AbelnNotaryServices_012225_WEB

Free Daily Headlines

Life

Set your text size: A A A

Life

Duke says sale of Tuxedo power plant preserves whitewater recreation

Mills River Life

Ask Matt ... How much wood can 
a wood chuck chuck?

Q. What is that large orange machine on the mulch yard near Ingles on NC 280 in Mills River? It’s a wood chipper. The machine carries the brand name Morbark 6600 Wood Hog and it’s a monster. Unlike the old round tub grinders the Wood Hog employs a steel belt conveyor to push logs, stumps, and trees into the grinder teeth. This baby will chew up and spit out tree trunks 42 inches in diameter. The Wood Hog was purchased by Riverside Stump Dump for a cool $1,015,000 and was broken in just last month. Ronnie Ray owns two Riverside Stump Dump sites, one in Mills River and another in Asheville, where he keeps an 18-year old tub grinder. Ray needed another chipper in Mills River. He likes the Wood Hog because it’s track-mounted which offers greater mobility. “I can put the new machine on a truck and take it to Waynesville or as far as Boone to do chipping at their own landfills,” said Ray. “It’s good for off-site jobs like clearing trees for a development.” I asked Ray how long before his million-dollar baby would pay for itself. “I don’t know yet,” he replied with a smile. But Ray was obviously impressed with the Wood Hog’s first day on the job. Anyone driving by the Stump Dump on Highway 280 can see that he has a lot of inventory. Now he just has to move out the mulch. Q. What competition for Internet and cable TV services is available locally and when do cable franchises expire?  It’s all changed. In 2007 our state Legislature did away with locally awarded cable television franchises. County Attorney Russell Burrell said that the law now calls for a “one size fits all” statewide franchise. The old city and county agreements are dissolved except that Morris Broadband must still provide a public educational and governmental channel (it’s channel 11). The new law changed how revenue is handled. Now the State collects revenue from the cable company and distributes it to local governments up a population-based formula. Our six local governments in Henderson County have collectively budgeted $716,000 in “cable revenues” for this fiscal year. It should be mentioned that U-verse, AT&T’s fiber optic service, is in the game with the state too. Some revenues come from a telecommunications tax and some from a video programming sales tax. Hendersonville City Manager John Connet pointed out that cable revenues are declining because more subscribers are moving to other Internet-streaming options. As for what competition is available locally, there is of course, Morris Broadband and U-verse for Internet and cable. Dish Network and Direct TV (AT&T) both offer TV but not Internet. Viasat offers Internet and TV via satellite. Spectrum (Charter Communications) operates in Buncombe County. They could get approved to operate a cable system here but they must bury their own cable lines in the ground or hang them on Duke’s power poles – likely a dealbreaker since Morris Broadband is already there. * * *Send questions to askmattm@gmail.com.     Read Story »

Laurel Park Life

Town dedicates reborn Rhododendron Lake Park

LAUREL PARK — From written or filmed history, Carey O’Cain recalled the resort-like amenities that Laurel Park founder Walter H. Smith built around Rhododendron Lake.   Read Story »

