After ten days, Columbia police announced that they found the body of SC Hospitality Association chief executive and lobbyist Tom Sponseller at 10:45 a.m. in the association’s Lady Street parking garage in downtown Columbia.

According to Columbia police, the cause of death for the 61 year old Sponseller was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. A 9mm pistol was found near the body which was located in an electrical room that until today had not been searched because it was locked and police did not obtain a key.

Also found, according to Chief Randy Scott, was an apparent suicide note in Sponseller’s office that directed police to his body’s location and referenced a federal investigation in to the association’s finances. Scott did not further elaborate on the note’s contents.

Greenville restaurateur and South Carolina Hospitality Association board chairman Rick Erwin who is also serving as the association’s interim president issued this statement on the association’s behalf this afternoon.

Sponseller was reported missing on Saturday, February 18, 2012 by his wife who called Columbia Police when Sponseller missed his grandson’s Pinewood Derby at 2:00 p.m. that afternoon.

UPDATE 10:20 p.m.: Excerpts of Sponseller’s suicide note are now being released. In it, he wrote about Rachel Duncan, the former Hospitality Association employee who is currently a subject in the federal investigation of the association’s missing money. He said that in her 11 years with the association, she had “become like a daughter” and that he was ashamed of what happened.

Sponseller wrote, “It is quite disappointing that all the work our members and staff put into building one of the best associations in the state has been jeopardized by the stupid actions of one person and not detected until the amount was so large the police found it first because I had failed to make sure everything was right.”

“I am sorry it ended like this,” Sponseller added. He closed the letter by saying, “I am a huge disappointment to everyone, my family, my friends, business associates and others. I let everyone down and have embarrassed those who I love the most, my wife, kids, and grandkids. I am so sorry I have failed you. Please find a way to forgive me in your hearts.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: We are truly saddened at the passing of Tom Sponseller. Our prayers are with Tom’s family as they begin to grieve the loss of a husband, father, and grandfather. If you or someone you know is in crisis, before taking any action, PLEASE reach out. You can always call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273- 8255.

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FROM THE DESK OF: Spring Training and My John Smoltz Baseball

All star, Cy Young winner, and future 1st ballot Hall of Famer John Smoltz pitches the first five innings before a record-setting crowd at Fluor Field on May 31, 2009. Thank you, John. Sorry for the image quality from a Blackberry camera.

There are a lot of things that mean “Spring” to me. The Carolina Cup in Camden, the RBC Heritage in Hilton Head, and baseball are high among them.

I’m a big baseball fan. Have been since I was a kid, and I’m still waiting for my invitation to throw a first pitch — or be the oldest bat boy in league history.

With pitchers and catchers having reported for Spring Training last weekend and position players coming in now, Spring Fever is starting to kick in.

As I do every year, I started thinking about what it is about baseball that I get so excited about. I love the game itself. I love watching new players who have the potential of becoming their own chapters in the sport’s history books. I love the hotdogs. I love the smell of the freshly cut grass. I love hearing a wooden bat crack against a perfectly thrown fastball. I love going to the ballpark with the wife and son and just taking time for us to spend as a family and leaving everything else at home or the office for a couple of hours.

Last year I was lucky enough to win an autographed baseball at a charity auction. I wrote some thoughts about it and thought with Spring Training now underway, it might not be a bad thing to share them again.

Remember in February when the 7 yr old and I went to the Greenville Drive’s “Hot Stove” event and I got the autographed John Smoltz baseball? Yeah. I was pretty excited. After all, we’re talking about John Smoltz.

Well, thanks to the Drive’s front office, I was also able to get a letter authenticating the signature. It reads, “This letter certifies that John Smoltz signed the baseball you purchased on May 31, 2009 when he was with the Drive as part of a Major League rehab assignment.”

When I read the letter, I thought about it for a few minutes, and it dawned on me that we were at that game. Not only that, but as the wife reminded me, the 7 year old still had the tickets in his room. Now, one of the tickets is in the case with the ball, and the other is with the authentication letter.

I love baseball because it’s something I grew up watching with my grandfather. I remember how he romanticized about playing Textile League ball for Gluck (pronounced “Gluke”) Mill in Anderson. He talked about Tommy Lasorda (who I was fortunate enough to meet once when he spoke at an assembly when I was in high school) and his time with the minor league Greenville Spinners in the late 1940s. Growing up, when my grandfather and I watched the Braves and TBS was the only “Superstation” and it was on channel 17 just like in Atlanta, the attention he paid to that game was as focused as the attention he’d give to the sermon on Sunday morning.

At 38, those memories are as fresh to me as they were when I was a kid, and frankly, my boyhood love of baseball and annual anticipation for the season helps keep me sane. They’re the kind of memories I want to pass on to the 7 year old so he can look back with his son and say, “I remember when.”

Now, after nearly two years, we unintentionally have a complete set from May 31, 2009 — the day John Smoltz signed a baseball in Greenville. The wife and I took the then 5 yr old to see a future first ballot Hall of Famer I loved watching with my grandfather when I was in high school and college. We kept the tickets and the picture to prove we were there, and now we have a letter that brings it all around.

So, as I told the wife, when Smoltz goes in to Cooperstown and I die an old man, my son will have something he can take to Vegas and say to the guys on PAWN STARS, “My dad got this ball for me when I was 7. Here’s the paperwork to prove it’s real. How much will you give me for it?”

NOTE: By the way, if you aren’t familiar with it, Textile League baseball was a regional big deal during the early to mid 1900s. Click HERE to learn more.

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CRESCENT People: John Boyanoski — Print Media is Changing

Well, when you get rich enough, how about buying some daily newspapers and and turning them back into actual local newspapers?

Newsrooms have been completely gutted. You jumped ship from print journalism and there are a number of others who have done the same thing. Where is traditional print media going?

There is always going to be spot for something. What it’s going to look like and where they’re going to put their efforts, I don’t know. I remember thinking ten years ago, as the first round of cuts started coming to newspapers and we were all worried about the future, I remember thinking, “OK. Put your focus on the web.” You can have a fifty person news department that has web-generated revenue and still survive, but unfortunately, the dailies have not realized that. They’ve been relying on the printed model, and they’ve been losing staff, so the model gets worse. Their on-line presence gets worse so, right now, these shell corporations, they don’t want to say…

Yeah, yeah. The Greenville News is being put together partly in Louisville, KY, and when you get curse words in The Greenville News sometimes.

Actually, I know. What happened was it was being put together in Louisville. This is what I’ve been told. This isn’t from Gannett.

What I understand was, somebody on the Louisville desk (who was laying out the next morning’s Greenville News) was IM-ing (instant messaging) somebody, wrote a swear word going back and forth with a friend saying, “Hey, we’re going to be working late.” Something happened. Something makes him say “_-_-_-_” (Obscenity Deleted), and it went in the newspaper’s layout instead of the IM. He (the layout person) thought he IM’d it, but it went to a page because he was working a page and going back and forth between newspaper layout and IM. And that’s how it got into The Greenville News.

There was a conspiracy theory that it was somebody that was disgruntled, that it was a retaliation for the announcement of more layoffs and furloughs.

No, from my understanding, it literally was an IM accident over, “We’re running late on something.” As you talk to your buddies, you might throw a curse word in there, and from what I understand, that’s what happened.

It was amazing to watch that spread because when I first saw it, I went ahead and got the electronic copy of the paper so I had a nice, clean crisp version. It seemed like within a half an hour, HuffPo printed it.

The first place I saw that morning…I get the paper at home. I’m still a traditionalist.

I’m not gonna read a Georgia/LSU game recap, so I didn’t see it, but a friend of mine who works for a local television station posted to his Facebook page saying, “Oh well, if I said this on air, I would not be filing stories right now.” And he just did it as a joke, not even thinking about it. It was about 5:00 that morning that he posted that. I don’t know if he was the first person in America who posted it, I can’t say for sure, but that’s the first place I saw it, and all of a sudden it was like tweeting back and forth. It just spread and spread and spread. To HuffPo, Deadspin, it was everywhere.

Somebody wrote, “Don’t fire the guy who wrote that. Give him a raise because this is the most the newspaper has been talked about in years.”

That’s a great point, because that’s what hurts traditional print media. If you go on a blog or you get that edgy “They can curse. They can make allegations,” mentality, everyone gets freaked out because they see it on page 3 of the Sports section in a major print. Because it’s a family newspaper, they’re darned if they do and darned if they don’t. They get…it was a mistake, but if someone else makes a mistake, no one cares about it. We still expect…we have these high standards for traditional media, and we want them to be fantastic, but we don’t want to support and make them fantastic. Does that make sense? I mean, they’re not getting ad revenue in, people don’t trust them, but when they screw up ask why we can’t trust them. It’s a double-edged sword.

But is it “chicken-and-the-egg” or “irresistible force/immovable object” thinking? It’s tough to put that local content there when you’re continuing to cut your staff because you can’t afford to have the staff if you don’t have the ad revenue.

It’s like the postal service. “We’re going to cut Saturday service, and we’re not going to guarantee next day delivery on first class mail in town because we can’t make the money.”

OK, so you’re complaining that you can’t compete with the other things so you’re going to give us worse service than we got before?

Yeah, and that’s what newspaper companies are doing. “We can’t make money, so we’ll make the product worse.” And the product keeps getting worse and worse and worse. Then they wonder, “So why are we losing money?” Well, the product’s worse. What’s their answer? “Let’s make the product even worse.” It doesn’t make sense. And it’s hard because there are some good people that work in print media. I have some great friends who are fantastic journalists, hardworking people, and I give them all the credit in the world because they’re doing it with…they’re working major hours, they’re hustling, they’re doing a lot of stuff. The other thing, too, is, a lot of the best stuff still comes from newspapers.

We don’t like to admit it. We like to pretend that, “Oh, it’s coming from some guy embedded with the military unit or who covered politics with a slant.” Some of the best stuff is still coming from newspapers. We sometimes overlook that. We’re so caught up in the hype of new media. New media is so spread out. I’ll give you an example.

I went to a forum earlier this year talking media politics, and a web guy was there, a blogger, and he was trying to make his point that print’s dead. “Print is so dead. No one reads print.” So he thought he’d be smart because it was a roomful of college kids and some mixed adults. “Who gets their news from the internet?” Everyone raised their hands. “Who gets their news from the paper?” Half the room. “So there you go,” he said to me. So I asked “Who gets their news from your web site?” No one raised their hand.

And sometimes newspaper companies fall into that trap. They see the declining numbers but everyone’s still reading a paper or people are still getting their source of information from newspaper web site or something like that.

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CRESCENT Products: Loggerhead Apparel — This Sea Turtle Can Take on the Horse or the Whale Any Day

There is an undercurrent from people who want to see South Carolina-based products. If you haven’t noticed in the state’s farmers’ markets, road-side stands, and numerous other businesses, the South Carolina Department of Agriculture instituted its “Certified SC” program.

ZAC: We’ve been in touch with the “Certified SC” folks. I’ve got the sticker on my truck, and I did before we started Loggerhead.

And two or three years ago, when they first came out with that logo, I actually emailed them and said, “Can you send me as many as you will of those?” We passed them out to our friends.

I love the “Certified South Carolina” movement. Actually, one of their marketing guys named our black shirt. All of our colors have South Carolina ties, so our navy shirt is “Bulls Bay Blue.” Our pink is “Southern Moon Pink” which is named for a jellyfish that loggerheads feed on that are off the coast of the Carolina.

ZAC: For Lake Hartwell, right. “Sweetgrass Green” after the sweetgrass baskets in Charleston, and our black shirt is “Edisto Blackwater” because the Edisto is the largest blackwater river in North America, and a “Certified South Carolina” guy named that shirt. So, we talked with them very early on. We don’t fit into that category to get that stamp. We would love to, but they…

But it shows there is an awareness at the public level and even in state government that we have products to promote and to be proud of.

Conservation is something you got involved with in Charleston before you came up here. Has it been a life-long kind of passion?

