An architect’s rendition of a proposed new medical office at 121 Blythewood Road.
BLYTHEWOOD – The Town’s Architectural Consultant, Matt Davis, stepped out of that role on Monday evening during the Board of Architectural Review meeting to represent the applicants for a medical office to be located at 121 Blythewood Road, across from Companion Animal Hospital.
Designed to be shared by two private medical practices, a pediatrician and an ophthalmologist, the 7,085-square-foot building is a combination of a two-story center section with one-story wings.
Because the Town Center zoning ordinance requires all new commercial buildings to have multiple stories, the BAR voted to give the applicants a variance for the two one-story wings. And because the Department of Motor Vehicles requires that driveways (entrance/exits) must align with driveways across the street, the Board also voted to allow a shift of the building toward the east lot line to allow for that driveway match up.
The BAR voted unanimously to give partial approval for the architecture and building location. Additional architectural details (materials, colors, etc.) and the final site plan with landscaping, lighting and signage will be submitted to the BAR at the July 20 meeting for the balance of the approval.
Daniel Hayes and Craig Rummel outside the Blythewood Recreation Center on Boney Road. Saturday, they launch the Blythewood chapter of F3 Nation, a free workout and fellowship program for men.
BLYTHEWOOD/WINNSBORO – It begins in the predawn darkness, when first light is but a rumor. The morning’s fist birds are warming up in their arboreal alcoves, the air not yet filled with their flitting chorus. As the sunrise splits the horizon and spills its first rays, painting the landscape in an ethereal glow, the shadows appear on the grounds of the park.
The shadows, vague at first, begin to take form, the shapes of men rising before them. Men from all walks of life, of all ages, shapes and sizes. Men of all faiths and convictions. And they are all here for the same reason – to be better than they were the day before.
That is, essentially, the bottom line of F3 (Fitness, Fellowship and Faith) Nation: to improve from day to day.
Born in Charlotte on the first day of 2011, the men-only workout and fellowship group has grown to include chapters across the Southeast. In 2013, a group was formed at The Sandlot on Clemson Road; last month, at Fortune Springs Park in Winnsboro. And, beginning this Saturday, Blythewood Park on Boney Road will host its first workout.
The Saturday workouts are the “late” workouts, beginning at 6:30 a.m. and lasting about an hour, but that doesn’t make the boot camp style sessions any less challenging. Especially if it’s your first time.
“My first exercise was awful,” said Blythewood resident Daniel Hayes, 27. Hayes, an N.C. native who moved to Blythewood in 2013, helped spearhead F3’s presence in Blythewood along with Craig Rummel.
“I didn’t finish anything,” Hayes said of his first workout in Finlay Park in Columbia in 2013. “I almost threw up. It was a very humbling experience.”
Humbled though he was, Hayes was hooked, he said, and began attending the boot camp sessions three days a week at The Sandlot, where participants go through a series of “body weight” exercises – pushups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, etc. – eventually finding his way to one of the running groups that meet two to three days a week.
“I was never much of a runner before F3,” Hayes said. “I used to actually make fun of long-distance runners. But I just completed my first half-marathon in Columbia last March.”
Since joining F3, Hayes said he has dropped about 30 pounds from a body that was “a mess” and years beyond the shape he was in as a three-sport high school athlete.
But like many other F3 participants, Hayes found something besides just improved physical health. The husband and father of three girls found the second F – Fellowship.
“I was out of shape,” Hayes said, “but I was also looking for something more than the four females I live with. I don’t get a lot of male interaction much, besides at work. I don’t get to goof around and be a guy in my house. Now I get up early in the morning and workout with other guys, cracking jokes, having fun while getting stronger along the way.”
The fellowship augments the fitness, according to F3 organizer Jason Reynolds, a 35-year-old Citadel graduate from Columbia. F3 provides a setting where men can get together with other men, share their stories, their struggles and remind each other what it means to be a Man.
“What the founders in Charlotte (Tim Whitmire and David Redding) discovered was that as they got older, they had fewer and fewer male friends,” Reynolds said. “They had the husbands of their wives’ friends, fathers of their children’s friends, men they saw at church; but these were only by-name, in-passing acquaintances. They weren’t really close friends. There weren’t a lot of guys they could really talk to about their trials and tribulations.”
But through the shared experience of the workout, Reynolds said, men form a real, lasting bond. And in this boys-only environment, men can talk freely and openly.
The third F in F3 Nation – Faith – is a little more subtle, Reynolds said.
