weekly presentation [2 of 6]

UNPUBLISHED PHOTOAll Weekly Division

FIRST PLACE:The Fort Jackson LeaderAndrew McIntyreTop Cop Compeitition

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THIRD PLACE:Fort Mill TimesMichael Harrison and Jenny Overman


SECOND PLACE:Free TimesEva Moore


FIRST PLACE:Free TimesCorey Hutchins

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THIRD PLACE:The Weekly ObserverMatt McColl


SECOND PLACE:The Cherokee ChronicleTommy Martin, Jon Martin and Charles Wyatt


FIRST PLACE:Fort Mill TimesMichael Harrison and Jenny Overman

BEST PUBLISHED EDITORIAL/OP-ED COLUMN

Associate/Individual Division

THIRD PLACE:GSA BusinessScott Miller

As one of the nation’s most unhealthy and impoverished states, South Carolina has a duty to its citizens to expand Medicaid and take the

9-to-1 match of federal funding to do so.Even if South Carolina opts against expansion, as a re-

cent Supreme Court ruling allows, Palmetto State taxpay-ers will continue to help foot the bill for federal Medicaid dollars that other states will accept.

Allowing the poor and uninsured to go without health care is expensive; hospitals, insurers, private businesses and anyone who pays for health care bear that cost.

Expanding Medicaid will be expensive too, but not as much as Gov. Nikki Haley’s administration claims. Tony Keck, director of the S.C. Department of Health and Hu-man Services, says expanding Medicaid will cost the state at least $1.1 billion, possibly twice that.

Independent analysis by the non-partisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation disputes Keck’s estimate, however. Kaiser says expanding Medicaid could cost South Carolina around $470 million from 2014 through 2019, an average of less than $100 million a year. That amounts to a 3.6% increase for the state, Kaiser said. For that, an additional 250,000 impoverished, uninsured South Carolinians would receive covered care under the Medicaid program, possibly more.

Based on those figures, South Carolina would benefit more by expanding Medicaid than all but three states, the Kaiser Foundation said. Here are some facts about South Carolina’s health and poverty from the U.S. Census Bu-reau, Kaiser and the United Health Foundation:

• More than 10% of adults have diabetes, fifth worst in the nation.

• One third of children are overweight or obese,

and two thirds of adults, fourth worst.• The death rate from stroke is 50 per 100,000 resi-

dents, fifth worst.• 18.7% of South Carolinians are uninsured,

eighth worst.• Personal income is 80% of the national average.• More than 18% of the population lives in poverty,

sixth worst. South Carolina ranks No. 45 among the states in overall

health. It is time for South Carolina to invest in its health.Haley says the state could provide more efficient, less

costly health care on its own. The problem is the state won’t make the investment on its own, or hasn’t shown a willingness to do so in the past. Refusing to expand Med-

icaid would amount to leaving an estimated $2 billion a year from the federal government on the table. It’s hard to imagine the state delivering that kind of value on its own, even if it is more efficient.

In her objection to expanding Medicaid, Haley is right. The Medicaid program can be wasteful. It needs to be re-formed to cover core services and provide states more flex-ibility. But citing Medicaid’s imperfection is a poor reason to deny health care to so many South Carolinians.

Expanding Medicaid is a long-term investment in our state’s most vulnerable population, and this is a time for the state’s leadership to back away from parti-san politics and do the right thing for the citizens who need it most.

Invest in better health, expand Medicaid



SECOND PLACE:Murrells Inlet MessengerTim Callahan

10/Murrells Inlet Messenger/December 2011

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By Tim Callahan

I don’t miss my father too often, but Christmas is one of those times.A tough, Irish boy who barely graduated high

school, my father became a professional photog-rapher, small and big city reporter and weekly

newspaper publisher.He also became an alcoholic who couldn’t hold

a job.We moved 12 times in my first 18 years of life.Oddly, he never had booze in the house. All we

knew was that he would leave for work reason-ably sane for an insane guy and come home a monster, who found fault and then started hit-ting.He broke my mom’s nose once and laughed

because my brother Pat and I, ages 8 and 10 at the time, yelled at him for doing it. Meanwhile, mom was passed out in a pool of blood. There was no trip to the hospital.No one was as good as dad, just ask him. Praise

was not found on his lips except for himself. Bit-ing, sarcastic humor made the words hurt more than any blows he landed on mom and my older brother, Mike, his punching bags. I escaped his wrath because I was both the athlete and the aca-demic in the house, who he could point at and tell his very few friends, “See, look at Tim, what a great dad I am.”He tried to kill Mike once and then told the cops

Mike had tried to kill him. Thankfully, my dad left not too long after that incident to shack up with someone.I was 35 years old when a friend made me real-

ize he was much more than a drunk. He was cer-tifiably psychotic. I won’t shock you with more hideous proofs.For those of you who think this is the blaming

the parent game, I turned out to be not much dif-ferent. I didn’t hit, but I drank, and I could not stop. Not without major league help: from the

Boss (God); the coach (the Twelve Steps); and fellow players (AA members).Dad was a man who lived in an age when AA

and psychiatrists were young, and asking for help was a sign of weakness, something a real man would never do. And, underneath all that garbage that was passed on down from his fa-ther, was a man with a terrible disease who had a few wonderful moments.Christmas day was his biggest moment.He not only stayed home Christmas Eve but

could be found on the roof when we were young. Of course, we thought it was Santa. Some years he would dress as Santa and let us catch him, belly laughing downstairs and telling us to go back to bed and be good. The outfit and act was so good, we didn’t know it was dad - until the Christmas we caught Santa kissing mom. We were poor for two reasons: his chosen pro-

fession paid a pittance for a man with seven kids, and his drinking cut into the profits. Hunger was a familiar rumbling in our bellies. But, Christmas day we ate like bandits, and came downstairs in the morning to Christmas presents that filled the living room.But, much more than that, my dad was happy

that day. My mom was happy. We were happy.After some coffee and aspirin for dad/Santa’s

egg nog headache, he would pass out the pres-ents. He would smile and laugh and joke, and his sarcasm and cuts took a holiday.Something else I remember about Christmas

time with dad: “Charlie Brown’s Christmas.” He loved that cartoon. Snoopy and Charlie had him

Editorial/Opinion: I miss my father at Christmas time

Continued on page 11



FIRST PLACE:Columbia Regional Business ReportJames T. Hammond

By James T. Hammond

South Carolina is on the cusp of dramatic change in the way electric power is generated here, and the electric utility companies currently are act-

ing without long-term policy guidance from state government.

Utilities statewide plan to retire coal-fired electricity generating plants on a large scale, reducing by at least one-quarter the number of the generators that emit sul-fur, nitrogen oxide, mercu-ry, carbon dioxide and other noxious chemicals blamed for aggravating asthma and other respiratory illnesses.

These actions are good for environment and for business. The Upstate and the Midlands have tot-tered on the brink of non-attainment of EPA goals for clean air. Slipping into non-attainment could bring harsh limits on new industrial development.

Utility managers need the assurance that their decisions mesh with state policy. South Carolina has no policy on clean energy standards. Such a bill was introduced in the last session by Sens. John Matthews and Phil Leventis, but it died in a Senate subcommit-tee at the end of the General Assembly’s session in June.

So far, planned retirements and closures of coal-fired plants include:

Carolina Electric & Gas.-

ville, owned by Duke Energy’s Progress Energy sub-sidiary.

Anderson County operated by Duke Energy.

Savannah River Site operated by the Department of Energy.

Meanwhile, Santee Cooper idled its Dolphus M. Grainger coal-fired generating plant in Horry Coun-ty, keeping it on standby in case the utility needs backup generating capacity. The Grainger plant and the aging Jefferies plant in Berkeley County are under review to determine whether the two units can be brought into compliance with Environmental Protec-tion Agency regulations in a cost-effective manner.

In 2010, 38 electric generators in South Carolina power plants of at least 1 megawatt capacity reported using coal as their primary fuel source, according to the South Carolina Energy Office.

The tide has been running against coal-fired elec-tricity generation in South Carolina.

In August 2009, Santee Cooper suspended plans to build a 600-megawatt coal-fired power plant on the Great Pee Dee River in Florence County. The plans met strong public opposition. Santee Cooper CEO Lonnie Carter said a decrease in electricity demand and proposed environmental legislation threatened

to drive up operating costs of coal-fired plants.One reason the coal-fired plants can be shut down

is the growing capacity of cleaner, natural gas-fired generators and nuclear reactors under construction.

SCE&G is building 2,200 megawatts of new nucle-ar generating capacity at Jenkinsville in Fairfield County. Currently, Santee Cooper, the state-owned electric utility, owns 45% of those two new nuclear units.

Nuclear power plants emit no noxious chemicals, and the two new reactors at Jenkinsville will dramati-cally reduce SCE&G’s emissions into the atmosphere.

Duke Energy estimates it will retire the W.S. Lee Steam Station’s coal-fired operations by 2015. The utility is studying whether to convert the boilers to natural gas and will announce the decision later this year.

But no state is an island when it comes to clean air, and national and international trends will continue to impact South Carolina’s air quality.

The amounts of chemicals pouring from coal-fired plants worldwide is staggering. In 2004, the use of coal resulted in emissions of 3.9 billion met-ric tons of carbon dioxide in the United States alone, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. China belches the most pollutants into the Earth’s atmosphere and is building new coal plants at a tor-rid pace.

But in the U.S., the shift toward natural gas and away from coal has been dramatic. The annual share of fossil-fired electric power generation from coal has plummeted to about 55% of the total in 2010, from almost 80% in the late 1980s, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In the same period, the annual share for natural gas rose to about 45% from less than 15%.

Rising shale natural gas output has exceeded nat-ural gas demand growth and depressed natural gas prices, while coal prices have risen, according to the EIA. Those trends began in 2009 to change the cost-benefit impact of using coal versus natural gas in the eastern United States, the EIA reported.

Between 2000 and 2012, natural gas generat-ing capacity grew by 96%, while coal-fired capac-ity growth slumped, and petroleum-fired capacity declined by 12%.

According to the EIA, current trends in electric power generation suggest many coal-fired genera-tors may be retired. In its annual energy outlook, the EIA expects 49 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity to be closed by 2020, or about one-sixth of existing coal capacity in the U.S. and less than 5% of total electric-ity generation nationwide.

The environmental impact of such a change would be huge, since today’s natural-gas plants give off only about half the carbon dioxide as a similar sized coal plant.

Studies have estimated that particle pollution from more than 400 coal-fired power plants kill 13,000 people a year, and most coal-fired plants are concen-trated in the Midwest and Southeast.

Air pollution is not the only environmental impact

from burning coal on a large scale. The Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill, N.C., said coal-fired power plants are among South Carolina’s biggest water users, in addition to the safety, land and water problems associated with coal ash waste.

The fact that utilities are not abandoning coal makes it even more imperative that the state set standards for future coal plants. For example, Duke Energy has a new coal unit under construction, the 825-megawatt Unit 6 at Cliffside Steam Station. Located just across the state line, on the Cleveland/Rutherford County line in North Carolina, Duke Energy’s Cliffside Station retired four coal units last year. But, it continues to operate one existing unit, and plans to bring the new coal-fired unit online this year.

Taken together, the trends away from burning coal in our region and toward natural gas and nuclear generation of electric power are positive.

As the utilities seek to maintain South Carolina’s abundant and reliable sources of electric power — the fuel of modern industry — South Carolina poli-cymakers should heed the energy companies’ urging to adopt clean energy portfolio standards, as neigh-boring North Carolina already has done.

To continue the billions of dollars of investment required to modernize the state’s electricity infra-structure, the utilities need the assurance that they and the state General Assembly speak with one voice on these important standards. cr

br

James T. Hammond is editor of the Columbia Regional Business Report. Reach him at 803-401-1094, extension 201.

S.C. should set clean energy standards

Hammond

Duke Energy’s W.S. Lee Station in Anderson County is scheduled to

HARRIS AWARD FOR EDITORIAL WRITING

All Weekly Division

THIRD PLACE:Greenville JournalSusan Clary Simmons

F R O M T H E E D I TO R I A L D E S K

MIX A CAREER CRIMINAL, attempted rape and a Southern sheriff advising women to pack heat with the words, “you ain’t gotta be accurate, you just gotta get close” and it’s clear why Spartanburg Sheriff Chuck Wright is the Palmetto State’s newest international celebrity. With one short press conference, he managed to trip over just about every Southern stereotype conceived on this continent and beyond.

Type his name in Google’s search engine and you’ll get 2 million hits. It was Britain’s Daily Mail that quoted him as saying, “I know I’m going to get lit up by people that don’t like guns.”

Yes, national gun control groups have been predictably negative. Yet the overwhelming public support the sheriff describes is no surprise, either, considering the facts of the case that prompted him to advise women last week to “get a concealed weapons permit. Don’t get Mace. Get a firearm.”

The victim in the Oct. 30 attack was reportedly walking her dog around 2:30 p.m. in Spartanburg’s Milliken Park when a man approached and asked if the dog was friendly. When she said it was, he grabbed her, dragged her into the woods, forced her to strip and attempted to rape her. She was later able to identify 46-year-old Walter Lance as her assailant – a career criminal Wright said has amassed more than 20 charges since 1983, including DUI, grand larceny, criminal domestic violence, escape and high and aggravated assault and battery. A prior arrest for criminal sexual conduct was not pursued because the victim was uncooperative.

There’s no question the sheriff hit a public nerve when he said “our form of justice is not making it,” that he is tired of telling victims “I’m sorry, we can’t keep them in jail.”

It’s also clear he spoke out of deep frustration, not a desire for vigilante justice. Wright made it plain he expects those who arm themselves to do so legally. Not everyone should have a gun, he said, but “it’s too bad someone with a concealed weapons permit didn’t walk by (Oct. 30). That would fix it.”

It is this image – of civilians pulling guns in public spaces – that adds the threat of unintended consequences to Wright’s words. At minimum, state law requires those who hold a concealed weapons permit to take an eight-hour handgun education course that includes firing the gun in the instructor’s presence. Satisfying one instructor in a controlled environment comes nowhere close to the training level demanded of law enforcement officers, or their experience.

Reliable research on the value of handguns in self-defense is tangled in the gun control wars. For every study that says using a firearm to resist assault increases the risk of injury or death, there’s another that shows thousands of civilians successfully defend themselves or their property with handguns every year, in numbers varying from 800,000 to 2.5 million.

Several showed simply the credible threat of a gun was enough to end the majority of attacks.

Even so, the key here is “credible threat.” A gun’s effectiveness in self-defense remains directly proportional to the skill of the person using it – as is the safety of those innocents anywhere nearby. Sheriff Wright made it plain he understands this distinction in the interviews that followed his first, emotional press conference. Now he owes it to his community to ensure all those women zipping pistols in their fanny packs at his urging understand it extremely well.

Wright was right


All Weekly Division

SECOND PLACE:The Clinton ChronicleLarry Franklin

Let me make one thing per-fectly clear. I am not a woman.Never have been and I don’t re-ally see any circumstancewhere I ever will be a female.

Let me make another thingperfectly clear. I am an avidsupporter of women. I’m mar-ried to one, I have a daughterwho’s a female, a granddaugh-ter who’s a female and adaughter-in-law who’s a fe-male.

I work with hundreds ofwomen every day. At least itseems there are hundreds ofthem.

But I’m tired of peoplethinking I’m a woman. It’snever happened in a face-to-face setting. If you are lookingat me, it’s pretty clear I’m aman. Beyond the bulging mus-cles and other tell-tell signs,there’s the baldness.

Women don’t go bald, I’vefound in my studies. It hassomething to do with they aremissing the “comb your hair ina circle” gene.

The times I’m accused ofbeing a woman is when I’mtalking to someone on the tele-

phone. The only thing I cancome up with is that my voicesounds female on the phone.

Admitting that is almost aspainful to me as having some-one look at me and think I’m awoman.

I’ve always thought myvoice was mainly and strong.Sexy.

Nope. It’s soft and feminine.The first few times I was re-

ferred to as “mam” on thephone, I chalked it up to a badconnection. After that, I de-cided the person to whom I wastalking was an idiot. That wasenough to sooth my bruisedmanly feelings. I mean, it wasenough to make me cry.

Faithful readers will remem-ber I keep a written list of items

for potential columns. I hadwritten “I’m no woman, man”on the list more than a yearago.

But I couldn’t pull the trig-ger. (Another manly reference.)I couldn’t admit to God andeverybody that people thinkI’m femalely. I didn’t wantRush Limbaugh to think me aslut.

The last straw happened lastFriday. The phone rang, so Idid what any good womanwould do - I rushed to answerit.

“Chronicle,” I said firmlyand manly. None of that,“Thank you for calling TheClinton Chronicle, Clinton’shometown newspaper since1900 and now home of thewildly successful and popularwww.clintonchronicle.com,where you can take a test to seeif you qualify as a Republicanin Laurens County. To which ofour award-winning employeesmay I direct your call? May Ipersonally suggest the hunkypublisher?” That’s the way thefemales answer the phone.

I’m more direct and to the

point. I acknowledge the phonehas rung and that I have pickedup the handset thing. Now, theball is back in your court. Tellme why you disturbed me justwhen I was polishing my fin-gernails.

“I’d like to place an ad,” thevoice said. It was the voice of awoman. She had thrown theball back to me in that way thatwomen throw balls. Sissy-like.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Every-one who could possibly helpyou - and even care about youand what you want - is busy atthe moment. The men in the of-fice are busy working. Thewomen are talking about whatthey are going to cook for sup-per and how they could possi-bly be lucky enough to workwith someone as virile than me.Can I get one of the gals to callyou back when they’re donecleaning and stuff?”

“Yes, mam. Have them callme at 864-555-U812. Thanks,sweety.”

I was stunned. And hurt. Itreminded me of the time I wasa senior in high school and Ihad an accident. After askingme if I was OK, the man driv-ing the car who hit me askedme if my girlfriend was hurt.

“I heard her screaming,” hesaid.

I appreciated his concern,but I was alone in the car whenit happened.

These things really get mypanties in a wad.

(Larry Franklin is publisherof The Chronicle. His email ad-dress is [email protected]. Franklin’sCorner can be read online atwww.clintonchronicle.com.)

OpinionCan I please speak to Mrs. Franklin?

By Larry Franklin

Franklin’sCorner

By Vic MacDonald

Vic’sViews


All Weekly Division

FIRST PLACE:Coastal ObserverCharles Swenson

PUBLIC SERVICE FOR WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS

All Weekly Division

THIRD PLACE:Lake Wylie PilotJohn Marks

By John [email protected]

LAKE WYLIE — From a small,lakefront garden grows somethingthat time, season changes andeven disease haven’t withered.

Lannette Conder spends timetending that garden, a memorialto her late son Dakota Gay. It’sbeen five years since Dakota losthis fight with brain cancer. It’sbeen nine years since his commu-nity first rallied around his diag-nosis.

But they’re still rallying and stillgrowing.

“He knew what his destinywas,” Conder said of Dakota, wholost his father to brain cancer, too.“He never ever gave up hope, buthe was the one who talked aboutall the things he wanted people to

continue to do in his name.”Dakota’s fight became the

cause behind an annual fall fund-raiser that now helps other fami-lies facing pediatric cancer. OnSept. 23, the concert returns for its10th lakeside date, this time help-ing Lake Wylie resident and leuke-

mia patient Luke Moore, 3.It started as the Justin Mychals

Child Cancer Benefit, named for asince relocated resident whospearheaded the effort. This year,mostly the same volunteers workbeneath the Lake Wylie Children’sCharity banner. The events began

because organizers knew Dakotaand wanted to help. They contin-ued because, given the numbersand stories learned, planners justcouldn’t stop.

“They decided that they wanted

Celebrating 10 years:

Former benefit familiesstill fighting

-

Dakota Gay with his sister Samantha

Julia Nesbitt

The DeCuir family with dadMichael holding MacKenzie.

Mom Kathy holding ShalaziaRhinehart

Want to help?The 2012 Lake Wylie Children’s Charity concert willbe held Sept. 23 near T-Bones on the Lake.Before the Sept. 23 event, the 2012 LWCC Poker Runwill be held Sept. 15 with registration beginning at 11a.m. at Sweetwater Bar & Grill on Charlotte Highway.All vehicles are welcome. Cost is $20 per vehicle and

$5 per extra rider. Stops include Sweetwater Bar & Grill in Lake Wylie,McKoy’s Smokehouse and Saloon in Charlotte, Tavern on the Tracks inCharlotte, Mac’s Speed Shop in Steele Creek and final stop at T-Boneson the Lake. For more information, visit lkwchildrenscharity.org.

