Macon County Planner Derek Roland will leave his post to become the Town of Franklin's planner. Current Franklin town Planner Mike Grubermann will retire this month.

"Derek has been awesome," said Lewis Penland, chairman of the Macon County Planning Board. "He had a hard job from day one, but he really hit the ground running. Derek really cares about this county and the future of this county."

Roland, a Franklin native, joined the county in March 2009. Being Macon County's planner is not exactly a walk in the park — Macon is fiercely divided among pro-planning and anti-planning factions, with the planning board serving as the primary focus of all that ongoing angst.

Roland, however, managed to steer clear of potential hornets nests during his tenure. Despite standing room only public hearings in the county courtroom on planning matters during recent months, not once did Roland become a topic of discussion at any of those gatherings.

Roland on Monday described going to the town as "a good opportunity — not a better one, but a good one."

"I think going to the town is an opportunity for him," County Manager Jack Horton said.

Horton said he expects hiring a new planner will take some time. The county plans to start advertising the position next week. Until someone is hired, Jack Morgan, who oversees code and planning enforcement for Macon County, will cover Roland's duties. Horton said other county staff would be used, too, as needed.

He starts March 26. Roland said his first task would be to learn Franklin's Unified Development Ordinance, the town's primary planning document.

To hear Franklin Alderman Bob Scott tell it, fellow town leaders and tourism experts haven’t begun to adequately plan for and consider what an influx of some 4,000 bikers could mean to a small town of 3,500 residents.

Franklin will hold its first-ever town sanctioned motorcycle rally Aug. 17-19. The town plans to block off streets downtown for motorcycle-specific vendors to set up, plus have live bands providing entertainment during the day on Franklin’s town square at the gazebo. Also on tap is a beer garden to help slake the thirst of motorcyclists.

To say this is new for Franklin, a fairly staid mountain community in most respects, is to indulge in understatement. But, hard economic times have communities such as this one willing to experiment in the name of attracting additional dollars from tourist billfolds.

That’s not enough reason, in Scott’s book at least, to ignore possible planning-preventable pitfalls.

“Every other festival we have ever had in here has come to and worked with the town board,” Scott said. “This outfit has never come to the town board, despite this having the probability of being the biggest impact event we’ve ever had here.”

USRider News out of Georgia will be putting on and orchestrating the rally. It received a $14,000 grant from the Franklin Tourism Development Authority to market the event, using proceeds from the town’s 3-percent tax on overnight lodging.

Scott Cochran, publisher of USRider News, said Tuesday that they hope to talk to the Franklin Board of Aldermen next month.

A done deal?

Franklin Mayor Joe Collins said he believes the town simply won’t know if the motorcycle rally was a good move until it has happened.

“I am certain the event is being tendered and proffered in good faith and in the belief that it would be beneficial,” said Collins, who is a veteran attorney in Macon County.

The mayor said the modern motorcycle rally tends to be “a different breed of animal” than they once were. Motorcyclists, he noted, “have gone from the have nots to the haves,” and have the money and means that go with professional lifestyles.

“We’re obviously going to try it, then we will be able to gauge its value much more after we have one,” Collins said.

Scott, like Collins, emphasized that he, too, believes rallies have come a long way from their once scruffy, rowdy and hard-partying days.

“I’ve had three motorcycles myself,” Scott said. “But, this is something more than just a family reunion. Where are we going to put 4,000 people for three days? My feeling is that a biker rally just isn’t in keeping with what Franklin is. But, it looks like it’s a done deal.”

Maggie Valley, king of motorcycle rallies in WNC with five on its calendar this year, has grappled at times with the onslaught of bikes on the town’s roads. But while Maggie Valley and Cherokee, too, have long hosted motorcycle rallies, they generally are held in fields and outdoor festival venues rather than directly in downtowns.

Cochran, the promoter, said he believes Franklin will be happy with the results of its first motorcycle rally.

“There are always going to be some concerns we won’t be able to address until the event happens,” Cochran said Tuesday. “It’s just going to take the rally happening to see what we are saying is true.”

Merchants seem to favor rally

An informal survey of merchants and business employees on Main Street seemed to mainly reveal curiosity about what this could mean for Franklin, with the hope that cash registers will be working overtime.

