several years, trading productions each season. Then came Hurricane Floyd in 1999. The storm completely destroyed The Playhouse Theater, ending that collaboration. Sipp became the Executive Director of Temple Theatre, a professional company in Sanford and a playwright. “Falling In Like” offers an opportunity for Lloyd, Sipp and the folks at HART to reunite for the first time since the destruction of the playhouse.

The show has a great cast including Jennifer Sanner, David Dvorscak, Jeff Messer, Allison Stinson, Preston Tinsley, Shanda Jacobs and Christopher Martin.

“Falling In Like” has performances at 7 p.m. June 4, 5, 10, 11, and 12; and 3 p.m. June 6 and 13.

$18 adult, $16 seniors and $8 for students with $5 discount tickets for students for Thursday and Sunday performances. Box Office Hours are from 1 to 5 p.m. Mon.-Sat. 828.456.6322 for reservations.

By Brent Martin

I went down to the water but he left me in the mud; I wanted me some wine but he turned it into blood.

— from the Dean Williams painting, “Jesus gave me the blues”.

A little over two years ago, I began spending a significant amount of time in a drab and windowless little downtown Andrews storefront known only to its occupant and a handful of others as Static King Studio. The studio belonged to the late musical wizard Mark Linkous, aka Sparklehorse, who was producing my wife’s album, and though it contained world-class recording equipment, it had no bathroom. When I asked where he normally relieved himself, he pointed out the door and down the street to Dean’s Records and Outsider Art, and said “Just tell Dean you’re over here with me, and that you need to use his bathroom. You probably won’t be back for a while though; you’ll dig his art.”

That simple trip to the bathroom established a relationship for me with a self-taught painter who is producing some of the most interesting folk art west of Asheville.

Dean’s store is large, with high wooden walls and paintings hung salon style floor to ceiling. Vinyl records and CDs are arranged in perfectly organized rows down the main length of the floor, and bookshelves filled with used books make up the contents of one corner. The entrance is boldly colored with brightly lit windows filled with kitsch and other interesting objets d’arte. One’s first impression from the outside is this: something different is going on in here. It’s an unlikely find in this remote western corner of the state and well worth the trip.

Mark was right about my slow return, and I found myself spending more than an hour on that first bathroom excursion, lost in Dean’s diverse and expressive cast of phantasmagoric characters, painted upon old wood and beadboard which he finds and glues together in panels. With subject matter ranging across blues music, religion, fried chicken, cheap beer, and other things local, there seems to be something for everybody interested in the Southern folk art genre.

When asked about his influences — like most folk artists — he cites sources other than what fine artists traditionally call forth. “Most of the art that has made an impact on me came from sources other than the world of fine art. Album cover art, beer bottle labels, and matchbook ads were always fascinating,” he explains to me one late Friday afternoon over libations, after the store has closed and the Andrews Main Street has been rolled up for the evening. “As I became more obsessed with blues music, the subject matter of the black culture of the South set off a spark of creativity that had been planted by years of the heaven and hell religious dogma that had directed much of my childhood. Whether there was actually a God and a devil, or simply a struggle within each human being, blues music seemed to be a testament of this battle. I realized that art and music both possessed the same power to exorcise these forces.”

This answer is one I can relate to, and one that explains much of my own interest in folk art. When the rock band The Talking Heads released their hit album Little Creatures in 1985, I spent as much time studying the cover art as I did listening to the music. I was living in Georgia at the time, and when I learned that the artist whose painting adorned the cover, Howard Finster, was only an hour away, I soon began to make pilgrimages to explore his sprawling artscape known as Paradise Gardens in Summerville, Ga.

That was my first introduction to the genre known as folk art, which can be defined generally as art produced without formal training, often accomplished in isolation and reflecting the customs and traditions of a particular community, and free from the competitive world of academics and social promotion.

Finster’s work is emblematic of this form of creative expression, and to wander among his towers made of old bicycles, eccentric outbuildings constructed of Mason jars, coke bottles, and junk, along with his prolific collection of scripture laden paintings of Elvis and other pop culture icons confirms this widely held opinion.

Dean is of course familiar with Finster, as well as other great folk artists in our region, and it is perhaps no accident that his birth in Johnson City, Tenn., in 1962 was not far from the Museum of Appalachia, home to one of most representative collections of primitive folk art in the South. He drew all of the time as a child, and when his family moved to Andrews in 1968 he was sick a lot, which increased the amount of time he spent with this early passion, most of it drawing with simple felt tip markers.

“I never sought out art and lived in a household where neither art nor music were important. All of my work was inspired by imagination and was a way to escape the meaningless world around me. I drew in school and gradually declined academically. I quit school in the tenth grade in the middle of a math test. Music became an obsession by the time I was 16,” he tells me, taking another pull from the sweaty Budweiser and waving his hand towards his large vinyl collection. “My first records were Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and Pink Floyd. Most of my art from this time period was music inspired. I eventually became more connected to the American blues that had inspired these musicians.”

He began drawing more during the 1990s and reinvented a style that worked well with acrylic and wood in 2004. The last six years have been his most prolific, being divided between drawing and painting. Opening a music, book and art store in 2002 allowed him more time to manipulate his work schedule and market his work.

