Dr. Rose Wilder, the Clarendon School District 1 Superintendent who was featured in Forgotten South Carolina, has been named SC School Superintendent of the year. She was featured in Forgotten South Carolina for the work she did lifting Clarendon School District 1 to the second best performing high poverty district in the state.
Congratulations Dr. Wilder.
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Programs offering tiny grants help rural S.C. residents grow businesses
Doug Pardue
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Posted: Friday, April 26, 2013 12:24 a.m.
UPDATED: Friday, April 26, 2013 12:40 a.m.
Evelyn Haye quit her job as a teacher to start her own business making personalized gift baskets, flower arrangements, cups, baloons, you name it. She works out of her garage 15 minutes outside of Orangeburg, and says the $3,000 she got in a grant from the New America non-profit in Orangeburg helped her purchase some of the new equpment she needed to grow her business, Creative Expressions & Gifts. Doug Pardue/staff Buy this photo
ORANGEBURG — It would be hard to start a more rural, small business than Evelyn Haye has.
But that’s what she did 15 minutes west of this farm and college town, on S.C. Highway 4, halfway to Neeses, a village of fewer than 400.
Evelyn Haye quit her job as a teacher to start her own business making personalized gift baskets, flower arrangements and more. She says the $3,000 she got in a grant from the New America nonprofit in Orangeburg helped her purchase some of the equipment she needed. Evelyn Haye quit her job as a teacher to start her own business making personalized gift baskets, flower arrangements and more. She says the $3,000 she got in a grant from the New America nonprofit in Orangeburg helped her purchase some of the equipment she needed.
Creative Expressions & Gifts, the store Haye opened three years ago, is similar to a Hallmark shop except that Haye creates or personalizes almost everything herself, from flower arrangements and gift baskets to greeting cards, T-shirts and balloons. And instead of occupying part of a shopping mall, Haye’s store sits along a rural, two-lane highway in what used to be her garage.
It may not seem like much, but to Adolphus Johnson, Haye, and others like her, offer hope for economic stability in rural South Carolina. She’s an up-and-coming entrepreneur who just needed a helping hand in the form of a small grant.
The grant is among several community development programs in the state modeled somewhat on the microloan concept of a Bangladeshi economist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for using tiny loans to help poor women start businesses.
Microloans have enabled millions of Bangladeshi and Indian women buy everything from cows to sewing machines to start and run businesses. It’s expanded to benefit much of the world.
The hope is that similar efforts can help poor areas of South Carolina. The focus is on rural and struggling areas of the state, including the 26 counties of Forgotten South Carolina that were left behind as the rest of the state advanced economically in recent decades.
Johnson directs New America Corp., a nonprofit he set up two years ago to help improve Orangeburg County’s economy by helping people help themselves. One tool is a Business Individual Development Account.
Those who qualify must regularly put money in a savings account for at least six months.
The program will match savings of up to $1,000 at a rate of $3 for every $1 saved. In other words, if a person saves $1,000, the program will match it with $3,000. Participants must attend personal finance and business training sessions and develop a business plan.
The money can be used for most anything that helps people enhance their ability to prosper, such as for higher education or buying a home. Johnson prefers to focus on those wanting to start or expand a business.
He started the grants in partnership with the S.C. Association of Community Development Corporations, which has spread the program to community development organizations across the state.
Johnson sees Haye as a budding success story for his effort.
When she started her business in 2010, her store was more garage than store. “I’d pull the garage door up and down and have a table with displays inside,” she said.
She heard about New America’s savings and grant program last year through a friend at church who gave her the $50 application fee.
For many businesses $3,000 wouldn’t mean much, but for Haye, it was a lifesaver. She recently got the full $3,000 match and used the money for equipment and supplies to expand.
“I was going to get every penny they had to offer me,” she said. “I was having quite a struggle. It gave me the boost I needed.”
