Water Damage Restoration in Adams Run, SC

Kanye West is petitioning to get his name on the presidential ballot in South Carolina, soon after he officially filed to be a candidate in Oklahoma.

“Hi guys please sign up to put me on the ballot in South Carolina at any of these locations,” he wrote on Twitter on Saturday (July 18). “You can also sign up at the website.”

The message lists eight locations — Chuck Town Bar and Grill, Adams Run Civic Center, Blue Note Bistro, Ravenel Trucking, Tia Banquet Hall, Scotts Grand Banquet Hall, Inspired by Annette Events and Baconsbridge Worship Center — and links to kanye2020.country, where residents can pledge that they are “signing to put Kanye West on the ballot in South Carolina” by signing a “Ye ’20” form with their personal information.

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He first posted the petition to be placed on the South Carolina ballot with a tweet on Friday night.

West is listed as a candidate with a Cody, Wyo., address and BDY (Birthday) Party as his affiliated third party in an FEC Form 1 filed under Kanye 2020.

He has also filed an FEC Form 2 (Statement of Candidacy), which is filed once an individual has raised or spent more then $5,000 in campaign activity, triggering candidacy status under federal campaign finance law.

Although West missed the deadline to qualify for the 2020 general election ballot in several states, earlier this week he did meet the deadline for a spot on Oklahoma’s ballot and paid the $35,000 filing.

The rapper and presidential hopeful declared his plans to run for president in 2020 with a tweet on the Fourth of July, when he announced, “We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I am running for president of the United States! #2020VISION.”

See Kanye’s latest tweet, and his online petition, below.

Hi guys please sign up to put me on the ballot in South Carolina at any of these locations You can also sign up at the websitehttps://t.co/ZURvTEW9ee pic.twitter.com/3rV5ujExPm

— ye (@kanyewest) July 18, 2020

Newberry coach Phil Strickland compared him to Hall of Famer Barry Sanders from his high school days.

Gray Collegiate coach Adam Holmes is running of adjectives to describe him.

That’s because War Eagles senior running back KZ Adams has put up one of the greatest single high school football seasons in state history.

Adams, a Georgia State commit and Mr. Football finalist, rushed for what is believed to be a state-record 3,035 yards and 39 total touchdowns this season. He also is a starter at defensive back.

Adams will get a chance to shine one more time in Friday’s Class 2A state championship game against Silver Bluff.

“Just an amazing kid and an amazing talent,” Holmes said. “‘I’m excited he is going to be on the big stage and what he does for us as a program on offense, defense and special teams. He is the best player in the state.”

Here is a look at how Adams’ big year compares to some of the other single-season offensive performances in South Carolina since 2000:

▪ Noah Bell, QB, Saluda (2019): Threw for 3,988 yards, 49 touchdowns and ran for 554 and 16 touchdowns.

▪ Amir Abrams, RB, Newberry (2017): Rushed for 2,486 yards and 38 touchdowns.

▪ Colton Bailey, QB, Chapman (2017): Was 205-for-289 passing for 3,400 yards and 45 touchdowns. He also rushed 130 times for 936 yards and 15 TDs.

▪ Logan Bailey, QB, Chapin (2015): Threw for 3,025 yards, 34 touchdowns and rushed for 1,265 yards and 32 touchdowns.

▪ Austin Scott, QB, Spartanburg, (2015): Passed for 5,144 yards and 63 touchdowns.

▪ Tavien Feaster, RB, Spartanburg (2014): Rushed for 1,153 yards, caught 45 passes for 1,016 yards and had 28 total touchdowns.

▪ Shuler Bentley, QB, Byrnes (2013): Completed 293-of-425 passes for 5,032 yards for 71 touchdowns.

▪ Matt Colburn, RB, Dutch Fork (2013): Ran 328 times for 2,488 yards and 40 touchdowns. He also caught 28 passes for 418 yards and two touchdowns.

▪ Mason Rudolph, QB, Northwestern (2013): Threw for 4,377 yards, 64 touchdowns and ran for 543 yards and 16 scores.

▪ Dupree Hart, WR, Northwestern (2013): Caught 115 passes for 1,655 yards, 26 touchdowns and also ran it 46 times for 237 yards and five touchdowns.

▪ Justin Worley, QB, Northwestern (2010): Completed 403-of-548 passes for 5,052 yards and 59 touchdowns.