As the first of our many evenings together came to a close, I asked him about his current inspiration for art, as one can definitely see an evolution of style and subject matter over time. Dean, with his characteristic forthcoming style, explains: “Most of the subject matter of my work blurs the lines of fiction and non-fiction pretty evenly, probably having more to do with truth than fact. Much of the subject matter is music inspired, but much has been drawn from imagination and dreams. Many of the symbols that reappear in my work may be drawn from symbolism, but the lines that divide them are so muddy that they should not be overanalyzed. I don’t like explaining my own work and always find a way to avoid it.”

His daughter Christa and son-in-law Israel suddenly appear from the upstairs loft apartment that they live in, directly above the store. I say hello, and remember the hour-long drive home, up the Needmore Road and through the gorgeous desolation that inspires my own creative life, and realize I need to be going. As Christa and Israel leave the store, he tells me one last thing: “I draw a lot of inspiration from my wife and four children and the unique creativity of each member of my family. Most of my work is done with my family around. This seems more natural than working in solitude. I’m also inspired by surrounding myself with creative people. I’ve grown to hate the educational system in this country, which minimizes the importance of the arts and continually promotes competition and class structures. All of us draw as children, and most of us abandon creativity due to the guilt-ridden social forces at work in the hands of this country’s educators.”

This is plenty of food for thought on the long drive home.

(The folk art of Dean Williams is currently on display at The Wilderness Society’s downtown Sylva office. It will be featured there as part of the town’s Art after Dark series on Friday, June 4, beginning at 6 p.m. It is free and open to the public. For more information contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Like dimly-lit rhododendron tunnels or ancient sphagnum-layered bogs, creek bends are special places that invariably precipitate beauty.

Sitting in the blue-gray shadows of my porch, I watch lower Lands Creek flow by on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. Down past the old outhouse, the creek bends southeastwardly and with mindless precision slices like a blade into a bluff of hornblende gneiss. Random glints of low-slanted evening light trace the graceful arc of the bend.

Horneblende is an aluminum silicate of iron and magnesium that may contain potassium. On slopes and in creek bends where flora is especially varied and lush, horneblende gneiss is often the key ingredient.

The bluff Lands Creek has been sculpting for thousands of years is shaded by a dense canopy composed of basswood, slippery elm, various white and red oak species, butternut, beech, striped and red maple, silverbell, serviceberry, black cherry, dogwood, ironwood, and various species of hickory. The under story is composed of rosebay rhododendron, mountain laurel, and dog-hobble. There are grape vines and tangles of greenbrier. Ferns that come to mind are cinnamon, Christmas, New York, glade, lady, hay-scented, ebony spleenwort, winged beech, and maidenhair. There are mosses, liverworts, sedges, ground pine, and grasses. The spring wildflowers are prolific.

In other words, the factors that created a bend in a creek exposed various levels of a mountainside containing horneblende gneiss and, in the process, also created a small natural garden of great beauty, without any “help” whatsoever from any person.

My favorite tree in the bend is a good-sized butternut ... the perfect tree for this setting. The butternut walnut (Juglans cinerea), which some people call white walnut, is surrounded by several of its close cousins, the ever-present black walnuts (J. nigra). But you can distinguish the smaller butternut walnut in a heartbeat.

Butternut has a large terminal leaflet, whereas black walnut has either a small terminal leaflet or no terminal leaflet at all. The bark of mature butternut walnut trees is gray-white and divided into deep furrows that form a characteristic rough diamond-shaped pattern. Its leaves and fruit drop early revealing conspicuous, 3-lobed (inversely triangular) leaf scars on twigs, each of which is surrounded by a raised, downy, gray pad or “eyebrow.” These scars make the leaf scars look for all the world like a ram’s face.

Unlike black walnut — which bears dark-green rounded fruits that turn dark black-brown — butternut walnut displays oblong fleshy light-green fruits that turn a light-brown buttery color with maturity.

Cherokees traditionally used the inner bark as a carthartic and harvested the nuts as food. To this day, they make a black dye to color basket splints from butternut roots and carve the soft wood for masks and other items. Mountaineers used the inner bark and fruit husks to obtain a yellow or orange agent to dye homespuns; hence, during the Civil War backwoods Confederate troops dressed in homespun “uniforms” of butternut-dyed cloth became known as “Butternuts.” In country churches here in the mountains, an altar carved of a satiny light-brown wood and displaying bands of paler sapwood might well be made of butternut.

Unfortunately, butternut walnut — like so many tree species — is being infested by a killing agent. In the butternut’s instance, the agent is a fungus first identified during the late 1960s in eastern North America. This canker has now spread throughout the entire range of the tree from Minnesota south to Arkansas and from New England south into Georgia.

In Charles E. Little’s The Dying of the Trees: The Pandemic in America’s Forests (Viking, 1995), the lens-shaped cankers that are formed when a tiny fungus spore enters the tree through an injured limb or trunk are described as “necrotic lesions of the bark and cambium layer” that “spread throughout the tree, even to the nut husks, eventually girdling the main limbs and trunk and causing the tree to die. The death is slow, taking several years, but certain.”

For the time being, however, the evening light that glints off the arc of water below our place is still refracted by the patterns in the bark of the butternut tree … diamonds in a near-perfect creek bend.

