Gilbert wraps up successful first year with county

ED director credited with bringing in 2,843 new jobs, $85M in investment
Mandy Catoe
mcatoe@thelancasternews.com

Sunday, July 30, 2017

In its first full year as a county department, Lancaster County's Economic Development team delivered a banner year of growth. Under the leadership of Jamie Gilbert, the county created 2,843 new jobs, the most ever in a 12-month period.
Since Gilbert was hired in July 2016, the LCED brought nearly 3,000 jobs to the county – one new job for every 13 eligible workers. New investment pumped $85 million into the economy – nearly $1,000 for each county resident.
Gilbert, a 25-year-veteran of economic development, had outstanding credentials and experience, but according to Lancaster County Council members involved in the hiring process, his people skills, high energy and enthusiasm sealed the deal.
Gilbert said he couldn’t be more appreciative of the opportunity the council gave him to lead Lancaster County’s economic development efforts. He said this first year provided confirmation that coming here was the right decision.
“I always felt in my heart that coming to Lancaster County was meant to be. I had a great feeling about our community from the first time I visited and it has never left," Gilbert said. “We have an outstanding economic development team, county council and partners that understand our mission and enthusiastically support it. There are a lot of folks that deserve thanks for helping to make this first year such a success for us. We are truly blessed."
Within two months on the job, Gilbert created a dynamic team, including John McCain, existing industry manager, and Amanda Thompson, administrative assistant.

McCain, Gilbert, Thompson

John Hunter, an economic development attorney with Womble Carlyle, which represents many high-profile projects in the Charlotte region, worked with Gilbert on the CompuCom, Movement Mortgage, PCI Group and Simpson Electric projects.
“The Lancaster County Department of Economic Development has quickly established itself as a dependable and effective group. Jamie Gilbert’s professionalism, work ethic and deal-structuring ability is stellar," Hunter said. "My clients and I have really enjoyed working with him and his team.”
Since Gilbert was hired, LCED announced seven new and expanding businesses including Central Wire, PCI Group, CompuCom Systems, Movement Mortgage, Springs Global, Unique Loom and Simpson Electric Co.
Last November, Central Wire Inc. announced a $2 million expansion creating 18 new jobs at its Riverside Road plant. CWI came to Lancaster in 1999. This latest expansion will quadruple the number of employees since it moved here.
PCI Group was one of the companies LCED assisted several times on expansion and rezoning issues.
“Jamie Gilbert and his team were instrumental in helping PCI Group through the rezoning process for our property in Indian Land," said Skip Pawul, PCI’s executive vice president. "Jamie also worked on our behalf to secure special source revenue credits and an extension to our current FILOT (fee-in-lieu-of-taxes) agreement, which will greatly assist our growing operation. He understands that working with existing industry is equally as important as attracting new companies. Jamie is truly an asset to the county."
CompuCom Systems announced it was moving its headquarters from Texas to the Panhandle last November, bringing $41 million capital investment and 1,500 jobs to the area. This was not only the largest project for the county last year, but also for the Carolinas. The deal ranked fourth in the entire Southeast.
“When a company like CompuCom decides to build its global headquarters and create 1,500 new jobs here, it sends a message to the entire world that South Carolina is open for business,” former Gov. Nikki Haley said.
Just six weeks later, Movement Mortgage announced an additional $18 million investment, creating 700 new jobs within five years to double its current size.
Springs Global USA Inc., formed by the merger of Springs Industries and Coteminas, brought 30 news jobs to Lancaster earlier this year. The company is located in the former Grace Logistics Center on Grace Avenue.
"We are happy to be back in South Carolina and Lancaster County,” said Alan McManus, senior vice president and treasurer of Springs Global US. “This is a positive thing for Springs."
In May, Fort Mill-based Unique Loom announced it would be expanding its operations to Indian Land, creating 245 new jobs there over the next four years, and moving an additional 90 positions from Fort Mill.
Last month, Simpson Electric, a family-owned electrical wiring company, announced it was moving to Indian Land from Charlotte, with hopes of expanding its workforce. The move should be completed in early 2018.
Gilbert and his team created print and electronic media with a tagline and logo touting Lancaster County as a place  "Where Business is Golden." The new brochure promotes business opportunities in the county and the new website, www.lcded.com, features brief videos profiling local businesses. They also established a social media presence on Facebook and Twitter.
As the Panhandle became the IT corner, Gilbert embraced the county's manufacturing heritage and made the Springs Global redevelopment site and Duracell building top priorities for reuse.
Looking forward, Gilbert hopes to enhance the county's marketing effort.
“I’m very excited about the future for Lancaster County,” he said. “We have a number of opportunities and challenges that we will address, in particular, more product development and becoming more proactive in business recruitment.”