▪ Shon Carson, RB, Lake City (2010): Rushed for 2,280 yards and 33 touchdowns as a senior

▪ Robert Joseph, WR, Northwestern (2009): Caught 150 passes for 1,834 yards and 28 TDs.

▪ Demetris Summers, RB, Lexington (2001): Rushed for 2,329 yards and 39 touchdowns. State’s all-time career rushing leader with more than 9,000 yards.

There are some places where it doesn’t take a compass to know which way the culture goes. People in Miami have to go north to reach the South, and people in Seattle have to go east to find the Wild West.

A similarly counter-intuitive dynamic is at work when it comes to Roxbury Mercantile, which is located 31 miles from downtown Charleston, but feels closer to the heart of the city than restaurants where the chef could lob a slice of crudo and watch it land on King Street. At least, it’s on intimate terms with the Charleston in force before tourists became restaurateurs’ most valuable guests. Roxbury is the kind of place to which locals return again and again for a fried oyster platter with red rice and greens, and the owners don’t mind if they do.

In this case, the owners are Jackie and William Barnwell, although everyone knows him as “Beau.” Last summer, the couple purchased the 6-year-old Capt. Jimmy Bell’s Right Off the Boat Seafood Joint on Highway 174, and made a lickety-split changeover, installing a full bar in place of an eating counter and redoing the color scheme.

While the restaurant is still a few days shy of its 6-month anniversary, the Barnwells have a decades-long history of doing business on the tucked-away site, flourished with live oaks and cordgrasses. In the 1920s, the family opened a country store there. It was still keeping regular hours when it burned down in 1983; the land stayed vacant until Bell put up a restaurant.

But it appears neither fire nor time could completely wipe out the soul of the country store. Nobody is coming to Roxbury Mercantile to swap seeds or buy twine, but the same conversations that once took shape around those transactions are now happening over pulled pork and Cajun fish tacos.

On a brisk weekend night, talk ricochets from foggily recalled high school pranks to the crazy things that the politicians in Washington are doing now. Even without a potbellied stove sending up the curls of smoke that might once have indicated a general store was open, the room is warmed by good cheer and genuinely kind service.

“A lot of folks say we’re in the middle of nowhere, but actually we’re in the middle of everywhere,” says Jackie Barnwell, a Hilton Head area native who spent 13 years in the food-and-beverage business before trying her luck at restaurant ownership.

As Barnwell points out, Hollywood and Meggett are in one direction, and Edisto is in the other. Residents of all three aren’t exactly maxed out on casually elegant places to get together.

“My husband and I were like, we want somewhere we can go and have a nice night out,” Barnwell says.

They envisioned a setting that would nod to the past rather than mimic it. And while Barnwell intimates the room isn’t perfected yet, it’s impossible for a guest to see what’s missing. From the wooden floor planks, selected for their “old Charleston feel” to the tasteful array of framed mirrors, vintage documents and country store artifacts, the sun-splashed room would delight a magazine editor scheduling a photo shoot of new-wave aprons.

Its centerpiece is a polished, rough-edged bar, commissioned from Justin Herrington of Born Again Heartwoods (“right here in Meggett,” Barnwell adds). Before it supported pints of craft beer and cocktails mixed with local liquor, the cypress log was lodged at the bottom of the Edisto River.

It has become fashionable to “elevate” Southern food, as the chefs say, which generally means slipping luxurious ingredients atop of deviled eggs and shaping grits into cakes. The Barnwells instead chose to elevate the room, and left the food alone.

In other words, if you make the trip to Roxbury Mercantile based solely on the expectation of culinary epiphanies, it would be best to first ask yourself how well you deal with disappointment. The menu doesn’t have a single show-off dish, and I’d argue the restaurant’s the better for it. Although variously presented as sandwiches, salads and platters, entree choices basically come down to boiled shrimp, fried fish, grilled chicken and smoked pork. There’s also a burger, although the one I tried was too big for its cooking time and sadly short on seasoning,

Otherwise, the kitchen performs admirably. Tender crab cakes, crisped on the outside, are ideal sandwich filler. The pulled pork and ribs are well served by vivacious sauces, and I couldn’t muster a complaint about any of the sides that accompanied them.

Yet the standout item is the shrimp, purchased from Captain Ashley Fontaine of Edisto Seafood. The Barnwells stick to the definition of Southern cooking that includes fresh, local ingredients, and their commitment pays off from the first course onward.

