The Southern Highland Reader

DILLSBORO–This story, in which Constance Richards writes up Barry Kennon’s tiki bar party spot outside his house on the Tuckasegee near Dillsboro, first ran in the August edition of swanky WNC Magazine.

It’s been posted online since, so, given that party journalism pieces are few and far between in the mountains, it obviously needed sharing.

Kennon, a championship kayaker, modeled his tiki bar after one he knew in Costa Rica, and built it around his boat takeout.

Here’s an excerpt:

As more decorations go up, including tiki totems and palm leaves, Dieter Kuhn, Sylva’s resident brewmeister and owner of Heinzelmännchen Brewery, takes the B.Y.O.B. standard to a master’s level and taps a keg of his seasonal Hoppy Gnome. The set-up crew continues their work with golden pints in hand.

“If you only eat your own food and drink your own beer, you’re selling yourself short,” says Kuhn. “We have so many great venues in this little area—people really come together and like to share what they have to offer.”

In the kitchen, [former Spring St. Cafe chef Karl] Engelmann is crisping slices of fresh ciabatta bread and sesame-covered filone from Annie’s Naturally Bakery in the oven, which will be served with a panoply of cheeses. For the early guests, he sends out a platter of thick triangles of farmstead cheeses from Yellow Branch Pottery & Cheese, globes of Dark Cove goat cheese covered in chopped chives, and crudités.

Moving on to the trout, he blends pork sausage from Nantahala Meats and Poultry in Franklin, chopped croutons, garlic, and herbs, and spoons the mixture into the whole trout before wrapping each with bright green banana leaves and tying them with string. “This will literally steam the fish, keep the moisture in, and enhance the flavors,” Engelmann says. He has another trick in mind, too. Shells from the boiled peanuts he’s serving with the Cobb salad will go into the grill flames to add a nutty flavor.

Read the whole story here.

SYLVA–The secret’s out about Asheville’s status as a beer town.

But the southwest mountains don’t fare poorly, either, with Sylva’s five-year-old Heinzelmannchen Brewery leading a three-pack that includes upstarts Nantahala Brewing Company and the Tuckaseegee Brewing Cooperative.

The brewers at each of these three have been kind enough to recommend their favorite beers to enjoy on a cool autumn night.

Dieter Kuhn from Heinzelmannchen Brewery, Sylva, NC:

Big Butte Smoked Porter from Highlands Brewing Co. This was a Pro-Am entry into the Great American Beer Fest this year. A dark rich, malty, roasty, and smoky porter that evolves as it warms in the glass. Flavors are intensive but never get harsh, and it has a smooth, big-body mouthfeel and somewhat noticeable hoppyness. Enjoy the various flavor layers and warming alcohol finish. 7% alcohol by volume.

Hop Rod Rye from Bear Republic Brewing Co. This Rye IPA has won a handful of medals. It pours turbid amber with a frothy white head, the aroma is definitely hoppy, mostly citrus but some piney scents also. Mouthfeel is creamy and substantial due to a big rye malt load, and smooth. The taste is hop heavy, including grapefruit, citrus and pine flavor. Malt sweetness is present along with the chewyness of rye malt. The finish is a unique interplay of hop flavor and malt. ABV 8%.

Big Amber Gnome from Heinzelmannchen Brewery. This is a gold medal-winning amber ale at this year’s Carolina Championship Of Beers. A specialty ale brewed for our 5th anniversary this year is a compilation of 5 different malts and Chinook, Cascade, and Willamette hops that yield an exceptionally smooth, malty big-bodied mouthfeel. Several malt and roasty flavers are layered before a reserved hoppiness takes over in mid-swallow. Finishes with a pleasent sweet aftertaste and an alcohol warming in the stomach. Very drinkable to celebrate just about anything, including your favorite team’s victory. ABV 8.2%, available only at the brewery on Saturdays in 2L growler fills. Come early, as the 15 gal keg is usually sold out by 2pm!

Chris Collier from Nantahala Brewing Co., Bryson City, NC:

We have spent a good bit of time traveling back and forth from Atlanta to Bryson City for the startup of the new Nantahala Brewing Company. Whenever we travel, we are always in search of beers that we cannot get at home in GA.  NC has several breweries distributed in the state that have not yet made it to GA, so we typically stick to those treats when we are up here and we also love to bring some unique offerings from GA to share with our business partners.