BMW, Boeing or people
The community development association reports that since the savings and grant program began in 2001, $750,000 in grant money has generated almost $11.5 million in economic impact. That’s from the purchase of 80 homes, 67 people returning to school and the creation of 103 small businesses.
Compared with the need in South Carolina, the amount of money available is tiny and the impact negligible. But Bernie Mazyck, who heads the community development association, said it shows that if people who exhibit effort and desire get a small boost, it can make a big difference in their lives and can benefit their communities.
Given that almost one in five South Carolinians lives in poverty, it would take more than $3 billion “to meet that need with our program,” Mazyck said.
The idea that the state would pony up that amount of money is fantasy, but Mazyck believes the long-term investment would have been better than what the state has gotten from its business incentive program to attract new industry and promote company expansions.
Some areas of the state are certainly better off from those business incentives, such as Greenville and Charleston, which got BMW and Boeing, respectively. Both brought huge investments, big employment numbers and high salaries. But jobs from those giant companies and from most recruited industries generally aren’t spread to rural areas.
The state offers no real accounting of how much it has spent in incentives, which are given to companies in the form of tax breaks, cheap land, training and infrastructure.
Boeing alone has received more than $1 billion in incentives since 2009, when it decided to build a Dreamliner assembly plant in North Charleston.
Mazyck imagines what it would be like if the state invested $1 billion in small grants and loans to help its poor start or expand businesses, buy homes or improve their educations.
“I believe there would be a greater return on investment, not to mention leveraging the state’s investment,” he said.
New America is one of 10 community development organizations in the state offering the grant program. So far, New America has helped start or expand seven small businesses with the grants.
The program is designed to help break the cycle of poverty by encouraging poor and low-income people to work toward their future, Johnson said.
Unfortunately, many poor people exist in a live-for-today world, he said. “They don’t think about the future.” They are so down they can’t imagine that something good could happen to them with hard work, education and self-discipline.
Johnson grew up in Bennettsville in what he described as a lower-middle-class family. His parents didn’t go to college but made sure he and his three sisters did. Johnson went to S.C. State, where he majored in business administration. After graduation, he started his own contracting business.
He said he always wanted to use the skills he learned to help people but came to realize that “it’s kind of hard to help people unless they have money.”
That’s what made him focus New America’s efforts on programs to empower low-income people by encouraging them with a little monetary aid if they take positive steps to improve their financial capability.
New America, and several other community development organizations around the state, also offer small loans to people who don’t qualify for regular loans but show promise.
Johnson’s loan program is funded by a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He is in the process of working out approval of New America’s first loan.
Johnson said he’s considering offering one of the loans to Evelyn Haye so she can further expand Creative Expressions.
“You gotta be resourceful and use what you have to get what you want,” Johnson said.
And that’s a perfect description of what Haye has done.
Taking the plunge
Haye turned to her faith to decide if she should quit her teaching job at Elloree Elementary School and start the business of her dreams.
After a women’s prayer conference at church, she knew. Two weeks into her 28th school year, she quit teaching and threw her all into Creative Expressions.
She cashed in her retirement and most of her savings so she could pay off her mortgage 10 years early and buy the delivery van, supplies and equipment needed to start her business.
Having no debt helped her in the rough early years when she also had no real income.
“Whole months went by with no money. … It was very tough at times and has totally been a walk of faith,” she said.
Faith provided encouragement and purpose, but she wishes she had had something else in those first two years: the financial and business training she had to take when she signed on to New America’s savings and match program.
“I learned a lot from the classes and I had an opportunity to write a business plan, which is something I had really needed to do.”
She no longer lifts a garage door for customers to enter her store. An inviting entrance now graces the remodeled garage where her creations fill every shelf and counter, a tribute to the variety of her work.
The amount of foot traffic isn’t what she would like it to be, but people from across the country have discovered her website and she is willing to ship to almost anywhere. She estimates about one-third of her business comes from the Internet. Most of the rest of her business is phone orders, often from word of mouth.
