Photographer Ken Wilson of Waynesville recently published his first book, The Aleutian Islands of Alaska, Living on the Edge.

The book is a stunning compilation of photos from Alaska where Wilson went with wife, Kathy, to serve as missionaries to the United Methodist Church on Unalaska Island. The couple have returned to Western North Carolina and live in Waynesville.

Wilson, who was the publisher of The Mountaineer in Haywood County for two decades and spent 35 years in the newspaper business, had long been a nature photographer. When he got to the Aleutians, be began shooting images of the wildlife and the native people. The book’s outstanding photography is accompanied by a series of essays by those familiar with the islands, and includes mini-biographies of many of the residents.

Reviewer Andrew Blechman had this say about Wilson’s book: “Chances are I am never going to get around to having the time and the money to spend a summer touring these islands via the Alaska state ferry, which connects many of the islands to each other and to the Alaskan mainland. If you don’t expect to get around to this one either, do yourself a big favor and check out this book. It’s an extraordinary and beautiful part of the world that is well worth visiting, even if only via a great book. The Aleutian Islands of Alaska: Living on the Edge – Highly Recommended.”

Wilson spent three years photographing the islands, and then another couple of years putting the book together. The book captures the islands tumultuous weather, stunning landscapes, and the story of the native Unangan people.

The 160-page book is available on Amazon.com and at some local bookstores. To read an e-press release about the book visit www.uaf.edu/uapress/aleutian_islands.html.

Jackson County’s decision to take the Dillsboro dam through eminent domain is a bold next step in the relicensing saga that has been playing out for years.

Commissioners voted 4-1 Monday night to use one of the strongest powers they possess to get what they believe to be a fair deal from Duke Energy. Taking the dam through eminent domain promises a messy legal fight. But it’s the end game that matters here, and a majority of their constituents are — in a word — insulted by the mitigation package Duke has offered.

As we’ve noted before, making the removal of a community icon the centerpiece of the giant utility’s environmental mitigation effort just didn’t make many people happy. Yes, the free-flowing river will be a boon to paddlers and restore a lengthy stretch of the waterway to its “pre-Duke” status, but other considerations came into play.

This dam, small in size and in plain view of thousands of citizens every day, has gained a value aside from its hydropower production. It has become a part of Dillsboro, one of those man-made objects that give residents a sense of place. As soon as Duke began pushing the idea of removing the dam, many started speaking up to voice their surprise and displeasure.

Here’s the rub for Duke: if the giant utility had come to the table with a better mitigation package, removing the dam likely could have happened. A look around the region proves that in other cases where utilities sought federal licenses to operate hydropower plants, more tangible mitigation packages were offered.

Two relicensing arrangements nearby — Alcoa to the west and Progress Energy’s Pigeon River deal to the east of Jackson — offered big-time, lasting packages. The Progress Energy solution — creating the Pigeon River Fund — has, almost 20 years later, helped every school child in Haywood County gain intimate knowledge of the watershed, in addition to providing money for dozens of environmental and riparian efforts to help landowners and nonprofit organizatios.

Representatives from this newspaper attended many of the stakeholder meetings that led to Duke’s decision to take down the Dillsboro dam. During the relicensing process for all of its hydropower plants in Western North Carolina, Duke invited citizens, representatives of various state environmental and licensing agencies, and others to a multi-year series of meetings. Many of those supported the dam removal, and so Duke thought it was going down the right path.

A glimmer of hope for compromise arose during mediation that took place over the last couple of months. But those privy to those negotiations obviously did not think Duke offered enough.

We somehow wish the energy company could become a partner in this effort to make Jackson County a green energy leader, not an opponent. Unfortunately, it appears it will be left to the courts to determine a fair outcome.

By Avram Friedman

Receiving public input is not a discretionary part of the decision-making process for elected public officials in North Carolina. It is mandated by law that local elected officials provide the opportunity for public input before making decisions that potentially have a major impact on the lives of people in an affected community (general statute160A-364, “Procedures for adopting amending, or repealing ordinances”).

There was a collective shrug of the shoulders by Sylva Town Council members at their May 21 meeting when presented with clear documentation exhibiting how there was no meaningful notification for the April 16 public hearing on modifying the zoning ordinance to accommodate the expansion of Jackson Paper. The Town Council voted to amend the ordinance at that same meeting, immediately following the “hearing” at which no one attended or spoke. Although several of the elected officials acknowledged the reality that the circumstances resulted in poor — if any — public notification, they all fell back on the claim that the letter of the law had been met and not one would introduce a motion to re-visit the zoning ordinance modification to include a real opportunity for public input.

As a result, this week the Canary Coalition and four local residents of Sylva are filing an appeal to the Superior Court, requesting the April 16 zoning ordinance modification be repealed pending due process, including a real public hearing with adequately informative and timely public notification. The plaintiffs have retained attorney Mark Melrose of Sylva law firm Melrose, Seago and Lay to file the appeal.

We all want the jobs this proposed expansion of Jackson Paper would bring. Sixty-one more people employed in moderately high-wage jobs will have a significant positive impact on our local economy. Jackson Paper has been a fairly good steward of the environment over the years. I can hear some people asking, “Why would the Canary Coalition interfere with this positive development?”

We don’t necessarily want to interfere with it. We want the chance to learn exactly what is planned and how it’s going to impact public health and the environment. It’s as simple as that. But apparently, many of our local elected officials on both the town and county level don’t know, never asked these questions, and didn’t think it was important for the public to be able to ask or offer insight either, before making crucial decisions to accommodate the expanded industry.

The paper plant expansion was first announced in the Sylva Herald on April 9. By April 16 the Town of Sylva modified its zoning ordinance. By May 22, the County voted to supply $500,000 from its revolving loan fund, at percent interest, to Jackson Paper to help with the expansion. Some of us have noticed how uncharacteristically fast the wheels of government are suddenly turning, unfortunately at the expense of due process.If the spirit of due process had been followed, the Town Council members would have learned from public input, prior to voting their decision, that Jackson Paper’s Air Quality Permit allows the burning of coal and rubber “pellets” (shredded tires) as well as wood chips.

Right now Jackson Paper only burns wood chips, which is a relatively clean combustion process. If all systems are working properly, almost all of the visible smokestack emissions consist of steam.

Coal, however is another story. Wherever coal is burned there are emissions of nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury, lead, arsenic, cadmium, barium, dioxins, hydrogen chloride, hydrogen fluoride and a long list of other toxic and hazardous air pollutants. Burning coal also results in a toxic ash pile that would, in this case, accumulate adjacent to Scott’s Creek, a major tributary to the Tuckaseegee River.

Nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide — combined emissions from burning coal — are acknowledged by industry, government agencies and the scientific community to account for more than 30,000 deaths annually on a national basis. These emissions are responsible for heightened rates of asthma, emphysema, heart disease, stroke and other pulmonary diseases.

Mercury toxicity from coal-burning emissions results in neurological damage to human beings, especially to fetuses and young children. Autism and learning disabilities have been directly linked by extensive scientific research to high levels of mercury in the blood. The Center For Disease Control warns that one in eight pregnant women in the Southeast have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood.

Burning rubber pellets has its own set of health and environmental impacts. Rubber from tires contains a cocktail of petroleum-based hydrocarbons that are potentially hazardous to human health and the environment if emitted into the air. Jackson Paper burned rubber pellets, along with wood chips, for several years ending in 2003 as part of a statewide program to reduce the accumulation of automobile tires at dump sites where they were becoming a problem for sheer volume. Jackson Paper stopped burning rubber in 2003 because its price rose in response to competing market demand. But, markets shift and if the price goes down again, one of Jackson Paper’s owners assured me they would again consider burning rubber at their Sylva plant.

Although right now Jackson Paper is only burning wood chips as fuel for their operation, the permit leaves open the possibility that some time in the future coal or rubber pellets will be burned should there be a shortage of wood chips. This is a concern since T&S Hardwood is at least temporarily ceasing operations, removing one of the major sources of wood chips available to Jackson Paper. Industries are being stressed everywhere in the current economy, so the reliability of the wood chip stream is uncertain.

Because the spirit of due process was not respected, our local government officials were deprived of all this and probably much more information from the knowledgeable members of our community prior to making the decisions to accommodate the expanding industry with zoning ordinance amendment and access to public money.

Here’s what we hope to accomplish by appealing the Town’s April 16 zoning decision, pending due process. Members of the community will have the opportunity to advise the Town Council to grant the zoning ordinance amendment to accommodate the Jackson Paper expansion with the stipulation that coal and rubber pellets are removed from the list of allowable fuels in their air quality permit. Jackson Paper can continue to burn wood chips while using natural gas as a backup. With this stipulation, we’ll have the 61 jobs AND the reassurance that the health of thousands of residents in the community will not be negatively impacted now or in the near future.

It isn’t a choice between jobs and a clean, healthy environment. It’s practical to have both. We can also have open, responsible government. It’s a shame you have to go to court sometimes to achieve it.

Avram Friedman

Executive Director, Canary Coalition

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By Julia Merchant • Staff Writer

The misty mountaintops and bubbling creeks of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park have served as a source of inspiration for countless artists. In celebration of the Parks’ 75th anniversary, some are now choosing to give back to the place that has given them so much by creating special pieces to benefit the Park.

“Pastels for the Park,” which opens June 6 at the Artists House Too in Bryson City, brings together 11 pastel artists who have created 36 paintings of the Park’s natural wonders. Ten percent of the proceeds from sales of the pieces will be donated to the Friends of the Smokies, the only North Carolina nonprofit that works on behalf of the Park. The exhibit is one of the only artists shows sanctioned as an official 75th Anniversary Celebration event.

“Being that it’s in my back yard and I use it constantly, I thought it would be nice to do some sort of event that would benefit the Park in some way and bring more attention to our side of the Park,” said Artists Too owner Peggy Duncan, who came up with the idea for the show.

Duncan recruited fellow members of the Appalachian Pastel Society to create pieces for the show. Each painting is done with pastels, which are pure sticks of pigment mixed with a tiny amount of binder.

The scenes chosen by the artists are varied, ranging from wildflowers like trilliums to rushing water scenes with creek and rivers to some of the Park’s best-loved mountain views.

Duncan herself has contributed three paintings for the show of her favorite Park spots. One is of the Oconaluftee River cascading near the Smokemont Campground. Another depicts the confluence of Deep and Indian creeks, a popular destination in Swain County. A third painting is of a fisherman casting his fly at Deep Creek.

“I think we have a beautiful show,” Duncan said. “It hangs together very well. The pieces are different and varied, and subject matter and color are very soothing. There are a lot of nice, soft pieces, and very vivid bright pieces.”

The paintings range in size from a small 6-by-8-piece to larger, 24-by-30-inch framed images, and run from $120 to $900.

“In this kind of economy it’s hard for people to think about purchasing art,” said Duncan. “All the artists have made their prices very reasonable. We would love to have a big turnout and some sales to benefit the park.”

By Julia Merchant • Staff Writer

A year ago, a group of more than 40 rafting outfitters gathered to discuss ways to boost declining visitor numbers in the Nantahala Gorge. The meeting, coordinated by regional tourism entity Smoky Mountain Host, was hailed as the kickoff to an effort to revitalize the whitewater rafting destination, which had seen a 17 percent decline in visitors from 1998 to 2007.

The results of the charette, as well as suggestions for what the next step in the process might be, were finally released at a meeting of the Nantahala Gorge Association earlier this month — and evoked mixed opinions. Outfitters say the effort could be worthwhile, but conflicting ideas abound about what direction, if any, should a Gorge revitalization effort take?

Who benefits?

When the outfitters met last May, many had mixed opinions about adding a whitewater park to the Gorge — an idea that charette coordinator Smoky Mountain Host put forth.

Detailed plans for a potential whitewater park made up a portion of the follow-up presentation given recently to outfitters by Smoky Mountain Host President David Huskins — and some outfitters still aren’t too keen on the idea.

Plans call for adding a Class V rapid and play features just past the current boat takeout in a bid to attract kayakers to the area. A number of outfitters continue to question who the whitewater park would benefit, since only a handful of Gorge outfitters offer kayak rentals and instruction in addition to guided rafting trips.

“The things that affect all the outfitters out here is what I’m interested in, not just the select few group,” said Mark Thomas, owner of Paddle Inn.

Poised to benefit most from the park, some outfitters believe, is the Nantahala Outdoor Center. NOC runs the largest kayaking operation in the Gorge, and the whitewater park would abut the shores of NOC property.

“I think if you go ahead and build something in front of someone’s place of business, obviously it’s going to benefit that place,” said Ken Kastorff, owner of Endless River Adventures.

Outfitters express concern that a whitewater park that would mostly benefit one company is driving the revitalization effort.

“Sometimes what ends up happening is the largest company is the squeaky wheel, and they get heard the most,” said Kastorff.

Thomas was more adamant in his concern.

“As far as I can tell, this is all about NOC and private boater traffic,” he said.

NOC President Sutton Bacon refused to say whether the outfitter supports the idea of a whitewater park.

“I don’t really have a comment on that,” Bacon said. “A whitewater park is one of many elements that have come out of the charette. We are supportive of anything that increases visitation to the area that allows people to access the Nantahala and increase our brand reputation as a recreational corridor.”

Huskins said that even though the proposed whitewater park abuts NOC property, it would be open to other outfitters.

“A whitewater park ... would be available for use by all outfitters if built with public funds,” Huskins said.

But outfitters have other concerns. Some question whether the Nantahala River is the best place for a whitewater park feature at all, since the Gorge is notoriously clogged with tourists in peak season.

“You look at where the park was going to be placed, and it’s already in a pretty busy area during the summertime,” Kastorff said. “To have something that complicates it worse may not be the best decision.”

Thomas said he would be reluctant to support a feature like the whitewater park that would “clog up traffic in the Gorge and make taking boats in and out impossible.”

Carolyn Allison, owner of Wildwater Ltd., suggests placing the whitewater park somewhere else entirely — specifically, on the Tuckaseegee River that runs through Bryson City.