Follow reporter Mandy Catoe on Twitter @MandyCatoeTLN or contact her at (803) 283-1152.

Sheriff Issues Warning on Fentanyl Derivatives

Sheriff Issues Warning on Fentanyl Derivatives 

Deadly amount of each drug

Mandy Catoe
mcatoe@thelancasternews.com
July 7, 2017


The growing opiod epidemic prompted Lancaster County Sheriff Barry Faile to issue a warning to residents about the dangers of new derivatives of fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opiate.
In a press release earlier this week, Faile alerted the public about two recent fentanyl offshoots, more deadly than the original synthetic. The two drugs are acrylfentanyl and tetrahydrofuran fentanyl.
"Residue from these chemicals could be left on surfaces in hotel rooms, so don't rent cheap rooms in bad areas," he said. "Be sure rooms have been thoroughly cleaned before allowing family members, especially children entry into the room."
Faile said multiple reports from other states indicate that the opiod reversal drug, naloxone, may not be effective if someone overdoses after ingesting acrylfentanyl. He said both drugs can be absorbed through the skin and are very dangerous.
Lancaster County Coroner Karla Deese sees the real cost of the synthetic drug epidemic.
"The first five months of 2017, I have twice as many synthetic opiod deaths as in the entire year of 2016," Deese said.
The first three months of this year show an even more dramatic rise. Three times as many people died from synthetic opiods in the first quarter of 2017 as compared to the same period last year, Deese said.
In 2016, Lancaster County had 5 opiod-related deaths and no fentanyl synthetic deaths, Deese said.
"So far, this year, the county has had nine synthetic opiod related deaths," she said. "Included in those, five were heroin laced with fentanyl and three were synthetic fentanyl only."
Deese gave some background on fentanyl, a Chinese-manufactured powder from "clandestine labs" illegally shipped to the United States. Deese said the powder is often snorted. It is also converted into a liquid, put into heroin, or pressed into pills and stamped with the same markings as pharmaceutical tablets such as Xanax.
"People purchasing on the street don't know the difference and think they are purchasing a legit, pharmaceutical Xanax, but instead are getting a very cheap and deadly pill," Deese said. "The dealers are making a ton of money off them. It is absolutely deadly."
The manufacturers of heroin have learned synthetic fentanyl is very inexpensive so they add it to the heroin and it causes immediate death, Deese said.
The county's victims from synthetic opiods were from all socioeconomic levels and ranged in age from the teens to the late 50s, she said.
The coroner's statistics were drawn from deaths through May 31 when the tenth death investigation was in process. Since then, two more people have died from fentanyl, Deese said.

 Photos supplied by Coroner

Follow Reporter Mandy Catoe on Twitter @MandyCatoeTLN or contact her at (803) 283-1152

