Wedding & Event Venue Near Georgetown, SC.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Readers of Southern Living magazine have given the Holy City another top ranking in its annual South’s Best Awards.

For the sixth year, the Charleston region ranked at the top of the awards, which recognize readers’ favorite destinations and experiences, covering everything from cities and small towns to restaurants and hotels.

The magazine noted Charleston’s “vibrant culinary scene, fantastic shops and boutiques, the coastal breezes blowing in over the Battery–it’s no shock that The Holy City stays at the top of this list year after year.”

Explore Charleston Board Chair and Bulldog Tours Founder John LaVerne said he is thankful for the “prestigious accolades.”

“The exposure from the award reinforces to travelers the attributes that make our region a premier destination, from our vibrant urban core to our beautiful island communities,” LaVerne said. “Being honored for the sixth year demonstrates our ability to remain relevant and to consistently provide high-quality, engaging and authentic visitor experiences in a highly-competitive industry.”

Greenville was the only other South Carolina town to rank this year. It came in at 7th place.

Savannah came in at second place and Asheville came in third place. Atlanta and Nashville rounded out the top five.

In addition to the honor for Charleston, Rodney Scott’s BBQ was named South’s Best BBQ Joint in South Carolina. The magazine notes that Scott has built a “multi-state whole hog empire” with locations in Alabama, Atlanta, and another on the way in Nashville.

“It all started in 2017 at the flagship on King Street in downtown Charleston, where Scott introduced city diners to the Pee Dee style of ‘burn barrel’ cooking he learned at his parents’ restaurant in the small South Carolina town of Hemingway,” the magazine’s website states.

It says Scott’s “tongue-tingling vinegar and red pepper sauce” is what made Scott a Southern barbecue star.

Readers voted Mount Pleasant-based Page’s Okra Grill as the Best Locally-Owned Restaurant in South Carolina. Southern Living says Page’s cemented itself “as a standout in a city full of destination-worthy dining.”

“The family-run restaurant offers an irresistible menu of elevated but familiar Southern stapes, like chicken fried steak, barbecue-filled egg rolls, and fried green tomatoes with roasted red pepper and peach jam,” the website states.

Since it sources much of its seafood locally, the magazine says that ordering seafood at Page’s is “always a good idea.”

Meanwhile, the cities of Folly Beach and Georgetown ranked among the South’s Best Tiny Towns.

Folly Beach is “the kind of place where the only footwear required is flip-flops and the only rule is to have a good time,” Southern Living says. It also mentions the Folly Beach Pier, which just reopened after extensive renovations.

For Georgetown, Southern Living cites the state’s Hammock Coast well-known “rich history, generous hospitality, and natural Lowcountry beauty.”

Georgetown, it says, “has plenty of all three.”

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High school students still dissect frogs in science class, but a select few also dissect the body parts on larger animals, like cows.

Seven Waccamaw High School students in Barbara O’Neill’s human body systems class got a closeup look at a cow’s elbow on Monday to give them a better understand of anatomy.

“Everybody here is going to go into some sort of medical field,” O’Neill said. “This gives them a leg up to schools that don’t have this program.”

Mya Robinson, a senior, wants to be a forensic pathologist.

“When I took my anatomy class, it was one of the best classes that I took here,” Robinson said. “I wanted to take another class that was dealing with anatomy and forensics.”

Elizabeth Birkbeck, a junior, wants to be a doctor or a nurse.

“This class really is big on the visual. You do it yourself and you’re able to meet a lot of people who want to go into the same field as you,” Birkbeck said. “This is more like college prep. It teaches you how to think and how to summarize a lot of stuff. There’s more of a feeling of learning and doing it by yourself.”

Human body systems is part of the “Project Lead the Way” curriculum. PLTW classes give students access to real-world, applied learning experiences that stress problem solving, critical and creative thinking, collaboration and communication.

Waccamaw High also offers PLTW classes in computer science and engineering.

O’Neill has been teaching science for more than 20 years and has never gotten to use such advanced teaching tools as a cow’s elbow or a cow’s eye.

“It’s amazing because this class is hands-on and student-led. I’m just a facilitator,” O’Neill said. “I am not in front of the class to teach teach teach. It is them doing, them learning and me facilitating.”

