Monthly Archives: April 2021
Market at the Mill to hold festival
By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter
jevans@thepccourier.com
PICKENS — The Market at the Mill is throwing a party this weekend.
Carnival rides will be available following regular hours at the market, located at 225 Pumpkintown Highway, on Thursday, and two-day Spring Fest 2021 will officially kick off Friday at the market.
The market will have its regular lineup of hundreds of stores and vendors from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. both Friday and Saturday.
Parking for the evening events will begin at 5 p.m. each evening.
Carnival rides will run all day and evening Friday and Saturday.
A classic car cruise-in will be held Friday evening. Those planning on showing off their cars should enter at the market’s main entrance on Highway 8. Do not follow the event parking signs if you are participating
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Easley to explore road user fee
By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter
jevans@thepccourier.com
EASLEY — Easley officials will investigate creating a road user fee in an effort to get the roads the city oversees repaved sooner.
The issue was discussed as part of city administrator Stephen Steese’s budget presentation during a special called city council meeting April 20.
The fee would be “specific to the city, for vehicles that are registered inside the city limits,” he said.
“With the money we receive from the county, we’re on like a 50-to-55-year paving
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School district COVID cases dwindle
COUNTY — Only two schools in the School District of Pickens County recorded more than one positive COVID-19 case last week, while 15 of 
the district’s 23 K-12 schools had no cases at all.
In all, just two staff members and eight students tested positive for the virus last week, according to the district’s weekly update issued Friday.
Pickens High School and Dacusville Elementary School had the most positive cases in the district with
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Roper: COVID has worsened county’s litter
By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter
jevans@thepccourier.com
COUNTY — The county’s litter problem has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
County administrator Ken Roper discussed recent COVID case numbers during a Facebook Live update posted Friday morning.
“Our COVID numbers are still pretty high in Pickens County, higher than some other counties,” he said.
As of Friday, Pickens County had 400 active COVID-19 cases, Roper said.
“Which, strangely, would have really scared us six, eight months ago,” he said. “Now we’ve kind of gotten used to it, which is not a great thing, because I feel like we’re letting our guard down. Do try to do what you can to
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Liberty officials say resident input, work key to success
By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter
jevans@thepccourier.com
LIBERTY — Liberty officials hope residents will take ownership of the city’s new marketing plan and help see some of its projects through to 
fruition.
Designlab’s Jessica Masse discussed the plan during a March 30 special meeting.
“The city can do some key things and create some key infrastructure that can enable the community to achieve the things that they want to see,” she said. “You have to do the
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Central gives early OK for new district
By Greg Oliver
Courtesy The Journal
goliver@upstatetoday.com
CENTRAL — Central Town Council recently gave first-reading approval to a natural space residential district ordinance spurred by the 
controversy surrounding plans to build 100 homes on 48 acres on Lawton Road.
Under the five-page ordinance, a natural space residential district is defined as a residential development where dwellings are on the most developable portion of the site in exchange for the preservation of substantial amounts of well-maintained open or natural space for recreational, environmental and ecological reasons. The purpose of the district is to provide a method of land development that permits variation in lot sizes
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Easley awaiting American Rescue Plan funds
By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter
jevans@thepccourier.com
EASLEY — The city of Easley is set to receive around $8 million from the American Rescue Plan Act, but exactly when the first allocation of 
those funds will arrive is currently unknown.
“This is the great unknown moving into the summer,” city administrator Stephen Steese said during a special called city council meeting April 20.
The act, approved on March 11, allocates $19.53 billion to cities with less than 50,000 in population, he said.
“Fifty percent of that will come to the state of South Carolina within 60 days,” Steese said.
Around mid-May, “the state should receive a giant check from the federal government for half
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Light at the end of the tunnel
Well, the great day finally came!
Just in time for the birthday of our twin grandkids, my wife Kathy and I crossed the threshold into the realm of the fully vaccinated.
And that meant that — after more than a year of our only interaction with those two, and with
our three other grandchildren, being either on the phone or out in the front yard from 10 feet away — we were able to hug them.
It was awesome!
“We’re huggable!” I told them as they came running in the front door and jumped into my outstretched arms.
It felt wonderful. We were all so excited. I think I even heard Harper, who turned 8 along with her brother Wyatt, say, “I don’t
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Staying focused on our mission
For many years I’ve had the privilege to visit nursing homes, as I truly enjoy spending time with the elderly. I sing and teach Bible studies and appreciate hearing about their former lives. The Lord has allowed me to make some precious friendships, and I want to share with you 
about a lovely lady who after a devastating stroke was no longer able to be independent and is now in a comfortable setting where she is well taken care of.
I love talking with Barbara, and a while back in the middle of one of her stories we discovered that long ago she was actually my mother’s next-door neighbor and they played together as children. What were the odds of that? Anyway, I love her positive and upbeat personality and
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Advantages to growing older
When we were children, we wore hats and shirts on the beach, T-shirts over our bathing suits. And now that we are old, we wear hats and shirts on the beach.
As a person who cannot tan, I never tried to cultivate that look and just accepted that although being outdoors on the beach is one of my great loves, covering up is an absolute necessity.
As children we were slathered with suntan oil, and wearing our shirts and hats, we’d hit the water with our rafts. If we didn’t have rafts, we’d just hit the water and stay in the ocean until our lips were blue and our fingers were wrinkled like prunes.
Now, we slather ourselves with sunscreen, wear shirts and hats and wade in the edge and walk
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