Mobile Home Sales in Wando, SC

Thirteen athletes from across eight sports signed their letters of intent to play at the collegiate level at a signing day ceremony at Wando High School on April 26.

The Class of 2023 students will be attending universities in and outside of South Carolina. Six athletes signed to Division I schools.

“There certainly has been a lot of hard work by these young student athletes,” said Wando Athletic Director Mark Buchman. “This is certainly a very exciting time. To have an opportunity to move to the next level, not many athletes get that chance.”

With the click of a pen and the situating of a branded cap on the head, the student athletes committed to their schools. Several of those athletes earned a double shout-out from the coaches who took turns at the podium highlighting their players. A handful of the athletes found the time to excel in not just one, but two sports during their high school careers.

“We’re talking about kids that go 365, 24/7 and that’s really rare to find these days,” said Wando Volleyball Coach Alexis Glover.

Girls basketball forward Taylor Brown signed with Division III school the University of Lynchburg.

Boys cross country runners Brendan Gomez and Tanner Jelliff signed with the University of Tennessee and Charleston Southern University, respectively. Both are Division I schools. Gomez and Jelliff also run on Wando’s track and field team.

Two more track and field runners signed with Division I schools. Hannah Togami is heading to the University of South Carolina and Jack Scott to the Citadel. Scott also played as a defensive back on the football team.

Running back AJ Gathers signed to play football for Brevard College in North Carolina. Gathers served as a team captain in his senior year.

For volleyball, setter Reece Campbell is heading to Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Opposite hitter Emma Sanders signed with Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts. Togami also played on the volleyball team as an outside hitter.

Wrestler Pierce Carpenter-Kydd will be joining Scott among the ranks of the Citadel cadets, though he signed with the Bulldogs wrestling team. Fellow wrestler Jacob Pelbath signed with Liberty University.

Boys soccer player Johnathan Coleman signed to Division II school Anderson University. His teammate Stokes McConnell signed with The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Girls soccer midfielder Lennon Leithauser signed with The City College of New York.

“We, as an athletic partner, are extremely proud of you and I’m sure your parents, all the supporters that are in the crowd, your friends, family members are super proud,” said girls soccer coach Shannon Champ.

MOUNT PLEASANT — The town and Mount Pleasant Waterworks argue that a lawsuit challenging their longstanding annex-for-sewer rule, filed by the owners of a 185-acre property on the Wando River off S.C. Highway 41, should be dismissed.

It’s the same property, the Republic Tract, that Mount Pleasant unsuccessfully sought to buy in 2022 for $20.8 million. The owners have claimed that a $41 million sale of the property fell through the same year because of a requirement that properties must ask to join the town in order to get sewer service.

If the undeveloped property were annexed into Mount Pleasant it would be subject to “significant development restrictions,” the owners noted in a lawsuit filed earlier this year. That would include the town’s zoning regulations, an ongoing moratorium on multi-family developments, limits on annual building permits and hefty impact fees.

Control of access to the sewer infrastructure operated by Mount Pleasant Waterworks has been one way Mount Pleasant has long regulated development.

“Plaintiffs prefer to stay in unincorporated Charleston County and develop the property under Charleston County’s regulations,” states the lawsuit, which relies in part on a 1989 merger agreement between Mount Pleasant Waterworks and the Bulls Bay Rural Community Water District.

The town and Mount Pleasant Waterworks both seek to have the lawsuit dismissed. In separate responses to the suit, they say the property owners don’t have a claim and were not a party to the merger agreement.

Lawyer Gray Culbreath, who filed MPW’s response, wrote that the merger agreement is no longer in effect, and if it was, the Republic Tract owners were not intended beneficiaries.

The legal back-and-forth is still in early stages; the complaint was filed, and answered.

If the town and MPW are successful, that would preserve the status quo. If the Republic Tract owners succeed, they could potentially sell the land to an owner who could develop it regardless of Mount Pleasant’s rules because it could remain outside the town limits.

Town Manager Eric DeMoura has estimated that, under county zoning rules, 1,600 homes could be built on the property.

“A large-scale development would damage quality of life for nearby residents and would further overstress (S.C. Highway) 41,” he said when the lawsuit was initially filed.

The property sits on the south side of S.C. Highway 41 just before the Wando River bridge. It’s a road where Charleston County plans to spend $185 million to improve traffic, much of which comes from the large subdivisions built on both sides of the road in Mount Pleasant.

The property was once the site of a river barge terminal, and a large concrete dock still exists there. It’s known as the Republic Tract because it was owned by Republic Contracting, and it’s currently owned by five children of company President James Deierlein.

They are the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed earlier this year in Charleston Circuit Court. Their lawyer, Ross Appel, said he was not authorized to comment.

The lawsuit claims the 1989 merger of MPW and the Bulls Bay Rural Community Water District prohibited the utility from requiring annexation in order to get service for properties that were in the Bulls Bay service area, as was the Republic tract. The town and MPW say the merger deal expired years ago.

