BLYTHEWOOD – Winners of the J. Gordon Coogler Poetry contest were honored with an award reception at The Manor on Monday. Adult winners, in photo above, are Mary Nesbitt Garrison, Kelley Lannigan and Mike Sears (not shown). Martha Jones, right, is president of Bravo Blythewood, sponsor of the poetry contest.
In the photo below, youth winners show off their awards. There were 55 entries.
RIDGEWAY – Brenda Lord-McGrew is an instigator and her friend, Carol Jones agrees. St. Stephen’s Art and Fiber Guild and friends have worked hard to create yarn art to display as part of the yarnbombing of Ridgeway in conjunction with the 12th Annual Arts on the Ridge Show & Sale on May 4th & 5th.
“There is lots of talent in Fairfield County,” said Guild Chair Brenda Lord-McGrew. “And art can be expressed in so many different ways.”
Yarnbombing is certainly one of them. You have to smile when you see the handmade work that brightens the static objects brought to life with color and imagination.
The first volunteer to participate in the effort was Emily Minor and the students from the Midland’s STEM Institute in Winnsboro. Each of the 200 students created a red, white or blue pom-pom to decorate the police stations in Ridgeway.
Other creation participants were Ralph and Harriot Brown, Dale Mann, Lu Marley, Dee Bennett, Jan Smith, Flo Renford and family, Shirley Smith, Belinda Peters, Debbie Day and Karen Siegling.
The yarnbombing will be on display through the month of May in downtown Ridgeway. For more information you can visit RidgewaySC.org.
COLUMBIA – Clean out your closets, garages and sheds and bring unwanted items to Richland Recycles Day to have them disposed of the right way. The County’s largest annual recycling event will be held from 8 a.m. – 4 p.m., Saturday, May 12 at the S.C. State Fairgrounds.
The public should enter the fairgrounds through Gate 12 on Rosewood Drive, where they will be directed to the appropriate drop-off site. Workers will unload acceptable items, including paint, household chemicals and cleaners, computers, TVs, home electronics, tires (limit of eight per family), fluorescent light bulbs, pesticides and scrap metal such as washers and dryers, bicycles, metal chairs and lawn mowers free of oil and gas. Paper shredding will also be available.
The S.C. Department of Agriculture will be on site to accept pesticides from any South Carolina resident. All other collections are for Richland County residents only. Motorists’ driver’s licenses will be checked for proof of residency upon entry. No commercial or business drop-off is permitted.
Items NOT accepted this year include mattresses, cooking oil and wooden furniture. Not sure if you item will be accepted? Call Richland County Solid Waste & Recycling at 803-576-2446 during normal business in the weeks leading up to the big day.
RIDGEWAY – On Monday, April 30, 2018, at approximately 5:00 PM, Randolph Wise walked away from his residence, 132 Jujube Drive, in the Ridgeway area near the Ridgeway Motel. Wise has several medical issues, including seizures and has a history of falling/tripping. He also may have mental impairment and may be acting irrationally.
Wise was last seen wearing a black long-sleeve pullover, blue jeans, and black Nike shoes with a green Nike “check.”
If you see Mr. Wise or have information about him, please contact the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office (803-635-4141) immediately.
WINNSBORO – When the new leader of the Fairfield County Chamber of Commerce failed to satisfy Council’s concerns last week, during a budget workshop, regarding the Chamber’s plans for the upcoming budget year, Council threatened to reduce the funding it provides for the Chamber from $87,500 to $25,000 unless the Chamber provided a financial roadmap for how it plans to spend that funding in the 2018-19 fiscal year.
“I’m not opposed to continuing our full funding for the Chamber,” Council Chairman Billy Smith said, “but we need a plan to know what they’re going to do with it.”
Chris Timmers, who was introduced by the Chamber Board as the Interim Director of the Chamber during a member breakfast on March 2, introduced himself as Executive Director of the Chamber when he came before Council during the April 17 workshop. Asked by The Voice following the meeting to clarify Timmers’ job title, Board Chairman Harper Shull said Timmers had not been hired to be the Executive Director.
