Author: Dick Mangrum

Officers came calling Tuesday to a home near SC 24, the West-Oak Highway, and made an arrest.  It’s at that home, they believe, a sex crime occurred on Monday.  According to the sheriff’s office, 45-year old Charles Lee Hightower is charged with kidnapping and criminal sexual conduct first degree.  An adult female accused Hightower of sexual assault.

Everyone inside a trailer home near the Dr. John’s Road escaped a kitchen fire yesterday afternoon without injury.  The fire occurred at a home on Footprints Trail, south of Westminster.

Skeletonized remains discovered yesterday morning near Seneca could be those of a murder victim.  And the coroner considers the remains of the male add up to a homicide.  Coroner Karl Addis’s announcement last night follows an earlier one issued by the office of the state Attorney’s General.  According to A-G Wilson’s announcement, Emmanuel Quarles, 27, was last seen leaving his […]

At what would have been final reading to change Walhalla law and allow the conditional raising and keeping chickens, city council last night tabled the issue to allow for further discussion.  Ahead of last night’s decision to table, the city council heard Clemson poultry specialist Michelle Hall recommend that anyone wanting to keep or raise chickens become educated first.

Wayne McCall took his push for additional Oconee sheriff’s officers and higher law enforcement pay to the political body on which he served 12 years, including time as chairman of the county council law enforcement committee.  McCall, the former District Two councilman, recently issued a position paper calling for 20 additional deputies and a starting salary of $65 thousand.  That […]

Audience members vocalized their joy and applauded for the return of Matthew Durham to the Oconee Council.  Not only was Durham able to re-take his District Two seat at the council table, he was the choice—by a one-vote margin—to chair the council for the rest of 2023.  Votes taken showed that Durham, Glenn Hart, and Don Mize hold the majority, […]

An arrangement by which the developer of student housing projects along the Seneca-Clemson corridor would qualify for infrastructure reimbursements was rejected tonight by the Oconee County Council.  Among the five councilmen, no one was in favor, even though one councilman commented that having student housing complexes in the county should not be considered a bad thing.  After all, as District […]

Unless the full city council sees it differently, pay raises for Walhalla government workers in 2023-24 will be less than that which they received this year.  In a committee meeting this afternoon, Councilman Grant Keehn sought to bump up the cost of living raise from 3% to 5%.  His request failed in a vote of 1 to 2, with Councilman […]

This from Oconee Sheriff’s Office this afternoon: “A Walhalla man remains in jail today, on a combined $87,125.00 surety bond, after his arrest early this morning on charges that include First Degree Burglary. 37 year old William David Gunn was booked into the Oconee County Detention Center around 4:28am today after he was arrested at the scene of a burglary […]