GOOD NEWS: Magnolia to host 7th annual History Fair on July 6

Staff reports  |  Explore Lowcountry South Carolina history and meet the people who promote and preserve it on Saturday during the seventh annual History Fair at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens. 

From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., amateur and serious historians and children who want to touch the past can mingle with representatives of about 30 well-known organizations in the Charleston area.  

Magnolia will offer free garden admission on July 6 to public and private school teachers, college and university faculty and active duty military and their family with valid identification. 

The History Fair is free. Guests who purchase the $20 garden admission will have access to a living history program, “Inalienable Rights: Living History Through the Eyes of the Enslaved.” This program will be offered at the cabins once occupied by enslaved workers at Magnolia. This presentation is an outreach of the Slave Dwelling Project founded by Joseph McGill, Magnolia’s history consultant. The living history program will include a blacksmith, cooking and brick-making demonstrations and storytellers.

• For more information and a list of the presenters, go to www.magnoliaplantation.com.

In other Good News:

Big gift.  A hearty community thanks to Dominion Energy for pledging $2.5 million to support the International African American Museum’s design and construction. The company also will donate an additional $25,000 to fund 1,000 charter memberships to the museum for individuals and families served by the Charleston Promise Neighborhood, which provides educational programming to underserved students.

Traveling Smithsonian exhibit headed here.  Water/Ways, a traveling exhibit of the Smithsonian Institution, will be in six South Carolina communities  exhibit through 2021, including Jan. 18, 2021, to March 1, 2021 in McClellanville. The exhibit is to serve as a community meeting place to convene conversations about water’s impact on American culture. With the support and guidance of SC Humanities and the Smithsonian, these sites will develop complementary exhibits, host public programs and facilitate educational initiatives to raise people’s understanding about what water means in South Carolina and in each community. More:  schumanities.org 

Brisk activity at the port.  The S.C. Ports Authority reported its strongest May on record, with 204,457 twenty-foot equivalent container units (TEUs) handled. Fiscal year-to-date TEU volume is up 9.7 percent, with 2,192,689 TEUs handled since the port’s fiscal year began in July 2018.

Dealing with the opioid crisis.  Charleston County is one of only four of South Carolina’s 46 counties that hasn’t signed onto a state or federal lawsuit to sue pharmaceutical companies to combat the crisis of opioid addiction, Lindsay Street reports in sister publication Statehouse Report.  While South Carolina had 748 opioid-related overdose deaths in 2017, the number is expected to drop in the Palmetto State for 2018.  Read the full story.

New reef.  State legislators overrode 25 of Gov. Henry McMaster’s 28 budget vetoes, including a measure to use $2.7 million in state money to sink the Cold War-era submarine the U.S.S. Clamagore to create an offshore fishing reef.  See news briefs in Statehouse Report.

Higher gas tax in effect. The state tax on fuel increased today from 20 cents per gallon of gasoline to 22 cents per gallon. This is the third year of raises, which will continue until 2022.