REGIONAL–Congress has approved $13 million towards a larger settlement with Swain County to resolve the North Shore Road issue.
Here’s an excerpt from Mark Barrett’s story in the Asheville Citizen-Times:
A provision backed by U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, a Swain County native and Waynesville Democrat, to spend the money is part of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2010 that the House passed Wednesday.
Shuler’s office said the Senate is expected to pass the bill this weekend.
The bill would release $4 million in federal funds to Swain County immediately, with the remaining $8.8 million to come 120 days after a settlement agreement is reached.
In 1943, the federal government agreed to build a road along the north shore of Fontana Lake, after an existing road was covered by the lake. Parts of the road have been built, but the north shore of the lake is remote, rugged and mostly inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Eventually, the federal government sought a financial settlement rather than build the road, but elements within the community fought the settlement, and the contentious issue has dragged on for decades.
REGIONAL–With a steady resurgence of the mountain black bear population in progress (and there was never any great shortage), its no surprise that they’re in the news so often these days. But even so, this week was a humdinger.
Bryson City is used to bears, given its proximity to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and lots of National Forest. Still, when a female and her cub came to town, found a tree they liked, and camped out, it caused a stir.
“I’ve never seen so many people,” said retired Swain County Schools teacher Shirley Sutton, who with her husband Eugene owns the property where the tree is.
Sutton had spotted the bears early Monday morning. She called the police to report the situation.
“They said just leave (them) alone, and they would come down,” Sutton said just before noon on Tuesday, with the bears still visible out her living room window. “But they haven’t come down.”
Also this week a Cherokee man was brought up on federal charges of dealing in poached bear parts, some of which are used in homeopathic treatments in Asia and elsewhere. Jon Ostendorff at the Asheville Citizen-Timeswrote it up. His lead:
A Cherokee man must make a public apology for illegally selling 51 bear gall bladders, the U.S. Department of Justice ruled.
Last but by no means least was the misadventure in Cherokee, where a handler at one of the tourist attraction “bear parks” made famous recently by game show host Bob Barker was bitten by one of her charges. The feds are looking in to this incident.
Again, on the bear beat, Ostendorff:
Mary Clapsaddle, 75, who has been managing the park for about 20 years, was recovering at Mission Hospital from injuries to her hand and arm, said her son, Kole Clapsaddle. He owns the business.
She was airlifted to the hospital after the attack on Monday. A bear bit her while she was giving water to the animal about 12:45 p.m.
Clapsaddle said his mother broke safety rules when she stepped into a pen with a bear. He said handlers are supposed to place food and water in one part of the pen while the bear is secured in another part.
“She didn’t follow the rules,” he said. “If you follow the rules, you don’t get hurt.”
GSMNP-The Knoxville News-Sentinel reported over the weekend about cautious optimism on the part of Great Smoky Mountains National Park officials about their efforts to curtail the invasion of the hemlock woolly adelgid.
An excerpt:
“The work to preserve Eastern hemlock trees and forests in 2009 progressed and showed successes despite increased decline and obvious mortality of trees throughout the park,” the report states.
“‘Cautiously optimistic’ is a good term for it,” said park spokesman Bob Miller.
A three-pronged strategy, using a combination of predatory beetles, foliar treatments and systemic treatments, is being followed to destroy hemlock woolly adelgids on the trees.
Because of cost, accessibility issues and priorities given to most-visited areas, the treatment area is limited in scope and includes about 132,000 hemlocks in the park.
BRYSON CITY–Jim Casada churns out an amazing amount of outdoors writing for the Smoky Mountain Times, and his current series of book reviews is invaluable.
Ken Wise’s “Hiking Trails of the Great Smoky Mountains.”
Russ Manning’s “100 Hikes in the great Smoky Mountains National Park”
“The Best of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park: A Hiker’s Guide to Trails and Attractions” by Russ Manning and Sondra Jamieson
Danny Bernstein’s “Hiking the Carolina Mountains.”
“North Carolina Hiking Trails” by Allen de Hart
Johnny Molloy’s “Trial by Trail: Backpacking in the Smoky Mountains,”
Michal Strutin’s “History Hikes of the Smokies”
Casada’s closing paragraph:
By all means, seek some armchair adventure through works such as those mentioned above, but the ultimate adventure, whatever the season, comes through being on the trail. Whether it’s a leisurely walk up lower Deep Creek – the sort scores of folks make daily – or one of those strenuous 20-plus mile ventures my brother Don enjoys, to be afoot in the park is to tread paths of wonder.
