Chiropractic Care in Knightsville, SC

KNIGHTSVILLE, S.C. (WCBD) – “She lights up my world.” “She changed my life.” “She’s fun and creative.” “She helped my son.”

These are just a few words of adoration used when students and parents talk about Knightsville Elementary Special Education Teacher Kristi O’Callahan – the News 2 Cool Teacher of the week.

O’Callahan has a passion for teaching special education. “I feel like this is what I was born to do,” she said. “I never wanted to be anything else.”

The New York native teaches special education kindergarten through fifth-grade math and English at the Dorchester District 2 school. It’s a role she’s had for the past six years.

“A safe place to love, and learn, and just be awesome,” she said, “They’re not less than. They’re awesome. They’re amazing, and I love them! I love my kids.”

Sixteen years dedicated to special education, O’Callahan said she always wanted to be a teacher.

“The special ed part was a close family friend of ours. Growing up, their son had Down’s syndrome. I saw the way people looked at him differently, or the way they acted around him, but my brother, my cousins, his siblings – we didn’t treat him differently. He was just Patty to us.”

She went on to say, “I just knew I wanted him and kids like him to not feel less than. I just want them to feel special and important. I think that’s what we do here every day, myself, my T-A, that’s what we strive for.”

O’Callahan said she uses a fun multi-sensory approach to teaching.

“We do reading and math primarily, we have fun, too. It’s all about a hands-on multi-sensory approach. So there’s kinesthetics, so we’re moving. I think the most important thing is the relationships that we form first. I think the bond, rapport, and communication. I want them to feel safe, and loved, and important, and special.”

“Once they feel those things, I think then we kick in academics and that’s when they really thrive. I just want to make a difference when they come here because being pulled out of your Gen-Ed setting makes you feel a little different and weird, so I just want them to come here and be happy and excited about my classroom,” she added.

Fourth-grade student Ariyah Hallock says Mrs. O’Callahan changed her life. “She lights up my world. I want to come to her classroom every day because how grateful I am. Over the two years, I’ve been with her, she’s been helping me read and everything she’s done for me, and I’m so thankful for her. She is making a difference,” Ariyah said.

The principal at Knightsville Elementary School, Claire Sieber, said O’Callahan’s energy level and expertise to meet children where they are and to help them grow academically make her the right fit for the school.

“She makes those connections with students that help them to engage in the learning, feel proud of their successes, and want to take the next step in their learning to continue to fill in the academic gaps they might have,” she said.

Parent Bridget Sowards’ son, Daniel, is one of Mrs. O’Callahan’s students. She nominated her to receive the Cool School Teacher award. “She’s making a big difference in our school. Mrs. O’Callahan is an amazing support for Daniel. She would send me emails sometimes and say ‘oh I saw this and thought of Daniel, and maybe you can implement this at home as well.’ It just blows my mind how amazing she is with the kids, and how Daniel is so excited to come to school to be with her and how he has improved in the last two years in English Language Arts by leaps and bounds where he was really struggling,” she said. “He’s beginning to catch up to his peers, which is the whole point of her being with her. She’s really amazing.”

O’Callahan said she’s thankful for the special accolades and recognition. “It’s super overwhelming! I just don’t think about things like that. I come here, I love on my kids. I teach my kids and that’s the most important thing. I love it! It’s amazing! It’s such a good feeling!”

If you would like to nominate a Cool School or educator, send an email to Octavia Mitchell at omitchell@wcbd.com.

While no new street names were needed, the Town of Summerville Planning Commission took action on seven items of New Business during its September 19 meeting. Opening the meeting with the approval of minutes from the August 15 meeting, the Commission then conducted public hearings on the same seven items which were later decided.

By unanimous vote, the Commission recommended approval of a petition by Marymeade Associates Limited Partnership to annex 7.76 acres located off Marymeade Drive and Farm Springs Road in Berkeley County and rezone it General Business upon annexation into the Town of Summerville’s municipal limits.

A motion to recommend approval of a request for a major PUD amendment to the Knightsville Tract PUD (AKA Sweetgrass Station) to allow the improvements to Orangeburg Road at the site entrance to be delayed until the completion of the 100th dwelling unit failed on a 3-3 vote.

