Mobile Home Sales in Little River, SC

Three times a week, Suzie Katuscak goes to the gym to ride a recumbent bike and do strength training. She does this all as a sprightly 68-year-old.

Katuscak joined Push Pull gym about six months after having a stroke.

“I’d had physical training at the hospital. But I needed more, that was obvious,” she said.

When Katuscak started, she had trouble stepping between exercise machines. In the six months since joining the gym, Katuscak has regained muscle in her affected arm.

Push Pull Resistance Training for Seniors opened in July in Little River, off of Highway 17 by the Food Lion.

“It’s about functional strength, you know, making yourself stronger so you can stay independent,” said co-owner Greg Hoffman, one half of a husband-wife pair who own the gym.

Moving from Columbus, Ohio, the 63 year olds felt like “just a couple of kids here.” They noticed the Myrtle Beach area lacked a workout space for the large community of retirees. With Greg Hoffman’s experience in the exercise industry — he ran a gym in the 1980’s — the pair left semi-retirement to open Push Pull.

Push Pull members, ranging from age 61 to 87, do pre-planned 30 to 45 minute long workouts designed to build muscle. Greg Hoffman estimated that up to 90% of their clients are new to fitness. On a recent Friday morning, members exercised in jeans and sweatshirts to the tune of “Sweet Caroline.”

Members generally come at the same time each week and get to know their fellow gym-goers. Co-owner Brenda Hoffman keeps records of each member and sends text messages after each workout so seniors can track their progress.

“When somebody who never thought they could move anything is all of a sudden moving 5,200 pounds, it feels good,” Brenda Hoffman said.

Cindy Jackson is one of those people. Before she joined Push Pull in July, “I was so weak,” remembered 63-year-old Jackson. After months of consistent work on the air resistance equipment, the Loris resident can complete household tasks without stopping to rest.

“I bless the day that I came here,” Jackson said, “because they’ve helped me strengthen my muscles.”

At the grocery store recently, someone offered to move Jackson’s case of water bottles to the car for her.

“I said ‘not today.’ I lifted that water in that trunk. And for the first time I was able to tote that whole case in the house without having to break the water down,” Jackson said.

Location: 1699 Highway 17, Suite 101, Little River

Hours: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, by appointment only. Closed Sunday.

Month-long membership: $59 for individuals, $108 for couples.

The Cooper River in South Carolina is not for the faint-hearted scuba diver. Prehistoric treasures stud the riverbeds below alligators and other wild creatures in this ecologically rich area where the river meets ocean water and the tannins from decaying vegetation turn the water black.

But it is a favorite destination of Josh and Jennifer Dillaman of Freeport who, last year, found a relatively intact dire wolf jawbone, which is on display at their business, Scott’s Scuba Service in Freeport.

The extinct pack predator experienced a surge of popularity as they were very much alive in the HBO medieval fantasy series “Game of Thrones.”

Dire wolves, about 50% larger than modern-day wolves, lived 1.8 million to 10,000 years ago, during the Ice Age, according to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The Carnegie’s collection includes a re-creation of the extinct wolf.

The Dillamans’ dire wolf find and other discoveries, including an Ice Age spear tip from 7,000 B.C. and many megalodon shark teeth, have inspired the couple to offer a popular fossil diving class in the Cooper River to hunt for prehistoric treasures. The course, which includes preparation classes in the region, is in its second year and is scheduled again for May. The couple, who secure a permit from the state to collect the Cooper River fossils, visits the river six to seven times a year.

The Cooper River is where divers hunt for the fist-size teeth of prehistoric megalodon sharks, which measured up to 60 feet in length. The colossal predators swam the seas from about 17 million years ago until almost 3 million years ago, according to National Geographic.

Jennifer Dillaman’s fascination is palpable when she recalls her prehistoric finds in the Cooper, a tidal river with a gravel bed rich with fossils. The current regularly carves out the river bank, releasing fossils into the gravel-lined riverbeds. The river cuts through millions of years of fossil beds where prehistoric sharks fed and shed teeth, she said.

