Municipal budget season is well underway, and in at least one Haywood County town, the discussion isn’t about rising costs or decreasing revenue — it’s about what to do with a burgeoning balance sheet.

Thanks to the hard work and prudent fiscal decision making of both elected officials and administration, Haywood County’s been rewarded with a slightly higher bond rating by 160-year-old financial services agency and credit bellwether Standard & Poor’s. 

As the largest local government unit in The Smoky Mountain News’ four-county coverage area, Haywood County sees more action — in public, and in private — than probably any other government out there. 

The Town of Waynesville Board of Aldermen meets every two weeks, or about 24 times a year, depending on the calendar. 

Aided by the left and abetted by the media, violent jihadists are slowly but surely infiltrating our government, our schools and our society in furtherance of their nefarious goal of turning the United States into a Sharia-ruled Islamic caliphate — and only a small group of patriotic conservatives, like the Haywood County Republican Party, can stop them. 

Both my parents were teachers. My earliest memories are of my dad sitting at our dining room table grading papers or writing grants. Once I started school, my afternoon routine was to hang out in the media center at my mom’s school, munching on snacks from the vending machine, while she wrapped up for the day. 

In the midst of an exceptionally warm, dry winter, a wildfire erupted on Mount Lyn Lowry. About 170 acres when first reported to 911 at 10 a.m. Monday, Feb. 18, within two days the fire had destroyed roughly 60 homes and ballooned to an estimated 2,500 acres — and growing. 

In a county as old as Haywood, there exist all manner of half-remembered places and faces long gone from the physical world yet immortalized through penciled notes on the backs of dog-eared, sepia-toned photographs.

Sunburst, in southeastern Haywood County, is one of those places; the subject of intense historical research, it’s been documented better than most ghosts of Haywood past, but the story of Sunburst has always been short one chapter. 

As the Great Recession recedes further and further into the rear-view mirror, most local economic indicators in Western North Carolina appear to have recovered or at least stabilized sufficiently, including the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority’s revenue collections. 

Financial aid and scholarships are a great way to pay for college, but not everyone qualifies. For those who do, financial aid doesn’t always cover the full cost of tuition, making it harder for some to break the cycle of generational poverty through education.