We Buy Estate Jewelry in Summerville, SC

One hundred years ago, Berkeley and Summerville played football for the first time.

“Moncks Corner overwhelmed by large score,” reported the Charleston News and Courier on Nov. 3, 1923. Summerville defeated the old Moncks Corner High School by 59-6.

“The entire Summerville backfield, Riggs at tackle and Hutchinson at end starred,” the article said. “O. Sanders at quarterback played a splendid game for Moncks Corner.”

Friday’s contest at John McKissick Field in Summerville will be the 88th overall in the series. The teams played sporadically in the 1930s and ’40s, mostly in the postseason.

The rivalry has featured many players who went on to star in college and in the NFL, and great coaches such as Summerville’s John McKissick and Berkeley’s Gerald Moody and Jerry Brown. Summerville announced Friday that the McKissick Museum, dedicated to the winningest football coach of all time, will open at 6 p.m. Sept. 1 before the Berkeley game.

Our town, our coach.Join us this evening for the McKissick Museum grand opening, tonight at 6:00 before we take on the Berkeley Stags. pic.twitter.com/jkVptNq7JZ

— Summerville Football (@SummervilleFB) September 1, 2023

The series heated up in the late 1950s, and the teams have played nearly every year from 1960-2007. That 2007 season saw each school play teams from Florida as part of a doubleheader. The series resumed in 2008 and has been played every year since.

Summerville holds a 61-23 edge in victories, with four games ending in a tie. The Green Wave holds the longest winning streak at 11 games in the series. The Stags won three straight from 2017-19, but Summerville has won the last three contests.

Current Summerville head coach Ian Rafferty is 5-0 all-time in the series. Rafferty was a player in two wins back in the 1990’s and has won all three meetings since he has been head coach.

For a long time, Berkeley and Summerville were the only high schools in their respective counties. The creation of new high schools over the years have added other rivals to each team’s schedules. Goose Creek came along in 1969, followed by fellow Berkeley County schools Stratford (1983) and Cane Bay (2008).

In Summerville’s district, Fort Dorchester (1992) and Ashley Ridge (2008) have also become rivals for the Green Wave.

“I think it still means a lot to some people, but things have really changed over the years,” Rafferty said of the Berkeley game.

Berkeley’s Eric Lodge, as a new head coach in the Lowcountry, is experiencing his first game against Summerville. The game still means a lot in Moncks Corner, he’s been told.

“I heard about that game during the interview process,” Lodge said. “I got the impression that for a lot of people, it’s still a big deal.”

As for this year’s meeting, one team will take its first loss of 2023. Summerville, the top-ranked team in the state for Class AAAAA, won its opener last week at Carolina Forest. Berkeley is off to a 2-0 start with wins over Timberland and Hanahan by a total of five points.

Both teams have excellent quarterbacks in junior Jaden Cummings at Summerville and freshman Henry Rivers at Berkeley.

“We need to play better than we did last week,” Rafferty said. “Berkeley has some good talent. Their quarterback (freshman Henry Rivers) is the real deal. They have our full attention.”

Lodge says the Green Wave is worthy of its lofty state ranking. He says Summerville has explosiveness on offense with a physical, fast defense.

Wright Cousins

Another area rivalry resumes on Saturday night as Cross hosts Berkeley County rival Timberland at 6 p.m. Cross head coach Shaun Wright and Timberland head coach Greg Wright are first cousins (their fathers are brothers). This will be the third matchup between the two as head coaches, with each having a win.

Timberland has dominated the overall series, which began after Timberland opened in 1997. Cross won games in 2000 and 2001 but did not win again in the series until last season.

In fact, Cross won the 2001 game when Greg Wright scored the winning touchdown for the Trojans. His cousin, Shaun, was an assistant coach on that team.

“Timberland sort of took off when Art Craig got there as head coach,” said Shaun Wright, who became an assistant at Timberland in 2002. “It should be a great game on Saturday night. Timberland is 0-2 but they could easily be 2-0. They are good.”

Cross is 1-1 with a win over Hemingway and a loss to Calhoun County. Timberland lost to Berkeley (36-32) and Indian Land (7-6).

David Shelton’s Lowcountry Top 10

1. Summerville

2. James Island

3. Fort Dorchester

4. Philip Simmons

5. Oceanside Collegiate

6. Lucy Beckham

7. Ashley Ridge

8. Woodland

9. West Ashley

10. Berkeley

High School Football Schedule

Sept. 1

Berkeley at Summerville

Ashley Ridge at Conway

White Knoll at Colleton Co.

