South Carolina Focus

"R" is for Richardson, Robert Clinton [b. 1935]. Baseball Player. Born in Sumter, Richardson played sandlot, high school, and American Legion baseball before signing a pro contract with the New York Yankees. He made his major league debut in 1955 and from 1957-1966 was the Yankees’ regular second baseman. He earned national attention when he hit a grand slam in Game Six of the 1960 World Series and was voted Series MVP. In his major league career, he was a seven-time All-Star and winner of five Golden Glove Awards. In 1970 he became the first full-time head baseball coach at the University of South Carolina where his 1975 team went 51 and 6, and played in the finals of the College World Series. After an unsuccessful foray into politics, Robert Clinton Richardson returned to coaching.

South Carolina ranked first in the United States for child vehicular heatstrokes in 2018, and with Palmetto State temperatures reaching highs of 100 degrees during the summertime, heat exhaustion is a serious, life-threatening danger, and residents should know the signs of danger. Those who are especially vulnerable to the summer heat include young children, the elderly, and individuals who take anxiety and depression medication. Steve Shelton, the Medical Director for Emergency Management for Prisma Health Midlands and physician said that the first sign is heat cramps. The next sign is fatigue. Symptoms include nausea, headaches, and dizziness. "They'll get some dizziness, kind of swimmy-headed, they may feel very fatigued, nauseated, a headache, sweating significantly, those individuals need to try to treat themselves very quickly by trying to get cool and stop what they're doing."If all symptoms are left untreated, the heat exhaustion could then potentially progress to heatstroke.

South Carolina's farming industry remains a stalwart economic engine. With approximately 25,000 farms over 4.9 million acres of land, the Palmetto State's agricultural community maintains its relevance in South Carolinians' day-to-day lives. In a changing world, though, South Carolina's farming industry still continues to face the same old problems that it has for years. A common denominator for a successful crop is the weather, and this equaled a negative for this year's summer produce crop in the Palmetto State. That's because a devastating late May heatwave brought temperatures up to a high of 100 degrees, causing extensive damage to popular crops like tomatoes, watermelons, squash, and corn. Willie Capehart, a small truck crop farmer from Bamberg, South Carolina, said that both his squash and cucumbers received significant damage from the heat wave. Capehart said that he planted those crops two weeks late, but the rain did help. "The rain was good, but it came a little too late,"

South Carolina’s freshwater lakes and ponds are as vibrant as they come, full of pretty plants with pretty names like water primrose and water hyacinth. The only trouble is, these plants shouldn’t be here.

The Miss South Carolina Teen pageant was held June 28 th and the Miss South Carolina Pageant took place on June 29 th . However, the journeys of pagent contestants began long before and each one goes to great lengths to prepare for a statewide stage. Aside from the pageant night, contestants put in many hours behind the scenes in their communities. Most of the contestants’ work takes place off the stage as they give back to the communities that have helped them. And each contestant must develop a platform that exemplifies a cause she cares about within her local area. Miss Camden Teen, Maggie Knotts, shared her passion for helping the homeless. Maggie named her platform “Hunger and Housing.” This platform allows Miss Camden Teen to connect with her community on a personal level, while bringing awareness to an issue in her city. Miss Chesnee, Savannah Harvey, has developed her platform, “Learning Disabilities, Learning to Rise Above,” based on helping those with disabilities. Savannah

The film industry provides much needed economic impact for South Carolina, netting $61 million in revenue for the state in 2018. The revenue is generated through the South Carolina Film Commission, which provides a $15 million dollar annual subsidy to filmmakers. The subsidy is funneled to the state's film commission through the state's government. The goal of the subsidy, called film incentives, is to financially reward filmmakers for shooting in the Palmetto State, whether they are residents or from out of state. By investing in filmmakers, the state can then net a return profit. Tom Clark, the South Carolina Film Commissioner, explained these incentives. "We have and manage these film incentives, and if you spend a minimum of a million dollars in our state, you'll get a rebate of up to 30 percent on what you're spending. That's hiring, the hotels, everything that goes along with it." The incentive is divided among a select number of entities each year. This is how South Carolina was