See FAMIL IES ■ 5A


All Weekly Division

SECOND PLACE:Coastal ObserverCharles Swenson and Jason LesleyWalmart plans Pawley’s Island store

COASTAL OBSERVERP.O. Box 1170, Pawleys Island, SC 29585 • 843-237-8438 • Fax 843-235-0084

To the judges: Pawleys Island is a historic beachfront community that has been able to maintain its low-key character in spite of decades of population growth. That was challenged when a development group proposed to redevelop an old shopping center to allow a Walmart, which would become the area’s first big-box national retailer. Talks with county officials had gone on for over a year before the project was made public. Our reporting began when the developer bought the property through a foreclosure sale a week before a zoning application was filed and only six weeks before a public hearing. The first challenge was getting officials to say on the record that Walmart was the tenant. The second was to report the impact of the proposed big-box store. The developer cited jobs, impact fees and tax revenue. We showed those impacts also included more traffic, closed businesses and – once the zoning changed – more big-box retailers. The immediate impact of our reporting and editorials was to raise public outcry to the point that the developers who had touted the Walmart to officials asked the county to stop using the “W word” when speaking of their project. The public hearing drew over 1,300 people from a community of about 10,000, the largest audience for any county hearing. In addition to coverage in our print issue and online, we created a page on our website that updated automatically as we reported the progress of the hearing. Posts were made every five minutes over the course of the five-hour hearing. (The page attracted over 14,000 hits.) The Planning Commission voted to require the developer to stay within the county’s building-size limit. The developers claimed the motion was unclear and that the member who made it was tricked by the commission chairman. Our reporting showed otherwise. The final result of this issue may not be known by the time you read this letter. However, after the contest period ended, the developers informed the county that they will remove the big-box store from the project and revise their plan. Thank you for your consideration.

Charles Swenson Editor


All Weekly Division

FIRST PLACE:Myrtle Beach HeraldCharles D. Perry, Michael Smith, Tom O’Dare and Steve RobertsonExecutive’s past raises questions

Covation exec didn’t file tax returns for 14 yearsBY MICHAEL SMITH AND CHARLES D. PERRYTHE HERALD

Dave Rocker failed to file incometax returns for 14 consecutive years,racking up more than $1.2 million inunpaid taxes and penalties, accord-ing to federal court documents.

Rocker, an executive with CovationHoldings — the company that’sseeking millions in taxpayer moneyto open a Carolina Forest call center— also faced allegations of misrepre-sentation, inflating business expens-es and even sexual harassment,

court transcripts show.In 1999, Rocker was sentenced to

14 months in prison after he pleadedguilty to one count of conspiracy tocommit income tax evasion. Heserved 12 months before he wasparoled in January 2001, accordingto the federal prison bureau.

Rocker’s charges were reducedafter he agreed to assist the IRS in itsinvestigation of a Klein conspiracy inwhich Rocker participated.

In a Klein conspiracy, two or moreindividuals agree to “use deceit,craft, trickery or dishonest means to

interfere with the lawful governmentfunctions of the IRS,” according tothe Internal Revenue Service.

Rocker is currently the chief oper-ating officer of Covation Holdings,according to Horry County records.

Covation has been in talks with theMyrtle Beach Regional EconomicDevelopment Corporation (EDC)and Horry County Council to possi-bly build a call center at River Oaksand International drives, creating upto 1,020 jobs.

County council postponed a Sep-tember vote to borrow $8 million in

support of the project after a Heraldreport about Rocker’s prison record.

New revelations about the circum-stances leading up to Rocker’s prisonsentence only reinforce concernsabout using taxpayer money to sup-port the Covation call center, somecouncil members say.

“We’ve had too much trust and notenough verification,” said council-man Carl Schwartzkopf. “Before youinvest, it is absolutely essential thatyou investigate. This is part of thatverification.”

Rocker couldn’t be reached for

comment.In an interview with the Herald

last month, Dave Rocker's businesspartner and father, Bill, said the IRSpursued his son in the late 1990s.

“You’ve got to understand, at thetime, what was going on in the Inter-nal Revenue Service,” he said. “Theywere at the apex of their power.”

But Bill Rocker didn't deny hisson's tax troubles.

“David failed to file personal in-come taxes for several years and

See COVATION, Page 3A

Project Blue’s chief operating officer racked up more than $1.2 million in unpaid taxes, penalties

SPORTS ENTERPRISE REPORTINGAll Weekly Division

THIRD PLACE:Free TimesEva Moore and Patrick WallBases Empty

16 free-times.com | twitter.com/freetimessc | facebook.com/freetimes | July 25-31, 2012coverstory

Blowfish Down to Final At-Bats; Is a Minor League Team On Deck?BY EVA MOORE AND PATRICK WALL PHOTOS BY PAUL COLLINS

But Debbie, who answers the phone at the Columbia Blowfi sh box offi ce, says the team’s baseball game against the Th omasville Hi-Toms will go on as planned. Th ere’ve been a few claps of thunder, she says, but the ballpark is bone dry.

Still, the threat of a summer storm has kept the fans away — only about 400 or so show up. (By contrast, Saturday’s game, in near-perfect baseball weather, draws about 2,000.) It’s raining steadily by the time Mi-chael Wilson leads off for the Blowfi sh in the bottom of the fi rst. It’s pouring by the time Josh Miller runs a 2-2 count against Th omas-ville pitcher Kyle Keller, and the umpire’s had enough. He suspends the game.

Th e grounds crew races on the fi eld with a large tarpaulin, but the damage is done: Th e

infi eld dirt is soaked; it’s gone from a bright tan to a deep, dark brown. Water’s started pooling on the concrete steps of the lower-level seats and collecting in the dugouts.

As the rain intensifi es, most of the fans scurry for cover — either under the grandstand or to their cars. Th ose in the grandstand aren’t totally safe; the corrugated metal roof leaks, and strong winds whip rain sideways into the seats. Creedence Clearwa-ter Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” plays on the loudspeakers.

Th ose who haven’t fl ed fi le into the con-course. A ticket-taker by the front entrance wonders aloud where everyone is going. His nametag reads “Jim”; he’s middle-aged and heavy set, his bright red Blowfi sh T-shirt bulg-ing at the waistline. Th is’ll blow over, he says.

In the meantime, college students mill about, downing two-dollar beers. Kids squeal and bounce in the infl ated play castle and play the assorted mini-games in the concourse, seemingly oblivious to the delay on the fi eld.

It’s fi tting that rain threatens to wash out what could be one of the fi nal games in Capital City Stadium, a fi eld notorious for fl ooding problems. Back in June, Columbia City Council voted 6-1 to move forward with selling the historic stadium to a developer planning to build a Walmart-anchored shopping center there. Th e Blowfi sh’s fi nal regular-season game in the wood-bat sum-mer collegiate Coastal Plain League is Aug. 1. Unless the Blowfi sh make the playoff s — the team fi nished in second place in the fi rst-half standings, but currently sits fi rst in the second half — the team could be homeless aft er Aug. 1.

With a sale of the Capital City Stadium property seemingly imminent, there are questions: Where do the Blowfi sh go from here? And can Columbia land the profession-al minor league baseball team Mayor Steve

Benjamin is hell-bent on bringing to town?

Making A SaleLast year, the Atlanta-based development

group Bright-Meyers approached city of-fi cials about buying the Capital City Stadium. It was part of a plan by megaretailer Walmart to expand its presence in the Columbia area.

City Councilman Brian Newman — whose district includes the stadium — later told Free Times that although he understood at the time that Bright-Meyers usually worked on behalf of Walmart, it wasn’t a sure thing Walmart was behind the deal. All he knew for certain was that the developer planned to build a retail development there. And Newman welcomed the investment in Columbia.

So did other city leaders. Th ey wouldn’t make much off the sale, but the city stood to take in millions in tax revenue from the businesses that would move in. Whereas the stadium actually costs the city money to maintain, the sale would put the property on the tax rolls for the fi rst time.

In October, Columbia City Council qui-

It’s 10 minutes before first pitch on a mid-July Thursday, and thick drops of rain are

pelting the north end of Assembly Street.

A post-storm rainbow appears as the Capital City Stadium grounds crew readies the field for the

Columbia Blowfish to resume their July 19 game against the Thomasville Hi-Toms. The game was delayed for roughly an hour due to heavy rains.


SECOND PLACE:Myrtle Beach HeraldCharles D. PerryPower to the Pedal

Growing cycling community inspires county plans for new bike paths

Sue Brunson’s week didn’t always include 45-mile bike rides.

A year ago, Brunson’s pastor saw her at a gymand suggested that she try cycling. So the MyrtleBeach daycare operator joined the pastor andhis wife for a group excursion.

“I got out and I loved it,” shesaid.

“It’s the closest thing to flying.”Now Brunson is biking two to three times

weekly. She joined a local triathlon club and sheoccasionally commutes to work on two wheels.

“It’s a lifestyle,” she said.That lifestyle has become more common

along the Grand Strand in recent years. At leastthree bicycle groups have formed in HorryCounty since 2010 and county officials are now

developing plans for a network of bike paths.“We’ve gone from just little pockets of

riders,” said Tim Woolford, co-owner ofGrand Strand Bicycles in MyrtleBeach and Murrells Inlet. “It has real-ly just grown like crazy.”When Woolford arrived here seven

years ago, he started a Saturday morn-ing group ride. The first trip consisted

of Woolford and two friends.Last summer, there were more

than 100 cyclists on five of thegroup rides.

Some of the burgeoning interest can be at-tributed to higher fuel prices, Woolford said.He also pointed out that the emergence ofgroups like the Waccamaw Trail Blazers andthe Myrtle Beach Triathlon Club has givenpeople new options for bike riding.

“All that spurs it,” he said.Nationally, biking has become more

popular, too. From 2000 to 2010,the number of bicycle com-

muters increased by 40percent, according to

POWER TOTHEPEDAL

BY CHARLES D. PERRY | THE HERALD

Go green, save green• $4.6 billion: What bicyclists in the United Statessave every year by biking instead of driving

• $308: Average annual cost of operating a bicycle

• $8,220: Annual cost of operating average car

• 40%: Increase in the number of bicycle commutersfrom 2000 to 2010

• 12%: Percentage of trips taken in the U.S. thatcyclists and walkers account for

• 1.6%: Percentage of federal transportation dollarsthat support bicycle or pedestrian transportation

Sources: Sierra Club, League of American Bicyclists, National

Council of LaRazaSee BIKES, Page 10A

CHARLES D. PERRY | THE HERALDLocal cyclists take part in a group ride.


FIRST PLACE:Coastal ObserverRoger GreeneTroubled fund manager makes a new start on the cover

Troubled fund manager makes a new start on the courtBY ROGER GREENECOASTAL OBSERVER

Stan Kowalewski does not take his involvement with the Waccamaw Middle School bas-ketball team for granted. A year after being charged by the Securities and Exchange Com-mission with securities fraud, Kowalewski sees his return to the bench as a volunteer coach as the start of a new chapter in his life.

A former fund manager in Greensboro, N.C., Kowalews-ki and his family moved to the Pawleys Island area last year. In September, he was fined $16.8 million by a U.S. District Court judge in Atlanta and or-dered to repay $8.6 million in what the court called “ill gotten gains.”

He appealed the fine and while it is pending before the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Ap-peals, Kowalewski says work-ing with middle school athletes has rekindled his passion for basketball.

“It’s been great,” said Kow-alewski, a high school stand-

out in New York who played basketball at Dartmouth Col-lege. “The kids are fun to work with. The parents and adminis-tration are very supportive. It’s been a while since I’ve coached

at the middle school level. It’s rewarding.”

Kowalewski’s interest in coaching at Waccamaw Middle arose from one of his four chil-dren being on the team. When

he resigned from his previous head coaching position at the private Oak Hill Military Acad-emy in North Carolina, he did so with the intention of spend-ing more time with his children and helping them reach their academic and athletic poten-tial. It is a commitment he does not take lightly.

“I’ve watched my own kids grow up around basketball,” Kowalewski said. “I’ve coached their AAU teams and tried to be involved with helping them as much as they’ve wanted me to be. I’ve made a pact with my-self that I’m only going to be in-volved with coaching teams my sons play for. They have a love for the game and I have plen-ty of years of basketball left with them. I don’t want to have any regrets that I didn’t give them every minute of time they wanted.”

Principal Bill Dwyer and basketball coach Marion Bus-by say Kowalewski’s influence reaches far beyond that of his own son. Both say his presence has benefitted the entire team.

SEE “COACHING,” PAGE 6

Tanya Ackerman/Coastal Observer

Kowalewski, left, directs the action in the Wildcats’ game with Rosemary this week.

BUSINESS REPORTINGAll Weekly Division

THIRD PLACE:Lexington County Chronicle & The Dispatch NewsJerry Bellune

BY JERRY [email protected]

Infinity Business Group investors are frustrated.

Many are worried they may never be able to recover millions of dollars they invested in the company.

Others are angry because they feel the investigation of fraud charges may be swept un-der the rug.

Inves-tigative sources deny this. They say it is a highly compli-cated case involving many investors who may be called to testify against Wade and Brad Cordell and others involved with them in the collapse of IBG.

IBG operated from a brick build-ing owned by Brad Cordell at 140 Gibson Road in Lexington. Among its operations was a bad check col-lection service for clients ranging from the food industry to retail stores to the public schools.

Twin investigations have been un-derway for more than a year since the first complaints surfaced.

The complaints included charges that the Cordells and their inner circle spent investors’ money on ex-pensive cars and boats, a condo at Clemson, visits to gentlemen’s clubs and otherwise lived lavishly.

These allegation were included in complaints filed with the state Attor-ney General’s office.

Attorney General Alan Wilson has confirmed his office has been inves-tigating and gave the Cordells 30 days to respond.

The Cordells’ attorneys have de-nied all charges.

Federal and state investigators have been involved although FBI of-ficials say they can neither confirm not deny they have an investigation underway.

But investors FBI agents have in-terviewed told the Chronicle what they were asked and how they an-swered a series of questions posted on an FBI web site.

The Better Business Bureau with-drew accreditation after IBG officials filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy un-der the federal Bankruptcy Act Sep-tember 1, 2010.

Involved in the investigation are officials who successfully prosecuted the Home Gold and Carolina Inves-tors fraud case.

INSIDE _|IBG officials face state fraud charges, A3Execs spent lavishly on themselves, A3. Everyone lost at IBG, A3.IBG dream dies, A8.Settlement ends fight, A8.

Fraud probe being swept under rug?

INSIDE: Are you delinquent? A list of who is

can be found on Pages B2-11


There’s a sign of hope on Lexing-ton County’s economic radar.

It’s a small but detectable blip thatshows property tax payments are upand non-payments are down.

At this time last year, owners of 300,524 taxable properties had not paid.

This year, Gene Rishkofski of the Lexington County Treasurer’s Of-fice said he expects that to drop to around 300,100 parcels.

In monetary terms, the county was owned more than $9.3 million in property taxes at this time last year, he said. This year he expects that to drop to $8.9 million.

Property taxes are paid by own-ers of boats, businesses, commer-cial and private property, farmland, homes and vehicles.

Lexington County uses the media to alert property owners who may be unaware that their tax payments are overdue.

Delinquentproperty taxesdrop in county


The high cost of River Bluff High School has been a subject of local concern.

But of even more concern to Chronicle readers is the issue of a Chinese government-owned company building the $138.9 million showplace school.

The Chronicle asked Lexing-ton 1 a month ago for:

Meadow Glen Elementary and Middle schools and how much of that will local resident work-ers and suppliers receive.

for the high school.The district has not respond-

ed to these questions.

The Chronicle also asked, at readers’ requests:

-fications or notices of cost over-run has the Chinese contractor presented?

bid amount,” spokesperson Mary Beth Hill said.

“There have been no cost overruns.”

performance bond?“ There have been no claims

under the performance bond,” she said.

-tractor did not underbid the competition and make it up with overruns.

bid amount,” she said. She said the project is on

time and within the bid.River Bluff and the two

Meadow Glen schools were ap-proved by voters in the 2008 Bond Referendum. This includ-ed $138.9 million for the new high school land, site work and construction, Hill said.

One way the China Construc-tion Company successfully un-der bid U.S. builders, industry sources say, is that it uses cheap Chinese labor and below market financing and insurance from Chinese banks and insurers.

INSIDE _|

THE CHINA OFFENSIVE

China contract concerns our readers

S f


SECOND PLACE:Tribune-TimesNathaniel Cary

Mike and Dianne Baileyhad a dream. After yearstraveling together on theroad selling books, theyhad discovered the perfectplace to buy a small store-front and open up a quaint,used-book store in Foun-tain Inn.They bought the shop,

painted its walls and linedthose walls with shelves ofbooks.Then they found out

Mike had lung cancer.Seven weeks later, in

October, he died, leavingbehind his wife to pursuetheir dream alone.For awhileBailey didn’t

know what to do. Peddlingbooks had always beensomething they did togeth-er through 40 years ofmar-riage. They had ownedthree used bookstores inthe Greenville area dec-ades ago. Then they drovethe open road, sellingbooks at Christian book-stores across the Southeastand searching through es-tate sales and auctions tofind literary gems to col-lect or sell on the side.They sold first editions

or out-of-print books in an-tique malls or online, butwere drawn to FountainInn’s Main Street whenthey happened upon it inthe spring.It was perfect.“All we had to do was

paint the walls,” Baileysaid.Then they got the news.

Doctors discovered cancertoo late for medical mir-acles.Mike wanted her to

press on, so she decided toopen the shop. It could be aplace to relax and enjoy thedays and to be surroundedby the bound titles thatMike had loved for a life-time.She opened Bookquest

UsedBooksbefore theholi-days and said that specialtime had brought a new-found realization — “thatbookselling can be fun,”she wrote on her store’sFacebook page.“Maybe Mike gave me

the best Christmas giftever, a wonderful bookstore, even if he is not hereto enjoy it withme,” Baileywrote.Three days a week, Bai-

ley unlocks the front doorto her store at 108 S. MainSt. The red-brick exteriorand large front windowsgive a peek to passerby ofthe potential treasures in-side.Abell jinglesasyoustep

inside. Music plays softlyover the speakers. Tablesand chairs are set up inspots. Two soft-cushionedchairs are tucked away be-hind a register, welcomingbrowsing customers to sitfor a few minutes to flipthrough an appealing book.That’s where Bailey

sometimes sits with a mugof tea. She sells somebooksonline but, “I’m cuttingback to bringmore titles inhere.”

She doesn’t sell manynew titles — can’t keep upwith the large chain pricesor the appeal of electronicreaders — a change fromthe new books she andMike sold in their Green-villestores thatonceuponatime had been named Vol-ume 1, Volume 2 and Vol-ume 3.“Used and out of print

was so much more fun thatwe eventually just said toheck with the new booksand got into used,” Baileysaid.There are sections for

South Carolina History,modern first editions andcollectible children’sbooks. She’s sold Tolkiencollections, Peter Pan,Hemingway and Rudolph,all before Christmas.She wanted to create a

comfortable place forbrowsers where “peoplecould come in and talkabout books if they wantto.”Before Mike died, he

made one final trip a weekto what would have beentheirplace toenjoyasortofretirement.“Hewas tickledwith it,”

Baileysaid. “He just said, ‘Ican’t believe we made thewrong decision. Go aheadand do it.’ ”And so she has.

■ Nathaniel Cary can becontacted at 864-616-4209.

Bookstore is a tributeto late husband’s dream

Dianne Bailey displays some of the inventory at herBookquest Bookstore on Main Street in Fountain Inn.GWINN DAVIS/STAFF

By Nathaniel CaryTribune-Times [email protected]

INTERESTED?Bookquest Used Book Store,108 S. Main St., is open 11a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday andFriday and 11 a.m.-3 p.m.Saturday.

for South Carolina’s busi-nesses large and small.”

Imports are tough totrack because the statethrough which importedgoods first enter the Unit-ed Statesmight not be theirfinal destination and mayinstead reflect a storage ordistributioncenter, accord-ing to the U.S. Census Bu-reau.

Still, South Carolina

ranked 16th nationally in2011 in total imports, upfrom 19th in 2009 and 2010,according to the Interna-tional Trade Administra-tion, a branch of the U.S.Commerce Department.

Brazil was the top im-porterofagriculturalprod-ucts to South Carolina in2010 and 2011, according toITA.

Brazilian importsthrough South Carolinahave grown exponentiallyin thepast threeyearsfrom$12.3 million in 2009 to

$47.5 million in 2010 and$122.3 million in 2011, ac-cording to ITA.

Brazil is also theworld’stop coffee-producing na-tion, with about 54 millionbags produced annually,according to the U.S. De-partment of Agricultural.

