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Hendersonville Life

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 »

Flat Rock Life

LIGHTNING REVIEW: Talented cast overcomes script to deliver big fun

Presented with the proposition that a board game can serve as the foundation of a musical theater production, you might wonder what’s next — a movie exploring the inner motivation of an emoji?   Read Story »

Saluda Life

Duke says sale of Tuxedo power plant preserves whitewater recreation

TUXEDO — Duke Energy Carolinas announced this week the sale of its hydroelectric plant at Lake Summit and four others in the region, a move that whitewater paddlers are watching with interest.   Read Story »

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 »

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