George Ellison wrote the biographical introductions for the reissues of two Appalachian classics: Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders and James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. In June 2005, a selection of his Back Then columns was published by The History Press in Charleston as Mountain Passages: Natural and Cultural History of Western North Carolina and the Great Smoky Mountains. Readers can contact him at P.O. Box 1262, Bryson City, N.C., 28713, or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Researchers in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park need volunteers to help map stands of ash trees and look for signs of the deadly Emerald Ash Borer.

The Emerald Ash Borer has been spreading and is now as close as Knox County, Tenn. It often travels undetected in firewood.

Volunteers will learn how to identify ash and other common trees, set up a scientific plot, and use a GPS unit. Data will provide a baseline so rangers can monitor stands of ash for the infestation.

There are three volunteer days: Saturday, Aug. 28, at Smokemont Campground outside Cherokee; Saturday, Sept. 11, at Oconaluftee outside Cherokee; and Saturday Sept. 25, at Deep Creek outside Bryson City. The field activity will run from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The volunteers should be prepared to hike up to five miles.

RSVP Ranger Susan Simpson at 865.436.1200, ext. 762.

The famed mountain bike trails of Tsali will get a workover this fall thanks to federal stimulus funding.

Vegetation will be trimmed back 4 feet on both sides from the center of the trail and 10-feet overhead, and areas with poor drainage will be fixed. A local contractor won the bid to perform the work on the 27-mile trail system.

Work will be done only on weekdays, and only short sections will be closed at any given time, which will be identified at trailheads.

“While this maintenance work is very important for ensuring a sustainable trail system, we have tried to minimize the short-term impact to the users as much as possible,” said District Ranger Steve Lohr.

The ultimate triathlon for outdoors adventure lovers — with the triple combo of paddling, trail running and mountain biking — will come to the trails of Tsali this weekend, Aug. 28 and 29.

The Tsali Challenge will be held at the Tsali Recreation Area outside of Bryson City.

The course kicks off with a 3-mile paddle on Fontana Lake, a 5-mile trail run and a 12-mile mountain-bike ride. Race solo on Saturday, or with a team on Sunday.

Racers can use whatever boat they please, but times will be calculated based on a formula that compensates for faster boats versus slower boats, thus leveling the playing field.

352.873.9279 or www.goneriding.com.

The Franklin Blue Planet 5K for Clean Water will be held Saturday, Sept. 4, along the Little Tennessee Greenway.

The Interact Club at Franklin High School is putting on the race to raise money for the Blue Planet Network, which brings clean water to rural communities all over the world. Roughly one-sixth of the world’s population does not have access to safe drinking water.

The race will start from the Tassee Shelter on the greenway at 9 a.m. There will be a 1 mile fun run/walk as well.

Overall male and female winners get a pair of running shoes from Brooks. Entry fee is $20 in advance or $25 on race day and includes a light brunch featuring fresh fruit, freshly-baked bread and gourmet hummus donated by Riverblaze Bakery and Jer’s Kitchen.  First 85 to register get an eco-friendly T-shirt made in the U.S. from 100 percent recycled materials for the first 85 registered participants.

Go to Franklin5KforCleanWater.com or email Canyon Woodard at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

A 110-acre tract along the Blue Ridge Parkway near Waynesville has been protected thanks to the longtime landowner selling the land to the Conservation Trust of North Carolina at a bargain rate.

The Conservation Trust in turn plans to deed the tract over the parkway. This is on top of another 35-acre tract on Mt. Lyn Lowry, also along the Parkway outside Waynesville, that was conserved this summer.

The landowner, Joe Arrington, remembers the coming of the Parkway decades ago, as it passed through his family’s property. Arrington and his friends often explored the construction site on horseback. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, Arrington and his wife liked to bring their children to a stream overlooking the parkway.

His continuing affection for the region’s scenery and peacefulness led to his decision to protect it forever.

“Even the locals appreciate it and enjoy the place where you get away from the hustle and bustle and enjoy the cool mountain air,” Arrington said. “It isn’t something you see once and say, ‘Been there, done that.’”

Parkway Superintendent Phil Francis said the preservation of the tract is especially meaningful as the parkway celebrates its 75th anniversary this year.

“Mr. Arrington was here when the parkway began, and he and his family have many happy memories of their time spent in these beautiful mountains. Now, generations of families will cherish their own Blue Ridge Parkway memories thanks to his generous gift,” Francis said.

The tract is highly visible from the section of Parkway north of Balsam Gap — especially from the Waynesville and Saunook overlooks.

Costs associated with the land transaction — a total of $542,358 — were funded by a donation from Fred and Alice Stanback of Salisbury, and grants from the Clean Water Management Trust Fund and the Pigeon River Fund.

Cataloochee Ranch in Maggie Valley is hosting a chestnut celebration from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 11.

The festivities will honor the all-important role of chestnut trees for early Appalachian settlers and efforts to repopulate the mountains with a blight resistant form of the tree.

Attendees can tour the grounds of Cataloochee Ranch and the chestnut orchards. There will be live music by Balsam Range and the Trantham Family. Rob Gudger, a Maggie Valley man who raises wolves, will be there with his animals. There will be kids games, crafts and raffles. Lunches, drinks, fishing and horseback riding will be available for an extra cost.

