Mobile Home Sales in New Zion, SC

JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) - The Charleston County School District is holding two community input meetings to update Johns Island residents on plans for a new school on Johns Island.

The first meeting is from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday at Mt. Zion Elementary. The second meeting is schedule for the same times Thursday at Angel Oak Elementary.

Charleston County School District COO Jeff Borowy says the main topic of the presentation and discussion will be the location of a new school.

Borowy says the referendum for a new Johns Island elementary school was passed by Charleston County tax payers in November of last year. He says they have not determined a location for the new school yet, but hope to have it identified by the end of this year.

Johns Island community input will be considered in the board of trustee’s final decision and Borowy says Angel Oak Elementary and Mt. Zion Elementary families will be impacted by rezoning when the new school comes. That’s why Borowy says these families’ feedback is so important.

Borowy says there are overcrowding issues at both Mt. Zion and Angel Oak. He says at Angel Oak, they’ve had to bring in eight trailer classrooms.

“Parents have to say, ‘hey look, as an example, you know, I’m zoned to Angel Oak. Is there an opportunity for me to be zoned to this new school?’ You know, or I would rather stay in the zone of Angel Oak?” Borowy said. “They’ll have an opportunity to provide that input as well as look at what the potential impact would be on commuting distances, how that might positively help them, or they might want to stay where they’re at.”

Borowy expects about 600 students will move to the new Johns Island elementary school when it opens in a few years.

“There’s nothing as satisfying as being at school on the first day when we open a new building,” Borowy said. “To see kids have a bigger classroom, see kids have brand new everything. Both them and the teachers in that school, it’s just a refreshing feeling, it’s a recharge for everybody, and it really makes a huge difference in attitudes and desire to be in school when you’ve got something like that.”

Borowy says a video of the meeting will be uploaded online, and parents can email questions as well. He plans to post all comments on the school district website after the meetings.

Copyright 2021 WCSC. All rights reserved.

LAKE CITY, S.C. -- Eight-year-old Olivia McConnell, from New Zion, S.C., is so passionate about science, she can be found searching for -- and finding -- shark's teeth in the playground sand during recess.

Asked why she spends her recess looking for shark's teeth, Olivia replies, "Well, I like fossils."

Her love of fossils led her to discover that South Carolina has no official state fossil. She knew one of the first fossils found in North America, from an ancient kind of woolly mammoth, was dug up in South Carolina, so she wrote to Gov. Nikki Haley and other state lawmakers to lay out the case.

"I wanted it to be the state fossil because I didn't want that history to be lost, and our state to not get credit for it," Olivia says. "If something's wrong I've got to help out. It's just the right thing to do. That's what I'm all about."

At the state Capitol, Olivia's letter went to her senator, Kevin Johnson, who thought a state fossil was a great idea.

"I thought it would just fly through the House and through the Senate, and we'd have the governor pass it with no problem," Johnson says.

But then, big problem: Several highly religious senators stalled the bill by attaching whole passages from the Bible's Book of Genesis. The senators, including Mike Fair, said the Creator of the mammoth should be recognized, as well.

"There had to be a cause to the beginning," Fair says. "It didn't happen accidentally."

But now, Fair admits he did not understand who he was dealing with. Olivia and her family pushed back hard. They also believe in the Bible, but they don't want religion attached to a fossil law. Fair and the others were motivated to compromise.

"The fact that an 8-year-old was doing this was remarkable and something we should celebrate," Fair says.

Right now, the bill remains stalled in committee, but Olivia will not budge -- ever. She says she'll "keep going until they pass the bill."

"Maybe it might not be until I'm 23 or 40," Olivia says. "If it doesn't pass this year, I'm going to be back next year."

In the meantime, they can find Olivia on the playground, digging up history -- not yet realizing how a third-grade girl facing down the state Senate might have made some history of her own.

Wyatt Andrews

Wyatt Andrews is a CBS News National Correspondent based in Washington D.C. He is responsible for tracking trends in politics, health care, energy, the environment and foreign affairs.

Striped Bass Festival returns on April 29

CLARENDON COUNTY - The Clarendon County Chamber of Commerce is asking for folks to "save the date" for the 2022 Striped Bass Festival scheduled to be held April 29-30.

More information on events will be available from the chamber; call (803) 435-4405 for additional information.

New Zion's Palmetto Pickle Festival

NEW ZION - The Palmetto Pickle Festival will be held April 30 at 7301 Salem Road, New Zion beginning at 5 p.m.

Doors open at 2 p.m. Appearing will be Andrew Beam, followed by Olanta Band, Nick Norman, Cody Wells and the Lewis Brice Band will complete the night of music.

Chairs and blankets are welcome.

Get your tickets at picklefestival.ticketleap.com

Levi Pearson Scholarship Foundation accepting applications

The Levi Pearson Scholarship Foundation is now accepting scholarship applications for rising seniors of Clarendon, Sumter, Lee or Williamsburg counties. Applications can be obtained at https://bit.ly/37PrAg4. All submitted information must be postmarked by April 28.

Eligibility requirements are:

- Must be a resident of Clarendon, Sumter, Lee or Williamsburg County;

- Must be a (junior) rising senior in good standing;

- Must have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or above;

- Must have applied or considered at least three colleges or universities; and

- Be an active member of a Christian-based congregation.

Completed application must be returned to:

The Levi Pearson Scholarship Committee, PO Box 2194, Sumter, SC 29151. For additional information, email LPSF2194@gmail.com.

