Teamwork – effective and fun!

  October 27, 2022

By Jeff Becraft   One of the most epic moments in my life happened in a grocery store. It was on an alumni trip back in the Youth Corps days. There…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, on-the-move, op-ed, the-arts

Old Island Haunts

  October 20, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   Add Hazel’s Café to the List Old island haunts. The fever to develop islands didn’t destroy all of them. In a few instances, someone decided, “Not…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, on-the-move, the-arts

The Feared Invader

  October 13, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland Let’s talk invasive species. One will bite you. You can bite the other. You can eat it, but given time it will entomb all you possess. Fire…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, on-the-move, the-arts

Solid gold: 50 years of the S.C. Arts Foundation

  October 9, 2022

October is National Arts and Humanities month, and this commemoration of the arts’ importance to our nation is an opportunity to recognize a milestone that the South Carolina Arts Foundation…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: on-the-move, the-arts

The CCC

  October 6, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   FDR’s Tree Army If my mother didn’t like something, she’d tell you. If she liked something, you knew that too, and she liked the Civilian Conservation…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, on-the-move, the-arts

The Pull Of The Macon Music Scene

  September 29, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   I find my mind drifting back to Macon, and then I find myself driving kudzu-bordered roads. Macon, Georgia sits in the middle of Georgia. It’s not…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, on-the-move, the-arts

Book Event Season Is Upon Us

  September 21, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   She asked, and I told her. “What’s the writing life like?” “It’s a sentence to solitary confinement. You work in isolation for long periods, and that’s…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, on-the-move, the-arts

The Power Of Moonlit Imagery

  September 15, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   Herman Melville created Moby Dick, the great white sperm whale that bit off Ahab’s leg. James Dickey had a 12-point white buck that swam from island…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, on-the-move, the-arts

Original Fine Art Print Fair at GCCA on Oct 14-15

  September 15, 2022

Original Fine Arts Print Fair at Greenville Center for Creative Arts on October 14-15, 2022 Don’t miss the Printmaking Fair where you can chat with artists, watch printmakers demonstrate making…

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Posted in: upstatebizsc   Category: on-the-move, the-arts

Peace Center announces two new music venues and more

  September 13, 2022

Major renovations underway for live music club, listening room, and more! The Peace Center announced a major renovation project designed to diversify Greenville’s live music scene like never before. Dubbed…

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Posted in: upstatebizsc   Category: headlines, on-the-move, the-arts

The National Park Nearest You

  September 8, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   Here in the classic South, we have two choices when it comes to national parks. We have the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, the-arts

Botanical Beauty—For Women Only

  August 31, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   What’s behind a name? Lots most of the time. Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it’s a mystery, but often it’s botanical. I’ve not met a woman named…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, on-the-move, the-arts

S.C. Arts Commission expands team of arts professionals

  August 26, 2022

The South Carolina Arts Commission is announcing that four skilled professionals joined its team so far in 2022, creating two departments, expanding another, and providing critical support for a growing…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: on-the-move, the-arts

The Gospel. Sunday Piano Memories

  August 25, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   The old book and instrument of wood and ivory need each other. In fact, they share what biologists call a symbiotic relationship. In my recall of…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, on-the-move, the-arts

Ferns, Nature’s Colonists

  August 18, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   Ferns bless us with classic Southern settings but doing so isn’t always easy. Random winds pick up fern spores and scatter them, their destiny determined by…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, on-the-move, the-arts

Vintage Enamelware

  August 10, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   I was visiting the past at the Lincoln County History Park when I spied a graceful blue enamelware pot sitting among fire logs. Warm memories came…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, the-arts

Thistles, A Prickly Subject

  August 4, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   We’d be walking to a farm pond in quest of bream when Grandmom Poland would spot a thistle. “Watch out for that nettle.” She’d hardly break…

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A Peach Of A Summer

  July 20, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   From my orchard of memories a lonely peach tree stands in the front yard of my youth. The tree looked sickly and produced fruit a tad…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, on-the-move, the-arts

Porch Sitting

  July 14, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   It’s a vanishing art, porch sitting. There was a time, though, when folks retired to the porch just to pass the time. As a boy, I…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, the-arts

Flavia B. Harton appointed to S.C. Arts Commission board

  July 12, 2022

The South Carolina Arts Commission welcomes Flavia B. Harton of Greenville to its nine-member board of directors after her appointment by Gov. Henry McMaster effective July 1. Harton has extensive…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: headlines, on-the-move, the-arts

S.C. Arts Commission names FY2023 fellowship recipients

  July 8, 2022

Program changes reinforce the arts’ influence in the creative economy A diverse group of four South Carolina artists working in different artistic disciplines are the latest recipients of new-look $10,000…

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Posted in: midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: on-the-move, the-arts

The Rocky Shoals Highway

  July 7, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   Come May-June I burn the Rocky Shoals Highway up. I drive from Irmo, South Carolina to McCormick County and on into Georgia. My mission? Visiting two…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, the-arts

Folk Medicine Remedies

  June 30, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   Like the Black Crowe’s “Remedy, and its line, I need a remedy”, folks of yesteryear needed remedies and they came up with them. We call their…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, the-arts

Through Broken Glass

  June 16, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   The old church just wanted to be left alone, but that didn’t happen. Someone shot out her windows. Some kid’s BBs shattered panes, leaving sharp jagged…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, on-the-move, the-arts

Upcountry History Museum is a 2022 Blue Star Museum

  June 13, 2022

The Upcountry History Museum – Furman University has joined museums nationwide in the Blue Star Museums initiative, a program that provides free admission to museums for the nation’s active-duty military…

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Posted in: upstatebizsc   Category: chamber, churches, education, entertainment, marketing-and-communications, media, military, non-profit, on-the-move, the-arts

A Creek Runs Through It

  June 9, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   Writers title works and often they fail to come up with a good one. Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas comes to mind. Sometimes a gem of…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, on-the-move, the-arts

Arts Grow SC to expand, first executive director named

  June 8, 2022

The South Carolina Arts Commission and the South Carolina Department of Education announce the expansion of Arts Grow SC as a permanent fixture in the state’s arts learning landscape. An…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: education, on-the-move, the-arts

“In Flux” to open at GCCA’s Main Gallery

  May 24, 2022

Exhibition begins First Friday, June 3rd, 2022 Greenville Center for Creative Arts (GCCA) is excited to announce the opening of their Main Gallery exhibition, In Flux. The exhibition features the…

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Posted in: upstatebizsc   Category: entertainment, non-profit, on-the-move, the-arts

The Cedars Of Philomath

  May 19, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   Long ago it was, in the late 1980s. I was in a hurry to get back to South Carolina. Thus did I take Georgia Highway 22,…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, the-arts

A New Broom Sweeps Clean

  May 18, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   “A new broom sweeps clean, but an old broom knows the corners.” Mom pulled out this old saw when a new preacher attempted wholesale change or…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, on-the-move, the-arts

Rediscovering An Old Friend

  May 12, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland March 3rd is a day I’ll long remember. A bit earlier I had given a talk to the Kiwanis Club at the Darlington Country Club. Returning home…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, on-the-move, the-arts

An Old Tree, An Old Academy

  May 5, 2022
Tom Poland

By Tom Poland   A Magnolia and a School of Consequence As you top the Edgefield County rise, that fine word “copse” comes to mind. Copse, a small group of…

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Posted in: lowcountrybizsc, midlandsbiz, upstatebizsc   Category: life, on-the-move, the-arts