Duke could owe tribe Oconaluftee dam profits
 

Duke could owe tribe Oconaluftee dam profits

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is questioning whether Duke Power concealed the boundary of its hydropower operation on the Oconaluftee…
Read More

Comment

DSA rallies support to oppose funding cut
 

DSA rallies support to oppose funding cut

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer Sylva town board members should expect a heated public comment session at their upcoming…
Read More

Comment

Baby steps toward green power
 

Baby steps toward green power

Talitha and Louis Mes erected a 100-foot tall wind tower on a ridge above Crabtree last week to generate environmentally-friendly…
Read More

Comment

Subject to tax, where applicable
 

Subject to tax, where applicable

Every few weeks, Scotty Ellis cruises the newspaper classifieds, scans Web sites and scrounges brochures from kiosks at visitor centers…
Read More

Comment

Waynesville ‘blew them all out of the water’
 

Waynesville ‘blew them all out of the water’

Preliminary results of a zip code market analysis being conducted in Waynesville shows signs of a strong and healthy retail…
Read More

Comment

Willing participation key to Greens Creek cleanup
 

Willing participation key to Greens Creek cleanup

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer Fifty years ago, Jackson County’s Greens Creek was used as a dumping ground —…
Read More

Comment

Work of hired consultant causes confusion among lodging community
 

Work of hired consultant causes confusion among lodging community

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer Late last month Macon County consultant Gary Nicholson sent out 351 letters to local…
Read More

Comment

Careful of the jimson weed
 

Careful of the jimson weed

“Jimson Weed is featured in a set of mystic books recently popular, Carlos Castaneda’s tales of mind expansion with the…
Read More

Comment

Media freedom could easily slip away
 

Media freedom could easily slip away

When Federal Communications Commission officials came to Asheville last week to discuss media ownership regulations, they got an earful from…
Read More

Comment

N.C. counties have gotten more democratic
 

N.C. counties have gotten more democratic

By Lee Shelton After the primary election results were in, I offered a commentary on county government and the implications…
Read More

Comment

EPA sued for failing to protect citizens from other states’ pollution
 

EPA sued for failing to protect citizens from other states’ pollution

The North Carolina Sierra Club and Southern Environmental Law Center have filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency for…
Read More

Comment

Avian nomads
 

Avian nomads

I have just finished by bird point survey for the Forest Service, which takes me to Mt. Mitchell and Roan…
Read More

Comment

The race is on
 

The race is on

By Michael Beadle You’ll have to excuse Greg Duff if he greets you out of breath. If he’s not in…
Read More

Comment

Velvet Leaf Blueberry marks 5,000 species new to Smokies
 

Velvet Leaf Blueberry marks 5,000 species new to Smokies

The All Taxa Biological Inventory hit the 5,000 species milestone this summer in an ongoing effort to document every species…
Read More

Comment

A Walk In The Wild: Encounters of the wildlife kind
 

A Walk In The Wild: Encounters of the wildlife kind

By Ed Kelley If you spend much time in the outdoors, you will eventually have an encounter with wildlife. I…
Read More

Comment

Someone who understands me
 

Someone who understands me

In every town I’ve ever lived in — and I have lived in several — I have made a Sports…
Read More

Comment

Indian hemp for the long haul
 

Indian hemp for the long haul

For me, those plants found here in the Smokies region that have verified practical human uses are, in the long…
Read More

Comment

Sylva town board cuts DSA funding
 

Sylva town board cuts DSA funding

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer Sylva town board members’ minds are unchanged about cutting the Downtown Sylva Association’s funding…
Read More

Comment

Probe into unusual school spending account dropped
 

Probe into unusual school spending account dropped

A former Haywood County school employee and Haywood Builder’s Supply have been cleared of wrongdoing in connection with an off-the-books…
Read More

Comment

Odd jobs
 

Odd jobs

Today’s economy is amazingly complex. Niches of the most obscure order have been found and filled, giving birth to a…
Read More

Comment

NC GreenPower is inexpensive way to take a small step
 

NC GreenPower is inexpensive way to take a small step

When Louis and Talitha Mes put up a 100-foot windmill two weeks ago in the Crabtree community of Haywood County…
Read More

Comment

Park expands Junior Ranger program
 

Park expands Junior Ranger program

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is inviting kids and their families to participate in a selection of summer programs…
Read More

Comment

Chaos is upon us!
 

Chaos is upon us!