The suit also cites a 2019 Charleston County ordinance prohibiting municipalities from requiring annexation in order to get sewer service that would otherwise be available — an ordinance aimed at helping residents of historic Black settlement communities who didn’t want to be annex into the town.

Mount Pleasant in 2022 changed its rules to allow sewer service without annexation, but only for existing residences.

Mount Pleasant Waterworks says the county ordinance can’t be enforced against the utility, and cites a state Attorney General’s Office opinion from 2020.

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When it was too hot or cold to play outside, young Kaleb Jenness would grab a volleyball and his sister for a game of pepper in the front hall. If the two younger siblings also wanted to play, the four kids would blow up a balloon, shove a couple of chairs to the middle of the floor and stage a game of “balloon volleyball.”

“Anything to play volleyball,” said Kaleb’s mom, Lisa.

It’s a long way from balloon volleyball in the foyer to starting as a freshman for a ranked NCAA Division I men’s team — especially for a kid from South Carolina, where boys’ volleyball is not a high school sport and barely exists in the recruiting plans of Division I programs.

But that’s exactly where Kaleb Jenness’ love of the sport has taken him. The 6-foot-6 graduate of Wando High School is the first Division I men’s volleyball player from the state, starting for 11th-ranked Ball State and leading the Cardinals in kills and points scored so far this season.

In a 3-1 upset of No. 12 Ohio State last weekend, Jenness had 12 kills and scored 13.5 points in the four-set match, second on the team in both categories. He even spiked the ball off the head of a hapless Buckeye.

“Kaleb is doing a really good job for us, certainly beyond what a typical freshman does for our program,” said Ball State coach Joel Walton. “And his story is so unique, because of where he’s from. We really don’t see a whole lot of boys’ volleyball in the southeast United States, and to get a kid who comes in like he has is very unusual.”

Team manager

Jenness’ love of volleyball comes naturally. His mom and aunt were both standouts at Wando under renowned coach Alexis Glover.

Lisa Kimbrell Jenness was an all-conference player at Presbyterian, and aunt Laura Kimbrell Togami was all-ACC at North Carolina State. His uncle Craig Togami coached at N.C. State, and his father Norm, a Citadel graduate, is a formidable foe in beach volleyball at 6-foot-6. Younger sister Haley plays for Wando.

Kaleb also comes from one of Mount Pleasant’s most accomplished sports families. Grandfather Roy Kimbrell was a multi-sport standout at Moultrie High School, and his son Mike pitched at Clemson and is a member of the Charleston Baseball Hall of Fame.

Mike’s son Tyler pitched at Furman, and Kaleb’s cousins Jonathan and Hannah Togami are among the top pole-vaulters in the state for Wando’s track and field team.

Needless to say, the family’s Christmas volleyball games were at a fairly high level.

“Our family is pretty competitive,” Kaleb Jenness said. “We like to win.”

But when Kaleb got to high school at Wando, there was no boys’ team for him to play for. Glover invited Kaleb to be the manager for the girls’ team, and in the bargain got a standout practice player for her squad. Wando won back-to-back state titles while Kaleb was team manager.

“He was our manager, but he ran with us, he drilled with us, he played with us,” Glover said. “And here he is at 6-foot-6, playing for the scout team and hitting against our team from the other side of the net. When we had to prepare for a specific player, he was that player on the scout team. He was great in every aspect of practice.

“He made our team so much better, because he was so good at practice. He really loves the game; he eats, sleeps and breathes the game. If we had boys’ volleyball in South Carolina, he would have been all-world.”

For Kaleb, practicing with the girls’ team kept him connected to the sport in between weekend trips to Atlanta and Charlotte for practices and games with his club teams, Carolina Union and A5. Almost every weekend during his junior year, some combination of the Jennesses made the drive to Atlanta, sometimes just for a practice session.

“That was my first experience with indoor volleyball,” Kaleb said of Wando’s girls’ team. “So that’s where I learned about positioning and being in the right spot and reading the game from there. That’s where I got a lot of the basics and fundamentals of volleyball that Coach Glover taught me.”

Varsity sport?

Jenness’ success might be a boost to a recent drive to make boys’ volleyball a high school sport in South Carolina. As many as 40 schools have shown interest in sponsoring boys’ volleyball at least at the club-sport level, much like rugby and ice hockey are played at high schools in the state.

Glover said she recently took part in a conference call about starting boys’ volleyball in South Carolina.

“There’s a big move in the state to have inaugural club teams,” Glover said. “They would not be under the athletics’ umbrella, but would be club teams like rugby and hockey. We’re going to try to do one here at Wando to see who is interested in doing it.”

Glover said that S.C. High School League rules require 16 participating teams to become a sanctioned sport. Boys’ volleyball would probably have to be a spring sport because gyms are so heavily used in the fall and winter.

“That would be a great thing,” said Ball State’s Walton. “The more areas that we have like that, the better it will be for the sport in our country. It would encourage more Division I and II teams to become sponsoring men’s volleyball.”

Walton said there are about 350 women’s teams at each of the NCAA Division I, II and III levels for a total of more than 1,000. But in men’s volleyball, there are only 22 men’s Division I programs, 25 in Division II and almost 100 in Division III.