Haye confesses she’s still “nowhere near” making what she earned teaching. But with the equipment and supplies she purchased from the $4,000 in savings and grant money, she feels ready to take the next step.
“My main goal was to be in a position to create jobs. I’m on the road to it.”
Reach Doug Pardue at 937-5558.
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Vegetables seen as an economic salvation for Forgotten South Carolina
Doug Pardue
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Posted: Sunday, April 28, 2013 12:01 a.m.
Paul Zoeller/staffFarmer Steven Walters harvests red Russian kale last month at his farm in St. George. Buy this photo
ST. GEORGE — Steven Walters bends down on his knees, grabs the tops of several little leaves poking from the sandy soil, slices them off with a knife, tosses them into a half-bushel box and repeats the process with the next patch of leaves.
When he has cut off all the leaves within reach, be moves his knees and the box farther along the 500-foot row.
Chef Steven Thompson of the Mercury Bar spreads local greens on a pork chop dish. The greens are grown locally at Walters Farm and are delivered every morning fresh from the fields. Chef Steven Thompson of the Mercury Bar spreads local greens on a pork chop dish. The greens are grown locally at Walters Farm and are delivered every morning fresh from the fields.
Farmer Steven Walters harvests red Russian kale at his farm in St. George. Farmer Steven Walters harvests red Russian kale at his farm in St. George.
Chef Steven Thompson, of the Mercury Bar, mixes together locally grown greens. The locally grown greens come from Walters Farm and are delivered every morning fresh from the fields. They include pea shoots, baby totsoi, Siberian red kale and radishes. (Brad Nettles/postandcourier.com) 3/29/13 Chef Steven Thompson, of the Mercury Bar, mixes together locally grown greens. The locally grown greens come from Walters Farm and are delivered every morning fresh from the fields. They include pea shoots, baby totsoi, Siberian red kale and radishes. (Brad Nettles/postandcourier.com) 3/29/13
To Walters and many others, this could be the salvation for economically struggling rural South Carolina and rural areas across the nation.
Farming — isn’t that what rural residents have done forever?
How can it save rural economies, especially in the 26 counties of Forgotten South Carolina where as many as one out of three lives in poverty?
Walters grins as he moves farther down the row and tosses more of the nutty, bittersweet greens into his box. “Restaurants love baby kale,” he says.
Walters will fill 10 or so boxes by the time he finishes the row.
For now, he farms 5 of about 200 acres owned by his mother. He hopes to expand within a few weeks to 15 acres and hire one or two people to help out. He wants to double that to 30 acres next year so he can rotate cover plants on some fields to replenish and improve the soil, and he’s considering tackling some certified organic crops.
“We already use most of the basic organic principles. We never spray any synthetic fungicides or pesticides,” he says.
However, it would require a several-year documentation and inspection process.
Walters is part of the farm-to-table movement that sees locally produced farm products as part of the answer to improving rural economies and the diets of South Carolinians and Americans in general.
The state Department of Agriculture agrees and points to a 2010 study by the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina.
The study found that if South Carolina increased demand for locally produced farm products to the higher levels seen in Georgia and North Carolina, it would double the total economic impact to more than $555 million and generate 10,000 new jobs.
It also would help keep the state’s 26,500 farmers at work, especially those on small farms,
A key problem with achieving that is the lack of an effective system to market and distribute produce from small farms.
Creating a food hub
At a remodeled warehouse along Charleston’s Morrison Avenue, Sara Clow counts Walters as an indication of success.
She runs GrowFood Carolina, an effort started by the Coastal Conservation League in 2010 to help local farmers profit by creating a marketing and distribution system.
It’s the state’s first so-called food hub.
Typically, small farms have been cut off from a food production and distribution system designed to work for corporate or mega-farms and supermarket chains, a system that ships produce, such as tomatoes, thousands of miles to the grocery store near you.