“I’m not sure the Nantahala is the right place for it,” Allison said. “Personally I think they should consider something in Bryson City.”

Kastorff, the former president of the Nantahala Gorge Association, said he push that idea before, but town leaders and county officials didn’t seem interested. Kastorff still supports the idea.

“You have a park right in Bryson City that would make a wonderful whitewater course,” Kastorff said. “That would spread out tourism and bring more into Bryson City proper.”

Making it better

So what direction should a Gorge revitalization effort take?

The charette focused on three primary suggestions for improving the Gorge. The Nantahala River Park at Wesser, which includes the whitewater park, viewing platforms and wading pools, was one idea. Two other ideas — improving the area where rafts and kayaks put in for the six-mile float down the river; and building a welcome center at the junction of U.S. 74 and N.C. 28 at the entrance to the Gorge.

Improving the put-in seems to be of particular interest to outfitters. The current put-in is muddy and crowded, with a dirt parking area.

“When you take a look at bringing people to the area, (one idea) is having a good put-in,” said Kastorff. “Right now, the put-in is marginal at best. That to me is of paramount importance.”

Proposed improvements to the put-in include adding a platform paved access route, trailhead parking and flush toilets, and relocating the bike trail so bikes and rafters don’t share the same path. The improvements are estimated at $2.5 million.

There has been talk of the U.S. Forest Service fronting the cost of improvements to the put-in, but no such thing has been agreed upon, according to Crystal Powell with the U.S.F.S. Nantahala District Office.

Powell said the idea for improvements to the put-in seems to have originated with Smoky Mountain Host, and that while the Forest Service has heard about the plan, it has no intentions at this point of paying for the proposed project. Powell said no decision on improving the put-in can be made until the relicensing process that enforces how Duke Energy manages the river is finished.

While put-in improvements, however they are paid for, may not directly combat declining visitor levels, they would improve visitor experience, Alison said.

“Is that going to bring more people into the Gorge?” Alison asked. “I don’t know, but it will certainly maintain visitor experience, as well as keep our waters clean.”

Kastorff thinks put-in improvements would boost visitor levels by helping to establish the Gorge as an overall quality product.

“Having things that are clean and beautiful, like a good put-in, so that things move smoothly — I think that has way more of an impact than some of the other things they’re talking about,” Kastorff said.

Thomas said that there are some basic improvements that could be made to the Gorge before taking on big projects like a whitewater park or welcome center — like Internet access, something most people now take for granted.

Currently, the options for getting Internet in the Gorge are limited to dialup, which is slow, or satellite, which is expensive. The lack of options makes it difficult for outfitters to do business.

“We’re looking at businesses that provide millions in economic stimulus for the area, and we can’t even communicate out here,” Kastroff said.

Where to now?

With the coordination of the outfitter charette last year, the presentation of results and the economic impact study of the Gorge, the role of Smoky Mountain Host in the Gorge revitalization effort is mostly complete. It’s unclear who, if anyone, will step up to spearhead the effort.

“I suspect that would be up to the Nantahala Gorge Association, the oufitters and community stakeholders and public officials and agencies,” Huskins said.

One major challenge that will have to be addressed is how to fund the proposed improvements. Huskins said this would likely be done incrementally using private and public sources, as well as money from user fees, non-profits, and increased taxes.

Overall, outfitters seem to think Smoky Mountain Host’s efforts have been beneficial.

“There were some interesting aspects that came out of the economic impact study that was done,” Kastorff said (SEE RELATED ARTICLE). “It was pretty significant. I think that was something a lot of folks didn’t realize.”

Bacon said the economic impact study provides an important tool for outfitters.

“Now we have a research tool that quantifies the economic impact of the Gorge,” Bacon said. “That’s an important data point for all the outfitters.”

Bacon said NOC is more than willing to work with other outfitters on a Gorge revitalization effort.

“I look forward to working with all of the stakeholders in the Gorge to try and increase visitation and improve access and our brand recognition,” said Bacon. “It’s in all of our best interests to increase visitation.”

Kastorff said if anything, the project has showed outfitters that there can be power in numbers, whether or not they initially agree on proposed improvements

“In the long run, whether there is a whitewater park or not, it was well worth the effort just because we put a spotlight on the fact that by working together, we can achieve something.”

It’s time for Harrah’s Cherokee Casino to offer alcohol to patrons, especially since the Tribe is counting on receipts from the thriving gambling operation to pay for everything from health care to education, and enrolled members can certainly make use of the extra money. If Harrah’s is to remain the Tribe’s cash cow, the smartest route is to maximize profits by passing the measure permitting the casino to serve alcohol.

No one in this country, and particularly no one living near a Native American reservation, can deny the negative effects of alcohol. It’s created more problems for more families than most people can imagine. The damages have been significant among Native American populations.

But some things have changed over time. Cherokee has become a place where education and social programs have vastly improved over the last decade. While we will never erase all of America’s social ills, Cherokee now has more tools in place than ever to help its people deal with whatever addiction problems they might have. Having alcohol within the community at the casino may strike fear into the heart of some, but the truth is that alcohol is now available right over the county lines in Jackson and Swain.

Many of these programs to help the addicted, ironically, are funded by profits from the casino. Tribal leaders get 50 percent of the profits to fund programs, and they have invested that money wisely. Most all agree that having alcohol at the casino could lead to a substantial jump in profits. That means more money to build facilities like schools or public health clinics.

Tribal leaders and Harrah’s managers have decided to position Cherokee and the casino as a destination resort. That means they want Cherokee and Harrah’s to be a place people will come to for several days at a time, and research shows those travelers want the ability to have a beer or a drink should they desire.

Much of the opposition to alcohol at the casino comes from those who are morally opposed to drinking. The only point to make here is that alcohol — like gambling — is a choice, and those who are opposed to it should continue to argue and debate their side of this. Opponents deserve to be heard, and it remains to be seen who will win the day in this historic vote.

In a debate that has strayed into the arena of morality, it seems belittling to bring up the sour economy. But the economic slowdown in Western North Carolina has affected thousands of families, depriving them of work and the money necessary to take care of themselves. Harrah’s has become the region’s — not just Cherokee’s — most important economic engine. If its profits go up, then nearly 2,000 workers and dozens of small companies in and around the region — along with the 14,000 Cherokee who receive per capita checks — will have more money to spend.

The casino has brought a new prosperity to Cherokee and helped the entire region. There are many more positives than negatives in helping that business by allowing it to offer alcohol to its patrons.

By Jim Janke

When our house was being built it became obvious that we needed to hide two 40 feet long by 10 feet high retaining walls. These walls were the first things you noticed when looking at the south side of the house, detracting from the overall landscape design. How to cover these walls quickly?

First we painted the retaining walls a darker color to make them less noticeable. Then we planted Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata, also called ‘Japanese Creeper’). It grew moderately the first year, then took off. By the end of the third season it had completely covered both retaining walls. Boston ivy is truly a four season plant. Glossy green foliage hides the walls in spring and summer, the leaves turn a gorgeous burgundy in the fall, and the many crossing limbs with blue berries provide good winter interest.

Compared to English ivy (Hedera helix), Boston ivy is faster growing and will tolerate more sun. English ivy is evergreen; Boston ivy loses its leaves in the fall. English ivy forms small rootlets along the stem to attach to trees and banks; Boston ivy attaches to surfaces using tendrils with small, circular discs at the tips. These tendrils might damage porous wood surfaces, but will not harm cement board siding.

Plant Boston ivy in full sun to part shade. Use it as a standard ground cover, to grow up walls or trees, or to cover banks, fences, trellises or topiary frames. Boston ivy grows fast to 50 feet and is relatively disease and pest free. The only maintenance required is to cut it back every month or so to keep it contained in your desired planting area. I use a long reach pruner to keep it off the house walls.

Add plenty of organic matter to the planting hole. Plant 5 to 6 feet apart, at the same depth the plants were in the pot from the nursery. Keep moist the first year. While Boston ivy is drought tolerant, water thoroughly during dry periods, because each plant supports a huge amount of foliage. Use a balanced fertilizer each spring.

Boston ivy might be difficult to find locally. I purchased plants from Bluestone Perennials (www.bluestoneperennials.com), a company I’ve done business with for many years. Many other sources are listed on the internet.

Boston ivy grows on the walls of Wrigley Field in Chicago. If it’s hardy there, you’ll have no problem growing it in the friendly confines of the Carolina mountains.

Jim Janke is a Master Gardener Volunteer in Haywood County. For more information call the Haywood County Extension Center at 828.456.3575.

1900s

Logging and lumber companies built railroads, camp towns and timber camps, slashing across the landscape while fueling an economic boom.

1923

National Park Service Director Stephen Mather voices his support for creation of a national park in the East.

1925

A Southern Appalachian National Park Committee is sanctioned to scout locations for a park. Proponents in North Carolina and Tennessee join forces and lobby for the Great Smoky Mountains.

1926

President Calvin Coolidge signs a bill endorsing the establishment of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Fundraising begins.

1927

John D. Rockefeller Jr. pledges $5 million for land acquisition. The money will only be made available when the two states can raise enough funds to match the donation.

1927

North Carolina appoints a commission to begin buying land for the park.

1930

Representatives from both states including Gov. Henry Horton of Tennessee and Gov. Max O. Gardner of North Carolina travel to Washington, D.C., to present 158,876 acres in deeds to the U.S. government. It is enough land to get a park started. The National Park Service sends the Smokies’ first superintendent and a crew of rangers to monitor and protect the area.

1933

The Civilian Conservation Corps is created, providing a large labor pool of young men to build roads, trails, campgrounds and park buildings. The Smokies was home to more CCC workers than anywhere else, with 4,350 men in a total of 17 camps up and running within the first year. Their work continued for nearly a decade.

1933

A motor access road across Newfound Gap, elevation of 5,046 feet, connecting North Carolina and Tennessee was opened.

June 15, 1934

Congress passes legislation creating the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, realizing the dream of the many who had supported the idea so vehemently.

Sept. 2, 1940

Thousands gather at Newfound Gap to hear President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicate the park. Standing on the recently finished Rockefeller Memorial, with one foot in each state, FDR speaks of the importance of preservation, but also of the growing conflict in Europe.

1941

Park visitation tops 1 million for the first time. By 2000, visitation peaks at 10 million visitors a year, but dropped back to 9 million by 2008. The Smokies continues to see more visitors than any other park.

The Nantahala Gorge contributes $85 million to the local economy each year, and is the primary reason many tourists make their first visit to Western North Carolina, according to the results of an economic impact study conducted by Western Carolina University.

The report, completed in March, provides the first comprehensive look in more than a decade of the economic impact of the whitewater rafting industry. Gorge rafting outfitters hope the numbers will finally convince state tourism officials to spend more dollars promoting the rafting industry.

“We sometimes feel sort of like the redheaded stepchild,” said Ken Kastorff, owner of Endless River Adventures. “It’s a huge economic driver, and to some degree we’re not getting the support we need.”

Surveys distributed to more than a thousand Gorge visitors revealed the area is key in drawing tourists to the region. More than 60 percent of respondents revealed the Gorge is what brought them to WNC in the first place. The majority — 70 percent — came to the area to raft or kayak. Another 18 percent were in the Gorge to ride the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad. Sixty percent said they would “definitely” return to the region within the next year based on their experience.

According to the report, Gorge visitors earn an income far above the national median. A third of Gorge visitors earn more than $100,000 each year; and another third earn more than $65,000 in a year.

And visitors to the area are likely to flex their significant spending power. Adult visitors to the Gorge spend about $250 each in the region on lodging, food, shopping, attraction admissions, and transportation. They stay an average of five nights per trip at lodging facilities throughout the western counties.

Gorge businesses and employees also make a big impact on the region’s economy. Businesses shell out $5.7 million in local taxes each year, and Gorge employees spend nearly $2,000 each month at local establishments.

David Huskins, president of Smoky Mountain Host, hopes that the Gorge economic impact report is the first of several focusing on major tourist attractions along the U.S. 19 corridor, including heritage attractions on the Eastern Band of Cherokee reservation and the economic impact of Ghost Town in the Sky amusement park.

By John Beckman • Guest Columnist

The concept of wealth has been sideswiped over the last few decades. It seems that the former notion of amassing assets through hard work and sacrifice, and using them to do philanthropic community good, has given way to a “What’s in it for Me?” assumption. I fear that we are losing the sense of real value in our relationships to society and to each other, mauled by advertising hype and incredibly lousy role models. Stuff has taken over substance, and excessive quantity trounced true quality. It appears that many people confuse wealth with belongings, when genuine belonging can only come from our alliance with and connection to others. Will this recession finally slay the American mega-consumer and the more is better mindset?

I recently had a visit from an old friend, old in several ways and a friend in many. We met when he was 53 and I was a hell-bent 16-year-old. Little did I know at the time how rich and deep his friendship would become. He had just retired from a 33-year career in the Army and was setting out single-handedly to restore a now sad but once grand brick mansion two doors up from my parent’s house. I needed teen money and told him I could for anything for $5 an hour.

We’ve kept in close touch for the past three and one-half decades, so, when he turned 87, I sent him a plane ticket to Asheville to come and see how great life is in Western North Carolina. As experienced local hosts know, there is a lot for visitors to see and do here in a few days to try to capture the diverse flavors the mountains have to offer. Fortunately, with my guest being almost 90, I could eliminate extreme rock-climbing, marathon biking, Class V rapids and thru-hiking the A.T., which was fine by me and my aging knees. There are plenty of less strenuous options in these parts for those wise in years.

My friend is a great one for careful observation and critical analysis of what he sees, examining things in their own context and how they associate with all things around it, rather than from some vacuous arena or prejudice. I haven’t found too many people who can do this, and these are some of the best kinds of friends, as they often challenge their friends to define and distill their positions for deeper understanding and insights.

