DASHAWN ANTONIO BOYDRUBEN JAMES WOODARDTEVIN MARKELL JONES
WINNSBORO – Three Winnsboro men who broke into a home on Bowson Lane late last month got more than they bargained for when they came face to face with the gun-wielding homeowner.
Ronnie Gene Gantt, 61, was at his home on 596 Bowson Lane July 22 in a back room of the house when he heard what he thought sounded like something falling to the floor on one of the front rooms, according to the report from the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office. It was just before 3 p.m. and Mr. Gantt just happened to be spending the afternoon cleaning his handgun.
According to the report, Gantt at first thought the noise he had heard was his son coming home. But when his son did not come back into the back room to greet him, Gantt came out to have a look. Gun in hand. Almost at once, Gantt came upon one of the intruders, 18-year-old Dashawn Antonio Boyd of Landis Road, standing in the bedroom. When Boyd turned and saw Gantt, Boyd walked into the hallway toward him. Gantt then raised his handgun, pointed it at Boyd and told him to stay where he was. Boyd turned and ran back into the bedroom, dove behind the bed and laid on the floor. Gantt stood in the bedroom doorway, blocking Boyd and his two companions – Ruben James Woodard, 24, of Evergreen Road, and Tevin Markell Jones, 20, also of Evergreen Road – inside while he phoned police.
All three subjects were taken into custody and $238 in miscellaneous property was recovered and returned to Gantt. Prior to entering Gantt’s home, the men had also broken into his car, causing $50 in damage. All three were transported to the Fairfield County Detention Center and charged with theft from a motor vehicle, burglary, breaking and entering and vandalism.
“Those guys were really lucky,” Capt. Brad Douglas said.
Here Emma sings “Shy” from the musical “Once Upon a Mattress” at the Platinum National Competition held at Lexington High School last spring. She was named best junior vocalist for her performance.
Emma Imholz is only 11, but her career as an actress and singer is already blossoming. A veteran of nine community theater productions, she’s performing as Teen Fiona this fall in the Village Square Theater production of “Shrek: The Musical.” She’s also cast in an upcoming episode of HBO’s “Eastbound & Down,” and has a callback for a lead role in “Elbow Grease,” a Screen Actors Guild movie that shoots later this summer. She recently snagged roles in an indie feature film and a country music video. In the meantime, she’s crewing backstage for the Town Theater production of “Tarzan.”
You could say she’s found her passion.
The Blythewood tween, who lives in Cobblestone Park with her parents, Julie and Mark, keeps an intense schedule of acting, singing and dance classes. But her instructors say they are only building on her remarkable, natural musical talents. Those talents were evident from babyhood, according to her parents.
“Before Emma could even talk,” Julie recalled, “I’d hear her quietly humming little melodies to herself in her crib. It was actually on pitch – not baby noises. The tonality was really pretty. It just blew my mind!”
Julie, a former surgical scrub nurse, recognized the quality and pitch because of her own musical background.
“I was in chorus, and sang in a few pageants in high school. My mother also likes to sing. But,” she added with a laugh, “Emma is a whole lot better than either of us!”
Emma began taking voice and dance lessons as a toddler, and by five she’d débuted at Town Theater, singing a lullaby in a Christmas play. Soon she was writing her own songs, playing piano by ear and creating elaborate shows with parts for friends and cousins.
“I always loved performing,” Emma told The Voice. “My first-grade teacher at Round Top Elementary, Mrs. Hererra, even let me sing before class each morning for the rest of the kids, which was awesome!”
Emma took a variety of performing arts classes over the next five years – from guitar and piano to the Broadway Bound program at Workshop Theater to this summer’s Girls Rock Columbia rock star boot camp.
Vicky Saye Henderson, the Director of Education and a teaching artist at Trustus Theater, works with Emma on singing, acting, camera work and other aspects of performance.
“Emma has an indescribable gift,” Vicky said. “She has an innate understanding of music in many ways. And she’s a ‘thinking’ actor – during lessons she’s often a step ahead, already making a discovery that I’m trying to lead her to.”
She added that Emma is also strongly self-motivated.
