CANDLER, N.C. (828newsNOW) — A retired Buncombe County Schools teacher has spent the past four decades quietly maintaining a bus stop and turnaround area in Candler, turning a simple act of service into a long-standing tradition of community care.
Steve Ianniello, a former teacher at Enka High School, has mowed and maintained the area on Billy Cove Road about 15 times a year since the 1980s — totaling more than 600 volunteer efforts, Buncombe County Schools said in a social media post. He retired in 2014 after teaching from 1984 but has continued his work in the community.
“I enjoy doing it and my other volunteer work,” Ianniello said. “I help at my church and lead guided hikes at the (North Carolina) Arboretum, too. I love it all.”
School officials and community members are using the Facebook post to thank Ianniello for his decades of dedication to Buncombe County students and the broader Candler area.