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Hendersonville Business

Rescue dogs star in movie filmed here

After David Sullivan made a movie starring neighborhood dogs back in Dallas, fans asked him if planned a sequel. He did but in the meantime he and his wife, Jan, had retired to Hendersonville.“I thought I was going to have to go back to Dallas to do it,” he said. “Then we arrived in Hendersonville and we discovered this community full of incredible actors and musicians. It was a bonanza.”That’s how Hendersonville became the shooting location for Sullivan's sequel. “The Rescue Dogs of Western North Carolina: A Christmas Caper” premieres next week at the Regal Biltmore, starring local actors and 35 Hendersonville dogs.As soon as they arrived here in 2017, Sullivan and his wife bought season tickets to the Flat Rock Playhouse. It didn’t take him long to realize everything he needed for movie-making was right here in Hendersonville.After howling at Mark Warwick's performance in “Little Shop of Horrors,” Sullivan decided he had to have Warwick in the movie. He recruited Mark and his wife, Paige Posey, both professional actors. When he started laying the groundwork for the movie, he was astonished at the cooperation he received at every turn. County Engineer Marcus Jones helped arrange shooting involving county property; Hendersonville City Manager John Connet and Police Chief Herbert Blake made the downtown shooting easy.“They couldn’t have been nicer. It was not, ‘What do you want to do?’ It was, ‘How can we help you?’ We just did the whole production there. And now Hendersonville is going to be the central location for my future films. … The people’s enthusiasm keeps me going. They just love dogs here, and cats. So it’s a perfect place.” The Christmas Caper opens when, crossing the Smokies, a strong wind blows all the presents out of Santa’s sleigh unbeknownst to Santa. When he reaches the last stop of the night, Hendersonville, he realizes what's happened. Three dachshunds become the first enlistees to save Christmas when Santa’s sleigh lands on their roof. Hearing Santa’s sad story, they hatch a plan to “let themselves in” to all the stores downtown and collect gifts for everyone in Hendersonville, leaving Santa’s credit card as payment. The dachshunds visit the Blue Ridge Humane Society to recruit a rescue for the Christmas rescue. “There’s a dog there with lots of leadership capabilities. They talk her into coordinating this effort,” Sullivan says. She's a golden collie mix named Sasha.The villain is dog catcher Snidely McFish from “Tennalina,” a town so mean neither North Carolina nor Tennessee will claim it. Hendersonville’s police chief, played by Warwick, and an FBI agent, played by Posey, investigate a break-in at Renzo’s Ristorante, where the dogs have stolen gift certificates. “They call Renzo, so he’s in the film and he does a good job getting all excited,” Sullivan says.At Mast General, 60-pound Hungarian sporting dogs, or Vizslas, race through the store. The crew got permission to film in the store before it opened. “They really run fast,” Sullivan says of the Vizslas. “They allowed us to have these Vizslas running through their store at full speed. It really is funny just to look at.”A Vizsla in charge of disabling the burglar alarm accidentally sets off the sprinkler system and fire alarm. Meanwhile, the dogs who are supposed to be guarding Santa’s sleigh instead decide to take the sleigh for a joy ride, causing air traffic controllers to report a UFO, which results in the governor’s order to dispatch F-16s and the National Guard to Hendersonville while the first responders race to the fire alarm at Mast General … you get the idea.Two Newfoundlands break into Dancing Bear Toy Store, with the dog catcher on their tail. The Newfies freeze in front of a stuffed animal display and blend in, escaping capture.Preston Dyar plays Santa Claus. Scott Treadway, in the voice of a miniature dachshund, sings “Dog Bones o’er Carolina.” The dog catcher, played by Charlie Smith, gets doused by balloons filled with paint and then pea soup dropped by dogs piloting red miniature biplanes deployed to thwart him. The dog catcher nabs Sasha, the hero, and puts her on trial in Tennalina. The police chief and FBI agent save the day, with help from Frank “Fineprint” Peterson (specializing in 1-point fonts and missing semicolons), played by Page Collie, a real-life attorney who handled the real estate closing for the Sullivans.Recruiting the dog stars was easy. “We put an ad in the Pet Gazette and we got an immediate response,” Sullivan says. “People were so excited about having the dogs in the film. We bring the dog in and we want the dog to be comfortable and not nervous. We either have them sit or run and their parents are right there. The idea is we keep filming until we get a funny expression or some type of thing that looks like they’re talking. So it’s completely relaxed but we get footage that’s comical, and then write around that.”He hired nine or 10 voiceover artists who did three or four parts each. (A Doberman sings like Ethel Merman.)At 32 minutes, the film is short enough to leave plenty of time to introduce actors and entertain questions during the premiere, Sullivan says. The revenue comes from ticket sales plus a director’s cut DVD, including outtakes and scenes that didn’t make the finished product. His next step after the premiere is to try and sign a distributor. If that doesn’t happen, he hopes word of mouth will create enough buzz to warrant more showings in Hendersonville.Sullivan’s next project is a musical comedy based on a Battle of the Bands between beach music and Rolling Stones bands. (He’s recruited guitarist Bill Altman, drummer Paul Babelay and his wife Susan and their daughters Elizabeth and Rebecca, and is still casting otehr roles for that one.) “It’s Hollywood East as far as I’m concerned,” he says.  * * * * * “The Rescue Dogs of Western North Carolina: A Christmas Caper” premieres Wednesday, July 18, at the Regal Biltmore in Biltmore Park Town Square. Shows are at 5 and 6:30 p.m. Twenty-five percent of the gross revenue (not profit) goes to the Blue Ridge Humane Society. For tickets email jdmsullivan@att.net.     Read Story »

