Jeanne Coffey Ferguson, age 82, of Dallas, GA and formerly of Murphy, NC passed away Monday, November 2, 2009 in Atlanta, GA.
She was a native of Cherokee County, NC and the daughter of the late Frank and Mary Craig Coffey. Jeanne was in sales with Sears Department Store for several years. She was a member of Peachtree Memorial Baptist Church [...]

Henry LeRoy Jones, 71, of Andrews died Friday, Nov. 6, 2009 in the Charles George VA Medical Center He was a native of Cleveland, OH, but had been living in Cherokee County since 1986. He had served in the United States Marine Corps. He had retired from OMC after 28 years. Henry had attended the [...]

Viola Elsie Stiles Shields, age 91, of Murphy, NC passed away Saturday, November 7, 2009 at her residence.
Viola was a native of Cherokee County, NC and the daughter of the late John Whig Stiles and Holly Loudermilk Stiles. She was a caseworker for Cherokee County Department of Social Services. Viola was a member of the Mt. Pleasant Baptist [...]

The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (Ethics Committee) cleared U.S.  Representative Heath Shuler of any wrongdoing or violations of House rules related to his involvement in the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Maintain and Gain program.
After a thorough review, the Ethics Committee found that Shuler’s actions “were not improper in any way and did not [...]

By Jim Fitzgerald
Columnist
There have been elections, the House passed a health care reform bill with a public option, a Muslim Army Major committed the worst soldier-on-soldier mayhem in our history, the unemployment rate jumped to 10.2%, Wall Street continues to think it deserves outsized bonuses, and life goes on. What are the lessons we can [...]

Congressman Heath Shuler and a majority of the North Carolina Congressional delegation urged the Labor Department to avoid implementing new rules on the H-2A guest-worker visa program that could end up harming North Carolina farmers.
Changes in the H-2A visa program would make it more cumbersome and expensive for farmers to hire foreign guest workers, the [...]

The House of Representatives last week passed H.R. 3962, the health care reform bill that would make substantial changes to our health care system. While I fervently believe that our health care system needs to be fixed, I didn’t think that H.R. 3962 was the right solution and therefore voted against it.
I support many of [...]

by Ellen Schofield
Contributing Writer

Over millennia of time, Native Americans, soldiers, militiamen, colonists, drovers, prospectors, bushwhackers, guerrillas all passed over it. An ancient trading path that predates history, it has been known as the Unicoi Path, the Tellico Path, the Overhill Trading Path, and finally, the Unicoi Turnpike Trail.

Today, it is a part of [...]

by William V. Reynolds
Columnist
If Jesse James had had a bumper sticker and a bumper to put it on, it probably would have read
something like this, “Lee surrendered, I didn’t.” If you are truly a Southerner or have lived in the
South for any length of time, you’ve probably seen this sentiment on someone’s automobile. This
statement pretty [...]

Commissioners briefed on solar energy and community gardens
By Frank Bradley
Sentinel writer
Mother nature may have turned the county’s foliage yellow, gold and brown, but in the Cherokee County Courthouse on Monday, most  folks were talking green. Green energy through solar power; growing produce in the county’s community garden and even looking for ways to sprout new [...]