The town of Florence is enjoying some new life up in the skies. Last year, Florence Regional Airport saw a very strong year in enplanements, setting records for the small town. In March 2009, more than 5,000 people boarded planes at Florence Regional, a 30% growth spurt from the the previous March. (Read more in SCNow’s article Florence Airport Expansion will be Felt Throughout the Pee Dee.)

The Pee Dee Regional Airport Commission has jumped on this trend and just wrapped up a large drainage project at the Florence airport, that is preceding a two-gate expansion. The new gates will double the size of Florence Regional and it will allow room for the expansion of up to 12 gates total, if the flight trend continues.

Half of the funding for the projects is coming from Federal Aviation Administration grants. The regional airport is looking to South Carolina government for additional funds to complete the project.

Companies like DuPont, Honda of South Carolina, and Roche Pharmaceuticals (read a press release about Roche expansion in Florence) have seen the potential for the area and have channeled over $1.1 billion into the area. Florence also has a great location to major roadways, being positioned strategically near the intersection of I-20 and I-95.

If the expansion continues, it will draw new business, strengthens existing business and increases jobs in the nine county Pee Dee area.

Read about the Pee Dee’s North Eastern Strategic Alliance.

See flight schedules for Florence.

Everyone is pinching pennies lately. State governments are looking for ways to make a dollar stretch – even if that dollar is state-issued and from the 1800s.

South Carolina’s Department of Archives and History has a large amount of state-issue bank notes from the Civil War era. These bills have been placed on eBay and similar sites and are selling for up to 12 times their original value.  (Read more in the Greenville Online article State Auctions Civil War-Era Money.)

Under state law, the proceeds of the sales go towards state programs that deal with the preservation of historical documents.

The bank notes hadn’t lost all of their value after the war, but they had considerably declined in worth. After the public redeemed the low-value notes, at a great loss, they sat dormant in the basement of the Statehouse until the 1960s.

See a collection of paper bills and read more about the history of the State Bank of South Carolina.

View our guide of modern-day SC banks.

This Saturday, Clemson University is hosting a the Tri-County Lawn Mower exchange. It’s open to residents from Anderson, Pickens and Oconee County residents.

The event promotes using electric lawn mowers and offers in a $100 discount on a Neuton electric mower. Vouchers and free delivery are also available while quantities last.

Clemson reports that 54 million Americans will mow this year, consuming 800 million gallons of gas, causing 5% of US air pollution. The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control also states that “one hour of mowing is the equivalent of driving 350 miles in terms of volatile organic compounds.”

Also, if you are the kind of person who likes to start their mower at 7 AM on a Sunday morning, do your neighbors a favor, and get a plug-in one!

Read more about the event (PDF)

Find out more from our SC Green Building Guide

St. Francis Animal Rescue Centre in Rock Hill needs your help. With the economy down, so are donations. They’ve been victim to a recent break-in which caused their facility damage. They are still burdened by costly repairs and have accumulating back rent.

Most traditional shelters euthanize about 60% of their animals for lack of homes. Animal rescues like St. Francis don’t adopt that policy. They are a no-kill, cage-free place which aims at providing an ethical solution and good homes for stray animals.

In the event they close their doors, found animals will more than likely be euthanized by the state the same day they are captured.

If you’d like to make a tax-deductible donation, please contact their director Charlene G. Rodriguez at 803-554-9930 or donate at PayPal using the email address stfrancisanimalrescue@yahoo.com

If you cannot afford a monetary donation, please contribute in other ways like donating supplies or signing an awareness petition:

Supplies Needed:
Paper towels
Plastic bags
Cat food
Unscented cat litter
Trash compacter bags (cat pan liners)
Garbage bags
Scratching posts
Climbing trees
Pillows
Pet beds

When one thinks of jazz, New York, Chicago, and New Orleans come immediately to mind - but rarely does one think of Cheraw, South Carolina. Regardless of first impressions, Cheraw is the birthplace of jazz-great Dizzy Gillespie.

