JANUARY 8, 2009 issue
What a Year! 2008 in Review
Part II - The Second Half of 2008
Story by Kathleen McFadden
July '08
• MILESTONES: The 53rd Annual Grandfather Mountain Highland Games was held at MacRae Meadows.
• GLOBAL WARMING: Unseasonably cold weather broke the record for the daily low temperature July 2 at Grandfather Mountain. The temperature dipped to 44 degrees early in the morning, breaking the previous daily low record of 47 degrees set in 1979.
• MONEY: Ginn Clubs and Resorts failed to make principal and interest payments on Credit Suisse-sponsored loans that were funding the development of four Ginn communities, one of them Laurelmor.
• CHANGES: After more than 25 years, the Appalachian Christian School closed its doors because of low student enrollment for the 2008-09 school year.
• WATER: Avery and Watauga counties were in extreme drought, the second most severe category.
• MILESTONES: After more than a year of work, the new downtown Boone gateway was completed at the intersection of Polar Grove Connector and West King Street.
• CHANGES: Habitat For Humanity and the Habitat ReStore relocated to the former Norris Furniture building at 2447 Old Highway 421.
• LAWSUIT: Superior Court Judge Ronald K. Payne ruled that the Boone Board of Adjustment’s denial of a special use permit for a proposed medical clinic on State Farm Road not only denied Phil Templeton’s due process rights, but also made errors in law, did not follow the procedures specified by law and made an “arbitrary and capricious” decision not based on the evidence. The town appealed the decision.
• MILESTONES: The theme of the July 4th parade in Boone was Jones House Centennial: 100 Years of Keeping Up With the Joneses, recognizing the 100th anniversary of the house’s construction. The Jones House staff served as the grand marshals of the parade.
• DEVELOPMENT: David Taylor, Boone Point’s director of sales and marketing, said completion of the building was anticipated in mid-October to early November.
• UPWARD TREND: The Boone Town Council adopted a tiered conservation rate structure for water, an across-the-board increase for sewer and increased water and sewer availability fees.
• CHANGES: OASIS, WAMY Community Action and The Children’s Council moved into the new Family Resource Center at 225 Birch Street.
• KUDOS: The National Committee for the New River named State Senator Steve Goss as 2008 Legislator of the Year.
• KUDOS: TJ Poulos, 11-year-old Boone native and rising 6th grader at Valle Crucis Elementary, qualified to compete at the 2008 AAU Junior Olympics Nationals.
• WATER: The Boone town council passed a resolution authorizing the town’s
finance director to apply to the Local Government Commission for approval of a $25 million issue of general obligation bonds, the estimated cost of bringing a new raw water intake online, building the transmission lines to the current water treatment plant and upgrading the plant to increase its capacity.
• NEW FACES: Banner Elk native Carol Lowe Timblin was named executive director of the Greater Banner Elk Heritage Foundation.
• CHANGES: Co-owner Lenny Cottom announced that Hawksnest Resort would not open its ski slopes for the 2008-09 season because of frustrations with citizens of the Town of Seven Devils, but would expand its snow tubing area.
• POLITICS: Ron Paul, physician, U.S. Representative from Texas and former Republican presidential candidate, brought his message to Boone, speaking to a packed house at the Broyhill Inn.
• GLOBAL WARMING: A new daily low temperature record was set July 2 at Grandfather Mountain’s Mile High Swinging Bridge. The reading of 44 degrees broke the previous record of 47 degrees set for that day in 1979. A high temperature reading of 77 degrees recorded July 29 broke the record high temperature for that day. The previous record of 76 degrees was set in 1956.
• REQUIEM: Vulcan Materials donated and delivered a 5-ton stone to the National Guard Armory, a memorial stone at the entrance to the sidewalk that leads to the Fallen Heroes Memorial Garden.
August '08
• POLITICS: Former Governor James Holshouser and gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory were guests at the grand opening of the Watauga County Republican Party’s campaign headquarters on Meadowview Drive.
