March 13, 2015

FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015

75 CENTS

SERVING SOUTH CAROLINA SINCE OCTOBER 15, 1894 2 SECTIONS, 22 PAGES | VOL. 120, NO. 125

WORLD

Bomb-sniffing elephants?

These pachyderms excel at identifying explosives A6

Ex-school head is found guilty Woman faces up to 20 years in prison with verdict in embezzlement case

BY MATT BRUCE matthew@theitem.com COLUMBIA — A self-proclaimed education visionary was convicted Thursday morning of stealing more than $2 million in federal funds earmarked for feeding and instructing children, who were students at her charter school.

Now she faces up to 20 years in federal prison.

Jurors deliberated a little more than two hours before rendering their verdict, finding former Lee County charter school chief administrator Benita Dinkins-Robinson guilty on two felony counts of embezzlement. The verdict culminated a 10-day trial, which spanned the course of three weeks inside Matthew J. Perry Jr. Federal Courthouse. Dinkins-Robinson served nearly 10 years as executive

director of Mary L. Dinkins Higher Learning Academy, a Bishopville charter school that served pre-K through high school students at the height of its operations.

U.S. attorneys were trying Dinkins-Robinson on two counts of theft of government property after she diverted more than $2.2 million from a pair of federal agencies

SEE GUILTY, PAGE A7

A little too tight to squeeze through Sgt. Dwayne Wilson of the State Transport Police measures the height of the boom of an excavator which struck the bridge over North Main Street on Thursday.

Floyd and Son Contractors was the operating company.

SCIENCE

KEITH GEDAMKE / THE SUMTER ITEM

Dose of tetanus vaccine could aid in treatment of brain cancer A5 ONLINE

Google takes aim at websites riddled with ‘unwanted software’ A8 DEATHS, B6 and B7 Trolley Lee Frank Willie J. Blanding Gilda Denise C. Ashley Joyce Ann Bazmore Johnny H. Barwick Geneva Wilson Wayne Bell

Wayne L. Richardson Carrie Lynn Sinkler M. Wilbur Ardis Kirby McGee Nicholle Rivers Anthony Martin Virginia L. Benjamin

WEATHER, A12 DON’T FORGET YOUR UMBRELLA Cooler with rain today; showers and mild tonight HIGH 55, LOW 53

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Police investigate the scene where two officers were shot outside Ferguson Police Department on Thursday in Ferguson, Missouri.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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S.C. House kills borrowing package USC Sumter library, CCTC workforce center will take hit with proposal’s death COLUMBIA (AP) — Opposition from Gov. Nikki Haley helped kill GOP House leaders’ proposal to borrow $500 million for building projects statewide.

The South Carolina House voted 69-44 Thursday, after Ways and Means Chairman Brian White moved to kill what was essentially his plan. The Republican governor opposed borrowing any amount to fund infrastructure, helping torpedo the package amid a chaotic budget debate on the House floor.

Rep. David Weeks, D-Sumter, said Thursday afternoon it appeared the proposal would not attract enough votes to survive as the House continued to debate the House General Appropriations Bill H-3701. The proposed bond included $3.5 million for the University of South Carolina Sumter campus library and $5 million for a workforce center at Central Carolina Technical College.

Most of the bond would have paid for construction at universities and technical colleges, $60 million

would have gone to the state’s economic development agency for water and sewer projects, and $50 million would have gone toward K-12 projects.

Haley criticized the borrowing package and publicly chastised White for it, saying it would run up the state’s credit card. The Republican governor posted her opposition on Facebook and sent emails asking residents to oppose the idea.

White, R-Anderson, countered

SEE PROPOSAL, PAGE A4

Police try to dampen Ferguson tension FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — With measured remarks and a conciliatory tone, police, political leaders and civilrights activists on Thursday sought to tamp down tensions after two police officers were shot in front of Ferguson Police Department during a protest.

The officers were quickly released from the hospital,

but St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said they could have easily been killed and called the attack “an ambush.” Meanwhile, people were taken in for questioning after a SWAT team converged on a Ferguson home near the shooting site. Police did not immediately offer details.

The shootings marked the first time in eight months of

tension in Ferguson that officers were shot at a protest, and the bloodshed threatened to inflame the already fraught relationship between police and protesters just as the city seeks reforms in the wake of a withering Justice Department report on racial bias in its law-enforcement practices.

SEE FERGUSON, PAGE A7

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FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015

THE SUMTER ITEM

Call: (803) 774-1226 | E-mail: pressrelease@theitem.com

LOCAL BRIEFS FROM STAFF REPORTS

County votes to end city service at county homes During Tuesday’s meeting, Sumter County Council: • Approved a motion to end City of Sumter yard debris pickup in some Sumter County neighborhoods. The motion was created during the Sumter County Public Works and Solid Waste Committee meeting that was held earlier that day. Sumter County Administrator Gary Mixon said he does not know why the service started more than a decade ago but said the service is not provided for all areas of the county. Red Bay and Loring Mill neighborhoods are just two of the areas that get the service. According to Mixon, the county pays $55,000 every year for the city yard debris pickup service. Neighborhoods that receive the debris pickup will be notified by the county in advance of the termination of city service.

• Deferred third reading for amendments made to the county Stormwater and Sediment Control Ordinance after holding a public hearing for the matter. County Attorney Jonathan Bryan said no major changes were made, but sections of the ordinance will be rearranged to make the information more easily accessible.

He said the size of the ordinance will also be reduced.

Bryan said the information would incorporate state stormwater and sediment control laws by reference to ensure that Sumter County laws automatically update when state laws update.

Bryan said he is still amending the ordinance and recommended county council defer third reading until he can provide the revised version.

Board OKs subdivision of family’s property Sumter City and County Board of Zoning Appeals approved the subdivision of land on Emil Road for lifetime conveyance during its meeting on Wednesday.

The applicant, who is also the daughter of the property owner, requested a variance from the agricultural conservation zoning district development standards which state that a lot must be a minimum of one acre.

The two properties in question, a 1.9-acre plat and a .93acre plat, together have been subdivided into three .94-acre parcels; the property owner and her two daughters will each live on a parcel.

Zoning Administrator Donna McCullum said the variance from the development standards was recommended by planning department staff because each lot will be close to one acre and has its own front access to public right-of-way.

CORRECTION If you see a statement in error, contact the City Desk at 774-1226 or pressrelease@theitem.com.

Mansion’s future in doubt Paper company’s owner cuts ties with tour group

thousands of items ranging from period furniture to tableware to clocks.

Members of the foundation board met with representatives of International Paper on Feb. 25 and were told the contract between the two was being dissolved, said Rickie Good, director of the foundation.

“Given the current state of the mansion, International Paper felt this step necessary to ensure the collection does not sustain any damage,’’ Good said in an email to board members.

IP offered to assist the foundation with both the moving and the storage costs, Good said. Foundation members plan to seek homes for some of the items at a meeting of museum directors this week in Florence.

Of more concern to historic preservationists is the mansion. International Paper isn’t sure what it will do.

“We understand there are questions about the future of Kensington,’’ said company spokeswoman Kim Wirth.

“This is a process we need to work

BY JOEY HOLLEMAN and DAWN HINSHAW The State EASTOVER — Historic preservation groups fear for the future of Kensington Mansion, the grand 19th-century home that had been open to tours for decades in southeastern Richland County.

International Paper is dissolving its partnership with the group that led tours at the mansion, which is on property owned by the company next to its plant on the Wateree River.

The mansion has been closed since suffering roof damage in the February 2014 ice storm. That damage hasn’t been fully repaired. The Scarborough-Hamer Foundation, which in addition to leading tours of the home furnished it with period items, now is seeking homes for

through, and as a result a final decision has not been made. We are hopeful that process will be completed this year.’’

Built in 1854, the mansion was the centerpiece of the Singleton family’s Headquarters Plantation. Matthew Richard Singleton, who had spent time in Europe, asked architects Edward Jones and Francis Lee to design a home in the Italianate Revival style.

The extended family owned several large plantations in the Midlands.

The property changed hands several times in the 1900s. The mansion was being used for storage of farm machinery when Union Camp, now International Paper, acquired the land for its paper mill in 1981.

The company spent nearly $1 million to renovate the mansion. It was opened for periodic tours in 1984, and the tours became more regular when the company partnered with the ScarboroughHamer Foundation in 1996. Since then, the mansion has been a tourism stalwart in the area.

Farmers can sign up for SNAP grants FROM STAFF REPORTS Farmers in South Carolina who direct market their products to consumers may be eligible for U.S. Department of Agriculture grants for free wireless electronic benefits transfer equipment and Internet access.

Farmers can sign up for the benefits from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday at the Historic SIGN UP Bean Market, For more information, 111 Henry St., visit www.fns.usda.gov/ in Lake City, programs-and-services. or from 11 a.m.

There are 56 South to 3 p.m.

Carolina directWednesday at marketing farmers and Charleston 41 farmers’ markets County Public authorized to accept Library, 68 SNAP statewide.

Calhoun St. in Farmers who are Charleston. interested in becoming The grants an authorized SNAP are intended to retailer should bring a increase Supphoto ID (driver’s license or passport), plemental Nutheir Social Security trition AssisCard (or other official tance Program document with their recipients’ acname and Social cess to fresh Security number) and a produce and copy of a voided check farmers’ marfor information on the kets. bank account they will The USDA use to deposit funds.

SNAP sign-up For more information, day will procall (866) 632-9992 vide a one-stop (English) or (800) 877shop to help 8339 (TDD) or (866) direct-market377-8642 (English ing farmers Federal-relay) or (800) get authorized 845-6136 (Spanish and receive adFederal-relay). ditional support for incentive programs to encourage SNAP customers to shop at farms and farmers’ markets, benefiting farmers, customers and local economies.

“South Carolina’s farmers are instrumental in providing fresh fruits

SUMTER ITEM FILE PHOTO

Inell Gamble sets out some more vegetables to sell at Sumter Farmers’ Market in June 2011.

Farmers can sign up to become authorized SNAP retailers on Tuesday and Wednesday. and vegetables and other healthy foods throughout the state,” said Erin Swanson-Hall, the Southeast’s deputy regional administrator for USDA Food and Nutrition Service. “We are striving to expand access to healthy food to those participating in SNAP. The ability to accept SNAP benefits helps farmers expand their customer base and economically support their local community.”

South Carolina SNAP-authorized farmers and farmers’ markets can also

participate in the Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program to provide fresh, unprepared, locally grown fruits and vegetables to supplemental nutritional benefits for women, infants and children participants and the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program to provide low-income seniors with coupons that can be exchanged for eligible foods (fruits, vegetables, honey and fresh-cut herbs) at farmers’ markets, roadside stands and community-supported agriculture programs.

HOW TO REACH US IS YOUR PAPER MISSING? ANNOUNCEMENT ARE YOU GOING ON Birth, Engagement, Wedding, VACATION? Anniversary, Obituary 20 N. Magnolia St., Sumter, S.C. 29150 (803) 774-1200 Jack Osteen Editor and Publisher jack@theitem.com (803) 774-1238 Rick Carpenter Managing Editor rick@theitem.com (803) 774-1201 Waverly Williams Sales Manager waverly@theitem.com (803) 774-1237

Earle Woodward Customer Service Manager earle@theitem.com (803) 774-1259 Michele Barr Business Manager michele@theitem.com (803) 774-1249 Gail Mathis Clarendon Bureau Manager gail@theitem-clarendonsun.com (803) 435-4716

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THE SUMTER ITEM

FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015

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Chinese makers roll out Apple watch lookalikes

BY JOE MCDONALD AP Business Writer BEIJING — A month before Apple Inc.’s smart watch hits the market, China’s thriving copycat manufacturers are selling lookalikes, some openly advertised as Apple copies.

“Apple Smart Watch with Bluetooth Bracelet,” says one vendor on Alibaba Group’s popular Taobao e-commerce website.

Photos on the vendor’s page appear to be the real Apple Watch. It says features on the Chinese version include text messaging and a music player. It starts at 288 yuan ($45), or one-eighth the $349 price of the cheapest Apple Watch.

Alibaba, which listed on the New York Stock Exchange last year after a record initial public offering, has faced criticism in the past for hosting the sale of counterfeit goods. It says it has been taking steps to reduce the problem.

The flood of “me too” smart watches reflects China’s mix of skilled electronics manufacturers and a growing consumer market for bargain-price style.

Most of the world’s personal computers and mobile phones are assembled in China. But this country’s own companies are only starting to develop

droid operating system.

One vendor jokingly used Chinese slang for a vulgar rich person, offering an “All-New Apple Tyrant Gold Mobile Phone-Supporting Watch” for 288 yuan ($45).

Eight vendors failed to respond to questions from The Associated Press sent through their Taobao accounts.

Asked whether it had taken action against any sellers, Alibaba said in a statement, “Alibaba Group is dedicated to the fight against counterfeits. We work closely with our government partners, brands and industry associations to tackle this issue at its source.

We also utilize technology like data mining and big data to scrub our platforms of counterfeits.”

In January, a Chinese government agency accused Alibaba of lax oversight and allowing vendors to sell counterfeit goods on Taobao. The dispute was settled within a few days.

The agency said its report had no legal force and Alibaba promised to tighten its oversight of vendors.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, says buyers in China and Hong Kong can pre-order its watch beginning April 10, the same day it takes orders in the United States, Japan, Britain, France and Germany.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

An e-commerce website with a vendor selling the “Apple Smart Watch Bluetooth Bracelet” starting from 288 yuan (U.S. $45) is displayed on a computer screen in Beijing on Thursday. A month before Apple Inc.’s smartwatch hits the market, China’s thriving copycat manufacturers are selling lookalikes, some openly advertised as Apple copies. design skills and the ability to create breakthrough products.

That has led to the rise of an industry known as “shanzhai,” or “mountain forts” — hundreds of small, anonymous manufacturers that quickly copy the design or features of popular

foreign mobile phones or other products at a fraction of the price.

At least eight vendors on Taobao advertised watches as “Apple Watch” or “Apple Watch lookalike.” Most said they were compatible with Apple’s iOS or Google Inc.’s rival An-

Fake IRS agents target more than 366,000 in huge tax scam

BY STEPHEN OHLEMACHER The Associated Press WASHINGTON — Fake IRS agents have targeted more than 366,000 people with harassing phone calls demanding payments and threatening jail in the largest scam of its kind in the history of the agency, a fed-

eral investigator said Thursday.

More than 3,000 people have fallen for the ruse since 2013, said Timothy Camus, a Treasury deputy inspector general for tax administration. They were conned out of a total of $15.5 million.

The scam has claimed victims in almost every state,

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they hung up, local police would come to their homes to arrest them.”

The scam is so widespread that investigators think there is more than one group of perpetrators, including some overseas.

Camus said even he received a call from one of the scammers at his home

Camus said. One unidentified victim lost more than $500,000.

“The criminals do not discriminate. They are calling people everywhere, of all income levels and backgrounds,” Camus told the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing. “The callers often warned the victims that if

on a Saturday. He said he had a stern message for the caller: “Your day will come.”

Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., said he got a similar call, but realized it wasn’t a real IRS agent.

“It was a very convincing, convincing phone call,” Isakson said.

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LOCAL | STATE

FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015

THE SUMTER ITEM

Rare 475-pound leatherback turtle released ISLE OF PALMS (AP) — A rare 475-pound endangered leatherback sea turtle found stranded on a South Carolina beach was released into the ocean Thursday after five days of treatment at South Carolina Aquarium.

The turtle, named Yawkey and the first leatherback known to be stranded alive in the state, was carried in a box to the edge of the surf on a wind-swept beach at the Isle of Palms near Charleston.

Staffers from the aquarium and the state Department of Natural Resources lowered the sides of the box and, after a minute or two of hesitation, the turtle made its way into the surf as a crowd of about 75 people cheered.

For about 10 minutes, Yawkey then swam parallel to the shore — aquarium workers said the creature was hung up on a sand bar — before a large wave came in, the turtle raised a large flipper above the surface and then disappeared.

The turtle was found Saturday in Georgetown County on a beach at the Yawkey-

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Yawkey, a rare leatherback sea turtle, moves off the beach at the Isle of Palms on Thursday. The turtle was being returned to the Atlantic Ocean after it was treated for five days at South Carolina Aquarium.

Yawkey, who was found Saturday in Georgetown County, is the first leatherback turtle known to be stranded alive in the state.

South Island Reserve — hence the turtle’s name — and brought to the aquarium where it was treated with an-

tibiotics and fluids and made a quick recovery.

“It couldn’t have gone any better from the time she came

to us through release. We’re extremely happy,” said Kelly Thorvalson, program manager for the aquarium sea-turtle

rescue program.

It is not known exactly what was ailing Yawkey, but Thorvalson said the turtle may have eaten some plastic it mistook for a jellyfish, which is the leatherback’s favorite food. That could have caused a buildup of gas in the digestive tract, making the turtle buoyant and washing it to shore.

Leatherbacks, an endangered species, are the largest sea turtles, with adults generally weighing 800 to 1,000 pounds. They get their name because, instead of a shell, their backs are covered with leathery, oily tissue.

While the turtle’s weight was estimated at 500 pounds when it was rescued, it weighed in at 475 pounds Tuesday, said Kate Dittloff, the aquarium public relations manager.

Thorvalson said it was important to get Yawkey back to the ocean quickly because leatherbacks don’t do well in captivity. Because they live in deep water, they don’t sense boundaries so they tend to swim into the sides of tanks and bruise.

PROPOSAL FROM PAGE A1 that the package would take care of state infrastructure needs now — at current construction prices — while the cost of borrowing remains near historic lows.

According to an Associated Press report, in 2013, Haley eagerly signed a bill that borrowed $120 million for Boeing’s expansion plans in North Charleston. Borrowing is also a major component of the 2013 road-funding bill Haley touted on the campaign trail as a major accomplishment of her first term.

After killing the bond package, the House recessed as work continued on the budget.

“We’re working on one gigantic amendment” to put the budget back in balance, White, R-Anderson, said before the break.

Sumter Item staff writer Jim Hilley contributed to this article.

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THE DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND

FRIDAY, MARCH 13 • 7:30 PM

Fresh off a tour in Japan, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, a quintessential New Orleans musical institution, will stop at the Sumter Opera House for one night Friday (March 13). This is one of its final tune-ups before it takes center stage at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival before thousands of people next month.

Anchored by original members Roger Lewis, Kevin Harris, Gregory Davis, Efrem Towns and Kirk Joseph, Dirty Dozen is one of the few remaining brass bands from the 1970s. Its name is synonymous with genre-bending romps and high-octane performances, including jazz funerals and “second-line parades.”

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band formed in New Orleans in 1977, but it is their willingness to look beyond the New Orleans songbook and find connections amongst a wider range of music that has endeared them to critics, fellow musicians and a multi-generational, global audience.

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Study suggests Saturn moon Jupiter’s moon may have could feature hot springs ocean lurking below it

BY ALICIA CHANG AP Science Writer LOS ANGELES — New research suggests there are hot springs bubbling beneath the icy surface of a tiny Saturn moon.

If confirmed, it would make the moon Enceladus the only other known body in the solar system besides Earth where hot water and rocks interact underground.

That activity would make the moon an even more attractive place in the hunt for microbial life. On Earth, scientists have found weird life forms living in hydrothermal vents on the ocean bottom where there’s no sunlight.

The research comes from Cassini, a NASA-European spacecraft that launched in 1997 to explore Saturn and its numerous moons from orbit. It previously uncovered a vast ocean beneath Enceladus and a giant plume of gas and ice streaming from cracks in the south polar region.

In the latest study, a group led by Cassini team member Sean Hsu of University of Colorado in Boulder used spacecraft observations and computer modeling to show

Tetanus shot might help treatment of brain cancer

BY MALCOLM RITTER AP Science Writer NEW YORK — Can a tetanus shot help treat brain cancer? A small study hints that it might.

A dose of tetanus vaccine let patients live longer when added to an experimental treatment for the most common and deadly kind of brain tumor, researchers report.

It “put the immune system on high alert,” paving the way for the experimental treatment to work better in attacking the disease, said researcher Kristen Batich of Duke University Medical Center.

In a paper released Wednesday by the journal Nature, she and others describe a study of 12 patients.

Some who got the tetanus shot lived years longer than those who didn’t.

Dr. John Sampson of Duke, senior author of the report, called the results promising but noted the study was small and said bigger studies are needed to confirm the results. A follow-up study has already been planned but isn’t recruiting patients yet, Batich said.

Brain cancer experts unconnected with the work were impressed.

The results are “very exciting,” said Dr. Nader Sanai of Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix. While he agreed more work is required, “what you have so far, it’s a very positive story.”

Tetanus is otherwise known as lockjaw. Vaccines for it are routinely recommended for children and adults.

The new study focused on glioblastoma, which killed Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in 2009. Even after surgery to remove the tumor, it usually grows back and kills. The few drugs to treat these tumors have little effect. Half of patients die within about 15 months.

The new work is an example of a long-standing effort to harness the immune system to fight cancer, an approach called immunotherapy.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Scientists say there may be an ocean lurking below on the biggest moon in the solar system.

The Jupiter moon Ganymede is one of a growing number of moons that are thought to have water underground.

Ganymede’s ocean is thought to be much deeper than oceans on Earth — about 60 miles thick and sandwiched between an icy crust and rocky mantle.

AP PHOTO/NASA

Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, is shown in this June 2009 image taken by the international Cassini spacecraft. A new study, published online Wednesday in the journal Nature, suggests there are ongoing interactions between hot water and rocks beneath the surface of the icy moon. that the plume is connected to what’s happening on the lunar sea floor.

