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The sight of bobbing caravans of inflatable kayaks floating down Richland Creek through Waynesville will return on Saturday, May 6 when Whitewater of Waynesville, a.k.a. WOW, opens back up for its second season.

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Climbing the 80 rickety feet of metal and wood got my adrenaline flowing a bit.

Once up there, I found it to be a precarious perch, especially since the plywood floor was rotten and some of it missing. I was in the old fire tower atop Mt. Sterling in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. From my vantage inside the tower, I had a great view of most of the northern section of the main crest of the Smokies, which is also the North Carolina/Tennessee state line and the route of the Appalachian Trail.

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By Marshall Frank • Columnist

Time to send a message to our government leaders. Our democracy is ruled by the will of the people. It appears our president, and our senators and congressional representatives from both parties have forgotten that.

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By Lew Garnett

Without his ever knowing it, Blaine Richardson was one of my heroes.

It was a recent breezy Saturday at our karate school, where over the past few years I’d fought a sharp contest between my 50-year-old body and my 20-year-old expectations.

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Beach Trips

My first vacation of any real length is coming up in two weeks’ time. My boyfriend and I are heading south to Delray Beach, Fla. — a place picked solely for being home to the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, and for having the word “beach” in its name.

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By Chris Cooper

There’s this thing that can happen when you research an artist for a review. I’m not sure what the technical term for it is, but it goes something like this: you find that many people (usually well respected peers, in this case Rodney Crowell or Todd Snider) have incredibly good things to say about the artist and their latest album.

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By Michael Beadle

There’s so much art to see in downtown Waynesville, gallery owners are now offering to keep their businesses open extra hours.

For the first Friday of the month starting this May, the Waynesville Gallery Association is kicking off the fourth season of Art After Dark. The latest evening stroll begins this Friday, May 5, with live music, free snacks and drinks, opening exhibits, and meet-the-artist receptions in a dozen art galleries that line Main Street and adjoining Depot Street.

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Local writer Jeanne Nutter, 72, of the Caney Fork Community took first place in the Jackson County Extension and Community Association’ s recent Cultural Arts Contest.

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By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

In a landslide win, Jackson County Sheriff Jimmy Ashe held off challenger and former sheriff Jim Cruzan in what many have called the election’s most heated race.

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Former North Carolina Highway Patrolman C.D. Jenkins emerged from a field of three Democrats to win the Macon County Sheriff’s primary and the opportunity to run against incumbent Sheriff Robert Holland.

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By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Sylva residents have decided — it’s time for a good stiff drink.

Voters approved mixed beverage sales 257 to 182. Only 34 voters chose not to cast ballots on the measure.

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Political newcomer Ronnie Beale and incumbent Bob Simpson beat two other Democrats in Tuesday’s primary and will move on to the Nov. 7 general election against two Republicans.

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By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Jackson County will usher in a new board of commissioners committed to addressing the county’s growth issues with the election of pro-planning candidates William Shelton, Tom Massie, Joe Cowan and Mark Jones in Tuesday’s primary election.

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By Michael Beadle

Incumbent Kirk Kirkpatrick and newcomers Charles “Skeeter” Curtis and Bill Upton have won the top three slots in the Haywood County commissioner Democratic primary. Incumbent commission chairman Mark Swanger and former commissioner Bill Noland were the fourth- and fifth-place vote-getters, respectively, according to unofficial results at the Haywood County Board of Elections.

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• Costs — Before you book a reservation at a B&B, be sure you check the fine print and know the total cost of your stay. Inns have room taxes that are added on to the bill and there may be additional charges.

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By Michael Beadle

Western North Carolina prides itself as a tourist destination — the mountain getaway where you can hike and shop and rest among the soothing sounds of nature.

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By Dawn Gilchrist-Young

(Editor’s note: Writer Dawn Gilchrist-Young is conducting a series of interviews with mountain natives to gauge their reaction to changes taking place in the region and their memories of the past. These stories will appear intermittently in The Smoky Mountain News.)

