Charleston Currents

MYSTERY: A house that may look familiar

Here’s a house that may look familiar to Lowcountry residents and visitors. But what, pray tell, is it and where? Send your best guess – plus your name and hometown – to editor@charlestoncurrents.com. In the subject line, write: “Mystery Photo guess.” (If you don’t include your contact information, we can’t give you credit!)

Last issue’s mystery: The June 11 mystery, a photo by Bill Segars of Hartsville, showed an old guard house and police station in Barnwell, S.C.

BRACK: Promise Zone is shot in arm for S.C.

By Andy Brack | Talk about a shot in the arm for the southern rural counties of South Carolina. Witness the just-announced federal Promise Zone designation for a six-county area centering on Allendale County that should pump in millions of dollars of aid over the next 10 years.

But let’s be clear: It’s a hand-up, not a handout for people in the zone area of Allendale, Bamberg, Barnwell, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties. There’s a lot of hard work ahead for these counties, nonprofits, government agencies and businesses that are part of the effort to generate more jobs, improve education, reduce crime and get more affordable housing in a region where 28.1 percent of 90,000 residents live in poverty.