“We’ve never had a problem with those motorcyclists who come through Franklin,” said Linda McKay of N.C. Mountain Made. “Their wives always want to shop.”

McKay said that the downtown closing will take place from Macon County’s Courthouse to Harrison Avenue, which means downtown businesses won’t suffer. That area is fairly limited in nature, to funeral homes, a restaurant and a few other places.

“Bob (Scott) is the only one I’ve heard about who is against it,” McKay said. “But anytime you have anything going on downtown, it helps the merchants.”

Rennie Davant, who volunteers at the Macon County Art Association’s Uptown Gallery, agreed with McKay. A recent downtown festival, she said, “brought people in, and it was fun.”

Davant noted that it was about 2 p.m. on a Saturday and that this reporter was only the fifth person to cross the store’s threshold. A little more customer action, she said, would be nice. Davant had been whiling away time talking by phone with her sister.

“We’re all for it,” Tony Hernandez hollered out emphatically from his place in the kitchen of Life’s Bounty Gift Shop and Bakery/ Café. Hernandez added that by then the store planned to be serving food in a banquet room downstairs and hoped to be offering beer and wine by then, too.

Betty Sapp, who works two days each week at Rosebud Cottage on Main Street, was slightly more reserved than Hernandez.

“If the motorcyclists are well behaved, I have no objections because it will bring business into town,” Sapp said. “If it is an unruly crowd, next year will be a different thing. But, our economy needs a shot of help.”

Street food vendors aren’t welcome everywhere in Western North Carolina, but Andy and Pamela Fife haven’t found that to be true in Franklin. They are now setup in this Macon County town as the only fulltime mobile food vendors west of Asheville.

The couple — Monday through Friday, from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. — parks an upscale food-service trailer in a vacant lot along East Main Street. When they open the windows on A&P Roadside Eats, Macon County residents know that it’s time to stop by for the couple’s hamburgers, steak and cheese hoagies, Italian sausage and more.

The Fifes have created quite a following at their mobile food unit since opening last June. The couple also delivers food to the work-bound and hungry in town, taking phone orders directly at A&P Roadside Eats.

“We love them being here,” said David Campbell of Franklin as he stopped by A&P Roadside Eats for lunch one day last week.

“It’s close to work, and they serve the best corndogs in town,” Campbell’s wife, Sabrina, added. “We come almost everyday.”

The Fifes are true entrepreneurs, a couple of hardworking people who spotted an opportunity and moved into an available and open business niche. They started A&P Roadside Eats when the owner of a business Andy Fife was working at died, and that business was forced to shutdown.   

“We do miss that regular paycheck,” Fife said.

But, they are enjoying meeting a regular stream of Macon County residents, some dating back as first-time customers to when the Fifes were setting up a booth at Pickin’ on the Square in Franklin. In addition to working that street festival, the couple also worked — and still does — events in Macon County such as gem shows and trail days.

Pamela and Andy are halfbacks, former residents of Naples, Fla. Andy is originally from Virginia, Pamela from Ohio. They live in Macon County fulltime.

“We got tired of hurricanes,” Pamela said.

Working a mobile food unit such as A&P Roadside Eats means meeting certain state and local regulations. The couple has a standard business license from the town of Franklin. They also, per health department requirements, have an association with an area restaurant, where they go for cleanup. They have a state license that allows them to setup anywhere in North Carolina.

Food on wheels

Mobile food vendors are part of a burgeoning national trend that has experienced rapid growth in recent years. Proponents cite street food as an inexpensive and low-risk outlet for budding entrepreneurs, and point to culinary benefits to American consumers who can sample a variety of ethnic and regional foods that might not be available otherwise.

Opponents of food trucks usually are established restaurateurs, who accuse mobile food vendors of riding on their business backs minus the high overhead of maintaining regular businesses.

The food truck issue, unlike in Franklin, has been openly contentious elsewhere in WNC. Waynesville bans the mobile units from the Downtown Waynesville District, though will allow them in certain areas of town if licensing requirements are met. Asheville restaurateurs and mobile unit proponents argued for months last year until city leaders finally passed an ordinance that lifted a 25-year ban. Several food trucks can now set up together in a mobile food court on Coxe Avenue in Asheville.

