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Cotton Takes the High Road and the Low Road

Most people who have driven South Carolina's rural roads have seen the many cotton fields dotting our countryside.  But have you ever wondered where all that cotton goes?  Our next guest decided to follow  the fluffy white stuff all the way to Chinese textile mills and back to department stores right here in the Palmetto State.

Mike Switzer interviews Laura Kissel, an independent filmmaker whose documentary entitled “Cotton Road” won an award at the Beaufort International Film Festival earlier this year and will be appearing again next week at the Indie Grits Film Festival in Columbia.  And Mandy Fang is a professor at the University of South Carolina and the composer of the film's soundtrack, which has been garnering plenty of its own attention.

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After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.