Vintage Camera Fair set for June 25

Vintage Camera Fair indoor/outdoor event will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 25, at the center located at 4 Main St., Summerton.

The event will offer a unique opportunity for collectors, professional and amateur vintage gear addicts, as well as area residents, to showcase their antique and vintage cameras, lenses, collectibles, film stocks, retro cameras, paper and images.

Vendors must register before June 1.

For more information or directions to 4 MAIN, call the Town of Summerton at (803) 485-2525 or contact Cedric Liqueur, event coordinator, at cedricliq@aol.com.

JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCIV) — All signs are pointing towards a new elementary school coming to Johns Island very soon.

On Monday night, the Charleston County School District Board of Trustees will finalize plans for the school.

As of right now, the district’s plan is to build the new elementary school near the intersection of Brownswood Road and River Road.

CCSD board could finalize plans for new Johns Island elementary school Monday. (WCIV)

Some of the items up for discussion tonight include possible changes to attendance lines, the future use of Mt. Zion Elementary School, and any possible traffic concerns.

The latter being one of the biggest items of discussion as the new school is expected to bring over 200 more cars to River Road per day and extend the current parent commute at Mt. Zion over eight miles.

But district officials said they believe new traffic modifications will help to ease residents’ concerns.

“Members of the community are very, very happy about getting this new school. They're more concerned about student achievement than distances,” CCSD District 9 Board Representative Dr. Helen Frazier said.

Details of the proposals were initially approved by the board on September 12 in a 7-1 vote. Those traffic concerns are expected to be addressed by extra roundabouts on River Road, among other traffic modifications.

“How do we make sure that traffic is not an issue with the location of the new school. And that study has been done and roundabouts have been put in place to try to offset that,” CCSD board chair Rev. Dr. Eric Mack said.

The district also held two community interests meeting over the month of September to residents of Johns Island, specifically, those who have children currently going to Mt. Zion and Angel Oak elementary schools-– which will be the two schools most affected.

Right now, the Swygert's Landing area, where the school will be built, falls under District 9.

Those students currently go to Mt. Zion Elementary School, but Mt. Zion could be out of commission once this new school is built.

If this happens, students from Head Start to first grade would attend Angel Oak elementary, while second through fifth grade would be at the new school. In this proposal, Mt. Zion Elementary School would be converted to a community center.

Members of the board say the biggest benefit to this plan is its impact on attendance lines, or lack thereof, as the new system would effectively take over mt. zion’s attendance lines

“By combining the two schools, we're in a situation where we don't have to draw lines, we don't have to rezone. If one school gets larger or smaller, we're in really good shape by going this route,” said Chief Operating Officer for CCSD Jeff Borowy.

The new elementary school would accommodate 700 students, however in community interest meetings there was also interest to keep Mt. Zion Elementary School open.

If the proposal is approved tonight, the elementary school is expected to be up and running by the 2024 -2025 school year with construction starting in 2023.

The official vote on this proposal will take place at the Board of Trustees meeting tonight at 4:15 p.m. at CCSD headquarters on Calhoun Street.

The school will be funded by the one-cent sales tax in the county with a budget of $4.1 million.

Fire crews in South Carolina are battling a fire at a predominantly black church, the latest in a spate of blazes in the wake of the shooting of nine black churchgoers in Charleston two weeks ago.

No injuries have been reported in the fire at Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Greeleyville, about 65 miles (104km) from Charleston, and Clarendon County fire department said its officers had brought the blaze under control.

The cause of the fire is not yet known, and there have been reports of storms and lightning in the area earlier in the evening.

But since a young white man shot nine black people in the Emanuel AME church on 17 June, at least six predominantly African American churches in the south have been set ablaze. The fire at Mount Zion brings that tally to at least seven.

Mark Keel, chief of South Carolina law enforcement division, said investigators would be on the scene first thing Wednesday morning.

“We do know they apparently had some strong storms,” Keel said. “Talked to a guy who said they had a lot of lightning down there tonight. I don’t know whether that had anything to do with it at all.”

South Carolina newspaper the Post and Courier reported that Mount Zion AME was burned to the ground in a Ku Klux Klan attack in 1995. Two KKK members pleaded guilty to starting the fire, as well as a second at another predominantly black church. They were each sentenced to nearly two decades in prison.

President Bill Clinton spoke at Mount Zion AME in 1996, telling churchgoers: “Our hearts must be purged of any temptation to go back to those times of division that cost us so dearly, especially here in the southern part of our country.”

Williamsburg County councilman Eddie Woods Jr. said of Tuesday night’s blaze: “That was a tough thing to see … It is hurting those people again.

“But we’re going to rebuild. If this was someone, they need to know that hate won’t stop us again.”

Other southern churches to have been hit in the last two weeks include:

The Greater Miracle Apostolic Holiness Church in Tallahassee, Florida, also burned to the ground last week, but fire officials said the cause was thought to have been an electrical fault.

Another fire, at Fruitland Presbyterian Church in Gibson County, Tennessee, on 24 June, may have been caused by a lightning strike, but an investigation is ongoing.

Tuesday evening also saw the last of the services for the nine victims of the Charleston shooting, as tributes were paid to longtime pastor Daniel L Simmons Sr.

The three-hour service for Simmons drew a large crowd to Greater St Luke AME Church in Charleston.