Pereira was drawn intothe coffee business be-cause of the relationshipsand the opportunity towatchfarmers inBrazil getpaid well to produce high-quality coffee and to watchconsumers here become

acquainted with some ofthe world’s top java.

“I want my coffee tohave a unique taste,” Perei-ra said. “I don’t like to havea coffee that’s kind of bor-ing, mellow, there’s not toomuchgoingon. I likecoffeethat has some character.”

He focuses on smallerfarms that practice sus-tainable or organic farm-ing and he’s visited farmsmore than a dozen times,sometimes taking his cus-tomers along with him.

While many farmers

sold out to sugar canegrowers, the few who re-mained through the coffeelow-points in the 1980s and’90s have dedicated them-selves to the craft, he said.Most farm30-50 acres totaland produce smalleramounts of coffee but fo-cus on its taste, he said.

“They pay such atten-tion to quality that the cof-fee knocks the socks offyour feet because it’s sogood,” he said.

The farmers’ smiles ra-diate from 5-by-7 photos

thathang in tworowsonthewall of Pereira’s office.

“This is my little hall offame,” he said. “There arelike 5,000 little guys likethem producing coffee inthe top of the mountains inthis region in Brazil andthey’re calling it theCoffeeTuscany of Brazil.”

Pereira dips his handsinto an open bag and liftsout the blond beans, lettingthem fall through his fin-gers as he speaks of thelengthy process farmersgo through to bring thebeans here.

Coffeegrowsontrees. It

COFFEEContinued from Page 10A

More South Carolinians thanever before are choosing to havetheir remains cremated, goodnews for crematoriums and mak-ers of urnsbut badnews for ceme-tery owners and casket makers.

Cremation is less expensive inmost cases and it gives familymembers more options for the re-mains. It’s also something differ-

ent than the traditional burial,which has made it appealing tomore people today.

The national average cost for afuneral and burial in 2009 was$6,560, according to the NationalFuneral Directors Association.That’s compared with a $1,650 av-erage for cremation with basicmemorial service and urn, ac-cording to a 2010 report by theCremation Association of NorthAmerica.

Cremation has brought up anew set of questions: What to dowith the remains? Where to visit

Cemeteries look to capitalize on cremationCannonFuneral Homein Fountain Innopened a newcremationgarden. GWINNDAVIS/STAFF

See GARDEN, Page 7A

Fountain Inn funeralhome debuts gardenBy Nathaniel CaryStaff [email protected]

A first step inside the glass frontdoor of BRASC Coffee Importers inSimpsonville may startle the senses.Rather than the sweet aroma of

freshly roasted coffee beans, visitorsare instead greeted with a scent remi-niscent of fresh produce, as if steppinginto a verdant garden.Ricardo Pereira, who started BRASC

Coffee Importers in 2008 and is set toexpand its operations soon, leads theway through a small office to a one-room warehouse and the source of thearoma— hundreds of 132-pound bags ofgreen coffee beans stacked neatly onpallets.Each bag bears the markings of

small Brazilian farms run by farmersPereira knows personally. And those

connections are what have allowed thecoffee connoisseur and native of Brazilto carve out a niche business in themiddle of a recession in the Upstatethousands of miles from home.Pereira’s tale offers a glimpse into

the fabric of a shifting Upstate econo-my that entrepreneurs like him areweaving to create jobs for themselveswhere none previously existed.Importing coffee beans hadn’t al-

ways been at the top of Pereira’s list ofplanned occupations. He worked inpurchasing and human resources inBrazil before he attended Bob JonesUniversity where he graduated in 2006

with a degreein youth minis-tries.A friend in

Greenvilleplanted the ideato begin a cof-fee-importbusiness.When Pereira waslaid off from a localcompany when the economysoured in 2008, he took the radical step toshift careers and become his own boss.Though as a boy Pereira often had

walked along mountain paths betweentrees filled with deep red coffee cherriesin the mountain region of Alta Mogiana insoutheast Brazil, he never consideredthat coffee would one day become hislivelihood.He already had the connections, how-

Simpsonville entrepreneur finds niche

importing high-end java from his native Brazil

By Nathaniel CaryTribune-Times [email protected]

Simpsonville businessman Ricardo Pereira imports Brazilian coffee beans and ships them to coffeeroasters and coffeehouses along the East Coast and overseas. PHOTOS BY GWINN DAVIS/STAFF

COFFEECOFFEE IS THEIS THE‘CONNECTOR’‘CONNECTOR’

ONLINE EXTRAWatch a video linked to this articleonline at GreenvilleOnline.com.

See COFFEE, Page 10A


FIRST PLACE:The Moultrie NewsSully Witte

There’s a new boat on Shem CreekBY SULLY [email protected]

Everybody has a favorite teacher, but for a kid who didn’t love school that much, becoming the teacher’s pet wasn’t high on his list of pri-orities.

So, the relationship be-tween Trident Academy teacher Paula Urbano and student Vasa Tarvin devel-oped rather slowly. In fact, it all started with a marine sci-ence field trip aboard Wayne Magwood’s shrimp boat, The Winds of Fortune.

Magwood had been host-ing marine science classes on his boat for years. He had four daughters who all took (now retired) Wando High School teacher Julie Cliff’s marine science classes. Even after Magwood’s youngest

daughter graduated from Wando, Cliff continued to call on Magwood to take her students on his boat. He continued to do so until Cliff retired.

“A friend of hers was teach-ing at Trident Academy and she called and wanted me to take a class out. Vasa Tarvin and his brother were in that class nine years ago,” said Magwood. He said they took a liking to the boat and shrimping in general. Their teacher then approached Magwood about the possibil-ity of letting them work with him over the summer.

“I took them out and they didn’t get sea sick (which is the main thing). Out of the two, Vasa really liked it and he stuck with me every sum-

See Vasa, page 3A.

STAFF PHOTO BY SULLY WITTE

Shrimp Boat Captain Wayne Magwood mentored and trained Vasa Tarvin who now owns and runs his own shrimp boat out of Shem Creek called Miss Paula. See more pictures online at www.moultrienews.com

The extreme dream teamProfessional

homebuilders help Habitat hammer home the need for

affordable housing

Structures Building Com-pany is again partnering with East Cooper Habitat for Humanity to raise walls on a home and give hope to low-income families seeking decent and affordable hous-ing east of the Cooper as part of Habitat for Humanity’s Home Builders Blitz 2012.

During this year’s event, the nationwide project seeks to build and renovate more than 200 homes, thanks to the skilled labor provided by local professional home-builders and construction firms.

Habitat’s Home Builders Blitz is a partnership between Habitat affiliates and the building community to build and renovate homes across the United States. Builders and Habitat affiliates work closely to organize all aspects of building, including secur-ing subcontractors and sup-pliers, fundraising and seek-ing donations of materials. Builders participating in the program this year will work with more than 100 Habitat affiliates.

“We are excited to partner

with builders and engage them in our work to help families in need of afford-able housing,” said Jonathan Reckford, Habitat for Hu-

manity International CEO. “By sharing their talents and skills with us, we are able to increase our capacity to help transform communities. We

thank the builders for their commitment and dedication to making Home Builders Blitz 2012 a success.”

Locally, Structures Build-

ing Company and owner Steve Kendr ick gath-ered subcontractors and

See Habitat, page 12A

STAFF PHOTOS BY SULLY WITTE

Structures Building Company is again partnering with East Cooper Habitat for Humanity to raise walls on a home and give hope to low-income families seeking decent and affordable housing east of the Cooper as part of Habitat for Humanity’s Home Builders Blitz 2012. This home will be built in a week and is located on Kent Street.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATIONAll Weekly Division

THIRD PLACE:Coastal ObserverCharles SwensonImages drift down river


SECOND PLACE:Coastal ObserverTanya AckermanBurning of the socks


FIRST PLACE:Carolina Forest ChronicleMichael SmithFootball puzzle

BEST WEBSITEAssociate/Individual Division

SECOND PLACE:Greer TodayJim FairGreerToday.com

BEST WEBSITEAssociate/Individual Division

FIRST PLACE:Municipal Association of South CarolinaStaff masc.sc

WEEKLY NEWSPAPER WEBSITEAll Weekly Division

THIRD PLACE:The Dillon Herald


SECOND PLACE:The Press & Standard


FIRST PLACE:Fort Mill TimesMichael Harrison

PHOTO GALLERY ON A NEWSPAPER WEBSITE

All Weekly & Daily Under 20,000 Divisions Combined

THIRD PLACE:Free TimesJonathan SharpeAbout last night: Drake, Colonial Life Arena

ONLINE SPORTS VIDEOAll Weekly & Daily Under 20,000 Divisions Combined

THIRD PLACE:The Weekly ObserverMatt McCollColeman Shannon

LIFESTYLE/FEATURE SPECIAL EDITION OR SECTION

All Weekly Division

THIRD PLACE:The Moultrie News Lowcountry Life


All Weekly Division

SECOND PLACE:Coastal Observer Beaches

BOOKS

Ideas for summer readingPAGE 31

WILDLIFE

A naturalistwalksthe beachSECOND FRONT

SEA TURTLES

NestingseasonPAGE 10

ESSENTIALS

FAQs aboutbeach rulesPAGE 2

BOOKS

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ESSENTIALS

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WHAT’S INSIDEFOURTH OF JULY | Where to go to wave the flag.

Page 7

HUNTINGTON BEACH | State park campers unplug.

Page 14

HISTORY | Before Pawleys, North Island was the place to go. Page 28

BeachesThe Coastal Observer’s window on the summer

STANDARDU.S. POSTAGE PAID

PERMIT NO. 26PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C.

295852012 Edition


All Weekly Division

FIRST PLACE:Charleston City Paper The Pride Issue

The Pride

IssueDowntown Shift Sermet’s ditches the

Corner for Downtown P.42Sarah Jarosz balances school and touring P.52

B A N B O Z O S , N O T B O O Z E | FREE

PAGE 21

Class Act

NEWS HEADLINE WRITINGAll Weekly Division

THIRD PLACE:The News and Reporter

Travis Jenkins


SECOND PLACE:Myrtle Beach Herald

Charles D. Perry


FIRST PLACE:The Berkeley IndependentFrank Johnson

CYAN-AOOO MAGENTA-OAOO YELLOW-OOAO BLACK 01/29/08

Thee Berkeleyy Independentt •• wwww.berkeleyindd.com

Why?BY DAN BROWNThe Independent

As the residents of BerkeleyCounty continue to come to termswith the murder of two youngwomen, 18-year-old Dana Woodsand 22-year-old June Guerry,anger towards the men charged intheir killing is rising.

The anger is mixed with a one-word question: Why?

Different theories have beenfloating around the communitythat seek to answer that question.None of them make sense. Yet fewdetails about the double murderdo.

Murders anger, bewilder community

Suspects face additional chargesBY STEFAN ROGENMOSERThe Independent

Caleb Matlock and Ray Chavis,

suspects in the double murder of

Dana Woods and June Guerry,

appeared in bond court Friday forthe second time after being arrest-ed Sept. 1.

On Friday the suspects receivedadditional charges from the

Crime scenes revisited by BCSOBY STEFAN ROGENMOSERThe Independent

Berkeley County Sheriff’s Officeinvestigators were back on thescene of the double murder thatshook Berkeley County last week.

On Thursday, Sept. 6, investiga-tors were on the site of the areanear Cordesville off Cane GullyRoad. This is area where the bodyof Dana Woods, 18, was foundCaleb Matlock hangs his

head during a bond hearing on Sept. 2.

Frank Johnson/Independent

See MURDERS Page 6A

See CHARGES Page 6A

See BCSO Page 6A

The 22nd Annual OldSantee Canal Fine ArtsExhibition began Aug. 25,and the event, hosted by TheBerkeley Artist Guild, SanteeCooper and Berkeley CountyCouncil, continued throughSept. 9.

The popular event drew alarge number of artists fromall over the state as well asfrom Berkeley County. Thisyear 90 pieces were enteredand shown.

This year’s winners are (list-ed in order of finish)

• Best in Show MixedMedia

Regrets? I have few byMeyriel Edge

• Aqua Media: CharlestonMusic Man by Bob Graham,Golden Hour by LouiseJames, and Mama And Me byDorothy Nichols.

• Oils: Mozart and HisDaemons by Gingi Martin,The Teal Necklace by DennyStevenson, and Early Spring

Art winnersnamed

See ART Page 3A

Agingtour inworks

South Carolina Lt. Gov.Glenn McConnell was set tobegin a series of visits thisweek to senior citizen facili-ties throughout SouthCarolina to assess existingservices and gather sugges-tions on improvements fromlocal seniors, caregivers, andresidents.

Aging facilities in Berkeley,Dorchester and Charlestonwill be visited Sept. 24-25.

Each stop is scheduled toinclude a forum for publicinput as well as visits to areanursing homes, assisted livingfacilities, and senior centers.

“Finding ways to makemeaningful improvements tocurrent Aging services inSouth Carolina is my top pri-ority, and I don’t understandhow substantive change canbe made without discussingsome of these issues face-to-face,” said McConnell. “Iwant the opportunity to inter-

See AGING Page 6A

Snakebit

Dominic McKelvey/Special to The Independent

Cane Bay’s Richard Henderson wraps up Berkeley quarterback Conner Teague during the Cobra-Stag game lastweek. For complete coverage of the contest, see Sports.

SPOT NEWS REPORTINGWeekly Under 6,000 Division

THIRD PLACE:Coastal ObserverCharles Swenson

BY CHARLES SWENSONCOASTAL OBSERVER

Scott Hurston walked into the gym at HealthPoint around 6 p.m. last Wednesday to start his workout. He was going to start with shoulders and legs.

Instead of his usual workout, he pulled two women from a car as it sank into a stormwater re-tention pond outside Health-Point that had overflowed in a torrential rainstorm.

“I’m just a normal guy,” said Hurston, a senior vice president with Merrill Lynch at Pawleys Island. “I never dreamed that something like that would hap-pen.”

Neither did Mary Ann Go-dlewski and Kathy Eagen, two Heritage Plantation residents who said they nearly drowned in Godlewski’s Toyota Corolla.

“We were pretty darn close to not making it,” Godlewski said.

“I’ve never been so scared in my life,” Eagen said. “I can’t believe a car would fill up with water that fast.”

It wasn’t raining hard when they left Heritage Plantation headed for a Zumba class at HealthPoint. But by the time they reached Litchfield, the

SEE “RESCUE,” PAGE 5

FLOODING

Sinking car traps 2 women

WALMA

Swing vote expectedBY CHARLES SWENSONCOASTAL OBSERVER

When Georgetown County Council de-nied a rezoning request for a Lowe’s Home Improvement store at Pawleys Island in 2005, the swing vote in the 4-3 decision came from the council member from Dis-trict 5. With council now facing a request to allow construction of a 119,500-square-

foot store for wWalmart, eyesdistrict that runwestern border

There’s a thtrict, and candiing much aboutPleasant Hill, Per precincts, bjobs and taxes.

Only thebumper othe Toyowas showing afterwomen wrescued.

PJohn


SECOND PLACE:Coastal ObserverJason Lesley

BY JASON LESLEYCOASTAL OBSERVER

Renee Milton stopped in the parking lot at Club Isis on Highway 17 Tuesday afternoon to light a candle near a small shrine to her 21-year-old son, Sean Edwards.

He was shot to death there early Saturday morning for no apparent reason, Milton said.

“He was out celebrating a cousin’s birthday,” she said. “Whoever shot him was a cow-ard. He didn’t see who the shooter was.”

Pawleys Island police officer Jono Fairfield was the first of-ficer on the scene, according to the Georgetown County Sher-iff’s Office. Deputy Sean See-bode’s report said Fairfield felt a faint pulse in the victim. He was face-up on the ground be-tween a silver Dodge Durango and a trash container. He was unresponsive, and the deputy noted blood on the left side of

SEE “SHOOTING,” PAGE 2

MURDER AT CLUB ISIS

Shooting victim was in county for funeral


Family members gather in prayer outside the club this week.


FIRST PLACE:The Berkeley IndependentFrank Johnson


Sanders’ residence is inRidgeville.

In the latest twist in thesearch for Sanders, theMedical University ofSouth Carolina has releasedvideo surveillance ofSanders inside the hospitalon more than one occasionin the days following hisescape.

“We have learned thatwithin a week of his escape,Mr. Sanders was at our hos-pital visiting an acquain-tance,” MUSC MediaRelations Director HeatherWoolwine said in an emailto The Independent. “A sub-sequent review of surveil-lance videotapes has con-firmed that Mr. Sanders waspresent in two waiting areason Feb. 3 and 4.

“In none of the videotapesegments is there any evi-dence of Mr. Sanders inter-acting with anyone otherthan his acquaintance.”

Woolwine said the hospi-tal has no indication thatSanders has been back in

over three weeks.“It is important to empha-

size that there have been nosightings of Mr. Sanders onour campus in more thanthree weeks,” she said.“Moreover, the personwhom Mr. Sanders was vis-iting left the facility twoweeks ago. There is no rea-son to believe that he willreturn to campus since hisacquaintance is no longerpresent, but we remain vig-ilant in assuring that thereare no threats to the safetyof anyone on this campus.”

Images from the video ofSanders at MUSC can beviewed online atwww.berkeleyind.com.

After he first fled MoncksCorner by catching a ride todowntown Charleston, offi-cials believed Sanders waslikely gone from theLowcountry. That beliefchanged the following weekwhen he was spotted byseveral different witnessesin the Sangaree Parkwayarea, and then on theSummerville side of I-26.

The BCSO and other lawenforcement agenciesseemingly had the escapee

surrounded on that night,but the wily criminalproved to be elusive.

The Medical University ofSouth Carolina has con-firmed that Sanders wasinside MUSC on more thanone occasion since hisescape.

Since the Sangaree sight-ing, Berkeley CountySheriff’s Office spokesper-son Dan Moon said thatother sightings have beenreported.

“We’ve got a couple ofdifferent sightings … butthey didn’t pan out,” Moonsaid Friday. “People willcall and say, ‘I think I seeyour guy over here.’ Butthey just haven’t pannedout.”

Do the sightings meanSanders has chosen,whether by design or neces-sity, to stay close to home?

“It’s hard to say,” Moonsaid. “If some of these spot-tings turn out to be legiti-mate, then he (may be in thearea).”

Moon was asked BCSOofficials remain optimisticthat a capture will takeplace. “Absolutely,” he

said.Sanders escaped on

Thursday, Jan. 26 after hewas incorrectly placed in aholding area for prisonerpreparing to be released aHill-Finklea. The temporary confusion stemmedfrom a sentence handeddown to Sanders on thaday.

Sanders already facedprison time for criminadomestic violence of a highand aggravated naturewhen he appeared before ajudge and received timeserved for violating arestraining order. Upon hireturn from the hearing, hewas able to slip away fromthe prison after he waincorrectly placed in a holding area for prisoners whoare about to be released.

Sanders is considered dangerous. Anyone with information regarding Sanderslocation is asked to call theSheriff’s Office at (843719-4412, or simply cal911.

For more information andupdates on the case, pleasesee www.berkeleyind.com

SANDERSfrom page 1A

Whereis he?BY FRANK JOHNSONThe Independent

His face is knownthroughout BerkeleyCounty and theLowcountry. He reportedly

is out of money. And policeagencies across the county,state and country are on thelookout for him.

Yet, frustratingly, JamesSanders has defied the oddsand, as of press time on

Monday, remains at large.It’s been over a month

since the 39-year-oldslipped out of the Hill-Finklea Detention Center inMoncks Corner. Sanders, awhite male, stands 5'7" and

has dark hair. At the time ofhis escape he sported agoatee; the facial hair wasgone when he was spottedin the Sangaree area oneweek after his escape.

See SANDERS Page 6A

SPOT NEWS REPORTINGWeekly Over 6,000 Division

THIRD PLACE:Myrtle Beach Herald

Charles D. PerrySun Fun Sunk


SECOND PLACE:The Horry Independent

Heather GaleManhunt in Conway


FIRST PLACE:The GazetteStefan Rogenmoser

police.The suspect entered the

Goose Creek Wal-Mart onApril 24 at about 1:15 a.m.He exited the store with thelaptops without paying forthem. The suspect then left

the area in a white GMC orChevrolet SUV.

The suspect stole sevenAcer laptop computers witha combined value of$2,336, according to apolice report.

The unidentified blackmale pulled on the securedstorage lockers where com-puters are stored in the

electronics department.Surveillance video showsafter several attempts, theunknown suspect gainedentry to the storage lockers,according to the report.

Footage then shows thesuspect leaving the areaand coming back with alarge blue plastic containerin his shopping cart. The

suspect loads the sevencomputers into the bluestorage container and walksto the front door of thebusiness, according to thereport.