Etowah Business

80-year-old Brightwaters Guesthouse restored and reopened

The 80-year-old Brightwaters Guesthouse and surrounding property has been restored and reopened as rental housing.   Read Story »

Flat Rock Business

MossColumn: Village Council's vote made road safer

Maya Richardson did not get as much ink as other commenters on the North Highland Lake Road widening project.   Read Story »

Hendersonville Business

Awaiting floodplain permit, Publix edges closer to opening

Publix is filling mailboxes with slick fliers and popping up on smart phones with the promise that it’s “coming soon.” In the mailings, smiling cashiers, welcoming butchers and produce managers and delectable-looking plates of seared steak and baked salmon tease shoppers about the offerings and service at the supermarket "where shopping is a pleasure." (“No matter where you are in the store, our associates are easy to find and ready to serve.”)Muscling into a crowd of incumbent supermarkets and drug stores within a few hundred yards, the new grocery store on Greenville Highway is getting closer to completion by the day. Signs went up on Greenville Highway and White Street. Last week, crews moved the construction trailer behind the store, to clear ground for paving. Landscapers are unloading dozens of trees and bushes, so contractor Benning Construction can comply with the city’s stringent landscape requirements. One of the biggest regulatory obstacles remaining is a permit required by state and federal agencies because of the floodplain conditions, notorious locally for pushing high water up over cars’ wheel wells.A deluge of rain in May had people wondering whether Publix had made Mud Creek flooding worse, despite the fact that the contactor installed a huge underground stormwater storage system and other flood prevention measures. Halvorsen Development, the Florida-based contractor that manages construction of new stores for Publix, is still waiting for a flood control permit from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Publix can’t receive a certificate of occupancy until it gets the signoff from FEMA and the state Floodplain Mapping Program, said Susan Frady, director of the city’s Department of Development Assistance. The developer received a conditional letter of map amendment after it tried six times and failed to win a regulatory OK called a no-rise permit, which would have certified that the development on the 6-acre site in the Mud Creek floodplain would not make flood conditions worse than they currently are. The conditional letter allowed the supermarket company to start construction. To get a certificate of occupancy, Publix’s engineers have to convince regulators to drop "conditional."“They have to get everything done with all the flood stuff,” Frady said. “That’s part of their main C.O.”She had received correspondence recently from Jason Claudio-Diaz, the Kimley-Horn engineer working on the application, “so I know he’s working on it.”“We don’t have that yet,” Halvorsen president Tom Vincent said Monday of the Letter of Map Amendment. “We’re getting there. I just know it’s on our checklist as a work in progress. There isn’t a specific opening date. In the next 30 days we’ll have a better idea” on an opening date.City Manager John Connet said the last projection he heard on an opening date was late August. Kim Reynolds, a Charlotte-based Publix spokeswoman, confirmed an opening in the third quarter, which would be by Oct. 1.“Ultimately they have to get (FEMA) to sign off” on the floodplain application, Connet said. “Plenty of people are speculating” that the fill on the site may have made flooding worse, he said. “The question I ask back is, Didn’t it flood this way before Publix was there? We have no indication it’s caused any increased flooding in that area.” More than 2 feet of rain in a three-week stretch in May caused widespread flooding across the region, including high water that closed Greenville Highway directly in front of the supermarket site.Since the May floods crews have completed a new concrete box culvert that drains water from the site via a channel called the Johnson ditch.The contractor has to get a driveway permit from the NCDOT. And still to come are a center turn lane for shoppers northbound on Greenville Highway. The NCDOT is requiring the left-turn lane into the driveway entrance at the southern end of the parking lot. Plans submitted by Halvorsen’s traffic engineers also show a 130-foot southbound right turn lane on Greenville Highway across from Copper Penny Street and a new right turn lane from White Street into the store parking lot.       Read Story »

