From staff reports
Local radio station WTZQ 95.3 FM and AM 1600 has been purchased by Mark Warwick and Paige Posey and their company, Flat Rock Multimedia LLC.
“It’s a dream come true,” Warwick, long-time general manager, said in a news release. “This has been part of the strategic plan for many years and this February the purchase of the station was finalized.”
Business partners and former owners J. Ardell and Remelle Sink have built their radio stations, WKYK in Burnsville and WTOE in Spruce Pine, with an emphasis on being hyper-local. Embracing and employing that philosophy is how Paige and I have made WTZQ our Q-Munity radio station, Warwick said in the release. With the finalization of the sale, sponsors, advertisers and supporters can be sure that every dollar spent promoting their products and services on WTZQ will remain right here in Henderson County.”
A divided nation made its choices in the elections. A long-running zoning dispute over housing on the Tap Root Dairy property finally came to an end while the land-use fight over an asphalt plant in East Flat Rock fizzled to an uncertain resolution. Downtown could be transformed by hotel and parking deck plans that neared the dirt-turning stage as the year drew to a close. Cloaked over every hour of every day from March 3 on was the coronavirus and its wide-ranging impacts. Covid-19 cases devastated long-term care facilities as the virus swept in. The pandemic claimed the Flat Rock Playhouse and Hendersonville Symphony Orchestra seasons, the North Carolina Apple Festival, prep football and more. Here is the Lightning’s annual Top 10 news stories from an unforgettable year.
The new council members, elected unanimously and sworn in via Zoom, are Susan Gregory, a retired FBI agent who is active in Historic Flat Rock, and Pam Tiles, a retired speech pathologist who lives in Kenmure. They replace Paige Posey and Sheryl Jamerson, two of the three remaining council members who voted in favor of the Highland Lake Road project in June 2018, who resigned last month. Although they opposed the Highland Lake Road widening, both Gregory and Tiles described the project as a decided issue that needs to be put in the past.
After the two council members were sworn in, the council elected Coletta vice mayor, replacing Jamerson.