Author: Dick Mangrum

Senator Lindsey Graham believes a $326 dollar a week South Carolina unemployment benefit is fair.  He introduced an amendment yesterday to lower an additional $600 dollar a week benefit to $500 for both August and September.  Starting October 1, the unemployed would get up to $326 a week from the state, along with a federal benefit of up to $500 […]

Have you seen Renee Rowland King?  The 41-year old Westminster woman remains a missing person this morning, and the Oconee Sheriff’s Office is concerned.  King’s boyfriend reported her missing Monday after having not seen her since Friday late afternoon.  She was wearing a blue button-up collar shirt and blue jean shorts.  King has tattoos on her right shoulder the back […]

Fire consumed a barn in the backyard of a home last night near Salem.  No one was hurt off the Burnt Tanyard Road, but it’s believed there were possessions inside the barn including a motorcycle and furniture.  The first fire unit dispatched, the Salem Fire Department, received the call shortly before 11 o’clock.

Adventurers may be getting the wrong message on their apps as they set out to hike to Yellow Branch Falls north of Walhalla.  A female hiker broke a leg in a fall yesterday, as she approached one of the more popular scenes of Oconee County waterfalls.  About 25 public safety responders, including the Walhalla Fire Department, came to her aid.  […]

In what has been a surge in cases and deaths, Walhalla leaders are “strongly” encouraging face coverings throughout the city’s business district.  The idea is to protect everyone from the further spread of COVID-19.  After last night’s meeting of the city council committees, City Administrator Brent Taylor says masks downtown are not yet a city ordinance, but such a law […]

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) today announced 1,168 new confirmed cases and 7 new probable cases of the novel coronavirus COVID-19, 52 additional confirmed deaths and 2 new probable deaths.  Six additional cases are reported in Oconee, but no new deaths. This brings the total number of confirmed cases to 93,604 probable cases to 586, […]

A Columbia area school district has given up its hope to delay the fall athletic season for South Carolina high schools to the spring.  And the word in Oconee County today is that the SCHL will push back the official start of fall practice until August 31.  “That would mean,” in the estimation of Oconee’s Steve Hanvey, “that the first […]

In an informal conference today, Walhalla’s utilities director impressed on DHEC officials the pro-active approach the city is taking to address sewer difficulties, and that Scott Parris approach may defuse the potential for a civil fine.  The tele-meeting centered on the potential for a consent order between the city and the Department of Health and Environmental Control to assure that […]

A “small, smoldering” fire is extinguished in a home southwest of Walhalla.  After that fire was discovered this morning on Ledbetter Lane, fire fighters put a stop to it.  No one was hurt.  Chief Brandon Burton of the Walhalla Fire Department said the house was unoccupied, although it may have been the scene recently of a squatter.