GSMNP–National Geographic Traveler, in its sixth rating of worldwide travel destinations, calls the Great Smoky Mountains National Park “a national treasure surrounded by a bathtub ring of ugly, unplanned development.”
An excerpt from a story on the matter from the Knoxville News Sentinel:
The survey of 437 experts, which including travel writers, historic preservationists, ecologists and others, placed the Smokies in the next-to-worst category: “Places with Troubles.”
The judges whose comments were published with the story were slightly more lenient on the North Carolina side of the Smokies than the Tennessee side, which one judge described as displaying “the worst excesses of mass tourist development … ”
Tourism officials from Tennessee told the News Sentinel that the rankings were inherently biased against more popular and accessible locations.
CULLOWHEE-Some local sportswriters have expressed bewilderment at a recent ranking by a nationally circulated magazine, The Sporting News, that placed Cullowhee at No. 199 among the United States’ top 399 sports cities.
Gibbs Knotts
These pundits seem perplexed that Cullowhee would be ranked 26 spots ahead of Boone, home of archrival Appalachian State University. When comparing Boone and Cullowhee, the sports reporters have focused on the higher attendance at Appalachian State football and men’s basketball games.
In their haste to criticize The Sporting News ranking, some journalists are missing a point that The Sporting News apparently did not miss – Cullowhee is home to a LOT of sporting events, many of them successful by regional and national standards.
Focusing solely on football and men’s basketball overlooks the achievements of at least seven of the other 13 Division I collegiate sports at Western Carolina. Last year, three WCU teams – women’s basketball, women’s soccer, and men’s track and field – won conference championships. Women’s track and field, baseball, men’s golf and women’s golf also have posted notably successful records.
WCU’s women’s basketball and soccer teams have been ranked in the nation’s top 20 academically. The women’s golf team regularly places individuals on the National Golf Coaches Association All-American Scholars list. In the spring 2009 semester, 87 student-athletes made the dean’s list and 18 earned perfect 4.0 grade-point averages. At Western Carolina, athletic victories usually go hand-in-hand with academic successes.
Part of what makes a sports town a sports town is tradition and history, and Western Carolina has its fair share. The first three-point shot in men’s college basketball was made in Cullowhee. Every year at NCAA basketball tournament time, the networks roll out the footage from 1996 when the Catamounts came within a whisker of being the first No. 16 seed to defeat a No. 1 seed. And Asheville’s own Henry Logan opened the door for student-athletes of his race when, in 1964, he joined the WCU basketball team and became the first African-American to play at a predominantly white institution in the South.
Adding to the game-day experience in Cullowhee is WCU’s Pride of the Mountains Marching Band, whose crowd-pleasing halftime shows over the years are being recognized nationally by the John Phillip Sousa Foundation, which has awarded the band the 2009 Sudler Trophy – the Heisman Trophy of collegiate marching bands.
Aside from Catamount athletics, Cullowhee also features outstanding outdoor sporting opportunities. The area is a haven for cyclists, hosting numerous group rides and the annual Tour de Tuck bicycle ride. Anglers flock to Cullowhee for many miles of rivers and streams, and Cullowhee is a world-class boating and kayaking destination. Some Olympic athletes train in the area.
The university engages students in outdoor experiences through its Base Camp Cullowhee, a campus organization that hosts nearly 2,000 people per year on outdoor adventures and supplies students with low-cost outdoor gear and supplies. Base Camp employees serve as a resource to the Cullowhee community, providing trip advice, trail maps, and other outdoor tips to local individuals and families, and to hundreds of the millions of Americans who visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway annually.
Is Cullowhee really the 199th best sports town in the United States? Scientifically, I can’t say, but when you look at the entire picture, why not? What I can do is invite sports fans of all persuasions to come to Cullowhee and find out. Attend a soccer match or a women’s basketball game. Bring your bike and ride the Ring of Fire. Float down the beautiful Tuckaseigee River. Or bring your binoculars and watch track or cross country or some other Olympic sport. You may discover that The Sporting News has it right – sporting opportunities are abundant in Cullowhee.
Gibbs Knotts is faculty athletics representative at Western Carolina University where he teaches political science and public affairs. In his free time, he attends Catamount sporting events and enjoys Cullowhee’s many outdoor opportunities.
