Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05
January 4, 2007 issue
Year in Review – April 2006
FIRE: A 30-acre wildfire closed Highway 321 north of Lenoir on April 5.
FIRE: Boone and Blowing Rock Fire Departments burn the old Castle Hotel to make way for a Ginn Resorts sales center.
WIND: Wind experts convened at Grandfather Mountain to brainstorm the ideal location for a wind gauge. Some weather experts had disputed the accuracy of wind speed measurements because of the location of the anemometer.
SNOW: Myra McCoury’s Snow Kid Sledder won first prize in the Avery-Banner Elk Chamber of Commerce Snowman Contest.
EXPANSION: Ginn Company announced the signing of a letter of intent to purchase part of the Leatherwood Mountains development off Elk Creek Road in Ferguson.
VOTING: Sheila Ollis hired as director of the Avery County Board of Elections.
PLAY: The Beech Mountain Recreation center opened April 18.
PLOW: Volunteers broke ground at the Leola Street Community Garden site on Easter weekend, a project conceived and spearheaded by Matt Cooper. Percheron draft horses plowed some of the site, but the soil was too hard-packed and a tractor had to finish the job.
OPENING: Closed since the floods in September 2004 washed out the road, the 8-mile stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway from Linville Falls to Spruce Pine opened.
BOOTS: The booting battle heated up in Boone, with some local business owners and many parking violators protesting the methods used by contractors of Lot Management Solutions to enforce parking restrictions in private lots.
CARE: The Rainbow Center’s Kulynych Family Life Center opened in Wilkesboro, offering expanded counseling programs for families.
• DEVELOPMENT: Newland approved Angelo Accetturo’s proposed 883-acre Wilderness Trail development.
• PROTEST: The Watauga County Board of Commissioners unanimously passed a resolution opposing the public auction sale of up to 200,000 acres of national forest land.