“He is the Interim Director,” Shull said.
After announcing to Council that March 31 was the Chamber’s 73rd anniversary, informing Council that Providence Health was clearing ground to construct a new emergency facility in Fairfield County and that Lake Wateree is sold out and being developed to the max, Timmers said the Chamber had McMaster Enterprises, which is owned by Bill McMaster, Shull’s employer, to thank for having rent-free office space. Timmers said that was way the Chamber has saved Council money.
However, Council has never funded office space for the Chamber according to several Council members. Prior to moving into its current offices at 120 N. Congress Street, which were offered by McMaster, the Chamber occupied rent-free offices in the Town Clock tower which is owned by the Town of Winnsboro.
Timmers said the Chamber’s programs include the S.C. Railroad Museum, the Big Grab Yard Sale, Arts on the Ridge and Ag & Art. However, when asked about the Chamber’s involvement with the Railroad Museum and Arts on the Ridge, Susan Yenner, secretary of the Chamber, said those are not financially supported by the Chamber, but are included in the Chamber’s promotional material.
When Council Chairman Billy Smith inquired about the amount of funding provided to the Chamber by the Town of Winnsboro and what that funding is used for, Timmers looked to Chamber Board Chairman, Harper Shull, for answers and then sat down.
Shull said the Town provided the Chamber with about $35,000 last year, but that it was a one-time deal and was to be renegotiated each year. As for how that money was spent, Shull looked to Chamber Secretary Susan Yenner in the audience for guidance. Yenner, who has been managing the Chamber’s day to day business since former President/CEO Terry Vickers resigned last October, said the money went to such events as Pumpkin Fest and Spirit Fest, before Shull picked back up and continued.
Shull expressed a dim view of whether the Chamber should be taking any money from the town government for events in the town.
“We’re not exactly sure how we go forward with that just because there is a, I won’t say a conflict of interest, I mean, it’s the county seat of Fairfield County, and maybe previously we spent too much time in downtown Winnsboro versus the County as a whole,” Shull said.
“Well, I think if the Town is giving you the money, it’s appropriate you spend it there,” Smith said.
Shull also suggested changes that might be coming to the Rock Around the Clock festival, including an admission charge. He also announced that Sam Edenfield would not be able to run the car show aspect of the festival this year.
“We had some feedback last year about Rock Around the Clock. We had a lot of mayhem,” Shull said. “We like to keep law and order as much as possible.”
Chief John Seibles of the Winnsboro Department of Public Safety said he does not remember there were any problems at the festival last year.
“It was a lot larger than in past years and it ran rather smoothly as I recall,” Seibles said.
When Smith asked about the Chamber’s annual golf tournament fundraiser that he discontinued this year and questioned how the Chamber planned to make up for the $8,000 it would lose without the tournament, Shull said the tournament was solely on the back of Winnsboro Petroleum, which is owned by McMaster, and other corporate sponsors.
“It became a lot for me to ask Coca Cola and Budweiser [for sponsorships],” Shull said. He also said the tournament had to be held out of county because there is no golf course in Fairfield County. He said the Board is tossing around another event that could be held in the county.
At the end of the six-hour budget workshop, Council appeared satisfied with the administrative recommendations for allocations for all the agencies supported by the County, except for those recommended for the Chamber and for Fairfield County Disabilities and Special Needs. Council suggested omitting funding for a $19,000 vehicle for DSN, saying that some of DSN’s vehicles still had low mileage.
“I wasn’t too impressed with some of the answers we received from the Chamber of Commerce tonight,” Smith told Council. “If they are not even sure they’re going to continue doing the things that we all know they have been doing, I think that leaves a question for us. If they don’t know what they’re going to continue to be doing, then how do we know how to continue to fund them?”
“Are they going to be doing away with Rock Around the Clock?” Councilman Doug Pauley asked.