On a ride down US 441 to visit my former farm, my friend commented on the over-abundance of U-Store-It units littering the sides of the road, which led to a discussion about over-consumption, lost priorities and a drifting mindset in much of America, afloat on an ocean of socially-hyped inadequacy. The general conclusion was that if a person has the means to meet their basic necessities and just a little bit extra, then they are in the eyes of the world, wealthy. Friendships and involvement in one’s community and the accompanying sense of belonging do not require hordes of cash nor huge houses full of stuff. By working cooperatively to improve the surroundings for the greater majority of a society, the individual life is made richer, more meaningful and of greater value to others.

I introduced him to my friends the baker, the brewer, the restaurant owner, my garden helper, my postmaster, innkeeper, landscaper friend, septic installer and any friends we’d see on the street. Each one seemed a treat to share. We took in a HART production, photographed historic sites, dropped in a couple galleries and I noticed again just how great friends make great moments happen. We talked late into the night after my wife had left us to “solve the problems of the world.” Our discourses ran the gamut from politics to power tools, logic verses emotion, and from interpreting the Constitution to photographing clouds. These are rich times, I thought, as I drifted to sleep.

On the last night of his visit we splurged on $3 cigars topped off with shots of very average blended scotch over ice, and a couple hours on the porch overlooking the constantly changing waters of the creek. I felt a sense of richness deeply listening to the creek and the voice of a friend, wanting for nothing more than what I had at the moment. I wouldn’t have traded places with Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, assets be damned.

I met a new friend recently I look forward to sharing time with, and headed to Raleigh recently to lay to rest another I have much enjoyed for the past 25 years. Friendship, as it turns out, is true wealth, gathered over time and best when shared with others, glittering more than all the gold of Midas and the best investment a person can make.

(John Beckman is a farmer, builder and observer living in Cullowhee. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .)

Zach’s Barbecue Pork:

Zach takes a Boston Butt pork shoulder — the cheaper cut of meat the better. He marinates the pork overnight in a salt water and molasses mix. The next morning he removes the pork from the marinate and applies a rub of salt, pepper, paprika, chili powder, a little cayenne, garlic powder and onion powder. Zach cannot tell the exact amounts of the spices as he just adds them to taste. He smokes the pork over a charcoal and soaked hickory wood fire (keeping it at about 225 degrees) for about 10 hours in a domed smoker. Throughout the 10-hour process, he moistens the pork with an apple cider vinegar based (eastern Carolina style) sauce — if this is vague, so is Zach concerning his secret ingredients. When the pork is done, he removes the shoulder from the smoker and the pork is pulled apart with forks. More of the sauce can be added to taste.

Bourbon Baked Beans

6 strips of thick cut bacon

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped

1/2 red bell pepper, coarsely chopped

1/2 green bell pepper, coarsely chopped

1 jalapeno, more or less to your taste, coarsely chopped

1 can (15 ounces) black beans, drained and rinsed with cold water

1 can (15 ounces) red kidney beans, drained and rinsed with cold water

1 can (16 ounces) Bush’s Original Baked Beans

1/2 cup of barbecue sauce

1/2 cup of catsup

? cup bourbon

4 tablespoons molasses

2 teaspoons dry mustard

? teaspoon salt

1 bay leaf

Cook bacon strips. Remove from heat and slice into small pieces. Using the leftover bacon grease, saute the onion and peppers until wilted. Add the bacon pieces, onions, and peppers to the rest of the other ingredients in a baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. You can taste the bourbon in this dish!

Grilled Vegetables

I like to use a variety of fresh vegetables: yellow and green squash, green, yellow and red bell peppers, onions, asparagus, sliced beets, eggplant. After slicing the vegetables, I cover them with a thin layer of olive oil and Italian salad dressing. I also sprinkle some Italian seasoning over the vegetables as they cook over medium coals. This does not take very long—just long enough to make nice grill marks and produce tender vegetables. You want them a little crunchy.

My Favorite Slaw

Mix 1/2 cup oil (I like canola), 1/2 cup malt vinegar and 2/3 cup white sugar. I mix this in a jar and shake frequently.

Brown 1 package Ramen noodles (do not use the seasoning mix), 2/3 cup sunflouwer seeds, ? cup broken pecans with ? stick of butter over medium high heat for about 5-7 minutes. Butter burns easily so keep stirring.

Mix the browned noodle mixture with a large bag of coleslaw mix and 5 chopped green onions. Add the dressing and stir to toss. This is easy and delicious.

Peace Cake

1 cup of butter, softened

? cup shortening

3 cups sugar

5 eggs

3 cups of unsifted plain flour

? teaspoon baking powder

? teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract.

Beat the butter and shortening at medium speed of electric mixer until fluffy. Add sugar, beat well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt; add alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour. Add extracts. Grease and flour a 13 X 9-inch sheet pan.. Bake for 1 hour. Let cool and frost with white icing.

Seven-Minute White Icing

1 ? cups of sugar

2 egg whites

5 tablespoons cold water

? teaspoon cream of tartar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In top of double boiler, place sugar, egg whites, water, and cream of tartar. Beat until thoroughly blended. Place over rapidly boiling water; beat with electric hand mixer for seven minutes. Remove from heat,; add vanilla. Continue beating until icing is of spreading consistency. Frost cake and decorate with fruit. For the 4th of July, strawberries and blueberries can be used to design a peace sign, an American flag—well, you get the idea!

By Karen Dill • Guest Writer

July brings warm and often muggy weather to the usually cool mountain glens. It brings hot sultry afternoons with thunderstorms and the smell of snakes in the damp air. July brings the occasional mosquito and, worse, relatives from far-off places who are longing for a cooler (and free) vacation for a week or two.

Although no one that I knew in Bethel had air conditioning in the late 50’s (and wouldn’t for a couple of more decades), our beautiful mountains became the mecca for savvy tourists who discovered that green trees and cool mountain streams provided relief from the hot city streets. It was cheap relief, especially if you had relatives who would willingly put you up without complaint. And though entertainment was limited, the visitors to our mountains seemed to find contentment in our evening rituals.

Most summer evenings were spent sitting in the front yard after supper watching lightning bugs dot first the ground and then the night sky. This marvelous form of entertainment was satisfying for both adults and children. Some families even allowed their children to capture the bugs in Mason jars as an extension of this entertainment. The holes punched in the tops of the metal lids might assure their existence until the wee hours of the next morning.

My mother did not approve of the capturing of the bugs and their ultimate demise. “It just seems mean,” she’d say and I passed on her disapproval of the practice to my own children. Lightning bugs are meant to enjoy in the wild and to remain free, I’d tell my children. They are living creatures, after all and deserved our respect. My daughter carried this noble principle into neighborhood squabbles over the imprisonment of lightening bugs in our own small town of Webster and the catch and release practice became part of the July tradition of growing up in the mountains.

When July rolled around, the summer seemed almost perfect. The days were warm and long; the nights cool and clear. School was out. The summer air permeated with the smells of outdoor cooking, newly mowed grass and sweet honeysuckle is a memory that is forever etched in my mind.

But alas, the bucolic mood did not last for long. For during the week of July 4, the relatives came and tranquility was suspended.

The relatives came from New Jersey. My father’s older brother who had grown up in Bethel had relocated up North after World War II when he married a Northern woman and proceeded to sire two children who were New Jersey northern-bred through and through. It was during these annual visits that I came to understand the origins of the Civil War. Northerners were just different (strange actually) and certainly did not understand our Southern ways.

When Uncle Charlie came for the annual visit, he did not come alone. He brought his two children and his wife, Aunt Margaret. I suspect that Aunt Margaret quickly tired of these visits as her sister-in-laws were as different as night from day from her. Aunt Margaret was a razor-sharp, quick, outspoken businesswoman who had little in common with my sweet, docile aunts. I loved her brazen remarks, but I suspect she was content to stay in New Jersey and work (free of husband and children) for a couple weeks rather than make the pilgrimage south. I missed her.

The cousins, however, were a different story. They were quickly bored with our “hillbilly” ways. My family had neither television nor telephone, so my entertainment consisted of reading books borrowed from the Canton Library.

The cousins laughed at our mountain accents, ridiculed our neighbors who used an outdoor toilet — we called it their “Johnny house” — and were generally disdainful of our food, our outdated clothing, and our lack of any real entertainment. But worse, they thought that lightning bugs should be captured and imprisoned (without trial) in glass jar jails. They just didn’t understand our mountain ways.

And so, while the first weeks of July were spent accompanying the relatives on mountain hikes, picnics, and fishing trips that my Uncle Charlie organized, I was also secretly freeing lightning bugs. By the end of visit, we were all ready for the grand finale — the family reunion cookout. The uncles would gather early on a Saturday afternoon to light charcoal for the grilling. All manners of meat would be cooked over the hot coals — pork roasts, chickens, hamburgers, hot dogs and freshly caught mountain trout or catfish. The aunts would supply endless bowls of potato salad, baked beans, deviled eggs, banana pudding and more vegetables and desserts than I could name.

Conversation would start and stop as it does with families who have the past in common while the present is filled with jobs, children’s activities and friends. The joys of aging are many (wisdom, experience, self-confidence), but few rival the joy of entertaining people that you truly enjoy spending time with in your own backyard. “Family” becomes a redefined term. It not only encompasses the blood relatives but close friends of our own choosing.

At this year’s July 4 cookout, we had both.

Our son, Zach was here for a short visit from his home in St. Petersburg, Fla., and he was in charge of grilling the main dish — pork roast — and making fresh mozzarella cheese. Unlike the relatives of my childhood, Zach grew up here in Webster and respects our rules and our mountain ways. He is also a spectacular cook who understands the chemistry of beer and cheese making and prepares pork with skills that his parents have yet to master.

Zach begins the evening before the cookout. He labors throughout the evening and into the next evening to bring the wonderful smoked pork to our table. I prepare bourbon baked beans, slaw, grilled vegetables, fresh tomatoes with the mozzarella cheese that Zach has prepared and in honor of the 4th of July, a simple sheet cake decorated with fresh fruit. I decide to dub it the “peace cake” after constructing a red and blue peace sign with blueberries and strawberries over white icing on the cake. It does take on a patriotic flair when I place candles that sparkle when lit. These candles (along with the lightening bugs) will be our fireworks.

The meal comes together through a communal effort. Everyone pitches in and shreds the pork under Zach’s careful watch. The vegetables are guarded around the grill by a revolving staff of guests. Everyone carries a dish to the patio as we prepare to dig in and enjoy the meal.

As our family and friends cookout winds down, we grin across the messy meal at each other in a familiar way. With family (both chosen and blood kin), it is acceptable to eat heartily and make a mess without apology. Silence is not uncomfortable and a quiet belch is blessing for the good food shared.

The peace cake is delivered to the patio amid cheers and I light the candles that sparkle like fireworks. It is not a pretty cake, but we make an optimistic toast nevertheless to the prospect of future world peace. For when family and friends can join together for a cookout, chat comfortably around a fire and share in the preparation of good food on an ordinary neighborhood patio, then maybe peace is possible. The seeds of hope seem to flourish in the quiet warmth of a July evening when simple acceptance of family (warts and all) is honored. The mosquitoes as well as annoying relatives have stayed away. Even the lightning bugs (free from the confines of a glass jar) blink their approval.

(Karen Dill can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

By Andre A. Rodriguez • Special to the Smoky Mountain News

It’s been at least a dozen years since Waynesville’s leaders began contemplating a public skate board park to provide a safe alternative to illegal skating on streets and parking lots.

The town bans skateboarding on sidewalks and most town streets. Violaters face a $50 fine and the possibility of having their boards confiscated.

But it doesn’t always stop them, whether it’s risking a stealth nighttime run through the town’s six-story parking deck or staging a mass ride down the middle of Main Street, as was the case in a rare display of public disobedience by young skaters a couple of years ago.

Waynesville Alderman Gary Caldwell, a long-time advocate of a town skate park, sees skaters taking up their sport wherever they can, often in private parking lots.

“The other day I was taking my mom for a stroll at the Brian Center on the outside, and I saw little guys over at Garrett Funeral Home’s extra parking lot skating and jumping up on that rail,” said Caldwell. “We’ve got to make [a skate park] happen soon.”

The town set aside $70,000 toward the park a dozen years ago and are now waiting to hear if they will be awarded a matching $70,000 grant from the state Parks and Recreation Trust Fund and town Parks and Recreation Department, Director Rhett Langston said.

Langston said he hopes he has good news to deliver about the grant soon, but the General Assembly’s delay in approving a budget has also delayed the grant process. The grant was tentatively scheduled to be awarded in July, but the date has been pushed back to at least Aug. 21, Langston said.

“It’s going to be stiff competition, more so than usual,” Langston said, citing the state budget crunch.

Park plans

Plans for the skate park call for a fenced-in, outdoor facility on the site of the former horse ring on Vance Street. It will join the sprawling town recreation complex along Richland Creek, where playgrounds, tennis courts, picnic shelters, ball fields, a greenway, a dog park, a track, and the Waynesville Recreation Center are clustered.

The park would be free to use, but skaters would be required to pay a small registration fee so the Parks and Recreation Department can keep track of who is using the facility. The town would maintain the facility, Caldwell said, but “I think it’ll be well maintained and taken care of by [the skaters]. I think that they’ll respect it and take very, very good care of it themselves.”

Skateboarders will be required to wear helmets, and knee and elbow pads, unlike at BP Skate Park in Balsam, where many area boarders go to skate, particularly on inclement weather days since BP is an indoor facility.

The topic was an issue of contention during a public opinion meeting held in March 2008. Many experienced skaters said they don’t like skating in full pads because the pads limit motion and can be uncomfortable while skating on hot days.

Langston said there is no wiggle room for the full pads requirement, which is mandated by state law. He said he’s spoken with other municipal skate park operators who have said people still come to skate despite the requirement they be fully padded.

Brick by brick

While Langston awaits word on the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund grant, he announced that the Waynesville Kiwanis gave a $20,000 grant to the project. The park will be named the Waynesville Kiwanis and Parks and Recreation Skate Park, he said.

