Jan Robertson shares the tailgate with Up The Creek Little John, left, who won both the Indian and Lure Beagle Clubs’ 15-inch male classes and Up The Creek Prince Valiant, right, who won the Lure Beagle Club’s 13-inch male class. | Pat Robertson
VALE, N.C. – The opening week of beagle field trial season
was triple fun for Pat and Jan Robertson of Blythewood as they won three of the
four male classes at a two-club event last week at Indian Beagle Club at Vale,
N.C. Up The Creek Little John won both the Indian and Lure Beagle Clubs’
15-inch male classes, and Up The Creek Prince Valiant won the Lure Beagle
Club’s 13-inch male class.
It was the first two wins for Little John, who has placed in
previous trials, and the first win and place ever for Prince Valiant. In
addition, another of the Robertsons’ dogs, Cotton Hill Benjie, took an NBQ
(Next Best Qualified) Award on Wednesday and a second place on Thursday.
Field trial beagles must earn three wins and a total of 120
points to be recognized as an American Kennel Club champion.
“We are looking forward to competing with these dogs and our
other beagles at field trials in the Carolinas and Georgia over the coming
months,” Jan said.
FAIRFIELD COUNTY -Two individuals wearing masks and armed
with a hammer and what the Fairfield County Sheriff’s office believes to be a
machete robbed the Grand Central Truck Stop on SC 200 at the intersection of
I-77. The robbery occurred on Aug. 31.
One of the individuals returned on Sept. 9 with the large
knife and robbed the store a second time. A 4-door dark-colored vehicle is
believed to have been used in the robbery according to a sheriff’s report.
The Fairfield County Sheriff’s office is seeking the
public’s assistance in identifying the two people. Anyone with information
about the individuals or the incident are asked to contact the Fairfield County
Sheriff’s Office at (803) 635-4141 or Crime Stoppers at 1-888-CRIMESC
(888-274-6372) or visit www.midlandscrimestoppers.com to email a tip. Your
identity will be kept anonymous and if your tip leads to an arrest, you could
be eligible for a cash reward of up to $1,000.00.
BLYTHEWOOD – A Westwood High School student has been charged
with multiple crimes after bringing weapons on campus Tuesday, the Richland
County Sheriff’s Department reported.
The 15-year-old student was overheard by another student
threatening to “shoot up the school.” He later brought the weapons to the
school, the sheriff department’s news release said.
The student who heard the threat reported it to his parents
and school staff, who contacted Westwood’s school resource officer, it was
reported.
When the student arrived at school Tuesday morning, he was
interviewed by Sheriff’s deputies and admitted making the threats, according to
the news release.
Sheriff’s deputies searched the student and found two
knives, officers said.
The teen was charged with carrying a weapon on school
property and making threats before being turned over to his parents’ custody,
according to the release.
WHS Principal Dr. Cheryl Guy notified parents saying there
was no danger to the school and no injuries reported.
The teen will appear in Richland County Family Court, but no
date has been set, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
BLYTHEWOOD – Richland School District Two acknowledges school threat from a student at Westwood High School.
Libby Roof, Chief Communications Officer at Richland Two
District Office released this statement:
“I know that the Richland County Sheriff’s department has released an advisory regarding a Westwood High student charged. Below is a copy of the email Westwood High principal, Dr. Cheryl Guy, sent to her parents this morning.”
Dear Westwood High Parents,
I’m writing to share information about an investigation into a threat made against our school. First let me reassure you that there is no immediate threat or danger to our school. Hopefully, my email will help prevent the spread of rumors and misinformation and help reassure you that we take school safety very seriously.
Yesterday after school, a student reported overhearing another student making a threat against our school. The safety tip led to an investigation that involved interviewing the student who reportedly made the threat. During the investigation, school administrators and School Resource Officers found two knives in the student’s possession. Our school resource officer immediately secured the weapons. No one was harmed prior to or during the investigation.
We are following district procedures and board policy in administering disciplinary consequences. The Richland County Sheriff’s Department will be releasing additional information about legal consequences.
We are proud of our student for sharing the safety tip with us and appreciate all that our employees, students and parents do to help keep our school a safe place for learning. Remember, our schools are staffed with lots of caring adults, including our school counselors, who are available to help work through issues in a productive way. If you have any questions or concerns about school safety, please contact a school administrator.
Sincerely,
Dr. Cheryl Guy
Principal
The Voice will update with more information as it becomes
available.
