The Southern Highland Reader

NATIONAL–The New York Times published an extensive feature about drinking water this week, with a focus on outdated regulations and a great deal of extra information.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The 35-year-old federal law regulating tap water is so out of date that the water Americans drink can pose what scientists say are serious health risks — and still be legal.

Only 91 contaminants are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, yet more than 60,000 chemicals are used within the United States, according to Environmental Protection Agency estimates. Government and independent scientists have scrutinized thousands of those chemicals in recent decades, and identified hundreds associated with a risk of cancer and other diseases at small concentrations in drinking water, according to an analysis of government records by The New York Times.

But not one chemical has been added to the list of those regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act since 2000.

The Times story package includes access to the Environmental Working Group’s national drinking water database, from which readers can easily find test results on water systems across our region. Examine whether contaminants in your water supply met two standards: the legal limits established by the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the typically stricter health guidelines.

Follow the links below to search up your system:

Jackson County

Graham County

Macon County

Clay County

Cherokee County

Swain County

Read the New York Times story here.

SYLVA–The holidays are here and so is the spirit of giving!

The Downtown Sylva Association is partnering with The Community Table for a Food Drive from December 1st-23st. Visit some of your favorite downtown hotspots to make a donation that will make a difference at the same time.

Papou’s Wine Shop & Bar, Annie’s Bakery, Yesterday’s Tree, Lulu’s on Main, Friends of the Library, Jackson County Chamber of Commerce, Bubacz’s Underground, Heinzelmannchen Brewery will have a box identified for your donation at their location.

Check our website, www.downtownsylva.org, as this list of merchants will grow in the coming days.

CULLOWHEE–When outfitter Burt Kornegay, owner of Slickrock Expeditions, got an email from a friend inviting him to a save-the-Dillsboro-Dam shindig, he fired off a pithy response. Naturally, it was immediately shared all around the interwebs, where by complete happenstance it filtered all the way down to me.

Here it is, with his permission:

First, the note from his friend:

Yo, read all about it….

Saturday night there is a benefit in support of saving the Dillsboro Dam. So, all you anti-establishment, anti-Duke Power people come on down and catch the 7:30 set of singer-songwriter Barbara Duncan. If you’ve not heard her, you owe it to yourself to check this out and to have a few beers in the process, not to mention to support a good cause. So, let’s make Sat. eve. a party night and fill up Guadalupe (that also serves great food).

Hope to see you there …

Then, Burt’s response:

Hey, Partner, Hold on there!

Why do you say that fighting to keep the Dillsboro dam is “a good cause”?  Because doing so spites bad ole Duke?  Let’s not forget that the dam plugs up and drowns the Tuckaseegee River, halting the travel of river creatures and backing up an unnatural mile-long trough of deadwater behind it. Also, from a human perspective now, the dam stands in the way of creating a real, honest-to-goodness “river park” in Dillsboro.  By honest-to-goodness river park, I mean a park with a river that actually flows, like at East LaPorte (probably the most popular public place in our county).  A real river park would make a pleasurable place for all of us to go, and it would be good for businesses in Dillsboro too.  Hundreds of old concrete plugs like the Dillsboro dam are coming down all across the US,  cheered on by river-loving and civic-minded people just like yourself, and I say, Right On!

As for your rebel claim that it is “anti-establishment” to fight for the dam, because doing so is anti-Duke, I say, wasn’t the dam built by the county’s moneyed “establishment” in the first place, back when other segments of the local “establishment” were as busy as beavers gnawing out railroad lines, felling the virgin forest, and turning the Tuckaseegee into flowing mud?  I mean, what could be more “establishment” than a dam?  (Well, perhaps a skyscraper or aircraft carrier.)  And what could be more “establishment” than to align yourself with the likes of county manager Ken “Dam or Die” Westmoreland, who doesn’t mind taxing us to the tune of more than a quarter-million-$ to pay lawyers, in his attempts to do  .  . . what?  Why, to milk still more $ from Duke! When it comes to the Dillsboro dam, the “anti-” lies in taking it down.

Kornegay’s longtime Jackson County business has been the focus of some media features lately. Here and here from the Smoky Mountain News, for example. The Sylva Herald has also written him up (you can search that story at their paid archives, here).

Recent news from the legal struggle over the dam from the Sylva Herald here (link will expire in one week), and from the Smoky Mountain News here.