SARA: Yeah. I mean, life-long involvement. I haven’t lived in Charleston in quite some time. I went to undergrad at Clemson, but the conservation and working with sea turtles specifically was something my dad got involved down in Charleston. Awendaw, the community that I lived in, that I grew up in, is right on the Intracoastal Waterway. Right across the Intracoastal from my neighborhood is Cape Romaine National Wildlife Refuge. All of those islands see loggerhead sea turtle nesting, but one of the islands gets the most loggerhead sea turtles of anywhere in South Carolina — in fact, anywhere north of Florida. They see over a thousand nests a season. I had that right in my backyard. My dad’s a pretty avid sailor and naturalist and nature enthusiast, so he spent a lot of time on the water out there and was able to, fortunately, when they made that program, to get involved in volunteering.

ZAC: And her dad actually has a blog and has written several books on that area.

SARA: It is raynoronthecoast.com, and his first book was “Exploring Bull Island.” And then the other one was “Tracing the Cape Romaine Archipelago.” All that information is on his blog. That was sort of where that part of it came from and then the loggerhead sea turtle specifically is the mark for our brand where we chose to give 10% of our sales. Our state reptile.

If there an elementary school class, there is going to be a state symbol designated every year.

SARA: That’s where the loggerhead sea turtle came from as the state reptile. An elementary school class.

ZAC: And we’ve actually gotten an email from a guy who was in the elementary school class in ’76.

ZAC: When it became the state reptile. We got an email on our website that said, “Love what you guys are doing. I was actually in the class, in the picture, when we got the loggerhead name.” It was nothing other than, “I bought my shirt at Sam Evans. I love it and thanks for doing what you’re doing.” And that was kind of cool, that that guy, one of those 25 kids found us and reached out and said, “I was in that class.” That’s pretty neat.

Are you getting that kind of feedback a lot? Not necessarily from somebody that was in the class, but just somebody to thank you for what you’re doing?

SARA: Yeah, a lot. And way outside of South Carolina, too. We get them for all over. “Thank you for what you’re doing.” We’re getting a lot in Florida now and all over…I mean all over the United States because of the American manufacturing.

ZAC: It’s funny. There are pockets where…Florida, the Gulf States where we get a lot of support for the loggerhead aspect, and then another place where we have gotten a ton a fans and seen orders…Michigan, Illinois, Iowa…

ZAC: Yeah and New Jersey, New York, Ohio. So that sort of “Made in America” labor, that sort of movement…

There’s that whole sense of pride there that we’ve gotten a lot of support from. We’re actually…we’re members of “American Made Matters” which is a non-profit out of PA that is basically a lobbying group for American manufacturing. We’re featured in the Alliance for American Manufacturing which is in DC. They hold a fashion show every year in Minneapolis. They featured our “Made in South Carolina” stuff so we were invited to be at that this year. That’s really cool.

Then we have…we’ve got this state pride that I think sees all sides of it. Manufactured here, based here. A lot of people in South Carolina get it. The tie-in with the loggerhead, the tie-in with the manufacturing, the textiles, the fact that we’re based here, the fact that we’re in so many independently-owned men’s shops here. But then there’s outside of the state.

People really like the conservation side. There’s nothing unique to South Carolina about caring about oceans and marine wildlife. There’s nothing unique to South Carolina about wanting stuff that’s made in America and that’s done in a sustainable way and an ethical way. Because a lot of the Made in the US stuff, a lot of that is for, as much economic reasoning as ethical.

There’s a lot of that tie-in because the conditions in a lot of factories in the places overseas are not something that we would want to be associated with. There’s actually a church in Charlotte that started a “Made in the US” store for that very reason. They felt like it was a responsible thing to make sure the products that you’re purchasing were made in an ethical way. And by default, things that are made in the US are more environmentally friendly because of the regulations we have here.

So there’s a lot of…besides impacting your fellow Americans, there’s a lot of other reason to try to buy locally and buy American. It’s been those different pockets of people who’ve really liked it.

Then we’ve got the college students have just said, “That fratty turtle is pretty cool.” Preppy girls love the pink and green turtle shirt. We’ve got that, too, which is great.

So are you going to fight the Vineyard Vines people at The (Carolina) Cup this year?

ZAC: That’s funny. There was an article written about us. I don’t remember exactly where it was, but I thought it was funny because they said, “We think this sea turtle can take on the (Polo) horse or the (Vineyard Vines) whale any day.” And that was a pretty cool compliment, too, to be compared to…

ZAC: We’re obviously nowhere as big as those guys, but it’s kind of neat to see somebody make that some sort of association with some of the other fine brands out there.

From a personal perspective, you started at Erwin-Penland Advertising within 2 weeks of each other, and that’s how you met.

ZAC: We worked together for several years. Started working together in ’05 and worked together for several years. We started dating in ’07, actually when I didn’t work at EP. I left EP for almost a year and came back, and during that time is when we started dating. We’ve been together for almost 5 years now.

SARA: That’s right. That’s so last year. Last year, we launched our company, got married, started our family, got pregnant.

ZAC: 2012 is shaping up to be really good. I expect February/March to be a period of significant growth for us.

ZAC: We’ll fill in some of the holes in South Carolina. It’s kind of funny. We actually don’t have a store in Columbia proper. We’ve got some stores around it but we actually…unofficially, we’ve gotten our first store in Columbia. Product will be there soon. We’ve got an agreement with a store in Virginia Beach. They just don’t want us to deliver the merchandise until late February because it’s not appropriate weather for short sleeved shirts in Virginia in January.

ZAC: Right, right. We have our first Florida store. We’ve got several conversations with other stores in Florida but our biggest growth, I think, in the Spring, will be in North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland. Because we’ve got a lot of orders up there. We’ve got a good bit of exposure from bloggers, and we’ve got a sales rep that’s in that area. The style there seems to really resonate. They love the conservation side of it. A lot of people there vacation in South Carolina, so we’ve got that kind of affinity for where the shirt’s coming from. That area…especially Maryland and Virginia, have placed a lot of orders, a lot of coverage and a lot of emails from people. They’re really liking it.

It’s a sense of the style, too. That is a preppy area. So we fit well. There are a lot of stores that like what we have, so I think that will be a good area of growth. Then Florida. Florida’s been great for us already from on-line sales because loggerhead sea turtles are huge in Florida. So I think we’ll see growth there this year, as well.

SARA: One thing that’s different about ours that not all polos have is that it is 100% cotton. It’s made of 100% cotton, and yes, there are some polos that are made of 100% cotton, but typically a lot of the polos you see these days are made of blends.

SARA: Yes. And ours is Supima cotton which is classified as the world’s finest cotton. It’s the equivalent of Egyptian cotton, but Pima cotton is grown here, and Egyptian cotton isn’t. That’s one part of it. We also didn’t design our fit to be just like some of the other brands that we were put up against these days. We fit our shirts to be more traditionally-sized and not this slim, slim fit.

Fit for more regularly sized and shaped people than what you’d see on models for certain retail stores’ ads?

ZAC: Someone tells me, “Well, I usually wear a medium or a small,” you’re a small in our brand because we do it the old school way. Actually, pretty much everything we do as far as manufacturing and fitting this shirt is done like it was being done 25 years ago and that’s not a bad thing. That’s a good thing.

ZAC: It’s funny how we’ve gotten emails that say, “Oh, I bought a medium because…” or “I bought a large because I wear a large in this other brand, but I can wear a medium in yours.” That’s awesome. We went by the old school charts to size everything.

SARA: I think that helped us because the preppy style is definitely younger. The younger crowd is who cares about the preppy style, preppy fashion. And so we’re going to have that and we love that because college kids and high school kids, they’re talking about it. They’re blogging about it. They’re putting it on Facebook. They’re telling their friends. That’s going to help us grow, but it’s been really great to get some of the older audiences, too, that really care about the American manufacturing and 100% cotton stories. Some of those details that were important to us and that we put into our shirts and into our mission. Those folks care about a lot. We’re sort of covering this broader spectrum so there is something for everyone.

ZAC: On Facebook, we have as many fans over 40 as we do under 21. That’s pretty cool.

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Five Past Winners of PGA TOUR Majors Commit to RBC Heritage

Five past winners of PGA TOUR majors have committed to play in the 2012 RBC Heritage April 9-15 over the Harbour Town Golf Links. Ernie Els, John Daly, Padraig Harrington, Justin Leonard and Lee Janzen will all be competing in the 44th annual event now sponsored by RBC and presented by Boeing.

They will be joined by former Heritage winners, including defending champ Brandt Snedeker, Stewart Cink, Glen Day, Brian Gay, Jim Furyk and Boo Weekley. The entire group will be shooting for the top prize of $1,026,000 from a purse of $5,700,000.

South African Ernie Els is a favorite on Hilton Head and is also an RBC Ambassador. He has competed at Harbour Town a dozen times and finished in the top ten seven times. Since turning pro in 1989, he has won more than 60 tournaments all around the world including two US Opens and an Open Championship. In 2009, during Heritage week, he announced the creation of the Els for Autism Foundation with his son Ben, who is autistic, driving the force behind the mission.

Another Hilton Head fan favorite, John Daly joined the PGA TOUR in 1991 and won the PGA TOUR Championship that same year. Since then he has won four more times on the PGA TOUR, most recently in 2004 at the Buick Invitational. In 2011, he carded his first top ten finish since 2005 at the RBC Canadian Open. Daly has played Harbour Town eight times since 1993 and has only missed the cut twice.

Padraig Harrington has carded five wins on the PGA TOUR including back-to-back British Open victories in 2007 and 2008. In 2008, he also won the PGA Championship. He has also been successful playing overseas with sixteen international victories spanning fifteen years. The Irishman, from Dublin, has not played Harbour Town since his first visit in 2001.

Justin Leonard has won twelve times on the PGA TOUR since turning pro in 1994. The Dallas, Texas native donned the Tartan Jacket in 2002 when he won at Harbour Town by beating Heath Slocum by one stroke. He has competed in the RBC Heritage fourteen times and has earned close to $1 million dollars here. He won the British Open in 1997 at the age of 25, making him one of the youngest British Open winners in history.

Lee Janzen hasn’t missed an RBC Heritage since 1994. His best finish at Harbour Town was in 2009 when he tied for fourth place. The Orlando, Florida resident turned pro in 1986 and was a standout on the TOUR in the 1990’s earning eight wins, including the 1993 and 1998 US Opens. He has earned over 15.5 million over the course of his career.

Daily tickets and weeklong badges for this year’s tournament are now on sale online at www.rbcheritage.com or by calling the tournament office at (843) 671-2448. The Hilton Head • Bluffton Chamber of Commerce is selling tickets at their mid-island location and at the Hilton Head Island Welcome Center. The Town of Bluffton Office at 20 Bridge Street is also a Ticket Outlet.

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WHAT’S GOING ON: Business Notes

Liquid Catering Celebrates First Anniversary

Liquid Catering, the Upstate’s first full-service beverage catering company, celebrates its first year in business this week.

Liquid Catering specializes in providing top-shelf bar elements for all occasions. Liquid Catering offers bartenders and mixologists and provides an array of services from wine tastings and weddings to corporate functions and non-alcoholic events.

Tammy Johnson, the firm’s owner and president, said her company grew because of its staff who handled numerous events for clients including Greater Greenville Chamber of Commerce, Adidas Group, Entercom Media, the Greater Greenville Association of Realtors, the Greenville Hospital System, Southwest Airlines, WHNS, and the Upcountry History Museum.

“We always want to give our customers outstanding service, and my team does that every time,” Johnson said. “They allow Liquid Catering to grow.”

The company employs 40-50 people and also can furnish security guards, cocktail servers, caterers, promotional models, and more.

Johnson, who is active in the community with the PULSE organization, the volunteer Bar Manager for Euphoria and Big Brothers Big Sisters, said she expects her company to really take off in 2012.

“We had a better than expected first year,” Johnson said. “We look forward to continued growth in 2012.”

The Reserve at Lake Keowee Named Best Lake Community of the Year

The Reserve at Lake Keowee has been named Best Lake Community of the Year in the 2012 Bliss Awards conducted by Real Estate Scorecard, an independent real estate community review and scoring website.

Real Estate Scorecard’s annual Bliss Awards define excellence created by Southeastern master planned communities. Winners are selected every January from on-site evaluations made by Real Estate Scorecard’s staff, feedback from surveying each community’s own members, and by public voting through the Real Estate Scorecard website.

