The Second
9 ar Jen of fJen
With an ever-improving quality' of life, Boone is no longer just another mountain tourist haven.
By Scott Smith
In ihe Bible, the Gaidcn of Eden was
said to lay some 40 miles south of
Damascus.
You've probably never noticed, but the
Watauga County mountain sal Icy town of
Boone is also approximately 40 miles due
south ol Damascus — Virginia, that is.
Perhaps it's all just a big coincidence.
Don't tell that, however, to 85-yearx>ld
Alfred Adams, better known as "Mr.
Boone." The lifetime resident and long¬
time chairman of the Boone Chamber ol
Commerce says there's only one conclu¬
sion that can lx* drawn from this peculiar
irony.
“We’re the second Garden of Eden."
Adams says adamantly.
You won’t get much argument on that
from Adams' neighbors in this town of
about 13.000 residents situated in the
heart of the North Carolina Nigh Coun¬
try. The people who live here seem very
content with their way of life, and the ones
who visit sometimes end up looking for an
excuse to make it their home.
Unlike the “Garden of Eden Theory'."
it's no coincidence that Boone has grown
by about 20 percent since 1986 and was
recently included in the
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The I (X) Best
Small Towns In
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merita. There are good
reasons for it.
Other than the obvious factors, such as
the clean mountain air and water and
scenic topography. Boone is climbing the
quality-ottife ladder with such features as
a surprisingly diverse array of health care
service's and an outstanding public school
system that has produced the second-
highest Scholastic Aptitude Test scores in
the state. Twenty-one percent of Watauga
County residents have 16 or more years of
formal education, which is almost 8 per¬
cent more than the state average. When
you combine all of that with the cultural
Ix'ircfils inherent in any college town —
Boone is also home to the 1 1, 500 students
at Appalachian State- 1 niversity — it "seas)1
to see why Boone is considered so much
more than just another mountain tourist
haven these days.
“Boone is unlike so many of the other
(North Carolina mountain towns)
because it’s a year-round town." saysjudi
Shams, director of the Boone Convention
and Visitors Bureau. "People know each
other and develop relationships here.
And it has become a real hub for the
region — a medical center, a cultural cen¬
ter. a center for education."
Rachel Rivcrs-Coffey, who along with
her husband. Armfield. publishes the
local newspaper, the Watauga Itrmoerat,
was born to Boone in 1943 and is the
fourth generation of her family to live
there. She left Boone to study journalism
at the University of Missouri in the early
1960s. Upon graduating in 1964, there
were plenty of opportunities for her to
work at large metropolitan newspapers,
but she chose to come back to
Веют-
to
work for the family newspaper. She’s been
there ever since as a writer, editor, pub¬
lisher and now president and columnist.
"I’m not here because I was born here,"
she says. “I've never wanted to move away.
I could lx* unhappy today in any number
of metro daily situations, but I'd rather lx*
here where I'm happy and where people-
work damn hard."
"This is an extraordinarily dynamic
community." Rivers-Coffey adds. “More-
people come here because they like the
vitality they find. There's a vety vital down¬
town. The natural beauty of the moun¬
tains makes it an attractive place to live
and work. And there’s not an old-boys sys¬
tem. Everything is done on people's own
merits. There are people who have been
here longer and share the same stories,
but overall it's an amalgam of people who
arc upsc ale, upbeat, well-educated, ambi¬
tious and watching out for the envi¬
ronment"
To get a sampling of that amalgam all
one has to do is walk downtown to King
Street any morning and take a seat at the
Boone Drug Store fountain. That's where
you'll find the daily gathering of the
"Boone Coffee < Hub." a lively group of res¬
idents who get together every day for an
hour or two to drink coffee, have break¬
fast and discuss the issues of the day.
"There's a nucleus of anywhere be¬
tween 1 0 and 30 people who will lx* there
on any given coffee hour." says Rivers-Cof-
fey, a regular Coffee Club member. "It's a
family that constantly takes in new mem¬
bers. There's a lot of ribgouging, so you
have to lx* able to take criticism. To sit at
the counter, you really have to earn your
spurs. Sometimes you go in there and
someone has died, and it will be very
quiet. Another day you’ll have 20 or 25
people, and there will be pandemonium.
You can get cussed out or run out of town
on a rail. The discussion can range front
the history* of the Nile River, to who lived
in the old Norris cabin, to the latest
national and local news, to juicy tidbits
that come and go from nowhere."
No doubt, some of the many quotations
that are strung up across owner Joe
Miller's dntg store ("Don't ever stand up
to lx* counted or someone will take your
seat.”) have probably been plucked from
those same fountain discussions.
Bob Snead, the assistant to the chan¬
cellor at ASU, is another Coffee Club
member, l ie left his native home of Lau-
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