The current is so strong that Dillaman and other divers have to lodge a pick into the river bottom to stay in place. Then there’s the dark water that only allows divers to search in small sections with powerful lights.

“The darkness is a mental game,” Dillaman said. “You have to get yourself to go down where you don’t see anything. You can’t even see the tips of your fins.”

The other challenge is dealing with the critters, including alligators, stingrays, freshwater eels, crabs, giant catfish and gar.

“You have to pay attention to where you are at,” Dillaman said. “Alligators are surface predators, so you don’t want to stay on the surface. You want to be under the water.”

Last year, while scanning a small patch of the river bottom, Dillaman spotted an irregularly shaped object. She plucked it from the river bottom and shook off the gravel.

“I saw all these teeth and got very excited,” she said. “You can find single teeth, but finding a jawbone is rare. I made lots of excited noises underwater.”

Dave Cicimurri, curator of natural history for the South Carolina State Museum, confirmed Dillaman’s find in February 2022. He noted in his letter to Dillaman that the jawbone is complete and it is a great find. He also asked if he could take a cast of it.

John Wible, the curator of mammals and a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, said, after viewing Dillaman’s photos, that her dire wolf jaw is “so thick and robust, it shows how powerful this animal was.”

Wible could detect the size of the wolf’s muscles by the shape of the jawbone. Given the power, strength and legend of the dire wolf, it’s not a surprise that the public’s interest was stoked by the “Games of Thrones” series, he said.

“There are quite a few dire wolf specimens at museums around the country,” he said.

The dire wolf is known mostly in North America with a few specimens found in China, he said. The wolf’s Western subspecies is named after a former Carnegie curator, John Guilday. A subspecies is a population that is different enough for special identification. The Western dire wolf is a little smaller in stature with smaller teeth than its Eastern counterpart, Wible said.

He speculates the dire wolf’s behavior would have been similar to modern wolves. It is in the dog family but more robust than the modern wolf, he said. “For humans, they would have been something to fear.”

The Carnegie, as well as other institutions, secured their wolf casts and re-creations from bones excavated from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, which is home to mammoths, mastodons and other prehistoric creatures.

The Carnegie also has dire wolf parts taken from the Frankstown cave in Blair County, which offered a trove of fossils from about 250,000 years ago to 5,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch, Wible said. Fossils from the cave first were collected during a Carnegie expedition in 1907.

The Pleistocene was interesting because giant mammals, or megafauna, roamed the earth, including dire wolves, giant lions and saber-toothed cats, Wible said.

“At some point, humans came on the scene at the end of the Pleistocene,” he said. “The megafauna started to go extinct, and we are not sure why.”

Mary Ann Thomas is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Mary by email at mthomas@triblive.com or via Twitter .

Categories: Editor's Picks | Local | Valley News Dispatch

HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WPDE) — Roughly 50 neighbors took their seats Thursday evening with a green awareness ribbon on their lapels. It's a sign of solidarity for a cause that's grown quite large within a subdivision along Highway 17 in Little River wedged between a golf course and a county memorial garden.

The Evergreen Heights Homeowner's Association sent dozens to the Thursday night Horry County Planning Commission meeting to oppose a request by Little River Medical Center to build a parking lot.

The contentious issue is not necessarily the Medical Center's work or staff, but the request to take a piece of land that is meant to have a home built on it and turn that into a roughly 60-space lot for employee parking.

"Even if the intentions are good today, the future use of that property cannot be known. Please consider the worst possible use and guard against that tonight," said Evergreen resident John Natale.

The request by Diamond Shores LLC would turn the lot from a single-family residential lot to RE3 which supports a variety of builds, but developers say was the least intrusive option for the parking lot. Fencing, limited lighting, and gating off the lot so that it is not used all day and night were some contentions the medical center said it made to meet the concerns of nearby neighbors.

One of those includes the St. Stephen's Episcopal Church which owns a home for the pastor's family right next to the lot that could go from trees to a parking lot.

"It fails the common sense test reflecting poor long-term planning and it fails the fairness test being a betrayal and previous planning commission actions to which we residents of Evergreen Heights relied on," said congregation member Henry Saunders.