When you head up Alarka from N.C. 19/74, you see a microcosm of western North Carolina — old home places with mountain pastures, high end real estate development signs every quarter mile, and enough trash to discourage even the most dedicated “Adopt-a-Highway“ group. Like the rest of the region, upper Alarka is a combination of stunning natural beauty, abject disregard for litter laws, and unbridled greed.

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By Michael Beadle

Last week, Cherokee students found themselves stretching, swooning, thrusting imaginary swords and spouting 400-year-old Elizabethan English.

All that without textbooks or boring lectures about William Shakespeare being the greatest playwright ever.

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By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

From behind the waist-high counter that divides his studio and gallery in half, potter Mark Karner pauses for a moment to extend a hand and make introductions before getting back to work applying handles to four planters just beginning to dry.

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I’m going to take a brief detour from the regular album/show review format and present five CDs that I feel are worth seeking out. The idea started out as a “top 5” of the last year, but apparently I got a little sidetracked. Thus, it evolved into what you’re reading now: a roundup of underappreciated aural gems from the past, well, decade or so.

 

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Spring

One diversion in my life this past month was the weather. Surely this spring is among the most gorgeous of the last two decades. There is a lush, warm quality to the landscape this season, and the very air and sunlight seem to have combined to form a sort of chamber orchestra of beauty from the mountains around us. So if you haven’t looked out your window lately, I’d start there.

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Quick Draw in the Mountains raised a record amount of money this year off a live and silent auction that supports budding artists and art in the schools.

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When the Rev. Beverly Brock of Canton was diagnosed with cancer, doctors immediately offered her a high percentage cure. Most people would leap at such an option, but to Brock, the cure seemed much worse than the disease.

The American Forest and Paper Association recently announced that Macon County resident Joel Ostroff has received the 2006 Ed Hurley Memorial Paper Recycling Award. The award recognizes an individual who has had a significant and positive influence in advocating paper recycling.

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By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Turn to the classified pages in any Western North Carolina newspaper and the employment section bears similar traits. Jobs listed tend to be those in the growing service sector — housekeepers, night shift hotel clerks, secretaries, wait staff, retail sales. And listings under the “professional” heading are sparse.

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By Lee Shelton

Those who stated that Haywood County Commission Chairman Mark Swanger, who lost in last week’s primary election, was “over managing” or interfering are wrong. He was just doing the job that he was elected to do by the public and the majority of the board.

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By Michael Beadle

Norma Brown knows how hard it is to get legal citizenship in the United States.

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By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

This summer residents of Franklin will vote on whether to allow restaurants to sell alcoholic beverages, following a town board decision to hold a referendum on the issue.

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By Michael Beadle

When Lori McLeod first started teaching English as a Second Language at Tuscola High School in Haywood County, she had two students. They didn’t constitute enough to make a class, so she would pull them out of classes for tutoring.

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Rhett Langston with the Buncombe County Parks and Recreation Department has been selected from a pool of 63 applicants to become the new Waynesville Recreation Director.

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The Haywood County Health Department has asked for state assistance to conduct tests in two subdivisions after soil samples from a vacant lot tested positive for lead, arsenic and other pesticides similar to those detected in Barber Orchard, which was declared a Superfund site.

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By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

A Dillsboro business owner’s recent attempt to purchase and develop land near the Great Smoky Mountains Railrod tracks has renewed a longstanding debate over railroad right-of-way issues and property owners’ rights.

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By Stephanie Wampler • Guest Columnist

Multi-tasking? Not me. Or so I’ve always thought.

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By Darcia Bondurant

I would like to think of myself as a healthy, 46-year-old woman. My weight, blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol are all good. I know I need to exercise more, but who doesn’t?

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The U.S. Forest Service has been working on a master recreation plan for Panthertown Valley for more than two years now.

