The “Cold Mountain Community Cookout & Concert” featuring blues-rockers Fancy & The Gentlemen will take place on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Lake Logan Retreat Center. 

Hurricane Helene was and continues to be a traumatic event for our region, but even within the worst of it, there are stories of resilience and ingenuity in ways that many had to deal with making or getting meals while having no power or water for days.

Construction on the first phase of the new Franklin High School is officially underway after years of advocating and planning by large swaths of the community. 

No book review today. Instead, some words about the importance of words — yours.

If you’re reading these words and live in Western North Carolina, Eastern Tennessee, or parts of Georgia and South Carolina, then you survived the Great Flood of 2024.  

The annual Stecoah Harvest Festival will return Oct. 18-19 to the Stecoah Valley Cultural Arts Center in Robbinsville. 

It is difficult to know what to write after a disaster of the magnitude caused by Hurricane Helene. It certainly teaches us the importance of coming together as a community to check on and help our friends and neighbors, and how vital our emergency response teams, first responders, National Guard, churches, shelters for both humans and animals, and relief organizations are in times like this.

This is not the end of our story in Western North Carolina. Far from it. It’s an opportunity for a new beginning, a reshaping of this place that has always been so good for the soul. As I stand on my front porch steps and pause to look at and smell the trees, see leaves slowly spiraling earthward, feel the crisp bite of autumn in the morning air, take a deep breath and know that all will be healed in time. 

On Friday evening, downtown Waynesville was in kind of a festive spirit — a far cry from what all of us here in Western North Carolina have felt for over a week now.

What started off as a clever idea to address recidivism has grown into something more — a community-driven response to concerning and costly social ills like homelessness, mental illness and substance abuse disorder. 

Celebrate the change of seasons with your friends and neighbors at a farm-to-table dinner at 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21, at the Pigeon Community Multicultural Development Center in Waynesville.