The Mountaineer

Items will help locals in need

With the increased economic strains on everyone this winter there’s even more need to share the warmth and help others stay warm. The Mast General Store is hosting its fifth coat, sweater and blanket collection campaign through Nov. 30. 

Sun Country Tanning Salon is now open for business in Forga Plaza. 

Most young girls and women enjoy using makeup. It was no different for Candace Stevens and her mother, Debbie Horn, the new owners of the Merle Norman Studio and Adorabella Salon at 33 S. Main St., Waynesville.

Three Haywood County physicians — Dr. Kate Queen, Dr. Henry Nathan and Dr. Rufus Thomas — are among 1,432 on the list of North Carolina’s Best Doctors 2009.

The annual list is compiled by Best Doctors, Inc., a Boston-based group that surveys more than 30,000 physicians across the United States, asking them which doctors they would choose to treat themselves or their families.

This is the eighth consecutive year Dr. Kate Queen has been selected by her peers as one of the best rheumatologists in North Carolina.

“It’s nice to know I’m still on the list,” Queen said. “It’s also nice to be included with people who trained me and people who trained with me. Doctors in the western part of the state are usually not recognized as much as those elsewhere in the state.”

Queen is widely respected, seeing patients from throughout North Carolina, North Georgia and East Tennessee. She has lectured regionally on osteoporosis and other health issues affecting women, and was instrumental in establishing the Osteoporosis Center at Haywood Regional in 1992. She continues to serve as its medical director.

She also developed an osteoporosis outreach program 13 years ago, which continues to provide mobile bone density testing to rural clinics and hospitals in Western North Carolina. She serves as a board member for the N.C. Osteoporosis Foundation and is on the Public Policy Committee of the International Society for Clinical Densitometry and the N.C. Falls Coalition. She is a Fellow of the American College of Rheumatology and a member of the N.C. Rheumatology Association.

Queen obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing from the University of Michigan, worked as a public health nurse and then attended medical school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she obtained her MD degree and her training in internal medicine. Following her residency in rheumatology at Duke, she returned to Western North Carolina in 1986 and since then has been in practice at Mountain Medical Associates in Clyde.

“I enjoy helping people cope with chronic illnesses,” Queen said. “As a former public health nurse, the thing that has always been fun about practicing rheumatology is giving patients and their primary care physicians the knowledge and skills to take control of their illness.”

Osondu Booksellers is hosting a gingerbread house competition, “Home for the Holidays,” to benefit Haywood Habitat for Humanity.

Ripples from the economic decline have hit St. Peter’s Anglican Church and washed the congregation out of its home on the banks of Richland Creek in Frog Level.

Sarge’s is setting a good record

Year-to-date, Sarge’s Animal Rescue Foundation efforts have rescued nearly 700 dogs and cats through foster care and by transporting them to breed rescue groups and out-of-state adoption centers. 

Voices in the Laurel student community choir is taking advance orders for fresh holiday greenery for door, wall and tabletop, cut and made in Haywood County by a Canton floral designer.

The Waynesville Altrusa club celebrates Make A Difference Day each year with a service project. This year’s project was to send care packages to troops in Afghanistan. 

The Haywood County Arts Council’s Gallery 86 presents its second annual small works show entitled, ”It’s a Small, Small Work 2009” now through Saturday, Jan. 2. 

The second- and third-graders at North Canton Elementary School presented the annual Veterans Day program Nov. 10, for the school and community.  

U. S. postal workers are busy delivering special Thanksgiving postcards to mailboxes throughout our county from the Haywood County Arts Council. The postcards feature the artwork of students in Nicole Wilhelm’s third grade art class at Central Elementary School.

Does puppy playfulness wear you out?  Do kitten claws cling too much?  According to the SPCA of Texas, senior pets are more likely to be calm, housetrained and already know a thing or two.

Kinlyn Paige Smith

Barbara Carver and Jammie Smith of Clyde announce the birth of a daughter, Kinlyn Paige Smith, on Oct. 10, 2009, at Haywood Regional Medical Center.  She weighed six pounds, 2 ounces at birth.

Mr. and Mrs. James R. Plott III celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary Oct. 30, 2009, with a dinner at Brick Street Restaurant.    

Yordanka Yordanova, daughter of Emiliya and Atanas Nikolaevi of Bankya, Bulgaria, and Shad Teague, son of Rita Thompson of Clyde and Michael Teague of New London, were united in marriage Saturday, Oct. 3, in the Memory Room at Lake Junaluska.

The couple will reside in Charlotte.

Kristen Lea Stolt and William Riley Covin Jr. were united in marriage Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009, during an outdoor ceremony at the lake home of the bride’s parents in West Bend, Wis.

For decades, the Canton Lions Club has had a special relationship with Pisgah High School.

Allen to receive Eagle Scout

An Eagle Scout presentation for Chad Allen of Troop 322, Canton, will be held at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 22,  in the sanctuary of the Rockwood United Methodist Church in the Thickety Community, just north of Canton. 

Seven Haywood County chorus students from Canton and Waynesville Middle schools participated in the North Carolina Middle School Honors Chorus held in Winston-Salem on Nov. 7 through 8.