Taylor Hopes to Steal Your Heart

By Mandy Catoe

Lancaster native Pam Taylor will sing tonight at The Craft Stand. The award-winning, American roots rock singer/songwriter is performing free at 7:30 p.m. – her way of thanking her hometown.
Taylor, 39, will be singing from her third CD, “Steal Your Heart,” ahead of its release next month. She and her bands have performed locally before, but this will be her first time alone on stage.
Taylor took some time to talk about her life and her music earlier this week. She overcame drug addiction, a broken heart and health issues. In her first solo album, Taylor shares her journey and the secrets of her success.
“My life is magic,” she said. “Look at what I have done.
“I came from a small town, had a job selling and repo-ing cars, and a drug addiction,” Taylor said. “That did not define me, but I used it and built this.”
Taylor graduated from Lancaster High School in 1996, where she says she felt bored and restricted by the rigid rules. Her free spirit was yearning for more, always more. Although she was sometimes the target of teenage bullying, she harbors no bitterness.
“We were kids; we were all just kids,” she said. “That, and working in collections at Car Cents, made me tough and gave me the ability to read people.”
She released her first CD, “Hot Mess,” in 2012. Three years later, she released “Stolen Hearts,”  a duo effort with a man she gave her heart to. With her new album, her message is about stealing your own heart, becoming the source of your own happiness rather than relying on someone else.
Not only has she found her magic, Taylor now realizes she has the strength of a mountain.
Taylor expresses her evolution in "Mountain," the fifth track on Steal Your Heart.
“It’s what is below the surface that makes mountains,” she said. “Appreciate the struggle that made it.”
Taylor is about 5’4”, thin, blessed with great cheekbones, sky blue eyes, long blond hair and amazing energy. Usually barefoot, she looks like a happy hippie scented with patchouli and peppermint. Her brown suede purse has fringes and an embroidered peace symbol.
Her frequent dimpled smile declares a deep gratitude. She barely looks 30 years old, despite the pain she has come through - proof that it is not the load that kills you, but how you carry it.
"Living your dream and being happy keeps you young," Taylor said.
Her songs and tattoos tell the story of how she found a way to lug the load, learn the lessons and keep moving forward.
Taylor has been clean and sober for nearly 15 years. She is fluent in metaphysics and talks about energy fields, chakras, synchronicity, raising one’s vibration and healing. She practices Reiki and believes we are always being prepared for something to come.
Her song, “Already Alright,” is an upbeat tune about trusting the process of life and accepting that you are enough, right now.
Taylor says she’s grateful for it all – the pain and the joy. She has paid her dues to sing the blues.
“To thine own self be true” is tattooed on her right forearm.

Photo Supplied

“In the past, I didn’t stand up for myself. I was a doormat, but no more,” Taylor said as she ran her fingers over the ink. “See the little song bird at the end of the quote. That’s me. I am free to sing and free to fly.”

"Already Alright" is a beautiful song about living the life you were meant to live, knowing there is no need to wait for a day in the future when it will be alright, because it already is. 
Taylor has won many regional awards, including the Queen City Music Award for Best Female Rock Artist three years in a row (2013-15). In 2012, she won Best Female Rock Band and Best Blues Band in the Charlotte Music Awards. She brought home Best Female Rock Artist at the 2014 Carolina Music Awards. She has been named Best Local Songwriter by Creative Loafing and was the cover feature artist for a special Women in Blues edition of Blues-E-News Magazine in 2013.



A family tradition
Taylor credits her dad for teaching her about creating her own reality, nothing short of a dream coming true.
Music is a Taylor family tradition. Her grandfather, Melvin Taylor, played guitar in a band for years. Her father, Mike Taylor, 67, played saxophone in rock bands for years and was part of his daughter’s first band.
When her grandfather died last year, his acoustic guitar was handed down to her. It’s the one she strums at home while writing the songs in her heart.
“She has been singing since she was 3 years old,” her dad said. “She would stay in the sun room on the back of the house and play Elvis records all day, and dance and sing to the top of her voice.”
Taylor’s dad is very proud of her. He said she made it all herself – the bookings, licensing her songs, her logos, everything.
The man who played drums and saxophone with his little girl through the years says he is so amazed at her.
“She’s a force of nature,” he said. “I can’t play on stage with her anymore without being moved to tears.”
“She is magic,” he said.


World tour ahead
Taylor will be heading out early next month on her first world tour with stops in Scotland, England, Netherlands and Israel.
Taylor also expresses her art by making jewelry and she gives freely of her talent. She works with Girls Rock Charlotte and often plays benefit concerts. Visit www.pamtaylormusic.com for more information.
Taylor uses the stage and her music as a platform for the bigger message she wants people to hear. Her motto is “Be the light, give the love and share the music.”
“I want people to know how freaking awesome they are,” she said.