SYLVA–Sylva’s WRGC radio has obtained a copy of a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission document released yesterday that re-states the agency’s belief that Jackson County leadership is in the wrong in its attempts to condemn the Dillsboro Dam.

WRGC reporter Eric Moore quotes from the document:

“An attempt by a state or subdivision of a state to condemn project lands, works, or facilities in order to build a park is clearly preempted [by the Federal Power Act]. The county’s effort to undercut the Commission’s exclusive jurisdiction and to circumvent the Congressionally-mandated judicial review process in order to overturn our orders through state court proceedings is inappropriate.”

View WRGC’s report here.

Recent news from the legal struggle over the dam from the Sylva Herald here (link will expire in one week).

SYLVA–Editorially, the Sylva Herald newspaper has been openly disdainful of the Jackson County Commissioners’ ongoing battle with Duke Energy over the fate of the century-old Dillsboro Dam.

It editorializes on the subject this week. Here’s an excerpt:

Recently we taxpayers have been asked to bear quite a burden for our county’s leaders. First they forced through revaluation right before the housing market crashed. Now we’re paying taxes based on land values that are much inflated over current market value. They then turned around and instituted a pay study by the Mercer Group that resulted in major raises for several county employees. The amount of some of those raises nearly equals the average yearly salary for Jackson County residents. Yet the taxpayers haven’t gotten a single “thank you” for footing the bill.

The editorial is available here for a short while, then afterwards at the Herald’s paid archive.

SYLVA–The Jackson County Health Department has seen a decline in requests for H1N1-Swine Flu vaccine among people in the groups that are most susceptible, and so is releasing the vaccine to the general public.

This from the Health Department:

We currently have limited supplies; but, we continue to get weekly shipments.

• We have shots for ages 6 months through adults.
• We have H1N1 flu mist for healthy persons ages 2-49

The hours to receive vaccine are:

8 – 12 a.m. and 1 – 4 p.m. on Mon, Tues, Wed, and Fri. and Thursdays 8 – 12 a.m. and 1 – 7 P.M.

DILLSBORO–Duke Energy on Monday asked appeals court judge Zoro Guice to block Jackson County’s efforts to condemn the 96-year-old Dillsboro Dam.

Duke Energy seeks to remove the dam to mitigate other hydro electric projects in the region, as part of a settlement reached over five years ago.

Jackson County commissioners feel the county was shortchanged in the settlement, and want to keep the dam and build a park nearby.

Read more from Jon Ostendorf at the Asheville Citizen-Times.

Raleigh News and Observer editorializes on this subject here.

STATEWIDE–The Raleigh News and Observer’s Mark Johnson reports today that the state of North Carolina will pay a half-billion dollars to clean up some 6,500 deteriorating underground storage tanks across the state.

The state maintains a fund to help take care of such tanks, which often hold fuel, leak as they age, and contaminate groundwater. Property owners are taking advantage of the fund in increasing numbers, and the state is looking for ways to mitigate the cost.

Among the possibilities: raising the motor fuel and kerosene inspection tax from 1/4-cent to 7/16-cent per gallon to generate more money for the cleanup fund, requiring commercial tank owners to buy insurance to cover cleanup costs, and requiring noncommercial tank owners to pay 20 percent of cleanup costs up to $5,000.

Jackson County residents became familiar with this problem two-and-a-half years ago, when an old tank alongside US 23/74 east of Sylva leaked and contaminated drinking water in the nearby residential neighborhood in Racking Cove.

The Tuckasegee Water and Sewer Authority eventually ran a line from Sylva to the community to provide clean water.

Read Johnson’s story here.

SYLVA–A final point granite marker and plaque will be dedicated Saturday, Dec. 5, to Nathan Hall, a Southwestern Community College surveying technology student who died May 23, 2008 of leukemia.

The dedication service will be held at 11 a.m. behind the Holt Library on SCC’s Jackson Campus.

Retired Southwestern Community College Surveying Technology instructor Peter Messier, left and graduates of SCC’s Surveying Technology program, Bentley Robison, middle, and John Jeleniewski, right, both of Sylva, assist with the granite marker and plaque that will be dedicated Saturday, Dec. 5, to the late Nathan Hall. The 11 a.m. ceremony behind Holt Library will honor Hall, a former SCC Surveying Technology student, who died May 23, 2008 of leukemia.

