Author: Dick Mangrum

At 128 acres, the wooded sections of Oconee’s Coneross Wastewater Treatment Plant at Seneca teem with turkey and deer and attract hunters. But Bob Winchester says high-power gunfire creates the potential for danger on property which is manned around the clock. Winchester, executive director of the Joint Regional Sewer Authority, says, in the past, there have been instances of gunfire […]

  Hurricane Sandy is devastating parts of the mid Atlantic and Northeast. In South Carolina, the attacker is far more sinister. It’s that cyber attack that has left hundreds of thousands of state residents worried they could become victims of identity theft. State Representative Bill Whitmire, Walhalla Republican, says he and the entire county delegation are concerned, and he has […]

Thanks to its custodians and others, Walhalla Middle School always sports a clean look, according to its principal, Scott Dixon. Today, however, the approximate 35-year old school building looked especially good, perhaps, in anticipation of a special visitor. Dixon was among a group at the front door this morning to welcome the state’s first-term superintendent of education. Dr. Mick Zais […]

A hospice home is where the terminally ill go for their last days. As word spreads and the population grows, the Oconee Hospice of the Foothills anticipates a need for more patient rooms. At 10 tomorrow morning, ground will be broken for the third and final phase of the Cottingham House. And officials say they can anticipate that generous giving […]

Clemson University’s Lee Hall III academic building has been awarded LEED Gold certification by the U-S Green Building Council. Lee III is a 56,000-square-foot expansion of the original Lee Hall, the home of the School of Design and Building and the department of art. It is zero-energy-ready, designed to offset its energy expenditure by producing as much energy as it […]

The Forest Service is discouraging people from backcountry camping and from bringing food into the Panthertown Valley area of the Nantahala National Forest, following several bear encounters. The area is northeast of Cashiers, North Carolina. If visitors choose to camp in the Panthertown area, they should camp in areas that are used infrequently. Three separate incidents of bear encounters occurred […]

On the agenda for a meeting tonight at Seneca City Hall is a resolution for the Oconee Joint Regional Sewer Authority. The city council will meet for a work session at 6, followed by a special meeting. Last night, during a sewer authority committee meeting, members expressed uncertainty as to any official reaction by their member cities as to the […]

Oconee School District plans to welcome Dr. Mick Zais, state superintendent, during a visit by Zais today to three county schools. The visits are planned this morning at Tamassee-Salem Elementary and Walhalla Middle School. Zais’s final stop will be the Hamilton Career Center, where the school district will treat the state’s education leader to lunch in center’s Considerate Café.

A police chase that began in Walhalla ended minutes later and miles from town in the death of the man being chased. Coroner Karl Addis said Cleve Phillips of Pitts Road, Walhalla died when he lost control of his pickup truck on the gravel portion of Oconee Station Road, struck an embankment and overturned. Phillips was 68 years old. At […]

Governor Nikki Haley today updated what South Carolina is doing to combat the major cyber attack in which someone was able to access files of the Department of Revenue that include Social Security numbers and financial information of more than three and half million state residents. Haley says since Friday and the first public announcement of the cyber attack on […]