Chestnuts once comprised nearly a quarter of the trees in the Southern Appalachian forest. Mountain communities depended upon the annual chestnut harvest as a cash crop and as a primary source of forage for their livestock, which were turned loose in the chestnut forests to gorge themselves and fatten up before the harvest. In addition, chestnut wood split straight and was rot resistant, making it ideal for everything from fence posts and barn frames to coffins and shingles.

Cataloochee Ranch is home to an experimental stand of blight-resistant chestnut trees developed by the American Chestnut Foundation. The strain has all the characteristics of the American chestnuts — but has just enough of the Chinese chestnut strain to make it blight resistant.

The chestnut reintroduction effort is a long-range project pushing scientific frontiers for forestry. It is a privately funded effort and contingent on donations. Proceeds from the festival will benefit the nonprofit American Chestnut Foundation.

Tickets are $10 for adults; children 12 and under are free.

828.926.1345 or 828.627.1255 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Dinner and auction benefits Chestnut Foundation

A benefit dinner with live music and an auction to support the work of the American Chestnut Foundation will be held at Cataloochee Ranch at 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 11.

The steak dinner is $100 a person or $160 a couple, and includes a year membership to the Foundation.

Auction items include a solid chestnut wood dining table, an original oil painting of the ranch by Jo Ridge Kelly pottery, wrought-iron coat rack, handmade jewelry, Cherry wood end tables and more.

The Waynesville Council of Garden Clubs is helping with the dinner and festival that day. 828.926.1345 or 828.926.1401.

Boating at Tanasee Creek and Wolf Creek lakes will be reduced while Duke Energy repairs a hydroelectric generator below the two lakes.

Both lakes are 18.5 feet below full, rendering the boat ramp at Wolf Lake useless. The current schedule calls for the lakes to begin filling up in mid-November and the generator to be back in operation by mid-December.

Lake levels can be found at  http://www.duke-energy.com/lakes/nantahala/nantahala-lake-levels.asp or calling 800.829.5253, ext. 5.

The Fireman’s Day 5K will be held in Bryson City Saturday, Sept. 4, in conjunction with the 29th annual Fireman’s Day Street Festival.

The 3.1-mile course starts and finishes at the Bryson City Fire Department. It makes a loop out Deep Creek valley and back for a mostly flat course.

The festival includes face painting, craft exhibits, BBQ, fire truck parade and a Miss Flame contest. Kids can even get rides on the fire trucks.

Cost of the race is $15, or $23 with a T-shirt. Proceeds from the race support the Bryson City fire department.

Growers looking for greenhouse space may find what they need at the Jackson County Green Energy Park in Dillsboro, where large greenhouses are heated using energy from methane given off by decomposing trash.

There is more than 4,000 square feet of greenhouse space available for rent, either by one grower or an organization. One-year lease begins in January and is renewable for up to a total of three years.

Biodiesel serves as a backup fuel source. Tenants share other utility costs and the cost of a rainwater collection system that provides most the water needs.

828.631.0271 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or www.jcgep.org.

A reading and book signing for the new anthology Echoes Across the Blue Ridge will take place from 1 to 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 28, at Blue Ridge Books in Waynesville.  

The anthology includes a variety of stories, essays, and poems by writers living in and inspired by the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The list of authors includes Kathryn Stripling Byer, Gary Carden, Thomas Rain Crowe and many others.

Local authors scheduled to appear on Aug. 28 include Dick Michener, JC Walkup, George Ivey, Glenda Beall, and Jane Young.

The book is now available for sale at local bookstores, including Blue Ridge Books in Waynesville, City Lights in Sylva, and Malaprop’s Bookstore and Café in Asheville. For more information, netwestwriters.blogspot.com/2010/01/echoes-across-blue-ridge.html.

Spine care for residents of Macon and adjoining counties will be available in Franklin beginning Tuesday, Sept. 7 with the opening of Mission Outpatient Spine Center at Angel Medical Center. A grand opening celebration will be held at noon on Sept. 7 in the Outpatient Medicine Department where the service will be provided.

The center will be staffed by three board-certified Surgeons from Carolina Spine and Neurosurgery Center in Asheville who specialize in the treatment of spinal conditions.

Services will initially be provided on Tuesdays and Fridays. These include physician evaluations, MRI and CT diagnostic testing, treatments, and physical therapy provided by Angel physical therapists under the clinical direction of the surgeons.

angelmed.org, csandnc.com or Missionhospitals.org.

Rural Entrepreneurship through Action Learning will be offered from 6 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursdays from Sept. 14 through Oct. 7. This four-week course will be held at Haywood Community College in the Freedlander Building in Room 204.

Learn how to take a business idea, improve or expand an existing business, and walk through the following steps: Self-employment assessments, the business plan essentials, legal structures, community analysis, marketing research and feasibility, targeting the customer and meeting customer needs, analyzing the competition, taxes and licenses, utilizing professionals, computerized cash flow analysis and financial feasibility.

Allan Steinberg, REAL certified instructor, will facilitate this class. Steinberg is also the executive director of Smoky Mountain Development Corp. and works with the SBA 504 loan program.

$65. Register by visiting Enrollment Management in the HCC Student Center building. 828.627.4505.