NEW: Commissioners issue disapproval for hundreds of homes proposed outside of Loris

County staff said the additional 62 lots that would come with the rezoning still do not meet what current county codes require of a medical facility. Because of that and the only other factor for relief would be to build a parking lot further down Highway 179 and bus staff to the medical center, staff suggested that commissioners approve the rezoning.

"We've maximized all that we're going to do there, so the parking now is to solve the situation in parking we have today," said LRMC CEO and RN Pamela Davis.

Commissioners voted 5-3 to send the request on to the county council suggesting leaders approved the rezoning request.

If you’re a bon vivant on a quest to excite your taste buds or on a mission to create memories with family and friends, you’re going to want to note these Myrtle Beach food festivals on your calendar.

And bonus: The Myrtle Beach area keeps the food festivals going year-round.

“Our mission is to bring tourism into the area during the shoulder seasons, that’s why our festivals are in May and in October,” says Jennifer Walters, president and CEO of the Little River Chamber of Commerce. Her team is responsible for organizing Little River’s World Famous Blue Crab Festival and Little River ShrimpFest, events that draw in crowds upwards of 35,000 people each year, about half of which are visitors to the small town north of Myrtle Beach.

These food festivals celebrate culinary professionals, bring the community together and are a huge draw for tourism, especially in the smaller towns of the Grand Strand.

Many of these events are also part of people’s family traditions. “[Many of] us that came as kids with our parents and grandparents are now parents and grandparents bringing our children and grandchildren,” Walters says.

Here’s a look at some of the most popular festivals along the Grand Strand:

For one weekend in the spring, over 60 food trucks from around the country converge on Myrtle Beach to dish out delightful bites.

“We’re just trying to bring food to everybody and give them a fun atmosphere to hang out,” says Henry Bresadola, an event manager with NS Promotions and Events.

Along with unique food truck dishes, the Myrtle Beach Food Truck Festival will have local bands, arts and craft vendors as well as beer from Wicked Weed Brewing Co. Roughly 20,000 guests went to last year’s festival, but considering the event has more space and more food trucks than in past years, Bresadola thinks 2023 will be even bigger.

“It’s right around spring break time, so I imagine it’ll be busy,” he says.

Dates: March 31 - April 2, 2023

Price: Admission is free; food from vendors is an additional cost.

Website: www.nspromos.com/mbfoodtruckfest

For over 40 years, Little River has celebrated its history as a fishing town with two shellfish-centric festivals: The first one being the World Famous Blue Crab Festival that takes place the weekend after Mother’s Day.

“We have over 250 vendors,” says Jennifer Walters, president and CEO of the Little River Chamber of Commerce. “And they do mix between arts and crafts, community organizations, local businesses, and sponsors, of course.”

Not only is it the biggest festival in Little River, it’s one of the biggest in the Grand Strand, bringing in around 35,000 attendees. Because it’s such a popular event, Walters advises that if you want to eat some local blue crab (crab cakes, crab soup and crab gumbo are among the most popular dishes at the festival), you’re going to have to do it early in your visit.

“Pretty much every year we run out,” she says. “It’s a very high demand item.”

Parking is also tricky at this event, but Walters has a fun solution. “We work with the Myrtle Beach Watersports with their Sea Screamer and Sea Thunder Dolphin cruise boats. People park at harbor gate and take the boat to the festival, which is a really cool option,” she says.

Dates: May 20 - May 21, 2023

Price: $5 per person; free for children 12 and under

Website: www.bluecrabfestival.org

The Beach ‘n Chili Fest is not an average chili festival. It is the official International Chili Society World Championship Chili Cook-Off.

About 200 teams of professional “chiliheads” come to Myrtle Beach to see who has the best chili. That’s a whole lot of chili, which is why it takes upwards of 150 judges to eat and rank the competition.

If you love chili and have purchased a ticket to taste these competition-style chilis, Mike McCloud, president of the International Chili Society, has some advice: “This is a very flavor-forward environment. Typically, what professional chili competitors do is make their chili very flavorful and sometimes spicy. So that first bite really packs a punch.”