“It helps me visualize it more,” Robinson said. “I am more of a person to do it instead of just read about it or look at it. It’s more interesting to see it.”

“You want to look at it. You want to put it under a microscope and look at the tissue,” Birkbeck said. “You want to hold it in your hands and visualize it.”

O’Neill had to complete 80 hours of training to teach PLTW biomedical classes. Human body systems is the second in the series.

“It’s just another way to expand science,” O’Neill said. “I’m excited to be able to be a part of it.”

Nearly 20 percent of Georgetown County School District students will take a career technology education class, like human body systems, this year.

Along with the PLTW biomedical classes, there is everything from welding and auto tech to cosmetology and culinary arts.

“I think we’re able to reach a wonderful cross-section of students with these program offerings,” said Pamela Vereen, the district’s director of college and career readiness. “We’re excited about where we are, but there’s a lot of potential and promise still to come.”

Georgetown High School has the most students enrolled in a CTE class with 580. Waccamaw High is second with 349 students, followed by Andrews with 345 and Carvers Bay with 264.

Eighteen Waccamaw High students took at least one class at the district’s career center, which is located on the campus of Georgetown High, this year.

Career technology education classes give kids the chance to try things to see if it’s something they’re interested in for a career, Vereen said. The district also offers job shadowing and work-based learning opportunities.

“All students can find a niche,” Vereen added.

Many district students take classes at Horry-Georgetown Technical College while still in high school.

Tamara Tucker, director of guidance at Waccamaw High, starts reaching out to students when they’re in 10th grade so they can make sure to fulfill all their graduation requirements before their senior year, when they’ll need the time during the school day to go to HGTC’s campus outside of Georgetown.

“We need them to have a good bit of their high school course work out of the way,” Tucker said.

Late last year, the district sponsored an “educators in industry day” which gave teachers the opportunity to travel to the HGTC center to check out the equipment.

Vereen said that is “huge” for teachers.

“In our minds, we still remember what industry looked like, versus what it is now,” she added. “You have to have that fresh perspective to be able to share it with your students. That kind of becomes eye-opening.”

Tucker has seen an increase in the number of students taking career technology education classes since she started at the school 11 years ago.

In 2014, when HGTC announced plans to build an advanced manufacturing center on its Georgetown campus, the school district created a technical scholars program, which allows high school students to take HGTC classes, in some cases for free, and graduate with a diploma and certification in one of the advanced manufacturing fields.

Horry-Georgetown Tech is hosting a technical scholars open house on March 9 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on the Georgetown campus.

The event is free and information will be available on the following programs: advanced welding, forestry and wildlife management, HVAC, machine tool, mechatronics and patient care medical assistant.

For more information go to hgtc.edu/techscholars.

Georgetown County Board of Education: First and third Tuesdays, 5:30 p.m., Beck Education Center. For details, go to gcsd.k12.sc.us. Georgetown County Council: Second and fourth Tuesdays, 5:30 p.m., Council Chambers, 129 Screven St., Georgetown. For details, go to georgetowncountysc.org. Pawleys Island Town Council: Second Mondays, 5 p.m. Town Hall, 323 Myrtle Ave. For details, go to townofpawleysisland.com. , .

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Special to Salisbury Daily Times

John Middleton Clayton, tall, handsome and the youngest member of the United States Senate, rose to speak on March 4, 1830.

A dispute over the sale of public lands exploded in a series of speeches by Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina and Daniel Webster of Massachusetts on the nature of the Federal Union. In a day when speeches lasted hours and touched on many topics, Hayne was strident in his defense of state’s rights, the South Carolina Doctrine of nullification and slavery.

When it came to fugitive slaves and the abolitionists, Hayne sarcastically commented, “What a commentary on the wisdom, justice and humanity of the Southern slave owner is presented by the example of certain benevolent [abolitionist] associations and charitable individuals elsewhere. Shedding weak tears over sufferings which had existence only in their own sickly imaginations, these ‘friends of humanity’ set themselves systematically to work to seduce the slaves of the South from their masters.”

Webster answered Hayne, and his eloquence soared to end in a phrase that was repeated in Northern schoolhouses for a generation: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!” The Hayne-Webster debate was one of the most important American political debates of the early republic. The speeches were printed in the newspapers across the young country.