Motorcycle rallies are all the rage these days in Western North Carolina, and Franklin tourism leaders are busy finalizing plans to take their first bite out of that tempting economic pie.

“Rumble in the Smokies” is scheduled to take place for three days next August. This is Macon County’s initial foray into hosting a large-scale, officially sanctioned motorcycle rally.

Starting in January, the event’s promoter will be hyping the rally via booths setup at events such as the Great American Motorcycle Show in Norcross, Ga., and the International Motorcycle Show in Charlotte, plus handing out fliers at rallies later in the year in Daytona Beach, Fla., and in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

“Riders want to see the vendors, and what Franklin has to offer, and to get out and ride. What better place to lay your head down at night after riding than in Franklin?” said Sylvia Cochran, of USRiderNews, the Georgia-based promoter, when asked whether she was concerned that the WNC motorcycle-rally angle might be a tad oversaturated.

Listeners were left to extrapolate from this response that no, Cochran in fact doesn’t consider the market too crowded.

But such events have become increasingly commonplace in WNC over the past decade, perhaps nowhere as much as in Maggie Valley, boasting five major rallies every year. The rallies, along with Maggie’s proximity to the Parkway and a world renowned motorcycle museum, have cemented the town as a motorcycle haven, witnessed by the diners, bars and motels plastering their placards with motorcycle friendly messages.

“It is extremely important to Maggie Valley’s economy. I’d estimate it at well over 50 percent,” said Marion Hamel, director of the Haywood Hotel and Motel Authority.

Cherokee also has its share of rallies. The Survivors Motorcycle Rally was held there twice a year since the mid-1980s — until this year when Cherokee pulled the plug on the twice-a-year event.

And that vacancy in the regional rally calendar, according to Franklin tourism officials at a Tourism Development Authority workshop last weekend, is helping ensure the likely future success of their new rally.

But they might be counting Cherokee out of the mix a bit too soon.

Matthew Pegg, executive director of the Cherokee Chamber of Commerce, said that although Cherokee didn’t have the spring or fall rally in 2011, “it is something that is being looked at for 2012,” as well as other events.

“I don’t believe the market is oversaturated, but in order to have a strong rally there should be something that sets it apart from the others,” Pegg said. “WNC is an ideal setting for motorcycle enthusiasts and continues to be a strong market for regional tourism. With the natural beauty we enjoy, and an abundance of great riding roads, people are naturally drawn to the area. Our job as a region is to take good care of them while they are here.”

Maggie Valley business owner Robert Leatherwood believes another motorcycle rally will prove good news for all merchants in the region. He said it would help to further solidify the grip on this all-important motorcyclist-as-tourist niche.

Rallies such as the Rumble in the Smokies, are the best way to attract those particular dollars, he said.

“I’m glad that Franklin is doing one,” Leatherwood said. “We’d help if needed — it’ll be good for WNC, and it’ll do good for Franklin to have one over there.”

Leatherwood owns the new Stingrays bar, strategically positioned near Maggie Valley’s Wheels Through Time motorcycle museum. During rallies, he gets crowds of motorcyclists visiting his bar. His waitresses, dressed in bikinis, offer free bike washes, a popular draw indeed, Leatherwood said. And he opens the normally day-closed bar instead of just at night.

Economic times are simply too hard, and Duke Energy is being too greedy for the state utilities commission to allow the company to hike its rates, many of the speakers taking advantage of a public hearing in Franklin said last week.

Some 30 speakers used the microphone at the Oct. 26 hearing, which attracted about 100 people from North Carolina’s westernmost counties. A similar hearing drew an overflow crowd Oct. 11 in Marion, the only other forum focused on the hike that was held in Western North Carolina.

Duke Energy wants to raise residential rates 17.4 percent and, on average, raise commercial rates by 15 percent. The increase, which would take effect in February, would add about $19 a month to the typical residential customer’s bill of about $97.

Three-fourths of the increase would help pay for $4.8 billion for building new power plants and for pollution-control equipment to help the environment.