Father & Daughter after Hot Mess Release Party Double Door Inn (Supplied photo)

Follow reporter Mandy Catoe on Twitter @MandyCatoeTLN or contact her at (803) 283-1152

TLN, Gateway win 11 awards

TLN, Gateway win 11 awards

Mandy Catoe
mcatoe@thelancasternews.com
Friday, July 7, 2017


The Lancaster News and Carolina Gateway won 11 awards in the annual editorial contest held by their parent company, Landmark Community Newspapers Inc.
The winners were announced this week by Kentucky-based LCNI, which owns 122 publications across the country.
Susan Rowell, publisher of both Lancaster County newspapers, was pleased with this year's results.
"It is such an honor to be recognized by LCNI. It is very hard to win one of these awards, as we are competing against the best in journalism throughout our company," Rowell said. "I am extremely proud of our editorial staff and their commitment to excellence in everything they produce for our community."
LCNI chose the winners from 450 entries.
Lancaster News Editor Brian Melton called the announcement “a big day for a team of fine journalists.”
“This is our highest number of LCNI awards in five years,” he said. “It’s a very selective contest, with few awards and a lot of great community newspapers competing for them.”
The Lancaster News received nine awards, and Carolina Gateway won two.
TLN won two first-place awards. The news staff won top honors for Discover Magazine, its glossy, annual newcomers publication. The judges said Discover "set a new standard" for such guides.
The other first-place honor went to Athena Redmond, the newspaper’s lead page designer, for best general page design.
"What really captured the win for this entry was the Making History page. This was just an absolutely lovely presentation," the judges said. "Rounding out the entry, the reunion of the class of 1966 from Lancaster's black high school, Barr Street High, was a nice blend of design styles and good use of photography."
TLN won seven second-place awards: Mandy Catoe for both news writing and feature writing, Robert Howey for sports writing, Gregory Summers, for best on-going, extended coverage, Athena Redmond and David Kellin for photo-page layout, Kyle Camp for general page design, and the entire staff for its special section Honoring Veterans.
Carolina Gateway's staff won second place for best ongoing, extended coverage. The entry, covering issues in Van Wyck, included stories by freelancers Julie Graham and Amanda Harris, reporter Reece Murphy and former reporter Christopher Sardelli.
Carolina Gateway Editor Jane Alford, who also edited the Discover section, praised her staff.
"It’s tougher to win in our company contest than in the S.C. Press Association contest, so I’m very proud of Carolina Gateway’s two awards," Alford said. “The staff award for our coverage of Van Wyck is especially reflective of the Carolina Gateway team, a patchwork network of staff heavily reliant on freelancers and community contributors. Congratulations to all four writers who contributed to this winning entry."
Alford won third place for general page design.
The Lancaster News was judged in the contest’s triweekly and semiweekly division, and Carolina Gateway competed in the weekly category.
LCNI has 51 paid newspapers in 12 states, along with 32 free newspapers and shoppers, as well as seven collegiate sports publications and 32 special publications. Its Palmetto State publications include TLN, Carolina Gateway, The News & Reporter in Chester and the Progressive Journal in Pageland.
The News & Reporter and Progressive Journal won three awards. Brian Garner, a reporter at The News & Reporter, won third place for column writing, and Kim Harrington, former editor of the Progressive Journal, took top honors for news writing. Garner won first place for efforts to increase online readership.

Follow Reporter Mandy Catoe on Twitter @MandyCatoeTLN or
contact her at (803) 283-1152.

TLN scoops up 31 S.C. press awards

Note: Written by Staff

By Staff
March 22, 2017

‘There was never a dull moment in Lancaster this year,’ judge says

The Lancaster News brought home 31 awards, and its three sister newspapers another 27, from Saturday’s S.C. Press Association annual meeting in Columbia.
Among the Lancaster News staff’s first-place honors were best election and political coverage, best special edition for its Honoring Veterans section, and best reporting-in-depth for coverage marking the death and legacy of Mayor Joe Shaw.