As families return from summer vacations and school gets cranking again, the fundraising effort is expected to kick into high gear. Langston said he plans to hold a fundraising meeting in mid-September. In the meantime, the town is selling bricks that will be used for a walkway leading to the park’s entrance. The four-inch by eight inch bricks can contain up to three lines of personalized text with 20 characters per line per brick. The bricks can be purchased for $50 each or two for $75. Langston did not have a total for the brick sale but did say sales were going “very well.”

“That’s been an ongoing event, and so far we‘ve been very pleased with it,” he said. “We’re trying to take that idea and get more aggressive.”

Langston said he hopes to get more young people involved in the fundraising effort since they’re the ones who will benefit from the project. The park is also looking for individual donors and corporate sponsors, who can get their name permanently placed on a dedication sign at the park.

Those interested in purchasing a brick, making a donation, or volunteering for the fundraising committee are asked to contact Langston at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 828.456.2030.

A workshop on how to build a simple greenhouse will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, July 30, as part of the “Gardening in Cowee” series at the Rickman Store in Macon County.

Vegetable growers can easily extend the gardening season during the fall and continue producing into the winter by building a simple and very affordable green house that allows some vegetables to survive the cold weather.

Participants will help build what’s called a “tunnel” greenhouse, made from PVC pipe, wood and construction grade plastic, all held together with bolts and screws. The light structure is moveable or can be left in one place in the garden. A list of materials, diagrams and instructions will be provided to take home.

The workshop will be led by Ron Arps, a farmer in Jackson County with a Community Supported Agriculture operation. Arps is also a founding member of the project CREATE (Community Response for Energy Action and Transition Education), which promotes creative alternatives for people to grow their own food, build their own buildings, power their own transportation, produce power for their homes, and transform lifestyles to reduce fossil fuel consumption to help address the effects of climate change.

Rickman General Store is a community gathering place located on Cowee Creek Road, next to Cowee Elementary School, seven miles north of Franklin via on N.C. 28. 828.369.5595.

All-winter greenhouse harnesses power of the sun

A workshop on how to build a passive solar greenhouse will be held at 9 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 8, at Harvest Moon Gardens on Greens Creek in Sylva.

The greenhouse pattern is borrowed from Suncatcher Design Group, which employs proper design, materials and orientation to create a greenhouse that stays warm all winter relying only on the sun. Marsha Crites of Harvest Moon Gardens learned about the style during this year’s Organic Growers School from an environmental studies professor at Appalachian State.

“When I heard that a passive system in the Boone area could keep a greenhouse at 55 degrees Fahrenheit when the outside temperature was minus-2 degrees, I was sold,” Crites said.

Harvest Moon Gardens is a small retreat center and home to Crites’ landscape and garden design business.

“The elevation here is about 2,900 feet, and while winters seem to be increasingly mild in Western North Carolin, I like knowing that the perennials and herbs I cultivate for my business will be safe on even the coldest of winter nights without the use of electricity and other complex systems,” Crites said. “I may also use the greenhouse to grow salad greens and other vegetables that will keep me and my retreat guests eating healthy, fresh produce all year.”

Cost is $30 and includes lunch and dinner, including a campfire. There are still a couple spaces left. 828.586.2726 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

By Jim Janke

Every summer one or two people bring samples of ugly little insects into the plant clinic and ask how to get them out of their home. If the insects in the picture are also in your home, you have millipedes. Here are some ways to minimize this problem.

Millipedes are attracted to dark, cool, moist environments that are rich in organic matter, such as compost piles, mulched areas, or under logs. When conditions become too hot and dry they move to find moisture. In the fall they move in search of overwintering sites. They do not bite, sting, or transmit diseases. When disturbed they curl up into a circle and remain motionless. They crawl slowly and protect themselves by secreting a compound with an unpleasant odor. Millipedes do not survive indoors for very long unless they find moist conditions.

The best way to prevent a millipede infestation is to make them uncomfortable close to your home. Organic mulch in contact with the foundation is a primary home for millipedes, so moving it 6 inches or so away from the house wall will help quite a bit. Or use inorganic mulch like stone or gravel. Keep any other organic materials away from the foundation. Check your downspouts, faucets, and air conditioner drip lines to keep water from puddling. Keep your lawn de-thatched to make it a less millipede-friendly environment.

Keeping cracks sealed, having sweeps on entry doors, and caulking door thresholds where they contact the foundation will also help. My home is fairly new, and all of these joints are supposedly tight, but the millipedes find their way in anyway.

A pesticide application around the perimeter of the foundation will help. You must apply an adequate volume to coat all surfaces of the mulch or plant material, because the pesticide needs physical contact with the millipedes to kill them. A dilute application with a hose-end sprayer is best, but even this will not be 100 percent effective. Remember to read and understand the label of any chemical you use, and follow those instructions exactly.

Applications of insecticides along baseboards and other interior living areas of the home do not stop millipede invasions. Sticky mouse traps will collect those that are moving around on smooth floors. If you have an infestation larger than you can handle with a vacuum or broom, call in a professional exterminator.

Jim Janke is a Master Gardener Volunteer in Haywood County. For more information call the Haywood County Extension Center at 828.456.3575.

As the inventory of every living species in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park trudges into its tenth year, it turns out the biggest hunt so far isn’t for obscure slime molds or nocturnal flies — it’s for taxonomists to do the counting.

“In the beginning we cast a wide net: all these things need to be researched and if you want to do that, come,” said Todd Witcher, the director of Discover Life in America. “Now the park is wanting to look at things that are understudied. There are cases where there just is nobody to do it.”

Witcher’s pitch to lure hard-to-get taxonomists — beyond simply being part of the world’s premier species inventory — includes the thrill of finding and naming a new species.

“The idea of discovering a new species is intriguing,” Witcher said. “That’s why they are in science or taxonomy.”

As more national parks and preserves follow in the footsteps of the Smokies and launch their own all-species inventories, the global shortage of taxonomists is becoming even more apparent. The competition for experts in an already strained field makes it unclear how or when the Smokies’ All-Taxa Biological Inventory will eventually conclude.

“When it comes to getting taxonomists in a field where there are no experts, it’s hard to predict how long some of that will take,” Witcher said.

By Andre A. Rodriguez

Each morning of the Folkmoot festival, the members of Shalom Israel Ashdod spend at least one hour getting warmed up for the day, working on staying in shape by doing ballet.

Then the group — including musicians — spends at least another hour practicing the dance programs it will present to audiences later in the day. The dance troupe arrived in Waynesville after two days in New York and rehearsed two full days prior to the beginning of the 26th annual Folkmoot festival.

Even though the dancers have practiced and performed the dances probably hundreds of times, the quest for perfection continues and might never be attained.

“Usually the group is working all the year, all the time,” said dancer Moshe Gino, who has been with the group for 15 years. “We don’t work only for a festival. This is working all year. We work three times a week for three hours at a time.

The constant rehearsing is necessary, he said, because while the traditions, dances and music stay the same, the dancers are always changing.

“We need to teach the new dancers and combine them with the old dancers to make the art good on the stage. It’s important that on the stage you look good to the audience to enjoy the Israeli folklore, Gino said.”

The dedication to the art displayed by Shalom Israel Ashdod is representative of the many international folk dance troupes who take part in Folkmoot festival. Many of the dancers and musicians are professionals or “semi-professionals,” as Gino refers to the members of his group.

But Gino, as well as his father, Hilik Gino, who leads the group’s rehearsals, are professionals. Hilik Gino studied dancing in New York at the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance along with Alvin Ailey and French dancer Roland Petit, Moshe Gino said.

In addition to Shalom Israel Ashdod, Hilik Gino runs several other groups in and around the Israeli port city of Ashdod.

“They are different styles. Everything is very, very unique. Every group has their own performance and choreography,” said Moshe Gino, who will be traveling to Los Angeles after Folkmoot to teach another dance group his father worked with there.

Why all the work? For the performance.

“This is the most important thing for a dancer — to perform before an audience,” Gino said. “It’s hard to wake up in the morning, most of the dancers didn’t sleep very well, so to wake up in the morning and start to work you need a lot of power. But when you’re at a performance you get power from the audience. That’s usually what happens. The bigger the performance, you are excited more and you are giving more to the audience usually. It makes you more nervous and gives you more pressure and gives you more energy.”

Keeping performers happy

Working behind the scenes at the Folkmoot Friendship Center, the kitchen staff also does its part to keep the Folkmoot performers energized by serving up about 1,700 meals a day, which include lots of fruits, vegetables, beans and rice, and macaroni and cheese, said morning shift kitchen manager Lake Williams.

“They love the American macaroni and cheese,” she said.

The kitchen staff prepares mostly traditional American foods but also takes into account dietary needs of the visiting groups, including providing vegetarian meals and ensuring dishes do not contain pork.

The healthy, hardy meals are appreciated by the dancers and go a long way toward ensuring the dancers enjoy their Folkmoot experience.

“Look, these dancers, they paid a lot of money to come to the festival, and if they don’t enjoy themselves they don’t have any reason to come next year,” Gino said. “So what happens inside the Folkmoot Center is very important to the festival, because without this any festival cannot exist.”

Shalom Israel Ashdod seems to really enjoy the Folkmoot experience. This year marks the group’s fourth visit to North Carolina’s Official International Festival. The group also performed at Folkmoot in 1995, 1998 and 2001.

“This is an amazing place,” said Gino, who was with the group for each visit.

The amount of interaction that goes on between the groups at Folkmoot also helps the group members enjoy themselves and want to keep coming back.

“You need all the socialization,” Gino said. “It’s an amazing thing to meet other people from other cultures,” especially when meeting groups with similar backgrounds and shared stories.

“Sometimes when we go to a festival there is an Arab country like Egypt or Armenia, countries that don’t have very good relationships with Israel, but they were our best friends because the Arab nation is very similar to Israel.

“There are many people in Israel who came from Arab nations,” such as Morocco, as did Gino’s father.

“So there is the same music, same subjects to talk about, to enjoy,” Gino said. “A lot of Israeli people speak Arabic.

“When you meet other cultures I think it’s changing,” he said. “You look at other points of view. It’s changing because you see that everybody is similar. All the people are very similar. All the people want to have fun, to enjoy meeting other people, to make connections. It’s the same in every culture, in every state, in every human being. You understand how simple it is and how other people make it not simple.”

The work that goes into Folkmoot performances is hard, Gino said, but “the world is very easy.”

Sounds like Waynesville’s leaders heard just what they expected last week regarding South Main Street — many people feel many different ways, and so no matter what the outcome many are going to be unhappy.

Waynesville’s leaders and residents have a real challenge in front of them as they decide just how best to re-design this corridor. South Main Street connects two distinctly different areas — the thriving, historic town center and the new big box development that currently includes Super Wal Mart and Best Buy. Along the way are nice neighborhoods, lots of small businesses, and a lot of open asphalt parking areas. The challenge is to provide the right roadway to bring together two areas that have commonalities and are also, in many ways, polar opposites.

The state Department of Transportation has so far said it will adhere to the town’s wishes. They say this corridor is not connected at all to any of its thoroughfare plans to move mass numbers of vehicles, and so will defer on this one to town leaders and local opinion. That means local residents and towns apparently won’t end up fighting DOT for the road they want, which still happens way too often.

So what is best? It seems fairly obvious that a road that gets progressively smaller as it nears downtown’s portion of Main Street makes sense. Bike lanes and sidewalks should be included the entire length of the route. Waynesville has already established a reputation as a pedestrian-friendly community, and making these main corridors adhere to this long-range plan is obviously in the best interest of the town and its citizens.

The area between Country Club Drive and the entrance to Super Wal Mart will be the most difficult. Some businesses in this area likely won’t be around within a few years, but others are right now awaiting the decision on the roadway so they can complete plans. This is where some will walk away dissatisfied with the final decision. Some think it’s time to four-lane this area — a move that would lead to the razing of many buildings — while others like the haphazard collection of small, privately owned businesses. For some, that’s the character of Hazelwood.

“It seems like they are trying to get rid of old Hazelwood to beautify the town. That’s what the sole purpose is,” said Oma Lou Leatherwood at a public hearing on the road held last week at Hazelwood Elementary School.

For others, the need to re-develop the area is obvious: “It’s just really decrepit looking. They are never going to attract businesses if that stretch is so ugly,” said Joellen Habas.

And so, without doubt, there will be losers and there will be winners. Some aspects of what needs to be done here are obvious, but some decisions will likely be made on the gut instincts of town aldermen. Stay tuned.

A Hard Journey by James J. Lorence. University of Illinois Press, 2009. 344 pages.

Once on a warm, summer afternoon (circa 1957), I met Don West in the Townhouse Restaurant in Cullowhee. He was visiting his daughter, Hedy (a student at WCC) and talked easily about provocative topics: McCarthyism, HUAC, Eugene Debbs and union violence in Georgia. At one point, he indicated a well-dressed coffee-drinker at the counter and said, “See that guy? He is an FBI agent that follows me everywhere I go.” The coffee-drinker nodded and smiled. I was skeptical. Besides, I was 18, and most of my attention was focused on his daughter, Hedy.

When he got up to leave, he gave me a battered copy of Clods of Southern Earth and suggested that I read it; we could talk about it the next time we met, he said. I had no way of knowing that just a few months before our conversation, he had narrowly escaped lynching near Blairsville, Ga. Shortly after visiting Hedy, he would return to his farm in Douglasville to find his livestock poisoned, a KKK cross burning on his property and a government agent on his porch with another HUAC subpoena. I had just met what may well be the most controversial and significant poet, minister, activist and teacher in the last century of Appalachian history.

I found James J. Lorence’s biography to be a dense, difficult but rewarding book. Certainly, it presents a comprehensive portrait of a charismatic, flawed and driven man whose confrontational manner caused him (and his family) considerable hardship. Like an old storytelling friend of mine once observed about her own difficult life: “I have dug my grave with my tongue.” In a pulpit, a classroom or in crafting the lines of a “working man’s poem,” West possessed an astonishing gift: the power to persuade and inspire others. Yet, that same gift provoked his enemies to bring him down.