GSMNP–Those thumps you heard earlier were tourism folks fainting dead away at the news that the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will close its wildly popular Cades Cove loop for three months in the spring for repaving and sprucing up.
An excerpt from the Knoxville News Sentinel:
The park examined a “full range of options” to do the work, according to Superintendent Dale Ditmanson.
All would have required unsuitable detours for the 3,000 to 4,000 vehicles that enter the cove each day, Ditmanson said.
Night-time work also was considered, but the road would have had to be closed for the rebuilding of the sub-base.
The park chose to close the road and recycle it in place as the most efficient and “environmentally responsible” way to complete the work, Ditmanson said.
REGIONAL–The Southern Appalachian Bear Study Group, a group of biologists from Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia who study black bear populations, think that the current population of bears across the Southern Appalachians is the highest on record.
An excerpt from Morgan Simmons’ story in the Knoxville News Sentinel:
The latest UT studies put the black bear population in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park at around 1,500, or about two bears for every square mile of the park.
The number of bears taken by legal hunting in Tennessee has increased dramatically since 1982, when the harvest was only 21 bears. In 1997, hunters harvested a record 370 bears. Many biologists thought the population had peaked that year, but then came the 2008-09 hunting season, when Tennessee hunters harvested 446 black bears for yet another record.
[Research ecologist] Frank Van Manen said that while the region may be biologically capable of supporting even more bears, it’s clear that in some areas, the population has reached its cultural capacity as determined by people’s willingness to tolerate bears visiting their bird feeders or breaking into their homes.
GSMNP–Great Smoky Mountains National Park managers have announced that the Park’s cooperating partner, Great Smoky Mountains Association, has just published and released its newest book, Smoky Mountain Magic, a novel by Horace Kephart.
Horace Kephart
Although completed in 1929, two years before the author’s death, the novel was never published until now.
Cathy Cook, Chief of Resource Education and Science at the Smokies said, “We had no idea that a Kephart novel even existed. The unpublished manuscript for Smoky Mountain Magic was handed down within the Kephart family until it was finally brought to the attention of park superintendent, Dale Ditmanson, by Libby Kephart Hargrave, the author’s great-granddaughter, at one of this year’s 75th Anniversary celebrations.
The typewritten manuscript was complete, having gone through numerous drafts and revisions over the course of the eight years that Horace Kephart labored over it.”
Smoky Mountain Magic’s fictional story takes place during the summer of 1925, mostly along the Deep Creek watershed in the Great Smoky Mountains, but also in a thinly-disguised Bryson City (called Kittuwa) and the Cherokee Indian Reservation. Characters include a mysterious stranger (who resembles the author in his youth), a greedy land baron, a cadre of mountain folk ranging in constitution from stalwart to conniving, a beautiful botanist, a Cherokee chief, and a witch. The novel fits the adventure story genre of the day with a bit of romance interwoven.
The famed author and outdoorsman first came to the Great Smoky Mountains in 1904 looking for a fresh start in life. He moved into an abandoned cabin on a tributary of Hazel Creek, a remote area even by early 20th century southern Appalachian standards. There Kephart befriended his independent and self-reliant neighbors and pursued his passions for hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, and generally living off the land.
The result of his time in what Kephart described as the “back of beyond” were Our Southern Highlanders, the classic work on the people of the Smokies, and Camping and Woodcraft, the definitive work on enjoying the out of doors. Both works are still in print and continue to nurture an enthusiastic following.
During the 1920s, Kephart and his friend and fellow hiker George Masa began a vigorous campaign to have the Great Smoky Mountains protected as a national park. Kephart wrote letters, articles, and a booklet championing the cause, and Masa contributed his breath-taking landscape photographs.
Together they raised awareness of the significance and beauty of the Smokies and sounded the alarm over the devastation being caused by unsound, industrial logging operations. Both Kephart and Masa figure prominently in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park segment of a new 12-hour documentary series by Ken Burns entitled “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” which will begin September 27 on PBS.
For their successful effort, both Kephart and Masa have neighboring mountains named for them. A stream, trail, and camping shelter in the national park also bear Kephart’s name.
The 248 page Smoky Mountain Magic is now available in both paperback ($12.95) and hard cover ($19.95). All proceeds are being donated to the Horace Kephart Foundation (in support of the annual Horace Kephart Days Celebration in Bryson City), Great Smoky Mountains Association, and Friends of the Smokies.