Judging by their size and makeup, the team thinks particles in the plume are

the result of hot water coming into contact with rocks on the ocean floor. The resulting mineral-rich water then shoots up through the icy crust and erupts into space in a plume of gas and ice. Some particles settle around Saturn, replenishing its biggest ring.

The new work also suggests that the ocean is deeper than previous estimates — more than 30 miles deep below the icy crust. It did not provide details on how big the ocean might be, but the Cassini team last year said it could be as big as or even bigger than North America’s Lake Superior.

Cassini should get a bet-

The latest evidence comes from the Hubble Space Telescope, which observed the moon’s magnetic field to get a glimpse of its interior.

Scientists have long suspected there was an ocean beneath Ganymede and they say Hubble provides the most convincing evidence yet.

The European Space Agency wants to launch a mission in 2022 to explore Jupiter and three of its moons including Ganymede. ter glimpse of the plume later this year when it flies through it, passing within 30 miles above Enceladus’ surface.

The findings were published online Wednesday in the journal Nature.

In an accompanying editorial, Gabriel Tobie of France’s University of Nantes said the environment beneath Enceladus appears similar to the underwater system of hot springs and towering spires nicknamed “Lost City” in the mid-Atlantic.

It would take future missions such as a lander on the surface of Enceladus to “fully reveal the secrets of its hot springs,” he wrote.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015

THE SUMTER ITEM

Bomb-sniffing elephants?

Chishuru the elephant is rewarded by David, left, after completing a successful scent trial on June 13. David’s colleague, Sugar, sits on top of Chishuru after the trial in Bela-Bela, north of Pretoria, South Africa.

U.S. Army says it’s not such a nutty concept

BY CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA The Associated Press JOHANNESBURG — Armed with a sharp sense of smell, dogs have a long history of detecting explosives for their human handlers. Trained rats sniff out land mines from old African wars. In Croatia, researchers have tried to train bees to identify TNT. Now elephants. New research conducted in South Africa and involving the U.S. military shows they excel at identifying explosives by smell, stirring speculation about whether their extraordinary ability can save lives.

“They work it out very, very quickly,” said Sean Hensman, co-owner of a game reserve where three elephants passed the smell tests by sniffing at buckets and getting a treat of marula, a tasty fruit, when they showed that they recognized samples of TNT, a common explosive, by raising a front leg.

Another plus: Elephants remember their training longer than dogs, said Stephen Lee, head scientist at U.S. Army Research Office, a major

funder of the research.

The research comes as elephant populations across Africa are threatened. Poachers across the continent have annually killed tens of thousands of elephants for their tusks in recent years because of a surge in demand for ivory in Asia, primarily China.

A pachyderm’s potential prowess in detecting explosives was noticed in Angola, a country that many elephants had returned to after a 2002 peace deal ended a protracted war that saw many elephants being slaughtered. While there was peace, the land remained sown with mine fields. Some elephants seemed to intentionally avoid them, though it might not have been a scent that kept them away — they could instead have associated those areas with danger because elephants had died there in the past.

Researchers were inspired to find out what was going on.

Near Bela-Bela, a town north of the South African capital of Pretoria, elephants named Shan, Mussina and Chishuru were administered smelling tests. The elephants

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

detected TNT samples 73 out of the 74 times that they encountered its odor in a line of buckets, said Ashadee Kay Miller, a zoology student at the school of animal, plant and environmental sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

In the same tests, the elephants wrongly identified only 18 out of 502 buckets as containing TNT, amounting to a 3.6 percent error rate, Miller said. In the buckets containing TNT, the explosive was dissolved in acetone on filter paper; only the acetone and filter paper were put in the

other buckets.

In a second set of tests, the elephants scored 100 percent, detecting TNT in 23 out of 23 buckets when “distractor odors” of tea, bleach, soap and gasoline were placed in the other buckets, she said.

Lugging around the huge mammals to mine fields wouldn’t be practical, so one idea is to bring parts of the mine fields to them.

Unmanned drones would collect scent samples from mined areas; a trained elephant would then smell them and alert handlers to any sign of explosives, Hensman said.

Lee, of the U.S. Army, said another aim is to “replicate that sense of smell” and incorporate it into electronic sensors that detect dangerous materials, building on research with dogs and rats.

Lee said researchers are also thinking of designing a sensor based on an elephant trunk, which puffs out air, stirring up an area, and then sucks in air to smell. Florida International University participated in the initial research, and it was done on a “shoestring” budget with volunteers, he said.

The findings did not surprise George Wittemyer, an assistant professor at Colorado State University’s department of fish, wildlife and conservation biology. Wittemyer, who was not involved in the South Africa survey, has studied elephants in Kenya.

“Their world is primarily olfactory,” he said. “The sensitivity is recognized as being unparalleled.”

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FERGUSON FROM PAGE A1 The attack resonated all the way to Washington. President Obama took to Twitter to relay his prayers to the officers and to denounce violence against police as unacceptable. “Path to justice is one all of us must travel together,” Obama wrote, signing the tweet with his initials to indicate the president personally composed it.

Attorney General Eric Holder said the gunman was “a damn punk” who was “trying to sow discord in an area that was trying to get its act together, trying to bring together a community that had been fractured for too long.”

The shots were fired early Thursday just as a small crowd of protesters began to break up after a late-

GUILTY FROM PAGE A1 between 2007 and 2012. Prosecutors proved that DinkinsRobinson used various “shell companies” to embezzle U.S. Department of Agriculture dollars as well as Title I, Title II and IDEA money from the U.S. Department of Education — funds earmarked for food services and educational purposes at her school. Din-

night demonstration that unfolded hours after the resignation of Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson.

The shots were thought to come from a handgun across the street from the police department, which has been a national focal point since the fatal Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown, who was black and unarmed, by a white police officer.

The gunman may have fired from up to 120 yards away, a long distance for most pistols. But with a line of roughly 20 officers standing in front of the building, the shooter did not have to be particularly accurate to hit two of them, Belmar said.

“We’re lucky by God’s grace we didn’t lose two officers last night,” Belmar said.

A 41-year-old St. Louis County officer was shot in the right shoulder, the

kins-Robinson could be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in federal prison on each count and faces a fine as much as $250,000.

“It was a hard-fought case,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Winston Holliday, who served as the main prosecutor in the trial. “I was very grateful to the jury’s verdict and grateful that a corrupt woman has been held accountable for stealing taxpayers’ money.”

U.S. Department of Justice

FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015

bullet exiting through his back. A 32-year-old officer from Webster Groves was wearing a riot helmet with the face shield up. He was shot in the right cheek, just below the eye, and the bullet lodged behind his ear.

Tensions have been high in Ferguson since August and escalated in November after a St. Louis County grand jury declined to prosecute Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Brown. Justice Department investigators concurred with that finding in a report released March 4.

But a separate Justice Department report released that same day found racial profiling in the Ferguson police force and a municipal court system driven by profit, largely on the backs of black and low-income residents.

In the week after the report, Ferguson’s court clerk was fired and the

officials said it could take six or more weeks before Dinkins-Robinson learns her fate in the wake of Thursday’s convictions. Chief U.S. District of South Carolina Judge Terry Wooten, who presided over Dinkins-Robinson’s trial, ordered federal probation agents to conduct a pre-sentencing report on the woman before he issues a ruling on her punishment.

After the verdict, jurors remained in the courtroom and

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municipal judge, two police officers and the city manager voluntarily stepped aside. Wilson resigned in November.

John Gaskin III, a St. Louis community activist, speculated that the shooting was conducted by outside agitators intent on hijacking attention from peaceful, reform-minded protesters.

Activists “cannot afford these kinds of incidents happening, because that gets us absolutely nowhere.”

In a statement, Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III and city council said that although they respect the right to protest peacefully, “we cannot continue to move forward under threats of violence and destruction to our community. We ask our residents and clergy in this area to partner with us as we make our way through this process.”

listened to attorneys argue about the allocation of Dinkins-Robinson’s proceeds during an assets forfeiture hearing. Federal prosecutors persuaded the panel to issue a forfeiture order, allowing them to seize the defendant’s assets and properties involved in or obtained as a result of her embezzlement.

Among those items were a Camden home investigators traced to the fraud scheme as well as nearly $770,000 in in-

surance-policy assets issued to family members either through Dinkins-Robinson or her father.

The embattled charter school director initially came under fire last May when a federal grand jury indicted her on the embezzlement accusations.

Prosecutors requested that she be detained while she awaits her sentencing, but Wooten raised her bond and allowed her to remain free until the hearing, Holliday said.

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THE SUMTER ITEM

Safe browsing system protects 1.1 billion users

A group of unidentified men walk down a shoreline littered with debris from the crash of an Army helicopter with 11 service members aboard near the Florida community of Navarre.

Websites’ ‘unwanted software’ triggers warning from Google

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Get ready to see more red warning signs online as Google adds ammunition to its technological artillery for targeting devious schemes lurking on websites.

The latest weapon is aimed at websites riddled with “unwanted software” — a term that Google uses to describe secretly installed programs that can change a browser’s settings without a user’s permission. Those revisions can unleash a siege of aggravating ads or redirect a browser’s users to search engines or other sites that they didn’t intend to visit.

Google had already deployed the warning system to alert users of its Chrome browser that they were about to enter a site distributing unwanted software. The Mountain View, California, company just recently began to feed the security information into a broader “safe browsing” application that also works in Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox browsers.

All told, the safe browsing application protects about 1.1 billion browser users, according to a Thursday blog post that Google Inc. timed to coincide with the 26th anniversary of the date when Tim Berners-Lee is widely credited for inventing the World Wide Web. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer doesn’t tap into Google’s free safe browsing application. Instead, Explorer depends on a similar warning system, the SmartScreen Filter.

Google’s alerts about unwanted software build upon warnings the safe browsing system has already been delivering for years about sites infected with malware, programs carrying viruses and other sinister coding, and phishing sites that try to dupe people into sharing passwords or credit card information.

Whenever a potential threat is detected by the safe browsing system, it displays a red warning sign advising a user to stay away.

Official says there’s little hope 11 service members survived crash NAVARRE, Fla. (AP) — Military officials said Thursday they found the main site where a Black Hawk helicopter crashed amid dense fog off the Florida shore, killing seven Marines and four soldiers who were aboard for a training mission.

“At this point, we are not hopeful for survivors, and we’re transitioning our search and rescue to a recovery effort,” said Col. Monte Cannon, who is overseeing the search.

The military is not yet releasing the names of those killed in the crash or any details about them, Cannon said.

Heavy fog, rain and rough surf complicated efforts to recover the remains of those killed. The military has provided few details about the crash, which happened Tuesday night in fog so thick that another helicopter turned back.

The same fog and crashing Gulf waves surrounded a pier where a large gathering held vigil Wednesday night, creating a somber backdrop to the songs, tears and prayers of people with strong ties to the military and sprawling Eglin

Air Force Base.

Dozens of airmen walked the shores of Santa Rosa Sound on Thursday, and the Coast Guard searched for debris in the water, said Mike Spaits, a base spokesman.

Pieces of clothing and bits of the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter have washed ashore, and homeowners have contacted the military to pick it up, he said.

“My heart is really hurt right now knowing these people were here just on training — knowing they went and left their family members and did not give that goodbye, you know, because they weren’t going off to war,” a tearful Dolly Edwards, herself the wife of a Marine, said at the vigil.

Jack Cullen, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Mobile, Alabama, said Thursday’s dense sea fog could persist through today, which is common when warm southern air meets cold water this time of year.

The helicopter that crashed had a veteran crew from Hammond, Louisiana, that served multiple tours in

Iraq and helped humanitarian missions after Gulf Coast hurricanes and the BP oil spill.

They were carrying “unconventional warriors” from the Marines Special Operations Command. Like the Army’s Green Berets and the Navy’s SEALs, they were highly trained to endure grueling conditions and sensitive assignments on land and at sea, from seizing ships to special reconnaissance missions and direct action inside hostile territory.

Tuesday night’s training involved practicing “insertion and extraction missions,” using small boats and helicopters to get troops into and out of a target site, said Capt.

Barry Morris, spokesman for the Marine Corps Special Operations Command at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

The helicopter crashed in a strip of water between the mainland of the Florida Panhandle and a long barrier island facing the Gulf. Military officials said search crews were focused on a six-mile stretch of the sound.

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Navigating viewing opportunities is a crapshoot

BY KEVIN MCDONOUGH As we careen toward a weekend of St. Patrick’s Day festivities, Create TV presents “Back to Basics” (6:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.), hosted by Irish chef Kevin Dundon.

Dundon has cooked for single-named pop stars Pink and Bono and world leaders Queen Elizabeth II and President George W. Bush. What better time to discover that Irish cuisine is more than corned beef and cabbage?

What the heck is Create TV? It’s a digital spinoff of PBS available on many cable systems, with new series like “Basics” and old favorites in the fields of cooking, travel, home improvement, gardening and crafts. It’s where you can find “The Best of the Joy of Painting,” featuring America’s greatest artist, the late Bob Ross!

Check local listings, or visit createtv.com for times and offerings.

PBS offshoots like Create TV and World Channel remind us how trying to keep up with television shows and even networks has become bewildering to some and a full-time pursuit for yours truly. Just when did the TV Guide channel become Pop? Television got a lot more interesting just this past week — and not necessarily in a good way.

On Monday, Time Warner launched HBO Now, a streaming service that begins in April, just in time for the new season of “Game of Thrones.”

But while folks at HBO may be eager to make money on a subscription streaming service that reaches cablephobic “cord-cutters,” its parent company Time Warner is still very much in the cable business and doesn’t want to hurt or kill its old media golden goose.

As a result, the launch of HBO Now has all the hallmarks of a corporate compromise of the thoroughly half-baked variety. Yes, you can stream HBO Now, but only on Apple TV or smartphones and tablets running the iOS software.

If you have an Android device or a Roku player, you’re out of luck.

And if you want HBO Now, it will cost you $14.99, consid-

erably more than the $7.99 Netflix charges for existing customers. With the service’s cost and exclusivity, Time Warner seems to be saying, “Maybe it would be easier to just keep your cable contract.”

To recap: HBO has entered the streaming pool, but only in the shallow end of a highpriced facility operated exclusively by Apple.

And HBO is hardly alone.

Did you hear about the series “Powers” that debuted Tuesday? In a first, this crime show can only be watched on a PlayStation game console!

I’m no expert, but this has gotten ridiculous.

Imagine driving your GM car to an Exxon station and being told that the gas only works in Fords. Television would never have flourished if NBC aired only on Philco sets and ABC didn’t work on Sonys.

At some point, TV has got to reconfigure a compatible standard for the viewing experience, or it will shatter into a thousand meaningless markets and collapse.

Until then, things remain very, very interesting.

TONIGHT’S OTHER HIGHLIGHTS • Nick reaches out to an old nemesis on “Grimm” (8 p.m., NBC, r, TV-14).

• Under siege in a barber’s

chair on “Hawaii Five-0” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-14).

• Rachel’s difficult choice on “Glee” (9 p.m., Fox, TV-14).

• A cattleman from Peoria, Illinois, gets a second chance on “Shark Tank” (9 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).

• Eddie goes undercover on “Blue Bloods” (10 p.m., CBS, TV-14).

• Cole returns to 2017 on “12 Monkeys” (9 p.m., Syfy).

• An all-natural cure emerges on “Helix” (10 p.m., Syfy).

• Job blames Carrie for their blown cover on the season finale of “Banshee” (10 p.m., Cinemax, TV-MA).

• “Vice” (11 p.m., HBO) examines the militarization of police forces.

CULT CHOICE Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall star in the 1954 comedy “The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters” (3:30 p.m., TCM).

SERIES NOTES Trekking through Bangkok on “The Amazing Race” (8 p.m., CBS) * A very surprising party on “Last Man Standing” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-PG) * “World’s Funniest Fails” (8 p.m., Fox, TV-14) * Lavon organizes a talent show on “Hart of Dixie” (8 p.m., CW, r, TV-14) * Bailing out the boss on “Cristela” (8:30 p.m., ABC, TV-PG) * Two hours of “Date-

GREGORY SHUMMON / COURTESY OF CINEMAX

Stowe (Langley Kirkwood) holds Carrie (Ivana Milicevic) at gunpoint on the “We All Pay Eventually” season finale of “Banshee” airing at 10 p.m. today on Cinemax. line” (9 p.m., NBC) * “TV’s Hottest Commercials Countdown” (9 p.m., CW, r, TV-14) * “20/20” (10 p.m., ABC).

(12:35 a.m., NBC, r) * Adam Pally guest-hosts Ben Schwartz and Death Cab for Cutie on “The Late Late Show” (12:35 a.m., CBS, r).

LATE NIGHT

Copyright 2015, United Feature Syndicate

Kevin Bacon, Jimmie Walker and The Airborne Toxic Event appear on “Late Show With David Letterman” (11:35 p.m., CBS) * Jimmy Fallon welcomes Samuel L. Jackson, Norman Reedus and Jessie J on “The Tonight Show” (11:35 p.m., NBC, r) * Vince Vaughn and Mike Tyson appear on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (11:35 p.m., ABC, r) * Will Forte, Ellie Kemper and Sleater-Kinney visit “Late Night With Seth Meyers”

WEATHER TECH KITS! YOUR LOCAL WEATHER TECH SUPPLIER

• FLOOR LINER KITS • WE INSTALL G CERTIFIFT ICATES

!

“The Truck & SUV Specialists”

1255 N. Lafayette - Sumter

8:30AM - 5:30PM MONDAY - FRIDAY • 8:30AM - 12:30PM SATURDAY

A10

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COMICS

FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015

BIZARRO

SOUP TO NUTZ

ANDY CAPP

GARFIELD

BEETLE BAILEY

BORN LOSER

BLONDIE

ZITS

MOTHER GOOSE

DOG EAT DOUG

DILBERT

JEFF MACNELLY’S SHOE

Old world tradition clashes with new world diet DEAR ABBY — I have been dating my boyfriend, Mike, for about two years, and things are going great.

Dear Abby During this time, I have ABIGAIL become very VAN BUREN close with his family.

Both of his parents came to the United States from Europe, and with their culture comes his mother’s traditional cooking and the need to make sure everyone’s bellies are full.

I have always enjoyed her food; however, in the last six months I have become a vegetarian. Out of courtesy for her, I have been making sure to eat

THE SUMTER ITEM

at home before spending time at Mike’s house. I can see that his mother feels a bit put off because I have been eating less of her food, but I feel it would be rude to ask her for a separate meal to accommodate my diet. What should I do?

Nervous in New England DEAR NERVOUS — Your boyfriend’s mother may be put off because she doesn’t understand why you seem to be enjoying her cooking less. If you and Mike have been seeing each other for two years, you and his mother should be able to have an honest conversation with each other. TELL her you enjoy her cooking, but that you have changed your diet and no longer eat meat, etc. If she volunteers to prepare something else for you, it

THE DAILY CROSSWORD PUZZLE

would be gracious of her.

However, if she doesn’t, I agree that it would be rude to ask her to do so.

DEAR ABBY — As a Valentine surprise, my boyfriend of two years presented me with a donation he had made in my name to his favorite charity. I thought it was impersonal and it hurt my feelings. Am I wrong to think he really doesn’t care much for me?

Rose-less in North Carolina DEAR ROSE-LESS — Let me put it this way, your boyfriend isn’t very good when it comes to gift selection. Many men aren’t. But more important than candy or flowers is how he treats you the other 364 days of the year, and that’s how you should judge him.

JUMBLE

SUDOKU

THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME

By David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek

HOW TO PLAY: Each row, column and set of 3-by-3 boxes must contain the numbers 1 through 9 without repetition.

ACROSS 1 Principal introduction?

5 Ladybug lunches 11 Handle for a chef?

14 “Yikes!”

15 Bully 16 ‘60s-’70s news focus, informally 17 Allowance for food, vet visits, etc.?

19 Old sports org. using colorful balls 20 Place to play 21 PC key 22 Some execs 23 Bedtime for bats?

27 Annual New England attraction 31 Mutt 32 “__ a traveler ...”: “Ozymandias” 33 Dolts 36 First Poet Laureate of Vermont 40 Threw a tantrum at ballet school?

43 You might wake up to one 44 Satirist once dubbed “Will Rogers with fangs” 45 Heavily sit (down) 46 Draft choice 48 Lost it

50 Decisive “Star Wars” victory?

55 Eclectic online reader 56 Slime 57 Treacherous type 62 Beads on blades 63 Answer to “What did people listen to during the Depression, se– or?”?

66 Poetic preposition 67 Landlocked African country 68 When some ties are broken, briefly 69 Clear 70 Grant 71 Part of CSNY DOWN 1 “Up in the Air” Oscar nominee Farmiga 2 Aircraft pioneer Sikorsky 3 Give in 4 Ideal world 5 Diplomatic VIP 6 Little, in Lille 7 Went after 8 Hastings hearth 9 Tab alternative 10 Play area 11 Muddled sit-

uation 12 Fife-anddrum corps instrument 13 It has a med school in Worcester 18 Avis adjective 22 Crooked 24 Awestruck 25 They might cause jitters 26 Snit 27 Maine forest sights 28 Arabian sultanate 29 Toy for an aspiring architect 30 Repeat 34 DOT agcy.

35 The “e” sound in “tandem” 37 Ceramic pot 38 Dinner on the farm, maybe

39 Enter, in a way 41 Where to nosh on a knish 42 Wire service?: Abbr.

47 Captivate 49 St. Petersburg’s river 50 More boorish 51 Comic Cheri 52 Single 53 Some floats 54 Essence 58 “Let’s do it!”