Small farms generally sell through stands and farmers markets. That limits their reach and forces them to market and distribute what they grow.
GrowFood returns 80 percent of the sale price to farmers relieving them of the burden to market and distribute.
Historically, agriculture in South Carolina has focused on commodity crops, such as tobacco, cotton and soy beans, that are sold mainly out of state.
The potential for growth in local farm sales is huge: South Carolinians spend about $7 billion a year on food, just 8 percent of that on state produce.
GrowFood hopes to prove local farms can make profits if given an effective system to market to local restaurants and grocery stores, Clow says.
Charleston offered the perfect place to set up a model because of the growing farm-to-table movement among the Lowcountry’s many chefs and restaurants, where serving local and seasonal food has reached an art form. Several grocers also have gotten onboard to serve the demand from health and taste conscious home chefs.
GrowFood started with about $1 million — $700,000 in contributions and a loan of $300,000. It expects a profit in 2017.
It has been in full operation for just over a year and provides produce from 45 farms within 120 miles of Charleston to nine individual grocery stores and more than 100 restaurants, caterers and food trucks.
Clow works with the chefs and grocers to learn what they want, arranges with farmers to vary crops and the amounts so they aren’t growing the same one or two vegetables at a time. She then provides farmers with purchase orders to regulate the flow of produce.
All farmers have to do is grow, harvest and box their produce and bring it to GrowFood, where it is stored in refrigerators for distribution.
Farmers who don’t normally grow enough quantity or variety of vegetables to sustain consistent sales can benefit by pooling their produce with what other farmers grow.
While other states, including North Carolina and Georgia, are further along in the farm-to-table food hub business, South Carolina has been a little slow to capitalize on it.
The state Department of Agriculture plans to change that and “make small farmers into big business.”
Nothing is firm yet, but Agriculture Commissioner Hugh Weathers says, “We are working to see how and where successful local food hubs can be established in the state.
Kelly Coakley, the department‘s public information director, says an effort is in the works to focus on small farmers and promote economic development and jobs. The study should be done in August.
Weathers said GrowFood may serve as a model to help farmers across the state.
“Food hubs and value added processing can provide additional market opportunities for those farmers and help increase access to healthy foods for all South Carolinians,” he says.
A farmer and a chef
In the kitchen at the Mercury Bar in Charleston’s bustling upper King Street district, chef Stephen Thompson spreads Walters’ Siberian kale leaves, radishes, arugula and bean sprouts in a sweet and spicy reduction over dim sum filled with ground pork, water chestnuts, cilantro and ginger.
The two have been friends for years, Thompson says. “He became a farmer and I became a chef.”
Thompson wants all who eat at the restaurant to know the vegetables taste so good because most were picked that day from just 45 minutes away.
He expects his menu to be all local as the restaurant’s new owners change the décor and name and shift to dining and less nightclubbing.
Big plans
Walters places one last handful of baby kale into a box and smiles. He’s so pleased with his farming that he’s busting out in plans to grow his business.
He’s considering opening a market and will start a Community Supported Agriculture operation in August to sell directly to people around Charleston.
His goal is to sign up 100 orders and deliver around greater Charleston once a week for 12 weeks. He says he will provide a cornucopia of freshly harvested produce the entire 12 weeks, from arugula to zucchini.
He hopes to soon clear about $50,000 a year, substantially more than the state’s average farm income of $29,400.
Walters, 30, grew up on a farm, but never considered farming until several years ago while working in a couple Mount Pleasant restaurants.
Walters avoided many of the costs a beginning farmer would incur: Not only did his mom own the land and allow him to farm it at no cost, but it came with a tractor and much of the other necessary equipment. “Starting a farm is hard enough. If I had tractor, large equipment and land costs to worry about it would be a nightmare.”
Still, he didn’t envision the costly mistakes he’d make along the way, he says. “It was trial and error. I had no experience. I had whole crop failure.”
He once threw away 2,000 watermelons. “I knew how to grow, not how to sell.”