SYLVA-Horace Kephart is well known for his explorations in what is now the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and for his writings about the area and its people. The new Ken Burns documentary on our National Parks features Kephart’s significant role in the creation of Park.
Now, a long-lost novel by Kephart has been found and just been published by the Great Smoky Mountains Association, 80 years after Kephart completed the manuscript in 1929.
Video from the Great Smoky Mountains Association:
City Lights will host a reading from the novel by Kephart’s great-granddaughter, Libby Kephart Hargrave, on Tuesday, October 20th at 7:00 p.m.
Hargrave wrote a foreword for the book, detailing how it came to be published after having laid so long only in manuscript form. George Ellison wrote the introduction, which gives further background and places the novel in the full context of Kephart’s legacy. Elizabeth Ellison’s watercolor is featured on the book’s cover, and Ron Rash’s praise also appears on the cover: he calls the book “a remarkable and illuminating read.”
As Ellison points out in his introduction, Kephart was an excellent listener, and in his time in the Hazel Creek community, he listened to residents tell about their lives. Both his ear for dialogue and his appreciation for a good story are revealed in the novel, which is set in Deep Creek, near Bryson City.
The story features Cherokee lore, as well, and some fantastical elements. too. According to Ellison, “Creating a dreamscape is not the sort of stylistic device a reader familiar with Camping and Woodcraft and Our Southern Highlanders would have expected from Kephart, not even in a novel.”
But at its heart, Smoky Mountain Magic is a story of both romance and adventure.
At the City Lights program devoted to the book, Hargrave will talk about bringing the manuscript to publication and will read selections from it. She will also take questions from the audience.
Bryson City Book Premiere and Signing to be Hosted by Kephart Family
In honor of the recently rediscovered and published novel Smoky Mountain Magic, the Kephart family and the Swain County Chamber of Commerce
invites the public to a premiere party that will feature readings from the novel as well as an opportunity to have your copy signed by a relative of the famed author.The event, which will be held at the historic Calhoun House Hotel located indowntown Bryson City, is scheduled for Sunday, October 18, 1 – 5pm. After a short program that will include naturalist George Ellison, GSMNP Superintendant Dale Ditmanson, representatives of the Great Smoky Mountains Association which is responsible for the publication of the novel, and great-granddaughter Libby Kephart Hargrave, family members will be available for signing and conversation. Music will be provided by the talented Lee Knight, and refreshments will be provided.
REGIONAL–On Sunday, the Charlotte Observer’s Bruce Henderson outlined the challenges faced by the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
His lead:
Having just celebrated its 75th birthday, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park finds its future threatened by wavering public support for America’s green places.
The problem passes from one generation to the next: a chronic lack of financial support in the past, declining visits now and a future shaped by today’s children who are spending far less time in the outdoors.
Another excerpt:
Kids don’t play outdoors – splashing in creeks and chasing fireflies – as they once did, numerous studies and most parents will attest. Increasingly sedentary and overweight, they’re more likely to be mesmerized by a Wii than a salamander.
“Nature-deficit disorder,” author Richard Louv called it in an influential 2005 book. Research has linked lack of unstructured time outdoors to childhood depression, anxiety and behavioral problems.
“If they don’t have those experiences, then we’re worried that it won’t be a priority for future generations to keep natural areas and a clean, healthy environment,” said Lisa Tolley, who heads the N.C. Office of Environmental Education.
Masa, a Japanese immigrant who died on June 21, 1933, blazed a singular path through the North Carolina mountains. He was, among a number of things, a photographer of rare skill and sensitivity, a dogged advocate for the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a key figure in the identification and naming of the park’s natural features, and a chief engineer of the North Carolina portion of Appalachian Trail.
This year, the celebration surrounding the 75th anniversary of the dedication of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has stirred to life what might be described as the year of George Masa. Earlier this summer, Masa’s landscapes were featured in an exhibit at the Asheville Art Museum; another exhibit of Masa’s work is ongoing at Western Carolina University, in Cullowhee. The late photographer has been the subject of recent features in the regional and national press, including WNC Magazine and National Parks magazine. And next month, Masa’s life and achievements will reach their widest audience yet, as part of Ken Burns’ new documentary on PBS, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.