“Nathan was a model student and an outstanding individual,” said his former SCC surveying technology instructor Peter Messier. “A young surveyor who left his mark on the hearts of all who knew him by unselfishly giving of himself ” is part of the inscription on the plaque that will be dedicated by his former fellow students.

A native and lifelong resident of Jackson County, Hall was a key player in the formation of the first student chapter of the North Carolina Society of Surveyors and was elected the first president of SCC’s student chapter.

“Nathan was on his way to becoming a great surveyor and an asset to the community,” said Messier. “He had an impressive 3.81 grade point average, had received a $1,000 scholarship from the NC Association of Community College Facility Operations and was just two courses shy of completing his degree when he died at age 27. He lived in the Balsam community and was working for Civil Design Consultants in Waynesville at the time of his death.”

The public is invited to the dedication ceremony which will feature personal tributes to Hall.

DILLSBORO–Dillsboro invites folks to experience Christmas spirit in early December as this walkabout mountain town glows in holiday splendor for the 26th annual Dillsboro Festival of Lights & Luminaries.

The four-night festival, which takes place Dec. 4-5 and Dec. 11-12, begins each evening at dusk when merchant “elves” illuminate the streets with 2,500 white paper bag luminaries. The merchants also flip the switches on strands of tiny white lights trimming the town’s buildings, many of which date to the 1800s.

Once the town is aglow, carolers fill the streets with music, musicians stroll the sidewalks playing Christmas favorites, and Santa visits with children in the town hall.

Shopkeepers add to the festivities by staying open late and serving holiday treats with hot cider and cocoa.

“If you’re having trouble getting into the holiday spirit, this festival will do wonders,” says Julie Spiro of the Jackson County Tourism Authority. “We’re often told that visiting the luminaries festival is like stepping into a Christmas painting.”

There’s no admission charge for the Festival of Lights & Luminaries, and lodging is plentiful with more than half of Jackson’s County guest rooms located in Dillsboro or within 15 minutes.

For information, go to www.visitdillsboro.org, or call the Jackson County Visitors Center at (800) 962-1911.

CASHIERS–David Joy at the Cashiers Crossroads Chronicle examines the impact of alcohol blue laws in Jackson County, and suggests that 2010 might be the year for a county-wide referendum.

An excerpt:

The sale of alcohol in Sylva and Dillsboro, both townships in a supposedly dry Jackson County, may ruffle the feathers of many conservative citizens, but these sales have brought in large revenues for state law enforcement and state alcohol education, as well as county and town recreation and general funds.

Since 2000 the Sylva ABC Board alone has brought $104,109 for N.C. alcohol education and $78,681 for N.C. law enforcement.

Furthermore, the Sylva ABC Board contributes 20 percent of their net profits to Sylva and Jackson County Recreation (10 percent each), and 100 percent of the remaining net profits to the Sylva and Jackson County general funds (50 percent each).

Read Joy’s story here.

REGIONAL–It’s a familiar complaint in the mountains: tax money, like water, runs downhill to Raleigh and never comes back.

The Asheville Citizen-Times‘ Joel Burgess contributed a history yesterday of western North Carolina’s under-representation in high-power state politics, quoting WCU faculty member Richard Starnes along the way and naming Jackson County’s Lacy Thornburg as an exception to the rule.

Here’s an excerpt:

With a few notable exceptions, including former House Speaker Liston Ramsey and Govs. Jim Holshouser and Dan Moore, modern mountain politicians have struggled to make a dent in Raleigh’s power structure. Reasons trace back centuries, scholars say, and range from geography to old grudges.“It has to do with the low population and also that WNC has often charted its own political path,” said Richard Starnes, head of the history department at Western Carolina University.

-and-

The list of western politicians who have held great sway in the Tar Heel State largely begins and ends with one man — former House Speaker [Liston] Ramsey.

Read the story here.

REGIONAL–MedWest Health System, the new organization reflecting the affiliation between Haywood Regional Medical Center (HRMC) and WestCare Health System, held the first meeting of its board today, and elected officers.

From Brian Thomas at MedWest:

Mark Clasby was elected chairman of the MedWest Health System Board of Directors. Clasby is chairman of HRMC’s governing board and served as chairman of the joint study committee for the affiliation process. Mr. Clasby is executive director of the Haywood County Economic Development Commission.

“[In today's meeting] we talked about remaining steps to complete the organizational process, and approved a resolution authorizing the integration agreement and management services agreement with Carolinas HealthCare System. In addition, we signed the integration agreement on behalf of MedWest,” Mr. Clasby said.

