Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country | Founded 05-05-05

|| High Country Press Newswire

BREAKING NEWS: Watauga County & STATEWIDE ELECTION RESULTS

October 30, 2008 issue
Editor's note: Retraction of "Walking Wounded, INC." Article

Tough Talk On Tourism—High Country Tourism Summit Identifies Crucial Need To Collaborate

“I’m a firm believer in the fact that tough times do things that are good; we hold hands better, play together better,” said Kent Tarbutton, master of ceremonies for the High Country Tourism Summit and proprietor and developer of Chetola Resort and the Bob Timberlake Inn, as he opened last Thursday’s summit. “I believe that the whole is better than the sum of its parts.”

The High Country Tourism Summit, sponsored by High Country Host, Tweetsie Railroad, An Appalachian Summer Festival and Chetola Resort, focused on collaborating marketing efforts to sustain tourism in the High Country during the country’s economic downturn. Read More »

Board of Elections Disregards State Instructions in Setting Polling Place Buffers

The Watauga County Board of Elections met twice last Thursday to resolve the question of where electioneering—passing out campaign literature and promoting candidates—can take place at ASU’s early voting station. Two members of the board, Chair Stella Anderson and member Rusty Henson, voted to measure the statutorily required 25 feet from the door of the Multicultural Center in the Plemmons Student Union instead of from the doors of the building.
Read More »

The View Stories

A Party Three Decades In The Making—Peabody’s Celebrates its 30th Anniversary with Annual Wine Expo November 8

Once you’ve removed your coat, said a few hellos, handed over your tickets and gotten your hands on your wine glass, the first thing you should do at the Peabody’s 30th Anniversary Charity Wine Tasting Expo is head directly for the best Champagne you can find. After all, this is a celebration, and there’s no better way to start than with a glass or two of fine bubbly.

Since 1978, Peabody’s Wine & Beer Merchants has cultivated the palates of students, professors, professionals and passersby at the original location in Blowing Rock and, for the last several years, at the location on Highway 105 in Boone. Read More »

Shelter Stories

How Can Boone Become More Resilient? MountainKeepers Takes the Lead in Conducting Community Discussion

Last week at Farthing Auditorium, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. urged the audience to “connect the dots,” to make the effort to research and understand how U.S. energy policy affects everything from the country’s trade deficit to its foreign policy to its domestic economy.

Because of “our deadly crack addiction to oil,” Kennedy said, the country borrows $1 billion per day (that’s the trade deficit part) to buy oil from countries that we don’t like and that don’t like us (that’s the foreign policy part). The domestic economy part stood out in sharp relief in September, when gasoline pump prices exceeded $4 per gallon. Read More »