A new state park: Funding and opening Pisgah View State Park will be years-long process

A new state park has been created in Buncombe and Haywood counties following Gov. Roy Cooper’s signature on a state Senate bill July 19, but it will be years before Pisgah View State Park will bridge the gap from concept to reality. 

Forced to Fight: Opioid data puts local addiction in context

It was finally moving day, and that empty little Greensboro apartment must have seemed like a mansion to 29-year-old Clayton Suggs. 

Fitting, the lack of furnishings; the whole thing was a blank slate, a new start.

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.”

A festival that all of WNC should embrace

It’s fascinating to watch a cultural arts organization grow up, mature, get a little long-in-the-tooth, and then re-define itself to adjust to a changing world. That’s exactly what is happening with Folkmoot, which is now in its 36th year in Western North Carolina.

And what about that mission statement above. In these times when politicized culture wars and presidential twitter tantrums divide us, here is an arts organization whose very existence is based on trying to build bridges and foster international understanding. Folkmoot avoids politics, but now more than ever its mission is relevant and necessary.

Not the same ole song and dance: Folkmoot finds success in year-round programming, preserving legacy

In its 36th year of cultural exchange through song and dance, Folkmoot remains a moving target, one that constantly evolves in its programming, but never once forgetting its core values.

Lightning in a bottle: Greensky Bluegrass captures inspiration at Echo Mountain

Bordering the bustling Patton Avenue in downtown Asheville, you wouldn’t know where Echo Mountain Recording is unless you were told. 

An old church turned into a state-of-the-art production studio, the property is purposely minimal, this sort of physical doorway into a melodic universe of potential and possibility. 

Rural WNC fights for Medicaid expansion

Only $80 stands between Sylva resident Carrie McBane and affordable health care coverage. If she made $80 less she would qualify for Medicaid in North Carolina, and if she made $80 more she would qualify for subsidies through the Affordable Care Act. 

Medicaid: what it is and what it does

There’s a good reason President Lyndon B. Johnson traveled to Independence, Missouri on July 30, 1965, to sign the legislation that created Medicaid — he wanted to present the first membership card to former President Harry S. Truman. 

Truman had long been a backer of socialized medicine, inheriting the position from his Oval Office predecessor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who established a number of social safety net programs during his 12 years as chief executive.

Leveraging the best requires better broadband 

By Bob Scott • Guest Columnist

Those of us fortunate enough to live in communities where natural amenities abound know just how attractive these places can be to people who define their lives by recreational pursuits that are tied to our streams, rivers and mountains. 

In Macon County and Franklin, where I am mayor, I see it every day, whether hikers setting out along the Appalachian trail, kayakers and rafters rolling down the Nantahala or Cullasaja rivers, or fly fishers plying the smaller waters all around. 

Baseball for autistic youth planned in WNC

The fresh cut grass, the din of the crowd, the white chalk lines on the dusty dirt infield — every year, millions of American kids suit up and take to diamonds across the country to play baseball, for decades considered the quintessential outdoor American pastime.

As such, it hasn’t always been as inclusive as it is could have been, especially for people on the autism spectrum. 

Smokey Mountain News Logo
SUPPORT THE SMOKY MOUNTAIN NEWS AND
INDEPENDENT, AWARD-WINNING JOURNALISM
Go to top
Payment Information

/

At our inception 20 years ago, we chose to be different. Unlike other news organizations, we made the decision to provide in-depth, regional reporting free to anyone who wanted access to it. We don’t plan to change that model. Support from our readers will help us maintain and strengthen the editorial independence that is crucial to our mission to help make Western North Carolina a better place to call home. If you are able, please support The Smoky Mountain News.

The Smoky Mountain News is a wholly private corporation. Reader contributions support the journalistic mission of SMN to remain independent. Your support of SMN does not constitute a charitable donation. If you have a question about contributing to SMN, please contact us.