Exploring the Valley
Discover the hidden gems, local legends, and can’t-miss experiences in Black Mountain and the Swannanoa Valley as we dive into the perks of Chamber membership and uncover what makes this mountain town a must-visit destination. Whether you're a local business or just passing through, there's something cool waiting for you!
Exploring the Valley
What If Home Is The Dream After All
Ever wonder what happens when a part-time high school job turns into a life’s work and a community legacy? We sit down with Lori Morris to chart a rare arc: from a 17-year-old filing papers at White Insurance to becoming an owner, mentor, and steady hand in Black Mountain and Swannanoa. It’s a grounded story about choosing to stay, building trust one small task at a time, and discovering that home can be the most ambitious place to grow.
We walk through the milestones that matter: buying a first car, saving through late-night side gigs, and purchasing a first house at 22. Lori opens up about the responsibilities and rewards of ownership, the guidance of the White family, and how succession planning keeps a hometown agency resilient. She also shares how the industry has changed—monthly shifts in rules, rising customer expectations, and why the next wave of talent will pair service instincts with digital fluency. From practical AI that speeds up policy checks to simple tools that cut everyday waste, we explore how curiosity keeps a mature business nimble.
Beyond the office, Lori’s life is stitched into the valley: Saturday coffees, local shops, and restaurants she can recommend at a moment’s notice. At home, the Morris compound hums with family ties and a pasture where two horses now graze, a reminder that care and constancy reach beyond work hours. If you’re weighing whether to leave your hometown or invest in it, this conversation offers a clear-eyed look at what roots can do—steady a career, enrich a family, and strengthen a community that keeps giving back. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves small-town stories, and leave a review to tell us: what keeps you rooted?
Hi Lori Morris, I am glad you're here. Um, you are let's see, we met when I first moved to Black Mountain Swannanoa area. I did not have a job. I moved here and um not knowing what it was gonna be like to live here or work here or anything else, I'd only visited here my whole life. And so I moved here and was looking for a job. I was a Medicare freak. I love Medicare. I still talk to people about Medicare probably once a week. I talk to somebody about Medicare and explain it to them and all that because I love it. I enjoy it and I enjoy, I like for people to understand all of that minutia, because that's what it is. It's ridiculous, all the stuff the ins and outs. But anyway, so I went to you and I talked to you about a job and you hired me, which was great. And I loved working there and I loved meeting people there. And working for Wes was awesome. He was great and certainly had other people there that were helpful. Worked there till the storm, and I'm sure you remember the day I walked in your room with my eyes just full of tears, and it was awful. But it wasn't fair for y'all to keep me employed because nobody wanted to talk about insurance, and I wasn't gonna sell a thing. So, anyway, that's how we met. And I was very gracious.
SPEAKER_02:You walked in there, and I would felt so sorry for you. I was just like, it was heartbreaking. Although we were all emotional or emotional. We were all like, Where, what are we go doing? What are we living through? And and then you lay that on me. That's right. Okay, this is not gonna work.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So anyway, it all worked out because the chamber job became available maybe three months later. And this is my dream job. I wanted this job 12 years ago and excited to have it. So it worked out, and it gave me some time to get to know the community a little bit better. But what I want you to do most of the talking, and I just did all of it, but I want you to tell us about how you got started at White. That's my most interesting thing about that. Was the coolest thing to me when I met you and learned about you.