As the suspect exits thebusiness he gets into anunidentified white truckand exits the area in anunknown direction.

If you know the identityof this individual you areencouraged to the contactthe Goose Creek PoliceDepartment at (843) 863-5200 or our Crime Tip Lineat (843) 863-5210.

SHOPLIFTERfrom page 1A

01/29/08

Two Keys, 1 assault, 3 arrests

Gary Eugene Long Golden Luis Deleon Timothy D. Lawhorn

BY STEFAN ROGENMOSERThe Gazette

Three people have beenarrested in connection withan incident where oneemployee in a Goose Creektavern assaulted a patron

with a pool stick and about20 more patrons werelocked inside and robbed.

The incident occurred justafter 6 a.m. on April 21 atTwo Keys Tavern in GooseCreek.

One man wound up in a

local hospital with injuriesafter bleeding severely fromthe head with a lacerationabout five inches long andone inch wide, according toa Goose Creek PoliceDepartment report.

Police obtained the tav-

ern’s video surveillance,which substantiates thealleged battery of a patronwith a pool stick, accordingto police.

The manager became irate

See TAVERN Page 7A

SPOT NEWS REPORTINGWeekly 2/3 Times Division

THIRD PLACE:The News and ReporterTravis Jenkins

BY TRAVIS [email protected]

Had it been a hotter day, you could have heard the sizzle for miles.

On Monday morning at approxi-mately 6:30 a.m., an Eknoor Trucking Company truck carrying a load of pork tenderloins was traveling down Wylie Street in Chester. As the truck tried to make it over the railroad tracks on Wylie, it became hung. A sign in front of the railroad tracks clearly indicates that large trucks should not drive over the tracks for that reason.

“It’s the second time in a year a trac-tor trailer has been on a road he had no business being on,” said Chester County Emergency Management Director Eddie Murphy.

Last year, a truck carrying a load of generators traveled down the same road, got hung on the same train tracks and was hit by a train. That wreck occurred, Murphy said, because a truck driver could not get his truck under the Seaboard overpass going down Center Street. He tried to bypass the overpass by going down Wylie, which led to the accident. An official with Eknoor Trucking Company said the man on Monday was apparently visiting some-one in the area.

Ricky Grant, with the Chester Fire Department, said shortly after the truck became hung on the tracks, a train rounded the bend.

“The train ran right through the trailer,” Grant said.

The driver of the truck and his pas-

senger escaped and were uninjured. No one was hurt in the collision, but the train sheared the trailer in half and sent boxes of frozen, wrapped pork loins flying in every direction. The boxes and some packages of meat were left laying in the road and on the tracks.

Grant said the truck was bound for New Orleans Gold Storage in Charleston. An Eknoor official said it was headed toward South Charlotte.

Murphy said, remarkably, the train managed to stop within a couple of hun-dred yards of the accident site. Thankfully, Murphy said only a limited amount of diesel fuel leaked from the truck.

Murphy was originally under the

BY NANCY PARSONS/THE N&REmergency responders look at the boxes of meat left laying in the road as a result of Monday's accident.

Pork...it’s what’s for dinner

See TRAIN, Page 2-A


SECOND PLACE:The Lancaster NewsChristopher Sardelli

Christopher [email protected]

A charred shingle peeled away from the exposed roof and slow-ly drifted to the ground as An-gela Patterson surveyed the damage to her apartment Tues-day morning, April 10.

Patterson’s apartment, as well as four other units in the one-story building at the Westway Apartments complex, were damaged during a blaze about 7 a.m. in the 1500 block of Memo-rial Park Road.

With tears pouring down her face, and clutching a packet of information given to her by the American Red Cross, Patterson turned and looked at what was left of Apartment 1515.

“I l t thi I h ” P t

smell of burned wood hung in the air as family and friends placed what’s left on the front lawn – a box, some bags, a few potted plants.

Next to Patterson, an air condi-tioning unit sat on its side below th i d it bl t f

“We’ve got three days in a hotel and then what? Then where am I supposed to go?” she said, sob-bing. “I don’t have anywhere.”

Firefighters from several de-partments responded to the blaze, including the Gooches

photos by CHRIS SARDELLI/[email protected]

Fire damages apartment complexSIXTEEN PEOPLE LEFT HOMELESS

Five departments respond to early morning blaze on

Memorial Park Road

“We’ve got three days in a hotel and then what? Then where am I supposed to go?”

– Angela Patterson, left, whose apartment burned Tuesday morning

Five units at Westway Apartments were damaged in Tuesday’s fire.


FIRST PLACE:Chronicle-IndependentMartin L. Cahn

© 2012 G l M

Bodies of missing NC teens found

under I-20 bridgeBy MARTIN L. CAHN

C-I (Camden, S.C.) [email protected]

The South Carolina Highway Patrol (SCHP), Kershaw County Sheriff ’s Office (KCSO) and other law enforcement and emergency agencies recovered the bodies of two missing Catawba County, N.C., teenage boys from underneath a bridge near the Wateree River on I-20 near the Sunday afternoon.

Kershaw County Coroner Johnny Fellers confirmed Sunday night that the bodies were those of Jake Ziegler, 18, and Ray Pierce, 17.

“I’ve spoken to members of both families,” Fellers said during a telephone interview several hours after the recovery effort ended. “I think they’ve been down there since the day they went missing.”

Tuesday, Fellers said an autopsy showed the boys drowned, but added his office is waiting on a toxicology report.

According to Catawba County, N.C., Sheriff Coy Reid, Jake and Ray were last seen around 1:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 13, when they left a par-ty in their hometown of Sherrill’s Ford, N.C., about 45 minutes north of Charlotte near Lake Norman, and headed for Myrtle Beach.

“Their parents called us the next morning because they hadn’t See Boys, Page A6

BEST PUBLISHED NEWS STORYAssociate/Individual Division

THIRD PLACE:The Voice of BlythewoodBarbara Ball

Barbara Ball Publisher

Barbara Ball Publisher

Columbia City Police patrol Blythewood for the day

Blythewood residents may have noticed a swarm of Colum-bia City Police patrol cars in the

lot June 30, from about 8 a.m. - 2 p.m.

That was the headquarters for the day of the City of Colum-

patrol Blythewood. The deputies were off to at-

$5 million civil penalty imposed on Katie Cauthen

-

-

Cauthen, a former Blythewood Town Councilwoman, for what the Department said was Cau-

a fraudulent insurance scheme -

sands of individuals nation-

--

partment of Justice Feb. 2 and issued to Cauthen March 2.

-posed on at least 14 other indi-viduals and companies that the Department says were associ-

--

residents for what it called bo-

-dicates that between February 2008 and April 2010, Cauthen and William Worthy collected

-surance premiums.”

-

were collected from the 498

-cal insurance.

Memorandum on Penalties for

these premiums were wired to various accounts controlled by Worthy, Cauthen and/or an in-

and were never remitted to an insurer.

Memorandum, these respon-dents used a portion of the premiums to pay claims, and Cauthen also used a portion of the premium money to pay em-

act as customer service repre-sentatives.

The order states that “Wor-thy and Cauthen used the re-

$5,498,500 for personal and -

tures.”

violation and $10,000 for each subsequent violation.

as a separate violation by these respondents.

“Under this formula, the total proposed penalties for

Cauthen was elected to the Blythewood Town Council in January 2008 and announced in

Barbara Ball


SECOND PLACE:Charleston Regional Business JournalMatt Tomsic

July 30 - Aug. 12, 2012

SPECIALREPORT Your home, their rules

By Matt [email protected]

Four years ago, Michael Deese and Barry Oliver bought a three-bed-room townhome on Johns Island

for $210,000. Months ago, their home was sold to Marsh View Homeowners Association for $500.

The public sale ended a foreclosure process begun by Marsh View over unpaid dues.

Since buying their home, Deese and Oliver had become disabled. They were working with their mortgage lender in the Home Modification Program as their monthly dues to the Marsh View Home-owners Association increased and con-tinued to go unpaid. The dues piled up while they struggled to pay their mort-gage.

By November 2011, they owed $9,500 in dues and other legal costs.

That same month, Marsh View filed a foreclosure lawsuit against Deese and Oliver to recover the unpaid dues. Court documents outline the legal fight for Deese and Oliver’s home.

Their case is one of hundreds of fore-closures filed since 1993 by homeowners associations in Charleston County for unpaid dues and assessments — some for as little as $332 — according to an analysis of the filings by the Charleston Regional Business Journal.

While the majority of cases are dis-missed or settled, homeowners associa-tions have legally foreclosed on a handful of homes, and in some instances, received the property’s title during the public sale by using the debt owed instead of actual cash.

Charleston County has more than 750 homeowners associations, according to voluntary filings with Homeowners Asso-ciation USA, which provides education, support and referrals to associations. No government agency oversees, licenses or collects data about homeowners associa-tions, and state law provides the frame-work for associations to foreclose on its homeowners to recover unpaid dues and assessments.

A state lawmaker targeted those issues in 2011, when he introduced the South Carolina Homeowners’ Association Act, but the bill stalled in a state Senate com-mittee.

Homeowners associations risk losing amenities and insurance coverage when homeowners don’t pay their dues, and foreclosure lawsuits can be an effective

tool to recover unpaid dues. Homeown-ers stake their homes and risk losing an asset worth tens — if not hundreds — of thousands of dollars over a few sentences included in closing documents.

$5,000 or lessSince 1993, Charleston County home-

owners associations have filed roughly 630 foreclosures for unpaid dues, with 63% of the cases filed after 2000.

Of those 400 cases filed after 2000, 47 homeowners owed less than $1,000 when the foreclosure was filed; 101 homeown-ers owed between $1,000 and $2,000.

In total, 68% of homeowners received foreclosure summons for less than $5,000 in unpaid dues and assessments.

“While it seems like it’s a very harsh thing to do, the thing is, it’s very effec-tive,” said Jim Laumann, the president of Homeowners Association USA. In Charleston County, roughly 1% of the cases end with foreclosure, and most are settled or dismissed. “Most people are not going to allow that sort of asset to go into foreclosure over homeowners association dues.”

Two aspects of state law allow associa-tions to file liens against property owners for unpaid dues. If the association con-sists of condominiums, then the Hori-zontal Property Act governs it, said Ryan McCabe, an attorney who specializes in homeowners association law for Colum-bia-based Rogers, Townsend & Thomas. The act allows associations to file liens then foreclose on the lien and have the property sold to pay the debt.

If the property isn’t a condominium, then associations can foreclose if they are given that power in its declaration and bylaws. The developer usually creates the declaration and bylaws, but the associa-tion can amend them through a vote of all the homeowners.

“When people hear the term foreclose, they think of a mortgage,” McCabe said. “But a foreclosure is a type of lawsuit that covers a whole lot more than mortgages and assessment liens.”

Legally, McCabe said, a homeowners association foreclosure would be similar to a contractor’s foreclosure on a home because of a lien for unpaid renovations.

In March 2011, Marsh View Home-

owners Association filed its lien against Deese and Oliver for $6,225, according to filings with the Charleston County Regis-ter of Mesne Conveyance.

Deese and Oliver missed monthly payments of $299 from January 2010 through December 2010, racking up roughly $4,000 in debt. In 2011, the dues increased to $330, and they continued missing payments.

Trying to keep their homeMcCabe said homeowners associa-

tions decide case-by-case when to fore-close on a home for unpaid dues. McCabe and Laumann both recommend that association boards — a group of home-owners elected to govern the commu-nity — adopt a written policy to govern foreclosures. Associations must consider the amont of money owed, the amount of time from the last payment, the fidu-ciary duty of the board to collect the debt, bylaw requirements, financial conditions, the costs associated with legal action and other factors.

McCabe and Laumann also urge asso-ciations to consider payment plans with the homeowner and use foreclosure as a last resort.

Marsh View filed its foreclosure case against Deese and Oliver in November 2011, and by then, they owed $9,500.

A month after the filing, Deese and Oliver wrote their own answer to the legal complaint.

“We are in the process of working with our mortgage company for a Home Modification Program due to disabilities of both defendants so we can keep our house,” they wrote.

Deese and Oliver argued the asso-ciation didn’t provide the services paid for by the dues. Both men couldn’t be reached for comment after repeated attempts. Marsh View wasn’t available to comment on the case.

“Lights were turned off in the common areas, grass was not cut and the pool was not maintained,” they wrote. “We also disagree with the amount being claimed and ask for a complete accounting as we believe funds were not credited to our account and the balance is incorrect.”

Bigger dollarsLaumann said homeowners who fall

behind need to be proactive in address-ing the debt because late fees, interest and other costs can add to the homeowners debt, making it more difficult to catch up on the mounting debt.

In court documents disputing the foreclosure of their home on Johns Island

Photo/Leslie Burden


FIRST PLACE:South Carolina Policy Council - The NerveRick Brundrett

ENTERPRISE REPORTINGWeekly Under 6,000 Division

THIRD PLACE:The Clinton ChronicleLarry Franklin

The Clinton ChronicleWednesday, August 29, 2012 www.clintonchronicle.com2A

Residents of a Clinton neigh-borhood near Clinton Elemen-tary School say two nearbyapartment complexes are notbeing kept clean on the outsideand they are frustrated in theirefforts to get the problem re-solved.The two people who manage

and rent The Derby Apartmentsand Settlers Apartments on Bel-mont Stakes say they are awareof the problems and are workingto get them resolved.Jeff Adams, who lives just

below both apartment buildings,said the problem of litter in andaround the complexes has beengoing on for quite awhile.He said there is a trash prob-

lem at both apartments, but saidSettler Apartments are “a disas-ter.”“People don’t know what to

do,” he said “It looks so bad. Itdidn’t used to be that way. Allthey need to do is clean it up.”Adams, who has lived in the

neighborhood 33 years, said hehas talked to the man who rentsthe Derby Apartments and otherneighbors have talked to the manwho manages Settlers Apart-ments.“Nobody wants to do any-

thing,” Adams said.Local real estate agent

Cauley Hardin is the rental agentfor The Derby Apartments,which are owned by City Na-tional Bank. Hardin said theproperty is in foreclosure and isfor sale.He said there is a large trash

box at the property for Derbyresidents. The box is emptied bya private hauler every twoweeks.Hardin said the problem is

that other people are using thebox to dispose of trash and,when the box is full, they aredumping the trash on theground.“There is plenty of room in

the box (for trash from theDerby Apartments),” Hardinsaid. “The community at largeputs trash in there.” He said res-idents of Settlers Apartmentsand the homeowners in the

neighborhood throw trash in thebox.“When it’s filled up, they

throw (trash) on the side of theroad,” Hardin said “If it’s a com-munity issue, we will removethe box. The trash on the groundis not coming from Derby (resi-dents).“I’ve done all I know to do,”

he said. “It’s an ongoing issue.”He said he is going to contact

City National Bank officials andrecommend they remove thebox. He said Derby residents cantake their trash to the county-owned trash collection center onCharlotte Road.Adams and Hardin both say

they have talked to LaurensCounty officials about the prob-lem. Adams said he has filed awritten complaint with BuddySkinner, the county’s buildingcodes and inspections officer.Skinner confirmed he has re-

ceived the complaint and hasbeen contacted by another resi-dent about the issue.He said he inspects the prop-

erties and then contacts the own-ers and makes them aware of theissue if it violates the county’snuisance ordinance.Skinner said if the problem is

not resolved, the county canissue a court summons and cleanup the property itself and thenfile a lien to get the money spentcleaning the property.He said the property owners

have 30 days to fix the problem.If they don’t respond, the courtsummons will take another 30days, he said.“It would be at least 60 days

before we can get them intocourt,” Skinner said.He said his office receives

one or two complaints a weekabout trash and litter.Ron Clyde, who manages the

SettlersApartments for the own-ers, Settlers Apartments, LLC,said he has been contacted by aresident of the neighborhood.He said there were three

workers at the property last Fri-day “cleaning up and doing gen-eral work” there.Asked if he thinks there is a

trash problem at the apartments,Clyde said, “It depends on wholooks at it. There is always roomfor improvement, but I hope

they will see vast improve-ments.”Clyde said there are plans un-

derway to make improvementsto the decks and sidewalks.“Hopefully, folks can see thework going on and find it posi-tive and beneficial for us and forthem. We don’t want (the apart-ments) to have a negative impacton (the neighborhood),” he said.Clinton City Manager Frank

Stovall said there is nothing thecity can do to help the residentssince neither apartment complexis in the city limits.“But if they decide to annex

(into the city), we can promise toenforce the city’s building main-tenance codes the same way wedo in other areas,” the city man-ager said.Adams said he wouldn’t nec-

essarily be opposed to annexinginto the city, “but I don’t want topay double taxes.”Stovall said residents who an-

nexed would see their water billsdecrease more than the amountof city taxes they would pay.

By Larry Franklin

Publisher

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Residents, apartment managers point fingers at each other


SECOND PLACE:The Hampton County Guardian

Michael M. Dewitt Jr.Delinquent Dads


FIRST PLACE:The Clinton ChronicleVic MacDonald and Larry Franklin

To be on the ballot as a Re-publican in Laurens County, youdo not have to be “just” Republi-can.You, apparently, have to be the

“right kind” of Republican.You must oppose abortion, in

any circumstances.You must uphold the right to

have guns, all kinds of guns.You must endorse the idea of

a balanced state and federalbudget, whatever it takes, even ifyour primary responsibility is tobe sure the county budget is bal-anced.Youmust favor, and live up to,

abstinence before marriage.You must be faithful to your

spouse. Your spouse cannot be aperson of the same gender, andyou are not allowed to favor anygovernment action that wouldallow for civil unions of people ofthe same sex.You cannot now, from themo-

ment you sign this pledge, look at

pornography.You must have:“A compassionate and moral

approach to Teen Pregnancy;”“A commitment to Peace

Through Strength in Foreign Pol-icy;” and“A high regard for United

States Sovereignty.”These are just a few of the 28

principles of Republicanism,some taken from the Jeffersonianview of democracy, that candi-dates must pledge to adhere to ifthey want to be allowed on theLaurens County Republican pri-

mary ballot.These are in addition to the

qualifications outlined in statelaw.Bobby Smith, chairman of the

Laurens County RepublicanParty, said “AResolution of TheLaurens County Republican Party

regarding The Qualifications ofCandidates for the Primary Bal-lot” was passed unanimously bythe executive committee onTues-day, Feb. 28.A candidate who was at the

executive committee meeting lastweek said themembers of the ex-ecutive committee met in opensession for about 30 minutes be-fore asking everyone else to leavethe room.After about an hour, the meet-

ing was re-opened and Smith an-nounced the resolution had beenadopted. The meeting was thenadjourned and the committeemembers would not answer anyquestions.The candidate, who asked not

to be identified, said he is puzzledby the action.“I think themajority of the Re-

Republicans, 11A

By Vic MacDonald &

Larry Franklin

For The Chronicle

GOP wants candidates to sign pledge, pass interview

B ll S i ’ d i C i l R d

With the nation watching,Laurens County Republicansare clarifying a position re-garding its loyalty litmus test.The Chronicle’s initial story

about the test - and a pledgethat Republican candidates arebeing called on to sign (see

story on this page) - has at-tracted nationwide attention.There were 9,000 visitors

on Monday to www.clin-tonchronicle.com, where theinformation first appeared, andmore that 600,000 hits to thesite. The initial story had12,326 page views.A segment about the pledge

is on Fox News Carolina andWSPA-TV, and the story has

been picked up by the Associ-ated Press, appearing in News-day.The Huffington Post’s blog

commentary about the loyaltylitmus test has 895 commentsposted. Talking Points Memohas 654 comments and 68,488views.Not all comments are

posted; each comment goesthrough a vetting process to

eliminate vulgarities from ap-pearing on these national sites.The electronic comments

section for www.clintonchron-icle.com has been disabled, inpart because of a concernabout the vulgar language.The Huffington Post had

629 comments from its readers

County party backs off requirement after story goes viralBy Vic MacDonald

Staff Writer

Viral, 11A

ENTERPRISE REPORTINGWeekly Over 6,000 Division

THIRD PLACE:Free TimesAnna Gelbman Edmonds

14 April 11-17, 2012 | free-times.comcoverstory

Living in LimboForeign Students Caught Between U.S., Home Countriesstory By Anna Gelbman Edmonds

photos by thomas hammond

Despite what her passport says, Mariam Ashour is now a citizen of Nowhere. She lives in a dorm room in Columbia.