The hardships made him more determined. He took horticulture classes at Trident Tech and read everything he could find on growing vegetables.
His girlfriend, Heather, who is now his wife, encouraged him through the bad years.
“She was a little skeptical at first, but I don’t blame her. Farmers aren’t typically known for being especially well-off.”
Walters doubts he would be as close to success as he is if it hadn’t been for GrowFood.
The people there know how to market and distribute. And they helped him select exotic vegetables, such as tatsoi and other Asian greens that bring premium prices and aren’t normally seen in farmers markets or supermarkets.
GrowFood also knows what vegetables the chefs and grocers want, how much and when, he says. It freed him to farm and focus on new projects.
One of those new ideas came with the arrival of his now 6-month-old son, Rhett: With all the concern about contaminated baby food, why not grow and bottle vegetables for babies?
Besides, he said, “I have a built-in food tester.”
Reach Doug Pardue at 937-5558
This bill is similar to a proposal in the Forgotten South Carolina series that called for stopping the practice of letting school kids attend other school districts by simply buying $300 worth of land there.
SC bill drops exemption to school attendance zones
SEANNA ADCOX, Associated Press | Posted: Wednesday, April 24, 2013 8:06 pm
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Parents could no longer buy a small plot to send their child to a certain school under a bill advanced Wednesday by a House panel.
The bill sent to the full Education Committee on a 5-3 vote would delete a civil-rights-era exemption to school attendance zones that allows children to enroll in any district where they own property with an assessed value of at least $300. Since 1962, that has allowed parents to buy a sliver of land in their child’s name to attend their preferred school.
Advocates say that’s unfair, particularly if it means denying a coveted spot to a local student. Opponents say parents should have more school choices, not fewer.
“Why are we making it difficult for parents who choose to put their child in a better school?” said Rep. Samuel Rivers, R-Goose Creek. “It’s limiting the choices of parents who care for their child — parents who get up early in the morning to drive to those schools. … I believe we should broaden it.”
But Democrats on the subcommittee argued the exemption represents a choice only for parents with means to buy the property and work the system.
The bill as advanced grandfathers in students who already use the exemption, for as long as property remains in their name.
The proposal follows a state Supreme Court ruling last December that upheld the ability of a student who lived in Berkeley County to attend Academic Magnet High School in neighboring Charleston County. Admittance at the nationally recognized school is based on test scores, and slots are limited.
District officials argued only students from Charleston County could compete for enrollment at a county-wide magnet school. But the state’s high court agreed with a parent who appealed the school board’s 2010 decision, saying the $300-property law gave the student the same access as county residents.
“This is fundamentally a fairness issue,” the district’s attorney, John Emerson, said Wednesday. “Is it a big fiscal impact? No. Is it a fairness issue? Yes. It’s the wrong way to implement school choice.”
In Charleston County, a plot with an assessed value of $300 is worth about $6,500.
“The taxes paid on property that size come nowhere near the cost of educating that child,” Emerson said.
While the issue arises from the coastal county, the exemption’s used across the state. However, no one tracks the extent.
Emerson said a hand-audit prompted by the Academic Magnet case found roughly 150 cases in Charleston County, which has a student population of more than 42,000.
Superintendent Mick Zais is among the bill’s opponents. He’d support it only if the Legislature replaced the exemption with a law broadening parents’ abilities to pick the school of their choice, said his spokesman Jay Ragley.
School choice is a prickly issue in South Carolina.
Proposals using tax credits to help parents pay for private school tuition have failed repeatedly over the last decade, with opponents arguing the state shouldn’t subsidize private and home schools.
I had the opportunity this past Sunday to speak to about 50 people at Charleston’s Unitarian church about Forgotten South Carolina. I concluded my talk by saying that the continuing depth of our state’s disparities in education, health care and economic opportunity says two things about our state: What we’re doing has not and still does not work. And if we apparently don’t care care.