When autumn comes around it’s time to start enjoying the beautiful colors of the season.  This includes the garnets and amber hues of the malty, sweet beers that begin to take the place of the bright, crisp thirst quenching pilsners and wheat beers of summer. Fall would not be complete without the rollout of seasonal Oktoberfest beers. We love to try them all. This year we have been enjoying  Boone Brewing’s Blowing Rock Oktoberfest Lager.  Typical of the style it sports a nice amber color with a toasty, malty balance with roasted caramel notes.  It serves as a great session beer.

We think big IPAs are good anytime.  But, this time of year, a higher gravity IPA really compliments the cool weather. Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale (7%) and Ska Brewing’s Modus Hoperandi (6.8%) are two IPAs that fit that bill.  Both have big floral, citrusy and pine hop characteristics balanced with a substantial malt backbone that imparts a nice residual sweetness and a little alcohol warming. While neither is from NC (Michigan and Colorado respectively), they are a local staple for us when in NC.

One of the most recent beers we have transported from Georgia is Terrapin’s Depth Charge.  This is the second in the Midnight Brewing Project series which is a collaboration between Terrapin Brewing Company (Athens, GA) and Left Hand Brewing (Longmont, CO).  This combination of a creamy milk stout and espresso roasted coffee beans is absolutely to die for and is a great companion for curling up with next to the fire on a cold rainy evening.  Terrapin beers are distributed in NC, but this is a limited, special release that may be a little hard to find, but is definitely worth seeking out.

Chris and Cristina Collier are BJCP National Beer Judges, beer travelers, award-winning homebrewers, and beer columnists for the Southern Brew News. Before the end of the year, they will be tag teaming the brewing duties at western North Carolina’s newest microbrewery – Nantahala Brewing Company.

Sean O’Connell at Tuckaseegee Brewing Cooperative, Cullowhee, NC:

Deschutes Black Butte Porter is my all time favorite fall beer for those cold high desert Idaho nights, but it isn’t available here, so I’ll move on to these three:

Black Mocha Stout from Highland Brewing Company. Deep, dark, complex, and warming.  A roasty beer with extra character to provoke the taste buds and fire up the soul.  Best for the colder fall nights.

Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA from Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. High alcohol, hoppy, and sweet.  Another warmer, but a good sipper for the day time as well as the evening.  Maybe best as a dessert beer.  I’d recommend the 120 Minute IPA, but that’s illegal to purchase in North Carolina — 20% alcohol by volume and 600 calories per bottle!

Spaten Oktoberfest from Munich’s Spaten-Löwenbräu Group. An all time favorite brew of mine and certainly one for this season.  Brewed in the spring and lagered until fall, this one is highly drinkable (5.9% ABV) and highlights the brewing powerhouse that is Germany.  Goes well with colorful leaves on and off the trees.

Sean O’Connell teaches biology at Western Carolina University an is a founding partner of the Tuckaseegee Brewing Cooperative.

SYLVA–Don’t get me wrong, I like lists, too. In fact, I remember a teenage addiction to that eighties phenomenon called “The Book of Lists“.

But these days, when publications have less and less money but reader’s appetites for content are growing leaps and bounds, the lists come at you from every direction. US News and World Report, for example, which was a weekly news staple when I was a kid, is now a monthly publication that seems sometimes wholly devoted to lists of schools, hospitals and whatnot.

Sylva and Cullowhee made a couple of lists recently. Cullowhee got a controversial edge over Boone and Asheville in North Carolina as a “better sports town” in the Sporting News, and Sylva was named by the Mother Earth News as one of 11 “Great Places You’ve (Maybe) Never Heard Of”.

The Sporting News list ranks 399 “sports cities” in the U.S., using a methodology that is vague at best. That aside, the upshot is a 199th-place finish for good ol’ Cullowhee, 15 spots ahead of Asheville and 26 ahead of Boone. The howls of wonderment from the Asheville Citizen-Times sports desk will likely brings wails of  self-defense from Western, all amounting to a tempest in a teapot.