She calls Gaza City, Palestine, her home. But her visa has expired. She’s not sure when she’ll be able to return home.

hope of seeing them anytime soon, either. Official regulations on entry and exit require-ments, customs and other matters in Gaza are subject to change without prior notice. To re-enter Gaza, Ashour must pass through one of the checkpoints at Israel’s borders with Jordan or Egypt. To do so requires certain documents. But she can’t be sure of which documents to bring, because only the check-point personnel determine which documents are required on any given day. Even if she happened to have the proper documenta-tion, she would need permission to cross the border into Gaza. That permission is rarely granted.

Ashour is trapped. Unless she’s awarded a full scholarship to graduate school, she’ll be required to leave the U.S. An unlikely re-

entry into Gaza would mean almost certain confinement in a land suffering from severe sanctions and extreme poverty. Obtaining another exit visa and permission to cross the border again would be next to impossible. When asked what her alternatives are, she cocks her head and shrugs her shoulders.

Ashour is just one of many foreign college students in the Columbia area who are living their dream of getting an American educa-tion, but who either cannot or dare not visit their native countries when classes break.

The college years can be stressful under the best circumstances. But for this group of students, cultural acclimation, language bar-riers, financial concerns and isolation from family make for high anxiety in their day-to-day lives and plans for the future.

Ashour, 22, is a refugee of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. That’s what’s printed in her passport. She’s also a senior at Columbia College, majoring in business administration and minoring in art. She’s involved in the campus Model United Nations, has complet-ed two summer internships on Capitol Hill and is often found in the school computer lab, where she works at the information technology help desk with her best friend, 21-year-old Farzona Hakimova of Tajikistan.

Both young women are soft-spoken and gentle. Ashour smiles warmly at students who approach her for help in the computer

lab and is quick to answer their questions. She defers to Hakimova when she needs help herself. Only their faint accents give away that they’re foreign students. Ashour and Hakimova are popular among their peers and are model students.

One difference between them, though, is that Hakimova goes home every summer.

Since Israel designated Gaza “under siege” in 2007, it’s nearly impossible for anyone to go in or come out. Ashour got out in 2008, barely, but she hasn’t been back and hasn’t seen her family in the three years she’s been in the United States. She doesn’t hold

22-year-old Mariam Ashour is a senior at Columbia College. She left her home of Gaza in 2008, but she

has been unable to return because entering or leaving the territory is highly restricted.


SECOND PLACE:Charleston City PaperPaul Bowers

Jonathan Boncek

THERE ARE 360 VACANT PROPERTIES IN CHARLESTON, INCLUDING THIS HOUSE AT 227 NASSAU ST., BUT IT CAN BE A TOUGH TASK TO FIX THEM UP AND ATTRACT NEW RESIDENTS

Troublesome HousesTales of squatters, crime, and new life in Charleston’s vacant homes

BY PAUL BOWERS

NEWSN

An hour before sunrise, according to a police report, a woman with lacerations on her upper thigh stood naked in the down-town street and flagged down a passing trucker. After police arrived and wrapped her in a blanket, she told them that a man had bought her a beer, convinced her to follow him into the empty house on Line Street to drink it, and then threatened to break her neck while he raped her. She finally escaped through an open window.

Later that same day, a demolition crew arrived to start tearing down the house at 47½ Line St. The seeds of the 92-year-old house’s destruction had been sown three years ago, when a code enforcement officer from the City of Charleston first contacted the owner about violations on the property, but the timing made it look like an act of divine vengeance.

According to Dan Riccio, the city’s director of livability, there are 360 vacant

properties within city limits, almost all of them on the peninsula. For Riccio, a retired cop who spent 23 years at the Charleston Police Department, the work isn’t just about keeping up appearances in a tourist town — it’s about preventing crime. He and seven code enforcement officers pay regular visits to empty houses to make sure the owners are keeping up with the city’s minimum stan-dards: No Trespassing signs on the property, sound structural integrity, no gaps where rain can get in, and boards over the doors and windows to keep out intruders.

“It’s a neverending battle,” Riccio says, “because we can get a house boarded, but the criminal element’s going to break in again.” Riccio has worked with the Livability Court for its entire 10-year existence, first as a police officer assigned to enforce court orders

and then as a civilian director, and he has seen what goes wrong when vagrants take up residence in the Holy City’s troubled houses. The problem becomes especially dangerous in the winter months, when people try to set fires indoors to keep warm. This past winter, the Charleston Fire Department investigated fires in vacant houses at 61 Amherst St. and 55 Poinsett St. and determined that they were started accidentally by vagrants.

47½ Line St.In his sparsely decorated office within the Department of Planning, Preservation, and Sustainability on Calhoun Street, Riccio pulls up the case file for 47½ Line St., which

The vacant house at 47½ Line St. was an architectural study in doom. Broken windows were open to intruders and the elements, the yard was a sea of discarded clothes and warped plywood, and the interior was in shambolic decay. On July 20, the unthinkable happened inside its buckling walls.

continued on page 16


FIRST PLACE:Free TimesCorey Hutchins

16 March 21-27, 2012 | free-times.comcoverstory

South Carolina Receives

Failing Grade in Nationwide

Survey of State

Government

Corruption

State of Corruption

F

To stroll through the State House grounds in Columbia is to behold by many accounts a memorial to the failures of human integrity. There’s a towering statue of “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, the one-eyed savage racist. There’s a

bust of Marion Sims, noted as the father of American gynecology, who performed extensive experimental surgery on slave women without anesthesia before operating on upper-class whites. Then there are statues of former Gov. James Byrnes, a defender of segregation, and of Strom Thurmond the Dixiecrat.

And flying high in the middle of the grounds is a defiant Confederate flag.

Inside the State House it’s no better, observes John Crangle, a retired attorney and lobbyist who has run the state chapter of Common Cause for 25 years and teaches political science at Limestone College.

“John C. Calhoun, one of the biggest disasters that would ever be inflicted on any state — guess what — he’s right in the middle of the lobby,” Crangle says of another statue. “You might almost say that the State House grounds is a Jurassic Park; you have to be some kind of prehistoric monster in order to be memorialized over there.”

Modern corruption in South Carolina government is legendary, benchmarked by a legislative vote-buying scandal in the early 1990s that was broken up by the feds and dubbed Operation Lost Trust.

Since then, the Palmetto State has continued to suffer from the failures of integrity in its politicians, such as from former Gov. Mark Sanford who used a taxpayer-funded trip in 2009 to carry on an affair with a woman in Argen-tina, and former Lt. Gov. Ken Ard, who was indicted on public corrup-tion charges earlier this month.

And right now, South Carolina could benefit from a federal probe similar to that of Operation Lost Trust, says outgoing Democratic Rep. Boyd Brown of Fairfield County.

“From what I see going on on a daily basis at the State House, we’re primed for another inves-tigation,” Brown says.

One of the youngest law-makers in the General Assembly, Brown says the perception of widespread corruption under the dome is one of the main reasons why he’s not run-ning for re-election.

“I tell people all the time that I got elected thinking I could change the world, but the only thing that’s going to change is myself and I’m not going to become one of those sorts of people,” Brown says. “When people are putting their self interests over that of the public, it’s time for folks to go, whether it’s at

BY COREY HUTCHINS

ENTERPRISE REPORTINGWeekly 2/3 Times Division

THIRD PLACE:The Lancaster NewsJesef Williams

TO CARRY...OR NOT TO CARRYThe need for self-protection

Residents bear arms in response to violent crimes Jesef Williams

[email protected]

Crystal Roney keeps a pistol on her bedroom night stand.

During road trips, it’s in her car’s glove compartment. And

now, she wants to have it on her body at all times.

When Roney moved into a new house about two years ago, she decided to take a gun-safety class, given that she’d be living alone.

But after hearing the news of recent murders, assaults and other violent crimes, Roney wants to take things a step fur-ther by obtaining a concealed-weapons permit.

That will allow her to carry a

handgun with her, versus only storing it in her home or vehicle. And by the sound of things, she’s part of an ever-growing group.

Roney, a Lancaster resident, took a self-defense and gun-safety class in 2010, which was

facilitated by Maj. Matt Shaw of the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office.

Roney said she didn’t know the state’s gun laws and wanted to

See CARRY | Page 8A


SECOND PLACE:The Lancaster NewsJesef Williams

There’s

GOLDin the ground

of southern Lancaster Co.

PHOTOS BY JESEF WILLIAMS/[email protected]

Here’s an up-close look at a piece of ore that contains sliv-ers of gold. Haile Gold Mine Inc. estimates the ore body at its site is about 1.5 miles long.

Haile Gold Mine continues to explore while waiting on permits

Jesef [email protected]

KERSHAW – A tour of the Haile Gold Mine property may remind you of the field trips elementary school students take with their science class.

There’s plenty of land to explore. The natural outdoors surround you. Unfa-miliar terminology is used periodically, as a facilitator talks in detail about the wetlands, wildlife and natural resourc-es close by.

In this case, gold is the most impor-tant resource – the one that is expected to yield economic vitality for at least the next 10 to 15 years in southern Lan-caster County.

What’s going on? Things have remained quite busy at

Haile Gold Mine, the historic site a few miles east of the town of Kershaw that was first mined in the 1800s.

In 2007, Canadian company Romar-co Minerals Inc. bought the property, which includes 4,300 acres of land – some of which borders U.S. 601 near Kershaw Correctional Institution.

Haile Gold Mine Inc. – a subsidiary of Romarco Minerals – continues to do exploratory drilling at the site. Analyses of ore samples are conducted regularly, all in an effort to gauge where the larg-est concentrations of gold may be found.

However, construction of mining fa-cilities and the actual mining can’t be-gin until the company receives a wet-lands permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Last month, the Corps held an open meeting at Kershaw’s Andrew Jackson

Recreation Center, where residents were able to ask questions related to Romarco’s permitting process.

David Thomas, general manager for Haile Gold Mine Inc. (HGM), said he was glad to see community members come out to the event. Nearly 200 peo-ple attended.

Some locals such as Brace Howard

say they are “on the fence” about HGM’s presence in the community.

“We need the jobs, but if it messes up the environment, I’m against it,” How-ard said.

Thomas said HGM’s practices ensure that streams and other wetlands won’t be harmed. He expects to receive the

Charlie Foote, chief assayer at Kershaw Mineral Lab, displays a test tube that contains a very small pebble-shaped gold sample. This is after the ore had been crushed and heated, which separated the gold and silver from all the other elements in the ore.

See GOLD | Page 8A


FIRST PLACE:The Press & Standard

George SalsberryBurglary victim fi nally fi nds concerns eased

LIFESTYLE FEATURE WRITINGWeekly Under 6,000 Division

THIRD PLACE:Lee County Observer

Lil TurnerDown on the farm


SECOND PLACE:Coastal ObserverCharles Swenson

The newparanormal

BY CHARLES SWENSONCOASTAL OBSERVER

As the bright sun streams through the ballroom windows on the second floor of the Litchfield Plantation house Steven Hicks sits at an antique desk and stares at a grainy video playing on a laptop computer. This is the grunt work for a paranormal investigator.

But it will be dark in a couple of hours.

Hicks is the founder of Lost Souls Paranormal, a group of 26 investigators with chapters now in Savannah, Atlan-ta and Aiken, where Hicks lives. He and five other members spent the weekend at Litchfield Plantation’s colonial home looking for signs of the afterlife, the spirits that have made generations of visitors at least a little uncomfortable if not downright fearful with a medley of ringing bells, footsteps and things that go bump in the night.

It didn’t take long for the Lost Souls to connect with the tradition. They were sitting in the living room Friday night after setting up their seven infrared video camera. There was a distinct chill in the room, centered on a particular chair. “It was cold as ice,” Hicks said.

A device that measures magnetic fields was placed on the chair. Glenn Zimmerman of Edgefield, the newest member, but an old hand at things para-normal, was reading aloud about Alice Flagg, a legendary spirit from Murrells Inlet. The device, known as a K2, lit up.

That was only the start. The camer-as serve two purposes: watching when

the investigators are oc-cupied with other things and providing playback for those “did you see what I saw” moments. Sometime during the night a ball of light moved across the camera trained on the top of the stairway. An in-sect? A reflection? Or what investigators call an orb?

The Lost Souls don’t know, but they have the tape to study.

And along with the vid-eo, there’s a soundtrack. Re-corders capture sounds beyond what the human ear can regis-ter. Friday night, those sounds included a series of “pongs” that, when played back on a computer, may also have included a voice.

Again, they don’t know for sure, but the recording came from a room that used to belong to Dr. Henry Tucker, the plantation’s best know spirit.

“We got some intelligence,” Hicks said.

Dr. Tucker was the third genera-tion of Tuckers to own the property. He lived there until 1897, when he sold the plantation. He was said to ring a bell outside the plantation gate when he returned at night from vis-iting patients. Some believe the habit continued after his death in 1904.

“If there is a ghost, I want to know about it,” said John Miller, president

SEE “TEAM,” PAGE 16

Photos by Charles Swenson/Coastal Observer

Steven Hicks, left, founder of Lost Souls Paranormal, says the team tries to respect the properties as well as the spirits they investigate. At Litchfield Plan-tation last week-end, he set up a magnetic sensor and a camera in the attic, top. The equipment, below, takes various mea-surements at different levels of sensitivity. They used the devices to find spirits in the living room on Sat-urday night, bottom photos.

A haunted past makesLitchfield Plantationfertile ground for Lost Souls


FIRST PLACE:Coastal ObserverRoger Greene

BY ROGER GREENECOASTAL OBSERVER

It’s just a little past 8 a.m. on a recent blustery morning and already Flick, a 19-week old male Harris hawk, is a whirl-wind of activity. Gracefully swooping from perch to perch amongst the trees that dot the landscape around the Pawleys Island area home of falconer Ab Wilkinson, Flick appears to be at ease.

He keeps his attention fo-cused on Wilkinson and the cu-rious neighborhood dog who has wandered over to check out the flurry of activity on the fal-coner’s property. When sum-moned, Flick lights upon the heavy glove that covers Wilkin-

son’s left hand and wrist. He wears strong leather jess straps – which function like anklets – around his legs, though on this morning they are mostly un-necessary for control, providing further evidence of the temper-ament that makes the Harris hawk so popular with falconers.

Especially those like Wilkin-son, who are still in the appren-tice stage.

“Harris hawks are much more sociable than other rap-tors,” Wilkinson said. “They’re curious, they want to see what you are doing. Falconry is such a natural sport for me to be in-volved in. I’ve always been an animal person. And there issomething about these birds

SEE “FALCONRY,” PAGE 3

HawkishFalconry isn’t just a hobby,it’s a ‘rage,’ says Ab Wilkinson


Ab Wilkinson and Flick during a morning workout.

LIFESTYLE FEATURE WRITINGWeekly Over 6,000 Division

THIRD PLACE:The Greer CitizenKrista Gibson

LIVING HEREWEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

B

BY KRISTA GIBSON STAFF WRITER

Mr. Tony returned to Greer last week to pick up his latest colorful prop: a

1996 Fleetwood Cadillac hearse painted in a tie-dyed pattern of bright pink, yellow, blue, green and red.

The man in the hot pink unitard with a matching pink wig is building his arsenal of happiness and taking it all back to Las Vegas, his new home. Tony Walter, a.k.a. Mr. Tony and formerly Tony the Dance Machine, is ready to make a splash as an entertainer in the city known for larger than life productions.

“I’m a tie-dyed dance su-per hero. I’m spreading out the fun and saving people from sadness,” Walter said. “I was unlucky in life so I had to do something.”

Along with his suit-case filled with color-ful unitards, wigs and

shoes, Mr. Tony has

added the hearse, custom painted by Chuck

Whitlock of Metal Art Customs and a gun called the Happy Howitzer that will shoot Mr. Tony tie-dyed t-shirts or “fun,” as Walter said.

“I am such a happy guy, rid-ing in my hearse,” Walter said.

“I needed a plexiglass coffin and some girls to carry me around. Since they can’t carry me for long, I needed a hearse with windows.”

He and photographer and videographer Dave Serdinak

are driving the Happy Hearse back to Las Vegas, visiting

colleges and universities along the way. Walter will don his costumes and crank up his dance music

at the

schools, bringing an

impromptu party to the campuses.

He has a new choreographer for his crazy dancing who works with Cirque de Soleil and a new record producer for his CD of dance tunes called “Living the Extreme,” due later this year.

“It’s being mixed and mas-tered in Florida right now,” Walter said. His producer is Tommy Marolda, a Grammy-award winning producer. “He said I was so different from anybody else that I’m going to make it.”

Different is an apt descrip-tion of the man who changed his course in life after a series of losses. Walter came to the Upstate from Germany in 2004 to work as an automotive engi-neer. Just two years after arriv-ing, his beloved cat died from stomach cancer after being a part of his life for 13 years. Ten days later, his dog died after surgery meant to cure him.

The next year, his wife, home-sick for Germany, left to go back. A month later, she filed for divorce. Their marriage of nine years broke up.

Then he lost his job. He felt as if he had no control over any part of his life and he sank into sadness.

One evening to get away from the pain,

Tony went to a nightclub. He

decided

to get up and dance. It didn’t matter that he danced all by himself. As he moved to the music, something changed within him.

He smiled. He felt hope for the first time in a long time and a desire to fight

the sadness that had enveloped him. He danced

and danced, letting go more and more each time. He made new friends and

they started calling him

“Tony the Dance Machine”.

He started getting paid to dance and decided to pursue this new persona full time.

That was a few years ago. In January, he left for Las Vegas for a bigger stage. “I’m taking all these crazy steps to make it even bigger. I’m enjoying doing this. It’s totally great for me,” Walter said. “I’m far out of the box.”

In one of his songs, Walter sings, “This is a story of a man who was living in a foreign land. He had a constant dream that he’d be seen with all the stars and fancy cars.”

That dream is finally coming true.

[email protected] | 877-2076

‘I’m taking all these

crazy steps to make it

bigger.’

Mr. Tony

Mr. Tony moves to‘I’m a tie-dyed dance super hero. I’m spreading out the fun

and saving people from sadness.’Mr. Tony

PHOTO | SUBMITTED

NEW PROJECTS: He’s not just a dancer now. Tony Walter has also recorded a music CD as Mr. Tony.

MANDY FERGUSON | THE GREER CITIZEN

IN GREER: Mr. Tony stopped by The Greer Citizen offi ce to show off his new tie-dyed hearse.


SECOND PLACE:The Horry Independent

Heather GaleDarla the deer makes way into family’s heart


FIRST PLACE:Free TimesEva Moore

16 free-times.com | twitter.com/freetimessc | facebook.com/freetimes | May 9-15, 2012coverstory

Years ago, when William Addy was a student at the University of South Carolina, he took a friend out to dig through dumpsters for food.

Urban Foragers

Weeds, Dumpsters and Other Unconventional

Eating

“You know, teach a man to fi sh, he’ll eat forever,” Addy says. “So I was like, ‘Hey man, come with me and I’ll show you kind of what I’m doing.’ He wanted to dumpster, but I feel like if I take him with me, then I can teach him the respect for it — because I’ll go, and if there’s garbage outside of [the dumpster] aft er I’m done, I’ll clean all that up. Leave it better than when you found it.”

Th ey were at a dumpster behind a Cayce business — Addy was actually inside the dumpster — and a cop pulled up and asked

what they were doing. Addy describes the rest of conversation.“Looking for food,” Addy answered. “What do you mean you’re looking for

food?” “We’re looking for food.” “You guys go to school around here?”“Yeah, I go to USC; he goes to Midlands

Tech.”“Don’t they have some kind of program

where you’re not eating out of the garbage?” ‘I was like, ‘Yeah, but it’s expensive.’ He

was like, ‘Get out of here, go get some real food.’ He was kind of being an ass, but he was being nice at the same time,” Addy says.

Th e cop was enforcing the law: Digging through dumpsters is oft en considered tres-passing. But he was also enforcing a stigma against eating what most people consider garbage.

To most of us, the line between Food and Not Food is bright and crisp. Th ere’s the stuff you buy at the grocery store, or grow in your garden, or are served at a restaurant. Th at’s food. But the unwanted weeds growing in between your carefully planted tomatoes and cucumbers? Not food. Once something’s been tossed in the trash, it’s garbage. Not food.

But to some people, that line is fuzzier. Not because they can’t aff ord to buy food — not usually. It’s because they believe we should think more carefully about where our food comes from. Th ey worry about the enormous amount of food that’s wasted by restaurants, grocery stores and consumers.

And they want to fi nd alternatives to the regular industrial food supply chain.

Americans, according to one govern-ment study cited by the New York Times, waste about 27 percent of the food that passes through that supply chain.