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Inspirational teen wants to improve state’s schools
Doug Pardue
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Posted: Sunday, March 24, 2013 1:08 a.m.
Paul Zoeller/StaffTy’Sheoma Bethea is 18 now and will leave town later this year, but her legacy — the glittering, $25 million Dillon Middle School — will remain for many years to come. Buy this photo
DILLON — Ty’Sheoma Bethea walked up to the front of Dillon County’s new middle school, raised both arms over her head like a cheerleader and flashed a $40 million smile.
Forty million dollars — that’s how much money has poured into this rural, struggling school system over the past four years. In 2009, when Ty’Sheoma was 14, she wrote a letter to Congress pleading for help for her century-old school, part of which was condemned. And the federal loans and grants began.
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Ty’Sheoma Bethea stands infront of Dillion Middle School four years after writing a letter to Congress complaining about the condition of her old school. Photo taken Wednesday, March 20, 2013 at Dillion Middle School. (Paul Zoeller/postandcourier.com) Ty’Sheoma Bethea stands infront of Dillion Middle School four years after writing a letter to Congress complaining about the condition of her old school. Photo taken Wednesday, March 20, 2013 at Dillion Middle School. (Paul Zoeller/postandcourier.com)
Ty’Sheoma Bethea chats with her friend Shakirah Lampley during music appreciation class Wednesday at Dillion County High School. Four years ago, Bethea wrote a letter to Congress complaining about the condition of her middle school. Ty’Sheoma Bethea chats with her friend Shakirah Lampley during music appreciation class Wednesday at Dillion County High School. Four years ago, Bethea wrote a letter to Congress complaining about the condition of her middle school.
J.V. Martin Middle School still stands and is now used as offices by the school district. J.V. Martin Middle School still stands and is now used as offices by the school district.
Ty’Sheoma turned 18 this school year and will graduate in a couple months, leaving the school system she has done so much to improve.
One of the results of her letter is standing behind her — the first new school built in the county in 40 years.
The middle school was completed late last year, and, built with virtually no help from South Carolina, stands as a symbol of the state’s continuing failure to help improve poor and struggling schools across the 26 rural counties of Forgotten South Carolina.
Ty’Sheoma will graduate with a 3.2 grade-point average and head off to college at the end of summer.
She hasn’t decided just which college that will be. She is weighing several scholarship offers, including one from Clemson and another from historically black Spelman in Atlanta.
But she’s leaning away from both, Spelman because she’s spent most of her life in Dillon County’s predominantly black schools, and Clemson because it’s “too far in the country,” like Dillon County.
She favors Florida State because it’s out-of-state. She had rarely been anywhere until February 2009, after President Barack Obama read her letter and invited her to sit with first lady Michelle Obama in the U.S. House of Representatives gallery while he gave a speech to a joint session of Congress.
Attending Florida State would give her the diverse student body she wants and the opportunity to “explore” a new place. “I want to step outside of my comfort zone.”
If she does not get a scholarship offer from Florida State but still wants to go there, she’s prepared to do it on her own however she can. “I’ve always worked for what I want,” she said. “I never look at the easy way to get out of things.”
Proud accomplishment
Ty’Sheoma gazed at the entrance of the sleek new Dillon Middle School, just finished in September.
She can still hear the thrill in the voices of excited students when they saw it for the first time. Her 14-year-old sister squealed with delight, “Our school is as big as the high school!”
Ty’Sheoma grins and says, “I feel like what I did really made a difference, I’m very proud of myself for the part I played.”
Obama must get thousands of letters a day, “But he read mine. … It’s overwhelming that I could have helped build something like this.”
Obama had visited J.V. Martin Junior High School, Ty’Sheoma’s former school, during his first presidential campaign. The old school had been featured in the 2005 documentary “Corridor of Shame” about the shabby state of public schools along I-95 through some of the state’s poorest counties.
Obama promised not to forget the school or its students if he became president.
