SC Focus

They are sure signs of Spoleto in downtown Charleston; instrument toting musicians and scorching heat.  Among the jostling violin cases, is Shannon Fitzhenry.  She’s back for her second year with the annual Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra, one of 92 musicians chosen to play.

“The goal is to get up in time to warm up before rehearsal,” she laughs.  The Charleston native grew up with Spoleto, but admits she didn't fully appreciate it until she  moved away to study music at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland.

That the NFL’s Carolina Panthers would eventually move the team’s practice facility and operations out of Charlotte and south of the border to Rock Hill was really just a matter of when the South Carolina Legislature would greenlight a set of tax breaks (worth somewhere between $115 and $120 million, by most estimates) that would allow the team to set up shop in York County. And when Panthers would officially say they were coming.

On June 5, the Panthers, the state, and City of Rock Hill made the official announcement that the team will be moving in over the next couple years.

75 years ago - June 6, 1944 - 156,000 Allied troops on nearly 7000 ships and landing craft and supported by 11,590 planes dropping both bombs and paratroopers, landed on the beaches of Normandy, France.  The top-secret invasion of Europe was code-named Operation Overlord, but is more broadly known the world over as D-Day.  That day began the battle to free the continent from the grip of Nazi Germany.  

Scribbling notes on a dry erase board just won't do.  So David Virelles plays them instead, on a piano.  The Cuban composer and pianist is teaching a masters class at the Charleston Jazz Academy in North Charleston, as part of the Spoleto arts festival's community outreach program.

In just a couple of hours, he's performing too.

"I hope the students walk away with what it takes to play music," Virelles says.  "It takes a lot of discipline, perseverance and love.  You have to be passionate about it and really spend time to be any good."

Emergency management coordinators in South Carolina have a lot to think about. A lot to think about.

On any given day, a normally quiet command center, like the one deep in the ground below Greenville City Hall, could fill up with representatives from a whole pile of agencies in a matter of minutes.

“County Public Works, the American Red Cross, the Department of Social Services, DHEC, law

Paul Wiancko started playing cello at age five. By age eight, he had composed his first piece of music.

“If you can call it a piece,” Wiancko says. “I think it was maybe a thirty-two measure little tune, mostly in C major, mostly consisting of a couple of triads. And I believe it was called “Breeze.” I had one of my parents’ friends print out the sheet music for it."

But for a long time following that early effort, Wiancko would shift his musical talents elsewhere.

Chamber music and children may seem like an unusual combination.  But don't tell that to Geoff Nuttall.  The director of Spoleto’s Chamber Music Series works a room of fourth and fifth graders like the strings of his violin, with charisma and class.

“Music has been such a huge part of my life, said Nuttall.  “If there’s any way we can just open the ears and the eyes of a few of these kids it would be a great thing.”

South Carolina is famous for many of its structures, especially the houses of worship that dot the varied landscape of the Palmetto State. The existence of many of these structures go back over a hundred years or more. But, whether grand and ornate, or small and simple, they all require a regular amount of maintenance. However, some of those houses of worship have fallen into disrepair due to dwindling membership, or a lack of finances, causing those structures to become at risk of possibly being lost and forgotten forever.

The Marlboro County Courthouse is a pretty unique place. The building itself is essentially a replica of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, right down to the clock tower.

The courthouse grounds are also host to a stalwart set of palm trees – and to the flags of six nations, former and current, that have had a major influence on South Carolina. Listen to a conversation with Jeff Dudley, past president of the Marlboro County Historical Society (and member of several other area historical organizations) and learn how and why Marlboro County’s six flags came to be.

For most people, social media is hardly a darling of the digital age.

The deaf would like to respectfully disagree.

The past few years of historic floods and hurricanes has amply demonstrated how subject South Carolina can be to severe weather emergencies.  To help the public better understand how the state reacts to and deals with these situations, the S.C. Emergency Management Division has created a new program, the Citizens' Academy.

In the 1970s and early '80s, an acoustic trio from Spartanburg made its mark with well-crafted tunes featuring beautiful harmonies.  Walter Hyatt, Champ Hood and David Ball were known as Uncle Walt's Band.  Their blend of folk, swing, and bluegrass influences attracted audiences wherever they lived - including Spartanburg, Nashville and, ultimately, Austin, Texas.  But, strangely, the enthusiasm of their fans never went beyond a faithful cult following.

Tourism is big business for South Carolina. The state Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism (PRT) puts annual tourism revenue at about $20 billion.

The Charlotte-based Carolina Panthers could be moving their training facilities and operations south of the border, to York County. The team is looking at a former industrial park just off I-77, among other locations in Fort Mill and neighboring Chester County.