Grayson (Ga.) at Fort Dorchester

Sumter at Goose Creek

Lexington at Stratford

Stall at Wando

Cane Bay at West Ashley

Timberland at Cross, 6 p.m. Saturday

Lucy Beckham at Bishop England (canceled)

First Baptist at James Island

North Charleston at Baptist Hill

Philip Simmons at Georgetown

Woodland at Bluffton (canceled)

Academic Magnet at Burke

Colleton Prep at Branchville

Palmetto Christian at Military Magnet

Denmark-Olar at St. Johns

Camden Military at Porter-Gaud

Northwood at Thomas Heyward

Ben Lippen at Pinewood Prep

Conway Christian at Faith Christian

Cross Schools at Dorchester Academy

As Hurricane Idalia spins a gradual, destructive path through Florida on its way to Georgia and South Carolina, cities and towns in its way prepare for the usual possibilities of strong winds, heavy rains and storm surge.

But forecasts suggest coastal area residents should prep for another weather event associated with the incoming storm: tornadoes.

The National Weather Service based in Charleston is predicting about a 5 percent chance of isolated tornadoes across the coastal South Carolina from the afternoon of Aug. 30 into the morning Aug. 31.

It’s not unusual for tornadoes spurred by hurricanes or tropical storms to form on the northeast flank of a storm system, said Brian Haines, a NWS meteorologist in Charleston.

“Hurricanes and tornadoes have always gone hand in hand,” Haines said.

South Carolinians don’t have to look far back in time to find that’s true.

In 2004, Hurricane Frances made landfall in Florida before sweeping up to South Carolina. That storm spawned 46 twisters in its wake.

The 1994 Tropical Storm Beryl is another example that comes to mind for Frank Strait, a severe weather liaison with the S.C. Department of Natural Resources.

Beryl churned out 23 tornadoes in South Carolina. The storm hit Lexington hard, causing millions of dollars in damages, Strait said.

Most tropical tornadoes that hit South Carolina are from systems that make landfall in the Gulf of Mexico and continue on a path toward the north or northeast.

Usually, tornadoes produced by tropical cyclones are relatively weak and short-lived, but they can still pose a significant threat, according to the National Weather Service.

The number of tornadoes possible with Idalia is difficult to forecast, Strait said.

“The important thing to keep in mind is that people who live along our coast need to be ready for this tornado risk that’s coming Wednesday night,” Strait said.

That preparation includes tuning in to local weather stations, turning on weather radios and forming a plan to find shelter well before a tornado touches down.

Idalia reached hurricane strength early Tuesday, and the National Weather Services predicts the storm will continue to intensify. It’s expected to make landfall north of Tampa, Fla., the morning of Aug. 30.

The National Hurricane Center issued a storm surge watch for the entire South Carolina shoreline. A flood watch has been issued in Charleston, coastal Colleton, Beaufort and Jasper counties for Wednesday and into Thursday morning.

Despite the potential for Idalia to churn out a tornado or two, Haines ranks storm surge, coastal flooding and heavy rainfall as more pressing and dangerous potentials than the possibility for isolated tornadoes.

He urges coastal residents to prepare.

Summerville designer Gray Benko and her family are on a quest to bring color and life back to historic spaces in the Charleston area. It’s a feat they are accomplishing head-on in a new TV series called “Happy to be Home with the Benkos.”

In six episodes, Gray Benko teams up with her craftsman husband, Mike Benko, and her father, Joe “Grumpy” Highsmith, to renovate portions of six historic Charleston-area homes.

Each episode features a different house that dates back at least 100 years. The idea is to add color, texture and fun to each one while breaking away from the “stereotypical farmhouse concept that has been so popular for so long,” said Mike Benko.

Most of the renovated spaces are ones the homeowners were unhappy with. They were either looking for a change, or the space needed some sort of structural or construction work.

The crew works to salvage the integrity of each home’s history while adding the flair of Gray Benko’s designs. Once complete, most of the spaces are revived from floor to ceiling with brand new construction, vibrant colors and patterns, antique furniture and fixtures from local shops.

Each member of the trio has their own rule in the renovations. Gray, who is also a photographer, is responsible for the designs. Highsmith, a general contractor from Hilton Head Island, oversees the construction. And Gray describes her husband, Mike, as a renaissance man who’s “like a jack-of-all-trades kind of guy.” He completes a personalized, special project for each homeowner.

Gray, a Lowcountry native, said her family’s passion for this work likely stems from living in historic homes for so many years. They’ve renovated their own homes, “and that’s kind of how this whole things started,” she said.

