Commercial Electrician in St. George, SC

DORCHESTER COUNTY, S.C. (WCIV) — Over 30 dogs were seized from a house in St. George today, April 20, after living in terrible conditions.

Dorchester County Sheriff's Office (DCSO) deputies said they escorted animal control to the 290 Smoak Rd. residence due to a history of violence at the location.

While on scene, deputies found a subject with a warrant and detained them.

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Some dogs were extremely sick, dehydrated, and malnourished. Others just looked scared.

Sadly, some of the dogs they do not expect to make it.

Over 30 dogs were seized from a house in St. George today, April 20, after living in terrible conditions. (WCIV)

"It was something that we have not seen in this county in a long time,” Danielle Zulauf with Dorchester Paws said.

Dogs living in their own filth, locked in small crates inside and outside, and dogs tied to trees with heavy chains. This is the scene Dorchester Paws walked into Thursday morning.

Read More: Dorchester Paws runs out of space for more dogs

"Absolute deplorable conditions, all different sizes, all different breeds,” Zulauf said. "They describe the smell to be where even if they had a mask on, they wouldn't be able to breathe. It was so horrid of a smell.”

According to a press release, the shelter was called to assist, after Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office and Animal Control went to a house with a history of violent incidents.

There they found a subject who had a warrant and dogs living in terrible conditions.

"For them to see dogs with blood coming out of their nose, you know, their lungs, not breathing, right? It's horrible,” Zulauf said.

Sadly, Dorchester Paws does not have room for all of the dogs found. They are asking the public to adopt, foster, or donate.

We do not want any animal to be living in a pop up crate," the shelter wrote in a press release Thursday. "If the public can foster, they can come tomorrow 8am-5pm. Fosters needed for as long as they can commit.

Adoption fees are being waived for dogs who have been at the shelter more than 15 days.

"We need to get the animals that are on our floor right now into homes so we can free up panel space for these 30 plus dogs that just came in. If you can't foster forever, can you foster for the weekend? Can you foster for a week?" Zulauf said.

If you can foster, go to the shelter Friday, April 21st in between 8 A.M. and 5 P.M.

Those interested in donating to Dorchester Paws can do so on the shelter's website.

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Thanks to law enforcement and Dorchester Paws, some of the pups will have a second chance at life.

"We'll scan them for microchips - we're they somebody else's? We will provide them the vaccinations, all the medical assessments, start them on whatever treatments they need, antibiotics and those things, and then they will be fed and they will put into a kennel,” Zulauf said.

Majority of the dogs need serious medical attention. Some have been found to be in end stage heartworm disease.

"We need resources. We will know after all 33 are medically evaluated we'll know how much it's going to cost to treat them, but I'll tell you right now that our funding does not anticipate moments like this, so we need donors whether it's $1 to whatever you can give right now,” Zulauf said.

Questions surrounding how these dogs were put in these conditions still remain.

"We at this moment do not know if charges will be filed, but we will be looking into everything as the days come,” Zulauf said.

The DCSO says this is an ongoing investigation.

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An historic school built for African Americans in 1925 is restored and reopened in St. George, S.C. as a community center and museum. It will share the stories of those who created it and were educated there.

Painted bright white with a red, tin roof, the St. George Rosenwald school in Dorchester County looks new. Inside, former student Clara Britt is excited to sit behind a small, wooden desk again.

“I never thought that this would happen,” says Britt, giggling like a schoolgirl. She’s about to turn 102-years-old.

Sitting beside Britt is former classmate Ordie Brown. He’s 94-years-old and met his wife here.

“She was taking home economics,” says Brown. “They were practicing how to cook. She would give me lunch out the window.”

Brown and Britt are reunited for the reopening of the historic St. George school. After years of fundraising, planning and construction, the restored schoolhouse will now serve as a community center and museum, sharing the story of African Americans denied an education and the hope they found in schools like St. George Rosenwald.

Built in 1925, the schoolhouse is known as a Rosenwald school because it was funded in part by Julius Rosenwald. He was the son of Jewish immigrants who became the president of Sears, Roebuck and Company.

Rosenwald met educator Booker T. Washington in 1911. The founder of the Tuskegee Institute believed education was the key to African Americans breaking free from generations of oppression.

Together, the wealthy business owner and the educator born into slavery, set out to build schools for Black children.

At the time, 90% of African Americans lived in the South. Yet, schools for Blacks were just shacks with merely a fraction of the funding as White schools, if they existed at all.

Rosenwald offered to match funding in Black communities that raised money for schools and got the support of local white schoolboards. The idea was to get communities to work together.

Black families, already paying taxes for white schools, struggled, but came up with the money. They knew education could be life changing.

“If you’re a parent who can’t read or write, you want your kids to be able to that,” says former state Sen. John Matthews.

Matthews is grateful for the education he received at a Rosenwald school in Bowen, S.C. He helped raise money for the St. George restoration.