A half-century ago, as the world watched in awe as Neil Armstrong took that "one small step" into history on the surface of the moon, a voice from Houston was his constant connection to humanity back on Earth. Earlier, however, as the landing craft neared its destination, that voice had called "60 seconds," to warn the Apollo 11 astronauts - Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins - that they had only one minute's worth of fuel to land, or they would have to abort the mission. That voice belonged to future moonwalker Charles Duke of Lancaster, South Carolina. "It was a very tense 12 or 13 minutes as we started the descent," he recalled on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the historic landing. "We started having a lot of problems. Communication problems, data dropout. Then we had computer overloads, so you can imagine the tension rising in Mission Control." To compound matters, the crew saw at the last minute that it was about to land in a patch of rocks and craters. So the craft

The Palmetto State has produced numerous astronauts and scientists. A South Carolinian, Charles Townes of Greenville, invented the laser, and another native, Dr. Ron McNair, was the first person to operate a laser in space in his role as a NASA astronaut. A physicist, McNair was killed in the tragic explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in January 1986. It was his second excursion into space. McNair had a thirst for knowledge even as a child. His brother, Carl, was interviewed by NPR's StoryCorps project and recalled a story from Ron's childhood in which the 9-year-old defied tradition in the Jim Crow South at the "public" library in his hometown of Lake City. The story illustrates both his desire for education and his courage in the face of the segregated society of his youth. In addition, Carl McNair tells of the times in the mid-1960s when the TV series Star Trek depicted the races - alien species as well - working together in the future. "I looked at it as science fiction,

Many famous musical artists have been heavily influenced by their audio producers, but Joe Miller, a music producer who owns and operates the Sounds Like Joe recording studio in Rock Hill, South Carolina, describes his job in humble terms. “I like to consider my artistic domain, I move air and people hear it,” he said. Producing music is defined by taking music written by an artist or composer and transforming it into a high quality, professional studio sound. It involves several tough decisions that producers must make when there are several options available. Gary Bolton, a music producer who runs the Strawberry Skys recording studio in West Columbia, South Carolina, described the numerous crossroads producers must face on a daily basis. “First, is it fundamentally right? Is it together? And could we make it even better before we even start recording?” The most important decision a producer is responsible for is whether to producer a sound with an instrument or a synthesizer, Miller

Bob Coggin was just back from serving in Vietnam as a diver in an underwater demolition team when he got his next assignment from the Navy: train to possibly recover Apollo 8. The first manned spacecraft to leave the earth's atmosphere and orbit the moon would soon splash down in the Pacific Ocean. Coggin understood the importance of the astronauts' mission. But he didn't think much of his own role. "It was a big deal back then, but we couldn't understand why it was such a big deal," he says. "It was just another day kind of thing really." The day was December 27, 1968. Coggin's team was one of three poised to secure the space capsule in the predawn hours and assist the astronauts to safety aboard an aircraft carrier, the USS Yorktown. The then 25 year-old watched from a helicopter, as Apollo 8 seared through the earth's atmosphere, glowing fiery shades of orange and red against a dark sky. It was a mind blowing sight, lasting mere seconds. "We had cameras around our necks and didn't

Forgive yourself if you can’t pronounce “polybenzimidizole,” much less know what it’s used for. But if you ever went to the moon, you were sure glad to have it on your skin. Familiarly, polybenzimidizole goes by the much more vocally friendly name of PBI. It’s a twill-like material made by, fittingly, PBI Performance Products in Rock Hill. The company makes polymers, solutions, and films for industrial purposes, but the Rock Hill plant is the only place in the world that manufactures the company’s most visible product, PBI staple fiber.

Columbia native Charles Bolden has had a remarkable career: Marine fighter pilot, commanding general in Operation Desert Thunder in Kuwait, deputy commandant of midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy. Those distinctions are impressive enough, but he is best known for his work for NASA, as both astronaut and head of the entire agency. Recently retired as administrator of NASA, he recalled his most famous flight, as pilot of the space shuttle Discovery, which in 1990 deployed the Hubble Space Telescope, from which science has gleaned an immense wealth of information about the universe, far more than was ever imagined. As proud as he is of that mission, he is just as excited about NASA’s future: the next giant telescope, the James Webb scope, will “dwarf” the data science has gotten from the Hubble, he said. NASA is also planning on returning to the moon before heading for Mars, perhaps by the 2030s. Surprisingly, Bolden said his most exciting time with NASA was not going into space, but

With this year’s session of the state legislature now officially over, lawmakers are already turning their attention to next year’s session, and like this year the top priority will be passage of a massive School Improvement Bill.

