November could bring fully open Alice Drive Engineer says traffic should flow smoothly; 1 more month of work expected $1.50
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2015
BY JIM HILLEY jim@theitem.com
SERVING SOUTH CAROLINA SINCE OCTOBER 15, 1894 Sumterites won’t be surprised to see ghosts, goblins and ghouls on Oct. 31. They may not even take a second glance at Lizard Man. After all,
5 SECTIONS, 38 PAGES | VOL. 121, NO. 10
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it is Halloween. Residents of the Gamecock City may be shocked, however, by the absence of some things that have been haunting drivers on Alice Drive since 2012 — orange cones and traffic barriers.
A state Department of Transportation engineer said Friday he expects the street will be fully open to traffic by Nov. 1. “As you can see, we are nearing the completion with construction work we are doing right now,”
he said. “We are hoping to have it open to traffic by the end of the month — pending some weather delays,” said Jeffrey Wilkes, a resident construction engineer for SCDOT.
SEE ROADS, PAGE A11
Families travel to the 1800s BY ADRIENNE SARVIS adrienne@theitem.com
A
side from showcasing the differences in life more than 200 years
Clemson obliterates Miami
try Harvest provided an opportunity for people to appreciate the simplicity of life today.
Tigers hand ’Canes worst loss in school history B1 PANORAMA
See Shakespeare’s tragic ‘Hamlet’ as he meant for us to C1 DEATHS, A11 Beverly Sivak Ronald A. Houser James A. Amerson Sr. Timothy E. Houston Lee C. Bledsoe
ago, the Carolina Backcoun-
Thomas Burgess John H. Geddings James Humes Jr. Velma S. Boyce
When visitors walked past the gate of the event, they traveled back to the 1800s, and volunteers demonstrated to crowds how some of our ancestors completed their daily duties. Blacksmith and volunteer Rich Crissinger said most of the equipment in the blacksmith forge is more than 150 years old, including one anvil that was actually made in England in 1739. Between the 1740s and 1840s, blacksmiths rarely lived past the age of 40 because of the smoke they breathed in 12 hours a day and forges catching fire, he said. He said all of the cabins on the grounds would have belonged to one family, and just one cabin on the property has
SEE BACKCOUNTRY, PAGE A4
KEITH GEDAMKE / THE SUMTER ITEM
Berns Betchman, 3, learns to walk on stilts with the help of Jasper Draper, 14, during the Sumter County Museum’s Carolina Backcountry Harvest on Saturday.
WEATHER, A12
Alcolu resident sees premiere of movie portraying her father
WARM TODAY Fog in the morning with some sun; mild tonight HIGH 80, LOW 59
INSIDE
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BY KONSTANTIN VENGEROWSKY konstantin@theitem.com
PHOTO PROVIDED
Mary Ellen Fuller is seen at a book signing earlier this month at Books-a-Million at Sumter Mall for her father’s 1964 book, “Strangers on a Bridge: The Case of Colonel Abel and Francis Gary Powers.” The book was re-issued on Aug. 4.
OPINION
Alcolu resident Mary Ellen Fuller is the daughter of a Cold Warera attorney and the main character being portrayed in “Bridge of Spies,” a Steven Spielberg film, playing in theaters nationwide. Tom Hanks stars as James B. Donovan in a Hollywood movie based on the 1960 U-2 incident during the Cold War. The film tells the story of Donovan, an attorney who negotiated the release of Francis Gary Powers — a pilot whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union — in exchange for
Alcolu resident Mary Ellen Fuller shares memories of her father, James B. Donovan. A10
Col. Rudolf Abel, a captured Soviet KGB spy. Donovan received the Distinguished Intelligence Medal for negotiating the prisoner exchange, which also included another American, Fuller said. Spielberg has called Donovan his
SEE PREMIERE, PAGE A11
Volunteers prevent flooded apartments from closing BY KONSTANTIN VENGEROWSKY konstantin@theitem.com SUMMERTON — Two national volunteer service organizations have come to the rescue of a subsidized apartment complex in Summerton by providing free labor in “mudding out” the facility. About a week ago, Meadowfield Apartments, which houses about 150
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residents in 48 units, was on the verge of being shut down. The complex sustained an estimated $1.5 million in flood damage, and the company managing the property did not have the means to pay for the cleanup costs, said Barbara Jaco, vice president of Boyd Management Inc., which oversees the apartments. Many of the apartments received up to two feet of water, and areas
around the complex sustained as much as four feet, she said. On Friday, two national volunteer service organizations, consisting of 13 members of the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief and seven members of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps came out to the complex to begin the process of “mudding out.” The process involves removing dry-
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wall, cabinets, insulation, carpet and flooring. Everything inside is then pressure washed to get rid of the mold and then disinfected. “If it weren’t for these two organizations helping us out, we would be boarding up,” Jaco said. Jaco said the company has enough money to make repairs on the facility
SEE VOLUNTEERS, PAGE A8