Author: Dick Mangrum

Announcement from the state’s capital: “The S.C. Drought Response Committee met Tuesday, Feb. 1, via conference call to update the drought status of all counties in South Carolina and voted to declare the entire state drought free. Due to average to above-average rainfall totals during December and January, the Committee removed the incipient drought status of 34 counties. The Committee […]

Grant Keehn, a first-term Walhalla councilman, hints he might have something to say as the result of the questions of and the criticisms about the sudden departure last week of the police chief.  Last night’s meeting, however, turned out to be the improper forum as Mayor Edwards, explaining the item was not on the council committees’ meeting agenda, cut Keehn […]

Thrift Brothers machinery is at work grading large property alongside rural Mountain Road in Oconee County, and there are strong indications the acreage will be turned into a home development.  According to Oconee County records, the applicant and designer of the subdivision project is Ridgewater Engineering and Surveying.  The plan reveals 175 lots, 6.73 miles of new private roads, on […]

What started as a farmers market in Salem has emerged into a growing year-round outdoor flea market whose vendors braved the especially cold Saturday of January 22.  Sandy Inman, pastor of the nearby Issaqueena Church of God, says the flea market started in May last year when local farmers brought in their fresh produce.  But the Saturday gatherings are more […]

The government service agency, the South Carolina Appalachian Council of Governments, has begun to update the region’s transportation plan.  “A-COG” planner Lance Estep calls it a five-year plan, and the office at Greenville is obligated to make changes based on population changes and the conditions that impact the growth—all with the eye to reduce the traffic congestion that many motorists […]

Darryl Broome, chairman of the board of the Oconee Chamber of Commerce, used the word “saddened” to describe his reaction to the announcement that the county’s chief economic developer recruiter, Annie Caggiano, is departing for a new opportunity.  Broome says, “Annie’s move to Upstate Alliance is a great opportunity for her and her career.  All of us know she will […]

The police in Seneca are blaming a Sunday night car theft on an individual of juvenile age.  The Ford Escape, taken from a home on S. Fair Play Street, was stopped near the city limits when the police deployed stop sticks.  The stolen car had been in need of maintenance, and sources say it was unable to move any faster […]

The following is a just-released statement from Master Deputy Jimmy Watt of the Oconee Sheriff’s Office”  “I have been informed by deputies and investigators overnight that Zackery Edwin Sterling Fiskeaux was arrested by SLED in Pickens county on Old Seneca Road. A deputy from the Uniform Patrol Division met with SLED and transported him to the Oconee County Detention Center […]