Many remember where they were when they heard the news: nine people gunned down inside an historic African American church in Charleston at the hands of a stranger they welcomed to bible study. But few know the passage they read. Reporter Jennifer Berry Hawes does. "It's called the 'Parable of the Sower,'" she says. "It's a story where Jesus talks about what happens when you throw seeds of faith onto different types of terrain." Hawes writes about the tragedy in her first book, "Grace Will Lead Us Home: The Charleston Massacre and the Hard, Inspiring Journey to Forgiveness. ."

The golf industry is big business for the state of South Carolina, generating $2.59 billion in sales for the state in 2018. The sport generated 31,434 jobs, $857 million in wages and income, and $309 million in federal, state, and local taxes, according to an economic impact study created by the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism.

Until a few years ago, nobody really thought to put goats and yoga together. And yet, here we are, living in a world where the sight of downward-facing yogis and bouncing baby goats in the same place looks as natural as mac and cheese. For Jim and Terri Gustin, owners of Critter Creek Farm in Rock Hill – primarily a flower farm, but one with lots of animals around – the idea just worked itself out. “We used to have all these little programs to bring the farm off to people who didn’t have that experience,” Terri Gustin says. Critter Creek developed a rent-a-chick program, a rent-a-coot program …. “The natural progress was baby goats,” she says. “Everybody wants to come see the baby goats.” The Gustins’ own children used to play with the goats and help socialize them, but once the kids left home, the goats didn’t get a lot of company. Gustin says she heard about a woman out west doing goat yoga and thought it was the ideal answer. She also thought it would be a fad. “We really never

When a disaster strikes, communications may become spotty or even gone completely. Cell phone towers may be down, land lines even disrupted, and if the Internet is offline, there goes email. Keeping communications open for hospitals and other health care facilities during these types of crises are what amateur radio operators - or "hams" - train for once a week, as members of the South Carolina Healthcare Emergency Amateur Radio Team, or SC HEART for short. Made up of volunteers from across the state, SC HEART conducts exercises, which it calls Training Nets, from various locations in South Carolina. One recent such exercise was run by ham operator Warren Richey at the Charleston V.A. hospital, with operators listening and checking in from places from Aiken and Darlington County to Pickens and Beaufort - as well as from out of state locations such as Asheville, N.C. "Our goal is to have those amateur radio operators in those hospitals to be able to pass traffic back and forth about the

They are sure signs of Spoleto in downtown Charleston; instrument toting musicians and scorching heat. Among the jostling violin cases, is Shannon Fitzhenry. She’s back for her second year with the annual Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra, one of 92 musicians chosen to play. “The goal is to get up in time to warm up before rehearsal,” she laughs. The Charleston native grew up with Spoleto, but admits she didn't fully appreciate it until she moved away to study music at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland. “I started hearing more about Spoleto from non-Charlestonians and realized I really needed to go back and experience the festival.” So, like hundreds of other musicians, she auditioned with Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra director and conductor John Kennedy. He’s been hand picking its members for nine years. “Our festival is the only one where the music director travels around and personally selects who will play in the orchestra,” says Kennedy. His quest for the very best

That the NFL’s Carolina Panthers would eventually move the team’s practice facility and operations out of Charlotte and south of the border to Rock Hill was really just a matter of when the South Carolina Legislature would greenlight a set of tax breaks (worth somewhere between $115 and $120 million, by most estimates) that would allow the team to set up shop in York County. And when Panthers would officially say they were coming. On June 5, the Panthers, the state, and City of Rock Hill made the official announcement that the team will be moving in over the next couple years.

75 years ago - June 6, 1944 - 156,000 Allied troops on nearly 7000 ships and landing craft and supported by 11,590 planes dropping both bombs and paratroopers, landed on the beaches of Normandy, France. The top-secret invasion of Europe was code-named Operation Overlord, but is more broadly known the world over as D-Day. That day began the battle to free the continent from the grip of Nazi Germany. 23,000 American soldiers swarmed Utah beach under German fire, and among those following the 4th Division ashore was Stewart Swift, a resident of Pawley's Island, S.C. He admitted to being apprehensive, "because we knew there'd be casualties," though not to the extent of those suffered by the 1st Division next door at Omaha beach. But he was confident in the backup given the landing troops by Navy gunfire and Army Air Corps bombers. Once Normandy was secured in late June, Swift's group moved inland following tank patrols. "We followed the tanks in many, many engagements," he said. Driving