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Jackson County’s 2005 included a number of festivals and events, from Greening Up the Mountains in April through Dillsboro’s holiday luminaire in December. New this year was a pottery festival, which premiered in Dillsboro in November. A well-known entertainer – Jay Leno – came to Cullowhee to open a new arts center. It was a year for appreciating mountain beauty, from sunlight on the Blue Ridge Parkway to a sunset over Main Street and from spring flowers to autumn leaves. Weather played a part as well, with a surprise spring snow derailing an April adventure race; a July heat wave; and Hurricane Katrina-related relief efforts and high gas prices dominating September’s front pages. Slides at the airport figured in the news, as did a Lowe’s store under construction near the intersection of N.C. 107 and N.C. 116 and a gas leak that forced a downtown evacuation. In the bad news department, vandals strike the Courthouse; a Cullowhee armed robbery sends three to the hospital; a former elected official is under investigation by the SBI; and an Asheville woman remains in jail here following the May death of her son. Turning to good news, Western Carolina University women make the NCAA tournament; Cullowhee firefighters have a new aerial truck; a homecoming queen is crowned by her sister; Jack Collins is Teacher of the Year; and a wedding at the Courthouse features a former Sylva Herald reporter.
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