National, state and local offices will be on the ballot across North Carolina for a high-stakes 2024 election, and it all begins next week, as candidates will begin submitting paperwork to launch their campaigns.

More than two years after flooding along the Pigeon River and its tributaries killed half a dozen people and destroyed businesses, cars and homes from its headwaters near the Blue Ridge Parkway on down through the towns of Canton and Clyde, contractors are set to begin some of the most intensive debris removal operations in Haywood County since the floods of 2004. 

It’s novel, it’s trendy and it’s a great way to become fabulously wealthy — or lose everything you have — but the nuisances associated with the production of cryptocurrency are prompting local governments to regulate them before it’s too late. 

It’s been just under a year since Bill Wilke became Haywood County’s sheriff, after longtime popular incumbent, Greg Christopher, decided to call it a career.

New town leadership is looking forward to getting things moving again in the tiny Graham County municipality of Lake Santeetlah, after a pair of incumbents and a pair of former Town Council members won resounding victories repudiating actions taken by the town’s elected leaders over the past two years. 

Tuesday, Nov. 7 was an important night for out LGBTQ+ candidates across the country, the state and Haywood County, with more running — and winning — than in any previous odd-year election in U.S. history. 

There’s no use crying over spilt milk, but a shocking report suggests that Pactiv Evergreen failed in its analysis of market demand for the paperboard produced in its Canton mill, contributing to a nationwide shortage of milk cartons in schools and leading some to believe the company needn’t have halted operations in Canton earlier this year, throwing hundreds out of work. 

They ran a noisy campaign, filled with distortions, misinformation and outright fabrication, but in the end, that’s all it was — noise. 

Fears that North Carolina’s new voter ID implementation would disenfranchise legitimate voters have proven unfounded — at least in Haywood County, where municipal election turnout was stronger than usual. 

While there are still plenty of unknowns regarding Canton’s new waste water treatment plant, including where it will go and when groundbreaking will take place, a project budget ordinance passed by the town’s governing board on Nov. 9 eliminates one of them — how the massive appropriation from the North Carolina General Assembly will be spent. 

The Town of Canton’s governing board has been through a lot in the last four years — with the 2021 flood and the 2023 closure of the town’s largest employer — but they must be doing a good job managing the chaos, as voters decided overwhelmingly to return Mayor Pro Temp Gail Mull and Alderman Ralph Hamlett for another term. 

More than two years after deadly flooding killed six people and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to public and private property from Bethel to Cruso to Canton to Clyde, Haywood County will purchase an early warning siren system to keep residents better informed for when — not if — it happens again. 

A Western Carolina University professor has been awarded one of the most respected fellowships in the world, which she hopes will not only shed some light on pertinent trends in media — both in the Balkans and in the United States — but also help to inspire her journalism students in the same ways she was, years ago. 

Incumbent Alderman Dann Jesse will return to the Town of Clyde Board of Aldermen, along with a new face, Amy Russell.

They ran a noisy campaign, filled with distortions, misinformation and outright fabrication, but in the end, that’s all it was — noise.

The Town of Canton’s governing board has been through a lot in the last four years — with the 2021 flood and the 2023 closure of the town’s largest employer — but they must be doing a good job managing the chaos, as voters decided overwhelmingly to return Mayor Pro Temp Gail Mull and Alderman Ralph Hamlett for another term.

Despite largely refusing to show up for forums or interviews, a slate of far-right candidates has tried multiple times to spread misinformation in the lead-up to Waynesville’s November election — both on the internet and in printed campaign materials — but their most recent attempt to do so, concerning waste water treatment plant funding, doesn’t appear to hold water either. 

With early voting underway and municipal election races heating up, a supporter of the far-right nativist faction running for various Town of Waynesville offices has been handing out campaign literature at Waynesville’s downtown post office, in apparent violation of federal law.

Despite all the important elections taking place in Western North Carolina this fall, there’s probably no other town with more on the line than Canton. 

For nearly two decades, a unique nonprofit with roots in Western North Carolina has helped to recognize veterans for their wartime service.

Haywood County Commissioners got some great news Oct. 16 that will help the community ameliorate the effects of a red-hot real estate market on local housing affordability and availability.

Although she hails from Mississippi, Marsha Blackburn has become a powerful force in Tennessee politics over the past 25 years, first as a state senator, then as a member of Congress for 16 years, and now as the state’s senior U.S. senator.

Voters in Waynesville are preparing for a contentious election that offers very different visions for the future of the town the candidates want to lead. 

