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Most Read Stories of April 2013

Photo by Jessica Kennedy
Photo by Jessica Kennedy

Compiled by Jesse Wood

In April, the Watauga County Board of Commissioners and the Boone Town Council went back and forth regarding the sales tax redistribution that the Republican-led board of commissioners approved in mid March. It seemed everyday, a letter or release from an official of the town or county created a headline.

Beloved Valle Crucis farmer Charles Church passed away on April 28. As Amy Fielder of Springhouse Farm said on that day in April, “I promise every farmer that was out in the fields today was thinking about Charles.”

While the Walgreens proposal in downtown Boone wouldn’t be denied until May, a Facebook post in late April asked, “Good-bye Green Mother Goods, hello Walgreens?” Amidst a packed house, the Boone Board of Adjustment eventually voted against the proposal for a Walgreens at the former Green Mother Goods location on the basis that it essentially wouldn’t be in harmony with the town and surrounding properties.

ASU Chancellor Kenneth Peacock announces his intention to step down once a successor is found. He cited that he believed “it is the right time for Appalachian, and more importantly, the right time to make this change for my family.” ASU’s Board of Trustees is currently in the process of selecting the next chancellor.

The 121-year-old congregation of the former United Liberty Methodist Church was kicked out of its home in Matney, left to hold service outside after the regional United Methodist Conference voiced its plans to turn the building into a youth hostel for skiers and snowboarders.

And the story that everyone missed: The elderly couple that died together in Room 225 of the Best Western in Boone in April. This happened two months before 11-year-old Jeffrey Williams would die from carbon monoxide poisoning in June. After investigators realized that the Jenkinses died in the same room months two months earlier, it was eventually found that a faulty exhaust system for a pool heater below Room 225 was the source of the carbon monoxide and the cause of all three deaths.