If these old knees will bend …

If these old knees will bend …

When the National Football League player, Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers, first dropped to one knee when the National Anthem rang out at the start of a professional football game, I noted the debate that erupted regarding his actions and found it mildly interesting. Kaepernick, like many others in the African-American community – […]

Mentoring Across Generational Lines

Mentoring Across Generational Lines

Last week I wrote about Echo Chambers, (http://www.edgefieldadvertiser.com/2017/10/echo-chambers/) and how difficult it is sometimes for individuals to break outside of the sounding boards they feel most comfortable.  I shared “It is almost as if millions of American are being trained to hear what the other side is saying, before the other side even opens their […]

Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)

Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)

A few weeks ago this column addressed the draft American Health Care Act, the most recent “Trumpcare” attempt to replace the Affordable Care Act with one that for many was less caring and less affordable. It cited 34 religious organizations opposed to Trumpcare who had joined in a successful effort to prevent its passage in […]

October is National Bullying Prevention Month

October is National Bullying Prevention Month

October is National Bullying Prevention Month (An essay well worth reading to the Young Ones in the Family.) A Hero in There…. By: Laura Taylor, author of E.E.Otter & Bullfrog Bullies Maybe you’ve noticed the way the girls turn their backs on her and laugh as she approaches her locker. Maybe you’ve seen the look […]

Mrs. Sandra Quarles Bledsoe — Johnston, SC

Mrs. Sandra Quarles Bledsoe, 66, of Slide Hill Road, wife of Ralph Bledsoe died Friday October 20, 2017. Funeral Services will be held Monday October 23, 2017 at 2 P.M. at Rocky Creek Baptist Church with burial in Sunset Gardens Memorial Cemetery in Edgefield. Mrs. Bledsoe was born in Aiken, S.C. and was retired from […]

Mrs. Judith Wright Smith — Seneca, SC

Ward, SC – Graveside Funeral Services for Mrs. Judith Wright Smith, age 66, will held Sunday, October 22, 2017 in Oconee Memorial  Park, Seneca, SC at 3 o’clock.  The family will receive friends at Bland Funeral Home, Johnston, Saturday, October 21 from 5-7 pm. Mrs. Smith passed away Friday, October 20, 2017.  She was a […]

Mrs. Claudine Kirkland Butler — West Columbia, SC

West Columbia, SC  – Funeral Services for Mrs. Claudine Kirkland Butler, age  84 , will be held Thursday, October 19, 2017 at First Baptist Church, Columbia, SC at 2 pm.  The family will receive friends at the church from 1-2 prior to the service.  Interment will follow in Sunset Gardens Memorial Cemetery in Johnston, SC […]

Echo Chambers

Echo Chambers

Recently I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the divisions in our country.  Divisions which quite honestly, we see becoming vitriolic, in some cases almost demonic, on both political spectrums of the nightly news.  Both sides, I believe, benefiting from our national divisions.  Both sides, creating echo chambers, where tens of millions […]

Refugees and Immigrants

Refugees and Immigrants

National news and increasingly bizarre national politics seem to bombard our lives, not only for the growing numbers who use social media but for the rest of us who read newspapers and watch or listen to news broadcasts. It’s easy to say, “That doesn’t affect me. I’m just going to turn it off.” That would […]

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Trenton, South Carolina, has turned pink again — and this time it’s at the post office, not in the peach orchards. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Susan Curry, Trenton’s Post Master, is a two- year survivor of the dreaded disease that annually claims the lives of more than 40,000 Americans. Susan and her Co-worker, Angie […]