Of the 1,450 Western Carolina University freshmen set to move in Aug. 20, about 375 will score a room in the brand new Blue Ridge Hall.

The hall is the second of a pair of residence halls built as part of a $50 million construction project. Balsam Hall opened last fall to about 425 students.

Blue Ridge Hall features a state-of-the-art conference center space and connects to adjacent Balsam Hall by an arch that offers a student study area overlooking the Alumni Tower and lawn of A.K. Hinds University Center. The project was developed as part of a plan to create a more pedestrian-friendly academic quad around the Alumni Tower. Construction is now under way on the quad’s outdoor elements, which include additional landscaping, walkways and a fountain.

housing.wcu.edu.

Dr. Paul Cutting, an orthopedic doctor at Western Carolina Orthopedic Specialists who specializes in hand and upper extremity surgery, will offer a free hand screening from 4 to 6 p.m. on Thursday. Sept. 9, at the outpatient therapy department in the west wing of Harris Regional Hospital.

Dr. Cutting diagnoses and treats fractures, dislocations, nerve and tendon repairs, reconstructions and grafts, sports- and work-related injuries, and other hand and upper extremities issues. Three Harris Regional occupational therapists — Jamie Kelly, Anna Walls and Susie Witty –– will also participate in the screening.

828.586.7235.

Lake Junaluska Assembly invites youth and children to become peacemakers at the 2010 Lake Junaluska Peace Celebration: Mosaic of Hope, Sept. 18 through 19. The unique two-day event features leadership from children’s activist Jeni Stepanek, as well as youth and children facilitators.

Stepanek is a noted advocate for children’s and families’ needs in health and education, and a well-respected motivational speaker.

Youth Celebration participants will engage in hands-on learning experiences with various organizations, including Paper Clips: The Holocaust Project, Invisible Children and Creative Expressions for Peace. Younger children will participate in artistic responses and learn techniques to verbalize their feelings instead of acting on them, especially with regard to coping with stress, anger, and bullying.

Adults, youth and children are also encouraged to participate in the Peace Walk and Festival of Peace, which bridges the Peace Celebration with the annual Lake Junaluska Peace Conference that runs Sept. 19 through 21.

www.lakejunaluska.com/peace-celebration or call 828.454.6656.

For the second time in three years, the Jackson County Child Support Enforcement Program has achieved the ranking of No. 1 in the state, according to a report released by the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services for fiscal year 2009-10.

Nine categories of performance are evaluated by state CSE officials throughout the year. These include items such as paternity establishment rate, percentage of cases under court order, manpower utilization, and total amount of money collected. Each category carries a different weight in determining the final score. Jackson County ended the year with a total quality score of 726, which was 29 points ahead of the second-place county. There were 88 county and state-operated CSE programs in North Carolina in fiscal year 2009-10.  

In Jackson County, Child Support Enforcement is a service provided by the Department of Social Services. The local team includes Supervisor Christi Hooper, Agent Joan Shepherd, Processing Assistant Onyx Lozano, and agency attorney Mary Holliday.

“Christi, Joan, Onyx and Mary are incredibly focused and committed to the simple but highly important mission of collecting as much child support money as possible for the benefit of Jackson County’s children,” said Bob Cochran, DSS director.

More than 40 people in Haywood County might have been exposed to rabies after a baby raccoon a family was caring for died and tested positive for the disease.

The raccoon died of rabies infection Aug. 13. Prior to its death and before the animal showed symptoms, dozens of adults and children handled the raccoon. The Haywood County Health Department sent letters to the Haywood residents last week, advising them that anyone exposed to the raccoon between June 21 and Aug. 16 should be seen by their doctor or health-care provider for assessment.

This marked the second time since early July where Haywood County residents were possibly exposed to rabies through situation that could have been prevented, said Julia Plemmons, nursing director for the Haywood County Health Department. Campers were exposed to bats while sleeping in buildings where bats were present.

Rabies is a fatal disease in humans, but getting prompt treatment can prevent it from development.

Get ready for two evenings of bluegrass music and wholesome family fun on Friday, Aug. 27, and Saturday, Aug. 28, on the grounds behind the old Fines Creek School. Sponsored by the Fines Creek Community Association to raise funds for college scholarships, the Bluegrass Jam will be held rain or shine.

Top musicians such as Balsam Range, a local group known nationally in the bluegrass field, and Raymond Fairchild, a world-renowned banjo player, will headline the performances on Friday and Saturday, respectively. Steve Brown and his band, Hurricane Ridge, will host the event, with Brown also serving as master of ceremonies. Other groups performing include Out of the Blue, Hominy Valley Boys, Runners of the Green Laurel, Hazel Creek and Buncombe Turnpike.

The audience will also be treated to special appearances by The Southern Appalachian Cloggers, Dixie Darlin’ Cloggers, and The Fines Creek Flat Footers.

Pit-cooked barbecue, fish dinners, old-fashioned funnel cakes and cotton candy, in addition to hot dogs, hamburgers, sausage and Philly cheese steak sandwiches will be available. A portion of the profits will be donated by McLeod’s Concessions to the Fines Creek Community Association.

The Fines Creek Community Center is located at 190 Fines Creek Rd, off exit 15 on Interstate 40.

