The National Assessment of Educational Progress known as NAEP (pronounced nape) has released “The Nation’s Report Card: Mathematics 2009.” The report outlines the performance of the nation’s fourth and eighth grade students. It shows that the states’s students before and after middle school are, on-the-average, operating slightly below average. [Read more...]
Corrections Department 100 percent at fugitive recovery
October 14, 2009 By
Three inmates from three different corrections facilities walked away from work detail last week. They are now in a maximum security prison. The state corrections department had 13 escapes last year, ten of those from low security situations. All thirteen were apprehended.
Add to that the three now captured from last week. Josh Gelinas of the Corrections department says that success speaks to a system that does work, “when you have more than 3000 inmates in a minimum security setting that can go out.”
Gelinas says the corrections department believes the minimum security environment is important, allowing inmates to re-acclimate to real life, and to earn income. [Read more...]
Morris College gets $1.5 federal grant
October 14, 2009 By
A $1.5 million dollar grant has been secured by Sumter’s Morris College, as appropriated in the Energy and Water Appropriations Act.
Reuben Chapel at Morris College
Congressman John Spratt of the Fifth Congressional District announced a $1.5 million grant for Morris College in Sumter to be used for the construction of a new wing with classroom and laboratory space. Dr. Luns Richardson, college president says there ia a critical need for more classroom and laboratory space and tells how the funds are to be used.
Richardson says, “The Wilson Booker Science Bldg will be the focus of this expansion. The new extension wing will consist of a classroom, a research lab, a chemistry lab, an animal room, a green house, two faculty offices, and a most needed elevator between the two floors of Wilson-Booker Science Building.”
According to Congressman Spratt, the Energy and Water Appropriations Act still must clear the Senate and the President’s desk before the funds are released.
Morris College is a private church-owned operated institution founded in 1908 by the Baptist Educational and Missionary Convention of South Carolina.
Highest court begins hearing water case issue
October 14, 2009 By
The U.S. Supreme Court finally began hearings on the question of intervenors being added to the case involving the lawsuit South Carolina has brought against North Carolina in a battle over the usage of water from the Catawba River. During an hour-long hearing Tuesday, the court began hearing arguments on whether three intervenors should be allowed to join with North Carolina in the water case lawsuit. The hearings were postponed last Monday because of the illness of one of the attorneys involved in the case.
SC Attorney General Henry McMaster won the chance for the state to get a U.S. Supreme Court Hearing
Last year, the special master assigned to the case by the court allowed the city of Charlotte, Duke Energy, and the Catawba River Supply Project to enter the case. South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster objected saying their inclusion in the case would only prolong the case and make it more costly.
Charlotte City Attorney Mac McCarley says he believes the decision of the court will come down to the question of whether North Carolina has made a fair and reasonable use of the water in the Catawba River Valley. The court’s decision on the issue of the intervenors could come either by the end of December, or when the court session ends next June.
Hunter sentenced for killing teenager
October 14, 2009 By
A South Carolina man was sentenced this week for the shooting death of a teenager killed in the woods last year. Sixteen-year-old Joshua Gainey was shot and killed on October 2, 2008. Now, more than a year later, 53-year-old Dennis Hall of Rowesville has pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter for shooting Gainey while he was hunting in the woods.
The Times and Democrat of Orangeburg reports Gainey was also hunting when he was shot. On that day, Hall was hunting, heard something in the bushes, fired his gun, and reportedly ran home. That something turned out to be Gainey. Prosecutors say Hall never came forward about the shooting, but it was linked back to him when investigators found the gunshot shell. Hall is now sentenced to four years in prison.
