Category Archives: Asheville Attractions

More than 530 prospective students came to the open house — one of the most considerable turnouts the university has ever seen. That’s good news for WCU, which see campus tours as an increasingly important recruiting tool.

The rise in open house takers corresponds with rising enrollment and a rise in the freshmen retention rate.

“It is so vital for them to see who we are, what we are,” said Phil Cauley, director of student recruitment and transitions at Western Carolina.

Dozens of seemingly enthusiastic tour guides, donning  purple T-shirts bearing the university logo, led small groups of students with parents in tow around campus. Guides sought to draw distinctions between their university and rivals, with Appalachian State coming up a lot, followed by UNC-Asheville. They were full of details. One guide, speaking before a small group gathered on the campus concourse, noted that the first three-pointer in college basketball history was made in the old university gymnasium.

The tone among visitors last week varied. Most of the prospective students were high school seniors, accompanied by their parents and siblings. Some gradually eased into the new setting as the day progressed, their strides between academic buildings sometimes turning

Article source: http://www.smokymountainnews.com/news/item/12061-campus-visits-vital-to-western-carolina-recruiting-efforts If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

For architect Barbara Field, the $2 million city government set aside to help pay for an Asheville Art Museum expansion represents a higher property tax bill.

Restaurateur Peter Pollay sees it differently. Additional museum patrons means more customers walking into his Posana Café on Biltmore Avenue wearing stickers showing they just toured the museum.

Altogether, the $24 million art museum expansion — to be paid for with money from private and public sources — would double the museum’s size, taking it from 24,400 to 50,900 square feet.

The added space and other improvements would make room for high-profile traveling exhibits and show significantly more of the museum’s collection.

That would in turn bring more visitors to its location on the south side of Pack Square, project supporters say, helping area businesses, injecting more energy into the city’s already vibrant arts scene and giving tourists another reason to come to Asheville or stay another day.

“It’s a total game-changer,” said Pam Myers, art museum director. “Our neighbors in downtown want the project. It creates a state-of-the-art museum facility. We don’t have that now, and we need that.”

But as the views of Field and Pollay suggest, support for the expansion has hardly been universal, and its

Article source: http://blogs2.citizen-times.com/carol/2013/11/13/cotton-mill-studios-to-host-event-to-benefit-asheville-art-museum-nov-16/ If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

Renovated as an exhibit to showcase why Spartanburg became known as the Hub City, the caboose is drawing a lot of attention since opening to the public May 4th. In that short time, more than 3,175 visitors have walked through its doors.

Cabooses were built to provide train crews with a shelter at the rear of a train and usually contained tables and desks for conductors to do business and, for longer trips, provide minimal living quarters.

This caboose has been refurbished into a modern, air-conditioned room that features a working model electric train for youngsters, videos of railroad films, and an automatic train control system that graphically displays where trains are operating between Greenville and Greensboro, N.C.

But there is one piece of actual caboose history inside: A genuine Southern Railway coal stove that was used for many years. It was a gift from Gloria H. Massey of Spartanburg in memory of her husband Herman, who worked for the railroad 43 years.

And if one is lucky, inside is Frank Ezell – who oversees operations — or one of his fellow volunteers to talk to. All are passionate about Spartanburg’s railroad history and happy to share their extensive knowledge.

Some

Article source: http://www.goupstate.com/article/20131112/ARTICLES/131119919/1051/news01?Title=Hub-City-s-Railroad-Museum-give-visitors-glimpse-into-past If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

SAN JOSE, Calif. —

The family of a Silicon Valley engineer who amassed one of the nation’s most extensive historic military vehicle collections is giving the tanks, missile launchers and armored vehicles to a Massachusetts-based museum that will preserve and display some of them.

Until now, the $30 million fleet of tanks has been refurbished and housed in seven storage sheds on a family estate up a winding, forested road above Silicon Valley; they are visited only under privately arranged tours.

But in a deal inked on July 4 and announced Monday in honor of Veteran’s Day, the 240 pieces have been signed over to The Collings Foundation, which preserves historical military aircraft and now plans to add a new military vehicle museum at its Stow, Mass., headquarters.

Foundation director Rob Collings said the organization hopes to raise $10 million to build the museum by auctioning 160 of the military vehicles in August 2014. Eventually he hopes visitors can learn U.S. history through a chronological walk past the remaining 80 historic military vehicles.

“They’ll start in the World War I trenches and go forward through time,” he said.

The collection was assembled by Jacques Littlefield, a Stanford University graduate who left Hewlett Packard in

Article source: http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2022236073_apxuswarmachinesmove.html If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

Travel

3 hours ago

Every corner of the U.S. — including yours! — offers a bold, beautiful road trip that rolls out an unforgettable vacation at a reasonable price. Here, five that we bet you haven’t taken yet.

We sometimes make the mistake of thinking that a vacation has to involve flying, or covering great distances via some other elaborate, pricey conveyance, such as a cruise ship. But here at Budget Travel we’ve always liked to mix our globe-spanning coverage with ultra-local finds, too. And our Road Trip department is the heart and soul of that commitment. In fact, we’ve even launched the Ultimate Road Trips App to put more than 70 American road trips at your fingertips. Here, we share five of our favorite American drives, which combine accessibility and

Article source: http://www.today.com/travel/5-awesome-affordable-american-drives-2D11577704 If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

Gov. Pat McCrory is quoted as saying, “I will not sacrifice quality care for the people truly in need.” Is he implying that the 320,000 North Carolinians, mostly poor children, older adults and the disabled, are not “truly in need?”

He further stated “ … nor risk further budget overruns by expanding an already broken system.” Again, is he implying that the need to curtail budget overruns, i.e. keeping taxes lower for wealthy North Carolinians and corporations, is actually more important than caring for poor children, older adults and the disabled?

In my humble opinion, this is without conscience!

Clay Eddleman

Chairman of the Henderson County Democratic Party,

Hendersonville

Socialist agenda

To the editor: How appropriate that this Halloween the mask of liberalism comes off and we really get to see what the past five years have given the American “sheeple” for their investment in the “first black president” in U.S. history! Who, incidentally, you can’t possibly criticize and not be called a bigot or a racist.

Obamacare is a disaster and has caused millions to lose their current health insurance policies, and at no time in our history have we had more social unrest, class warfare and racial division, let alone an economy on life support, and

Article source: http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20131111/ARTICLES/311111000/1008/sports?Title=Monday-s-letters-Truly-in-need- If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com

The Rev. Billy Graham arrives at his birthday party, pushed by his grandson, Edward Graham. (Reuters)

CHARLOTTE — Visitors to Charlotte often travel from the airport to the city center via the Billy Graham Parkway. It can startle the first time, seeing a public roadway named for a major religious figure. But you get used to it once you’ve lived here awhile. You realize how much the region takes pride in its native son, though the life and history of the man called “America’s Pastor” illustrates — in even his own judgment – how tough it can be to maintain a separation of church and state. Should America have a pastor at all?

America is ambivalent about that line, as recent Supreme Court arguments over the issue of prayer before public meetings made clear. Those who check non-Christian or none of the above are usually not favored in these civic exhortations and end up in court to be heard.

Religion inevitably becomes mired in the political debate, with every side turning to the word of God for validation for particular

Article source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2013/11/11/billy-grahams-legacy-and-the-thin-line-between-church-and-state/ If you need a cheap air ticket, hotel or rental car please visit http://www.airticket.com