• TRANSPORTATION: NC DOT representatives met with Town of Boone and Watauga County officials to explain proposed plans for improving safety on Highway 105, but local officials objected to the proposed medians and left turn access limitations and asked DOT representatives to study the feasibility of installing a traffic light at Poplar Grove Road and a left turn lane at Highlands Avenue.
• RECYCLING: The Watauga County Board of Commissioners voted to institute a one-year trial of a year-round recycling program for unwanted electronic equipment including computers, monitors, printers, computer accessories, laptops, televisions, VCR/DVD players, phones and fax machines.
• KUDOS: The Boone Area Chamber of Commerce presented Phil Templeton with the 2008 Alfred Adams Award.
• CONTROVERSY: ASU officials hosted an information session with property owners to explain why the university asked the Town of Boone to rezone a 15-acre tract of unimproved land adjacent to the Broyhill Inn from single-family residential to university district zoning, announcing plans to build student housing on the site. Several attendees expressed concerns about the lack of plans, the time frame for requesting the rezoning, light pollution, stormwater runoff and its effect on downhill wells, noise, traffic and property values.
• DENIED: In a 4-1 vote, the Boone Town Council denied ASU’s request to rezone the 15-acre tract of land adjacent to the Broyhill Inn from single-family residential to university district zoning. Council member Rennie Brantz voted in favor of the request.
• ASU: By August 12, almost all reserved seats to Appalachian State University home football games had been sold.
• DEVELOPMENT: After another four-hour special meeting, no decision came down on the 17-building commercial and residential development proposed for downtown Blowing Rock because of council members’ concerns about the layout and aesthetic appearance of the project buildings.
• MILESTONES: The Lois E. Harrill Senior Center in Boone celebrated 30 years of service to the community.
• EDUCATION: All nine schools in the Watauga County Schools system met North Carolina’s standards for expected academic growth during the 2007-08 school year, and six schools (67 percent) also met the standard for high growth: Bethel, Blowing Rock, Cove Creek, Green Valley, Hardin Park and Valle Crucis.
• MONEY: The NC DOT approved $200,000 in funding to assist with right-of-way acquisition for sidewalks to be installed at the new Watauga High School.
• KUDOS: For the third time in the past four years, a North Carolina Christmas tree farm won the right to provide the White House Christmas tree. Rusty Estes and Jessie Davis of River Ridge Tree Farms in Crumpler won the National Christmas Tree Grand Championship held as part of the National Christmas Tree Association’s annual meeting.
• LIQUOR: Boone voters overwhelmingly passed the mixed-beverage referendum—1,111 voting in favor and 408 against—giving restaurant owners the opportunity to apply for ABC permits to sell liquor by the drink. Voter turnout was 12.73 percent. Ten days later, Makoto’s served the first legal mixed beverages in Boone.
• EDUCATION: Both Watauga and Avery counties posted lower graduation rates in the 2008 cohort than those reported in 2007.
• MILESTONES: WAMY Community Action, OASIS and The Children’s Council held a grand-opening ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new Family Resource Center.
• ECONOMY: Numbers provided by the Avery-Watauga Association of Realtors for the January to June time period showed that inventory—the number of homes on the market—was up 12.7 percent, sales were down 22 percent and average days on market were up 9.2 percent compared to the same period in 2007.
• FAMOUS FOLK: Death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean spoke at ASU and at Lees-McRae College.
• CHANGES: The Watauga Commissioners instituted new rules at the Appalachian Skatepark, hiring a security guard to ensure skaters wear protective equipment, making sure users sign a waiver of liability, limiting park hours and prohibiting food, drinks, glass containers and chewing gum in the park.
• DEVELOPMENT: Mike Kesterson of Barnhill-Vannoy reported to the Watauga County Board of Commissioners that the new high school project was 18 percent complete and two weeks ahead of schedule.