John Birks (”Dizzy”) Gillespie was born in Cheraw in 1917. His father was the leader of a small band and exposed Dizzy to numerous instruments during his youth. He started playing the piano when he was just four years old. Shortly after his father’s death, when Dizzy was ten, he settled on the trumpet and began playing in public.

Dizzy is well-known as one of the founders of Afro-Cuban jazz, jazz music with a slight Cuban or Spanish flavor. He was also highly “instrumental” in the development of bebop jazz, along with Charlie Parker. He would start his songs by verbally pronouncing the notes, like “dee-ba-pa-n-bebop.” Soon his fans were asking for “bebop” music and saw it as part of the song, not just a vocal warm-up.

His unusual nickname was taken from a comment by fellow band-member Palmer Davis about Dizzy’s excited stage-presence. “Man, this is a dizzy cat,” Davis said, and the name stuck. Dizzy played around the world, and regardless of what continent the stage was on, he typically started his show saying “I’m Dizzy Gillespie from Chee-raw, South Carolina.” Up until Dizzy died of cancer in 1993, he had an incomparable 60-year career. Dizzy performed all over the globe for world leaders and dignitaries, including eight presidents spanning Eisenhower to Bush.

Besides Dizzy’s profound audio stylings, some of his physical attributes were standouts as well. His trademark puffy chipmunk-cheeks are a bane of music teachers everywhere. He also often sported a beret as well as horn-rimmed glasses. He played on a bent trumpet, where the horn points skyward. His first upward pointing trumpet was a result of an accident with a drunken party-goer, but Dizzy claimed that it helped him hear his own sound better.

Dizzy’s unconventional style led him to surprise the world in 1964 when he ran for president. The platform for his run was abolishing racism and spreading world peace. His purpose was solemn, but his campaign was lighthearted. His tongue-in-cheek proposition was that upon winning, he would rename the White House, the “Blues House.” He also stated that he’d appoint Miles Davis as CIA Chief and Malcolm X as Attorney General. His campaign song showed his good-natured spirit with lyrics like “Your politics oughta be a groovier thing / So get a good President who’s willing to swing.”

The South Carolina Jazz Festival takes place in Cheraw each year around the time of Dizzy’s birthday - October 21. In 2010, the festival will run October 16-18.

See more Cheraw events and festivals.

Hear one of Dizzy’s tunes on SCIway’s South Carolina Soundtrack.

Find out more about notable SC African-Americans.

According to a Washington-based consumer advocacy group, Families USA, one in three South Carolina residents has gone without health insurance at some point during 2007 and 2008 (read more from Families USA report: New Report Finds 1.3 Million South Carolinians Were Uninsured at Some Point in 2007-2008.)

Some recently unemployed residents have opted to purchase COBRA, a federal insurance program that has been around since 1986. It allows for a recently terminated employee to receive the same benefits as when they were employed, paying 100% out of pocket. COBRA rates can be a little out of reach for some when income comes to a halt. The Wall Street Journal reports that fewer than 1 in 10 who are eligible for COBRA sign up — possibly because the annual cost of COBRA for a family is around $13,000. When maximum unemployment benefits for a South Carolina worker are just over $1,200 a month, it makes continuing insurance with COBRA a very costly option.

Fortunately, Congress recently passed The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  This allows unemployed workers to receive a nine-month subsidy to cover 65 percent of the COBRA premium (read more about the subsidy from The Department of Labor.)

Other options, instead of completely going without insurance, include a scaled-down policy. There are many options out there that have a reduced amount of coverage. Catastrophic policies and policies with high-deductibles might be a better band-aid than going completely without coverage. Companies like Golden Rule and United Health Care One have a variety of different plans for different budgets.

To help you shop for other insurance policies, we have a few pages on our site to assist you.

Our Quick Guide to South Carolina Insurance Resources has links to pages like:

South Carolina Department of Insurance,

South Carolina insurance laws,

Consumer services,

and a glossary of insurance terms.

SCIway also features a directory of South Carolina insurance agents and agencies.