59 C—ctel fruit 60 They may be inflated 61 Author who created Zuckerman 63 Barbecue seasoning 64 Prefix with meter 65 Carpenter’s tool

THE SUMTER ITEM N.G. Osteen 1843-1936 The Watchman and Southron

FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015 H.G. Osteen 1870-1955 Founder, The Item

H.D. Osteen 1904-1987 The Item

|

A11

Margaret W. Osteen 1908-1996 The Item Hubert D. Osteen Jr. Chairman & Editor-in-Chief Graham Osteen Co-President Kyle Osteen Co-President Jack Osteen Editor and Publisher Larry Miller CEO Rick Carpenter Managing Editor

20 N. Magnolia St., Sumter, South Carolina 29150 • Founded October 15, 1894

COMMENTARY

The diagnosis is Early Onset Clinton Fatigue W ASHINGTON — She burned the tapes.

Had Richard Nixon burned his tapes, he would have survived Watergate. Sure, there would have been a major firestorm, but no smoking gun. Hillary Rodham was a young staffer on the House Judiciary Committee investigating Nixon. She saw. She learned.

Today you don’t burn tapes.

You delete emails. Hillary Clinton deleted 30,000, dismissing their destruction with the brilliantly casual: “I didn’t see any reason to keep them.”

After all, they were private and personal, she assured everyone.

How do we know that?

She says so.

Were, say, Clinton Charles Krauthammer Foundation contributions considered personal? No one asked. It’s unlikely we’ll ever know. We have to trust her.

That’s not easy. Not just because of her history — William Safire wrote in 1996 that “Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that our first lady ... is a congenital liar” — but because of what she said in her emergency news conference on Tuesday. Among the things she listed as private were “personal communications from my husband and me.” Except that, as The Wall Street Journal reported the very same day, Bill Clinton’s spokesman said the former president has sent exactly two emails in his life, one to John Glenn, the other to U.S. troops in the Adriatic.

Mrs. Clinton’s other major declaration was that the server containing the emails — owned, controlled and housed by her — “will remain private.” Meaning: No one will get near them.

This she learned not from Watergate but from Whitewater. Her husband acquiesced to the appointment of a Whitewater special prosecutor. Hillary objected strenuously. Her fear was that once someone is empowered to search, the searcher can roam freely. In the Clintons’ case, it led to impeachment because when the Lewinsky scandal broke, the special prosecutor added that to his portfolio.

Hillary was determined never to permit another openended investigation. Which is why she decided even before being confirmed as secretary of state that only she would control her email.

Her pretense for keeping just a single private email account was “convenience.” She doesn’t like to carry around two devices.

But two weeks ago she said she now carries two phones and a total of four devices.

Moreover, it takes about a minute to create two accounts on one device. Former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood did exactly that.

Her answers are farcical.

Everyone knows she kept the email private for purposes of concealment and, above all, control. For other State Department employees, their emails belong to the government. The records officers de-

‘You can feel it. It’s a recurrence of an old ailment. It was bound to set in, but not this soon. What you’re feeling now is Early Onset Clinton Fatigue.

The CDC is recommending elaborate precautions.

Forget it. The only known cure is Elizabeth Warren.’ cide to return to you what’s personal. For Hillary Clinton, she decides.

The point of regulations is to ensure government transparency. The point of owning the server is to ensure opacity.

Because she holds the emails, all document requests by Congress, by subpoena, by Freedom of Information Act inquiries have ultimately to go through her lawyers, who will stonewall until the end of time — or Election Day 2016, whichever comes first.

It’s a smart political calculation. Taking a few weeks of heat now — it’s only March 2015 — is far less risky than being blown up by some future email discovery. Moreover, around April 1, the Clinton apologists will begin dismissing the whole story as “old news.”

But even if nothing further is found, the damage is done.

After all, what is Hillary running on? Her experience and record, say her supporters.

What record? She’s had three major jobs. Secretary of state: Can you name a single achievement in four years?

U.S. senator: Can you name a single achievement in eight years? First lady: her one achievement in eight years?

Hillarycare, a shipwreck.

In reality, Hillary Clinton is running on two things: gender and name. Gender is not to be underestimated. It will make her the Democratic nominee.

The name is equally valuable.

It evokes the warm memory of the golden 1990s, a decade of peace and prosperity during our holiday from history.

Now breaking through, however, is a stark reminder of the underside of that Clinton decade: the chicanery, the sleaze, the dodging, the parsing, the wordplay. It’s a dual legacy that Hillary Clinton cannot escape and that will be a permanent drag on her candidacy.

You can feel it. It’s a recurrence of an old ailment. It was bound to set in, but not this soon. What you’re feeling now is Early Onset Clinton Fatigue. The CDC is recommending elaborate precautions.

Forget it. The only known cure is Elizabeth Warren.

Charles Krauthammer’s email address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com. © 2015, The Washington Post Writers Group

LETTER TO THE EDITOR THANKS FOR SPECIAL CARE PROVIDED TO LOVED ONE We would like to thank Dr. Clowney, Dr. Kellogg, the nurses, the CNAs, the housing staff and anyone else who provided care for our loved one while she was on the Oncology floor at Tuomey. A special thank you to those of you who stood by her bed, quoted Scripture and prayed for her; who cleaned her room; who managed her medicines and kept her comfortable; who shared stories from your life with her; who showed her pictures of your children; who kept her laughing from the time you entered the room until you left; who took the time to sit down, talk with her and explain

things; who were her friend; who fixed her milkshakes out of Ensure; who sang for her; who encouraged her; who emptied her trash and refilled her water pitcher; who got her what she needed in order to keep her comfortable; who made sure the family member who stayed with her was taken care of; and the many other things you did. We are forever grateful to you, and we thank God for the special gift He has given you to minister to others.

Philippians 1:3—“I thank my God every time I remember you.”

DINAH SWYGERT for the family of Dana Pollard Sumter

EDITORIAL ROUNDUP Recent editorials from South Carolina newspapers:

The Greenville News March 7

LAWMAKERS NEED TO HEED THE LESSONS OF FAILED PROPERTY TAX REFORM State lawmakers are finally waking up to the knowledge that the notorious property tax reform law known as Act 388 was illconceived and damaging. Unfortunately, it has taken more than eight years, and a worst-case scenario, to bring lawmakers to this much-needed realization.

It should not take that long for legislators to assess the damage and find a way to fix the problem they created. Just as importantly, they should heed the lessons of Act 388 and avoid making the same mistake twice. They should reject Gov. Nikki Haley’s version of the tax swap that would exchange an increase in the gasoline tax for a significant reduction in the state’s income tax.

Greenville News Columbia Bureau reporter Tim Smith reported that the 1-cent sales tax hike in Act 388 never raised the amount of money it needed to in order to offset the reduction in property taxes on owner-occupied homes. Since it was enacted, Act 388 has left an $866 million schoolfunding shortfall that has been patched largely with money from the General Fund — money that could have gone to fund road improvements, health care or other education needs, particularly in cash-strapped rural school districts.

Some legislators are blaming the Great Recession for this failure to govern. Technically, they are correct that the economic downturn is responsible for the damage that was done by Act 388. But the scenario was easily envisioned. In fact, this editorial page repeatedly and forcefully told lawmakers Act 388 was doomed to fail for exactly the reasons that it did. It is not productive to say “We told you so,” but the handwriting was clearly on the wall even before Act 388 was approved.

Act 388 exchanged a stable revenue source (property taxes) for a volatile one (the sales tax). It was only a matter of time before that volatility ruined the state budget. It wasn’t the great recession that caused this problem — any recession would have done that. The damage wrought by Act 388 was inevitable, and lawmakers should have seen that.

Now, at least, some of them are seeing it.

“I don’t know of any vote I regret more than that for Act 388,” Sen. Joel Lourie, a Democrat, told Smith. “I recognize it’s done far more damage than good.”

“It hasn’t worked,” Republican Sen. Mike Fair said of the law’s school funding provisions.

“One of the things I’ve learned since then is that when you have a complicated bill that is very controversial and creates a lot of ripple effects, you can’t tweak it the next year or the year after that to work out those kinks,” House Majority Leader Bruce Bannister told Smith.

That lesson should be applied to Haley’s proposal to raise the gasoline tax by 10 cents over three years in exchange for a reduction in the state’s income tax to 5 percent from its current 7 percent over the same period. Although a gasoline tax increase is a needed component of the state’s effort to maintain roads more adequately, it should not be done in conjunction with another major tax cut. The gasoline tax’s effectiveness is decreasing as vehicles become more energy efficient, and the effectiveness of any increase will be diminished over time. In addition, study after study has shown that a gas tax alone is not enough. This is not the right environment for a tax hike designed to offset another dramatic tax cut.

No doubt lawmakers are afraid to repeal Act 388 because it would increase property taxes, a losing bet for elected leaders in South Carolina.

Sen. Harvey Peeler told Smith he does not think it is politically feasible to make substantive changes to the law and instead he suggested trying to hand out more tax breaks to groups that have been left out of it.

That sounds more like appeasement than governance: Sorry this plan didn’t work, take a tax cut and try not to think about it.

Act 388 created serious problems that cannot easily be fixed. Sales tax revenues are coming back much more slowly than they disappeared. And even if the revenue eventually balances out, it is only a matter of time before another recession sends the delicate balance right back out whack.

If lawmakers refuse to fix that mess, they at least have a responsibility to avoid making the same mistake again, and should shun the proposed gasoline tax swap that would cut income taxes for a modest increase in a tax that is becoming less effective by the day.

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FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015

FYI ties. Opportunities available Having cancer is hard. Finding for you to use your time and help shouldn’t be. Free help for cancer patients from the talents to be of assistance include reading, musical talAmerican Cancer Society.

Volunteer, get involved, find assistance andlight ents, companionship, Transportation to treathousekeeping, etc. Contact ment, help for appearance more related side effects of treat- Joyce Blanding at (803) 8835606 or hospicecareofsumment, nutrition help, oneter@yahoo.com. on-one breast cancer support, free housing away Agape Hospice is in need of from home during treatvolunteers. Whether your ment, help finding clinical passion is baking, knitting, trials, someone to talk to — reading, singing, etc., Agape all free. Call (800) 227-2345.

Hospice can find a place for you. Contact Thandi BlandThe Rembert Area Community ing at (803) 774-1075, (803) Coalition (RACC) offers a senior citizens program 10 a.m.- 260-3876 or tblanding@ agapsenior.com. noon each Monday and Wednesday at 6785 Bradley Hospice Care of South Carolina St. (behind community car is in need of volunteers in wash), Rembert, SC 29128.

Sumter County. Do you have Transportation is available. one extra hour a week? OpCall (803) 432-2001. portunities are available for patient/family companionSumter High School Class of ship, administrative sup1975 will hold a 40-year port, meal preparation, light class reunion celebration May 29-31. Send all address- household projects, student education and various other es to cindyd27@juno.com. tasks. Contact Whitney RogAre you a breast cancer survivor? Maggie L. Richardson is ers, regional volunteer coordinator, at (843) 409-7991 or seeking other survivors to whitney.rogers@hospicecform a music group and give back to the community. are.net.

If you are interested in join- Amedisys Hospice is in need of volunteers. Volunteer opporing, contact her at mlrmintunities include 1) special stry2012@gmail.com or projects of baking, sewing, (803) 236-9086. knitting, crafts, carpentry The Second (Indianhead) Diviand yard work; 2) adminission Association is searching trative/office duties of for anyone/everyone who copying, light filing and anserved in the 2nd Infantry Division. Visit the website at swering phones; and 3) patient companionship — dewww.2ida.org or contact velop one-on-one relationMike Davino at MDavino@ ships with hospice patients yahoo.com or (919) 498(training provided free of 1910. charge). Contact Rhoda Zumba classes will be held at Keefe, volunteer coordina6:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and tor, at (803) 469-3047 or Wednesdays at the Parks rhonda.keefe@amedisys. and Recreation building on com.

Haynsworth Street. Classes are $5 each and no registra- Hospice Care of Tri-County is in need of volunteers. Voluntion is required. Contact teers offer support, comDeanne Lewis at zumpanionship and care to the badeanne@gmail.com. caregiver by running erThe Palmetto Singles Club rands, reading to patients, holds a dance from 7 to 10 listening and just being p.m. on the first and third there for patients who need Fridays of each month at companionship. All you the VFW on Gion Street. Call need is a willing heart and Sarah Shorter at (803) 847some time to give to others.

3288.

No medical background is Sumter Area Toastmasters required. Hospice Care of meets at 7 p.m. each TuesTri-County will provide you day at the Sumter Mall com- with the tools you need to munity room, 1057 Broad St. become a hospice volunThe group helps in develop- teer. Call Carol Tindal at ing speaking and leadership (803) 905-7720. skills. Call Douglas Wilson ROAD to RECOVERY is in need at (803) 778-0197 or Rebecca of volunteers in the Sumter Gonzalez at (803) 565-9271. area. The program provides Navy and Marine Corps shipcancer patients with transmates who served on the portation to and from treatUSS Columbus CA-74/CG-12 ments. Call the American from 1944 through 1976 and Cancer Society at (803) 750the USS Columbus (SSN-762) 1693. past and present, to share Sumter Newcomers Club welmemories and camaraderie comes new residents (and with old friends and make even some longtime resinew ones, contact Allen R. dents) with coffees and lunHope, president, 3828 Hobcheons each month. Call son Road, Fort Wayne, IN Anna Nunnery at (803) 46946815-4505; (260) 486-2221 8 0143 or Jeanne Bessel at a.m.-5 p.m.; fax (260) 492(803) 469-0598.

9771; or email at hope4391@ OASIS Care provides free medverizon.net. ical and dental care for qualifyHospice Care of Sumter LLC is ing persons living with HIV and in need of volunteers in SumAIDS. Call LaVonda Johnson ter and surrounding counat (803) 775-8523.

DAILY PLANNER

THE SUMTER ITEM

WEATHER

Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2015

AccuWeather® five-day forecast for Sumter TODAY

TONIGHT

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

MONDAY

TUESDAY

Cooler with rain and drizzle

Cloudy, showers around; mild

Warmer with a couple of t-storms

Partly sunny and nice

Mostly sunny and pleasant

Partly sunny and delightful

55°

53°

75° / 59°

78° / 46°

74° / 51°

80° / 46°

Chance of rain: 65%

Chance of rain: 70%

Chance of rain: 60%

Chance of rain: 10%

Chance of rain: 0%

Chance of rain: 10%

ENE 8-16 mph

ENE 4-8 mph

SW 7-14 mph

N 6-12 mph

NE 7-14 mph

WSW 8-16 mph

TODAY’S SOUTH CAROLINA WEATHER

Gaffney 49/47 Spartanburg 50/48

Greenville 48/45

Columbia 54/53

Temperatures shown on map are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.

Sumter 55/53

IN THE MOUNTAINS Aiken 54/53

ON THE COAST

Charleston 64/60

Today: Cloudy with a shower or two. High 60 to 64.

Saturday: A couple of showers and a thunderstorm. High 68 to 74.

LOCAL ALMANAC

LAKE LEVELS

SUMTER THROUGH 4 P.M. YESTERDAY

Today Hi/Lo/W 52/48/r 58/42/c 60/53/c 55/43/pc 71/51/c 90/62/s 73/54/r 47/39/s 83/65/c 50/40/pc 88/64/s 68/54/pc 55/45/pc

SUN AND MOON 7 a.m. yest.

358.11 75.19 74.85 97.20

24-hr chg +0.02 -0.02 +0.09 -0.34

Sunrise 7:36 a.m.

Moonrise 1:53 a.m.

RIVER STAGES River Black River Congaree River Lynches River Saluda River Up. Santee River Wateree River

trace 0.77" 1.57" 11.83" 8.04" 8.99"

NATIONAL CITIES City Atlanta Chicago Dallas Detroit Houston Los Angeles New Orleans New York Orlando Philadelphia Phoenix San Francisco Wash., DC

Full pool 360 76.8 75.5 100

Lake Murray Marion Moultrie Wateree

68° 60° 65° 40° 89° in 1955 23° in 1969

Precipitation 24 hrs ending 4 p.m. yest.

Month to date Normal month to date Year to date Last year to date Normal year to date

Sat. Hi/Lo/W 70/55/sh 53/32/pc 65/44/pc 55/33/c 74/52/c 92/64/pc 73/57/pc 54/42/r 86/66/pc 59/42/r 88/63/s 72/59/pc 63/46/r

Myrtle Beach 60/58

Manning 59/57

Today: Cooler with rain and drizzle. Winds northeast 7-14 mph.

Saturday: Warmer with a shower or two.

Winds west-southwest 4-8 mph.

Temperature High Low Normal high Normal low Record high Record low

Florence 59/55

Bishopville 57/55

Sunset 7:28 p.m.

Moonset 12:33 p.m.

Last

New

First

Full

Mar. 13

Mar. 20

Mar. 27

Apr. 4

TIDES

Flood 7 a.m. 24-hr stage yest. chg 12 9.87 -0.22 19 5.77 +0.94 14 8.98 -0.29 14 3.88 +0.27 80 77.85 none 24 9.98 -1.69

AT MYRTLE BEACH

High 2:39 a.m.

2:59 p.m.

3:45 a.m.

4:05 p.m.

Today Sat.

Ht. 2.9 2.6 2.9 2.6

Low 9:56 a.m.

9:58 p.m.

11:00 a.m.

11:06 p.m.

Ht. 0.4 0.3 0.4 0.2

REGIONAL CITIES City Asheville Athens Augusta Beaufort Cape Hatteras Charleston Charlotte Clemson Columbia Darlington Elizabeth City Elizabethtown Fayetteville

Today Hi/Lo/W 45/44/r 50/47/r 56/54/r 64/60/sh 56/53/c 64/60/r 49/47/r 49/48/r 54/53/r 58/53/r 56/50/sh 60/55/r 59/54/r

Sat. Hi/Lo/W 71/48/r 70/54/sh 75/56/t 74/61/t 62/53/r 74/60/t 68/53/sh 69/54/sh 75/57/t 76/58/t 68/52/r 74/59/t 76/58/sh

City Florence Gainesville Gastonia Goldsboro Goose Creek Greensboro Greenville Hickory Hilton Head Jacksonville, FL La Grange Macon Marietta

Today Hi/Lo/W 59/55/r 81/64/c 50/46/r 60/55/r 63/59/r 50/46/r 48/45/r 48/43/r 65/61/sh 77/63/c 59/57/sh 56/54/sh 52/48/r

Sat. Hi/Lo/W 76/60/t 81/62/t 69/53/sh 74/59/sh 74/60/t 67/50/sh 67/53/sh 67/50/r 70/61/t 81/62/t 77/54/sh 74/55/t 70/53/r

City Marion Mt. Pleasant Myrtle Beach Orangeburg Port Royal Raleigh Rock Hill Rockingham Savannah Spartanburg Summerville Wilmington Winston-Salem

Today Hi/Lo/W 47/44/r 63/60/r 60/58/sh 57/56/r 64/61/sh 54/49/r 50/47/r 55/52/r 67/61/sh 50/48/r 65/61/sh 63/57/c 50/45/r

Sat. Hi/Lo/W 71/45/r 72/61/t 70/59/t 76/60/t 71/61/t 72/52/sh 69/54/sh 72/54/sh 76/62/t 69/52/sh 71/61/t 72/61/t 67/50/sh

Weather(W): s–sunny, pc–partly cloudy, c–cloudy, sh–showers, t–thunderstorms, r–rain, sf–snow flurries, sn–snow, i–ice

For Comfort You Can Count On, Better Make It Boykin!

803-795-4257 www.boykinacs.com License #M4217

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Travel will EUGENIA LAST entice you, but have your route mapped out and update any documentation you might need.

Don’t be fooled by an offer that sounds too good to be true. Focus on your needs and any love interest you have.

The last word in astrology

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Rely on your intuition to help avoid a mishap, financial loss or someone trying to manipulate you. You are best to observe before getting involved in a group looking for donations. Stay within your budget no matter how tempted you are.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Uncertainties will cause you to question an offer. Joint ventures are not likely to run smoothly. Do some fact-finding before you trust someone’s word. Time is on your side. Consider whether or not you can operate alone before you commit to a partnership.

you.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Taking responsibility will put you in a good position. You will be able to call the shots and control a situation that has the propensity to cause problems at home. Staying one step ahead will ensure that you get your way.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Clear up pressing matters. It’s important not to take on more than you can handle. In order to protect your reputation, take care of your responsibilities before you agree to do someone else’s work.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Keep your life simple and stick to the exact truth no matter who you are dealing with. Playing fairly will make a difference to how others treat you. Home improvement projects will bring good results.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Insecurity will be your downfall.

Don’t worry about what others do or say. Believe in yourself and carry CANCER (June 21-July 22): Bypass on until you complete whatever anyone trying to push you in a task you have been given. Don’t let direction that doesn’t fit your personal plan. Use your intelligence a personal or emotional incident and your innovative insight to cost you professionally. make do with what you already AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): have. Don’t give in to someone for Welcome whatever change comes emotional reasons. your way. Put your ideas into LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Have fun motion and you will be able to with friends or sign up for a earn extra income. Put time aside seminar or activity that will help to do something with someone you improve your appearance, special. Time spent reminiscing will status or future. Love is bring you closer to the one you highlighted. If you are single, start love. looking for love. If not, nurture the PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Take a relationship you are in. step back and re-evaluate what VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Avoid you have done in the past. You’ll turmoil by refusing to take part in a have to make some alterations if debate. Do things that you find you intend to make a new attempt interesting even if it means doing them alone. Don’t let the demands at an old idea. Don’t make the same mistake twice. Consider who others make guilt you into giving can contribute to your success. up something that’s important to

LOTTERY NUMBERS PALMETTO CASH 5 THURSDAY

POWERBALL WEDNESDAY

MEGAMILLIONS TUESDAY

10-12-16-17-37 PowerUp: 5

11-24-31-40-44 Powerball: 27; Powerplay: 2

10-14-19-30-73 Megaball: 14; Megaplier: 5

PICK 3 THURSDAY

PICK 4 THURSDAY

LUCKY FOR LIFE MONDAY

6-5-8 and 0-8-1

0-3-7-1 and 5-6-0-3

6-18-23-31-43 Lucky Ball: 6

SPCA DOG OF THE WEEK Clumpy, a 1-year-old black and white neutered English pointer / boxer mix, is available for adoption at the Sumter SPCA. He is housebroken, sweet-natured, playful and affectionate. He loves people and is great with other dogs, children and even cats.

