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COVERING BEAUFORT COUNTY
Beaufort Co. students to graduate in-person From staff reports At least one local controversy sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 appears it may turn out differently in 2021. The Beaufort County School District announced Tuesday evening that it plans on holding outdoor, in-person graduation ceremonies for its 2021 graduates. Superintendent Frank Rodriguez said his first priority is to hold in-person graduation ceremonies. “I look forward to celebrat-
Beaufort City Council has approved plans for Whitehall Park. Photo by Mindy Lucas.
City approves master plan for Whitehall Park
SEE GRADUATION PAGE A2
Film Festival pulls off miracle
Construction on some of passive park’s features to begin spring of 2022
By Mindy Lucas Plans for a public park on the Lady’s Island property known as Whitehall took another step forward as Beaufort’s City Council recently greenlighted master plans for the property. Beaufort County purchased
the land for the 9.68 acre park in October of 2018 for $5.45 million, with $4.37 million coming from the county’s taxpayer-funded Rural and Critical Lands program. In a joint agreement, the county was to plan and implement
park improvements, while the city would maintain and operate the park, which is already open in its current capacity from dawn until dusk. However, a lawsuit over an access easement and stormwater drainage area held the project
15th event successful live despite COVID-19
up for more than two years. That dispute was recently settled with the county agreeing to pay the land’s previous owners, developers Whitehall Point Holdings LLC, $42,000.
“As soon as we were made aware, I got a (latitude/ longitude) on the nest tree, reported
By Mike McCombs It would be entirely forgivable if Ron and Rebecca Tucker had some doubts. A year after the Beaufort International Film Festival broke all of its own records for attendance, it faced its biggest challenge – putting on a live festival in an unfamiliar venue with COVID-19 social distancing restrictions. But instead of crumbling,
SEE EAGLE PAGE A6
SEE FILM PAGE A4
SEE PARK PAGE A4
The eagle has landed – in Whitehall
By Mindy Lucas Since when can a pair of birds hold up construction in a highly anticipated public park? When you’re the mighty Bald
Eagle, that’s when. As the country’s national emblem since 1782, the American Bald Eagle is protected under the Bald Eagle Protection Act
of 1940. So when a Bald Eagle’s nest was discovered in the southwest corner of Whitehall Park in December of 2020, park planners took immediate action.
Kenyon JPII’s first National Merit Scholar Finalist
By Mike McCombs In kindergarten, a teacher told her parents she was going to be getting a lot of scholarship offers. Maybe that was one of the first signs Gracyn Kenyon was a little different. Kevin and Joellene Kenyon were later surprised to learn their daughter, in early elementary school, had tried to read every book in their house … whether she understood the
subject matter or not. “She said she was reading everything we had,” Kevin Kenyon said. “And we didn’t even know it.” “I really did like to read a lot. I remember that I would just go for hours,” Gracyn said. “I would read the entire book. I tried to finish in one or two days. (As a 3rd grader at St. Gregory), I read the Odyssey really young, probably before I should
have read the odyssey.” So it really shouldn’t have been much of a surprise when Gracyn Kenyon, now an 18-year-old senior at John Paull II Catholic School, was named a National Merit Scholar Finalist by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation – the school’s first finalist. She had been named the school’s first semifinalist in September 2020. "Gracyn is one of the brightest
students I have encountered in my long career in education," JPII Principal John McCarthy said. "Her classroom insights and contributions are amazing." Gracyn Kenyon is competing for one of 7,600 National Merit Scholarships in the spring worth more than $31 million combined.
SEE SCHOLAR PAGE A6
SPORTS
MILITARY
INSIDE
WB stars Reeves, Tome named to Palmetto Champions All-Star Team.
Select group of sergeants on Parris Island chosen to serve as senior drill instructors among the staff sergeants or gunnery sergeants.
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