the road to sheville
paved with grit and gumption
by kerry daniel

“Hey, have you visited Sheville?” The buzz is all over the mountains. Chances are if you’re a woman living in Asheville or anywhere in Western North Carolina, you’ve already heard it and joined the surfin' crowd at this ever-evolving womanspace in cyberspace—sheville.org.

February marks the first anniversary of the rebirth of Sheville. Virginia (Va) Boyle and Jean Cassidy purchased the site late in 2004 from founding mother, Leigh Wilkerson, who conceived Sheville in 1997 as a service, activity and information venue for lesbians in the area. And she did a great job of reaching out to that community through the site.

With new ownership came new direction and a more inclusive vision for Sheville. Part of that vision is to be an enriching resource that provides the community with information about the arts, the environment, local entrepreneurship, wellness and more. “We want it to be a place that reflects the wants, needs, interests and tastes of women across a broad spectrum,” says Virginia. “We want all women to feel welcome at the site. And we want Sheville to be their first resource for information and services.”

Virginia Boyle, PhD, and Jean Cassidy, LCSW, are a winning team that spans several decades. The duo moved to Asheville in 1995 from Gainesville, Georgia, where they had built a large and successful professional practice, working with families and individuals. Today Dr. Boyle continues in private practice as a clinical psychologist in Asheville and handles Sheville’s marketing needs in her spare time. Jean Cassidy, who recently left her position in Behavioral Medicine Resident Training at MAHEC Ob-Gyn, devotes full time to managing Sheville.

Kathryn Bradley is also a critical member of the team. She’s Sheville’s webmistress. Like a spider spinning a real-life web, Kathryn’s got the right stuff—the glue that holds it all together—making the site easy to navigate and fun to visit. She also spins her magic, creating eye-catching ads.

Sheville is not a print magazine. Yet it has the familiar structure of a print magazine with specific categories and features. Because it exists solely in cyberspace makes it easy to be both dynamic and evolutionary. Content changes more frequently; timely articles don’t have to wait to be published. Last-minute event information and announcements are posted as quickly as the data becomes available.

As in more traditional periodicals, ad revenues are the lifeblood of Sheville. And advertisers love Sheville. They find their ad dollars stretch farther in cyberspace, and they appreciate the loyalty readers show them for supporting the site.

The road to Sheville this year is marked by many successes. The site regularly records over 2,500 visits a day. Visitors are young and older, from a variety of cultural, educational and socioeconomic backgrounds. Across the board, readers are effusive in their love of and support of the site: Charlene who is new to Asheville, says “I’m thrilled to find a site for the entire women’s community, inclusive of all lifestyles and perspectives.”

Anne says, “What a great place for artists to be able to have local visibility for their work.”

Cindy Moors, a computer services entrepreneur relocating to Asheville from Orlando this month says, “Sheville was my starting point. Thanks to the connections I’ve made through the site, I have an apartment lined up, a business networking group to join, and lots of social and business contacts. It already feels like home and I’m not even there yet!”

Sheville will grow again in 2006. Virginia says, “One of our key goals is to develop a network of businesses – a kind of “Think Tank” – working together to identify common business challenges and to develop workable solutions.

Jean Cassidy looks forward to focusing more on neighborhoods. “There’s a lot of concern right now for development going on in our area. We are interested in defining what our neighbors see as Asheville’s unique identity. We want to provide a forum for those with ideas on “smart growth” for our community.

“We’re always looking for contributions from talented writers, in every field and genre.” Jean says. “We have a great editorial board. They review and assess everything just to be sure it’s a good fit.”

Both Jean and Virginia would like to see more contributions to Sheville’s Towanda column. “We know there are women in and around Asheville with personal victories to share, and we want our readers to hear their stories,” says Virginia. “You never know when reading about someone’s victory over a seemingly insurmountable over a seemingly insurmountable challenge will be just the spark of hope someone else needs to turn their life around.”

So, the next time someone asks you, “Hey, have you visited Sheville? There’s no need to get that deer-in-the-headlight look. Don’t reach for the folded maps in the glove box. If you’re one of the few in Western North Carolina who’ve never been there…now you know. Sheville is a state of mind—and a destination in cyberspace. It’s definitely a cool place to go.

 

Kerry Daniel is the former marketing manager of Sheville. She is now Sales and Marketing Manager for MediaPrint at Biltmore Press, and in her spare time is penning “Wild Ride,” a memoir, and designing a whimsical line of barstools. Kerry lives in Asheville with two delightful felines, Barney and Ben.