Clumpy would make a great family dog and needs a home with a privacy fence. The SPCA is located at 1140 S. Guignard Drive, (803) 773-9292, and is open 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. every day except Wednesday and Sunday. Visit www.sumterscspca.com.

The SPCA relies heavily on community support and donations. Currently, the biggest needs are for dry puppy and kitten food; wet cat food; cat litter; and cleaning supplies. The following are also appreciated: Newspapers; stuffed animals; heavy duty trash bags (30 gallon or larger); dishwashing liquid; laundry detergent; bleach; paper towels; sheets and comforters; baby blankets; canned dog and cat food; dry dog, treats; leashes and collars; disinfectant spray; all-purpose cleaner; air freshener; no scratch scrubbers; two-sided sponges for dishes; litter freshener; monetary donations are also gratefully accepted.

SECTION

B

FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015 Call: (803) 774-1241 | E-mail: sports@theitem.com

USC SUMTER BASEBALL

Hard lessons learned as Fire Ants head to N.C.

BY JUSTIN DRIGGERS justin@theitem.com Things can change quickly in baseball – as quick as one at-bat or one pitch.

The young University of South Carolina Sumter team learned that lesson the hard way against Florence-Darlington Technical College last weekend in the Region X opening series for both teams.

The 14th-ranked Stingers JUSTIN DRIGGERS / THE SUMTER ITEM rallied twice in the late inUniversity of South Carolina Sumter’s Steven Calcutt gets ready to nings on Sunday – down to make contact during last weekend’s series against Florence-Darlingtheir final strike twice in the ton Technical College. The Fire Ants will travel to Louisburg College in opener – to earn come-fromNorth Carolina for a 4-game set on Saturday and Sunday. behind victories and split the

weekend series with the Fire Ants after USCS swept them on Saturday.

“When you’re one strike away from going up 3-0 (in the series) and then you end up splitting four, it’s tough,” USC Sumter head coach Tim Medlin said. “It’s frustrating, no doubt about it.”

It marked the ninth time in 10 losses this year that the Fire Ants fell by two runs or less. Still, it brought up two valuable lessons, Medlin said.

“One, it showed how good we’re capable of being,” he said. “There’s no reason we should not have been able to

finish those games out. But it’s also a great teaching opportunity to show them that if they don’t do the little things right – bunting, getting runners in from third with less than two outs, making the routine plays – those things will come back to haunt you.”

The now 17-10 Fire Ants will look to take those lessons on the road beginning Saturday when they travel to Louisburg College in North Carolina for a 4-game set beginning with a doubleheader on Saturday at 1 p.m. The two teams will play

SEE FIRE ANTS, PAGE B4

PREP BASKETBALL COMMENTARY

PREP BASEBALL

Educated in English

Lakewood, Crestwood ready to take next step

No doubting what SHS coach has brought to boys program

BY JUSTIN DRIGGERS justin@theitem.com

W

hen Jo Jo English was hired as the boys basketball head coach at Sumter High School almost two years ago, I’ll admit I had my doubts.

It was nothing against English himself. I had covered him when he played for Lower Richland in the late 1980s, teaming with 7-foot center Stanley Roberts to lead the Diamond Hornets to consecutive 4A state titles.

English is one of the best leapers I’ve Dennis ever seen. At Brunson times it looked like it was more about levitation than elevation for him.

While his leaping ability may have gained him notoriety, English could play the game of basketball. He could knock down a mid-range jump shot, the occasional 3-pointer and, oh yeah, he was well versed in playing defense as well. That’s what led to him having a successful career at the University of South Carolina and playing parts of three seasons in the National Basketball Association and many more seasons overseas. Say what you might about the brevity of his NBA career, but you have to be quite the player to even get the foot in the door.

No, I had my doubts because

SUMTER ITEM FILE PHOTO

Fresh off a playoff berth, the Lakewood High baseball team is raising expectations this season.

Rival Crestwood, meanwhile, is looking to make a little history of its own.

Both squads open Region VI-3A play today at 6:30 p.m.

The Gators will be at home against Manning, while the Knights go to Darlington.

LHS, which was 1-1 entering Thursday’s game against Gray Collegiate Academy, CHAPMAN returns the core of its postseason squad and looks to make a little more noise this time around.

“I think we feel like it would be a letdown if we didn’t make the playoffs this year,” head coach Michael Chapman said.

“We were the fourth seed last year, and this year we’re looking to take that next step and finish third, second or go for the top spot in the region.

“We feel like we have the talent and the guys to do it.”

Lakewood returns a solid senior class, especially on the mound. Dustin Frye and Tabian Butler were two of the key cogs on the 2014 squad and both are back at the top of the rotation. Ryan Taylor, who is back in the fold after a year’s absence from the program, gives the Gators another solid

Sumter High School varsity boys basketball head coach Jo Jo English led the Gamecocks to the proSEE ENGLISH, PAGE B4 gram’s first state title since the 1984-85 season with a 61-55 victory over Hillcrest last Friday.

SEE BASEBALL, PAGE B4

CLEMSON FOOTBALL

Tigers looking for depth at QB

BY PETE IACOBELLI The Associated Press CLEMSON — Clemson coach Dabo Swinney is looking for a few good backups.

Deshaun Watson will be starter after becoming the face of the program despite being sidelined with injuries in his freshman debut season. Behind him, though, Clemson has a littleused backup Nick Schuessler and two freshmen — Kelly Bryant and Tucker Israel, who enrolled early.

It’s a situation Swinney’s not used to, but the coach is using spring practice to rectify. He says the redshirt junior Schuessler has the early lead to be Clemson’s No. 2 quarterback.

The newcomers, though, are improving with each practice.

Watson can’t practice while he recovers from surgery on a torn ACL suffered last November.

“Whoever your backup is, he’s one rolled

SCHUESSLER

BRYANT

TUCKER

ankle away from going in and we’re expected to win. When the backup comes in they don’t turn the scoreboard off,” Swinney said. “Walkon, true freshman, it doesn’t matter.”

It’s a depth question Swinney’s not used to, but hopes to rectify in spring practice. He said the redshirt junior Schuessler has the early lead on Clemson’s No. 2 quarterback. The newcomers, though, are improving with each practice.

Watson can’t practice while he recovers from

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Deshaun Watson, above, is Clemson’s starting quarterback but is on the sidelines during spring practice as he recovers from an injury. The SEE TIGERS, PAGE B4 Tigers are hoping to find some depth behind Watson this spring.

B2

|

SPORTS

FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015

SCOREBOARD TV, RADIO TODAY

6 a.m. – Major League Baseball: Baltimore vs. St. Louis from Jupiter, Fla. (MLB NETWORK).

6:30 a.m. – Professional Golf: European PGA Tour Tshawne Open Second Round from Centurion, South Africa (GOLF).

9 a.m. – Major League Baseball: Washington vs. New York Mets from Port St. Lucie, Fla. (MLB NETWORK).

1 p.m. – Major League Baseball: Toronto vs. Baltimore from Dunedin, Fla. (MLB NETWORK).

3 p.m. – NASCAR Racing: Sprint Cup Series CampingWorld.com 500 Practice from Avondale, Ariz. (FOX SPORTS 1).

3 p.m. – PGA Golf: Valspar Championship Second Round from Palm Harbor, Fla. (GOLF).

4 p.m. – Major League Baseball: Milwaukee vs. Seattle from Peoria, Ariz.

(MLB NETWORK).

4:30 p.m. – NASCAR Racing: XFINITY Series Faster Tougher Brighter 200 Practice from Avondale, Ariz. (FOX SPORTS 1).

6 p.m. – NASCAR Racing: XFINITY Series Faster Tougher Brighter 200 Practice from Avondale, Ariz. (FOX SPORTS 1).

6 p.m. – Major League Soccer: Orlando at Houston (UNIVISION).

6:05 p.m. – Talk Show: Sports Talk (WDXY-FM 105.9, WDXY-AM 1240).

6:15 p.m. – High School Baseball: A.C. Flora at Camden (WPUB-FM 102.7).

7 p.m. – Major League Exhibition Baseball: New York Yankees vs. Boston from Fort Myers, Fla. (MLB NETWORK).

7 p.m. – NBA Basketball: Chicago at Charlotte (SPORTSOUTH).

7:30 p.m. – NASCAR Racing: Sprint Cup Series CampingWorld.com 500 Pole Qualifying from Avondale, Ariz. (FOX SPORTS 2).

8 p.m. – College Baseball: Pepperdine at Brigham Young (BYUTV).

8:30 p.m. – NBA Basketball: Los Angeles Clippers at Dallas (NBA TV).

9 p.m. – Professional Boxing: Shawn Porter vs. Roberto Garcia in a Welterweight Bout and Andre Berto vs. Josesito Lopez in a Welterweight Bout from Ontario, Calif. (SPIKE).

10 p.m. – Professional Boxing: Adam Lopez vs. Pablo Cruz in a Bantamweight Bout, Jerry Odom vs. Andrew Hernandez in a Super Middleweight Bout, Ismael Barroso vs. Issouf Kinda in a Lightweight Bout and Antoine Douglas vs. Thomas LaManna in a Middleweight Bout from Westbury, N.Y. (SHOWTIME).

Midnight – Major League Exhibition Baseball: Oakland vs. Chicago Cubs from Las Vegas (MLB NETWORK).

12:30 a.m. – Formula One Racing: Australian Grand Prix Practice from Melbourne, Australia (NBC SPORTS NETWORK).

2 a.m. – Formula One Racing: Australian Grand Prix Pole Qualifying from Melbourne, Australia (NBC SPORTS NETWORK).

3 a.m. – Major League Exhibition Baseball: Los Angeles Dodgers vs.

Cincinnati from Glendale, Ariz. (MLB NETWORK).

GOLF The Associated Press

Valspar Championship Par Scores Thursday At Innisbrook Resort, Copperhead Course Palm Harbor, Fla. Purse: $5.9 million Yardage: 7,340; Par 71 (36-35) First Round Brian Davis 35-30—65 Sean O’Hair 33-33—66 Ricky Barnes 33-33—66 Justin Thomas 32-35—67 Henrik Stenson 35-32—67 Derek Ernst 34-33—67 Brendon de Jonge 34-33—67 Nicholas Thompson 36-31—67 Alex Cejka 33-34—67 John Peterson 34-34—68 Kevin Streelman 33-35—68 Luke Guthrie 33-35—68 Shawn Stefani 34-34—68 Will Wilcox 34-34—68 Rod Pampling 33-35—68 Jason Kokrak 34-34—68 Ian Poulter 35-33—68 Andrew Svoboda 36-32—68 Adam Hadwin 32-36—68 Hudson Swafford 33-36—69 Billy Hurley III 36-33—69 William McGirt 35-34—69 Ryan Moore 34-35—69 Ernie Els 36-33—69 Vijay Singh 36-33—69 Lucas Glover 35-34—69 Jeff Overton 38-31—69 Russell Knox 34-35—69 Greg Chalmers 34-35—69 Jim Furyk 34-35—69 Harris English 36-33—69 Martin Laird 37-32—69 Stewart Cink 33-36—69 Kenny Perry 35-34—69 Will MacKenzie 37-32—69 Carlos Ortiz 34-35—69 Kyle Reifers 36-33—69 Francesco Molinari 34-36—70 Nick Taylor 36-34—70 Scott Brown 34-36—70 Jordan Spieth 36-34—70 Steven Bowditch 36-34—70 Brendon Todd 34-36—70 Jason Dufner 36-34—70 Charles Howell III 35-35—70

-6 -5 -5 -4 -4 -4 -4 -4 -4 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -2 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1

MLB SPRING TRAINING

By The Associated Press

AMERICAN LEAGUE Kansas City Boston Oakland Houston Detroit New York Chicago Minnesota Texas Seattle Los Angeles Toronto Cleveland Baltimore Tampa Bay

W 8 6 6 4 5 5 3 3 4 4 3 4 3 3 2

L 1 2 2 2 4 4 3 3 4 5 4 6 5 7 5

TODAY’S GAMES

Minnesota vs. Pittsburgh at Bradenton, Fla., 1:05 p.m.

St. Louis vs. Miami at Jupiter, Fla., 1:05 p.m.

Houston vs. Washington at Viera, Fla., 1:05 p.m.

Detroit vs. Atlanta (ss) at Kissimmee, Fla., 1:05 p.m.

Tampa Bay vs. Philadelphia at Clearwater, Fla., 1:05 p.m.

Baltimore vs. Toronto at Dunedin, Fla., 1:07 p.m.

Atlanta (ss) vs. N.Y. Mets at Port St. Lucie, Fla., 1:10 p.m.

Texas vs. San Francisco at Scottsdale, Ariz., 4:05 p.m.

Oakland vs. Kansas City at Surprise, Ariz., 4:05 p.m.

Milwaukee vs. Seattle at Peoria, Ariz., 4:05 p.m.

Arizona vs. Cleveland at Goodyear, Ariz., 4:05 p.m.

Cleveland vs. Chicago Cubs at Mesa, Ariz., 4:05 p.m.

Chicago White Sox vs. Colorado at Scottsdale, Ariz., 4:10 p.m.

San Diego vs. L.A. Angels at Tempe, Ariz., 4:10 p.m.

N.Y. Yankees vs. Boston at Fort Myers, Fla., 7:05 p.m.

Oakland vs. Chicago Cubs at Las Vegas, 8:05 p.m.

Cincinnati vs. L.A. Dodgers at Glendale, Ariz., 10:05 p.m.

NBA STANDINGS

By The Associated Press L 26 36 38 50 51

Pct .594 .429 .397 .219 .190

GB – 101/2 121/2 24 251/2

L 14 28 35 35 45

Pct .781 .563 .453 .444 .318

GB – 14 21 211/2 30

L 25 26 30 34 41

Pct .621 .606 .531 .460 .359

GB – 1 6 101/2 17

Pct .703 .672 .635 .621 .554

GB – 2 41/2 5 91/2

Pct .677 .547 .429 .369 .222

GB – 8 151/2 191/2 281/2

Pct .810 .646 .515 .349 .270

GB – 10 181/2 29 34

WESTERN CONFERENCE SOUTHWEST DIVISION W L Memphis 45 19 Houston 43 21 San Antonio 40 23 Dallas 41 25 New Orleans 36 29 NORTHWEST DIVISION W L Portland 42 20 Oklahoma City 35 29 Utah 27 36 Denver 24 41 Minnesota 14 49 PACIFIC DIVISION W L Golden State 51 12 L.A. Clippers 42 23 Phoenix 34 32 Sacramento 22 41 L.A. Lakers 17 46 x-clinched playoff spot

W L Pct Arizona 6 2 .750 Miami 5 2 .714 Los Angeles 4 2 .667 Colorado 4 3 .571 Pittsburgh 4 3 .571 St. Louis 4 3 .571 Washington 4 3 .571 Philadelphia 4 4 .500 San Diego 4 4 .500 Cincinnati 4 5 .444 Atlanta 3 5 .375 New York 3 6 .333 Milwaukee 2 5 .286 San Francisco 2 7 .222 Chicago 1 6 .143 NOTE: Split-squad games count in the standings; games against non-major league teams do not.

WEDNESDAY’S GAMES

Washington 9, Detroit 2 Miami 7, N.Y. Mets 4 Tampa Bay 5, Minnesota 2 Toronto 5, Baltimore 2 Philadelphia 3, Pittsburgh 2 St. Louis 6, Atlanta 2 Boston 10, N.Y. Yankees 6 Chicago White Sox 4, Texas 4, tie Kansas City (ss) 5, Cincinnati 2 Kansas City (ss) 4, San Diego 3 Oakland 3, Cleveland 2 Milwaukee 6, San Francisco 3 Colorado 4, Seattle 1 Chicago Cubs 4, L.A. Dodgers 3 Arizona 6, L.A. Angels 5 Houston 4, Detroit (ss) 3, 10 innings Minnesota 7, Miami 6 Philadelphia 6, Detroit (ss) 5

WH soccer stays perfect SUMMERVILLE – Michael Lowery and Sam Hilferty each scored goals as Wilson Hall edged Pinewood Prep 2-1 on Thursday at the Panthers field.

Dalton Miller had an assist and David Tussey recorded 12 saves in goal for the Barons, who improved to 4-0.

JUNIOR VARSITY SOCCER WILSON HALL 2 PINEWOOD PREP 0 SUMMERVILLE – Wilson Hall improved to 2-2 on the year with a 2-0 victory over Pinewood Prep on Thursday at the Panthers field.

Both scores were corner kicks from Mills Herlong to Langston Cooper. Goalie Luke Reuwee had five saves for the Barons.

Wilson Hall returns to action today against Providence Athletic Club at 6 p.m. at Patriot Park.

SUMMERVILLE 5

ATLANTIC DIVISION W Toronto 38 Boston 27 Brooklyn 25 Philadelphia 14 New York 12 SOUTHEAST DIVISION W x-Atlanta 50 Washington 36 Miami 29 Charlotte 28 Orlando 21 CENTRAL DIVISION W Cleveland 41 Chicago 40 Milwaukee 34 Indiana 29 Detroit 23

BOYS AREA ROUNDUP

VARSITY BASEBALL

EASTERN CONFERENCE

WEDNESDAY’S GAMES

Chicago 104, Philadelphia 95, OT Sacramento 113, Charlotte 106 Miami 104, Brooklyn 98 Boston 95, Memphis 92 L.A. Clippers 120, Oklahoma City 108 Milwaukee 97, Orlando 91 Denver 115, Atlanta 102 Phoenix 106, Minnesota 97 Golden State 105, Detroit 98 Portland 105, Houston 100

THURSDAY’S GAMES

Memphis at Washington, 7 p.m.

Milwaukee at Indiana, 7 p.m.

Houston at Utah, 9 p.m.

Cleveland at San Antonio, 9:30 p.m.

New York at L.A. Lakers, 10:30 p.m.

SUMTER 1 SUMMERVILLE – Sumter High School fell to 2-4 with a 5-1 loss to Summerville on Wednesday at the Summerville field.

Chris Crawford took the loss for the Gamecocks.

Ryan Moore had a hit for Sumter and Brandon Spittle had a hit and an RBI. Sumter plays host to

VARSITY TENNIS

Spring Valley today at 6:30 p.m.

WILSON HALL 9

DREHER 8

BEN LIPPEN 0

CRESTWOOD 0

COLUMBIA – Wilson Hall improved to 3-0 on the season with a 9-0 sweep of Ben Lippen on Thursday in Columbia.

The Barons return to action on Tuesday against Pinewood Prep at Palmetto Tennis Center.

COLUMBIA – Crestwood High School fell to 2-4 with an 8-0 loss to Dreher on Wednesday at the Dreher field.

Chris Tention worked five innings and allowed three earned runs in the loss. Cole Benenhaley had a hit and two walks for the Knights.

JV BASEBALL LAKEWOOD 14 MANNING 2 MANNING – Jeremy Dalton and Zion Brown had three hits apiece to key Lakewood’s 14-2 victory over Manning on Thursday at the Monarchs field.

Dalton Browder picked up the win on the mound by tossing four innings of 6-hit ball. Zack Tidwell pitched two scoreless innings of relief.

DARLINGTON 10 CRESTWOOD 0

Crestwood fell to 0-3 on the season with a 10-0 loss to Darlington on Thursday at the CHS field.

Justin Veale, Jeremiah Scott, Tyleek Farmer and Jesse Lucas all had hits for the Knights, who will travel to Marlboro County on Wednesday.

SINGLES 1 – Brown (WH) defeated Bishop 6-0, 6-0.

2 – Davis (WH) defeated Barry 6-3, 6-0.

3 – Hendrix (WH) defeated Curetin 6-0, 6-1.

4 – Stover (WH) defeated Beers 6-0, 6-1.

5 – Thompson (WH) defeated Waldner 6-3, 6-2.

6 – Stone (WH) defeated Powers 6-0, 6-1.

DOUBLES 1 – Brown/Davis (WH) defeated Bishop/Barry 8-0.

2 – Hendrix/Stover (WH) defeated Curetin/Waldner 8-1.

3 – Thompson/Stone (WH) defeated Beers/Powers 8-0.

VARSITY GOLF WILSON HALL 148 TRINITY-BYRNES 174 Christian Salzer won medalist honors with a 34 as Sumter claimed a 26-stroke victory over Trinity-Byrnes on Thursday at Sunset Country Club.

Walker Jones shot a 37 for the Barons followed by Coker Lowder with a 38 and Easton Ward with a 39.

WH will begin region play on Tuesday at Calhoun Academy.

GIRLS AREA ROUNDUP

Harris’ goals lift SHS past Blazers COLUMBIA – Jessica Harris scored both goals as the Sumter varsity girls soccer team earned a 2-0 victory over Ridge View on Thursday at the Blazers field.

Mary Katherine Shaffer had an assist while Grace Belangia recorded the shutout in goal with nine saves.

The Lady Gamecocks travel to Hartsville today.

