Daily Archives: 08/21/2018
Sharing the love
Boy’s interest in reptiles blossoms into TV show for Pickens family
By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter
jevans@thepccourier.com
PICKENS — What began as a way to encourage a local boy’s interest in reptiles has grown into a television show that airs across the country and even overseas.
“Scaly Adventures” is a family-friendly educational television show that features the Curren family — Rick, Tanya and their son Pierce — as they learn and teach about a variety of animals.
The Currens live near Table Rock north of Pickens.
When Pierce was about 8 years old, Rick found a little snake in their yard, Tanya Curren recalled.
“We didn’t even know it was a snake at first,” she said. “We thought it was a little worm. Rick brought it inside and showed it to Pierce.”
Pierce then jumped on the internet and “looked up everything about
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Weekend wreck kills 2 people
PICKENS — Two Walhalla residents died at the scene of a two-car collision near Pickens on Saturday night.
Pickens County deputy coroner Gary Duncan identified the victims as Deborah Lynn Baynard, 39, of 1630 Pickens Highway and Randall Joey Luker, 58, also of Walhalla.
The collision occurred at 10:04 p.m. Saturday on Shady Grove Road, near Red Hill Road, according to Cpl. Bill Rhyne of the South Carolina Highway Patrol.
Baynard and Luker were both passengers in a 1994 Ford Explorer
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Races set for school board
By Greg Oliver
Courtesy The Journal
goliver@upstatetoday.com
PICKENS — Three seats on the Pickens County School Board will be contested in this year’s general election, while an incumbent dropped his name from the ballot on the day of the filing deadline to leave a fourth seat with just one candidate in November.
The two-week filing period for the district 2, 4, 6 and 7 seats officially ended last Wednesday.
District 2 incumbent Phillip Bowers, whose seat includes the Central, Six Mile and Norris areas, will face opposition from Lynn D. Wike on the ballot for the Nov. 6 election. Bowers is seeking a second term on
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Board chair excited about tech upgrades
By Greg Oliver
Courtesy The Journal
goliver@upstatetoday.com
CENTRAL — Pickens County School Board chairman Brian Swords said new technology upgrades in the school district are going to make for improved instruction and more accessibility for students this school year.
Speaking at a recent meeting of Pickens United, Swords said a multi-year agreement between the school district and Conterra Networks reached earlier this year will result in a new and improved fiber-optic network that will make internet service for schools 100 times faster. The all-fiber-optic network will support the data, video and voice
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Man charged with trafficking
CLEMSON — A Greenville man was arrested Thursday after police said an early-morning traffic stop in Clemson led to the discovery of 
around five pounds of marijuana, a gun and candy laced with THC.
Clemson Police Chief Jimmy Dixon said Antonio Mardequez Brown, 32, was being held on a $10,000 surety bond Thursday afternoon on charges of trafficking marijuana and unlawful carrying of a pistol.
Dixon said an officer approaching the vehicle Brown was in during the traffic stop detected a marijuana odor.
After searching the vehicle and several packages inside, Dixon said officers found approximately 5 pounds of marijuana, 50 bags of what
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District names teacher, support employee of the year
PICKENS — The School District of Pickens County named its teacher and support employee of the year at its annual back-to-school celebration on Friday.
Six Mile Elementary fourth-grade math teacher Amanda Wylie was picked as the district’s teacher of the year, while Daniel Durham, a communication technology specialist in
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County VA office seeks vets for veterans parade
PICKENS — The Pickens County Veterans Affairs Office is looking for veterans to participate in a Veterans Day parade in Pickens County this year.
The veterans parade will be held at 2 p.m. Nov. 11 in Liberty. County officials want to invite all veterans and military members (National Guard, Reserves, active duty) to participate.
Participants may gather as groups and ride on a float or trailer pulled
Community newspapers are not a public enemy
Let’s make one thing crystal clear … the press is not the enemy of the American people.
It is hard to believe any thinking citizen in South Carolina or around 
the country would actually believe that. Yet some do.
These attacks against the media by President Trump — mostly against the national press — have gone on far too long and likely won’t stop. But we as citizens must stop believing them and not let community newspapers be tarred by their brush.
Our Founding Fathers stood up for a free press, and so should you.
We need newspapers in our communities to monitor government spending, cover police activities and report on our utility companies. And to cover our community life: weddings, funerals, school news,
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School back in session
This week the School District of Pickens County will begin the 2018-2019 school year. We will welcome more than 16,000 students to school this year, along with more than 1,800 teachers, staff and 
administrators. This year proves to be one of the most exciting for many reasons, and here are just a few.
• Two new magnet schools. The Central Academy for the Arts and the McKissick Academy for Science and Technology will launch this fall. These two schools will allow students to be immersed in the arts and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) curriculum.
• School resource officers in every school. This year the school district will have a full-time law enforcement officer in each of our schools, in addition to many other safety measures that have been implemented throughout the district. We are one of only a few school
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It pays to look before you leap
You never get too old to learn something. That’s nice. Because sometimes just keeping up takes a lot of energy.
Suppose you go online to book a trip and want to find the cheapest 
flight. It’s a good idea to compare rates on several sites. But don’t book a flight or pay for travel insurance until you check out the policy for canceling or changing flights.
Don’t use a booking site that has consistently bad reviews from customers. For example, Southwest Airlines doesn’t have a penalty fee for changing the dates of your flight. It’s a good thing to know. But many others do.
Also, if you think you need travel insurance and a brief scan tells you
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