Duke District Manager Fred Alexander told the commission the increase in rates is necessary to help Duke continue providing the “vital service” of electricity.

“I’m here tonight appealing to you on the behalf of the clients that we have at Second Mile Ministry,” said Hazel Finley. “These are mainly elderly people who are on a fixed income,” and underemployed or unemployed people “who have exhausted” their benefits. “I see no reason for Duke to get (an increase) on the backs of these people who are, so desperately, trying to make it one day at a time here in Macon County,” she said.

Many speakers told the commission members of their anger at Duke’s seeking more customer dollars when, in 2010, the company reportedly earned $1.3 billion and paid its chief executive $6.9 million.

With those sorts of profits, “then why does Duke believe that they need to take any more of my money?” Carl Iobst of Jackson County queried the commission.

A rate hike, said Bob Harold of Stanley Furniture in Robbinsville, could possibly take the furniture manufacture under and put up to 420 people out of work. Stanley Furniture is Graham County’s largest employer.

Stanley Furniture pays Duke $1. 2 million under the company’s current rates for electricity.

“It will put us in a very noncompetitive situation where it will increase our electricity bill per year $180,000,” Harold said. “I feel like the rate increase is too exorbitant.”

Other businessmen attempted a softer approach, with Nantahala Outdoor Center’s John Burton in the particularly unenviable position of trying to urge caution about raising rates while not criticizing the very entity that controls the water flow whitewater rafters, and the company, depend upon.

“I’m counting on you guys to vet the proposal,” Burton told the commission. “To make sure … that it’s reasonable. While the rate hike is painful, some of it is necessary to keep doing what they do.”

F.P. Bodenheimer, a Franklin businessman, spoke more directly in Duke’s favor, noting the importance of a good energy supply to power manufacturing machines. In the older days, when Nantahala Power and Light delivered the energy to his lumber-based business, reliability was questionable and the power sometimes failed, Bodenheimer said.

That costs businesses time and money that simply aren’t expendable, he said.

“But, we do have one opportunity that the homeowner does not have,” Bodenheimer said. “We can pass on some of the cost to customers who buy our product … possibly. But for the homeowner, there’s no place for them to pass it.”

Ken Brown of Jackson County spoke both as a Duke customer and as a representative of the environmental group Western North Carolina Alliance. Brown noted the lack of competition facing Duke here in the Southeast and linked that to the company’s reluctance, in his view, to offer competitive rates. The energy company’s grasp might just get tighter in the days to come if a merger proposal with Progress Energy is approved.

“In North Carolina, Duke Energy and Progress Energy are conspiring to monopolize electric generation by asking the N.C. Utilities Commission to approve a merger that will squash competition in North Carolina,” Brown told commissioners, a sentiment echoed by Swain County resident Joe Deddo.

Brown also spoke to cost overruns at the controversial Rutherford County-based Cliffside plant being passed on to North Carolina customers, for electricity to leave the state and serve customers in South Carolina.

This, Brown said, would “unnecessarily burden business, industrial, municipal and residential ratepayers with a third rate increase in two years to pay for an outmoded facility.”

Other speakers also had strong environmental concerns and said they wanted to see Duke turn toward more earth-friendly sources of energy.

“I want cleaner energy,” Scott Burns of Franklin told the commission before opposing the rate hike as “outrageous” on Duke’s part to even request.

When Walmart of Franklin moves from U.S. 441 to its new location next spring, at least two — perhaps three — of the other businesses in Holly Springs Plaza will move right along with the retail giant.

That’s not a happy prospect for the strip mall’s nine or so remaining tenants. Those business owners are looking at working in a virtual ghost setting if new merchants don’t come in to fill the void of those leaving.

The Walmart Supercenter will be at the corner of Wells Grove and Dawdle Mountain roads, just off the U.S. 441 bypass on a 33-acre site.

“This place will pretty much be empty,” said Jordan Myers, an 18-year-old Franklin native who works at Cato in Holly Springs Plaza. Her job, via her employer, is making the shift with Walmart to the new site, along with Shoe Show, and, reportedly, Dollar Tree, though officials in that store declined to comment. “Maybe people will put some boutiques in,” Jordan said.

