Daily Archives: 07/19/2022
Easley man calls for election reform
By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter
jevans@thepccourier.com
EASLEY — An Easley resident is urging council to amend the city’s election system, to allow for the elimination of runoffs.
The former chairman of the Pickens County Republican Party, Rick Tate spoke at Easley City Council’s July 11 meeting, asking that Mayor Butch Womack and council “changing the way we do elections here in the City of Easley.”
“Go to the plurality scheme and do away with the runoff, the 50 plus one,” he said.
It is within council’s purview to change the system, with a simple majority
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Space Force names Clemson University strategic partner
By Riley Morningstar
Courtesy The Journal
rmorningstar@upstatetoday.com
CLEMSON — Clemson University is now one of just 14 schools in the country to enter an exclusive strategic 
partnership with the newest branch of the U.S. Armed Forces — the U.S. Space Force.
School president Jim Clements and other school officials welcomed from Space Force and signed a memorandum of understanding in its University Partnership Program (UPP) on Monday with Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David Thompson. Clemson is the 13th university to join the partnership
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Easley gaining additional school resource officer
EASLEY — The City of Easley will be gaining an additional school resource officer.
That new position required amending the city’s Fiscal Year 2022-2023 operating budget, which was passed in June.
City council took up the matter during their July 11 meeting.
Business License Officer/Finance Manager Tommy Holcombe said the School District
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Dog exposed to rabid skunk in Pickens
By Jason Evans
Staff Reporter
jevans@thepccourier.com
PICKENS — A skunk found in Pickens tested positive for rabies, according to a release from the South 
Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.
The skunk was found near Shady Grove Road and Mount Bethel Road,
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CU students get Astronaut Scholarships
CLEMSON — Clemson University senior Gabe Cutter didn’t know he had won a prestigious Astronaut Scholarship 
until he received a text from fellow Clemson student and scholarship nominee Grant Wilkins. Unbeknownst to Cutter at the time, Wilkins had exciting news of his own.
“Grant was the first person to send me a text and to say congratulations, but
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Cioffoletti seeks Clemson seat
By Riley Morningstar
Courtesy The Journal
rmorningstar@upstatetoday.com
CLEMSON — A local resident vying for public office for the first time has thrown his name in the hat to serve on Clemson City Council.
Rocco Cioffoletti, of Clemson Country Walk, was the only newcomer file to run for council on Monday, doing so within 30 minutes of being allowed to. Filing for the three seats opened at noon and closes at noon on Aug. 1. Councilman
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Taxing thoughts and eye popping numbers
My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw the breakdown of the proposed budget for the city of Easley that was printed as a public notice in the Courier a few weeks ago.
The figure that had my heart palpitating was the percentage jump in the property tax revenue.
It called for a whopping 26.6 percent growth — which I assumed to be attributable to development.
Whoa!
If that keeps up for another three years, Easley will be more than twice as big as it was last year — or something like that. At least that’s the way it appeared at first glance.
But the notice in the paper, while it told in the fine print what the millage rate would be in the proposed budget, it didn’t point out that the figure —
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The eagle and the chicken
The eagle who believed he was a chicken
Once there was a young eaglet that accidentally fell from the safety of his nest high on the mountain. Miraculously, he fell in a patch of soft grass and survived. He stumbled out into the open and a farmer saw him and brought him 
to the farm and placed him inside a chicken coop with all the other chickens. Since the eagle had not yet discovered his true identity, he started watching the other birds and naturally followed their habits
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Doing It on Your Own
The headline of this column could actually be “What to do when your local veterans group doesn’t step up to help other veterans.”
Because, yeah, it happens.
Mostly it’s for compelling reasons — the members might be older (I saw an unofficial citation showing that the average age of American Legion members is their late 60s). For the Veterans of Foreign Wars, it was early 70s. I believe it. Or post membership might have
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James Richard Kaplan, chairman of Cornell Dubilier, passes away
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — James R. Kaplan, 87, passed away on Sunday, July 3, 2022.
He was born in Windber, Pa., in 1934, where his father was a coal miner. He received a basketball scholarship to the College of William and Mary, where he had an illustrious career. He earned his B.S. degree in 1957 and then married Jane Thompson, his college sweetheart. Jim turned down the opportunity to play professional basketball with the St. Louis Hawks and instead chose to join the Army, where he was commissioned as a 2nd
