The Southern Highland Reader

CULLOWHEE–Western Carolina University’s Lectures, Concerts and Exhibitions Series will present an “Evening of Spoken Word” featuring poet, actor and musician Saul Williams on Tuesday, Feb. 16, at the Fine and Performing Arts Center.

The evening will begin at 6 p.m. in the center’s Star Lobby and Fine Art Gallery with a performance by DJ Brett Rock [...]

CULLOWHEE – L. Douglas Wilder, the first African-American elected governor in the United States, told a group of Western Carolina University students, faculty and staff that there is still progress to be made in terms of race relations, despite the historic election of Barack Obama as president in 2008.
Recent controversy over Senate Majority Leader Harry [...]

From the because-I-just-can’t-help-myself department, here are a few basketball notes:
1. The Augusta Chronicle tells its readers that an entrepreneur’s plans to launch an all-white men’s professional basketball league in the southeast are meeting with an oddly tepid response.
In a statement, the All-American Basketball Alliance announced that “only players that are natural born United States citizens [...]

Every town worth its grinds needs a coffee magnate, and now Sylva has one.
John Bubacz, owner of Signature Brew Coffee Company and Bubacz’s Underground on Main Street has purchased the competition — Shot in the Dark Cafe — from Lucy Silverman and Justin Goble.
Silverman and Goble were recently married, and she has taken work in [...]

Once, about ten years ago, I was having lunch at a Sylva restaurant called the Spring Street Cafe.
From my table I caught a quick glimpse down an unlikely sightline — framed just so by some plants and interior drapes, down a hallway, and through a cracked door — of a baker’s table. On the table [...]

Art comes in many forms and the newest addition to Southwestern Community College’s Oconaluftee Institute of Cultural Arts is actually old. It’s a letterpress that will be used to print books in the Cherokee syllabary.
“We are bringing back the Cherokee history in true art form,” said Luzene Hill, OICA progam outreach coordinator.
Years ago the Eastern [...]

(Hat tip: Ashvegas)
Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) released the seventh annual “Ready or Not? Protecting the Public’s Health from Diseases, Disasters, and Bioterrorism” report, which finds that the H1N1 flu outbreak has exposed serious underlying gaps in the nation’s ability to respond to public health emergencies and that [...]

CLEMSON–Trailing 56-51 with eight minutes to play, Western Carolina looked to be in a decent spot to make a run Tuesday night at Littlejohn Coliseum. Instead, the Catamounts went stone cold from the field and gave up a 23-6 run down the stretch to lose 79-57 to the 24th-ranked Tigers.
The loss was Western’s first in [...]

DILLSBORO–The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld on Tuesday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruling that the Dillsboro Dam should be removed.
From an Asheville Citizen-Times staff report:
The court today denied Jackson County’s petition for review of FERC’s July 2007 order allowing Duke Energy to remove the historic dam.
Read more here, from Lynn Hotaling at the Sylva [...]

The New York Times asked a panel of columnists, including Western Carolina professor Bruce Henderson, just how parents should deal with the “Santa question”.
Henderson, whose research has largely been on the development of children’s curiosity and exploratory behavior, wrote, in part:
[In observation studies conducted at malls, my students] found that all too frequently parents, in [...]

CULLOWHEE–Western Carolina’s men’s basketball team rose another two spots to number six in the CollegeInsider.com mid-major poll this week  — despite having had the week off for finals — and resumes action tonight at AP no. 24 Clemson.
According to the Asheville Citizen-Times the Catamounts will be one player short, due to a practice injury over [...]

SYLVA–City Lights Bookstore, a retail anchor in downtown Sylva since the early eighties, is changing hands.
Owners Joyce and Allen Moore are selling the store to longtime employee Chris Wilcox, effective January 1.
Moore informed her customers of the change in a letter written on Monday, in which she wrote, in part:
As I begin my 66th year [...]

GSMNP–Congressman Heath Shuler recently helped secure a $13 million down-payment from the federal government to help put an end to the nearly-seven-decade controversy over a road once planned along the north shore of Lake Fontana.
The payment, part of a larger, undisclosed sum, would compensate Swain County for the federal government’s choice not to build the [...]

MURPHY–An elementary and middle school in the Murphy area could be the first in the region to implement an extensive solar power array if the Cherokee County school board gives the green light.
The 4,300 panel array would cut power costs at St. Martins Elementary and Middle School by 85% over 20 years, with a total [...]

Follow this link for Duke Energy power outage information.

Football
2009-12-19 – WCU coach Dennis Wagner announces mid-term transfers: defensive back Reggie America (Coffeyville, Kan., CC/Junction City, Kan., HS); defensive lineman Walt Woolwine (Garden City, Kan., CC/Ashland, Kan., HS); offensive lineman Dan Polaski (Hargrave, Va., Academy/Long Meadow, Mass.; HS); and quarterback Casey Turner (Chesapeake, Va./Great Bridge HS). Turner is a transfer from Connecticut.
2009-12-19 – Wagner [...]

2009-12-18: Fans and foes of a controversial youth dance club in Sylva aired their thoughts before the Sylva Town Board Thursday. Opponents of “Club Offspring” provided a petition asking the board to investigate the business and to consider closing it. Proponents said the controversy is overblown, and provided a petition of their own. Either way, [...]

MURPHY–Dwight Otwell, staff writer for the Cherokee Scout in Murphy, reported recently about efforts made by mountain farmers to diversify and to profit from niche crops.
Agriculture has dwindled rapidly in the mountains, where farmers face not only the standard competition from industrial farming, but the added challenge of a lack of flat land.
Otwell’s lead:
Farmers who [...]

NATIONAL–The New York Times published an extensive feature about drinking water this week, with a focus on outdated regulations and a great deal of extra information.
Here’s the lead from the Times’s Charles Duhigg:
The 35-year-old federal law regulating tap water is so out of date that the water Americans drink can pose what scientists say are [...]

FONTANA VILLAGE–A legal battle is brewing between Fontana Village Resort and Graham County government over a first-time $80,000 property tax bill that the resort says is being levied against leased property.
At issue is whether the property leased by the resort from the Tennessee Valley Authority is taxable. Erma Phillips, Chief Tax Assessor for Graham County, [...]