The Commission recommended approval on a unanimous vote of a petition by Sum Bottles LLC to annex 1110 N. Main Street and 127 Berkeley Circle in Berkeley County and rezone the properties General Business upon annexation into the Town of Summerville’s municipal limits.

Along with the request that Council consider restricting demolition of the existing structures, the Commission recommended approval of the Town’s request to rezone 333 Old Postern Road to General Residential by unanimous vote.

Approval was recommended by unanimous vote of a request to rezone Old Postern Road, W. Richardson Avenue, and Parsons Road, owned by the Town of Summerville, to Public Lands.

A motion to recommend approval of a petition by Maudco LLC to annex 13 acres on Deweese Lane and rezone Neighborhood Residential upon annexation into the Town of Summerville’s municipal limits failed on a 0-6 vote.

On a 5-1 vote, the Commission recommended approval of a petition by Mad Dog Development, LLC to annex two parcels on Stallsville Loop and rezone to General Business upon annexation into the Town of Summerville’s municipal limits.

Anyone planning to pop the question this Valentine’s Day may want to consult Leonidas Harper’s 1858 missive to his future bride first. His Civil War-era marriage proposal sets a high bar.

Preserved in a collection of letters by the Dorchester Heritage Center (DHC) in St. George, Leonidas Adolphus (“L.A.”) Harper’s offer for the hand of Elizabeth Catherine Dantzler is a beautifully penned example of why the DHC exists. It is also a gold standard for a well-articulated romance of the time and what laying a heart on the line of script can look like.

“Miss Lizzie –

… You alone have been able to tune my discordant heart, and now it yields the sweetest music to your slightest touch. I have awakened to a new existence — the world, once so “black and bare,” is made radiant with hope and verdant in the Spring of affection,” wrote Harper on May 14, 1858.

Born in 1833, the Elberton, Georgia native was hired by “Miss Lizzie’s” father to be a tutor for her and her numerous siblings. The second eldest daughter of Dr. Lewis and Mary Zimmerman Dantzler, “Miss Lizzie” was born in Orangeburg in 1841. The sweethearts began their correspondence before the Civil War and continued writing to each other throughout the bloody, four-year campaign.

Apparently, Harper’s romantic campaign and his skill with the pen succeeded, as the couple married before Harper joined the battle as a Confederate soldier. Surviving “The War Between the States,” the teacher and new husband finally returned to his bride, and the young couple settled in St. George and raised at least eight children there.

Harper’s proposal letter is among 100 or more epistles that the couple exchanged, and all are carefully archived by the DHC. The collection came to the organization through Charles George, one of the couple’s descendants.

“It is in your power to make me the happiest of men — or the reverse by dooming me to struggle, with a power that now has the mastery; but oh, if there is a cord within your heart which vibrates in unison with mine, touch that one alone and let the mingling of their notes be an emblem of the concordance of our future life …”

Evidence of this “future life” Harper spoke of, the couple’s progeny still live in the same family home that belonged to their ancestors, and according to DHC Director LaClaire Mizell and DHC Archivist Christine Rice, “there are Dantzlers all over upper Dorchester and lower Orangeburg Counties.”

“He’s very raw in his proposal. In today’s verbiage, he’s saying, ‘My life doesn’t make sense without you,’” said Mizell.

“In the other letters, they talk about what’s happening in their daily lives. She’s able to say, ‘This is what’s going on here,’ and he gives her advice on what to do, who to talk to … His letters tell her that even though he is at war, she is first and foremost in his mind.”

The Harper-Dantzler collection is among an estimated 500,000 documents, 10,000 artifacts and 4,500 books and magazines held safe by the DHC — the only repository in South Carolina that meets federal curation standards, accepts local collections and is open to researchers. Its treasures come from Lowcountry family’s attics and storage units before time, weather, animals or insects can destroy them.

Like history, marriages and other long-term partnerships also require preservation effort. Mizell noted that a radio show she had been listening to recently featured guests talking about why they had divorced. Most current statistics estimate that 50 percent of United States marriages end in divorce, and among younger generations, fewer people are getting married in the first place.