To eat outside the system, some people forage for mushrooms and wild plants. Some grow as much of their own food as pos-sible, keep chickens for eggs, trade for other foods. And some pick through dumpsters for food. Some of these people dub themselves “freegans” and identify with a slew of other anti-consumerist ideologies. For others, it’s more about sustainable agriculture and en-vironmentalism. Others skip the labels. But whether they’re inspired by punk ideology or by the green movement, people who manage to eat outside the regular food system are few and far between in a city like Columbia.

Th ere are legal considerations. It’s il-legal to remove or damage plants on public property in most places, including Columbia. Although the landscaping crews at city parks

By E va Moore photos by jonathan sharpe

William Addy searches a grocery store dumpster in West Columbia on Sunday afternoon, fi nding only a bag

of bagels. Addy says the best time to “dumpster” is at night, just after

the stores close, when food has just been discarded. He also notes that fl ies are less of a problem at night.

LIFESTYLE FEATURE WRITINGWeekly 2/3 Times Division

THIRD PLACE:The News and ReporterNancy Parsons

GREAT FALLS PAGESPages 1B – 3B

CLASSIFIEDSPages 5-B – 6-B

PUBLIC RECORDSPage 4-B

BY NANCY [email protected]

“Semper Fi (Fidelis).” It is a Latin term used as

the motto for the U.S. Marine Corps meaning always faith-ful.

A Marine will tell you that the phrase goes beyond teamwork – it is a brother-hood that can always be counted on.

And 45 years later, friends Preston “Hambone” Brown of Great Falls and Sam Faile of Rock Hill realize how strong the brotherhood formed in their early 20’s is.

Brown grew up in Chester and moved to Great Falls with his parents when he was five-years-old. After graduation, he played base-ball and attended a semester at Elon University. He also attended the University of South Carolina for a while but a knee injury prevented him from signing a letter of intent.

Brown said a Marine Corps recruiter kept encour-aging him to enter the Corps so at 21-years-old, he signed

up for three years of military service.

Faile grew up in Rock Hill. He remembers the bus ride from Charlotte that car-

ried he, Brown and a few other young men from the Rock Hill, Clover and Charlotte, N.C. area to basic training at Marine Corps

Recruit Depot Parris Island in 1964.

The bus traveled through Rock Hill and Great Falls and stopped in Columbia for

the soon-to-be recruits to eat their last meal before step-ping on the island for 13-weeks of basic training. Faile remembers an African American on the bus who was made to sit alone.

Faile, then 20, said the experience opened his eyes to the ugliness of prejudice.

“I’m not prejudice any more,” Faile said. “You are friends, not black and white, you are brothers. The best things in life are friends.”

Brown and Faile joined 76 other men in Platoon 127 at Parris Island. They said the training was intense and challenging.

“It was tough,” Brown said. “They were in your face

all the time.”After basic training, the

two moved on to Camp Geiger, part of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, for six weeks of infantry training. At the end of the training, the Marines were scheduled for a 30-day leave. But the leave was cut in half and they had to return to base.

Their next move was to Camp Pendleton, Ca.

“We were getting ready to go to our first duty sta-tion,” Faile said. “They told us that we came to the west coast for a training exercise, but they were blowing smoke. We were among the first big

Marine buddies reunite after 45 years

BY NANCY PARSONS/GREAT FALLS REPORTERU.S. Marine buddies Sam Faile, right, and Hambone Brown got together last week for the second time in 45 years. The men trained together at Parris Island and were deployed to Vietnam together. Looking through a photo album and Marine Corps annual brought back a lot of memories for the two.

See MARINES, Page 3-B


SECOND PLACE:The News and ReporterNancy Parsons





Tracy Moss Stolarski did what many women would love to do.

She met George Clooney.“It was one of the most thrilling

things I’ve ever done,” Stolarski said.

Stolarski of Atlanta, Ga., for-merly of Great Falls, is the daugh-ter of the late Charles and Elizabeth “Lib” Moss.

She and her best friend, Ann Winter of Augusta, Ga., traveled to the Wortham Center in Houston, Texas to attend the Brilliant Lec-ture Series on May 3.

The BLS is a non-profit organi-zation that supports young people and their families, particularly stu-dents from under-represented por-tions of society in their journey through life.

Stolarski said she attended the lecture in hopes of meeting Clooney after reading he also suffered a spine/head injury and is leaking cerebrospinal fluid.

Stolarski suffered a CSF (an escape of the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord) leak.

The best friends were thrilled to find their seats on the eighth row.

Stolarski carried with her all of her returned letters, cards, litera-ture, etc. in hopes of finding a way to get them to Clooney.

She had a program for the event but didn’t look at it. When Winter showed her that audience ques-tions were included on the pro-gram, Stolarski’s heart raced.

“Oh my gosh! Would I have a chance to ask a question?” Stolarski pondered.

About five minutes before the interview began, a sound guy put a microphone in the aisle one row behind the women.

“I was excited to know I might have a chance at being first in line to ask a question,” Stolarski said.

But to Stolarski’s dismay, lots of other people were already coming down the aisle to the microphone.

Stolarski shares CSF experience with movie star

PHOTO PROVIDEDTracy Stolarski took the microphone during a lecture /interview where George Clooney, left, was the guest speaker. Stolarski found a way to ask Clooney a question.

j

See STOLARSKI, Page 3-B


FIRST PLACE:The Gaff ney LedgerScott Powell

By SCOTT POWELLLedger Staff [email protected]

Andrew Poeng carefully dips a hotdoughnut into melted chocolate Thursdaybefore sprinkling a coat of chocolate chipsover the top of the pastry.

Poeng places the chocolate bar onto anoven rack at 6 a.m. as his dad, Sunny, cooksan apple doughnut pastry inside the kitchenat Sunny’s Donuts in Gaffney. The 26-year-old Poeng is learning the homemade familyrecipes his dad concocted to develop a pop-ular doughnut shop in Ukiah, Calif.

For 17 years, Sunny Poeng would leavehis family at midnight and stay awake allnight to put together the tasty doughnuts.His family recipes are now being passedonto his son Andrew who has restartedSunny’s Donuts as his first business atLogan and Granard streets.

Speciality items include “Tiger Claws”filled with cinnamon and apple chunks, but-termilk bars, and chocolate chip bars bakedin chocolate chip dough. The doughnuts areserved with locally roasted coffee fromBroad River Coffee Roasters in BoilingSprings, N.C.

There is more than just doughnuts atwork here, though, as Andrew Poeng fol-lows in his father’s footsteps to pursue theAmerican Dream.

Andrew became the first college graduatein his family when he earned his degree atAppalachian State University four yearsago. He sees his effort to own and operate abusiness as a symbol of the freedoms hisparents were denied in Cambodia.

“We are a working family,” Andrew said.“We have never taken any vacations be-cause my parents always had to open thebusiness to support their family. Now Ihave been given a chance to live a dream

that was taken away from them by earningan education and starting my own busi-ness.”

His parents, Sunny and Lang, survivedthe Khmer Rouge silent genocide institutedby Pol Pot from 1975-1979. Pol Pot and hisguerilla followers ruthlessly imposed an ex-tremist program to reconstruct Cambodiaon the communist model of Maoist China.

Residents in the towns and cities fledunder the threat of death.

Lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers,scientists and professional people in anyfield were murdered, together with their ex-tended families.

“It was possible for people to be shotsimply for knowing a foreign language,wearing glasses, laughing, or crying,” An-drew said.

One Khmer slogan ran ‘To spare you isno profit, to destroy you is no loss.’

People who escaped murder became un-paid laborers, surviving on minimum ra-tions and working long hours. They sleptand ate in uncomfortable communes delib-erately chosen to be as far as possible fromtheir old homes.

“Children were not allowed to have aneducation. They just wanted us to work,”recalled Lang Poeng, Andrew’s mother.“They would give us only one meal a day.It was a cup with a little rice and water. Peo-ple soon became weak from overwork andstarvation. Many people got sick and died.”

Sunny Poeng attempted to escape Cam-bodia on three occasions. The first twotimes he was captured and returned to thecountry by Thailand soldiers.

Sunny found freedom by walking acrossa mountain, relying only on water for suste-nance. His journey included crossing minefields and sleeping with dead bodies atnight in order to escape detection.

“My father has lived through horrors I

can only imagine,” Andrew Poeng said. “Itwas really tough for him, but he faced cer-tain death if he had not escaped Cambodia.He met my mother while they lived on aUnited Nations Red Cross refugee camp forCambodia residents in Thailand for a yearand half. They married and moved withtheir family to New York in search of a bet-ter life.”

The Poengs spent six years in Connecti-cut before settling in Ukiah, a city of 15,000people in northern California. They openedtheir first doughnut shop as part of a Chi-nese restaurant in a shopping center.

Lang became a U.S. citizen in 1990 while

hopes the gas station will become knownfor another reason.

Andrew opened his own Sunny’s Donutsstore on Oct. 3 in Gaffney.

While there are still a few stores with thisname in California, none have the secretrecipes Andrew is now learning from his fa-ther. He was even able to locate an Atlantafood distributor so he can order the sameflour his dad used to make doughnuts inCalifornia.

“It’s a funny story actually,” Andew said.“During my teenage years, I once told myparents in my teenage voice, ‘I hate thedoughnut shop. I will never work in the

Sunny Poeng shapesone of the doughnutrecipes he createdfor the Sunny’sDonuts shop heowned in California.Sunny is a refugeefrom Cambodia whoescaped the KhmerRouge silent geno-cide instituted by PolPot from 1975-79.His son, Andrew, hasestablished his ownSunny’s Donuts in-side the Sunny’sQuick Stop conven-ience store his par-ents have operatedsince moving toKings Mountain, N.C.eight years ago.

Andrew Poeng carefully dips a doughnut into melted chocolate and covers the freshly made pastry in chocolate chips Oct. 4 to prepare for his secondday operating his new Sunny’s Donuts business.

(Ledger photo/ SCOTT POWELL)

Poeng seeks sweeter end to doughnut story

BEST PUBLISHED FEATURE STORYAssociate/Individual Division

THIRD PLACE:Murrells Inlet MessengerTim Callahan

Continued on page 14

By Tim CallahanA motorcycle wreck that broke bones in his

neck and back was not the worse thing to hap-pen to John “Smokey” Calhoun in 2010.Four months after the accident, John’s 29-year-

old son, Austin, accidentally died from an alco-hol and drug overdose.A believer, Smokey doesn’t blame God.He blames himself.It was him who snorted percocet and then took

off on his motorcycle that fateful night. It was him that his son was following in the footsteps of with drug and alcohol abuse. And, it is him who has to dig himself out of the pit of shame and despair, a hole he couldn’t fathom rising out from without the help of God, and his wife, Carla, who has stuck with him in good, bad and ugly times.One of the ways he and Carla envision good

coming out of bad is by John telling his story and hoping others won’t imitate him like his son did.It is a story that, two years later, John still can’t

tell without bursting into tears. “I remember snorting percocet, and the next

thing I remember is waking up in Murrells In-let in rehab,” John said. (Carla said when John “woke up” he had actually been in the hospital for weeks. He just didn’t know it. He was “out of it,” she said.)“The wreck was on Pennyroyal Road in

Georgetown,” he said, “I broke four bones in

Don’t be like Smokey


SECOND PLACE:S.C. United Methodist AdvocateJessica Connor


FIRST PLACE:SCBIZMatt Tomsic

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NEWS FEATURE WRITINGWeekly Under 6,000 Division

THIRD PLACE:Coastal ObserverJason Lesley

BY JASON LESLEYCOASTAL OBSERVER

James Earl Richardson Jr. was a big baby, 9 pounds at birth. His mother called him “Scoopy” because he was such an arm load to scoop up.

Thanks to his grandparents, Irvin and Albertha Richardson of Waverly Road, Scoopy, 18, was planning to make some-thing of himself. He liked to write songs. He was waiting on a callback for a part-time job and hoping to join the Navy after he finished Waccamaw High.

None of those things willSEE “FAMILY,” PAGE 2

Who killed Scoopy?Family still searching for answerstwo months after Parkersville shooting

New evidence sent to crime labInvestigators have turned

up “a major piece of evidence” in the investigation into the death of James Earl Richard-son Jr., Assistant Sheriff Cart-er Weaver said.

Weaver said the evidence has been sent to the state crime lab for analysis.

Two full-time investigators are working the case.

The body of Richardson, right, was found alongside Parkersville Road on May 25. He had multiple gunshot wounds to the torso.

“We have a good rela-tionship with the family,” Weaver said Tuesday. “We owe them the justice.”

A n y o n e with infor-mation about

the homicide may call the sher-iff’s office at 546-5010 or send an anonymous tip by text mes-sage to 274637. Text GCSOTIP followed by the message.


SECOND PLACE:Marion Star & Mullins Enterprise

Naeem McFaddenGraduate’s journey from homelessness to Ivy League


FIRST PLACE:Union County NewsAnna Brown

Lisa Greer holds Hanna, her boxer, and Ashley and Lindsey Jarvis are shown with their Labrador retriever,Kate. Kate alerted Lisa on July 2 when Hanna was choking.

By ANNA BROWNKate the chocolate-colored

Labrador retriever and Hannathe boxer have been bestfriends practically all of theirlives.

In their Rockport subdivi-sion neighborhood, they playtogether and are guests in eachother's homes. Kate belongs tothe Rev. Robert and KellyJarvis and their daughters,Lindsey, 13 and Ashley, 16.Hanna's owners are Bobby andLisa Greer.

Their personalities are a lit-tle different. Kate is low keyand laid back. When she wantsto go out, she gently nuzzles

the doorknob. Hanna, on theother hand, is exuberant andwhen she wants out shescratches heartily - so muchthat the Greers had to putPlexiglas on their door to pro-tect it.

So, when Kate beganscratching the door of theGreer home on the evening ofJuly 2, it didn't take Lisa longto figure out something waswrong.

“I was cooking dinner andhad just fed Hanna her dinnerand she wanted to go outside,”Lisa said. “I saw Kate when Iopened the door - that is usu-ally the only way I know she

is there - if I open the door.She doesn't scratch on mydoor, she doesn't bump thedoor for treats; she just liesthere patiently.”

A few minutes later Lisaheard a scratch on the door.She opened it, saw Kate there,spoke to her, shut the door andwent back to cooking.

“A minute later shescratched again,” Lisa said. “Iopened the door and said,'What's wrong with you? Youdon't scratch.' I didn't even getthe door shut and shescratched twice in a row, realfast. I opened the door and

Four-legged heroDog alerts neighbor when best friend needs help

See HERO, Page 2

NEWS FEATURE WRITINGWeekly Over 6,000 Division

THIRD PLACE:The Fort Jackson LeaderMike A. Glasch

Soldier’s letters returned after 43 yearsBy MIKE A. GLASCHPublic Affairs Office

Photo by SGT. GRANT MATTHES, 101st Airborne Division

Lt. Col. Townley Hedrick, deputy commander, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, presents four letters from Sgt. Steve Flaherty to Flaherty’s sister-in-law Martha Gibbons and his uncle Kenneth Cannon on Saturday at a ceremony at Columbia’s Vietnam War Memorial. Flaherty wrote the letters before he was killed in Vietnam in 1969.

FLAHERTY



Tom O’DareGod’s Grace


FIRST PLACE:Charleston City PaperPaul Bowers

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Backing off toward the house, Wright watched as the blaze consumed 900 pounds of peanuts and melted down the walls of 50-gallon metal drums. He says firefighters arrived five to 10 minutes later and were able to put out the fire before it spread, but his equipment was already destroyed. Steel

barrels had wilted like flower petals, and the tent was warped and flapping in the wind.

Wright has been selling peanuts — boiled, fried, and roasted — for 21 years at Charleston sporting events and tourist hot spots, and he has done all of the cooking in his

own backyard. No one was injured when the fire ravaged his property, and it did not reach his house, but he estimates that he lost $10,000 worth of barrels, burners, grills, propane, and cooking supplies.

He doesn’t know what started the fire, and a Charleston Fire Department spokesman could only say that it was believed “to have been started with cooking materials.” Wright often boils his peanuts overnight, as they can take up to 14 hours to attain just the right consistency, and he says it had been about 45 min-utes since he last checked on one pot he had left boiling that night. He says he had permission from the city to cook peanuts in the yard, and he had always been careful to do his work far away from any houses. Now he doesn’t know what’s next.

“In my lifetime, I know that things can easily be turned around, so there’s no use in me getting angry or getting upset,” Wright says. “I’m walking away with a smile, and that’s what it’s all about. It’s like death. Somebody dies, you’re going to feel the pain, and then you pick yourself up from there.

“Don’t think I’m alone, now,” he adds, pointing skyward. “I’ve got a friend up there helping me out. As long as I’ve got that, it’s all good.”

Wright also has more than a few friends in Charleston, as he has discovered in the week since fire consumed the tools of his trade — his cell phone was ringing almost nonstop as he stood in the smoky ruins of his backyard peanut produc-tion line last Tuesday afternoon. Friends were calling to make sure he was OK and to see what they could do to help. As he stepped over a carpet of blackened peanut shells, a neighbor walked over to give him a handwritten note and ask if he needed someone to watch his dog, Bam Bam.

Getting the pot boilingTony the Peanut Man is a living Lowcountry legend, but he is perhaps best known as a fixture at Joseph P. Riley Jr. Stadium, home of the Charleston RiverDogs minor league baseball team. While his face has graced T-shirts and even a comic book through the years, the thing people tend to remember is the song he sings in the stands on busy nights at the park.

“Hey, hey, what I say, got some boiled and I got some toasted,” he croons in a classic Charleston brogue, launch-ing into a fast-talking sales pitch while bowing his legs and bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Dave Echols, general manager of the RiverDogs, says Wright is “definitely a mainstay ballpark character.” When fans think of the RiverDogs, they think of the Peanut Man, who has been selling at the games since the team moved to the new stadium in 1997.

“It was a foregone yes that we were going to help him as soon as we found out,” Echols says. Two days after the fire, the team started a four-game homestand against the West Virginia Power, and they decided to sell peanuts — shipped in from Cromer’s P-Nuts in Columbia — and give a portion of the profits to Wright. They also set up a donation station at Guest Services.

“When you’re a partner with somebody for that long and you run into some terrible news or bad luck or, God forbid, something like this, we certainly want to try to help as best we can,” Echols says.

As Wright discovered over the following days, he has friends in high places. Among them is Cheryll Novak Woods-Flowers, former mayor of Mt. Pleasant, who has seen Wright at so many public events, she can’t remember exactly when they first met. She says that while Wright didn’t seem to remember her over the phone, he recognized her face when they spoke in person.

The two went to a First Federal Bank on Coleman Boulevard, where Woods-Flowers helped him to set up a

donation account. Now anyone who wants to pitch in toward recouping Wright’s $10,000 loss can make a donation at any First Federal location in the tri-county area. During non-busi-ness hours, donations can be dropped in the night deposit box with a note that they are meant for Tony the Peanut Man. The bank will also deliver any notes written to Wright. (Woods-Flowers says that since the donations are not going through a non-profit organization, they are not tax-deductible.)

Susan Codistoti, the banker who helped set up the account, says a total stranger walked into the bank, spotted Wright in her office, and stepped in to say he’d like to be the first person to donate. “Word travels pretty fast,” she says.

Word also arrived at the corporate headquarters for Piggly Wiggly, and the management of the grocery store chain decided to replenish Wright’s inventory with a 900-pound donation of peanuts. “He’s a local institution, and we’ve known him for a long time and just wanted to do what we could to help him get the wheels turning again quickly — or I should maybe say get the pot boiling,” says Christopher Ibsen, director of corporate affairs for Piggly Wiggly Carolina Company.

And the donations just kept pouring in. People showed up at Wright’s house and unloaded brand-new boilers from the backs of their vehicles. One construction contractor offered free labor to help rebuild the backyard setup. A lawyer handed Wright $1,000. Fiery Ron’s Home Team BBQ lent him some portable cooking equipment so he could get back to work. And bar and restaurant owners, including Mike Lotz at Triangle Char & Bar and Mike Vitale at Torch Velet Lounge, offered up their businesses as fundraiser locations.

Woods-Flowers says Wright was overwhelmed by all the love and attention when she went to see him. “You go through your life and you just don’t know that so many people care about you,” she says.

Starting from scratch — againThis is not the first time Wright has had to start over from scratch. In 1991, he was making $17 an hour at a produc-tion control job in Lockheed Martin’s supply warehouse on Azalea Avenue when his mother asked him what he would do if the plant were to close down. “I said, ‘Mama, that plant ain’t closing,’” Wright recalls. “I think my mama put a jinx on me, because after she said that, six months later, the plant closed, and I didn’t have experience doing anything else.”