“I’m particularly amazed by her ability to teach herself at the piano. She writes music – she’ll sit down at the piano and play around with chords and notes, get the melody down, the lyrics. It’s a pleasure to watch,” Henderson said. “I think she’s going to have a lot of success both on stage and on camera.”
Emma said that branching into TV and film work this year has been fun.
“I had a great time doing an indie film this summer called ‘Love Letters’,” Emma said. “My character was in a water balloon fight. There were two takes, so I dried off and then got to do it again!”
For that role, Emma travelled to Wilmington, N.C., a studio hotspot known in the industry as “Wilmywood.”
“A lot of TV shows and movies are filmed there,” Emma said, “like ‘Under the Dome’, ‘The Hunger Games’ and ‘Iron Man 3’.”
She was back in Wilmywood again a few weeks ago, to film a part for “Eastbound & Down” where her character watches and cheers for a boat race.
Her work and travel schedule, while exciting, can also be exhausting.
“It’s hard to get enough sleep,” Emma said. “When I was in ‘The Little Mermaid’ at Village Square Theater last year, I’d be on stage until 10 or 11 at night. Then we’d drive all the way home, and I’d have to get up early for school. I barely got five or six hours of sleep.”
So, after Emma finished sixth grade this year at Muller Road Middle School – where she won the talent show in April – her family decided to try homeschooling in hopes of having a more flexible schedule. Emma credits her parents for doing a lot of the heavy lifting that’s necessary to, well, keep the show on the road.
“They do a lot,” she said, “like driving me where I need to go, when they would probably rather be relaxing or watching a movie or something!”
The family moved to Blythewood from Atlanta in 1997, when Mark took a job with CSC. Emma’s older sister, Jessica, is graduating from Coastal Carolina this year with a degree in Exercise Science, so for the most part she’s been spared the family’s frenetic schedule.
Emma said that despite all the rigors of the acting life, though, she loves it.
“Writing songs and singing and performing,” she said, “makes me really happy.”
Emma will next be performing in “Shrek: The Musical” at the Village Square Theater in Lexington, Sept. 20 – Oct. 6.
Larry Sharpe, owner of Blythewood Oil, right, and Sheri Mehaffey, Chief Operating Officer of the company, show off the award they received for the company being named the 2013 Retailer of the year for an unprecedented second time in three years.
The S.C. Association of Convenience Stores has, for the second time in three years, named Blythewood Oil Company the top retailer in the state.
Larry Sharpe, owner of the company, and Sheri Mehaffey, the company’s Chief Operations Officer, received the award last week at the Association’s 2013 convention in Hilton Head. Both Sharpe and Mehaffey are lifelong Blythewood community residents. Sharpe, who owns eight Sharpe Shoppe convenience stores – six in Blythewood, one at Lee and Longtown roads and one on Highway 34 at I-77 – started the business in 1976.
The company was honored for its leadership and involvement in the convenience store industry. But Sharpe credits Mahaffey with the success of his stores.
“She’s done it all,” Sharpe said, praising Mahaffey for her initiative in every area of the stores’ operations over the last eight years. He credits her with introducing the latest technology to his stores and more recently with the successful inclusion of a breakfast-lunch-dinner restaurant in the company’s newest store on Community Road at Exit 24 off I-77. Sharpe said because of the success and popularity of the Exit 24 restaurant, he plans to add restaurants to some of his other stores.
Sharpe is adding improvements to two of his stores—the one in the EXXON station on Blythewood Road in downtown Blythewood and another at the Highway 34/Winnsboro Exit on I-77. He plans to build a new station/convenience store at Blythewood Road and Syrup Mill Road.
Hite’s Bar-B-Q, the dash between Batesburg and Leesville.
Pick a day when you will be starving for traditional pit-cooked barbecue and make the 63-mile drive to Jackie Hite’s Barbecue just off Highway 23 in Leesville. You’ll know you’re in the right place when you park by the tracks and inhale the delicious aroma of hogs sizzling over hickory coals. Look for wisps of smoke and look for the patriarch of pork, Jackie Hite, who barbecues hogs the old-fashioned, traditional way. If you park to the side of Hite’s you’ll hear the chop, chop, chop of cleavers, and now and then out front the wailing horn of a Northern Suffolk train barreling by.
