Polk Lore

Polk County, along with Henderson and Transylvania, are lumped together in what is now called Court District 42. Judicial elections are partisan affairs around here, but I’ve always thought that was a particularly bad idea — for what I hope are obvious reasons — so I was pleased to discover that one of Polk County’s veteran lawyers, a woman who was appointed last year to fill a vacancy on the dist...

A couple of days before Christmas, one of the Facebook pages devoted to issues of community concern in the county reproduced a letter to the editor of the Tryon Daily Bulletin warning us all to “speak out and take Polk County off the list of potential locations for a nuclear waste disposal facility.” Not too surprisingly, the post drew dozens of comments, mostly from those who were angry to learn...

Just before Halloween, I found myself in the pews of the Tryon Presbyterian Church listening to some of the most challenging music I’ve heard in the last 20 years. The musician was Drew Banzhoff, a Gen Zer hired this spring to serve as the church’s musical director. The instrument was the organ, which was no surprise given that the venue was a church.   But it didn’t take long for the playlist to...

Polk County has taken it on the chin this year when it comes to democracy.   Beginning next year, elections for seats on the Polk County Board of Education will be partisan affairs. Anyone who wants to run for one of the three seats up for grabs has to choose between publicly embracing one of the two main parties, or fighting to get on the ballot as an unaffiliated candidate. Which isn’t all that...

Shane Varndore has been a tree guy for pretty much his entire life. But he doesn’t just saw them down and it’s not fair to reduce what he does for a living to just getting rid of inconvenient vegetation. I wouldn’t have asked him to be part of Polk Lore if that was the case. We’ve known each for quite a while, and I guess he’s learned to trust me enough to sit down for an honest talk about trees,...

Overseeing a rural hospital isn’t exactly a soft landing as you prepare for the retirement phase of your career. But that's the path Bill Miller has chosen for himself. More than a hundred and ninety rural hospitals in the U.S. have closed since two thousand five. According to the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, thirty percent of the ones that are still accepting patients are...

There are only four big cities in the U.S. where buying a house makes more economic sense than renting. Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Houston. Everywhere else, investing in a home is way out of reach for just about everyone who doesn’t make most of their money from surfing the stock market. I’ve been planning an episode devoted to the affordable housing problem since I began this podcast,...

The big news on the education front in Polk County is the end of non-partisan elections for the school board. In a move that almost no one in the county thought was an even marginally bright idea, the state legislature voted this summer to make elections for seats on the Board of Education partisan races. Like it not changes are on the way for Polk Schools. So, I thought it would be a good time to...

More than 50 years ago, on Christmas Eve of 1968, as Apollo 8 rounded the far side of the moon, astronaut William Anders grabbed a camera and snapped a picture of the Earth as it slipped into view. That photograph, “Earth Rise,” is one of the most influential images ever created. It changed the way we thought about our place in the universe and helped launch the modern environmental movement.   Bu...

Talia Petoia, who had just turned 27, was shot and killed, reportedly by her boyfriend, 21-year-old Tyler Laughter, on March 10, in Mill Spring. Within a few days, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office announced that the killing was accidental — an unintentional discharge while handling a gun. Three months later, following a grand jury hearing, the district attorney indicted Talia’s boyfriend with invo...

There’s new non-profit community-minded organization in your part of the world dedicated to improving your life and those of the people around you. The new organization is called “On Track Saluda.” Its mission is to raise the quality of life in Saluda — and hopefully set an example for the rest of the county — by supplying guidance on how and what we eat, how much we get outside and play, and how...

One of my favorite pieces of wisdom comes from Garrett Hardin, an American ecologist who wrote “you cannot do only one thing." What he meant is that everything is connected with everything else, and that anything we do will have unintended consequences. He was writing first and foremost about the environment, but I like the line because it really a rule for understanding how we organize socie...

