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Today's News

  • Construction glitches rile school board

    School board Chairman Bobby Parker, competing in the annual Dancing With the Stars fundraiser early this month, was one of the first people to perform onstage in the new $21 million Lancaster High School multipurpose building.
    At first, there was no sound from the audio system. Then there was way too much.
    “A repair was made and the volume of folks speaking was amplified, but it was more feedback than I’ve ever heard in my life. It was horrible, and we are certainly not satisfied with what we heard,” recalled Superintendent Jonathan Phipps.

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  • Theater in the rough

    When the final curtain fell at the Lancaster County Community Playhouse’s performance of “Romeo and Juliet” Saturday night, the theater group’s six-year run at the Barr Street Auditorium ended.
    Facing a doubling of its rent, the 47-year-old nonprofit playhouse, the oldest arts organization in Lancaster County, wants a performance space of its own.
    “We’ve never had a home. We’ve always bounced around from theater to theater to theater,” said playhouse President Joe Timmons III.

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  • County fixes cost overrun on Buford’s rec center lot

    After some wrangling to control cost overruns, the county should be able to complete the parking-lot paving and landscaping at the Buford Recreation Complex with the money set aside for the project.
    “We’re at $354,000 now, said Hal Hiott, the county’s recreation director, noting that $356,000 remains from the $800,000 in hospitality tax money set aside to pay for upgrades at the almost 11-year-old rec center.

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  • County losing planning chief Karagounis

    County Planning Director Penelope G. Karagounis has resigned to take the same position with the town of Fort Mill.
    A county employee since 2004, Karagounis was named planning director in 2012. Her last day here is Tuesday.
    “It’s the same title. I’m moving from planning director to planning director,” she said of her new role in Fort Mill, where she will supervise a staff of four, compared to five in Lancaster.

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  • Pardue Street shooting under investigation

    Springs Memorial Hospital was placed under lockdown Friday afternoon when a young man showed up with a gunshot wound to his elbow, Lancaster Police Chief Scott Grant said.
    The man told police he was shot in the Pardue Street area, but Grant said witness statements dispute that story. The hospital is placed under lockdown every time a shooting victim comes in.
    “Not a lot of witnesses have wanted to talk,” Grant said. “But the ones who have are saying they believe he shot himself.”

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  • Embezzlement charge against ex-VFD chief Tom Pickard

    Former Indian Land Fire Chief Thomas Wayne Pickard has been charged with embezzlement of public funds, just two months after his arrest on prostitution charges.
    Pickard, 52, turned himself in Wednesday morning at the Lancaster County Detention Center. He is charged with embezzling $1,680 from the Indian Land Volunteer Fire Department last year while acting as chief, an arrest warrant said.

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  • Top concert series survives again, but tough budget looms

    Lancaster’s Performing Arts Series of concerts avoided the axe – for now – after city council voted Tuesday to keep the events “subject to the constraints of the budget,” putting off the issue until March budget talks.

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  • A remarkable life of fortitude, honor

    KERSHAW – Lancaster County has lost one of its most beloved military veterans – its first casualty of the Vietnam War.
    Army 1st Lt. Jon Cook died Sunday at KershawHealth Medical Center in Camden. He was 79.
    One of his longtime friends, Frances Moreland, visited Cook hours before his death.
    “I asked him if he was hurting. He said, ‘No, I’m just real tired.’ And, of course Jon was, with all he had been through.”

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  • Chester pledges $75K for Thread Trail proposal

    Travis Jenkins
    Landmark News Service

    CHESTER – An extension of the Carolina Thread Trail that could serve as a natural pathway to coming whitewater rapids along Fishing Creek in Great Falls will have the financial support of Chester County.
    In December, Matt Covington and Bret Baronak from the Carolina Thread Trail addressed Great Falls Town Council about obtaining a 22-mile segment of abandoned CSX rail lines to add into the trail network.

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  • Big Thursday splits $40K between USCL, Clemson

    Gamecocks and Tigers rallying in close proximity isn’t something you see often – unless they’re filling a stadium one Saturday each fall.
    But the cross-state rivalry takes a backseat when kids’ futures are on the line.
    And that’s exactly what happened on Wednesday when Big Thursday Scholarship of Lancaster presented checks for $20,000 each to the USC Lancaster Educational Foundation and Clemson University.

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