“There was never a dull moment in Lancaster this year,” a contest judge wrote, “from the death of a longtime mayor to charges of plagiarism against a local candidate. Fortunately for Lancaster residents, The Lancaster News had exhaustive coverage of these things and a myriad of other local and national political issues.”
Publisher Susan Rowell congratulated the news staff for an outstanding year. “I am extremely proud of the quality of community journalism we provide our readers,” Rowell said. “Being recognized by the SCPA is much-deserved praise for the entire news team’s hard work.”
The newspaper won third place for general excellence, competing in the 2016 contest against other papers that publish two to three times a week.
Nine Lancaster News staffers won individual awards.
Mandy Catoe, in her first year at the newspaper, won two first-place awards for beat reporting – government and business – and a third place for faith reporting.
Athena Redmond, the paper’s lead designer, won first places for photo-page design and inside-page design and third places for her portfolio of front-page designs and a single feature-page design. Kyle Camp won both second- and third-place design awards for his business and education pages, as well as a writing award – second place for best short story.
Other visual awards went to Reece Murphy, whose photo of firefighters at a massive Indian Land house fire won first place for spot-news photo, and Greg Summers, who won second place in general news photography for his image from a candlelight vigil for murder victim Yusuf Abdus-Salaam.
Murphy also won a first-place writing award for his coverage of the courts beat. And Summers won three writing awards – second place in enterprise reporting for stories about the local shortage of volunteer firefighters, and second place for both government and faith-beat reporting.
Sports Editor Robert Howey won three awards, including first place in sports features for his story about Buford High School track athlete John Elliott. Howey won second place for spot sports story for his account of the Buford softball team’s state championship. And he won third place for column writing.
Chris Sardelli, who left the paper last spring after eight years, won four writing awards.  “The Challenge of a Lifetime,” his week-long look at Buford resident Wesley Dry’s  Appalachian Trail journey, won first place for a series of articles. He also won second place for investigative reporting, second place for education-beat reporting and third place for profile writing.
Summer intern Kayland Hagwood, a junior at the University of South Carolina, earned  third place for police-beat reporting.
Editor Brian Melton won first place in short-story writing for his memories of Christmas eves at his grandmother-in-law’s house, and third place for opinion-page columns and for feature headlines.

Other Landmark newspapers
Carolina Gateway, which covers Lancaster County’s Panhandle, won four awards.
Chris Sardelli won first place in investigative reporting for his coverage of the county’s economic development conflicts.
Editor Jane Alford won third place for sports page design portfolio. Freelancer Julie Graham won third place for feature photo. The Gateway staff won third place in entertainment sections for the Indian Land Fall Festival.
The Chester News & Reporter won 19 awards.
For the second year in a row, Editor Travis Jenkins took home one of the top SCPA honors, the Montgomery/Shurr Freedom of Information Award, for coverage of a Senate candidate’s SLED investigation and the dismissal of the county school superintendent. Jenkins also won first place for sports enterprise reporting, second place for sports columns and food writing, and third place for investigative reporting.
Jenkins and James McBee shared first and third place honors for sports videos.
Jenkins and Brian Garner shared second place for reporting-in-depth, and Garner won third place for series of articles and both second and third place for humorous photo.
Nancy Parsons won second place for her community-beat reporting and for her lifestyle-feature writing. She won second place for online photo gallery and third place for photo story.
Freelancer Bill Marion won third-place awards for sports action photo and personality portrait.
The News & Reporter also won third place awards for its opinion page and political coverage.
The Pageland Progressive won four awards.
Editor Kimberly Harrington won third place for features page design, and she and reporter Vanessa Brewer-Tyson won third place for breaking-news reporting.
Freelance photographer Kevin Smith won second place for general news photo and third for humorous photo.