Another:
Despite all the attention, Masa remains an elusive figure. He is a knot of contradictions: a socialite of scant means, a stranger with a thousand friends. He was an intensely private man who nevertheless managed to leave behind stacks of correspondence and handwritten records. As a businessman, he was shrewd but constantly in need of money. Trusted by many of the region’s most powerful men and women, he was once suspected of being nothing less than an international spy.
A quote from museum director Martin DeWitt:
“People think of our mountains and the words ‘divine inspiration’ come to mind,” says Martin DeWitt, director and curator of Western Carolina University’s Fine Art Museum. “Well, Masa achieved that feeling by capturing a precise atmospheric moment. You can imagine him out there waiting for a sunrise, having left Asheville at probably three in the morning, sitting out in the cold and rain and finally, here it comes—the moment that he’s been waiting for. There’s more than just an artistic vision at work in his photographs; there’s a tremendous sacrifice there as well.”
GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK–The Nanthala Outdoor Center’s online coordinator, Barbara Rodichok, reviews the area hike she calls her favorite: Silers Bald, along the Appalachian Trail.
Her lead:
When I first moved to Wesser six years ago, I spent my afternoons snapping photos of NOC rafters at Nantahala Falls. My evenings were spent chasing sunsets across the county with my own camera. One of the first places I went is still my favorite, the hike to Silers Bald.
CULLOWHEE – The Fine Art Museum at Western Carolina University will present the student- and faculty-curated exhibit “George Masa (1881-1933): Vision of the Mountains” Aug. 1 through Sept. 18 in conjunction with the 75th anniversary celebration of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Masa, a Japanese immigrant with no known family who came to the United States seeking his fortune, explored the mountains of Western North Carolina as a photographer and friend of Horace Kephart, author of “Our Southern Highlanders.” He became one of the defining figures in the mapping and preservation of the park.
Although Masa has been a popular topic as of late, both in print and on museum walls, the Fine Art Museum offers something special in its own exhibit, said Martin DeWitt, museum director.
“Unique to the exhibit at the Fine Art Museum is a small selection of tiny mountain flora study photos by George Masa, possibly made for future postcard printing,” DeWitt said.
Masa once worked at the Grove Park Inn; however, he opened his own business, Plateau Studios in 1919. Covering news events and selling postcards of Asheville and the Smokies brought him fair financial success, allowing him to spend more time in the mountains he loved.
The mountain flora photos were selected from the special collections at Western Carolina’s Hunter library. Special collections director George Frizzell worked with WCU School of Art and Design exhibition management students Britney Carroll, Meredith Harbin, Janine Paris, Mike Polomick and Meredith Shafer to select the Masa photographs and bring the exhibit’s design and presentation together.
“Masa was undoubtedly passionate about nature. Through his photographs, he shares his personal conversation with the mountains immersing anyone seeing his work in the conversation, in the experience of nature itself,” DeWitt said.
Seeing Masa’s photos from the field encouraged John D. Rockefeller to contribute the first $5 million toward the purchase of land for the park in 1927.
The exhibit also will feature a photo album circa 1925 titled “Mount Mitchell – Top of Eastern America Altitude 6,711 ft. Photographed by Asheville-Biltmore Film Co.,” an animated film company for which Masa worked, as well as several panoramic views of the area.
“These are all small photographs, most unidentified though attributed to Masa, 8 by 10 inches and smaller, that offer intimate look at nature’s profound grandeur,” DeWitt said.
Museum hours during the summer are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday. For more information, call 828.227.3591.
GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK–Each year, wildlife managers in the Smokies hunt and kill wild hogs — wild boar, feral pigs and mixtures of the two — because the animals are non-native, somewhat dangerous and because they do a lot of environmental damage.
This year’s hunt netted over 500, which is the most in over two decades, according to a story in the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Excerpt:
Since the late 1950s, the park has removed almost 12,000 wild hogs. The animals are a target for control because they’re non-native, and they do considerable damage to the ecosystem by eating rare plants and salamander, defecating in streams and churning up the ground.
The park’s hog population traces back to the early 1920s, when a herd of European wild hogs escaped from a game reserve on Hooper’s Bald in Graham County, N.C. By the 1940s, the wild hogs had spread into other counties as well as the Smokies.
Kim DeLozier, chief wildlife biologist for the Smokies, said he believes the park’s hog population has been augmented in recent years by the addition of feral hogs – domestic pigs that have escaped or been released into the wild.
