Mobile Home Sales in Wando, SC

HUGER S.C. (WCSC) - People that live in the Huger-Wando community are voicing their concerns to city leaders about everything from transportation to affordable housing.

Almost 200 people came to a community meeting at Cainhoy Elementary on Thursday. They say they feel overlooked when it comes to decisions regarding their area.

Carl Anderson, S.C. House of Representatives District 103, says he is new to representing the Huger-Wando area and wants their requests to be fulfilled.

“Berkeley County has several pots of money that we just hope would be shared across Berkeley County with every area of Berkeley County, but this area, as they said to me, they feel like they have been overlooked,” Anderson said. “So, I feel like this area needs a little bit more attention than the other areas.”

At the meeting, representatives from Berkeley County, the state’s health department and department of transportation, just to name a few, answered questions from the public.

“The funds that have come in from the federal government during this pandemic and what is going to be done with it,” Anderson said. “And we heard that only a fraction of those funds were spent. So, they want to be included in the funds that the county has so that things can get done in this area.”

Another issue brought up was the repaving of certain roads, the cost of affordable housing and overall severity of sewage and drainage problems.

One community member, Cynthia Lawrence, says she wished that the agencies could have gone into more detail with their answers.

“Well, I think the public is still a little leery about the answers that they received tonight from the agencies that were here,” Lawrence said. “We needed to go a little deeper and it just wasn’t enough time.”

Although the community members say they wish they had more time, other county and school representatives say they can answer more in-depth questions when contacted directly.

The hope is to have another meeting sometime in October, but no date has been set as of now. The organizer’s plans include inviting Berkeley County Water and Sewer so they can solve more of the sewage issues.

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Wando High School’s yearbook, Legend, lived up to its name with the recognition of Best Yearbook in South Carolina by the SC Scholastic Press Association. This marks the second year in a row Wando has claimed this title and the third time overall in the school’s history.

This year’s volume was themed “Something Within Us,” inspired by the trials and challenges Wando students faced being in school throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. Co-editor for the 2022 yearbook, Lily Higgins, said she and her co-editors wanted to produce a yearbook that spotlighted the perseverance of Wando students.

“It’s something within us that took us apart and made us go through all these tribulations and come out better,” Higgins said. “What we have inside is what really strengthens us and brings us through tough times. It’s so much more than what is seen on the surface.”

Millie Rice, another co-editor of the 2022 volume, said last year’s staff was dedicated to making a memorable yearbook for Wando students to enjoy after enduring high school amid a public health crisis.

“A lot of the people had that mindset of if they were able to produce such an amazing thing during [the pandemic] then…we can produce something better because things are normal again,” Rice said. “Each person on staff wanted to make the best book.”

The Legend staff took home 12 individual awards. Wando earned more awards than any other competing yearbook in 2022 and won more first-place awards than any other yearbook in the state won total awards.

Clara Barresi, another co-editor for the award-winning yearbook, was also named a top-10 finalist for Designer of the Year by the National Scholastic Press Association. She is the 10th NSPA individual awards finalist in Legend history, and she has won more design awards than any past yearbook student.

Barresi was a designer on the yearbook staff for two years, and as one of three co-editors, she was heavily involved in the design and look of the yearbook.

“It was a way to have an outlet for my creativity throughout the school day,” Barresi said. “It taught me so much about graphic design and I just loved getting there, taking the theme and putting it into a digital asset and using all the different covers and templates.”

“The hard work of these young men and women continues to make me proud, and they continue to amaze me with their talent,” said Wando English teacher Phillip Caston who serves as the school’s yearbook adviser. “Each year, they strive to be even better than the year before, and being the absolute best in the business is their goal with all they do in producing this yearbook. They don’t just want to record Wando’s history; they want to do it with the finest quality of work.”

The following Legend staff members received SCSPA individual awards:

MOUNT PLEASANT — Wando High School principal Kim Wilson was a man of his word.

When the final seconds ticked off the clock at Robert E. Hayes Field, Wilson made his to midfield to honor a bet he had made with Lucy Beckham principal Anna Dassing.

The losing team’s principal would have to kiss Little Billy the Goat.

The Bengals (2-0) used a suffocating defense and Jack Weil kicked two field goals to lead Lucy Beckham past Wando (0-1), 8-6, in the first varsity football matchup between the two Mount Pleasant schools Friday night before a standing-room-only crowd of nearly 10,000 at District 2 Stadium.