WILSON HALL 6 THOMAS HEYWARD 3

Holly Scott struck out seven and Betsy Cunningham drove in two runs as Wilson Hall earned a 6-3 victory over Thomas Heyward on Thursday at Patriot Park SportsPlex.

Drake Ives had two hits for the Lady Barons while Liza Lowder and Madison Reaves each collected an RBI. WH improved to 4-0 on the year and will

compete in the SCISA/SCHSL Challenge Tournament in Sumter on Saturday.

VARSITY SOFTBALL SOUTH FLORENCE 4 SUMTER 3 Anna Copeland went 2-for-3 with an RBI, but it was not enough as Sumter fell to South Florence 4-3 on Thursday at the SHS field.

JUNIOR VARSITY SOFTBALL SUMTER 18 MANNING 2 MANNING – Sumter High School defeated Manning 18-2 on Wednesday at the Manning field.

Katie Murray allowed one hit in four innings to get the victory for SHS.

TODAY’S GAMES

Sacramento at Philadelphia, 7 p.m.

Chicago at Charlotte, 7 p.m.

Miami at Toronto, 7:30 p.m.

Orlando at Boston, 7:30 p.m.

Minnesota at Oklahoma City, 8 p.m.

L.A. Clippers at Dallas, 8:30 p.m.

Golden State at Denver, 9 p.m.

Atlanta at Phoenix, 10 p.m.

Detroit at Portland, 10 p.m.

SATURDAY’S GAMES

Sacramento at Washington, 7 p.m.

Boston at Indiana, 7 p.m.

Brooklyn at Philadelphia, 7:30 p.m.

Milwaukee at Memphis, 8 p.m.

Detroit at Utah, 9 p.m.

New York at Golden State, 10:30 p.m.

NHL STANDINGS

By The Associated Press EASTERN CONFERENCE

Pct .889 .750 .750 .667 .556 .556 .500 .500 .500 .444 .429 .400 .375 .300 .286

NATIONAL LEAGUE

THURSDAY’S GAMES

Tampa Bay 10, Toronto 3 Boston 5, Pittsburgh 1 St. Louis 8, Baltimore 2 N.Y. Mets 11, Washington 9 Oakland 4, Seattle 3 Kansas City 10, Cleveland 5 Texas 7, Chicago White Sox (ss) 3 Milwaukee 5, Colorado 3 L.A. Angels 10, Chicago Cubs 9 Cincinnati 12, Arizona 4 San Francisco vs. Chicago White Sox (ss) at Glendale, Ariz., 7:05 p.m.

Atlanta vs. N.Y. Yankees at Tampa, Fla., 7:05 p.m.

L.A. Dodgers vs. San Diego at Peoria, Ariz., 9:15 p.m.

THE SUMTER ITEM

ATLANTIC DIVISION GP W L OTPts GF GA Montreal 67 42 18 7 91 177 147 Tampa Bay 68 42 20 6 90 223 177 Detroit 65 37 17 11 85 192 172 Boston 66 34 22 10 78 179 171 Florida 66 29 23 14 72 163 188 Ottawa 65 30 24 11 71 185 176 Toronto 68 27 35 6 60 183 212 Buffalo 67 19 42 6 44 129 228 METROPOLITAN DIVISION GP W L OTPts GF GA N.Y. Rangers 66 42 17 7 91 203 157 N.Y. Islanders 69 43 22 4 90 219 194 Pittsburgh 66 38 18 10 86 189 162 Washington 68 36 22 10 82 201 168 Philadelphia 68 28 27 13 69 178 197 New Jersey 67 28 29 10 66 153 176 Columbus 66 28 34 4 60 170 210 Carolina 65 25 32 8 58 155 178

WESTERN CONFERENCE CENTRAL DIVISION Nashville St. Louis Chicago Minnesota Winnipeg Colorado Dallas PACIFIC DIVISION

GP W L OTPts GF GA 68 42 19 7 91 199 166 66 42 19 5 89 209 167 66 39 21 6 84 190 154 67 37 23 7 81 192 170 67 33 22 12 78 187 181 67 30 26 11 71 179 190 67 30 27 10 70 209 221

GP W L OTPts GF GA Anaheim 69 42 20 7 91 202 192 Vancouver 66 38 24 4 80 189 179 Calgary 67 37 25 5 79 197 175 Los Angeles 66 32 21 13 77 180 170 San Jose 67 33 26 8 74 189 187 Arizona 67 21 38 8 50 143 224 Edmonton 67 18 38 11 47 152 227 NOTE: Two points for a win, one point for overtime loss.

WEDNESDAY’S GAMES

Toronto 4, Buffalo 3, SO N.Y. Rangers 3, Washington 1 Calgary 6, Anaheim 3

TODAY’S GAMES

Tampa Bay at Boston, 7 p.m.

Edmonton at Pittsburgh, 7 p.m.

Dallas at Carolina, 7 p.m.

Ottawa at Montreal, 7:30 p.m.

Columbus at Detroit, 7:30 p.m.

Winnipeg at Florida, 7:30 p.m.

Philadelphia at St. Louis, 8 p.m.

New Jersey at Colorado, 9 p.m.

Los Angeles at Vancouver, 10 p.m.

Chicago at Arizona, 10 p.m.

Nashville at San Jose, 10:30 p.m.

SPORTS ITEMS

All-Pro RB Murray to join Philadelphia DeMarco Murray got the money he wanted from his former team’s biggest rival.

The All-Pro running back agreed Thursday to a fiveyear contract with the Philadelphia Eagles. Murray’s deal was valued at $42 million, with $21 million guaranteed, according to a person familiar with MURRAY the deal who spoke on condition of anonymity because terms weren’t disclosed.

Wearing a gray suit, white shirt and black tie, Murray arrived at team headquarters with his fiancee, Heidi Mueller, on Thursday afternoon.

Less than two hours later, the Eagles confirmed they had reached agreement on a three-year contract with former San Diego running back Ryan Mathews.

DAVIS CHIPS IN TO TAKE LEAD AT VALSPAR CHAMPIONSHIP

PALM HARBOR, Fla. — Brian Davis takes pride in his short game, which saved him from a rough finish Thursday and gave him the lead in the Valspar Championship.

Coming off back-to-back bogeys, Davis chipped in from 25 feet on the ninth green at Innisbrook for a 6-under 65, giving him a one-shot lead over past champion Sean O’Hair and

Ricky Barnes after the opening round.

NBA PACERS 109 BUCKS 103 INDIANAPOLIS— Rodney Stuckey scored 25 points and Luis Scola had 17 points and 15 rebounds to help the Indiana Pacers beat the Milwaukee Bucks 109103 in overtime Thursday.

WIZARDS 107 GRIZZLIES 87

WASHINGTON— Facing a watered-down version of the second-best team in the Western Conference, John Wall finished with 21 points, seven rebounds and six assists Thursday night, leading the Washington Wizards past the Memphis Grizzlies 107-87.

SEC PICKS SANKEY TO REPLACE SLIVE AS COMMISSIONER

Greg Sankey has been Mike Slive’s right-hand man at the Southeastern Conference the past 12 years and now he’s been tabbed to replace him in a move widely expected for months.

Sankey will replace Slive as SEC commissioner starting Aug. 1 after more than two years of handling the league’s day-to-day operations.

AP SOURCE: JETS SIGN ANTONIO CROMARTIE TO 4-YEAR DEAL

NEW YORK — The band is getting back together in the New York Jets’ second-

ary.

Cornerback Antonio Cromartie agreed to terms with the Jets on a four-year contract, worth $32 million in base salary, a person familiar with the deal told The Associated Press. The move Thursday comes a day after New York finalized a deal to bring Darrelle Revis back on a five-year, $70 million contract.

RAVENS RETAIN RB FORSETT, WHO AGREES TO 3-YEAR DEAL

OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Justin Forsett agreed to terms Thursday on a threeyear contract with the Baltimore Ravens, who keep their leading rusher from 2014 after losing several key free agents earlier in the week.

The 29-year-old Forsett is coming off the finest season of his seven-year career.

Thrust into a starting role after the Ravens released Ray Rice, Forsett shed his journeyman label to run for 1,266 yards and eight touchdowns.

WEDNESDAY (7) SOUTH CAROLINA 13 PENN STATE 3 COLUMBIA – Seventhranked South Carolina belted out a season-high 15 hits en route to a 13-3 victory over Penn State on Wednesday night at Carolina Stadium. The Gamecocks improve to 14-3 on the season while the loss drops the Nittany Lions to 1-10.

From wire reports

PREP BASKETBALL

THE SUMTER ITEM

FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015

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B3

ENGLISH FROM PAGE B1 I felt his lack of experience as a head coach was ignored and he was hired more to make a splash because of his celebrity in the state of South Carolina. Also, I was aware that he hadn’t even been granted an interview when the LR head job came open a few years earlier. One couldn’t help wonder why a man who is truly an icon at Lower Richland couldn’t even get seated for an interview.

Well, after what happened at Colonial Life Arena last week with Sumter winning its first 4A state title in 30 years, those who made the decision at LR to pass on English were proven wrong. Oh yeah, I guess I erred as well.

English’s only previous varsity head coaching experience came at the end of the 2011-12 season when he coached the Scott’s Branch girls the last few games of the season following the death of head coach Ruth Coard in an automobile accident. I was at the team’s first game in Lamar following the death of Coard, and English maintained that same calm demeanor he had always displayed as a player.

It was something obviously needed on that day with such an emotional situation.

He has carried himself pretty much in the same manner in his two seasons on the Sumter sideline. However, you know behind that low-key approach that there is a burning intensity on the inside. And as any good coach can do, English has been able to transfer that intensity to his players.

You will see outbursts of emotion from the Gamecocks

KEITH GEDAMKE / THE SUMTER ITEM

Members and coaches of the Sumter High School varsity boys basketball players celebrate after winning the 4A state championship with a 61-55 victory over Hillcrest last Friday. It was Sumter’s first state title in 30 years.

— something to be expected from boys in high school — but the Sumter players play with much greater tenacity than emotion. It is most visible on the defensive end though, not in getting out on the fast break and trying to push a quick-paced game.

SHS wants its defense to force the opposition to play at a hectic pace, one that forces it into turnovers and hurried, ill-advised shots.

Now, English didn’t inherit a program that was in the pits. Sumter had played for the lower state title three times in the eight years prior to his hiring. Nathan Livesay laid the groundwork, leading the Gamecocks there twice and Sam Fuller in the final of his two years as head coach.

English led SHS to the lower state title game in each of his first two years — making it three appearances in a row —

before finally breaking through.

And then the Gamecocks broke all the way through.

This state title was truly one that was a team effort. While Sumter had several good players, there wasn’t a great one out of the bunch. The team though, that was a different matter. The players bought into what English and his staff were selling, knowing their roles and carrying them

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out with great success at the end of the season.

English said the games were won by the players, not by great in-game coaching. He and his staff did their coaching in practices, making sure the players were ready for anything that came their way in a game. No teaching went on in a game, just minor adjustments.

It was a job well done by all parties.

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SPORTS

FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015

THE SUMTER ITEM

BASEBALL FROM PAGE B1

JUSTIN DRIGGERS / THE SUMTER ITEM

Several University of South Carolina Sumter players huddle around the mound to discuss strategy during a game against Florence-Darlington Tech at Riley Park. The Fire Ants will travel to Louisburg, N.C., this weekend to take on a struggling 1-8 Hurricanes team.

FIRE ANTS FROM PAGE B1 another twinbill on Sunday also at 1 p.m.

The Hurricanes were 1-8 entering their game on Thursday due in large part to a number of cancellations because of the weather. Louisburg was unable to get a single game in from Feb. 9 until last weekend’s 4-game sweep at the hands of USC Salkehatchie.

The Hurricanes have lost eight straight games after winning their season opener.

“They’ve been really hit hard by the weather – ice and snow and rain,” Medlin said.

“It’s been tough on them because they weren’t able to be on the field for three weeks heading into last weekend

against Salkehatchie.

“But I’ve told my guys they’re a much better club than they’ve shown. They’re going to be hungry and looking to redeem themselves and we’ve got to play well to beat them. They’re no gimmies in this (region).”

In order to do that, USCS will have to make sure to cut down on the mistakes across the diamond that plagued it against FDTC last Sunday.

Walks, errors and a combined 12 men left on base doomed the Fire Ants throughout the day.

USC Sumter’s pitching also allowed 10 runs in the fifth inning or later.

“That first game should

have never come down to that last inning,” Medlin said. “We should have been up three, four, even five runs. But we didn’t come up with the big hit when we needed it and we didn’t do the little things to drive in runs.

“And obviously our pitching was not where it needed to be on Sunday.”

The Fire Ant staff will face a Louisburg team that is batting just .233 in a limited sample.

CJ Needam leads the Hurricanes with a .385 average while Juan Reyes has driven in five runs.

Louisburg has a 7.58 team earned run average, but starters Jeremy Swan and Chance Pauley are both under 4.00 with 22 combined innings between them.

in high school,” Elliott said.

“It is going to be beneficial for them in the long run.”

Elliott is also pleased with Schuessler’s strong showing through the first part of spring drills. Clemson will take next week off with the school on spring break and Elliott is confident all his quarterbacks will take the time away to keep learning and growing.

That includes Watson, too.

He is a continual presence

on the sidelines at practice, encouraging teammates and coordinating plays. Watson said he tries to get inside the minds of his coaches — Swinney, Elliott, co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott, quarterbacks coach Brandon Streeter — and think about the game plan the way they do.

“Each day,” he said, “is just learning something new.”

Watson hopes he can sharpen his backups and get them ready if necessary.

“You never know when that time is going to come for the younger guys,” he said.

TIGERS FROM PAGE B1 surgery on a torn ACL suffered last November.

It’s the first time in several springs Clemson hasn’t had a solid rotation to take snaps in their high-paced offense. Two seasons ago, Tajh Boyd was a senior returning for his final year, Cole Stoudt was the longtime No. 2 and Chad Kelly a talented, first-year player aiming to crack the depth chart.

In 2014, Stoudt led the pack as Boyd’s heir apparent with Kelly and the freshman Watson dueling for the backup job.

That competition ended when Kelly was dismissed from the team last April after arguing with coaches on the sidelines of Clemson’s spring game.

Watson figured to draw most snaps this spring after throwing for 1,466 yards and 14 touchdowns in eight games. But he needed ACL surgery on his left knee after tearing it during a practice in late November. Watson had surgery in December and his recovery is ahead of schedule, according to Swinney.

Watson’s expected to open the season in September. But who might step in should he get hurt — Watson had collarbone, finger and knee injuries last year — is a major concern.

Schuessler has thrown 10 career passes in eight appearances over the past two years as Clemson’s third string passer.

Swinney knew, with Watson on the sideline, Schuessler could have been overwhelmed. So far, though, the coach said Schuessler has risen to the challenge.

“I was very curious to see how he was going to come to work this spring,” Swinney said. “He has really asserted himself (saying), ‘Hey, I’m the leader. Let’s go.’”

Bryant is a 6-foot-4, 205pound player from Calhoun Falls, who’s the cousin of former Clemson standout receiver Martavis Bryant. Israel, from Orlando, Florida, broke Tim Tebow’s Florida state prep record with 56 touchdowns his senior year.

The college game, Clemson co-offensive coordinator Tony Elliott said, is not always a quick and easy step forward.

“Obviously, you have young quarterbacks that should be

arm in the rotation and in the field at third base.

They’re joined by returning mainstays Courtland Howard, Daquan Ingram and Josh Whitley among others – including the same outfield from a year ago.

“We really feel good about these guys and some of the other ones we have stepping in,” Chapman said. “Our pitching has been solid and we’ve started to pick things up defensively. We’re still trying to solidify things at first base and at shortstop when Dustin is pitching, but overall we feel good about where we are.

“I’m just trying to keep them hungry and keep them focused on doing the little things that you have to do in order to win.”

Second-year Crestwood head coach Michael Kremer is also looking for his veteran squad to take the next step – although it will be a first step for the program.

The Knights have their sights set on making the playoffs for the first time in program history and are banking on a returning roster with eight seniors to do it.

That begins with the pitching staff which features returning seniors Cole Benenhaley, Collin Kremer and Chris Tention.

“Our starters have all pitched well so far,” said Coach Kremer, whose team is 2-4 overall. “They’ve really limited the earned runs and the walks and have given us good outings so far.

“We’ve also got (relievers) who have come in like

‘ We’ve shown flashes of being a good hitting team, but we just haven’t been able to put everything together yet.’

MICHAEL KREMER Crestwood High baseball coach on this year’s squad Christian Buford, Lance Ragan, Matt Rogers and Erick Pulido who have been solid. So we’ve got some pitching depth this year, which is good.”

Offensively, CHS is still a work in progress. Consistency has been the biggest hurdle, Coach Kremer said.

“We’ve shown flashes of being a good hitting team, but we just haven’t been able to put everything together yet,” he said. “We’ve got guys that are hitting well and others that have hit well, we just have to do it on more consistent basis.

“We’ve been working on fixing some of those things, so hopefully we can hit our stride when region starts.”

The Lakewood and Crestwood softball teams will also open up region play tonight under the guidance of first-year head coaches.

Ashley Capplemann and the Lady Gators will take on Manning at 7:30 p.m. while Thomas Nickens and the Lady Knights will play at Darlington at 7:30 as well.

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COLLEGE BASKETBALL

THE SUMTER ITEM

FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015

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B5

NCAA MEN’S CONFERENCE TOURNAMENTS The Associated Press Atlantic Coast Conference Greensboro, N.C. First Round Tuesday Boston College 66, Georgia Tech 65 Virginia Tech 81, Wake Forest 80 Second Round Wednesday Florida State 76, Clemson 73 North Carolina 81, Boston College 63 N.C. State 81, Pittsburgh 70 Miami 59, Virginia Tech 49 Quarterfinals Thursday Virginia 58, Florida State 44 North Carolina 70, Louisville 60 Duke vs. N.C. State, 7 p.m.

Notre Dame vs. Miami, 9:30 p.m.

Semifinals Today Virginia vs. North Carolina, 7 p.m.

Duke-N.C. State winner vs. Notre Dame-Miami winner, 9:30 p.m.

Championship Saturday Semifinal winners, 8:30 p.m.

Southeastern Conference Nashville, Tenn.

First Round Wednesday, March 11 Auburn 74, Mississippi State 68 South Carolina 63, Missouri 54 Second Round Thursday Florida 69, Alabama 61 Auburn 66, Texas A&M 59 Vanderbilt vs. Tennessee, 7 p.m.

Mississippi vs. South Carolina, late Quarterfinals Today Kentucky vs. Florida, 1 p.m.

LSU vs. Auburn, 3:30 p.m.

Arkansas vs. Vanderbilt-Tennessee winner, 7 p.m.

Georgia vs. Mississippi-South Carolina winner, 9:30 p.m.

Semifinals Saturday Kentucky-Florida winner vs. LSU_ Texas A&M-Auburn winner, 1 p.m.

Arkansas_Vanderbilt-Tennessee winner vs. Georgia_MississippiSouth Carolina winner, 3:30 p.m.

Championship Sunday Semifinal winners, 1 p.m.

America East Conference Championship Saturday Stony Brook at Albany, 11 a.m.

American Athletic Conference Hartford, Conn.

First Round Thursday East Carolina 81, UCF 80 Houston 66, Tulane 60 UConn vs. South Florida, late Quarterfinals Today SMU vs. East Carolina, Noon Temple vs. Memphis, 2:30 p.m.

Tulsa vs. Houston, 7 p.m.

Cincinnati vs. UConn-South Florida winner, 9:30 p.m.

Semifinals Saturday SMU_East Carolina-UCF winner vs.

Temple-Memphis winner, 3 p.m.

Tulsa_Tulane-Houston winner vs.

Cincinnati_UConn-South Florida winner, 5:30 p.m.

Championship Sunday Semifinal winners, 3:15 p.m.

Atlantic Sun Conference Championship Sunday, March 8 North Florida 63, South Carolina-Upstate 57 Atlantic 10 Conference Brooklyn, N.Y. First Round Wednesday, March 11 Fordham 71, George Mason 65 Duquesne 61, Saint Louis 55 Second Round Thursday La Salle 76, UMass 69 VCU vs. Fordham, 2:30 p.m.

TODAY’S CONFERENCE TOURNAMENT TV SCHEDULE MEN

ACC Semifinals WKTC 63, ESPN or ESPN2 7 p.m. – Virginia vs. North Carolina 9 p.m. – Duke or N.C. State vs. Notre Dame or Miami SEC Quarterfinals SEC NETWORK 1 p.m. – Kentucky vs. Florida 3 p.m. – Louisiana State vs. Auburn 7 p.m. – Arkansas vs. Vanderbilt or Tennessee 9 p.m. – Georgia vs. Mississippi or South Carolina Big 12 Semifinals ESPN or ESPN2 7 p.m. – Baylor vs. Kansas 9 p.m. – Iowa State or Texas vs.

