In life, Wayne Cook, Sharon Ward and Jacquelyn Hall shared no friendship or family ties.
In death, their remains rest side by side in the Richland County Cemetery, forever linked by lives controlled by addictions that left them estranged from family or with no money for a funeral.
On Wednesday, they were buried in the public cemetery with seven other people during a 30-minute ceremony led by a Baptist minister.
Jean Westmoreland, Sue Dockery and Jody Dockery arrived early to place three photographs in a white box containing Cook’s ashes. The three cared for Cook during his final years, patiently dealing with his drinking binges and growing to love his sense of humor and storytelling.
They held no family obligations. Westmoreland had met Cook more than 20 years ago when he was a student at Midlands Tech. Sue Dockery was his home health aide, and her husband, Jody Dockery, sometimes visited Cook just so the two could have “man talk.”
http://www.thestate.com/2012/02/16/2154795/troubled-in-life-dignified-in.html#RSS=local
The Crayton Middle School greeting echoed through the school auditorium and across the galaxy as students and faculty welcomed some special guest speakers to their campus Wednesday.
“Houston Space Station, this is Crayton Middle School. Can you hear me?” seventh-grade teacher Ann Carbone called out to astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
“This is the space station. We can hear you loud and clear,” the reply came – from thousands of miles away.
The Richland 1 school is one of three nationwide selected to take part in a downlink video with the space station. During an often lively question-and-answer session, students inquired about a range of subjects related to space travel including the obstacles to becoming an astronaut, how crew members stay in contact with their families and the special exercise regiments astronauts have to undergo.
In recent months students in Crayton’s International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme have participated in a comprehensive study of space. Those lessons were conducted in various subject areas and included such things as the biographies of astronauts, the use of math in problem-solving in space and the science of space exercise.
http://www.thestate.com/2012/02/16/2154802/lesson-is-out-of-this-world.html#RSS=local
Some South Carolina magistrates are throwing out drunken-driving cases because the drivers were on mopeds, which are exempt from SC motor-vehicle laws.
But Wednesday, a state Senate committee approved a bill that would reclassify mopeds as a motor vehicle in terms of enforcing drinking-and-driving laws only.
You don’t need a driver’s license to drive a moped in South Carolina, making it a popular choice for drunken-driving offenders with suspended licenses. In the Senate version of the bill, DUI offenders with suspended licenses still could drive mopeds. But they would no longer be exempt from state drunken-driving laws.
The bill, originally sponsored by state Reps. Eddie Tallon and Derham Cole, both Spartanburg Republicans, passed the SC House last year. That version of the proposal would have considered a moped to be a motor vehicle in all aspects of the law.
State law defines a moped as having a motor of less than 50-cubic centimeters and not capable of going faster than 30 miles per hour.
http://www.thestate.com/2012/02/16/2154803/bill-would-end-dui-exemption-for.html#RSS=local
Richland County deputies were shot at while trying to execute a search warrant on Broad River Road Thursday afternoon.
Richland County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Curtis Wilson said that narcotics agents were shot at when they tried to seach an apartment in the Brook Pine apartment complex in the 7000 block of Broad River Road about 6 p.m. They knocked on the door three times, Wilson said, and went into the apartment when no one answered. A suspect inside shot at the deputies, who fired back, Wilson said. Wilson said Frederick Withers II. 25, was arrested in the incident and is charged with attempted murder and drug charges. He was shot in the lowere body, but no one else was injured in the incident. He is being treated at Palmetto Health Richland.
―R. Darren Price
http://www.thestate.com/2012/02/16/2156237/deputies-involved-in-shootout.html#RSS=local
A second juvenile wanted in connection with the string of pit bull thefts from the Columbia Animal Shelter was taken into custody today.
The 13-year-old male turned himself in to investigators at police headquarters, according to the Columbia Police Department.
The teen and three others have been charged in connection with the investigation.
Two of the four charged are adults.