When his savings ran dry, he found himself getting in line at the unemployment office. On the way there, he ran into an old acquaintance selling peanuts on the sidewalk. The man offered him a job, but Wright said no. In fact, he turned the man down three times. “I almost let my pride get in the way,” Wright says in retrospect.

The fourth time they crossed paths, Wright stopped to consider the offer. “I said, ‘Man, why should I go and sell peanuts for you?’” he says. “He said, ‘You see that line back there?’ I said, ‘Yes sir.’ He said, ‘You deserve to get in that line, because you work. But I want you to understand that if you get in that line, you might be looking for a handout the rest of your life.’” Broken down and bankrupt, Wright took the job and started hawking peanuts for a dollar a bag.

In the time since 1991, Wright has struck out on his own, eventually employing other sellers to sling his famous salty peanuts at RiverDogs baseball games and in the City Market. Even at age 59, he will gladly sing and dance to make a sale.

For now, he is holding off on returning to a full-scale pea-nut-cooking operation until he can find a safer facility than his backyard. In the meantime, he is grateful to the numerous friends and strangers who have lent a helping hand.

“That is more than money or buying anything back,” Wright says. “I mean, what else can you ask for than that you have unknown friends that you have contributed to and some you haven’t, and they have so much concern about you? I mean, what else can you ask for in life?”

If you would like to offer help or an encouraging word, Wright can be reached at [email protected] or (843) 478-0569. You can also make a donation at any First Federal Bank in the tri-county area.

nthony Wright, the entrepreneur better known as Tony the Peanut Man, was inside his house in the West Ashley neighborhood of Maryville last Tuesday around 1 a.m. when a neighbor came banging on his door to tell him that his peanut-cooking equipment had caught fire in the backyard. The neighbor had already called the fire department, so Wright ran around the outside of the house to grab a garden hose. As he turned the corner, he “could hear the fire blooming,” and just as he got within 20 feet of the tent that covered his pots and boilers, something exploded like a firecracker. He thinks it was a propane tank.

ANTHONY WRIGHT DIDN’T WALLOW WHEN HIS PEANUT OPERATION CAUGHT FIRE — HE GOT BACK TO WORK, WITH THE HELP OF FRIENDS HE DIDN’T KNOW HE HAD

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NEWS FEATURE WRITINGWeekly 2/3 Times Division

THIRD PLACE:The News and ReporterNancy Parsons





It has been six months since Ashley Whittle was seriously injured in an indus-trial accident.

And for 24-year-old Whittle, it’s a day she’ll never forget.

Whittle had worked at Morcon, a manufacturer of paper products, for almost four months when the unex-pected happened. She was still in training and her job was to pack and box prod-ucts made at the facility.

Whittle’s long, dark hair fell to the middle of her back so she kept it pulled up in a ponytail at work.

The accident“I was facing the machine,”

Whittle said. “All I remem-ber is being pulled into the machine. It was so quick that I didn’t realize what had happened. I didn’t know what was fully going on until the doctors and my dad told me what happened.”

A section of Whittle’s scalp and forehead was torn off. Part of her scalp was still attached but a portion was totally detached.

“It started at my eye, went around the side and up to the back of my head,” she said.

“The next thing I knew, I was in the back of an ambu-lance. They said I never passed out. I knew some-thing happened but I really didn’t know what,” she said.

A medical helicopter first airlifted Whittle to Palmetto Health Richland in Columbia after the accident on Jan. 30. She doesn’t remember the flight to Columbia.

Because of the serious-ness of her injury, Whittle was loaded on to another air ambulance and transferred to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. She remembers the second flight.

“I was scared because I don’t like heights,” she said.

The surgeryDr. Kevin Delaney was

the plastic and reconstruc-tive surgeon who got the call when doctors at the Columbia hospital were trying to find a hospital who could handle Whittle’s case. After getting the call, Delaney hurriedly assembled two surgery teams and had Whittle air-lifted for the second time that day.

Delaney said a successful scalp replantation happens only a few times yearly nationwide.

“It’s difficult to treat because we have to take the tiny microscopic blood ves-sels that are still attached to the amputated scalp and, using a high-powered micro-

scope, we have to attach those tiny arteries and veins to the surrounding arteries and veins still on her head to get adequate blood flow,” Delaney said.

The vessels are one to three millimeters in size so it is delicate, painstaking work, Delaney said.

Whittle’s scalp amputa-

tion included a portion of her right eyebrow, which meant the piece of tissue that had to be sewn on was larger than usual and the vessels in the brow area were smaller, which made it even trickier.

“It was one of the most complex cases that we’ve ever had,” Delaney said.

The surgery took two

plastic surgery teams and lasted about 10 hours. One group prepped Whittle and the other cleaned the scalp that fortunately had been preserved by the first res-ponders.

“I was on both teams,” Delaney said. “I was orches-trating the entire process until we did the microsur-gery to hook the scalp up and then I was involved with that whole process.”

Doctors properly posi-tioned Whittle’s scalp back onto her head, temporarily securing it in place with sutures. Arteries and veins on the amputated scalp and that were identified and marked were unclamped and irrigated with an anti-clot-ting solution. Using the microscope, two microsur-geons worked together to hook up the ends of two to three veins between the amputated scalp and Whittle. Once the veins were hooked up, the plastic and recon-structive microsurgeons began work on the arteries. Once completed, the blood vessel micro-clamps were removed and the blood flow was restored to the ampu-tated scalp. Whittle’s scalp immediately regained its color.

The blood vessels that were joined were then evalu-ated using a Doppler machine that helps monitor the con-tinued blood flow where the vessels had been joined. Monitoring was critical.

Whittle was placed in the surgical intensive care unit where her scalp was moni-

tored on an hourly basis.“I was very talkative and

asking a lot of question when I woke up,” Whittle said.

Medicinal leeches were used to better control the blood draining properly. Whittle said she was not aware of the leech therapy at

first.She has intermittent

memories of the whole ordealbut was awake for part of theleech treatment. She said ittook some adjustment on herpart.

Whittle is modern medical marvel

BY NANCY PARSONS/GREAT FALLS REPORTERAshley Whittle had long, dark hair before an accident at work ripped off part of her scalp. She was flown to the Medical University of Charleston where two teams of surgeons performed surgery to reattach her scalp. Whittle’s hair is growing back and covers part of the scaring from the accident. Her story was featured in The Catalyst, a publication of the Medical University of South Carolina.

See WHITTLE, Page 3-B


SECOND PLACE:The News and ReporterTravis Jenkins

BY TRAVIS [email protected]

When Bernard L. Marie was a young boy living in occupied France, the first two words he learned in English were “Hershey” and “freedom.” American soldiers taught him those words. American soldiers like John “Buddy” Ernandez.

On Sunday, Marie, now a French dignitary, repaid the favor, awarding Ernandez the Legion of Honor, France’s highest civilian honor, during a ceremony at the Magnolia Room at Laurel Creek in Rock Hill. Marie bestowed the honor on behalf of his grateful native country, but said he owed Ernandez a person-al word of thanks as well.

“What he did 68 years ago changed my life,” Marie said.

Marie lived in Normandy with his mother, about eight miles north of what Allied forces would refer to as Omaha Beach. Ernandez was one of the thou-sands of soldiers who stormed the beach on June 6, 1944, one day after Marie celebrated a birth-

day. Ernandez accepted congratu-

lations from friends and family on Sunday and expressed his gratitude to Marie, but didn’t talk about D-Day. He has done so fre-quently in the past, though, often telling school children about his experiences in World War II.

Ernandez lives in Rock Hill now, but was born and raised in the Chester County community of Lando. Long before he would

open one of his two Chester-area restaurants or become a renowned barbecue expert or move to Rock Hill, he was a teenager reading stories in the newspaper about fishing vessels from North Carolina being sank by German U-boats. When the Japanese launched a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Ernandez was 17. He registered for the draft soon after and was called up. He was leav-ing behind his family, his two dogs and his beloved home of Lando to fight for his country.

Ernandez was to have been part of the 16th Regiment. He and a few thousand other soldiers were standing on a parade ground in Fort Meade, Md. As each sol-dier’s name was called they were to come forward. They would be placed on a train bound for New York, then on a boat to England for final training ahead of the D-Day invasion. Ernandez was the last man left standing on the parade grounds. As it turns out, the man reading the names had trouble pronouncing “Ernandez.” As a result, he ended up staying

Ernandez salutes French digni-tary Bernard L. Marie.

BY TRAVIS JENKINS/THE N&RJohn “Buddy” Ernandez and his family react to his being awarded the Legion of Honor.

Freedom and chocolate

See ERNANDEZ, Page 2-A


FIRST PLACE:The News and ReporterNancy Parsons





In April, 15-year-old Tatyana Young dressed up pretty and went out for a night with friends. She was adorned in a green formal gown and wore a floral cor-sage on her wrist. Her hair was pulled up and soft curls fell to her face.

She enjoyed a night of elegance and fun at the Great Falls Middle School prom. It was her last junior high expe-rience before entrance into high school.

It wasn’t long after Tatyana celebrated laughter with her friends that she began getting sicker from the illness she had fought for almost six years.

Last Thursday, Tatyana’s family and friends gathered in the school she last attend-ed to say farewell to the young girl who fought so long and so brave.

The daughter of Craig Young and Jean Young of the Pea-Ridge Community, Tatyana first developed phys-ical problems in November 2006. She ached all over. Her legs, back, thighs and neck hurt and she was having some chest pains. Her mother assumed it was growing pains and wasn’t overly con-cerned at first. But then Tatyana began running a high fever all the time.

She was taken to her fam-ily doctor and blood work performed. The lab results showed nothing to signal a major problem. The pain con-tinued so Tatyana’s mother took her to the emergency room. She was told Tatyana had pulled a muscle in her arm. Another time, Tatyana was taken to the emergency room because her leg was hurting. X-rays revealed nothing abnormal. On yet another trip to the ER, Tatyana was diagnosed with

strep throat. Doctors then began to question why infec-tion remained in Tatyana’s bloodstream and why the young girl continued to run temperatures of 102 and 103 degrees.

“The doctor told me some-thing was terribly wrong because of the constant high temperatures,” Jean Young said.

At the advice of her family doctor, Tatyana was taken to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston for a brief check-up. Still nothing was found that war-ranted immediate attention. In January 2007, Tatyana was admitted to Palmetto Health Richland in Columbia. Three days later, Tatyana’s family was told that the

x-rays and scans revealed a tumor above Tatyana’s kid-ney.

Three days after the diag-nosis of neuroblastoma, sur-geons removed the tumor, one of Tatyana’s ribs and lymph nodes. The family was hopeful Tatyana’s nightmare was over, but 10 days later, a bone marrow test confirmed cancer cells were in her bone marrow.

The 10-year-old girl was started on chemotherapy to combat stage 4 cancer.

“We were in the hospital two weeks out of every month,” Jean Young said. “She’d get an infection and we’d have to go back to the hospital.”

Teen passes in her mother’s arms

PHOTO PROVIDEDTatyana Young poses at the school prom.

See YOUNG, Page 3-B

PROFILE FEATURE WRITING OR STORY

Weekly Under 6,000 Division

THIRD PLACE:The Berkeley IndependentDan Brown

WAR!


The Berkeley Independent • www.berkeleyind.com

(on food)BY DAN BROWNThe Independent

For Bryan Gainey, life is adaily battle, an endless warwaged against his arch neme-sis: food.

The 39-year old MoncksCorner resident has lostalmost 300 pounds sincedeclaring war on food back inJune of 2010 when he washospitalized for blood clots inhis lungs.

“I had shortness of breathand thought I was having aheart attack,” he said. “But it

turned out to be blood clots inthe lungs, a pulmonaryembolism.”

The blood clots were adirect result of his immenseweight. Doctors warned himthey could have proven fatal.

So when Gainey walked outof the hospital a week later hewas determined to change hislife.

“I started out two years agoweighing 577 pounds,” saidthe 5’8” tall Gainey. “I’m just10 pounds from my 300-pound milestone.”

See WINNING Page 6A

At left, Bryan Gainey weighs 287 pounds, with a waist sizeof 44 inches, today. Below, two years ago, Gainey weighed577 pounds and wore custom made pants with a size 77-inch waist.

Dan Brown/Independent Photo Provided



SECOND PLACE:The Star

Phyllis BrittFarewell, Papa Doe



FIRST PLACE:News-ChronicleCharles Martin A soldier’s letters from the front tell the story of war

Editor’s Note -- It was called “The Great War” or “The War to End All Wars.” World War I ended on Nov. 11, 1919. It is on that date each year that Vet-erans Day is observed. Former Belton postmaster Redus R. Martin Sr. poured out his heart in letters written home, letters that one of his sons Charles - known as “Charlie Bill” to many folks around town - has been reading and transcribing. Not too long ago, he sat down and started writing a story about his father and that war. With Veterans Day being observed on Friday, we felt it quite appropriate to publish Martin’s story. It follows:

By Charles “Charlie Bill” MartinSpecial to the News-Chronicle_____________________________

BELTON -- Until a few decades ago, this week’s celebration was called Armistice Day. At 11 a.m. on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 the guns of World War I fell silent, ending a four-year carnage that took the lives of an entire generation of British, French and German youth, along with 81,000 Americans.

More than 10 million combatants died in battle from wounds or disease related to battle.

War had become a killing machine thanks to new technologies in weaponry. The general staffs who led the war were slow to adapt to this new type of war.

Among the war’s survivors was a lad from the little town of Maxton, N.C., who would later meet a cute Belton redhead named Bessie, marry her, settle down in Belton and become the father of Redus Jr., Betty and Charlie Bill Martin.

Young Redus had joined the North Carolina Na-tional Guard and had been called up in 1916 to join General John J. Pershing on the Mexican border in an abortive hunt for the Mexican bandit Pancho Villa.

When America declared war on Germany in 1917, he would be shipped to France as a sergeant with the 30th Division and assigned to a front in the Flanders sector. In letters sent from the front he tells of both the humor and horror of war on the western front. Six days after the armistice, he wrote this:

Dear Dan,“Finish le Guerre.” “Vive le Armee de Etats

Unis.” This is what the French people are saying

now. The war is ended and you can bet the Yanks did their part.

I had beaucoup sou-venirs at one time, but when a guy comes out of the scrap tired, footsore, hungry and “lousy,” he soon gets disgusted and throws it all away. Helmets are heavy, but would make nice flower pots and can be used for a washbowl provided one can find a nice shell hole of clean water.

You have to be careful about shell holes, though. I saw a fellow use one for a latrine one day. It had mustard gas in it and he had to eat his meals from the mantle piece for awhile.

An earlier letter tells a more sober story about a night raid on a German stronghold. The war was fluid and Redus Martin did not know where he was.

Somewhere in France or BelgiumAugust 13, 1918.

Dear Dan,We came out of the line Friday night after a 17-

day stay and I am none the worse for the trip, except that we didn’t get much sleep or eats, and I got two small scars on my face and one on the leg from a piece of a grenade. It was just a scratch. It was a nasty job and a wonder we were not all killed.

There were 24 of us and two officers. All went well until some fellow made some noise and then all hell broke loose. We had run into one of Jerry’s machine-gun nests and they all opened up on us.

..lights were going up in quick succession making it too bright for comfort.

We were inside German wire entanglements and it was a mess getting out with Fritz whanging away with all he had. My officer fell and was soon dead. I had no choice but to leave him, poor fellow.

I lay flat on the ground with MG bullets whistling over my head for about 10 minutes and shells burst-ing all around me. One fell so close that I was cov-ered with dirt and stuff and the shock made my ears numb for a few days. It was every man for himself so I started making my way back guided by the dipper.

I finally got into the British lines, being fired on all the way. I kept saying, “Boy, you aren’t scared.” It’s a foolish thought, but it helps a lot. I was muddy

to my waist and parts of my pants were in “Fritz’s Wine.”

Sgt. Martin was part of the 117th infantry that broke the vaunted Hindenburg Line in late September, 1918, that led to German overtures for an armistice. For his leadership in that decisive battle, he was given an officers’ commission.

I had the satisfaction of busting “Van Hindenburg’s” pet line wide open. It was a tough job, but the boys of the old Second N.C. went through it like a dose of salts, and the Boche acted like it was them that took the dose. It was one of the biggest shows pulled off. There is one word that all the Jerrys can say when they are beaten...Kam-merade! I got my share.

As do soldiers in every war, Martin got a “Dear John” letter from a girl back home, breaking off a romantic relationship:

Dear Dan,You are right about the girls. If

they won’t stick, they are no good. The news of E. went pretty bad at

first, but shot and shell gives a fellow something else to worry about. It didn’t lesson my fighting ability.

Sgt. Redus Martin came home in 1919. By chance, he met a Belton girl who would “stick” or be by his side for many decades to come. He became Belton’s postmaster in the mid-1930s and died in 1939.

World War I ended in armistice, not victory......cease-fire, not surrender...Geopolitical goals were not achieved. And, so, a scant 20 years later a following genera-

tion of British, French, German and American youth would have to fight World War I all over again...

...and they had called it “The War to End All Wars.”

PHOTO COURTESY CHARLES “CHARLIE BILL” MARTIN

REDUS MARTIN SR., second from left holding rifle, was a prolific letter writer who sent numerous letters home from the World War I front.


Weekly Over 6,000 Division

THIRD PLACE:Free TimesCorey Hutchins

Citizen RaineyA Conservative’s Crusade for Integrity in Governor’s Mansion, State Politics

John Rainey is wearing a coat and tie as he strides slowly across the grass of his 17-acre estate — called Fox Watch Farm — which is just outside the small town of Camden. It’s after midday, and the sun is turning the nearby dogwood trees gold. Two big German Shepherds follow him through a small English garden that surrounds a

gazebo near a horse barn. Rainey, who turned 70 last month, is a tall man. For years, he has loomed large in South Carolina Republican spheres of influence. He is responsible for recruiting Mark Sanford to run for governor in 2002. Lately, the longtime Republican fundraiser and powerbroker has caught attention in certain political circles for something else: his one-man mission to discredit the state’s governor, Sanford’s handpicked successor, Nikki Haley.

By Corey HutchinsPhotos by Sean Rayford

When Rainey speaks, he does so deliber-ately. An attorney by trade, he makes sure his words are characterized correctly. He is not fast and loose with facts. If he doesn’t know something, he’ll tell you. If he doesn’t want to discuss something, he’ll make it known quickly.

When it comes to the immediate subject, the reason a reporter and a photographer have come out to Fox Watch Farm to see him, he is clear about the motive of his most recent endeavor: proving that the people of South Carolina have elected a governor who lacks integrity.

“As I’ve said before, I believe Governor Haley is the most corrupt person to occupy the Governor’s Mansion since Reconstruc-tion,” he says. “Put it another way: I think she is corrupt to the core of her being.”

Rainey’s words have weight. He is not some yahoo. Indeed, right now he is on the finance team of ex-ambassador to China and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who is running for the Republican nomination for president. For eight years, Rainey chaired the state’s Board of Economic Advisors under Sanford. Before that, in the ’90s, he helmed the state’s public utility, Santee Cooper, and navigated it out of one of the largest corpo-rate scandals in the state’s history.

He and Sanford still keep in touch. “He’s an interesting guy,” the former governor said about Rainey recently.

And his support for the GOP is legendary.“For decades John Rainey carried the

financial water for the Republican Party and

many of its candidates,” says former South Carolina GOP Chairwoman Karen Floyd. “He helped to make many of our politicians.”

Given his longstanding influence in the party on the one hand, and his outspoken criticism of the party’s governor on the other, it’s tricky for some people to speak openly about Rainey. Even dangerous, some might say.

Rainey’s charges against Haley are not new: He focuses largely on her dubious compensation for work at Lexington Medical Center and engineering firm Wilbur Smith, arrangements that have both left clouds of lingering questions in the wake of Haley’s rapidly rising political career. Those ques-tions, Rainey believes, still need a thorough investigation, which he has initiated as much as he can as a private citizen. He also believes Haley’s election points to a dysfunctional trend in American politics whereby candi-dates aren’t vetted seriously by their own parties.

It’s why Rainey is a Huntsman guy, he says. He knows that someone who has un-dergone as many background checks as the former ambassador makes for a candidate with no surprises.

At the current political moment, you might think Rainey’s work for Huntsman would put a muzzle on the man. But he is long past having consideration for such things. He is trying to expose Haley, a fellow Republican, for the betterment of the Grand Old Party, he declares, not to weaken it. Be-sides, he says, before he’s a Republican he is a




Charles D. PerryMr. Walsh’s wisdom



FIRST PLACE:Charleston City PaperPaul Bowers

FEAT

URE

|ch

arle

ston

city

pape

r.com

23

“You want me to dummy check your rear end, Mike?” she says.