SPEAKER_02:Right, right. So it it goes back 38, almost 39 years now. My I I was in high school, Owen High School, junior, and I had a distributed a distributive ed class that basically is like a marketing where if you get a job that pertains to that, used to. I don't think they still even have it now. But if you got a job, you could get out of school early. Not have to stay till three o'clock, and you could go to work, make money. So I became very interested, like, okay, I can get out of school, I can make some money because my dream was had always been from like when I was 13, I was thinking, okay, I'm gonna buy my own car because I wasn't sure if my parents would buy me a car at 16. And I eventually wanted to have my own home. And that was became a really dream for me is to have my own home in Black Mountain. So I went to work for, well, my dad, I was searching around Black Mountain, and my dad was a long time, he had worked at Tyson Furniture for 20 some years at the time. But he had worked for Joe Tyson for all that time, Buddy Tyson, Joe's dad. And he, I thought about could I go to work at Tyson's, but they were real adamant about no family working there. You know, like they don't like to hire. I know that isn't an interesting name. Oh, that's at Olivia. Yeah, Olivia. And so my dad was like, well, you know, he started naming off some places in Black Mountain, and he said, go over to White Insurance, where he had his insurance. And my mom and dad had had their insurance there for years, and he knew Bill and Bobby White, the brother sister. He knew what we call her name was Eleanor Britton, but she was her we called her Weesee. And she had been there forever, and Mildred, which she had been there forever, Mildred Simpson, people in town, they know all these people. And so he said, Go over and just ask them. So I walked in, talked to Weese, and said, you know, would they be hiring anybody part-time, like after school from, you know, midday afternoon that could work to five? And she's like, Well, let me give Bill a note, you know. And so anyway, they Bobby and Bill interviewed me, and that's how they they hired me. And I basically started there doing whatever, and whenever somebody said do this, I did it. So it was old file cabinets where I would sit there and put paper filing. I would take people would walk in, and and as a 17-year-old, you know, for somebody to walk in an office, you know, a grown-up that I had had no interaction with as far as the community or the the public walking in saying, Hey, my insurance canceled, can you do this? Or I need to make a payment, or I want to make a car change, you know, I was very, I just remember being having sweaty armpits quite often, to be honest. But I trudged through it and did, like I say, anything, everything. I mean, if Bill walked in and said, Type this for me, if Bobby walked in and said, File these, call this person, do that. I just did everything, anything they ask. So fast forward, I graduated from high school. I was very torn. Again, I was still thinking, okay, my dad my dad did buy me a car at 16, just so yes, he did buy me a car. So I was able to get to and from work. But anyway, I graduated and I was like, I'd really like to have a new car, but I'm still wanting my own house. But I want to go to Appalachian State. And so I debated on what am I gonna do, and then I ended up saying, okay, at 18 I can get my insurance license. I'll work here, I'll get my new car, which I did. I bought myself a 1988 Mustang. And I continued saving money to work toward getting a house. Well, then I thought what I'll do is I'll go to A B Tech just to stay in the mode of education. And so I started A B Tech doing my business administration degree for two years. That turned into a get it in five years. I always laughed. A two-year degree became a five-year degree. So in the meantime, while I was during that five-year period, uh when I was 22, I actually did purchase my house up in Black Mount. 22. 22. I bought my house up on off Montreat Road on Spring Lane. I still have it to this day as a rental. That's cool. And so we I've as the years progressed from 22, 24 years old, Bill and Bobby became, I guess I impressed them, I should say. So they they offered that they wanted me to become some ownership just to, you know. And you were how old? Uh 22, 24, but not like to start buying in, but I think they saw the opportunity that I can uh tie her down if we have some shares connected to her in the business. So I had very minimal shares, but you know, that was very I was like, hey. So as the years progressed after that, I beg I started buying more and more each year. Like Bobby decided she was going to go back to seminary school and she was leaving the business. And so I started buying Bobby out. Bill over the years started selling some of his shares. This is the same Bill. Yes, Bill White. I didn't know if it was like his dad or if it was. I didn't know. Yeah, okay. His I actually did work with Mr. White for several years before he passed away. Okay. And he was a great man. He was very interested. Loved like watches. He would some of my duties when I was 17, 18 years old was he would have all these wristwatches laid out on his desk after lunch. And he would say, Lori, come in here. Because he was in a middle office in the old white insurance building that was across from the post office. Okay. And he would say, Come in here. And I would go in there and I would think after the first two or three times, I would think, Oh my gosh, I have work to do. And I have to work on these watches. But looking back, it was phenomenal the time I got to spend because he would say, I can't get this one set. So I would have to, and some of them wouldn't, neither one of us ever got them set. They were just, you know, from they would come from the Time magazine. He would order Time magazine and they would send like a watch or something. He would get all these watches. He was he was fascinated with them. So he would ask for my help. I would go in there and you know, I'd be not frustrated, but like thinking, I have a lot of work to do. I don't have time to mess with watches, but I did. But anyway, sorry back. So we know that's a side note. So Bill, like I say, I uh he gave me the opportunity to buy some shares from him, and that's just how it basically became Bill, myself, and then David Queen became purchasing InSum too. So we we became the three main owners of white insurance.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we're still the three main owners when I got there.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes. Is that right? We have, yes, we have. Adam Adam Payne has been. Okay, that's what I was trying to add. There was a fourth one who was it who got it. Adam Payne, he but he the soccer coach. Yes, okay, got it, yes, got it. So one of our producers. So he bought in a little bit of the last six years, maybe. Okay. So yeah, so it was David Bill and I. So you've never worked anywhere else. Well, I had a part-time job because I had to save to buy my house and go to college. So I worked at, I don't even know if it's still called Acme Barbershop. Okay. Over on right below Tyson's. Yeah. It's still called that. And it's still there. It's called Acne. I knew it was still there, but I wasn't sure if it was called Acme, but Benny Stacy owned it. Okay. And he also had a tanning booth aside. So I would get off work at White Insurance 5530 and like three or four days a week, and I would go over to his tanning booth and run it until anywhere from nine to eleven o'clock at night. Holy cow. Mm-hmm. And that was how I saved to, you know, some to buy my house. And then, but I had gotten my house and I continued working there for Benny for years.