Update: Citizen-Times sports editor Bob Berghaus back-pedaled like a slow cornerback today, publishing parts of an op-ed from WCU’s Gibbs Knotts and arriving at the conclusion, more or less, that maybe Cullowhee is a great sports burg, who knows?

Sylva, meanwhile, is unaccustomed to the limelight. The Reader’s home base is a busy working town, described, out of context, by Edward Abbey as having “the life of a market center and the dignity of a county seat”. You can get just about anything you need on Sylva’s Main Street, from fresh-brewed beer to fresh-roasted coffee to fresh-baked bread to fresh fish. You can still get shoes fixed here, and the downtown dentist’s family has been at the same trade in the same place for well over a century.

But in this pre-packaged age, Sylva doesn’t fit the mold of a “destination” (a surprise to its many visitors), so the tourism folks don’t circulate its name much.

Of course, the Mother Earth News isn’t all that concerned with tourism. Here’s what it said about Sylva, which was one of two southern towns to make its list:

“Sylva embodies a vibrant small town that engages its citizenry in a variety of ways,” said John Rockhold, managing editor for the magazine. “Mother Earth News focuses on cool things you can do to live wisely and create community, and we think our readers will identify with a place like Sylva.”

Read about Sylva in the Mother Earth News here.

SYLVA–Jackson County’s unique greenway effort has been around for a decade or so, and has been becalmed at times.

But not lately.

Elders, with daughter Mason

A combination of public sentiment and local government support has pushed the greenways effort, now spearheaded by the Jackson County Parks and Recreation Department, to new levels.

On August 17 the Jackson County Board of Commissioners gave their unanimous approval to the greenways master plan. The plan itself is a significant accomplishment, but the commissioners’ buy-in was, too.

“I feel that we have never had quite so much momentum and support for greenways in Jackson County”, says Emily Elders, Greenways Project Manager. “The commissioners’ endorsement and the continued participation and public support are encouraging as we begin to tackle the projects we listed in the master plan.”

Funding and rights-of-way don’t come easy in the greenways business, but as Elders begins checking the smaller projects off the list, the larger vision of local greenways advocates could take shape. These smaller projects will eventually grow together to fit into a larger transportation system for the county, says Elders.

“Greenways projects are often self-contained; more like recreation spots,” Elders says. “Many of ours will serve those purposes, too, but ultimately they’ll all begin to connect to help us solve larger transportation problems.”

Among the current projects are a few in the Cashiers/Glenville area, as well as a Dillsboro-to-Sylva connector that has been a thorn in the side of residents for years. Residents still envision a greenway connector between the towns, but a geographical bottleneck has made a joint effort with the NC Department of Transportation to build a sidewalk alongside Business 23 the only practical solution. The project is funded, but organizers are still negotiating with two property owners who refuse right-of-way.

“There’s no other approach except to begin negotiations, treat everyone fairly and respectfully, and hope for the best,” says Elders. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to get a section on the ground soon, and that will go a long way towards helping ease many people’s concerns about beautification, privacy, safety, and property values.”

STATEWIDE–Tourism promotion is a trendy business, with lots of seminars, theories, conferences and back-patting.

And you’ve heard the resulting catch-phrases: “destination tourism”, in which travelers are drawn to a thing (say the second biggest tree in the southwest corner of the county, or a theme park); “heritage tourism” (visit because of a culture, just not the dominant one); “ecotourism” (find places that are really pristine because no one goes there, then go there); and stay tuned for “civic tourism”, in which travelers find a little town they like and immerse themselves in it, like a hot tub.

Well, heritage tourism, from a state marketing perspective, is getting a little long in the tooth. We saw evidence of that yesterday, when the North Carolina Department of Commerce, which oversees travel and tourism efforts, slashed a bunch of heritage tourism jobs.

Here’s Jordan Schrader’s lead in the Asheville Citizen-Times:

RALEIGH — Budget-trimming lawmakers mostly kept their hands off economic development efforts, figuring North Carolina needs jobs now more than ever.

They made an exception, though, for the employees who promote tourism for the state’s small-town historic and cultural attractions.

Budget knives cut deeply into the jobs known as heritage tourism development officers. Two-thirds of positions were eliminated.

Read the whole piece here.