Born Donald Lee West on June 6, 1906, in Gilmer County, Cartecay, Ga., West’s early beliefs were shaped by his grandfather, Asberry Kimsey Mulkey. From an early age, Don was taught to believe in the inherent wisdom of common people, the equality of all men (anti-slavery) and the concept of Jesus Christ as a revolutionary. Raised in a family with a reverence for the power of words, music and oral tradition, Don learned to use them to promote his grandfather’s principles. These basic precepts remained with West throughout his life.

When West’s family moved to Cobb County and became sharecroppers, Don and his sister were ridiculed for their clothes at school. This experience, in conjunction with an encounter with educational “paternalism,” convinced Don that schools were attempting to eradicate his culture and replace it with middle-class values. Although he received a work scholarship to Berry College, Don quickly found himself expelled when he led a protest against the blatant racism in the film, “Birth of a Nation.”

Gaining admission to Lincoln Memorial University in east Tennessee, West becomes friends with Jesse Stuart and James Still, marries Connie Adams, decides to become a minister and moves to Vanderbilt, where he soon becomes involved in radicalism, strikes, unions and educational reform. A trip to Denmark convinced him that the Danish school system offered the solution to retaining traditional values in education.

At this point, West’s life becomes a striving for ideals that invariably brings him into conflicts with authority. His attempts to launch the Highlander Center (1933) in Monteagle, Tenn., with Miles Horton is successful, but leads to irreconcilable conflicts with Horton. Amid accusations that the Highlander was a “communist training center,” Don leaves and begins a series of erratic journeys (on his beloved Indian motorcycle). West’s nebulous involvement with the Communist Party causes many of his friends (including Jesse Stuart) to distance themselves from him. Eventually, West’s publicized ties with Communist and leftist politics forces him to seek work under an assumed name.

For much of West’s life, his mainstay is his wife Connie. A gifted teacher, she readily finds employment. Even when Don’s notoriety brings her dismissal as well (guilt by association), she frequently travels to Florida and other states to teach. She sends the money home to Don and her family. In time, she also becomes a talented artist.

Time and time again, West succeeds in an astonishing variety of ventures: a beloved superintendent in Hall County, Ga.; three years of teaching at Oglethorpe; a successful newspaper editor in Dalton, Ga.; the creation of the Appalachian Center at Pipestem (modeled after his beloved Danish school system); a series of awards, including Appalachian Writers Association, Berea College and the Lincoln Memorial Hall of Fame — all remarkable achievements.

Yet the majority of his successes turned to dust in his hands. His notoriety and his past involvement in radical activities results in his dismissal from Oglethorpe; the KKK and groups of anti-red organizations (including the American Legion) drove him from Dalton, and his major nemesis, Ralph McGill, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, is credited with driving West from Georgia. For a time he lived and taught in New York. Then came a realized dream at Pipestem.

Lorence’s biography gives a detailed account of how a battered and demoralized West retreated, again and again, to his farm in Georgia to seek renewal from the land. Even this final refuge is denied him when his farm is torched and his collection of 10,000 books destroyed — a tragedy that Don later claimed was provoked by Ralph McGill. However, the last decade of Don’s life was relatively peaceful, and was spent fundraising, teaching and promoting the Appalachian South Folklife Center at Pipestem. West died at the Charleston Area Medical Center in 1992.

This is what remains: His awards, his poetry and essays and the Appalachian South Folklife Center at Pipestem, West Virginia; the multitudes of students who still speak of him with respect, the lifetime friendship of people like Langston Hughes, Paul Green, Byron Herbert Reece and Arthur Miller; and the music of his daughter, Hedy, an art that owes its authentic beauty to the same forces that shaped her unrepentant father.

It may be that the final judgment of Donald Lee West’s significance is yet to be made. If Communism is finally a harmless scarecrow and if McCarthyism has been defanged, perhaps it is possible that we can finally give this angry, impatient and gifted man a fair hearing. He loved mountain people and honored them in every act that he performed. Let us finally acknowledge that.

(Gary Carden is a writer and storyteller who lives in Sylva. His current writings can be found at his blog, http://hollernotes.blogspot.com/.)

Although Wellco shoe plant in Waynesville is closing, the community will be spared the blight of another vacant industrial site.

Haywood Vocational Opportunities, which manufactures and assembles medical supplies, is buying the site to expand its own operations. HVO, which currently has 320 full-time employees, hopes to add 75 more within two years at the Wellco site.

“This certainly softens the blow,” said Mark Clasby, Haywood County’s Economic Development Director. “Obviously you hate to lose any jobs anytime, but fortunately in this situation, HVO has been a great success story for Haywood County.”

An expansion was already in the works for HVO. HVO was planning to buy a site in the Beaverdam Industrial Park near Canton, but will now utilize the Wellco site instead.

“It is very conducive to upfitting, upgrading and renovating to meet our needs,” said George Marshall, CEO of HVO.

The Wellco site is less than half a mile from HVO’s current operation. That proximity was the main factor in the decision, Marshall said.

HVO’s main product is medical drapes used during surgery. The company also assembles surgical kits — up to 800 a day — customized with the suite of instruments a particular doctor might need. The new space will be used to expand HVO’s production capacity and grow new product lines, Marshall said.

Clasby is grateful HVO stepped in to buy the Wellco site, even if it meant backing out of the deal in the industrial park. When it comes to courting new industry to set up shop, Clasby feels the 10-acre graded site in an industrial park on the side of Interstate 40 will eventually find a new taker. As for the old Wellco site, Clasby fears it would have been impossible to recruit a new tenant.

“Manufacturing companies are not interested in old buildings with lower ceilings,” Clasby said.

“The Wellco property probably would not have a lot of interest from manufacturing industry,” Marshall agreed.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Gaily colored petals of long-stemmed Cosmos flowers lilt along on the sea-swept winds that blow across Great Cranberry Island, located just off the coast of Maine where Patricia Bailey, an associate professor of art at Western Carolina University, is at work directing another season of artist residencies.

The sun sets against a low tree line, casting a warm pink light across the tidal basin and filling artists’ studios with the glow of evening. This is when painter and printmaker Joseph Norman comes alive. The self-proclaimed night owl created 30 works in the first week of his residency at the Heliker-LaHotan Foundation. Norman, former chair of painting and drawing and professor at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia, characterizes his works as expressive poetic realism spanning across several media.

“I hope to have a chance to reconnect with my creative spirit during this residency,” Norman said. “For me, this is a transitional period in my personal life and I have to retool before making the next move. I want to learn to work again in silence and become comfortable once again with being alone with my thoughts.”

Under a rising moon, Norman toils energetically in his temporary studio that houses a press and other equipment from the studio of the late artist Charles Wadsworth, a friend of the two artists whose home the foundation now operates as an artists’ sanctuary.

Formed in 1993, the foundation is dedicated to the artistic vision of the two painters, John Heliker and Robert LaHotan, who were its founders. Heliker had a long career in the New York art world. He taught at Columbia University, founded the New York Studio School and taught the master of fine arts painting program at Parsons School of Design. Winner of the Prix de Rome and a Guggenheim Fellowship, he showed widely and was the subject of the first retrospective exhibition in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s new building in 1968.

A Fulbright Scholar who earned his master of fine arts from Columbia University, LaHotan drew artistic inspiration from the landscape and contemporary impressionist painters including Matisse and Bonnard. He taught art at the Dalton School in New York for more than 30 years. In New York City and in Maine, the foundation is engaged in a variety of projects that perpetuate the painters’ legacy, including a residency program on Great Cranberry Island for painters and sculptors of established ability.

WCU’s Bailey met Heliker and LaHotan while living in New York. She earned her master of fine arts degree from the Pratt Institute in 1971, worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and taught at Parsons School of Design before coming to WCU in 2001.

Her long friendship with the artists led her to accept a leadership role on the Heliker-LaHotan Foundation’s board of trustees. When Heliker died in 2000, LaHotan charged the foundation’s board with forming a residency program that would celebrate Great Cranberry’s artist community, which included Ashley Bryan, Dorothy Eisner and Charles Wadsworth. With LaHotan’s death in 2002, Bailey worked diligently to open the Heliker-LaHotan home and studios to artists.

At home with Heliker & Lahotan

The landscape of Great Cranberry Island and community of artists there bade Heliker and LaHotan to purchase a 19th-century house and boatyards built by Capt. Enoch B. Stanley on a sheltered tidal pool that had once been the prosperous and busy harbor door to the island during clipper-ship days. The island was sparsely populated, with most residents working on farms or at sea; however, it was known as a shipbuilding center.

Great Cranberry is the largest of a group of five islands to the southeast of Bangor in the Gulf of Maine, near the entrance to Somes Sound and the two harbors that sit to either side of its mouth. Both Great and Little Cranberry islands, which got their names from the wild low-bush cranberries that grow there in the fall, still have small year-round populations of lobstermen and boat builders.

Heliker and LaHotan spent the most productive years of their lives painting on Cranberry in the summers and teaching and painting in New York during the winters. Their historic home has been left very much as it was while Heliker and LaHotan lived there. Artists each have private bedrooms and use of the living quarters. Three large bookcases offer a wealth of reading, and in the eat-in kitchen black-and-white tiled countertops stretch under a row of hanging skillets. Hardwood floors are found throughout and wide windowsills make an excellent perch for Bailey’s cats. A modest garden supplies some of the produce for residents’ meals, and mainland grocery stores deliver other supplies by ferry. The home-like feel is part of what makes the residency so welcoming to artists who may recognize the surrounding scenery in the work of their brethren - one of Walker Evans’ most famous photographs is of the home’s cast-iron parlor stove.

“The most inspiring aspect of my visit has been the connection to Heliker and LaHotan,” said Ruth Bernard, a neo-expressionist painter and adjunct professor of art at Penn State-Berks. “I feel I am an extension of them by continuing the tradition of the creative process begun by Heliker and LaHotan and others of their generation.”

The foundation welcomed its first four residents in 2006. In 2007, there were eight artists; 11 in 2008. This year the residency program will bring 15 for the three- to four-week residencies that are designed for artists of established ability. The group hails from locations stretching from Kaleva, Mich., to Memphis, Tenn., and Athens, Ga., to Audierne, France.

Residents must bring with them whatever materials they will need, as there is no source of art supplies on the island, and few on the mainland. It is recommended that such items be shipped ahead of time. The island’s ferries are more than a novelty, they are a way of life. There is a small post office, a general store, a community center, an exercise facility, and a single church with non-denominational services held only in the months of July and August.

The summer is when the island population swells to hundreds of part-time residents and summer vacationers; however, artists much embrace their seclusion. No more than three artists are in residence at a time. The island studios offer a wealth of natural light, views of the tidal basin and solitude on the private shore, which is what Heliker and LaHotan wanted.

“This place is so supportive of uninterrupted work,” Bailey said.

The Great Cranberry experience translates to a sense of intimacy within one’s works, said Susan Danly, curator of graphics, photography and contemporary art at the Portland Museum of Art, which recently hosted “Art of the Cranberry Isles.” The exhibit features 25 pieces from artists working on the Cranberry Islands throughout the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s.

John David Wissler, a painter from Pennsylvania, studied under Heliker at the Parson School of Design and saw the landscape and its spirit in Heliker’s works. He has made a special connection to the Heliker-LaHotan home during his residency.

“The place will be with me and in my work for quite some time,” Wissler said. “I knew it would be a place I would want to paint. It has been wonderful.”

Fostering the arts

With funding from a recently awarded stipend, Bailey this year will help further develop the residency program and support two exhibitions on Heliker’s work. One exhibition is being collected from Heliker’s drawings and associated materials from his time working on the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project, the first major attempt at government patronage of the visual arts in the United States and the most extensive and influential of the visual arts projects conceived during the Depression.

Heliker’s work is among the more than 100,000 easel paintings created during the project’s eight-year existence. David Lewis, associate professor of art history at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas, is developing the exhibit with research assistance from Tara Jones, a graduate of Western Carolina. The two have been going through the foundation’s extensive archives of Heliker’s work and pulling materials such as sketchbooks and letters that no one has seen since Heliker created them. Jones also is serving as the Heliker-LaHotan facility coordinator and Bailey’s assistant.

The artist’s connection

The foundation’s reach spread to Western Carolina’s Fine Art Museum, which is home to a donated 1989 Heliker painting titled “The Visit II.” The work was hung in 2005 during an inaugural exhibition “Worldviews: Selections from the Permanent Collection.” The work helps anchor the focus of the collection, and will greatly strengthen the museum’s teaching mission, said Martin DeWitt, founding director of WCU’s Fine Art Museum.

“As we examine the beautiful work of Mr. Heliker, we can discuss his early roots as a modernist, and trace his extraordinary journey as artist and teacher, the influence of which continues to this day,” DeWitt said.

The Fine Art Museum may in coming years become host to Lewis’ exhibit of Heliker’s WPA works. DeWitt has a special connection to the Heliker-LaHotan Foundation. Both his brothers, each of whom is a painter, will have completed residencies on Great Cranberry Island this year. The cultural round-robin also has meant that artists such as painter and printmaker Norman have appeared as visiting artists at WCU, and through this connection learned about the Heliker-LaHotan Foundation and are in turn exploring their creativity during a residency.

The artists’ vibrancy is contagious, Bailey said, and dinnertime conversations welcome lively discussion about academia, teaching methods and, of course, art. After time spent on the island, Bailey, who teaches drawing and painting, comes back to her campus classroom with a renewed sense of purpose.

“I’m energized,” Bailey said. “I’m energized by the artists I have the privilege of working with.”

For more information about the Heliker-LaHotan Foundation, visit www.heliker-lahotan.org/. Former WCU new media professor Katya Moorman designed the site, which is maintained by WCU alumnus Andrew Kinnear.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park boasts more volunteers than nearly any other park. Last year, 2,780 volunteers logged a total of 117,537 man-hours. They wielded Pulaskis on trails, handed out maps at visitor centers, donned historic costumes for heritage days, scooped ashes out of campfire rings and promoted ethical wildlife viewing during peak elk times in Cataloochee.

