It’s spring, the season of change. The black mold is beginning to bloom along your apartment’s joists; your landlord can’t be reached about that toilet blockage; your shag carpet is frayed and has one too many bong-water stains from its former owner. What ever will you do? Well, you could buy a house. An audacious […]
Author: Kent Priestley
Showing 295-315 of 403 results
Outdoor Journal
Know your tippet from a hole in ground: The Pisgah Chapter of Trout Unlimited will offer a one-day fly-fishing school on Saturday, April 21 at Camp Ton-A-Wanda in Flat Rock. Along with vital information on casting techniques, line management, stream entomology, equipment and other subjects, the clinic will include ongoing fly-tying demonstrations. What’s more, students […]
Buzz-killer? Asheville Council member Mumpower to sniff out drugs at Civic Center tonight
Among the special guests at tonight’s Ratdog concert at the Asheville Civic Center’s Thomas Wolfe Auditorium will be one Carl Mumpower, a member of City Council.
Bee all that you can: Xpress competes—and loses—in annual spelling bee
On Monday, March 12, a trio from the Mountain Xpress competed in the 17th annual Literacy Spelling Bee, an event sponsored by the Literacy Council of Buncombe County and Altrusa International Inc. and held at A-B Tech. The stakes were high, as no less than Xpress’ chief competitor in the local-news market, the Asheville Citizen-Times, […]
Outdoor Journal
Going gray: This Saturday, March 24, the nonprofit Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy will host a hike up Graybeard Mountain, near Montreat, beginning at 10 a.m. The 2,500-acre conservation easement that encompasses Graybeard is replete with viewing sights to the Black and Craggy mountains, and joins a patchwork of more than more than 125,000 acres of […]
Buncombe County Commission
The past year has been a busy one for the Buncombe County comissioners and county government, marked by a revaluation that saw a substantial jump in property values, a flood of building permits for mountainside development, a controversial zoning plan, wildly increased citizen scrutiny of county planning policy, and the board’s recent unpopular support for […]
What do Buncombe’s commissioners want?
At its annual retreat on Tuesday, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners spent a hefty chunk of time going over a “wish list” of items board members felt deserve attention in the coming months, years. It’s an illuminating and long index, and deserves a reprint here.
Bee all that you can bee: Xpress team competes, and loses, in annual spelling bee
On Monday night, a trio from Mountain Xpress competed in the 17th annual Literacy Spelling Bee, an event sponsored by the Literacy Council of Buncombe County and Altrusa International Inc. and held at A-B Tech. The stakes were high …
A boy’s first bagpipes
The opposite of ADD: Self-professed “obsessive-compulsive” teen Jack Devereux is probably the world’s youngest maker of the complicated Irish Union bagpipes. photos by Amy Rowling On a Sunday afternoon two weeks ago, Jack Devereux was in the garage behind his family’s Asheville home, building bagpipes. With the help of a lathe, Devereux was trimming a […]
Outdoor Journal
Paddy go lightly: Bicycling has never been a more virtuous act, what with the news of global warming and all. So why not get together with some of your two-wheeled friends and raise a glass to a greener future? This St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, Asheville on Bikes will team up with the French Broad […]
Piping up: The boy with the bagpipes
Asheville teen Jack Devereux is one of the world’s youngest builders of the Irish uilleann pipes.
Buncombe County Commission
Commissioners seek exemption from mental-health-board term limits In its latest effort to rein in development, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners approved new rules strictly limiting the height and density of condominiums and apartments built at higher elevations. Got it? Good.: Mountain Voices Alliance member B.J. Snow protests outside the Buncombe County Planning Board’s Feb. […]
Outdoor Journal
Give a little: The Mountain Sports Festival wants you to volunteer for the event, scheduled for May 4 to 6 at Carrier Park in Asheville. Help is needed throughout the weekend for tasks as varied as selling refreshments, working at the event headquarters, helping at race locations and setting up and tearing down. Volunteers who […]
Buncombe commissioners vote for new rules on multifamily developments
On Tuesday, the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 in favor of new, more stringent rules governing multifamily developments.
Outdoor Journal
Pier review: If the specter of losing your prized Fred Arbogast Hula Popper to overhanging trees has kept you away from Chatuge Reservoir near Hayesville, take heart: Soon anglers will have three choice, snag-free spots to cast from. At the Shooting Creek arm of Chatuge’s northeastern corner, engineers have built a floating pier 56 feet […]
Over the rubble and through the square
Unless your office happens to overlook the sprawl of mud and rubble in downtown Asheville where City/County Plaza used to be, or you have reason to drive College Street and run the gauntlet of concrete barriers, or you’ve tried to approach the City Building or the Buncombe County Courthouse on foot, you may not have […]
Outdoor Journal
Walk like a Laplander: Local author Tim Arem will appear at 7 p.m. this Friday, Feb. 23, at Malaprop’s in Asheville to discuss his new book, Nordic Walking: A Total Body Experience. Arem, better known as “T-Bone,” has made youth fitness his cause and this year will travel to 20 schools in 20 states to […]
Whet your whistle: Buncombe opens hotline for fraud reporting
Buncombe County government is announcing a new “Whistleblower Hotline,” a place for citizens to report suspected incidents of “fraud, theft, illegal or unethical behavior” by county employees.
Land rich, cash poor
The Blue Ridge Parkway and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park may be in for a windfall of sorts—$1.5 million and $1.9 million in new funding, respectively—if the Bush administration’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2008 is approved. That represents an 11 percent increase for both parks over fiscal year 2006 levels. (Congress has not […]
Romance by the bottle
A week or so ago my girlfriend and I spent an interesting evening with friends. We were at their house, recuperating from a heavy meal, when the husband switched on the television to a program so outlandish that it nearly blew the back of my head off. I can’t recall the show’s precise title, but […]
Sandburg site should grow, says Dole
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole introduced legislation Monday that authorizes the expansion of the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site by an additional 115 acres above its current size of 264 acres. Sen. Richard Burr is co-sponsoring the bill.