Here’s another excerpt:

[Rep. Phil] Haire, a Sylva Democrat, and Sen. Joe Sam Queen, a Waynesville Democrat who has been an advocate of adding more heritage tourism positions, said the reduction reflects the Commerce Department’s recommendations for where the budget cuts should fall.

“I think Western North Carolina has come out good on the balance here, but in the priorities of the state, the Commerce Department’s priorities, I think this was just toward the bottom,” Queen said.

Queen hopes the jobs will be restored in a better budget. He’s an advocate for heritage tourism projects like the department’s effort to have the Rutherford Trace designated a national heritage trail.

In 1776, Revolutionary War Gen. Griffith Rutherford led more than 2,000 militiamen from Old Fort to raid and burn Cherokee villages all the way to Murphy. It was a key part of the resistance to the British and their Indian allies, and the beginning of Cherokee removal, Queen said.

Queen said North Carolina’s stories — even violent ones like the Rutherford Trace — need to be told. “There’s no better way to promote your region than to promote your authentic selves,” Queen said.

Action shot! The first cold beers for the Hayesville Aztex station. Photo: Clay County Progress

REGIONAL–Many of us who were raised in the mountains spent time taking care of tourists. And part of the responsibility in that line of work is trying to explain alcohol blue laws to people who are baffled by them.

Most of us can’t figure them out, either — whether we agree with them or not — so we usually fall back on general rules of thumb to make travel easier in the hills.

One of these rules is that you can expect laws regarding beer, wine and liquor to change every 100 yards or so. Most counties are dry, while many municipalities within those counties are “damp”, with beer and wine in stores, but not in restaurants, and no liquor; or beer and wine in stores and in restaurants, but liquor in state-run liquor stores only, or sometimes beer and wine in restaurants only, but not in stores. Here and there you can’t buy beer, wine or liquor, but if you have some on you or under the car seat, you can carry it into a restaurant (as long as they have what’s called a “brown bag” permit). Some towns are full-on wet, but not many.

Further complicating matters is a smattering of state laws that allow alcohol at resorts that meet certain size requirements or are near, say, the Blue Ridge Parkway. These were generally pushed through within the past couple of decades by the tourism industry in cahoots with lawmakers who couldn’t get a highball at their favorite backcountry country club.

At any rate, its always an interesting barometer of the times when alcohol laws come up for a vote in the mountains. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians recently voted to allow alcohol sales in its casino only, and were plenty frank in explaining that it was just another way to relieve gamblers of their cash. But alcohol sales outside the casino? No way.

Even more recently, voters in Clay County — which is the next county west of Macon — voted to allow beer and wine sales. This is slightly more interesting as a sign of changing times, because rural, relatively sparsely populated Clay County is the type of place that would have utterly rejected the notion of alcohol sales on moral grounds a very few decades ago.

Here’s coverage of the vote from the Clay County Progress.

Elsewhere, Editor James Budd at the Graham Star writes that Graham and Yancey counties are western North Carolina’s lone holdouts on the alcohol issue.

An excerpt from his story:

“I guess you could say Graham and Yancey are the only two counties in the state that are smart,” [Robbinsville Alderman Bobby] Smith said. “As long as I have a vote I would be against it. I think it would be bad for the town or the county.”

Commissioner Steve Odom said he’s opposed to the sale of alcoholic beverages in the county.

“I have seen too many personal tragedies come from alcohol use,” Odom said. “Too many families destroyed. I would personally be against alcohol sales in Graham County for those reasons.”

NATIONAL–Rob Schofield at NC Policy Watch and the Progressive Pulse provides this list:

Police protection – Just call 911 and competent, honest folks are at my door in minutes
Fire protection — Ditto
Roads –N.C. DOT may be flawed, but imagine if streets were owned by Halliburton
The military – Save the private armies for Somalia
The courts system – One of America’s greatest achievements and a chief guarantor of the capitalist system
Jails – Just look at how badly our current experiments with private prisons have gone
The U.S. Postal Service – Amazingly cheap and effective
Universal public education – At the heart of our success as a democracy
Social Security and Medicare – Anyone who questions these should look at how older Americans lived before we had them.
Public water and sewer services — No privies or polluted wells for me

ROBBINSVILLE-In some ways, this small Graham County town is a throwback. It has as its largest employer a manufacturing company, just as most mountain towns did until a few decades ago.