The Baby Boomers (1946-1965) were the first generation for whom divorce became acceptable, although it still came with taboos. Generation X (1965-1980), though, was the first wave of women for whom marriage wasn’t automatically “the done thing.” Now, only about 25 percent of Millenials and Generation Z’s (1981-1996 and 1997-2012, respectively) are tying the knot. That’s a decrease from Gen X’s 36 percent, the Boomers’ 48 percent and the Silent Generation’s (1928-1945) 65 percent.

For Harper and Dantzler’s Gilded Generation though, born 1822-1842, marriage was not only expected, but something you stuck with, through war, child-bearing, child-rearing, poverty, disaster, bringing home the wrong fabric for the parlor’s new curtains and pretty much everything else you could throw at two people.

“This couple was separated by years and miles and a war,” said Mizell. “You just don’t find the willingness to persevere through the challenges like you used to. A good marriage is going to take work.”

A heart-felt, soul-baring and carefully wrought proposal doesn’t hurt, either.

“Life cannot always be a dream,” wrote Harper.

“But if your affections are as firmly fixed as mine, we can contribute much to the happiness of each other, and together shun many of the snares which beset the path of life … Speak but the word and you have my pledge to do all that men dare do to make you happy; and surely if affection aided by untiring energy will accomplish it – I cannot fail.

If you prefer not giving an answer until you return home, I will not object — but a ‘yes’ by return mail would relieve me of much anxiety.”

Dorchester County is continuing with its plans for a large-scale rezoning effort to stop the over-building of additional apartment complexes and townhomes.

At a County Council meeting Monday, members voted and approved the rezoning of dozens of parcels of land from multi-family residential to mostly single-family. Under single-family zoning, property owners aren’t allowed to build apartments or townhomes.

Knightsville LLC is a property owner with plans for building townhomes that was exempt from the rezoning ordinance after filing a complaint in county court. County officials say there have also been some additional complaints from residents about the rezoning.

“The complaint from Knightsville LLC held more significance because of the level of investment involved,” said Kiera Reinertsen, the county planning and zoning director.

In 2004, the county’s zoning ordinance was amended and led to an increase in approvals of multi-family zoning.

After hearing complaints about traffic, infrastructure and flooding during the organizing of its 2018 Comprehensive Plan, the county announced mass rezoning plans for multi-family spaces.

According to officials, most of the property owners under the rezoning project already live within single-family spaces. The project will help bring property owners who have spaces for commercial use into compliance. Using a property for commercial use is not permitted in a single-family residential district.

The project will also help balance population densities and available county infrastructure.

Some of the multi-family areas highlighted for rezoning include property southeast of Ladson Road toward North Charleston and between Ladson Road and Central Avenue in Knightsville.

In April, Knightsville LLC filed a complaint in the county court over proposed rezoning. The owner had purchased three parcels of land off of Central Avenue in Knightsville with the goal of building townhomes.

In the complaint, the owner alleged that the rezoning plans undermined and violated their investment-backed expectations and denied them the right to pursue a planned development project.

During the Monday meeting, attorney Ellis Lesemann spoke on behalf of Knightsville LLC. He said they paid just under $1.1 million for the land in 2019. He also argued that there is enough infrastructure in place to develop the project.

“They’ve been incurring permit fees, legal fees, engineering, doing a wetlands delineation and going through other types of carrying costs to bring that project forward,” he said.

Lesemann said his client learned about the rezoning plans for their property in February. After a Monday executive session, the council agreed to exclude property under Knightsville LLC from its rezoning ordinance.

“We were pleased to be able to resolve the matter with the county,” Lesemann said.

Future approval of multi-family zoning will be based on the county’s available infrastructure and future land use.

The area above Central Avenue in Knightsville is next on the county’s list of mass rezoning. The county’s planning commission is scheduled to meet on Oct. 8 to review proposed rezonings.

A County Council public hearing is expected to follow on a later date. Officials say property owners impacted by the rezoning should’ve already been notified.

Many owners have likely received a flier on their property notifying them about the rezoning.

