Rain, rain, go away
y
BTropical Storm Debby, (it’s still a tropical storm at this point) is expected to bring as much as 18 to 24 inches of rain to this part of the Lowcountry, which is certainly nothing to sneeze about. Gov. Henry McMaster, not one to dilly-dally when an emergency is at hand, has already declared a State Of Emergency which means the state will be standing in line for any federal dollars out there for storm repairs.
Let’s hope they’re not needed.
The amount of rain anticipated from Debby does reinforce the city of Beaufort’s attempts to improve its stormwater system.
In July 2022, engineering consultants for the city, Davis and Floyd, presented a report that showed the need for 28 projects to improve dilapidated drainage systems within the city limits. The report came with a stunning $28 3 million price tag.
Just recently, city staff at the SEE LOWDOWN PAGE A5
Residents on Sam’s Point Road on Lady’s
of
Tropical Storm Debby settles into
on Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024, after
Lowcountry Here comes the rain again
By Delayna Earley and Amber Hewitt
The Island
Monday night and into early Tuesday morning in northern Beaufort County was filled with tornado warnings, flash flood warnings and storm surge warnings, as Tropical Storm
As of 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 6, more than 2,000 people were without power according to Poweroutage.us’ outage map with more than 10 000 Dominion Energy customers having reported power outages overnight.
STORM PAGE A7
Monday afternoon,
In the Braeburn Lane neighborhood, 10-year-old Faith, 5-year-old Scarlette and 4-year-old Theo make the most of Tropical Storm Debby.
Trafficking defendants bound over for trial
SLED establishes probable cause against Barnes, Youmans, Bryan in preliminary hearings
By Mike McCombs The Island News
Three of the principal figures in a human sex trafficking operation in Beaufort County had their preliminary hearings on Friday morning, Aug. 2, and all three were bound over for trial.
released on bond, had his hearing before Beaufort County Magistrate Richard Brooks in his courtroom.
Jaquan Barnes and William Youmans, both still confined at the Beaufort County Detention Center had their hearings before Beaufort County Magistrate Thomas A. Holloway at the courtroom inside the Detention Center. Following that, Alvin Bryan, who has been
The charges Barnes, Youmans and Bryan are charged with Trafficking in Persons, Victim Under 18 Years of Age. Barnes is also charged with
SEE TRIAL PAGE A8
LOLITA HUCKABY
Jaquan Duvall Barnes, the defendant in a sex trafficking case, takes his seat next to his public defender in the courtroom at the Beaufort County Detention Center during his Preliminary Hearing on Friday, August 2, 2024. Amber Hewitt/ The Island News
Island access the damage in front
their homes
Tropical Storm Debby moved into the Lowcountry on Monday night and early Tuesday morning. Photos by Amber Hewitt/ The Island News
News
Debby made its way into the Lowcountry.
Customers at Walmart on Robert Smalls Parkway are shopping for last-minute supplies as Tropical Storm Debby approaches Beaufort.
On
Lowcountry Stitch on Bay Street closed early and placed sandbags in front of the door in anticipation of Tropical Storm Debby.
LOWCOUNTRY LIFE & NEWS
Mark Pritchard captured a photo of the oldest of three Osprey fledglings taking its first “flight” with wind blowing above the nest at Dataw Island. To submit a Lowcountry Life photo, you must be the photographer or have permission to submit the photo to be published in The Island News. Please submit high-resolution photos and include a description and/or names of the people in the picture and the name of the photographer. Email your photos to theislandnews@gmail.com.
VETERAN OF THE WEEK JOHN MILLIDGE
Beaufort’s John Millidge, 59 graduated from Battery Creek High School in 1984, and in 1988, he joined the S.C. National Guard here in Beaufort. After Basic Training at Fort Knox, Ky., he specialized as a Cavalry Scout and forward observer. In 2005 he was mobilized to Shaw AFB, and in 2007, he was mobilized for duty at Kabul, Afghanistan,
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Democrats value families
Republican Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance has taken a lot of flack for his "childless cat ladies" comment. Then, in an incredibly awkward attempt at damage control, Vance argued that Democrats are "anti-family." A simple examination of the facts shows just how completely absurd Vance's statement is. A few examples ... Gun violence is the No. 1 killer of children and teens in the United States. Yet Republicans have steadfastly refused to pass meaningful gun safety legislation. Obviously, they value NRA dollars more than American children.
If Vance and Trump are elected, they plan to discontinue or defund Medicare, SNAP, HeadStart, CHIP (children's health insurance program), low-income tax credits, and other federal programs that benefit lower-income families.
Thanks to Republicans, we are the only advanced nation that does not have universal health care or universal child care. If Republicans are elected, they plan to abolish the Affordable Care Act which would take health insurance away from more than 40 million Americans.
Republicans plan to abolish the Department of Education and transfer funds from public schools to private and charter schools. They also plan to discontinue
ON THIS DATE
August 9
2021: The City of Beaufort Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBOA) grants developer Dick Stewart and 303 Associates a code variance to allow the building of a three-story apartment building at the corner of Charles and Port Republic streets.
2021: Interim coach Cory Cottrell is promoted to
where he provided convoy security and served on the quick reaction force. He returned to the States and was assigned for two years at Fort Bragg, N.C., training warriors for deployment. In 2012, he retired as a Staff Sergeant with 24 years of service. When not on military duty, he worked as a sales rep for a local company,
many college loan programs. Apparently Republicans believe only children from more affluent families deserve a decent education. Thanks to Republicans, the U.S. minimum wage has not increased from $7 25 per hour since 2009. This makes it very difficult for many low-income families to survive, never mind getting ahead.
Republicans claim to be the party of "family values" but their policies are blatantly anti-child and anti-family. If you value American children and families, vote Democratic in November.
– Peter Birschbach, Port Royal
The ‘good old days’
Wouldn't it be interesting if we could all go back to the "good old days?"
I'm a native Beaufortonian, graduated from Beaufort Elementary School (now the Beaufort Arts Center) and Beaufort High School (on Bay Street), Class of 1955
I can remember when gasoline and foods like sugar, coffee, meat, canned milk, etc., were rationed to support our troops and the World War II war effort. Each family member had coupons for a small amount of these items. We were Americans first, last and always. We did what needed to be done to support our troops and gladly sacrificed whatever it took because it was our honor and duty as blessed Americans.
permanent head coach for the USC Beaufort men’s and women’s golf teams.
August 11
1940: A hurricane makes landfall at Beaufort. Winds of 104 mph strike Parris Island, destroying barracks and doing $1 5 million in damage to the Marine Recruit Depot. Recruit training continued at Quantico, Va., until repairs could be made.
PAL PETS OF THE WEEK
Dog Of The Week Morty is a one-and-a-half-yearold Cocker Spaniel mix. At
pounds, he’s the perfect size for any home. Morty can be a little shy at first, but once he gets to know you, he’s super sweet and friendly. He absolutely loves toys and treats. And he’s happy with short, brisk walks with lots of relaxing sniff breaks. Morty is neutered, up to date on vaccinations, and microchipped.
Cat Of The Week Looking for a work-from-home buddy? Alsie is the perfect desk
completing a 26-year career. He is a member of the American Legion and attends Faithful Christian Church in Burton.
– Compiled by John Chubb, American Legion Post 207 For Veteran Of The Week nominations, contact jechubb1@gmail.com.
I remember, in school, each home room had an American flag. We started each school day pledging allegiance to that flag:
The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
(“under God” was added in 1954.)
It should be rendered by standing at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart. When not in uniform men should remove any non-religious headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Persons in uniform should remain silent, face the flag, and render the military salute. Members of the Armed Forces not in uniform and veterans may render the military salute in the manner provided for persons in uniform.
Wouldn't it be nice, if both political parties (and audiences) started their campaign stops by pledging their allegiance to our flag and to the Republic for which it stands? And, by golly, maybe even singing The national anthem would be nice -- before bringing on the celebrities and popular singers whose lyrics are sometimes incoherent -- at least to some of us geriatrics.
And that's all I have to say about that.
– June Parker Andrade, Port Royal
There were no serious injuries.
2019: For a record fourth time, Rob Simmons wins the Beaufort City Championship golf tournament at Fripp Island by 11 strokes.
August 13
1940: The Marine post on Parris Island is re-designated Recruit Depot, Marine Barracks, Parris Island.
cat. She is a calm, laidback, gentle soul who spends her days napping and keeping
2019: Beaufort Academy names Bobby Smith its head boys basketball coach.
2021: Tim Ogden is sworn in as the Chief of the City of Beaufort-Town of Port Royal Fire Department, replacing Reece Bertholf, who is named the Deputy City Manager for the City of Beaufort.
– Compiled by Mike McCombs
Palmetto Animal League staff company. This 11-year-old girl is a no fuss, no drama cat whose fondest wish is to find a home of her own. Alsie is spayed, up to date on vaccinations, and microchipped.
For more info on Morty, Alsie or any of our other pets, call PAL at 843-645-1725 or email Info@ PalmettoAnimalLeague.org.
– Compiled by Lindsay Perry
John Millidge
Man arrested in Shell Point shooting death of woman in domestic incident
Staff reports
A 37-year-old Shell Point man was arrested in connection with the Thursday, Aug. 1, shooting death of a woman in a domestic incident at a Shell Point residence.
Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) investigators arrested Brenden Elsila on arrest warrants for Murder and Possession of a Weapon During the Commission of a Violent Crime. Elsila’s arrest is the result of an investigation into the shooting death of 46-year-old Stephanie Fries of Lady’s Island.
According to the BCSO, just before 6 a.m., Thursday, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office Communications Center received a report of a gunshot wound due to a domestic incident.
Deputies responded to a home
on Shell Point Road in Shell Point where Fries was located deceased from a gunshot wound. Elsila was on the scene and detained.
As a result of the investigation, arrest warrants were obtained and Elsila was taken into custody without incident and transported to the Beaufort County Detention Center where he is still confined as of Tuesday, Aug. 6
Anyone with information regarding this case or any other suspicious or criminal activity in Beaufort County is encouraged to contact the Sheriff’s Office non-emergency dispatch line at 843-524-2777. The public can also submit tips online at BCSO.NET.
2 shelters open for Tropical Storm Debby in Beaufort County
Staff reports
Two shelters in Beaufort County are now open to the public in the wake of Tropical Storm Debby.
One shelter is located on the northern side of Beaufort County at Battery Creek High School located at 1 Blue Dolphin Drive, Burton. The shelter located on the southern side of Beaufort County is at Bluffton Middle School located at 30 New Mustang Drive, Bluffton.
medical resources available. No pets are allowed at either shelter. Please be prepared to supply your own necessities to include food and water.
dates throughout Tropical Storm Debby. These two shelters are maintained by the Department of Social Services.
Both shelters have limited resources. There are no
Both shelters are open at this time and will continue to remain open pending up-
There is still an available shelter in Jasper County at Ridgeland Elementary School located at 250
Jaguar Trail in Ridgeland. This shelter is prepared for special needs and is also pet-friendly. If you shelter with your pet, please bring enough food, any medicine, a leash, vaccination paperwork, a crate if possible, blankets and toys.
For storm-related information, reach out to our Emergency Management Division at 843-255-4000 If you need assistance or need to report a storm-related incident, contact our non-emergency number dispatch line at 843-524-2777
t Beaufort Memorial, our advanced orthopedics and spine care team is committed to helping you be your best and enjoy life without pain.
Whether neck or back pain is slowing you down or your activities are limited due to hip or knee pain, our board-certified specialists will personalize your care using sophisticated diagnostic and treatment options. Our advanced techniques and technologies, including Mako SmartRoboticsTM and VELYSTM robotic-assisted joint replacement, will improve function and relieve pain quickly. Many surgical patients even go home the same day.
Visit BeaufortMemorial.org/Ortho for help addressing your pain.
At Beaufort Memorial you’ll also find:
• Joint preservation therapies
• Numerous non-surgical treatment options
• A personalized approach to restoring mobility and joint function
• Pre-operative education classes that engage patients and caregivers in the healing process
• An Optimization Program that follows you through the process to ensure the best outcomes
• Outpatient and in-home rehab services to get you back to doing what you love faster
Elsila
A memorial was created honoring Stephanie Fries in front of her Shell Point home, where she was shot and killed on Thursday, August 2, 2024. Amber Hewitt/The Island News
Lowcountry men indicted in Boston for child sex trafficking scheme
By Delayna Earley
The Island News
Two men from Beaufort County were indited in June for their role in a sex trafficking conspiracy that involved two underaged victims and one adult victim.
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts, that was released in early July, Alexander Smalls, 25, of Beaufort, and Tre’sean Reid, 21, of Beaufort, were indicted along with Christy Parker, 26, of Fall River, Mass., Cory Primo, 42, of Fall River, Mass., Avvani Jeffers, 22, of Fall River, Mass. And Tyreik Reid, 20, of Allendale, on charges of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion, sex trafficking of a minor and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.
The charges were brought forward on June 18 by a grand jury in Boston.
The three men from South Carolina – Tyreik Reid, Tre’sean Reid and Smalls – are all brothers and Parker was dating Smalls during the time outlined in the release.
Smalls is awaiting trial in South Carolina and will be arraigned in
Boston later while Tyreik Reid was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in South Carolina for a detention hearing on July 10
According to public records, Smalls is currently being held in the Beaufort County Detention Center without bond on charges of attempted murder; breach of peace, aggravated in nature; and possession of a weapon during a violent crime in connection with an October 2022 shooting at the Enmarket gas station on Trask Parkway in which a man was injured and had to be hospitalized.
While Smalls was identified as the shooter per gas station security footage at the time, he was not arrested for the crime until March 2023
Tre’sean Reid is a fugitive.
“The allegations in this case are truly chilling. One minor victim in this case was forced to engage in sex for money with many men. That young girl is someone’s daughter she is someone’s grand-
daughter. It is hard to conceive of more vile conduct than what is set forth in these charges. Sex trafficking is not a distant problem –it is happening right here, in our neighborhoods, and often goes unnoticed or unreported,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy.
According to court filings, between January and August 2023 the six defendants worked together in a scheme to coerce the three victims to engage in commercial sex in Massachusetts and surrounding states for their exclusive financial gain.
The release alleges that Parker reached out to the adult victim in early 2023 as she was homeless and needed a place to live.
Shortly after the victim moved in with Parker, she and her boyfriend, Smalls, allegedly coerced the victim to quit her job and begin engaging in commercial sex.
They allegedly forced the victim to sign a “profit sharing contract” which required the victim to “remain loyal and humble and stay focused,” according to the release.
Parker and Smalls allegedly scheduled, coordinated and forced
the victim to engage in commercial sex acts. They also set the prices and kept all the profits.
Parker allegedly used physical violence, threats of violence and other threats to maintain control of the victim.
Additionally, Parker allegedly traveled with the victim to South Carolina where she continued sex trafficking the victim and kept the profits.
When she got back from South Carolina, Parker allegedly enlisted the help of Primo and Jeffers to traffic the victim in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
In July 2023, Parker allegedly convinced a 16-year-old victim to begin engaging in commercial sex as well.
It is alleged that she used physical violence, threats of violence, alcohol, marijuana, starvation and sleep deprivation to control the victim. It was further alleged that Parker would bead the minor if she fell asleep because a “customer could request her at any time”.
In the release, it states that Parker allegedly withheld food from the
victim for 4 to 5 days after she failed to collect the full fee from a buyer, and she regularly beat and chocked her without allowing her to seek medical treatment.
In August 2023, Parker allegedly began trafficking a 17-year-old minor victim who had run away from a group home.
This victim was also controlled with violence if she did not work, and Parker allegedly scheduled “sex buyers” for the victim, from which Parker would collect the profits.
“For months, these victims endured brutality and depravity allegedly at the hands of these individuals,” said Special Agent in Charge Michael J. Krol of Homeland Security investigations in New England. “While these arrests are a significant step toward securing justice, we recognize that this only marks the beginning of three survivors’ paths toward recovery.”
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
First Friday Back to School Bash
NEWS BRIEFS
Indivisible Beaufort meeting
The documentary film “Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy” will be presented at the Saturday, Aug. 10 meeting of Indivisible Beaufort at Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Beaufort at 178 Sam’s Point Road on Lady’s Island. The meeting starts at 11 a.m.
“The current assault on democracy began with the White Supremacy Movement in the 1960’s as part of a shrewd, calculated, and well executed plan that became cloaked as a religious movement. Today those white supremacists and their heirs are known as Christian Nationalists.” The documentary “Bad Faith” is their story. The event is free and open to the public.
August LIBPA meeting
Attorney Samuel Bailey will be the featured speaker when the Lady’s Island Business & Professional Association meets at 8 a.m., Tuesday, August 13 at the Beaufort Realtors’ Association Headquarters at 22 Kemmerlin Lane, Lady’s Island.
Bailey is an attorney with the Gilbert Law Firm and will be discussing estate planning and real estate. Please stop by for coffee and conversation concerning the community.
A construction reminder
IPW Construction Group will continue to perform shoulder closures and temporary lane closures the entire length of Laurel Bay Road in Beaufort. Closures will take place between the hours of 6 a.m. and 8 p.m., Monday to Saturday, until the end of the year. During this time, please prepare for and expect minor delays in traffic. Drivers traveling through the area are asked to please be mindful of our traffic control team and the crews working within the area. In addition, the ramp coming off U.S. 21 onto Laurel Bay Road is permanently closed.
Free Summer Tax Prep Available for Lowcountry Residents Who Missed Deadline
The Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program is offering a free summer tax preparation program for qualifying residents of Beaufort and Jasper counties who missed the traditional tax filing deadline.
Two Rotarians were named Rotarian of the Year at the recent Change of Watch Ceremony for the Rotary Club of the Lowcountry. Outgoing President Bob Bible, right, presented Doug Crowley and Terri Stokes with award plaques. Both members were recognized for their contributions to the club on a weekly basis, and exemplifying the Rotary motto “Service Above Self.”
This program – a collaboration between the IRS, Beaufort County Human Services Alliance, and United Way of the Lowcountry (UWLC) – is designed to assist low-income individuals and families, non-English speaking taxpayers, people with disabilities, and seniors (age 60+) in accurately and efficiently filing their federal and state tax returns. "We understand that filing taxes can be overwhelming, especially for those who have limited resources," United Way Volunteer and VITA Program Coordinator Sherry Hal-
phen said. "Our summer tax preparation program allows residents to receive free assistance from IRS-certified volunteers, ensuring they receive every deduction and credit they deserve."
Program Details: • What: Free tax preparation assistance by IRS-certified VITA
volunteers. When: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursdays, August 22 and September 26 Where: United Way of the Lowcountry Bluffton Office (10 Buckingham Plantation Drive, Suite D, Bluffton, S.C. 29910)
Appointments Required: Call 843 321 9071 or email lowcountryvitacoalition@gmail. com Visit www.uwlowcountry. org/VITA for eligibility requirements and a list of documents to bring with you to your appointment.