And in some ways, Stanley Furniture, too, is a throwback. It’s an American manufacturer that still makes things in the United States. Established in 1924, Stanley is a leading producer of wooden furniture “targeted at the upper-medium price range of the residential market”.

Stanley, based in Stanleytown, VA, moved a large chunk of its operation to Robbinsville last fall (to join another chunk that was already there), and recently announced that it would consolidate its Lexington, NC, warehouse operation with similar operations in Robbinsville – the latter a net gain in Robbinsville of 28 jobs, either by transfer from Lexington or new hire.

Stanley’s Robbinsville operation employs over 400 people.

On the downside, Stanley’s net sales of $42.3 million declined 28.4% from the second quarter of 2008. Loss per share of $.29 compares to a loss per share of $.01 in the prior year quarter. Stanley’s losses of .29 per share were nine cents more than predicted, and 28 cents more than losses reported for the same quarter of last year.

“Given the sequential improvement in sales in the second quarter compared to the first quarter of this year and a stable order rate for the past few months, we are seeing signs that sales levels may have reached a bottom,” said Stanley Furniture’s Chairman and CEO Albert L. Prillaman. “However, we see no indication of any sustained upturn.”

Mark O'Connor

REGIONAL--Fans of bluegrass and newgrass recognize Mark O’Connor’s name instantly; his career stretches back more than two decades, and he has a rumpus-room full of country music awards to show for it.

But his musicianship stretches far beyond his Appalachian successes, as this feature interview in the Wenatchee World well describes.

An excerpt:

By the time he was in his teens, the Seattle native had wowed classical violinists, bluegrass masters and jazz giants. Reared on the European masters, he went on to study with Texas folk fiddler Benny Thomasson and won four championships at the National Old-Time Fiddler’s Contest in Weiser, Idaho. Then, at 17, he toured in the Gypsy jazz combo fronted by one of the music’s creators, Stephane Grappelli. Then on to Nashville, where he became a coveted session player and won six Country Music Association awards from 1991 to 1996.

Then, into new territory — creating solo, ensemble and orchestral works that unite all these fields. His “Fiddle Concerto” was the thin end of the wedge, the first of more than 40 compositions that use chamber string instruments — violin, viola, cello — but can’t comfortably be classed in any of the existing genres.

<snip>

I know that I’m a very unusual artist in that I’ve been able to experience artistic success in the main genres, the classical, the jazz and folk and country. I can say it’s an exceptional career for 2009, but in my opinion, I think that’s just an open door for more people to do something similar. I think 10 years from now, 15 years from now, you’re gonna see more people with careers that are similar. I think the instrumental world demands that the artist be a bigger-tent artist. How far are they pushing the boundaries?

Read the whole piece here.

CHEROKEE–The Festival of Native Peoples will be held July 17 and 18 at the Cherokee Indian Fair Grounds.

The festival is an exposition of non-competitive dance, storytelling, and song performances expressing the collected history, culture, tradition, and wisdom of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Festival of Native Peoples, Cherokee, NC

Entertainment throughout the day will include a replica of an Apache dwelling with audience participation, hoop dancing, flute music, and Cherokee storytellers.

The festival will also play host to one of the southeast’s largest Native American art markets. The Cherokee Indian Art Market will feature more than 50 nationally recognized, juried craftspeople and artisans from around the country displaying and selling their handmade traditional and contemporary works of art. Arts and crafts on display include traditional Cherokee white oak and river cane baskets, black and traditional pottery, wood and stone carvings, paintings, silver and turquoise jewelry. Artists will also demonstrate techniques passed down from generation to generation.

Artists scheduled to appear represent the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Jemez Pueblo, Choctaw, Santo Domingo, Lipan Apache, Dine’, Oglala Lakota, Seminole and Muscogee Nations. Artists will include Darrin Bark, John Grant, Jeanean Hornbuckle, Mary James, Nikki Nations, Joel Queen, Bud Smith, and Mattie Welch Wildcat, Shan Goshorn, Ramona Lossie, Lori Reed, Lucille Lossiah, Betty Maney and Louise Goings among others.