Representatives of the two healthcare organizations have been working on a joint operating agreement since spring, when plans were first announced to integrate operations. MedWest Health System is expected to be up and running by January 2010. At that time, Haywood Regional and WestCare will execute the management services agreement with Carolinas HealthCare System, based in Charlotte.

Fred Alexander, chairman of WestCare’s governing board, was elected as vice chairman of the MedWest board. Mr. Alexander is district manager for government and community relations the southwestern North Carolina mountain counties served by Duke Energy.

“I think Helen Keller said what I feel most, ‘Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.’ This is a tremendous step for healthcare in our region and I look forward to seeing all the good we can do with a united presence,” Mr. Alexander said.

Bob Carpenter, also a member of WestCare’s governing board, was elected secretary. He is an associate financial planner with MetLife Financial Services and has been a member of the Jackson County Planning Board since 2007.

Glenn White was elected treasurer. Mr. White served three terms on Haywood Regional’s governing board and held the office of treasurer from 2000 until 2008. He served as chairman his final year on the board.

The newly formed joint board will have oversight responsibility for Haywood Regional and WestCare Health System; however, the currently constituted Haywood Regional and WestCare governing boards will remain in place with authority to oversee specific functions. The two individual hospital boards, for example, will continue to approve credentials for their respective medical staffs; and will make decisions regarding the sale, lease or distribution of current assets.

Other members of the MedWest Health System Board of Directors include Dr. Martha Anderson, WestCare; Jean Burton, HRMC; Dr. Shannon Hunter; HRMC; Bunny Johns, WestCare; Kirk Kirkpatrick, HRMC; Jim Manring, WestCare: Jerry McKinney, WestCare; Dr. Henry Nathan, HRMC; Frank Powers, HRMC; and Dr. Larry Selby, WestCare.

Haywood Regional Medical Center (www.haymed.org) was established in 1927. The current facility opened in 1979 and is licensed for 170 acute care beds. It is the third largest employer in Haywood County with more than 900 employees.

WestCare Health System (www.westcare.org) was formed in February 1997 when Harris Regional Hospital and Swain County Hospital combined to develop a full spectrum of health services. WestCare employs almost 1,200 full and part time employees and has a medical staff of more than 90 physicians representing 22 specialties.

Carolinas HealthCare System (www.carolinashealthcare.org) is the largest healthcare system in the Carolinas, with 29 affiliated hospitals in North Carolina and South Carolina.

SYLVA–The 5th Great Smoky Mountains Book Fair takes place Saturday, Nov. 14, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Christian Life Center of the Sylva First United Methodist Church.

More than 50 authors will be on hand to greet book lovers and discuss their works. The fair will have activities for all ages, including storytelling, bookmaking and poetry writing. Author presentations will cover a wide variety of interests, as well as how to get published. A panel discussion will focus on a writer’s sense of place.

Authors scheduled to appear include: Ron Rash, Pamela Duncan, Vickie Lane, Alan Wolf, Bob Plott, Fred Chappell, Jim Casada, Sheila Kay Adams, Ed Schubert, Terry Taylor, Wayne Erbsen, Doug Elliot and North Carolina Poet Laureate Katherine Stripling Byer.

Adams, who is also a musician and storyteller, will perform with Wayne Erbsen, a radio show host and musician who tells stories in song. Following their presentation, Wolf, an Asheville performance poet, will read the winning poems from a contest for students from first through 12th grades in Jackson, Swain, Macon and Haywood counties.

“This year we have a program that will excite everyone, from school children to their grandparents,” said Joyce Moore, one of the organizers and owner of City Lights Bookstore in Sylva. “I can’t wait to see the book making demonstrations and listen to the storytelling and folk songs or hear the panels.”

Admission is free, and 20 percent of all book sales go toward the new Jackson County Public Library Complex. The Fair is sponsored by City Lights Book Store, the Friends of the Jackson County Main Library, the Jackson County Public Library and the Downtown Sylva Association.

A special feature this year is called “The Poet Is In.” For a donation to the library, folks can receive a poem written on the spot by Byer, who is in her fourth year as N.C. Poet Laureate.

On Friday evening, Nov. 13, Gary Carden’s play, “The Prince of Dark Corners” will be staged at the First United Methodist Church. The play begins at 7:30 p.m. and stars Franklin actor Steve Brady. Tickets for the play are $10 for adults and $5 for children.

