Author: Dick Mangrum

Fifty-six new jobs are promised in Pickens County with the announcement today that an existing manufacturer will expand.  JR Automation Technologies  is to make a capital investment of $3.4 million. Established in 1980 and based in Holland, Mich., JR Automation Technologies provides custom automated equipment and services to customers in a variety of industries, including automotive, aerospace, medical device, pharmaceutical, […]

First testimony in the case of S.C. versus Robert Jeffrey Hughes is expected this afternoon at the Oconee County Courthouse.  Judge Scott Sprouse told the jury there’s the potential that as many as 9 people will testify as witnesses in the case.  Hughes, who was arrested May 15, is charged with six offenses:  unlawful carrying a pistol, failure to stop […]

Long-time Oakway resident Tony Adams hopes everyone with interest in Oakway and the rest of southern Oconee County will mark their calendars next week for a community meeting.  This meeting is for everyone interested in helping save the former Oakway Intermediate School building and grounds will take place at 6:30 Monday night, August 29 in the meeting room of the […]

The five-day attendance count across the Oconee School District totals 10,364 students.  Walhalla High School remains the only school with attendance exceeding one thousand students.  The Walhalla High count after Friday was 1,064.  Of the county’s three middle schools, Walhalla’s has the most students:  853.  Both Walhalla schools were assigned students who live in the attendance zone for the now […]

  Textile work has virtually disappeared from the Oconee County landscape.  But there’s potential for a new textile employer to find a home in the county.  Richard Blackwell announced during Friday’s meeting of the board of the county Economic Alliance that a “textiles related project, generated by the South Carolina Department of Commerce, from Europe visited Oconee and seven other […]

The Walhalla chief of police, Ronald Wilbanks, will speak today to the Rotary Club.  Wilbanks was elevated to the chief’s job in 2012 after Tim Chastain resigned after a medical leave of absence.

A committee of three Oconeeans which spends state funds to fix the county’s roads will have decisions to make, perhaps, during a meeting next month.  Sam Dickson, chairman of Oconee’s state “C” Fund Committee, says the task in front of him and committee members Tally Grant and Dick Cottingham will be to decide how best to allocate about one million […]

A term of the General Sessions Court opens this morning in Walhalla.  Judge Scott Sprouse presides over the docket of cases.  This week’s trial docket includes cases in which men are charged with kidnapping, drug offenses, larceny, and weapon violations.

Oconee County has approved a bid from a Fair Play couple who will cut hay at the county’s empty industrial park at Fair Play–the Golden Corner Commerce Park.  An official of the county Economic Development Alliance says the significance is that the hay cut will save the county maintenance costs.  No longer will the county’s maintenance workers have to cut […]

Project manager Russell Johnson of the Oconee Economic Alliance gave a timeline today for the education facilities that are to be built in the county’s Information and Technology Park on highway 11.  Construction on the first Tri-County Technical College satellite campus for Oconee County will start in April, and Tech President Ronnie Booth responded to Johnson’s forecast by saying the […]