Meet Our Team
Carol Tyner is a proud native of Burnsville, North Carolina, and has always been deeply connected to the mountains of Western North Carolina. After graduating from Mountain Heritage High School, where she built lifelong friendships with the other founders of Mountain Strong: Yancey & Mitchell Relief Team, she pursued her passion for healthcare at UNC Charlotte, earning her Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Carol currently serves as the Practice Director for Criswell & Criswell Plastic Surgery in Charlotte, NC.
Carol is an avid skier. She first learned to ski at Hawks Nest & Wolf Laurel with her father, instilling in her a love for the mountains and the surrounding community. As a member of the Mountain Strong team, she is dedicated to raising funds for relief efforts, believing in the resilience of her hometown and the importance of coming together to support those in need. Carol is proud to use her experience and passion to help strengthen the community and restore the beauty of the mountains she calls home.
Charity Honeycutt
Charity Honeycutt’s roots run deep in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Growing up in Celo, under the shadow of Mount Mitchell, Charity loved nature, outdoor activities, arts and crafts, and spending time with her friends, family, and dogs. Her love of dogs and sports significantly influenced her development. Charity was a three-sport competitor at Mountain Heritage High School, and some of her favorite memories include the time spent participating in sports with her fellow Mountain Strong team members.
Charity continued her education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she earned her undergraduate degree in Retail and Consumer Science and her Master’s degree in Sports Management while competing as a Lady Vol on the Tennessee Track and Field Team. Before graduating, Charity started a business, Honeybee Events, which later evolved into Honeybee Styling and Design. Her work in event design and execution led to opportunities in production, including projects for HGTV series such as Home Town, Sesame Street, and Chopped.
Continuing her work in design, Charity began a new role this year in real estate development and creative direction for the Volunteer Club. In this capacity she has designed new lines of Volunteer apparel and accessories, as well as organizing and executing large events, including the opening of a new Volunteer retail space. Many of Charity’s family members continue to live in Western North Carolina, just a short two-hour drive from her home in Knoxville. Charity and her two lab puppies, Boone and Knox, live on the lake where they enjoy swimming and boating often.
Charity passionately believes in the importance of helping others in all capacities. After Hurricane Helene, she quickly loaded two pickups with the help of friends and commandeered a second driver from Knoxville to deliver some of the first donations to reach Burnsville. She began the collection process even before she was able to confirm that her family was safe. Collaborating with her friends in Tennessee and North Carolina, Charity has been able to bring media attention, supplies, and an ever-changing list of assistance to Western North Carolina. She understands that recovery post-Hurricane Helene is a marathon, and she has committed to stay the course.
Laney Tipton was born and raised in Yancey County. Growing up, Laney was deeply influenced by her parents' public service careers—her dad in the local school system and her mom with the court system. Driven by their service, with a lifelong passion for storytelling, Laney graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with a degree in Journalism. After spending some time building her career in marketing agencies, she found a home at Capitol Broadcasting Company in Raleigh, NC. After playing a multitude of roles with CBC and WRAL Digital, Laney now serves as the General Manager of Capitol B, a strategic agency that works with strategic partners serving their communities across the state to help craft and share their stories. Laney is also on track to complete her MBA in December of this year, which has served her well both professionally and as we worked to set up the business and processes for Mountain Strong.
Laney and her husband Chris have two incredible little boys and the most patient brown dog you’ve ever met. Laney carries a piece of home close to her heart with an outline of the mountain range visible from her parents' front porch tattooed on her arm.
Lilly Humen grew up in Burnsville, NC, surrounded by the beauty of the Appalachian Mountains, a landscape rich with the history of her grandparents, parents, and ancestors. This deep-rooted connection to the area instilled in her a passion for service and a calling to help rebuild her town after the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene.
After earning a business degree from the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at UNC-Chapel Hill, she began her career in finance, gaining valuable experience at Bank of America and Blackbaud, a leader in providing software solutions for nonprofits. This work reinforced her commitment to supporting organizations that make a difference.
Today, Lilly dedicates her time to raising her two wonderful children, Emerson and Henry, alongside her husband, Bobby. Her passion for community service and the mountains that shaped her continue to inspire her work and family life. She is committed to making a positive impact in her community and nurturing the next generation to do the same.