Reach Jerrel Floyd at 843-937-5558. Follow him on Twitter @jfloyd134.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC/AP) - Tornado watches around the Lowcountry have been allowed to expire as Tropical Depression Nicole moves farther from South Carolina.

Remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole put the Lowcountry under tornado watches throughout Thursday night going into Friday morning.

Most of the watches ended Friday morning, and a watch for Georgetown and Williamsburg Counties ended just before noon. Two tornado warnings were issued in the Tri-County during the storm activity.

A tornado warning was issued at 12:20 a.m. for parts of Charleston County, however, it expired at 12:41 a.m.

Another warning came Thursday afternoon as a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located at 5:17 p.m. near Knightsville The warning expired at 5:45 p.m.

The National Weather Service has not verified if any tornados touchdown during either of the warnings. Meanwhile, the South Carolina Emergency Management Division says county emergency managers across the state reported minimal damages. None of the managers requested state assistance.

Click here to download the free Live 5 First Alert Weather app.

Live 5 Meteorologist Joey Sovine says gusts to tropical storm force are possible Wednesday through Friday.

A tropical storm warning means that tropical storm conditions are expected somewhere within the warning area.

A tornado watch means conditions are favorable for tornadoes to form, but does not indicate that any actual tornadoes have been detected.

Tropical Storm Nicole has sent multiple homes collapsing into the Atlantic Ocean. Nicole made landfall as a hurricane early Thursday near Vero Beach, Florida, but the brunt of the damage was along the East Coast well north of there, in the Daytona Beach area. Its damaging coastal surge was hitting beachfront properties in Daytona Beach Shores that lost their last protections during Hurricane Ian.

The Live 5 Weather team declared Thursday and Friday as First Alert Weather Days because of possible impacts from the storm.

Sovine says coastal flooding is likely through Friday around high tides with beach erosion and high surf also likely.

Sovine said heavy rain could be possible with rainfall totals between one and four inches. Breezy conditions could occur through Friday and winds may occasionally gust to, or over, 40 mph near the coast.

Nicole became the 14th named storm of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season on Monday.

As of 10 a.m., Nicole was a tropical depression with its center located near latitude 34.2 north and longitude 84.3 west, about 35 miles north of Atlanta, Ga. The storm was moving to the north-northeast at 23 mph and its estimated minimum central pressure is 1001 mb or 29.56 inches.

Forecasters say an acceleration toward the north and north-northeast is expected Friday.

On the forecast track, the center of Nicole will move across central and northern Georgia Friday morning and over the western Carolinas later.

Maximum sustained winds are near 35 mph with higher gusts. Nicole is expected to become a post-tropical cyclone Friday, then dissipate Friday night or early Saturday as it merges with a frontal system over the eastern United States.

Tropical Storm Warnings are now in effect for Charleston, Berkeley, Coastal Colleton and Beaufort counties. Gusts to tropical storm force(40+mph) are possible today through Friday near the coast. pic.twitter.com/VOkWBvcYTx

— Joey Sovine Live 5 (@JoeySovine) November 9, 2022

City of Charleston officials say they will be closely monitoring the tropical storm. Crews have already begun preparing for potential storm impacts.

“Residents are asked to keep an eye on reliable local weather reports over the next few days,” Emergency Management Director Ben Almquist said in a news release. “If bad conditions do arise, citizens are advised to follow the guidance of Emergency Management officials and, as always, motorists should avoid driving through high water when they encounter it.”

The city’s stormwater department has prepared temporary pumps for low-lying areas. Crews will also be cleaning out ditches and drains in flood-prone areas.

To find out how you can help, visit the Adopt-A-Drain website by clicking here.

The Atlantic Hurricane Season runs through Nov. 30.

Nicole made landfall near Vero Beach as a Category 1 hurricane at about 3 a.m. Thursday, more than a hundred miles south of Daytona Beach Shores, before its maximum sustained winds dropped to 60 mph, the Miami-based center said. The storm was centered about 30 miles southeast of Orlando. It was moving west-northwest near 14 mph.