While they don’t make any claims about turning away the Sysco truck, Barnwell says they “go into town every Monday and get stuff from GrowFood.” The expert order at Roxbury, which I heard a number of customers place confidently, is an order of peel-and-eat shrimp and a wedge salad, featuring fantastically fresh lettuce and a Clemson blue cheese dressing that’s up front about its funk. Paired with sweet, sturdy shrimp, the salad makes for a fine meal.

Shrimp are also served on Mitla tortillas, which are finished at Roxbury, so the seafood meets with aromatic corn in a way that’s more vital and satisfying than the standard shrimp-and-grits combination. (The hot-sauced mayonnaise scribbled over the shrimp is great, but ask the kitchen to go easy on the shredded cheddar).

Another Southern cooking tradition that the Barnwells honor is the practice of adhering to family recipes, including Jackie Barnwell’s uncle’s recipe for she-crab soup. It wasn’t available either time I ate at Roxbury Mercantile, but Barwell says “a lot of people do compliment it.” If he was half as good at soup-making as Beau Barnwell’s grandmother was at making dessert, I’m not surprised. The banana pudding, crowded with banana slices and topped with toasted meringue, is outstanding.

So go on out to the country and eat some shrimp. If you live in, say, Mount Pleasant, it’s nowhere close to nearby, but sometimes experiences worth having take a little travel. Roxbury, for example, is delaying its brunch launch, because Beau Barnwell is currently out of the country: The retired U.S. Air Force Operations and Training Manager is taking meteorological measurements. At the South Pole.

Brunch is scheduled to start in March.

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You can spy the colorful orange and green neon signs in the Beautiful South window from way down the block. As you get closer, your nose is struck by the sharp, tempting aroma of wok oil, garlic and ginger, which puffs out over the street from discrete exhaust vents. For diners like me, that’s the most effective form of advertising, conjuring up olfactory memories of New York City and Hong Kong sidewalks.

But, as the name suggests, the restaurant is right here in the South — in downtown Charleston, in fact, on the newly remade block of Columbus Street between Meeting and King. The cuisine is inspired by a different South, though, that of Hong Kong and the southern regions of China.

Long, tender egg noodles ($23) are stir fried with local Tarvin shrimp (tails still on), sliced snow peas and just enough rich, slightly sweet XO sauce to give them a glossy sheen. Much sweeter is the thin pool of fish palm syrup that awaits beneath the Teochew-style oyster omelet ($15), an odd but pleasant contrast to the fluffy egg and the briny bursts of plump oysters tucked away inside.

Some of the simplest dishes are the most impressive. A tangle of splendid scallion oil noodles ($11) are unexpectedly cool but absolutely delicious, slick with a dark soy sauce and topped by a small pile of scallions cooked down to crisp, brown slivers.

Beautiful South is the second Charleston venture from David Schuttenberg and Tina Heath-Schuttenberg, the owners of Kwei Fei. Both restaurants draw inspiration from the cuisine of China, but that’s pretty much where the similarities end.

Kwei Fei is out on Maybank Highway in the small restaurant space adjoining the Pour House, Charleston’s long running music club. Beautiful South is downtown in a ground floor retail space in Courier Square, the gleaming new brick and glass headquarters of property developer Greystar.

GOOSE CREEK — Tee Nguyen, known by her customers as “Miss Tee,” has been involved in Charleston restaurants for close to two decades.

Starting in 1997, the Vietnamese-born Nguyen operated an Asian retail foods market in North Charleston’s Gas Lite Square. Sourcing from distributors in Atlanta and California, she provided establishments like CO Restaurant with spices for pho and dried noodles, a wholesale operation that continued in a second location after the original closed.

Eventually, the woman who grew up with 11 siblings and learned how to cook alongside her mother decided to open her own restaurant — one with “Thai cuisine” in its name.

Nguyen’s family was among the thousands of Vietnamese citizens who spent time in Thailand refugee camps on their way to the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s. Drawing on those roots, Nguyen opened Lana Thai Cuisine with the type of Thai tastes American diners were craving at the time — pad Thai, curries, larb and ginger-dressed meats. The Thai restaurant, which she sold in 2018 after coming down with an illness, veers toward Vietnam, including five types of pho.

That menu model has been flipped on its head at Pho Bowl, a Goose Creek restaurant located at 142 St James Ave. where traditional Vietnamese pho, com dac biet and wonton soup are joined by a distinct vegetarian broth bowl.