“I did our houses, people saw it on my Instagram, loved it and then started asking me for help with their house,” she said. “And then it all turned into this whole TV show thing, and here we are.”

“Happy to be Home with the Benkos” airs on the Magnolia Network, which features original shows curated by Chip and Joanna Gaines, the stars of the hit home renovation TV series “Fixer Upper” and owners of the Magnolia home brand. The show can be streamed on HBO Max and Discovery+, too.

Since the Benkos utilize local businesses to help with the renovations, many Lowcountry faces are seen on the show, too, like Charleston upholsterer Kelvin Moultrie of Carolina Auto Trim, seamstress Elizabeth Wheaton of Wheaton Whaley Home and designer Sally Bennet of Mirth Studio, among other South Carolinians.

The Benkos are currently taking on new projects in the Summerville and Charleston areas. Homes that are built in the 1920s or earlier are preferred.

“We are looking for people who are not afraid of color, obviously, and who have renovations that they already want to do,” Gray said.

Those who are interested should send an email to info.graybenko@gmail.com.

SUMMERVILLE — Jacob Limehouse, 26, and his wife do not want children and had already discussed Jacob getting a vasectomy. Then the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in late June 2022, allowing states like South Carolina to seek to ban or severely restrict access to abortion, and that sealed it for them.

“That definitely added to the desire to get it done,” Limehouse said.

After doing what he felt was a lot of research, much of which downplayed the risk from the procedure, he went in for a vasectomy on Jan. 9. What followed was a trip to the emergency room and a week at Summerville Medical Center battling severe complications that have left him with lingering pain and extensive medical bills.

Limehouse wasn’t alone in his newfound interest in vasectomies. Immediately after the Dobbs decision by the Supreme Court, the search for information on vasectomies hit a five-year high on Google Trends, according an article in the journal Fertility and Sterility. In many states, particularly those which banned or severely restricted abortion in the wake of the decision, interest in vasectomies took off, according to an analysis by The Post and Courier.

In Michigan, where a temporary injunction blocked a 1931 law that banned abortion except to save the life of a mother, inquiries about vasectomies at one clinic increased 225 percent compared to the year before, according to a study in the Journal of Urology. Another study at 10 academic medical centers spread across the country found an overall 10.9 percent increase in vasectomy interest among patients compared to a slight decrease the year before. The rates varied across the centers and were higher in states where bans or restrictions were enacted, the authors found.

In Ohio, where a ban on abortions after six weeks is on hold, the number of inquiries at one large clinic increased 22.4 percent in the months after the decision compared to the year before, according to a study in the International Journal of Impotence Research. More of those men, like Limehouse, tended to be younger and childless compared to those who sought vasectomies the year before, the Ohio study found, which lines up with the experience at other clinics.

Not every clinic is seeing an increase.

“We’re seeing roughly the same number of vasectomy consultations,” said Dr. Tracy J. Tipton of Urology Associates of Charleston. Because the practice sets aside a certain number of slots for vasectomies, the wait to get in has increased over the last several years, particularly during the pandemic, but is back down to about four to six months, he said, what it has been for the last couple of years.

While weighing the impact of the abortion ruling and surge of interest in vasectomies, there were also concerns about how the procedure was being portrayed on social media, according to a Perspective in the Journal of Urology, which is published by the 23,000-member American Urological Association. Particularly troubling were suggestions that vasectomies were a “solution” to contraception concerns and that the procedure was easily reversible, the authors noted. But reversal procedures are “technically challenging and expensive” surgeries that insurance companies are not likely to cover, the Perspective found.

Tipton of Urology Associates in Charleston said reversals are rarely covered by insurance and not likely to work if many years have passed, so he counsels his patients to consider a vasectomy as permanent.

“I try to tell them, yes, technically this is reversible but you should think about this like an irreversible procedure,” he said. “If you are on the fence, maybe we need to think about this a little bit more.”

‘It could happen to you’

The risks involved might also be downplayed on social media. When Limehouse did his research, he found the complications were portrayed as “super minor,” mainly swelling, bleeding at the surgery site and some persistent pain that could last a month. He got similar counseling about complications at the clinic.

On the afternoon he headed in for the procedure, “I wasn’t nervous at all,” Limehouse said. “I had read so many positive stories. I couldn’t find a negative story, to be honest.”

The whole thing took maybe 20 minutes under local anesthesia, he said, then he rested for five minutes before heading home.

But almost immediately, there was a lot more swelling than he expected, even when applying ice packs. Then he got nauseous, then dizzy, then tried to make it to the bathroom.

