Category: Editorials

Now that a week has passed since the landmark vote at Oconee Medical Center, we hope that those who voted for change remain confident they’ve done the right thing. And there are signs to indicate they made the right call. The old system of a community membership, offered at small cost to rich and poor alike, seemed to embrace democratic […]

Everyone of us has an interest in assuring that our local hospital stays strong for the good health of the community and for the positive impacts it has on the Oconee County economy. That’s why it behooves everyone to follow with interest a major change that is before Oconee Medical Center. At the annual membership meeting one week from tonight, […]

Every ten years federal law requires the Forest Service to assess natural resource trends. The one just issued projects a significant loss of forest land to suburbanization and fragmentation. To our Oconee County mind, they are hard words to understand. But the bottom line meaning to all of us who care about the forests is the potential loss of privately-owned […]

The rise of State Senator Thomas Alexander of Walhalla to chair of the South Carolina Senate Committee on Labor, Commerce, and Industry should add clout for Oconee’s chances to land a major employer. Because right across the State House lobby, of course, the chairman of the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee is none other than Representative Bill Sandifer of […]

Eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York’sSun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and […]

Oconee Heritage Center, the Cherokee Museum, and Patriot’s Hall are all places in a row to stop for those interested in local and area history. But you can sort of say the same about the Oconee Courthouse. Only about 10 years old, the courthouse and its lobby area have become a place to glimpse at the past. Two glass displays […]

Maybe, just maybe, Santa will leave something special beneath the collective Christmas tree for Oconee County. It could be the signing of an agreement that, at last, will make true the prospects for a valuable piece of public land at the Lake Hartwell end of Oconee County. In recent years, the project has been known as Sanctuary Pointe. It has […]

Clemson Area Transit provides a great service to Seneca and other parts of Oconee by offering dependable bus passenger service—at no charge. And it will continue that service, perhaps, expanding it to the Walhalla and Westminster areas some day, unless the federal government falls off the financial cliff. The re-election of the Obama-Biden ticket is a sign that you can […]

Death and taxes have long been the only two certainties of life. It may well come to be, at some point in the future, Oconeeans will pay more to leave this world for the hereafter. In recent years, the coroner has begun to call for the establishment of a county morgue. At times, when it has become necessary to hold […]

Regardless of how weary this election year has been, all eligible voters should be sure they cast their votes. And this applies, especially to Oconee County voters. They thought they were going to decide a lot of local races in June, but the cancellation of the Republican primary simply pushed most things to November. And, of course, November 6 is […]