Two mayors from Western North Carolina are launching a new podcast, in partnership with Beacon Media, to answer a big question about the future of North Carolina.
By Preston Blakely and Dalton George
Beacon Media
Last year, we knew each other — but not well. We’re both young mayors in Western North Carolina towns, and there was a shared experience there, so we’d talk on the phone from time to time about issues facing our towns.
One day, Preston popped the ultimate question to Dalton: “Do you want to start a podcast?”
OK, we know there are obviously more important questions facing us and our towns. But as we got to exploring the idea, we realized that we could work on a project that can build community and surface untold stories for our region and our state.
We are both deeply rooted and love our homes in Western North Carolina. That is one of the reasons we both serve as mayors of Fletcher (Preston) and Boone (Dalton).
Oftentimes, it feels like Western North Carolina is siloed off from the rest of the state. We felt it a year after Hurricane Helene, where we were both let down by the relative inaction of the state and federal governments in the recovery effort.
Now that the storm was gone, so were the news crews and the promises. Had we been forgotten, as many small towns and rural communities often feel?
Small towns are about us. And yet, this region and our state is growing — we welcome “outsiders” every day. We are in community with neighbors, new and old, who are extraordinary and are creating a new fabric for North Carolina. Which begs the name of our podcast — launching this week — as a question: “Do You Even Live Here?”
To be clear, we are glad that you are here, even if you haven’t been here long. The question is humorous, challenging, and a reminder that lived experience matters. Through a process of exploration about what this show should be, we have learned that this is not about us. Rather, it is about you. Our neighbors in North Carolina, telling the stories that are important to know and that bind all North Carolinians together, that make our region distinctive and to understand how small towns throughout the state overcome challenges in their own ways.
We may be focused in WNC, but we know that all North Carolinians, indeed many throughout the South, claim the mountains in one way or another.
Our new show will shed light on what binds communities together, and it will challenge both of us and our listeners to think about what North Carolina is and can be.
How will we do that? Storytelling. The stories of those deeply rooted who may shape lives in ways we all may not see. The stories of business owners on main streets across the state that keep downtowns thriving. The neighbors who continue to show up after a storm, even when the cameras leave. We want to explore the stories that shape our communities, even if they do not make the headlines. We think they should.
Listen, you know as well as we do that our small towns are where people know one another. You go into Ingles, and it is almost certain that you will run into somebody you know. In Boone, Dalton can walk to campus and talk to students in a former Appalachian State professor’s class. In Fletcher, Preston runs into his elementary school teachers, who tell him how they think he’s doing as mayor.
We all serve, whether we get credit or not.
Rural and small-town communities, especially, are often spoken about rather than heard. When the narrative is written about our homes, it is often written from far away. By people who may visit but do not live here. They may see glimpses but not the full picture. We believe in the value of creating space that embodies honest and thoughtful conversations about the future of our communities and our state.
We want to tell the stories with people who show up every single day: local leaders, business owners, educators, workers, and so many more.
We will ask questions and lead with curiosity. What does community mean to you? What makes small towns so special? How do we bridge divides and have kitchen table conversations in this climate?
We won’t seek answers as experts looking in from the outside but as individuals rooted in community living here. We believe these stories are worth exploring and learning from.
We hope you do, too. Follow our podcast on Instagram and TikTok @youliveherepod and find it on Spotify. We’ll be back in this space, too, to let you know how it’s going.
Preston Blakely, 31, is the mayor of Fletcher, N.C., and Dalton George, 26, is the mayor of Boone, N.C. They are launching ‘Do You Even Live Here’ in partnership with Beacon Media.