Between 1917 and 1932, roughly 5,000 Rosenwald schools were built, educating more than 600,000 Black children. Their graduates include civil right activists like Medgar Evers, John Lewis, and Maya Angelou.

Today, 500 Rosenwald schoolhouses remain but many are in disrepair. Former students like Ralph James want to save them.

“We see the progress, that in spite of these things, we tell the story of how persons made it,” says James. “How they were successful in life.”

A retired municipal judge, James attended the St. George school until it closed in 1954. He’s made it his mission to resurrect the schoolhouse and proudly gave a tour during its reopening earlier this month.

James says the six-teacher schoolhouse is one of the largest in the state, repurposed with electricity and bathrooms, amenities that did not exist when he was a student. He points to potbelly stoves and brick chimneys that warmed children who often had to walk miles because there were no school buses for Black children. And, like most Rosenwald schools, the building features tall windows with classrooms strategically placed.

“Because they had no light, they had no power and they didn’t want shadows on their desks,” explains Micah Thompson with the Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, which helped with the restoration.

Congressman Jim Clyburn joined the tour as a special guest during the reopening. His late wife graduated from a Rosenwald School. He said preserving them pays tribute.

“Making sure that we honor the blood, sweat and tears of those who made this community what it is today.”

The congressman helped celebrate Brown and Britt as members of the school’s first graduating class. Brown spoke about playing basketball for the school with the team making a big tournament. But they’d only played on a dirt court.

“We went to the white high school and asked to practice on a wood floor,” said Brown. “But we were told no.”

Britt, meantime, was smitten with Clyburn.

“I had no idea I would ever meet you,” she said.

But Britt took issue with a banner that read she and Brown graduated in 1950.

“Our class is the class of 49. So, I would like them to change that sign,” said Britt as a roomful of guests erupted in laughter.

And, who’s going to argue? Britt is known as the student who once rode an ox to school to maintain her perfect attendance.

DORCHESTER COUNTY, S.C. (WCIV) — Not one, but three pine trees fell on a house in St. George when severe thunderstorms rolled through Monday night.

"So, it’s a lot to take in, and then thinking about the process that we have to go through to get the work done is something else too," said Shawn Calvin.

St. George family recounts moments trees fell on their house during Monday night's storms (WCIV)

Calvin and her husband, Frederick, have owned their home on Davis Terrace for about 15 years. They are devastated and overwhelmed by the mess.

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"About 9 o'clock is when the weather started to shift," she said. "It started raining really heavily, and the wind started blowing, and then by 10 o'clock is actually when it got really bad. So at that point, I was in the den talking to my sister and my husband was in bed."

She told her sister she was going to put the dog up in the other room and get ready for bed. That's when the ceiling came crashing down.

"I noticed that the middle part of the ceiling in the den fell in, and rainwater was coming in at that point," she said. "When I went down the hall to grab my purse, I noticed some of the insulation was coming down in the hallway."

They just finished remodeling the home, so the damage hit hard, but they are still grateful.

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"Well I’m full, but blessed because nobody was injured," Calvin said. "The dog and my husband, we all got out safely, but it’s just a lot to take in because we have had the house newly renovated. We haven’t been back here a year."

Now, they will find someplace to stay until they know if it’s safe.

"We’ll stay with relatives until we know the plan for repairs or what our next steps are," Calvin added.

But in the meantime: "So, we’re hoping that they can get it repaired in a few months or less, and we’ll move back in, prayerfully. Until then, we’ll just reside with relatives," Calvin said.

According to the National Weather Service in Charleston, there were 18 reports of wind damage across Colleton and Dorchester counties.

Rosenwald Schools helped educate Black students in segregated South. Could a national park follow?

ST. GEORGE, S.C. (WCSC/AP) - A part of history in St. George that was set to be bulldozed now has a bright future.

The Rosenwald School in St. George was a building many people may never have been aware of, but it was one of thousands across the south that educated black children during segregation. It opened in 1925 and closed in 1954, eventually falling into an extreme state of disrepair with a caving ceiling, deteriorating floors and chipped, peeling walls.

But a group of former students got together and came up with a plan to save their historic upper Dorchester County school. The newly renovated St. George Rosenwald School will officially become a museum and community center.

It was in schools like the Dorchester County site, and nearly 5,000 others built in the American South a century ago, that Black students largely ignored by whites in power gained an educational foundation through the generosity of a Jewish businessman who could soon be memorialized with a national park.

They are now called Rosenwald Schools in honor of Julius Rosenwald, a part-owner and eventual president of Sears, Roebuck and Co., who teamed up with African American educator and leader Booker T. Washington to create the program to share the expenses of schools for Black children with the community.

There was no public transportation for the school’s students so most had to walk to school except for the lucky few, like Ordie Brown, who caught a ride on a donated bus.