Standing out

Sun streams into this white-walled space with one exposed brick wall, reminding patrons of Pho Bowl’s previous life as a Pizza Hut. In the dining room to the right, a mother watches her daughter, who, with headphones wrapped around her ears, is happily slurping up pho in a padded black chair.

The faint commotion those noise-cancelers are drowning out is coming from the kitchen, where on most days Nguyen is baby-sitting broth that cooks for hours on end. Pho can be ordered with a range of meats, along with seafood like shrimp and scallops. The house special incorporates beef flank steak, a tender cut that Nguyen says sets Pho Bowl apart.

South Carolina softball’s historic SEC Tournament run came to an end in the championship game Saturday with a 3-1 loss to Tennessee in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

The 10th-seeded Gamecocks (37-20) started strong, taking a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning over the 1-seed Lady Vols (44-8). Zoe Laneaux scored on a sacrifice fly by Riley Blampied after hitting a triple to right field. However, it didn’t take Tennessee long to respond. Gamecocks starting pitcher Bailey Betenbaugh walked Zaida Puni, who advanced to third on a double from McKenna Gibson. She was brought home on a single from Riley West.

South Carolina switched to Karsen Ochs at pitcher for the final out of the second inning, and she gave up three hits in the third that ultimately resulted in the game-winning Tennessee runs. Jamison Brockenbro hit the RBI single that scored West and Mackenzie Donihoo.

GAMECOCKS UPSET AUBURN:South Carolina softball keeps drama going, makes SEC Tournament championship on 2-out, seventh-inning homer

Gamecocks ace Donnie Goubourne checked in to start the fourth inning and immediately made an impact. She picked up two strikeouts and only allowed one hit to Tennessee star Kiki Milloy. South Carolina was the only team in the SEC Tournament that did not give up a home run to Milloy.

Goubourne, an All-SEC first team selection, finished with four strikeouts and two hits allowed in her three innings pitched. The Tennessee pitching staff did not give up multiple hits to any South Carolina batter.

Tennessee ace Ashley Rodgers entered the game in the sixth inning with a bang, striking out out all three batters she faced. Aniyah Black gave South Carolina hope with a double to center field in the seventh, but the Gamecocks couldn’t capitalize with three straight fly-outs.

The Gamecocks were the first 10-seed ever to reach the championship game of the SEC Tournament. They upset 2-seed Georgia and 3-seed Auburn in back-to-back games, winning both by a single run and going to extra innings with the Bulldogs. It was the team’s first SEC championship appearance since 2018 when it lost to Florida. South Carolina has not won an SEC title in softball since 2000.

South Carolina entered the tournament on the NCAA Tournament bubble, but their odds of earning an at-large bid increased significantly this week.

Update: South Carolina officials have identified a body found in a submerged vehicle over the weekend as a man who vanished last month, the coroner’s office said.

Thelonious Lamar Green, 54, went missing in June. On July 9, divers located his truck submerged in the Edisto River, according to the coroner’s office. There was a body in the truck when it was recovered.

The Charleston County Coroner’s Office officially identified the body as Green on July 11, according to a news release. His cause of death is pending.

The original story is below:

A submerged truck belonging to a missing South Carolina man had a body in it when it was discovered by civilian divers in the Edisto River, authorities say.

The Charleston County Sheriff’s Office says it responded to Willtown Bluff Boat Landing around 5:30 p.m. July 9 after a call that a diver located a submerged vehicle. The diver removed the license plate from the vehicle and deputies determined the vehicle belonged to Thelonious Lamar Green, 54, who went missing in June.

The body inside the truck had not been identified as of Monday morning, July 11. McClatchy News reached out to the Charleston County Coroner’s Office but did not receive an immediate response.

Green, 54, was last seen leaving a gathering in Adams Run, S.C., the evening of June 4, according to a CCSO news release. Family members grew concerned after they did not hear from Green, who has memory loss and relies on medication for other health issues, the release says.

After an ongoing search, Green’s family reached out to Illinois-based civilian dive team Chaos Divers which agreed to travel to Charleston. The team volunteers to help families of missing people across the country and assists in investigations and searches. CCSO said its team had previously searched areas of the river for Green’s car but did not find anything.

“We appreciate the Green family’s cooperation with the investigation and their extra efforts in working to find their loved one,” Andrew Knapp, a spokesperson for CCSO, wrote in a news release. “We thank Chaos Divers for their diligence in searching the water and helping to bring a measure of closure to Lamar Green’s family.”

Foul play is not suspected, authorities say.

This story was originally published July 11, 2022, 11:49 AM.