For more than a month, 25-year-old Slyenia Rhein and her three children lived in a single hotel room with her mother, her father, her sister, a dog and a cat.

Haywood County just got a little sweeter.

Specializing in “handcrafted, locally produced, artisan beverages,” Waynesville Soda Jerks is a new business that has opened at the Waynesville Historic Farmer’s Market. At the center of it all are founders Megan Brown and Chris Allen.

Waynesville officials are looking under a different couch cushion for additional revenue after losing income from sweepstakes operations and its ABC store.

Since the advent of the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad, tourists flocking to Bryson City and Dillsboro to ride the scenic passenger train have been the envy of neighboring communities.

Signs are businesses’ equivalent to nuclear weapons.

“Everybody wants them, but you have to agree to live with them,” said Waynesville Town Planner Paul Benson. “I think what we need is a consensus on what is a reasonable approach.”

The train was the first to arrive in Waynesville back in 1886; then, the rise of the automobile; but, this spring, there’s a new human transporter in town: the Segway.

The owners of a bed and breakfast began offering guided and narrated Segway tours last month, allowing visitors or locals to see town from a new perspective on the upright, two-wheeled people movers.

Standing next to Louis “Louie” Bing, you’d never know he was homeless.

While waiting for a cup of coffee at City Bakery in Waynesville, the 65-year-old stands patiently alongside tourists, retirees and locals. His clothes, shoes and beard are well kempt.

A new landscape plan for the Haywood County historic courthouse is mostly devoid of large shade trees, in stark contrast to the many stately sugar maples that graced the lawn until recently. Instead, it opts for just a handful of midsized trees.

A Waynesville man who works for Norfolk Southern Railway was buried and killed by a landslide in the middle of the night Sunday while surveying tracks for storm damage following a weekend of unrelenting rains throughout the region.

In order to have a clear vision of the future, one must cherish the traditions of the past. 

“Southern Appalachian traditions are our heritage,” said Beth Woody. “They made us what we are today. To know who we are now, we need to know who and what we came from.”