Morgan (Peterson) Bryant’s family has deep ties to both Yancey and Mitchell Counties. Her parents, siblings, and in-laws reside in Burnsville and her aunts and uncles and maternal grandparents live in Bakersville and Spruce Pine. Morgan attended Bald Creek Elementary School, then Cane River, and graduated from Mountain Heritage High School in 2006. Although Morgan did not graduate in the same High School class as the other founders of Mountain Strong, she lovingly adopted them all as little sisters and never lost touch with them over the last 18 years.
Morgan is a proud former student athlete of Mountain Heritage along with the other founders of Mountain Strong. Morgan, Charity, and Laney still hold several school records for their relay team performances and individual track events. Morgan attended Appalachian State University for undergrad and continued her education at Charleston School of Law. She has been licensed to practice law in North Carolina since 2013 where she began her legal career with a law firm in Asheville. In 2017, she and her husband moved to Charleston, SC where they had their first child and her husband finished his residency and training as a pediatric cardiologist.
Morgan was excited to move back to Burnsville with her family in July of 2024. Two and half months later Hurricane Helene decimated communities in Yancey and Mitchell County. Morgan and her daughter were fortunately out of town on vacation when the storm hit, but her husband stayed behind to keep an eye on their home. For over 24 hours after the storm, she could not reach her husband, but when she did finally hear from him, he had already begun providing voluntary emergency medical treatment to those in need from all over Yancey County. Morgan is so thankful for the other members of Mountain Strong—for their immediate and relentless efforts to join together and get supplies and needs into the area as quickly as possible—but also for their long-time friendship and support that can literally move mountains.
Taylor Banks Kirkman was born and raised in Yancey County as the daughter of Randy and Donna Banks- and of course the granddaughter of Ruth Banks who most people knew well as she was very active in local government. The Banks family grew up in houses in the middle of Burnsville and on Bolens Creek and have a strong sense of community pride for Yancey County.
Taylor grew up golfing and worked at Mountain Air Country Club as a cart attendant during her high school and college years. Subsequently, she wanted to stay in the mountains for college and went to Mars Hill College on a golf scholarship. With her love of helping people in need she subsequently decided to go to medical school and spent 4 years of medical school in South Carolina. In 2014, Taylor married Travis Kirkman with a HUGE wedding on Cane River with lots of friends and family in attendance to celebrate. It hit Travis and Taylor hard when Travis started working on relief efforts in Burnsville after the dust had settled and he sent pictures to her that their cherished memories of the spot would be gone forever.
Since her husband loves fishing Taylor ended up moving to the Gulf Coast in Hudson, FL for all 7 years of post-medical school training to become an Interventional Cardiologist. Once Taylor was done with fellowship her heart strings were pulled back home and with the gentle nudge of her family that still live in WNC (her parents, sister Lexi, brother-in-law Eli Buckner, perfect baby niece Blake and so many more) she moved back to NC. Since then she has started a job in New Bern, NC working as an Interventional Cardiologist. Taylor is so much happier being closer to the mountains she calls home and is dedicated to help rebuild the area and help heal the hearts of WNC. Her husband Travis has also decided to lead relief efforts in Yancey/Mitchell Counties for the group for the foreseeable future.
Kacie Renfro was born and raised in Burnsville, NC. She graduated from Appalachian State University in 2012 with a Bachelor of Science degree in English Education. She returned to her alma mater, Mountain Heritage High School, in 2013 to serve as an English teacher. While teaching, she completed her Master of Arts degree in School Counseling at Lenoir-Rhyne Asheville in 2019. Kacie completed her Doctorate of Education degree at Appalachian State University in 2023. Her dissertation was centered on her childhood memories of Bee Log Elementary School, which now seems particularly salient during a time in which so many places in Yancey County have been forever changed.
When Kacie finally obtained cell service in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, she was relieved to touch base with her best friends from high school. When she learned of the creation of Mountain Strong, she was so incredibly proud of the ways in which her friends had collectively utilized their talents to give back to a place that had given so much.
Kacie currently resides in Burnsville, NC with her dog Beylor. She owns a mobile boutique with her best friend, Misty, and she works as a school counselor in Buncombe County. She looks forward to serving her community alongside her favorite people through mental health outreach and being a direct point of contact for Mountain Strong.