SPEAKER_00:That's right.
SPEAKER_02:I d I couldn't even tell how many years, but I saved some money for that.
SPEAKER_01:But you continuously have worked for white insurance.
SPEAKER_02:White insurance. Yes, like I say, 38, 39 years later. Yes. When I turned 34, I remember say oh my 34, not when I turned 34. Well, yeah, it was 34, I guess. I said to Bill, I said, I have been here with you half my life.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_02:From 17 to 34.
SPEAKER_00:That's funny.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think we need to have a party at 40. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I think we do. I don't have long to go, do I?
SPEAKER_01:No.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You need to invite former employees. Yeah. I'm just saying trying to get an invitation.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Definitely. You'll be there. Yeah. Well, so okay. So we're going back to high school growing up here. We had somebody here a couple of weeks ago that said, I grew up here but could not wait to leave. It looks like you're the opposite of that. Because you had ideas of going to App State, but you really never really didn't. Never really did that. You just didn't leave. Did you ever want to leave? Ever.
SPEAKER_02:Come on. I don't think so. Really? I do not recall, and you know, after 38, 39 years in the insurance, I I feel like I've lost a lot of my memory. I do not recall ever wanting to be like having a desire to say, I want to just go off to Charlotte or I want to go off to Texas or somewhere. I do not recall any of that.
SPEAKER_01:I grew up in a big city and could not wait to move to a smaller town.
SPEAKER_00:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01:And I think most people think that whatever they have is not good. They want something else. So that's interesting to me. That you really never wanted to leave and you haven't.
SPEAKER_02:Uh-huh. Well, it's funny because Bill White and I, we talk about, we've said over the years, he did the very same thing. I just want out. I want to go somewhere. I don't want to be in Black Mountain. And he did, you know, he moved off to two or three different places. And eventually his dad called him and said, I need you to come back to the insurance business. And he didn't really want to, but he did. And, you know, and so who knows where things would have ended up if Bill had to come back. And yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a good point. Well, I'm glad he came back because I sure did enjoy my time there. And he was sweet. He always came down to check on me downstairs. He would say, I told y'all when you hired me, I said, please don't make me sit in an office. Yeah. I will go insane sitting in an office. And he came down one day. He said, Cheryl, did somebody paint these walls? I said, No, sir. I don't think so. Thinking, what is he talking about? He said, like they need to be painted. But I said, I said, no, sir. He said, Well, I just feel like the walls, somebody must be painting them every day because it's getting closer and closer in here. You just feel like you're getting claustrophobic. I said, actually, yes, sir, I do. And I got it. I've caught, I was glad I figured out what he was saying. Right, right. But I just thought that was cute. He's these walls, somebody's painting them or something because his walls are getting closer. And I just thought that was cute that he he remembered that I said that. I mean, I told y'all pretty pretty clear. I knew I would succeed. And and that's true today. People come to the chamber all the time and say, Well, I've been by six times to see you. You are never there. Do you ever work? And I always say, if I am in my office, I'm not doing my job. My job is to be out. Out in the community. So please make an appointment and I promise I'll be there. But so okay. You grew up here, and then you're raising your family here. So your daughter lives here. I think she goes to ACA, is that right? Yes, she's at Phil Christian Academy in Swannanoa. So and she's still there. She's only six years.
SPEAKER_02:She's a junior. She is a junior. She only has a year and a half left.
unknown:Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01:Does that make you sad or excited for her or all of the above? Um I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:All of the above, I guess how it's like. Does she have plans? She does not. She goes back and forth. She, it's funny, I feel like she's almost fallen in the way I was because she does not have a desire to go off, like way off to college. Like I could see her maybe Western Carolina. She's talked a little bit about like Anderson University, Greenville, maybe app, but I don't see her being more than one hour away because of her family roots with her grandparents that live.