COLUMBIA – A Winnsboro man and a Columbia woman died of
gunshot wounds between 6 and 7 a.m. today (Saturday).
Anthony Kwahn Kennedy, 47 of Sandy Lane Extension,
Winnsboro, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head an autopsy
indicated. The incident occurred at 91 Summit Ridge Circle, Columbia, according
to Richland County Cororner Gary Watts.
Christina Martin, also 47, of Summit Ridge Circle, Columbia,
SC died at the scene after being shot by someone. An autopsy indicated the cause of death was
due to a gunshot wound to the head.
Coroner Watts has ruled these deaths a murder/suicide.
The Richland County
Coroner’s Office and the Richland County Sheriff’s Department are investigating
the incident.
BLYTHEWOOD – Of the 1,300 acres that Richland County hopes
to purchase and have rezoned for a Blythewood Industrial Park, almost 500 acres
(two parcels) are in the county, not the Town of Blythewood, and the county
will have jurisdiction over their re-zoning.
The two parcels, located along Blythewood Road, west of
Fairfield Electric Cooperative’s facility, will go before the Richland County
planning commission Monday, Sept. 9 at 3 p.m. for a public hearing and
recommendation to council.
While the public can sign up to speak their minds about the
rezoning, county staff has already made up its collective mind, recommending
that the planning commission not approve the rezoning.
Both parcels are zoned rural (RU). The County is asking for
one of the parcels (456.01 acres) to be rezoned to Light Industrial (LI) and
the other (27.54 acres) to be zoned for General Commercial (GC).
The 2015 Richland County Comprehensive Plan designates the
RU zoned area as Neighborhood (Low-Density) for future zoning.
According to the staff report, the LI district is intended
to accommodate wholesaling, distribution, storage, processing, light
manufacturing and general commercial uses.
“The zoning request [for the 456.01 acres] is not consistent
with the objectives for non-residential development within the Neighborhood
(Low-Density) future land use designation,” staff stated in its report. “Within
the Neighborhood (Low Density) designation, the Comprehensive Plan recommends
that industrial development with significant community impacts, i.e., noise,
exhaust, odor, heavy truck traffic) is discouraged. The variety of industrial
uses allowed under the LI district includes potential uses which would be incompatible
with the general area as it is currently developed.”
For these reasons, staff recommended disapproval of the
requested map amendment.
Likewise, the county’s planning staff recommended
disapproval of GC for the smaller parcel, stating that it was not consistent
with surrounding zoning and would constitute leapfrog development.
Blythewood Town Council has rezoned about 600 acres from
Development (D-1) zoning to Limited Industrial (LI) at Richland County’s
request and passed the first of two votes to rezone the remaining 163 acres of
the 1,300 acres.
The Blythewood planning commission voted 3-3 on the
recommendation to Town Council which resulted in no recommendation. Blythewood
Council will take its second and final vote on September 23.
Richland County
Planning Commission will meet on Sept. 9 at 3 p.m. in Council Chambers, 2020
Hampton Street in Columbia 29202. The Commission’s recommendation will then go
to County Council.
Blythewood Town
Council will meet on Sept. 23 at 7 p.m., at the Doko Manor. That vote will be
the final vote for the rezoning request for the 163 acres.
WINNSBORO – A new Burger King is going up in Winnsboro and
is expected to be open around Oct. 5.
Located on the Bypass adjacent to KJ’s Food Mart, the 3,200
square-foot fast food restaurant will be the chain’s prototype store with a
double drive-thru, according to Ben Wasser, Chief Operating Officer of Carolina
Franchise Holdings out of Greenville.
Wasser said the restaurant will be hiring the week before
the opening.
“So anyone interested in employment with us can email their
inquiries to benjamin.fleming@carolinafh.com.
“We’ll offer our regular menu and will also be featuring our
new Impossible Whopper, with an all plant-based ‘meat’ patty,” Wasser said.
“It’s a great, great product, and we hope everybody will stop in and try it.
We’re looking forward to opening and serving the folks in Fairfield County.”
BLYTHEWOOD – Eight town residents have filed for elective
office in the upcoming Nov. 5 municipal elections – three candidates for mayor
and five candidates for two at-large town council seats. The filing period
ended Tuesday at 5 p.m.
Filing to run for the four-year term of mayor are: former
Blythewood Mayor Keith Bailey and town council members Bryan S. Franklin and
Malcolm P. Gordge.