Oklahoma or Oklahoma State Big Ten Quarterfinals ESPN Noon – Michigan vs. Wisconsin 2 p.m. – Purdue vs. Penn State Big East Semifinals FOX SPORTS 1 7 p.m. – Villanova vs. Providence 9:30 p.m. – Georgetown or Creighton vs. Butler or Xavier American Athletic Quarterfinals ESPN2 Noon – Southern Methodist vs. East Carolina 2 p.m. – Temple vs. Memphis ESPNU 7 p.m. – Tulsa vs. Houston 9 p.m. – Cincinnati vs. Connecticut or South Florida Conference USA Semifinals CBS SPORTS NETWORK 4 p.m. – Texas-El Paso vs. Middle Tennessee Satte 6:30 p.m. – UAB or Western Kentucky vs. Louisiana Tech or Rice Atlantic 10 Quarterfinals NBC SPORTS NETWORK Noon – Davidson vs. La Salle 2:30 p.m. – Richmond vs. Virginia Commonwealth 6:30 p.m. – Dayton vs. St. Bonaventure or Saint Joseph’s 9 p.m. – Rhode Island vs. George Washington vs. Duquesne Mountain West Semifinals CBS SPORTS NETWORK 9 p.m. – Boise State vs. Wyoming 11:30 p.m. – San Diego State or UNLV vs. Colorado State or Fresno State Pac-12 Semifinals ESPN2 11:30 p.m. – Oregon or Colorado vs.

Utah or Stanford Big West Semifinals ESPNU Midnight – California Davis vs. Lowest Remaining Seed 2 a.m. – Middle Remaining Seeds

St. Bonaventure vs. Saint Joseph’s, 6:30 p.m.

George Washington vs. Duquesne, 9 p.m.

Quarterfinals Today Davidson vs. La Salle, Noon Richmond vs. VCU-Fordham winner, 2:30 p.m.

Dayton vs. St. Bonaventure-Saint Joseph’s winner, 6:30 p.m.

Rhode Island vs. George Washington-Duquesne winner, 9 p.m.

Semifinals Saturday Davidson-La Salle winner vs. Richmond_VCU-Fordham winner, 1:30 p.m.

Dayton_St. Bonaventure-Saint Joseph’s winner vs. Rhode Island_ George Washington-Duquesne winner, 4 p.m.

Championship Sunday Semifinal winners, 1 p.m.

Big East Conference New York First Round Wednesday Marquette 78, Seton Hall 56 Creighton 78, DePaul 63 Quarterfinals Thursday Villanova 84, Marquette 49 Providence 74, St. John’s 57 Georgetown vs. Creighton, 7 p.m.

Butler vs. Xavier, late Semifinals Today Villanova vs. Providence, 7 p.m.

Georgetown-Creighton winner vs.

Butler-Xavier winner, 9:30 p.m.

Championship Saturday Semifinal winners, 8 p.m.

Big Sky Conference Missoula, Mont.

Thursday Eastern Washington 91, Idaho 83 Sacramento State 70, Portland State 60 Northern Arizona vs. Northern Colorado, 7:30 p.m.

Montana vs. Weber State, 10 p.m.

Semifinals Today Eastern Washington vs. Sacramento State, 7:30 p.m.

Northern Arizona-Northern Colorado winner vs. Montana-Weber State winner, 10 p.m.

Championship Saturday Semifinal winners, 9 p.m.

Big South Conference Championship Sunday, March 8 Coastal Carolina 81, Winthrop 70 Big Ten Conference Chicago First Round Wednesday Penn State 68, Nebraska 65 Minnesota 80, Rutgers 68 Second Round Thursday Michigan 73, Illinois 55 Penn State 67, Iowa 58 Indiana 71, Northwestern 56 Ohio State vs. Minnesota, 8:55 p.m.

Quarterfinals Today Wisconsin vs. Michigan, Noon Purdue vs. Penn State, 2:25 p.m.

Maryland vs. Indiana, 6:30 p.m.

Michigan State vs. Ohio State-Minnesota winner, 8:55 p.m.

Semifinals Saturday Wisconsin-Michigan winner vs. Purdue_Iowa-Penn State winner, 1 p.m.

Maryland_Indiana-Northwestern winner vs. Michigan State_Ohio State-Minnesota winner, 3:25 p.m.

Championship Sunday Semifinal winners, 3:30 p.m.

Big 12 Conference Kansas City, Mo. First Round

Wednesday TCU 67, Kansas State 65 Texas 65, Texas Tech 53 Quarterfinals Thursday Baylor 80, West Virginia 70 Kansas 64, TCU 59 Iowa State vs. Texas, 7 p.m.

Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State, 9:30 p.m.

Semifinals Today Baylor vs. Kansas, 7 p.m.

Iowa State-Texas winner vs. Oklahoma-Oklahoma State, 9:30 p.m.

Championship Saturday Semifinal winners, 6 p.m.

Big West Conference Anaheim, Calif.

First Round Thursday UC Davis 71,Cal State Northridge 67 Long Beach State vs. Hawaii, 5:30 p.m.

UC Irvine vs. UC Riverside, 9 p.m.

UC Santa Barbara vs. Cal Poly, 11:30 p.m.

Semifinals Today Highest-remaining seed vs. lowest remaining seed, 9:30 p.m.

Middle-remaining seeds, Mid Championship Saturday Semifinal winners, 11:30 p.m.

Colonial Athletic Association Championship Monday, March 9 Northeastern 72, William & Mary 61 Conference USA Birmingham, Ala. First Round Wednesday FIU 57, UTSA 54 Middle Tennessee 63, Charlotte 60 Western Kentucky 59, Marshall 45 Rice 82, North Texas 54 Quarterfinals Thursday UTEP 83, FIU 71 Middle Tennessee 59, Old Dominion 52 UAB vs. Western Kentucky, 7 p.m.

Louisiana Tech vs. Rice, late Semifinals Today UTEP vs. Middle Tennessee, 4 p.m.

UAB-Western Kentucky winner vs.

Louisiana Tech-Rice winner, 6:30 p.m.

Championship Saturday Semifinal winners, 3:30 p.m.

Horizon League Championship Tuesday, March 10 Valparaiso 54, Green Bay 44 Ivy League One-game playoff Philadelphia Saturday Harvard vs. Yale, 4 p.m.

Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Albany, N.Y. Championship Monday, March 9 Manhattan 79, Iona 69 Mid-American Conference First Round Cleveland Monday, March 9 Bowling Green 88, Ball State 75 Akron 76, Northern Illinois 52 Eastern Michigan 62, Miami (Ohio) 61, OT Western Michigan 82, Ohio 74 Second Round Wednesday Eastern Michigan 73, Bowling Green 67 Akron 58, Western Michigan 45 Third Round Thursday Toledo 78, Eastern Michigan 67 Kent State vs. Akron, 9 p.m.

Semifinals Today Central Michigan vs. Toledo, 6:30 pm.

Wofford 67, Furman 64 Southland Conference Katy, Texas First Round Wednesday McNeese State 62, Southeastern Louisiana 60, OT New Orleans 83, Nicholls State 73 Second Round Thursday Northwestern State vs. McNeese State, 6 p.m.

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi vs. New Orleans, 8:30 p.m.

Semifinals Today Stephen F. Austin vs. Northwestern State-McNeese State winner, 6 p.m.

Sam Houston State vs. Texas A&MCorpus Christi-New Orleans winner, 8:30 p.m.

Championship Saturday Semifinal winners, 9:30 p.m.

Southwestern Athletic Conference Houston First Round Tuesday Alcorn State 66, Grambling State 52 Quarterfinals Wednesday Alabama State 93, MVSU 81 Texas Southern 95, Alcorn State 74 Thursday Southern 64, Alabama A&M 60 Prairie View vs. Jackson State, 9:30 p.m.

Semifinals Today Alabama State vs. Southern-Alabama A&M winner, 3:30 p.m.

Texas Southern vs. Prairie ViewJackson State winner, 9:30 p.m.

Championship Saturday Semifinal winners, 6:30 p.m.

Summit League Sioux Falls, S.D. Championship Tuesday, March 10 North Dakota State 57, South Dakota State 56 Sun Belt Conference New Orleans First Round Thursday Texas State 68, Texas-Arlington 62 South Alabama vs. UALR, 8:30 p.m.

Second Round Today Louisiana-Lafayette vs. Texas State, 6 p.m.

Louisiana-Monroe vs. South Alabama-UALR winner, 8:30 p.m.

Semifinals Saturday Georgia State vs. Louisiana-Lafayette_Texas-Arlington-Texas State winner, 2 p.m.

Georgia Southern vs. LouisianaMonroe_South Alabama-UALR winner, 4:30 p.m.

Championship Sunday Semifinal winners, 1 p.m.

West Coast Conference Las Vegas Championship Tuesday, March 10 Gonzaga 91, BYU 75 Western Athletic Conference Las Vegas First Round Thursday Cal State Bakersfield vs. Utah Valley, 5 p.m.

UMKC vs. Texas-Pan American, 7:30 p.m.

Seattle vs. Chicago State, late Semifinals Today New Mexico State vs. Cal State-Bakersfield-Utah Valley winner, 9 p.m.

UMKC-Texas-Pan American winner vs. Seattle-Chicago State winner, 11:30 p.m.

Championship Saturday Semifinal winners, 11 p.m.

ACC/SEC ROUNDUP

Johnson helps UNC top Louisville 70-60 GREENSBORO, N.C. — Brice Johnson scored 18 of his 22 points after halftime to help No. 19 North Carolina outlast No. 14 Louisville 70-60 in Thursday’s Atlantic Coast Conference tournament quarterfinals.

Marcus Paige added 13 points for the fifth-seeded Tar Heels (23-10), who regrouped from an ugly first half and took control in the final 7 minutes to take the third tough matchup between the teams this season.

UNC used an 8-0 run to finally push ahead for good, with Kennedy Meeks coming up with some key plays de-

spite being limited by a recent illness. The Tar Heels then went 6-for-6 at the line in the final minute to seal it and earn a date with No. 3 Virginia in the semifinals.

(2) DUKE 77 N.C. STATE 53

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Quinn Cook scored 15 points and No. 2 Duke routed North Carolina State 77-53 on Thursday night in an Atlantic Coast Conference quarterfinal.

Backup center Marshall Plumlee added a career-high 12 points on six dunks to help the second-seeded Blue Devils (29-3) win their 12th straight.

Ralston Turner had 16 points and Abdul-Malik Abu added 10 for the seventh-seeded Wolfpack (20-13).

(3) VIRGINIA 58 FLORIDA STATE 44

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Justin Anderson came back for No. 3 Virginia, and Malcolm Brogdon scored all 10 of his points in the final nine minutes of Virginia’s 58-44 victory over the Seminoles on Thursday in an Atlantic Coast Conference quarterfinal.

SEC FLORIDA 69 ALABAMA 61

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — If nothing else, Dorian FinneySmith had 23 points and 11 rebounds and Florida overcame a slow start to make nine 3-pointers and beat Alabama 69-61 on Thursday.

AUBURN 66 TEXAS A&M 59

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — KT Harrell scored 25 points and Auburn rallied from 10 points down at halftime to upset fifth-seeded Texas A&M 66-59 Thursday in the second round of the Southeastern Conference tournament.

From wire reports

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Conference USA Semifinals CBS SPORTS NETWORK 11 a.m. – Southern Mississippi vs.

Middle Tennessee 1:30 p.m. – Western Kentucky vs.

Texas-San Antonio or Old Dominion America East Championship ESPNU 4:30 p.m. – Hartford vs. Albany

Buffalo vs. Kent State-Akron winner, 9 p.m.

Championship Saturday Semifinal winners, 7:30 p.m.

Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Norfolk, Va. First Round Monday, March 9 Delaware State 64, Savannah State 58 Hampton 91, Morgan State 71 Tuesday, March 10 Coppin State 64, Bethune-Cookman 60 S.C. State 63, N.C. A&T 54 Quarterfinals Wednesday N.C. Central 91, Coppin State 43 Norfolk State 68, S.C. State 54 Thursday Hampton 76, Maryland-Eastern Shore 71 Howard vs. Delaware State, 8:30 p.m.

Semifinals Today N.C. Central vs. Howard-Delaware State winner, 6 p.m.

Norfolk State vs. Hampton, 8:30 p.m.

Championship Saturday Semifinal winners, 1 p.m.

Missouri Valley Conference St. Louis Championship Sunday, March 8 Northern Iowa 69, Illinois State 60 Mountain West Conference Las Vegas First Round Wednesday Air Force 68, New Mexico 61 UNLV 67, Nevada 46 Quarterfinals Thursday Boise State 80, Air Force 68 Wyoming vs. Utah State, 5:30 p.m.

San Diego State vs. UNLV, 9 p.m.

Colorado State vs. Fresno State, 11:30 p.m.

Semifinals Today Boise State vs. Wyoming-Utah State winner, 9 p.m.

San Diego State-UNLV winner vs.

Colorado State-Fresno State winner, 11:30 p.m.

Championship Saturday Semifinal winners, 6 p.m.

Northeast Conference Championship Tuesday, March 10 Robert Morris 66, St. Francis (N.Y.) 63 Ohio Valley Conference Nashville, Tenn.

Championship Saturday, March 7 Belmont 88, Murray State 87 Pacific-12 Conference Las Vegas First Round Wednesday California 84, Washington State 59 Southern Cal 67, Arizona State 64 Colorado 78, Oregon State 71 Stanford 71, Washington 69 Quarterfinals Thursday Arizona vs. California, 3:10 p.m.

UCLA vs. Southern Cal, 5:40 p.m.

Oregon vs. Colorado, late Utah vs. Stanford, late Semifinals Today Arizona-California winner vs. UCLASouthern Cal winner, 9:10 p.m.

Oregon-Colorado winner vs. UtahStanford winner, 11:45 p.m.

Championship Saturday Semifinal winners, 11:05 p.m.

Patriot League Championship Wednesday Lafayette 65, American 63 Southern Conference Asheville, N.C. Championship Monday, March 9

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B6

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COLLEGE BASKETBALL

FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015

BASKETBALL ROUNDUP

Morris hits game-winner for Iowa State KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Monte Morris rose up and hit an 18-foot jumper at the buzzer, capping a 12-0 closing run that lifted No. 13 Iowa State to a 69-67 victory over Texas in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 tournament Thursday.

Morris finished with 24 points for the second-seeded Cyclones (23-8), who trailed by 16 points before clawing back into the game. Still, Iowa State trailed 67-57 with less than 4 minutes to go when it unMORRIS leashed a fullcourt press that helped it draw even.

Morris’ 3-pointer with 1:42 left tied it at 67, and the teams swapped empty possessions before Texas (20-13) got the ball back with 38.1 seconds left.

(4) VILLANOVA 84 MARQUETTE 49

NEW YORK — Villanova called timeout and inserted Big East Sixth Man of the Year Josh Hart into the lineup. Just like that, a close game turned into a rout.

Hart scored 20 points, including 11 straight to spark a huge first-half run, and fourth-ranked Villanova ensured it would stick around at the conference tournament a bit longer this time with an 84-49 victory over Marquette in Thursday’s quarterfinals.

(5) ARIZONA 73 CAL 51

LAS VEGAS — Arizona was unable to get much of a flow against California’s physical defense in the first half.

Once the Wildcats got rolling, there was no stopping

them.

Stanley Johnson had 19 points, Brandon Ashley added 15 and No. 5 Arizona ran away from Cal in the second half for a 73-51 victory in the Pac12 tournament quarterfinals Thursday.

(9) KANSAS 64 TCU 59

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kelly Oubre Jr. scored a career-high 25 points, Landen Lucas added 13 and ninth-ranked Kansas beat pesky TCU 64-59 on Thursday in the Big 12 tournament quarterfinals.

(16) BAYLOR 80 (18) WEST VIRGINIA 70

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Taurean Prince scored 18 points off the bench, Royce O’Neale added 16 and the No. 16 Baylor Bears pulled away late for an 80-70 victory Thursday in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 tournament.

(25) BOISE STATE 80 AIR FORCE 68

LAS VEGAS — Nick Duncan hit seven 3-pointers and finished with 23 points as No. 25 Boise State pulled away for an 80-68 quarterfinal victory over Air Force in the Mountain West Conference tournament.

LATE WEDNESDAY NORFOLK STATE 68 SOUTH CAROLINA STATE 54 NORFOLK, Va. — Jeffrey Short scored 25 points on 9-for-14 shooting to lead No. 2 seed Norfolk State to a 68-54 win over seventh-seeded South Carolina State in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference quarterfinals Wednesday.

From wire reports

THE SUMTER ITEM

Carolina holds off Missouri 63-54

BY TERESA M. WALKER The Associated Press NASHVILLE, Tenn.— South Carolina coach Frank Martin thinks his Gamecocks are finally in a good place mentally, and the results are showing on the court.

Sindarius Thornwell scored 18 points and tied his career-high with four 3-pointers as South Carolina held off Missouri 63-54 Wednesday night in the USC-MISS Southeastern ConferThe result of USC’s ence tourgame vs. Ole Miss nament. was not available The 11that press time. For a seeded recap, visit our Gamecocks website at www.

(16-15) now theitem.com have won three of their last four, and this gives them their best season since winning 21 in 2008-09. They will play sixth-seeded Mississippi on Thursday.

“We’ve started worrying about all the things that matter and not the things that don’t matter,” Martin said.

“Guys have stayed very positive through difficult times and difficult games, and we had to learn. We had to learn. I think, and I could be wrong, the success in nonconference play, we didn’t have guys who understand how to manage that.

And when we lost a couple league games early, we had guys started pressing. And I didn’t do a very good job early ... helping them through that.”

Michael Carrera added 12 points for South Carolina despite being limited to 22 minutes with four fouls.

Missouri (9-23) finished the season having lost 16 of 18 games. The 14th-seeded Tigers sure made it interesting not letting South Carolina run away. They got within a possession seven times in the second half, the last at 52-50 when Montaque GillCaesar hit two free throws with 6:42 to go.

Carrera answered with a

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

South Carolina guard Sindarius Thornwell (0) shoots against Missouri forwards Jakeenan Gant (23) and D’Angelo Allen (5) during the Gamecocks’ 63-54 victory on Wednesday in the opening round of the Southeastern Conference tournament in Nashville, Tenn.

SOUTH CAROLINA 63, MISSOURI 54 14-20 63.

Halftime_South Carolina 30-24.

3-Point Goals_Missouri 4-16 (Shamburger 1-1, Williams III 1-4, Gill-Caesar 1-4, Wright 1-5, Isabell 0-1, Bello 0-1), South Carolina 7-19 (Thornwell 4-7, Notice 2-4, Carrera 1-3, Kacinas 0-1, Johnson 0-4).

Fouled Out_None. Rebounds_ Missouri 35 (Williams III 11), South Carolina 26 (Johnson 7).

Assists_Missouri 9 (Shamburger 4), South Carolina 17 (Thornwell 6). Total Fouls_Missouri 17, South Carolina 15. A_NA.

MISSOURI (9-23)

Williams III 2-10 4-8 9, Isabell 1-5 0-0 2, Allen 0-1 0-0 0, Wright 3-9 1-1 8, Rosburg 3-4 3-4 9, Bello 0-2 0-0 0, Gill-Caesar 3-7 3-4 10, Shamburger 1-3 3-3 6, Gant 3-5 0-0 6, Post 2-4 0-0 4. Totals 18-50 14-20 54.

SOUTH CAROLINA (16-15)

Thornwell 5-9 4-6 18, Johnson 1-8 1-3 3, Notice 3-8 1-1 9, Chatkevicius 3-6 0-0 6, Carrera 4-7 3-5 12, Stroman 0-2 5-5 5, McKie 1-1 0-0 2, Kacinas 4-5 0-0 8. Totals 21-46

Carrera’s lone 3-pointer was part of a strong offensive start that quickly separated the Gamecocks from Missouri. South Carolina made its first three attempts and eight of its initial 14, opportunities created by good energy and ball movement.

Missouri, meanwhile, began just 1 of 6 from the field and things didn’t get much better in a first half.

Though the Tigers were slightly less error-prone than the Gamecocks (8-7), they missed passes near the basket and seemed out of sync for the most part.

South Carolina took advantage to build its biggest lead at 30-17 before Missouri regrouped for a 7-0 run over the final two minutes to trail by just 30-24 at the break.

jumper to start an 11-1 spurt as South Carolina pulled away.

“We feel like we can come in and compete and have a chance to win these games coming up,” Thornwell said.

Gill-Caesar finished with a team-high 10 points.

“I thought we played extremely hard,” first-year Missouri coach Kim Anderson said. “Obviously, we made too many mistakes at critical times. We had a chance to get the game tied, we had a chance to get it close a few times, we threw the ball away. But by and large, I thought our effort was good. Our execution wasn’t very good at times, but I think South Carolina had something to do with that.”

OBITUARIES TROLLEY LEE FRANK PINEWOOD — Trolley Lee Frank, 84, died on Thursday, March 5, 2015, at his residence in Pinewood.

Born on July 2, 1930, in Clarendon County, he was a son of the late Aaron Sr. and Viola Johnson Frank. He FRANK was joined in holy matrimony to the late Thelma Marie Myers Frank.

He was predeceased by a son, Wilbert Frank; three sisters, Stella (Hester) Wallace, Rosa Lee Watson and Bertha Frank Boatwright; and two brothers, Jack Frank and Joseph Frank.

He was a loving and caring father who will be missed by all who knew him.

Those left to grow from his legacy of love are one daughter, Joetta Clay of South Carolina; two sons, Fareed Muhummad of Maryland and Hubert Frank of South Caro-

lina; one sister, May Montgomery of South Carolina; one brother, Aaron Frank Jr. of New York; seven grandchildren; 10 great-grandchildren; a host of niece, nephews, other relatives and friends.

Special thanks to Amedisys Hospice staff, registered nurses Bebe, Maria and Meredith; certified nursing assistants, Mae and Mercedes for professional care, kindness, and love.

Funeral services for Mr. Frank will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday at Taw Caw Missionary Baptist Church. The Rev. Dr. W.T. Johnson, pastor, will officiate. Burial will follow in the church cemetery.

The remains will be placed in the church from 1 p.m. until the hour of the service.

Online condolences may be posted to summertonfuneralservice.com.

Viewing will be held from noon until 7 p.m. today at the funeral home.

