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USC Columbia graduates thousands this weekend: How old is too old?

May 8, 2009 By

The University of South Carolina is awarding 4000 degrees on the Columbia campus this weekend. USC awards more than half of the baccularete degrees in South Carolina. Clemson Univeristy is awarding approximately 2000 degrees this year.One of the oldest graduates from the Columbia campus this year will be 60-year-old Dennis Lambries of Saluda. He spent his first career in the Navy because he didn’t have the money for college at the time. He served in Vietnam and retired after 23-years. Now Lambries now works in the USC Survey Research Lab.

It took Lambries nine years to finish his bachelor’s degree, while he was in the Navy, then a few years on his Masters, then the last 20 years to receive his doctoral degree in political science. Saturday, he will walk across the Koger(hard g) Center stage at 1pm, finally having accomplished his life-long goal.

He explains why he never gave up.  “My grandparents out in Saluda County were farmers.  And my grandmother impressed upon her children the importance of education.  At that time it was tough to get it but it was a way to get off the farm.  And it filtered in to me through my mother.  So it was always in the back of my mind that education is something  that you have to have.” 

Lambries says he doesn’t believe in being “too old.”  “Sachel Page, who was a great Negro League baseball player, who didn’t get into the major leagues until somewhat later in life, was always being asked how old he was.  He looked at them and said, ‘How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?’   And that started me thinking.  There is a physical side to age, but it’s what you make of it.  I knew people I graduated high school with who were old at 18, set in their ways.”

Most of USC’s non-Columbia campuses have already held commencement exercises. USC-Aiken will hold ceremonies tonight(Friday).

Filed Under: Education, Human Interest, News

Legislative week: Cig tax, health care, gambling, working overtime

May 8, 2009 By

In order to comply with the Sine Die statute, that calls for the legislative session to be brought to an orderly close, state lawmakers are set to end the session early in order to gear up to work overtime.

With the anticipated squabble with Governor Sanford over the State Budget, state lawmakers are looking to work overtime. The Senate Thursday passed a resolution that   originated in the House that would officially end the legislative session on May 21st, with the stipulation that the two bodies meet beginning June 16th for a maximum period of three days.

Pickens County Senator Larry Martin says the General Assembly needs the extra time to focus on specific items of legislation and mainly the State Budget, “…not take up unlimited calendar issues but to take up the General Appropriations Bill, the issues we’ve got to finish including any vetoes on the General Appropriations Bill and then we would have completed our work for this legislative session.”                                      2legiswrapmay-84                                                              [Read more...]

Filed Under: Legislature, Politics & Government

Cigarette tax increase gaining Senate support

May 8, 2009 By

A 50-cent state cigarette tax is a little closer to reality.

Next week, the full state Senate will take up a plan to create more than $145 million in new revenues.

Senate Finance Chairman Hugh Leatherman says the new bill is a compromise over how the money should be spent.

“Basically what it does is put the additional fifty cents into a “healthcare trust fund” to be used for future health needs. Obviously the General Assembly would need to appropriate those monies at the time that the need arose,” he says.

Leatherman says that means, ”anything dealing with health care the General Assembly chooses to use it for. ”

The bill sent from the House would use the money for tax credits to people to buy their own health insurance.

The question of how the money should be spent is the sticking point that kept the bill from being passed last year. The Darlington Senator says the most important thing they can do is curtail the use of tobacco.

“To me the big thing is, is to increase that tax and hopefully stop people from smoking, any at all or as much, and particularly the young people who may be inclined to start smoking.”

In the Senate revision, five million in cigarette tax money would go to the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center for lung cancer research. Leatherman says he insisted on that being in the bill:

“First of all, the Hollings Cancer Center has been designated by the National Institutes of Health as a cancer center, but secondly I can think of no more direct tie to the use of tobacco tax money than doing lung cancer research.”

Leatherman says the 16 to 5 vote in Finance Committee tells him that lots of people are supporting this. South Carolina has not increased cigarette taxes since 1977.

Filed Under: Health & Medicine, Legislature, News

SC scientists compete for additional stimulus money

May 8, 2009 By

For South Carolina, more stimulus money could be on the way- thanks to science.

The Obama Administration has set aside nearly $10.4 billion for the National Institutes of Health, and other scientific institutes to support medical research, and $3 billion to the National Science Foundation in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

“A number of scientific priorities have popped up over the last few years at NIH and there hasn’t been money to fund them, and now, some of these monies are given the opportunities to fund some of those priorities. And they’re going, targeting individual investigators to distribute those monies,” says Lanier.

As Doctor Steven Lanier, Associate Provost for Research at the Medical University of South Carolina, explains, these grants are competitive at the national level and will be distributed to approved applicants this year.

“This idea is to not only invest in science and technology, but the idea is to do that quickly and target these monies to be extended in the next two years so we have economic benefits across the board, new hires, retention, all the renovations would be mini-stimulus packages in themselves,” says Lanier.

Lanier says there’s a rush for scientists and researchers to fill out these stimulus applications because the deadline is the end of May. He says it’s fair game for institutions and individuals across the nation to get their portion.

“It depends on the type of application, they will get reviewed and then they will be viewed based on merit and need and then depending on how much money is available a certain percentage of them will be paid. A majority of them will be available summer and awards begin to be made August,” says Lanier.

Lanier says the money will be divided into several different categories; including renovations, instrumentations, research, and scientific priorities. Each application will be reviewed.

Filed Under: Economy, Health & Medicine, News

SCDOT cuts budget by cutting down on grass mowing

May 8, 2009 By

In the past, the Transportation Department mowed all South Carolina interstates in five cycles from April to November. Now, a tight state budget means, the grass on the interstates will only be mowed three times this year. David Cook is with DOT.

“As our revenue decreases, as people drive less, cause that’s primarily where we get our revenue is from the gas tax, we’re looking for ways to save money. And reducing the mowing cycles on the interstate, which is cutting the roadside interstate grass can save about $1.3 million for two cycles, if you cut out two cycles,” says Cook.

Cook says cutting these lawn mowing cycles is better than cutting elsewhere.

“When money is tight you have to really make hard decisions about what you’re going to try to reduce and we look at things that are safety related and we certainly don’t want to reduce anything that’s safety related and this is the area we decided we could afford a trade-off,” says Cook.

The state slogan is “Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places,” and Cook says they do not plan on diminishing that, but they have to do what is best.

“The aesthetics and the appearance, ya know, that’s where a lot of times people’s perceptions come from. So, it’s important to us to try and make things look nice and really for people to perceive that we are doing the good job that we are doing, but really when money is short you have to make some trade-offs,” says Cook.

Cook says in the contract, the DOT is required to mow three cycles this year, but next year, if the budget is better, they hope to get the number of cycles back up to five. This year, the mowing cycles will only run through October 31.

Filed Under: Environment & Conservation, News, Transportation
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