Maybe.

But that didn’t happen in Haywood County in November 2008 when Walmart made the move from Clyde to Waynesville to build a new super store. In Haywood County, Walmart left behind a huge, vacant building with an equally huge, vacant parking lot in front.

Finally, in early 2010, Haywood County’s commissioners decided to purchase the vacant shell to house the Department of Social Services and Health, which had long awaited a move from their aging facilities. The new county offices will cost taxpayers an estimated $12.5 million. A facelift of the building is under way now.

Franklin Manager Sam Greenwood said the soon-to-be-vacated building in Franklin is serviceable, and could possibly be repurposed for another company.

Maybe.

There is some talk about town that Ingles might acquire the shopping center, and build a larger grocery store to compete with Walmart.

“It’ll shut this place down,” predicted Irene Hughes of Walmart’s impending move.

The Franklin resident was overseeing a Toys for Tots collection drive from a site in the Holly Springs Plaza.

Hughes currently drives to neighboring Clayton, Ga., to a Walmart Supercenter there for groceries. Though she’s not a fan of the new Franklin site because it might cause traffic problems for two nearby schools and people making their way through the area, she readily admitted, “it’ll be more convenient than driving to Clayton.”

“And, it’ll mean more jobs, because they’ll need more people,” Hughes said. “But what about all these places that will be sitting empty? What will happen to them?”

Indeed.

“It’s great to be one of the retailers going, and not staying,” said Ali Travis-Bonard, assistant manager of Shoe Show. “I’m really looking forward to it — we have a space issue here.”

Unlike Hughes, Travis-Bonard believes Walmart’s site selection for the new store is “ingenious — because everyone needs to go for something at Walmart after school.”

Kim McCloud, who works for U.S. Cellular in Holly Springs, is one of the retailers staying when Walmart leaves. She, however, isn’t particularly worried.

“We have a steady base of customers, people who have been with us for awhile,” McCloud said. “I really don’t think it will hurt us.”

In a town that has long thrived on competitive, and sometimes markedly heated, political contests, the prospect of an incumbents-only race this November in Franklin seems ghastly. Even to several of the shoo-in incumbents themselves.

“Maybe they’re afraid they might actually get the job,” a curmudgeonly sounding Mayor Joe Collins said when asked for an explanation.

“Maybe they love you, and the voters think you’re a fantastic mayor?” he was queried.

“No, no, no,” Collins replied unequivocally. “It’s just that nobody is running against anybody.”

Collins, unless upset by an unknown, unexpected and unlikely write-in candidate, will win a fifth, two-year term in office. Also running without competition? Four aldermen candidates: Bob Scott, Farrell Jamison (appointed to fill the unexpired term of the late Jerry Evans), Joyce Handley and Verlin Curtis.

It isn’t as if there aren’t important issues in Franklin. The board will be hiring a new town manager to replace governmental veteran Sam Greenwood, and a new police chief to replace Terry Bradley. Several more of the town’s top employees have enough years in that they could opt to leave, too.

“It is nice not to have to go through the process of putting up signs, raising money and going through the suspense of how the election comes out,” Collins acknowledged, “but it would absolutely be better” for the town if there were competition.

“That brings discussions, and different ideas, and maybe even different people around the table,” he said.

George Hasara, co-owner of Rathskeller Coffee House, a popular Franklin watering hole and unofficial discussion-central for the town, agreed with Collins that “it’s a shame” to have uncontested elections.

“Everyone should be challenged,” Hasara said. “If nothing else, to highlight the issues. But, sometimes it just happens that way. The town’s not rife with corruption — these are good people, so there’s no groundswell of indignation.”

Alderman Scott, who came within 14 votes of unseating Collins as mayor during the last election, agrees with his former political adversary that the lack of competition really isn’t healthy for Franklin.

“I can’t explain it,” Scott said. “I have two theories. Nobody wants to have anything to do with us or else we are doing such a good job nobody wanted to interfere with us. That’s my theories, and I am sticking with them. I am disappointed that there is no opposition. No opposition takes the fun out of politics.”

