The Southern Highland Reader

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

The evening will begin at 6 p.m. in the center’s Star Lobby and Fine Art Gallery with a performance by DJ Brett Rock of Asheville and creation of live art. Local artist Kinjac and members of the Afromotive will perform from 7 to 7:30 p.m. in the FAPAC theater, followed by Williams from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. DJ Brett Rock will help close the evening as Williams hosts a book signing in the Star Lobby from 8:30 to 9:15 p.m.

Williams is best known for his debut performance and featured poetry in the 1998 film “Slam,” which he co-wrote. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 1998 and the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Williams has published three collections of poetry: “Said the Shotgun to the Head,” “She” and “The Seventh Octave.” His most recent work is 2006’s “The Dead Emcee Scrolls.”

Williams has performed with legendary poets Allen Ginsberg and Sonia Sanchez, and has released three albums: “Amethyst Rock Star” in 2001, “Not in My Name” in 2003 and “Saul Williams” in 2004.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information about the event or the LCE Series, call 828-227-7206.

CULLOWHEE–The Asheville Citizen-Times’s Keith Jarrett reports that Western Carolina University head football coach Dennis Wagner has turned down an offer to join new Kansas coach Turner Gill as an assistant coach.

Wagner said he was offered the job as offensive line coach and assistant head coach by Gill, the former Nebraska quarterback who left the head coaching job at Buffalo to take over the Jayhawks.

“Turner offered me the job Saturday night and I turned it down Tuesday morning,” Wagner said.  “I told him it was in my best interests to stay at Western Carolina.”

Blog post here.

CULLOWHEE–Western Carolina University transitioned to the next generation of its web presence last night, as it launched a revised version of its website.

According to Dirk Herr-Hoyman, Western’s Director of Web Services, and a release from the university, the site now offers “revamped news and events sections featuring a feed from a live campus events calendar; links to WCU social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter; a lighter color scheme; a less cluttered page header intended to make the page easier to navigate; and an improved WCU site search engine.”

“It’s a tuneup, something that on the web you get to do every few years if you want to keep up,” Herr-Hoyman said.

More from Teresa Killian Tate at The Reporter:

The modifications addressed in the first tune-up were driven in part by the need to improve online publicity about campus events.

“Last year’s interactive audit of the WCU Web site by Stamats consultants confirmed what many of us already knew – the Web is the first place many people go to find out what’s happening at the university,” said Bill Studenc, senior director of news services.

Laura Huff, e-marketing coordinator for WCU, said the tuned-up homepage will not only contain a link to a new comprehensive campus event calendar but also preview select upcoming “hot” events.

“This preview, a short list of events dynamically updated with fresh content, will better promote the wide variety of events offered to the region,” said Huff. “Visitors to the homepage will have easier access to information about all the public events happening on campus.”

Visit WCU’s site here.

CULLOWHEE–Ryan Fagan of the Sporting News has a long question-and-answer session with Catamount senior forward Jake Robinson.

Here’s a snippet:

SN: You guys received a couple of votes in both the AP and coaches poll after beating Louisville. Is that pretty exciting for the school?
JR: It is. The students and faculty are really buying into what we’re doing now. The last couple of days here at school, everywhere I go, it’s “Oh, what a great win guys, you guys are unbelievable,” or, “We saw it on TV.” It really is good for the school, for the recognition. It’s not historically a great basketball school or a great basketball program, so for us to get some recognition and some attention is good.

Here’s the piece.

Baseball

2009-12-09 – Baseball early signees.

2009-12-06 – The College Baseball Blog on Catamount team visit to Elida Home.

2009-07-10 – Asheville Reynolds standout picks Western.

2009-07-07 – Nice feature on pitcher Corey Martin (drafted by the Cubs) from the Yadkin Ripple.

2009-07-07 – Complete rundown of Catamounts in the minors from Catamountsports.com.

2009-07-07 – Former Catamount and recent Arizona Diamondbacks draftee Brent Greer jackin’ em in Yakima.

2009-07-07 – Ross Heffley, rising sophomore, recorded an odd stat line for the Orleans Firebirds in the prestigious Cape Cod League during a recent 9-3 win over Bourne. Heffley registered just one official at-bat, going 0-for-1. But he had three sacrifice bunts and a sacrifice fly with two RBI.

