Small Business of the Year Runner-up: Garris Grading and Paving Inc. By the time Angela Alvarez Garris decided to build up an asphalt plant, she was fed up with people who refused to belive a woman could own and operate such a ostensibly manly business.

Small Business of the Year: Our Small Business of the Year's products seal tight, but it excels at hanging loose.

The Best Doctors in North Carolina by specialty.

The North Carolina Zoo is expanding its polar bear exhibit, but until November it wasn’t clear if it would have any to exhibit.

Free & Clear: The debate between fiscal conservatives and liberals has not been about whether the state should pay for higher education but how - and how much.

Up Front: Small wonders

Capital Goods: Attracting an automaker requires a massive investment in land and infrastructure before the wheeling and dealing can even begin.

All 51 rooms at Pisgah Inn had been booked, but each was empty.

Highwoods Properties Inc. went on a diet to get fit but seems to have its appetite back.

Preparing for conflict might be pessimistic, but it’s profitable.

After years of struggling, often working four jobs to make ends meet, the switch finally flipped for Gretchen Hollifield Ewers in 2005 when she opened The Dog Wizard Inc., an obedience school in Charlotte

Small Business of the Year Runner-up: Impact Financial Systems Inc. provides automation software for financial institutions.

Small Business of the Year Runner-up: Crayton Commercial LLC, a one-man operation in New Bern that had built or revitalized seven shopping centers since 2008.

Cover story: Appearances mattered to Gary Smith, from his attire to every aspect of his ad agency and the clients it attracted. Since the ’70s, he and, later, his son had built Smith Advertising & Associates into one of the Southeast’s largest. And he had done it in a place known more for GIs and generals than marketing geniuses. Moving among Fayetteville’s elite, the Smiths made quite an impression. Then — amid lawsuits, investigations and allegations of a Ponzi scheme — the image they crafted crumbled. But what really happened? Were they perpetrators or victims? Ad men know how crucial it is to control the message. But for Gary and Todd Smith, the medium became the message when they dropped