“The Reserve at Lake Keowee was chosen because of the complete lake lifestyle this master planned community offers property owners. Lake Keowee is an 18,500 acre wide bodied lake with 300 miles of shoreline. The lake is nicknamed the Garden of Eden, recognized as one of the purest prettiest lakes in the Carolinas. Life on the lake includes fishing, waterskiing and jet skiing. Anglers catch largemouth bass and trout in this fresh water mountain lake. During the summer months, the water is warm making the lake a wonderful natural swimming pool. The Blue Ridge Mountains in the backdrop will compete for your attention at this master planned community. The Reserve at Lake Keowee has a marina, 200 wet boat slips, a fuel station and provides water sport rentals. Boat slips are available for rent on an annual basis. Marina Park was named Best for Boating by Links Magazine. Speaking of golf, Jack Nicklaus designed their scenic signature golf course. The Reserve at Lake Keowee offers a unique feature called Multi-Generational Membership. This extends membership privileges to property owner’s parents, children and grandchildren. The Reserve at Lake Keowee is a classic example of southern hospitality, offering a generous Discovery Package to serious buyers.”

Other 2012 Bliss Award winners may be viewed on Real Estate Scorecard’s website and include Big Canoe, an Atlanta-based community in partnership with Greenwood Communities and Resorts – the same development partner of The Reserve at Lake Keowee.

Greenville Chamber’s PULSE Group Launches Talent Retention Program

PULSE (Professionals United for Leadership and Social Enrichment), the leadership development program of the Greenville Chamber of Commerce, has started a program designed to cultivate and retain Greenville’s college-based interns.

PULSE Talent will run from May to August with a series of events aimed at upper level college students interning for area businesses, said Tammy Johnson, PULSE 2012 Chair.

“We wanted to find a way to engage this talent base and get them excited about returning to Greenville when they graduate,” Johnson said. “As an organization aimed at leading the next level of young professionals, we are thrilled to lead the development of this program.”

Hank Holseberg, the PULSE Talent chairperson in 2012, said his committee is developing programming that includes an opening session on May 30 at the Upcountry History Museum, a Walking Tour of Downtown on June 14, a luncheon at the Embassy Suites on June 25, a Greenville Drive game and more. Companies interested in investing in the PULSE Talent program or recommending potential participants can contact Tami Miller, the Chamber’s Leadership Development Coordinator, at 864-239-3743 or tmiller@greenvillechamber.org.

“The goal is to get these students interested in what Greenville has to offer outside the workplace,” Holseberg said. “We want to show them the quality of life that we all enjoy.”

PULSE officials said the need for this program was solidified by a survey of Upstate college students conducted by Greenville Forward over the past few years. Results showed only 27 percent of area students planned to stay after graduation, with 33 percent noting they were likely to move out of state. And according to results, the Upstate is 73 percent more likely than like-sized metro areas to lose African Americans, with one in five saying they would like to leave the state because of a perception of a lack of progressiveness. (Click HERE for the Survey)

Talent retention has been identified as a critical need by the Greenville Chamber via the annual Regional Economic Scorecard (Click HERE for the Scorecard), and as part of the Chamber’s Leadership Development division, one of the main goals of PULSE is to create leadership opportunities for young professionals so they will be more inclined to stay in the area.

“Workforce is the differentiating factor of the future. It all depends on talent – people with the right skills and education – to make a truly competitive region,” said Hank Hyatt, the Chamber’s vice president of economic development. “ As we attract and retain more talent in Greenville, we will see not just more competitive companies but a community that has increased wealth as measured by per capita income.”

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YOUR TURN: “Why is SC So Stupid About Education and Technology?” By Phil Noble

Some issues are a close call – it is hard to know what is the right thing to do. Technology in education is not one of these issues. It’s obvious that technology and education are the keys to success in the global economy of the 21^st century, both for us as individuals and as a state.

The only question is: Why is SC so stupid about figuring this out and doing the right things?

While our experience in South Carolina is discouraging, we only have to look across the border 20 miles north of Charlotte to see an excellent example of what we are missing.

First, the bad news: the foundation has been laid for success, but the SC Legislature has refused to do their part. I was fortunate to be a part of an innovative project called One Laptop Per Child SC (OLPC/SC) that raised over $1 million in private money to provide almost 3,000 laptops to every child in 15 schools across the state. After a year of evaluation, then Supt. of Education Jim Rex found that ‘dollar for dollar this computer will have a bigger impact in improving education that anything else we can do.’

Sadly, the Legislature refused to take the next step and provide the funding to expand the project. However, local school districts are now moving ahead on their own, with several good initiatives underway. Most recently, the Charleston County School District provided iPads to all the students in three low-performing high schools and three elementary schools, with an eye to expanding to the whole district.

While some schools in South Carolina are struggling to develop the right model, North Carolina’s East Mooresville Intermediate School has become what the New York Times has called “the de facto national model of the digital school.”

Three years ago, about the same time OLPC/SC was started, Mooresville issued 4,400 laptops to 4th thru 12th graders in five schools. As with the South Carolina pilot project, the Mooresville results have been overwhelmingly positive:

And if you assume that Mooresville is an affluent area, you would be dead wrong. Minorities make up 27% of the school and 40% are poor enough to receive free or reduced price lunches.

Here’s the bottom line on Mooresville in one sentence from the New York Times. “Mooresville ranks 100 out of 115 districts in North Carolina in terms of dollars spent per student – $7,415.89 – but is now third in test scores and second in graduation rates.”

And in terms of the costs, the story only gets better. In Mooresville, they lease the newest MacBook Air from Apple for $215 a year for a total of $1 million, and they spend an additional $100,000 for software. Each family is asked to donate $50 to cover repairs but the fee is waived if they cannot afford it. In addition, the school district has negotiated a deal such that any family can have broadband access at home for only $9.99 a month.

An added cost bonus is reduced personnel expenditures. Mooresville was able to eliminate 65 jobs, including 37 teaching positions.

And what about South Carolina? We could easily afford to do what they have done in Mooresville. While the per student spending in Mooresville is $7,415, in South Carolina it is over $11,000. Simply duplicating Mooresville in South Carolina, without the savings of cutting positions, would cost only $250 per student, or less than 2% of what we are spending today.

However, in one sense, this is not about technology; it’s about changing the teaching culture of the school, and the computer is the tool to leverage this change. As Mooresville’s Superintendent says, “It’s not about the box. It’s about changing the culture of instruction – preparing students for their future, not our past.”

Therein lies the great paradox – the computer is the tool or lever to change the teaching culture, and it costs virtually nothing to change a culture, just good leadership.

So, my original question remains: Why is SC so stupid about education and technology? The answer is the aforementioned “good leadership.” If we can’t get good leadership out of Columbia, then we need to change that leadership there, but also we, as citizens, need to lead the change in schools on the local level.

The Mooresville model is something special – but there is nothing there that cannot be duplicated all across South Carolina. Copying a good model is smart. Ignoring the pathway to success when it is just over the state line is just stupid.

Phil Noble is a businessman in Charleston and President of the SC New Democrats, an independent reform group started by former Gov. Richard Riley. Contact Mr. Noble at phil@SCNewDemocrats.org or www.SCNewDemocrats.org.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the author are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CRESCENT: The Magazine.

To submit an op-ed for CRESCENT’s “Your Turn” section, please email it to input@crescentmag.com.

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CRESCENT Products: Loggerhead Apparel — A Dual Mission that Supports SC and Gives Back in Philanthropy

It never fails that when you try to do something new, you step out, you want to do something different, you’ve always somebody, more than one somebody who says “Don’t do that, you shouldn’t do that, you can’t do that.” How many people told you that and how did you handle it?

ZAC: We didn’t have many. I think there were some who really didn’t understand it. It was like, “OK, that’ll be interesting to see,” but I also think that people that knew us probably knew that we wouldn’t listen. And we had done some research and we had done some surveys and things like that and everything was pointing in the direction we wanted it to point in that confirmed it was a good idea. You know, the first time we said we were going to start a clothing line, it was, “Alright, that’s interesting,” but there was never a, “You can’t do that.” Now, we got a “Can you really do that? Make it in the US and make money?” That’s been the biggest question we’ve had. “How can you make money having everything produced locally?”

SARA: Another big question that we get is, “OK, you’re making clothes. You’re making polo shirts. There are so many other brands out there that are making polo shirts. What differentiates you from them?” Obviously, our two-part mission that we’re making everything in the United States and that we give a significant portion of our sales to conservation efforts. That’s big, but I think, from people in this industry that…more from the retail side of it, the folks that are selling it, that are on the front line selling it and they’ve got all these brands out there that are approaching them, we get the question a lot, “What makes your salability?” Great quality, if not better than some of these other brands that are out there. I think, all very, very comparable in that high end category. And we’ve got this mission tied to it. So yes, that differentiates us, but not only that. I had one guy say, “Well, your polo shirts are made in South Carolina, so that will be great for people in South Carolina, but is it really going to sell anywhere else? I don’t know.” We’ve sold to 31 different states in the United States that have ordered on-line, that found us.

ZAC: Stores in 5 different states and on-line orders in 30 plus. I never believed that for a minute. If I saw something…I mean I drive a Ford, and I love that it rolled out of Michigan. There are things that are made in Texas that we have that I think it’s cool that it’s made in Texas. I think some of the furniture we have that’s made in North Carolina, that’s really cool. It’s all American. It’s not…it was never founded as a South Carolina-only thing. We wanted to make it in South Carolina because that’s where we’re from, but I expect people in Tennessee and Texas and Florida and everywhere else will appreciate that. And they do. Right now, our sunglass straps are made in Wyoming. Koozies are made in Texas. Our stickers come from Minnesota. Some of our t-shirts come from North Carolina, but a lot of the work happens here. All the designing happens here. The Koozies, if they were actually made in Texas, they were printed locally. So there’s always that local tie-in, but we never thought for a minute that it wouldn’t resonate outside of the state. And it certainly has. We have done very well outside.

Every time someone travels here from our New York office or whatever, they’re amazed at how great it is here. There is a lot of Southern style here and we wanted to be…there are several brands in South Carolina, and we wanted to make one that did as much work as possible here and gave back here. The 10% of sales, not profits…

ZAC: It is. It’s huge because profits can be coded a lot of ways to determine what that donation is, but if you buy a $68 polo on our web site, $6.80 goes into an account that is set aside for a charitable donation to sea turtle conservation. If you buy a $4 Koozie, $0.40 goes into an account. Every single dollar we get. We’ve done…in a year, it’ll be $10,000 in donations in our first year. That’s already happened and more planned already.

ZAC: Yeah. It’s great, and that’s the fun part. We’re talking to our vendors on a weekly basis. We’re impacting their lives. We’re sending funds their way. Our stores that are selling our stuff, we sell to them wholesale and 10% of every wholesale dollar is donated, too. It’s not just consumer orders.

That’s a piece of the puzzle we haven’t talked about. You had the idea. You found out how to get everything made, but then you had to have somebody get rid of it for you. What all did you go through to build up your distribution channel?

SARA: It happened a couple of different ways, and it’s still happening. We’re really expanding upon our retail base right now. And really, in a large part, outside of South Carolina because we’ve got a pretty good base here now in South Carolina. Certainly, we have more stores that we’d love to be in in the state…

SARA: Yeah, right, but we had a lot that actually reached out to us from the start. They said, “Hey, I read this article,” or, “My family…” The owner of one of our downtown Charleston stores is from Greenville, and his family read an article in the Greenville News or the Greenville Journal about us and told him because he owns a store on King Street. He called us up and said, “Hey, I’m interested.” That’s how we formed that relationship.

ZAC: That was a few months after we started, and I remember, for me, that was in the first two months of us doing business. The owner of an upscale men’s store on King Street in Charleston called us and said he’d be interested in carrying our product? That was a pretty cool moment. King Street is nationally known for shopping, so after being in business for 7 or 8 weeks and getting that call was awesome/

That’s the one when you looked at each other and say “Honey, I think we’re on the right track.”

SARA: Exactly, because that’s someone who read our story, and it immediately resonated with them. He wasn’t one of ones who had this limited viewpoint of , “Well, is it going to sell outside of South Carolina?” Some of those questions that we’ve gotten. It grabbed his attention immediately, and we’ve had a number of stores that that’s how that relationship started. They read about us, they saw us and reached out to us.

