As a long-time children’s advocate,
Lorretta Keeling was deeply concerned by the number of homeless students in
Horry County Schools, especially teenage girls soon to be mothers. So Keeling
founded the Horry County Teens and Infants Shelter Home.
Friday’s editorial takes a look again
at the woes afflicting our local fishing industry:
When the local black sea bass fishing
season was shut down earlier this month, recreational boat captains quickly
cried foul. Though the species is listed as overfished by the federal National
Marine Fisheries Service, local fishermen say they’re seeing plenty of the
fish, so much that the bass are eating other species and disrupting the
ecosystem. At least in the fight so far, the feds have the power. The season
has closed down earlier and earlier each year for the past three years. This
past year, the season lasted only 96 days.
The argument, as it has for the past
few years, comes down to a very basic disconnect. Local fishermen who are out
on the water every day say there are lots of fish. Federal regulators say there
aren’t.
Sunday’s editorial urges some more excitement
and interest on the state level when it comes to wind energy:
“We’re just watching the turbines go around.”
– North Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce CEO Marc Jordan, on the latest
action in the region’s wind energy initiatives.
What happened to the state’s
excitement about wind energy? After what had been a strong, united effort a few
years ago to push into the forefront of the emerging industry, the state effort
has largely stagnated.
Wednesday’s editorial celebrates the
good work being done on behalf of veterans by the local American Legion Riders:
On a sunny summer day, a dozen or so
motorcyclists of the American Legion Riders Post 178 (Murrells Inlet) delivered
a check to the Veterans
Welcome Home
& Resource Center
in Little River. The riders of Post 178 regularly support the center, started
three years ago, and ALR leader Bob Duncan says “the vets center is one of our
main projects.”
Other groups supported by the ALR
include area Blue Star Mothers and families of the National Guard field
artillery unit in Georgetown during deployment
to Afghanistan
through the Guard’s Family Readiness Program. Beyond the support for
established groups, the riders also took the lead in providing a proper funeral
to veterans who otherwise would not receive one.
The more than 1,800 employees of Horry County should be steamed. As the County Council continues to debate first whether it can afford to give those workers a raise at all this year and next whether that well-deserved raise would be a measly 1 percent (after no raises since 2008) or a just slightly better 2 percent, at least some of the reason for that penny-pinching sits docked up in Little River.
The owners of the SunCruz casino boat, which takes gamblers out to international waters, have refused since last summer to pay the county the $7 per passenger fee they agreed to back in 2010. As the county’s subsequent lawsuit works its way through the courts, the lost revenue continues to add up, to the point the county now estimates they’re owed more than $500,000. With a resolution potentially years down the road, that total continues to grow, and county residents stand to lose a significant amount of money that could be put to use right now.
Wednesday’s editorial begins what will be a focus on the military this week as we lead up to Memorial Day:
The 90 World War II veterans on today’s Honor Flight Myrtle Beach perhaps are thinking of wartime buddies who did not come home and may have been laid to rest in Normandy, France, or in The Philippines. Today’s Honor Flight, the fourth from Myrtle Beach, is scheduled to take the veterans to Washington to see the WWII Memorial, constructed to honor their service and dedicated in 2004. The Honor Flight should return to Myrtle Beach International Airport at about 7:30 p.m., met by a rousing welcome home reception with a band, honor guard, banners and so forth.
Wednesday’s editorial applauds the good work going on in Little River at Kris Tourtellotte’s center for veterans:
Three years ago, the Veterans Welcome Home and Resource Center opened in Little River on a wing and a prayer. Kris Tourtellotte, an Army veteran with three tours in Vietnam, felt there was a need for a nonprofit volunteer organization based on his several years of experience at a veterans help operation in Rochester, N.Y.
That first year, the center had financial help from several individuals and five organizations. This year, Tourtellotte counts 25 organizations that help financially and in other important ways. This year, the center has a sponsor for every month, pledged for $1,000 to cover operating costs. The sponsor for May is the National Army Security Agency Association, the former intelligence apparatus now folded into the Central Intelligence Agency. The association’s sponsorship of the Little River center came about at a reunion here. Tourtellotte served in the ASA during his eight years in the Army.
Wednesday’s editorial promotes the burgeoning North Myrtle Beach Area Historical Museum.
All the books and other library materials are gone from the building on Second Avenue North, but the old circulation desk remains and it will have a place in the North Myrtle Beach Area Historical Museum taking shape in the former library.
For years, the museum was the vision of Dick Hester of North Myrtle Beach and others who formed a nonprofit organization and began looking for artifacts and promoting a museum about the area – the city of North Myrtle Beach, Little River and west to Longs. Then the city and Horry County built a much needed larger library and the city donated the handsome former library building to the museum. The library had outgrown the building and there was no room to expand.
Christmas is over, but local fishermen still didn’t get what they could really use: Better numbers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.
Struggling with choking catch limits and what many perceive as a federal government actively trying to put them out of business, fishermen have also run smack into a wall of maddeningly frustrating data. To sum it up very quickly: NOAA says some fish stocks are overfished. Local fishermen say otherwise, pointing out that they’re still seeing plenty of fish when they take their boats out. But NOAA is the one that sets the rules and limits how much fish can be harvested by both commercial and recreational fishermen, and the agency stubbornly insists that those rules rely on the best available science, even if best available means appallingly poor.
Wednesday’s editorial applauds the community for rallying around a group of wounded veterans who are coming to the area later this month:
For the third time in about 15 months, an area nonprofit called Scents for Soldiers has found outstanding community support to bring wounded military veterans here for a mini-vacation at the beach.
Recent Comments