• WATER: The record for the most rainfall in one day during the month of August was broken at Grandfather Mountain when a total of 8.5 inches of rain was recorded from 8:00 a.m. on August 26 through 8:00 a.m. on August 27.
• MONEY: The Hospitality House launched the public phase of its Giving Hope a Hand capital campaign with the goal of raising $3 million in private donations over the next three years.
• EDUCATION: Watauga High School students achieved an average combined score of 1,102 on the math and critical reading sections of the SAT in 2008, 95 points higher than the state average of 1,007 and 85 points above the national average of 1,017. A perfect combined score on these two sections of the SAT is 1,600.
• MILESTONES: The Boone Worthwhile Woman’s Club celebrated its 85th anniversary.
• ASU: The Appalachian Mountaineer football team lost its season opener to LSU 41-13.
• LAWSUIT: A jury found no negligence on the part of Town of Blowing Rock in the 2004 accident at Glen Burney Falls in which a 12-year-old girl fell 30 feet onto rocks and suffered severe injuries.
• HISTORY: Blair Farm, the historic property on Deerfield Road in Boone, was officially listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
September '08
• MONEY: ASU announced that gifts to the university exceeded $24.768 million in cash, securities and in-kind gifts for the 2007-08 fiscal year, a 95 percent increase from the previous year.
• REQUIEM: Claire Hartsook Boyce, an icon of the equine world who competed in, managed or attended the Blowing Rock Charity Horse Show for 81 consecutive years, died at age 96.
• KUDOS: The Boone Smart Growth Audit was selected to receive the 2008 North Carolina Marvin Collins Planning Award in the “Managing to Grow” category, recognizing innovative and/or highly successful efforts to encourage quality growth and economic development.
• MONEY: The High Country Women’s Fund, an initiative of the High Country United Way, held its third annual Power of the Purse fundraising luncheon.
• MILESTONES: Boone Saloon reopened five months after a fire in April extensively damaged the restaurant and bar.
• RECOMMENDATIONS: A downtown retail strategy report by HyettPalma, Inc. and funded by the Blowing Rock Tourism Development Authority recommended that the town create a special zoning district for Main Street that would restrict first-floor uses to retail, food, entertainment, arts and banks only—prohibiting offices and housing from occupying street-level spaces.
• MILESTONES: The Mast General Store celebrated 125 years in business.
• MILESTONES: Construction work on the Wildcat Lake dam was completed.
• KICKOFF: High Country United Way kicked off its 2008-09 campaign with a fundraising goal of $625,000.
• WORLD RECORD: Boone set a new world record for the Largest Gathering of People Dressed Like Daniel Boone when approximately 300 people wearing coonskin caps assembled at the High Country Press as part of the inaugural Daniel Boone Days Music and Culture Festival.
• STATE RECORD: The second annual Homecoming Blood Drive at ASU surpassed its 1,000-pint goal by collecting 1,060 pints for the American Red Cross, the most blood collected in a single day in the history of the State of North Carolina.
• RECYCLING: Watauga County became the first county in the North Carolina to offer recycling for compact fluorescent lights.
• REQUIEM: About 30 ASU students met on Sanford Mall at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday, September 11, to create a display of 3,000 American flags—one for every life lost during the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
• MILESTONES: The I Have a Dream Task Force celebrated 10 years of service to the community.
• ASU: The ASU Board of Trustees unanimously approved the establishment of the ASU College of Health Sciences and Allied Professions.
• SALE: The Town of Boone purchased the downtown post office for $1.25 million and leased space to the US Postal Service to maintain an office and post office boxes in the facility.
• NO SALE: North Carolina, including the High Country, experienced a gas shortage after Hurricane Ike struck the Texas coast and disrupted supply, with many local stations and convenience stores running completely out of fuel.
• SALE: Governor Mike Easley announced that the State of North Carolina was purchasing 2,601 acres on Grandfather
Mountain, making it the state’s newest state park.