2009-07-07 – Western’s 24-23 win over Eastern Kentucky last season brought back memories of a 32-16 loss to Ohio State in Cullowhee almost three decades ago. I watched that one as a junior high kid, then about a decade later saw the Cats rally from about ten runs down with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to beat App.

CULLOWHEE – A career in nursing can be just a year away for individuals who enroll in Western Carolina University’s new 12-month Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing Program.

The ABSN Program allows those who already hold bachelor’s degrees, or higher degrees, in any field to transition to a career as registered nurse. The program is designed for nonworking full-time students who are willing to immerse themselves in a full year of intense academic study, said Shelia Chapman, assistant professor at WCU and coordinator for the program.

Previously, WCU’s School of Nursing admitted just one group of students into the ABSN program each May, and those students completed the program in 16 months. Beginning in 2010, new classes of students will be enrolled in both January and August, and those students will be able to complete the program in 12 months, making them eligible to take the state’s licensing examination to become a registered nurse.

WCU’s nursing faculty is currently interviewing candidates for January enrollment, and no new applications are being taken for that class, which will be full, Chapman said. However, an application packet for the August class will be posted online on Feb. 1. The deadline for submission of that application is May 15.

Course requirements for the ABSN are the same as those for a traditional bachelor of science in nursing degree, and prerequisites are required. Classes are held full time on the Enka campus of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, and there are no semester breaks, Chapman said. Students typically attend classes for eight hours a day, five days each week.

Earlier this year, WCU’s School of Nursing and the Charles George VA Medical Center in Asheville announced a new partnership designed to increase the number of nurses qualified to serve the region and its veteran population. A federal grant of $1.5 million is being used to increase the number of students in WCU’s ABSN program. The partnership is part of a five-year, $40 million federal program that began in 2007.

For more information about the ABSN, visit http://www.wcu.edu/10421.asp on the Web. The Web site includes information on scheduling an advising session. Information also is available by contacting Shelia Chapman at (828) 670-8810, extension 228.

Ron Rash

CULLOWHEE – Ron Rash, the Parris Distinguished Professor of Appalachian Culture at Western Carolina University, is recipient of the 2009 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction for his fourth novel, “Serena.”

The award is presented annually by the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association in recognition of works of fiction that exhibit “creative and imaginative quality, excellence of style, universality of appeal, and relevance to North Carolina and her people.”

Rash will pick up his award at a February meeting of the association in Greensboro. He also won the Sir Walter Raleigh Award in 2006 – that one for his third novel, “The World Made Straight.”

Published in October 2008, “Serena” tells the story of timber baron George Pemberton and his ruthless wife, Serena, who come to the North Carolina mountains to create a timber empire. The book drew widespread praise from critics across the nation after its release. A New York Times reviewer complimented Rash’s “elegantly fine-tuned voice” and listed the book as one of her 10 favorites of 2008, and “Serena” made the “best of 2008” lists of Publishers Weekly, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle. The book also was No. 7 in online retailer Amazon’s list of the 100 best books of 2008.

A native of Boiling Springs, Rash teaches Appalachian literature and creative writing at WCU. His next book, a compilation of short stories titled “Burning Bright,” will be released in March.

Railsback

CULLOWHEE–Brian Railsback, dean of the honors college at Western Carolina, is a finalist for the newly-created position of Vice President for Student Affairs at Missouri Western State University, according to the school’s student newspaper.

Railsback was founding dean of WCU’s Honors College in 1997, resigned to be Department Head of English in 2000, and was called back to The Honors College as dean in 2004.

Missouri Western’s President is Robert Vartabedian, who served as Dean of Western Carolina’s College of Arts and Sciences between 1999 and 2005.

UPDATE: Railsback stays in Cullowhee; Esther Peralez, former vice president for student affairs at the City College of New York, is hired at Missouri Western.

Mike Williams

CULLOWHEE–Western Carolina’s mens basketball team got 25 points from former Pisgah star Jake Robinson and broke a record with 17 team three-pointers en route to a 83-77 win over previously unbeaten Duquesne Wednesday at Ramsey Center.

