Electrician Contractor in Pickens, SC

Supporters of former President Trump booed and called South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) a “traitor” at a rally in the senator’s home state on Saturday.

“Thank y’all for coming. Thank you very much,” Graham said in response to a chorus of boos at the rally for the former president in Pickens, S.C.

“Just calm down for a second. I think you’ll like this,” he added, after waiting several minutes for the crowd to settle to no avail.

Graham, who has had an on-and-off relationship with Trump over the years, touted the “common ground” that he and the former president have found on Saturday.

“It took a while to get there folks, but let me tell you what happened,” he said. “I’ve come to like President Trump and he likes himself and we got that in common. And I’m gonna help him become president of the United States.”

“So let me tell you how you win an election folks — you get people together that don’t agree all the time to agree on the most important things,” Graham added. “My hope is we can bring this party together cause he’s gonna be our nominee.”

The South Carolina senator, who at one point called Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot” during the 2016 campaign, became one of the president’s fiercest supporters in the Senate during his administration.

Graham briefly turned against Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. However, he ultimately endorsed the former president’s 2024 White House bid.

The senator has recently defended Trump in the face of two indictments, saying last month that the latest charges made the former president “stronger” than before.

Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

(WSPA) – Pickens County leaders estimate 50,000 people lined the streets of Pickens for former president Donald Trump’s rally less than one month ago.

The county said they paid about $30,000 to first responders working the July 1 event. The city of Pickens also spent an additional $10,000 in setup costs.

However, while many said they wonder why Trump’s campaign didn’t pay those costs, the county said it would have been foolish to send the campaign a bill.

Under law, a campaign expense is an expense that influences the outcome of an election.

“The numbers getting tossed around, that they left the city of Pickens owing money is absolutely not true,” said Barry Crawford, who helped assist Trump’s visit. “We had a very successful event that day outside of the heat. No one went to jail, it was a peaceful event and we were glad to have Mr. Trump in Pickens.”

Vice Chairman of Pickens County Council Roy Costner said whether you support Trump or not, having a former president visit the area is a historic event.

He said the safety of those attending that event was their top priority.

“We are always going to do what we can to keep the public safe, make sure there are no problems. And if we as a county council can find a way to fund that portion of it without it costing the taxpayers any extra dollars, I think that is a win all the way around,” Costner said.

County Council members said the county will pay the expenses of the event at no cost to taxpayers using their accommodations tax (ATAX) money. The ATAX is the extra sales tax motels and hotels pay for short term overnight guests. The county government collects about $250,000 in ATAX money a year.

This year they said they had $75,000 left over.

“That is what the accommodations tax is for,” Costner said. “When you have a big event, it really should be that money used for bringing all these people into the area. There were a lot of people from all over. Those weren’t all people from Pickens.”

The county added the crowd that traveled to Pickens was about 16 times bigger than the city’s population.

“This is huge,” Crawford said. “We have never had anything this big in Pickens. It was a huge successful event and I don’t know that we will have anything that matches it anytime soon.”

County leaders said the event was beneficial to both the city and county and they believe it was a success from start to finish.

PICKENS COUNTY, S.C. (WSPA) – As storms rolled through the Upstate Sunday night into Monday morning, several homes were damaged due to that severe weather, including a home on Edens Ridge Drive in Six Mile.

Pickens County Emergency Management said it was around 1:30 a.m. when the home was believed to have been struck by lightning.

Billy Gibson, Pickens County EMS director, said they battled the flames for about 4 hours as when lightning struck, fire spread quickly throughout the home.

“It actually was called in by a neighbor who saw the fire from the next street over and then called the fire department,” Gibson said. “They were there in about three minutes. When the lightning strike hit it looked like it was near the roof line, so the top of the house was heavily involved.”

Chip Lawson, vice president of the Edens Ridge Homeowner’s Association, said many neighbors have shown an outpour of love and support for the family.

“This is a great neighborhood,” Lawson said. “Everyone is there for each other and that is exactly what is going on right now. We are trying to work up something to see if they need anything as far as gift cards to help them go to restaurants and things like that. Many people in the neighborhood have offered them places to stay, take a bath, get clothes and stuff like that.”

Gibson said there were three confirmed lightning strikes throughout the county and five homes were damaged.

He said the damage at the home on Edens Ridge Drive was most significant.

“It has been a long time since I have seen a weather system like that come through Pickens County with that intensity of lightning,” Gibson said. “We are prone to get severe weather from time to time with high winds, heavy rain but that amount of lightning is something we rarely see.”

While preparing for a lightning strike is almost impossible, there are a few ways you may be able to prepare your home for the unexpected.

“About the only thing you can do is make sure your house is grounded properly,” Lawson said. “A lot of people don’t ground their houses or the old houses; they never grounded them. The new ones you put your ground rods in, make sure your phone, power panel box, and everything is attached to that and properly tied down.”

Gibson said despite several houses being damaged in the area, luckily no one was injured.

Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

About Pickens

PICKENS, S.C. (WSPA) – Pickens is filled with history and sits on land that once belonged to the Cherokee Nation many years ago.

