The story below is an excerpt from our July/August 2018 issue. For the complete article and more like it subscribe today, log in to read our digital edition or download our FREE iOS app. Thank you!
You put together a magazine six times a year for 30 years, you have some memories, some inside-baseball-type notes and other recollections. Blue Ridge Country Editor in Chief Kurt Rheinheimer uses some favorite covers as a launch point to do some recollecting on those three decades.
June/July 1988:
The Linn Cove Viaduct
Photographed by Grandfather Mountain owner Hugh Morton
June/July 1988
Volume I, Number 1. A few months after its ribbon cutting on September 11, 1987 completed the Blue Ridge Parkway, what better image to open the inaugural edition of a magazine conceived by a boy who grew up “12 miles outside of Asheville on Turkey Creek Road.”
Inside the issue: Richard Wells, who is still owner of the company and the magazine, said in his welcome: “What could be more wonderful—more Americanly wonderful—than mom and dad, two brothers and a sister, a picnic lunch in the trunk of a 1954 Oldsmobile Super 88, and the beauty of the Blue Ridge Parkway before them?” This cover, by the way, would be just the first of six over the 30 years to present the Linn Cove Viaduct.
September/October 1988:
West Virginia’s Glade Creek Grist Mill
Photographed by Stephen J. Shaluta, Jr.
September/October 1988 West Virginia’s Glade Creek Grist Mill
If the magazine has had one yearly issue stand out above the others, it is September/October, and still-friend-of-the-magazine Steve Shaluta got that identity off to a magnificent start with his blend of fall color and iconic mountain structure. Shaluta’s wonderful work would grace five of our first 10 covers.
Inside the issue: A loving portrait of Janette Carter, and her role in keeping alive the musical traditions of the Carter Family on the admonition of her father A.P before he died: “I’d like to see my music carried on,” he told her, “and if I’ve got a child who can do it, you are the one.”
November/December 1988
Male and female cardinals on an evergreen in the snow
Photo by Stephen J. Shaluta Jr.
November/December 1988
Another of Steve’s many cover firsts: BRC’s first wildlife cover. We were thrilled to have the great image, which happened to feature the state bird of four of our then-seven coverage states: North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky and West Virginia.
Inside the issue: Background first: Founder Richard Wells’ first publication was Ski South, a guide to skiing in the Southern mountains, and he remains passionate about the sport to this date. The issue’s skiing piece opened with a photo of a skier on a slope. Written to me, those 30 years ago, in Wells’ distinctive handwriting: “Kurt/If graphics are to help tell the story, then we failed here. This pix could be from NE, Colo, Canada, Austria, Chile—anywhere.” Ouch. And great advice.
September/October 1989
Fall scenic
Photo by Tim Barnwell
September/October 1989
“This is my favorite shot of all time,” Barnwell said in the cover note. That may of course have changed over the ensuing decades; Tim Barnwell has continued to be a good friend of the magazine to this date, contributing covers as well as sneak previews of his fascinating Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smokies “Vistas” books, which provide detailed guides to what you see from various overlooks and other viewpoints.
Inside the issue: Su Clauson (now, as contributing editor, Clauson-Wicker) quoted the late and colorful storyteller Ray Hicks, in her profile of him, speaking of the “Jack” of Jack Tales fame: “Jack is so lazy he can’t keep the flies off hisself.”
July/August 1990
Linn Cove Viaduct in full green with rhododendron foreground
Photo by Hugh Morton
July/August 1990 Linn Cove Viaduct in full green with rhododendron foreground
What else could be put on our second-anniversary “Parkway End-to-End” piece but this perfect view of the curl of the roadway around Grandfather Mountain. Mr. Morton, as he was called by pretty much everyone, was, during the latter parts of his colorful and productive life, a dear friend to BRC, providing countless images to us and never taking a dime for them.
Inside the issue: Publisher Richard Wells took the occasion to announce that “we were immensely flattered when we were voted Best New Regional Magazine in the United States by Successful Magazine Publishing.”