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Harry Hampton and the Congaree National Park

Making It Grow Radio Minute
SC Public Radio

Our state and nation owe Harry Hampton a great debt for his love of wildlife and years of work promoting that the Beidler Tract not be logged but instead preserved as what is now the Congaree National Park. It’s twenty-six thousand acres is the largest intact old growth bottom land stand in the south eastern United States. We can thank the late Mr. Hampton, an avid lover of nature and co-editor of the State newspaper, for his tireless efforts to save this treasure, home to to six national and twenty-three state champion trees. But in addition to these massive sentinels, Congaree is the only site in South Carolina to host synchronous fireflies. In May to early June. an event so ephemeral and gasp-inducing that there is now a lottery to see this two-week marvel.

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Amanda McNulty is a Clemson University Extension Horticulture agent and the host of South Carolina ETV’s Making It Grow! gardening program. She studied horticulture at Clemson University as a non-traditional student. “I’m so fortunate that my early attempts at getting a degree got side tracked as I’m a lot better at getting dirty in the garden than practicing diplomacy!” McNulty also studied at South Carolina State University and earned a graduate degree in teaching there.