“F3 is not an evangelical group,” he said. “The Faith aspect lies a little below the surface. We’re not affiliated with any specific religion. But we’ve found that when you fellowship with other men in these workouts, you realize we’re here for a purpose – to be a good father, a good husband, a good friend, good employer or employee. You realize you have responsibilities and expectations to live up to.
“We’re 100 percent inclusive,” Reynolds added. “We’re open to all men of any fitness level and all faiths.”
For Hayes, the F3 experience has strengthened his faith, he said.
Each workout ends with a huddle-up as the workout leader (assigned on a rotation from among the participants and designated as “The Q”) offers a prayer, inspirational words of encouragement or a scripture reading. When it came his turn as The Q, Hayes found himself in uncharted waters.
“I had never prayed in front of a group of people before,” Hayes said. “It made me uncomfortable. I wasn’t strong enough in my faith to do that.”
Before long, however, the experiences of the workout had transformed him more than just physically.
“Now, for me to have the courage, the faith and the mental capacity to lead a devotion to a group of guys, 95 percent of whom are older than me, that’s a huge change,” Hayes said.
If You’re Ready
The Winnsboro group holds boot camp workouts Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5:15 – 6 a.m., and Saturdays 7 – 8 a.m. at Fortune Springs Park. The run group meets Monday and Wednesdays at 5:15 a.m. at the Town Clock.
Blythewood’s group holds its inaugural meeting this Saturday at 6:30 a.m. at Blythewood Park, 126 Boney Road. Additional boot camps are slated for Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5:30 – 6:15 a.m., also at the park.
Hayes suggests that first-timers invest in a pair of lightweight latex gloves, as workouts incorporate the surrounding environment and may include hefting the odd cinder block or pushups or other activities against picnic tables or the curb of the parking lot. And, Hayes said, be prepared to be challenged.
“It’s going to hurt,” he said. “The type of exercises we do, you’re engaging muscles you don’t normally use. I’ve seen CrossFit guys show up and not be able to finish the workout.
“But the point is to keep moving, keep doing something,” Hayes said. “The point is to make yourself get better, and the only way to get better is to keep coming back.”
BLYTHEWOOD – A Blythewood man was arrested last week, charged with six counts of sexual exploitation of minors.
According to the office of S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson, a search warrant was executed on June 11 on the Lakemor Court home of Samuel James Robison III, 77, where computers and other electronic equipment were seized. Robinson, who is accused of sending child pornography via an internet file sharing network, was arrested and charged with one count of sexual exploitation of a minor, second degree, and five counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, third degree. Both are felony offenses, punishable by up to 10 years in prison on each count.
The alleged file transfer was discovered by investigators with the Florence County Sheriff’s Office, a member of the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force. The Richland County Sheriff’s Department, also an ICAC member, made the arrest.
Robison was transferred to the Alvin S. Glen Detention Center and was later released on a $120,000 bond.
NEW YORK, N.Y. – Winnsboro literary sensation Jack Livings has won the 2015 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award for his debut collection of short stories, “The Dog,” which was published in 2014 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. The $25,000 prize was announced Monday night at the PEN Literary Awards Ceremony at The New School in New York City. As described by the PEN America Center, the award “honors exceptionally talented fiction writers whose debut work represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise.”
The judges commented that, “The Dog reminds the reader that fiction … is an investigation, an act of empathy and imagination which brings the world to life.”
Livings, whose competition included the 2014 National Book Award winner, said he was shocked when his name was announced as the winner.
“I wasn’t sure I’d heard correctly,” he said in an email interview with The Voice on Tuesday. “Then it slowly dawned on me I hadn’t deluded myself into hearing my name.”
Livings and his wife, writer Jennie Yabroff, celebrated by enjoying dinner out with friends after the ceremony.
“The friends happened to be Molly Antopol and her husband,” Livings said. “Molly’s book was nominated for the award, too, and I suspect that had she won, we’d all have been at dinner together afterwards. The only difference would have been who picked up the check.”
Livings is a native of Winnsboro and a 1992 graduate of Richard Winn Academy, and his mother, Laurens Livings, said she’s delighted that he’s able to return home several times a year. He and Yabroff live with their two daughters in Manhattan, where he works as the International Editor in Licensing and Syndication at Time, Inc. He is currently at work on his next book, a novel set in New York City.
“I’m tremendously honored,” Livings said of the PEN/Bingham award, “and it’s gratifying to know that other people thought enough of the book to give it a prize.”
“The Dog” is available for purchase on Amazon.com, at Barnes & Noble and through independent bookstores.
