In February of 2020, Alex Gary was announced as the new athletic director at Western Carolina University. By the time the former Catamount baseball player started the job a few months later, the whole world had changed. Gary recounts his first year as AD in this episode with John and Marcia, and what it was like to address all the challenges that arose. He's the first Black athletic director at both Western Carolina and the Southern Conference. (Music featured includes Le Vrai by Brakhage and

Impolite conversations. Intimate connections. Important self-discoveries.

Buncombe County commissioner Jasmine Beach-Ferrara will run for the Democratic nomination in the 11 th Congressional district in Western North Carolina next year. Beach-Ferrara is the first Democrat to formally announce a run to unseat freshman Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn.

The coronavirus derailed competitive sports over the past year. For many professional cyclists, it stopped them in their tracks. Scattered across the world, many had to ask tough questions about their futures in the sport.

With the pandemic hitting Western North Carolina's Latino community harder than almost any other group, health care providers and advocates in Hendersonville are taking a more targeted approach to make sure these residents get the Covid-19 vaccine.

This episode of The Waters & Harvey Show is an edited version of our live event we did February 11th on BPR’s YouTube channel, which you can view here. Our hosts discussed civic engagement and its many forms with a panel of guests that will be familiar to our listeners, plus two students from Asheville High School – Seth Bellamy and Miranda Williams.

Here’s part one of BPR’s features on Ann Miller Woodford. Earlier this week, we profiled local historian Ann Miller Woodford, who published “When All God’s Children Get Together.” It’s about the history of the Black communities of Western North Carolina. Woodford is also a prolific artist. Because of COVID-19, a local museum is transforming her newest art exhibit into a virtual event. Here’s the story: The Cherokee County native is well-known for her work preserving Western North Carolina’s

As the country watches the COVID death toll cross the half million mark, a Western North Carolina official has been taking inventory of the local impact. As BPR’s Helen Chickering reports, he ended up with a snapshot for the entire state. “We were trying to close out our 2020 numbers and we came across this statistic that was pretty jaw-dropping,” says Buncombe County Register of Deeds, Drew Reisinger. “For the first time in recorded history in Buncombe County, we had more deaths than births.”

BPR is answering listener queries about the Coronavirus in a new segment "Talk To Us: COVID Questions" BPR’s Lilly Knoepp brings us this week’s answer. This week, Niyaso Cannizzaro of Buncombe County submitted this question: “When will at-risk individuals under the age of 65 be able to get the vaccine?” To get an answer, we asked Melissa McKnight, deputy health director with Jackson County Public Health: “So if you have a high-risk individual but they aren’t yet 65. They are likely to be

Asheville City Council Tuesday approved new rules for future hotel projects, ending a nearly one-and-a-half-year moratorium on the construction of new hotels in the city.