The game was the third in three days for Western in the O’Reilly’s Auto Parts CBE Classic, a subregion of which the Catamounts hosted.

Western won convincingly over Arkansas-Monticello and Binghamton in games on Monday and Tuesday.

Duquesne came in with a win over Iowa under its belt, but needed overtime to put away the Boll Weevils of Div. II Arkansas-Monticello Tuesday.

Western’s Mike Williams, a junior guard who transferred from Jackson State, was named tournament MVP.

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (staffed the game)
Coverage from ESPN
Duquesne athletics writeup
WCU athletics writeup

SYLVA–Ja’Quayvin Smalls, a Western Carolina University football recruit who died during an off-season team workout, passed away from “acute lethal cardia dysrhythmia due to cardiomyopathy” according to autopsy results released today.

Smalls also carried the sickle cell trait, according to Dr. Wm. Lawrence Selby, who performed the autopsy at Harris Regional Hospital.

In his report, Dr. Selby noted that Smalls had “a history of sickle cell trait, past positive PPD, and irregular heartbeat with PVC’s during fever approximately 5 years earlier.”

Selby told Tyler Norris Goode and Jon Ostendorf of the Asheville Citizen-Times that he had no clear evidence that the sickle cell trait played a role in Smalls’ death. At question in the national sports media after Smalls’ July death was whether testing for the sickle cell trait — which WCU did not perform — might’ve prevented the death.

Coverage from the Asheville Citizen-Times here.

CULLOWHEE–The online basketball publication SLAM features WCU sophomore Harouna Mutombo in this Sunday post.

Mutombo, nephew of NBA great Dikembe Mutombo, was named Southern Conference Freshman of the Year last year, as well as to the SoCon All-Conference second team.

Here’s an excerpt from the story:

Playing in a mid-major conference, Mutombo’s exploits were regularly outshone by the bright star that was Stephen Curry at Davidson last season. Regardless, Harouna made a huge splash in the Southern Conference leading the Catamounts in both points (14.4) and rebounds (4.6) while placing second in assists (68), steals (56) and blocks (16) and minutes (30.4).

And it didn’t stop there. After he finished up his college season, Canada Basketball invited him to train with the National Team as they prepared for the World Championship Qualifying Tournament where he would be under the tutelage of not only Team Canada’s head coach Leo Rautins but also Raptors’ Maurizio Gherardini and Cavs assistant coach Mike Malone learning the international game, even playing a few exhibition games in Spain for Canada.

In a related matter, a Texas blogger wondered last week whether Harouna would adopt his uncle’s famous finger-wagging “no-no” after blocking an opponent’s shot. That remains to be seen, we suppose.

No-no.

CULLOWHEE–Western Carolina University’s soaring pool of applicants is described as a “success story in outreach and marketing” by Smoky Mountain News reporter Giles Morris in this piece for the November 18 issue. News editor Becky Johnson adds, in a sidebar, that the quality of students could rise with the number of applications, and that the university’s student retention rate — often a problem in Cullowhee — has risen past the national average.

Here’s a clip from Morris’s story:

“What our staff is hearing — whether during an Open House, a campus tour or one of our regional recruitment events across the state — is that people are attracted by the affordability WCU offers and the dynamic, unique blend of academic majors available at WCU,” [WCU employee Mark] Anderson said. “Prospective students and their parents are very aware of all the new buildings and construction on campus, what a beautiful place Cullowhee is, and that the total student experience is possible at WCU.”

Here’s an excerpt from Johnson’s sidebar:

Despite a rise in applications –– tripling over three years –– enrollment at WCU has not risen significantly. The bigger pool has allowed the school to seek a higher caliber student, said Chancellor John Bardo.

The school has raised its academic standards, as measured by the average GPA and SAT scores of new students. The SAT went from 1023 to 1033 between 2003 and 2009. In 2003, the GPA was 3.25, compared to 3.48 this year.

“That’s a really, really big change in the nature of students,” Bardo said.

Left for future issues, maybe, is another number that is rising at Western: the student-to-teacher ratio. Traditionally one of Western’s calling cards, that ratio is rising quickly because of budget cuts, and those cuts are likely to worsen in the next couple of years. How will the school meet the challenge of teaching this growing pool of smart students?

