Blue Ridge Country - March/April 2019 - 15

OUR BLUE RIDGE TOWNS

studios and one of only two glass art
studios fueled by methane gas from a
capped landfill
What's the secret in Jackson County,
pressed up close to Great Smoky Mountain National Park, far from population
hubs and devoid of industry (unless you
count a former paper mill that now recycles cardboard)? Why are there more
businesses opening than closing on
their main streets?
"We've always been tourist-driven,"
says Jackson County Director of Economic Development Rich Price. "And
we have increasing numbers of retirees
and second-home residents coming.
What we've done well here is create a
very strong small business economy to
serve them.
"We've done that with a lot of help
from our local colleges, Southwestern
Community College (SCC) and Western Carolina University. General Motors is not going to call and say they
want to put a large manufacturing
plant here. But if they did, our schools
could have people trained for those
jobs immediately."
"Development of our area is deeply
rooted in our community mission," says
Dr. Don Tomas, president of Southwest-

ern Community College. "We want to
stay ahead of the curve-not be in the
middle of it. We can't rest on our laurels."
SCC Vice President Thom Brooks
points to three examples of how the
school has looked ahead to predict and
train workers.
* SCC has 14 health sciences programs turning out graduates for the area's clinics and hospitals. A new Health
Sciences Building is under construction-50 percent of the cost funded by
Jackson County.
The result? Retirees can come here
knowing they'll have good health care.
* The Small Business Center trained
200 small business employees in the
past year.
The result? Skilled business staff and
entrepreneurs in an area dependent on
small retail and food establishments.
* Basic Law Enforcement students
can now receive training for fulltime
employment by the National Park Service-training which previously required travel to Georgia.
The result? Trail safety for the many
mountain bikers and hikers in the area.
It's that kind of close attention to
local needs-and the resulting partner-

ABOVE, LEFT TO RIGHT: Glass artisans use methane from nearby landfill at the Green
Energy Park. A Civil War soldier stands watch over Sylva's Main Street. Public art decorates
Sylva's business district. A cat peruses the offerings at Sylva's City Lights Bookstore.

ships among local government, business
leaders, and educational institutions to
fill them-that make small, faraway
towns like Dillsboro and Sylva flourish.
Exactly what James and Deborah Fallows, in their recent book "Our Towns,"
cite as a mark of successful towns. In
their travels across America, they found
that the towns moving forward now are
those in which "people work together
on practical local possibilities," where
the phrase "public-private partnership"
refers to "something real." And where
"they have, and care about, a community college."
So go see Sylva and Dillsboro and
surrounding Jackson County. They've
done it right, focusing on what is rather
than what was. They're towns where
you can disappear-and yet find enough
to see and do and buy to make the drive
well worth it. They're safe towns, where
people talk about books and bicycles and
the movies they see while eating dinner at Mad Batter Food and Film. You
can see the gift shop where five scenes
of "Five Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" were filmed (and it's currently
for sale by its retiring owners!). You can
hike Pinnacle Peak for a 360-degree view
of the surrounding mountains.
Or you can stand on the historic library steps and look at Main Street, and
feel glad that in a time when small towns
in Appalachia are struggling, you're in
one that has three bookstores.
MARCH/APRIL 2019

Blue Ridge Country - March/April 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country - March/April 2019