Millie Griffin, who co-owns Millie and Eve’s Used Bookstore on U.S. 441 south of town, believes the apathy in Franklin is simply a reflection of overall problems at the local, county, state and federal levels. She added that “outsiders” probably don’t signup as candidates because, “If you’re not from this area, you won’t get in — so why bother?” And that right there, Griffin said, narrows the pool of contenders considerably.

“‘Everybody’s happy,’ you could say. But a cynic would say, ‘Nobody gives a rat’s ass, they don’t want to be burdened with it,’” soon-to-retire Town Manager Greenwood said in his usual polished diplomatic manner. “I just hope it is not going to be the new trend. It would show that people aren’t interested. And that’s really not good for the community, long term.”

Historic Downtown Franklin is gearing up for the 15th Annual Pumpkinfest to be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 22. During this event you can take part in some traditional and some very non-traditional fall festivities.

Bring your pumpkin (or purchase one downtown) and sign up early for the World Famous Pumpkin Roll sponsored by the Franklin Fun Factory. The “roll” takes place from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. with signup running from 9 to 1. The winner receives $100 cash. Other highlights of the day include a pumpkin carving contest sponsored by DNET, a costume parade and contest along with crafters, food, and live entertainment for all ages.

Among this year’s acts scheduled to perform is Magic by Chaz. Magician Chaz Misenheimer, a North Carolina native, is a festival specialist with more than 20 years experience and though he often performs from the stage, he’s best known as an elite roving entertainer.

Roxy, the miniature horse, will be back offering rides to kids beginning at 10 a.m. Roxy, a pintaloosa, will be located in front of the Macon County Historical Society on Main Street. There is a rider weight limit of 80 pounds. A small fee will be charged.  

www.pumpinfestfranklin.com or 828.524.2516.

Efforts are well under way in both Sylva and Franklin to build dog parks, places where folks’ canine companions can run off-leash in safely fenced, assigned areas.

If the two communities do build dog parks, they’ll be joining their neighbors to the east: the town of Waynesville already has two fenced romping grounds for dogs along Richland Creek Greenway. The town of Highlands in Macon County also has a half-acre dog park, complete with a five-foot-tall fence. Highlands is roughly a 40-minute drive from Franklin, however, putting it out of reach for regular use by Franklin’s dog owners.

Friends of the Greenway in Franklin has been talking about building a dog park for about six months, according to Doris Munday, a member of the nonprofit support arm for the greenway along the Little Tennessee River. Her dog “uses the mountains” as its dog park, Munday said, but that hasn’t blinded her from seeing the needs of others.

Dog owners, if their pooches are leashed and they cleanup waste deposited by their animals, can use the nearly five-mile paved greenway path in Franklin. But the dogs are not allowed off-leash along the popular trail, where upwards of 20,000 people a month can be found during the summer months. Munday said there have been some problems with “neighborhood dogs” trotting about the greenway unleashed and uninvited and apparently illiterate, too; these rowdy dogs are brazen in ignoring rules about leashes and cleanup that are posted along Franklin’s greenway.

Plans this week call for the Friends group to check in with the Macon County Board of Commissioners to make sure the county doesn’t have any objections to a dog park.

In this case, asking permission seemed optimal to begging forgiveness: Munday said no one is exactly sure whether commissioners’ permission is needed for the project to move forward, but that the group decided it seemed proper to find out.

Assuming everyone is OK with the idea, private funds would be solicited to purchase fencing. The hope is to enclose the dog park this winter. Later, if people want to donate more money, the dog park could be enhanced with additional doggie attractions, Munday said.

Some dog parks have separate areas for small and large dogs. Other parks even offer such amenities as dog-agility courses. One standard feature, which would be included if a dog park is built in Franklin, are baggie dispensers so that dog owners can easily cleanup any canine deposits.

Other than the upfront cost of fencing, maintenance on dog parks is relatively minor. In Waynesville, the Haywood Animal Welfare Association buys non-toxic flea control and volunteers regularly sprinkle it on the grass.

In Jackson County, an ad hoc group of dog owners in Sylva requested via a letter sent to the county that they be allowed to use a portion of Mark Watson Park on West Main Street. The Sylva Dog Park Advocates noted in the letter, sent to county officials last month, that it believes a dog park would be “a low cost yet high benefit” addition to Jackson County.

