The Invisible Architect of Boone & Small Towns with Eric Woolridge

The Invisible Architect of Boone & Small Towns with Eric Woolridge

Eric Woolridge is the President of Destination by Design, a Boone-based planning and design firm that helps small towns across the U.S. plan, build, and market themselves as destination-quality communities. With over 20 years of experience and work across 150+ local government jurisdictions, Eric and his team blend land use planning, civil engineering, landscape architecture, and place branding into one shop. In this episode, we talk with Eric about what it actually takes to transform a small town — how tourism tax dollars get prioritized and deployed for projects like greenways, mountain bike parks, and downtown revitalization. We get into the business of running a firm like Destination by Design, the gap between a town's potential and its execution, and what the High Country of North Carolina gets right (and could do better) when it comes to planning for growth. 🔗 ⁠⁠DBD [https://destinationbydesign.com] 🌐 ⁠⁠Real Boone Studios⁠⁠ [https://www.realboone.com/] 📸 ⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/realboonestudios] 💬 ⁠⁠evan@realboone.com [evan@realboone.com]

The Story of Tiny Hands Pottery with Amy Lowery

Amy Lowrey is the owner of Tiny Hands Pottery, a handcrafted ceramics studio based in Boone, NC. Amy calls herself an accidental potter — she spent her adult life in the nonprofit world, building homes in Mexico, traveling to 40+ countries, and helping underserved students access college funding. Then in 2015 she took a pottery class, fell completely in love, and eventually made the leap to full-time artist. In this episode, we talk with Amy about that pivot — what it takes to walk away from a life of service work and bet on yourself as a creative. We get into the realities of building a handmade goods business from scratch: selling wholesale, doing shows, teaching lessons, and finding your people. Amy shares what she's learned about making things with intention and why she believes beauty and creativity have the power to light the world up. 🔗 ⁠⁠Tiny Hands Pottery [https://www.tinyhandspottery.com] 🌐 ⁠⁠Real Boone Studios⁠⁠ [https://www.realboone.com/] 📸 ⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/realboonestudios] 💬 ⁠⁠evan@realboone.com [evan@realboone.com]

Being a songwriter in the age of AI with John Lucas

Singer/songwriter John Lucas has built the kind of career most musicians only imagine—over 40 million Spotify streams, songs licensed by Google, MTV, and Freeform, and a loyal following grown over more than a dozen years. Now putting down roots in Boone, NC, he joins us in the High Country of North Carolina for a honest conversation about what success in music actually looks like from the inside. We get into the numbers most artists won't say out loud—what Spotify really pays per stream—along with the rise of AI-generated music and what it means for working songwriters. And underneath it all, the more personal question: how John feels about the music he's made, and what it's like to keep creating when the industry keeps changing the rules. It's a candid look at art, money, and meaning from one of Boone's most accomplished creatives. 🔗 ⁠⁠John Lucas⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/julietrath/?hl=en] 🌐 ⁠⁠Real Boone Studios⁠⁠ [https://www.realboone.com/] 📸 ⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/realboonestudios] 💬 ⁠⁠evan@realboone.com [evan@realboone.com]

Midwifery & Women's Health with Carrington Pertalion

Carrington Doolittle Pertalion is a Certified Nurse Midwife at AppHealthCare in Boone, NC, and has been caring for women across the High Country of North Carolina for more than 25 years. In this episode, Carrington walks us through her unlikely path to midwifery — dropping out of high school at 16, working in commercial fishing, and finally discovering her calling the day her daughter was delivered by a nurse midwife. She talks about going back to school, the risk of opening her own private practice straight out of midwifery school in 2002, and what it means to come full circle back to public health at AppHealthCare, where her very first nursing job in Boone began. We get into what most people misunderstand about midwifery, why healthcare should be about the person in front of you rather than the clock on the wall, and what 25 years of caring for women in the same community actually feels like. 🌐 ⁠⁠Real Boone Studios⁠⁠ [https://www.realboone.com/] 📸 ⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/realboonestudios] 💬 ⁠⁠evan@realboone.com [evan@realboone.com]

The Story of Baker Forge with Coy Baker

Coy Baker, Founder and CEO of Baker Forge & Tool, joins us to talk about building one of America's leading Damascus steel manufacturers in Boone, NC. Coy started his blacksmithing journey in the mountains of Western North Carolina in 2016, engineered his own 25-ton hydraulic forging press, and in 2020 developed a method for fusion welding copper to carbon steel — the breakthrough behind the brand's signature CopperMai and BronzeMai laminated steels. In this episode we cover manufacturing in the High Country of North Carolina, what it takes to run a family-owned operation alongside his brother Jay (Shop Manager) and father Bruce (CFO), the innovation behind proprietary steels like Mosaic Damascus and Stainless SanMai, and how Baker Forge supplies knife makers, artisans, and major knife companies from a single shop on Waterstone Drive — with steel shipping to Asia, Australia, Europe, and across North America. 🔗 ⁠Baker Forge [https://www.bakerforge.com] 🌐 ⁠⁠Real Boone Studios⁠⁠ [https://www.realboone.com/] 📸 ⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/realboonestudios] 💬 ⁠⁠evan@realboone.com [evan@realboone.com]