The Southern Highland Reader

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.

Read the story here.

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 The unpublished manuscript for Smoky Mountain Magic was handed down within the Kephart family until it was finally brought to the attention of park superintendent, Dale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.

CULLOWHEE – Trevor Jones, a native of St. Cloud, Minn., is the new curator at the Mountain Heritage Center, Western Carolina University’s museum of Southern Appalachian natural and cultural history.

Trevor Jones (right), the new curator at WCU’s Mountain Heritage Center, examines a bear trap that is part of the museum’s collection of artifacts with Peter Koch, education associate at the center.

Jones was formerly curator of history at the Neville Public Museum in Green Bay, Wis. He earned bachelor’s degrees in history and German at Grinnell College, and a master’s degree in history and certificate in museum studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

In his role as curator at the Mountain Heritage Center, Jones will write, design and build exhibits; oversee the museum’s collection of artifacts; and assist visitors as they learn about the region.

“I’m excited to be working at the Mountain Heritage Center during such an exciting time in the organization’s history,” Jones said. “The center is in the process of launching innovative new programs and exhibits, and I’m pleased that I can be a part of it.”

Jones has published articles on a wide range of subjects, including the role of American Indians in the Civil War, blacksmithing at the dawn of the 20th century, and the digitization and preservation of rare and fragile museum materials. Recently, his research has focused on civil liberties and World War I.

Earlier this year, Jones was chosen as the first American recipient of the Global Curator Fellowship, a new honor sponsored by the Historians’ Special Interest Group of Museums Australia, and the Curators’ Committee of the American Association of Museums. The fellowship is bestowed upon one American and one Australian each year, and as the American honoree, Jones will attend and present a research paper at the May meeting of the Museums Australia Annual Conference in Newcastle, Australia. He also will attend the May conference of the American Association of Museums in Philadelphia.

The Mountain Heritage Center, located on the ground floor of WCU’s H.F. Robinson Administration Building, spotlights the human and natural history of the Southern Appalachian region with a wide variety of programming for adults and children, and through its exhibits and displays.

The museum is open free to the public from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday year-round, and from 2 to 5 p.m. on Sundays, June through October. Because the Mountain Heritage Center observes a university holiday schedule, visitors should call the museum around major holidays at (828) 227-7129 to inquire about visiting hours.

The Knoxville News Sentinel’s series on the 75th anniversary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park recently included this interesting piece on the early history of the oldest mountains.

CULLOWHEE – The verdict is in – book critics across the country are falling in love with “Serena,” the latest novel penned by Ron Rash, Western Carolina University’s Parris Distinguished Professor of Appalachian Culture.

Since the September publication of “Serena” by HarperCollins, the positive reviews have been coming in fast and furious for Rash, a descendant of Southern Appalachian families who was raised in Boiling Springs, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English, and wrote three collections of poetry and two collections of short stories before transitioning to writing novels.

Read the Reviews

New York Times
Wilmington Star-News
Creative Loafing
About.com: Contemporary Literature
Washington Post
Raleigh News and Observer
BookPage.com
San Francisco Chronicle
Christian Science Monitor
Seattle Times

In early November, Rash learned that “Serena” had been named to the Publishers Weekly “Best Books of the Year” list, and that the novel had come in at No. 7 on the online retailer Amazon’s list of the 100 best books of 2008. Those accolades have been accompanied by a flurry of glowing reviews in newspapers and magazines across the nation, including the New York Times, in which reviewer Janet Maslin praised Rash’s “elegantly fine-tuned voice.”

Rash was recently notified that “Serena,” which is already being translated into Dutch and French, will be on a soon-to-be-released list of the New York Times’ best books of the year. Novelist Pat Conroy has stated that Rash’s fourth novel “catapults him to the front ranks of the best American novelists.”

Rash said the praise for “Serena” is encouraging because “it’s the book I worked on the hardest. It’s nice to get a good response to it,” he said.

As the literary praise comes his way, Rash stays busy as he teaches Appalachian literature and creative writing at WCU, and continues to prepare his next published work, a collection of short stories. He also is being called upon more often to present readings across the country, and in recent months has been to Boston, Portland and Cincinnati. “The best part of that is getting to meet writers I admire,” Rash said.

The Southern Appalachians are a common theme that runs throughout Rash’s poetry, short stories and novels, and “Serena” is no different. The novel tells the story of a timber baron, George Pemberton, and his ruthless wife, Serena, who come to the North Carolina mountains to create a timber empire.

Rash says each of his three previous novels began with a single image that came to his mind, but “Serena” started with two images: a huge table that he saw at a resort in Waynesville that had been hewn from a single piece of yellow poplar, and an image of a woman riding a ridge crest on a “magnificent white stallion” that popped into his head while he was driving through the mountains. That woman is his fictional Serena.