Mills River Business

Mills River OKs tax breaks for herbal supplement maker

MILLS RIVER — A Brevard-based distributor of herbal supplements is hoping to expand its footprint in Henderson County, consolidating leased spaces into a new $10 million facility at Broadpointe Industrial Park that will generate up to 30 jobs over three years.Gaia Herbs, a nationally recognized producer of herbal supplements, plans to move operations from Brevard and East Flat Rock into Broadpointe and continue operations at an existing facility in Mills River. It plans to invest $10.7 million in the building and $1.5 million in furnishings and equipment for a total of $12.2 million.The Mills River Town Council on Thursday agreed to $42,700 in economic development incentives over five years in the form of property tax rebates. The promised jobs would pay an average annual wage of $39,600 plus benefits. The company currently has 260 employees, including 30 in Henderson County.The herbal supplement maker cited the location next to the Asheville Regional Airport as a positive factor. The new facility would contain a bottling operation, warehousing and order fulfillment plus offices and support staff, said Brian Traylor, vice president of operations. The company's headquarters, manufacturing operations and farm will remain in Brevard. “It’s large enough we’re able to start with a facility that meets our needs for the near future and still gives us the opportunity to expand our footprint in that area,” Traylor told the council. It’s an advantage, too, to be across the road from the N.C. State University agriculture research station on Old Fanning Bridge Road.“It really lines up well with who we are what we already doing, considering we have a large farm ourself,” he said.The Henderson County Board of Commissioners is scheduled to take up a separate tax incentives request from Gaia Herbs and the Partnership for Economic Development next month.The company would break ground in August and complete the facility by the fall of 2019 if it closes on the sale, Traylor said.Marketing manager Aimee Sprinkel described the company as a “seed to shelf” enterprise that carefully cultivates all of its plants and harvests the plants when they’re ready, not when the business side needs to fill an order.“At Gaia we actually go out and see if the plants are ready,” she said. “We work with mother nature. We don’t force mother nature.”Councilman Richmond Meadows said he had followed the company for years in Transylvania County.“Ya’ll have grown from a little bitty something to a whole lot of something,” he said.   Read Story »

Henderson County Business

Pardee board elects new officers, welcomes new members

The Pardee UNC Health Care Board of Directors elected new officers and welcomed three new board members during its last meeting of the fiscal year on Wednesday. Jack Summey was elected board chair, Greg Burnette vice chair, Hall Waddell treasurer and Tammy Albrecht secretary. Joining the 15-person board of directors were Vivian A. Bolanos, market manager for First Bank; Brian Cavagnini, senior director of operations for axles at Meritor; and James “Jimmy” Chandler, a retired vice president of operating services at Compaq Computers. Bolanos, Cavagnini and Chandler  fill seats left vacant by Peggy Judkins, Bill Moyer and Bill Smith, who have completed their terms. The new board members began their term on June 1 and will serve for three years through 2021. “On behalf of the Pardee UNC Health Care board of directors, I am pleased to welcome Vivian, Brian and Jimmy,” Summey said. “As leaders in their respective industries, we look forward to their unique perspectives as we pursue our mission to offer high-quality health care to our community .”   Read Story »

Laurel Park Business

Senior apartments, round 2, off to rocky start

LAUREL PARK — Nine months year after the Hendersonville City Council shot down its request for senior apartments on U.S. 64, a developer is shopping the idea in Laurel Park.   Read Story »

