SCIWAY News, No. 7 – December 1997

In this Issue

• Results of First SCIway Poll
• New and Notable South Carolina Web Sites
• Are South Carolina's Laws on the Internet?
• How You Can Download SCIway Statistics
• Back Issues of SCIWAY News Now Online
• Upcoming Festivals, Shows, Events
• Favor of the Month
• Kiawah Memories

Results of First SCIway Poll

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

New and Notable South Carolina Web Sites

Beaufort County

http://www.co.beaufort.sc.us

Beaufort County Library

http://www.beaufortcountylibrary.org/

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

https://www.sciway.net/statistics/monthlyecon.html - site no longer available

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

https://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.spartanburg3.org/

WIS Television - Columbia

http://www.wistv.com

Top of SCIWAY News No. 7

Are South Carolina's Laws on the Internet?

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/publicationspage/Booklet_2010_14thedition.pdf .) 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/council.php).

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

How You Can Download SCIway Statistics

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 https://www.sciway.net/statistics.

Top of SCIWAY News No. 7

Back Issues of SCIWAY News Now Online

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 (https://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

Upcoming Festivals, Shows, Events

For the latest information on upcoming South Carolina events, please see https://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

Favor of the Month

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

Kiawah Memories

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

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