Attendees are encouraged to bring blankets or chairs. Tents will be set up and some chairs will be available for a small rental fee.

Ticket prices are $15 per adult admission for one night and $10 for ages 16 to 18. Tickets for both nights are $25 for adults and $15 for students 16 to 18. Children under 16 will be admitted free with paying adults.

A complete schedule can be found at www.finescreek.org or by calling 828.627.2052.

The 2010 “An Appalachian Evening” season comes to an end on Saturday, Aug. 28, with one of Nashville’s most exciting new acts. The Farewell Drifters perform at 7:30 p.m. at Stecoah Valley Cultural Arts Center.

“An Appalachian Evening” was named a Top 20 Event by the Southeast Tourism Society in 2008 and is a featured event in the Blue Ridge Parkway 75th Anniversary community spotlight. The concert is preceded by two dinner seatings, served family style at the Stecoah Kitchen. Dinner seatings are at 5 p.m. and 6:15 p.m.

Reservations are required. Call 828.479.3364. Tickets can be purchased at the Stecoah Gallery, by phone, or at www.stecoahvalleycenter.com. Come early and shop for fresh local produce and art at the Stecoah Tailgate Market from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. before the show.

The Haywood Arts Regional Theater’s next play never played Broadway, or even New York, but it is one of the most popular comedies being done today.

“Catfish Moon” by Laddy Sartin tells the story of a group of close friends who have had a break up and are working towards a reconciliation — or trying to. The entire thing is set on a fishing pier complete with cooler, beer, rods, lawn chairs and a full moon and plenty of laughs — an appropriate way to spend a summer evening.

HART’s production is being directed by Allison Stinson and will feature Jessica Bachar, Tom Dewees, Jackie Webb and Jack Ross. This is a feel-good comedy that will leave you with some things to ponder, and a greater appreciation for a full moon on a summer night.

Laddy Sartin is currently a resident of Rock Hill, S.C., and a Mississippi native. She holds a BFA in Theatre from the University of Southern Mississippi. An actor and stage technician as well as a writer, Sartin has worked in theatre for the past two decades.

In the 1970’s and 80’s he appeared as an actor on a number of TV series including “Matlock,” but then he became a father and things changed. His wife had been the family’s principal moneymaker as a theatre technician working on “A Chorus Line,” but the family decided to leave the city and take a different direction. Sartin had been writing for years and he dug back into his trunk and found parts of what would become two celebrated plays, “Blessed Assurance” and “Catfish Moon.”

Sartin was the 1991-92 recipient of the North Carolina Arts Council’s Playwriting Fellowship, the state’s most prestigious individual artist award and then “Blessed Assurance” was selected for the Eudora Welty New Play Series at New Stage Theatre in Jackson, Mississippi, and was performed there in March 1995.

In the fall of 1992 “Blessed Assurance” was produced by Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C., and was their entry in the American College Theatre Festival and received national attention. The play was also produced by the University of Southern Mississippi in September 1993 and by West Georgia College in February 1994.

Grammy Award winner Leslie Ellis and Grammy Award nominee Casey Kelly will share their creative talents starting 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 28, at the Balsam Mountain Inn.

The performance is part of the Songwriters In-The-Round series, which brings audiences face to face with songwriters who have “made it.” Each has had more than one musical artist make their songs famous.

Ellis was responsible for the Grammy-winning “My Heart Will Go On” sung by Celine Dion and used in the blockbuster movie “Titanic.”

Ellis has performed “Six Times Around the Sun” in CBS TV mini-series “Perfect Murder, Perfect Town” and is starring in a new film “My Name is Wallace.“

Kelly is a two-time Grammy-nominated songwriter for “Soon” (recorded by Tanya Tucker), “Cowboy Rides Away” recorded by George Strait (who still closes all his live concert shows with it), “Anyone Who Isn’t Me Tonight” (recorded by Kenny Rogers/Dottie West), “That Road Not Taken” (Joe Diffie). Other hits include: “Only Game In Town” (America) and “Somewhere Down the Line” (T.G. Sheppard).

Kelly is also a successful session player and singer. He has performed concerts and club gigs throughout the United States and Europe with prominent artists like Arlo Guthrie, The Beach Boys, The Carpenters, Fleetwood Mac, Gordon Lightfoot, The Grateful Dead, Hall And Oats, Jackson Browne, Jimi Hendrix, Randy Travis and many more.

Cost is $39 per person. Show, dinner, beverage, tax and tip included. Buffet starts at 6 p.m., with seating every 15 minutes.

800.224.9498 or  www.balsammountaininn.com.

A back to school celebration with local band 32 Reasons will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 27, at Blue Ridge Books in Waynesville. Teens and pre-teens are invited to come and celebrate (or mourn) the start of school. The event is free.

32 Reasons is a punk rock band from Waynesville. The band consists of Sam Kaufman on bass/lead vocals, Jesse Hickman on guitar/backing vocals, and Jack MacDonald on drums. The band’s sound is a mixture of punk, grunge and psychedelic rock.

32 Reasons is currently working on singles with No Question Music Group, a record label in Charlotte.

828.456.6000.

A CD containing 34 1930s-era recordings of music performed by Smoky Mountain musicians will be released in October by the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Great Smoky Mountains Association, the park’s nonprofit educational organization. In the meantime, Great Smoky Mountains Association is attempting to locate those musicians still alive, most of whom were young men or women in 1939.