Hendersonville Business

Pardee honors top doc, donor

A part-time gardener and bookkeeper, emergency dental assistant and full-time mom, Betsy Merrell can add Physician of the Year to her portfolio. The family practitioner was honored as the top doc for Pardee UNC Health Care for 2018 at the annual Pardee Hospital Foundation Gala Saturday night at the Blue Ridge Conference Hall at BRCC. A native of Ohio, Merrell has spent most of her life in North Carolina, from high school to Appalachian State to medical school at Wake Forest University. She and her husband, dentist Joshua Merrell, moved to his hometown of Hendersonville in 2006 and both started private practice at the same time. Betsy Merrell joined Pardee in 2009, first as a hospitalist, becoming a family practice associate two years later. Betsy Merrell A member of the North Carolina Medical Society, the American Academy of Family Practice and the N.C. Academy of Family Physicians, Merrell served for two years as president of the Henderson County Medical Society. She’s also served on the Board of Safelight and has volunteered with the Free Clinics, Relay for Life and Chamber of Commerce.Besides gardening at her husband’s dental office and decorating the interior, she rears 7-year-old Sophia and 4-year-old Luke. “We have even learned that she has stepped in as dental assistant at 3 a.m., called upon to help with an emergency root canal,” Greg Burnett, a Pardee board member and First Citizens Bank executive, said in introducing her. “She has been known to stand in line for hours to snag UNC basketball tickets and is on the short list to learn of the next U2 concert in the area.” Philanthropist of the Year Philanthropist of the Year was Carol Adams, a former Pardee Foundation member and veteran of many fundraising campaigns. A native of North Carolina, Adams has been a “professional volunteer” since a young age while moving around the South before arriving in Hendersonville in 2003, Mary Olson, the 2017 philanthropist winner, said.After graduating from graduate of Queens College in Charlotte, Adams moved to Richmond, Virginia, where she met the love of her life. Her volunteer service and commitment to philanthropy has run the gamut from the Junior League to the Public Library, the Crippled Children’s Clinic to the Henry Logan Children’s Home and the Parkersburg, West Virginia Community Foundation. In her free time she served as a tennis and swim team coach and a homeroom mom.In Hendersonville, the Pardee Foundation was fortunately to be on the receiving end of Adams’s tireless volunteer service and philanthropy. She helped found the Women Helping Women Committee, chairing the fundraising committee before joining the Pardee Foundation Board in 2005. She served in Carol Adamsvarious roles from secretary to the By-Laws and Nominating committees and co-chaired the capital campaign for the Elizabeth Reilly Breast Center. In addition, the busy mother of two and grandmother of three, Adams serves St. James Episcopal Church in numerous volunteer leadership roles. In addition, she spent countless hours a few years ago working at the Blackwater Grill, which was owned and operated in Laurel Park by her son and daughter-in-law. “After a brief hiatus from the foundation board, she rejoined the board in 2012 and will finish six years of devoted service with tireless commitment to Planned Giving, Generations and Annual Fund; chairing the Annual Fund Committee for the last couple years,” Olson said.“Dr. Betsy Merrell and Carol Adams are both fantastic representatives of our community,” said Kimerly Hinkelman, Pardee Hospital Foundation Executive Director. “Pardee Hospital is a better place because of them and we would not be able to provide the care our community deserves without these individuals. We thank them for making Pardee a better place with their gifts.”          Read Story »

Henderson County Business

Spirit Airlines offering new flights to Florida

Area residents seeking a getaway to Florida have new options with discount flyer Spirit Airlines adding eight flights a week from Asheville Regional Airport to the Sunshine State in September and 11 flights starting in November. On Sept. 6 Spirit will begin service from AVL to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Orlando International Airport and Tampa International Airport. Asheville will mark Spirit’s 67th service station in its growing network. Service to and from Fort Lauderdale and Orlando will each run three times a week, while service to and from Tampa will operate two times weekly starting in September, increasing to four times weekly to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando and three times weekly to Tampa starting Nov. 8. “We are so excited to offer service between the beautiful Asheville region and three cities in sunny Florida, as they are all incredible destinations,” said Mark Kopczak, Spirit Airlines’ Vice President of Network Planning. “Guests in Florida will be able to experience all the cool things to do in Asheville, including taking in the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains, trying out some of the over 80 craft breweries in the area, and experiencing the local arts scene in downtown Asheville. Meanwhile, Guests in the Asheville area who are looking for a warm beach vacation this winter will now be able to getaway for less with our ultra-low fares.”   Read Story »

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