Read the Smoky Mountain News story here.
Read the Smoky Mountain News sidebar 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.

This Western Carolina men’s basketball team starts the season with the highest expectations in decades, but after a frigid start offensively and an absolute pounding at the hands of no. 3 Texas Wednesday, it’s clear that the Catamounts (1-1) have some work to do.

In fact, the early Southern Conference darling would have to be surprising Wofford, of the South Division, which has a last-second loss to Pittsburgh and a win over Georgia under its belt.

Western showed some defensive bright spots against the mega-talent at Texas — the Cats forced 21 turnovers — but Western shot an abysmal 26.2% from the floor. Even adjusted for Texas’s overwhelming defense, that’s bad. The Catamounts are a combined 6-of-39 from behind the arc, an area where Western expects to perform well.

WCU has the chance to work on its issues in a Thanksgiving week basketball intensive in Cullowhee: Western hosts Duquesne, Binghamton and Arkansas-Monticello next week, in the O’Reilly’s Auto Parts CBE Classic tournament.

Read about the Texas game in the Austin American Statesman here.

See highlights from ESPN here.

From the folks at City Lights Bookstore:

CULLOWHEE–Dorothy Allison, a major literary voice from the South, talks about her work in an audience participation program, 7:30 p.m., November 19, in the UC Theatre at Western Carolina University. Allison’s novel, “Bastard out of Carolina” is the focus of the show, which will be simulcast with interaction on http://www.Citizen-Times.com. The event is free and open to the public.

The program, called a WNC Read-for-All, begins with a twenty-minute author feature and continues with forty minutes of discussion, emceed by Rob Neufeld. (Several WCU students have read Allison’s book in preparation for the event). See the website, “The Read on WNC” for more details and a Reader’s Guide. Representatives from REACH and The Jackson County Community Table will attend the event, and books will be available for signing courtesy of City Lights Books. The event is funded by the Parris Distinguished Professorship in Appalachian Cultural Studies.

The first member of her family to graduate from high school, Allison attended Florida Presbyterian college on a National Merit Scholarship and studied anthropology at the New School for Social Research.

Bastard out of Carolina contains many remarkable features: the story of a girl who forges a positive identity in the teeth of her stepfather’s abuse; the depiction of a poor, Southern extended family; and great storytelling. Allison received mainstream recognition with this novel, a finalist for the 1992 National Book Award. The novel won the Ferro Grumley prize and became a best seller and award- winning movie. It has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

The expanded edition of Allison’s short-story collection Trash (2002) included the prize winning short story, “Compassion,” selected for both Best American Short Stories 2003 and Best New Stories from the South 2003. Allison’s chapbook of poetry, The Women Who Hate Me, was published with Long Haul Press in 1983. A novel, She Who, is forthcoming.

Dorothy Allison was Emory University Center for Humanistic Inquiry’s Distinguished Visiting Professor, Spring, 2008. In 2006, she was writer in residence at Columbia College in Chicago. This fall, Allison is the McGee Professor and writer in residence at Davidson College in North Carolina.

Read Rob Neufield’s interview with Allison here.

CULLOWHEE–While Western Carolina’s men’s basketball program has had its moments, those moments have most often been related to individual performances, or nice late-season runs.

The Catamounts beat Nebraska, Tennessee, Florida State, Georgia Tech and Kansas State over the years. Danny Manning’s 1988 national championship Kansas Jayhawks team topped Western by only five points that year in Cullowhee. And Western once made a torrid run through the SoCon tournament and on to within a hair’s breadth of becoming the first 16th seed NCAA tourney team to knock off a number one seed, losing to Purdue by two in 1996.

WCU was also the first white southern school to admit African-American athletes (basketball players, in 1964); and a few pro players, including one of the NBA’s top current scorers, played college ball in Cullowhee.

Still, not since Western’s earliest years in the Southern Conference, some thirty years ago, have the Catamounts been regular, solid contenders, and never has a Western team been a preseason pick to win the league.

Finally, things have changed in Cullowhee. Coach Larry Hunter, one of the winningest coaches in college basketball, enters his fifth year at Western with a fully-stocked pantry of talent, and the Cats, coming off their first winning season in over a decade and a SoCon north division co-championship, are picked as the team to beat.