“It kind of sounds that way,” Smith said. “I understand the Chamber is in a transitional period, but it seems the boat is rather rocky at the current time. Before we pass along any taxpayers’ monies, I’m just concerned about what the Chamber is going to do in the future,” Smith said.
County Administrator Jason Taylor met with the Chamber Board the morning following the meeting, explaining what Council is looking for in the way of a spending plan for the coming fiscal year. The Chamber’s response is due to Taylor no later than May 9.
In another funding concern, Council questioned Fairfield County Sheriff Will Montgomery’s request for funds in excess of Taylor’s recommendation. Montgomery requested additional funds for raises for his department that exceeded administrative recommendations. Smith said he would like to hear more details from Montgomery about the additional funding request.
Council held a third budget workshop on April 24 and final reading on the budget will be held at the regular meeting on May 14.
RIDGEWAY – The Voice’s Foods Editor, May Vokaty, isn’t just a recipe wizard – she’s also an alpaca farmer. She was first smitten with the idea of owning alpacas while on vacation in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, and then spent a few years researching the logistics. Last October, she finally took the plunge and rented 2½ idyllic acres in Ridgeway for The Alpaca Experience, a pastured farmstead where she tends a herd of fluffy, sweet-natured alpacas, curly-horned angora goats, Heritage chickens and a wriggly litter of Great Pyranees puppies.
Vokaty said she’s delighted that the farm is coming together just like she envisioned – as a productive fiber farm, an educational venue for the public and a farmer’s market offering farm-raised meat and eggs, homemade nut butters and jellies, hand-dyed yarn and fiber-woven accessories like socks, gloves, hats and scarves.
The next Farm Day Farmer’s Market will be held on Saturday, May 5. Vendors’ wares will include handmade sawmill furniture, glass and ceramic mosaics, decorative felted animal figurines, hand-painted wooden home décor, a produce vendor, macramé jewelry, a food truck and more.
And even the farm’s bumper crop of alpaca manure has become a surprisingly popular purchase at $5 a bag.
“Alpaca manure is low in nitrogen and turns into compost quickly, without having to age much. So you can take it straight from the pasture and put it in your garden. It’s a very practical resource,” she said. “I actually pay my farm rent in manure!”
Held on the first Saturday of every month, Farm Day Farmer’s Markets are open to the public and packed with informative tours, interaction with the animals and learning about farm life. Vokaty plans to continue developing the farm into an educational resource, perhaps as a destination for field trips and as a summer camp. She also hosts events for kids with special needs.
“The atmosphere here is peaceful, and kind of therapeutic in a way,” she said. “A friend of mine has an autistic son, and I noticed how much he enjoys spending time at the farm, just relaxing on a bench in the shade of a tree or spending a few moments petting a gentle, friendly animal. In March, we held an Easter egg hunt here for kids with special needs and their families, and it was a great experience. I’d like to do more events like that, such as harvest festivals in the fall and Christmas things.”
Vokaty said her daughter Elli, 6, is a big help around the farm.
“She’s very involved, and she can do just about anything,” Vokaty said. “We come out to feed the animals every day after she gets home from school, and if I said, Elli, you’ve got to take care of everybody today, she could do it! Of course, it might take her a while…she’s easily distracted by the puppies,” she added with a smile. “Elli especially likes caring for the chickens, and she’s told her classmates that she wants to be either a chicken farmer or a chicken scientist when she grows up,” she said. “I don’t think I could do all this without her.”
And building the alpaca herd, Vokaty said, has been an adventure.
“I don’t know that I was ready for the first three,” she said. “I heard about them on Facebook, and went to see them at a farm upstate. They were living in bad conditions, and I knew I couldn’t just leave them, so I bought them and brought them home in a trailer. I had been studying alpacas for three or four years, so when I got the animals, it was like – oh, I know what to do! Although, I didn’t,” she adds with a laugh.
The next three hailed from an area with lots of red clay.
“I call them my orange girls,” she said. “But their color has calmed down considerably now.”