Filing to run for the two four-year term council seats are:
incumbent Eddie Baughman, Barry J. Belville, planning commission chair Donald
Beaton Brock, Jr., planning commissioner Sloan Jarvis Griffin, III and former
planning commissioner Marcus Taylor.
Mayoral Candidates
Bailey
Franklin
Gordge
Bailey, Franklin and Gordge are all residents of the Ashley
Oaks neighborhood.
Bailey, a retired Army major and former mayor of Blythewood, began his municipal government career when he applied for the planning commission in 2002. He was elected to the town council, serving from 2004-08, and then elected mayor, serving from 2008-12. Bailey holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Hampton University in Virginia. His wife is Marilyn Bailey, and they have three grown sons who graduated from Blythewood High School.
Franklin, retired from the Army as a Lt. Colonel, has served three years on the planning commission and the third year as chairman. He was elected to town council two years ago. Franklin graduated from the Citadel in 1990. He is married to Desde mona Franklin, and they have three grown children and five children still at home attending Blythewood schools.
Gordge, a retired mechanical engineer, is a native of England. Gordge has lived in Blythewood since 2004. He served on the town’s planning commission for three years beginning February, 2013 and as chairman during 2014. He was elected to town council in November of 2015. Gordge attended Gloucestershire College of Art and Technology in the United Kingdom and was awarded a Higher National Certificate (equivalent to a Bachelor’s degree) in Mechanical Engineering. Gordge is married to Emily Gordge, and they have a grown son, Zac.
Council Candidates
Baughman
Bellville
Brock
Griffin
Taylor
Baughman, a Navy veteran and retired from the Columbia Fire Department, was elected to town council in 2014 to fill the unexpired term of Roger Hovis who resigned to become a Richland County Sheriff’s deputy. Baughman was re-elected to a full four-year term in 2016. He currently serves as Mayor Pro Tem. A resident of the Lake Ashley area, Baughman is married to Donna Baughman and they have two grown children.
Belville, the assistant athletic director for the Lexington Recreation and Aging Commission, lives in Cobblestone Park. A six-year resident of Blythewood, Belville said he has no political experience. He is married to Lindsay Belville and has three children ages 8, 5 and 2.
Brock, an investment accountant with Public Employee Benefits Authority, has served on the town’s planning commission since 2016 and currently serves as chairman. He ran for mayor in 2017. Brock holds a Masters in Accountancy from the University of South Carolina. He is married to Mary Sternick Brock, and they have three children who attend Blythewood schools.
Griffin is emergency preparedness coordinator II for SC DHEC. He has lived in Blythewood for three years and was appointed to the planning commission in October of last year. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fire Emergency Management from Kaplan University and is working toward a Master’s degree in public administration. Griffin is married to Tennille Griffin and they are expecting their first child in October.
Taylor, a self-employed structured wire technician, served on the planning commission from 2006-18. He lives in Dawson’s Creek and studied criminal justice at South University in Columbia. Taylor is married to April and they have two grown children and one child at home.
Candidate Forum
The Voice will publish campaign statements from each
candidate in early October. A candidate forum, hosted by The Voice newspaper,
will be held at Doko Manor on Oct. 24.
Register to Vote
The last day to register to vote in person for this election
is Saturday, Oct. 5, by 12 noon. Voter registration by mail must be postmarked
no later than Monday, Oct. 7. Voter Registration online, fax or by email must
be entered no later than Sunday, Oct. 6, by 11:59 pm.
To register to vote or to obtain absentee ballots, contact
the Richland County Voter Registration Office, 2020 Hampton Street, Columbia,
S.C. Absentee ballots may be requested by calling the Voter Registration Office
at 576-2240. In-Person absentee voting will begin Monday, Oct. 7 at 2020
Hampton Street.
The Polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. The polling
place for all precincts in this election – Blythewood 1, Blythewood 2,
Blythewood 3, Longcreek and Ridgeway (Fairfield County) – will be at Blythewood
Park, 126 Boney Road in Blythewood.
BLYTHEWOOD – Approximately seven years after council voted
in August, 2012, to pursue an economic development project that was
characterized as the site where a replica of the town’s original train depot
would be built, it appears that the disposition of that replica, the Doko Depot
spec building, which sits across from Town Hall, has been sold – finally – but
not without one more hitch.
During last week’s regular monthly meeting, council was
asked to authorize an amendment to the sales ordinance to reduce the purchase
price of the building.