• GLOBAL WARMING: The average high temperature of 65.63 degrees at Grandfather Mountain was 2.82 degrees warmer than normal for September, and the average low temperature of 52.33 degrees was 1.73 degrees above normal for this time of year.
• LIQUOR: Liquor sales to Boone restaurants in September totaled $80,905.60.
October '08
• PLANNING: The Town of Boone hosted a weeklong planning and design charrette to develop the town’s 2030 Land Use Master Plan, and many citizens participated, identifying problems and providing suggestions.
• RESEARCH: The United States Geological Survey and the North Carolina Department of Environmental and Natural Resources partnered with the Town of Seven Devils to install three test wells in the Seven Devils region that will serve as research and monitoring stations.
• DELAYED: Blue Ridge Parkway Chief of Maintenance Mike Molling acknowledged that construction on the Goshen Creek Bridge was behind schedule and said the revised completion date for the project was late spring 2009.
• REQUIEM: The Fallen Heroes Memorial Garden at the Boone National Guard Armory was formally dedicated.
• UPWARD TREND: Local suppliers reported that fuel oil prices were nearly $1 more per gallon than what customers paid in October 2007 and that kerosene was in short supply.
• CHANGES: Sue Counts retired as director of Watauga County Cooperative Extension, after holding the post for 10 years.
• DEVELOPMENT: The Blowing Rock Town Council unanimously approved a conditional use permit for a 17-building development called Blowing Rock Commons that will include a 72-room hotel, two restaurants, 36 condominiums, 21,000 square feet of retail space and 16,000 square feet of office space.
• RESTORATION: Members of the Kraut Creek Committee celebrated the restoration of 235 linear feet of Kraut Creek beside Café Portofino.
• LAWSUIT: The NC Court of Appeals overturned a Superior Court decision and ruled in favor of four annexation ordinances passed by the Village of Sugar Mountain in 2006.
• WEATHER: Kelly the Woolly Worm, raced by 6-year-old Kurstin Hartsell of Ansonville, N.C., took first place at the 31st annual Woolly Worm Festival. Kelly’s official forecast for the 2008-09 winter called for the first four weeks to be cold and snowy, followed by three weeks of seasonably cold weather and a final six weeks of snowy and cold conditions.
• FAMOUS FOLK: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. held the audience in a packed Farthing Auditorium spellbound for more than an hour relating his vision of an economy based on renewable energy, opportunities for entrepreneurship in true free market instead of crony capitalism, and a restoration of traditional American values that respect all aspects of community life, including the land.
• GLOBAL WARMING: Temperatures at Grandfather Mountain were warmer than normal at the start of the month and colder than average at the close. Unseasonably cold weather tied the record for the daily low temperature October 29 at Grandfather Mountain. The temperature dipped to 18 degrees early in the morning, tying the previous daily low record for the day set in 1968.
• RECORD: AppalCART reported a systemwide ridership of 179,477 passenger trips, setting an all-time record for a one-month period. The ridership represented a 19 percent increase over the same month last year.
November '08
• POLITICS: Virginia Foxx defeated Roy Carter and Patrick McHenry defeated Daniel Johnson, sending both Republicans back for their third terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.
• POLITICS: Steve Goss defeated Jerry Butler for the District 45 NC Senate seat and Cullie Tarleton defeated Dan Soucek and Jeff Cannon for the District 93 NC House seat. Both Democrats returned to Raleigh for their second terms.
• POLITICS: Incumbents Steve Combs and Deborah Miller and newcomer Marsha Walpole won seats on the Watauga County Board of Education.
• POLITICS: North Carolina elected its first female governor, Bev Perdue.
• POLITICS: U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole went down in defeat to Kay Hagan.
• WATER: Boone voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum for a $25 million general obligation bond issue to finance a new raw water intake on the New River.
• CHANGES: North Carolina’s electronic inspection program began, eliminating the paper inspection stickers on vehicle windshields.