ZAC: Thomasville, Georgia, which is on the Florida line right above Tallahassee. The owner of that store called us and had read about on the Made in America blog. They just thought it was cool that we were making everything in the United States, but the blogger was based out of Ohio. The guy in Thomasville, Georgia read it. He owned a clothing store. He called us and said, “I’d love to carry your product.” And that’s how he found out. Guy in Statesville, right outside of Charlotte called us…

SARA: And then he has put us in touch with a number of other people including a sales rep to help represent our line outside of South Carolina. It’s just that network is really neat. We’ve had retailers who have talked to their buddies in the next town over and said, “Hey, you should really check out this new brand. I’m picking them up, and they’ve got a really cool story.”

ZAC: Yeah, the store in Spartanburg got us the store in York. The store in Hartsville got us the store in Florence. The store in…a woman we met in Charleston arranged a meeting for the Pawley’s Island store that carries our merchandise. It’s been…the Lexington, South Carolina store has a tie to the Clemson, South Carolina store, the way the communication worked. So it’s pretty neat when it comes down to it.

SARA: We didn’t have sales reps out any of last year representing out line. It was whenever we could make phone calls or get on the road. I started doing some of that in the state over the summer but not any formalized process.

ZAC: And there was no rush. We didn’t want to grow too quickly, we didn’t want to overextend ourselves.

SARA: And we didn’t want to saturate a certain market, Downtown Greenville, with 4 different but similar stores and have them competing against each other when we only had 3 products. 3 color polos.

ZAC: And we’ve had stores end their relationships with us already because it just wasn’t a good fit, and we’ll continue. We want it to be the right way. We want it to be people who believe in what we’re doing and support it, and it’s worked so far. We didn’t take the approach of get in anywhere we can, no matter what it is, and sell as much as we can, no matter what you have to do.

Believe me, I understand. Now, how long before you hand Joe (Erwin, president of Erwin Penland Advertising and former chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party) your resignation?

ZAC: I don’t know that I ever will. I really love what I do in the advertising world. I’m a foodie. My entire career has been marketing and advertising for restaurants and restaurant companies. I don’t know that I ever want to get too far away from that because it’s another passion that I have.

SARA: He’d be coming up with some other concept to do on the side of Loggerhead Apparel if he wasn’t doing something.

ZAC: And there are so many…EP (Erwin-Penland where Zac still works, but Sara left to oversee Loggerhead’s operations full-time) encourages that entrepreneurial spirit. There are so many at EP that have multiple callings and that’s one of the things that makes it a special place.

SARA: I’m not employed by the company any more, but I’m still part of the EP family. They let me host a trunk show there right before Christmas in the Central Park meeting room. I sold products for 2 hours.

ZAC: Joe purposely wears his Loggerhead shirt to meetings. They’re all incredibly supportive. EP is not a job for me. There’s more to it than that.

SARA: Joe wrote a letter to the editor of a fairly large publication saying “Hey, you need to check out this new brand.”

SARA: Yeah, just on his own. We have that support from so many different places that it’s been really wonderful.

The thing is you’re doing something different, too. You really want to see a business like this succeed because of what it’s based on.

SARA: Well, thank you. And that’s been one of the neatest things for me is this is something we’re really passionate about ourselves, and we thought, “You know, this makes sense.” We think other people will be passionate about this and be interested in this, too. It’s really been neat to see that pay off and actually see that come to life. Not only people who have a lot of the same ideals as us but maybe somebody who hadn’t thought that much about where the products they wear come from. Now they are starting to a little bit more. And they’re starting to tell that story, so that amplifies that trend that we’re seeing.

ZAC: Yeah, our manufacturer told me last week that he’s gotten calls from several brands that manufacture overseas to start looking into it.

ZAC: His first question was, “Are they trying to take your market away? Are they going to do something like ‘If they’re having success because they’re made in South Carolina or made in the US, maybe we need to start doing that, too?’” Then he asked if would I be upset by that, but actually, it’s pretty cool. That’s what we set out to do, to show that it can be done. If another brand should start making their shirts…

It’s only cool as long as it doesn’t hurt you. Then it’s not cool any more.

ZAC: We’re not a novelty, and if that was the case, if it was a lackluster shirt that didn’t have a dual mission, that wasn’t genuine, and all we did was slap something on it that said, “Made in South Carolina,” we wouldn’t be where we are. People don’t buy it just for that reason. When I talked about Eat This, Not That, I said the big thing was that the exchange was about not having to sacrifice. That’s the difference with Loggerhead Apparel. You’re not paying more for it. You’re getting as good if not better quality, and you’re buying in to a brand that you can identify with. No one can necessarily make that just by slapping a “Made in US” label on it.

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CRESCENT People: John Boyanoski -- New Books, Statues of SC Mayors, and a Bigger State Football Rivalry than Carolina / Clemson?

Are you going to do a follow-up to Palmetto Pigskin History to kind of catch up to where we are now?

I would love to do maybe five years from now and adding five years, the last five years. I went all the way to 2010 for the book. There are a lot of great stories, maybe more like the color of it. Some of the things that are just fascinating, there are so many stories I had to skip over. So many stories, great players that highlights the kind of love affair that South Carolina has with the sport. So, yeah, I would love to do a follow-up at some point.

No, there have been a lot of books written about college ball. Obviously, Clemson vs. Carolina is a great, great rivalry.

But you’ve got smaller schools. You’ve got the Woffords. You’ve got the PCs. You’ve got The Citadel.

There is. Actually, if I had a book I’d love to write…I don’t know if it would sell anything…but Newberry and Presbyterian had a long-time rivalry for…they called it the Bronze Derby. And it was a grudge match…who would win this Bronze Derby at the end of the year. It was a fantastic thing and the games were good but the players who were coached at Newberry and Presbyterian, since they both had big education departments, a lot of those players became coaches so you see a lot of the great coaches in South Carolina high school football history all went to Newberry or Presbyterian.

It’s actually…I’ve always wanted to trace back some of these teams and it was like, who was the smartest team ever? There was a team in the 40s at Presbyterian who had five guys who either became high school coaches or head coaches. They all played on the same Presbyterian team. It was John McKissick, Callie Gault, Barney Sasser — whom I think was a coach at Wofford in the 70s and 80s — and there were two other guys. They were all teammates. Moonie Player who was the long-time Lower Richland coach and also became USC’s coach, at one point. They were all on the same team. So it is a fascinating thing.

And then Newberry in the early ‘80s had guys like Doug Shaw, Jr., Chris Miller over at Presbyterian. There were three or four other guys. I think Jeff Kent played at Newberry at the same time together. They all became very successful head coaches at the high school level, as well.

I’m working, right now, a history book on modern downtown Greenville. A lot of people look at Greenville, and they see the transformation. They see Main Street. They see the bridge (suspension bridge at Falls Park). They see the park, and tourists now come into Greenville and the Upstate and say, “Well, how did this happen?”

I want to write a book about that. I’m working on it. Struggling with it, trying to get everything in there to make it a fun and interesting book. It’s a great story. It just didn’t happen overnight. It wasn’t some miracle, someone snapped their fingers and Main Street revitalized. It took a lot of work, a lot of effort, a lot of vision to make Greenville better so that’s the new book I’m working on.

It’s interesting because even though the revitalization started in mid-70s, it took a long time. I have a friend who remembered going to their prom the last year before the Poinsett shut down as a hotel. Their prom was in the ballroom there for Greenville High. It was so sketchy. It was like, “Why are we here?” It was really bad and I have friends who grew up in the ‘80s in Greenville and this is the place you went when you were a hoodlum. I had a friend who told me…I hate to keep picking on the poor Poinsett…they remember it as the big dare when you were in high school in the mid-‘80s was, “Let’s break into the Poinsett Hotel and see what happens.” You’d break in and go up and down the building.

Now you look at it, and you can’t imagine it being not great. I remember when I moved here. Where we worked, you didn’t cross the Main Street bridge. You didn’t go into the West End after dark. That was a no-man’s land.

I can’t remember the first time…we were coming out of work at The Greenville News and we were going to go to the Warehouse Theater and see a 10:00 show, so we stayed late. We met back up. It was so eerily silent. You could see people way up on the other side of Main Street, but as we got farther down the West End, there was no one there. No lights were on. The sidewalks were nice but there was nothing open. It was just really weird walking over there. Now, everyone goes to the West End. It’s part of the fabric of Greenville.

People forget that downtown was like a last option. They wanted to put it at I-385 and I-85 at The Point. That was a project that got green lit, and, for a long time, there was talk of just rebuilding the former Greenville Braves stadium.

Truth be told, that’s what the Braves wanted for the longest time. It literally was like, “Hey, we need some renovations out here,” and it grew to, “We don’t want a new stadium, just renovate the one we have. We’ll be happy.” Then it took so long for them to renovate, it became, “Why don’t we get a new stadium? Why doesn’t something happen?” Their first choice was always renovate the existing stadium.

If my grandfather weren’t dead, the fact that Greenville turned into an American League town would kill him.

Yes, having a Red Sox affiliate…but they’ve done well. And that’s a perfect example. People predicted it was going to be the end of the world when they tore down the old Camperdown driving bridge. The world was going to end. The world was going to tilt off her axis, and we were going to hurl off into space. Now, you can’t image a bridge being there.

Charleston will build monuments to Mayor Joe (Riley). Columbia will dedicate a fair number of things to Mayor Bob (Coble) and probably Mayor Steve Benjamin. How long before Greenville builds the Mayor Knox White statues?

Where do you build the Knox statue? I remember years ago when they first broke ground on what is now Poinsett Corners. The first time we had anything off Main Street. I remember going to the thing. It’s all black and gold. He’s a Wake Forest guy, and I asked, “So they did this for you?” He said, “No, no, no.” That’s where the Knox statue goes. Poinsett Corners. Like Knox looking west. That’s the Knox statue. I called it eight years ago, so maybe when I get rich enough, I can lead the campaign.

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WHAT’S GOING ON: Help Find Tom

Tom Sponseller, president and chief lobbyist for the S.C. Hospitality Association, has been missing since Saturday, and police are asking for any information the public may have regarding his whereabouts.

Sponseller was last seen at his office in Downtown Columbia around Noon on Saturday, according to police and was reported missing to the Columbia Police Department on Saturday night by his wife Margaret.

According to flyers now being distributed both physically and electronically, “Tom is balding with gray/white hair, 6’ 1” tall and 160 pounds with hazel eyes. He usually wears glasses.”

The South Carolina Hospitality Association released a statement Monday regarding Sponseller’s disappearance.

UPDATE 1 — Police located Tom Sponseller’s car in his office’s garage parked in where he usually parks. His wallet and credit cards have not been recovered.

UPDATE 2 — Tom Sponseller’s family has set up a Facebook page “Help Find Tom Sponseller” with news stories, reports, and flyers to circulate. For that Facebook page, click HERE.

UPDATE 3 — A candlelight vigil for Tom Sponseller’s safe return is planned for Wednesday, February 22 at 6:00 p.m. The event will take place on the Statehouse steps at the intersection of Gervais and Main Streets in Columbia. 300 candles with paper discs will be provided. For more information, contact Meghan Sponseller Ward.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Tom Sponseller is friend to CRESCENT and has been extremely encouraging with what we’re doing to promote what’s great about South Carolina. Our prayers are with the Sponseller family during this time of uncertainty, and we hope that Tom returns home quickly and safely.

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WHAT’S GOING ON: Business Notes

Engenius Partners with Other Local Businesses to Offer High-Tech Summer Internships

Engenius is joining with other local high-growth businesses to offer significant work experience for high school and college students this summer through internships.

This is the second year in a row that Engenius is taking part in the program through NEXT, an Upstate consortium of high-tech companies in Downtown Greenville.

“Experience is such a key in today’s job market,” said Chris Manley, Engenius’s managing partner. “We are excited to offer opportunities for local students to gain professional experience and show them all that Greenville has to offer.”

Manley said this is a way of showing area college students the potential for technology-focused careers in the Greater Greenville area and that the region has been facing a “brain drain” for years. According to Manly, many economic leaders say technology jobs are needed to help raise the Upstate’s standard of living.

A variety of high-tech positions will be featured in the program. Interested high school or college students can view positions online at www.interngreenville.com. Applications must be submitted by February 24, and interviews will take place on March 5. Positions available are focused on the areas of technology, marketing, and online media.

