Yearly Archives: 2020
Publix bottle attack ends in man’s arrest
CLEMSON — A 29-year-old Easley man was arrested after police allege he hit another man over the 
head with a champagne bottle last week, sparking a series of lifesaving events at Publix on Tiger Boulevard in Clemson.
Brandon Christopher Odonald, of Forest Park Drive, was charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature and shoplifting. Odonald was being held on a combined $20,000 surety bond at the Pickens County Detention Center on Tuesday.
Clemson police responded to a shoplifting incident around 2:15 p.m. on Aug. 4 and eventually found a victim who required CPR from a nearby pharmacist after being hit in the head with a bottle of champagne, according to an incident report.
Store surveillance footage showed the victim being struck in the head by Odonald using a bottle of champagne, according to the report, and the pharmacist did not find a pulse on the victim but was able to successfully revive the victim through CPR.
Officers found Odonald at Foothills Community Care with a bottle of the same brand of champagne used to hit the victim in his hand after multiple calls came in about someone being in the roadway along U.S. Highway 123, according to the report.
Odonald also tried to hit a manager with the bottle before exiting the store, the report said.
EMS took the victim to the hospital for treatment, the report said. The victim’s condition was not released.
Publix has placed Odonald on trespass notice.
Roper: County ‘making progress’ on virus
By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter
jevans@thepccourier.com
COUNTY — Hospital bed availability is “the real issue with COVID,” according to Pickens County administrator Ken Roper.
KEN ROPER
“We don’t want our hospitals to be overrun with cases,” he said during a Facebook Live update video Friday. “Since it’s a new virus to everyone, we don’t want our hospitals to be overrun, because if you get COVID and they can’t treat you, that’s a bad thing, but what if you break your arm and the hospital is full or you have a heart attack and the hospital is full? That’s part of the point here all along.”
Roper discussed state and county COVID-19 numbers in the video, saying the county had around 300 active cases and 1,793 total reported as of Thursday. That number has
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Recycle centers back to 6 days a week
By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter
jevans@thepccourier.com
COUNTY — Residents who asked Pickens County officials to reopen the county’s recycling centers on Wednesdays got their wish.
County community relations manager Jamie Burns announced last week that the recycling centers are once again open on Wednesdays going forward.
The recycling centers’ new hours of operation, which went into effect Sunday, are 8 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
The Wednesday closures began July 1, 2018. At that time, then-Pickens County administrator Gerald Wilson said the
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Family Promise offering help to those without housing, jobs due to COVID-19
By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter
jevans@thepccourier.com
COUNTY — Thanks to grant funding, Family Promise of Pickens County may be able to help those who are at risk of being homeless after losing their housing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If they’ve lost their job or their housing due to the pandemic, we can help them get back on track,” Family Promise of Pickens County executive director Armilla Moore said.
Her agency has received a two-year $50,000 emergency shelter grant through the Office of Economic Opportunity, Moore said.
“This is COVID-19 money that came down through the federal government,” she said. “A number of other agencies also got that money, but we’re the only one in Pickens County that received it.”
While other county agencies may provide assistance with rent or bills, the grant funding may allow Family Promise to help for a longer period of time.
“We may be able to help from zero to six months, depending on the person’s need,” Moore said. “We also provide case management. We have good relationships with those other agencies. We hope that they will refer to us.”
Family Promise of Pickens County usually works with local churches to provide shelter for families with children under
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Several planes broken into at county airport
By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter
jevans@thepccourier.com
LIBERTY — Liberty police are investigating after several planes were broken into at the Pickens County Airport last month.
According to Liberty Police Department incident reports, the crimes involved three victims and three different planes.
A Liberty police officer responded to the airport on July 30 and spoke with a victim who said he’d flown into the airport on July 28, according to an incident report.
Upon returning on July 30, he discovered that his navigation
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Community Calendar
• Huge yard sale set for Amazing Grace
Bargain hunters will get another chance to find a deal at the big indoor yard sale at Amazing Grace Fellowship Church, which has been held over for a second week and will be open this Saturday, Aug. 15.
The event will again be held in the the church’s fellowship building, and hundreds and hundreds of great items still available. Amazing Grace Fellowship is located at 228 Pearl St. in Pickens.
Everyone is asked to wear a mask at the sale.
• Pickens Lions plan meetings each month
The Pickens Lions Club is in need of new members. The club meets the first and third Thursday of
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On Easley’s recycling situation …
Greetings from the Barnett summer residence — which is actually the same place as the Barnett winter, spring and fall residence, but with more live music on the front porch and more outdoor 
cooking in the back.
Only it’s just me doing the live music and grilling; no crowds of people who may be carrying the coronavirus are allowed within 10 feet.
COVID-19 is real, and it hit close to home a few weeks ago when a member of our extended family who was living in a nursing home in Pickens was stricken with it and taken from us. She was a character, and she will be greatly missed.
So I’ve been pretty much taking it easy for the past few weeks. It’s the first stretch of time in more than 30 years that I have stepped back from deadlines and tried
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Clemson to test returning students for COVID
Tuition frozen at last year’s rate, fees credited
By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter
jevans@thepccourier.com
CLEMSON — Clemson University president Jim Clements says university officials remain committed to bringing students back to campus next month.
Clements announced last month that the fall semester would begin with online classes. Students could begin moving onto campus on Sept. 13, with in-person instruction beginning Sept. 21.
“The calendar has turned to August, and the entire university is pushing full steam ahead for the start of the fall semester in less than two weeks,” Clements said in an update issued Friday.
As a result of the delayed start to in-person classes, a number of student fees, including
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SC officials warn of contact tracer fraud
By Riley Morningstar
Courtesy The Journal
rmorningstar@upstatetoday.com
COLUMBIA — State health officials are warning South Carolinians about COVID-19 contact tracing scams and the urgency to respond to legitimate calls.
The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control said more than 700 people have been trained to conduct case investigations and case monitoring, with 240 active contact monitors ready.
Contact tracing works to alert people who have been exposed to someone with the coronavirus and
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Freedom vs. responsibility
Note from Pickens Mayor Fletcher Perry: At our last city council meeting, it was a consensus from members of council and seven voices from the community who felt that mandatory mask wear should not be mandated by the city. From that discussion, a committee was formed that included members of the medical community. I have asked each member to share their perspective concerning these times of uncertainty and the subject of the mask.
As the medical scientists are trying to learn more about the coronavirus, including how to create a 
vaccine and better ways to treat those infected, we are faced with a community dilemma. I think of it as “freedom vs. responsibility.” On the one hand, we value our freedom and ability to decide for ourselves how to lead our lives. This allows us to determine what risks we want to take, like smoking, riding a motorcycle without a helmet or eating junk food. But on the other hand, with freedom comes responsibility. Our responsibility for each other means we obey traffic laws, we don’t endanger others with our choices and we care enough to bend our desire to keep others from being harmed.
Although there is still a lot we don’t know about this virus, there are many things that have been
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