 Previous Issues of SCIway News
In this Issue
Last month our first SCIway Poll asked, Which South Carolina county do
you live in? We heard from 973 people. Forty-four (5 percent) of those
responding live outside South Carolina--in 20 states and two foreign
countries. At least in terms of Internet domains, the remaining 929
in-state respondents are representative of South Carolina residents who
receive SCIway News.
Internet Percent of Percent of
Domain Mailing List Respondents
.edu 31 30
.com 27 29
.net 23 22
.state.sc.us 7 7
Other domains 12 12
--- ---
Totals 100 100
The results of this first SCIway Poll are presented in the table below.
This table shows the
- number of responses from each county
- estimated population of each county (as of July 1, 1996)
- number of responses per 10,000 estimated residents
- county's rank in terms of responses per 10,000 residents
The most important column is the one labeled "Responses/10,000 Pop." If
our poll respondents were geographically representative of all South
Carolinians, this ratio would be about the same for most of the state's
46 counties. But if you print the whole table on a single sheet of
paper, you will quickly see that the number of responses per 10,000
residents is (with a few exceptions) much higher in the state's larger,
more urban counties.
In short, our SCIway Poll sample is more representative of South
Carolina's larger urban areas than of the state as a whole. The primary
reason for this is that people who live in larger cities currently have
more access to the Internet--both at home and at work--than those who
live in smaller towns and rural areas. Internet access will gradually
become more evenly distributed, just as telephones and televisions have.
Number of County Responses/
County Responses Population 10,000 Pop Rank
Charleston 127 277,721 4.6 1
Lexington 86 195,606 4.4 2
Richland 126 292,601 4.3 3
McCormick 4 9,432 4.2 4
Aiken 51 133,130 3.8 5
Pickens 39 103,983 3.8 6
Oconee 20 62,643 3.2 7
Dorchester 26 84,920 3.1 8
Beaufort 31 102,735 3.0 9
Berkeley 39 132,502 2.9 10
Horry 47 163,856 2.9 11
Georgetown 14 51,555 2.7 12
Greenwood 15 62,789 2.4 13
York 34 147,299 2.3 14
Laurens 14 61,614 2.3 15
Fairfield 5 22,305 2.2 16
Greenville 76 345,173 2.2 17
Florence 22 123,365 1.8 18
Saluda 3 16,843 1.8 19
Allendale 2 11,471 1.7 20
Colleton 6 36,893 1.6 21
Williamsburg 6 37,244 1.6 22
Edgefield 3 19,051 1.6 23
Lancaster 9 57,164 1.6 24
Calhoun 2 13,724 1.5 25
Spartanburg 34 242,962 1.4 26
Barnwell 3 21,640 1.4 27
Clarendon 4 29,406 1.4 28
Sumter 14 107,161 1.3 29
Union 4 30,709 1.3 30
Anderson 20 156,558 1.3 31
Abbeville 3 24,275 1.2 32
Darlington 8 65,319 1.2 33
Newberry 4 34,268 1.2 34
Marion 4 34,895 1.1 35
Orangeburg 10 87,324 1.1 36
Chesterfield 4 39,794 1.0 37
Kershaw 4 47,279 0.8 38
Bamberg 1 16,702 0.6 39
Chester 2 33,488 0.6 40
Lee 1 18,537 0.5 41
Cherokee 2 48,003 0.4 42
Dillon 0 29,574 0.0 43
Hampton 0 19,098 0.0 43
Jasper 0 16,365 0.0 43
Marlboro 0 29,770 0.0 43
--- ---------
Totals 929 3,698,746 2.5
Top of SCIway News No. 7
- Beaufort County
- http://www.co.beaufort.sc.us
- Beaufort County Library
- http://www.co.beaufort.sc.us/library/beaufort
- The Islander - weekly newspaper serving seven Sea Islands
- http://members.aol.com/IslandNews/ - page no longer exists
- Mepkin Abbey and Nancy Bryan Luce Gardens - Moncks Corner
- http://www.mepkinabbey.org
- Monthly South Carolina Economic Indicators - Univ of South Carolina
- http://www.sciway.net/statistics/monthlyecon.html
- New Deal Art in South Carolina
- http://people.clemson.edu/~hiotts/ - page no longer exists
- South Carolina Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services
- http://www.daodas.state.sc.us
- South Carolina Education Organizations
- http://www.sciway.net/org/education.html
- South Carolina Press Association (remodeled)
- http://www.scpress.org
- South Carolina Technology Advisory Council
- http://www.state.sc.us/sctac/ - site no longer exists
- Spartanburg County School District 3
- http://www.spa3.k12.sc.us
- WIS Television - Columbia
- http://www.wistv.com
Top of SCIway News No. 7
Every week the SCIway Web site receives a variety of questions about
South Carolina. One of the most frequent is, Are South Carolina's laws
on the Internet? The answer: not yet.
Our state laws begin life as legislative bills. Once they have been
approved by both houses of the General Assembly and signed by the
Governor, they become laws. (To learn more about this process, see http://www.scstatehouse.gov/html-pages/legproc.html
.)
These new laws are
then added to South Carolina's Code of Laws. The Code--more than 20
volumes plus 20 years worth of annual supplements--is divided into 62
"Titles" or subject categories (Agriculture, Banking and Finance,
Corporations, Elections, Probate, Taxation, etc.).