Ty’Sheoma wrote her letter at the urging of then-principal Amanda Burnette, who had told students during an assembly to write Congress requesting help for the school. Burnette did so after Obama mentioned J.V. Martin’s sorry condition in his first presidential news conference.
Ty’Sheoma wrote the letter on a public library computer the evening after her principal had asked, and went to the principal’s office the next day to get help to mail it.
Burnette read the letter and considered correcting the numerous misspellings and grammatical errors. She decided to mail it as it was because it came from the heart, and most of the errors were due to the colloquial English spoken in Ty’Sheoma’s largely poor and black community.
Praise and anger
Nationally, Ty’Sheoma received praise for her effort, but at home many expressed anger. They blamed her because she had helped turn the national spotlight back onto the county’s shabby schools and because the ungrammatical letter reflected poorly on the quality of education.
Mayor J. Todd Davis was among those miffed by the image the publicity reflected. He would rather the attention had focused on hometown hero Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman who grew up in Dillon and attended J.V. Martin. The county even named an I-95 interchange after him.
Most of that backlash has died down, Davis said. Now, the mode is “more positive than anything,” and people express pride in the new school, he said.
Lost in the hoopla, he said, is the fact that county residents are on the hook for most of the federal assistance, which is mostly a loan that must be repaid, mainly with a voter-approved, one-cent sales tax increase.
The new middle school cost about $25 million. The rest of the loan and grant money is going toward improving other school facilities.
Ty’Sheoma remained unfazed by the criticism at the time and dismisses it today as the reaction of people who were ashamed and didn’t want others to see what the schools were like.
“But it was needed to be done, whether or not they wanted it to be known. … We should have been ashamed.” Still, she said, some people continue to believe “it wasn’t all that bad,”
What troubles her the most, she said, is the failure of the state. She is disappointed that the state did next to nothing to help Dillon and has not launched an effort “to help all of the schools.”
Also lost in the hoopla is the continued poor performance of the middle school’s students. The state school report card ranks the students’ performance as “below average.” The district as a whole scored the lowest possible grade, “at risk.”
Motivational hip hop
Still, Ty’Sheoma remains upbeat about Dillon County, its schools and her fellow students.
She was forced to leave Dillon a few months after getting the national attention. Her mother lost her welding job at a local factory and took Ty’Sheoma, two sisters and brother to the Atlanta suburb of Riverdale.
Ty’Sheoma attended high school there for two years, but yearned to return to Dillon and her classmates. She did so for her senior year, staying with an aunt and three cousins.
“I felt like this was where I started, and this was where I wanted to finish,” Ty’Sheoma said.
She believes her fellow students can achieve what they need to if they remain focused and take advantage of what is offered. She believes in the many good teachers and administrators in Dillon County.
She believes so much that she has turned her expressive writing talent to rap music. With the aid of an agent, she cut a CD shortly after starting her senior year at Dillon.
David Godbold, president of Pearl Street Records, the small company promoting the CD, believes Ty’Sheoma has great potential, and he is working with her and other writers and musicians to produce a full CD. He said she also will be the focus of an upcoming segment on Black Entertainment Television.
Ty’Sheoma describes her song as urging kids to stay in school and get an education. “With education, anything is possible.”
While most rap tends toward put-downs and violence, Ty’Sheoma characterizes her first single “Swurve On” as “motivational hip hop. It’s about swerving through life, preparing myself now for better things.”
She grew up in a downtrodden part of Dillon but does not believe that has to dictate a negative outlook. “I came from a bad place, my music doesn’t have to be bad.”
She plans to major in business administration in college and hopes to gain the skill to make a difference “so I can come back and help this area and the children.”
“I do want to go out and explore other areas, but this is the place I really want to help.”
Reach Doug Pardue at 937-5558
Check out The Post and Courier on Sunday to find out which 20 of South Carolina’s 46 counties lost population between 2010 and July 2012, according to the Census. Or go to postandcourier.com Sunday.