Gates open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily with performances throughout the day. Adult admission $10; children six and under are free. For discount ticket packages or more information, call 800.438.1601.

SYLVA–Landscaping crews are wrapping up the placement of sod at Sylva’s Bridge Park this week, just in the nick of time for the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce’s inaugural “Concerts on the Creek” series, to take place each Saturday in August.

Dehlia Low

The 2009 series will feature five top-notch regional bands.

“All the bands have regional recognition and we hope people will visit Sylva for a nice evening and maybe dine out or shop around,” says Chamber representative Mary Kelley. “We’ll have information available for local restaurants, as well as arts and crafts exhibits.”

Music fans are encouraged to bring lawn chairs or blankets for the free shows, which run from 6-9 p.m. each Saturday in August.

Aug. 1–Chris Cates and the Master Plan
Asheville band with an eclectic sound that blends rock and roll, funk and R&B, with a dash of beach music.

“Well take everyone on a journey through the history of rock, R&B and beach music, playing a lot of favorites, as well as a few from our latest CD,” said Cates.

Aug. 8–Angi West

A Jackson County native returns home with her Asheville-based band having just released her second CD, “Love is a Special Way of Feeling.” Her avant-garde folk rock music has been described as “Appalachian anti-pop.” In addition to possessing an unforgettable voice, West is also an accomplished pianist.

Aug. 15–The Smoky Mountain Brass Quintet

This unique group serves as quintet in residence at Western Carolina University and has performed nationally in such venues as Carnegie Hall. Their unique music ranges from early renaissance to rock.

Aug. 22–High Windy Band
The future of bluegrass music is showcased by this band from Asheville. This award-winning group brings a modern spin to bluegrass with a high-energy mix that prompted WNC Magazine to name the band one of the top regional acts for 2009.

Aug. 29–Dehlia Low

A critically-acclaimed band from Asheville, this bluegrass group focuses on songwriting that draws from the sounds of early roots country, with instrumentation influenced by early and modern bluegrass. The five band members hail from all points of the bluegrass nation: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Mississippi. Their self-titled EP was named No. 16 in the top 100 releases in 2008 by WNCW.

CULLOWHEE– Ron Rash, the Parris Distinguished Professor of Appalachian Culture at Western Carolina University, is winner of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance book award in the category of fiction for his novel “Serena.”

Rash’s “Serena” has been a critical success since its 2008 release and has catapulted the South Carolina-born author to the forefront of the literary world.

The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance is a regional organization that represents more than 300 independent bookstores and storeowners throughout the Southeast.

Ron Rash

“Serena” is set in pre-Depression-era Appalachia, and tells the story of a timber baron and his ruthless wife who come to the North Carolina mountains to seek their fortune.

In addition to his SIBA award, “Serena” made Rash a finalist for the 2009 Pen/Faulkner Award, was called “one of the best books of the year” by Publishers Weekly, and was Amazon’s No. 7 most sought-after book in 2008.

Critics have praised Rash’s ability to majestically convey the North Carolina backcountry, which is a trademark of his work. The Columbia, S.C., newspaper, The State, praised Rash for his ability to “capture the speech and landscape of the Carolinas with an elegant precision” when commenting on his 2006 novel “The World Made Straight.”

Rash is no stranger to critical acclaim. His 2002 novel “One Foot in Eden” won the Appalachian Writers Association’s Book of the Year award and received a gold medal from ForeWords Magazine for best literary novel.

In April, Rash was a featured speaker at Western Carolina’s Spring Literary Festival. He continues to host readings of his work across the country.

Jonathan Hearne

LEICESTER-Once, in a field near Franklin, Jonathan Hearne was hit by lightning. Or rather, lightning struck the tool he was using to shear wool off a sheep. The bolt then jumped from the shears to his knees, and with a burst of flame “blew the bottoms off his feet” and killed the sheep.

Jonathan Hearne is a sheep-shearer. His days aren’t this hard as a rule, but it’s pretty tough work, and it doesn’t pay too well unless you work fast.

He owns property between Newfound and Leicester – at the eastern end of Haywood County – that his parents bought in 1966, and he works that land, but he makes his principal living traveling seven southeastern states and visiting farms to shear their flocks.