DNR to host free fishing clinic at Broad River Fishing Pier
The S.C. Department of Natural Resources is hosting a free fishing clinic Tuesday, Aug. 13, from 4 until 7 p.m.
The clinic will be held at Beaufort's Broad River Fishing Pier, 1050 Robert Smalls Parkway (map). The fishing clinic is free and open to the public. Participants must pre-register. Only 12 participants will be accepted. Register at https://bit.ly/3Y1FPXa. For more information, contact Pam Corwin at SCDNR at 843-7290759 or corwinp@dnr.sc.gov.. – From staff reports
Smalls
Charlie O’Grady, 4, and her mom, Annabel, both from Hilton Head Island, pick out supplies for school offered by the Beaufort County Traveling Preschool Bus during the First Friday Back to School Bash on Friday, August 2, 2024, in downtown Beaufort. Amber Hewitt/The Island News
Cooper Williamson, 6, and his brother Hudson, 8, visiting from Aiken, S.C. for the weekend, enjoy a nice, cold ice cream cone during the First Friday Back to School Bash on Friday, August, 2, 2024, in downtown Beaufort. Amber Hewitt/The Island News
Port Royal Library set to open August 21
Grand Opening, ribbon-cutting to follow August 24
Staff reports
The Beaufort County Library’s sixth and newest branch, located in the Town of Port Royal, will open its doors to the public at 2 p.m., Wednesday, Aug. 21
The public is invited to a Grand Opening and Ribbon-Cutting Celebration on Saturday, Aug. 24. The Ribbon-Cutting will begin at 10 a.m., with a storytime and refreshments to follow. Guests are invited to tour the building, talk with library staff, register for a library card, and check out materials.
“Public libraries are the heart of democracy and reflect the best of our society,” Beaufort County Councilwoman Alice Howard said in a news release. “The Samuel E. Murray Library will reflect and enhance its unique community and will continue Beaufort County’s
Libraries’ mission to support learning, leisure, and life. We learn best when we all learn together, and we are thrilled to see the collaborative vision for this project realized for the benefit of Port Royal residents.”
The branch boasts child, teen and adult collections of more than 5,000 materials, including books, movies and more. The facility includes dedicated meeting and conference rooms for the community to use and technological resources, including public computers and a self-service scan, fax, and email station.
"The Library Board of Trustees are extremely happy to see this project come to fruition and bring an additional source of knowledge, education, and entertainment to the Port Royal Community. A big thank you
to the County Council for all their support with this project," said Lynne Miller, Chair of the Library Board of Trustees.
The branch’s regular hours of operation will be Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It will be closed on Sundays.
“We’re delighted to welcome the residents of Port Royal to our beautiful new branch library in a facility named for beloved mayor Samuel E. Murray,” Library Director Amanda Brewer Dickman said. “We designed this branch to meet the needs of our community, providing access to information, technology, and programs that inspire and educate.”
For more information, visit https://www.beaufortcountylibrary.org/.
It’s about the glory of the beard
By Delayna Earley The Island News
Three amazing beards –one will win glory, and one will be gone forever.
This is the name of the game for the inaugural Battle of the Beards event that will be taking place at The Fillin’ Station on Saturday, Aug. 17 on Lady’s Island.
The event, which is being held to raise money for The Helianthus Project, will feature three men with epic beards – Connor Cave, own-
Battle of the Beards raising money to help trafficking victims
er of The Power Washing Man; John Hazel, with Devil Dog Headquarters; and Tim Greene, with Semper Aegis Mercatus – who have been working to raise money that will go towards building Esther’s House. Esther’s House is a hopeful project by The Helianthus Project that will be a safe haven for children to heal after they have been removed from a trafficking situation, according to founder and executive director of The
Helianthus Project Rachel McBride.
Cave, Hazel and Greene have all been trying to raise money for the past several months for the cause and the person who raises the most money will win a trophy and the glory of having won the first Battle of the Beards, McBride said.
The person who raises the least amount of money will have to shave their beard on site.
While willing to do his
part if he loses, Cave is hopeful that it does not come to that as he has been growing his beard since his 8-yearold daughter was around 6 months old.
“I’m pretty sure my mom is trying to convince people to work against me though so I will have to shave it off,” Cave said.
The event, which was the brainchild of Cave, is to emulate a Viking style, and going forward in coming years, McBride said they hope to hold
the event as part of a Valhalla Feast.
McBride said that they set their fundraising goal very high but were realistic about their expectations since this was the inaugural year.
As of Tuesday afternoon, they have raised around $2 400, according to McBride.
The event will be held on Aug. 17, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at The Fillin’ Station on Lady’s Island.
While the participants are
set for this year’s event, McBride said to keep an eye out in December for when they put out a call for people to put their name in for next year or nominate a friend of loved one with an amazing beard.
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
Beaufort Litter Patrol celebrates anniversary
To celebrate the three-year anniversary of Beaufort Litter Patrol’s (BLP) community clean-ups, BLP, with support from Grounded Running Beaufort, has officially adopted a section of the Spanish Moss Trail. On Wednesday, July 31, 2024, a group of 23 volunteers removed 182 pounds of trash from the trail in a 45-minute period, then paused for a photo to show off their hard work. Amber Hewitt/The Island News
Lowdown from page A1
direction of City Council, backed off plans to develop a pump station in the Point neighborhood, a project that had been in the works for several years and had been approved for a $9 4 million state infrastructure grant which was to be matched by the city’s $1 66 million.
Neighbors of the proposed pump station were adamantly opposed to the construction of a 20-foot-by-20-foot-by-10-foot concrete structure in a small city-owned pocket park in the middle of the city’s historic residential district. They felt city officials and their engineering
consultants hadn’t done enough to pursue alternatives. Specifically, they wanted to see the focus on improving existing stormwater pipelines and drains before undertaking the pump station monstrosity.
The city council, responding to what fellow The Island News
columnist Bill Rauch described last month as a perfect example of “community activism,” have sidetracked plans for the pump station and moved on with work on other parts of the long-range drainage improvement project, the Baynard and Pinckney streets and the Charles and Craven streets areas, including problem areas around Port Republic and Carteret streets.
The Charles and Craven streets project includes the city’s
waterfront park — which has its own set of issues, as we know — includes improvements to that drainage system which currently sees flooding during periods of extreme high tides.
New Assistant City Manager JJ Sauve and the engineers held a public meeting last week on the Charles/Craven Street project where they outlined the plans for an improved drainage system, no pump stations included. The attendance was small but the Facebook video of the session was apparently viewed 831 times. Community activism may have stopped the proposed concrete bunker of a pump station in the middle of the historic district but the flooding of streets is going to continue, as we’ll probably see this week.
During the Beaufort Litter Patrol’s community clean-up at the Spanish Moss Trail on Wednesday, July 31, 2024, Leif Koppernaes and Sarah Flores, both from Beaufort, removed a tire from the woods, bringing the total number of tires found during the cleanup to two. Amber Hewitt/ The Island News
As Geoffrey Chaucer is credited with saying, time and tides wait for no man.
Political Insider BEAUFORT – With problems in the waterfront park, drainage issues as sea level rises, building projects that keep landing them in court, who will be brave enough to step up and run for City Council?
With a week to file, Mayor Phil Cromer has signed up to run for another four-year term as have Council members Neil Lipsitz and Mitch Mitchell.
So far, only Josh Gibson and Julie Crenshaw — whose campaigns are being assisted by Carrie Chappell, editor of the online Beaufort Insider and who also worked Cromer’s first mayor -
al campaign — have filed for the non-partisan council seats. Word is, Councilman Josh Scallate may be looking hard at the mayoral seat. Also, former Mayor Billy Keyserling has reportedly been approached by those wishing to see him back in office. We’ll know the answer to at least this question Thursday, Aug. 15 at noon.
Lolita Huckaby Watson is a community volunteer and newspaper columnist. In her former role as a reporter with The Beaufort Gazette, The Savannah Morning News, Bluffton Today and Beaufort Today, she prided herself
Staff reports
BMH, USCB open health care Career Development Center
Beaufort Memorial (BMH) and USC Beaufort (USCB) opened a state-of-the-art Career Development Center in Beaufort in late July. The 6,340 square-foot facility, located on the BMH campus and built in partnership with Beaufort County, the City of Beaufort and the Beaufort Memorial Foundation, will provide hands on training and classroom education for current and future health care professionals.
The center is projected to nearly double the number of nurses able to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing through USCB’s program each year from 42 to 72. It will also provide professional development, education and certification testing for mid-career and aspiring health care professionals through BMH’s People Achieving their Highest (PATH) program.
The facility includes two large classrooms and four clinical simulation labs.
The simulation labs provide students with immersive learning experiences guided by trained practitioners. They consist of exact replicas of hospital rooms with life-like, interactive patient “manikins” and real medical equipment, allowing learners to develop expertise in an array of situations using the same tools and equipment they’ll have when caring for patients at BMH.
“This project is a critical investment in the future of our community,” said BMH President and CEO Russell Baxley. “Having an education center on our campus will substantially bolster BMH’s mission of enhancing quality
of life in the Lowcountry by helping us directly educate and train new members of the health care workforce.”
BMH and USCB leaders joined with local and state officials to begin planning for the education center in late 2021 amid growing concerns about nursing shortages following the pandemic. Initial funding came in 2022, when Beaufort County and USCB provided $500 000 each for construction costs. The USCB funding was part of a $1 million Congressionally Directed Spending award facilitated by Senator Lindsey Graham.
In 2023, the Beaufort City Council approved an amendment to its budget, allocating $1 5 million from a South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control grant to healthcare workforce development programs that will operate within the center and to the center’s simulation labs.
Then, in 2024, the Beaufort City Council approved $1 million in funds from the State of South Carolina’s Fiscal Year 2024 General Appropriations Act to the project, of which $500,000 will be used to provide scholarships, clinical training, traditional education, and financial assistance to incentivize individuals to advance their health care careers. To date, BMH Foundation has raised $1 million to support workforce development programs, construction and scholarships.
“The vision for the center has become a reality and the university is grateful to the generous support from the City of Beaufort and Beaufort County that allowed USCB
and BMH to dream big and co-create an academic-practice partnership that benefits the entire community,” Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Kim Dudas said.
“The ability to combine the educational expertise of both the USCB and BMH education teams will be transformative for those seeking to further their careers in health care,” said Joy Solomon, BMH education department director. “We look forward to growing our PATH program within this advanced education center.”
The PATH Program is a joint venture funded by the Beaufort Memorial Hospital Foundation and Beaufort County. Along with nurses, it provides training and certification opportunities in the areas of certified patient care technician, certified phlebotomy technician, certified EKG technician, certified clinical medical assistant and more.
Participants receive access to numerous resources from career counseling and in-house training to scholarships and flexible scheduling to accommodate classes. Since its inception
in May 2022 57 students have graduated through the program. Of those who pursued national certification in their chosen field, the program has had an astounding pass rate of 97% – 20% higher than the National Healthcareer Association’s national average of 78%.
“The USCB Department of Nursing is delighted to partner with Beaufort Memorial Hospital as we educate and cultivate excellent baccalaureate prepared nurses,” said Dr. Christina Beall, USCB nursing department chair.
“This partnership is a critical step toward addressing
the nursing shortage in both the Lowcountry and beyond. It will offer students in rural communities the opportunity to receive a state-of-the-art educational experience and develop interprofessional competencies working side by side with seasoned healthcare professionals.”
The facility is located on the second floor of the Beaufort Memorial Medical and Administrative Center at 990 Ribaut Road. To learn more about these programs or career opportunities at Beaufort Memorial visit BeaufortMemorial.org/ CareerDevelopmentCenter.
Shoppers score big on Tax-Free Weekend
final day of South Carolina's Tax Free Weekend, buying last-minute school supplies on Sunday, August 4, 2024, at Walmart on Robert Smalls Parkway in Beaufort. The tax-free items include clothing, accessories, shoes, school supplies, backpacks, and computers. Eligible items are tax-free regardless of whether they are purchased in-store or online. Amber Hewitt/ The Island News
SC hunters should soon receive deer tags in mail
S.C. Department of Natural Resources Deer tags should be arriving in the mail soon for South Carolina deer hunters. Deer hunters who have an annual or three-year hunting license and big game permit, combination license or sportsman license, which will be valid on Aug. 15, should automatically receive a base set of deer tags. Additionally, lifetime, senior, gratis, disability and Catawba li-
cense holders who previously requested deer tags will continue to automatically receive a free base set of tags this year and in the future. These license type holders who did not automatically receive tags last year must request them to be added to the automatic fulfillment list.
Youth license holders must still request their free base set of tags each year.
Keep in mind, around 200,000 sets of tags are being printed and
mailed. To allow adequate time for tags to reach you, please wait until at least Aug. 5 before inquiring with licensing at 803-734-4367 about the status of your tags. Deer tags will also be available over-the-counter beginning Monday, Aug. 5 at SCDNR offices located in Charleston, Clemson, West Columbia (Farmers Market), Florence, Aynor and York. For contact information, visit https://www.dnr. sc.gov/admin/phone.html.
To check hunting license status
or privileges, use the Go Outdoors SC app or visit gooutdoorssouthcarolina.com. For additional harvest opportunities, additional antlerless tags or antler-restricted buck tags can be purchased through the Go Outdoors S.C. app or at gooutdoorssouthcarolina.com. Please allow seven to 10 days for tags to arrive in the mail.
Beginning this year, all deer hunters are required to electronically report their harvest by mid-
night the day the deer is killed. The most convenient method is to use the S.C. Game Check feature in the Go Outdoors S.C. app. More details and instructions on electronic harvest reporting will be included with your deer tags, on the SCDNR website and on our social media accounts prior to deer season. Please remember that all deer in South Carolina must be immediately tagged before moving from the point of kill.
Several state-of-the-art simulated patients — or manikins — will be used for training at the center, including HAL, who interacts with caregivers and can display symptoms of many emergency conditions, including stroke, heart attack and seizure. Photo courtesy of Charlotte Berkeley Photography
BJWSA cautions residents about contamination from flooded sewers
Flooding from
Tropical Storm Debby persists in low lying areas
Bluffton, SC 29910
Staff reports
Beaufort-Jasper Water & Sewer
Authority (BJWSA) is cautioning area residents to stay away from flood waters that may contain unseen risks. Even though the heaviest rainfall from Tropical Storm Debby has likely passed, floodwaters still pose risks especially in low lying areas. You should not enter, contact or consume any floodwater.
BJWSA crews conducting storm damage assessments have reported sanitary sewer infrastructure
(pump stations and other manholes) have been flooded in much of our service area. Reported infrastructure impacted most are in Bluffton, Hardeeville, and Burton and are located at or adjacent to these addresses:
Pump Station at 84 Buckwalter Pkwy, Bluffton, S.C. 29910
Manhole at 853 Rocking
Horse Ln, Bluffton, S.C. 29910
Manhole at 613 Coopers Ln S, Bluffton, S.C. 29910
Manhole at 3 Wood Eden Ct,
Rain is still the biggest concern going forward into the week as the National Weather Service (NWS) is predicting “potential historic rainfall totals likely to produce areas of catastrophic flooding through at least Friday morning” as of their 6 a.m. briefing on Tuesday.
The NWS is anticipating the slow-moving storm will continue to impact the area through mid to late week potentially causing tropical storm force winds, storm surge and possible tornadoes. River flooding is also a major concern due to the large amounts of rain expected in the Lowcountry and could “inhibit recovery efforts”.
On Tuesday morning, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Storm Prediction Center showed a report of downed trees at around 4 a.m. on Tuesday morning on Sam’s Point Road on Lady’s Island as a possible tornado due to Tropical Storm Debby.
Deputy Chief Will Vaigneur with the Lady’s Island/St. Helena Fire District said that he does not believe that the downed trees on Sam’s Point Road were the result of a tornado, but there was a report of a waterspout in the Port Royal Sound around 10:30 p.m. on Monday evening.
The Island News spoke with residents, who wished not to be named in the story, who live in the affected part of Sam’s Point Road who said that they did not see a tornado because they were sheltering in a closet. The residents said, however, they spoke with a storm tracker from Oklahoma who was outside of their home after the warning had passed who had claimed to have seen a tornado touch down, twist and go back up around 20 seconds later.
While there may be debate about the presence of a tornado, several large trees in front of several homes in the area of 490 Sam’s Point Road on Lady’s Island appear to have been snapped in half and knocked down and at least one home sustained damage.
Beyond that, all of the calls reported by local law enforcement, fire and rescue have been related to downed trees and power lines and flooded roads. There have been no reports of significant structural damage.
Manhole at 100 Blacksmith Circle, Beaufort, S.C., 29906
Manhole at 122 Stiney Funeral Home Rd, Hardeeville, S.C. 29927
When flooding of this magnitude occurs, all stormwater should be treated as if it has come into contact with sanitary sewage and should be considered contaminated. Once stormwater recedes and crews can safely gain access, they
will continue evaluations and begin any necessary repairs. The Authority believes this contamination began late in the evening on Monday, Aug. 5 and will be resolved later this week after flooding recedes.
BJWSA has notified the S.C. Department of Environmental Services (SCDES) and is working in conjunction with SCDES to address any effects caused by the contamination.
BJWSA has well-trained and experienced field operations crews to
monitor its wastewater collection system, which collects and treats a daily average of 11 million gallons of wastewater at eight wastewater treatment facilities before returning the treated water to the environment.
If you see or suspect any type of spill from the sewer collection system, please contact BJWSA at 843987-9200
For more information or updates on this situation, please visit www. bjwsa.org.
Parkway in front of the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, the entrance to Abberly Pointe Apartments and Castle Rock Road in Port Royal, Burton Wells Road at Middleton Recreation Drive and Kinlock Road. Broad River Boulevard near Lamon Drive is blocked due to downed power lines and Paige Point Road has downed trees reported.
“We will see what happens today,” Vaigneur said on Tuesday morning.
forecasters with the National Weather Service are predicting rain totals between 10 and 20 inches before the storm moves out of our area, with some areas expected to get as much as 30 inches. Additionally, the Lowcountry is predicted to get storm surge of 2 to 4 feet from the storm that as of Tuesday morning is only moving around 7 mph.
effect from 2 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 5 through 11:59 p.m. on Thursday Aug. 8, unless Mayor Phil Cromer rescinds it sooner.
Beaufort County’s State of Emergency is in effect from 2 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 5 until August 11, unless rescinded sooner, according to a release.
gency Management Agency (FEMA) “is available to the state of South Carolina to supplement response efforts due to emergency conditions resulting for Hurricane Debby beginning Aug. 4 2024 and continuing.”
date has been moved back by at least a day due to the weather.