These historical recordings were made by linguist and folklorist Joseph S. Hall, who in the 1930s was encouraged by the administrators of the new national park to collect speech, folklore, and music from people who had been or were soon to be relocated to land outside park boundaries. Made in 1939, Hall’s recordings of community musicians are a treasury of the music played and enjoyed in nearby areas.

The wide variety of selections on the CD will include music performed by more than 20 different musicians, including:

• John Hannah, Little Cataloochee community, Haywood County.

• Bessie Rabb, Allens Creek, Haywood County, North Carolina.  

• Cataloochee Trio (Wayne Wright, Slick Wilson, David Proffitt), Cataloochee, Haywood County.

• Bill Moore and Vic Peterson, Waynesville.

• John Davis and Shorty Smith, Cataloochee CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) Camp, Cataloochee community, North Carolina.

• Bill Moore’s Quartet, Waynesville, Haywood County.

• Carl Messer, Cove Creek, Haywood County.

• The Leatherman Brothers, Bryson City.

• Bill Moore, Paul Buchanan, Hardy Crisp, Haywood County.

• Herman Smith and David Proffitt, Cataloochee CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) Camp, Cataloochee.

• Jim Sutton, Cataloochee, Haywood County.

• Helen Gunter, Mt. Sterling, Haywood County.

• Willis and Dexter Bumgarner, Allens Creek, Haywood County.

• Chub Karns, Francis Lum, Cataloochee CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) Camp, Cataloochee.

• Betty Messer, White Oak, Cove Creek, North Carolina.

If you have any of the above-requested information, contact Steve Kemp, Interpretive Products and Services director of Great Smoky Mountains Association, at 865.436.7318 extension 227, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Registration is going on now for the 2010 calendar of workshops and Art Academy at The Bascom in Highlands. Pat Fiorello, whose work is pictured above, will teach three watercolor workshops: “Watercolor for Non-Artists,” “Watercolor Landscape,” and “Watercolor/Color Workshop,” from September 8 to 11. 828.526.4949, ext 100 or www.thebascom.org.

The WNC group of the Southeast Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society will be presenting a day of “Shop Talk” on Saturday, Sept. 11, at the Skyland/ South Buncombe Library in Asheville. The program will run from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., with a break for lunch at noon.

Headlining the event will be two members of the National Cartoonists Society: Michael Jantze, artist of the comic strip “The NORM” and an instructor at Savannah College of Art and Design; and Julie Negron, artist of the comic strip “Jenny the Military Spouse” for Stars and Stripes magazine. Several other artists from the WNC area will also be presenting a number of programs on various facets of the work involved in cartooning and illustration.

An informal portfolio review will be held during the lunch hour and students of all ages are encouraged to bring along samples of their work for review by one of the attending professionals. Weather permitting, there will be light refreshments served at the library gazebo.

The event is open to the public and free of charge. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Healthy Haywood’s annual Family Fun Day will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 29, at the Canton Recreation Park outdoor pool. Enjoy free swimming for the whole family, a DJ, and health information booths from Healthy Haywood Action Teams, Health Department staff, and Smart Start/Region A Partnership for Kids.

Family Fun Day is sponsored by Healthy Haywood’s Healthy Living Action Team and Canton’s Recreation Department.

828.452.6675.

The Pisgah Promenaders will host the annual “Back to School Dance” from 7:15 to 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 28, at the Old Armory Recreation Center in Waynesville.

The dancers will be asked to bring back to school items for the benefit of the Broyhill Children’s Home. The dance will feature guest caller Stan Russell. Round dancing will begin at 6:45 p.m.

Fall square dance lessons will begin at 7 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 13. Lessons will also be held at the Old Armory. The teacher/caller will be Ken Perkins. The first two lessons are free.

The Aug. 28 dance and lessons are co-sponsored by Waynesville Parks and Recreation.

828.631.0683 or 828.452.5917.

More than 100 artists and crafters from all over the Southeast, including Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia and Alabama will gather for the Labor Day Craft Show in Maggie Valley.

Artists will demonstrate and sell their original handicrafts works from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 4, and Sunday, Sept. 5, at the Maggie Valley Fairgrounds. Admission to the event is free.

This annual event will feature piped music throughout the day. Tasty festival foods will be prepared by local groups, while The Java Hut will make its appearance selling specialty coffee-drinks hot & iced, smoothies and other crowd-pleasers.

Fireworks will be displayed at the fairgrounds on Sunday, Sept. 6, starting at dark thirty. This part of the weekend event is sponsored by the Town of Maggie Valley.

The committee is still accepting applications from crafters and vendors from all states in the Southeast.

www.maggievalleycraftshows.com.

Haywood Community College Professional Crafts-Fiber students recently delivered a Navajo rug they crafted to the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock.

The students were commissioned to craft a replica of a worn and faded Navajo rug that once was in the Carl Sandburg home.

The project required extensive research to learn how to do traditional Navajo art. Not only did the students have to learn a new style of weaving, but they also had to experiment with dye. Sometimes it took several tries to get the colors to match closely to the original rug.

Students used the original rug as a reference when they were creating the weaving and color pattern. They each took turns working on the rug.