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CRESCENT Events

Master Drummer Comes to Greenville

Master Drummer and Expert of Malinke rhythms Djembefola Bolokada will hold a workshop at the Greenville Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in their Annex Building from 7-8:30 p.m., Thursday, February 23. All drumming levels are encouraged to attend and meet Bolokada to learn from him in this 1½-hour class. The cost is $22 in advance and $25 at the door. For more information or to reserve a spot in the class, contact Ben Weston at benkweston@gmail.com or call (504) 782-6319.

The Reserve at Lake Keowee’s Community Foundation to Host Blue View Art Exhibit

The Reserve at Lake Keowee’s Community Foundation will host the Blue View Artist Co-op from March 2 to April 26 in the Hill House Gallery. The exhibit will feature work from five of the six artists who make up the Blue View Artist Co-op: Donald Collins, Robin Giddings, Lou Peden, Joel Wilkinson, and Griz Hockwalt. These artists will be in attendance at a reception in their honor being held on March 2.

The Blue View exhibit will be open Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., at the Hill House Gallery, located at 534 Pine Grove Church Road in Sunset, S.C. Visitors are asked to call (864) 481-4010 prior to their visit. The artists reception will also be hosted at the Hill House Gallery from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. on March 2. An RSVP is required to attend and should be sent via email to Kathryn Gravely at KGravely@reservekeowee.com or by calling (864) 481-4010.

Front Porch of the Lowcountry Gets in the “Swing” for Spring

The City of Walterboro, known for its historic charm and abundant natural resources, has a full lineup of events and outings for the spring, encouraging residents and visitors to get ready to take in all that the city, or the “front porch of the Lowcountry,” has to offer during this beautiful time of the year.

On Saturday, March 10, ETV’s Naturalist and USC Adjunct Professor Rudy Mancke will join the Friends of the Great Swamp Sanctuary to celebrate Great Swamp Sanctuary Day. Starting at 9 a.m., Mancke will share his love of ecosystems during a “Walk and Talk” in the Great Swamp Sanctuary. This event will begin at the De Treville Street entrance (399 De Treville Street). Tickets go on sale locally beginning February 15 at Downtown Books & Espresso, located at 213 E. Washington Street. Contact Downtown Books & Espresso at 843-549-2241. Tickets will also be on sale at the Colleton Museum and the S.C. Artisans Center. The cost is $10 for adults and $5 for students 12 and under. For further information, contact the S.C. Artisans Center at 843-549-0011.

As the weather continues to warm up, and things are in full bloom, the Friends of the Great Swamp Sanctuary will entice nature enthusiasts to get outside for another “Walk and Talk” through the Great Swamp Sanctuary, this time with Master Gardener Genia Floyd. This is a free event and will be held on Saturday, April 14, at 9 a.m., beginning at the De Treville Street entrance. Those seeking additional information should contact the Welcome Center at 843-538-4353 or visit www.walterborosc.org.

Later that month, the fourth annual Walterboro Wings n’ Wheels will showcase over one hundred aircraft and show cars. Scheduled for Saturday, April 21, the event will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Walterboro Lowcountry Regional Airport. Admission is free. Donations will benefit the MUSC Children’s Hospital Fund. Additional information may be found at www.wings-n-wheels.org.

Meanwhile, the last weekend of April brings the return of the annual Colleton County Rice Festival. Held in downtown Walterboro, this three-day event will feature arts and crafts, food, fireworks, music and a dog show, and promises fun for the entire family. In honor of the festival, the annual Rice Festival Parade will be held on Saturday, April 28, at 11 a.m. Another signature event includes the 5K run and 5K walk, which begin at 8 a.m. that Saturday at the old Post Office on Washington Street. The Mile Fun Run will begin at the same location at 9 a.m. Cash prizes will be awarded to both a male and female finisher at an awards celebration. For more information, visit www.scfestival-rice.com.

Come May, the City of Walterboro will host the 10^th annual Downtown Walterboro Criterium, an international bicycling competition that is part of the USA Crits Speed Week. This is a free event, and visitors are invited to watch some of the best cyclists in the world race through the streets of downtown Walterboro. The race will take place on Wednesday, May 2, from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. There will also be a children’s race, and special needs bikes will be awarded through the Little Red Dog Foundation and the Walterboro Fire Department. For additional information, visit www.walterborosc.org, or call the Welcome Center at 843-538-4353.

On Saturday, May 12, the Friends of the Great Swamp Sanctuary will host a “Walk and Talk” in the Great Swamp Sanctuary, this time with Biologist Travis Folk. This is a free event that will start at 9 a.m. on Saturday, May 12, at the De Treville Street entrance. For further information, contact Celeste Stone at 843-549-7658.

Always popular, the 6^th annual Walterboro Antiques, History & Arts Festival is planned for May 18 and May 19. To kick things off, a Pig Pickin’ will be held on Friday, May 18, from 6-8 p.m. at the South Carolina Artisans Center. Tickets for the barbeque cost $10.00 per person. Meanwhile, antique vendors will be on site both Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Washington and Lucas Streets. There will be antique appraisals, carriage tours through the historic district, and an antique tractor show and parade. Also on Saturday, the grand opening of the Walterboro Farmer’s Market is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Additionally, a Folk Art Celebration will be held that Saturday, May 19, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the South Carolina Artisans Center, located at 318 Wichman Street, while a S.C. Watermedia Society Show will be going on at the Colleton Museum, located in the newly renovated building at 506 E. Washington Street from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and from 12 to 4 p.m. on Saturday.

The Lowcountry Juried Art Exhibition also opens this weekend. This free event is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. An awards reception will follow at 6 p.m. Visit www.scartisanscenter.com, or call 843-549-0011 for more information.

Edisto Set to Shift Seasons with a Bounty of Spring and Summer Events

With the end of winter not too far in the offing, the Edisto Island and Edisto Beach communities turn the corner toward spring and the long, languishing days of summer with events to showcase the food, history, and natural beauty of this quiet coastal island destination.

The Edisto Eats Food Festival draws to a close on March 17, when the 2^nd annual Ultimate Chef Competition will take place at McConkey’s Jungle Shack at 2:00 p.m., followed by a community oyster roast, which begins at 5:00 p.m. There will also be an Arts & Craft Fair. At 8:30 a.m., the first annual Edisto Beach Road Race gets the day off to a running start.

From March 30 to April 1, the Plantation Course will host the third annual Lowcountry Classic High School Golf Tournament featuring 32 teams of young, talented golfers from all over South Carolina. The practice round will start after lunch on Friday, with competition beginning at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday. The final round will be held on Sunday at 9:00 a.m. Seating is available free of charge.

On Saturday, April 7, local artisans will showcase their wares at the annual Art Guild Spring Show and Sale from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. The event will be held at the Edistonian General Store, located at 406 Highway 174 on Edisto Island.

April closes with the popular Bidding for History Silent Auction, to be held at Middleton Plantation on Saturday, April 21, from 6:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. This popular event, in a picturesque setting with sumptuous cuisine to match, is sponsored by the Edisto Island Historic Preservation Society. For additional information, visit www.edistomuseum.org.

May brings the Edisto Day Bazaar, an annual arts and crafts festival. The bazaar will be held on Saturday, May 5, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the Lions Club, located on Edisto Beach at 2907 Myrtle Street. This fun-filled event attracts all ages and features local arts and crafts, from trinkets to treasures, and tasty bites too.

The ever-popular offshore fishing challenge is scheduled for May 5 at the Edisto Beach Marina. The Captain’s Meeting will be held at Dockside Restaurant May 4 at 7:30 p.m. For additional information, go to www.edistobeachoffshorechallenge.com.

The Open Land Trust Legacy Live Oak dedication ceremony will be held on Sunday, May 20. A speaker will be announced soon. The Land Trust is expanding their Back to Nature events in 2012 to include a series of nature tours, excursions, workshops, and lectures throughout the year. Visit www.edisto.org or call 843-869-7820 for more information on these exciting and interesting events.

Those longing for a taste of the local catch await the Edisto Beach Fire Department’s annual fish fry, to be held May 26 from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. at the Lions Club, located at 2907 Myrtle Street, Edisto Beach.

June has golfers preparing to take a swing as the Edisto Island Open Land Trust sponsors the annual Tomato Open Golf Tournament. The tourney, which is scheduled for June 23, will be held at the Plantation Course at Edisto, located within the Wyndham Resort across from Big Bay Creek on Edisto Beach. The festivities will kick off on June 22 with a pre-tournament cocktail party and live auction. For more information, visit www.theplantationcourseatedisto.com.

In addition to these scheduled events, summer brings out the crowds, including nature lovers, who flock to Botany Bay Plantation, a wildlife management area set on over 4000 acres of forest, marsh, and beach. Botany Bay Eco Tours offers a variety of eco-tours here, by foot, kayak, or boat. Visitors may also explore this pristine natural area on their own. Hours of operation are from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. during the summer months, excluding Tuesdays. For more information, call 843-869-2998 or visit www.botanybayplantation.com.

Other parts of the island are easily explored via a guided kayak excursion with Edisto Watersports & Tackle. For prices and tour times, visit www.edistowatersports.net or call 843-869-0663. Additionally, Island Bikes and Outfitters offers guided kayak tours of Edisto’s most secluded estuaries and beaches. More information can be found by calling 843-869-4444 or by visiting www.islandbikesandoutfitters.com.

After a long day at play, some may be enticed by a seat indoors at the Edisto Lions Club, which will be hosting Bingo on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., and games begin at 8:00 p.m. It is recommended that visitors arrive early to get a seat. Fun for all ages, Bingo will begin on June 5 and run through August 9. It will be held at the Lions Club, located on Edisto Beach at 2907 Myrtle Street.

Set in a rare, sparsely-developed corner of the world, Edisto, with its vast green spaces, ancient live oaks, wide open marsh views, and quiet, pristine beach, offers a coastal island experience uncommon today among Eastern seaboard communities. Visitors and residents alike enjoy a slower pace of life, coupled with a broad range of year-round recreational activities, all set in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. This is the coastal island destination that is said to offer its own “state of mind…any time, any season.” For more information, please call the Edisto Chamber of Commerce at 843-869-3867 or 1-888-333-2781 or visit www.edistochamber.com.

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Walmart Foundation gives $31,000 to The Children’s Museum of the Upstate

More South Carolina children will be able to visit The Children’s Museum of the Upstate thanks to a $31,000 grant from the Walmart Foundation.

The grant money will go to The Children’s Museum of the Upstate’s (TCMU) School Visit and Accessibility Programs.

“We are very grateful that the Walmart Foundation has chosen TCMU out of so many worthy agencies for this grant,” said Mary Sellers, president and chief executive officer at TCMU. “This will go a long way toward helping South Carolina children.”

The School Visit Program provides a unique learning experience outside of the classroom while focusing on formal, in-school content area and curriculum-based South Carolina state standards.

The Accessibility Program provides financial assistance to disadvantaged children in low-income schools in order to give those in need an opportunity to experience the museum and the School Visit Program. Combing unrestricted museum exhibit interaction and School Visit programming, TCMU offers an educational experience that allows children to learn while they play.

“Walmart values education for all children,” said Rob Green, the Upstate market manager for Walmart. “We believe this program zeroes in on our focus of helping and aiding children to learn more and become more engaged.”

Research cited in the article “School Trips as Learning Experiences,” indicates that visiting places such as museums and aquariums can positively motivate children, improve attitudinal outcomes and increase interest in subject areas and potential careers. Through its interactive exhibits and School Visit Program lessons, TCMU allows children to explore school subject areas while learning more about themselves, their interests and discovering how their creative talents relate to possible future careers.

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WHAT’S GOING ON: Business Notes

A Real Estate Rebound: Lake Keowee IT Guru Helps Agents Prepare to Respond

A new, Web-based company has gone live to help real estate professionals and prospective buyers navigate the cluttered marketplace for Lake Keowee homes and land, just in time for a projected rebound of the national real estate market. Leveraging the most modern Web technologies and an in-depth knowledge of Lake Keowee real estate, KeoweePremier.com is the newest, most effective way for real estate professionals to market their high-end, lake-area properties to buyers nationwide.

As national home sales begin to recover and the foreclosure market thins out, local real estate professionals are poised to start selling more homes, including those on and around Lake Keowee. KeoweePremier.com utilizes a variety of Web platforms and social media avenues including Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest to spread the word about exceptional Lake Keowee properties. By focusing on search returns that curate a carefully filtered set of listings, prospective buyers can rest assured that they are looking at only the most exceptional lakefront homes and lots. Occasionally, this will include higher-end interior homes, as well as properties that feature wide-open lake and mountain views.

