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Archived
Watauga County Teacher of the Year
Parkway Elementary School teacher Donna Raichle holds her daughter Kara, 6, as she reacts to learning that she had been selected as Watauga County schools’ Teacher of the Year for 2007-2008. The announcement came Friday morning when school officials paid her a surprise visit at the school gym. Photo by Mark Mitchell |
May 18, 2007
How does your garden grow?
Tom Philpott of Maverick Farms discusses his recent crop of mustard greens with Valle Crucis resident Burt Moomaw at the new Wednesday afternoon farmers’ market, held behind the Mast General Store in Valle Crucis. The market takes place every Wednesday from 2 to 6 p.m. “We want to be a market that addresses the wants and needs of locals, as well as tourists,” said Carol Miller of Providence Farms in Creston. The idea has been growing for a while with the folks at the Mast General Store, who were looking to fill in a produce gap missing in their regular store goods. According to Miller, the amount of vendors will be kept to a reasonable size, so as not to conflict with the Mast Store or with other markets. “We are looking to grow some, but keep it small and with a real local flavor,” Miller said. Photo by Marie Freeman |
Secret Service visits Dudley
To readers of the Watauga Democrat’s opinion page, the name Craig Dudley is a familiar one. His frequent letters criticizing the policies of President George W. Bush have gained Dudley a fair amount of notoriety, both favorable and otherwise. Read more.
CCC&TI will see more growth inWatauga
The Watauga branch of Caldwell Community College & Technical Institute is gearing up for expansion as an increased number of high school students take dual-enrollment classes at the college in Boone.
Read more.
Proposal could enhance status for New River
The New River’s federal designation as a Wild and Scenic River could be expanded under a proposal introduced by U.S. Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC). Burr presented the bill to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural resources Subcommittee on National Parks Tuesday. The bill would add another part of the New River as a Wild and Scenic River System, a move that would help raise awareness of the resource’s value and enhance preservation efforts. Read more.
State: No space for sexual predators on MySpace Web site
North Carolina is one of the states taking a closer look at sexual predators who are cruising cyberspace for potential victims. N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper, who has made Internet safety for children a priority of his office, announced a crackdown Monday on registered sex offenders who use the popular online community MySpace. The Web site has -70 million registered users and is a popular hangout for teens, who post pictures, blogs and sometimes intimate details about their friends and their daily lives. Read more.
Boone community garden cultivates second season
The Leola Street Community Garden is set to sow and grow for its second season. An orientation day will serve as a kick-off Saturday, May 19, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., when prospective gardeners may sign for a garden plot and current gardeners may tend to their own. Read more.
App Voices helps draft conservation bill
Part three of a three-part series: Boone’s Appalachian Voices paved a path away from mountaintop removal and towards cleaner water at the nation’s capitol this week. On May 13, 16 organizations and approximately 110 volunteers from across the nation gathered at the Lutheran Church of the Reform in Washington, D.C. to kick off the second annual Mountaintop Removal Lobby Week. The mission at hand was to promote the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 2169). Read more.
May 16, 2007
Audubon promotes habitats along Blue Ridge Parkway
The Blue Ridge Parkway will soon have some weedy patches to augment the forests and pastures. The Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation awarded a grant to N.C. Audubon to conduct bird surveys and maintain a diverse habitat on former pasture lands that are part of the national park. To read more, please click here. |
Weekend police shooting: Suspects released from area hospitals
Two suspects, shot by a Banner Elk police officer while allegedly trying to run him down at an Avery County road block, are out of the hospital and in jail on drug and assault charges, according to Avery County Sheriff Kevin Frye. Read more.
Watauga school system presents teacher, student awards
The word of the day at Monday’s monthly Watauga County Board of Education meeting was “recognition.” First on the agenda was a presentation about Hardin Park’s Coffee Talk program, which won the Terry Sanford Award for Creativity and Innovation in Teaching and Administration from the N.C. Association of Educators. Read more.
Appalachian Voices heads to U.S. capitol
Part two of a three part series: King Street, a safe haven for both energetic and creative entrepreneurs, hosts an eclectic mix of small and large businesses that Boone calls its own. Nestled between Omega Tee’s and Screen Printing and Big Bill’s Diecast is the office of Appalachian Voices, home to the nonprofit organization for 10 years. Read more.
Boone planners consider parks as new land-use class
Zoning amendments from last week’s Boone Quarterly Public Hearing moved a step closer to adoption at the regular meeting of the Boone Area Planning Commission. Read more.
Group conserves Valle Crucis tract
Another piece of land in the “upper valley” of Valle Crucis is getting permanent protection, this time a hilltop overlooking a historic valley where missionary students once grew crops. Read more.
County wants zoning to build parking deck at former sheriff’s office
The Boone Town Council and Boone Area Planning Commission reviewed several cases at the town’s May 10 quarterly public hearing. One case saw Watauga County request conditional central business district (CDB-1) zoning approval to permit conversion of the old Watauga County Law Enforcement Center property off Queen Street into a surface parking lot with 32 spaces. Read more.
May 14, 2007
Police shoot two following chase
Avery County law enforcement officers shot and wounded two suspects when they allegedly tried to run a police road block near the Avery-Watauga county line early Saturday morning. Read more.
Zero waste advocates discuss options
Part three of a three-part series: As Watauga County’s sanitation bill and annual trash production continue their upward climb, some people are looking at ways to trim the size of the mountain of garbage.
Read more.
Beech Bog may get wetlands status
Beech Creek Bog, the focus of a preservation effort five years ago, is now on the state’s list for consideration as a “unique wetlands.” Read more.
Flattening the Appalachians
Part one of a three-part series: At least 474 mountains have been destroyed in the Appalachian region due to mountaintop removal. Appalachian Voices, a local nonprofit organization is working to prevent what Vanity Fair claimed to be “one of the greatest acts of physical destruction this country has ever wreaked upon itself.” Read more.
Boone public hearing focuses on parking, parks
The streets of downtown Boone are becoming more commercial. Under a new regulation adopted by the Boone Town Council, all new multi-family projects in the town’s central business district must provide street-level commercial uses. Read more.
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