The letter is signed by Stacy Knotts, who serves as a town council member but isn’t acting in that official capacity on this particular project.

She wrote that the group of dog owners believes 10-acre Mark Watson Park, a county-owned facility, would be the best place for a dog park because it is centrally located in Sylva on the county’s (unfinished) greenway; there is open space in the park; there are already pet-owner education classes and the “Bark in the Park” festival taking place in Mark Watson, and such a park would encourage Jackson County’s residents “from letting pets run free on the ball fields, particularly the newly designed fields in the park.”

County Manager Chuck Wooten said the request is being reviewed.

Joe and Dawn Johnson of Atlanta might be making another trip to the mountains next weekend after learning about the WNC OutdoorAthlon in Franklin Oct. 8 and 9.

The couple both enjoy mountain biking, and she jogs routinely for exercise — making them perfect candidates to enjoy a smorgasbord of events lined up for the family outdoor recreation event. The Johnsons were on the Blue Ridge Parkway last week riding motorcycles and enjoying the start of the fall’s leaf show.

“It sounds like fun,” Joe Johnson said, before openly speculating with his wife about whether they could angle more time off from work to make the trip back that soon to Western North Carolina.

That’s exactly the kind of response Rob Gasbarro and Cory McCall of Outfitter 76 in Franklin were hoping to generate. The business partners believe Macon County is destined, by virtue of its location and superb outdoor opportunities, to become as big an outdoor draw as such traditional stalwarts as the Nantahala Gorge.

The future’s uncertain. But what is certain is that Gasbarro and McCall, who are touting the event as “the biggest little event in the Southeast,” are hoping, even expecting, thousands to show up for the OutdoorAthlon.

So what is it? Everything, really, to do with the outdoors — think Mountain Sports Festival in Asheville; or, the Guest Appreciation Festival at the Nantahala Outdoor Center.

Here’s what’s lined up: Food, music, an outdoor triathlon, a kid’s duathlon, a 5K, an Ultimate Frisbee Team Tournament and corn hole tournament. Free clinics for fly-fishing, paddle sports, stand-up paddling, rock climbing; do-it-yourself bike maintenance and demos, backpacking and camping demo’s and more. The outdoor triathlon offers a twist on the standard trifecta — with a line-up of paddling, mountain biking and trail running instead of swimming, road biking and road running.

There are 40 vendors scheduled, plus eight food vendors. The event is free.

“It’s going well,” Gasbarro said of the organizational aspects of putting together such a gargantuan undertaking. “We’ve got lots and lots of volunteers.”

The two men also have lined up $7,000 worth of “giveaways” from outdoor specialty companies.

The events are taking place at the Cullasaja Park along Macon County’s greenway, located off Fox Ridge Road near the flea market on Highlands Road in Franklin.

Gasbarro, taking a break from minding the front desk last week at Outfitter 76 to chat about the festival, noted that remote parking is being set up, and two buses courtesy of Macon County Schools will be used to shuttle people to the event.

Visit www.outdoorathlon.com for more information.

WNC OutdoorATHLON

The event runs Saturday, Oct. 8, and Sunday, Oct. 9, in Franklin at the Cullasaja Park. There is no entrance fee.

Events start both days at noon. Here are some key events:

Saturday

• 12:30-2 p.m. Honey Locust 5K

• 12:30 Bicycle maintenance clinis

• 1 p.m. fly fishing clinic

• 1 p.m. beginner mountain bike ride

• 2-3 p.m. Kids’ duathlon

• 2 p.m. intro to kayaking

• 2-5 p.m. Ultimate Frisbee Tournament

• 3:45 p.m. intro to disc golf

Sunday

• 12 p.m. putting and long drive disc golf competition

• 12 p.m. fly casting clinic

• 2 p.m. backpacking clinic

• 12-3 p.m. Paddle parade on the Little Tennessee

• 2-4:30 p.m. Adventure Triathlon (paddle, mtn bike, trail run)

• ­­3 p.m. intro to stand-up paddling