Hite burns 4-foot logs of hickory in a firebox where pitmaster Tim Hyman wears a path to the pits carrying shovels of red coals, which he spreads beneath sizzling half hogs. A picky type once asked Hite how he knew the coals were hot enough. “If them hogs ain’t smoking and ain’t dripping, they ain’t cooking,” replied Hite, who’s been cooking hogs for 42 years.
Hite’s operation functions like a well-oiled machine. He’s got a veteran crew that knows what it’s doing. “I’ve had the same crew all my life. Some people just like to work,” said Hite. And some folks, make that a lot of folks, just like to eat his barbecue. Inside the buffet you’ll see locals and visitors from afar. “Folks come here from Alabama to fish and they take my barbecue back to Bama. Georgia too,” said Hite.
Hite takes great pride in the way he cooks pigs — a 25-hour process. “Sloshing mustard sauce on hogs makes it real barbecue,” he said, pulling on the bill of his Gamecock cap. (You won’t catch him without that cap.) Now and then he’ll pull out a 4-foot hickory stick. “Used for two things,” he says. “In school for manners and stirring coals in barbecue pits.” Hite’s a friendly fellow who talks just like he looks and along with good food he dispenses some of life’s lessons. “I could be a cop without a gun. Folks respect me ‘cause I do the right thing.”
You can boil Hite’s approach down to seven words: hogs, hickory, fire, smoke, sauce and hungry people. As the hogs simmer and mustard sauce rains down on them, the smoke rises to the top of the outbuilding and drifts over the community. Says Hite, “Folks drive through and say ‘man yo place smells good!’ ” Every so often they cover the simmering hogs with giant sheets of cardboard to keep the smoke in. The cardboard refuses to burn. “We don’t throw that kind of heat to it,” says Hite. Outside folks queue up at 10:45, eager to get Hite’s barbecue.
A food reviewer wrote that it’s worth driving 100 miles to eat at Hite’s. For sure it’s worth driving 63. Make the trip to Hite’s. About $22 will feed two. The buffet opens at 11 o’clock in the morning. Once you get good and full, visit Leesville’s Historic College District and Batesburg’s Commercial Historic District. Walk around a bit. You’ll need to. And know that Jackie Hite, who served as mayor in these parts, put the hyphen between Batesburg and Leesville. “I helped bring these two towns together.”
Learn more about Tom Poland, a Southern writer, and his work at www.tompoland.net. Email day-trip ideas to him at tompol@earthlink.net.
Blythewood Town Council passed first reading to establish R-20 zoning on this 88.16 acres called Holly Bluff (formerly Summers Trace), located east of Blythewood Road near Fulmer Road.
BLYTHEWOOD – Town Council voted to pass first reading Tuesday to give final zoning to a property that was annexed into the Town in October 2008 but never received final zoning. The 88.16 acre property is located on the east side of Blythewood Road between Fulmer Road and Annie Entzeminger Court.
In 2008 the owners of the property requested R-20 Low Density Residential zoning for the property, which is approximately a quarter acre per home, and the annexation ordinance referenced that zoning as well. The proposed development was called Summers Trace and was shown on the Richland County tax map as TMS # 12500-02-05.
The property is now listed as Holly Bluff. The lack of permanent zoning came to light when the property owner sought information regarding development of the property which is in the town.
Town Administrator John Perry told the Planning Commission on Monday night that he could not find a copy of the zoning ordinance. In order for Council to adopt zoning now, the matter had to go back before the Planning Commission for recommendation. The Commission recommended the zoning at its Monday meeting and Council approved it on Tuesday.
These 2012 Griffins cheerleaders have got it. Have you? Show yours Aug. 8!
WINNSBORO — Students all over the county can hear the loud ticking of the clock that means their summer is winding down and school is starting. Sports fans hear a different sound, like the last few seconds before the final buzzer.
Either way you look at it, the academic and athletic year is about to break loose. Those Friday night lights will soon be lit up, and I bet that FCHS tennis coach George “Bones” Boulware will have at least one midnight practice with his tennis team.
A group of Winnsboro merchants and others think the start of school and school sports is a big deal. They’re cranking up Spiritfest 2013 – an event they hope becomes an annual thing around here.
The Historic Winnsboro Merchants Group consists of local downtown merchants, the Chamber of Commerce and Town of Winnsboro Downtown Development, said group member Terry Vickers, the Chamber’s executive director.