For as long as I can remember, Polk County has wanted its own YMCA. There’s one in Hendersonville, and Asheville, Greenville, and Spartanburg all have at least one branch. There’s even Ys in Black Mountain and Marion. The Spartanburg Y runs some programs here, and Camp Skyuka dates back to the 1950s. But what people really want is an indoor pool. Of the 3,000-odd people who filled out a survey las...

It’s only just the beginning of spring, but if you consider yourself an engaged member of the Saluda community, it’s never too early to start thinking about Coon Dog Day, which is held each year on the first Saturday after July 4. There was a time when Coon Dog Day was kind of like the third rail of politics in Saluda. No one was going to touch it — let alone challenge its very existence. Over the...

One of the best parts of producing a podcast is learning that someone is actually listening. And more importantly listening closely enough that they have a good grasp of what you’re actually trying to accomplish. This episode is the product of some feedback from one listener who really does get it. I was asked: Why don’t I do something about foster kids in Polk County? Apparently, there’s a new pr...

When my wife I and were thinking about moving to Saluda, about 19 years ago, my  first thought was: Sound great. But does it have high-speed internet? Fortunately, a few seconds on my current internet connection was all it took to find out that yes, Saluda did have high-speed service. Not everyone in Polk County is so lucky. My Facebook feed includes almost daily complaints from someone somew...

Elections are funny things. They can suck up all the oxygen for weeks at a time, only to evaporate the moment the votes are counted. If you’re a political junky, you can probably find a few podcasts and cable news programs that will agonize over the outcomes of all the big races for a few days, but most of us waste no time getting back to worrying about the price of eggs or whatever it is the Depa...

Facebook.  Can’t live with it. Can’t live without it. Rarely does a day go by that it’s not tempting to conclude the world would be better off without the soul-sucking, time-wasting, black hole that is social media. From a recent edition of Wired magazine: "Social media has brought a level of exposure never seen before in human history—and it turns out being observed by so many people appears...

Near as I can figure, there are two ways to make it big in the music business. You can either drop everything else in your life — family, financial security, stability, you name it — and hit the road with whatever instrument you think you’re good at as soon as you’re old enough to leave home, playing tiny venues and begging for opportunities to open for established names until, if you’re very luck...

The NDOT has already spent millions of dollars surveying and studying the highway. They have concluded that it’s not safe in its current form,  and the project is now so far along, that it may not be easy to put the brakes on it. In face of growing pressure from the community, the Commissioners held a special meeting on October 10 to approve a letter making a “NO BUILD request to the Foothill...

Three seats on the Polk County Board of Commissioners expire this year. All three are currently held by Republicans, and all three of them are running for re-election. Only two Democrats are in the race, so, there’s no chance that Democrats will achieve take control of the Board. It wasn’t so long ago that they did have control, however, so it’s entirely conceivable that the next Board could be a...

All politics is local. How many times have you heard that old saw? It's probably time we retired it, as even a cursory review of recent history clearly shows that, at best, politics is now a battle between those who would like to keep their campaigns local, and those who defer to the national stage. In some parts of America, local issues are entirely irrelevant. In a desperate attempt to swim agai...

Almost since the day the last coal train rolled down the Saluda Grade 21 years ago, the idea of converting the rail bed to a bicycle and hiking trail has captured the imagination of Polk County’s leading citizens. At first, the scheme wasn’t much more than a fantasy. The railroad, Norfolk Southern, repeatedly insisted that it had no intention of abandoning its right of way, and there were others w...

This is the sixth, and probably the last, in a series of interviews with candidates for the Polk Schools Board of Education. If you haven’t already listened to the first interview, with Mike Ashworth, please find the time for at least the first few minutes, as I supply an overview of the elections, which seats are up for grabs, and an explanation of why I’m interviewing some candidates and not oth...

This is the fifth in a series of interviews with candidates for the Polk Schools Board of Education. If you haven’t already listened to the first interview, with Mike Ashworth, I’d recommend you run through at least the first few minutes, as I supply an overview of the elections, which seats are up for grabs, and an explanation of why I am interviewing some candidates and not others. Of course, I...