SC men share monkeypox vaccine experiences + Vandal drained popular fishing lake
Happy Friday! It’s Chase Karacostas.
Several weeks ago, I heard about a woman who sells megalodon teeth for a living. I wondered if they were, well, real, so I reached out to her and some aquatic experts to learn more. I ended up with a tale involving sharks, yes, but also piracy, jewels and history. Give my story a read. If you don’t, I guess you’ll have to walk the plank.
Also, Horry County, where I live, has some weird names for neighborhoods and cities. They include Garden City, which isn’t actually a city, or even a town, and Ketchuptown. The Sun News’ Adam Benson wrote about them all, and how they got their names.
Here’s the rest of the news from around the Palmetto State.
1. Fearing monkeypox, 3 SC men got vaccinated. The shot comes with a social disease
This week, I spoke to three men who got the monkeypox vaccine. All three of them lived through the height of the HIV pandemic in the 1980s and 1990s and didn’t want to get infected by this new disease circulating among the gay community.
The shot put all three of Grand Strand residents in a weird spot — sharing their vaccination status would very likely expose their sexualities and their sexual activities.
That’s because the shot is only available to people who have been exposed to monkeypox or gay and bisexual men who have had sex with multiple other men in the past 14 days.
Two of the men, Thomas Vernadore and Thomas Baltz, spoke with me on the record. They hoped that sharing their experience with the shot — one of them said he felt “absolutely nothing” after getting it — would dispel any fears others might have of getting it.
But the third man I spoke to requested anonymity because his business could lose clients if they found out about his sexuality. With each of their stories, I wrote about how getting the monkeypox vaccine was important to these men, even if it put their social lives in danger.
2. Who let the water out? Popular SC fishing lake empty after vandal opened water valve
One of the state’s most popular small fishing lakes won’t be available to anglers for almost two years after someone climbed a tower, opened the valve and allowed all the water to spill out, The State’s Lyn Riddle reports.
Most of the fish died.
Ross Self, fisheries chief for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, said there were no cameras at Lake Edwin Johnson outside Spartanburg to know for sure what happened or who did it.
“It’s hard to explain why someone would do this,” he said. “It took a fair amount of effort to be mischievous.”
Self said refilling the lake will begin in about three weeks, bream stocked in the fall and bass in the spring, but it will be July 2024 before fishing will be allowed.
3. A historically Black York County church was burned down in May — updates on the arson case
Three months ago, a 14-year-old filmed himself lighting a predominantly Black church on fire in York County , police say. This week, a judge ruled he will remain in jail pending further examination to determine competency to stand trial. The teen’s attorney said she is concerned that he does not have the mental capacity to understand the case , possibly because of his attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and limited scholastic capabilities, The Herald’s Andrew Dys reports.
Church officials had asked the court he continue to be detained to protect public safety.
The motivation for the fire that damaged the Catawba Chapel AME Zion Church remains unclear. It caused more than $100,000 in damage and Rev. Darian Potts said the church still cannot hold services as a result.
The suspect is charged as a juvenile with second-degree arson, malicious damage to a house of worship, burglary, and larceny.
4. Taxpayers helped send employees’ kids to camp — and Beaufort County tried to ‘disguise’ it
Beaufort County used two public facilities, staffing and taxpayer funds to provide 10 weeks of summer camp exclusively for county employees’ children and tried to disguise the perk, The Island Packet’s Karl Puckett reports.
The memorandum gave employees directions on how to register for the subsidized summer camp on the Parks and Recreation website, including clicking on the program titled “Employee Only SC Program.” The cost of the camp was anywhere from 30% to 10% of the cost of other summer camps offered in the region. The county spent nearly $11,000 from its own budget on the camp.
“The SC stands for Summer Camp,” the memorandum said. “Since the program is not open to the public, we are doing our best to disguise it.”
The county later claimed it was not actually trying to hide the program, but the exclusive use of the public facilities for summer camp for the children of county employees at a cut-rate price has brought sharp criticism from Beaufort residents. The county now says it is looking at options to open the camp to everyone next year.
What I’m Reading
A trial has been set for the woman believed to be the mother of “Baby Boy Horry,” a child who was found dead in a shopping bag outside of Conway in 2008, The Sun News’ Bryn Eddy reports.
Who killed Tammy Zywicki? 30 years later, the death of the Greenville native remains unsolved, The State’s Lyn Riddle reports.
A happy ending: Coleman is a two-month-old hound-shepherd mix whose last home was a dumpster in Spartanburg, The State’s Lyn Riddle also wrote this story. Now, two dozen people have applied to adopt him.
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