Some volunteers turn their commitment to the park into a full-time endeavor, like Jim Lowe of Robbinsville. The Smokies hit a home run when Lowe sought out the area in his retirement. With a Ph.D from Yale in entomology and botany, and a forest service career that centered around plants and bugs, Lowe not only has hours and passion to spare but a real knowledge of science.

Lowe found his true niche as a volunteer with the All Taxa Biological Inventory. During the height of ATBI insect collections, the 77-year-old Lowe made twice-monthly treks to Purchase Knob for three years to check insect traps.

To catch crawling insects, Lowe used a pitfall trap: a plastic jar sunk in the ground. Any bugs stumbling along would fall in and drown in a dose of propylene glycol, poisonous only to insects.

For flying critters, Lowe draped a large mesh net over a pole, called a malaise trap. When insects collide with the mesh, they have a naturally tendency to fly upwards looking for a way past the obstacle. But at the apex of the net, the insects found themselves face to face with a bottle of ethyl alcohol.

Since black bears would lap up the ethyl alcohol if given the chance, an electric fence was strung around the whole contraption.

After three years, the Park finally put the breaks on the intensive collection after running out of storage space for the insects.

“Literally thousands,” Lowe said.

Lowe wasn’t the only one making the weekly rounds to check traps. Similar stations were set up at 10 other sites in the park. Lowe frequently pinchhit for volunteers manning the other locations.

“Between that and my trail maintenance, I never hike recreationally any more,” Lowe said.

As an on-call volunteer, Lowe often gets the chance to rub elbows with the troop of researchers funneling through the Smokies on ATBI quests. Lowe has a boat on Fontana Lake and is often tapped to give researchers a lift across the water to the wild and remote North Shore area of the Park. One week it might be ornithologists snaring birds in mist nets, and scientists tracing water mites the next.

Lowe sometimes serves as a backcountry guide for what he calls the “intellectual types” with less than savvy outdoor skills.

The ATBI has overshadowed any semblance of retirement Lowe had to his name.

“It’s a long standing love of the park and wanting to contribute to the knowledge of it,” Lowe said. “At the risk of sounding sappy, I am just devoted to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It has been a great part of my life.”

By Andre A. Rodriguez

Twenty-five years after their father represented the Netherlands at the first Folkmoot festival, a second generation of folk dancers has arrived from Holland to take part in the two-week international dance festival.

Oscar and Victor Peeters weren’t even born when their father, Rene Peeters, came to Waynesville to perform, first in 1980 at a folk festival that was Folkmoot’s forerunner and then again in 1984 at the inaugural Folkmoot event.

Growing up, the brothers heard many tales about their father’s first trip to the United States and the international festivals to which their parents traveled — in addition to Folkmoot — in countries such as Israel, Italy, Portugal and Romania.

“I heard stories about festivals in a lot of countries, mostly in Europe,” said Oscar Peeters, 21. “My father was in the Waynesville festival, and he talked about America. That was his first visit (to the United States).”

“Just like us,” said Victor Peeters, 16. “This is our first visit (to the United States), too.”

Oscar and Victor Peeters’ mother, Lynda Hoekstra, is also making her first trip to the states. She is artistic director for Paloina, the Dutch group with which the brothers dance and with which she used to dance. She said her husband spoke fondly of the host family with whom he stayed in Waynesville. She said he also shared a frightening and slightly humorous anecdote about another group’s performance during the fledgling Folkmoot festival.

“There was a German group from the south of Germany, and they had a dance with axes,” Hoekstra said. “There was this big theater with a very new floor. Their dance didn’t go right, and one of the dancer’s axes hit the floor and made a hole.

“So that was one of the things he talked about and of course it was his first time to America as well,” she said. He spoke about the “big houses and big cars. It’s quite different than Holland.”

Another dancer performing with Paloina at this year’s Folkmoot shares a similar history with Oscar Peeters and Victor Peeters. Twenty-year-old Jan (pronounced “Yon”) Hootsmans said his mother, Maja Kuijper, was a singer with Paloina’s accompanying orchestra during the 1984 Folkmoot festival. Hootsmans joined Paloina when he was 16 and began dancing with members he grew up watching, he said.

“As a small kid I actually went to a festival with some of the people who are in the group right now, so they knew me as a 2-year-old and then as a 16-year-old.”

The young performers have been enjoying their first trip to the United States, which began with a few days in New York.

Victor Peeters said he enjoyed renting bikes and going cycling, while Oscar Peeters said his favorite part of the trip so far was looking up a Romanian gypsy band on the Internet and going to see them perform live “deep, deep in Brooklyn.”

As far as international folk festivals go, Folkmoot is one of the largest and most organized they’ve attended, Hoekstra and Hootsmans said.

“Everything from day one to day last is organized,” Hoekstra said. “When you come into the (Folkmoot Friendship Center) all the beds are made and they even give you towels and small bag with toiletries and it’s all so well done. The food is very good. They try to make it good for everybody.”

Making it good for everybody includes allowing the members of the groups from eight countries participating in this year’s festival to interact with others outside their group as much as possible.

Victor Peeters, who took part in the fourth annual Folkmoot 5K on Saturday (July 18), said it was an “awesome” experience.

“I think it was great running with all the different people and the locals,” he said.

Some other festivals only allow for interaction with their guides and bus drivers, said Victor Peeters.

“Mostly the guides at the other festivals are the representatives of the (host) company that have some ability in English,” Oscar Peeters said. “Here (at Folkmoot) everyone speaks English so you can converse with any person you want to.”

Hoekstra said she’s happy her sons have taken an interest in folk dancing, even though they only began participating about two years ago. It’s good for the continuity of the Paloina, which was founded in 1971.

“There were years when some of the older ones stopped dancing and then we had a period when not too many dancers were ready as far as joining the other dancers,” she said. “So you feel it’s good to share the information you know to not only the next generation but also to people who are a few years behind you because it’s good to continue the dance.”

Hootsmans has two younger brothers who dance with Paloina’s children’s group, to whom he feels he has a responsibility to pass on what he’s learned.

“I have a feeling they’ll probably be joining our group in a few years,” he said. “I’ll be there to mentor them at that point as well as some younger guys who are dancing in that children’s group right now.”

By Carl Iobst • Guest Columnist

Over the past few weeks several individuals and one media outlet have provided Jackson County citizens with a comedic Greek Chorus concerning the Jackson County commissioners and their decision to condemn the Dillsboro Dam and the land around it. News stories that have been written about the commissioners supposed ‘exercise in futility’ have come seemingly from a corporate spin doctor’s pen. Other individuals have attempted to “shame” us for not ‘doing the right thing’ and allowing Duke to have its way and destroy a county icon and significant cultural resource.

One individual claims that the powers of a private corporation (Duke) supersede the powers of a duly elected body (Jackson County Commissioners). Pardon me; I thought that the United States was a republic and not an oligarchy. Things change I suppose, despite ‘silly little pieces of paper’ such as the Constitution of the United States.

The supposed “cornerstone” of the integrated Nantahala/Tuckaseigee 2003 Settlement Agreement was actually an “agreement” rammed though by Duke as a sop to the “stakeholders” and their own selfish agendas. This silenced the rest of the environmental community and curried favor with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Duke’s “Great Fear” is that they won’t get another half century of a licensed monopoly on hydro-electric production in Jackson County and make hundreds of millions of dollars from us, the rate-payers.

Yes, it is truly an absolute shame to see Jackson County’s limited natural and cultural resources raped once again. A huge electric power monopoly and a few selfish, self-centered ‘stakeholders’ are going to get what they want — no matter the cost. And the public be damned!

Regardless of the outcome of the FERC re-licensing process, I pity the poor souls (and there have been quite a few) who would sell themselves and the cultural resources of Jackson County for little more than, comparatively speaking, 30 pieces of silver. I can sleep at night; can they?

Carl Iobst is secretary of the Jackson County Citizen Action Group and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

In Swain County, incumbent Republican Sheriff Curtis Cochran successfully fended off challenger John Ensley.

Cochran has faced several controversies in the preceding four-year term, his first in law enforcement. He has weathered well-publicized rows with county commissioners, including a discrimination lawsuit against them and disagreements about deputy pay, overtime and other budgetary woes. The department under Cochran has also seen the escape of an accused murderer from its new, still half-empty jail — aided by a detention officer — and the misuse of official credit cards by yet another detention officer.

Democrat Ensley, a local businessman with only a tad more law enforcement experience than Cochran, felled other primary contenders with ease but eeked out little more than a third of the final vote tally. Throughout his campaign, he promised to use his prowess as a salesman to entice federal, state and other local prisoners to fill the costly jail, a feat Cochran has, as yet, failed to perform.

Cochran won all five of the county’s precincts, taking more than 60 percent of the vote in four districts and leading one of those by 71 percent. He will now enter another four-year term, where he will be working with the recently-elected, all-Democrat county commission.

Swain County Sheriff

Curtis Cochran (R)    2,857

John Ensley (D)    1,706

Swain County will spend the next four years with an all-Democrat board of commissioners after all the incumbents running for office held onto their seats and Donnie Dixon and Robert White scooped up the two open spots.

Neither current chairman Glenn Jones nor commissioner Genevieve Lindsay sought re-election after both spent the last eight years on the board.

Steve Moon will serve his second term on the board, winning one district and 12 percent of the vote. He owns a tire shop and came to the board after a six-year run on the county’s school board. Moon said during the spring primaries that he wanted to stay on the board to watch over its allocation of interest from the North Shore Road settlement.

David Monteith, also an incumbent, came away with three of the county’s five districts and just under 15 percent of votes, the largest percentage of any winner. Monteith is a school bus driver and was the lone commissioner to vote against the North Shore Road settlement. He campaigned on a platform of protecting and increasing the county’s job base.

Donnie Dixon, a newcomer to the board, didn’t win outright in any precincts, but still pulled out nearly 13 percent of the vote. Dixon is a machinist who served a single term as commissioner in the 90s, but is coming back to the board with ideas of greater openness, televised meetings and courting higher paying jobs for the county.

Robert White is the second newcomer but is also no stranger to public life as retired superintendent of the county’s school system. He campaigned on strategic planning and citizen involvement to lead the board, citing the expertise in both areas that he gained as superintendent as good qualities to recommend him for the job.

While the four commissioners had to beat out a total field of nine challengers, the race for chairman was run between only two. Current board member Phil Carson won, edging out Mike Clampitt by just under 5 percent of the votes.

Swain County Board of Commissioners (Chairman)

Phil Carson (D)    2,319

Mike Clampitt (R)    2,083

Swain County Board of Commissioners (vote for 4)

David Monteith (D)    2,465

Donnie Dixon (D)    2,089

Steve Moon (D)    2,041

Robert White (D)    1,976

James King (R)     1,788

John Herrin (R)    1,778

Andy Parris (R)    1,724

Gerald Shook Jr. (R)    1,604

William (Neil) Holden (L)    1,015

Incumbent Joe Sam Queen (D-Waynesville) lost his state Senate seat to fresh-faced Republican challenger Ralph Hise, making Hise the youngest North Carolina senator and adding another member to the now-Republican majority in that chamber.

This is just the latest in a series of tough battles fought by Queen over the last few elections for the 47th Senate District. His fortunes at the polls have risen and fallen with the tides of national sentiment – he lost his seat in the Bush-bonanza of 2004, but swooped in to reclaim it in 2006 when Bush’s ratings – and, by extension, his party’s – plummeted, and held it easily in 2008, riding the Democratic wave led by now-President Obama.

Queen himself attributes this loss, the second of his Senate career, to the national backlash against incumbents as well as the wealth of attack ads lobbed at him by his opponent and outside groups unaffiliated with Hise.

“It was a unique kind of race, as anyone knows that followed it,” said Queen. “There’s been a million dollars of negative advertising, which is twice as much as you would expect, even in a high profile race like I usually have.

“It’s hard to withstand a million dollars of negative advertising and still keep your public persona.”

Meanwhile, winner Hise attributes his win to the feeling among voters that their interests and needs aren’t being properly represented in Raleigh.

“We’ve heard an anger across the district that people are upset with their government and representation since we started this campaign,” he said, noting that his own frustration with the way government is run prompted his bid for the seat in the first place.

While 60-year-old Queen has served intermittently since 2002, 34-year-old Hise comes to the assembly from his position as mayor of Spruce Pine, carrying with him minimal legislative experience.

He said his priorities in Raleigh will be to “return us to some fiscal discipline” while seeking out new opportunities for jobs in the district.

Hise took just under 56 percent of the vote, winning McDowell, Yancey, Mitchell and Avery counties. Queen surpassed him Haywood, his home county, and neighboring Madison County.

Although he is out for this legislative term, Queen has made comebacks before, and wouldn’t rule out the possibility of a return to the campaign trail on the next election cycle.

“I am 60 years old and I’ve still got a lot ahead of me,” Queen said, “but whether it’s in politics or business or what, I’m not certain.

“I like public service and I will look at the future appropriately as it develops, but I certainly have enjoyed getting to do the things I’ve been able to do for my region.”

Hise said he is excited about the win, after what he called a “hard, tough fight,” but takes a cautious attitude towards the role of the new Republican majorities in both state chambers, warning that he and fellow Republicans must be careful to keep promises lest they find the tables turned on them when voters hit the polls again.

“If we don’t return representation to our government,” Hise said, “this will be a two-year opportunity.”

47th Senate District

Ralp Hise Jr. (R)    31,098

Joe Sam Queen (D)    24,531

A hard-hitting campaign, coupled with a surging Republican tide helped Jim Davis claim the state’s 50th District Senate seat on Tuesday.

Davis, a Macon County resident, beat incumbent state Sen. John Snow, a Cherokee County Democrat. If unofficial election night results stand, then Davis helped give Republicans control of the state Senate for the first time in more than a century . Republicans also took control of the N.C. House.

Davis late Tuesday night described himself as excited, elated and exhausted. The Franklin orthodontist said he intends to continue his dental practice.