“The Cherokee sided with the British during the Revolutionary War,” the director of Pickens County Museum of Art and History Tabitha Johnson said. “Once they lost the war they had to surrender most of their land to the United States of America.”

The Pickens area was part of the Washington District in 1791 and over time the land was divided up until 1868 when Pickens branched off on its own.

Johnson said, “Most of what was old Pickens was actually picked up and physically moved brick and board.”

Everything from the courthouse to the jail was moved, Johnson explained and named after a Revolutionary War hero.

“The district, the county, the city is all named after and in honor of Revolutionary war hero Brigadier General Andrew Pickens.”

When the land was seized after the Revolutionary War, it was given to General Pickens from the government as payment and it didn’t take long for the town to become a bustling mill town after the railroad was built.

“About 1898 the railway comes through Pickens and that was instrumental for the development of the city and the county overall,” Johnson added. “Later textile mills become a massive part of the development.”

The locals may know the unique lore behind their trains and railroad which is still talked about today.

“When it was first established there was no way for the train to turn around so when it would go from Pickens to Easley it would have to backtrack and come back along the tracks to Pickens,” Johnson said.

It eventually got its own nickname.

“Almost immediately the locals started calling it the doodle because it was kind of like the doodlebug.”

The doodle train’s history is preserved at doodle par and most of the town’s history is preserved at the Museum of Art and History, which is a piece of the past itself.

Johnson said, “The building we’re standing in is an artifact itself because this was the county jail.”

According to Johnson, it wasn’t the original that was moved from the original county seat “but it was built in 1902 and opened in 1903 as the county jail and is one of the few early jails still remaining in the Piedmont.”

Early sheriffs and their families would live in the jail and take care of the prisoners Johnson said.

“So, it was really a wide range of folks who are kind of stumbling around as a public menace and folks who had really committed serious crimes all were housed here in the building.”

Glimpses of the past can be found across Pickens at shops, museums and parks.

It’s a town with more history than you may think.

Learn more about our special guest:

Videos:

Staff Reporter jevans@thepccourier.com

COUNTY — United Way of Pickens County staff and supporters gathered Thursday to celebrate the organization’s successes in the past year.

“United Way truly is a community organization and it’s driven by community members who volunteer their time and resources to fight for the education, financial stability and basic needs of every person in Pickens County,” said Lyndy Schonhar, Director of Corporate Engagement for United Way of Pickens County.

A lot has happened in the past year, she said.

“We’ve seen so many futures made brighter within households, in classrooms, sometimes in the walls of our own building,” Schonhar said.

Supporters have contributed to programs targeting education and financial stability, “two significant building blocks for a better future,” she said.

The Camp iRock program works toward United Way’s “bold goal that 70 percent of third graders will be reading on grade level by the year 2025,” Schonhar said.

This year’s summer reading program saw 500 children in k4 through third grade register, she said.

“Most days, an average of 400 children were having the time of their lives while working hard on improving their reading,” Schonhar said.”96 percent of children who attended at least 50 percent of camp maintained or grew in their reading levels.”

Camp iRock will celebrate 10 years of changing lives next year, she said.

“We owe it all to donors and friends like you, who donate so generously to United Way’s early education initiatives,” Schonhar said. “The very first cohort of Camp iRock children are graduating in 2024.”

Helping kids enter kindergarten ready to learn is a key factor in helping them reach on grade level by the time they reach third grade, she said.

The organization’s Women United network began the Preschool Pages program five years ago.

“More than 1,600 books were provided to 300 preschoolers across 11 elementary schools last year,” Schonhar said. “For more than 100 children, Preschool Pages was the only formal enrichment program they participated in.”

Teachers have seen growth in those preschoolers in both early literacy and classroom readiness, she said.

Women United’s annual fundraiser, the Luncheon for Literacy, is set for March 2024.

“These programs cannot happen without community support,” Schonhar said.

Free File, United Way of Pickens County’s free tax preparation program, is also having an impact on individuals and families, she said.

“1,555 families and individuals, with an average household income of roughly $19,000 were able to have their taxes prepared for free,” Schonhar said.

Because of that, nearly $1.9 million went “back into the pockets of hardworking people in Pickens County last year,” she said.

Those served by the program included students, refugees, veterans and the elderly.

“This service would not have been possible without our 39 Free File volunteers who served as readers and preparers,” Schonhar said.

Pathways, a one-on-one intensive financial coaching program, continues to make an impact since launching in 2021, giving the families and individuals participating the skills, assistance, knowledge and resources needed “to achieve freedom over their finances,” she said.

Among the 5 people participating in the program during the first 6 months of 2023, the average debt to income ratio went from 49 percent to 22 percent, the percentage between expenses and income decreased from an average of 91 percent to 84 percent, the average credit score increased from 598 to 662, Schonhar said.

“The total amount in savings accounts increased from $338 to $9,635,” she said. “These are all very encouraging statistics and speak to the determination of both the participants and their coaches.”

Pinnacle Financial Partners teamed with United Way of Pickens County this year on the Pathways program, helping develop training modules for current and future Pathways participants.

“We are incredibly grateful for the impact that this will have on families and individuals in Pickens County,” Schonhar said.