Author: Dick Mangrum

Non-profits who make life easier for others are sharing in grants announced today by the Seneca Rotary Club.  The Rotarians accumulated $5,250 in fundraisers.  Sharing in those monies are the Prisma Health Oconee Memorial Foundation, Seneca High School, Foothills Care, Fostering Faithfully, Grace’s Closet, Collins Home Family Ministry, and “BRIEF”– Blue Ridge Innovation and Entrepreneurship Foundation.

A plea of guilty produced a prison term this week in the Oconee General Sessions Court.  The judge directed Derawin Joseph Fretwell to serve a maximum 10-year sentence for criminal sexual conduct third degree, according to Deputy Solicitor Jason Alderman.  Once Fretwell completes the sentence, he will be placed on the registry of sex offenders.  Alderman said the victim in […]

Asphalt companies are getting bigger and, unfortunately for Oconee County, larger companies are looking for larger contracts than those that a county of Oconee’s size offers.  And it’s creating problems for cities such as Seneca and Westminster to get streets repaved.  Sam Dickson and Richard Cottingham of the Oconee State “C” Fund Committee brought their concerns to their committee meeting, […]

About 100 Oconee voters showed up first thing this morning to cast early ballots in the Republican primary run-off.  The run-off, scheduled for Tuesday next week, will decide the GOP nominee for 3rd District U-S House of Representatives between Air National Guard officer Sheri Biggs and evangelical pastor Mark Burns.  The election staff was also busy yesterday, processing  361 early […]

A resident of Stephen Drive near Utica wants pothole repairs.  Charles Langston, a 10-year resident of Stephen Drive, made his request to Oconee’s State “C” Fund Committee.  The state-funded committee is getting an additional $460 thousand through the state DOT.  And Sam Dickson, “C” Fund committee chairman, wants the three-member committee to decide how to spend the money.  That decision […]

Ham operators from the Keowee-Toxaway Amateur Radio Club gather Saturday and Sunday at the Duke World of Energy for their annual Amateur Radio “Field Day.”  The hams, as they are known, establish temporary ham stations in public locations to showcase the science, skill and community service aspect of amateur radio.  Ham Radio provides standard communications if infrastructure goes down or […]

Oconee Sheriff’s Office reports two arrests near the Old Clemson Highway, along with the seizure of guns and narcotics.  Acting on citizen complaints, officers Tuesday afternoon searched the Keoway Drive home of Timothy Jason Hird.  Fifty-nine-year-old Hird faces the following charges:  trafficking in meth, possession of a controlled substance, trafficking in morphine, trafficking in cocaine, possession of a weapon during […]

A 59-year-old Walhalla woman, Beverly Dianna Webb, has been arrested on charges of kidnapping and assault and battery third degree.  An officer responding to the report of an assault at a Harrison Avenue home June 15 quoted Webb’s mother as saying her daughter struck her with a cane and, over a period of a few days, kept her confined to […]

Oconee Sheriff’s Office seeks the public’s help to locate Terry Brandon Ramey, who deputies encountered during the night at a home on Sweetbriar Trail, south of the Blackjack Road.  According to the sheriff’s office, deputies went to the home on a welfare check — this after a deputy earlier tried to place 44-year-old Ramey in custody.  A female was removed […]