Polk Lore

Jon Klimstra is not a high-value target in the war that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are waging on the imperfect but  mostly successful  post-war, liberal consensus on how to expand freedom, equality, and prosperity in America and around the world. He and his wife are just apple farmers.   But here they are in the midst of it all. In this episode, Jon and I talk about how he’s being affected by the...

I'm not sure the Tryon Daily Bulletin was even at the Tryon rally the other day — they didn't take their own photos, for one thing. It was good to see some coverage, but that coverage didn't really capture the spirit of the event. So here's a short audio essay on what went down, along with some important context. Sources Measles eliminated in 2000 https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-r...

A few years from now, no matter who is running the country, there's going to be a big hole in the civil service thanks to the one-two punch of a hiring freeze and a U-turn in foreign policy now being performed in Washington D.C. Polk County's Cecelia Thompson is a casualty of those forces. She's a senior at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, where she’s studying political sc...

What role should local governments play in the national crisis we're living through? How far outside their comfort zone is it reasonable to ask county and city politicians to go? I don't have answers. But we can start at least acknowledging the problem. Sources Brevard City Council Feb. 3 meeting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DivXuyb0rVI Panama hotels imprison US deportees: https://www.npr.org/...

Within a few weeks, 141 Polk County voters have a very real chance of discovering that the ballots they cast in last year's election have been thrown out. All because the losing candidate in the election for an NC Supreme Court seat wasn't able to accept the outcome of the election. One of those 141 is David Twiggs. He's not happy about that scenario — which is the subject of a court b...

There’s a long list of people who went above and beyond in the hours and days after Tropical Storm Helene smashed into the Blue Ridge Mountains. For some communities in Polk County, that list is dominated — not by first responders and other government employees who are paid to help when disaster strikes, because so many of them were trapped at home by blocked or washed out roads — but by those who...

There's a little piece of Polk County you've probably never heard of. Tropical Storm Helene destroyed a bridge on the only road in and out. The story of how the folks who live their responded is worth hearing, because it changed the very nature of the piece of the county, Resources Brennan Center story on Big Hungry and Cliff Marr: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/north-caro...

Had enough of election coverage? Stop tearing out your hair, because cued up next is just what you need: a politics-free discussion with Saluda singer-songwriter-composer Michael Flynn, a.k.a Slow Runner. I’ve been bugging him for ages to do an episode of this show so we can talk about the economics of the music industry, Taylor Swift, and a certain song that he can't not sing, Finally, with the r...

One county commissioner runs afoul of his profession's state licensing board. One congressman tries to thread the needle of partisan disinformation. One podcasters tries to put it all in context. Sources IRS funding: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/aug/28/donald-trump/fact-check-trump-falsely-said-harris-voted-to-hire/ Cooper and Biden calls: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/tim-...

Pam Genant , who wants to represent about two-thirds of Polk County as a member of the US House of Representatives. Isn't she the Democrat who ran against congressman Patrick McHenry in 2022 for District 10? Yes. Here's how she ended up on our ballot this year: Redistricting last year left Saluda and Coopers Gap in District 11. Tryon, Columbus, and Green Creek are now in District 14, which just ha...

US Congressional District 11, in addition to being a bit of a cursed, and repeatedly gerrymandered, seat, is pretty darn spread out. Polk is on the eastern outskirts, and the the western end is the Tennessee line. There are a lot of counties in between here and there crying out for some attention, and we’re never going to be near the top of any candidate’s priority list. Making things worse this t...

In the 2022 election for NC House District 113, Republican Jake Johnson, running for his second full term, received 27,267 votes, which worked out to all of them, because the Democratic Party of North Carolina couldn’t find anyone to run against him. Two years before that, Johnson, who was running to fill out the term left by the resignation of fellow Republican Cody Henson, drew 30,367 votes agai...

Rob Parsons is the most recent addition to the Polk County Board of Education, which has to get at least some of the credit for that success. In this first partisan school board election in history, he’s running as a Democrat, and his Saluda seat is the only one that’s being contested by a Republican. His fellow Democrat member, Rick Covil of Tryon, is running unopposed, and independent Cindy Alle...

And until this year, our school board was mercifully free of the direct influence of the political parties. But last year, North Carolina’s legislature, with the cooperation of our state representative and senator, and over the objections of the county commission, local leaders of both parties, and just about everyone else, made seats on the board partisan positions. So here we are.   But then a s...

Why a candidate is seeking your support is probably a good way to tell the good ones from the bad. You don’t have to agree with their campaign platform to be able to trust them. You don’t even have to share their religion or philosophy. But any decent politician should have a good reason for running in the first place. The less selfish, the better. Which brings us to this episode’ guest. You may o...

Though Karen Pack's relationship with Polk County goes back a long, long way — longer than most of the candidates seeking a seat on the county commission — it wasn’t until 2022, when the state decided it wanted a slice of her family’s land along highway nine, that she realized that not everything was hunky dory with county politics. While the county commissioners eventually agreed to write to the...

Even at the county level, it’s a bit surprising these days to hear a candidate for political office singing the praises of serving alongside members of the opposing party. But that’s Ray Gasperson for you. He was a Democratic county commissioner a few years back when his party held every seat, then when he had to share power, and then when he was outnumbered four to one by his Republican colleague...

Season 3 of Polk Lore begins with an onslaught of election interviews with candidates for county, state, and national offices. I invited everyone I thought might be willing or able to find the time to take part in my modest attempt to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of the local news business model. As of early September, not everyone had accepted, but there's still hope... First up is in...

The chances that the Democratic Party will have to revert to what used to be called a brokered convention this year are non-zero. I think it safe to say they are significantly greater than that. This isn’t what the delegates to the convention signed up for. Well, technically they did, because the party rules spell out exactly what they're supposed to do if something happens to the presumptive...

Even the best schools these days have trouble teaching their students about the awe and wonder of the natural world. The goods news (yet again) is that Polk Schools, with the help of a non-profit called Champions for Wildlife, is doing something to make up for that modern-day shortcoming. Drawing on our county's natural attractions and creative community, Loti Woods and Dale Weiler are using a...

Taking the good things in life for granted is never a good idea, but that’s what happening in some corners of this country when it comes to the value of public libraries. In Georgia, legislation that would require all public libraries to sever ties with the American Library Association just passed the state senate. Over in South Carolina, the Greenville County Library system did just that years ag...

A good number of listeners will be familiar with Chrelle Booker , a Polk County native who’s been on a member of Tryon’s Board of Commissioners since 2017. She’s now Mayor Pro Tem, which is the municipal equivalent of vice-president. She’s also served as president of the National League of Cities’  Women in Municipal Government  caucus. So, it’s not like she doesn’t have  some  experience outside...

This year’s elections are going to be a fair bit different, even if you’re veteran at casting ballots. For one thing, you're going to need photographic proof of your identify. And that not   the only change that the state legislature has foisted on us. In fact, Polk County has been singled out for several additional changes to way we vote, and the way we’re represented, at the municipal, count...

The first campaign speech by Chris Jones the prospective politician was delivered at a county GOP gathering. Aside from one throwaway reference to Boiling Springs as the kind of place we don’t want to turn into, his four-and-a-half-minute speech made no mention of anything or anyone locally specific. It’s as if he was reading a boiler-plate speech that could be written for a candidate for any gove...

Why does Polk Lore devote so much attention to education? Because it’s one of the few things that just about everyone in the county, no matter their political persuasion, agrees is a source of pride. Polk Schools isn’t a perfect institution, of course. But overall, our little school system’s teachers, staff, and board warrant the widespread support they get from the public, from our County Commiss...