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Ebay

Egad, it’s more addictive than heroin. My family always had a penchant for what some might refer to as “junk,” but what they would refer to lovingly as “antiques.” So I spent a fair amount of my childhood in flea markets, wandering through rows and rows of junk, err... “collectibles” rather.

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By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

At age 12, Seth Taylor is a quiet, tanned, tow-headed boy. He seems well mannered, intelligent, and at ease, his lanky frame leaned back in a folding chair. However, he’s unprepared to answer questions about what drove him to begin a career in music — one that’s already led to numerous awards, two album releases, and a chance to open for Charlie Daniels.

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By Chris Cooper

The Wilders: Throw Down

Reading about bandleader Ike Sheldon’s love/hate relationship with old-time music is almost as entertaining as listening to The Wilders’ latest, Throw Down. That somebody could be such a natural talent in this style and spend so many years avoiding it is pretty darn funny when you think about it.

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By Michael Beadle

One thing that paralyzes American tourists about visiting foreign countries is the language barrier.

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By Chris Cooper

To say that Col. Bruce Hampton has carved a colorful swath through the music industry is likely an understatement of considerable proportions. Tossing equal parts Zappa-inspired lunacy, gritty Southern rock, spoken word rants from Mars, gospel, funk, jazz and blues into nearly every recording, Hampton has achieved an instantly recognizable sound in spite of all his stylistic schizophrenia.

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A+ arts schools

Call me biased, but Central Elementary School in downtown Waynesville is a great place. All three of my children have attended, and two are still there. The A+ program integrates arts into the standard curriculum and realizes the importance of teaching to multiple intelligences — which, in layman’s terms, means that different children learn differently, so one method just ain’t gonna work for everyone.

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By Michael Beadle

Editor’s note: Smoky Mountain News Writer Michael Beadle recently traveled to Europe. The following is the first of two stories about his experiences abroad.

You can’t go home again.

More than years after Asheville literary giant Thomas Wolfe gave us this immortal expression, his words echo with the love and longing that a place gives us.

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By Michael Beadle

Central Elementary School capped its 10-year anniversary as an A+ school Friday, May 19, with students, parents, county leaders, school officials and school alumni joining in the celebration.

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By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff have recommended removing the Dillsboro Dam and re-issuing Duke Energy licenses for each of its dams along the Tuckasegee and Oconaluftee rivers, according to a 402-page draft environmental assessment released May 10.

By Michael Beadle

Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series on some of the issues faced by new Latino immigrants to this region.

Cristina Heath, a native of Mexico and a Spanish teacher at Swain County High School and Middle School, has mixed feelings about the growing number of Hispanic immigrants in Western North Carolina.

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By Joanne Meyer • Guest Columnist

A soft, spring breeze wafted through the open window, sending a sheer, cafe curtain dancing across the strings of a mandolin leaning upright against the back of a chair. The sound the instrument produced had a startling but enchanting allure. It spoke to me in a voice I had not heard in a long time.

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By Michael Beadle

Kituhwa.

To the Cherokee, it represents one of the most sacred sites in the world, the first Cherokee town, a mound where the sacred fire burned for centuries. It is from this site that the Cherokee named themselves Ani-Kituhwa-gi, the people of Kituhwa.

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Thanks to a new recycling trailer, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is closer to its goal of diverting half of all its waste from local landfills compared to the 42 percent of park trash that currently is recycled.

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A report by Trout Unlimited documenting the continued decline of brook trout has given rise to concerns over water quality and invigorated efforts to protect the remaining strongholds of brook trout in WNC.

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A blistering fight over whether paddling should be allowed along the upper stretch of the Chattooga Wild and Scenic River has landed in court.

American Whitewater, the premier national paddling advocacy group whose headquarters are in Jackson County, filed a lawsuit two weeks ago challenging the ban on paddling as baseless and unfounded.

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