Davis will now also resign his seat as a Macon County commissioner, with two years left to his term. He said his understanding is that the county’s Republican Executive Committee, via a subcommittee, will select his replacement.

Davis ran on an economic platform that promises a new policy of frugality. He blamed out-of-control taxing and spending by Democrats for North Carolina’s economic problems. He also said the state has created a climate that is unfavorable for businesses, squelching job creation.

Jim Blaine, head of North Carolina’s Senate Republican Caucus, told The Smoky Mountain News two weeks ago that he believed mountain voters would help overturn Democratic control of the state because of a desire to receive a more equitable distribution of tax dollars when compared with amounts received in the eastern portion of the state.

Snow is a retired District Court judge and prosecutor who had served three terms in the state Senate.

50th Senate District

Jim Davis (R)    30,838

John Snow (D)    30,634

Haywood County’s Bobby Suttles won his first election for the sheriff’s seat he has held since 2008, beating Republican challenger Bill Wilke by only 7 percent.

Suttles won 20 of the 29 precincts, with Wilke taking most of the county’s southern districts.

Both contenders brought a plethora of law enforcement experience to the race – Wilke touting his 14-year career and current position as night sergeant with the Asheville Police Department and Suttles’ resume listing 35 years of representing the law, including 15 with the sheriff’s department.

After the mid-term resignation of former sheriff Tom Alexander in 2008, Suttles was tapped by the Democratic Party to move into the sheriff’s role from the chief deputy position, which he’d held since 2003.

He ran on a platform of “continued progress,” promising technology upgrades and increased drug enforcement and selling his ability to effectively maintain the department’s budget.

Wilke, an Army reservist who just completed a tour in Iraq, also pledged his support for drug enforcement and better technology, and also vowed to take a $10,000 per-year personal pay cut. He also advocated for better reporting and accountability within the department.

Haywood County Sheriff

Bobby Suttles (D)    10,612

William (Bill) Wilke (R)    9,332

Democrats claimed victory in all three open commissioner seats in Haywood County, with incumbents Kirk Kirkpatrick and Bill Upton keeping their spots on the board.

Newcomer Michael Sorrells took the chair left vacant by Skeeter Curtis, who did not seek re-election.

Current board chairman Kirkpatrick took eight districts, including all of Waynesville, Lake Junaluska and Clyde South. He has sat on the commission since 2002 and held the chair since 2008. A lawyer by trade, Kirkpatrick ran on a platform of experience, especially with budget management.

Upton won the privilege of a second term on the board, winning only four precincts but just over 17 percent of the vote. He claimed Clyde North and three Beaverdam districts, placing third behind Kirkpatrick and Sorrells. Now retired, he has spent much of his career in the public service, including a stint as principal of Pisgah High School and long-time superintendent with the Haywood County school system. Unsurprisingly, Upton lists education as his top priority, closely followed by keeping the county’s extremely low tax rate as low as possible.

Sorrells claimed 10 precincts, mostly in the northern and western districts, and took a little over 18 percent of all votes. Although new to the county commission, Sorrells is no stranger to the political process. He has spent the last six years on the Haywood County School Board and campaigned on promises of fiscal responsibility and maintaining low taxes. He is a native of Haywood County and runs a family business, Sorrells Merchandise Company, with his wife.

Republican Denny King pulled up just short of grasping a commission seat, and although he bested Upton in precincts won – seven to Upton’s four – he pulled in only 16 percent of the popular vote.

The three winners will now join fellow Democrat Mark Swanger and lone Republican Kevin Ensley, who both won fights for their positions in 2008.

While the chair currently belongs to Kirkpatrick and Upton serves as vice chairman, they are not guaranteed to keep those titles on the new board. Members will vote for the chairmanship when they take office in December.

Haywood County Commissioners

Michael T. Sorrells (D)    10,127

J.W. Kirk Kirkpatrick III (D)    10,022

Bill Upton (D)    9,652

Denny King (R)    8,927

David Bradley (R)    8,703

Tom Freeman (R)    7,919

Despite an overwhelming Republican landslide in the 2010 congressional election, Rep. Heath Shuler (D-Waynesville) beat back challenger Jeff Miller of Hendersonville in the 11th District to win this third term in Congress.

Shuler, however, who had much more money than his opponent throughout the campaign, will go back to Washington as a member of the minority party. CNN was reporting at 11 p.m. Nov. 2 that Republicans took control of the House on Election Day by winning as many as 50 of the seats up for grabs.

The Shuler-Miller race, however, was not even that close. Shuler won by a 54 to 46 percent margin.

“I’m not too surprised about the Shuler/Miller race,” said Western Carolina University political science professor Chris Cooper. “He was ahead in every poll I saw. He had the former president stumping for him. He is a conservative Democrat in a district dominated by conservative Democrats. Add to that he had excellent name recognition and has all the benefits of incumbency, and even in a Republican year, he was unlikely to lose.”

Shuler is a Bryson City native and former University of Tennessee and NFL quarterback who unseated the powerful Charles Taylor in the 2006 election. In Washington he has aligned himself with Blue Dog coalition, a caucus of moderate-to-conservative House Democrats.

Shuler’s opponent was Jeff Miller, a small businessman who started the Honor Air movement which flies World War II veterans to Washington, D.C., to visit the memorial to that war. He earned a lot of respect during the campaign for staying focused on delivering his message rather than attacking Shuler.

One new face — Republican Ron Haven — will be on the Macon County Board of Commissioners if unofficial voting results from Tuesday night hold.

Incumbent Bob Simpson, a Democrat, lost his seat as 53 percent of Macon County voters — an impressive number for a midterm election — turned out to vote. This right-leaning county did re-elect Democrat Ronnie Beale, the commission board’s current chairman.

Haven and Beale represent the top two vote-getters in District 2, the Franklin area.

Voters also returned Republican incumbent commissioner Brian McClellan of Highlands to the board to represent District 1. McClellan regained his seat by besting Democrat Daniel Allen “Ricky” Bryson, a former commissioner.

Haven, a business owner, has called for a county department-by-department budget analysis to find areas to cut waste. He campaigned vigorously against steep-slope controls, flatly stating at a recent candidates’ forum that he wanted the county’s planning board to even stop study on the issue.

Macon County is the site of the September 2004 Peeks Creek landslide. This was a natural, not manmade, disaster that claimed five lives, and has since shaped the nature of debate here about what should be done about development on mountainsides.

Beale, who defended the work being done by the planning board, campaigned on a record of school-building projects and the work done to set the table for future economic development.

McClellan also has emphasized job creation, and supports offering incentives to companies willing to settle in Macon County.

Macon County Board of Commissioners (District 2, vote for 2)

Ron Haven (R)    5,719

Ronnie Beale (D)    5,539

Charlie Leatherman (R)    5,362

Bob Simpson (D)    4,259

Vic Drummond (U)    2,316

Macon County Board of Commissioners (District 1)

Macon County Sheriff Robert “Robby” Holland, a Republican, has won another term in office — his third — by beating back challenger George Lynch, a Democrat.

Holland and Lynch ran relatively mud-free campaigns that focused on their respective strengths as veteran law enforcement officers. Holland, 43, worked his way up the ladder at the sheriff’s department. He started in 1991 as a part-time detention officer, serving under another popular, seemingly unbeatable Republican sheriff, Homer Holbrooks.

Holland won Macon County with more than 60 percent of the vote.

Lynch, 62, is no stranger to Macon County voters, and represented a serious, if unsuccessful, challenger for Holland. Lynch had 14 years of experience as a law enforcement officer for the U.S. Forest Service.

Holland, during his campaign, emphasized the multiple programs he’s instituted to combat the use of illegal drugs, and the crimes associated with their use. Holland also has placed a strong emphasis on involving the community in law enforcement efforts.

Macon County Sheriff

Robert (Robby) Holland (R)    7,802

George Lynch (D)    5,162

A monumental judge’s election to fill three 30th District Court seats in Western North Carolina has ended after a clean, tightly-contested election.

When the dust settled three new judges were seated — Donna Forga, Kristina Earwood and Roy Wijewickrama.

Forga’s win could have been the most suprising as she unseated Judge Danya Ledford Vanhook, who was appointed a little more than a year ago to replace the retiring Marlene Hyatt. At forums during the campaign Forga spoke of the lessons learned as a single mom working her way through college and law school and the influence of the judge’s she has worked with.

“I’m so looking forward to serving the people of this district,” Forga said after her win. “And I also want to say how impressed I was with the quality of the judicial candidates. It makes me proud to be one of them.”

“Honestly, this is my dream, what I’ve been working for. Just incredible,” said Forga.

With voter turnout very high, the closest race of the three was between David Sutton and Kristina Earwood. Earwood, a Sylva attorney, managed to narrowly beat out Sutton by less than 2,000 votes.

At a forum in October, Earwood talked about how important it was to treat everyone equally in the courtroom.

“It’s very important to treat those people with respect. It’s really important that when someone steps through the door of a courtroom, there is no color, there’s no race, there’s no economic line — justice is blind. At the end of the day, we’re all human beings. I do think it’s very important because of the impact we have on people’s lives,” Earwood said.

In the third race, Waynesville attorney Roy Wijewickrama bested fellow Waynesville attorney Steve Ellis.

In forums throughout the judge’s race, all the candidates spoke of how difficult it would be to replace the demeanor and courtroom presence of Hyatt and retiring judges Danny Davis and Steve Bryant. Davis and Bryant had a combined 50 years experience on the bench.

District Court judge races are non-partisan, which means the candidates are not affiliated with any political party.

District Court Judge (Vanhook seat)

Donna Forga    30,282

Danya Ledford Wanhook    22,364

District Court Judge (Bryant seat)

Kristina Earwood    27,032

David Sutton    25,159

District Court Judge (Davis seat)

Roy Wijewickrama    27,904

Stephen G. Ellis    23,864

Jackson County Sheriff Jimmy Ashe won his third term in office Tuesday, easily beating back a challenge from political newcomer Mary Rock.

Ashe, 51, a Democrat, has been in law enforcement for 29 years. He started in 1981 as a dispatcher and jailer for the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department, working his way up to the top post. Ashe made stops along the way as a detective and as chief deputy.

Ashe has initiated a slew of anti-illegal drug programs in Jackson County, an inmate-work program and more, which — in addition to his years of experience — he emphasized strongly and repeatedly during his campaign.

Earlier headline-generating news that Ashe used state and federal money from narcotics seizures to operate an informal fund for youth sports apparently didn’t deter voters.

Rock, a registered Democrat, ran as an unaffiliated candidate. She hoped by doing so — by avoiding being beaten by Ashe in the May primaries — she’d give voters more time to get to know her before the midterm election and increase her odds of winning.

Rock, a professional bail bondswoman, is a U.S. Army veteran who served in the military police for two years, and spent an additional five years in the reserve.

Jackson County Sheriff

State Rep. Phil Haire (D-Jackson) fought off a surprisingly strong challenge from fellow Jackson County resident Dodie Allen to retain his hold on the 119th State House District.

Rep. Haire, 74, is a Sylva attorney who has served in the House of Representatives for six terms. He is a chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee and campaigned on his record of support for education and small business.

Allen, a Sylva auctioneer, ran a grassroots campaign that did surprising well. She beat Haire in Haywood County — 2,057 to 1,957 — and ended up garnering 44 percent of the vote district-wide. The final tally was 12,565 votes for Haire and 9,902 for Allen in the district that includes Jackson and Swain counties with parts of Macon and Haywood.

119th House District

Phil Haire (D)    12,565

Dodie Allen (R)    9,902

Jackson County voters upended the board of commissioners Tuesday, calling an abrupt end to progressive land-development regulations that had set this county apart from all others in far Western North Carolina.

The dismantling of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners is likely to resonate with other commissioners in WNC. Voters here clearly sent an unmistakable message not to move too far, too fast, when it comes to standing in the way of the region’s development juggernaut.

One of the three Democrat incumbents who lost was Chairman Brian McMahan, who actually cast the sole ‘no’ vote among commissioners against the current development regulations. He also opposed a subsequent moratorium on subdivisions, which some blamed for compounding an economic slowdown in the county.

McMahan, however, was consistent in supporting most of the regulations that were put in place: he just didn’t support all of them. His moderate position, however, didn’t prevent him from being ousted from the chairman’s post by challenger and political newcomer Jack Debnam, who ran unaffiliated with any political party.

Just 92 votes separated the two men in the unofficial tally Tuesday night.

Incumbents William Shelton and Tom Massie joined McMahan in the defeat.

“We’re historical,” said Shelton late Tuesday night, after learning he’d lost to Republican challenger Charles Elder, a former commissioner who represents a more traditional way of doing things. It is a way that Jackson County voters clearly found suited them far better than what had been taking place.

Massie, like Shelton a progressive Democrat when it came to regulating development, was defeated by Republican Doug Cody, a newcomer to Jackson County politics.

“I think it was just the perfect storm,” Shelton said, pointing to a national mood of ousting incumbents, Democrat Party apathy, right-leaning Tea-party influences and local voters upset about the stringent development regulations adopted in Jackson County.

Three years ago, Jackson County commissioners — including Shelton and Massie — enacted sweeping steep-slope and subdivision ordinances. Many in the development and real estate industry were angered by the regulations, which were crafted during a five-month moratorium on new subdivisions.

Another piece of commissioner legislation that likely stuck in voters’ craws was an attempt to wrest the dam in Dillsboro away from Duke Energy to make it the focal point of a new riverfront park along the Tuckasegee. The county lost the battle in court, and was forced to cough up a half-million dollars in legal fees. Per Duke’s wishes, the dam has been torn down.

A poll of Jackson County residents this summer was a harbinger of sorts: the poll showed only 33 percent of participants had a favorable opinion of their local government, and 46 percent were unfavorable.

The poll, conducted by the WCU Public Policy Institute in partnership with The Smoky Mountain News, questioned nearly 600 voters and had an error margin of plus or minus 4 percent.