The family will receive

friends at the home, 1062 Coard Road, Pinewood.

Funeral arrangements are entrusted to Summerton Funeral Home LLC, 23 Duke St., Summerton, (803) 485-3755.

Mt. Nebo Missionary Baptist Church cemetery, Alcolu.

The family is receiving friends at his residence, 1061 CE Road, Manning.

These services have been entrusted to Samuels Funeral Home LLC of Manning.

SEE OBITUARIES, PAGE B7

WILLIE J. BLANDING MANNING — Willie James “Boobie” Blanding, 47, husband of Julia Shantell Pearson Blanding, died on Sunday, March 8, 2015, at Clarendon Memorial Hospital, Manning.

He was born on March 9, 1967, in Sumter, a son of BLANDING the late George and Bertha Mae Franklin Blanding.

Public viewing will be held from noon to 7 p.m. Friday, March 13.

The celebratory service for Mr. Blanding will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday at the Hayes F. & LaNelle J. Samuels Sr. Memorial Chapel, 114 N. Church St., Manning. Burial will follow in

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OBITUARIES

THE SUMTER ITEM

GILDA DENISE C. ASHLEY Gilda Denise Clark Ashley, 61, wife of Jimmy Ashley, died on Monday, March 9, 2015, at Agape Hospice House in Columbia.

Denise is now reunited with her parents, Martin Clark and Juanita Clark Vining; and her oldest son, Bobby “Catfish” McDaniel.

Left to cherish loving memories of her life are her husband of 38 years; sons, Bradley McDaniel, Timothy Ashley and Jonathan Ashley and daughter-in-law, Kimberly Daves Ashley; siblings, Cathy Clark Hilbert, Eddie Clark, Wendy Clark Chapman and Linda Clark Johnson; and stepfather, Warren Vining. She is also survived by her grandchildren, Megan and Jacob McDaniel; and Ellis, Piersen and Emmersen Ashley.

She was affectionately known as “Squaw” to many of her friends. She was loved for her caring nature and sense of humor.

The family will receive friends from 3 to 6 p.m. on Saturday at Elmore-CannonStephens Funeral Home.

Please join her family as they celebrate her life.

Elmore-Cannon-Stephens Funeral Home and Crematorium of Sumter is in charge of the arrangements. www. ecsfuneralhome.com

JOYCE ANN BAZMORE Joyce Ann Dwyer Bazmore, wife of Timothy Bazmore, was born on Aug. 6, 1965, in Clarendon County, a daughter of Betty C. Dwyer.

She departed this life on Monday, March 9, 2015, at Palmetto Health Richland, Columbia.

Joyce was educated in the public schools of Sumter County. She was a graduate of Morris College and later received her master’s from Lesley University. Joyce was employed with both Richland School District 1 and Sumter School District as a technology specialist, and at Turbeville Correctional Institution as a correctional officer. Joyce was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. She loved reading, working with technology, watching football and laughing. She was a faithful member of Jehovah Missionary Baptist Church. Joyce’s favorite scripture was Romans 8:28 and her favorite song was “When I Get Home.”

She leaves to cherish her memories: her mother, Betty C. Dwyer of the home; two children, Dontae (Sharease) Dwyer of Sumter and Crystal (Trayrene) Lloyd of Orangeburg; three brothers, Hallie (Teresa) Dwyer of Quincy, Florida, Leroy Dwyer of Pinewood and Toney Dwyer of Sumter; two sisters, Loretta (Willie) Shaw of Columbia and Gail (Lee) Wilson of Sumter; three aunts, Mary Ann Green and Wilbur Davis, both of Sumter, and Annie Mae James of Burlington, North Carolina; and a host of other relatives and friends.

Public viewing was held Thursday at Job’s Mortuary.

Mrs. Bazmore will be placed in the church at 11 a.m. today for viewing until the hour of service.

Funeral service will be held at noon today at Jehovah Missionary Baptist Church, 803 S. Harvin St., Sumter, with Pastor Marion H. Newton officiating. Interment will follow in Mayesville Community Cemetery, Mayesville.

Job’s Mortuary Inc. of Sumter is in charge of arrangements.

JOHNNY H. BARWICK Johnny Howard Barwick, 96, widower of Elise Outlaw Barwick, died on Wednesday, March 11, 2015, at Tu-

omey Regional Medical Center.

Services will be announced by Elmore Hill McCreight Funeral Home & Crematory, 221 Broad St., Sumter, (803) 775-9386.

GENEVA WILSON Geneva “Rose” Wilson, 76, widow of Thomas E. Wilson, died on Thursday, March 12, 2015, at her home.

Born in Anderson County, she was a daughter of the late Clifton Alonzo and Elzy Mae Hunnicutt Durham.

Mrs. Wilson retired from Campbell Soup Co. and Korn Industries.

Surviving are a son, Thomas E. Wilson Jr. (Lauren) and a daughter, Terry L. Starnes, both of Sumter; a sister, Jeannette Davis of Anderson; three grandsons, Michael Lynn Starnes III, Aaron Jordan Wilson and Ronald McCoy (Megan); and one great-granddaughter, Charlotte Joan McCoy. She was preceded in death by a daughter, Donna Gail Wilson; two brothers; and one sister.

Funeral services will be held at 3 p.m. on Sunday at Long Branch Baptist Church with Pastor Jonathan Bradshaw officiating. Burial will be in Evergreen Memorial Park cemetery.

The family will receive friends from 1:30 to 3 p.m. on Sunday at Long Branch Baptist Church and other times at the home, 5526 Oakcrest Road.

Memorials may be made to Long Branch Baptist Church, 2535 Peach Orchard Road, Dalzell, SC 29040.

Online condolences may be sent to www.sumterfunerals.com.

Elmore Hill McCreight Funeral Home & Crematory, 221 Broad St., Sumter, is in charge of the arrangements, (803) 775-9386.

WAYNE BELL

five children, Shance D., Nigeria, Wayne, Keondra S. and Kia-Zjah Bell, all of Sumter; two brothers, Corey (Lakeisha) Bell and Cortney (Latonya) Jr., both of Paxville; a host of other relative and friends.

The family is receiving relatives and friends at the home of his mother, 9314 Paxville Highway, Manning.

He can be viewed from 3 to 7 p.m. today at the funeral home.

Funeral services for Mr. Bell will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday at Chapel AME Church with Pastor Roberta Montgomery. Burial will follow in the church cemetery.

Online memorials can be sent to comfhltj@sc.rr.com.

Community Funeral Home of Sumter is in charge of these arrangements.

WAYNE L. RICHARDSON Wayne Leo Richardson, 61, husband of Carolyn Hodge Richardson, entered eternal rest on Sunday, March 8, 2015, at Tuomey Regional Medical Center.

Born on Feb. 6, 1954, in Harlem, New York, he was a son of James Richardson and the late Mildred McCoy. He received his education in the public schools of Harlem.

Survivors are his wife; his father, James (Toni) Richardson; one daughter, Jada Penny; four stepdaughters, Lisa Williams, Stacey Williams, Stephenie Williams and Tina Williams; one son, Adrian Penny; two stepsons, Robbie Williams of Sumter and Edward (Bessie) Williams; five sisters, Francine Richardson, Delores Outen, Yvette Richardson, Suzanne Richardson and Ann Marie Richardson; one brother, Bruce Richardson; a host of grandchildren, nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends.

Viewing will be held from 3 to 7 p.m. today at the funeral home.

Funeral services will be held at noon on Saturday at Jehovah Missionary Baptist Church with Pastor Marion H. Newton. Burial will follow in Bradford Cemetery.

The family is receiving visitors at the home, 26 W. Hunter St., Sumter.

Online memorials can be sent to comfhltj@sc.rr.com, Community Funeral Home of Sumter.

CARRIE LYNN SINKLER

Wayne Bell, 44, entered eternal rest on Tuesday, March 10, 2015, in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Born on Nov. 10, 1970, in Clarendon County, he was a son of William and Geneva Conyers Bell. He attended the public schools of Clarendon County and graduated from Manning High School.

In his youth, he joined Chapel AME Church in Paxville.

He was employed with Burls, Gold Kist and Eaton Inc., Sumter. For the last five years, he worked for Flowers Baking Co. in Lynchburg.

Survivors are his parents;

Carrie Lynn Sinkler, 52, entered eternal rest on Thursday, March 12, 2015, at Providence Hospital, Columbia.

She was born on Nov. 1, 1962, in Clarendon County, a daughter of Carolyn Sinkler.

The family is receiving relatives and friends at the family home, 2023 White and River Road, Pinewood.

Funeral plans will be announced by Community Funeral Home of Sumter.

M. WILBUR ARDIS Marvin Wilbur Ardis, 88, husband of Betty Galloway

“Your Great Day Begins With Us!” SUMTER’S NEW DINING EXPERIENCE

Ardis, died Thursday, March 12, 2015, at Tuomey Regional Medical Center.

Born in Pinewood, he was a son of the late Henry Cornelius and Eva A. Ardis. Mr. Ardis was a member of Crosswell Baptist Church.

He retired from BoozerWharton and ECB Construction, and was a self-employed contractor. He loved working and used the talents that God gave him to help others. He was a U.S. Navy veteran of World War II and was a member of American Legion Post 15. His sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren were the joys of his life.

Survivors include his wife; two sons, Mike Ardis (Cindy) and Stan Ardis (Marijon); grandchildren, Kevin, Courtney, Kaitlin, Bryson and Hayden; and two brothers, Willis Ardis (Barbara) and Louie Ardis (Carrie Lee).

He was preceded in death by siblings, Annie Laurie Tobias and Mac, Russell, Leslie, William and Melvin Ardis.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday in the Elmore-Cannon-Stephens Funeral Home chapel with the Rev. Charles Owens and the Rev. Charles Clanton officiating. Burial will be in Evergreen Memorial Park cemetery.

Pallbearers will be Kevin Ardis, Steve Galloway, Wendell Ardis, Jimmy Tobias, Ryan Broome and John Gardenhire.

Honorary pallbearers will be the Steadfast and Faithful Workers Sunday School classes of Crosswell Baptist Church.

The family will receive friends from 6 to 8 p.m. today at Elmore-Cannon-Stephens Funeral Home and other times at the home.

Memorials may be made to Crosswell Baptist Church, 604 Mathis St., Sumter, SC 29150 or to Tuomey Hospice, 129 N. Washington St., Sumter, SC 29150.

Elmore-Cannon-Stephens Funeral Home and Crematorium of Sumter is in charge of the arrangements. www. ecsfuneralhome.com

KIRBY MCGEE Kirby McGee, 92, husband of Doretha McMillion McGee, died on Wednesday, March 11, 2015, at the Dorn VA Medical Center, Columbia.

Born on July 20, 1922, in Sumter County, he was a son of Misie McGee. The family is receiving friends and relatives at the home, 80 Albert Spears Drive, Sumter.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete and will be announced by Williams Funeral Home Inc. of Sumter.

NICHOLLE RIVERS Nicholle “Nikki” Rachelle Ratliff Rivers, age 39, beloved wife of Staff Sgt. Anthony “Tony” Wayne Rivers, died on Wednesday, March 11, 2015, at the Medical University of South Carolina.

|

B7

Born in Sumter, she was a daughter of Judy C. Ratliff and the late Roscoe O. Ratliff Jr. Nikki was an active member of Dalzell United Methodist Church and past president of the United Methodist Women’s Club.

She attended Pageland United Methodist Church. She formally worked for Sumter County EMS as a paramedic and enjoyed crafts in her spare time. She was a loving wife, mother, daughter, and sister. She will be dearly missed by her family and friends.

Surviving in addition to her husband and mother are three daughters, Kayla Marie Ratliff, Kelsie Cheyenne Ratliff and Kaitlyn Joanna Rivers; one son, Connor Anthony Rivers, all of Sumter; one brother, Michael Ratliff and his wife, Catherine, of Raleigh, North Carolina; and one sister, Renee Stewart and her husband, Sam, of Aiken.

A funeral service will be held at noon on Saturday in the Bullock Funeral Home Chapel with the Rev. Wanda Altman officiating. Interment will follow in Evergreen Memorial Park cemetery.

The family will receive friends from 6 to 8 p.m. today at Bullock Funeral Home.

In lieu of flowers, a memorial fund has been established for the children’s education. You may send memorials to Nicholle Rivers Memorial Fund, c/o Safe Federal Credit Union, P.O. Box 2008, Sumter, SC 29151.

You may sign the family’s guest book at www.bullockfuneralhome.com.

The family has chosen Bullock Funeral Home of Sumter for the arrangements.

ANTHONY MARTIN FLORENCE — On Wednesday, March 11, 2015, Anthony “Tony” Martin, departed this life at McLeod Regional Medical Center, Florence.

Born on Dec. 4, 1962, in Philadelphia, he was a son of Edith Martin and the late McCollum Martin.

The family is receiving relatives and friends at the residence, 1051 Overlook Lane, Ram Bay community, Manning.

Funeral services are incomplete and will be announced by Fleming & Delaine Funeral Home & Chapel.

VIRGINIA L. BENJAMIN Pastor Virginia Lemmon Benjamin died on Sunday, March 8, 2015, at her residence in Lynchburg.

Services are scheduled for 11:30 a.m. today at St. John UM Church, Lynchburg, directed by Graham and Godwin Funeral Home of Lake City.

Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church 325 Fulton Street • Sumter

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Pulpit Aid/Pastor’s Support Anniversary Worship at 10:45 AM Alma Gaymon, President Special Music By: The Male Chorus Message by: Rev. James Blassingame, Pastor

Opportunities for Life Enrichment 9:45 AM Church School (Sundays) 10:45 AM Morning Worship (Sundays) 6:00 PM Evening Worship (1st Sundays) 10:00 AM Golden Age Fellowship (3rd Wed.) 5:30 PM Prayer Service (Wed.) 6:00 PM Bible Study (Wed.) 6:00 PM Youth Ministry (Wed.) After School Care - Mon. - Fri. 2:30 - 5:30 PM (K-5th Grade)

Rev. James Blassingame, Pastor

B8

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Announcements

Home Improvements Vinyl Siding, vinyl windows and seamless gutters by David Brown.

803-236-9296

Seeking Witness, Mon. March 9 at 3:46pm a gray color Toyota 4dr drove through red traffic light on N Harvin St. making a right turn onto Calhoun St. and hit my vehicle, dark navy blue Hyundai Santa Fe. If you witnessed this accident please call 803-847-0103

Professional Remodelers Home maintenance, ceramic tile, roofing, siding & windows doors, etc. Lic. & Ins. (Cell) 803-459-4773 Land Clearing avail. includes: Digging ponds, excavation, and bulldozer work. Call T & N Septic Tank Co. at 803-481-2428 or 803-481-2421 The family of the late Mrs. Mary Williams wishes to thank you for your prayers, cards and many acts of kindness shown to them after her passing.

Lawn Service

It is the second anniversary since you have been gone, your loving memories will always be cherished.

We miss your contagious smile and caring bigheartedness. Our loss is heavens gain, because we know you are with the King. The battle fought, the victory won, enter the Master's joy. We love you! Your Husband, children, granddaughters, brother, sister, nieces & nephews.

We Do It For Less Commercial & Residential lawn care.

Removal of branches & leaves. Call 803-565-6693.

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1-803-934-6292

www.prettyisyou.com

JONATHAN E. GOFF 803-968-4802 J.GOFF76@YAHOO.COM

THE GAMECOCK SHRINE CLUB

is Available for Rent!

CALL NOW FOR DATE AVAILABILITY!

Rent for your “Special Occasions” Craft Shows • Weddings • Banquets • Retirement Parties• Family Reunions Call 983-1376 24 HOUR CARE ASSISTANCE

PAINTING & MINOR REPAIRS

Custom Gift Baskets - by Viola Avon Independent Sales Rep

GOFF’S HOME MAINTENANCE

IESHA TINDAL Balancing life issues

MORE INFO. 803-236-2685

STEVEN B. MCNAMAR the little guy 5720 Bethel Church Road Pinewood, SC 29125 803-795-8832 3 795 8832 mcnamarpainting@outlook.com

FULL SERVICE IN HOME COMPANIONS

• Meal Planning & Preparation • Bathing & Dressing Assistance • Medicine Reminders • Errands & Transportation

CLASSIFIEDS

FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015

THE ITEM

B9

WHERE $1.00 CAN BUY YOU A SUIT!

MARCH INTO MAYO’S

Choose ONE suit at our REGULAR PRICE Get SECOND suit of equal or less value for ONLY $1.00!

If your suits aren’t becoming to you, It’s a good time to be coming to Mayo’s!

Wesmark Plaza • 773-2262 • Mon-Sat 10-7 • www.MayosDiscountSuits.com Septic Tank Cleaning

Garage, Yard & Estate Sales

MERCHANDISE Garage, Yard & Estate Sales Huge Sale 2191 Gion St Off Alice Dr Sat 8-2 Prices Negotiable!!!

Large Variety!!!

Septic tank pumping & services. Call Ray Tobias & Company (803) 340-1155.

Tree Service STATE TREE SERVICE Worker's Comp & General liability insurance. Top quality service, lowest prices. 803-494-5175 or 803-491-5154 www.statetree.net A Notch Above Tree Care Full quality service low rates, lic./ins., free est BBB accredited 983-9721

NEWMAN'S TREE SERVICE Tree removal, trimming & stump grinding. Lic & Ins.

1015 Morris Way Sat 7 - 12. dishes, chairs, TVs, children's & adult clothes, and lots more!

Musical Instruments

65 Hidden Bay Dr Sat 7-11 tools, hshld, dog itmes, sports & lots of misc.

Moving Sale 35 S Blanding St Sat 7-1 2 Gas heaters,1-gas stove, 3 ceiling fans Solomon Upholstery W 76 Hwy Moving Sale inside Big Cotton Warehouse Starting March 18th Wed,Thur, Fri, & Sat 8AM Furniture, glassware, truck & car 803 464-7555

MRMA, 3035 Peach Orchard Rd. Dalzell, Sat. 7 am - noon. Proceeds go to the RELAY FOR LIFE.

LARGE GARAGE SALE 1st & 3rd Weekend Tables $2

Indoor Warehouse Sale! Everything must Go! Sat 8:30-1 Corner of Liberty St And Blvd. Rd

FLEA MARKET BY SHAW AFB

50 Annapolis Way (Patriot Village)Sat 8-12 Rain or Shine!

50 Cumberland Way. (Olde Town Landing) Sat. 7-2. Lots of stuff.

1039 Summerford Ln. Manning, Fri. 10-6 & Sat. 7-2. Multi-family. Lots of baby clothes & toys, lg. ladies clothing, etc. 803-472-0097.

803-316-0128

Call Carolina Tree Care today to speak to one of our ISA certified arborist. Free est. 1-800-411-1495.

1969 Kawai Console Piano w/bench. In working condition. 1 owner $450 778-2258

EMPLOYMENT

Open every weekend.

905-4242

Help Wanted Full-Time

For Sale or Trade Expert Tech, New & used heat pumps & A/C. Will install/repair, warranty; Compressor & labor $600.

Call 803-968-9549 or 843-992-2364

Sumter United Ministries Support us by donating New or Used items from your yard sale or business for our future yard sales or auctions. Call: 803-464-7643

Auto Technician needed at busy car lot. Min. 5 yrs experience. Apply in person, at 1282 N. Lafayette Dr. NO PHONE CALLS!!! Valid Driver's License Req. Must have own tools.

Need OTR Truck Drivers. 1-1/2 yrs exp. Good driving records. Dependable & willing to work. Paid weekly.

Paid Vacations. Call 888-991-1005

Ricky's Tree Service Tree removal, stump grinding, Lic & ins, free quote, 803-435-2223 or cell 803-460-8747.

Help Wanted Full-Time

Help Wanted Full-Time

The #1 Furniture Retail Company in the U.S. is seeking highly motivated individuals with outgoing personalities to join our Sales Team.

Candidates must have a working knowledge of computers. They will be required to build sales volume by providing superior customer service and knowledge of product and finance options. This full time position is based on a flexible work schedule that includes evenings, Saturdays and some holidays. Offering unlimited income potential based on commission and bonuses. Guaranteed salary during training process. Send resume to 2850 Broad St., Sumter, SC 29150.

F/T & P/T cab drivers needed. Call Yellow Cab at 773-3333.

GOODWIN AUTOMALL IS LOOKING FOR CAREERMINDED INDIVIDUALS TO JOIN ITS SALES TEAM.

Unique opportunity to sell from 3 great lines, Honda, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen and pre-owned vehicles.

Candidates must be customer oriented and possess excellent communication and interpersonal skills.

Excellent training program included. Experience welcomed but will train the right individuals.

Excellent Pay Plan • Health Insurance Benefits • 401K Available

PETS & ANIMALS

Contact Beauford Coulter at 803-469-2595 or apply in person at

Dogs

GOODWIN AUTOMALL

German Shepherd Pups.3 M 1 F. Black/Tan, 2nd shots & wormed. 8 wks. $200. Call 803-406-0064.

2700 Broad Street • Sumter, SC 29150

Professional Care

Two Moons Thermal Imaging Services

for a Beautiful Lawn

Serving Sumter FOR ALMOST

20 Years!

“We see what others can’t – finding problems quickly and accurately through the use of today’s advanced infrared technology.”

Mowing • Pruning • Fertilization Aeration • Landscaping • Irrigation Repair • Leaf Removal • Straw/Mulch

(Across from Hardee Cove)

SUMTER ELKS LODGE #855 Sweet 16 Parties, Business Meetings, Weddings, Reunions, Birthday Parties and more... Sizes for all functions.

