Arts
In the late 1990s, so few students from Smoky Mountain High School in Sylva moved on to Ivy League colleges that even the school's secretary seemed baffled to learn Annette Clapsaddle earned acceptance to one. That's how Clapsaddle remembers it, after taking a phone call in the front office from her mom, telling her about the news. "I got off the phone and the secretary looked at me and said 'What was that about?' and I told her and she said 'Are you playing basketball there?' and I said 'No,' and she was like 'Oh,' Clapsaddle recalled. "And that's all she said, like, if you're not playing sports, oh well."