NEAR ANCHOR POINT, ALASKA – At age 76, Adolf Weitzel of Ridgeway was living his dream – retired from the homebuilding industry, he was building a log cabin on 3 acres of coastal wilderness in Alaska. He was building the cabin off the land by himself. His story appeared in the Sept. 6, 2013 issue of The Voice. Because he could only work during the summer months while the weather was good, he arrived in Alaska in mid-May and stayed until mid-September.
A week ago Saturday, on May 17, Weitzel once again arrived in Alaska, eager to begin his third summer of construction. But it was not to be. The morning after his arrival, according to his daughter-in-law Joanna Weitzel of Blythewood, as Weitzel was driving his 2006 Chevrolet pickup truck to pick up supplies for the cabin, he died of heart failure, crashing his truck into an unoccupied home. While no one else was injured in the accident, Weitzel appears to have died instantly, his daughter-in-law said.
“A friend who picked Adolf up at the airport in Anchorage said he arrived in great spirits,” Joanna Weitzel told The Voice. “He had been out to the cabin and was happy to see that it had done well over the winter. He was eager to get started. Our family is heartbroken to lose Adolf and we are heartbroken that he did not get to fulfill his dream.”
Joanna Weitzel said she is especially comforted that her children will have the memory of spending part of their summers in Alaska helping Adolf work on the cabin.
But now the focus for the family is on how to finish Adolf’s dream. Joanna Weitzel said the family plans to complete the cabin but needs help in doing so.
“We have several friends and family members who have volunteered their help,” she said. “We may not do the job Adolf would have done, but the plan is to get it finished.”
Adolf is survived by his wife Annerose and daughter, Pat, who live in Ridgeway; a son, Steve (Joanna Weitzel’s husband) and their two children, Erin and Davis; and a granddaughter, Ashley Cox who resides in Greenwood.
To help with the funding of the cabin’s construction and travel expenses, the family has set up a GoFundMe account. Anyone who wishes to contribute can go to http://www.gofundme.com/vh3h85n.
Blythewood Town Councilman Bob Massa mulls a decision at a recent meeting.
BLYTHEWOOD – Town Council opened with the announcement of several appointments and resignations, not the least of which was the resignation of Councilman Bob Massa, effective June 30.
Massa told Council members that he and his wife, Theresa, will be moving to Seneca to be nearer his son’s family. Massa is in his second year on Council and, with his expertise and experience as a CPA, former auditor and retired Finance Director for the City of Forest Acres, has been a major force in righting the town’s fiscal ship since being elected to office in 2014. Massa previously served the town in appointed positions on several boards including the Town’s Planning Commission and the Board of Zoning Appeals, both of which he served as Chairman.
Mayor J. Michael Ross said the Town would not hold a special election but would wait until the next November to elect a new Councilman.
Council voted to hire Melissa Cowan to replace Town Clerk Beverly Colley who was recently married and will be moving to Seattle, Wash. with her husband. Cowan was one of 35 applicants for the position and is currently the municipal clerk for South Congaree and previously held that position for Eastover. She starts work Monday. The municipal clerk is one of three positions that must, by statute, be hired by Council. The other two are the town administrator and the town attorney.
It was also announced that Steve Hasterok has been hired to replace Booth Chilcutt as Director of Events for The Manor and assumed those duties last Monday. Hasterok told Council that he has a business background from the private side, with the last 18 years in health care management including the position of Director of Continuing Medical Education for USC and Palmetto Mental Health for 13 years. After presenting his monthly report on The Manor, Chilcutt was praised by Ross for beginning to pull The Manor out of the financial mire it was in when Chilcutt took the job as Director last year.
“We got our financials today for March 2015,” Ross said, “and we had the highest monthly revenue for The Manor for this fiscal year. We had a profit of $4,367.97.”
The audience applauded and, with that, Chilcutt turned to Hasterok and joked that he might just stay on.
NEW YORK, N.Y. – Winnsboro native Jack Livings’ recently debuted and highly acclaimed short story collection, “The Dog,” has been named as one of five finalists for the prestigious PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction. The winner of the $25,000 award will be announced at the PEN Literary Awards Ceremony on June 8 at the New School in New York City.
The PEN/Bingham award, as described by the PEN American Center, “honors an exceptionally talented fiction writer whose debut work — a novel or collection of short stories — represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise.”
Livings, 40, International Editor in Licensing and Syndication at Time, Inc. in New York City and previously an Editorial Director at Newsweek, said he was thrilled to be named to the award’s long list in March, and was shocked when he found out last week that he is a finalist.