• RESTRICTIONS: The Blowing Rock Town Council approved an ordinance prohibiting all construction noise on Sundays, New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Thanksgiving and Christmas and limiting construction noise to 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Saturdays.
• GRANTS: Watauga County received a $380,000 grant from the North Carolina Division of Public Health to combat childhood obesity.
• MILESTONES: The Ted Mackorell Soccer Complex at Brookshire Park was formally dedicated.
• KUDOS: At the annual Farm City Banquet, High Country Press received two Community Development Awards for the inaugural Daniel Boone Days Music and Culture Festival.
• EXTENDED: The Watauga County Board of Commissioners extended the county’s moratorium on electronic signs until April to give the Planning Board more time to study the issues and make recommendations to the commissioners.
• KUDOS: The Mountaineers captured the Southern Conference championship—their fourth straight—with a 35-10 win over Western Carolina.
• GLOBAL WARMING: Unseasonably cold weather broke the record for the daily low temperature on November 19 at Grandfather Mountain. The temperature dipped to 8 degrees early in the morning, breaking the previous daily low record of 10 degrees set in 1968. While November usually averages around 3.14 inches of snow at the mountain, 9 inches were recorded for the month in 2008.
• CONSERVATION: ASU received $500,000 from the North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund and $300,000 from the North Carolina Department of Transportation to continue restoration of Kraut Creek.
• DEVELOPMENT: After three years of planning and redesigns to accommodate neighbors’ objections, a proposed Marriott hotel on Highway 105 got the go-ahead when the Boone Town Council unanimously approved a conditional rezoning request for the property.
• DEVELOPMENT: The Boone Town Council unanimously approved ASU’s request to rezone the property at the corner of Rivers and Depot streets. Appalachian’s plans for the site are to develop the existing building into a state-of-the-art broadcast center.
• MONEY: Because of the state budget shortfall, Watauga County Schools lost $177,414, Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute lost $579,909 and ASU lost $4,932,365 in anticipated state funding.
• CLOSURE: The Ashe County Partnership for Children Board of Directors voted to close its Creative Food Ventures program and the commercial kitchen at Family Central in Jefferson.
• REQUIEM: Dr. Thomas Hindley “Doc” Brigham, who founded Beech Mountain, Sugar Mountain and Snowshoe Mountain ski resorts, died at age 83.
December '08
• KUDOS: Mountaineers quarterback Armanti Edwards became the first ASU football player to win the Walter Payton Award—presented annually to the most outstanding player in the Football Championship Subdivision (I-AA) by The Sports Network.
• KUDOS: Four ASU industrial design students won first place in the national Juicy Ideas Entrepreneurial/Environmental Contest, a competition in which college students from across the United States created something of value from trash. The team created a bicycle from plastic bottles.
• POLITICS: Three newly elected Watauga County commissioners—two returning faces and one new one—took their oaths of office and were sworn in. Returning commissioners Jim Deal and Winston Kinsey and newcomer Tim Futrelle were unopposed in their bids for the seats. All three are Democrats.
• MILESTONES: After two years of being completely dry, Wildcat Lake once again began filling with water following the completion of the new dam.
• GENESIS: The ASU Board of Trustees approved the creation of the Appalachian Research Institute for Environment, Energy and Economics.
• DENIED: The Mountaineers lost to the Richmond Spiders 33-13 in the second round playoff game, eliminating the team’s chance at a fourth national championship.
• MILESTONES: Representatives from the UNC Board of Governors, the ASU Board of Trustees, ASU administration, a host of elected officials, students and others gathered for the formal groundbreaking on the new Reich College of Education building at ASU.
• MONEY: In a vote of 4-1, the Watauga County Board of Education passed an out-of-county tuition policy that will require the parents of new students coming into local schools from other counties to pay for their schooling. New board member Marsha Walpole cast the dissenting vote.
• GRANTS: The Town of Boone received a $450,000 grant from the North Carolina Rural Center to help purchase 10 acres of land on the South Fork of the New River for a new raw water intake.
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