Singer Gladys Knight will headline a benefit show Sunday night at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium in Asheville. Other performers include Little Big Town - and a host of 'surprise guests' that Knight is promising will be there. All proceeds from the show will toward a proposed community center outside of Canton in Haywood County. Knight's husband Billy McDowell is behind the plan to turn the former Reynolds School in an area known as Gibsontown into a community center by 2019. McDowell attended the

Coming to terms with the Civil War – The legacy of the Southern Confederacy and its lingering monuments have triggered disturbing events and charged debate. In this episode, we talk with Dr. David Blight, the eminent Yale historian whose seminal work is in the field of memory studies. Can a nation ever heal and come to terms with the immense tragedy of the Civil War?

We Cannot Escape History – Lincoln famously reminded Americans during the Civil War that they would be remembered. One of those whose memory is contentious is North Carolina’s Civil War Governor Zebulon Vance. Today’s program continues a conversation with historian and Vance biographer Gordon McKinney and Kimberly Floyd, the site manager of the Vance Birth Place and Historic Site in Weaverville.

The Civil War in the Southern Highlands – In this edition, a conversation with Les Rekker, the Director of the Rural Heritage Museum at Mars Hill University. A new exhibit at the museum about life in the region during the Civil War is helping us reckon with its unique human perspective.

Saturday October 28 is National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. Jill Westmoreland Rose, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, says there are drop-off locations all over. "And it's just a place where you can go and drop off your unwanted and unused leftover prescriptions because they're just too dangerous to leave around." People can find a drop-off location near them here . The one-day event is from 10am to 2pm. Law enforcement is asking people to NOT drop off liquids or

North Carolina’s so-called ‘Brunch Bill’ gives local governments the option of allowing alcohol sales as early as 10 a.m. on Sundays, instead of the usual time of noon. Hendersonville and Asheville quickly adopted the law. But to the west, there’s still plenty of debate about the bill in some communities. BPR’s Davin Eldridge reports on the contentious new bill and it's status within the region--examining which side of the issue each town is now on--and how a period of only two hours each week

Of all the options for the future of the Vance Monument in Pack Square, putting it and its namesake into context might be the most difficult to imagine. Not because it isn’t a viable solution, but because it’s such a broad yet vague idea. A trip to Zebulon Vance’s birthplace north of Asheville shows what 'contextualizing' the monument could look like. It's in Reems Creek near Weaverville, on a farm in a valley tucked into the Blue Ridge Mountains where one of North Carolina’s most important

The open enrollment period for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act is just around the corner, and uncertainty about costs, subsidies and what policies will actually cover is still growing. Adding to the anxiety for consumers in Western North Carolina, the only insurer on the exchange is still at odds with the region’s largest health care provider. BPR’s Helen Chickering reports

Passenger rail service in Western North Carolina has been almost non-existent for more than 40 years. There's still freight rail service throughout the region, and in the coming years we could see passenger service comeback, even in small forms. Smoky Mountain News reporter Cory Vaillancourt has been looking at how rail service might return to the region . He discussed the latest on the issue with BPR's Matt Bush.

There’s been a big change atop one of North Carolina’s most prominent civil rights organization. The influential leader of the North Carolina NAACP is stepping down to lead a national effort focused on the rights of the poor. BPR’s Jeremy Loeb reports on the man stepping up in his place.