BCSD said in a statement that they plan to reassess on Wednesday in conjunction with the Emergency Management’s recommendations as to if schools will open on Thursday.
“Please know we don’t take the possibility of further postponing the start of school year lightly as to avoid students having to utilize make-up days during winter break, especially since e-learning is not an option this week as device distributing is still taking place,” the statement from Candace Bruder, the BCSD communications officer.
Hunting Island State Park is also closed on Tuesday for an undetermined amount of time due to the expected flooding from Tropical Storm Debby and the parks history of flooding and erosion issues.
Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island posted on Monday afternoon that they would not be evacuating due to the impending weather, but instead would shelter in place until the storm passed. As of Monday afternoon, there were no plans to cancel the weekly graduation ceremony on Friday, but they did cancel all Family Day activities on Wednesday and Thursday.
Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort directed all non-essential personnel to stay home on Tuesday and not travel unless necessary. Essential personnel were still expected to report as scheduled but were advised to be prepared for “severe weather conditions”.
On Monday night into Tuesday morning, Justin Michaels with The Weather Channel was reporting on Tropical Storm Debby from Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park in Downtown Beaufort.
Looking into the end of the week, Vice President Kamala Harris was scheduled to speak in Savannah on Friday, Aug. 9, but has canceled her event due to Tropical Storm Debby and the anticipated aftermath of the storm.
As of 10 a.m. on Tuesday, the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office was reporting flooding or potential to flood on Trask Parkway (U.S. 21) at Kean’s Neck Road, Trask
As of 6 a.m. on Tuesday, Beaufort had received 8 56 inches of rain measured over a 24-hour period by the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network, but
On Monday, in preparation for Tropical Storm Debby, both Beaufort County and the City of Beaufort declared a State of Emergency in anticipation of the storm.
On Sunday, Aug. 4, S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster declared a State of Emergency for South Carolina ahead of the storm.
A regional shelter opened in Jasper County at 4 p.m. on Monday at Ridgeland Elementary School – 250 Jaguar Trail, Ridgeland, S.C. – and the shelter is prepared for special needs and is pet friendly.
Tropical Storm Debby made landfall on Florida’s Big Bend as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday, Aug. 5 and has slowly moved its way across Florida moving northeast toward the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina.
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna. theislandnews@gmail.com. Storm from page A1
In the City of Beaufort, the State of Emergency due to Tropical Storm Debby is in
According to a press release issued on Monday, Aug. 5, President Joe Biden has approved an Emergency Declaration for South Carolina and the Federal Emer-
Beaufort County School District (BCSD) students were scheduled to start the 2024-2025 school year on Wednesday, Aug. 7, but as of Tuesday morning that start
Residents work to remove a felled tree on Old Shell Road in Port Royal on Tuesday, August 6, 2024, as Tropical Storm Debby slowly makes its way through the Lowcountry.
After waiting in line for just over an hour, nine-year-old Wyatt helped his parents, Tyler and Melissa Cheshire of Beaufort, bag sand at the Sandbag Filling Station on Shanklin Road in preparation for Tropical Storm Debby on Sunday, August 4, 2024.
Photos by Amber Hewitt/The Island News
Flooding as seen by the Naval Hospital in Port Royal on Tuesday, August 6, 2024, as Tropical Storm Debby hits the Lowcountry.
Standing water as seen in front of a home in the Baypoint Road area on St. Helena Island on Tuesday, August 6, 2024, as Tropical Storm Debby makes its way through the Lowcountry.
Flooding as seen on Coosaw Island on Tuesday, August 6, 2024, as Tropical Storm Debby makes its way through the Lowcountry.
County announces new recycling guidelines
Staff reports Effective Thursday, Aug.
1, Beaufort County Solid Waste and Recycling will commence a new recycling contract with i2recycle. This change continues Beaufort County’s efforts of improving efficiency and environmental impact through responsible recycling. As part of this transition, there are some important changes to note when recycling: No Caps or Lids: Remove all caps and lids from both plastic and glass bottles when recycling.
• Size Restrictions: Plastic and glass items should be larger than a cup, but smaller than a gallon.
• No Bagging: Do not place recyclables in paper or plastic bags. Place items loosely in bins.
• Paper Size Requirement: Recyclable paper must be larger than a standard envelope.
• No Crushing: Bottles and cans should remain uncrushed.
Please note that some of these new guidelines may be different than what has been done previously.
For more information, visit beaufortcountysc.gov/recycle or contact Beaufort County Solid Waste and Recycling at 843-255-2736
Building an Oyster Reef
be heard more than once telling her he did not want a lawyer.
Youmans’ hearing followed that of Barnes.
two counts of Sexual Exploitation of a Minor – 2nd Degree, two counts of Sexual Exploitation of a Minor – 3rd Degree; Contributing to Delinquency of a Minor; and Unlawful Escape (this hearing was not for this charge).
Bryan and Youmans were also charged with Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor. That charge states that “the defendant did know that the victim was under the age of eighteen and knew she was a reported missing person from her proper residence. The defendant did provide housing and narcotics to the minor victim while encouraging the sex trafficking of the minor victim.”
The dates during which the trafficking took place, according to arrest warrants, were from February 1 2024 through March 5 2024
The hearings Barnes was the first to have his hearing, entering the courtroom in a red jumper and chains almost 10 minutes late, as a representative from the Public Defender’s office had not shown up.
Hunter Swanson of the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office handled the cases for the state. Swanson is a member of the Career Criminal Unit, which prosecutes the circuit’s most violent and habitual offenders, and the leader of the Special Victims Unit.
Swanson called Special Agent Logan Fey of the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division’s (SLED) Human Trafficking Division to establish probable cause. This was repeated twice – once for Youmans in the Detention Center Courtroom and again for Bryan in Brooks’ courtroom.
Bryan, who was not present, was defended by Jeff Stevens, who waived Bryan’s right to appear. Swanson, once again, represented the state.
Holloway ruled there was probable cause to bind Barnes and Youmans over for trial, and Brooks did the same for Bryan.
A clearer, disturbing picture
was at the time a runaway and was addicted to drugs. According to Fey’s investigation, the minor victim had approached a relative on St. Helena Island, Alvin Bryan, who is a known narcotics dealer in Beaufort County.
According to Fey, Bryan, prior to contact with the victim, had been contacted by family who were trying to gain her safe return. Instead, the minor victim turned to Bryan for narcotics and shelter in exchange for oral sex. According to statements from Bryan and the victim, this was a “standard transaction that took place.”
There is a level of separation between Bryan and Barnes, who Fey called the mastermind of the operation, but Bryan knew Youmans, who was involved directly with Barnes.
At some point, according to Fey, Bryan ultimately did knowingly allow the minor to leave from his residence. Near the residence, she encountered Youmans, who was on the way to do business with Bryan.
running conversation with Barnes about the minor victim. According to Fey, there was evidence of this found on both phones. Youmans told Barnes, she is “good to go.” Eventually, he provided the minor victim to Barnes.
Youmans claims he had no knowledge of anything that happened after he provided the minor victim to Barnes, and Fey indicated authorities are still investigating whether there was any financial compensation provided to Youmans for his role.
According to Fey, Barnes also had sexual relations with the minor victim, exchanging housing, food and safety for sex. According to Fey’s testimony, Barnes provided the victim with alcohol, marijuana, and exposed her to commercial sex acts.
Barnes forced the victim to provide two pornographic images and enlisted fellow defendant Guy Frank Talley III to post ads for the minor victim on commercial sex websites. The images were traced back to cellular devices belonging to Barnes.
and he allegedly ran from police. The minor victim, who had been reported missing from Beaufort County, was in the car with him. Eventually, the minor victim, after initially giving a false name, gave statements detailing some of the previously described events, resulting in a larger investigation and eventually bringing the sex trafficking operation crashing down.
Next
A fourth defendant, Talley, is slated to have his preliminary hearing at 8:30 a.m., Friday, Aug. 9 in Beaufort County Magistrate Court. Talley faces charges of Trafficking in Persons, Victim Under 18 Years of Age; Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, 2nd Degree; and Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, 3nd Degree.
Though Special Agent Fey’s testimony for probably cause only involves one minor victim, sources have told The Island News, there are multiple.
When she arrived, Public Defender Taylor Diggs indicated she was not actually assigned to represent Barnes, but was instead there to represent Youmans. She did, however, handle both hearings. Barnes, visibly frustrated, could
While the hearings seemed like a formality, Fey’s testimony regarding information and statements gathered during the course of his investigation, along with information from a police report, helped paint a clearer picture of exactly what the three defendants are accused of, at least in the case of this particular victim.
Youmans transported her back to Bryan’s residence to purchase more narcotics. According to cell phone records, Fey said, Youmans knew she was a minor.
Youmans took her to his residence, according to Fey, and “tested her out” – had sexual intercouse with her. He traded housing and drugs for sex, keeping her at his residence for three days, according to statements Fey collected.
According to Fey, Barnes handled all communications with Johns, and commercial sex acts took place at different locations in Beaufort and Jasper counties –some were at residences and some were “out calls” where the victim was driven to locations where the acts took place.
This continued until March 5, when Hardeeville Police tried to conduct a traffic stop on Barnes,
And once again, according to SLED, “the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, the Beaufort Police Department, the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office, the Hardeeville Police Department, the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations are working together on the active and ongoing investigation.”
Mike McCombs is the editor of The Island News and can be reached at TheIslandNews@gmail.com. Trial from page A1
During this time, Youmans had a
The minor victim in this case
The RFP and additional documents may be accessed on the City’s website under Bid Opportunities - www.cityofbeaufort.org or by contacting the Procurement Administrator at 843-525-7071 or procurement@ cityofbeaufort.org. Proposals must be submitted by email procurement@cityofbeaufort.org.
Submittal Deadline: September 11, 2024, at 2:00 PM. Bid Opening: A public bid opening will be held in
in the
Executive Conference Room 2 on September 11, 2024, at 2:01 PM ET, and via MS Teams. Pre-Bid Meeting: A non-mandatory prebid meeting will be held in the City Hall Planning Conference Room on August 14, 2024, at 2:00 PM ET and via MS Teams. “EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY” NOTICE OF APPLICATION
Notice is hereby given that Masala Mantra Indian Bistro intends to apply to the South Carolina Department of Revenue for a license and/or permit that will allow the sale and on premises consumption of beer and wine, at 1000 William Hilton Pkwy.,
Ste. A, Hilton Head SC 29928. To object to the issuance of this license and/or permit, you must submit an ABL-20 protest form by August 15, 2024. Submit the ABL-20 online at MyDORWAY.dor.sc.gov, or email ABL@ dor.sc.gov.
Notice of Intent to Request a Renewal of Hazardous Waste Permit Facility ID #SC1 750 216 169 The Commander, Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Beaufort is applying for a renewal of the MCAS Beaufort Hazardous Waste Permit # SC1 750 216 169. The current permit was issued January 13, 2015, effective January 29, 2015, and expires January 29, 2025. Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Beaufort, South Carolina is located about 14 miles inland of the southern coast of South Carolina at the head of the Beaufort River,
tactical units of the Fleet Marine Force.
During the normal activities at MCAS, a variety of Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)- regulated hazardous wastes are generated that includes wastes from the maintenance of support vehicles, buildings, and structures. The South Carolina Hazardous Waste Management Regulations requires any facility that accumulates hazardous waste on site for more than 90 days to have a permit from the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services. This notice is intended to inform you that MCAS will be renewing their permit to store hazardous wastes at the Station. MCAS is in the process of replacing its current Hazardous Waste Storage Facility (Building 1030) with a new Hazardous Waste Storage Facility (Building 3099). Building 3099 is currently under construction. Once the new facility is completed, hazardous waste from Building 1030 will be transferred to Building 3099,
Greyson Webb, from Charleston, S.C. and Emma Wilkins, from Charlotte, N.C., both volunteers with Environmental Conservation Corps, unload a truck preparing a boat for the Oyster Reef Build with SCNDR on Friday, August 2, 2024. Amber Hewitt/ The Island News
SC schools start earlier amid trend toward shorter summers
Horry County only school district in the state opting not to change its schedule
By Skylar Laird SCDailyGazette.com
COLUMBIA — The South Car -
olina school year is starting earlier and earlier for many, as more K-12 districts adopt calendars with shorter summers and longer breaks throughout the year. The change over the past few years comes as more schools have started tapping a workaround in state law.
The earliest schools can start under state law is the third Monday in August, which would make Aug. 19 the traditional beginning of the year. However, the law passed in 2006 meant to push back earlier start dates, included an exception for schools that adopt what’s known as a modified year-round calendar.
A push to lengthen summers by the state’s massive tourism industry — in need of vacationing families to fill its resorts and attractions, as well as high school-age workers to man those establishments — has been gradually overridden in recent years by districts seeking to curb summer learning loss in younger students.
Year-round and traditional calendars both require a minimum of 180 days of school. The difference is in how districts distribute breaks.
In a traditional calendar, students go to school all 180 days more or less consecutively, with relatively short breaks around the holidays. A year-round calendar shortens summer break, scattering more days off throughout the year.
In 2020, every school was operating on a traditional schedule.
Classes started Aug. 17 at the earliest and Sept. 8 at the latest.
But now, all but one school dis-
trict has switched to a year-round schedule, with 33 districts already back in session and eight more starting Monday. Classes began as early as July 22
Only two districts — Horry and Jasper counties — have a traditional start date on the third Monday of August.
A typical year-round calendar typically splits semesters in half, with students going to class for nine weeks before taking three weeks off in between. Students then have a seven-weeks summer break. Ultimately, though, length and timing of breaks is up to each school district. The state Department of Education just makes sure schools are scheduling all the necessary days of instruction, spokesman Jason Raven said.
The pros
Whether or not year-round schedules really work depends on how they’re implemented, teachers’ advocates said.
Having less time off can make it easier for students to retain what they learned the year before, reducing the “summer slide” of students needing time to catch up at the beginning of the year, said Patrick Kelly, a lobbyist for the Palmetto State Teachers Association.
That’s especially important for younger students, who may be learning foundational skills they will need for the next year, such as
math and reading, said Sherry East, president of the South Carolina Education Association
“If you’re a struggling reader and you got to be, then June came and you didn’t read again until August, the first month of school (teachers) are just trying to catch up and get them back to where they were,” East said.
Starting on the tradition third Monday in August leaves fewer than 90 weekdays until Christmas. For high schoolers, that means taking final exams and wrapping up their semesters right after taking time off, Kelly said.
“Any teacher will tell you it’s better not to hit a kid with a final after they’ve been on break for three weeks,” he said.
And having breaks throughout
Kids should be at the pool or at a job, not in the classroom, on the hottest day of the year. ”
the school year can be a bonus for students and teachers alike, Kelly and East said. Families have more opportunities for vacations, often outside of peak seasons when popular attractions are at their most crowded and expensive. Teachers have more time to finish grading and take time for themselves, Kelly said.
“They can take a breath for a minute to close the grade books,” he said.
However, when districts scatter days off, only adding a few days around the holidays while still starting and ending the year earlier, students may not benefit as
WHEN SC SCHOOLS START
July 22: Aiken, Edgefield
July 24: Greenwood 50, Greenwood 51, Greenwood 52
July 26: McCormick
July 30: Abbeville,
much, East said.
The cons Only Horry County Schools still uses a traditional schedule, according to the state Department of Education. Having students out of classes during summer months is essential for the tourism-heavy coastal county, said Jimmy Gray, vice president of public policy for the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.
The chamber played a major role in the 2006 push for later start dates. The chamber wanted school years to start as late as the week after Labor Day, Gray said.
As tourists flock to the beach during the summer months, hotels, restaurants and other attractions rely on teenagers working summer jobs to help with the influx. If teens have to go back to school in mid-August, or earlier, businesses are left with fewer staff members trying to keep up with the summer rush, Gray said.
“Kids should be at the pool or at a job, not in the classroom, on the hottest day of the year,” as often happens in August, Gray said.
Plus, teenagers have less time to find a job and learn life skills they don’t get in school, such as the responsibility of going to work every day or the financial literacy that comes with earning money, he said.
The rest of the state starting earlier can affect the industry, too, Gray said. Families may decide not to take a vacation over summer break because they don’t have as much time for it, bringing in fewer tax dollars, he said.
“We all benefit from a strong tourism industry,” Gray said.
Still, the fact that the state doesn’t have any sort of standardized start date means a child moving from one district to another could lose out on as much as a month of class time, East said.
“What we don’t want to do is disadvantage a student and make it harder for them to graduate,” she said.
Skylar Laird covers the South Carolina Legislature and criminal justice issues. Originally from Missouri, she previously worked for The Post and Courier’s Columbia bureau.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
Fill the Tank School Supply Drive
Court blocks new Title IX rules in SC schools, colleges
By Jessica Holdman SCDailyGazette.com
A federal appeals court temporarily blocked changes to the Biden administration’s new Title IX rules in all South Carolina schools the day before changes were to go into effect, Attorney General Alan Wilson announced Wednesday. July 31 More than half of all U.S. states, including South Carolina, filed or joined multiple lawsuits in the wake of the administration’s rewrite of federal regulations that prohibit sex-based discrim-
ination at schools that receive federal funding.
The latest ruling for South Carolina and three other Southeastern states means the new rule is temporarily blocked in all 26
The new U.S. Department of Education Title IX rules, which schools were supposed to follow starting Thursday, add protections for LGBTQ+ students by extending the definition of sex discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
On Tuesday, a federal dis-
trict court judge in Alabama struck down the attempt by Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina to halt the new rules’ enforcement. But the states immediately appealed and were successful Wednesday in getting the rule paused by a federal appeals court as they continue to litigate the case.
“This is a big win in our fight to protect children,” Wilson said in a statement.
“We’ve argued that the Biden administration does not have the authority to make this change, and with this tem-
porary injunction, we now have time to make our case in court without our children being put in danger.”
Wilson previously expressed worries over the rule change stating, “biological boys and men that identify as female will be allowed to use girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms. Students and teachers will also be required to use others’ ‘preferred pronouns.'”
South Carolina also is among 24 states that have passed laws preventing transgender student-ath-
letes from competing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
The Biden administration has yet to finalize a separate rule that would ban this practice.
The injunction issued by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Atlanta, Wednesday follows a ruling earlier in July in a separate lawsuit in Kansas.
The Palmetto State was not a party to that lawsuit, which Alaska, Utah and Wyoming joined.
But the ruling applied to
at least 25 South Carolina K-12 schools and colleges where students or their parents are members of organizations that did join that case, Wilson’s spokesman Robert Kittle previously told the S.C. Daily Gazette.