Several weeks after the Hayne-Webster debate, young Delaware Sen. Clayton rose to speak. Born in Dagsboro in 1796, Clayton attended school at Lewes and then went to Yale, where he graduated in 1815 with the highest honors.

With his formal education over, Clayton returned home to southern Delaware, and in 1819, he was admitted to the bar at Georgetown. The young lawyer’s sharp gray eyes and dark eyebrows, which contrasted with his prematurely white hair, helped make him an imposing figure in the Georgetown courtroom where he argued his cases eloquently and successfully. In 1828, Clayton was elected to the United States Senate.

Although Delaware was a slave state, and Southern in many of its leanings, Clayton was opposed to the doctrine of nullification, and he was no friend of slavery. In his speech, Clayton attacked the heart of the South Carolina nullification doctrine, which the Delaware senator believed would lead to a civil war over slavery.

Clayton described the horrors of the war to come: “The storm of civil war will howl fearfully through the land, from the Atlantic border to the wildest recesses of the West, covering with desolation every field which has been crowned with verdure by the culture of freemen, and now resounding with the echoes of our happiness and industry.”

Along with the texts of speeches of Hayne and Webster, Clayton’s address was one of the most widely circulated of the debate. Clayton’s speech marked him as a rising star on the political scene, and he would be a force in Delaware politics for a generation.

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Clayton eventually served as secretary of state under President Zachary Taylor, and the Dagsboro native negotiated a treaty that paved the way for the Panama Canal. The questions of nullification, secession and slavery, however, continued to fester for another three decades.

After the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, South Carolina announced that it had seceded from the Union, and sparked the Civil War. Clayton’s tragic prophecy that, “The storm of civil war will howl fearfully through the land, from the Atlantic border to the wildest recesses of the West,” had been unfortunately fulfilled.

Principal sources

The Webster-Hayne Debates, “Speech of Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, January 25, 1830;” “Speech of Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, January 26 and 27, 1830.” https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/the-webster-hayne-debates/

Obituary Addresses on the Occasion of the Death of the Hon. John M. Clayton of Delaware, Washington: A. G. P. Nicholson, Public Printer, 1857, p. 9.

Herman Belz, ed., The Webster-Hayne Debate on the Nature of the Union, Indianapolis: Liberty fund 2000, p. 407

Georgetown has formed an Arts and Culture Commission to find ways, including events and displays, to attract visitors to the city.

But don’t expect to see a transformation in the next few weeks.

“I see it slowly evolving. I don’t see murals on every building or alligators on every corner. That’s not what I envision,” Mayor Carol Jayroe said. “I envision a slow, evolving process to keep our historical nature and get it right.”

Al Joseph, a former City Council member who is now its Main Street coordinator, thinks the commission is the “single biggest asset” to the city he’s seen in years.

“I really don’t see anything else that can have an impact on Georgetown bigger than this, I really don’t, because it’s so far-reaching – performance arts, figurative arts, culinary arts,” said Joseph, who is a member of the commission.

The S.C. Arts Commission has nine “cultural districts,” but none in this region. Joseph told the committee that he would like Georgetown to be the first.

The goals of cultural districts are to:

• attract artists, creative entrepreneurs and cultural enterprises to communities;

• encourage economic development;

• foster local cultural development;

• and provide a focal point for celebrating and strengthening local cultural identity.

“We found in our research that history is the No. 2 driver for tourism in Georgetown behind the water,” Joseph said. “We can’t do it without culture.”

The city will have to apply to the Arts Commission for the designation.

Joseph brought news to the city commission’s first meeting last week that Brookgreen Gardens is giving the city a Front Street streetscape that was displayed for years during its popular Nights of a Thousand Candles event.

The wooden streetscape, which measures 13 feet by 5 feet, features the buildings in the 700 block of Front Street that were destroyed by fire in September 2013. The buildings were never rebuilt.

The model needs some restoration after being outside in the elements, Joseph said, but is otherwise in good shape.

Committee members will work with representatives from the city’s museums to find a home for the piece.