When Wilson laid the big smooch on the Little Billy, the Bengal players, who had gathered to watch, erupted and the celebration was on.

“We’ve had a lot of school spirit all week long as I’m sure Lucy did as well,” Wilson said. “It’s the start of a tradition between Lucy Beckham and Wando and what a great atmosphere tonight. I just wish I didn’t have to kiss the goat.”

The historic significance of the Bengals victory wasn’t lost on Lucy Beckham head coach Jamel Smith, who had served as an assistant coach at Wando for eight years before moving to start the football program three years ago.

“It means a lot to our school, to our kids and our community,” Smith said. “Hopefully we won some fans over in Mount Pleasant. I’m just so proud of the way we hung in there and fought to the very, very end. This is what we’ve been working for since we started the program, to win games like this. Sometimes it’s not always pretty, but if you keep going until the end good things will happen.”

Neither team was able to generate much of an offense.

The Warriors managed just over 200 yards of total offense, while the Bengals had 178 yards of offense.

“The defense was great, that’s the talent I know we’ve got on this defense,” Smith said. “We just have to apply that each and every play.”

Wando grabbed a 6-0 lead on Warriors’ QB Brooks Lemke’s 79-yard TD pass to Kelby Cash on Wando’s first offensive possession.

Lemke was flushed out of the pocket by a strong Bengals rush, but found Cash over the middle of the field. Cash spun, made a tackler miss at the 40-yard line and raced into the end zone untouched for the TD.

It would be the only TD of the game for either team.

“Wando got that early touchdown, but we didn’t panic,” Smith said. “We knew there was a lot of time left in the game, we just had to keep grinding and working.”

The Bengals answered midway through the second quarter when Weil kicked a 25-yard field goal with 7:42 left before halftime.

Lucy Beckham closed to within a point, 6-5, when the Warriors snapped the ball over the head of the punter and out of the end zone for a safety three minutes later.

The Bengals made it eight straight points and took an 8-6 lead on Weil’s 42-yard field goal with 2:27 left before halftime.

Twice the Bengals drove it inside the Warriors’ 20-yard line in the second half only to come away with no points.

The Bengals were stopped inside the 10-yard line on a fourth down play in third quarter and Weil’s had a 27-yard attempt blocked early in the fourth quarter.

The Warriors had one last chance to win the game, driving the ball inside the Bengals’ 40. But a sack and two incomplete passes ended the threat.

The late Bill Noonan was among the first to notice something special about Kevin Brown.

Former Wando High School coach Jimmy Noonan brought his dad in to help coach the Warriors’ running backs in 2014, and the old man couldn’t stop raving about this one young player.

“He’d always talk about Kevin Brown, Kevin Brown, Kevin Brown,” said Jimmy Noonan, now the coach at Georgetown High School. “He said, ‘The kid has something special to him.’

“He was a little small, just an undersized kid at that time. But he just had an innate desire to be successful in the sport.”

That desire, along with some speed and skill, has carried the 5-9, 205-pound Brown a long way since he played middle school football for Moultrie and Laing in Mount Pleasant.

He was named an FCS All-American this season to cap off a stellar career at Incarnate Word, a private school of about 9,300 students in San Antonio, Texas. The Cardinals went 10-3 this season, won the Southland Conference title and advanced to the second round of the FCS playoffs.

A lot of that success was due to the play of Brown, who rushed for 956 yards and 12 touchdowns this season. In six games last spring, he averaged an NCAA-best 10.5 yards per carry, and finished a three-year career with 2,451 yards and 20 TDs in 31 games, averaging a remarkable 6.9 yards per rush.

He can also catch the ball, with 31 receptions for 312 yards and two TDs last season.

“Not enough can be said about what Kevin Brown brings to the table on and off the field,” former Incarnate Word coach Eric Morris said last spring. “He is a phenomenal person, player and teammate.

“He is a threat to take the ball to the house anytime he touches the ball whether it is a handoff or a catch. I’m so proud of the way Kevin comes to work every day.”

That work ethic dates back to at least Brown’s years at Wando, where he played on teams with future South Carolina Gamecocks in quarterback Bailey Hart and receiver OrTre Smith.

“He was always willing to put in whatever time and work was necessary,” said Jimmy Noonan. “He has all of those intangibles, and is special with the football in his hands.

“His senior year, he was everything to us offensively. And honestly, his effectiveness in the backfield enabled us to distribute the football to a young receiver named OrTre Smith. That’s one reason OrTre was so successful, is that folks could not double up on him because of what we had coming out of our backfield.”