Like many of us, Hearne had no real idea that this is where life would lead him. “I never dreamed thirty-three years ago, when I was first doing this for a living, that I’d be shearing sheep thirty-three years later,” he says with a laugh. But he adds that he loves it.

A native of Pennsylvania, Hearne learned his trade from an old-time Iowan. Traveling shearers often take on helpers – apprentices, more or less, – that travel with them. That’s how Hearne learned. Then, in 1976, he came to the mountains.

His parents, who had been dairy farmers in Pennsylvania from 1938 until 1966, preceded him by a decade.

“I heard stories about a fellow in Fines Creek that could shear 100 sheep a day,” Hearne recalls. “I thought ‘there’s never been a bigger lie told in these mountains’, but then I saw him shear and I thought ‘OK, that’s different’”.

As he honed his skills, Hearne eventually doubled — nearly tripled — that number.

Now he travels with his son, Ben, a graduate of Earlham College, and they carry on what is becoming a family tradition. The shearing circuit is by no means high living, but they have a good time.

“We’ve got a lot of friends in a lot of places,” says Hearne. “Sometimes we camp out, sometimes we’re invited in. Because we’re sheep shearers, we’re obviously not in it for the money, so we’re generally trusted. We’re welcomed as someone who can do something that people really appreciate. And the people we meet are good. As a general rule, scoundrels don’t keep sheep.”

The economy of keeping sheep for wool is, at this point, poor. In the 1980’s the per pound price of wool started to fall, by the late 90’s it was desperately low – around 3 cents per pound. That was the beginning of the end. Three decades ago, Hearne says, wool sold for around one dollar per pound.

“Wool from your general cross-bred sheep isn’t worth much,” he says.

The main reason that many people keep flocks these days, he adds, is so they can maintain their land’s “agricultural” designation, which has tax advantages.

SYLVA–In its August issue, Backpacker Magazine names Sylva a “top town to raise a kayaker”.

Writes Jason Stevenson:

A virtual nest of rivers with every class of rapids a kid (or parent) could want, Sylva is home to American Whitewater Association.

The same issue names the country’s top 25 cities in which to raise an “outdoor kid”, and three area towns make the cut: Asheville, Brevard and Sevierville.

CULLOWHEE--As part of its “Cold Case” series, which is “dedicated to rediscovering underrated and undervalued films and those who made them”, Movieline.com ran a June feature on The Hidden, a 1980’s “schlocktail” about L.A. cops in hot pursuit of a body-swapping alien.

Jack Sholder, head of the Motion Picture & Television Production program at Western Carolina University, directed the film. He did the work hot on the heels of his success with the lucrative A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, and he told Movieline.com what drew him to the script for The Hidden: “It had a wicked sense of humor, the cop thing going, and it had some heart to it,” Sholder said. “And there were sequences I just wanted to see.”

Here’s how Movieline describes the film:

Our antagonist is a slimy spider-slug who finds cardiac patients and bouffanted strippers the warmest place to hide, and who delights in shooting the shit out of police stations. Earth’s only hope is Michael Nouri’s take-no-crap homicide detective and Kyle MacLachlan’s oddball FBI agent, a character he’d later refine in Twin Peaks. Their tongue-in-cheek rapport and the film’s raucous energy make The Hidden an intoxicating schlocktail, but the movie was a box-office non-starter in the year of Predator, Lethal Weapon… and the Wall Street crash, which happened the week it released.

Another excerpt:

While The Hidden struggled theatrically, the industry loved it. “I became a hot commodity for a while,” Sholder remembered. But he still played hard-to-get, culminating in his declining the sequel to Gremlins, then Warner Bros. highest-grossing film. “I would’ve been in the big-time studio business,” he said. “I kick myself for not doing it but… I had so little passion for it that I might’ve made a completely rotten movie.”

Read the whole piece here.

View a trailer and the well-remembered car chase from The Hidden below.

REGIONAL–Guest columnist Bill Studenc writes in the Asheville Citizen-Times about the dangers of being too comfortable around waterfalls.

An excerpt:

At least a dozen people have died in accidents on WNC waterfalls since 2001, either by being pulled beneath the surface of the water, or, as has been more often the case, plunging to their dooms after being swept off their feet by the rapids.