The four of them lumbered along the logging road until finally reaching the old fox hunting cabin about a mile below the crest of Big Stomp Mountain, an unassuming woody knob sloping gently towards the heavens from the floor of Ratcliff Cove.

Things are changing in Haywood County’s smallest incorporated municipality. Although there are only 754 registered voters in Clyde, the town plays a central geographic and economic role in how the county itself will, or will not, thrive and grow in the 21st century. 

For the first time in nearly 55 years, a Waynesville native and Air Force captain who didn’t return from his mission over Quàng Nam Province in South Vietnam is finally back among his family, friends and loved ones. 

Days before the remains of Capt. Fred Hall are to be returned to Waynesville for burial after he went missing in Vietnam more than 54 years ago, Waynesville’s Town Council has bestowed a special honor on him.

A substantial grant from the U.S. Department of Labor has already provided help for more than 50 dislocated workers in Western North Carolina, but Southwestern Commission Workforce Development Director David Garrett wants to get the word out that they’re looking to help a whole lot more. 

It’s been more than a year since residency challenges were filed against six Democrats who registered to vote at a Graham County home that had burned down and then avoided the challenges by changing their registrations to Buncombe County; the North Carolina State Board of Elections still hasn’t announced the results of an investigation into the matter, even after three of the six re-registered in Graham County, just in time for the 2023 municipal election. 

After years of delay, the tiny half-acre park off Pigeon Street in the heart of Waynesville’s Black community should soon see the long talked-about bathrooms the park so desperately needs. 

A candidate for Maggie Valley alderman who dropped out and resigned her seat on the town’s zoning board when opponents filed a residency challenge is drawing further scrutiny after an investigation by The Smoky Mountain News revealed that she was not a resident of the town during most or all of her service on the zoning board of adjustment. 

This year’s state budget process may have been one of the most discordant in recent memory, but Western North Carolina’s legislative delegation was able to secure record-setting funding for critical needs in a relatively poor region that sometimes feels overlooked when Raleigh gets to dishing out the dough. 

America reckons with its legacy in Vietnam, one soldier at a time

The field of candidates for the two Maggie Valley alderman seats up for election this November just got a little smaller, after one candidate dropped out just two days before a preliminary hearing into her alleged residency issues.

Luke Klein’s life in North Carolina hasn’t been much different than that of any other pre-teen boy.

UPDATE: Barrett dropped out of the race on Sept. 13, one day after this story was updated for print. Read about that here.

An election protest filed at the Haywood County Board of Elections has initiated proceedings by which a candidate would be removed from the November ballot if the allegations are substantiated.

With less than two months until Haywood County municipal elections are held, two candidates who filed to run back in July have decided to drop out of their races.

The replica of a decorative arch that once spanned Main Street in Waynesville but was removed in the early 1970s is closer than ever to being reinstalled, after more than two years of efforts by town officials and local civic groups to resurrect it. 

A film about one of Western North Carolina’s most revered literary figures will make its world premiere in a free event at 2 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 9 at the Jackson County library in Sylva. 

A controversial law enforcement association that holds a fringe interpretation of the Constitution and has ties to white nationalism, the sovereign citizen movement, election denial and COVID-19 conspiracy theories will host a meeting in Cherokee County this weekend, but Western North Carolina sheriffs have been largely reluctant to say whether they’ll attend. 

When old Jack Welch sold his Waynesville dairy farm to Jim Long in the early 1920s, he probably couldn’t have envisioned that it would one day become a top-notch golf club with stunning views of the Great Smoky Mountains and clubhouse amenities renowned throughout the southeast as some of the most luxurious. 

North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis has taken a particular interest in Canton over the past few years, making multiple appearances in town after flooding in August 2021 and acting as a federal liaison during the ongoing paper mill shutdown saga. 

She’s only been on the job for a few months, but the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority’s new executive director is already taking steps to streamline and refine the authority into an organization that’s proactive and premeditated, rather than reactive and organic. 

Two defendants who pleaded guilty in federal court for their roles in communicating threats to dozens if not hundreds of elected officials, judges and public figures across the nation and across Western North Carolina have finally learned their fates, as U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger handed down sentences in Asheville on Aug. 24. 

The effect of short-term rental properties on the availability and affordability of workforce housing has been well-documented in Haywood County. 

A construction project on the five-lane road in Maggie Valley is aimed at improving pedestrian safety, but some are also pointing out its potential to cause a whole lot of trouble for drivers. 

Elisabeth Biser, secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality, made her second visit to Canton last week, touring Pactiv Evergreen’s shuttered paper mill and vowing to hold the company accountable for environmental issues that could poison future development of the parcel.