Henderson County Life

Hendersonville native's debut novel wins acclaim

As a child Heather Bell played with her sister in spooky sheds at her grandparents’ home. “My maternal grandparents lived in East Flat Rock and they had a bunch of abandoned outbuildings, farm buildings, chicken sheds, tool sheds, and my sister and I would explore them and we kind of found them fascinating and also a little scary,” she said. Another vivid memory became deeply etched at the homestead. “My sister and I were in high school when my mother passed way and we were at my grandparents’ house when we found out,” she said. Almost thirty years later, Heather Bell Adams combines the images of the shed and the heart-ache of loss in the opening scene of Maranatha Road, her acclaimed first novel that will remind readers here of Hendersonville, Green River and Lake Summit and familiar places like Shepherd Funeral Home. Heather Bell AdamsThe fictional town of Garnet feels a bit like Hendersonville but what feels truer than place is the people. Adams’ characters sound and behave like genuine small-town mountain natives, doing their best to navigate life’s challenges. The book has won the James Still Fiction Prize, the Carrie McCray Literary Award and the Independent Book Publishers Gold award as the best novel in the Southeast. Southern Literary Review called Maranatha Road “an exquisite story with characters so real they could step off the pages into your living room.” A native of Hendersonville, Adams is the daughter of Doley Bell, the retired administrator at Carolina Village, who lives in Mills River. She grew up on Kanuga Road, “the last house in the city limits.” Asked which teachers inspired her, she names philosophy teacher Lisa Vierra and English teacher Tom Orr at Hendersonville High School and Bel Smith, the Hendersonville Middle School newspaper adviser. After graduating from HHS, Adams earned undergraduate and law degrees from Duke. Although she works fulltime as senior counsel for First Citizens Bank and has a 14-year-old son, she steals time to write short stories and novels — a second one is in the editing stages. “Really I just try to fit in writing whenever I can, while waiting for a flight in an airport, waiting in the carpool line to pick up my son, just little snippets of time,” she said in an interview from her Raleigh office. “On my commute to work I’m often thinking about the story I’m working on and what will come next or what the characters will do.” Maranatha Road opens with Tinley losing both her parents. Losing her mother as a teenager gave Adams a searing memory to drew on. Adams’s lead characters, 17-year-old Tinley Greene and 60-something Sadie Caswell, unexpectedly collide. Adams guides them to place ultimately of love and forgiveness. It’s no easy road there. She tells the story from the points of view of Tinley, her lover, Mark; Sadie, and her husband, Clive. Tinley, and only Tinley, speaks in the present. “Being younger and almost a little bit more naïve Tinley lives in the present more so than Sadie,” Adams said. “That was always the way her voice came to me, whereas Sadie and the other characters are more nostalgic and looking back.” Adams finished the novel in a year. Working with a literary agent, she connected with Vandalia Press, a West Virginia University imprint, which published the book last October. “It was very exciting to see it,” she said. “I remember opening the email when they sent the cover. That was a great moment as well because I had no idea what the cover would look like.” A launch tour has taken her to bookstores and book clubs throughout the state and to Yale, where her book was honored. Invariably, readers have loved her book. Her next novel is a dual timeline story set in present day Savannah and in the Pacific in World War II. If fans ask whether we might see Tinley again, Adams says she has some interest in exploring how the young woman’s life turns out. For now, Adams is happy to be coming home, where she will see people and places that helped inspire Maranatha Road. “I’m really looking forward to the event in Hendersonville. I have so many family members in the area and friends,” she said. She hopes her paternal grandmother, 96, can be there, as well as her father, her sister, Melissa, who lives in Fletcher, cousins and in-laws. Adams will read from Maranatha Road and sign books at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 2, at the Heritage Museum in the Historic Courthouse. She will appear on UNC-TV’s North Carolina Bookwatch with D.G. Martin at 11 a.m. Sunday, April 22, and 5 p.m. Thursday, April 26.   Read Story »

Laurel Park Life

Friends of Laurel Park gift covers repair of historic wall

Mark Morse, vice president of Friends of Laurel Park and past Laurel Park Civic Association president; Friends of Laurel Park President Mindy Collins and Laurel Park Mayor Carey O’Cain celebrated the completed repair work on the historic rock wall along Laurel Park Highway. The Friends of Laurel Park covered the $7,300 contract with Jeff Cosgrove’s Southwind Landscaping Co. to repair and rebuild the historic Civilian Conservation Corps wall from Hebron Road to Echo Mountain Inn. “It’s a beautiful thing,” O’Cain said. “We haven’t repaired that wall for 80 years. They had been put back together after a car ran into them by the maintenance crew but the maintenance crew are not professional stone layers.” Created at the start of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term in March 1933, the CCC formed “a peacetime army to battle against destruction and erosion of natural resources.” At its peak enrollment, the New Deal agency deployed 505,782 single young man ages 17 to 25 throughout the country, according to research by Laurel Park Town Councilman Paul Hansen. CCC workers received $30 a month, $25 of which was sent home to families. The workers planted 3 billion trees, built thousands of miles of fire roads, erected 3,470 fire towers and protected 20 million acres from erosion. In North Carolina, 70,000 young men enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps, including 387 from Henderson County. In this area, the agency had camps in Asheville, Black Mountain, Pisgah Forest, Brevard and Hendersonville. Besides the rock walls along Laurel Park Highway, CCC projects included picnic tables and outdoor fireplaces at Jump Off Rock. “The Friends of Laurel Park support of the town’s effort to repair our CCC walls and memorialize them with historic markers assures that the trials, tribulations and efforts of the ‘Greatest Generation’ will not be lost to history books,” Hansen said.   Read Story »