Spiritfest 2013 “kicks off” at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 8, in front of the steps of the Fairfield County Courthouse on Congress Street.
The teams, coaching staffs and cheerleaders of Fairfield Central High School and Middle School and Richard Winn Academy are scheduled to appear during this event, which Vickers characterizes as “a mega pep rally for the 2013 academic and athletic year.”
Coaches from each school are expected to speak at Spiritfest, letting the audience in on some of their pre-season strategy.
Cheerleaders from the schools will also inspire the crowd with some cheers, said Vickers.
This is an opportunity that most school sports fans don’t get, said Vickers.
Spiritfest is a chance to let our students know that our community supports them, said Vickers. It’s a way to bring the teams from the public and private school together.
One way to show that support is a pep rally atmosphere centered on school sports, which everyone enjoys and in a lot of our community, peoples’ lives become centered around, said Vickers.
School sports loyalty can sometimes be rabid, but it has the ability to cross all boundaries – social, economic and racial. Everyone on the community loves to pull for the Griffins and the Eagles.
Spiritfest is the brainchild of the merchant’s group, Vickers said.
“The merchants we have downtown want to see a vibrant downtown, and as they produce new events, that’s going to bring people downtown,” she said. “These merchants are willing to stay open these extended hours, to allow these families and other visitors to see what downtown has to offer.”
The Beach Boys said it all: ‘Be True to Your School.’ Whether your heart is Vegas Gold and Black or Royal Blue and Gold, show your support on Aug. 8.
While the beach grabs a lot of headlines, our Northwest Corner pleases many as a destination, especially when flatter lands bake and sizzle. Not quite 3 hours and 135 miles will take you from 535 feet above sea level to over 1,000 feet and much cooler air, not to mention spectacular views. Strike out for the mountains. Here are six other reasons to drive northwest.
The Cove Forest
Nowhere else in the United States will you find as much tree and plant diversity as you will in a Southern mountain cove forest. Green and serene, South Carolina’s bowl-shaped valleys are damp and rich with nutrients. The resultant profusion of plants supports birds, amphibians and mammals. There’s no need to go to the tropics. Drive to the mountains above Walhalla to see green tropical splendor.
Sunshine in a Jar
The beehive — among the world’s most efficient factories — converts alpine nectar to honey. Along Highway 11, bees make honey from sourwood blossoms, blackberry vines, trees and flowers. Stop by a roadside stand along the Cherokee Scenic Foothills Highway and get a jar of mountain sunshine.
Ram Cat Alley, Seneca
Make the scene Thursday evenings at Ram Cat Alley, a place whose identity began with the cats congregating at the 1908 Fred Hopkins Meat Market. So many cats frequented the alley someone said, “You couldn’t ram another cat into the alley.” Mid-1990’s revitalization took an alleyway of pool halls, bars and meat markets and turned it into a pedestrian-popular place of boutique shops and restaurants. On Thursdays, restaurants and the city set up tables for “Jazz on the Alley.” Dine out in the mountain air and enjoy mountain music that’s a bit sophisticated.
Majestic Falls
Make the hike to Cove Falls. It’s a challenging journey but well worth it. You’ll find other falls, too, such as beautiful Issaqueena Falls just below Stumphouse Mountain. Other great falls are to be seen, such as Raven Cliff Falls near Caesars Head and Whitewater Falls where the North Carolina-South Carolina state line pass between the upper and lower falls. Upper Whitewater Falls, near Cashiers, N.C., drops over 411 feet, making it the highest falls east of the Rocky Mountains. Lower Whitewater Falls, located just across the line in South Carolina, drops another 400 feet.
The Foothills Trail
For the hardy, hiking is great in the Northwest Corner. Along the Blue Ridge Escarpment trails take hikers back to simpler times when pioneers made their way through mountain forests. Then as now distant views of horizons provided a barometer of how the trails thread through terrain, high enough to be moistened by cloud vapors.
South Carolina’s Rooftop
Want to go even higher? Atop Sassafras Mountain — Carolina’s rooftop — you can look over a rippling green land and smoky blue hills. As night draws nigh, wine, yellow, orange and cinnamon hues prevail until shadows reign supreme. (Note: Pinnacle Mountain, the highest mountain within South Carolina, is in Table Rock State Park).