Acting on information provided by the suspects, police found 17 dogs at a rural residence in Bamberg County, about 50 miles south of Columbia. Not all of the dogs were those missing from the shelter. The dogs were tied to trees with heavy chains, but police reported only minor injuries to most.
http://www.thestate.com/2012/02/16/2155967/4th-suspect-charged-in-thefts.html#RSS=local
Richland County deputies were shot at while trying to execute a search warrant on Broad River Road Thursday afternoon.
Richland County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Curtis Wilson said that narcotics agents were shot at when they tried to seach an apartment in the Brook Pine apartment complex in the 7000 block of Broad River Road about 6 p.m. They knocked on the door three times, Wilson said, and went into the apartment when no one answered. A suspect inside shot at the deputies, who fired back, Wilson said. Wilson said Frederick Withers II. 25, was arrested in the incident and is charged with attempted murder and drug charges. He was shot in the lowere body, but no one else was injured in the incident. He is being treated at Palmetto Health Richland.
―R. Darren Price
http://www.thestate.com/2012/02/16/2156237/deputies-involved-in-shootout.html#RSS=local
Richland County deputies were shot at while trying to execute a search warrant on Broad River Road Thursday afternoon.
Richland County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Curtis Wilson said that narcotics agents were shot at when they tried to seach an apartment in the Brook Pine apartment complex in the 7000 block of Broad River Road about 6 p.m. They knocked on the door three times, Wilson said, and went into the apartment when no one answered. A suspect inside shot at the deputies, who fired back, Wilson said. Wilson said Frederick Withers II. 25, was arrested in the incident and is charged with attempted murder and drug charges. He was shot in the lowere body, but no one else was injured in the incident. He is being treated at Palmetto Health Richland.
―R. Darren Price
http://www.thestate.com/2012/02/16/2156237/deputies-involved-in-shootout.html#RSS=local
A second juvenile wanted in connection with the string of pit bull thefts from the Columbia Animal Shelter was taken into custody today.
The 13-year-old male turned himself in to investigators at police headquarters, according to the Columbia Police Department.
The teen and three others have been charged in connection with the investigation.
Two of the four charged are adults.
Acting on information provided by the suspects, police found 17 dogs at a rural residence in Bamberg County, about 50 miles south of Columbia. Not all of the dogs were those missing from the shelter. The dogs were tied to trees with heavy chains, but police reported only minor injuries to most.
http://www.thestate.com/2012/02/16/2155967/4th-suspect-charged-in-thefts.html#RSS=local
A second juvenile wanted in connection with the string of pit bull thefts from the Columbia Animal Shelter was taken into custody today.
The 13-year-old male turned himself in to investigators at police headquarters, according to the Columbia Police Department.
The teen and three others have been charged in connection with the investigation.
Two of the four charged are adults.
Acting on information provided by the suspects, police found 17 dogs at a rural residence in Bamberg County, about 50 miles south of Columbia. Not all of the dogs were those missing from the shelter. The dogs were tied to trees with heavy chains, but police reported only minor injuries to most.
http://www.thestate.com/2012/02/16/2155967/4th-suspect-charged-in-thefts.html#RSS=local
Moisture moving through the state on the heels of the first wintry blast of cold in weeks will bring a slight chance of snow or sleet early Tuesday.
The wintry mix is most likely to hit from the I-85 corridor north, according to Mark Malsick, severe weather liaison at the State Climate Office. The farther south and east, the greater the chance that whatever falls will be in the form of rain. A few rogue pellets of sleet could make it to the Midlands before 9 a.m., he said.
The National Weather Service included the possibility of snow or sleet in local forecasts for Greenville, Spartanburg, Greenwood and Aiken. No accumulation is expected, with temperatures slightly above freezing at daybreak and rising to the 50s during the day.
Columbia’s official temperature dipped to 20 early today, falling short of the 19 on Jan. 4 for the coldest of the winter.
Joey Holleman
http://www.thestate.com/2012/02/13/2151544/slight-chance-of-sleet-snow-in.html#RSS=local