Author: Dick Mangrum

Stockholders in an Oconee bank are in line for a cash dividend. The directors of Blue Ridge Financial Corporation, holding company of Blue Ridge Bank, recently declared a cash dividend in the amount of $204,799.00, or 50 cents a share, payable to stockholders on record December 1, 2012. This brings total dividends paid to stockholders and the holding company since […]

It’s parade time tonight in Westminster. The city’s annual Christmas parade will take place at 6 o’clock.

Re-elected Congressman Jeff Duncan is reaching out to constituents in email remarks about the approaching “fiscal cliff” as well as the attack that killed Americans at the embassy in Libya. About what happened in Benghazi, the S.C. Third District Republican says, “I’ve demanded answers during committee hearings, raised national awareness on this issue, authored a bill to investigate…., and wrote […]

In the S.C. House of Representatives the next two years, Bill Whitmire of Walhalla will serve on two committees and Bill Sandifer of Seneca will serve on one. In the listing today of committee appointments for 2013-2014, Whitmire will remain on both the Rules and Ways and Means committees. Sandifer keeps his seat on the Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee, […]

At Salem’s meet-and -greet event for the Christmas season, Russell Patterson took the oath to fill an unexpired term on the town council. Patterson won the town’s special election last month. He’s filling an unexpired term which runs until November of next year.

No other than an authority such as Joel Thrift is envisioning that this month’s rare meeting, between the Oconee County Council and the county’s state legislative delegation, is going to be interesting. Chairman Thrift made that comment last night, after District Five’s Reg Dexter gave his colleagues copies of an analysis of the costs counties that incur for state mandates. […]

Questions arose last night as to the priority rating assigned to Oconee County’s Golden Corner Commerce Park. And the man asking those questions and raising concerns was Reg Dexter, who represents the part of Oconee County where GCCP is located. The county appears to be fast-tracking “pad ready” sites within another park, Echo Hills, but the county administrator had an […]

A Seneca restaurant’s project to remodel received approval last night from a regulatory board at City Hall. The Board of Architectural Review granted owner E-E Riggs a certificate of appropriateness for work planned outside the Ye Olde Sandwich Shoppe. The restaurant’s N. Townville Street location downtown is inside the city’s design review district, which falls under the governance of the […]

Nine of the 26 people who’ve applied for the job of chief of police in Westminster are being granted interviews. City administrator David Smith said interviews will be given by the committee starting Tuesday, December 11 and the last one is currently scheduled for Wednesday, December 19.

A signature drive opposing Duke Energy’s plan to lower the level of Lake Keowee by five feet was explained last night to Oconee County Council. Speaking were two lake residents from Pickens County, Doug Barker and Newton Brightwell. They said they’ve gathered 900 signatures, 100 of them yesterday. Barker and Brightwell hope the council will question Duke officials during a […]