ROAN MOUNTAIN - Larry R. Shell, age 72, of Roan Mountain went home to be with the Lord following an extended illness Friday, April 30, 2021 at Johnson City Medical Center. Larry was born in Elizabethton to the late Lacy and Dora Buck Shell.
Larry was a hard worker, who loved his family. He worked at TPI for many years and was of the Baptist faith. He was a member of Roan Mountain Masonic Lodge #566. His favorite hobbies were camping and woodworking. The things he enjoyed most were listening to bluegrass music, gardening and visiting with his many friends.
Those left to cherish his memory include his wife, Sandra Kay Shell; sister, Bobbie Shell; son, Richard Shell (Chandrea); and grandson, Dalton Shell, all of Roan Mountain.
Itâs the 74th festival, marking it as one of the oldest festivals in the region.
The Roan Mountain Citizens Club has been putting on the festivals since June 1947. This yearâs event is scheduled June 19 and 20.
The festival is always held around the third weekend in June, when the Catawba rhododendron reach their peak bloom in the Cloudland Gardens atop Roan Mountain, which has an elevation above 6,000 feet.
Although called a garden, Cloudland is not man-made, as the rhododendron thrives and blankets many acres of mountains in the Appalachians. But the Cloudland Gardens are said to be the largest in the world. Thousands of magenta-pink blossoms erupt when the plants bloom.
Blanche Bateman Heaton, born in 1927 in her grandparentsâ house on the banks of the Doe River in Roan Mountain, Tennessee, died peacefully at her home on April 24, 2021. Other than spending some of her adolescent years in Swannanoa and Robbinsville, North Carolina, she considered herself a lifelong resident of Roan Mountain where she lived with Warren Heaton, her husband of 64 years until his death in 2011. She is survived by her sons and daughters-in law: Will and Debra Heaton of Lakeland, TN and Larry and Kenny Lou Heaton of Roan Mountain, her grandson Adam Heaton, and step-grandson Nick Street, his wife Celia, and son Sam, and great grandsons Dustin and Damon Heaton, and many nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends, all of whom she loved and cherished dearly. She was predeceased by her grandson Austin Heaton, her step-granddaughter Aimee Street, her brother, Carl Bateman, and her parents Vernon O. and Frankie Bateman.
April 23, 2021 - 11:25 AM
ASHEVILLE, N.C. - The founder of Epic Games is donating a large stretch of North Carolina s Appalachian highlands to be preserved as a haven for wildlife.
The Asheville-based non-profit Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy announced the donation of 7,500 acres in the Roan Highlands by Tim Sweeney, the founder and CEO of Epic Games, based in Cary, North Carolina.
News outlets reported that the non-profit group signed a letter of intent on Thursday to accept the land transfer, which should be completed in the next year.
In addition to overseeing Epic s Fortnite and Rocket League video game franchises, Sweeney has been a conservation philanthropist. The newspaper reported that county deed registers value the properties in the tens of millions of dollars, but the conservancy considers the land to be priceless.
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