“I was at work, looking at a friend’s twitter feed, when I saw that they had announced the shortlist,” he said in an interview with The Voice on Saturday, “so I clicked through and saw it. I was 100 percent ready to not be on it, so it was a really great surprise. I’m overjoyed at being a finalist,” he said, “but the odds are about 800 to 1 for me to win, because for starters Phil Klay [whose story collection, “Redeployed,” is also a finalist] has already won the National Book Award. I just don’t know how a book as good as his wouldn’t win this.”
“The Dog,” though, has garnered exceptional praise from critics – Michiko Kakutani, the New York Times’ formidable book critic, gave Livings’ book a glowing review when it was published last summer and included it on her list of the 10 Best Books of 2014. It was also selected by Barnes & Noble for their Fall 2014 Discover Great New Writers Program.
The story collection was the first of a two-book deal with publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux, and Livings is now in the thick of working on the second book, a novel. He said it’s important to stay focused on the writing, rather than the accolades.
“Some really nice things have happened over the last year, but that can mentally take you away from the work you want to do. It’s all wonderful,” he said, “but I also have a novel to write!”
Livings sticks to the same schedule every day, waking up around 4 a. m. to write before the day gets busy.
“Sometimes I’ll go a weekend without doing any serious work, but if I take off more than three days in a row, I get very off-center,” he said. “I need to write to be able to deal with the world. It helps me process the world. I think some people have their morning meditation, some people pray, some people go to mass. I write. That’s what I do. And if I don’t do it, I get ornery,” he said with a laugh. “So, for everybody’s sake, I try to do it every day.”
Most of his writing time these days is spent on the novel, but he has also contributed an essay about traveling to Pakistan to a forthcoming Lonely Planet anthology. Following publication of “The Dog” last summer, Livings did several readings in New York, Washington, D.C. and California, and in March he was a panelist at a literary event in Florida.
Livings said that although the work of writing is demanding, it’s also fulfilling.
“I genuinely believe that tenacity is the main thing. It took me a really long time to write [The Dog],” he said. “If you stick with it, things will work out.”
Livings lives in Manhattan with his wife, writer Jennie Yabroff, and their daughters, ages 2 and 10. Raised in Winnsboro, Livings graduated from Richard Winn Academy in 1992, and his mother, Laurens McMaster Livings, said he gets back for visits several times a year.
“The Dog” is available for purchase on Amazon.com, at Barnes & Noble and through independent bookstores.
World Champion bricklayer Jerry Goodman of Blythewood and his daughter and co-worker, Heidi Abea, practice their craft on the floor of The Farm at Ridgeway. (Photo/Barbara Ball)
BLYTHEWOOD – When Larry Sharpe was looking for a stonemason to build a 40-foot stone fireplace at his Fairfield County entertainment hotspot, The Farm of Ridgeway on Highway 21 between Ridgeway and Blythewood, he wanted the best. And that’s what he got when he hired Jerry Goodman of Blythewood. And Goodman has the title to prove it. He was named the 2014 World Champion Bricklayer at the Spec Mix Bricklayer 500 in Las Vegas last year as well as the Top Craftsman, winning a total of $10,000 in prize money. And Goodman is the only bricklayer to win both top awards during the 13 years of the competition.
When asked about his feat recently, Goodman, a man of few words, just shrugged and said, “That’s what I enjoys doing. Stonework is my favorite,” he said. “You can be more artistic with stone.”
In a magazine interview following his win, Goodman talked about the creative side of his profession and revealed his fascination with Michelangelo’s work, “since I also like to carve and work with stone. That’s primarily the masonry work I do – stone masonry,” he said.
Goodman was assisted in the work that won him the world titles by his daughter Heidi, one of two of Goodman’s children who started working with him in their teens and now make up his crew.
BLYTHEWOOD – In addition to two parcels of land on Rimer Pond Road being on the block for Rural Commercial (RC) zoning at the Richland County Planning Commission last week, a 10-acre parcel on Firetower Road was also on the agenda for General Commercial (GC) zoning but was withdrawn by the applicant just before the Commission started proceedings.
Residents on Firetower Road signed a petition opposing the rezoning and Caleb Thomas and several others who live near the proposed rezoning were prepared to present the petition to the Commission had the matter been taken up. The applicant must now wait 90 days before bringing the rezoning request back before the Commission.
The parcel in question, which adjoins the Carl Harris neighborhood and lies to the west of Dawson’s Creek and Dawson’s Pond neighborhoods, is owned by the S.C. Forestry Commission and was for years the site of a fire tower that served the Blythewood area. According to an employee with the S.C. Budget and Control Board who was not authorized to speak on the matter, the parcel is sold pending the rezoning of the property from Rural (RU) to GC. The source said it is the buyer who has initiated the rezoning. Because the parcel is state-owned land, the sale had to be approved by the General Services Department of the Budget and Control Board which issued an Invitation to Bid and initiated a sealed bid process for purchase.