Robbie Berg, a hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami advised people to understand that hazards from Tropical Storm Nicole “will exist across the state of Florida today.”

Nicole came could briefly emerge over the northeastern corner of the Gulf of Mexico Thursday afternoon before moving over the Florida Panhandle and Georgia, he said.

The storm left south Florida sunny and calm as it moved north, but could dump as much as 6 inches of rain over the Blue Ridge Mountains by Friday, the hurricane center said.

Nicole became a hurricane Wednesday evening as it slammed into Grand Bahama Island. It was the first to hit the Bahamas since Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5 storm that devastated the archipelago in 2019.

For storm-weary Floridians, it is only the third November hurricane to hit their shores since recordkeeping began in 1853. The previous ones were the 1935 Yankee Hurricane and Hurricane Kate in 1985.

Copyright 2022 WCSC. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved.

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. (WCBD) – It was 1973 when Shirley McGreal, then living in Southeast Asia, saw beady bright eyes staring back at her from between the slats of a wooden crate.

The eyes belonged to a gibbon — a primate native to the region — who had fallen victim to the dangerous world of the pet trade, where gibbons were being sold into homes, zoos, or labs, only to later be discarded.

In 1977, McGreal created the International Primate Protection League (IPPL) in Summerville as a gibbon sanctuary. The now 47-acre property remains nestled in a quiet area of the Lowcountry that is illuminated by the sounds of the primates singing to one another.

Meg McCue-Jones, the Compliance and Outreach Manager, explained that the land was a sod farm in the late 70s and started taking in the gibbons that needed help soon after.

One of the sanctuary’s residents, Gibby, is one of the oldest known living gibbons at over 60 years old.

Like most of the gibbons at the sanctuary, his life started off rough.

McCue-Jones said that Gibby was wild caught, and “with every gibbon wild caught, they shoot mom out of the tree, hoping baby falls, and then they take the baby.”

He was first sold into the pet trade in by a Bangkok dealer, but that was just the beginning. Gibby went to labs at Hofstra University and the State University at Stony Brook.

Researchers embedded electrodes in his skin as part of a locomotion project.

The electrodes and thin wires were inserted into his muscles and connected him to a suit that would measure his muscle movements. McCue-Jones explained that this was obviously not an ideal situation on any aspect, whether it be a human or animal.

At 44, Gibby made it to his first sanctuary, but the conditions were hard on his body. In March of 2007, just four years after his arrival, the IPPL reached out to the sanctuary to relocate not only Gibby, but several other gibbons.

For Gibby, like the other 29 at the sanctuary, Summerville is his last stop. McCue-Jones says that the sanctuary is their forever home.

But with the pandemic, their home has become more difficult to manage.

With fear of COVID-19 spreading to the primates, volunteers were no longer allowed to assist with the many daily tasks necessary to keep the place running.

From hosing the outsides of the enclosures, to raking, food prep, and even assistance inside the office—the staff was left with mounting responsibilities.

The economic impacts of the pandemic left donors and community partners reeling financially, but the bills at the sanctuary remained steady.

As a non-federally funded organization, the IPPL relies heavily on donations to meet the needs of the animals.

Stacy Lambert, a Senior Animal Care Giver, said that since a lot of their population has started to reach geriatric ages, their vet bills are getting bigger as they are having more interventions and medications, different procedures, and checkup appointments with Dr. John Ohlandt.

While expensive, their system of care has proven to work.

Lambert says that in the wild, gibbons usually live about 30-35 years. However, in captivity, gibbons living into their 40s is normal. However, the IPPL has quite a few gibbons that are up in their 40s and 50s while, of course, Gibby is 62.

Although the interventions from the IPPL show the ability of the sanctuary, McCue-Jones said all those at the IPPL ultimately wish there was not a need for them at all, and that the gibbons could live freely in the wild.

McCue-Jones said, “as Shirley has spoken of before, if you really think about it, do humans need sanctuaries, should we have them? Should we be treating the animals this way?”

To send the Gibbons a care package full of nuts, click here.

To donate to the IPPL’s missions and day-to-day operations, click here.

To send specified items needed by the IPPL via Amazon, click here.