Gov. Haley says she believes bringing jobs to rural counties is the best way to improve education and healthcare. She made that comment while in Clarendon County yesterday to announce tat an Indian pharmaceutical plant was going to move there into the old Federal Mogul plant in Summerton across from Scott’s Branch High School.
When Federal Mogul closed a couple years ago, it took several hundred jobs from the struggling community. The new company plans to bring almost 300.
Here’s the press release from the Governor’s office:
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Spirit Pharmaceuticals establishing new facility in Clarendon County
More than $12.2 million investment expected to create 296 new jobs
COLUMBIA, S.C. – Spirit Pharmaceuticals, a maker of generic pharmaceuticals, today announced that it will locate its new facility in Clarendon County. The more than $12.2 million investment is expected to generate 296 new jobs.
“It’s an exciting time for our company. We are pleased to move forward with plans for our new facility in Clarendon County. South Carolina offers us an excellent business climate, a talented workforce and the infrastructure we need to be successful. We appreciate all the support we’ve received from state and local officials,” said Ajoy Joshi, CEO of Spirit Pharmaceuticals.
Spirit Pharmaceuticals will establish a new packaging and manufacturing facility in Summerton. The company produces a range of generic pharmaceuticals for retailers such as Walgreens, Dollar Tree and CVS.
“Spirit Pharmaceuticals’ decision to locate its new operation here in South Carolina is another big win for our state, and one of our rural areas in particular. We celebrate the company’s decision to invest $12.2 million and create 296 new jobs in Summerton. Announcements like this one show that South Carolina is increasingly becoming the ‘it’ state for business,” said Gov. Nikki Haley.
Since 2011, South Carolina has recruited more than 2,000 jobs and more than $400 million in capital investment in the life sciences industry, which includes secondary sectors such as medical and health IT.
“The life sciences industry continues to grow in South Carolina, and today’s announcement by Spirit Pharmaceuticals is another sign of that. Additionally, this investment creates jobs that will have an impact throughout Clarendon County and help keep Summerton and the surrounding communities sustainable,” said Secretary of Commerce Bobby Hitt.
The company will occupy the former Federal Mogul building located at 9104 Alex Harvin Hwy. The new plant is expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2014.
“We welcome Spirit Pharmaceuticals into Clarendon County. This business is significant in several ways. First, it will occupy a landmark building. Most importantly, however, is that Spirit will bring a historical number of jobs and the quality of those jobs is unprecedented. The location of this business has been a team effort and the County Council would like to thank the Clarendon County Development Board and the state of South Carolina for their hard work and diligence,” said Clarendon County Council Chairman Dwight Stewart.
“Today is a historical day for Clarendon County,” said Blake Gibbons, Chairman of the Clarendon County Development Board. Spirit Pharmaceuticals is a tremendous company and their impact here will be felt for many years to come.”
“Today’s announcement by Spirit Pharmaceuticals marks a new day in Clarendon County and the Central SC Region pharmaceutical industry recruiting efforts. We welcome these new jobs that are going into an existing manufacturing facility in Summerton. Global companies that are looking to make an initial investment in the U.S. are fast to understand our value proposition. Spirit joins WNS as the second company from India to locate in Central SC in the last year,” said Central SC Alliance Chairman Jim Apple.
Anyone interested in job opportunities with the company should contact Kunjal Joshi with Spirit Pharmaceuticals at 215-943-4000 or kunjal@spiritpharma.com.
The Coordinating Council for Economic Development approved job development credits.
For more information about Spirit Pharmaceuticals, please visit www.spiritpharma.com.
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Check this link out about the lack of equity in our public schools:
http://missionallendale.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/equality-is-not-equity/
SC Supreme Ct. Justice Kaye Hearn told a Riley Institute conference this weekend that the court’s decision on the 20-year-old case may come soon. The case, she said, “May be finally nearing an end.”