<snip>

The majority of deaths on WNC’s waterfalls, however, have involved people going into places where really have no business being — clambering up the faces of waterfalls or venturing too close to the edge of a cliff on the water’s edge, only to find that what seemed like a tranquil scene out of a chamber of commerce brochure suddenly has transformed into a nightmare.

Outdoors experts caution that people need to understand that mountain waterways can be risky places, and they advise whitewater rafters, mountain “swimming hole” swimmers and trail hikers to be careful when around rapidly moving water.

Read the piece here.

Abraham Lincoln and son Tad

SYLVA–John McKinsey, author of The Lincoln Secret, which is a work of fiction, will be at City Lights on Thursday, July 16th at 7:00 p.m. to present a program based on his research into Abraham Lincoln’s ancestry and a possible North Carolina link. Was Abraham Enloe, rather than Thomas Lincoln, really Lincoln’s father? McKinsey’s book is a contemporary mystery with historical elements, and McKinsey conducted extensive research into the Lincoln family history.

The Lincoln Secret is a modern-day, mystery-adventure novel featuring real historical mysteries about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. One of the central mysteries about Lincoln involves his origin and who his father really was. He may have been fathered not by Thomas Lincoln in Kentucky but by Abraham Enloe in North Carolina.

REGIONAL–Asheville website RomanticAsheville.com offers up this list of what it considers the region’s top waterfalls.

Whitewater Falls, south of Cashiers, makes the cut at number four, and Gorges State Park and Graveyard Fields are in the top half.

The piece links to a separate list of Highlands-area falls.

An excerpt:

Upper Whitewater Falls is the highest waterfall east of the Rockies. The falls plunge an amazing 411 feet! The best part is that you can get a great view with a short walk. Just follow the paved walkway to the upper overlook. The walkway begins at the end of the parking lot and is accessible to wheelchairs. A lower overlook is located at the bottom of 154 wooden steps. More energetic hikers can continue down the half-mile spur trail that drops 600 feet in elevation to the Whitewater River and Foothills Trail.

Upper Whitewater Falls/Photo by Mark File/RomanticAsheville.com

REGIONAL–The food blog Nourished Kitchen offers up a post called “Get the Most From your Farmers Market: 10 Tips from a Market Manager.”

The author’s lead:

Together, my husband and I run our local farmers market – coordinating with the town, recruiting vendors, connecting with customers and devising eccentric activities that keep the customers returning to the market even after their shopping is done. In the three years since the market began, I’ve garnered a little wisdom and want to share a few tips with you that can enhance your farmers marketing experience.

Tip number one:

Go Early, but Not Too Early

The best stuff goes fast. A farmer may only have a single flat of ripe, juicy blackberries or a couple of pounds of fresh green peas, so arrive early to make sure you get the best pick of the market’s wares. Take care, though, not to go too early. Some markets disallow sales prior to the official hour and the sale you ask the farmer to make early may very well slow down set-up thus reducing the sales she or he can make later.

Read the other nine tips here.

SYLVA–Brenda Oliver, mayor of Sylva for 17 years, will not run for re-election in November.

Oliver, who has served in leadership roles in Sylva for 28 years, made the announcement at last Thursday’s town board meeting.

Meanwhile, Maurice Moody, a Sylva native with over ten years’ experience on the town board, made official his candidacy for mayor when he filed for election on Monday.

Oliver, who is actively involved in state and national municipal organizations, has been widely considered a progressive influence in mountain municipal leadership.

Moody, who often provides the swing vote on the five member board, would lose that vote as mayor. If he were to win the election, the board would appoint his replacement. A Sylva native whose career took him to south Georgia, but who retired to Sylva, Moody has been active in his support of downtown revitalization and an advocate for younger citizens’ participation in government. He votes on the “progressive” side of many issues, but takes a conservative stance on land use planning issues.

His was one of three votes, for example, that scuttled plans for a high-density development off Yellowbird Branch last year.

Two seats on the town board are up for re-election, and four candidates have filed: incumbents Stacy Knotts and Harold Hensley, downtown merchant David Kelley and previous board member Danny Allen.