When John Quinley moved to Henderson County in 2006, it was a reunion of sorts. John grew up in Maywood, Illinois just a few blocks from where a young reporter named Carl Sandburg had lived for five years. Half a century later, John found himself once again living close to a Sandburg home. Destiny, one might argue, was calling the life-long educator to revive and retell the story of Carl Sandburg.

This Sunday is the final day of one of Flat Rock’s most gracious and beautiful events of the year. The Gallery at Flat Rock is hosting its 7th Annual Art in Bloom - a celebration of ephemeral beauty that pairs professional floral designers with fine artists. The resulting imaginative interpretations of juried artworks result in a spectacular exhibition of creative talent and natural beauty.

In the summer of 1971, a young college student attended an evening presentation offered by the National Park Service at a campground in the Badlands of South Dakota. During that presentation, she realized that she wanted to be a Park Ranger … and a dream was born.

Twenty-three years later, that student would follow that dream all the way to the job as the Park Superintendent at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock North Carolina. It was a position that Connie Hudson Backlund would hold - and cherish - for the next 18 years.

When Lance Hiatt and Tim Parks first decided to step away from their professional careers in architecture and luxury retail to pursue their dream of creating a vineyard and winery, it was a daunting proposition to admit. “It was almost embarrassing to tell people that we were going to start a winery in a vineyard,” Lance recalls with a laugh “I couldn't even say it.”

When Flat Rock artist Kate Thayer thinks about her painting, she is always mindful of a favorite quote from Andrew Wyeth:

“I can’t work completely out of my imagination. I must put my foot in a bit of truth; and then I can fly free.” — Andrew Wyeth

For Kate, that foot in a bit of truth involves spending time in the solitude of the woods of western North Carolina. It is in those woods that she encounters the muse that inspires her captivating landscapes.

As a very young child, Cole Lindsey was working in a commercial kitchen, helping his father at the Highland Lake Restaurant in Flat Rock. Although one might assume that a child would find this work boring and more punishment than opportunity, that was not the case for Cole. He loved being in his father’s kitchen and now, more than three decades later, Cole Lindsey is still happily ensconced in the kitchen.

Today, however, it is his own kitchen where he pursues his passion.

Meagan Lucas’s debut novel, Songbirds & Stray Dogs, tells the story of a young woman named Jolene who arrives in Flat Rock as an outsider and struggles to find her place in her new home.

Although the heroine of the book has challenges and struggles her author has never experienced firsthand, Meagan Lucas, who grew up in Canada, certainly understands the feeling of trying to make a new home in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

In 2020, Luke Hunter was working as property manager for Susie Rindal’s home in Flat Rock. As he helped clear scrub brush in the woods that surrounded her home, Luke noticed something about the contours of the land that evoked memories from his childhood days spent roaming the abandoned rice fields on his grandmother’s land just south of Charleston, SC.

A key part of Mike and Don’s legacy came to fruition this summer when the Friends of Carl Sandburg Mike Sollom/Don Hubbs Scholarship Fund made its first two awards to a pair of accomplished local students who share Don and Mike’s passion for the natural world.

From the time she was born, Marty Whaley Adams had a foot in two very different worlds. The first was her Charleston home where she was immersed in a life of gracious creativity by a mother who was an accomplished painter, gardener, and author. The second was at her extended family’s summer home in Flat Rock where her grandmother’s advice to a young granddaughter was simple and direct. “Marty, if you want it, make it.”

Reading the playbill for West Side Story at Friday night’s opening, I glance over a listing of the men and women who are the beating heart and soul of Flat Rock Playhouse. They are uniformly talented and dedicated to their craft. Together, they have built the iconic musical from the ground up. And, with few exceptions, they are virtually unknown by the audiences they so routinely thrill, amaze, make laugh, and move to tears.

This is their story …