“My father was fortunate enough to buy an old school bus and by getting that bus, I was able to drive that bus from the St. Mark community, bringing children from there, here to this school,” Brown said.

Rosenwald School historian Andrew Feiler says every county in the state had at least one Rosenwald School. Some had up to five. With no public transportation, attempts were made to place the schools in central, accessible locations.

Rosenwald gave $1,500 to each school; the remainder of the cost of each school had to be split between the Black community and local governments. For the Black community, cash, land, material or labor could count as their contribution, Feiler said.

“The leaders of this program reached out to the Black communities of the south and they said, ‘If you would contribute to the schools, because we want you to be a full partner in your progress.’” Feiler said.

Ralph James attended first and second grade at the school and now serves as chairman of the group of seven responsible for restoring the school to repair a caved ceiling, decayed floor and chipped, peeling walls.

“It’s a center of hope. It’s a center of encouragement,” James said. “It inspired us in spite of the odds and challenges we faced.”

The 76-year-old retired municipal judge has made it his life’s goal to restore his old school.

“Education has always been the key to success. Julius Rosenwald gave us that key,” James said.

The six-classroom building will now serve as a museum, historic site, field trip venue and community gathering place for years to come. When visitors walk inside, they will see some of the original floors and some of the original student desks.

The building will feature memorabilia from the school including yearbooks, homemade band uniforms, major red uniforms, and pictures of graduating classes.

State Sen. John Mathews secured $65,000 in state funding while the group raised around $4 million for the project on their own.

“This community came together in a great way to make this project work,” U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn said. “This is the kind of thing that brings people together, and I’m so pleased that they are preserving this history.”

The St. George school was one of the larger ones with six classrooms and an auditorium. Most schools only had one or two classrooms. More than a third of America’s Black children in the first half of the 20th century were educated in a Rosenwald school.

Other Rosenwald schools have been converted into senior centers, town halls, special event venues or restaurants. Many remain recognizable by the careful plans Rosenwald approved. Tall windows oriented to the east and west assured an abundance of natural light and ventilation in rural areas where electricity often didn’t reach until after the Great Depression.

In St. George, the vision isn’t just restoring the school, but providing a sense of the thriving African American neighborhood surrounding it during segregation. Businesses including a grocery store, barber shop and pool hall benefitted the Black community.

Inside the restored school, two classrooms look almost as they did 70 years ago. Another classroom is a public meeting room. The auditorium has been turned into a multipurpose space and will have exhibits detailing the school’s history and hands-on science displays, James said.

“You can feel what it was like just like I did,” he said.

A grand opening is planned for September.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.

ST. GEORGE, S.C. (WCIV) — During the 1920s in the heart of the Jim Crow era, Black and white students were not allowed to go to school together. Unfortunately, white students had better quality schools and Black students would have to learn in schools that were almost falling apart.

In 1915, Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald, the owner of Sears, set out on a mission to fund and create better-quality schools for Black students. These schools became known as Rosenwald Schools.

READ MORE: SC school helped educate Black students in segregated South. Could a national park follow?

Nearly 5,000 schools were created and became that paradise for young Black students who wanted to learn.

One of those schools currently sits in the heart of St. George: St. George Rosenwald School.

Unfortunately, over time, these schools began to disappear and became neglected. But recently, community members have been working to revitalize what they call the "jewel of the community."

St. George Rosenwald School is one of the few Rosenwald Schools remaining in the state. The plan is now to turn it into a museum where children from across the country can visit and sit in a classroom that takes them back in time. People hope children can learn about the changemakers who paved the way.

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"We have two classrooms that go back to the original classrooms from the 1920s, and they'll get to sit in the chairs that their grandfather or whomever came to school here," said Douglas Reeves, the chairman of Edisto Electric Cooperative. "They're going to have some diplomas and report cards, it's going to be on display and they're going to look and think, 'oh hey, wow, I never thought my grandaddy did this! I never thought my grandparents had to do this to get an education.'"

WCIV

The school closed in 1954.

Ralph James was only in second grade when the doors closed, and he says he remembers it like it was yesterday. James credits the school with granting him the gift of learning, and now years later, he is a co-chair on the board tasked with revitalizing the classroom he once called home.

He hopes every child who visits this landmark learns the value of education and that they chase any dream they want, despite the obstacles.

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"I hope they see the importance of preparation for a good education, be serious about it and hopefully the experiences that we experienced then will be shared with them and it will instill hope," said James, the co-chair of the Board of Directors for St. George Rosenwald School. "It will let you know that you are capable of being somebody, that it will encourage you to reach beyond what you can visibly see and really look to the future and prepare yourself."

Tuesday morning, the hallways of St. George Rosenwald School will be packed as it will host the first gathering held in the school since the 1950s. The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina will host its state board meeting on the historic landmark, and South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster and Congressman James Clyburn (D- South Carolina) will be in attendance.

The opening of the school is planned for September, but no official date has been set.