Jessica Holdman writes about the economy, workforce and higher education. Before joining the S.C. Daily Gazette, she was a business reporter for The Post and Courier.
Ron Howarth, of Beaufort, takes a moment from shopping to give a cash donation to the volunteer Tina Barker of Fill the Tank School Supply Drive set up outside of the Walmart Supercenter on Robert Smalls Parkway on Sunday,
Members and volunteers of the Burton Fire District help sort hundreds of bags of school supplies donated by shoppers at the Walmart Supercenter on Robert Smalls Parkway on Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, during their Fill the Tank School Supply Drive. Asa Aarons/The Island News
Verbal and emotional abuse: Definitions, warning signs and more
By Rose Ewing
When most people think of abuse, they think of outward injuries such as broken bones, bruises and black eyes. But very often, it’s the inward injuries that are slowest to heal and can be just as damaging.
Verbal abuse involves the use of oral or written language directed toward a victim. Verbal abuse can include yelling, continued verbal harassment, labeling, name calling, insulting, scolding, put downs and belittling an individual. Very often, it’s continual to the point of nearly ‘brainwashing’ the victim and forcing them to hear the insults, untruths, and abuse over and over again.
Emotional abuse, sometimes called psychological abuse and/or emotional blackmail, centers on threats such as, “If you do not do this for me, something bad will happen.” Emotional blackmail uses the other party’s own emotions against them. It entails pressuring someone into complying with demands or wishes. This behavior can harm a victim’s emotional well-being and create a toxic dynamic in relationships. The behavior is frequently as damaging as other types of abuse. “Emotional and psychological abuse can be particularly insidious and often involves gaslighting, which can make the victim question their understanding of what’s happening to them—or if it’s even happening at all,” said Kristin Dubrowski, CEO of Hopeful Horizons—a child abuse, domestic violence,
and sexual assault victim services organization, serving Beaufort, Jasper, Hampton, Colleton and Allendale, SC counties.
“I’ve heard from survivors over the years that they were reluctant to reach out to Hopeful Horizons for help because it was ‘just’ emotional abuse and wasn’t ‘as bad’ as physical or sexual abuse. All abuse is bad and there isn’t a hierarchy of what is worse.,” explained Dubrowski.
Both verbal abuse and emotional blackmail have similar goals to maintain power and control over a victim with the end result being the manipulation of a victim.
“Emotional abuse is an underlying factor in all forms of abuse. Even when there is physical violence and the physical injuries have healed, there can still be long-term mental health impacts,” said Dubrowski.
How does it begin?
Very often a perpetrator will identify the vulnerabilities of a person, create emotional pressure, then demand compliance. People do it to
shield themselves from their own insecurities and to provide a means of staying in control.
What are signs of verbal and emotional abuse?
Put downs. “You are an awful partner. Why do I put up with you when you don’t support me?”
Name calling. Making an individual feel responsible for the abuser’s emotions or problems. “Your awful breakfast made me late for work.”
Threatening retaliation, punishment, or withdrawal of affection if a person does not comply with the blackmailer’s requests. “If you don’t continue to be my boyfriend, I’ll tell everyone you are a horrible lover.”
Using emotional manipulation to gain sympathy and control, such as playing the victim, using tears or exaggerating feelings. “You cannot break up with me.
My grandmother just died.”
Withholding affection, communication, or support as a form of punishment or control. “I’m not speaking to you today because you are a lazy wife and mother.”
Making demands to force compliance. “If you don’t go to the dinner dance with me, you will be sorry.”
Gaslighting, which involves distorting a person’s perception of reality to make them doubt their feelings or beliefs.
“You know I would never talk negatively about you to your friends. But I know they’ve heard a lot of negative things about you.”
Why do people do it?
Jeanette Raymond, PhD, licensed clinical psychologist and psychotherapist, explains that a perpetrator of emotional abuse is using his/her unhealthy habits to cope with their own vulnerabilities. “When people feel somewhat insecure, helpless,
or desperate, they may seek to counter those destabilizing threats with a sense of strength, power, and control,” said Dr. Raymond. “It is a strategy because it makes them feel that they have the upper hand. It removes bad feelings and gives them to another person, which turns the tables.”
“Additionally, the practice fills blackmailers with a feel ing of importance when they are at their most vulnerable,” said Raymond.
How can you respond to verbal and emotional abuse?
Healing from verbal and emotional abuse can be chal lenging for many reasons. Many victims internalize the negative messages they hear from the person causing harm and begin to believe them. Initially, this can be a coping mechanism for the person being harmed because it provides a sense of control, “If I can change and be better, then my partner will stop calling me names.” But, in the long term these
internalized beliefs can have a lasting impact on the victim’s sense of self-worth and even on their ability to trust themselves and others.
A person undergoing emotional and verbal abuse can reclaim their life. First, establish healthy boundaries using assertive communication. To assist with this process, an individual should seek help from a professional. Then utilize trusted family and friends to create a support system. But Dubrowski reminds us that abusers are bullies. “Abusers typically don’t care about boundaries. They will continue to push, which is a clear indicator that the relationship isn’t healthy,” she explained.
Support When boundary-setting doesn’t work and verbal and emotional abuse is an ongoing problem, a person should seek counseling from
Hopeful Horizons offers confidential services free of charge. Please visit www.hopefulhorizons.org to learn more.
Source: https://www. medicalnewstoday.com/ articles/325792
Blood pressure can be a silent killer; be more aware of it
Awareness of blood pressure has dropped among adults in the United States.
Nearly half of all adults live with high blood pressure. Also referred to as hypertension, it’s defined as blood pressure reading of 130/80 or higher. High blood pressure increases your risk of having a heart attack or stroke.
Many people are unaware they have the condition because symptoms usually appear only after the damage to your heart and blood vessels is done. By identifying high blood pressure early, you can work with your doctor to control it. Control your blood pressure by doing the following: Meet with your primary care physician regularly. Keep routine appointments.
Maintain a healthy weight. Be physically active. Get moving for at least 30 minutes most days of the week. Eat a healthy diet. Choose an eating plan rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and low-fat dairy and low in saturated fat and added sugars.
• Cut down on salt. Many Americans eat more sodium (found in salt) than they need. Most of the salt comes from processed foods. Drink alcohol in moderation, if at all. Men should have no more than 2 drinks a day; women no more than 1 drink a day.
“The reversal in hypertension awareness is a real setback in the fight to reduce heart disease and stroke,” says study author Dr. Paul Muntner from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Source: https://newsinhealth.nih. gov/2020/11/your-blood-pressure-too-high
• Don’t smoke. Smoking raises your risk for heart disease, stroke, and other health problems. Get a good night’s sleep. Tell your doctor if you snore or sound like you stop breathing briefly when you sleep—a possible sign of sleep apnea. Treating sleep apnea and getting a good night’s sleep can help reduce blood pressure. Take prescribed drugs as directed.
DRUG ALLERGIES: BE ON ALERT
Medications are one of our most powerful weapons to maintain our health. But both prescription and over the counter drugs can lead to negative reactions. Any drug can cause an allergy. Antibiotics and certain painkillers are among the more common ones. Approximately 10 percent of people in the United States have a penicillin allergy.
The most typical allergic reactions are skin rashes or hives. In rare cases, there
can be a severe reaction called anaphylaxis. This can lead to lightheadedness, throat or tongue swelling, and difficulty breathing. Anaphylaxis can also lead to death if untreated. Sometimes people mistake side effects of a drug for an allergy. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and headaches are usually side effects. Certain reactions may have causes. A common example is getting a rash after taking an antibiotic. Some-
times the rash is actually caused by the infection, not the drug. Drug allergies may fade
over time. Nearly half of patients with a confirmed penicillin allergy lose it within five years.
Being labeled with a drug allergy isn’t just a minor inconvenience. Alternative drugs may not be as effective.
How to manage a drug allergy: Watch for symptoms such as nausea, rashes, hives, itching, swelling, wheezing, lightheadedness, or difficulty breathing.
Seek immediate medical help if you have a reaction after taking
medication. Talk with your health care provider about any possible drug allergies. Ask if they recommend allergy testing. Consider retesting for confirmed drug allergies. Some allergies fade over time. Inform all health care providers about drug allergies.
Source: newsinhealth.nih.gov/ drug-allergies
Changes in your voice can
How often do you pay attention to your own voice? Probably not regularly. But changes in one’s voice can often be the first sign of something more serious.
A human voice is complex. Speaking, singing, and making other sounds require many parts of your body to work together. Your brain thinks of ideas. Your lungs move air in and out. Your vocal cords vibrate. Your mouth and nose help shape sound.
“Our whole body participates in the production of voice, speech, and breathing. So, we can get a lot of information about our health from them,” says Dr. Yael Bensoussan, a voice researcher at the University of South Florida.
Many conditions can impact the various body parts involved in sound production. These include depression, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, lung problems, and even cancer. Measuring voice, speech, and breathing patterns could help diagnose health problems.
Talk with your doctor if you no-
tice changes in your voice, speech, or breath lasting over a few weeks:
Hoarseness or a raspy quality to your voice.
Changes in the pitch of your voice (how low or high it is).
Your throat feeling raw, achy, or strained.
Difficulty talking.
Repeatedly feeling the need to clear your throat.
A cough that doesn’t go away.
Problems thinking of the words you want to use or putting words in the right order.
“Voice, speech, and breathing are easy to access, inexpensive, and non-invasive to measure,”
Bensoussan says. “For example, for a test for lung function, you currently have to go to a hospital and blow into a machine. Then you need someone to analyze that test. Just recording your voice or breathing sounds on your phone would be a lot cheaper and easier.”
Speech pattern analysis has shown promise for diagnosing impairments in memory or thinking
abilities, and mental health conditions like depression. The way people speak, the tone of voice, and even the words used can all change when someone develops
depression, explains Dr. Gari Clifford, a biomedical engineer at Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology.
Clifford’s team is trying to use
speech patterns and facial expression changes to catch depression early in people with dementia. This could help doctors see the effects of depression treatments in real time and change them quickly if needed. It could also provide early warning that someone’s health is declining.
Bensoussan’s team is building the world’s largest collection of voice and speech samples related to health information. They’re including people from a wide range of backgrounds and health conditions. They hope this will aid researchers in building new tools for diagnosis.
You can’t yet talk into your phone and get a full health report. But Bensoussan encourages people to pay attention to changes in their voice and speech. “If you have a voice change for more than two to three weeks, it may indicate an issue with your health,” she says.
Source: https://newsinhealth.nih.gov
The content offered in this Care magazine® supplement are here to educate consumers on health care, wellness, lifestyle, and medical issues that may affect their daily lives. Nothing in the content, products or services should be considered, or used as a substitute for, medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The articles, references and options contained herein do not constitute the practice of any medical, nursing, or other professional health care advice, diagnosis, or treatment. You should always talk to your health care provider for diagnosis and treatment, including your specific medical needs. None of the products or services offered through this publication represents or warrants that any particular service or product is safe, appropriate, or effective for you. We advise readers to always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions regarding personal health or medical conditions. —Care magazine® editor, caremagazine@gmail.com
You have the right to know what’s happening in your community.
Public notices – information local governments are obligated to provide citizens – are required to be published in local newspapers to provide a public record that’s accessible to everyone.
Public notices keep you informed about your government. But, in some states legislators are trying to keep public notices from appearing in local newspapers. This severely impacts government transparency and, in turn, limits the public’s right to hold them accountable for their actions.
Let your state legislators know that you value being able to access notices in your newspaper and that they are worth the investment.
SPORTS&RECREATION
HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL
BACK TO THE GRIDIRON GRIND
By Justin Jarrett LowcoSports.com
Area teams prepare for 2024 football season
Heavy rain brought by Debby put things on ice for a few days, but high school football season has arrived in the Lowcountry.
Teams from around the region converged Thursday, Aug. 1, at FWDG Furniture in Beaufort for the annual WHHI-TV High School Football Media Day, one day before S.C. High School League programs were permitted to begin preseason practice.
The window to get in the work before the season opener was narrowed by a few days thanks to the storm system drenching the area, meaning teams will have even less time to prepare for their first games beginning Aug. 16 and Aug. 23
Here’s a first look at what to expect from the Beaufort-area squads this season.
backs in the area, if not the state, and he has some potent weapons at his disposal, including WR Amare Patterson.
Last year’s senior class included major contributors, such as OL/DL Adrian Lamb and RB Jadyn Andrews, but coach Bryce Lybrand and his staff have developed plenty of depth and displayed a knack for making mid-game and mid-season adjustments to personnel. LB Will Codding returns to anchor a veteran defense.
The coaches in the new-look Region 6-4A agree Beaufort is the team to beat, but they also recognize the margins are awfully thin from top to bottom in what should be a highly-competitive region.
Battery Creek
Coach Ed Susi’s first season at the helm resulted in a winless campaign in Burton, but the Dolphins were competitive for much of the season before mounting injuries took their toll, and a renewed focus on the weight room should have them better prepared for the grind of QB Chase Olsen returns from injury to lead an offense with big-play poten-
Whale Branch senior Alonzo Allen is among the area’s hardest-hitting defensive players and is drawing attention from college programs. Expect Allen to anchor a stout Whale Branch defense and help carry the load on offense in 2024. Justin Jarrett/LowcoSports
Whale Branch
Beaufort High
The Eagles return to Class 4A after a two-year stint in Class 3A that included a state title, and a number of key players from the championship roster are now seniors in leadership roles. That includes QB Samari Bonds, who figures to be one of the most electric dual-threat quarter-
tial, thanks to RB Damien Freeman and WR Derrick Smalls Jr. The play of the offensive line and the defense will determine whether the Dolphins are able to get the most out of their skill positions and contend in Region 6-3A, where the last two playoff spots appear to be up for grabs.
A consistent contender in Class 1A, the Warriors jump up a class this season and join a tough Region 5-2A that includes natural rival Hampton County and perennial power Barnwell. Whale Branch returned its entire starting offensive line from a year ago, when the Warriors started 7-0 before dropping their regular-season finale and their first-round playoff game, though they lost OL Raheim Saunders to a torn ACL this summer. Nonetheless, Whale Branch will once again boast a strong ground game, and QB Jermon Bowers gets another shot under center after an extra year of seasoning. The defense led by LB Alonzo Allen and DB Dayaun Brown should be strong, as usual. Coach Jerry Hatcher’s squad should be right in the mix for a region title and poised for a playoff push.
Beaufort Academy
It was a roller coaster in Nic Shuford’s first season at Beaufort Academy, as the Eagles roared out to a red-hot start and looked like a state championship contender before
injuries decimated a generational backfield, which was then ravaged by graduation. But BA lured RB/LB Nyc Underwood over from Battery Creek to help plug a huge hole and plug in another playmaker alongside QB Dietrich Shuford and WR Devin Fripp. There are a ton of question marks on defense, and the Eagles might have to lean heavily on two-way players early in the season while they continue to develop depth from the bottom up. The region is incredibly competitive with BA among the potential favorites along with Thomas Heyward, Patrick Henry, and Colleton Prep. THA has the most talent coming back, but BA, PHA, and CPA have all shown the ability to reload from their pipelines of talent year after year.
John Paul II
The Golden Warriors enter their second season under coach Shayne Milligan in search of leaders to step up and fill the void left by the graduation of do-everything star Christian Tilton, and they think they’ve found one in new QB Connor Brown. Brown says he understands his role — that of game manager — and is excited to get RB Bryant Jolley and WR Jackson Sanders involved in the offense and set them up for success.
JPII returns plenty on defense, including three all-region picks in the box with DL Sebastian Slusne, DL Lukas Yackley, and LB Ephrain Jimenez, giving them a nice core to build around on that side of the ball. On paper, the Golden Warriors appear to be in the middle of the pack in SCISA Region 1-3A, but their biggest threats lie at the end of the season, so they have plenty of time to round into form and challenge for more.
Justin Jarrett is the sports editor of The Island News and the founder of LowcoSports.com. He was the sports editor of the Island Packet and the Beaufort Gazette for 6½ years. He has a passion for sports and community journalism and a questionable sense of humor.
Bryce Lybrand
Shayne Milligan
Connor Brown
Quarterback Dietrich Shuford was part of a state championship culture at Thomas Heyward Academy, and he and his dad, coach Nic Shuford, hope to take Beaufort Academy to the SCISA 2A title this year.
Tornadoes spin off from Tropical Storm Debby
No injuries reported in SC
By Abraham Kenmore SCDailyGazette.com
COLUMBIA — Tropical Storm
Debby has already dumped more than a foot of rain in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, spun off tornadoes and prompted calls for an evacuation due to concerns of a potential dam failure.
The slow-moving storm is expected to meander near South Carolina’s coast for a couple of days before returning ashore Thursday morning.
A tornado touched down Monday night on Edisto Beach, according to the Colleton County Sheriff’s Office. And damage was reported Tuesday morning on Isle of Palms from what police called a likely tornado, according to WCBD.
Officials reported property damage, as well as downed trees and power poles. But there were no reports of injuries in South Carolina.
The National Hurricane Center reports tornadoes are possible along the coast through Wednesday morning.
The storm was responsible for four deaths in Florida, where Debby made landfall Monday morning as a Category 1 hurricane, and one in Georgia, according to The Associated Press.
On Tuesday morning, Colleton County Fire warned residents that the McGrady Dam could fail and recommended that area residents evacuate immediately.
But hours later, a spokeswoman for the state’s environmental agency said officials who visited the site “observed no indication of imminent failure.
“The emergency spillway appeared to be working as it is designed to,” said Laura Renwick with the state Department of Environmental Services.
Colleton County has seen some of the highest rainfall totals so far, with 14 inches falling in Green Pond between Saturday and 10 a.m. Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.
Edisto Beach had already received over a foot of rain, and nearly 10 inches fell in Charleston, where it doesn’t take much to put streets completely under water. North Myrtle Beach had nearly 8 inches of rain and Columbia just over 5 in the same period. Even in the Upstate, Taylors — outside Greenville — received 3 inches of rain, accord-
ing to the 11 a.m. update.
Dominion Energy reported just more than 9 000 customers without power through South Carolina around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. Duke Energy’s map showed minor outages in areas where the company provides service, with the largest outage impacting 80 customers in Florence County.
In an 11 a.m. Tuesday bulletin, the Hurricane Center reported gusts of up to 48 mph near Georgetown, with sustained winds of 39 mph.
The city of Charleston extended a curfew, which started Monday night, through Wednesday, citing the amount of rain and gusts of wind up to 40 miles an hour. Main routes onto the peninsula
remain closed, and an advisory by the city encouraged residents to stay home. Severe flooding is expected through Thursday.