The Catamounts opened with a 23-point home win last weekend over NAIA St. Catherine, but leap directly into the fire tonight, when they visit number three Texas, in Austin.

Here’s a season preview from the WCU media folks:

Coming off its first winning season since 1996-97 and the program’s second conference divisional title a year ago, Western Carolina was today tabbed as the preseason favorite in the Southern Conference’s North Division as voted upon by the league’s 12 head coaches.

Western Carolina returns all five starters from a team that tied for the North Division Championship last season with an 11-9 mark in league play. The Catamounts earned 10 first-place votes and finished the balloting with 64 points, the most of any squad in the conference.

According to available records, WCU’s preseason first-place pick in the North Division is the first in program history since joining the SoCon in 1977-78. The media preseason poll will be announced next week as a part of the SoCon Preseason Head Coaches’ Teleconference.

Additionally, senior guard Brandon Giles and reigning conference freshman of the year, red-shirt sophomore Harouna Mutombo, were named to the preseason All-SoCon team as three teams put two teammates on the 10-man honorary squad.

Giles, who became the 37th different Catamount to eclipse the 1,000-point career plateau a season ago, earned third team All-SoCon plaudits from the media a season ago after ranking 13th in the league in scoring at 13.3 points per game. He led WCU in scoring on nine occasions including scoring 20-or-more five times.

Mutombo became the fourth different Catamount all-time to garner SoCon Freshman of the Year plaudits, and the first since Jarvis Hayes in 2000. The Pickering, Ontario native was the top-scoring freshman – and only one of three in the top 30 in the SoCon – with a 14.6 point per game average. He posted 24 double-digit scoring outings in his first season, reaching the 20-point plateau six times including a career-best 29 in the home win over UNC Greensboro.

Behind the first-place Catamounts, Appalachian State earned the remaining two first-place votes in the North Division and finished with 55 points. Samford (44) was chosen third while last season’s tournament champion, Chattanooga (39), was slotted fourth. Elon and UNC Greensboro tied for fifth place with 22 points apiece.

Opposite WCU in the South Division, the College of Charleston – led by preseason Player of the Year, Andrew Goudelock – was selected by the head coaches to finish first, garnering eight first-place votes. The Cougars finished 15-5 in league play a season ago and advanced to the tournament championship before falling to the Mocs.

Wofford picked up three first-place votes and finished second in the preseason balloting with 54 points. Davidson, which has won the South Division each of the past three years, earned the final first-place vote in the South Division and came in third with 48 points. The Citadel (36) finished fourth, followed by Furman (24) and Georgia Southern (21).

In addition to aforementioned Giles, Goudelock and Mutombo, the preseason all-conference team included Tony White, Jr., from the College of Charleston; Noah Dahlman and Junior Salters from Wofford. Other members of the preseason team included Will Archambault (Davidson), Kellen Brand (Appalachian State), Willie Powers (Georgia Southern) and Cameron Wells (The Citadel).

The regular season opens Friday, November 13 when nine teams hit the court with 11 of the 12 SoCon teams will begin play over that weekend. Western Carolina takes to the hardwood for the first time on Saturday, Nov. 14, as it hosts St. Catharine’s College at 7:00 pm in the Ramsey Center.

SoCon Men’s Basketball Predicted Order of Finish

North Division

Team (1st Place Votes) Total

1. Western Carolina (10) – 64

2. Appalachian State (2) – 55

3. Samford – 44

4. Chattanooga – 39

5. Elon – 22

UNC Greensboro – 22

South Division

Team (1st Place Votes) Total

1. College of Charleston (8) – 63

2. Wofford (3) – 54

3. Davidson (1) – 48

4. The Citadel – 36

5. Furman – 24

6. Georgia Southern – 21

2009-10 Preseason All-Conference Team

Will Archambault, Davidson

Kellen Brand, Appalachian State

Noah Dahlman, Wofford

Brandon Giles, Western Carolina

Andrew Goudelock, College of Charleston

Harouna Mutombo, Western Carolina

Willie Powers, Georgia Southern

Junior Salters, Wofford

Cameron Wells, The Citadel

Tony White, Jr., College of Charleston

2009-10 Preseason Player of the Year

Andrew Goudelock, College of Charleston

CULLOWHEE – Tickets go on sale Monday, Nov. 30, for an appearance at Western Carolina University by Garrison Keillor, host of the popular public radio show “A Prairie Home Companion.”