SPEAKER_01:That is so cool. What a what a legacy for you. You've been a great parent who's role modeled the cool, you know, the place that you live is really cool. I mean, and it is, but I truly remember thinking, I can't wait to move somewhere else. And then I ended up staying right there. So for a long time. But that's really cool.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And so she's gonna graduate. And I do have big plans after we hit the 40-year mark.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know, I always say I I look at Bill because you know, Bill is older than me. And yeah, just a tad. And he is still active in the business. He's still, for the last 10 years, he's been saying to me, Lori, I'm I'm gonna retire in the next year or two. And you know, I'd hate to see that happen, but I I'm excited. I was I always told him, I was like, you should leave. You need to get out. Good you and Wanda need to travel and do your thing. And it's just like he's like, but this is our identity. White insurance is our identity. And I and that rings hard uh really hard in my heart that he's right, but you know, there comes a time when you have to step back and say the younger people are smarter than me, they are more energetic than me.
SPEAKER_00:They know different things, they are not smarter, they know different things.
SPEAKER_02:They do, but the you know, the business changes, you know, like insurance is changing, it was the changes revolve monthly. And I mean, you from the time I started to now, it's dramatically different. And so I'll be honest, I can't imagine being there another 10 or 20 years because I feel like go do cool stuff. Yeah, yeah. I feel like there I would love to have a team in there that they know the ins and outs of all the technology, like the AI stuff that's coming on. I I love it. I'm excited about it, and I think it's gonna be phenomenal for the processing side of the business, some of the checking of the policy, just different things like that. And there's other other technology that's gonna be phenomenal. But I don't know that I want to step in and have to entrench myself into learning and doing and all that for, you know, even two, four, five years, it's sort of we'll talk about it offline, but we're getting ready to teach a class on that.
SPEAKER_01:That's very basic, but very cool. You will love it and you need to be in it. It's very cool. Okay. I'll talk to you about it later. But I took it and it has changed my life. Literally, I'm not exaggerating. Did you know you can take a picture of the inside of your refrigerator and say, What can I cook out of here? And it gives you recipes, or it'll say, Do you have cinnamon spice on your rack somewhere else? Like, how did you know what was in my oh my goodness? It's kind of creepy and it's really cool. It has efficiently efficiency, sorry, efficiency has increased because I don't go and I don't, I I take a picture of the refrigerator. I'm like, what can I make out of this? And I don't spend money on stuff that I don't need to spend money on. So I mean, yeah, there's some uses for it that aren't creepy. Right. They're creepy, but you get my point. Anyway, we'll talk about that later. But but I took this class and that's what it taught me was things like that. And I'm like, this is really cool. Right. So one of the things that I was actually the person who nominated you for Woman Up. I don't know if you know that or not, but I am.
SPEAKER_02:So okay, so I suspected that and I asked you.
SPEAKER_01:I lied. You did lie. I lied to you because I don't think it matters who nominated you.
SPEAKER_02:No, Cheryl Hyde is a liar.
SPEAKER_01:Not really. Just about things when it doesn't matter. No, I didn't want you to know because I thought, but then then the storm happened and that whole thing disappeared, didn't it?
SPEAKER_02:No, they actually did that. I did not win it, just but in the uh Janet Brummett.
SPEAKER_01:It's an honor to be nominated.
SPEAKER_02:It is an honor to be. Oh, that's what I said. When I found out I was nominated, I'm like, who did that? I am not deserving. The other women that was in the category with me of phenomenal women. And I'm like You're right there with them.
SPEAKER_01:You just don't think that because you've work in this place that's a small town and a smaller business, even though it's a gigantic business. People don't know how big white is until you're in it. It is amazing. Yes. But yeah, anyway, but you really did, and I I don't generally hang out with women, don't like them, don't admire them, look up to them, whatever the right word is. That's not an ugly thing. It's just guys, I'm more attracted to guys. I do, I'm a tomboy, I do guy things. So anyway, you did make an impression on me, and that was that was anyway.
SPEAKER_02:You know, I'm the same way. When I when I was in high school, I had more guy friends than I ever did girlfriends. I still have a really close high school friend. We're best friends. We from 13 on, we were at each other's house, and she and I are like sisters, you know. But I had more guy friends during, you know, even my husband would say we weren't we went to high school together, but we were not, I was friends with one of his best friends, and so we knew of each other, but we didn't him and I were not friends. But he was like, You had so many guy friends. And even now I have a couple of guy friends, you know, that I hang out with some, and my husband's like, Hey, he hangs out with the son too, and sometimes he doesn't. But I've seen my dog. Water also following in that the footsteps.
