By Andy Brack | In the midst of the pall cast over the state following the Charleston church massacre, you might have missed last week’s Miss South Carolina pageant.
Ten days after the shootings that left nine dead and shocked the world, the show went on in Township Auditorium in Columbia. What came out of it highlights the stuff South Carolina is really made of.
S.C. Encyclopedia | A state governor and U.S. senator, Coleman Livingston Blease was born near Newberry on Oct. 8, 1868, the son of Henry Horatio Blease and Mary Ann Livingston. From 1884 to 1886, Blease attended Newberry College, and he earned a bachelor of laws degree from Georgetown University in 1889. He was admitted to the South Carolina Bar that same year. In 1890, Blease married Lillie B. Summers, who died in 1914. In 1939, he married Caroline Floyd, but the couple separated a year later. Both marriages were childless.
By Mary Ross McQuage | At least once a week as I am providing guidance and referrals to families making plans for their elderly loved ones, I have to break the news that Medicare is not going to pay for their long-term care needs, either in a nursing home or at home. Many people assume that Medicare is going to cover all of their needs as they age. The typical response to finding out this is not true is, “Well, what exactly DOES Medicare pay for?”
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The S.C. General Assembly put the Confederate battle flag in a place of prominence on the Statehouse grounds. Now after nine deaths in the horrendous Charleston church shooting, the legislature must take it down.
Imagine the feelings of thousands who had to pass the flag Wednesday in Columbia to pay their last respects to state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the slain Jasper County Democrat and pastor of the historically black church.
By Andy Brack | Most South Carolinians don’t know a lot of out-of-the-closet, vociferous racists. They’re probably around, just like they have been since two people who didn’t look like each other first met. But in our society — here and in other states — they generally live on the fringes.
CHARLESTON, S.C., June 18, 2015 — As I headed to bed Wednesday night, a white gunman shot and killed nine people in an historic black church in the center of town just four blocks from where I used to live. Unaware of the evil, sleep came quickly.
But in the wee hours, the ping of a text from an Australian colleague woke me. I didn’t want to read it and tried to go back to sleep. But after tossing and turning, I read the text, only to learn the heart-wrenching news about what was going on a few miles away. I was dazed. Several instant reactions percolated and struggled to the surface:
Watch a cool Boeing video with an almost vertical takeoff of a 787; plus a Statehouse Report excerpt.
By Andy Brack | Middleburg Plantation in Berkeley County has been a sanctuary since I arrived in Charleston in 1988. Featuring the oldest wooden house (1697) south of Virginia, Middleburg transferred last week to a businessman who is expected to breathe new life into it, just as the Charleston family of a college friend did after buying it in 1980.
This past Saturday, a few days after the 325-acre plantation sold, I returned a key to the front door that I thought was lost, but found on a key ring on a last visit on May 31. I showed my daughters the window where a British general scratched his name when his troops occupied the plantation during the Revolutionary War. I showed them an upstairs room where a girl about their ages etched a window to show she lived in the room from 1898 to 1902.
By Doug Holmes | Amongst all of the other good news found on this site, I’m here to tell you about how fantastic the residential real estate market is doing. It’s one of the best markets in the U.S. right now. All of the other good news on this site is one of the primary reasons for that. Many people are deciding to move to Charleston and make it their new home. Some are looking for employment. Others are looking for a better lifestyle. And others have decided to retire here.
Let me just give you some numbers to think about. We are currently seeing the strongest buying activity in the history of Charleston’s real estate market. The best way to measure that is to look at the number of properties that go under contract in the tri-county MLS each week.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Are there any sacred or special places in South Carolina that are safe from developers?
Sure, there are parks and land protected by owners, but it seems developers generally have the upper hand whenever there’s a way for somebody to make a buck — whether it’s to build another subdivision that will bloat sprawl in urban areas, add yet another hotel in a tourist area or pack another mega-mansion as close to the beach as possible.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina! (2019) by editor and publisher Andy Brack offers incisive commentaries on the American South, politics, the common good and interesting South Carolina leaders. Available exclusively for Kindle for $7.99. A paperback version will be ready soon. Learn more.
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