Garrison Keillor

An acclaimed author, storyteller, humorist and musician, Keillor will take center stage in WCU’s Fine and Performing Arts Center at 7 p.m. Monday, March 8. Reserved seat tickets for “An Evening with Garrison Keillor” are $25.

“We are starting ticket sales much earlier than we do for most other events because we thought many of our patrons might be interested in purchasing tickets as a holiday gift for that Garrison Keillor fan in their lives,” said Paul Lormand, Fine and Performing Arts Center director.

Keillor hosted the first broadcast of “A Prairie Home Companion” in St. Paul, Minn., on July 6, 1974. The show ended in 1987, resumed in 1989 in New York as “The American Radio Company,” returned to Minnesota, and in 1993 resumed the name “A Prairie Home Companion.” More than 3 million listeners on more than 450 public radio stations now hear the show each week.

Keillor’s most recent role included playing himself in the movie adaptation of his show, “A Prairie Home Companion.” He also is the author of 12 books, including “Lake Wobegon Days,” “The Book of Guys,” “The Old Man Who Loved Cheese,” “Wobegon Boy,” “Me: By Jimmy ‘Big Boy’ Valente as Told to Garrison Keillor,” “Love Me” and “Homegrown Democrat.” His newest novel, “Pontoon,” was released in the fall of 2007.

Keillor has received numerous awards, including a Grammy Award for his recording of “Lake Wobegon Days.” He also has received two Cable ACE Awards and a George Foster Peabody Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and recently was presented a National Humanities Medal by the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame at Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications in 1994.

CHATTANOOGA–David Uchiyama at the Chattanooga Times Free Press writes about the legacy of Stephen Curry, who earned all-America stripes while leading tiny Davidson to the elite eight of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

Curry left Davidson a year early, was drafted way up the NBA list, and now plays for Golden State.

Uchiyama talked to multiple SoCon coaches for the piece, which discusses Curry’s impact on the league.

A snip:

“Players like that graduate, he just went a year early,” Western Carolina coach Larry Hunter said. “Somebody else is going to fill those shoes this year, next year or down the road.

“Hopefully for the conference, there will be a few and they’ll come quick.”

Read the whole piece here.

REGIONAL–Western Carolina University associate professor Anna Fariello takes an in-depth look at the extraordinary world of Cherokee basketry in her new book “Cherokee Basketry: From the Hands of our Elders”, just out from the History Press of Charleston, South Carolina.

Fariello heads up the Craft Revival Project at WCU.

Here’s an excerpt from a story by Jill Ingram for The Reporter:

An author, editor and former research fellow at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Fariello most recently turned her attention to Cherokee basketry, a thousands-year-old tradition, passed from mother to daughter, that she believes is integral to Cherokee culture. Fariello’s new book, titled “Cherokee Basketry: From the Hands of our Elders,” studies Cherokee baskets and basket-makers who lived during the first half of the 20th century.

The project reinforced Fariello’s understanding that for Cherokee people, “the making of things is significant to their culture and their identity,” a concept foreign to many people in contemporary, mainstream culture, she said. The Cherokees’ use of natural resources as basket materials gave Fariello an appreciation of the environmental sustainability and ecological balance also inherent in the culture.

Read the entire story and view photos here.

Sacramento Kings swingman Kevin Martin, a Western Carolina University product and currently the National Basketball Association’s third-leading scorer, suffered a hairline fracture of his non-shooting wrist in a collision with Allen Iverson during Monday’s win over Memphis.

Kevin Martin (PAUL KITAGAKI JR., Sacramento Bee)

Martin, who scored 48 points in that game and another 29 in Wednesday’s loss to Atlanta, must decide today whether to wear a soft cast and continue playing — risking further injury — or to treat the injury with surgery or a hard cast.

Martin wasn’t given a choice by the team, he announced Friday, and will undergo surgery for the injury. He’ll miss at least two months.

Martin’s career has been dogged by injuries, and he’s sometimes criticized for being “soft”.

Read more here from the Sacramento Bee on Martin’s response to the “soft” accusation.