Hendersonville Life

Metal detector seeks owner of gold wedding ring

Metal detecting hobbyist Denny Foresman hopes a groom out there somewhere will retrieve a wedding ring that he found at a soccer field at Sandhill-Venable Elementary School in Asheville.   Read Story »

Henderson County Life

Author on philanthropy keynotes MLK Unity Breakfast

Valaida Fullwood, author of the award-winning author of Giving Back: A Tribute to Generations of African American Philanthropists, will be the keynote speaker at the 18th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Breakfast on Monday, Jan. 15, at the Blue Ridge Conference Hall at BRCC.A North Carolina native and a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Fullwood received the prestigious McAdam Book Award, which recognizes “the most inspirational and useful new book for the non-profit sector.” Fullwood will have limited copies of her book available for purchase at the event and will autograph copies. Giving Back is $36.50. Breakfast will begin at 8 a.m. with the program directly following at 9 a.m. Though a ticketed event, the Unity Breakfast is open to the public. Tickets are required and can be purchased at the door or at Community Foundation of Henderson County, 401 North Main Street, Suite 300. Tickets are $12 for adults and $6 for children ages 5-12. For information call 828-697-6224.   Read Story »

Hendersonville Life

Holiday skating returns this week for second year

Holiday skating returns to downtown Hendersonville on Tuesday and continues through New Year’s Day.   Read Story »

Hendersonville Life

LIGHTNING REVIEW: Playhouse show channels meaning of Christmas

In 1857 lithographer Nathaniel Currier offered his accountant, James Ives, a partnership in his printmaking business. With their simple, hand-colored lithographs of Victorian Christmas scenes, Currier and Ives soon became the keeper of the Christmas tradition for many Americans.   Read Story »

Henderson County Life

Special needs vendors to sell crafts Saturday

More than 35 special needs children and adults from Western North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina will display and sell their crafts at a special expo from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 9, at the Henderson County Athletics & Activity Center, 708 S. Grove St. The event is being coordinated by Special Needs Sports of WNC in an effort to let the athletes (and others who may not be athletes) show off their talents to the community and raise some extra funds during the holidays. There is no charge to display or to attend, and organizers hope for a great turnout to support the special needs population. “We’re still getting calls from people every day wanting to participate, even people who have never participated in our sports league, and we won’t turn anyone away, even on the day of the event,” said Donnie Jones, executive director of Special Needs Sports. “Now we need the community to come out and do their holiday shopping with us.” Items for sale include artwork, crafts, lotions, baked goods, soaps, decorations, signs and more. Everything has been handmade by the “vendor” and the event is not intended to be a fundraiser for the organization. Proceeds from the sales will be kept by each seller. The event is co-sponsored by Four Seasons Rotary Club, which supports Special Needs Sports through financial and in-kind donations, as well as Henderson County Parks and Recreation Department, which is donating the space. “We’re excited to help promote and support this event for our special needs athletes,” said Tiffany Ervin, past president of the Four Seasons Rotary Club. “Several of the kids would bring their artwork to the baseball games this summer to show it off, and we wanted a way to spotlight their talents to others. Baseball season ended in October, and we won’t start basketball until January, so this is a great way to keep them active during the ‘off-season’ and help them make a little extra spending money at the same time."   Read Story »

Life Archive