The storm is still expected to bring 10 to 20 inches of rain, although the maximum amount is now predicted to be 25 inches, down from 30 on Monday. Maps from the Hurricane Center show the worst of the rain north of Charleston and up the coast into North Carolina.
The risk of flash flooding remains high, at least 70%, along the entire coast of the state. The risk is moderate through the Midlands and slight to marginal in the Upstate.
The Hurricane Center still expects storm surge of up to 4 feet
along the Georgia and South Carolina coast, reaching all the way to southern North Carolina.
On Monday evening, President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency for South Carolina, allowing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief.
Abraham Kenmore is a reporter covering elections, health care and more. He joins the S.C. Daily Gazette from The Augusta Chronicle, where he reported on
Republican challenging Clyburn running on change
By Abraham Kenmore SCDailyGazette.com
COLUMBIA — Republican Duke Buckner is trying to convince voters of South Carolina’s 6th Congressional District that it’s time for a change after 32 years.
“Do you want more of the same, or do you want better?” Buckner asked about 30 people who attended his town hall event Wednesday to hear from the man challenging U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn.
Buckner, a 51-year-old attorney, is challenging South Carolina’s senior congressman for the second time. He lost in 2022 by about 24 percentage points. Clyburn, who turned 84 last month, is expected to cruise to a 17th term in the House representing the Palmetto State’s only safe Democratic seat.
Beyond differences in their ages and politics, the two hail from different parts of the state. Buckner lives in Walterboro, where he was born, raised and elected to town council for one term. Clyburn, a native of Sumter — just outside the district — lives in Columbia.
The 6th District runs from Columbia south to Charleston and extends from rural counties on the state’s southern border with Georgia to rural Williamsburg County in the Pee Dee.
Since the Legislature’s post-1990-census redistricting, the 6th has been drawn as South Carolina’s lone majority-minority district, though the state’s growing population is changing the composition.
But it is still among the poorest congressional districts in the country, and Buckner tells voters he can turn it around economically.
“The issues are the economy, crime and education,” Buckner told the S.C. Daily Gazette following his event at the Richland County Adult Activity Center. “And I have a path, a plan that will help to improve those three.” Clyburn declined Thursday to address his opponent’s campaign.
Buckner’s policy goals include cutting corporate tax rates for businesses that hire a certain number of people. He didn’t specify how many. He also wants to eliminate the federal Department of Education and send the money to state education agencies, amend the U.S. Constitution to require Congress to balance the federal budget, and guarantee free medical care to every pregnant woman.
For nearly two hours Wednesday, Buckner fielded questions and comments from attendees on questions of policy and his own personal history.
Buckner said he was a Democrat for years. When he wanted to vote for third-party presidential candidate Ross Perot in 1992 his father told him to vote
South Carolina’s current congressional districts. Map courtesy of S.C. Senate Judiciary Committee
for Democrat Bill Clinton instead, and he did.
But he left the Democratic Party after meeting thenGov. David Beasley at the 1997 dedication of the Tuskegee Airmen Monument in Walterboro. Buckner said he was later invited to a Republican Party meeting and discovered he agreed with the principles of self-reliance and entrepreneurship captured in the state GOP creed.
And now Buckner is hoping to convince other voters to break away from old patterns of voting.
“Vote for the person who you believe is going to best represent your ideals and who’s going to get the job
done,” he said during the town hall. “Mr. Clyburn has had 32 years to get the job done for the 6th Congressional District. Whatever he has done, he has done. It is time to pass the baton.
“Joe Biden did it. He passed it,” Buckner said.
Following Biden’s July 21 withdrawal from the presidential race, Buckner wrote a lengthy opinion piece calling on Clyburn to follow the Biden’s example and criticizing Clyburn for his continued support of the president he helped put in the White House.
Asked how his campaign will win Black voters, Buckner, who is Black, said he has volunteers for a ground
game of knocking on doors and making phone calls. He also plans to pay for advertising on television, radio and social media.
According to the latest federal disclosures, Clyburn had $1 9 million in his campaign account June 30, compared to $45 000 in Buckner’s account following his June primary win against Republican Justin Scott of Walterboro. No Democrat challenged Clyburn.
Some attendees of Buckner’s town hall were strong supporters already.
“I’m for small government. I want to cut budgets, cut the spending, cut the wasteful spending,” said Robins. “I’m less interested in the social issues. I’m kind of moderate when it comes to that.” Anna Herron, a 26-yearold business analyst, is also involved with Richland County Conservatives. She said she still had questions after hearing Buckner’s answers about reducing spending, including his proposal to re-allocate federal spending on education rather than cutting it.
“Spend the taxpayer money on the essential governmental responsibilities,” she said. “Roads, defense — I don’t know of any others.” Others were simply curious. Marah Grant, a 23-yearold media coordinator for a magazine, said she is a Democrat but wants to see change.
“I like everything that (Buckner is) saying. I agree with a lot of it,” she said after the town hall.
Abraham Kenmore is a reporter covering elections, health care and more. He joins the S.C. Daily Gazette from The Augusta Chronicle, where he reported on Georgia legislators, military and housing issues.
S.C.
Tracy Robins, 53, a former public school teacher, is involved with the organization Richland County Conservatives. She is knocking on doors for Buckner and other local candidates. She estimated putting 3,000 campaign hangers on doors already.
of
Gov. Henry McMaster meets with officials at the South Carolina Emergency Management Division to receive an update on Tropical Storm Debby on Monday, August 5, 2024. Master Sgt. Megan Floyd/ U.S. Air National Guard
Duke Buckner
STATE NEWS
Federal, state officials mark $175 million grant for new I-95 bridge
Project also includes pipe bringing clean drinking water into rural Clarendon County
By Abraham Kenmore SCDailyGazette.com
SUMMERTON — The ob-
vious result of a $175 million federal grant awarded Friday may be a new bridge for Interstate 95 over Lake Marion. But U.S. Rep. James Clyburn is excited about a less visible aspect of the project: clean drinking water.
A 24-inch pipe attached to the bridge will bring drinking water into Clarendon County, where the town of Summerton has had issues with its water system for years. Clyburn said when state Secretary of Transportation Justin Powell first showed him the plans for the structure, he asked that it include piping from the Lake Marion Regional Water Agency into Clarendon.
That proposal added $33 million to the cost, but Clyburn said it would be worth it to improve water service to the small town of 800 people.
“In my very first conversation with Secretary (of Transportation Pete) Buttigieg, I said ‘yes, it’s about the bridge. But it’s about more than the bridge,’” Clyburn said. “I showed him where the system had failed in Summerton … He listened and he listened and he never said a word. But that was
good enough for me, because he did not say no.”
Last month, the federal funding came through.
The award ceremony brought state and federal officials out to the lake. Gov. Henry McMaster and Sen. Lindsey Graham joined Clyburn, Powell and Polly Trottenberg, the federal deputy secretary of transportation, on a pedestrian bridge that will be replaced in the new construction.
“We work together a good bit, and it’s always around something like this,” Gra-
ham said. “When I call Jim (Clyburn) up, he always says ‘Let’s get it done.’ ” The federal grant will cover half the project. The cost not covered in the federal grant will include $105 million from South Carolina’s normal share of federal highway funding and $70 million from state taxes.
The current set of bridges, built in 1968, are the only route across the massive lake. The now aging spans could require weight restrictions by next year. Any closure could result in a 70-mile
detour on a highway that stretches up the East Coast.
“We need a new bridge yesterday,” Graham said. The funds come from the bipartisan federal infrastructure law, which Graham backed along with 18 of his Republican colleagues. Sen. Tim Scott, South Carolina’s junior senator, voted against it. None of South Carolina’s Republican members of the House voted to back the bill either.
South Carolina competed against other states for a chunk of the federal mon-
ey, said Trottenberg with the federal Department of Transportation.
“You’re in rarefied company, five billion dollars in announcements going to just 13 projects all around the country,” Trottenberg said.
“It’s an honor to be here and I can’t wait to roll up our sleeves and work closely with you all on this project.”
The new bridge will be 130 feet wide, to accommodate three lanes of traffic each way initially. There eventually will be enough room for four lanes each
Federal government pays
way, plus shoulders on each side wide enough for a car to pull over.
The span will also include a 14-foot-wide path for bicycles and pedestrians to cross the lake, separated from traffic by concrete and fencing, according to the state DOT.
The walkway will join the Palmetto Trail, a network of trails that will span 500 miles from Lowcountry to Upstate when finished.
Powell said DOT plans to to have the project under contract by next year. It should take three or four years to complete. Traffic will continue uninterrupted, as the new bridge is constructed in phases and the old bridges demolished, he said.
“This is a day that’s been long talked about. Many questioned if they would ever see it happen,” Powell said. “I’m thrilled to say it is no longer a dream but a reality.”
Abraham Kenmore is a reporter covering elections, health care and more. He joins the S.C. Daily Gazette from The Augusta Chronicle, where he reported on Georgia legislators, military and housing issues.
S.C. Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest statefocused nonprofit news organization.
$2 billion for farmer discrimination
$54.5 million distributed to 1,369 people in SC
By Jared Strong
Iowa Capital Dispatch
Tens of thousands of farmers or would-be farmers who say they suffered discrimination when they applied for assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will get one-time payments that total about $2 billion from the federal government.
“While this financial assistance is not compensation for anyone’s losses or pain endured, it is an acknowledgement,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday in a call with reporters.
The payments are the result of a program — the Discrimination Financial Assistance Program — created by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 that was meant to aid farmers, ranchers and forest landowners. President Joe Biden said it was the result of his promise “to address this inequity when I became president.”
The USDA received more than 58,000 applications from people who claimed discrimination based
on race, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, age, marital status, disability and retaliation for “civil rights activity.”
Vilsack could not immediately say what type of discrimination was most often indicated by the applicants, but the bulk of the payments went to farmers in southern states with higher percentages of Black residents.
Payments were awarded to people in every state and three of its territories, but residents of Alabama and Mississippi alone received almost half of the money.
In South Carolina, 1,369 people are set to receive a total of about $54.5 million, for an average of just under $40,000 per person.
More than 43,000 people will be paid, Vilsack said. The payments range from $3,500 to $500,000, depending on the circumstances and effects of the discrimination.
The department could not immediately supply a summary of those claims, but Vilsack said the
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will pay a total of about $2 billion to farmers across the U.S. who were victims of discrimination. Preston Keres/ USDA/FPAC
discrimination resulted in loan denials, loan delays, higher interest rates and an overall lack of assistance.
“We’ve made significant strides in breaking down barriers to access, and my hope is that people will begin to think differently
about USDA, so that we can better serve all who want to participate in agriculture in the future,” Vilsack said.
Specifically, Vilsack said the department’s Farm Service Agency, which administers farm loans, now has a more diverse leadership and loan assessment processes that rely less on human discretion.
Like
of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
The South Carolina Supreme Court in Columbia. Mary Ann Chastain /Special to the S.C. Daily Gazette
ART
Budding Artist After-School Art Club
4 to 5 p.m., or 5:15 to 6:15 p.m., Mondays/ Wednesdays or Tuesday/Thursdays, Happy Art Studio, 10 Sam’s Point Way, Beaufort. Ages 8 to 13. Painting, drawing, clay or crafts. Visit www.happyartstudio.net.
CALENDAR
Food Truck Friday
4 to 7 p.m., The Shed, Port Royal. Fly Pies Pizza Truck. Grab your friends and come by for a slice (or two) and a glass of something nice. Fly Pies will be offering regular menu items & weekly specials.
Roots & Rivers Festival
2 to 8 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 14, Oyster Factory Park, 63 Wharf Street, Bluffton. Presented by BlacQuity, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering Black entrepreneurs, this Coastal Cowboy and Cowgirl-themed event will include live music, line dancing, mechanical bull riding, artisanal vendors, craft beer, food trucks, and new to the festival this year, a Kid Zone and VIP experiences. The festival is set to invigorate coastal Beaufort County by providing a bustling marketplace for small businesses, artisans, and Black entrepreneurs to showcase their products. The festival aims to support the local economy and foster community growth by offering a platform for these talented individuals, creating a positive and inclusive environment for all. The festival boasts a lively beer garden, line dancing, captivating live music performances by Deas Guyz, and more. Early Bird general admission tickets for the Roots and Rivers Festival are now available for $15. For those who prefer to purchase tickets at the gate, they will be priced at $20. A limited number of VIP experiences are also available for $125. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.rootsandriversfestival.com.
Beaufort County Youth Conference
9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 28, Technical College of The Lowcountry, 921 Ribaut Road, Beaufort. Free for all Beaufort County middle and high school students. Interactive break-out sessions, music, food, fun, door prizes, and T-shirts. Parent and adult wellness workshop. Register today at 843-812-4399 or 843-592-0013.
64th annual Saint Peter’s Catholic Church Fall Bazaar
10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 5, Saint Peter’s Catholic Church campus, 70 Lady’s Island Drive, Beaufort. The Bazaar features international foods, craft fair with local artisans, a sweet shoppe, an in-person and online silent auction, wine and beer garden, plant sale, church tours, and Kids Zone with inflatables, games, and the Beaufort Barnyard Petting Zoo. Artists and craftspeople interested in participating can send an email to parishlife@stpetersbeaufort. org for more information. The bazaar will benefit Lowcountry Outreach, a ministry of Saint Peter’s parish that provides office space for area non-profits, meeting rooms for support groups, and services such as a ride program for those with limited transportation.
39th annual Kiwanis Club of Hilton Head Island Chili Cook Off & Jeep Island Noon to 3 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 12, Lowcountry Celebration Park, 94 Pope Avenue, Hilton Head Island. Event raises funding for local youth charities. Chili cooks will face off to determine the best concoctions in Professional, Amateur, and People’s Choice categories. Winners will earn cash prize donations to the local youth charity of their choice. The Jeep Island expo is a stunning array of Jeeps from around the nation – a must-see for any Jeep enthusiast. Local favorites RetroRoxx, Hilton Head Island’s explosive ‘80s party cover band, will be performing live! To sign up online to cook, sponsor, and buy tickets, go to https://hiltonheadkiwanis. com/chili-cook-off. For more information, email the Hilton Head Kiwanis Club at hiltonheadislandkiwanis@gmail.com.
Karaoke with Melissa
8 p.m. to midnight, Tuesdays, Highway 21 Bar, 3436 Trask Pkwy, Beaufort. Enjoy food and drinks during Karaoke with Melissa.
Karaoke with Melissa
7:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., Wednesdays, Beaufort Moose Lodge, 350 Broad River Blvd, Beaufort. Enjoy food and drinks during Karaoke with Melissa.
Trivia with Tom – Fat Patties
7:30 p.m., Every Wednesday, Fat Patties, 831 Parris Island Gateway, Beaufort. Free. Team trivia event, win house cash prizes! For more information, visit https://rb.gy/o9nhwe.
Eric’s Karaoke Krew
9:30 p.m., Wednesdays, Rosie O’Grady’s, 2127 Boundary Street, Suite 2, Beaufort. Free. Enjoy karaoke with either Parker or Eric.
Trivia with Tom – Bricks On Boundary
7 p.m., Every Thursday, Bricks on Boundary, 1422 Boundary St, Beaufort. Free. Team trivia event, win house cash and Beer Bucket prizes! For more information, visit https://rb.gy/o9nhwe.
Eric’s Karaoke Krew
7 p.m., Thursdays, Amvets Post 70, 1831 Ribaut Road, Port Royal. Free. Public is welcome. Enjoy Karaoke. Dinner will be available.
Karaoke at Willie’s 8 p.m., Thursdays, Willie's Bar and Grill, 7 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Saint Helena Island. Come and showcase your singing talents or just enjoy the performances. For more information, visit www.GullahLove.com.
WHAT’S HAPPENING
Bluffton Night Bazaar –a Lowcountry Made Market
5 to 8 p.m., first Thursday of each month, Burnt Church Distillery, 120 Bluffton Road. A highly curated selection of accessories, clothing, home goods, custom gifts and more by local artists and makers.
Habersham Farmers Market
3 to 6 p.m., Fridays, Habersham Marketplace. Vendor roster includes B&E Farm, Cottonwood Soap, Flower Power Treats, Hardee Greens, Megs Sweet Treats, Vitamin Bee, Lady’s Island Oyster Company, Pet Wants.
Eric’s Karaoke Krew
9 p.m., Fridays, Highway 21 Bar, 3436
Trask Pkwy, Beaufort. Free. Enjoy Karaoke with Lt. Dan.
Eric’s Karaoke Krew
9:30 p.m., Fridays, Rosie O’Grady’s, 2127 Boundary Street, Suite 2, Beaufort. Free. Enjoy Karaoke with Parker.
Karaoke with Melissa
7:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., Fridays, R Bar & Grill, 70 Pennington Dr, Bluffton. Enjoy food and drinks during Karaoke with Melissa.
Port Royal Farmers Market 9 a.m. to noon, Saturdays, year round, Naval Heritage Park, 1615 Ribaut Road, Port Royal. Rain or shine. You will find fresh, local, seasonal produce, shrimp, oysters, poultry, beef, pork, eggs, bread and cheese, as well as plants, ferns, camellias, azaleas, citrus trees and beautiful, fresh cut flower bouquets. There are prepared food vendors serving barbecue, dumplings, she crab soup, crab cakes, paella, coffee, baked goods, bagels and breakfast sandwiches. No pets allowed. For more information, visit http://www.portroyalfarmersmarket.com/, visit @portroyalfarmersmarket on Facebook or call 843-295-0058.
Slip and Splash Saturdays 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Saturdays, Battery Creek Pool, 1 Blue Dolphin Drive, Beaufort, and Bluffton Pool, 55 Pritchard Street, Bluffton. $5 per person. Stay busy for hours climbing on our inflatable challenge track.
Music Bingo with Mike –Bricks On Boundary
6 p.m., Every Saturday, Bricks on Boundary, 1422 Boundary St, Beaufort. Free. Play with a team or alone, win house cash! For more information, visit https://rb.gy/o9nhwe.
Eric’s Karaoke Krew
7 p.m., Saturdays, The Beaufort Moose Lodge, 350 Broad River Blvd., Beaufort. Free. Enjoy karaoke with Lt. Dan. Come early at 6 p.m. for Steak Night.
Eric’s Karaoke Krew
9:30 p.m., Saturdays, Rosie O’Grady’s, 2127 Boundary Street, Suite 2, Beaufort. Free. Enjoy karaoke with Eric.
Teddy Bear Picnic Read-Aloud
9 a.m. to noon, 1st Saturday each month, Port Royal Farmer’s Market, Corner of Ribaut Road & Pinckney Blvd, Port Royal. Free. DAYLO Students and other volunteers will read to young children, who are encouraged to bring their favorite stuffed animals.