BALSAM–The Balsam Mountain Preserve, a large gated community and significant employer in northern Jackson County, has been placed into receivership, according to a story in the Smoky Mountain News.

This means that a third party has been appointed by the court to manage the property pending the outcome of ongoing foreclosure proceedings.

Read the News story here.

SYLVA–The forecast remains cloudy for Balsam Mountain Preserve, a 4,400-acre gated community near Sylva, after a foreclosure hearing for the property was continued for a month last Friday.

Jackson County Clerk of Court Ann Melton continued the hearing until November 30 at the request of Balsam Mountain Preserve attorney Jay Coward, and over the protests of the Asheville-based attorney for lender TriLyn, according to the Sylva Herald.

TriLyn, a Connecticut-based venture capital firm with connections to the Bank of Scotland and the middle eastern concern Investcorp, argues that Balsam Mountain Preserve has had over a year to address its now $21 million dollar debt to TriLyn, and seeks to foreclose.

Rumor has it that TriLyn officials have a relationship with the owners of the similarly high-end Cliffs Communities, and that the Cliffs Communities might be interested in acquiring the Balsam property. The Balsam Mountain Preserve is owned and was created by Chaffin/Light Associates of South Carolina.

Meanwhile, the Smoky Mountain News reports that a buyout offer from current homeowners on the Preserve is gaining steam.

The recent economic downturn has had a marked impact on the substantial mountain second-home market, and numerous planned or newly-minted gated communities have given up the ghost. But Balsam Mountain Preserve was begun nearly a decade ago, its amenities are mostly in place and over half of its lots are sold.

The Preserve’s recent layoff of about half of its 80-plus person workforce was a significant economic blow to northern Jackson County.

Should the Cliffs Communities appear on the scene in Balsam, one storyline will have come full circle: Balsam Mountain Preserve’s first president was named Jim Anthony, and the CEO of the Cliffs Communities is also named Jim Anthony. When Balsam Mountain Preserve was fresh out of the gates, nearly a decade ago, the Cliffs was involved in a land acquisition controversy in Transylvania County and the dual high-profile names were the source of considerable confusion.

SYLVA–Balsam Mountain Preserve, a 4,400 acre gated community between Balsam and Sylva, faces a foreclosure hearing at month’s end, according to a reports in today’s Asheville Citizen-Times and Smoky Mountain News.

Boarding House, Balsam Mountain Preserve

The Preserve differs from other communities in the area that are facing troubles in a couple of ways: the project is nearly a decade old, which means it pre-dates by a few years many similar projects that came on during the last decade’s wave of construction. It is also one-half to two-thirds “built-out”, with more than 230 homesites sold of 354 total, and most amenities in place. In addition, Balsam Mountain Preserve was the first such community to build in the north-central section of Jackson County — away from the ritzy Cashiers plateau — and has been an economic driver for the county.

The Preserve’s considerable efforts at executing “green” development have been overshadowed by a dam break at a golf course irrigation pond two years ago that caused a flash flood. The wave of mud and water caused considerable environmental damage in Jackson County’s Scotts Creek watershed.

The Hendersonville community “Seven Falls” is also undergoing foreclosure, and an enormous, but much newer project in Jackson County is also facing such difficulties.

At Balsam, 40 of 80 full-time employees have been laid off, and many amenities, including an 18-hole Jack Nicklaus golf course, are closed.

An excerpt from the Citizen-Times:

“We had sufficient sales to stay current on our interest payments and to pay down the principal and payables,” [Balsam Mountain Preserve President Chris] Chaffin said. “Unfortunately, our loan is due. It’s apparent the lender doesn’t have the flexibility to free up capital right now.”

Chaffin acknowledged that Balsam Mountain “actually defaulted on our loan the end of last year” and has been working with the lender since then.

The lenders listed in court documents are two corporations under the umbrella of TriLyn LLC, of Greenwich, Conn. Balsam Mountain secured two loans in 2005 for $9.8 million and $10 million.

Read the Citizen-Times piece here.
Read coverage from the Smoky Mountain News here.

The Western North Carolina Pottery Festival returns for its fifth year on Saturday, Nov. 7, with an expanded lineup and a special clay “Olympics” competition.

Event organizers continue to be surprised by the popularity achieved by the festival in a short period of time. With dozens of well-known applicants from across the nation, the number of juried potters has been expanded to 42 this year. Last year’s show had 36 exhibitors.