Founder Steven Matthews is a nine-year resident of the Upstate and an information technology expert who serves as director of information technology for a Seneca-based national nonprofit that supports 69 state/jurisdictional boards across the U.S. His expertise in new and social media, as well as his in-depth knowledge of technology, provides agents – many with two and three decades of experience – with a new set of tools to help them better market their unique, lakefront listings.

KeoweePremier.com features large photos and high-definition videos, but it also incorporates a Lake Living Blog and live Twitter feed, to keep buyers, homeowners, and real estate professionals alike in the know – about Lake Keowee, the real estate market in general, and trends in information technology that lend themselves to real estate searches. Along with a clean interface, simple property search, and a full page of listing details with agent profile, buyers and Realtors are provided a seamless and easy-to-navigate online experience.

“Many real estate Web sites are rather cluttered, and they find a small place to stick a complex property search feature,” explains Matthews. “That search ends up netting tiny photos, and the result is that potential buyers never really connect with a home they might otherwise be very interested in.”

Matthews obtained his South Carolina real estate license in 2007 to help friends and himself acquire property on Lake Keowee. The KeoweePremier.com brand is simply the next step in his mission to help potential homebuyers, near and far, filter out the noise and hone in on their dream piece of lake property.

“By featuring premier listings, premier agents, premier business directories, as well as an informative and frequently updated lake living blog, readers of KeoweePremier.com are assured only the best of what this area has to offer,” says Matthews.

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YOUR TURN: “Tell me again why I didn’t join the Air Force?” By John Malik

I’m not sure why I never became a fighter pilot because when I was a kid that is all I dreamed of becoming. From the ceiling that my brother Tommy and I shared hung models of every fighter plane imaginable dating from World War 1. P-51D’s shared airspace with Fokker Triplanes and F- 101 Voodoo’s. An F4U Corsair rolled in on an F-86 Saber, a Sopwith Pup diced with an F-4 Phantom and a Mitsubishi Zero dove away from an entire squadron of A-4 Skyhawks in Blue Angels livery flying a tight diamond formation. My favorite fighter though was a silver North American F-100 Super Saber because that was the type of plane that Mr. Al flew. Al Baham, like my father was an attorney. An occupation that at the time I considered was the height of boredom. All my Dad seemed to do was chase paper. Briefcases full of the stuff! Al Baham was likewise an attorney but Al Baham was also a fighter pilot. Al flew for the Air National Guard, specifically the 159^th Tactical Fighter Group, based at Belle Chasse NAS near New Orleans and he flew the North American F-100 Super Sabre.

For me and my brother, a visit from Mr. Al was akin to having Saints quarterback Archie Manning over for supper. Tommy & I hung on his every word, asking him questions such as what was it like going faster than your own voice, did his F-100 have a name, have you ever shot down any Russians or had he ever had to bail out of an airplane? Up we would go to our bedroom so Mr. Al could examine our latest modeling efforts. “You boys have been busy because I think I see a few new ones”, he would say. Naturally his favorite was also the F-100. “What color is your Super Saber, Mr. Al? Do you have your girl friend’s name painted on the nose of your airplane, Mr. Al?” Eventually Mr. Al would excuse himself because he had to talk boring lawyer business with Dad. When Mr. Al would leave, Tommy & I would demand to know when he would return.

One Saturday morning about breakfast time my Dad tells me and my brother that Mr. Al is coming by that very morning. “What time will Mr. Al get here?” We demanded. Dad looked at his watch and says that Mr. Al will get here at precisely ten a.m.

“Wow, Dad, how long will he be here? Will he have any pictures of his F-100? Can he stay and tell us some stories?” Dad said that Mr. Al is only coming by for a very short visit and that he would not be able to stay very long but even a short visit from Mr. Al was better than none at all.

About five minutes before ten my Dad came and got Tommy & I from our Saturday morning routine and suggested that we wait for Mr. Al on the front yard, after all it was a beautiful morning with hardly any clouds in the sky. As we bounced around on the front yard waiting for Mr. Al to pull up Tommy and I bragged about the airplanes that we would one day fly for the Navy or Air Force. “I am going to have my own F-4 and will take it to the grocery store” said my brother. “You big dummy, you can’t take an F-4 to a grocery store; you will have to have a helicopter so you can land it in the parking lot!” It was about then that Dad looked at his watch and said to us that Mr. Al would be here any second. We ran to the edge of the street and looked up and down but didn’t see his car. “Any second now boys” said my Dad as he put his arms around us. “Here he comes now.”

Imagine you’re standing near a train track as a train goes by; it looks and sounds fast, even if it is only traveling a paltry 40 miles an hour. The train rumbles, it’s whistle blows, the ground shakes, metal grinds and squeaks and the train looks like it’s moving fast. An airplane moving through a cloudless sky, traveling near the speed of sound does not appear that fast because there is no sense of speed: no rumbling, no squeaking or shaking, until it passes by and all hell breaks loose.

My Dad points to the sky, to our right about 30 degrees above the horizon and there in all it’s polished aluminum glory was Al Baham and his F-100 Super Saber, moving silently through the sky. Tommy & I are stunned and speechless as only little kids can be when coming face to face with Super Man. In a blink Mr. Al has flown past and brought with him a hurricane of sound and cascading shock waves that send all of our friends Moms running out of their houses looking around in fright and disbelief. Mr. Al pulls up, climbs to about 4,000 feet, rolls over and catches the sun on his wings then disappears over the horizon. Tommy and I are dancing in our yard, hands up screaming and waving and telling everyone that has gathered “that’s our best friend, Mr. Al the fighter pilot.” Now from our right Mr. Al is flying past again but this time he has slowed down considerably and has slightly banked to his left and there in the cockpit, bigger than life is Al Baham, attorney and fighter pilot and he is smiling waving at Tommy & me and he is so low we can see his red helmet. He rocks the wings of his F-100 and accelerates as he flies past, flames leaping from the exhaust as the afterburner ignites and in no time the other kids are asking who was that man and is he really your friend and you’re kidding he has actually been in your room, your very own room.

I never recovered from that visit. I just knew that I would be a fighter pilot just like Al Baham. By the time I started college however, everyone in my family assumed I would go to Law School. Working in restaurants to pay my rent eventually steered me to culinary school and a successful career in food; but when an airplane flies overhead, my son and I both have our eyes pointed skyward.

John Malik is an award winning chef in Greenville, SC. Along with his wife Amy, they owned and operated 33 Liberty Restaurant from 2001 until 2008. Following that he was Excecutive Chef at two upscale retirement communities in the Greenville area. John has a BA in English from Southeastern Louisiana University and has written for Smithsonian Air & Space, Saveur, The Greenville News, Greenville Journal, e-Gullet and has been featured in Southern Living, Bon Appetit and Chile Pepper magazines. John holds the whimsical title of Kingsford Charcoal Flame Master and was named Who’s Who in America Barbecue for his sophisticated take on traditional smoking. While 33 Liberty was open John hosted the entire team of Michelin’s “Red Guide” inspectors for a private meal and lived to talk about it.

John has made numerous guest chef appearances including the Food Network, Fox & Friends, the International Food & Wine festival at Disney World, Great Chefs of the South (Beaufort, SC) “Fixin to Eat” a Salute to Southern Chefs (Paso Robles, CA), the Epicurean Evening (Los Angeles, CA) Charlotte Shout! (Charlotte, NC), Drager’s (San Mateo, CA) and Greenville’s own Euphoria.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the author are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CRESCENT: The Magazine.

To submit an op-ed for CRESCENT’s “Your Turn” section, please email it to input@crescentmag.com.

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CRESCENT People: From Reporter to Author. John Boyanoski Turns Over a New Leaf

There comes a time in a lot of people’s lives when they face that proverbial fork in the road.

Which one would you take? Would you go stay on your same route, with a general idea of your destination and what you’ll face along the way, or would you veer off to the other road, the one you’ve always wanted to take but didn’t because the uncertainty made you a little nervous?

John Boyanoski decided to take the scenic route. When the native Pennsylvanian made South Carolina his home in the late 90s, he took his Syracuse University journalism studies and found a home at the Herald-Journal in Spartanburg before moving on to The Greenville News and The Greenville Journal.

Then, that fork in the road presented itself. He left the world of news reporting for a life on the other side of the tape recorder – a life in public relations.

Somewhere along the way, he also decided to write three books that cemented his dedication to his adopted South Carolina.

You went from newspaper reporter to author – from writing articles to writing books. You’re up to three of them now. How’d you get to this point?

I’m from Pennsylvania originally, grew up hearing ghost stories, listening to ghost stories. My family told them.

When I started moving, went away to college, got my first few jobs out of college, I always picked up the local ghost stories. It was just something that was natural to do.

So I moved to South Carolina in 1999, and of course, I picked up South Carolina ghost books. They were really good, fascinating stories, but they were all Lowcountry. It was always ghosts in South Carolina, but everything was Charleston, Beaufort, Mt. Pleasant. Gray Man of Pawleys and Alice of The Hermitage in every book, and there would be one or two Upstate stories, but I was living in Greenville/Spartanburg, and I was wanting to know about that area.

I started researching, talking to people who had heard things, some little stories. In 2004, I was working at Greenville News. We were doing a big Halloween package, and I volunteered and ended up writing three Upstate ghost legend stories, and I was very proud of this. I called my mother and said, “Hey, I wrote some ghost stories.”

It was kind of funny. I was covering crime and some politics at the time, so it was a little bit of a different thing for me. It just so happened, a man who was from Charleston, had worked for University of Kentucky Press doing their ghost books, had just moved to Greenville. He was a Furman graduate, and he was going to form his own publishing house, and the first book he wanted to do was Ghost Stories of the Upstate.

He grew up in Charleston, so he grew up with those stories and when he went to Furman for his undergrad, he wondered, “Well, where are the Upstate ghost stories?” He literally had just moved to town a week or two before, saw the article, contacted me and said, “Hey, can you do a forty thousand word book on ghost stories in the Upstate?” I thought, “Sure, why not?” And I thought, “Forty thousand words…I write about a thousand words a day at the Greenville News for various things….uh, give me a month and a half, and I’ll have you a book.”

It’s a little bit tougher writing a book. I quickly learned, for one thing, people don’t like talking about ghost stories in the Upstate.

It’s always been business-centric, the economic hub, that’s (ghost stories are) a Lowcountry thing. “We’re too sophisticated, we’re too this, we’re too that,” so it took about eighteen months to write the first book. And that was also learning to write a book. You know, being a newspaper writer, I wrote in a very systematic, choppy way.

Where are the documents? Where is this? Where is that? Everything had to have an “according to” or “document said.” A ghost is something that really doesn’t leave a paper trail, believe it or not. They’re not saying “I, Thaddeus G. Ghost, will haunt this house for five years starting October 1^st, 2003 to 2008. I will take a $500 payoff from the landlords to move away.” They don’t have a paper trail, so it made it interesting.

I wrote the first book and I swore, “I’m never doing that again. I’m not going to write another book. It was too tough, it was too hard. No one is ever going to read this thing,” and my friends were like, “Man, you’re a newspaper reporter. You just ruined your career. People are going to think you’re crazy.” We went out and we did our first book signing in Greenville County. The book came out in 2006. I vividly remember walking to the book store and there was a line of people. Already there was a line of people. It wasn’t out the door, but there were five or six people already waiting in line holding copies of the book. I thought, “That’s interesting.” And everyone said “We love your book because somebody finally wanted to talk about ghosts in the Upstate.” Every one of them had a ghost story they wanted to tell me and it dawned on me at that point that I had touched on something, so I took all their names and numbers down, put them in a file…

Pretty much. I had five stories that first night, and over the next three months of my first book tour, everywhere I went in the Upstate, they would come in and say, “I loved your book. I read about it in the local newspaper. Here’s a story for you.” Or “Hey, the story you had about this haunted place in Abbeville? Here’s an addition to it.” Or “Here’s what I saw when I was at Converse College.” Or, “I’m so glad somebody wrote about this.” And I had one older lady call me one time because we had a story about her family home, her childhood home. She called me up and she said who she was, and I thought she was going to rip into me and yell at me. She said, “I want to thank you because we saw that ghost when we were kids and no one would believe when we were children. There’s an old lady who lives in our house. There’s a ghost in our house. Our parents never believed us. They thought we were crazy. I called my brother. He’s ninety-seven in an old persons’ home in Georgia. I said, ‘Look, we were right. We’re weren’t crazy as little kids. Someone else saw the ghost and they wrote about it.’” So that was kind of a fun thing.