Life's lessons on love - Ollie Alexander

Ollie Alexander’s new book lays out path to marital bliss

By Mandy Catoe
Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Ollie Alexander has a soothing, calming presence. She seems full of wisdom and humility. She draws you to her, like a warm fire on a winter’s night. 
Alexander, 68, moves gracefully and quietly through a room. She appears much younger than her age. She commands the language and expresses herself with ease and graceful gestures. She believes she has a God-given purpose and wants to help others discover theirs.
“I look inside people and help them discover their authentic self,” Alexander said. “Our purpose is to fulfill the mandate on our life from God.” 
From that positive perspective, Alexander just wrote a book, “Are You In Love or Lust?” She offers insight to help couples avoid unnecessary challenges and get through issues that may be holding them back from harmony and blissful love.
“There is nothing so bad in life, that can’t be changed,” she said.
She talked a bit last month about her life and how it led to her writing the book, which deals with loving and living by God’s design. The book has a refreshing emphasis on self-love rather than self-denial. 
“You cannot love until you love God, and you can’t love God until you love yourself,” Alexander said. “You can only love another if you love yourself.”
The book teaches that sex in a relationship between a couple is good. It’s an expression of love and intimacy that can take the two people to a higher dimension. Outside of a loving and ordained relationship, she writes, sex can be harmful and lead to pain.
Five phases 
Alexander breaks romantic love into five phases: romantic or erotic, power struggle, stability, commitment and, finally, harmony and blissful love.
The first phase is physical and visual. Hormones will rule, if not kept in check. 
Couples who have sex in the lustful phase before they know each other will not likely advance past the second stage, she writes.
“Too often people make commitments and lifetime decisions in the romantic phase, which is an ever-changing emotional state like the wind,” Alexander said. “Then you come down off cloud nine and you’re married.”           
The power struggle begins then. Each person wants to be right and can’t see past their own needs. It’s about ego. Each has a need to be seen and heard by the other, who is caught up in his or her own incompleteness. 
Those who survive this struggle phase enter the stability phase with a better understanding of love. The couple realizes that what unifies them is God, Alexander writes. Ego melts away and each begins to care more about the other. There is humility and teamwork.
The commitment phase is about accepting each other and themselves as flawed. They know they can be better and want to help each other grow. 
“This is when couples should consider marriage,” Alexander said. 
Finally, harmony and blissful love emerges.
“We are here and we know what real love is and passion,” Alexander said. “Before this phase, each person holds a little piece of themselves back.” 
The two become one now, she said. “When you are one, you influence and impact your home, your world.”
As long as two people remain two, they are divided, and too many marriages remain here. 
“God brings you together through the phases,” she said.
In essence, she believes, love is not blind, but lust is. Her advice is, if you want real, be real. If you want kind, be kind.
“Like attracts like,” she said.
Finding purpose
In addition to helping couples reach the harmonious phase of love, Alexander wants to help people discover their purpose, especially young people. 
“I want everybody to do what God created them to do, but a lot of people don’t know what that purpose is or their destiny, but everybody wants to do something wonderful and great and be recognized,” she said.
She said sometimes she gets so excited when she sees a person’s greatness before they do. 
“I just want to pull it out of them so they can see it and begin to evolve and become it,” she said. “My gift is I see their greatness.”
When working with young people who seem lost in violence or drugs, she said, she does not criticize them.
“I tell them, ‘I understand where you are, but you have a purpose and you have a destiny and you are meant to be great. You are an original – one of a kind. No one is like you. And you have a mandate to fulfill your greatness.”
She said she encourages them to love themselves and accept God’s love.
Most of all, she tells them to enjoy the journey and reminds them they are great right now, regardless of their circumstances. 
“To discover yourself is the greatest discovery you will ever make, because when you discover yourself you discover more of God – who God really is,” she said.
Early life
Alexander’s life began on a farm near Heath Springs, the middle child of nine children born to Christian parents. She learned how to listen, negotiate and see things from different perspectives sandwiched between four older and four younger siblings.
Alexander is not preachy. She offers gifts from a life of lessons.
She was married for 15 years, a commitment she entered too young and way before the harmony and bliss phase. They had two sons who she says have grown into wonderful men. Both are married, and they’ve given her five grandchildren. 
She worries that her sons may have been short-changed by being raised by parents who were still trying to find their way and direction.
“We drifted apart in the power-struggle phase,” she said. “We never got past that because we started a family well before we knew who we were as individuals.”
Alexander’s compassion and mission to help people find their purpose began when she was a little girl with a dream. 
“I wanted to be a ballerina,” she said. “A friend of the family told me that I was too big-boned to be a ballerina.”
Alexander said something shifted inside her in that moment. 
“I didn’t pursue that publicly, but privately, in my room, I danced,” she said.
Now when people see her dancing, they ask where she learned to move with such ease and grace.
“It was one of my purposes,” she said with a smile. “I learned to dance quietly at home. I did it for me.”
So now she works at helping children and adults discover and bring forth what is deep inside them. 
“Use the hurt and the pain of experience,” Alexander said. “It wasn’t a waste. It was a school of learning.” 
After debuting her book locally last month, Alexander is beginning a 10-city national book tour including Columbia, Charlotte, Miami, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Washington, DC.