A trip to the Northwest Corner is sure to take more than a day. Plan an overnight stay. From rustic lodges, to state parks and bed and breakfasts, you’ll find beautiful accommodations. Take a good pair of binoculars, maps and sturdy walking shoes and beat the heat in the green, rolling Northwest Corner.
If You Go …
• www.upcountrysc.com
Learn more about Tom Poland, a Southern writer, and his work at www.tompoland.net. Email day-trip ideas to him at tompol@earthlink.net.
Former Blythewood resident Aaron Morrison (left) at this year’s S.C. Press Association awards banquet with Susan Rowell, publisher of The Lancaster News. Morrison, a photographer for The News and former freelance photographer for The Country Chronicle, was critically injured in a car accident earlier this month near Ballantyne, N.C.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Former Blythewood resident Aaron Morrison is recovering from serious injuries he received in a car accident in North Carolina on July 15. He is undergoing rehabilitation at the Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.
Morrison, an award winning staff photographer for The Lancaster News, previously worked as a stringer for The Country Chronicle under its previous ownership from 2004-2005.
The accident occurred in Ballantyne, N.C. when his 2011 Toyota RAV4 was rear-ended by a 2007 BMW driven by Nicholas Michael Borden, 31. Investigators say Borden was driving at a high rate of speed when he first struck another car. That violent impact veered Borden’s BMW into the left lane and into the rear of Morrison’s SUV, the N.C. Highway Patrol said.
Medics responded to the scene and took Morrison by ambulance to Carolinas Medical Center for treatment of life-threatening injuries. The other two drivers sustained non-life threatening injuries. All three were wearing seat belts.
According Morrison’s father, William Morrison, who lives in LongCreek Plantation in Blythewood, Aaron was returning from Ballantyne where he had attended a movie.
“He was just driving down the road going home,” William Morrison said, “when a drunk driver rear-ended him.”
After two weeks in intensive care, Morrison is now in rehabilitation at the hospital’s Neuro Brain Unit, his father said.
“He’s not allowed visitors yet, because that gets to be too much stimulation for him. But he’s conscious now and is slowly making some progress,” William Morrison said. “He was very seriously injured and has a long road of rehab ahead. I spend most of my days here at the rehab center with him.”
Morrison’s father said his son has many friends in the Lancaster community where he works, and that several hundred of them, including the Lancaster government officials, the entire Lancaster News staff and many from churches and schools that Aaron covered on his news photography beat, attended a prayer service for Aaron the Friday night following the accident.
“Even the staff from the town’s Humane Society was there,” William Morrison said with a smile.
“That outpouring of care and comfort for Aaron from his friends meant a lot to our family,” he added, “…the prayers, their presence. It let us know how much he is loved in the community he covers. And that sustains us right now.”
State Sen. Creighton Coleman (D-17) slammed Council for not following up on the Santee-Cooper economic development plan.
FAIRFIELD – The Fairfield County Council came under fire again Monday as citizens packed the meeting room and sounded off about board expenditures, economic development problems, recreation needs and local option sales tax questions.
Adding to the turmoil was a report from State Sen. Creighton Coleman (D-17) that the negative news reports on former County Administrator Phil Hinely may not be over.
Coleman said the State Law Enforcement Division (SLED), “had additional information that was found on Mr. Hinely’s hard drive” and had it sent to Sixth Circuit Solicitor Doug Barfield for review.
“I called to see if he could expedite it and he said he had a full plate in court, and will get to it as soon as he can,” Coleman said.
Hinely resigned from his post June 28 after reports surfaced that he used his email account to forward pornographic images three years ago. SLED opened a file on the case but took no action after Barfield determined that none of the alleged images violated state obscenity laws.
In his three-minute presentation to Council, Coleman slammed the Council for failing to follow up on a $40,000 economic development plan submitted by Santee Cooper years ago.
“We sat on it, sat on it, sat on it” he said. “I talked to the Chair two or three times trying to get movement from him. Nothing ever happened.”
Some of the harshest comments came from Fay Sandow, who said she was “appalled” to learn that SLED met with the Council Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) Feb. 21 on the issues with Hinely, but that Council took no action until June, when it voted unanimously to sanction Hinely.