Call Cindy Davis at 316-3396 or 469-8899 1100 W. Liberty Street • Sumter, SC

LOCAL 989-254-0465 www.twomoonsthermalimaging.com

905-3473

YEAR ROUND LAWN MAINTENANCE • LICENSED AND INSURED

Rentals Available!

• Specializing in Roof Leaks • Hail & Wind Damage • Insurance Claims

2535 Tahoe Dr.

FOUR SEASON’S LAWN CARE 803.494.9169 • 803.468.4008 • davidlowe1958@yahoo.com

TUNING • REFINISHING • REPAIRS

CLINT BARWICK Piano Service

26 Crescent St. Sumter, SC 29150 (803) 773-8955

M& S

BEFORE YOU BUY

CHECK OUT OUR SELECTION AND VALUE PRICING AT

ACE PARKER TIRE 803-847-3324

Sumter, S.C.

• SHRUB WORK • FALL & SPRING CLEAN UP • YARD WORK

FREE DELIVERY AND FREE SETUP!*

DISTRIBUTORS Goodman HVAC is back in Sumter For a local Goodman Dealer call Butch Davis 803-905-1155

*within a 50 mile ra radius

930 N. LAFAYETTE DR. • SUMTER • 803-775-1277 • ACEPARKER@FTC-I.NET SERVING SUMTER & THE SURROUNDING AREAS FOR 34 YEARS!

Piano Tuning Repairs & Refinishing one Right!

Cleaning D

Your Local Authorized Xerox Sales Agency

18 E. Liberty St. Sumter, SC 29150 (803) 778-2330 Xerox® is a Trademark of Xerox Corporation

H.L. Boone

Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning Water & Fire Damage • Smoke/Odor Removal Mold Sampling and Remitiation 24/7 Emergency Service Hiram Spittle 1500 Airport Road 803-938-5441 Sumter, SC 29153 www.spittlescleaning.com

H.L. Boone, Contractor All Types of Improvements

Remodeling, Painting, Carports, Decks, Blow Ceilings, Ect.

LAWN

Cincinnati Conservatory Certified Since 1947

For Expert Service

CALL ALGIE WALKER

803-485-8705 19 S. Cantey Street

Summerton, SC

SERVICE

Grass • Edging • Trimming • Leaf Removal Year Round Services Insured • Dependable • Courteous • Professional

Erik Ford

(803) 968-8655

Tidwell Septic Tanks & Pumping

J&T’s Local Moving and More, LLC

SALES • INSTALLATION • PUMPING REPAIRS • DRAIN LINES TANK INSPECTION Serving Sumter & the Surrounding Areas Over 30 Years Experience • Family Owned & Operated

“Saving time & money with no worries” Over 20 years of experience

For all your septic tank needs!

(803) 481-2966 (803) 481-7719 FAX

WALKER PIANO

LIFESTYLES

Owner / Notary Public

1 Monte Carlo Court Sumter, SC 29150 (803) 773-9904

Accepting applications for child care giver. With at least 6 mo. exp.

Must be able to work between the hours of 5:30 am - 6 pm. Apply in person at 1921 Camden Hwy between the hours of 10 am - 4 pm.

No phone calls accepted.

1665 Lewis Road Sumter, SC 29154

64 Wilder Street Sumter, SC 29150 803-236-4008 or 803-773-3934

Jamie Singleton

*Free Estimates *Moving (Home & Office) www.jtslocalmovingmore.com

Owner

OPEN YEAR ROUND 61 W. Wesmark Blvd.

Sumter, SC 29150 www.jacksonhewitt.com

Tel: (803) 469-8899 Fax: (803) 469-8890 Hours: M-F 10am-6pm

Centipede Sod Lenoir’s Sod

Horatio, S.C. 499-4023 • 499-4717 80 Sq. Ft. . .................... $20 250 Sq. Ft. . .................. $50 500 Sq. Ft. . .................. $95

B10

CLASSIFIEDS

THE ITEM Help Wanted Full-Time

Unfurnished Homes

Full time salvage yard parts puller. Must have reliable transportation, mechanical ability and be able to lift at least 50 lbs. Having own tools is a plus. Strength test and drug screen will be required. Great benefits, health insurance, dental and 401k. Apply in person at: Abilene Machine of SC, 1303 Sumter Highway, Bishopville or email sconsentinoabilenemachinesc.com NO PHONE CALLS

3BR 2BA Lake House Rental. $655 mo. +$500 Dep. Call 803-406-6159 9am-8pm lv msg

Construction Laborer and Trackhoe Operator Apply at 1947 Idlewood Dr Pinewood, SC

Studio Apt Fridge, stove, water & Elect. included $550 Mo +$275 Sec Dept. 803-847-1069

Mobile Home Rentals 4BR/2BA in Paxville, Living Rm, Dinning Rm, Family Rm, eat in kitchen, central A-C, 980-215-3260 or 704-900-7041 2 & 3 Bd houses for rent Call 803-406-0113.

Help Wanted Part-Time Southern States is looking for a P/T Groomer . Must be willing to work weekends and afternoons. Send Resume to: PFSjob@yahoo.com $$$ AVON $$$ FREE TRAINING! 803-422-5555 Southern States is looking for P/T help. Retail exp is needed in lawn & garden, animal health or pet food.

Send Resume: PFSjob@yahoo.com

Trucking Opportunities P/T Class-A CDL drivers needed to haul poultry. Night Shift. Must have 2yrs verifiable exp & good MVR. Call 804-784-6166

Medical Help Wanted

3BR/2BA MH on Beckwood Rd. Private lot, $420/mo + $450/dep.

No pets. Call 678-523-6113.

3 Br, 2 ba, appliances, C/H/A, $450 mo. + $450 dep. Call 803-495-2290.

No pets.

STATEBURG COURTYARD 2 & 3 BRs 803-494-4015

Work Wanted Housekeeping Low rates, Good References . Some laundry. Call 803-565-9546

RENTALS Unfurnished Apartments Downtown apartments 1bd/1 bath $850, 2bd/2 bath $975, rent incl.water & electricity. 803-775-1204 Mon. Fri., 8 am - 5 pm.

Unfurnished Homes

FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015

RECREATION

FSBO: 5 Br, 3 ba DW, 3.5 ac. Close to Lake Marion & public boat ramp.

Call 803-460-0315 for more details.

Land & Lots for Sale MIN SHAW AFB, 16 + acres. $1750 per acre paved rd. Water, elec. 888-774-5720

PUBLIC AUCTION 78 Baby Blue Galaxy I/O,4 cyl.

Chevy engine. 18-foot. new floor, seats, cushions, & bimini top. CD player & marine speakers installed.

Spare tire & trailer incl. Sold as complete package not separately.

Asking $3,500 or Reasonable offer.

Leave message at 983-0732.

TRANSPORTATION

Lee County

+ 340A recreational land with

+

42A on Pinewood Rd, $2,000/A 69A on Pinewood Rd, $2,000/A 18A on Deschamps Rd, $2,000/A 2A on Deschamps Rd, $6,000/A 2A on Deschamps Rd, $6,000/A 23A on Cimmaron Rd, $2,500/A 38A on Hwy 441 near Shaw, $3,000/A

_ +

_

Resort Rentals

_

+

_ + +

_ +

_ +

Autos For Sale

OPEN

Ernest Baker Auto Sales & Equip. Located 3349 N. Main St 5.5 miles from 378 overpass at N. Main., on Hwy 15 N. next to Baker Mini Warehouse. Remember Cars are like Eggs, Cheaper in the Country!!! 803-469-9294

Lake House 2 Bd/ 2 Ba deep water, dock, boat ramp, on Tawcaw Creek, $220,000 obo, call 803-928-6326 Water front house & lot. 4bd/ 2 bath, front deck, boat house w/ track, c/h/a, most furniture can go w/ house .26 acres 1050 sq/ft. 1159 Lakeview Dr Manning SC, White Oak Creek in Wyboo Call 843-659-4332 4185 Brabham Dr. Dalzell, 3BR 1.5BA, 1197SF-1/2 ac lot. Inside freshly renovated, new roof, fenced backyard. $84,990. Call 499-3776

Duplex for rent (Manning) 3 Bd 2.5 Ba lake side community, close to public landing, major kitchen appl. new carpet / paint, $900 mo+sec dep 803-983-9225

All property now stored in the units listed below will be sold pursuant to the assertion of a lien for rent. If the tenant does not respond by 1:00 P.M. on April 7, 2015, their property will be sold at Storage Plus on April 11, 2015 at 830 South Pike West at 10:00A.M. CASH ONLY! All goods are sold as is and must be removed at the time of sale. There is $30 clean up deposit. Storage Plus reserves the right to refuse any and all bids.

Beer & Wine License Notice Of Application Notice is hereby given that Circle K Stores, Inc. intends to apply to the South Carolina Department of Revenue for a license permit that will allow the sale OFF premises consumption of Beer & Wine at 2000 Wedgefield Rd, Sumter, SC, 29154-4653; 2995 Broad Street, Sumter, SC, 29150; 484 Pinewood Road, Sumter, SC, 29154; 660 W. Liberty Street, Sumter, SC, 29150; 1281 Broad Street, Sumter, SC, 29150; 503 Broad & Miller St, Sumter, SC, 29150; 550 South Pike East, Sumter, SC, 29150. To object to the issuance of this permit / license, written protest must be postmarked no later than April 12, 2015. For a protest to be valid, it must be in writing, and should include the following information: (1) the name, address and telephone number of the person filing the protest; (2) the specific reasons why the application should be denied; (3) that the person protesting is willing to attend a

1347 Camden Hwy. 803-469-6758 Office 803-491-7180 Cell Rowland Alston Specializing in ag, timber, and recreational property.

Accepting listings for property.

Multiple lots for sale: 803-773-8022 ask for Bruce.

Call

Minutes WALMART. Acre $4,900.

Utilities! 713-870-0216.

Manufactured Housing

3 & 4 Br Mobile homes & houses, located in Manning & Sumter. No Sect. 8. Rent + dep. req. Call 803-460-6216.

Matilda McFadden 812-427 Eugene Moore 536-378 Johnnie Rose 412 Eura Seabrook 525 Christopher Robinson 819

Kathy Jennings 72 Bryant Woods 68, 69 Patricia Courtney 118 Robert Howell 76 Meloni Daley 59 Michelle Schmidt 08 Kathleen Roy-Roberson 45 Quentin Dease 39 Charles Maxwell 124 Michael Moore 89 Wateree Community Action 010, 094, 107

REAL ESTATE Homes for Sale

Turn your Tax Refund into your dream home! Low credit score?

Been turned down for bad credit?

Come try us, we do our own financing.We have 2-3-4 bedroom homes. For more information, call 843-389-4215 AND also visit our Face Book page (M & M Mobile Homes).

BID NOTICE Sumter County Airport Site Work for Airport Hangar Project Sumter, South Carolina 29150 Separate, sealed bids will be received by Sumter County for the construction of a pre-engineered Airport Hangar. Bids will be received in the conference room of the Sumter County Airport, 2945 Airport Road, Sumter, South Carolina 29150 until 3:30 pm on March 31, 2015, local prevailing time, at which time and place the Bids will be publicly opened and read aloud. Bids received after that time will not be accepted.

Project Description: Site work and building pad construction for the Aircraft Storage Hangar for Sumter County, South Carolina. Project location is Sumter County Airport, 2945 Airport Road, Sumter, SC 29150.

It is the intent of Sumter County to award this contract to the bidder competent to perform and complete the work in a satisfactory manner. The apparent lowest and responsible bidder and any other bidder so requested shall, within three days after the request, submit to Sumter County an experience statement with pertinent information as to similar projects and other evidence of qualification for each subcontractor, person, and organization. Bidders must possess the proper license classification to perform the work elements contained in the specifications in accordance with the Code of Laws of South Carolina and, if selected, provide a copy of their active license to the Owner.

A bid bond of 5% shall accompany the bidder’s bid. The bond shall be 5% of the amount of the base bid.

The successful bidder will also be required to obtain a 100% Performance and Payment Bond within 10 days after award of the contract.

The Owner reserves the right to reject any or all bids, to waive formalities, and to reject nonconforming, non-responsive, or conditional bids. The Bidder to whom a contract may be awarded shall fully comply with the requirement of all the Code of Laws of South Carolina governing the practice of general contracting. No Bidder may withdraw his Bid within 30 calendar days after the actual date of the opening thereof.

The project is conditioned upon the receipt of federal funding under provisions of the Airport and Airways Safety and Capacity Expansion Act of 1987 and most recently Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for 21st Century (AIR-21). Certain mandatory federal requirements apply to this solicitation and will be made part of any contract awarded.

1. Buy American Preference (Title 49 United States Code, Chap 501); 2. Foreign Trade Restriction (49 CFR Part 30); 3. Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (49 CFR Part 26); 4. Davis-Bacon Act (29 CFR Part 5); 5. Equal Employment Opportunity (Executive Order 11246 and 41 CFR Part 60); 6. Goals for Minority and Female Participation (41 CFR Part 60-4.2); 7. Certification of Non-Segregated Facilities (41 CFR Part 60-1.8); 8. Debarment, Suspension, Ineligibility and voluntary Exclusion (49 CFR Part 29).

NON-DISCRIMINATION CLAUSE: The requirements of 49 CFR Part 26, Regulations of the U.S. Department of Transportation, apply to this contract. It is the policy of the County of Sumter to practice nondiscrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin in the award or performance of this contract. All firms qualifying under this solicitation are encouraged to submit bids/proposals. Award of this contract will be considered upon satisfying the requirements of this bid specification.

These requirements apply to all bidders/offerors, including those who qualify as DBE. A DBE contract goal of 20% has been established for this contract. The bidder/offeror shall make good faith efforts, as defined in Appendix A, 49 CFR Part 26 (Attachment 1), to meet the contract goal by utilizing DBEs in the performance of this contract.

The apparent successful bidder will be required to submit in the “Proposal” section of his bid the information concerning the DBE that will participate in the contract. This information will include: 1) the names, addresses and telephone numbers of South Carolina licensed DBE firms that will participate in the contract; 2) a description of the work that each DBE firm will perform; 3) the dollar amount of the participation of each DBE firm participating; 4) written documentation of the bidder/offeror’s commitment to use a DBE subcontractor whose participation it submits to meet the contract goal; and 5) written confirmation from the DBE that it is participating in the contract as provided in the commitment made under 4).

If the bidder fails to achieve the contract goal stated herein, he will be required to provide documentation demonstrating that he made a good faith effort. The bidder’s documentation shall be submitted in accordance with the provisions outlined in the Proposal.

The Owner reserves the right to reject any or all bids and to waive informalities and minor irregularities.

Summons & Notice SUMMONS AND NOTICE OF FILING OF COMPLAINT (Non-Jury) Foreclosure IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS THIRD JUDICIAL CIRCUIT C/A #: 2014-CP-43-2631 STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA COUNTY OF SUMTER UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ACTING THROUGH THE RURAL HOUSING SERVICE OR SUCCESSOR AGENCY, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, Plaintiff, vs.

JEFFERY J. WATTS A/K/A JEFFERY WATTS and JAMES W. LEWIS, Defendants.

TO THE DEFENDANTS JEFFERY J. WATTS A/K/A JEFFERY WATTS AND JAMES W. LEWIS: YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED and required to answer the Complaint in this action, a copy of which is herewith served upon you, and to serve a copy of your answer to the said Complaint upon the subscribers, at their office, 1703 Laurel Street (29201), Post Office Box 11682, Columbia, South Carolina 29211, within thirty (30) days after the service hereof, exclusive of the day of such service; and if you fail to answer the Complaint in the time aforesaid, judgment by default will be rendered against you for the relief demanded in the Complaint.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the original Complaint in the above entitled action was filed in the office of the Clerk of Court for Sumter County on December 9, 2014.

GRIMSLEY LAW FIRM, LLC P. O. Box 11682 Columbia, South Carolina 29211 (803) 233-0797 Benjamin E. Grimsley Attorney for the Plaintiff

REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS Energy Services Performance Contract Sumter County South Carolina Government will accept Offeror’s Statement of Qualifications to develop an Energy Services Performance Contracting (ESPC) Proposal.

Sumter County South Carolina Government (herein referred to as the County) seeks qualification proposals from interested Energy Services Companies (herein referred to as ESCOs) for the successful implementation of an Energy Services Performance Contract (herein referred to as ESPC) in accordance with SC Law, including the South Carolina Energy Efficiency Act, S.C. Code 48.52.10 et seq.

There are ten (10) existing municipal buildings within the County that have been identified as potential energy conservation measure upgrade candidates.

A list of these buildings and their energy usage will be distributed at the Pre-Proposal Meeting (mandatory) to be held in the Sumter County Courthouse located at 141 N. Main Street, Room 209 in Sumter, SC 29150 on the date and time noted below.

County Building tours will be provided to any ESCO that provides advance notification to the RFQ Contact Person (listed below) prior to Thursday, March 19, 2015. The tours will take place immediately after the Pre-Proposal Meeting on date and time noted below.

RFQ Type:

Energy Services Performance Contract

RFQ Number:

2015-1

Pre-Proposal Meeting:

Thursday, March 19, 2015 at 9 a.m.

RFQ Submittal Date/Time/Opening:

Monday, April 6, 2015 at 4 p.m. at Sumter County Administrating Building, Purchasing Department

Submit Qualifications to:

Sumter County South Carolina Government Robert E. Galloway, Jr., Purchasing Director 13 East Canal Street, Sumter, SC 29150 **May be hand delivered or mailed

RFQ Contact Person(s):

Robert E. Galloway, Jr., Purchasing Director purchasing@sumtercountysc.org Phone: (803) 436-2329 • Fax: (803) 436-2335

A mandatory pre-bid conference to answer questions will be held on March 18, 2015, at 3:30 pm in the conference room at the Sumter County Airport, 2945 Airport Road, Sumter, South Carolina 29150.

The bidding documents may be examined at the following location: Sumter County Purchasing Dept., 13 East Canal Street, Sumter, South Carolina 29150.

hearing (if one is requested by the applicant); (4) that the person protesting resides in the same county where the proposed place of business is located or within five miles of the business; and (5) the name of the applicant and the address of the premises to be licensed. Protests must be mailed to: S.C. Department of Revenue, ATTN: ABL, P.O. Box 125, Columbia, South Carolina 29214; or Faxed to: (803) 896-0110.

PUBLIC NOTICE

1.2 miles on Scape Ore Creek, $1,600/A

_ Sumter County

Sumter Self Storage, 731 Broad St. Sumter, S.C. will have an auction 10:00AM Saturday, March 14, 2015.

Weather permitted. Following units be sold:

Beer & Wine License

Sale handled by management. "CASH ONLY" Items must be removed by Sunday, March 15, 2015 @ 5:00PM.

Land For Sale _

LEGAL NOTICES Legal Notice

Boats / Motors 1985 mobile home 14x 70, 2 bd/ 2 ba, c/h/a, appliances and lot. 1043 Dibert st. $14,000 cash. Call 469-6978

3 BR 2BA DW mobile home. $685 mo. + dep. Stove & refrigerator incl.

Private quiet lot. Call 803-305-1165 or 406-1582.

Ocean Lakes 2BR/2BA C/H/A Sleeps 8, near ocean. Call 803-773-2438

Ortho Assistant needed for busy orthodontic practice. Dental exp. necessary. Please send resume to: Sumterorthoresume@yahoo.com

Mobile Home with Lots

BID NOTICE Sumter County Airport Airport Hangar Project Sumter, South Carolina 29150 Separate, sealed bids will be received by Sumter County for the construction of a pre-engineered Airport Hangar. Bids will be received in the conference room of the Sumter County Airport, 2945 Airport Road, Sumter, South Carolina 29150 until 3:00 pm, March 31, 2015, local prevailing time, at which time and place the Bids will be publicly opened and read aloud. Bids received after that time will not be accepted.

Project Description: New construction of Aircraft Storage Hangar for Sumter County, South Carolina. Construct new 120’ x 100’ (12,000 sq. ft.) x 28’ pre-engineered metal building with two sets of 90’ x 24’ bi-parting metal doors. Project includes foundation, building, electrical, fire alarm, lightning protection and an add alternate for an additional 25’ pre-engineered bay (adds 3,000 sq. ft.). Site work and building pad construction provided under a separate contract. Project location is Sumter County Airport, 2945 Airport Road, Sumter, SC 29150.

It is the intent of Sumter County to award this contract to the bidder competent to perform and complete the work in a satisfactory manner. The apparent lowest and responsible bidder and any other bidder so requested shall, within three days after the request, submit to Sumter County an experience statement with pertinent information as to similar projects and other evidence of qualification for each subcontractor, person, and organization. Bidders must possess the proper license classification to perform the work elements contained in the specifications in accordance with the Code of Laws of South Carolina and, if selected, provide a copy of their active license to the Owner.

A mandatory pre-bid conference to answer questions will be held March 18, 2015, at 3:00 pm in the conference room at the Sumter County Airport, 2945 Airport Road, Sumter, South Carolina 29150.

The bidding documents may be examined at the following location: Sumter County Purchasing Dept., 13 East Canal Street, Sumter, South Carolina 29150.

A bid bond of 5% shall accompany the bidder’s bid. The bond shall be 5% of the amount of the base bid.

The successful bidder will also be required to obtain a 100% Performance and Payment Bond within 10 days after award of the contract.

The Owner reserves the right to reject any or all bids, to waive formalities, and to reject nonconforming, non-responsive, or conditional bids. The Bidder to whom a contract may be awarded shall fully comply with the requirement of all the Code of Laws of South Carolina governing the practice of general contracting. No Bidder may withdraw his Bid within 30 calendar days after the actual date of the opening thereof.