With the deadline to file for municipal office fast approaching — noon on July 19 —Haywood County voters may end up with few competitive races, and even fewer candidates. 

The Haywood Healthcare Foundation has put nearly half a million dollars back into the community since August 2014 when Haywood Regional Medical Center was sold to Duke LifePoint.

Rob Gudger shares his Haywood County homestead with three canines and a housecat, but of the four the feline is the only one he considers a pet. 

The canines live outside, get their sustenance in one massive feast per week, and give no visible indication that they know their names. That’s pretty well out of the normal for the life of a domestic dog, but the animals aren’t domestic dogs. 

Incumbents wasted little time in declaring their intentions to defend their seats after municipal candidate filing opened at noon on July 5, but as of press time on July 9, there were already two incumbents hoping to move up in the ranks, if their campaigns are successful.

Transparency and accountability have long been concerns at Shining Rock Classical Academy — since before the troubled taxpayer-funded school even opened its doors in 2015 — and if recent events are any indication, new leadership at the school doesn’t seem interested in doing anything to change that. 

Editor’s note: This is the fifth in a series of stories on Haywood County’s public charter school, Shining Rock Classical Academy, which has been beset by a host of academic and organizational problems since opening in 2015.

Two weeks after holding an illegal meeting to dismiss parent grievances against Shining Rock Classical Academy Interim Head of School Joshua Morgan, the charter school’s board found itself facing questions from parents who want to know what, exactly, is going on at the troubled school. 

Shining Rock Classical Academy’s 2019-20 budget, passed by the board on June 19, will shrink slightly, due to lower projected enrollment.

Most people don’t give a lot of thought to what happens when they throw something away, but the ecological and economic consequences of the western consumerist lifestyle don’t end when that bag, bottle or box hits the garbage can. 

Recycling is great but there is more people can do if they want to keep trash out of the landfill — don’t produce as much trash.

As homelessness continues to rise in Western North Carolina, Haywood County’s innovative and effective adult shelter is about to cut the ribbon on a brand new dorm designed to be a place of refuge for a critically underserved population.