Aspiring “chiliheads” can even learn how to become a professional chili judge during a class held the Thursday before the event. Successful completion of the course means they can be seated as a judge during the chili competition.

“Chili America’s dish,” McCloud says. “It’s one of those things that can be modified in any number of ways whether you want to add sour cream, or cheese or hot peppers or cornbread. There is no wrong way to make a great bowl of chili. We just happen to have 200 professional teams who think they do it the best way.”

Dates: Sept. 29 - Oct. 1, 2023

Price: Gate admission is free, but tasting will be an additional cost.

Website: www.eatgreatchili.com

The slightly smaller but still mighty ShrimpFest is another Little River classic.

Following the same blueprint as the World Famous Blue Crab Festival, ShrimpFest celebrates shrimp with food, arts and crafts vendors and live music. “We’re all about the shellfish,” Walters says. “We have a direct pathway out to the ocean for the shrimp boats.”

Little River’s festivals are in a distinct setting. Unlike other festivals that may take place in convention centers or fairgrounds, ShrimpFest and the World Famous Blue Crab Festival take place right in the heart of town.

“We actually close down the streets on the Little River waterfront,” Walters explains. “We close them off to vehicular traffic, and the streets are just lined with vendors.”

Dates: Oct. 7 - Oct. 8, 2023

Price: $5 per person; free for children 12 and under

Website: www.littlerivershrimpfest.org

If there’s one dish that defines Loris, it would be chicken bog.

The aromatic chicken, sausage and rice dish hits the spot with its comforting, starchy texture and satiating spices. Starting in 1980, the Loris Bog-Off is now one of the oldest food festivals in the Grand Strand and brings in around 35,000 attendees. For locals and visitors, it’s a fun way to celebrate this Pee Dee delicacy. The festival features about 200 vendors, live music, a beauty pageant and a whole lot of chicken bog.

Dates: Oct. 21, 2023

Price: Free

Website: www.facebook.com/events/1149024519324048

This story was originally published January 31, 2023, 6:00 AM.

LITTLE RIVER — Little River is now home to a one-stop shop for northern Horry County farmers and rural life enthusiasts.

Tractor Supply Co. recently opened in the North Strand Commons shopping center located near the intersection of S.C. 57 and S.C. 9 in Little River. It is the third Horry County location for the national retailer, with other spots in Conway along U.S. 501 and in the Myrtle Beach area off of S.C. 707.

Products featured in the store include workwear and boots, tractor and trailer parts and accessories, lawn and garden supplies, sprinkler and irrigation parts, power tools, fencing, welding supplies, riding mowers, and equine and pet supplies.

A Food Lion is currently under construction next door joining Take 5 Oil Change that recently opened. Additionally, a Popeyes restaurant and a Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers are planned for the complex, which sits behind existing businesses Dunkin’ and CVS.

Murrells Inlet business to move

Owners of a popular Murrells Inlet ice cream shop, located across the street from the MarshWalk, recently announced plans to move to a new location after its lease was not renewed.

Twisters Soft Serve has operated for 13 years beside the Lazy Gator, but the gift shop’s owners informed the business owners of other plans for the location, according to a recent Facebook post.

The stand, with picnic tables for outdoor seating, features soft service ice cream, specialty sundaes, shakes, malts, tornados and drinks.

“We will be opening soon just in the process of solidifying a location,” the owners said on social media. “You made us who we are, and your support has made us one of the top ice cream destinations in the state of South Carolina.

“To both our local friends, and those who have come back to us year after year when on vacation we thank you and hope you will continue to follow us as we seek our new home.”

NMB dessert spot

A bakery opened last month inside the Under the Sun flea market located off of U.S. 17 in North Myrtle Beach which offers both delivery and pickup options.

Rollover Bakery’s made-from-scratch menu features cocoa-bombs and pumpkin rolls, pecan pralines, pies, custom cakes as well as their signature cinnamon rolls.

The owners said locations for deliveries include Conway, Little River, Longs, Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach and Calabash, N.C.