Residents say they are worried about the parcel being rezoned for General Commercial uses which include motorcycle and go-cart tracks, bus facilities, multi-family housing, restaurants, theaters, department and grocery stores, liquor stores and more.
At last month’s Town Council workshop, Blythewood’s economic development consultant, Ed Parler, said he would like to see the area opened up for commerce by extending Creech Road (which runs off Blythewood Road in front of Hardee’s back to the Holiday Inn Express) down to Firetower Road which exits onto Highway 21 (Wilson Boulevard).
For the extension to materialize and connect to Firetower Road, it would need access through three properties: a 36-acre parcel along I-77 owned by Margaret Dubard, et. al.; a 27-acre parcel of land owned by the Richland School District Two that runs between the high school and I-77 and the 10-acre parcel owned by the S.C. Forestry Commission. In the past, the school district has not warmed to the idea of the Creech Road extension. Parler told The Voice that he had not discussed the Creech Road extension possibilities with the district, that he did not know their stance on it and that he had no involvement with anyone purchasing or seeking to rezone the Forestry Commission property for commerce.
Bruce Keen, a resident of Carl Harris Road, a quiet wooded neighborhood lined with tidy homes on large lots, told The Voice that he may be the only one in the neighborhood who would welcome commercial. He said owns a triangular lot on Firetower Road which he currently rents out for a cell tower.
“The rental runs out in two years,” Keen said, “so that property would be in a good place to become commercial. It’s a gold mind for me.”
But others along the road oppose the rezoning to commercial and say a connection between Creech Road and Firetower Road would turn the quite rural road into a thoroughfare.
“If that extension becomes reality that will open Firetower Road up to a lot of traffic, including school traffic,” said Thomas. “Firetower Road would become a racetrack from Hardee’s through these neighborhoods to Highway 21. And that would ruin this nice quite area. We love it here.”
Dawson’s Creek and Dawson’s Pond subdivisions are both in the Town of Blythewood as are some properties on Carl Harris Court and Firetower Road. Others, including the Forestry Commission parcel, are in the unincorporated area of Richland County.
Because the agenda item was withdrawn, it cannot be brought back for consideration by the Planning Commission for 90 days.
BLYTHEWOOD – Booth Chilcutt, the Director of Events and Conference Center (The Manor) will be leaving his position the end of April for what he calls, ‘retirement’… real retirement this time.
Chilcutt said he came to work for the Town as assistant to the Director in March 2013 freshly retired as Director of the Sumter County Cultural Commission and Director of the Performing Arts Center. The following January he was elevated to his present position.
“I really never got a break from work,” Chilcutt told The Voice, with a laugh. “I just need a break and I need to leave all this hard work to someone who has the time and energy to run it. I’ll be in the audience enjoying and applauding.”
While Chilcutt said he intends to spend time in the garden, and more time with his wife, Peggy, he still plans to stay involved with the Arts. While in Sumter, he was three times nominated for the Verner Award, the top award in the state for the Arts.
“I was drawn to The Manor because of my love for the Arts,” Chilcutt said, “but now I want to be involved on a less committed basis. Sometimes I’m up here (at The Manor) booking events before 8 a.m. I really enjoy the work and the challenge, but at my age, it’s a little too much. I need some relaxing time with my family, and to read more. I love to read.”
When Chilcutt came to work at The Manor the operational losses were at an all-time high. Projected losses were $12,000 to $44,000 for General Maintenance/Service Supplies and from $33,000 to $49,000 for Program and Oversight Salaries for the fiscal year. The weight of the Manor’s success was squarely on his shoulders. Since that time, working with Council, Chilcutt has made many changes in how The Manor does business. So it is with some degree of satisfaction that, last week, Chilcutt was able to report at the March Council meeting that the projected average loss for March through June is only $226.62.
“We’ve learned a lot more about what we need to do to make it work and we have a conscientious, hardworking crew. The Manor has so much potential, but it’s a business, really, with contracts and other things that go along with a business,” Chilcutt said. “Probably more than anyone expected.”
Chilcutt, who lives in Cobblestone, will still be in town. “I’ll probably see everyone just as much as I do now,” he said. “I’ll be at all the events.”
Mayor J. Michael Ross told The Voice, “The town will miss Booth. He did a great job of bringing more arts and cultural events to our town! We wish him a happy retirement but may be calling on him to consult on future projects.”