This, apparently, is RV lingo, which the two have picked up handily since switching from a 15-passenger van to the big rig in June. But when Hearst says it, Trent gets a half-cocked smirk on his face, the sort that audiences see so often onstage when he takes a sidelong gander at his partner.

“Yeah,” Trent replies. “Dummy check my rear end.”

Sitting with the two of them is a little like sitting with grandparents who have had a lifetime to develop their own comedic timing, who know the line between a loving nudge and a caustic barb. Ask how many years they’ve been married, and Trent will reply, “Three and a half, that’s what we got ... Three and a half thousand.” Hearst always returns fire.

“This one, he always gets pinned young,” Hearst says of her husband, who does have something of a baby face. “But he’s grown. He’s an old ass. He’s a 35-year-old man.”

Simply put, Hearst and Trent have chemis-try, and they have no intentions of adding to the band’s lineup. Both are gifted songwriters, with their own solo records featuring murder ballads, outlaw love songs, and drug-addled toasts to bad luck. They’ve taken to calling their music “sloppy-tonk,” a raucous barroom take on folk rock stirred with the sort of gritty, Faulknerian country music that doesn’t get

much radio time anymore. When American Songwriter got a hold of “Birmingham,” the lead single from the band’s latest album, O’ Be Joyful, they called it “the kind of gorgeous, down-home stuff that Gillian Welch and David Rawlings might’ve done if they’d skipped music school and learned the ropes in road-houses instead.” Hearst and Trent say they don’t appreciate the underhanded swipe at Gill and Dave, but they’ll take the compliment.

Until five months ago, Hearst and Trent did their traveling in a van that once belonged to The Films, Trent’s old indie-rock band from Colorado that relo-cated to Charleston and hasn’t played a show together since 2010. Hearst is still a little self-conscious about the new ride. She worries that people back home in Charleston will see it and think they’ve gotten too big for their britches, what with the sold-out shows in New York City, the glowing reviews every-where from No Depression to Huffington Post, and the recent pair of arena gigs opening for Jack White.

“Last night, I was lying in bed in my fit of insomnia going, ‘Are we gonna put the RV on

the cover [of the City Paper]?’ Isn’t that like, ‘Hey everybody, look at our RV, look at us and our sexy vehicle. What are you driving? Shovels & Rope’s hit the big time, kiss our ass,’” Hearst says. “I don’t want people to judge us based on the luxury of our vehicle that we live in, because they don’t know why we have to live in that thing.”

Few who have traveled like Hearst and Trent have would begrudge them their choice of transportation. Just reading their tour schedule is enough to make a body tired; in 2011, they played more than 170 shows and logged 60,000 miles on the road. Quaint as it may have seemed for them to sleep on an air mattress in the back of the old van, it was high time for an upgrade.

Not that the Winnebago is the Ritz on four wheels or anything. Quarters are still tight, and a self-enforced road rule demands that all of their clothes and possessions must fit inside four 12-inch fabric organizing cubes — the collapsible kind you can buy at Target — which go inside a cubby over the dining area. And then there’s the quest every other day to find propane for the generator, or genny,

which runs the air conditioner to keep their big ol’ brindle-coated

hound Townes comfortable while they’re away from the vehicle. And they still operate their own “stinky slinky,” the collapsible tube that is used to drain sewage from the vehicle at RV pump stations.

The Winnebago also means having a real bed, cooking the

occasional real meal in the microwave oven, and never having to pay for hotel rooms on tour. They’re thinking about getting a grill for the road, which they’ve seen a lot

of other RVers doing. “Like, that guy Zac Brown has a huge

food and music festival,” Hearst says. “I’d like to have a micro-Southern

Ground, also known as our little micro-tour bus and a grill. And like a crock pot with some chili in it. Chili dogs, come get your Shovels & Rope chili dogs, ladies and gentlemen.”

The SHOVELS & ROPE duo find love, adventure, and fleeting fortune on the road

BY PAUL BOWERS

continued on page 24

Brace yourselves, music fans: this Thursday, Charleston’s favorite bands will converge on the Pour House for a showcase and awards ceremony as we unveil the winners of this year’s City Paper Music Awards. This mega-music lovefest will not only feature performances by six awesome CPMA winners, but we’re also throwing you a chance to win some high-end adult toys from Guilty Pleasures and a guitar from Shem Creek Music. Hey, maybe you’ll even win both. Since we don’t want to completely ruin the surprise, here’s a sample of the night’s lineup: Rocky Horror (Electronic Artist of the Year), The 33’s (Punk Band of the Year), Wadata (Funk/Soul Band of the Year), and The Local Honeys (Up and Coming Artist of the Year). You can read more about these guys and the rest of the winners over the course of the next few pages. The lucky winners will all receive individualized, one-of-a-kind awards created by street artist Patch Whisky. You probably know him for his flying rainbow monsters. The event is free, but we’ll gladly accept donations for musician Nick Collins’s medical fund. —Elizabeth Pandolfi

Thurs. Nov. 8Doors at 7 p.m., show at 8 p.m.FreeThe Pour House1977 Maybank Hwy.James Island(843) 571-4343charlestonpourhouse.com

The City Paper Music Awards WinnersShowcase

Like the Grammys, but smaller

Singer-

Songwriter

of the Year

Album, Song—— AND ———— AND ——

Country Band

of the Year

Charleston is one helluva music town. It may not be as old-school cool as Detroit or as outlaw badass as Austin or as hipsterific as Brooklyn, but the Holy City has an unholy amount of musical talent. Take Shovels & Rope for instance. The husband-and-wife duo of Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst can stand toe-to-toe with all the big-time movers and shakers in Nashville, and their time in the national spotlight is long overdue. Of course, there are plenty of other acts in Chucktown that are every bit as good as today’s current chart-toppers. And here in the pages of our annual City Paper Music Awards Issue, we’ve got quite a few of them. Read on and learn who City Paper readers chose as their faves for 2012.

Sounds of the City

ary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent, the husband-and-wife band known as Shovels &

Rope, are having a devil of a time backing their Winnebago into several parking spaces near Summerville’s town square. At the steering wheel, Trent is using

the vehicle’s built-in backup camera, but Hearst isn’t so sure about it.

THIS

THURSD

AY

Katie Gandy


Weekly 2/3 Times Division

THIRD PLACE:Chronicle-IndependentTom Didato

,

By TOM DIDATOC-I (Camden, S.C.) sports [email protected]

COLUMBIA -- Sometimes, she will carry her arms in her back pack. But Shannon Wessinger still wears her heart on her sleeve.

Not even being a recent quad amputee can wipe the smile from the face or the resolve in her mind of the former Shannon Vincent, who in the spring of her senior season pitched the Lady Knights to the class A state softball title in 1999. It remains the school’s only state championship in any sport.

Today, the left arm which sent many an opposing batter to make a U-turn back to the dugout has been cut off, just below the elbow. Same goes for the right arm. The two legs which carried her around the bases and provided the power to her throws have both been fit-ted with prosthetics.

If you think for one moment, however, that Wessinger has made the call to the bullpen due to what she might call a curveball having been thrown in her life, well, she may give a sneer before going out to prove any doubter wrong.

There is no quit in Wessinger who has already rebounded from a near-fatal infection to be well on her way to things being business as usual, albeit with a few physical alterations.

*****

This is not how the 30-year-old Shannon Wessinger pictured her-self as recently as four months ago.

On May 8 of this year, Wessinger was induced into labor as she and her husband, Eric, were to become parents for the second time; a baby boy whom they had already chosen to be named Shaun. The birth went without a hitch as Shaun came into the world healthy and ready to join his mom, dad and a 2-year-old sister, Jaime, at the family’s home in Lexington, where Shannon is a teacher/assistant softball coach at White Knoll High School.

A day after Shaun’s arrival, Shannon underwent a tubal liga-tion before being released to go home on May 10. The next morning, Wessinger developed a fever, which she thought nothing of other than it possibly being related to having given birth. The following Monday, however, the fever returned and the pain was enough that Eric took his wife to the hospital.

That is about the last thing Wessinger remembers of May 14. It would be the last thing she would remember for, roughly, the next month and a half. For that time, doctors kept Wessinger medically asleep in order to try and make sure her body healed.

“When I came to,” Wessinger said of her being awoken from her sleep, “I was in the hospital and was, pretty much, told the next day, ‘Oh, by the way, you’re going to lose your hands and feet.’

“I was like, ‘Wait. What? I need to know what happened first. Then, momma and my husband started explaining things and I tried to piece things together because for that month and a half, I had dreams, but that was about it. I don’t really remember anything else. The last thing I remember, now, were the speed bumps going into the hospital in Lexington.”

In giving her first interview since her illness, Wessinger and her mother, Tammy Vincent, were seated in a treatment room inside the rehabilitation center at HealthSouth in Columbia. With a pair of sunglasses pulled atop her brown hair, Shannon Wessinger was all smiles and was more than open as to what turned her life around.

While later admitting that things could have gone catastrophi-cally bad, Wessinger said a team of 17 doctors, around the clock at-tention from nurses and the support of family and friends all played a role in her still-ongoing recovery.

In just the first 24 hours after being admitted to the hospital,

Wessinger’s condition deteriorated to the point that she was put on a respirator. She stayed on a respirator until she woke up. About a week into her stay, she underwent a tracheotomy. In all, she said, she had, at one time or another, 14 tubes being stuck into her body which kept her alive and then, helped in her road back to health. Her list of medications which she has taken and/or continues to take in her recovery is between six to seven pages in length.

The illness which befell Wessinger was diagnosed as Strep A, a condition which at the time of her being brought to the Lexington Medical Center, affected only 220 other people in the world. Tammy Vincent said she was alerted to this fact by the physicians tending to her daughter.

Physicians are still uncertain as to how Wessinger contracted the illness. Once in her system, Strep A morphed into three infections and various parts of her body started shutting down to the point to which Wessinger DIC’d (disseminated intravascular coagulation) three times. Wessinger explained the three-letter medical term and the Winthrop University graduate then put it into more blunt terms.

“It’s pretty much where everything shuts down and you die,” she said of her close calls. “The kidneys started shutting down; the liver started shutting down. Breathing became difficult. I think I was on every piece of equipment that you could ever put on a person while I was in ICU.”

It was during these times, Wessinger guessed, that the dreams which she experienced were at their worst.

Throughout the ordeal, Wessinger’s mother and father, Joey Vin-cent, along with Eric kept a constant vigil.

“I was back there all the time; me, Joey and Eric were constantly back there. We were there all the time,” Tammy Vincent said. “She was in ICU forever; she was only on the general floor for two weeks. We came and went as we wanted, 24 hours a day.”

“I was lucky. They let my family stay with me,” Wessinger said of her support system.

While being kept asleep so doctors could treat her, Wessinger endured a series of dreams which became all-too-real once she was awakened by one of her nurs-es in ICU.

“Even though she was unconscious, there were things that she can remember, but she thinks they were dreams,” Tammy Vincent said before her daugh-ter described what was going on in her mind.

In describing what she saw, Wessinger nodded in agreement when later asked if this was like Dorothy’s coming back from a hit to the head in the film, The Wizard of Oz.

“I can remember some of my ICU nurses being in my dreams,” she said. “I didn’t know they were my ICU nurses at the time but when I woke up and I started to understand and comprehend what was go-ing on, I said, ‘Oh, wait, you were in my dream, you were in my dream and you were the one that yelled at me in my dream.

“Some random chick was screaming at me in my dream that I had.”

Her mother later cleared up the confusion. The epi-sode, she said, was not a dream.

“There was one nurse that yelled at her and she won-dered why she was being yelled at,” Tammy Vincent said. “She was the one who was yelling at her saying, “Shannon, you need to wake up. You have to come out of this. Don’t you want to see your babies, again? Baby Shaun needs to see you. You have to see your babies. You’ve got to wake up!’

“I said to her, ‘That wasn’t some random chick. That was your nurse. When I came in the room, that nurse happened to be in there

that day and I said to Shannon, ‘Tell (the nurse) about the dream that you had.’ (The nurse) told her, ‘That was me. I was the random one you saw.’”

To this day, Wessinger said what she saw in her dreams played out in real life once she woke up.

“It’s weird,” she said, “I never saw those nurses before in my life, but when I woke up, they looked exactly like they did when they were in my dreams. It was weird because I had never seen those nurses before in my life.”

There were different sets of circumstances when it came to Wessinger’s dreams. There were the horrible ones and then, there were

pleasant ones. She guessed the dreams came and went depending on the strength of the medication being pumped into her body.

When Wessinger was brought back from her sleep, her systems were working as they were supposed to. “When I woke up,” she said, “I ‘woke up.’” She was woken up after six weeks, but it was not un-

Former NCHS star pitcher all smilesafter disease takes hands, feet

See Shannon, Page 4

North Central rode the left arm of standout

pitcher Shannon Vincent, now, Wessinger,

to the class A state softball title in 1999.



SECOND PLACE:The Lancaster NewsGregory Summers

photos courtesy of GARY SOWELL

Gary Sowell, above, a member of the Widows Sons Masonic Riders Association, found Gypsy, seated behind him, in the road near his Westville home in 2004.

GYPSY QUEEN OF THE ROADWhen Gary Sowell rides, beloved dog has his back

Gregory A. [email protected]

Timmy Martin had Lassie as a faithful sidekick.Their adventures and exploits made for great televi-

sion fiction.But could Lassie balance on Timmy’s bicycle like Gypsy

rides Gary Sowell’s motorcycle?Probably not.“How she stays on, I don’t

know,” Sowell said. “I’ve had to lock it down on the interstate and she rides so close to me that she just about kills my kidneys when she bangs into my back. I don’t know how to explain it, she just does.”

And this is no movie screen trick; it’s the real thing. Sowell had never quite figured out if Gypsy needs him more, or he needs Gypsy.

It’s probably the latter, which is

See GYPSY | Page 5A



FIRST PLACE:The Gaff ney LedgerScott Powell

By SCOTT POWELLLedger Staff [email protected]

Every spring, Estonia immigrantAavo Koiv drives from his home inFlorida for a fishing vacation in theAsheville, N.C., area.

The fishing is a reminder of a sim-pler time in his life during which hefirst discovered a world burstingwith colors. His trip took on a specialmeaning Monday when he returned62 years later to the Garland Johnsonfarm where his family first lived inAmerica after fleeing a refugeecamp in Germany.

He was six years old when his col-lege-educated father brought hisfamily on a one-year immigrationwork contract to the 3,900-acre farmin 1949, where the Broad andPacolet rivers meet near the UnionCounty line.

A Christmas project to help the32 Estonian residents living on thefarm is detailed in a Dec. 10, 1949,article in The Gaffney Ledger (seestory at left).

His family lived in refugee campsin Lingen and Geottingen inGermany before escaping on a shipto Boston. Members of a LutheranChurch met the ship, gave the family$40 and put its members on a train toCherokee County.

Koiv lived on the farm with hisparents Roland and Marje, olderbrother Leho, and younger sistersUlle and Aita. Teacher Linda Laanefrom Estonia taught him and theother Estonian children the Englishlanguage while they attended the

Sunnyside Elementary School nearthe Johnson farm.

“My father worked in the fieldsclearing rocks for 12 hours a day,six days a week,” Koiv said. “It washard to do for someone with a col-lege education. He did it for anopportunity to come to the countryand find a better life.”

His father was paid 25 cents perday, given the use of a cabin and milkfrom a farm-owned cow as well asseveral chickens which could be usedto help feed his family.

None of the families from Estoniastayed on after their one-year con-tracts. They all moved to Chicago,

See KOIV, Page 5

Estonian immigrant returns to Johnson farm to reminisce

Aavo Koiv and his brother Leho learned how to speak English fromtheir Estonian teacher Linda Laane at Sunnyside Elementary School.Aavo attended the first grade at the Cherokee County school whilehis family lived on the Garland Johnson farm.

Aavo Koiv looks over the mapwhich helped lead him backMonday afternoon to the GarlandJohnson farm.

SHORT STORYWeekly Under 6,000 Division

THIRD PLACE:The People-SentinelJonathan Vickery

Though it took more than 40 years, one local veteran received some of the recog-nition he and others did not receive upon their return from war.

Last week, Bob Dixon of Barnwell and a group of South Carolinian veter-ans received some of that long overdue recognition on the Nov. 9 Honor Flight to Washington, D.C. The free trip allows veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam to visit the memori-als honoring their wars.

Though he enjoyed the entire trip, Dixon’s most memorable moment was see-ing and hearing hundreds of people welcoming him and the other veterans home at the Columbia Metropolitan

Airport in West Columbia. “Finally, the fighting man felt welcomed,” said Dixon. “It was a sight to see and was again, in my opinion, something that should be experienced by every service member who goes into a war zone and returns home.”

Dixon, a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars, believes veterans of his time were not treated in a manner “befitting of the American fighting man” when they returned from war. “They have never asked for any recognition from the Ameri-can people other than to see some organized recognition of their service,” Dixon said. “We were asked to go off to fight battles that the Ameri-can people did not support and the American govern-ment, in my opinion, did not intend to win.”

Visiting the Korean War Memorial, which depicts a squad of 19 infantrymen,

was especially meaningful for Dixon because he was an infantryman in the war. He said he thought it was a fairly accurate depiction of the war, though the statues should have been on a hill because “there was not that

JONATHAN VICKERY

Staff Writer [email protected]

much level ground in Korea that I saw,” he said.

Dixon said he was “in-spired” after meeting and spending the day with the other veterans. They ex-changed many stories during the trip.

Memorial visit brings honor to attendees

The Korean War Memorial consists of 19 statues of infantrymen as a representation of a squad of soldiers. A reflection of all 19 statues can be seen in the granite wall alongside the memorial.

Photos Courtesy: Bob Dixon

The Honor Flight expe-rience gave Dixon a “re-newed sense of patriotism and appreciation” of soldiers returning home from the Middle East. He said he

hopes they receive the same kind of reception him and the other veterans received on the Honor Flight.

Pictured are Bob Dixon and the other Korean War veterans on the Nov. 9 Honor Flight. Some were also World War II veterans and veterans of the Vietnam War.

SHORT STORYWeekly Under 6,000 Division

SECOND PLACE:The People-SentinelSusan C. Delk

Lost dog is more than just a pet for one womanSUSAN C. DELK Managing Editor [email protected]

Bailey, a six-year-old silky terrier, has been missing since July 13. She is not only Virginia Boyle’s pet, but companion, friend and protector.

The story of Bailey is not just one of another miss-ing dog. It is the story of a lost companion, friend and protector.

Virginia Boyle is deaf and unable to speak, and her six-year-old silky terrier Bailey had lived with her since she was a puppy.

Although there had been no formal training, Bailey “even learned the communi-cation of sign language with mom,” said Virginia’s son, Joey Boyle.

She loved to play Frisbee and go outside for short pe-riods of time. What she loved

most was helping Virginia and being “spoiled.”

Not too long ago, Bailey may have even saved Vir-ginia’s life.

Virginia took an afternoon nap and forgot she left a pot on the stove. As the pot boiled dry and the heat be-gan to rise, smoke started to fill the kitchen. As the smoke detector started to screech, Bailey nudged and nudged Virginia until she woke up. Virginia was able to get to the burning pot and keep it from doing any damage.

Simply, “she was mom’s ears,” said Joey.

Now those ears are gone.On July 13, a family mem-

ber was at Virginia’s house and Bailey was in the fenced backyard. A time span of

only about five minutes passed and Bailey was gone. Somehow Bailey got out of the fence.

Devastated, the family has sent out pleas to other pet owners and friends, and plastered posters across Wil-liston.

No one has reported seeing Bailey.

Bailey needs Virginia as much as Virginia needs Bai-ley, though.

Bailey has some health is-sues. She was recently hospi-talized and requires a special diet and medications. Thank-fully, Bailey is micro-chipped, so when she is found, the two can be reunited.

“We’ve had a lot of sup-port,” said Joey. Support from the community in gen-

eral but not much from local law enforcement and town officials.

To them, it is simply a lost dog, Joey said.

He said there are no hard feelings towards them but “it could be dogs now but it could be children later.”

“If someone found her and has kept her safe, we just want her back,” Joey said.

“She (Virginia) depended on her for more than one reason,” Joey said,

Through Joey’s interpreta-tion, Virginia said, “I pray, just please bring her back home safe,” as she patted her shoulder, a place Bailey loved to lay.

Bailey is a six-year-old silky black, silver and tan terrier. She is micro-chipped

and needs her special diet and medications. But most of all, she is Virginia’s ears.

Anyone with information about Bailey, please call Diane Shepperd at (803) 266-3405.

Photo Courtesy: Virginia Boyles

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