DILLSBORO–The Dillsboro Arts & Music Festival has announced its musical lineup. The 25th annual festival is one of the oldest festivals in the mountains of North Carolina.
This year’s music schedule begins with acclaimed blues vocalist Karen “Sugar” Barnes at 10 a.m., and concludes with a special pairing of Barnes and renowned blues guitarist Marshall Ballew at 5 p.m.
In between, the following acts will perform: Tyler Kittle Trio (jazz) at 10:30 a.m.; Keith Shuler (Americana) at noon; Brittany Reilly (blues) at 12:30 p.m.; Marshall Ballew (blues guitar) at 2 p.m.; and Home Remedies (old time rock & roll) at 3 p.m.
The Dillsboro Arts & Music Fest also features the work of artisans from across the Southeast. Art in a wide variety of media will be available, including raku and traditional pottery, fine paintings, photography, jewelry, wildlife and nature-inspired carvings, gourd art, and handcrafted soaps & scented oils.
Festival hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and there’s no charge for admission. Free and paid parking are available.
Historic Dillsboro, a walk-about town of more than 50 shops, eateries and inns, offers an authentic mountain experience. The town is located about 40 miles west of Asheville at the crossroads of Hwy. 23/74 and Hwy. 441, close to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
For information, go to www.visitdillsboro.org, or call the Jackson County Visitors Center (800) 962-1911.
NANTAHALA–Richard Bernabe, one of the nation’s preeminent outdoor photographers and author of South Carolina Wonder and Light and the upcoming The Ultimate Guide to Digital Nature Photography will host a slideshow presentation Friday, June 12 at 7:30. His free two-hour show will take place at The Pourover, Nantahala Outdoor Center’s (NOC’s) new pub beside the Nantahala River, and will feature some of his best Southeastern photographs.
Additionally, Mr. Bernabe will teach a beginner’s digital photography workshop at NOC September 18-20th, which will take advantage of NOC’s location on the doorstep of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Mr. Bernabe serves as editor-in-chief for Nature Photographers Online Magazine and as a managing partner of Mountain Trail Press. Canon USA’s 2009 corporate calendar, Portraits of Wind, features 13 of Mr. Bernabes photographs.
This presentation will be the third in the “NOC Adventure Travel Presents” series which features presentations from NOC Adventure Travel veterans. The first presentation, “The Kanekatok Return: Fishing for Salmon and Rainbows in Southwest Alaska” by JEB Hall, author of Western North Carolina Fly Guide, is scheduled for Saturday at The Pourover.
KNOXVILLE/REGIONAL–Public television will air the newest Ken Burns documentary this September. The much-anticipated production, called “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” will feature the Great Smoky Mountains heavily. The Friends of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will screen an hour-long sneak preview June 1, at the Tennessee Theatre in Knoxville. In conjunction, the Museum of East Tennessee History will offer free admission from 4-7:30 p.m. on June 1, immediately prior to the film screening.
REGIONAL–Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) President and CEO Sutton Bacon will testify before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business tomorrow. The “Heroes of Small Business” hearing is scheduled for 10am.
An excerpt of a release published on SNEWS:
At the hearing Bacon will discuss NOC’s $48 million impact on western North Carolina’s economy and the company’s plans to open NOC’s Great Outpost, an 18,000-square-foot LEED certified flagship store in Gatlinburg, TN bordering the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
NOC’s Great Outpost is a rare example of dynamic small business expansion during the current economic slowdown, and Bacon will testify on the importance of innovation and new product development through tough times. The new store will occupy an anchor position in Gatlinburg’s downtown shopping and entertainment district, one of the most popular vacation destinations in the Southeast with over 14 million visitors annually, and will feature a wide selection of top outdoor apparel, camping, climbing, cycling, paddling, hiking and travel brands. When it opens it will become the largest retail store in Gatlinburg, creating approximately 55 jobs.
According to a recent Western Carolina University study, NOC, the nation’s largest outfitter, contributes $48 million to the economy of western North Carolina and supports over 579 full-time jobs in a region that had been reeling from a loss of traditional manufacturing jobs. Bacon’s testimony will emphasize the importance of outdoor recreation as a regional economic driver. According to the Outdoor Industry Association—of which Bacon is a board member—the outdoor industry sustains 6.5 million jobs and contributes $730 billion to the nation’s economy.
The release goes on to describe NOC’s 18,000 sq. ft. “Great Outpost” flagship store, soon to open in Gatlinburg.
