John Parris recorded the following interview for his Roaming the Mountains column on July 6, 1975, nearly seven months after the Sylva division of the Mead Paper Corporation shuttered its 45-year-old facility. He spoke with Andrew Bridges “Andy” Wilson, owner of a local insurance agency, about Wilson’s comments in the Raleigh News and Observer article covering Mead’s closure, which appeared in that day’s paper. Steve Berg, the article’s author, had interviewed Wilson while he stood on Sylva’s Main Street chatting with his friends, attorney W. Paul Holt Jr. and Jackson County Sheriff Fred Holcombe. There are minor discrepancies between Wilson’s remarks to Berg and his later conversation with Parris, leading to a humorous story about Wilson being too intoxicated to remember what he had said earlier. Overall, the discussion captures the townspeople’s mixed reactions to the paper mill’s closure and offers an intriguing glimpse into the lives of some of Sylva’s most prominent and influential men.