“The next thing I know, my wife was standing over me, trying to wake me up,” Limehouse said. It was the first time in his life he had ever fainted.

His wife, Marissa Christine Wiggins, called her parents for advice. When the nausea continued and Limehouse passed out again, they took him to the ER at Summerville Medical Center. Limehouse said he was only semiconscious then but Marissa told him he was extremely pale. He was rushed back for tests and a CT scan and eventually admitted for syncope, fainting or passing out, after his blood pressure dropped significantly when he stood up, according to Limehouse’s medical records.

The CT scan found a suspected blood clot just under 3 inches in diameter above his left testicle and swelling throughout the area but nothing else remarkable, the records showed. When he was again administered a test for syncope by standing for several seconds, “I passed out in the nurse’s arms,” Limehouse said.

His hemoglobin level, which measures the red blood cells that carry oxygen, and hematocrit level, which looks at the percentage of red blood cells, appeared normal at first but began dropping. A few days later, when his hemoglobin dropped to about half the normal range, nurse Ellen Patrick flagged it, records show. The urologist who performed the vasectomy, whom Limehouse does not want named, came in to perform surgery and removed the blood clot. But Limehouse said neither he nor his family was told about the clot.

Summerville Medical Center did not provide a relevant response for comment or make the nurses, whom Limehouse credits for getting the care he needed, available for comment.

Months later, he is left with some pain and a load of medical bills from his stay. He started a GoFundMe to seek help.

Still, “I don’t regret getting the procedure,” Limehouse said. “I’m happy I did it. But I regret the little research I did.”

Overall, the rate for serious complications for vasectomies is low, with infections and hematomas or lumps from blood clots, in the 2-4 percent range, according the World Journal of Men’s Health. But it is something to keep in mind, Limehouse said.

“What’s the old saying? It could happen to you,” he said.

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. (WCSC) - Some businesses say prioritizing a sense of place in the town of Summerville is most important and sometimes that means new development, despite what some people might think.

Dorchester County has a proposed plan to turn 500 N. Main St., also known as their main county building, into a hotel, retail spaces, a parking garage and more.

Some businesses located in the heart of Summerville, like Eva’s Restaurant, think change is about time.

“If we don’t have growth, we don’t have a future,” general manager Tina Howard said.

Eva’s Restaurant has been serving the town since 1944. With the proposed development, Howard says she’s not worried about competition.

“I think it would benefit us as a small business with, you know, bringing in tourists,” Howard said. “...I don’t feel it would hurt us personally because we have such a strong, established business.”

Diane Frankenberger, the owner of People, Places & Quilts, says she’s watched Summerville grow for over 30 years. She says with the old post office as the new public works art center, the old Coca-Cola company as the new YMCA and an old hardware store as her own business, she believes both the county and town councils prioritize preservation.

“You have to go forward with the future,” Frankenberger said. “We still can’t have the same houses around here and the old town hall and no computers and blah blah blah. And so, it’s keeping a sense of place, but moving forward with an eye towards the future.”

The county has already approved plans to preserve part of the county building, which once was the old hospital, and improve the current Veteran’s monument.

“I think when people are calling names or say, ‘Don’t do something,’ let’s wait and see and work together and make the best use of what we’ve got there,” Frankenberger said.

Howard says she wants her 6-year-old grandson to be able to experience a flourishing Summerville, just like she has all her life.

“A lot of people complain about the growth and ‘People will stop coming here, we’re full, don’t come here,’” Howard said. “Without growth, we don’t have a future. The future is growth.”

Frankenberger says she’s ready to move forward.

“No more gas on the fire,” Frankenberger said. “Let’s put water on the fire.”

Dorchester County provided the following statement about the proposed plan:

Dorchester County is looking forward to having greater capacity and flexibility to complete the following projects from fee revenues of the redevelopment:

Funding to preserve the façade of the old hospital building.

A new civic park and improvements to the Veterans Memorial.

An additional $8 Million in funding to DD2 schools to supplement $2 Million from the TIF.

Provide $20 Million in funding for a Community Recreation Facility in the Summerville area.

Provide $2 Million in additional funding for streetscaping and improvements to Main Street and Cedar Street.

Provide credits for workforce housing for teachers, firefighters, law enforcement, and first responders within the multi-family development for at least 15 years.

A modern County office building and additional Class A Office Space in the downtown area.

A new downtown hotel and restaurant to provide much-needed retail and hospitality amenities in the downtown area.

Create additional parking by providing for the construction of a parking garage in the downtown area.

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