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Today's News

  • Shelter virus identified, plan may save dogs

    The mystery disease at the Lancaster County Animal Shelter has been identified as distemper, and there’s a plan in the works that might avoid euthanizing any of the 25 quarantined dogs on the premises.
    The shelter remains closed, and a team effort is under way to save the dogs. Shelter staff and volunteers are working with local veterinarians, the S.C. Humane Society, the Charleston County Animal Society, and the Lancaster Area Shelter Supporters (LASS) on a plan to permanently relocate the dogs. At this point, it has spots for 18 of the animals.

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  • Blackwelder named 911 center chief

    Stephen Blackwelder, the Lancaster County fire marshal since 2007, has been named the county’s director of public safety communications.
    Blackwelder will begin his new job in the county’s emergency services June 12. He will oversee the daily operation and 20 employees at the public safety communications center on Pageland Highway. Its dispatchers answer 911 calls and handle communications with law enforcement officers and fire and EMS crews.

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  • Flood watch issued for county

    Rainy weather in the upcoming days has prompted the National Weather Service in Columbia to issue a flash flood watch until Thursday morning for 18 of the state’s central counties including Lancaster.
    A flash flood watch means that conditions may develop that lead to flash flooding.
    Other counties in the watch area include Aiken, Bamberg, Barnwell, Calhoun, Chesterfield, Clarendon, Edgefield, Fairfield, Kershaw, Lee, Lexington, McCormick, Newberry, Orangeburg, Richland, Saluda, and Sumter.

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  • A much-loved 28-year-old begins his short goodbye

    Every Southern town has at least a handful of eccentrics – characters who keep the place interesting.
    Pierre Cunningham has spent his lifetime as one of ours. He lives in one of Lancaster’s last vintage mansions and runs his business there. He’s a masterful cake baker, an unbelievably obsessive dog owner, always animated, cheerful and over-the-top confident. He calls himself “the boss.”
    And we will lose him soon.

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  • Recount affirms Norman’s GOP win

    A mandatory recount on Friday affirmed Ralph Norman’s photo-finish victory in this week’s runoff with Tommy Pope for the GOP slot on the 5th District congressional ballot.
    Norman will face Democrat Archie Parnell and three minor-party candidates in the June 20 special election to fill the seat vacated when Mick Mulvaney became White House budget director.
    State law required Friday’s recount because Norman’s victory margin was 1 percent or less of the total votes cast.

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  • Rotting $115K playground at Stevens Park beyond repair

    KERSHAW – The closed Haile Gold Mine Playground at Stevens Park is beyond repair, and the rotting $115,000 wood structure will have to be demolished.
    Town council unanimously voted this week to spend $21,000 for a new scaled-down set of playground equipment for the park.
    “I think it’s an emergency situation, since the park is closed,” said Kershaw Town Administrator Mitch Lucas. “It’s summertime and school is going to be out.”

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  • Phipps facing new challenges at much bigger school district

    Dr. Jonathan Phipps is making the leap to a school district four times the size of Abbeville County’s, and with vastly different problems.
    In rural Abbeville, his biggest challenge as superintendent was dealing with tight budgets and crumbling buildings from the 1950s. In Lancaster, his biggest job will be constructing new schools fast enough to keep pace with the Panhandle’s explosive growth.

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  • Centennial honor for Builders Supply

    Saying big-business relocations to South Carolina too often hog all the attention, S.C. Secretary of State Mark Hammond came to Lancaster on Wednesday to toast a small business that has adapted and thrived for more than a century.

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  • Proposed county budget contains tax hike, pay raises, 20 new jobs

    The Lancaster County Council will review the proposed 2017-18 budget at its meeting Monday night.
    The new budget includes a slightly higher property tax rate, a 2 percent salary increase for county workers and more money for cyber-security. It addresses public works and public safety in an effort to keep up with the county’s growing population, which is nearing 90,000 people.  

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  • Honoring Buford’s fallen

    For years, Buford High School senior Catherine “Cat” Tofts has been reading about the history of Buford’s Massacre.
    Now the JROTC cadet has researched and written about one obscure aspect of it. Her essay on American Revolution soldier Charles Cuffey won a contest sponsored by the nonprofit Friends of Buford Massacre group.
    Cuffey is one of the 216 known soldiers whose names are etched on a bronze plaque that will be dedicated Saturday at the battleground during the annual wreath-laying ceremony.

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