On Sunday afternoon, as a good portion of Western North Carolina was experiencing rainstorms, the early summer sunshine broke through the clouds at Yonder Community Market in Franklin. Soon, the rays of light cascaded through the large oak trees while acclaimed singer-songwriter Alexa Rose performed. 

The Highlands Biological Foundation is excited to continue its 2025 Zahner Conservation Lecture Series with Sonya Carpenter, Co-founder and President of Co-habitate Inc., presenting “Cohabitate; Living with Nature” at 6 p.m. on Thursday, July 10, at the Highlands Nature Center in Highlands. The program is free and open to the public, with a small reception to follow. 

The Franklin Bird Club leads walks along the Greenway on Wednesday mornings at 8 a.m. through September. Walks start at alternating locations: Macon County Public Library, Big Bear Park and Salali Lane. The public is welcome. 

Across Western North Carolina this fall, local governments will hold their first municipal elections since Hurricane Helene ravaged the region and saddled many small, rural towns across the mountain west with damages that in most cases approach or exceed millions. 

Nothing says summer more than the Fourth of July with friends and family.

And in Western North Carolina, we celebrate Independence Day with gusto. Between majestic fireworks, sizzling hot dogs and hamburgers, cotton candy, games, live music and craft demonstrations, there’s a little bit of everything for any and all. 

At this point, I would like to tell you about my great-great grandfather, Bryant Carden, who joined the Confederacy. Bryant was known for writing wonderful letters in calligraphy, and the illustration below, of a bird in flight, is an example. 

Finally face to face amid a simmering standoff over library governance and subjectively inappropriate material in a regional library system that’s served locals for more than 80 years, Jackson County commissioners spent nearly three hours in a joint meeting with the Fontana Regional Library Board of Trustees on June 19 learning just how much they don’t know about running a library.

My office is cool and our building on Montgomery Street in Waynesville is quiet. Almost everyone who works at The Smoky Mountain News has gone home for a few minutes to tend to kids, dogs, wives and husbands as it’s one hour before the annual first Friday in June birthday bash celebrating another year of putting out this weekly print newspaper (and now a seven-day-per-week news website).  

The Franklin Bird Club leads walks along the Greenway on Wednesday mornings at 8 a.m. through September. Walks start at alternating locations: Macon County Public Library, Big Bear Park and Salali Lane. 

Macon County’s proposed Fiscal Year 2025-26 budget maintains the current tax rate, even as county revenues are projected to increase slightly. 

“Revenues are slightly higher due to an increase in the taxable value of properties,” said County Manager Warren Cabe in his first ever budget presentation to county commissioners.