Four male alpacas from North Carolina have rounded out the herd, although the group will be growing again soon since all the females are currently pregnant.
“I’m really interested in fiber,” Vokaty said. “Alpaca fleece is comparable to cashmere – it’s lightweight, very warm, water-resistant, hypoallergenic and doesn’t make you sweat or itch.
But alpaca fiber is ‘greener’ and more environmentally sustainable. Cashmere goats tear up their pasture land and basically reduce it to desert, so the more demand there is for cashmere, the more it destroys the earth. Alpacas are different. Instead of hooves, they have soft pads with toenails, so they don’t tear up the earth. And they’re bigger, so you can get four-six sweaters from one alpaca in a year, while it takes four cashmere goats to make just one sweater. Plus, they eat less than cashmere goats.”
She sends the fleece to an alpaca fiber pool in New England for processing.
“Since there are so few alpaca farmers in the United States, it’s a way for us to pool our fiber together and make it workable for a large mill, like the Pendleton mill that my fiber pool uses,” she said. “If I send them, say, 10 pounds of fleece, then I receive 10 pounds of finished product.”
Any unusable bits and bobs of alpaca fleece are stuffed into “bird balls” that she hangs in trees around the farm to provide grab n’ go nesting material.
Vokaty said that every day on the farm brings something new, whether a big surprise – like a litter of puppies – or more fleeting, like witnessing the alpacas’ delight at being allowed to “clean up the garden” at the end of the season.
“The alpacas are just four-legged stress relievers,” she said. “When I’m out here, in the pasture with the animals and working with them, my stress just seems to go away. It’s a busy lifestyle – there’s always something to do, and you never get any time off – but they just seem to emotionally soothe me, in a way that makes what I’m doing worthwhile.”
More information about The Alpaca Experience is available on the farm’s Facebook page at facebook.com/thealpacaexperience1.
JENKINSVILLE – Motions relating to pending lawsuits against the Jenkinsville Water Company and some of its officers are scheduled to be heard in a Fairfield County courtroom this week. In all, four motions will be heard on Friday, April 27. A trial date of May 7 has been set in one of the lawsuits, according to Fairfield County court documents.
One motion on Friday’s docket seeks to merge two similarly worded lawsuits – one filed in 2014 and the other in 2016. Both suits were filed by the Broad River Campground. JWC is named as the lone defendant in the 2014 suit, while JWC president Greg Ginyard and vice president Joseph McBride are co-defendants in the 2016 litigation.
Both suits concern a dispute over water usage agreements between the campground and the JWC. They also dispute how rates were calculated. Many people living at the campground were workers at the V.C. Summer nuclear plant in Jenkinsville. More water service was needed to accommodate growth in the campsites, the lawsuits state.
“Jenkinsville Water Co., led by Ginyard and McBride, unfairly, unreasonably, and dishonestly used an inflated estimated water usage rate rather than the actual water usage rate … in making the decision to deny the additional 49 campsites,” the campground states in its complaint.
Another motion the campground filed seeks permission to amend its original complaint. Additional details were not contained in court documents, and will be presented during Friday’s hearing, court documents state.
The court will also hear a motion for summary judgment filed by the JWC.
In a memo, the JWC said water is a finite resource that must be regulated.
“JWC’s actions did not harm the public interests, as the Company acted prudently to ensure that the water would be conserved properly and would be available to other customers and potential customers,” the memo states.
Specifically, a 2009 letter the JWC wrote to Broad River Campground stated water usage was capped at 8,050 gallons per day, but the number would rise to 21,000 gallons per day if service to the additional sites was approved.
JWC also disputes the assertion that the letter constitutes a contract.
“The parties never had a meeting of the minds and never entered into a valid contract,” the memo states.
Broad River Campground filed another lawsuit in December 2016 that alleges the JWC has violated the state’s Freedom of Information Act. That case is still pending and it is not on the docket Friday.
Related articles: Water Company Faces FOIA Lawsuit, Water Company Officers Added to Lawsuit,