So we did the second book, and to this day, I get people always coming up with ghost stories, but the fun thing that has happened, for me and for South Carolina, is… It’s not just me, I wrote the ghost book but, at the same time, we had those national TV shows on like SyFy and Discovery, all the Ghost Hunters and Paranormal Witness shows. It really sparked an interest, so now, two other people have written ghost books about the Upstate since I’ve written mine. There are ghost stories from three counties in the Upstate, so all of a sudden, people have kind of realized “Hey, it’s a fun, little different thing…”

It does, it does. The great ghost stories of the past, you know? But how I came about, again from being a newcomer to the state, I vividly remember when I moved here in 1999, I was working at the newspaper in Spartanburg, and a good friend of mine was our cops reporter and he said, “Do you like high school football?” I said, “Yeah. I watch it. I played it in Pennsylvania, and it’s interesting.” “Have you ever seen a good high school football game?” I said, “I’m from Pennsylvania. We’ve had some pretty good football players come out of that state.” He goes, “No. You haven’t seen it until you’ve been in South Carolina.” I said, “What do you mean? Like, who are your great players and…” He’s like, “No, it’s not the players, it’s the fans.”

I didn’t quite understand, so they dragged me out to Wofford College to see Spartanburg and Dorman at their big, annual rivalry game, and there were ten thousand people packed into that stadium. I mean, more than they got for Wofford games, more than who showed up for Carolina Panthers summer practice. Wow. This is interesting. This is what high school ball is all about, and over the years I just saw it. All the love, the pandemonium, the people talking like, in Greenville County, the old Parker/Greenville High game. How that was the event of the season. And so I started wondering. I covered high school football for a while so I started wondering, “Where did it all start, how it all began and how has it changed?”

Every year you always hear somebody talk, “Well, this is the greatest team ever.” Or “This is the greatest player ever.” So, you know, who were the great players of the past? Who were the great guys who caught the imaginations. Was Byrnes better than the Spartanburg teams of the 90s? Was that better than Summerville’s team in the 80s? Was that better than the Spring Valley teams in the 70s, and so on and so forth?

Yes, so that’s how it came about. You started seeing these stories. I see all these people at my book signing wearing these Spartanburg and Dorman items of clothing. I said, “Why not a book on high school football? Trace it back,” so I started doing that. I picked up a publisher relatively quickly, and I thought when I went into it, “OK, I’m going to go through microfilm, I’m going to get the stories of all the great coaches, great teams, the guys with the NFL, the Art Shells, the Harry Carses, the Stephen Davises, the Fred Solomons.” I thought, “OK, that’s going to be the book. It’s going to be this kind of love affair of how great high school football is,” but the fascinating thing, the really fascinating thing to me was when I started going through it, going through the records, you started seeing names I knew as a political reports and crime reporter and everything.

For example, Pug Ravanel. People know him from the 70s, long-time political leader in the state. He was an all-state quarterback at Bishop-England in the 50s. He went 18-1 as a starter and was essentially MVP of the state his senior year. There’s no inkling of who Pug Ravanel is going to become. It doesn’t say, “Pug Ravanel, future leader.” It’s like, “Star prep quarterback for Bishop-England.” Governor Dick Riley was captain of the team at Greenville High. Johnny Mack Brown, the long-time sheriff of Greenville and US Marshall was an all-state defensive end for Greenville High, actually a two-way player. Caught a touchdown pass in the first televised high school footballs game in South Carolina history. All of a sudden, it was kind of fun seeing these guys. “Wait a minute, I know a Rick Timmons.”

His senior year…actually going back to his junior year, he was a fast running, sprint-out quarterback. A lot of kids were like that at that time. You had running offenses, but Mike Fair could probably throw the ball sixty yards on a dime, which no one could do at the time and no one had ever seen before, so he had these passing stats. You’d see them like in the Greenville Piedmont and Greenville News like 9 for 11, 300 yards. Literally, what was going on was the guy would just run deep and they’d go, “No one can throw that far,” and he’s throw a 60-yard touchdown and they’d go, “What just happened?” Literally, every team in the league…they weren’t a very good team at the time…so his senior year, everyone was just created defenses to stop Mike Fair. They’d have 7 guys on the line and 4 guys just back. “OK, try to get up the middle on us. If we can stop you up front or keep you from going 60 yards” was everyone’s defense.

He was so ballyhooed because he played at Parker, and the big game was Greenville-Parker. The week going in to it, at practice, they were quoting Mike Fair asking, “What’s going to happen? Your last game…your last game ever in Greenville County?” He’s talking about the excitement they create, and it comes out the day of the game that he’d broken his knee pretty much the first day of practice, and they’d kept it hidden.

At the time, people gambled on high school games, so they didn’t want to affect the line of a game Mike Fair was playing. He couldn’t run, couldn’t move the day of the game. They put their backup sophomore in and fell behind like 24-0 and, in desperation, they put Fair in in the third quarter just to see if anything would happen. He couldn’t run, and he rallied Parker to make the game close, at least. They still lost, but, playing on one leg, he threw three touchdown passes in the second half and almost rallied Parker with almost sheer will alone. Like it said in the newspaper, using sheer will alone. He couldn’t move, he was just dropping back and throwing as far as he could trying to do anything to generate offense.

Then he went and played in the Shrine Bowl. His knee was still gimpy, and it was funny because he scored 23 points and his jersey was 23 and he was actually quoted coming off the sidelines, “We had 23. That was all we needed.” Classic Mike Fair, but it was so funny, you see Mike Fair, I’ve known him as a state senator my entire career. You have Mike Fair the all-state quarterback, the pride of Parker High and the hyperbole was hilarious.

There was one time he was playing and there was a big fireworks show afterwards. It was called the Lions Bowl and they said, “The fireworks started in the second quarter and Mike Fair threw two touchdown passes and made the game unreachable. Then they had a fireworks show afterwards.” It is stuff like that. It is funny because his first year, when he first became a star, Parker was not a good program at the time. Their…even the Greenville News/Greenville Piedmont, they get the little write-up. By the time he was a senior, it had gone from little two paragraph articles about Parker High to three or four page spreads about Mike Fair every week in the paper. It was just interesting watching that progression.

And there are other really great stories that I picked up, especially during segregation. Forced segregation in 1970, but the first school to integrate was Woodruff High in 1966.

What happened was, the black school in lower Spartanburg County burned down and there was a big thing at the school board level. “Where are we going to send these kids? What are we going to do? We have no school for them.” The football coach at Woodruff, Willie Varner, a Hall-of-Famer, who, when he retired was the winningest coach in high school football history pretty much just took it on the chin.

He said, “We’re going to integrate.” And he told his team, “This is it. You’re not going to say anything to these guys. You’re teammates now. End of story.” But there are no great speeches other than “OK, they’re your teammates. I don’t want to hear a damn thing out of you.” I talked to some of the players. They said, “Yeah, there was nothing weird because Willie Varner said it’s not going to be an issue.” So when Woodruff integrated in ‘66, there was no problem. In ‘70, you had major problems throughout the state.

It was funny, just one coach saying, just laying down the law saying, “We’re not going to have an issue. These kids are here. They’re here now. They’re Woodruff Wolverines just like you. They’re your classmates, your teammates. You’re going to respect them just like any other teammate,” and it was no issue. So it’s kind of an interesting thing, talking about the power of high school football in this state.

Literally, one coach changed a school district overnight just by him saying, “We’re going to do something.” So it kind of tells you, it goes beyond just the gridiron, some of the interesting stories and the fascinating things that happened.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Sumter native “Fabulous” Freddie Solomon lost his nine month battle with cancer on Monday, February 13, 2012 – the day this piece was published. He was 59 years old.

In 1970, in what many consider the greatest performance in Shrine Bowl history, he rushed for a record 197 yards and scored three touchdowns in the annual South Carolina/North Carolina showdown.

After college, beginning as a 1975 second round draft pick by the Miami Dolphins, Solomon enjoyed an NFL career that spanned 11 years – the first three in Miami and the last eight with the San Francisco 49ers where he won two Super Bowls (Super Bowl XVI over Cincinnati and Super Bowl XIX over Miami). During his professional career as a receiver, Solomon had 371 receptions for 5,846 yards and 48 touchdowns in 371 games.

Freddie Solomon was a leader on and off the field, and on behalf of the staff at CRESCENT, our prayers are with the Solomon family.

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CRESCENT Products: Loggerhead Apparel -- A South Carolina Brand Built on State Pride

You’re working for one of the biggest advertising firms in South Carolina. You meet the love of your life. You get married. You start a new company and work to grow it while you’re expecting your first child. That’s the story of Sara and Zac Painter.

Inspired by Men’s Health magazine’s “Eat This, Not That,” a segment designed to show how to swap high fat food for lower calorie alternatives that don’t sacrifice flavor, Sara and Zac decided to apply that thought to South Carolina. What brands could they exchange for South Carolina-made alternatives?

Well, when they realized there were no clothing brands made in the Palmetto State, Sara and Zac decided to change that.

Like Zac told CRESCENT, “You know, the history of South Carolina in textiles, in agriculture, there is no reason not to do it.”

They pounded the pavement, connected the right vendors, and brought Loggerhead Apparel and its Bellweather Polo to upscale clothing retailers across the Southeast.

Did we mention that they also take 10% off the top to donate to Loggerhead Sea Turtle conservation efforts?

You’re very blatant about saying “Made in the United States” and showcasing that you make as much of Loggerhead’s products in South Carolina as you can.

ZAC: Yeah, and not everything we do is made in South Carolina. The product we launched with Bellwether Polo is, and it’s on the label, “Made in South Carolina, USA,” a big point of pride for us to be able to have that on the label — because to be on the label, it has to be made here.

SARA: And that comes from our heritage. We’re both from South Carolina. I’m from the coast, he’s from the Upstate. Kind of the combination of textile industry and Spartanburg that used to be known as “Textile Town.” I’m from the coast and have been involved in Loggerhead sea turtle conservation, so that was where that sort of came together and why we wanted to launch our first product that was made in South Carolina. But knowing that we wouldn’t always be able to do everything in South Carolina.

ZAC: “Made in the USA” is huge. Speed of doing business is really good. As far as the benefits outside of the force impacting the local economy and keeping that rolling and employing Americans, the cool thing about it is our polo manufacturer is a 2 ½ hour drive from here (Greenville), so literally, when our shirts are done, a truck picks them up and they’re here the next morning. There’s not a 3-month wait as it crosses the Pacific on a freighter.

The yarn arrives in South Carolina in Jefferson — sort of southeast of Charlotte in Chesterfield County. It arrives there then it’s dyed in Gaffney. It’s finished in Lamar. It’s embroidered in Mauldin. The labels are made in Spartanburg. But all of that happens here, in South Carolina which is pretty cool.

That’s part of the myth that we wanted to bust. You can do all of those things here in state. You may have to look a little harder to find them, but all of these companies, everything that I just mentioned. There’s a place in Gaffney that’s dyeing 6000 pounds of our fabric. We actually use a trucking company that’s here. That ships them back and forth. All of these things, you can do here, you just have to find them. It was a lot of hard work. That was one of the hardest things, finding all of those companies in South Carolina, but what we get is an incredibly fast production process for what we’re doing.

Because, again, when they’re going from the dye house to the manufacturer, it’s a 2 hour ride on the back of a truck. It’s not on a train then on a truck then on a boat then on a train and then on a truck. So that’s a really cool part of it and being able to pick up the phone and be on the same time zone. Not have to worry about international calls …

The whole thing was kind of paralleling the Loggerhead. The Loggerhead is in danger and a lot of US manufacturing is in danger, too, especially in South Carolina. We have one of the highest unemployments in the country, so we keep as much of it here as we can.

What kind of process did y’all have to go through, though. Because you get this idea in your head, what kind of process did you have to go through to figure out how to get all these suppliers and vendors that close together. You said you had to look but, good grief, in South Carolina, you’d really have to look.