Karaoke with Melissa
8 p.m. to 12 a.m., 2nd and 4th Saturdays of every month, Peaceful Henry’s Cigar Bar, 181 Bluffton Rd, Bluffton. Enjoy food and drinks during Karaoke with Melissa.
DANCE
The Beaufort Shag Club
6:30 to 9 p.m., Wednesdays, AmVets Club, 1831 Ribaut Road, Port Royal. Free lessons for members from 6 to 6:30 p.m.
We also host a dance the second Saturday of each month from 7 to 10 p.m. Lessons will run September through May only. Visit our FaceBook page (beaufortshagclub) for current events.
FISHING
Free DNR Clinic
4 to 7 p.m., Tuesday, Aug. 13, Broad River Fishing Pier, 1050 Robert Smalls Parkway, Beaufort. The fishing clinic, hosted by the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, is free and open to the public. Participants must pre-register. Only 12 participants will be accepted. Register at https://bit.ly/3Y1FPXa. For more information, contact Pam Corwin at SCDNR at 843-729-0759 or corwinp@dnr.sc.gov.
GOLF
Stingray Scramble
9 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 28, Ocean Creek Golf Course, Fripp Island. Team of 4, $650. Individual, $175. Benefits Riverview Charter School. Shotgun start. 4-man scramble. Registration 8 to 8:45 a.m. Registration includes golf, gift, lunch, awards. Register at https://bit.ly/4bUzWPh.
Boy Scouts of America
LowCountry Classic
11 a.m., Monday, Sept. 30, The Cat Island Club. Hosted by the Boy Scouts of America Lowcountry District. $150 per golfer or $500 for foursome. 9 a.m. registration; 1 p.m. lunch; 5 p.m. cocktails/awards. Each player hits from the tee; team selects tee shot they wish to play from; each player may then place their ball within one club length, no nearer the hole and in the same condition (rough, bunker, etc.), and play his/her own ball from that point until holed; 2 lowest net scores will count towards teams total. Each player shall receive 75% of their published handicap; maximum handicap is 24. Proceeds benefit Scouting programs in the Lowcountry
District of the Coastal Carolina Council, Boy Scouts of America. All the information for players and potential sponsors can be found at https://birdease.com/BSACharityGolfEvent or contact Dave Soloman for more information at d.c.solomon@att.net.
HEALTH AND WELLNESS
Rooted Beaufort Yoga classes 5:30 to 6:45 p.m., Thursdays, Cypress Wetlands, Port Royal; 9 to 10:15 a.m., Whitehall Park or Pigeon Point Park. Rooted Beaufort is a collective of local Yoga teachers who host outdoor yoga classes and donation-based events with proceeds being donated locally on a rotating basis. BEMER Circulation Therapy
10 to 11 a.m., Fridays via Zoom. Already own a BEMER? Never heard of it but curious? Join to ask any questions about this leading-edge German technology that enhances blood flow 30% in 8 minutes. Sessions are designed to support those who have their own unit but everyone is welcome. Brought to you by BEMER Specialist — Human & Equine, Elizabeth Bergmann. Text 410-212-1468 to get the Zoom link. Free.
HISTORY
Beaufort History Museum at the Arsenal 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Friday; 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturdays, 713 Craven St, Beaufort. General Admission for Adults $8, Seniors $7, Active Duty Military and College Students with ID $5. Children/ Teens younger than 18 Free. Explore and experience more than 500 years of Beaufort History with knowledgeable docent guided tours.
The Historic Port Royal Museum 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. or upon request, Thursdays through Sundays, The Historic Port Royal Museum, 1634 Paris Ave. The museum features the turn-of-the-century businesses and industries of Port Royal: Shrimping, crabbing, oystering, the railroad, the school and the mercantile. Great gifts featuring local artists are available. For more information. visit www.portroyalhistory.org, email historicportroyalfoundation@gmail.com or call 843-524-4333.
Tour Historic Fort Fremont Dawn to dusk, Monday through Sunday, The Fort Fremont Preserve, 1124 Land’s End Road, St. Helena Island. Free and open to the public. The History Center is open Fridays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. Visitors can learn about the fort’s history during the Spanish-American War through interpretive signs, self-guided walking tours with a smart phone, exhibits in the history center, and docent-led tours. For more information visit www.fortfremont.org or contact Passive Parks Manager Stefanie Nagid at snagid@bcgov.net.
LIBRARY ACTIVITIES
Credit Workshop
5:30 p.m., Wednesday, Aug. 14, Beaufort Branch Library, 311 Scott Street. Free credit workshop presented by the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Savannah. Learn how credit reports can impact your finances and how to improve your credit score. For more information, call the Beaufort Branch Library at 843-255-6458.
“Lego” With Lego
4:30 to 5:30 p.m., every Tuesday, St. Helena Branch Library, 6355 Jonathan Francis Sr. Road, St. Helena Island. Free and open to the public. Ages 5 and up. No registration required. Come see our new and improved Lego Club. Choose one of our new Lego kits and get going. Call 843-2556540 for more information.
Career Navigator
11 a.m. to 1 p.m., every Tuesday, Beaufort Branch Library, 311 Scott Street, Beaufort. Free one-on-one resume writing and job application assistance with a Career Navigator from Palmetto Goodwill. No appointments necessary. For more information call 843-255-6458.
MEETINGS
Indivisible Beaufort meeting
11 a.m., Saturday, Aug. 10, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Beaufort, 178 Sam’s Point Road, Lady’s Island. The documentary film “Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy” will be presented at the Saturday, Aug. 10 meeting of Indivisible Beaufort at Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Beaufort at 178 Sam’s Point Road on Lady’s Island. “The current assault on democracy began with the White Supremacy Movement in the 1960’s as part of a shrewd, calculated, and well executed plan that became cloaked as a religious movement. Today those white supremacists and their heirs are known as Christian Nationalists.” The documentary “Bad Faith” is their story. The event is free and open to the public.
LIBPA meeting
8 a.m., Tuesday, Aug. 13, Beaufort Realtors’ Association Headquarters, 22 Kemmerlin Lane, Lady’s Island. Attorney Samuel Bailey will be the featured speaker. Bailey is an attorney with the Gilbert Law Firm and will be discussing estate planning and real estate. Please stop by for coffee and conversation concerning the community.
Zonta Club of Beaufort 6 p.m., 4th Tuesday of each month, Smokehouse, Port Royal. Beaufort Rotary Club Noon, Wednesdays, Sea Island Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall, 81 Lady’s Island Drive, Lady’s Island. Catered buffet lunch, followed by a guest speaker. Prospective members wel-
come. For further information and upcoming speakers, please visit website www.beaufortrotaryclub.org.
The Beaufort Trailblazers –A Volunteer Group 8 a.m., first Thursday each month, Herban Marketplace, Beaufort. Anyone interested in supporting or building off-road/ dirt/wilderness mountain biking/jogging/ walking trails near is encouraged to attend. For more information, call 843-575-0021 or email universitybicycles@hotmail.com.
Emotions Anonymous International local group meeting 4 p.m, Thursdays, via Zoom. Emotions Anonymous International, (EAI), is a nonprofit program designed to help people with emotional difficulties. It has a chapter in the Lowcountry and members want others who feel the need to know they are welcome to participate. There is no charge to participate. They are based on the 12 steps and 12 traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous and follow a specific format designed to provide the support and tools for navigating life’s painful difficulties. All are welcome. Anyone interested in participating may contact the group via email at EALowcountry@gmail. com or call or text Laurie at 252- 9177082. For more information on EAI visit www.emotionsanonymous.org.
Rotary Club of the Lowcountry 7:30 a.m., Fridays, Sea Island Presbyterian Church, Sea Island Parkway, Lady’s Island. A light breakfast is provided before the program. For further information and upcoming speakers, please visit our website at www.lowcountryrotary. org or contact our President, Bob Bible at reconmc@aol.com or 843-252-8535.
MUSIC
Deas Guyz 7 p.m., Fridays, Aug. 30, Sept. 27, Nov. 1, Nov. 29; Willie's Bar and Grill, 7 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Saint Helena Island. $35. Doors open at 6 p.m. For more information and tickets, visit www.GullahLove.com.
Habersham Third Fridays Music on Market 5 to 8 p.m., Habersham Marketplace.
OUTDOORS
The Beaufort Tree Walk Lady’s Island Garden Club invites you to take a meandering walk through the Historic “Old Point” and enjoy some unique and noteworthy trees. The “Walk” takes about an hour, is a little over a mile starting at the corner of Craven & Carteret streets in Morrall Park and concluding in Waterfront Park. Booklets with map and information about each tree are available free at the Visitors Center in the historic Arsenal on Craven Street.
Tours of Hunting Island Every Tuesday, Hunting Island State Park, 2555 Sea Island Pkwy. Free, park entry fees apply. Sponsored by Friends of Hunting Island Keeper Ted and his team. For more information call the Hunting Island Nature Center at 843-838-7437. The next Tuesday is August 1.
RUNNING
4th annual Move Your Mind 5K 8 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 12, Providence Presbyterian Church on the south end of Hilton Head Island. 5K run and 1M walk on the beach. Free parking and a free pancake breakfast. During breakfast, race awards will be given, and prizes for Brain Trivia will be won. Register today at https://bit.ly/4dbP0IS.
SEWING/QUILTING
American Needlepoint Guild Meeting 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., 1st Tuesday each month. The Hilton Head Chapter of the American Needlepoint Guild welcomes anyone, beginner or experienced stitcher, who is interested in needlepoint to join us for stitching, learning and fellowship. For more information, please contact us at hiltonheadislandchapter@needlepoint.org.
Embroidery Guild of America Meeting Second Tuesday of every month, Palmetto Electric Community Room, Hardeeville. The Lowcountry Chapter of the Embroidery Guild of America welcomes anyone, beginner or experienced stitcher, who is interested in any type of embroidery including needlepoint, crossstitch, surface and beaded embroidery, hardanger, bargello, sashiko, etc., to join us for stitching, learning and fellowship. For more information, please contact us at lowcountrychapter@egacarolinas.org.
SPORTS/GAMES
Inaugural Friends of Caroline Clay Shoot Friday, Oct. 4, Turkey Hill Plantation, Ridgeland. Details are being finalized. Presenting sponsorships available at $2,500 and $5,000. Station sponsors – up to 12 –start at $500. Sponsored 4-person teams $1,000.Contact Keriann for details or to reserve your spot at keriann@fochospice. org or 843-525-6257. Proceeds benefit Friends of Caroline Hospice.
ACBL Duplicate Bridge Club 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m., Tuesdays, Carteret St. Events will be held weekly. Contact Director and Club Manager Susan DeFoe at 843-597-2541 for location.
Beaufort Masters Swim Team
6 to 7 a.m., Monday through Friday, Wardle Family Port Royal YMCA. Coached practices. Ages 18 & older, all skill & speed levels, no prior swim team experience needed. Visit lowcountryswimming.com for more information.
So, who is Kamala Harris?
In a previous column I wrote of my dismay regarding Joe Biden’s having been so readily tossed aside; I even went so far as to lament that Democrats seemed all too ready to devour their own while Republicans stood by their felonious candidate like a mother bear guarding her cubs.
That was on Sunday evening, shortly after President Biden had stepped down and given his endorsement to Kamala Harris. I concluded that piece by saying that I hoped my party had not given up wisdom and experience for expediency. Little did I know how wrong I was.
As I watched the news unroll night after night, I soon came to realize that my concern was unfounded. Perhaps it was when I was talking to my younger daughter that this reality struck home. She said to me, “Don’t you find yourself feeling better all of a sudden? Isn’t there just an all-around feeling of relief and even levity?”
Bingo! She had hit the nail squarely on the head. I wasn’t as gloomy, and there wasn’t that unspoken concern hovering close by. Instead it was the sense of a fresh start, a new beginning.
I admit to apprehension when President Biden announced his support for the Vice President. He could simply have stepped aside and let the upcoming convention make the decisionc-- an open convention is what some were calling for. Instead, he avoided a free-forall (something the Republicans would have relished) by letting those of us who were behind this man know where his confidence was placed.
And so, like the Harris campaign, my newfound relief gained momentum. The energy and
excitement became tsunami-like as more and more people threw their support to Kamala, and I, as a reluctant supporter in the beginning, began to research this seemingly human dynamo.
Who is Kamala Harris?
Well, quoting Donald Trump in his latest debacle when he addressed a black journalist’s gathering, “Is she Indian or is she Black?” He falsely claimed that Harris, who has long identified as Black and attended a historically Black university, used to identify as Indian and then, “all of a sudden, she made a turn, and she became a Black person.”
No only is this a lie (what’s new?), but how intelligent was that comment, given this particular venue? Harris has never tried to dodge her heritage, always making clear that her mother is Indian and her father is Jamaican. Yet Trump insists upon beating the race drum, despite the fact that many in his campaign are telling him to drop it and focus on her time in California government. Of course, we all know that Trump considers himself to be “the stable genius,” so why should he pay attention to what his campaign is suggesting?
And then there was the comment by J.D. Vance, you know, the candidate who isn’t quite sure of his own identity (see my article
last week). He determined that the current Vice President is a D.E.I hire. I had to research that one because I had no clue what these letters put together mean. I found they mean diversity, equity, and inclusion, with the implication that the person is chosen, not for his or her ability and intelligence, but rather for skin color. Ah, racism, thy name is MAGA! Please note that I didn’t say conservative.
So, let’s begin by recognizing this woman for her credentials. That she is a well-known, accomplished prosecutor in California must surely be a threat to Donald Trump for many reasons, not the least being her ability to articulate under pressure. Of course the man has been confronted by so many successful prosecutors in the last year, one might understand this nightmare effect.
The whole debate issue is fodder for another article, given the latest so-called counterproposal Trump has put forward … Fox hosted and with an audience. My, how that man does love his MAGA audience! But again, I digress.
The positions the Vice President has held reflect that of a woman who should not be disregarded, a woman of color who has risen to the top. In an unprecedented move, she was named DA of San Francisco, a position she held for six years before being named Attorney General of California in 2010. In 2017, she became a U.S. Senator in a run-off election, and in 2019, she briefly mounted a campaign for President before dropping out. Her ascension to the Vice Presidency then became the stepping stone to her bid for the highest position in our government.
That position is one that generally relegates the occupant to a stand-by position. However, Kamala Harris has been one of the more involved Vice Presidents in recent history.
Here is a quick look at what Harris has generated according to USA TODAY.
She was at the forefront of the administration's pursuit to codify voting rights protections. She pushed for Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, which would have extended the protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and required federal approval for some local election law changes.
In response to immigration concerns, Harris’ call to action was the public-private partnership Central America Forward (CAF). The idea behind CAF is to support the creation of "local" jobs and other measures in order to slow the flow of mass migration, thereby providing better jobs at home.
She began a Fight for Reproductive Freedoms, making
a national tour that included visitation to Planned Parenthood, something no President or Vice President has ever done while in office.
In September 2023, Biden established the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention to reduce gun violence, overseen by Harris, as announced by the White House.
In 2023, Harris and the U.S. Secretary of Commerce traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin to celebrate the announcement of new electronics equipment production made possible by the Biden-Harris Administration’s “Investing in America” agenda and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
So yes, my dear daughter, I do feel a sense of relief; laughter has thankfully returned, including the raucous laughter of Kamala that so many want to deride when there is nothing else to mock.
Carol Lucas is a retired high school teacher and a Lady’s Island resident. She is the author of the recently published “A Breath Away: One Woman’s Journey Through Widowhood.”
CAROL LUCAS
VOICES
Editor’s Note: The opinions of our columnists in the Voices section are not necessarily the opinions of The Island
We will share wine, talk of dead kings
It is early, still dark, and I’m sitting on our wooden deck In Port Royal. When Susan wakes — in about an hour — we will get into our Honda Fit and head north to Massachusetts.
In the year 2000, my wife received a small inheritance. With that money she bought a maple-floored, basketball-sized space in a four-storied brick building that was being converted from an abandoned textile mill into “artist’s lofts.”
I worried about this purchase because the Eclipse Mill is located in North Adams, Mass., roughly 1 000 miles from Beaufort.
“Is my marriage in trouble?” I wondered.
“No, Scott, I’m not leaving you,” she said loading her paint brushes into our Volvo 240. “But you’re a ‘needy person’ — requiring constant attention and, frankly, I need a break.”
And so began a time when Susan would spend two months — usually in the fall and spring — in this old mill that was also home to 40 other artists. During these times, I would fend for myself — finding a friend in processed cheese, Wheat Thins and microwaveable popcorn. But on some weekends I would drive over to Savannah and catch a three-hour flight, sometimes direct and more like two hours, into the Albany Airport. In those early days, the Mill people were young, irreverent and almost every
weekend they would show their work in one of the storefront galleries popping-up in North Adams, Pittsfield and Lenox. Most were visual artists although there were sculptors, documentary film makers and writers in the mix.
(One writer, Andrea Barrett, was a McArthur Fellow, published, and moderately famous.)
Early on, I met Grover Askins.
Grover was older; retired from the New York publishing business; and ran a used-and-rare book business out of his first-floor loft. I gravitated to this man because I was into fiction; wanting to read the great storytellers I had not read in college; aspiring to be a fiction-writer myself.
Grover was like Google when it came to books — actually when it came to any topic. “Grover” I would say, “I want some-
Living on a farm, I have learned, means just when you least expect it word will arrive of a pet pig or a pretty little puppy or a promising pony that needs urgently to be adopted, and we will adopt it. This open door policy has led to the formation of a household menagerie that now includes five house dogs, a barn cat, several horses and a donkey. Those are the current residents. Then there are the occasional field hospital new admissions like the baby racoons who lost their mom, or the chicken who got mauled by a visiting fox terrier, or the fawn who got the worst of her run-in with the bush hog. They just stop by for a first aid pit stop. If you can believe it, the hen made a full recovery over about a three-week period during which time she recuperated in a large pot in the corner of the kitchen. Herbert Hoover would be proud. But the latest arrival has been the biggest surprise of them all. One afternoon last week an all-white pigeon flew in … and he has hung around all week. Yes of course, as the open-door policy
Ithing inter-generational; something involving war, something with romance; something with drinking and, of course, betrayal and bull fighting.”
He would look at a four foot high pyramid of books and pull out “Heart of the Matter” by Graham Greene saying,“This has most of what you want.” In this way I was introduced to Wallace Stegner, Ian McEwan and Bruce Chatwin. Looking back, I think I might have “discovered” Evelyn Waugh, E.M. Forster and Margaret Atwood on my own; but it would be a mistake to think I relied on Grover’s encyclopedic, Google-like guidance for fiction only.
