Category: News

Walhalla’s mayor pro-tem says it’s a disappointment to hear that his city’s grant application for Main Street is not being recommended for funding but, he says, it’s not a death knell for the streetscape project. Yet Tjay Bagwell concedes Walhalla has no plan “B” to tap outside funding for what it’ll take to resurface Main Street. Re-doing Main is considered […]

Plans are coming together for Walhalla’s Second Annual Independence Eve celebration—one week from tonight. Like last year, events take place on a one-block section of Main Street. Added this year are fireworks, which are to set off at the soccer field, one block behind Main, at 9:19 p-m Wednesday, July 3. Tjay Bagwell says ice cream makers and chili cooks […]

Tenth Circuit Judge Alex Macaulay has set his retirement date at the end of next year. On January 31, the long-time jurist reaches 72 years old–the state’s mandatory retirement age for judges. But he has taken the option to work through 2014. Nevertheless, Macaulay’s retirement plans start in motion a process to fill his seat. According to Jane Shuler, chief […]

Sixteen years ago a Clemson student was so close to campus, yet so far from safety. Stacey Brooke Holsonback was found strangled on the Lake Hartwell side of Oconee County February 20, 1997. She was 19 years old and never able to pursue her degree and dreams and aspirations of a life ahead. It’s a case that especially bothered hardened […]

A long-time Oconee manufacturer is in hopes of a good outcome tomorrow night at the county board of zoning appeals. BASF near Seneca seeks a special exception to allow for a new building on its property to exceed the county’s 65-foot height limit. Frank Lansom-Scribner, site manager, said his company plans a 90-foot high building that’ll allow the precious metals […]

The General Sessions trial of a man charged with distributing methamphetamine resumes at 9:30 this morning at the Oconee Courthouse. Defendant in the case is Gregory Lee Murphy. Yesterday the prosecution called several witnesses including one woman who acted as a drug buyer for law enforcement.  

A midnight hour fire at a manufacturing plant near Walhalla forced a brief evacuation of the employees. But Oconee County Dispatch describes the furnace fire at the back of the Koyo Bearings Plant on Torrington Road as small, although it created smoke. The fire was quickly extinguished and the workers were allowed to return to their jobs. West Union Fire […]

Crews spent nine hours yesterday on the Chattooga searching for Thomas Hill’s body. Incident Commander Scott Loftis says two dogs indicated the Florida man may still be in the Five Falls area and two different dogs join the recovery operation today to see if they respond in the same area. Since last week’s raft mishap, more than 240 responders and […]

Englishman John Boorman’s work directing and producing the major motion picture hit “Deliverance” in the early 1970s, in a sense, will come full circle July the 4th week when Boorman’s son, Charley, returns to camp alongside and shoot a video of the famed Chattooga river. Oconee’s Mountain Lakes CVB will play host to the Boorman and his crew. Ken Sloan, […]

At a late afternoon news conference, Governor Haley is to announce which legislative session bills she’s vetoing. Among those anxiously awaiting the news is Senator Thomas Alexander, the Oconee-Pickens Republican. He thinks the first term governor may slice spending bills amounting to more than $100 million.