Dillsboro, NC

The 2009 festival includes potters from 13 states, including Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, New York and New Jersey, as well as North Carolina and surrounding states. The featured potter is Trent Berning of California.

“There are name potters in the show we never expected to have, and we had to turn away 30 potters, so there is competition to get in,” said organizer Joe Frank McKee of Dillsboro’s Tree House Pottery. “It’s become a premier event. We have potters from every type of clay medium.”

Berning, of Berning Clay Gallery in Fallbrook, Calif., has a master’s degree in ceramics from the University of Tennessee and is an instructor at two colleges. He is known for creating large pots featuring slip decoration, which uses fine clay in a variety of colors blended into liquid form and applied to pots.

Another artist of note is Richard Aerni of Rochester, NY. Aerni, a potter for 30 years, specializes in single-fired, wood-ash glazed functional stoneware. His work is sold in galleries across the country and is on display at the Smithsonian Institute.

New this year is the clay Olympics challenge from 1-3 p.m. Friday at Tree House Pottery. The competition is sponsored by Shimpo, a pottery equipment company, and includes 20 potters attempting to create the tallest cylinder and widest bowl in 10 minutes.

Saturday’s festival hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., rain or shine. Admission is $2 per person and includes a ticket for a day-long raffle. Children under 12 are admitted free.

“All the smiling faces in Jackson County and the people supporting the WNC Pottery Festival make this a special event,” said McKee. “Our potters like interacting with people and are willing to share information. They’re not just here for money, they’re here to share their craft.”

CULLOWHEE-Organizers and supporters of Jackson County’s ambitious greenways project celebrated a milestone October 5, when the county board of commissioners voted to purchase a 1.4-acre plot of land near Cullowhee for $39,580.

The plot is the first purchased by the county to augment an existing sewage right-of-way that follows the Tuckasegee River between Cullowhee and Sylva. Organizers envision the Cullowhee-to-Sylva segment as a core element of a larger plan to hook individual greenways segments together to create an alternate transportation system for the county.

Commissioners tabled action on the purchase of an piece of property adjacent to the one they purchased.

County greenways project manager Emily Elders says the purchase is significant.

“It’s the first property purchased specifically for greenways in Jackson County after nearly ten years of hard work by our volunteers,” she said. “Hopefully, with future donated conservation easements, other successful negotiations and grant funding, we’ll be able to put a project on the ground soon that will demonstrate the wellness, transportation and recreation benefits of greenways for the whole county.”

Three newspapers are covering Jackson County’s greenways progress: the Smoky Mountain News, The Sylva Herald and the Cashiers Crossroads Chronicle.

The Chronicle is primarily concerned with the several Cashiers-area elements of the greenways plan, so it didn’t weigh in on Monday’s vote, but the Herald and News both did. Bibeka Shrestha’s story for the News emphasized the commissioner’s decision not to purchase the adjacent property, noting that if they had, the first mile of the 4.5 mile stretch would’ve been in county hands. The Herald, which has recently taken county commissioners to task for what it considers profligate spending on county payroll and the Dillsboro Dam fight, emphasized the property’s price tag.

Read the Smoky Mountain News piece here.

Read the Sylva Herald piece here. (Archives=$)

DILLSBORO–Vietnam veterans and those who lost a loved one in the war will have an opportunity to remember their fallen heroes when the Vietnam Veterans Moving Wall comes to Dillsboro’s Monteith Park, Oct. 15-19.

The wall is a half-size replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. It has traveled to hundreds of sites across the county since 1984, and will be on display 24 hours a day while in Dillsboro.

On the Vietnam Veterans Moving Wall are the names of 58,253 soldiers who gave their lives, including about 1,300 unaccounted for and considered missing in action. Thousands visit the moving wall each year to see the names and pay tribute to those who served.

Veteran John Devitt conceived the idea of a traveling wall upon visiting the memorial in Washington, D.C., in 1982. He teamed with veterans Norris Shears and Gerry Hayer to create this moving tribute to their fellow soldiers.

It was first displayed in Tyler, Texas, in October of 1984. Now there are two replicas which travel throughout the country each year from April through November.

Dillsboro’s effort to host the wall was spearheaded by local veteran Allen Fields, who owns a small music gift shop and recording studio called A House Beside the Road.

For more information, call the Jackson County Visitors Center at (800) 962-1911, or visit www.MountainLovers.com.