A telecommunications outage hit the Waynesville area last Thursday evening, knocking out cell phones, TV, Internet and even landlines for thousands of residents.

“One by one, across the county people are realizing on their own that they have no cellular services or voice or data communication tool,” said Greg Shuping, the Haywood County Emergency Services Director.

A man shot up the outside of a Verizon Wireless store in Waynesville last week following a town wide outage of both Verizon service and Charter Cable.

The dual outages cut off communication with the outside world for thousands of residents when their cell phones, TV and internet service went down for a few hours last Thursday evening.

Running downhill with a tray of wine glasses, Janelle Trevino had a simple objective: she didn’t want to drop any.

“It was intense,” Trevino said. “It’s a lot harder than it looks. I was pretty nervous.”

A server at Tipping Point Brewing in Waynesville, Trevino and her three teammates participated in The Greater Waynesville Wine Race on April 26. Taking place on Miller Street in downtown Waynesville, the spectacle, put on by the Relay for Life of West Haywood, brought together a handful of local restaurants to raise awareness of cancer through a fun and unique occasion.

Mountains and rivers shape the landscape of Western North Carolina, but when it comes to recreation programming, counties and municipalities tend to focus on facilities and league sports. Both the town of Waynesville and Jackson County, however, are working to look beyond the status quo to point people toward the beauty in their own backyards. 

After a full day of brainstorming, the Waynesville Board of Aldermen had thrown a lot of meat onto the table. Ideas, concerns and potential opportunities were written down on giant pieces of paper and tacked up on the walls, canvassing a good portion of the meeting room overlooking Lake Junaluska. 

The Waynesville skate park became an instant rock star after its debut last fall, gaining repute as a wildly popular concrete playground for all things on wheels gliding, sliding and flying over the ramps and rails all hours of the day.

Two video gambling halls were raided in Haywood County last week following an undercover investigation by law enforcement agencies.

Though the process has been long, Steven Lloyd is beginning to see the fruits of his labor.

“I sometimes feel like I’ve pushed a big boulder up a hill and it’ll fall backwards,” he said. “But, the momentum is still going. We’re a proven, successful theatre, and this is going to happen.”

Sitting at her loom, weaver Amy Tromiczak feels right at home.

“It’s an amazing thing. You’re making cloth, and I love it,” the 25-year-old said. “It’s all about the whole process of choosing your fibers, deciding what kind of cloth to make, seeing it laid out on the loom.”

Electric car owners will soon have the option of charging their vehicles in downtown Waynesville.