Published: Monday, July 23, 2012 Echota’s annual Fourth of July celebration was a welcome reprieve from June’s soaring temperatures in western North Carolina and it also benefited local school children. More than 500 people escaped the steamy humidity in the lower elevations and attended Echota’s family-focused event bringing food donations for the Hardin Park Elementary School food distribution program. Held high in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Boone where the air is cooler and the