Annotated print and CD-ROM versions of South Carolina's Code of Laws are
published by West Group (http://www.westgroup.com/practice/sc/ - site no longer exists)
in accord
with a contract negotiated by the General Assembly's Legislative
Council. This five-member group includes the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, the President of the Senate (the Lt. Governor), the
Secretary of State, and the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary
Committees (http://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t02c011.htm
).
While West Group has been granted exclusive rights to publish the full
annotated version of South Carolina's Code, the State holds the
copyright for the laws themselves--and can publish them on the Internet.
All that's needed is the Legislative Council's approval, then some time-consuming work.
Many other states--including Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, and
Virginia--already have their laws on the Internet, and most do not
charge an access fee (see http://www.law.cornell.edu/states).
Here's
hoping that South Carolina joins their ranks soon.
Top of SCIway News No. 7
To our surprise, the statistics section we added to SCIway in August has
become one of its most popular destinations. But we frequently receive
e-mail messages that ask, How can I download these statistics into my
spreadsheet or statistical software?
Like many things, this process is fairly simple--once you know how
to do it. For step-by-step instructions, just steer your browser to
http://www.sciway.net/statistics.
Top of SCIway News No. 7
We've also received an increasing number of requests for back issues of
SCIway News. Rather than continuing to e-mail these to everyone who
asks for them, we've added them to SCIway (http://www.sciway.net/sn/).
But if you don't have Web access, we'll still be happy to mail back
issues to you.
Top of SCIway News No. 7
For the latest information on upcoming South Carolina events, please
see http://www.sciway.net/calendar.html.
- Santa Train Rides, SC Railroad Museum - Winnsboro, Dec 6
- Holiday Festival of Lights - James Island, Nov 14-Jan 4
- Kiawah Island Marathon - Dec 13
- Christmas Parades and Tour of Homes - Georgetown, Dec 13-14
- First Night Charleston - Dec 31
- First Night Greenville - Dec 31
Top of SCIway News No. 7
One of the best things about publishing SCIway News is that many of you
send us mail--and good ideas. This month I'd like to ask a favor of
you: please send us your ideas about how we can improve this newsletter
and the SCIway Web site. What don't you like about them? How can we
make them more useful? How can we improve their content and their
appearance on your screen?
Please send your ideas to SCIway.News@SCIway.net.
No suggestions are too picky.
Top of SCIway News No. 7
This Thanksgiving morning I found myself traveling I-26 from James
Island to Lexington. Soon after the I-95 overpass, I noticed a dozen or
so orange-capped deer hunters circled at the intersection of two dirt
roads between the highway fence and the edge of the woods. Like a
squirrel, my thoughts jumped to Thanksgivings long past--and a quiet,
secret place called Kiawah.
Kiawah (pronounced KEE-a-wah) is a 10-mile-long sea island located in
lower Charleston County. Until the early 70s, most of Kiawah was an
isolated wilderness. Until the early 50s, when it was purchased from
the Vanderhorst estate by Aiken lumberman C.C. Royal, you could reach
Kiawah only by boat. During this period the island had just one
permanent resident--a black man named Charlie Scott. Charlie had been
the head plowman for the Vanderhorsts, and he lived in a high-rise cabin
on the Kiawah River, which separates Kiawah from Johns Island.
But every Thanksgiving Kiawah came alive, as men and boys from the
surrounding Sea Islands gathered to ride horses, drive hounds, blow
horns, hunt deer, fish in the creeks with cast nets, eat mullet stew,
sip a little bourbon ... and, most of all, laugh and tell stories and
enjoy each other's company. It was a special time in a special place.
More special, and more fleeting, than we understood.
Kiawah was special all year long though--a wondrous wilderness full of
amazing sights and sounds and experiences. Deer silently swimming
across creeks. Wild hogs on one end of the island, tended cattle on the
other. Narrow, bumpy dirt roads. The thud of a snake falling from
vine-covered trees onto the wooden roof of my grandfather's rusted-out,
doorless gray jeep. The weathered, deteriorating, yet still imposing
Big House. Driving on the beach forever. Island families pulling and
raising a 200-foot seine in the summer surf, as the water inside the net
boiled with fish and stingarees. Hanging bathing suits on the clothes
line at sunset, one eye looking up at the line, the other looking down
for alligators. The wonder of watching a giant sea turtle lay her eggs
late at night, unfazed by the people and flashlights around her. My
grandfather fishing in the surf ... from the back of a horse.
Today Kiawah is, of course, a quite different world--a perfectly planned
resort with wide paved streets, five golf courses, countless tennis
courts, luxury villages protected by at least two security gates, and a
manicured naturalness that is beautiful ... until you remember how it
used to look. The Big House has been renovated--and locked behind a
distant gate. Shops and restaurants abound. Bicycles and golf carts
have replaced the horses, cattle, and hogs. Mercedes and sports utility
vehicles have replaced my grandfather's jeep and Charlie Scott's mule
cart. And strangers from all over the world have replaced the islanders
and their distinctive accent. Happily, the newcomers seem to be
enjoying themselves as much as we did.
Today's Kiawah is still one of the most beautiful places I've ever
visited. But I treasure the times I spent there before it was developed
... and my memories of the Kiawah that was.
I hope you all have a warm, unhurried Christmas, and I look forward to
talking with you next year. Rod
Top of SCIway News No. 7
Copyright © 1997. SCIway News™ is written by Rod Welch of James Island,
South Carolina–with a lot of help from people throughout South Carolina.
Circulation: 13,000+
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