Sandow said it was even more shocking to hear of the decision of a Council member to accept county money for college tuition and insurance reimbursements.
“If that’s the truth, and I believe it is, I would like to ask those Council members what were they thinking?”
The State Attorney General recently issued an opinion that the County’s policy of tuition assistance and health insurance reimbursements for Council members was unlawful.
Some Council members were receiving a direct, monthly payout instead of receiving the health insurance coverage provided by the County. The County was also paying for Councilman Mikel Trapp (District 3) to take business courses at Columbia College.
Sandow said it is her opinion that anyone who accepts money from the county for personal use is “stealing.”
She called on those Council members who have been drawing the money to pay it back with interest, apologize to the county and submit their resignations.
Some members of the audience started clapping at the conclusion of her remarks, but Ferguson pounded his gavel and threatened to have deputies escort out of the meeting anyone who claps.
State Rep. MaryGail Douglas (D-41) called on the Council members who received payment of insurance premiums, estimated at around $24,000 each, to pay it back. She also called for the return of the $26,000 in tuition money paid to Trapp.
Trapp has agreed to return the tuition money, but he said it would take some time to repay. He said he thought the total amount was $22,000, but added that he could be mistaken.
Resident Beth Jenkins told the Council that residents are due better than “a Council that teeters on the brink of what appears to be nothing but wrong-doing from a disgraced resigned Administrator to health insurance double dippers…”
Tuesday Ferguson reiterated his position to The Voice that he had no intention of reimbursing the County for the health insurance premiums.
“I don’t feel like I’ve gone anything wrong, even though they’ve hung me out to dry,” Ferguson said. “Mr. Hinely told us we didn’t have any choice on that.”
In other action, the Council recognized the County’s new interim administrator, Milton Pope, who officially begins his duties this week. Pope, who served as Richland County Administrator before his retirement, said he hoped to help the County with economic development, having worked with Midlands development projects in the past.
The Council also gave second reading approval to revisions of an ordinance regulating abandoned buildings, manufactured homes and junked cars. The Council also approved an ordinance revising sections of the road paving program.
The Council also agreed to purchase property for a mini park in District 3 on Road 99.
Council met in executive session to discuss an economic development plan, but no details were announced.
Council will hold a special called meeting July 29 to discuss the outcome of an investigation into allegations that the County had mishandled more than $5 million in Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) funds. The meeting will be held at the Fairfield Magnet School at 6 p.m.
Ferguson said the County’s research indicates that the funds were handled correctly and a full explanation will be offered Monday night by a former director of the S.C. Department of Revenue and County auditors. Ferguson said members of the audience will also be able to submit written questions to Pope following the meeting and that Pope would provide answers on an individual basis at a later date.
FAIRFIELD – County Council voted 5-0 during a special called meeting July 17 to hire Milton Pope as a consultant to serve as the County’s interim Administrator. Pope sat in on his first meeting with Council Monday night.
“With the experience he’s had at a big county like Richland, I don’t think we’ll encounter anything he hasn’t already encountered,” County Council Chairman David Ferguson (District 5) said this week. “Milton has a lot of experience, he knows a lot of people and he knows how to get things done.”
Pope is a principal with Parker Poe Consulting of Columbia and leads the firm’s local government division. Prior to joining Parker Poe, Pope served as the Richland County Administrator, managing 2,000 employees and a $700 million budget. Pope was also Richland’s Assistant County Administrator for more than seven years, managing multiple departments, including Emergency Services, the Register of Deeds and the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center.
Terms of Pope’s contract, released to The Voice this week, call for him to serve with the County for a period of up to 180 days, effective July 19. The County has agreed to pay Pope $10,833.33 per month as compensation. Pope will report to County Council, the contract states, and “perform the functions and duties as the County Council shall assign.”
Ferguson said Pope will also assist with Council’s search and recruitment for a full-time Administrator, and added that Pope has made it clear that he was not interested in a permanent position with Fairfield County.
“We’re not floundering in the water now,” Ferguson said. “We’re dealing with things we need to be dealing with. Hopefully, he’ll have a calming effect on us. We need to all pull together and do what we can, and we’ve been having some problems with that.”