When I was planning a four day hike along Hadrian’s Wall and wanted the backstory, Grover gave me three books relating to the topic. When I wanted to recall details of a speech by a Wehrmacht tank com-
mander — Hans Speidel
— Grover found a history of his unit on D-Day. When I wanted to know what to see in nearby Hudson, N.Y., Grover gave me a thin, yellowing guide written by the WPA in 1935
Notwithstanding this knowledge, Grover has had a tough go with his book business in recent years. This is the result of Amazon and the ease of ordering an ancient, author-signed edition of, say, “Crime and Punishment.”
“They’ve just about put me out of business,” he said one day as we sat in the garden.
But there are still those who like the hunt and make a trip from Boston on the weekends. And when they enter his loft they enter a space where (nearly) every cubic inch is occupied by books — books that are not arranged by author, topic or color. A system
Taking advantage of our open-door policy
requires, we encouraged “Pidge” to stay. We went out and got some birdseed. And we gave him a name. The hunting dogs were a little unsure about him at first, but now they’ve gotten used to Pidge, who walks comfortably around them while they are sunning on the porch.
A contractor came by to look at a job last week and he noticed Pidge. It’s hard not to.
“I guess he got tired of jumping out of birthday cakes,” the contractor speculated.
And I can’t say I blame Pidge. Suddenly the lights go on. You and your buddies flap your wings and now you’re surrounded by a bunch of screaming people who are waving their arms around.
Then, before you know it, you smack your head right into the too-low ceiling. Tomorrow, the same gig. No workman’s comp; no health insurance for the headaches; substandard housing. Was it really worth it for a handful of crummy bird feed?
A financier friend came by and he, too, noticed the new arrival.
“I guess he got tired of all the hypocrisy,” the financier said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well think about it,” he said. “You’re the symbol of peace, but there is no peace. Israel’s fighting a two-front war. In the Red Sea, the Houthis are shooting rockets at any container ship that comes into range. The Russians and the Ukrainians continue to kill one another wholesale daily while they fight over inches of dirt. Thousands more people are getting killed every day in Nigeria, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Somalia, the Congo and in Darfur and Khartoum because they come from the wrong ethnic group. Peace? What peace? And if you think it’s gonna get better, you better take notice that the Chinese are building an
unsinkable aircraft carrier!”
“I thought the doves had a lock on the peace thing,” I said.
I’ve got a writer friend – an investigative reporter -- who occasionally takes refuge at the farm when tempers get overheated in New York. We take him in for a week or 10 days while tempers cool, and he mixes soulfully with our friends who have no idea he’s hiding out.
that requires one to ask, “What have you got on British-built railroads in Colonial India?”
Grover will rise from behind his desk saying, “That’s a pretty broad category. Can you be more specific? Is there a gauge that interests you? A route? Perhaps a derailment?”
Harvard says that longevity is based — to some extent — on the friends one makes. Apparently friends keep you connected, caring, curious and healthy.
I don’t know how many miles I have left in the tank, but a few of those miles will be spent in a garden adjacent the Hoosic River in the company of Grover Askins. We will share a bottle of a reasonably priced red and talk of dead kings.
Scott Graber is a lawyer, novelist, veteran columnist and longtime resident of Port Royal. He can be reached at cscottgraber@gmail.com.
Yesterday, I noticed Pidge out in a nearby field enjoying a confab with four cattle egrets. You had to look twice to tell who was who. If Pidge is hiding out, the egrets didn’t know it.
But Pidge doesn’t hang just with the white guys. Since we’ve been throwing birdseed around, cardinals and wren and even a mockingbird have stopped by to sample the fare. (The mockingbird was uncharacteristically well-behaved.) And even Mr. and Mrs. Quail – refugees from the shooting plantation next door –stopped by for a bite.
As always, however, too much is too much. Or, as The Grateful Dead wisely intoned, “When life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door.”
When things get too cozy at Pidge’s Place, Mr. Cooper’s Hawk who is no peacenik will take notice. And if he crashes the party … Bill Rauch was the Mayor of Beaufort from 1999 to 2008 and has twice won awards from the S.C. Press Association for his Island News columns. He can be reached at TheRauchReport@gmail.com.
Sales tax holiday remains inane tax bribe
t’s THAT time of the year again – the time when the state’s big political bribe to South Carolina voters is in full view to keep them in line with the establishment.
Yes, from Aug. 2 through Aug. 4, South Carolina celebrates the 2024 Tax Free Weekend – an annual sales tax holiday that started in 2000 to allow shoppers a way to catch a little relief at cash registers as they buy all sorts of back-to-school items.
Things they don’t pay the state’s 6% sales tax plus local option sales taxes on: Bedding, blankets, pillows, sleepwear, towels, wash cloths, shower curtains, diapers. None of which make much sense. Things that do make sense: Clothing, shoes, books, bookbags, lunchboxes, computers,
ANDY BRACK
printers, software, calculators and school supplies like pencils, paper, pens, binders and notebooks. And then there is the list of things that aren’t tax-exempt on this very special holiday weekend, some of which sound like they should be exempt but aren’t: Briefcases, wallets, cell phones, smartphones, glasses, contacts, sports equipment and more. But other items do actually make sense to not be part of the sales tax holiday:
Cleaning supplies, business computers, furniture, jewelry, mattresses and box springs, office supplies, and video game consoles. When all was said and done, shoppers last year purchased more than $30 million of tax-free items, which caused the state of South Carolina to lose $1 8 million in sales tax revenues, according to the S.C. Department of Revenue. In the two decades the state has held the tax-free weekend, it has lost more than $50 million in sales tax revenues, which most people would agree is real money. Think of what could have been done with that. Bottom line: The sales tax weekend is a gimmick to make politicians who won’t craft a smart tax policy seem like they care about shoppers. It’s just not a
fair way to give a tax break to someone. A few years ago, we called tax-exempt weekend nothing more than lipstick on a pig. Still is. Wouldn’t it be better to figure out a way to provide a longer-lasting tax break throughout the year? You might wonder how. Easy. Lower the state’s uber-regressive 6% sales tax by a couple of pennies with cuts to the 80-plus special interest sales tax exemptions offered to businesses throughout the year. Makes sense, but politicians don’t really want to annoy those special interests.
Or maybe state leaders could stop obsessing about the income tax – which tends to be paid by people who can afford it. Maybe they could more evenly apply sales taxes to services to relieve the regressive
burden of sales taxes and lower that rate.
The sales tax holiday has another big problem – most people don’t take advantage of it because they forget, don’t realize it existed or aren’t even in the state when it’s happening. The fairness of any sales tax holiday is always in question when its application is inherently uneven.
The tax-free weekend also is a problem for businesses, according to the Tax Foundation: “Rather than stimulating new sales, sales tax holidays simply shift the timing of sales.” That said, most businesses experience slumps after such holidays, which owners complain cuts into steady, reliable, consistent sales that impact cash flow and inventory.
In short, sales tax holidays make it tougher for busi-
nesses to do business. From a policy perspective, “there is little economic justification,” the Tax Foundation argues, “for why a product purchased during one time period should be tax-exempt while the same product purchased in another time period should be taxable.”
South Carolinians save less than a dollar per person during the sales tax holiday weekend. Urge your legislators to be smarter about how they craft tax policy, instead of smearing lipstick on that pig to con voters into thinking they’re getting something really important. Andy
SCOTT GRABER
BILL RAUCH
Pidge, the white pigeon, has taken up refuge at the Rauch household. Bill Rauch/The Island News
Back to school, back to reality
This is advice I give students who ask me about getting into college, staying in college, and graduating from college. They can help you be successful in other areas too.
First, show up.
If you’re supposed to be somewhere, be there. If it’s time for class, be in class. If it’s a study session, be in that study session. If it’s an internship, be at the internship. I promise you, professors react a lot differently to a student who shows up than to a student who hasn’t been seen since the first week of class.
I remember a professor who said a student who had disappeared on him, and hadn’t turned in a single assignment, came to his office the last week of the Spring semester and asked, “What can I do to pass this class?”
He threw up his hands and said, “It’s May!”
The student thought about it and then asked, “Well, what may I do to pass this class?”
The professor said, “Take it again this fall.”
So show up, and when you show up …
Second, do the work.
There is no substitute for effort. Read the book, write the paper, take the quiz. You can let artificial intelligence review your homework before you turn it in, but make sure you have some real knowledge to give it.
You might think you can make up for all the missed assignments before the end of the semester, but if you couldn’t find time to do them in the previous 14 weeks, how do you plan to do it all in the final week of classes while you’re trying to catch up on all the work you didn’t do in your other classes, and while you’re trying to prepare for finals?
If you want to try that, you’re braver than I am. Or crazier. But do the work. Turn in something. Get partial credit, at least. Never take a zero.
Third, take care of yourself.
This includes your mind, your body, and your soul.
For your mind? Read. Don’t just sit in front of a computer screen watching, scrolling, and clicking. READ. You’d be amazed at what you find in a book that you won’t find on Instagram or TikTok.
You can find useful information on social media, but their algorithms are designed to steal your time, not feed your mind.
For your body? Eat healthy foods. Eat healthy amounts. Get up and move. Drink plenty of water. And get plenty of rest.
For your soul? Be positive. Try to keep a good attitude and be around people who have good attitudes and are trying to do things with their lives.
Don’t take a zero, and don’t hang around people with zero ambition.
For your soul, find a church. Around many colleges and universities, churches have
ministries that cater to college students. Sometimes that means special events, sometimes it’s an early service or a late service, and sometimes it’s offering a hot meal for Sunday dinner because they know the dining hall is closed on weekends.
Number four, know when it’s time to go. Sometimes you are going to find yourself in places you don’t belong. You might not know why, but you will have a feeling that tells you.
In high school, I went to a classmate’s house party, and as soon as I stepped inside, the whole room froze. I don’t know who said it, but I remember hearing someone say, “There’s the narc.”
I was not a narcotics agent.
When somebody said, “They got pot in the kitchen,” I went in and looked on the stovetop. I didn’t see anything cooking, so I turned and left.
I was in a room full of people I knew, and some I wanted to know, but I wasn’t part of their circle. Everybody wants to belong, but sometimes you just don’t. There are some places you don’t need to
be, and you need to know when it’s time to go.
Number five, find your people.
The best thing about finding out where you don't belong is finding out where you do belong and who is in that space with you. So if you like to read, write, take pictures, enjoy comic books, play music, do fashion — whatever — there is a community out there for you.
FOMO, fear of missing out, is a real thing nowadays, but maybe you won't be so fearful about what other people are doing if you are with people who like to do the things that you enjoy.
YOLO, you only live once, is true, and wouldn’t you rather spend time with people who are of a like mind? People who don't ask you to compromise who you are and what you believe just to fit in?
I pray you read something that makes a difference for you. And in the end, that's all anybody can hope for in this life: to make a difference.
Terry E. Manning is a Clemson graduate and worked for 20 years as a journalist. He can be reached at teemanning@gmail.com.
Happy 50th birthday to the UPC barcode
The first modern barcode was scanned
50 years ago this summer — on a 10-pack of chewing gum in a grocery store in Troy, Ohio.
Fifty is ancient for most technologies, but barcodes are still going strong. More than 10 billion barcodes are scanned every day around the world. And newer types of barcode symbols, such as QR codes, have created even more uses for the technology.
I would have been like most people, never giving a second thought to the humble barcode, if my research as a media scholar at Clemson University hadn’t taken a few strange turns. Instead, I spent a year of my life digging through the archives and old newspaper articles to learn about the barcode’s origins — and eventually went on to write a book about the cultural history of the barcode.
While the barcode didn’t herald the end times, as conspiracy theorists once fretted, it did usher in a new age in global commerce.
Barcodes a groceryindustry invention
While the world has changed a lot since the
mid-1970s, the Universal Product Code (UPC) — what most people think of when they hear the word “barcode” — hasn’t. The code first scanned on a package of gum on June 26 1974, is basically identical to the billions of barcodes scanned in stores all over the world today. When that first UPC code was scanned, it was the culmination of years of planning by the U.S. grocery industry. In the late 1960s, labor costs were rising rapidly in grocery stores and inventory was becoming increasingly difficult to track.
Grocery executives hoped the barcode could help them solve both of those problems, and they ended up being right.
In the early 1970s, the industry created a committee that developed the UPC data standard and chose the IBM barcode symbol
over a half-dozen alternative designs. Both the data standard and the IBM barcode symbol are still used today.
Based on meeting notes I found in Stony Brook University’s Goldberg Archive, the people who developed the UPC system felt they were doing important work. However, they had no idea they were creating something that would long outlive most of them.
Even the grocery industry’s optimistic estimates predicted fewer than 10,000 companies would ever use barcodes. As a result, the scanning of the first UPC barcode received little attention at the time.
A few newspapers published short articles about the launch event, but it wasn’t exactly front-page news. Its importance was only apparent years later, as barcodes became one of the most successful digital data infrastructures ever.
Barcodes created a shelfspace revolution
Barcodes didn’t just change the shopping experience at checkout. By making products machine-readable, they enabled vast improvements to inventory tracking.
That meant items that sold well could be restocked quickly when the data indicated, requiring less shelf space to be devoted to any individual product.
As barcode expert Stephen A. Brown has written, that reduced need for shelf space allowed for a rapid proliferation of new products. You can blame barcodes for the fact that your grocery store sells 15 types of almost indistinguishable toothpaste.
Similarly, today’s huge grocery stores and superstores likely couldn’t exist without the massive amount of inventory data that barcode systems produce.
As MIT professor Sanjay Sharma put it, “If barcodes hadn’t been invented, the entire layout and architecture of commerce would have been different.”
Other industries quickly got on board
The modern barcode was born in the grocery industry, but it wasn’t confined to the grocery aisles for long.
By the mid-1980s, the success of the UPC system encouraged other industries to adopt barcodes. For example, within a span of three years, Walmart, the Defense
Department and the U.S. automotive industry all began using barcodes to track objects in supply chains.
Private shipping companies also adopted barcodes to capture identification data. FedEx and UPS even created their own barcode symbols.
As the sociologist Nigel Thrift explained, by the end of the 1990s, barcodes had become “a crucial element in the history of the new way of the world.” They helped enable rapid globalization in ways that would be difficult to imagine if barcodes didn’t exist.
Black and white and unnoticed all over
As someone who became so interested in this history that I got a tattoo of my latest book’s International Standard Book Number barcode on my arm, the quiet passing of the barcode’s 50th anniversary feels almost poetic.
I grew up in a world where barcodes were everywhere. They were on all the products I bought, the concert tickets I scanned, the packages I received.
Like most people, I rarely thought about them, despite — or maybe because
of — their ubiquity. It wasn’t until I began research for my book that I realized how a barcode on a package of gum set in motion a chain of events that transformed the world. For decades, barcodes have been a workhorse operating in the background of our lives. Modern humans scan them countless times every day, but we rarely think about them because they’re not flashy and just work — most of the time, anyway. As barcodes keep chugging along in their old age, they’re a reminder that the seemingly boring technologies are often far more interesting and consequential than most people realize.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Jordan Frith is the Pearce Professor of Professional Communication at Clemson University. His primary research focuses on technical communication, mobile communication, social media, and communication infrastructures, and he is the author of six books and numerous public-facing articles. His most recent book, "Barcode," was published as part of the Object Lessons series in 2023
TERRY MANNING
JORDAN FRITH
LOCAL MILITARY
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS
Recruit Training Regiment, Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, 9 August 2024
Recruit Training Regiment • Commanding Officer, Colonel C. B. McArthur
3rd Recruit Training Battalion • Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel B. L. Tye Commander of Troops, Captain B. R. Heyduk • Parade Adjutant, Staff Sergeant M. Hunt Company “K”, 3rd Recruit Training Battalion • Commanding Officer, Captain B. R. Heyduk Drill Masters • Gunnery Sergeant M. N. Moreno, Staff Sergeant B. R. Graham
PLATOON 3048
Senior Drill Instructor
SSgt R. A. Martinez
Pvt Barrera, Jonathan A.
Pvt Bigham, Russell C.
PFC Boayue, Nyan
Pvt Brown, Aleczander R.
Pvt Bruff, Addison L.
Pvt Carpenter, Bryson A.
PFC Castro, Ellison D.
PFC Clark, Luke T.
Pvt Dimsdale, Andrew P.
PFC Doherty, Ian E.
PFC Duranlopez, Jadiel*
PFC Ellington, Willie R.
PFC Findlay, Graham
PFC Garza, Fred
Pvt Glassmanbalkcom, Brandon
Pvt Greenwood, Parker B.
Pvt Henderson Iii, Winthrop R.
PFC Jauregui, Carlos B.*
Pvt Johnson, Zachary P.
PFC Lopezlopez, Pedro J.*
Pvt Maldonado, Oscar M.
PFC Marchenaromero, Diego A.
Pvt Martin, Brayden A.
Pvt Martinez, Cameron J.
Pvt Mcdaniel, Damien A.
PFC Mclellan, Briar P.
Pvt Moats, Carter M.
Pvt Moore, Erik O.
PFC Morrison, Owen D.
Pvt Navorrojas Jr, Juan C.
PFC Paulino, Yaziel R.
PFC Perezlopez, Alfredo E.
PFC Pesce, Morgan T.
PFC Reber, Walt B.
Pvt Reyessantana, Moises
Pvt Rhodes, Caden J.
Pvt Rivera, Devin A.
Pvt Saravia, Bryan A.
Pvt Skinner, Malachi L.
Pvt Vasquezramos, Jose D.
Pvt Walsh, Jack S.
Pvt Weldon, Camryn T.
PFC Williams, Evan A.
PLATOON 3049
Senior Drill Instructor
SSgt A. Y. Hernandez
PFC Abduolimova, Dilnura
PFC Barrera, Adrianna N.
Pvt Bean, Gabrielle E.
PFC Bearden, Conner M.
Pvt Borrero, Jaylene A.
Pvt Brown, Shyanna I.
PFC Calderondeleon, Pilar
PFC Campudoni, Angelina R.
PFC Carrascofelix, Enivy A.
Pvt Castillocastro, Monserrat
Pvt Corromoran, Andrea D.
PFC Crook, Marshama D.
Pvt Cuencabarrios, Jacqueline
PFC Espinozasoto, Katherin Y.
PFC Estrada, Natalie J.*
PFC Fernandez, Iolannie A.
PFC Fitch, Dominique M.
PFC Gayflor, Sametta G.
PFC Graham, Grace N.
PFC Harter, Samantha R.
PFC Helms, Jennica L.
Pvt Henriques, Jyoti L.
PFC Hernandez, Debbie F.
Pvt Ithau, Ashley S.
Pvt Jacinto, Anahi
PFC Lander, Alissa N.
PFC Leslie, Rasheera R.
PFC Luna, Samantha M.*
PFC Maldonadosmalls, Grechel E.