Remember the chaos theory — how the flapping of a single butterfly’s wings could produce unknown and unpredictable atmospheric change?…
Read More

Comment

Rebel Records roundup
 

Rebel Records roundup

Rebel records, the venerable bluegrass-only imprint that’s as much a home to royalty like Ralph Stanley as it is young…
Read More

Comment

Art partnership: Swain County couple Dee Dee and Robert Triplett share a love for creating and sharing one-of-a-kind art pieces
 

Art partnership: Swain County couple Dee Dee and Robert Triplett share a love for creating and sharing one-of-a-kind art pieces

By Michael Beadle Dee Dee Triplett is a woman of the cloth. Her husband, Robert, is a man of strong…
Read More

Comment

Recommended diversions
 

Recommended diversions

Instant Sociology Ever had one of those days where nobody, I mean nobody, made much sense? Baffling behaviors everywhere? Here’s…
Read More

Comment

An open eye
 

An open eye

Let’s imagine for a moment that it is Election Day in some unspecified city, and the proper government officials have…
Read More

Comment

Duke says project does not extend to tribal land
 

Duke says project does not extend to tribal land

Duke Power discounted accusations last week that a portion of the hydropower operation on the Oconaluftee River extends onto tribal…
Read More

Comment

Franklin residents to help design new neighborhood
 

Franklin residents to help design new neighborhood

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer Macon County residents have the opportunity to help design the first New Urbanist traditional…
Read More

Comment

Locals plead Duke case to congressmen
 

Locals plead Duke case to congressmen

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer As the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission hones its final recommendations for the mitigation Duke…
Read More

Comment

Mountain Metal Fest raises a joyous noise
 

Mountain Metal Fest raises a joyous noise

By Chris Cooper Hold one of your hands up, left or right, whichever you prefer. With your palm facing outward,…
Read More

Comment

Recommended diversions
 

Recommended diversions

We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, Bruce Springsteen When my brother-in-law sent me this CD, I couldn’t wait to get…
Read More

Comment

Chick check
 

Chick check

The word “ubiquitous” is an apt adjective for Chick comics. They show up in motel rooms, garages, pool halls, laundromats,…
Read More

Comment

Dayco developers want rules relaxed
 

Dayco developers want rules relaxed

Developers of a strip shopping complex at the site of the old Dayco factory in Waynesville are asking for several…
Read More

Comment

Franklin’s new urban neighborhood plan complete
 

Franklin’s new urban neighborhood plan complete

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer Preliminary master plans and architectural designs for Franklin’s new mixed-use, smart growth style development…
Read More

Comment

Race a ‘toss up’
 

Race a ‘toss up’

Growth worries prompt Swain to create planning board
 

Growth worries prompt Swain to create planning board

Swain County commissioners informally agreed to consider mountainside development regulations at a meeting last Tuesday (July 11) during what amounted…
Read More

Comment

Research probes tourists’ interests, spending patterns
 

Research probes tourists’ interests, spending patterns

Men between the ages of 45 and 65 who visit the 25-county Blue Ridge National Heritage Area are most interested…
Read More

Comment

Trash statistics skewed by second-home residents
 

Trash statistics skewed by second-home residents

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer Macon County’s trash is a growing problem, says Chris Stahl, director of the Macon…
Read More

Comment

Statement from the Concerned Citizens for Responsible Development made at the Swain County commissioners meetings on Tuesday, July 11
 

Statement from the Concerned Citizens for Responsible Development made at the Swain County commissioners meetings on Tuesday, July 11

The concern of our group is that Swain County appears to have no control of development to inside and outside…
Read More

Comment

Catching the Folkmoot Bug: 2006 host band, performers dissolve cultural barriers with song
 

Catching the Folkmoot Bug: 2006 host band, performers dissolve cultural barriers with song

Ted White, a bass player with Whitewater Bluegrass Company, was warming up backstage at a Folkmoot performance last year when…
Read More

Comment

A Celtic slice of France
 

A Celtic slice of France

One of this year’s Folkmoot groups, Bleuniadur, hails from northern France in the region known as Brittany. SMN’s Michael Beadle…
Read More

Comment

Gala Preview has a new home
 

Gala Preview has a new home

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer Folkmoot USA’s Gala Preview will celebrate its first year in its new home at…
Read More

Comment

The groups of Folkmoot 2006
 

The groups of Folkmoot 2006

Canada – Zephyr Zephyr, a French Canadian dance company from Edmonton, Alberta, in Western Canada was founded in 2002 through…
Read More

Comment

The mountains tumultuous past
 

The mountains tumultuous past

To myself, mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery; in them, and in the forms of…
Read More

Comment

Oh, the irony of it all
 

Oh, the irony of it all

“Sausage is good!?” My 7-year-old son was looking out the window of the van when he blurted the words out…
Read More

Comment

Congressmen should weigh in on relicensing
 

Congressmen should weigh in on relicensing

When a room full of elected officials pleaded with a U.S. senator and a congressman last week to step into…
Read More

Comment

Groups take stand against logging
 

Groups take stand against logging

The Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project and WNC Alliance are opposing a logging proposal in the vicinity of Looking Glass Rock,…
Read More

Comment

Meet the stars
 

Meet the stars

About a million years ago, through a wormhole, while I was still in college and Grumman aluminum was state of…
Read More

Comment

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.