“I would ask that you amend the contract at the request of
the purchaser to an amount of $305,000 for expenses the purchaser has incurred
over the last several months due to the delay of closing,” the town’s Economic
Development consultant Ed Parler said, addressing council.
That delay was due to the discovery about two years ago that
the deed to the property was not clear despite the fact that the Town had paid
$34,492.80 to two legal firms – Parker Poe and Winters Law Firm – for the
initial legal work on the depot project. Satisfying that deed ended up costing
the town another $39,922.07 ($14,639.26 to Callison Tigh law firm and $25,000
to Margaret DuBard who previously owned a portion of the property where the
Depot sits).
The total cost of the project, $469,908.52, includes the
$74,132.06 in legal fees plus $147,872.50 in miscellaneous expenses including
financing costs, architectural costs and other expenses incurred by the Town in
the fiscal year prior to construction.
In an interview with The Voice on Tuesday, Mayor J. Michael
Ross said he was not happy with how much the Town had to pay to satisfy the
deed for the depot.
“There’s a reason why we’re where we are,” Ross said. “I’m
not sure how much of those legal expenses for the deed we can recover or if we
will recover them at all,” Ross said. “But we [council] are going to discuss it
in executive session at the next meeting.”
The project was originally funded through two grants
totaling $456,881 from Fairfield Electric Cooperative as part of a franchise fee
credit that is awarded for economic development purposes to governments and
other institutions and nonprofits. Those grants plus the reduced sale price of
$305,000 will leave the town with a net profit of $144,099.98 from the project.
“When the project began, the town committed to build a
building for a specific client, a restauranteur who was going to occupy the
building,” Parler told council last week. “This deal didn’t go forward, so
council elected to build a spec building and put it out for purchase.”
The building was constructed and, after myriad delays, Don
Russo, owner of Freeway Music, agreed almost two years ago to purchase the
building for his own business on one end and a restaurant on the other when it
was discovered the deed was not clear.
“The town has not lost any money with this transaction,”
Parler assured council. “The $456,881 used toward building the depot was grant
money.”
“I would say the end result, again, is an economic
development project that started with some scars and might end with one,” Ross
said. “The end result, though, is that the town benefits with close to $150,000
and the people get a great music school/performers and another local
restaurant. Not all loss!”
After an executive session to discuss the matter, council voted
unanimously to approve the reduction in sales price from $325,000 to
$305,000.
WINNSBORO – After eluding authorities for 10 days, a
Winnsboro man has been arrested on charges stemming from a shooting incident
that occurred on Saturday, Aug. 17 in the Popular Street area of Winnsboro.
Bouknight
Charles Tyler Bouknight, 30, turned himself in to the
Fairfield County Detention Center on Wednesday, Aug. 28, according to Sheriff
Will Montgomery.
Bouknight was charged with four counts of attempted murder,
possession of a weapon during a violent crime and discharging a firearm into a
dwelling.
Officers were called to a shots-fired incident in the 400
block of Popular Street, on Aug. 17. Upon arrival, deputies say they were told
by witnesses that a man with a white ski mask had walked down Popular Street
firing a handgun into a neighboring home, then got into the passenger side of a
gray sedan and drove off.
Witnesses also told officers that a person came out of the
house that had been shot at and returned fire at the offender as he left the
scene, according to the incident report.
Officers reported observing damage to the home and to
vehicles in the yard that appeared to have been caused by a firearm.
While still on the scene, deputies received a report of a
second shooting on Railroad Avenue, a few miles away. There, they found a woman who said she had
been in the residence [that was shot at] with another woman and a juvenile. She
said the home belonged to her mother.
Deputies reported that the woman said she was looking for
the person who had shot into the home. Officers arrested the woman who they
reported had firearms in her vehicle.
Motivation for firing into the home has not been disclosed.
Bouknight is currently awaiting a bond hearing at the
Fairfield County Detention Center.
BLYTHEWOOD – Former Planning Commission member Ernestine
Middleton has been re-appointed to the Commission by Town Council after a
three-year absence. Middleton has also run for a Town Council seat and the
Richland District Two School Board.
Middleton is a talent acquisition manager for the S.C.
Department of Mental Health in Columbia and previously served as the Director
of Internal Operations and Vice President of Administration for the Arkansas
Scholarship Lottery in Little Rock, Arkansas.
A resident of the Lake Ashley area of town, Middleton is
working on her first book as well as a children’s book based on Proverbs.
She will begin her service on the Commission at its next
meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 3 at 6 p.m. at the Manor.
