Blue Ridge Country - July/August 2019 - 24

COUNTRY ROADS

Smokies Plates: 20
Years, $15 Million

POOR FARMER'S MARKET IS JUST OFF THE PARKWAY

OPEN EVERY DAY

No, every day. For 35 years.
magazines, flour and dried beans.
"We carry all the dried beans we
can get our hands on," Shelor says.
Shelor offers locally stirred
apple butter, peach butter and
pumpkin butter plus local cherries, cabbage, potatoes, peaches
and apples. "Our biggest part of
our business is our open-air produce market," she says.
The long-running market actually grew from Shelor's roadside
produce stand, started in 1983,
when she was 20. "I was this little
country bumpkin, and I was probably like a novelty to people," she
Felecia Shelor has been at it for 35 years at Patrick County,
Virginia's Poor Farmer's Market.
says with a smile. "I was full of life
and fire, and I was going to make
some
kind
of
business."
elecia Shelor figures the best way to stay
Shelor rented the site of what is now Poor
in business is to stay open-every day.
For 35 years, Shelor has served the Farmer's Market, eventually buying the buildMeadows of Dan community along U.S. High- ing. She expanded in 1993 to include a deli.
Early on, an artist came up with a caricaway 58 in Patrick County, Virginia, at Poor
Farmer's Market-within sight of the Blue ture of the young businesswoman, when she
had simply asked him to paint a "Poor FarmRidge Parkway near Milepost 177.
This old-fashioned country store opened er's Market" sign. "That's his rendition of me
on March 1, 1984, at 8 a.m., and has never when I was 20. It's a little Elly May-looking
closed-day after day, even holidays and with girl," Shelor says with a laugh. "I used to wear
three feet of snowdrifts outside. In fact, the bibbed overalls all the time."
Shelor smiles. "All these years I've kept it,"
only days you could not see the lights on have
been when the power was out. Yet, even then, she says. "People laugh about it, and people
Shelor says, "I was here. Somebody was here." say, 'Is that you?' And I'm like, 'Yeah, 35 years
In the summer, this sprawling store opens ago.'"
276-952-2670. poorfarmersmarket.biz
as early as 5 a.m. and closes at 10 p.m., with
-JOE TENNIS
shelves of molasses and honey, books and

rivers in North Carolina
and Tennessee who buy
the "Friends of the Smokies"
specialty license plate have
raised more than $15 million
since the program started
20 years ago, supporting a
range of projects that help
sustain the Great Smoky
Mountains National Park's
cherished resources-including black bears, which are
featured on both plates.
Tennessee redesigned its
plate last year and sales
have jumped 30 percent,
and is the state's top-selling
specialty plate. The "Friends"
plates are also popular in
North Carolina, with representation in all 100 counties. Last year, funding from
the plates supported a new
program to provide information at trailheads about trail
safety, difficulty and proper
preparation before beginning a hike.
"It's amazing to think you
can do something as simple
as getting a license plate to
support your national park.
Having a bear on the plate
is just a bonus," says Friends
board member Chase Pickering.
friendsofthesmokies.org
-CAT MCCUE

Efficiency Eliminates Gas-Fired Plant Need

hanks to a community-driven effort in Buncombe
County, North Carolina to reduce energy use, Duke
Energy said in April it would shelve a proposed new
natural gas fired power plant at Lake Julian. The utility
had said it needed the 190-megawatt plant to meet peak
demand, mostly during winter. Members of the Energy
Innovation Task Force, a collaboration of businesses,
local government and nonprofits, said local programs to

BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM

weatherize hundreds of homes and other energy-cutting
measures reduced demand and led to Duke's decision.
"The success of this project continues to rely on
people engaging in this work, people seeking to become
more energy-efficient in their own lives, people seeking
to put renewables on their homes and businesses," said
Julie Mayfield, a member of the task force and co-director
of MountainTrue. mountaintrue.org
-CAT MCCUE

http://www.friendsofthesmokies.org http://www.poorfarmersmarket.biz http://www.mountaintrue.org http://www.BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM

Blue Ridge Country - July/August 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country - July/August 2019