Pvt Marcanocruz, Andreysha L.
PFC Martinezortiz, Eliana M.
Pvt Menjivaralarcon, Stephannie
Pvt Michel, Malissa
Pvt Mohammed, Aamina
PFC Mowery, Claire E.
PFC Patrocinoaybar, Carla C.
PFC Prado, Leticia H.
Pvt Quintanillalucero, Mariana
Pvt Riley, Sarina D.
PFC Rodriguez, Liana R.
PFC Rojocatalan, Diana M.
PFC Ruizmejia, Perla A.
PFC Santiago, Linamarie
PFC Shipman, Rebecca H.
Pvt Sircy, Katy G.
PFC Steadman, Valerie A.
Pvt Sweeney, Sarah E.
Pvt Vanriel, Ashanti J.
PFC Weeks, Eve F.*
PLATOON 3050
Senior Drill Instructor
SSgt M. T. Childress
PFC Adams, Jacob T.
Pvt Ament, Devin M.
Pvt Anaya, Brayan
Pvt Anderson, Jordan X.
Pvt Anderson, Joshua J.
PFC Belcher, Joseph I.
PFC Cruzeufragio, Roni S. *
Pvt Dagenais, Thomas J.
Pvt Denniser, Rickardo A.
Pvt Dewitt, Blake O.
PFC Elliott, Jared C.
Pvt Feliciano, Ivan J.
Pvt Figueroa, Luis A.
PFC Fuentes, Jimmy I.
Pvt Graddy, Cayden J.
Pvt Holland, Joshua A.
Pvt Inman, Clayton R.
Pvt Karrick, Anthony J.
Pvt Kelley, Peter A.
PFC Kerr, Tyler J.
Pvt Kodgis, Matthew A.
PFC Kovach, Andrew J. *
PFC Leal, Brandon
Pvt Lucas Jr, Cory A.
Pvt Luisceballos, Carlos J.
Pvt Mattson, Elijah M.
PFC Melton, Jacob T.
Pvt Morrow, Austin D.
PFC Orjuela, Jonathan
Pvt Ortizfigueroa, Lucas
PFC Pierre, Shawn
Pvt Ramcharan Jr, Allan N.
PFC Reynolds, Daniel L.
PFC Sauers, Kevin K.
Pvt Schellenberger, Nathan L.
Pvt Thompson, Trenell D.
Pvt Towne Jr, Matthew A.
Pvt Turney, Daniel C.
PFC Vest, Adon R.
PFC Vetzel, Jarrod A.
PFC Weaver, Joseph W.
Pvt White, Jeremiah L.
Pvt Williams, Caleb A.
PFC Williams, Tayquawn L. *
PLATOON 3052
Senior Drill Instructor
SSgt E. C. Wallace
Pvt Alvarez, Mathavan
Pvt Asberry, Elijah N.
Pvt Back, Michael A.
Pvt Banks, Jaquarious M.
Pvt Bishop, Ryder D.
Pvt Bolarinho, Hunter L.
Pvt Cabrera, Luis D.
PFC Chance, Jayden C.
Pvt Conrad, Lenord R.
PFC Crabtree, Nolan C.
Pvt Durandonu, Melvin
Pvt Durango, Marcos R.
Pvt Espiritu, Daniel
PFC Fusaro, Anthony A.
Pvt Harris, Adam D.
PFC Jean, Jordan C.*
PFC Jeanbaptiste, Nehemie R.*
Pvt Llivizupa, Brayden A.
Pvt Lucassalcedo, Tulio E.
PFC Lustig, Kyler H.
Pvt Maldonado, Kevin
Pvt Mason Iii, Michael C.
Pvt Mckelvy, Tucker S.
Pvt Moritz, Chris A.
PFC Munro, Patrick M.
PFC Murray, Hunter P.
Pvt Noori, Abdul Q.
PFC Ongay, Abade
Pvt Palmatier, Quinn D.
Pvt Ramirezsolis, Brandon
PFC Samuels, Clifoy A.*
PFC Sellers Jr, Michael L.
PFC Shelton, Marcus C.
Pvt Snook, Dylan S.
Pvt Stewart, Brooks R.
PFC Stulir, Benjamin H.
Pvt Thompson, Davoye S.
Pvt Vandenack V, Edward C.
Pvt Velez, Brandon W.
Pvt Walton, Maddix M.
Pvt Weeks, Timothy G.
PFC Wyke, Kamaal M.
Pvt Zinn, Alex T.
PLATOON 3053
Senior Drill Instructor SSgt A. Lewis
PFC Alexander, Talon
Pvt Borden, Eric J.
Pvt Brito, Alyis
PFC Bryan, Clayton R.
PFC Carrasquilloperez, Ruben A.
Pvt Casianocampis, Rodrigo
PFC Clark, Nicholas R.
Pvt Cunningham Jr, Charles J.
Pvt Fernandez, Neftali
Pvt Fortella, Dushorn D.
PFC Frith, Colton E.*
Pvt Green, Cameron X.
PFC Griffis, Mateo J.
PFC Guallpafajardo, Juan E.
PFC Hall, Tavon M.
Pvt Hart, Bradey S.
PFC Henson, Nathaniel C.*
Pvt Hollingsworth, Evan J.
PFC Holness, Oneil A.*
PFC Joiner, Wesley M.
Pvt Jones, Keyonte I.
Pvt Ladner, Logan B.
PFC Marion, Ryan M.
Pvt Martinez, Marvin M.
PFC Onome, Anino A.
Pvt Otterson, Matthew T.
Pvt Payton, Andrew A.
PFC Pilkington, Darin E.
Pvt Prietoelguera, Diego
Pvt Putzier, Alexander M.
Pvt Randolph, Christopher J.
Pvt Reither, Noah R.
Pvt Reyes, Adrian
PFC Rivera, Mario B.
Pvt Sanchez, Angel D.
PFC Smith, Brayden L.
PFC Vargas, Jomar Y.
Pvt Welch II, Donnie
Pvt Wickenheiser, Elliott J.
Pvt Williams, Kale M.
Pvt Wilson, Andrew K.
Pvt Young, Justin C.
Pvt Yung, Joshua C.
PLATOON 3054
Senior Drill Instructor
SSgt C. A. Newton
Pvt Amoussouvi, Jeanmari W.
Pvt Ayiei, Ayiei M.
PFC Bailey, Logan J.
PFC Bowman, Austin T.
PFC CallahuiLertora, Santiago
Pvt Cayo, Dominique S.
PFC Duranmoreno, Eric
Pvt Felipe, Abraham M.
Pvt Felipe, Nathan M.
Pvt Fernandez, Daniel
Pvt Garcia, Julian E.
Pvt Hanson, Leroy J.
Pvt Heilman, Colin J.
PFC Hines, Mason J.
Pvt Hutchinson, Rushaun O.
Pvt Kap, Kam M.
Pvt Lane, Devon J.
Pvt Lopez, Marcus A.
Pvt Mainatozhagnay, Carlos M.
Pvt Malaret, Augusto C.
Pvt Matos, Aidan A.
PFC Mclean, Alexander S.
PFC Nunez, Enrique*
Pvt Parrish, Maliq N.
PFC Powellcampbell, Oliver J.*
Pvt Prussen, John R.
Pvt Rey, Justin R.
Pvt Rizzo, Giovanni
Pvt Rodriguezgarcia, Jesus
Pvt Rodriguezpena, Roldan
Pvt Roebuck, Kaden M.
Pvt Rousseau, Nathaniel C.
PFC Ruiz, Gabriel A.
Pvt Santosmora, Raymon M.
Pvt Sierra, David J.
PFC Stratford, Frank J.
Pvt Taylor, Tristan N.
Pvt Thomas, Nathan E.
Pvt Torresduran, Yordan A.
PFC Watson, Payne W.
PFC Webb, Benjamin J.*
PFC Zuniga, Carlos A.
*Denotes Meritorious Promotion
Child care options expanded for SC military families
By Jessica Holdman SCDailyGazette.com
SUMTER — South Carolina mil-
itary families will now be able to use their military benefits at more child care centers in the state.
Military families are now able to use federally-funded vouchers that help cover the cost of child care at centers that meet heightened health and safety standards under the state Department of Social Service’s ABC Quality Program.
Col. Kevin Hicok, commander of the 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, said he’s often approached by people in the community thanking him for his service. But, he said, that service to country often goes beyond the soldiers themselves.
“Yes, it does have to do with the service member making sacrifices every day at home and abroad. But a lot of it also has to do with the family that gets left behind,” he said during the child care announcement Thursday, Aug. 1 in Sumter.
Carolina’s accreditation standards.
South Carolina child care centers that participate in the ABC Quality Program and go beyond state minimum requirements to achieve at least a B+ rating now qualify to accept military child care vouchers.
To achieve a B+ rating, centers must have smaller class sizes, have credentialed educators on staff and are subject to annual reviews by Social Services.
Leach said there are currently 200 child care centers with a B+ rating or higher in South Carolina, all of which will be accessible to military families using vouchers to help cover costs.
ly’s income and the cost of living in towns that are home to military bases, but assistance was capped at $1 800 per month as of September 2023
“The child care industry across the country is in economic crisis right now,” Leach said. “The industry is struggling to stay afloat and in business and parents are struggling to find affordable quality child care. This is an opportunity … to be able to get Department of Defense dollars and help those military families out with child care.”
Ihave recently received several phone calls and emails asking me what veterans should know about managing their VA debt. Management of VA debt is a complicated subject. Fortunately, the VA has published extensive, specific guidance on it. Therefore, I am going to attempt to cover it in a four-part series of articles in this edition and the next three editions of The Island News
Do not panic
According to the VA “Debt Management” website https://bit.ly/46ASJxB, the VA offers four repayment or relief options for benefit-related VA debt:
• Monthly offsets. If you get VA benefit payments, the VA may keep (or “offset”) part or all of each payment to pay down your debt. This is how the VA collects your debt unless it approves another option.
• Repayment plan. If you can’t pay your full debt balance now, you can ask to make smaller monthly payments. Compromise offer. If you don’t get monthly benefit payments and can’t pay monthly, you can offer a lesser onetime lump sum amount as a full payment. If the VA accepts your request, you'll have to pay the one-time amount within 30 days.
• Waiver. If even smaller monthly offsets or payments would cause you financial hardship, you can ask the VA to forgive (or “waive”) part or all debt. If the VA accepts your request, you won't have to pay the amount waived. Learn
Previously, military members were only able to use their benefits at nationally accredited centers off base. But only about 9% of centers nationwide meet that standard, said DSS Director Mike Leach.
Now, the U.S. Department of Defense has agreed to accept South
Military spouses and children are often uprooted every couple of years when a service member is assigned to a new base. Each move comes with new neighborhoods, new friends and a search for a new child care provider. Shaw Air Force Base offers onbase child care but that program always has a waiting list, Hicok said, forcing the families stationed there to have to look for care centers in the community.
Social Services is hopeful that the expansion of military benefits will encourage more child care center operators to volunteer for the program and raise their ratings.
Child care costs can reach upwards of $10 000 annually, making it difficult for many parents, Leach said.
The value of these military vouchers varies based on a fami-
VA debt management
more at the VA website titled “Waivers for VA Benefit Debt” at https:// bit.ly/4dwxQWI.
The good news on suspended pension debt
According to the VA webpage titled “What should I do if I got a letter about suspended pension debt?:”
“In June 2022, we (the VA) fixed a data problem at the VA related to a Social Security Administration (SSA) income verification match program. Using the corrected data, we (the VA) found that some veterans and survivors had VA debt from pension overpayments.
“In March 2024, we (the VA) decided not to collect pension debts related to this June 2022 income verification match.
“If you (a veteran) got a letter from us (the VA) about your pension debt being suspended for review, we (the VA) will send you another letter with your updated balance. Here’s what to do: If your balance is now zero, you (the Veteran) don’t need to do anything.
If you (the veteran) have a remaining balance, call us (the VA) at 800-827-0648 (TTY: 711). We (the VA) are here Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET. We (the VA) will help you learn about your options for debt relief.
If you have already made payments on this pension debt, we (the VA) will refund your (the Veteran’s) payments. You (the Veteran) don’t need to do anything to get the refund.”
Use a Veterans Service Officer (VSO) If you want to become an expert on “VA Debt Management,” you should ask your local VA-accredited Veterans Service Officer (VSO) for help. Learn more at https://bit.ly/3WwDXmN and https://bit.ly/3qbLVSL and The Island News article of 30 August 2023 at https://bit.ly/3WOhSBw.
Become a debt management expert Veterans who want to become experts in managing their VA debts should also read the information at the following VA websites:
1 VA debt management. The VA website https:// bit.ly/46ASJxB allows you to manage your VA debt online and answers 16 important questions about managing debt related to VA disability compensation, non-service-connected pension, and education benefits. Learn why you may owe the VA money, how to check your balance, and find out how to repay your debt now or request help with payments at this website.
2 Manage your VA debt for benefit overpayments and copay bills. At this website https:// www.va.gov/manageva-debt/, veterans can review their current VA benefit debt or copay bill balances, find out how to make pay-
ments or request help. Veterans can make payments online using this website or by phone, mail, or in person. For questions about overpayments, call the “VA Debt Management Center” at 800-827-0648 (TTY: 711). Outside the U.S., call 612-713-6415 Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time. For questions about copay bills, call the VA's Health Resource Center at 866400-1238 (TTY: 711) Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET.
3 What should I do if I get a letter about suspended pension debt? This website, https://bit.ly/4fA1ax0, answers the what-to-do question. The site links to the VA Benefits for Family Members and Caregivers webpage at https://bit.ly/3A7OQUy and the VA Pension Benefits webpage at https://www.va.gov/ pension/.
4 Current VA health care copay rates. This website, https://bit. ly/3N9vBP8, covers new policies on Mental Health copay exemptions, Urgent care copay rates, Outpatient care copay rates, Inpatient copay rates, Medication copay rates, Geriatric and Extended care copay rates, Services that do not require a copay, and Past rates. This site links to:
• Pay Your Copay Bill: https://bit.ly/3LRSKUg,
• Your Healthcare Costs: https://bit. ly/3N9QQjI, and
• Copayments for Ma-
Military-friendly South Carolina is home to nearly 33,700 active-duty military members and more than 24 400 National Guard and reserve members, all of whom are eligible for the expanded benefits.
Jessica Holdman writes about the economy, workforce and higher education. Before joining the S.C. Daily Gazette, she was a business reporter for The Post and Courier.
S.C. Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
ternity Care: https:// bit.ly/3ne3jbL.
5 Search resources and support articles/all of VA.gov (helpful VA phone numbers). This website is https://bit. ly/44xIyHq. Use the above webpage and https://www.va.gov/ find-locations to find any VA location and helpful VA Phone numbers.
6 Request VA financial hardship assistance. This website, https://bit. ly/3AfQaoI, covers how to request help with current VA copay bills or an exemption from future copays.
7 Waivers for VA benefit debt. This website, https://bit.ly/4c9gwG9, explains how waivers work, time limits, how to request, and more.
8 Request help with VA debt for overpayments and copay bills. This website, https://bit. ly/3WPhDpX, covers how to use VA Form 5655 to request help.
9 Review and pay your VA copay bill. This website, https://bit. ly/46wiJtX, covers reviewing your bills, making payments, requesting financial help, disputing charges, understanding your statement, what happens if you do not pay, what you should do if you receive a bill from your approved non-VA community provider, and more. This website links to: VA’s Current Co-Pay Rates and Your Health Care Costs VA webpages; VA Healthcare and Other Insurance VA webpage: https://bit.
ly/3AdXfWL; The Pay.gov site: https://bit.ly/3SD8UVv, and The VA Video “Veteran Copayments:” https:// bit.ly/3N4i9fn. 10 Dispute your VA Copay Charges website. This website, https://bit. ly/3SGqF67 explains how to dispute VA copay charges by phone, mail, or in person, the VA debt collection process, the right to get legal representation, and more. The site has links to: Your Health Care Costs webpage, https://bit.ly/3N9QQjI; How to update your “VA Health Benefits Information webpage, https://bit. ly/3YyQx7Y; Current VA Co-Pay Rates” webpage, https://bit.ly/3N9vBP8; and The “Request Financial Assistance” webpage, https://bit. ly/3AfQaoI.
Continued next week.
Larry Dandridge is a Vietnam War wounded warrior, disabled veteran, ex-Enlisted Infantryman, ex-Warrant Officer Pilot, and retired Lt. Colonel. He is a past Veterans Service Officer, a Patient Adviser at the RHJ VA Hospital, the Fisher House Charleston Good Will Ambassador, and the VP for Veteran Affairs for the
LARRY DANDRIDGE
Col. Kevin Hicok, commander of the 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw Air Force Base, speaks at an event in Sumter Thursday, Aug. 1. 2024, announcing military families will be able to use their child care benefits at more centers in South Carolina. Jessica Holdman/S.C. Daily Gazette
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Engine Troubles
“I Don’t Need God”
Going down the highway, the “check engine” light comes on.
If you are driving an older car with lots of wear and tear, it would not come as a great surprise that you need a mechanic. You would be expecting to visit one sooner or later. But if your car is new and in great condition, it would be easy to assume you won’t be needing a mechanic. The indicator light might come as a real surprise, and you may ignore it as a false alarm.
Those who are struggling tend to be more open to God. When people are vulnerable, aware of their weaknesses and their struggles, they are like the first drivers in our example. They more easily recognize their need for God, and they are often more receptive to his guidance. This is probably why, throughout Scripture, God tends to work through those who are lowly instead of the important and powerful.
With worldly blessings, we can think we don’t need God. Those who have all of their material needs met, for example, are more likely to feel self-reliant. They don’t need to depend on anyone else, including God. Even if everything is not perfect, most of us live comfortably. We have family and friends who love us and care for us. We have plenty of ways to be entertained. In such times, it is easy to think, “I’m doing just fine without God.”
But there are often signs that all is not well.
Like the “check engine” light coming on in our car, there are often subtle signs that all is not going as well as we pretend. We may struggle with anxiety or depression. There might be a boredom to our lives, or a quiet sense that something important is missing. We may distract ourselves from these realities with constant noise or activities, so that we don’t have to be silent and ask ourselves deeper questions. Sometimes, this interior pain can manifest itself through unhealthy relationships or behaviors, or we try to dull the pain with overeating, pornography, drinking, or drugs.
Have you ever had unexpected joy?
Besides paying attention to the warning signs that you might be experiencing, it can also help to look at the times that life has surprised you. Have there been times in your life when you have felt that life could not get any better, and yet someone or something entered your life and brought you unexpected joy?
This is how it can be with God. When we invite him into our lives, we begin to discover a joy and a peace deeper than what we knew before.