To showcase the musical and vocal talents of the youth in this area, 4-H, in association with Catch the Spirit of Appalachia, will again produce the Heritage Alive! Mountain Youth Talent Contest during the Franklin Folk Festival, July 16, on the Main Stage in downtown Franklin. Contest time is 1:30 until 2:30. Once again, Joe Deitz of the Deitz Family Band will emcee the contest.

Participants in this contest must exhibit a talent that will reflect heritage and old Appalachian ways of our region and adhere to the qualifications and rules set up by the organizers of the the talent contest and the Franklin Folk Festival. This competition will be held on the main stage and will be part of the “heritage” entertainment provided during the festival.

A group known as The Return recreated the complete Beatles experience onstage this past Friday at The Smoky Mountain Center for the Performing Arts.

Considered by many to be the most realistic cast paying tribute to the “Fab Four,” The Return treated the Franklin audience to a lineup of Beatles rock and roll hits from the early ’60s to the last Beatles tour in 1966.

Pickin’ on the Square in downtown Franklin provides free entertainment every Saturday night.

Last weekend, Monty Milliken, (right) talented singer/songwriter and sometime comedian entertained those that gathered.

Western Carolina University faculty member and writer Ron Rash is putting the final touches on his new novel even as he is honored for the contributions he has made to Southern literature through his previous novels, short stories and poems.

Rash, who serves as WCU’s Parris Distinguished Professor of Appalachian Culture, is currently making last revisions to “The Cove,” which is scheduled for release next April. Set in Western North Carolina during World War I, the novel tells the story of a mountain woman who comes upon a mysterious stranger in the woods whom she saves from a near-fatal accident.

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