To buy a copy of Ollie Alexander’s new book, find a signing event or learn more about the author, find her online at “Book signing – Ollie Alexander.”

 Follow reporter Mandy Catoe on Twitter @MandyCatoeTLN or contact her at 803-283-1152.

Mingo named county’s chief magistrate

 Statewide move by chief justice stuns local, state officials

By Mandy Catoe
Wednesday, July 5, 2017 

Curtisha Mingo got a promotion over the weekend. Appointed as a magistrate in January, she is now the county’s chief magistrate.
The change was made by an order from S.C. Chief Justice Donald Beatty, who signed an order June 28 naming new chief magistrates in 31 of the Palmetto State's 46 counties.
The changes went into effect July 1 and stunned county and state officials.
Historically, chief magistrates are appointed by the Senate, not the chief justice.
Sen. Greg Gregory said he was preparing a statement, but did not have one ready before deadline.
Beatty's rationale, according to The State newspaper, was that the judges "should be rotated on a regular basis."


Mingo's appointment unseats Van Richardson, who was appointed by Sens. Gregory and Vincent Sheheen in January to replace Judge Jackie Pope, who retired after 18 years of service.
At the same time, the senators appointed Mingo to fill the vacancy left by Richardson, who had been a magistrate for 13 years.
Richardson said he was notified last Thursday, "just like every other magistrate in the state."
"This is a new chief justice and I am sure he has a plan," he said.
Beaty began serving as chief justice of the S.C. Supreme Court on Jan. 1.
Mingo, a lawyer with a decade of legal experience, had just settled into her new role as magistrate after serving as assistant deputy public defender for the 6th Circuit.
Mingo did not respond before deadline.
Lancaster County Administrator Steve Willis said this was the first time he has known the chief justice to make these appointments, which normally come from the Senate.
“This is outside our realm," he said. "But I would be willing to bet the Senate isn't going to take this very well.”
“From the county's perspective, the only thing that gave us pause was the chief justice making changes 36 hours before the new budget goes into effect and after the budget had already been passed,” Willis said. “It won't be a huge change, but it will throw the budgeted salaries out of line.”
Full-time chief magistrates get a $3,000 salary increase.
The county pays the salaries and office costs of magistrates, but has no control over appointments.
Lancaster County has four magistrates who preside over traffic, criminal and civil courts. Magistrates are appointed for four-year terms and usually, once seated, reappointment is routine.
Cases heard in magistrate’s court include shoplifting, domestic violence, larceny involving less than $1,000, receiving stolen goods, traffic, fish and game law violations. Magistrates courts hold preliminary hearings for most criminal cases punishable by limited fines or short jail sentences.
Civil court handles small-claim filings, which total less than $7,500.
As head magistrate for the county, the chief magistrate not only hears cases, but also has administrative duties to ensure court runs smoothly. The chief magistrate schedules and assigns cases to the other magistrates.
One of the biggest responsibilities of the magistrate’s court is bond hearings, which are heard twice each day, 365 days of the year.

Follow reporter Mandy Catoe on Twitter @MandyCatoeTLN or contact her at (803) 283-1152.