Brown ran for almost 1,800 yards and 20 touchdowns his senior season, averaging 8.9 yards per carry. Noonan said some questioned why he took Brown to the Shrine Bowl that season, but Brown led all running backs in rushing yardage in the all-star game that features top seniors from North and South Carolina.

When it came to college recruiting, Brown admits he did not have the grades at the time to sign with a Division I program. He went instead to Highland Community College in Kansas.

“It was my grades,” he said. “I didn’t understand how they looked at grades, and that kind of messed me up when it was time for recruiting.”

But Brown earned his degree from Highland and played well enough — with 857 rushing yards and 10 TDs in his second season — to earn an offer from Incarnate Word.

“There were some ups and downs,” he said. “It was definitely a struggle. JUCO is a different breed, especially where I was at. Highland is in the middle of nowhere — 30 minutes to the nearest city, 15 minutes to the nearest McDonald’s and Walmart.

“There’s nothing but cattle and cornfields, and it’s cold. But the players and people there made it fun.”

At Incarnate Word, Brown proved himself as one of the top running backs in FCS. But he says he’s not done.

In December, he announced on Twitter that he was declaring himself eligible for the NFL Draft.

“I wouldn’t be the man I am today without hurdling through every challenge presented to me and learning every day I stepped on the field,” he said.

The NFL odds might be against a 5-9 running back, but Kevin Brown is used to that.

“I think he’s got a chance,” Jimmy Noonan said. “The thing he needed to do was prove he could run between the tackles and be physical and durable enough to last, and he’s done that.

“His speed checks off, his hands check off and being able to throw to him out of the backfield. I think he can be that scat back folks are looking for.”

With Lucy Beckham High School set to open in Mount Pleasant in the fall of 2020, parents are running out of time to voice their opinions about some tough attendance map decisions.

The District 2 Constituent School Board, an elected body serving Mount Pleasant public schools, is planning one more parent input session at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Moultrie Middle cafeteria. As early as June, the board is expected to vote for a new attendance map that defines which neighborhoods are zoned for Beckham and which will stay at the massive Wando High.

With 12 possible attendance maps up for consideration, only one thing is certain: The rezoning will break up the largest high school in the state.

Wando was built for 3,445 students but now has an enrollment of about 4,000, forcing some classrooms into trailers on the northern Mount Pleasant campus.

Beckham, which is under construction on Mathis Ferry Road in southern Mount Pleasant, is situated closer to the center of dense residential development but will contain far fewer students. The $103.7 million, three-story building will only have 1,500 seats available when it opens.

The size imbalance of the two schools is creating some logistical headaches.

One common complaint of parents has been they want their children to go to the school closest to home. But according to Sarah Shad Johnson, chairwoman of the constituent board, that won’t be possible in some cases.

“While a whole lot of people live closer to Beckham than Wando, it would be impossible to zone everyone who lives closest to a high school to go to it. That’s probably the most difficult part,” Johnson said.

The constituent board had pressed the Charleston County School District to build Beckham with a capacity of 2,000. After initially announcing plans to build with a capacity of 1,200, the district school board revised its plans and approved a building project for 1,500 students in August 2016.

Some students who have attended class with their neighbors since kindergarten may have to split up when they get to high school. For example, students living on Sullivan’s Island and Isle of Palms all currently attend Sullivan’s Island Elementary and Moultrie Middle together. But some of the proposed maps involve splitting the islands up to attend different high schools.

“That’s another area of contention. The island kids have always been together,” said Constituent Board Vice Chairwoman Marty Belk.

Despite the wide disparity in sizes, Wando and Beckham may both be too large to optimally serve students, according to some researchers.

While most high school students in America attend high schools with enrollment of 1,000 or higher, one widely cited 2007 University of Michigan study found that the ideal high school size is between 600 and 900 students.

The U.S. Department of Education concurred, writing on its website in 2009 that high schools with 900 or fewer students “likely improve the climate and conditions for student success, especially teacher sense of self-efficacy and appropriate sense of responsibility for student learning, when accompanied by high expectations, standards and supporting strategies.”

The District 2 constituent school board has 12 proposed maps listed on its website. Although a parent input meeting Wednesday night focused on just two options, B-1 and C-2, Belk and Johnson both stressed that all 12 options are still on the table.

The board could make a school zoning decision as early as June and as late as the fall of 2019, according to Johnson.