Opinion

They may not make headline stories all the time, but they make interesting conversations - those calls from our readers. The calls run the gamut - from sharing stories, sounding off, been done wrong, asking for favors and occasionally, praise.

We value these conversations and encourage readers to keep in touch.

The conversations reveal a glimpse of the newspaper life. We'd like to share a few with you.

Sometimes, you just can't win

Scotland is a world away from the eastern Lancaster County community of Buford, but that's about how far Anthony "T" Sutton has come in his budding youth golf career over a short period of time.

A first-grade student at Buford Elementary School, Sutton, 7, took up the game as a toddler after receiving some toy clubs. From there, he's fashioned a stellar career as a young golfer.

How good?

State Rep. Fletcher Smith believes the state's drinking laws should be changed to allow anyone who is in the military to buy alcoholic drinks. Smith, a Democrat from Greenville, has introduced a bill in the state House that would allow a service member under 21 to show his or her military identification card to a bartender or store clerk to buy alcoholic beverages.

First identified in 1852, the Carolina heelsplitter thrived in the Pee Dee, Catawba, Savannah and Saluda river systems of both North Carolina and South Carolina.

More than 100 years of growth in the Charlotte area has altered the water quality such that only small colonies exist today. The heelsplitter was put on the Endangered Species list in 1993 and is federally protected.

Years ago a television anchor would say, "It's 10:30 p.m. Do you know where your children are?" We have another question. What is a 13-year-old girl doing out on the streets at 3 a.m.?

There she was, on a Heath Springs street, with seven other young people, said Vincent Webb, a Lancaster County Sheriff's deputy. Webb's job is to police the town of Heath Springs.

Unless they are committing a crime there is nothing illegal about youngsters being out that time at night.

We want to weigh in on the Presidential Preference Primaries in South Carolina. We could talk about how holding these primaries put us on the national stage, perhaps again helped the Republican Party pick its nominee, helped clarify the Democratic field, perhaps picked a president.

We could talk about how fun it was for all those other towns to have candidates pass through, how cool it was to see three, four major debates held here.

All that is important.

It is only fair to inform the trashy folks who drop their butts and bottles on Ussery Road that this is perilous action.

The Marlboro Man could be fined $465 plus eight hours of community service, or if he's affluent, he may choose the $542 fine with no community service.

And the Bud Lite and Diet Pepsi person could face the same fate if caught. What's worse, depending on the weight of litter dropped along the road, the trashy person may have to cough up a maximum of $1,050 in fines and risk having his or her vehicle seized.

It's the law.

We can imagine how exciting it was for Indian Land Middle School students when they moved into their own school earlier this month. Principal David McDonald said move-in day was like like Christmas for the students.

The new middle school in Indian Land is the old high school building. Its day as a high school ended last spring and Indian Land's bigger, better high school opened in the fall. The old high school under went extensive renovations to make it the new Indian Land Middle School.

The family of Cpl. Charles "Charlie" E. Messer would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to everyone for all their thoughts, actions and prayers during this most difficult time for our family.