The HCC Foundation received $2,300 for the commission of this project to be used in the Fiber Department.

Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site is dedicated to preserving the legacy of Carl Sandburg and communicating the stories of his works, life and significance as an American poet, writer, historian, biographer of Abraham Lincoln, and social activist.

Artists from Haywood and Jackson counties are eligible to submit work for the next “Art in the Airport” exhibit at the Asheville Regional Airport.

With approximately 600,000 passengers traveling through the Asheville Regional Airport each year, artwork on display receives tremendous attention, and pieces have sold from 90 percent of the previous exhibits.

Western North Carolina artists are featured in this rotating exhibit program in a dedicated gallery space as well as throughout the airport terminal.

Artists can apply with a new interactive online form, which can be found at www.flyavl.com. The show will be on display from Oct. 22 until Feb. 8. There is no fee to submit artwork, and all pieces are judged by area art professionals.

Artists are invited to submit between four and 10 pieces of artwork in any medium, bearing in mind that artwork must be suitable for all audiences.

Applications must be received by Friday, Sept. 10. To be considered for “Art in the Airport,” artists must reside in Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Madison, McDowell, Mitchell, Polk, Rutherford, Transylvania or Yancey counties.

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

“Cool!” was the typical response from kids as Fun Factory visitors walked in to find a colorful, life-sized killer whale on display just inside the Fun Factory’s entrance. It’s the centerpiece of a free August and September arts and crafts program hosted by the Macon County Arts Association and the Fun Factory.

The MCAA is a nonprofit that regularly conducts children’s art classes at its gallery, so the Fun Factory approached them to help create a fun program for kids based around its giant, fiberglass killer whale that just happened to need a new paint job.

The arts and crafts sessions will be from 10 a.m. to noon and from 2 to 4 p.m. on both Saturday, Aug. 28, and Saturday, Sept. 11, inside the Fun Factory in Franklin. These are open sessions, so kids can drop in at any time to create a sea creature craft adn visit the “Art the Whale” display.

“We want them to develop an appreciation for the arts, but this promotion also teaches them about the environment, marine life and even has a recycling component,” said Stephen Clark, MCAA marketing director.  

In addition to helping to put the finishing touches on the whale itself, children who participate also get to recycle empty milk jugs, plastic bottles and more, into craft sea creatures. Clark developed about five different craft creatures including various fish made from recycled bottles, a milk jug whale, and even a crab made out of pasta and pipe cleaners.

Registration is encouraged. All kids who register in advance or on site will be eligible to win prizes. All participants will receive a coupon for a free $5 Fun Card plus a pass to see the Shark Tales movie Friday, Sept. 24, at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts.

“We want the kids and parents to bring their own empty plastic milk jugs and bottles to decorate,” said Clark. “But we’ll have plenty of extras on hand if someone forgets.” The MCAA will provide instructors to assist the children at each session, and the Fun Factory is providing all paint and craft supplies.

Many of the craft sea creatures take only about 15 minutes to create. When complete, children can place their sea creatures on display with Art the Whale for future pickup, or they are welcome to leave with their finished crafts.

Registration forms are available inside the Fun Factory, at www.funfactoryfranklin.com or at the Macon County Arts Association/Uptown Gallery on Main Street.

mcaauptowngallery.org or 828.349.4607.

A new book titled The Forests of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park serves as a guide to understanding and identifying southern Appalachian forest types for the non-scientist.

The book explores the evolution of the diverse forests of the Smokies, including environmental and manmade influences. Along the way, the reader learns how to sample the forest using skills like pacing, measuring tree diameter, estimating tree age, determining successional stage and identifying major southern Appalachian tree species.

The author is Dan Williams, forest manager & environmental educator with the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. For more about the book, go to forestsofgreatsmokymountains.com.

An eight-week course on the Fundamentals of Green Building will be held at Haywood Community College starting Aug. 30.

The course is designed to help construction workers and contractors land work in the emerging green construction industry. The course is offered through the JobsNOW Program and a grant from the NC Rural Economic Development Center.

The course has a classroom component that covers theories, practices, and materials used in green building, plus a Boots-on-the-Ground component at a model green home being built on the HCC campus.

Cost for the class is $350 for registration and $205 for books. The class will be offered again on Oct. 11 and Nov. 15. 828.627.4667 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or 828.456.6061 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

For fulltime students, HCC offers a degree in Low Impact Development and a Green Building certificate.

The tenth annual Southern Energy and Environment Expo this weekend in Asheville will features dozens of programs and exhibits on how to create a more sustainable society.

Thousands of people attend each year to hear the talks, attend workshops and peruse the displays. The expo highlights cutting edge technology people can incorporate into their own homes and lives, from simple steps like eco-friendly cleaning products and rain water collection to bigger investments like hybrid cars and solar or geothermal energy.

When the first SEE Expo was held 10 years ago, global warming was still considered “debatable” and green living was outside the mainstream.

“Times have changed, the debate is over, and it’s time for action,” according to the event organizers. “Rebuilding our economy into a rational, sustainable economy begins on the local & regional levels.”

The expo will be held Aug. 20-22 at the WNC Agricultural Center located off I-26 near the airport. For a schedule, go to www.seeexpo.com.