Other ideas for partnerships with Brookgreen Gardens include borrowing sculptures to display along Front Street, and teaming up to find an artist and secure funding for a sculpture of Joseph Rainey, the first Black member of the U.S. House, to be placed in Rainey Park.

One of the upcoming cultural events already on the schedule is “Harriet Tubman: Journey to Freedom,” a sculpture that will be on display in Rainey Park from Aug. 1 through Oct. 31.

Officials are also working with Varna International Music Academy to bring a performance to the city sometime in June as part of its Muzika! festival. The Bulgaria-based company, which counts Columbia as its U.S. base, will be performing along the South Carolina coast from June 27 through July 21.

City Administrator Sandra Yúdice was an administrator in Greenville County for 20 years.

She told the committee that she witnessed how the arts fueled the transformation of the City of Greenvile.

One of the projects that is expected to enhance the city’s cultural identity is the installation of the Charters of Freedom display at Rainey Park.

“What a perfect setting to have this monument in,” Jayroe said.

The display is a gift from the Foundation Forward nonprofit and will feature copies of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Civil Rights amendments engraved on bronze tablets, encased in brick pedestals and covered with shatter-proof glass.

At a groundbreaking on Tuesday, both Jayroe and Joseph said they expect the display to attract students from all across the state to Georgetown.

“Where students go, parents follow,” Joseph added.

Jayroe expects to see a school bus parked on Front Street every day.

Joseph is working with Foundation Forward representatives on a construction schedule. It’s possible the installation will be finished by June.

At the latest, the work needs to completed before the Harriet Tubman statue arrives for its debut on Aug. 1, Joseph said.

Georgetown County Board of Education: First and third Tuesdays, 5:30 p.m., Beck Education Center. For details, go to gcsd.k12.sc.us. Georgetown County Council: Second and fourth Tuesdays, 5:30 p.m., Council Chambers, 129 Screven St., Georgetown. For details, go to georgetowncountysc.org. Pawleys Island Town Council: Second Mondays, 5 p.m. Town Hall, 323 Myrtle Ave. For details, go to townofpawleysisland.com. , .

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GEORGETOWN — The Georgetown County Council unanimously gave preliminary approval to the natural resources portion of its comprehensive plan Feb. 14 despite criticism from conservation groups that say the draft’s language is not strong enough.

Conservation group representatives said they were shocked at changes in the draft on natural resources that was approved by the county planning commission in November. The changes came in a review of the county’s comprehensive plan — a map for future development — that is updated every 10 years.

Staff attorney Emily Nellermoe of the South Carolina Environmental Law Project noted language that called for prevention of clear-cutting trees on lots was removed and replaced with language urging the county to “help prevent clear-cutting of protected trees.”

Georgetown County Planning Director Holly Richardson told the council that county administration felt some objectives, including regulation of septic tanks and revival of shellfish farming, were beyond the county’s reach.

The draft of the plan’s goals approved in November called for the county to “limit (within reason) the installation of new residential septic wastewater systems in environmentally sensitive areas.”

The draft voted on Feb. 14 calls for the county to “continue communications with water and sewer providers regarding failing septic systems throughout the County and ways to address them” instead.

Meanwhile, an objective to “strive to reopen closed shellfish harvesting grounds” was deleted entirely.

“We took a look at it in terms of what can the county enforce and be responsible for,” Richardson said. “There was a lot in there that’s regulated by other agencies, so some of the deletions are related to that. Some of the constraints were budgetary concerns, frankly.”

Nellermoe said the comprehensive plan could enhance the state and federal laws.

“There’s a huge problem with stormwater here,” Nellermoe said. “So, yeah, (S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control) does some regulation of stormwater, but it’s also a county problem.”

Nellermoe was joined by Becky Ryon of the Coastal Conservation League and Marilyn Hemingway of the Gullah Geechee Chamber of Commerce in speaking against the draft presented to council.

“This is not what planning commission approved,” Ryon said. “This is not what the numerous stakeholders recommended.”

Hemingway previously asked the planning commission to defer the draft natural resources portion of the comprehensive plan until hearing more public comment. She asked the council to return the plan to the planning commission.

“Particularly pertaining to the Georgetown County Comprehensive Plan, the whole cannot be as strong as the sum of its parts,” Hemingway said.