SPEAKER_01:So we I mean we've talked about work and that's great and and it's a huge part of what you do and all that, but you've got to do other things. I mean you can't just be there all the time. What do you love to do in s the Swannanoa Valley? Doesn't matter if it's hiking or like eating in restaurants or what do you what's your thing?
SPEAKER_02:Oh my gosh. Okay, so uh what I love now as an older person to say that as an older person over the last I'd say five years, maybe, maybe six, eight years, I have just been in the town of Black Mountain, the the little shops, like walking in and just the restaurants are great. I I love eating out in Black Mountain. But I mean, all the food just you can't hardly I don't know that I could say there's any one place that if someone says, Do you want to go have lunch or dinner here, that I'd be like, Oh no. Yeah, they're all great. When people call me when they some of our company reps and when they come to town and they're like, Where can we eat in Black Mountain? And I've named like six places, you know. I'm like, here's what you got. That's right. I love the restaurants, and I I will veer off to say that I told my daughter and my husband right after the first of the year, I said, Y'all have single-handedly over the last six, five, six years, ruined my diet because they absolutely their hobby is eating out. They love my husband, loves breweries, so we go, you know, look out. Piz got all these breweries. It's always like, let's do something at the breweries. You know, occasionally when there's food trucks at some of you know, some of them and I'll love it. But restaurants, they, if I say let's eat out, I mean they're in their car going down the driveway. But I do the restaurants are great, but I have found the little shops where used to, you know, when you're in your 20s and you know, growing up here, I bet I didn't walk the streets of Black Mountain. I'm not sure I ever walked down the streets of Black Mountain when I was in my teens or in my 20s. Never would I go in and go shopping in Brack Mountain. But I love it. Like at Christmas time, I'm like my best friend that I said, we've been friends since 13. We're like, we make it a point. We do coffee usually every Saturday morning, and we always try to hit a coffee shop, a local, you know, dripolator or cousins Cuban. We go and we'll so we'll be like, Oh, let's go to either the farmer's market and walk around, or let's just go walk the Terry Street and go in those little shops and look around. Phenomenal. I just and it's as you know, a 50-something-year-old person, I'm like, wow, I can't believe I'm doing this. Like, it's so intriguing to me. That's right. Much, much better.
SPEAKER_01:But and the shops weren't cool when you were 17. They weren't as cool as they are now, too. So to be fair.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, that is that's fair. That's fair to say. So, but then as far as outdoor stuff, I do us living in Swantanoa. We have, and my father-in-law that used to own Ralph's body shop. Oh, okay. We all live in what we call the Morris compound. And so he's in front of us, and we're up behind him. And then he had a field that he took major pride in with mowing. I mean, it had to be a certain diagonal pattern. It was beautiful. Everybody was all and he probably mowed it every two days. And I remember that my husband and I have been married 28 years, and he's done that forever. And but my dad had purchased a horse for my daughter when she was three, and then they long story, we have two horses, the mom and the baby, and the baby's now 11 years old. But eventually, when my dad had couldn't take care of them as he got older, I ended up relocating them to that field that he had. So it's now a pasture. So my outdoor activity is taking care of two horses, which is, you know, more of a job than I thought. Like, yeah, it's a lot of work. Yeah. But that's, you know, but everybody loves going by and they're always like, I saw your two horses, and I built the barn, and we have a barn down there now. So that's really cool. Yeah. Well, good. I'll be by to visit soon.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. Well, I I know that we're running out of time. You and I could talk for hours because that's what we do. But um, but thank you for coming today and helping us out to kind of get another picture of somebody who actually grew up here. We've we have different people on, we interview different people every week, and most of them have moved here. Not often are they originally born and born and raised here. So thank you for coming in. I appreciate you. Well, thank you for the invite.
SPEAKER_02:This is great, and I'm glad to know about the podcast. I did not know about the podcast.
SPEAKER_01:No, it'll change your life. I mean, this is a life-changing podcast.
SPEAKER_02:I'm gonna go back and just listen to all of them because it's phenomenal. The few have listened. So well, good. Good, good, good. Well, thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks for joining us on Exploring the Valley. Until next time, keep celebrating the pride of our community and discovering the magic of the mountains. In the meantime, you're free to move about the valley.