College programs in South Carolina include Division II teams Erskine, Limestone, North Greenville and Coker.

Olympic dreams

So how far can Kaleb take his volleyball dreams from the family foyer? Walton says he’s just “scratching the surface” of his ability.

“I think he’s got a really high ceiling,” Walton said. “He’s already at the collegiate level, playing really well as a freshman. Getting to the those other places — playing professionally, playing for the national team — really gets back to how hard Kaleb is willing to work while he’s in college.

“How willing is he going to be to do the extra things that will enable him to compete at that elite level? I think there’s a possibility there. I think he’s still a little immature, because if you look at him, it looks like he’s going to continue to grow and to fill out. Already, we’ve seen a big change in him over the last year.”

For his part, Kaleb — known as “Beach” by his Ball State teammates — says he wants to take volleyball as far as he can: All-America status, the Olympics, professional volleyball.

The Olympics include both indoor and beach volleyball. In pro volleyball, the AVP Tour features two-person beach volleyball, and there are pro indoor leagues around the world.

Last summer, Kaleb teamed with North Greenville’s Christian Phung to win the U18 national title at the USA National Beach Tour Junior Championships.

“I plan on taking volleyball all the way to the end, as long as I can,” he said. “I want to go to the Olympics for beach or indoor. It doesn’t matter which, I just want to play at the highest level. And I plan on being a pro player overseas somewhere.”

In the meantime, finally being able to play for his school is a dream come true.

“It’s a lot of fun because you are representing your whole school,” he said. “When you are out on the court, you feel like you are out there for your teammates and your school, and that’s a good feeling.”

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — The S.C. Dept. of Transportation says temporary repairs on a broken support cable will require the James B. Edwards Bridge on I-526 westbound over the Wando River to be closed four weeks for repairs.

The DOT says it is targeting June 11 for a reopening date for the bridge, which connects Mount Pleasant to Daniel Island. The bridge and the portion of I-526 west from exits 28 to 24 were closed Monday, May 14, after DOT engineers say they found the broken cable.

Repairs the DOT will be making to get the bridge reopened by June 11 will be temporary, according to DOT officials, who did not go into detail about the outlook for long-term repairs and the need for additional future closures.

DOT Secretary Christy Hall said during Wednesday's press conference that the cable rupture constituted a "life safety" issue, leading DOT to shut down the bridge hours after a review was performed by safety inspectors.

According to a spokesman for FIGG Bridge Group, the engineering firm that designed the bridge, one cable, or tendon, rupturing wouldn't compromise the safety of the bridge. The bridge features 92 high-tension support tendons within its structure, officials say.

Each tendon consists of a bundle of seven smaller 19-strand steel cables encased in concrete grout, according to DOT chief engineer Leland Colvin. DOT also says the ruptured cable is one of eight main support cables that run underneath the length of the bridge span.

Meanwhile, there are 84 additional support tendons embedded in the concrete foundation segments of the bridge. ABC News 4 has reached out to a FIGG spokesperson for clarification on why DOT officials say a "main" cable rupturing presents a threat to life, while FIGG experts have said a single cable rupturing wouldn't compromise safety.

Meanwhile, two of the 84 support cables in the bridge structure also have been identified as problematic, with one needing to be replaced, according to Colvin. DOT says it still has not pinpointed an exact cause for the main tendon rupturing, or the damage to the other tendons.

DOT officials said prior to Wednesday's announcement they'd found evidence of water intrusion and corrosion in the inner workings of the westbound portion of the bridge. Inspectors haven't identified a cause for those problems, but say they're isolated to the westbound side of the bridge, not the eastbound.

Colvin did stress Wednesday that the DOT believes a "design" issue is contributing to the cable damage, not load stress from heavy traffic on the bridges.

DOT had been doing weekly inspections on the bridge since 2016, when a separate "main" cable on the westbound side of the bridge was found with damage. That cable was repaired by early 2017.

Previously, the bridge had only been subject to inspections every 2 years, as federally mandated. According to DOT, there was no evidence in any of the the most recent weekly or yearly inspections of an impending cable break.

Colvin says DOT has now started daily site visits at the James B. Edwards Bridge that include both inspections and testing of the cable system on both the eastbound and westbound sides of the bridge.

Original construction on the bridge began in the late 1980s, and it opened to traffic in 1991, meaning the ruptured cable had been in service roughly 30 years. Colvin says the life expectancy on the cables at the time they were installed was 50 years.

Hall says she has ordered a complete review of the bridge's maintenance records related to the Wando bridge in order to put together a timeline and history of potentially overlooked issues in the past. Hall says that information will be released to the public.

"We have nothing to hide on this. We’re all in this together," Hall said.

Detours are in place along Highway 17 south to I-26, and Highway 17 north to S.C. 41 and Clements Ferry Road. Charleston mayor John Tecklenburg has urged carpooling, and said the city has entered into licensing agreements to expand ferry services for people commuting from Daniel Island and Mount Pleasant.

This is a developing story and will be updated.