Free Daily Headlines

News

Set your text size: A A A

News

Forbes features Lightning as 'future of local print journalism'

Mills River News

LIGHTNING EDITORIAL: Housing ought to be on Mills River docket

Sometime in 2017, if things go as industrial recruiters hope, the town of Mills River will once again celebrate a plant opening that marks a major coup in new job creation.The Hendersonville Lightning reported last week that a partnership of Swiss and Canadian manufacturers may invest at least $217 million and hire 350 workers at a new automotive parts plant in Ferncliff Industrial Park over the next six years if the Henderson County Board of Commissioners and Mills River Town Council approve economic development incentives totaling $7.25 million over 14 years.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Don't miss this week's Hendersonville Lightning (72)

You won't want to miss this week's Hendersonville Lightning.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

LIGHTNING TOP 10: No. 3

The Top 10: No. 3 Sometimes rental living is not so easy. At Alpine Woods Resort, it did not even come with running water and heat. A story that the Hendersonville Lightning first brought to light in March, the 80-unit trailer park off Old Sunset Hill Road revealed developing nation conditions at the park — a deeply rutted dirt road ran through a haphazard cluster of trailers that had no furnaces and no water. Drinking, drug use and violent crime were so bad that fire trucks responding to call had police escorts. The city of Hendersonville — which was holding an unpaid $40,000 water bill from the landlord — convened an emergency meeting of public health, social services and law enforcement agencies to address the crisis. The sheriff’s office reported that from May 2007 to April 2014, deputies had responded to 7,789 calls for service. Some 1,957 could fit the state’s nuisance abatement statute, including disturbance calls, domestic abuse, drugs, fights and loud music. In May, the city of Hendersonville and Henderson County jointly filed a lawsuit seeking to shut down the park as a nuisance. “I am scared at all hours of the day and night to be on my own property,” a neighbor said, according to the lawsuit. Owner Warren Newell gave up ownership in July and it sold again in September to a family that has made improvements.   Read Story »

Mills River News

Pardee buys 20 acres in Mills River for $1.75M

MILLS RIVER — Pardee Hospital has bought 20 acres on N.C. 280 in Mills River as part of what the hospital’s CEO described as a “measured, strategic approach to planning for the health care needs” in fast-growing northern Henderson County.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Clean Water fund to protect Reems Creek

The N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund granted $330,000 to help protect an emergency drinking water supply for the town of Weaverville in the headwaters of Reems Creek, a tributary to the French Broad River.   Read Story »

Saluda News

Saluda group to premiere George A. Jones film

SALUDA — The Saluda Historic Depot and the Historic Saluda Committee will host the premiere of a 40-minute film on the life of Saluda native, lingtime Baptist minister and historian Dr. George Alexander Jones on Sunday, Jan. 10, at 3 p.m. at the Saluda Historic Depot, 32 W. Main St. in Saluda.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

LIGHTNING TOP 10: No. 4

Top 10: No. 4 Tom Apodaca went from hauling runaway felons to jail — sometimes hogtied in the backseat of his car — to the back bench of the state Senate. After helping the GOP gain a historic majority in the Legislature in 2010, Apodaca reached the high chamber of power, as second in command of the now dominant state Senate. “Apodaca was often the Senate’s closer in candidate recruitment, goading perspective candidates into running with one-liners like: ‘You can’t win if you don’t run’ and dispensing political advice always followed by a reminder that he’d never lost an election,” Senate president pro tem Phil Berger said of his Rules Committee chairman and good friend. Sometimes with bluster, often with wit, Apodaca stood at a front corner desk of the Senate and traffic copped the legislation that the leadership had blessed. In ways that were visible and hidden, Apodaca worked on legislation and projects that boosted his Senate district and all of Western North Carolina, including the location of WCU’s engineering school at Biltmore Town Park, the recruitment of the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. to Mills River, guiding of the coal ash cleanup bill through the Legislature and persuading Duke Energy to convert its Lake Julian power plant from coal to natural gas (while encouraging it to drop a high-voltage line through his home county). Then, after 13 years, Apodaca said he would bow out. An exhausting 2015 legislative session — and the realization that he had achieved what he went to Raleigh to accomplish — triggered his decision in December to retire. Over his seven terms, Apodaca had proved to be a natural and had become the most powerful legislator from Hendersonville in memory. His departure leaves state Rep. Chuck McGrady — a fast-riser himself — as the senior member of the county’s legislative delegation — indeed its only incumbent. In November, state Rep. Chris Whitmire, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, announced he was retiring from the state House after two terms to take a job in the private sector.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Congress restores Charitable Rollover

IRA Charitable Rollover is back and now is the time to make a charitable gift.   Read Story »

Henderson County News

Racquet Club holding tennis camp this week

The Hendersonville Racquet Club is having a three-day youth Holiday Tennis Camp this week. The camp for ages 14 to 18 will run from 1 to 5 p.m. Dec. 28-30. Drilling and match play will highlight the days.   Read Story »

News Archive