To do so would require the state to pony up as much as $120 million in incentives – something not all members of the South Carolina Legislature have gotten behind – and to do that would require the State Senate to pass a bill that has already passed in the House.

When Osei Chandler’s wife Saadeka wanted to move from Brooklyn in 1977 closer to her home in Summerville,  SC, the now reggae music show host couldn’t say no.  He was smitten.

“I remember the first time we met,” he said. “She was like six feet tall, with a mini skirt and afro. I was toast,” he laughs.

Looking back, next to his marriage and kids, moving  was one of the best things he ever did.

“I couldn’t be on the radio in Brooklyn," said Chandler. " I'd be too busy hustling, trying to get to work. I’d probably have to have two or three jobs."

77 years ago (April 18, 1942), 80 brave men did what had never been attempted: they flew 16 army B-25B Mitchell bombers off a U.S.

In 1944, Columbia resident and civil rights activist Modjeska Monteith Simkins was put in charge of raising money for the construction of a new hospital to primarily serve the African American population of the Midlands. While completing this task, she wrote:

“It is our grand privilege and our duty; yours and mine; to help build and equip ourselves with a modern hospital owned and operated by Negroes.”

Lander University recented hosted a symposium on World War I, which ended just over a century ago.  The symposium drew scholars and authors primarily from the Southeast to discuss various aspects of the war, which then was known as "The Great War."  One aspect covered by a panel of experts examined the role of women during the war.

Former S.C. Governor and U.S. Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings died on Saturday, April 6, 2019 at the age of 97.  A Democrat, he held elective office for over fifty years.

South Carolina Public Radio's Russ McKinney has this look back at Hollings's life and political career.

When the “light emitting diode,” or “LED” light was first developed, it was primarily used as an indicator light in lab equipment. But as the low energy consumption of LEDs was observed, and costs for manufacturing LEDs went down, the new lighting technology found its way into the hands of consumers. Users of the more modern light bulbs not only began to see lower power bills, but also noticed how rarely they needed to replace their LED bulbs.

For many years, jazz great Marian McPartland welcomed some of the biggest names in - and out of - jazz to her NPR program, Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz.  March 20, on the 101st anniversary of her  birth, an evening of McPartland's music inaugurated a new music series, Live in the Lobby, offered by Columbia's Koger Center for the Arts.  

He weighs less than five pounds, but Zazu had big belly problems when he was rescued off the Isle of Palms coast nearly three months ago.  The tiny, green sea turtle had eaten plastic, all kinds of plastic; part of a balloon, clear sheets of plastic and material from a grocery bag. 

The juvenile  turtle is the 23rd patient admitted to the South Carolina Aquarium’s sea turtle hospital because of sea debris.  He swims in a private tank next to 17 others now in recovery, including a 260 pound loggerhead named Voldemort who got caught up in crab traps nearly a year ago.

A growing new website is now available that enables both scholars and the public to access photos and information about the natural history of South Carolina. 

Just as business is conducted with cell phones every day in the Palmetto State, illegal business is also conducted daily - by convicts with cell phones smuggled into South Carolina prisons.  

The “Lincoln School” was the first public school for black students in Sumter. The school was built in the late 1800s and started as a frame cottage with four classrooms. By the 1950’s, the school acquired an additional twenty classrooms, a cafeteria, a gymnasium, a library, and a band room. The last graduating class under the name of Lincoln High School was the class of 1969.  But nine years before the name change, in 1960, Lincoln would be one of 17 high schools in the state to participate in a national survey.

For as long as he can remember, Michael Boulware Moore has known the story of Robert Smalls;  a slave who not only gained his freedom by commandeering a Confederate ship and turning it over to Union forces, but later served in the South Carolina State Legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives.

Moore didn’t read about Smalls in school. Such bravery by slaves during the Civil War wasn’t always taught.  Instead, he grew up hearing personal stories from relatives like his grandmother.  Robert Smalls was his great-great grandfather.

There are eight historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in South Carolina. These institutions of higher education in the United States were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community.

Many people enjoy traveling by air.  But after Oct. 1, 2020, they won't be able to board a commercial airplane in the United States, UNLESS they have the new "Real ID."  The new ID will replace current drivers' licenses and ID cards, and will be needed for people to gain entry to certain secured federal buildings and all military posts, as well as to board planes.

As hackers become more sophisticated at burrowing into business computers to steal everything from money to social security numbers and medical records, the need for protection grows ever more dire.  One way to help mitigate the damage, if not protect information from being stolen, was virtually unknown a decade ago.  But in the past five years or so, cyber insurance has become a must-have bulwark against hackers.