Jackson County Board of Commissioners (Chairman)

Jack Debnam (R)    5,055

Brian McMahan (D)    4,963

Jackson County Board of Commissioners (District 1)

Charles Elders (R)    6,022

William Shelton (D)    4,916

Jackson County Board of Commissioners (District 2)

Doug Cody (R)    6,075

Tom Massie (D)    4,824

Charles White, formerly of Cullowhee, will be at City Lights at 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 5, to read from his new novel, Lambs of Men.

The book is set in Western North Carolina during World War I. Marine Sergeant Hiram Tobit returns from the battlefield to recruit more men from his home county. He finds that, in his absence, everything has changed.

White will ready from the new book and take questions from the audience. A signing will follow his remarks. For information contact City Lights at 828.586.9499.

Award-winning photographer and writer Rob Amberg’s multimedia presentation “The New Road and Today’s Mountaineers” — set for 7 p.m. on Nov. 4 in the Waynesville branch — is the first installment of the Haywood County Library’s Roads Across America series.

Using photography and oral histories, Amberg has been documenting change in rural Madison County along the I-26 corridor since the early 1970s. His most recent book, The New Road: I-26 and the Footprints of Progress, incorporates Amberg’s research into a tome “of great imagination, detail, and insight,” claims Tom Rankin, director of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

Author Jane SpottedBird will discuss her new book, Still Here: Dancing to the Beat of My Own Drum on Saturday, at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 6, at the Marianna  Black Library in Bryson City.

In May 2008, SpottedBird was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. Her doctor gave her 6-12 months to live with no hope of survival. In October 2009, her doctor said, “She’s a miracle.”

SpottedBird will talk about her incredible journey and about all the things she learned along the way, which inspired her to write this book. For more information call the library at 828.488.3030 or visit www.fontanalib.org/brysoncity on the world wide web.

In the three years since the Haywood County commissioners authorized a new “enhanced voluntary agricultural district” ordinance, 15 Bethel-area landowners have now placed more than 1,000 acres into the program.  

“This total represents real progress in our efforts to protect Bethel’s rural heritage,” said Bill Holbrook, chairman of the Bethel Rural Community Organization’s Rural Preservation Committee. “We have this great new tool for land conservation, and landowners are putting it to good use.”

Through the ordinance, often referred to by its initials as “EVAD,” landowners volunteer to keep their land in agricultural, forestry or horticultural use for at least ten years in return for certain benefits, such as a higher percentage of cost-share funds for conservation projects. A more basic agricultural district option is also available, with a more flexible timeframe, but fewer benefits. The Haywood Soil and Water Conservation District manages both programs, with Haywood County’s Agricultural Advisory Board responsible for review and approval of applications to the programs.

“We’ve also been active in promoting permanent conservation easements to keep Bethel rural for the long term,” added Holbrook, “but the EVAD program provides a valuable intermediate option while landowners consider more permanent conservation easements and while we work to secure grant funds to help pay for those easements.”

Landowners outside the Bethel Community have also embraced the EVAD option, with 14 landowners elsewhere in Haywood County enrolling another 1,500 acres into the program.

Funding to help promote the EVAD program in Haywood County comes from the Pigeon River Fund, which has embraced the idea of protecting rural lands in order to protect the region’s high water quality from the impacts often associated with more intensive land development.

To learn more about EVAD, contact Leslie Smathers with the Haywood Soil and Water Conservation District at 828.452.2741, extension 3. To learn more about rural conservation efforts in the Bethel Community, contact George Ivey, coordinator, Bethel Rural Preservation Project, at 828.648.2710.  All inquiries are handled confidentially and place the landowner under no obligation.

William and Sabrina Shelton of Shelton Family Farms and Ron and Cathy Arps of Vegenui Garden are sponsoring an end-of-the-season celebration for the members of their CSAs and the vendors at the Jackson County Farmers Market beginning at 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 14 in conjunction with the November Second Sunday Contra Dance at the former Golden Age Club (GAC).

The plan is for members of the dance community and food community to join together for a fun-raising, which will include music and dancing (contra, kids and more) and potluck dinner to follow at 5:30 p.m.

The event will also be a fundraiser for the Community Table to provide funds to renovate the kitchen facilities and to make the whole building more energy efficient.

The former Golden Age Club (GAC) is next to the Sylva Swimming Pool on Municipal Drive. Turn off Grindstaff Cove Road between the Presbyterian Church and BB&T and then take the next right into the Poteet Park parking lot. (From the Bridge Park Pavilion, it is across the bridge and just beyond Poteet Park.)

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park began operating on its winter schedule Nov. 1, which includes the closing of seven of 10 campgrounds.

Through the month of November, the Sugarlands Visitor Center, two miles south of Gatlinburg, will open daily from 8 a.m.-5 p.m.  The Oconaluftee Visitor Center, two miles north of Cherokee, will serve visitors from 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.  The Cades Cove Visitor Center, located halfway around the Cades Cove Loop Road, will be opened daily from 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

The visitor center hours for the remaining winter months are posted on the park’s website, www.nps.gov/grsm.

Roads

Several of the secondary roads are scheduled to close as indicated: Balsam Mountain/Heintooga Roads on Nov. 1, Roundbottom/Straight Fork on Nov. 16, Parson Branch and Rich Mountain Roads on Nov. 22, and Clingmans Dome and Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail on Dec. 1.    

During the winter months, the park’s two main roads, Newfound Gap (U.S. 441) and Little River, will remain open except for temporary closures for extreme winter weather conditions.

The Gatlinburg Bypass, Cades Cove Loop Road, Cosby Road, Greenbrier Road, Upper Tremont, Forge Creek, Lakeview Drive and Foothills Parkway (East and West) will open and close as road and weather conditions mandate.  

For more information on winter weather road conditions, contact the park at  865.436.1200 (Then select option “2” and select “2” again to access road info).

Camping

Two of the three major campgrounds will remain open all year. These year-round campgrounds are Cades Cove in Tennessee and Smokemont in North Carolina. Starting Nov. 1, they will be on a self-registration basis with a reduced number of available sites. Elkmont Campground in Tennessee will remain open through the Thanksgiving weekend and will close on Dec. 1.  

Balsam Mountain campground is already closed for the season. The six remaining self-registration campgrounds at Cosby, Cataloochee, Deep Creek, Big Creek, Look Rock and Abrams Creek, closed on Nov. 1.

Horseback Stables

Smokemont Riding Stable closed on Nov. 2. Sugarlands Riding Stable and Smoky Mountain Riding Stable will close on Nov. 29.  Cades Cove Riding Stable will close on Dec. 22, but will reopen Dec. 26-Jan. 2. The Cades Cove Stable will also be closed on Thanksgiving Day. The closing dates are dependent on weather conditions.

Horse Camps

All five horse camps — Round Bottom, Tow String, Cataloochee, Big Creek, and Anthony Creek — will close Nov. 15.

Gardeners, foresters, landowners and others concerned about nonnative invasive plants in the South can now get free copies of A Field Guide for the Identification of Invasive Plants in Southern Forests by U.S. Forest Service Research Ecologist Jim Miller.

The long-awaited book is an update of the very popular Nonnative Invasive Plants of Southern Forests: A Field Guide for Identification and Control, published in 2003.

“Jim Miller is one of the foremost authorities on invasive plants in the South, so we’re delighted to offer this enhanced field guide at no cost to anyone interested in learning about and identifying invasive plants in the region,” said Forest Service Souther Research Station Director Jim Reaves. “The Forest Service has distributed nearly 160,000 copies of Jim’s first book on invasive plants, and with the spread of exotic species across region, we expect there will be even more demand for this expanded version.”

The book’s appendix contains the most complete list of nonnative invasive plants in the 13 Southern states, providing common and scientific names for 310 other invading species including, for the first time, aquatic plant invaders. Also, the authors updated the “Sources of Identification Information” section to include the latest books, manuals and articles on invasive plants. The ever-expanding website section lists Internet resources that provide useful information on identification and efficient management.

To request a copy, send name and complete mailing address, along with book title, author, and publication number (GTR-SRS-119) to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is taking public comment on a coordinated national management plan to address white-nose syndrome, which is decimating bat species across the United States.

White-nose syndrome has killed more than a million bats in the Northeast and has spread to 11 or more states in less than four years since its discovery near Albany, N.Y. it has not been detected in North Carolina, but affected bats have been found in Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

The proposed plan, a joint federal-state effort, provides a framework for WNS investigation and response. A subsequent implementation plan will identify specific actions, the entities responsible for implementation of each action, and estimated costs.

“More than 50 agencies, organizations and individuals are working in concert on the white-nose syndrome response,” said WNS National Coordinator Jeremy Coleman, Ph.D., of the Service. “The national management plan will help guide our use of limited resources wisely and efficiently in addressing this urgent threat to bats and to our environment.”

The service will accept public comments on the proposed plan through Dec. 26. The document and additional information about WNS are available online at http://www.fws.gov/WhiteNoseSyndrome/. Comments may be submitted by e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., by mail to WNS National Coordinator, New York Field Office, 3817 Luker Road, Cortland, N.Y., 13045-9348, or by fax to 607.753.9699.

Traveling from Haywood or Jackson counties to Asheville on the Blue Ridge Parkway won’t be possible until spring as a portion of the scenic road has been closed for repair.

The Parkway will be closed between Milepost 405 at N.C. 151 (just north of the Mt. Pisgah area) and Milepost 399 at Pine Mountain Tunnel until spring 2011. All traffic — foot, bicycle and motor vehicle — will be prohibited because of potential danger in the work area.

For southbound traffic, take U.S. 19 to N.C. 215 in Canton and then to U.S. 276 (or remain on N.C. 215) to get back to the parkway. Or, follow N.C. 191 to N.C. 280, connecting to U.S. 276 in Brevard and back to the parkway south of Pisgah Inn. The detours can be taken in the opposite direction for northbound traffic.

Kieran Roe, executive director of Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy, said that if the North Carolina Wildlife Commission does not commit to managing the East Fork Headwaters tract that the deal could fall through.

“There’s a lot riding on what Wildlife Resources decides,” she told The Smoky Mountain News in an interview this week.

Roe is guardedly optimistic that CMLC and its partner The Conservation Fund will be able to close on the property before the end of the year.

On CMLC’s website it states: “Funding for this project is not the chief issue. Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy and our partner, The Conservation Fund, have identified funding sources. While not guaranteed, the funders are unlikely to invest in East Fork Headwaters unless it enters the public domain. Given the high quality hunting and fishing on the tract, WRC is the most likely candidate for managing the tract. Note that WRC is not expected to take title to East Fork Headwaters immediately. The Conservation Fund will continue to own East Fork Headwaters for the time being until the total purchase price has been paid to the landowner. However, The Conservation Fund cannot make the initial $3 million down payment without the commitment of WRC to establish a game land and eventually take title to East Fork Headwaters. The Conservation Fund is not set up to own land indefinitely.”

The state Wildlife Resources Commission is playing it close to the vest. Chris McGrath, faunal diversity coordinator for the agency, said that Wildlife Commission biologists have been to the property, have consulted with the owners and potential buyers, and have assisted in assessing the merits of the property. He said the biologists have written reports detailing their findings for the director’s office, but that any management decisions would have to come from that office.

Geoff Cantrell, Wildlife Commission public information officer, would only say that the Headwaters tract was on the Land Use and Access Committee’s agenda for discussion on Wednesday, Nov. 3, and that the committee report would be on Thursday’s agenda.

Roe noted that Wildlife Commission was, “… not being asked, at this point, for any funding. We’re just asking them to work with us on managing the property.”

(Check online at www.smokymountainnews.com after Thursday’s Wildlife Resources Commission meeting for an update.)

Annie Burrell of Franklin will display her pottery skills at the 18th annual Mountain Shapes and Colors Art and Craft Fair from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 13, at the Southwestern Community College Swain Center.

After working various jobs and having various hobbies over the years, Burrell took a pottery class four years ago with the Southwestern Community College Heritage Arts Institute. She came to love making pottery and now her hobby is her living.  

After taking several classes, Burrell developed her own style; she now has a line of functional pottery wares centered on the bee theme. The bee motif came from the first letter of her last name and her husband Tim’s enthusiasm for raising bees. One of her wares is a pottery honey pot packaged together with a jar of honey from Tim’s bees.

The Mountain Shapes and Colors Fair features a variety of arts and crafts, all made by local craftsmen and women. Among others, this year’s line-up includes pottery, soap, decorated gourds, folk art, jewelry, woodwork, salves, baskets and braided rugs.

Four workshops are offered this year and each cost $5.

• 10 a.m. – Local artist Pam Deas will teach a mini sketching class at 10 a.m.

• 11 a.m. – Claire Suminski will hold a workshop on building a birdhouse out of a gourd.

• 1 p.m. – Doug Hubbs will teach a candle making workshop.

• 2 p.m. – Hank Shuler and Shirley Vennstra will teach a pottery workshop. Participants will build a pencil holder that will be available for pick up in a few weeks.

Jekyll and Hyde, the musical thriller, will be shown at the Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts in Franklin at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 11, 12, 13 and at 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 14. 

Jekyll and Hyde is the musical telling of the classic short story The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Lewis Stevenson.  Adapted for the stage by Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse, Jekyll and Hyde explores the journey of Dr. Henry Jekyll’s attempt at trying to rescue his father from mental illness. By performing a series of experiments upon himself, Dr. Jekyll ultimately releases an alter ego named Mr. Hyde whose existence thrives on anger and revenge.

This show may not be appropriate for children under 10 years of age. Tickets are $12 for adults and $8 for students/children. Visit GreatMountainMusic.com or call 866.273.4615. Tickets are also available at the box office or at Dalton’s Christian Bookstore in Franklin and Waynesville.

Highlands Culinary Weekend returns for the fourth season Nov. 11-14, showcasing Highlands’ award winning restaurants, innovative chefs and a huge selection of wine varietals against the beautiful backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The Opening Night Celebration kicks off the weekend festivities at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 11, at The Bascom center for the visual arts.

For information or sponsorship opportunities, call 866.526.5841, 828.526.5841 or visit www.highlandsculinaryweekend.com.