ZAC: Right. Not a lot of people know this, but, as far as our polo shirts, the plant where they’re made, they actually used to make Ralph Lauren polos in South Carolina prior to some of the trade agreements that made it so easy for companies to move manufacturing overseas. So the same plant that our shirts are coming out of, Ralph Lauren shirts used to roll out of…

ZAC: The guy that supplies our yarn used to supply yarn for Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, they worked with Lacoste in the past. So we’ve got the talent here. And that’s one of the things that’s made it. Once we found them, they had the equipment, the knowledge, the experience to do it. We just had to find them and make the connection.

SARA: And another really important thing is they had the passion for what we were passionate about in wanting to do it here. They’ve had so many companies pull their business overseas, so they really appreciate what we’re doing and have really become a partner of ours.

It’s almost becoming a life blood of some of the smaller towns. If you look over at what happened in Liberty with the denim plant and the town doing everything they can to try and find a new investor and not being successful. That’s a major part of their population that’s now going to be wondering where their check’s coming from.

ZAC: If you look on our web site, when we were first writing sort of our story that we could give to some of the vendors and say, “Look. Here’s what we’re trying to do.” There was a comment in there about “What you just mentioned, we compare it to what’s happened to Detroit and what’s happened in parts of Eastern North Carolina with the furniture industry.” It’s killed whole areas. That’s crazy, and that’s what’s happened in South Carolina in some of those cases.

A lot of those mills have shut down, most of the textiles you see now are high end condos, which is good that they’re using them for something, but it’s also really sad since that was the life blood of the community. The house that I was born in was in a mill village. I could see the mill from my front porch. I could hear the whistle every morning. My grandparents lived on the same street and walked to work. It was…it’s sad to see all those go so far down or just go away completely.

The guys that we work with in Lamar are a fifth of the size they once were. They have some people who don’t work 5 days a week because there’s not 5 days’ worth of work to do. We said very early on, that’s…that was one of the reasons we wanted to this. I’d love for that guy to be able to work 5 days a week this year and help get them back up. We’re not going to do it on our own, obviously. It requires more volume that we do right now to truly impact the plant to where they can hire additional people and put those extra hours out there, but that’s what we want to do.

From regulatory standpoint, how much of a headache has it been? Because when you’re putting people to work, there’s a lot of headache now that seems to go along with it. What kind of agreements have you had to work with and go through to make life as easy as possible on yourselves?

ZAC: You know, it’s funny, we were talking earlier about establishing trust with some of these folks. I think our story, they had passion for it. They believed in what we were trying to do and we, right or wrong, probably skipped over a lot of that stuff because it was sort of that “old school, man of my word, I’m going to shake your hand and this is what we’re going to do” kind of thing.

So we haven’t had a lot of headaches, as far as that goes. We’ve done a lot of that stuff retroactively with agreements, but literally, the first shipments of shirts we had…we had an invoice when the truck arrived with several thousand shirts and we’d never paid a dime to those guys, but they trusted us. They could sense our passion. That knew that we were willing to come through on this. They wanted to do it. A lot of our vendors and people who are working for us feel like a part of the company because they’ve been gung-ho for us and pulling for us all along. The guy that supplies our yarn, every single time I talk to him, he asks how the baby’s doing and how Sara’s doing. He’s offered. “When the baby comes, I know it’s going to be a hectic couple of weeks for you. Anything I can do…” He’s volunteering his family members to help us out. We’ve got vendors like that. It’s a lot easier to do business with people like that than when you have to have this form completed to do X work. You have to have this…this deadline, prepay this, percentage of this.

ZAC: There is a lot of that. Luckily, we’ve been able to skip over some of that. Now, as we get bigger, I’m sure that may not be as possible, but I don’t know. There very well could. We’re talking about ordering thousands of dollars worth of yarn, all he needs from me is for me to say, “Yeah,” on the phone, and he’s done. That’s pretty amazing, the trust level that’s there. Especially in my experience how much paperwork and compliance and legal documents and contracts that you have to go through. We really haven’t had to do that.

SARA: And I’d say the bigger, the company that we work with, the more likely they are to need credit information up front. The smaller the company, the more they’re willing to do it on our relationship.

ZAC: We’ve got 20 vendors out there. How many credit applications have we done? I don’t think we’ve done a single one. It’s all been through a network.

ZAC: It is, but it’s been really cool. I called an organization in Columbia that works with clothing manufacturers, fabrics, that sort of stuff so. I called them and told them what I was trying to do. They said, “Yeah, call this person in Jefferson, South Carolina. He’s a good guy for you.” I called him. We started chatting about what we wanted to do. He could tell, I’m sure, that I didn’t know exactly the lingo to use. He’s like, “This is a really cool idea. How serious are you about it?” I said, “Well look, I’m very serious. Give me your email address, and let me send you some stuff that we put together. We talked about our mission, our commitment, and our background.” He basically made the comment and said, “I’ve helped other startups before who have either faded or quickly left me to go somewhere else or moved their stuff overseas.” I remember telling him, “We can’t do that because our brand is based on it. If we were to do that, we’d have to start another company. It wouldn’t be this company.” And I remember that was the turning point of the conversation because after that, it was like, “Alright, I’m in. I’ll get some samples over to you. Let’s start talking about what we want to do.”

We worked together for, I think, 6 months before I wrote him the first check and he’s already done thousands of dollars of work for us. And then he said, “OK, I’m going to put you in touch with this person because he’s who you need to work with.” His guys we worked with developing the patterns and getting the fit right and all of this kind of stuff. We talked to a different embroiderer. He set up an account with the dye house in Gaffney, with the yarn suppliers, with the Pima guys in Arizona, and all this happened, literally, the first time we wrote a check for more than a couple of thousand dollars, we had already completed thousands of shirts. All on just a handshake, basically. That old mentality of doing things which is…

ZAC: It’s amazing, looking back, that we were able to do that and things are moving so quickly. When you do it, you don’t think about it, but looking back on it, it is pretty cool to think how all these guys just believed in it and wanted to be a part of it. They thought it was a good idea and then they put their necks out for it, too.

SARA: And I think because we’re working with local vendors that all know each other, we’re benefiting from this wide network of resources that we wouldn’t have gotten if we were working with a much bigger group overseas…

SARA: Exactly. Yeah. So we feel good about all these moving pieces and parts because of that network of trust.

ZAC: Yeah, I trust everyone he’s sending me to and, by default, they trust me.

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WHAT'S GOING ON: House GOP Unveils 2012 Agenda

The South Carolina House Republican Caucus unveiled its 2012 Legislative Agenda today focusing on a fairer tax code, stronger Right to Work laws, healthier retirement system, ensuring the First in the South Primary, and pushing last year’s reforms through the S.C. Senate.

“Last year, we unveiled a 20-point agenda that we expected to take 2 years to complete. Turns out, all we needed were 19 Wednesdays,” said House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham. “This year, we’re tackling a smaller number of bigger, systemic reforms critical to the future of our state.”

The top item on the Caucus agenda is tax reform. Rep. Tommy Stringer, R-Greer, chaired a Caucus tax study committee last fall and legislation from that committee will be introduced in the next few weeks.

“The committee worked on creating a fairer tax code. We examined each of the sales tax exemptions on their merit and looked across the tax code for ways we could be fairer to taxpayers and stimulate the economy,” Stringer said. “I look forward to introducing legislation that eliminates nearly two-thirds of the special interest sales tax exemptions while flattening income taxes, lowering the sales tax, reforming property taxes, and lowering burdensome taxes on small businesses.”

This week, the House will debate the Right to Work Act, filed last month by Chairman Bill Sandifer, which identifies more than a half-dozen places where our Right to Work Act could be strengthened to protect our workers, and protect individual liberty.

The next item on the agenda is shoring up the state retirement system, which threatens not only tens of thousands of state retirees and their families, but also threatens the wallets of millions of taxpayers.

“We made a promise to state employees and many of them understand we must make major changes to the system to keep it solvent,” said Rep. Jim Merrill, who chaired the Ways and Means subcommittee studying the retirement system. “We have a responsibility to the taxpayers to ensure the retirement system doesn’t bust the state budget for years to come. We are nearing completion of a plan that will fulfill our promises, and it will require sacrifice from everyone.”

The House GOP also wants to cement the First in the South Primary status for both parties – a position that gives our state a uniquely strong position in selecting the eventual Republican and Democrat nominee for President.

Finally, the House Republicans will push the Senate to approve the 14 items from our 2011 agenda in that body.

“If the Senate acts, we still have time to approve 14 items that we sent to the Senate last year,” said Assistant Majority Leader Bruce Bannister. “Included in these are important reforms for conservatives: a state spending limit, shortening the legislative session, reforming how bureaucratic regulations are created, creating a Department of Administration, and critical new pro-life protections. The Republican Caucus urges our colleagues in the Senate to break the logjams and pass these items quickly.”

House Speaker Bobby Harrell added, “This is the year we can deliver on the reforms that South Carolinians want – a more responsible government, true fiscal discipline and a highly competitive state. I have full confidence in this Caucus’s ability to take action on major issues, and by passing these reforms into law, we can give our citizens reason to have full confidence in their government.”

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WHAT'S GOING ON: In the State Senate

The South Carolina Senate spent most of last week debating a bill to end the state Budget and Control Board and put its functions under a newly-created Department of Administration. South Carolina is the only state in the nation that has a Budget and Control Board – an agency that reports to five different people, which makes accountability difficult.

In that same vein, also being debated in committee is a measure that would reform or abolish the state Department of Transportation Commission. Many have raised concerns that with a seven-member commission presiding over virtually every aspect of the Department’s operation, DOT has become inefficient and unaccountable. The agency has run deficits and had to seek emergency loans to pay its bills.

Finally, the Senate also acted to stop the sale of synthetic drugs in South Carolina. Known as “spice” and “bath salts,” according to senators, these drugs have come to represent a danger to public health – and until now had been sold legally in South Carolina.

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CRESCENT Books: "Doughnuts for Amy" Author Gives CRESCENT an Extra Taste

To commemorate Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday, Chef John Malik decided to give CRESCENT an extra taste of his new novel Doughnuts for Amy. If you’re asking what Charles Dickens has to do with it, don’t worry, you’ll figure it out pretty quickly.

For more on Chef Malik and Doughnuts for Amy, you can read the original story HERE.

UPDATED -- SC Hospitality Association President Found After Suicide

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FROM THE DESK OF: Spring Training and My John Smoltz Baseball

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CRESCENT People: John Boyanoski — Print Media is Changing

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CRESCENT Products: Loggerhead Apparel — This Sea Turtle Can Take on the Horse or the Whale Any Day

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Five Past Winners of PGA TOUR Majors Commit to RBC Heritage

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WHAT’S GOING ON: Business Notes

Liquid Catering Celebrates First Anniversary

The Reserve at Lake Keowee Named Best Lake Community of the Year

Greenville Chamber’s PULSE Group Launches Talent Retention Program

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YOUR TURN: “Why is SC So Stupid About Education and Technology?” By Phil Noble

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CRESCENT Products: Loggerhead Apparel — A Dual Mission that Supports SC and Gives Back in Philanthropy

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CRESCENT People: John Boyanoski -- New Books, Statues of SC Mayors, and a Bigger State Football Rivalry than Carolina / Clemson?

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WHAT’S GOING ON: Help Find Tom

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WHAT’S GOING ON: Business Notes

Engenius Partners with Other Local Businesses to Offer High-Tech Summer Internships

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CRESCENT Events

Master Drummer Comes to Greenville

The Reserve at Lake Keowee’s Community Foundation to Host Blue View Art Exhibit

Front Porch of the Lowcountry Gets in the “Swing” for Spring

Edisto Set to Shift Seasons with a Bounty of Spring and Summer Events

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Walmart Foundation gives $31,000 to The Children’s Museum of the Upstate

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WHAT’S GOING ON: Business Notes

A Real Estate Rebound: Lake Keowee IT Guru Helps Agents Prepare to Respond

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YOUR TURN: “Tell me again why I didn’t join the Air Force?” By John Malik

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CRESCENT People: From Reporter to Author. John Boyanoski Turns Over a New Leaf

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CRESCENT Products: Loggerhead Apparel -- A South Carolina Brand Built on State Pride

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WHAT'S GOING ON: House GOP Unveils 2012 Agenda

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WHAT'S GOING ON: In the State Senate

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CRESCENT Books: "Doughnuts for Amy" Author Gives CRESCENT an Extra Taste

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