Schooled in ag: School gives students a hands-on education

With a new school year just begun, the 300 students who participate in Waynesville Middle School’s robust agriculture program now have an array of new woodshop equipment at their disposal. 

“In two weeks this will be like Santa’s little helper’s woodshop,” Noal Castater, agriculture teacher at WMS since 2010, said in an interview the Friday before the first day of school. 

Canton explores wastewater treatment options

For years, the town of Canton’s municipal wastewater has been treated, free of charge, by the various operators of the town’s iconic paper mill, but a grant application to be filed by the town wants to study the feasibility of sending that waste to Waynesville’s new treatment plant, once it’s constructed. 

Working the watershed: Forest Stewards lays out plans for Waynesville watershed’s future

Nearly four decades ago, vast swathes of the 8,600-acre Waynesville watershed were laid bare, the trees timbered for profit and the soil harvested to build the earth-filled dam now holding back the reservoir.

Fast forward to 2019, and the landscape has changed dramatically. There is no more bare soil, and no more open canopy. It’s a full-grown forest, sunlight filtering through a green canopy below which the only sounds are those produced by the birds, insects and wind. The white pines planted to stabilize the stripped soil have thrived, perhaps too much. In 2014, a good many of them were cut down during a thinning conducted on a 50-acre portion of the property, as the seedlings were planted too close together to serve them well as they grew larger. But white pine is still a common species in the 8,600-acre watershed.

‘Growing our gifts’: Retail hemp shop comes to Waynesville

That empty black and white building on the corner of Branner Avenue and Depot Street is about to be filled — with a touch of green. 

The pulse of the community: Local pediatrician retires

Dr. Stephen Wall couldn’t have come to Waynesville at a better time. 

“There were four pediatricians in Haywood County, and three of them retired all at the same time,” said Wall. “So Dr. Bob Earnest recruited me and another guy, Dr. Garnet Maharajh, to join Haywood Pediatrics, which he started two years prior, in 1987.”

Haywood candidates slow to sign up

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. 

Grappling with growth: Waynesville comprehensive plan unveiled

The Town of Waynesville took another big step toward plotting its long-term future with the draft release of an update to its 20-year-old master planning document, which will attempt to balance the sometimes-competing interests of progress and preservation.

Better together: FUMC Waynesville welcomes LGBTQ members

The congregation at First United Methodist Church of Waynesville isn’t changing who they are following a controversial vote taken at the denomination’s General Conference special session in February. 

Small-town sequel: Waynesville’s Smoky Mountain Cinema reopens

Standing in the lobby of the Smoky Mountain Cinema in Waynesville this past Monday morning, owner Greg Israel is putting the final touches on two years of planning and renovations to the theater for its grand reopening on Tuesday.

“I’m tired, mostly,” Israel chuckled. “But, I’m happy. Very pleased. I think it’s come a long way and people are going to be very happy about it.”

Waynesville chief calls it a career

As a 28-year veteran of the Waynesville Police Department, Captain Brian Beck — soon to be interim chief of police — remembers what it was like back in the not-so-good old days. 

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