AC Repair in Charleston, SC

SC Biz News has named its 2022 Forty under 40 honorees in the Lowcountry and will feature them in a special Sept. 5 edition of the Charleston Regional Business Journal.

The honorees will also be feted at a special recognition event, now in its 25th year.

The event honors professionals under age 40 from around the Charleston area for their professional success and involvement in the community, drawing honorees from a mix of industry, professional and service sectors.

Nominations come from businesses and organizations and are then screened by judges who select 40 honorees from the candidate pool.

The event is hosted by SC Biz News, presented by Charleston Southern University and sponsored by the Charleston Gaillard Center.

The recognition event will be held at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 15 at the Charleston Gaillard Center. Tickets can be purchased online at: https://www.squadup.com/events/2022-charleston-forty-under-40

2022 Forty under 40 honorees:

Devon Andrews, Charleston Parks Conservancy

J.R. Barnhart, College of Charleston

Dawn Boren, The Boeing Co.

Marcus Bryant, Vantage Custom Solutions

Ryan Connolly, Roper St. Francis Healthcare

Jill Lemay Dunnigan, Select Health of South Carolina

Ann E. Rice Ervin, Motley Rice LLC

Theresa Griffith, Top Cheer Talent, CSU

Max Gruetzmacher, Motley Rice LLC

Cerrissa Hugie, MyNDSpace Mental Health Education and Consulting LLC

Ashley Jackrel, Avison Young

Christina Jettie, Hana Engineers and Consultants LLC

Josh Johnson, S.C. Department of Transportation District 6

Nichole Johnson, Seacoast

Paige Knowlson, Pattison’s Academy

Jackie Kohlhepp, The Rez Rev LLC

Kate Lilly, American Red Cross South Carolina Region

Abby Martin, Charleston Promise Neighborhood

Brantley Meier, The Bridge Chiropractic

Fallon Meyer, Encore Bank

Christopher Mims, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Charleston District

Josh Mitchell, Stantec Consulting Services Inc.

Megan Molten, Megan Molten

Elissa Morrison, Liollio Architecture

Beth Myers, Charleston Southern University

Benjamin Nesvold, Edward Jones Investments

Laura Patrick, Baystreet Biergarten, Patrick Properties and 4Corners Productions

Matthew Pecoy, DarrowEverett LLP

Matt Pickard, Colliers International

Kella Player Hanna, S.C. Research Authority

John Prorock, Stantec

Ryan Punches, Punch Properties

Henry Ravenel, Southeastern Chamber of Commerce

Samantha Shirley, iDonate

Lauren Sims, Town of Mount Pleasant

Amanda Slade, The Jasper

James Thomas, Thomas & Hutton

Zach Volousky, South State Investment Services

Valerie Warnock, Sev1Tech

Catherine Wilhoit, Bulldog Tours

On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration authorized an Omicron-specific booster, marking the first redesign of coronavirus vaccines since they were rolled out nearly two years ago. The Omicron variant has been the dominate strain since early this year, with the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants being especially transmissible.

It is anticipated that on Friday, Sept. 2, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will sign off on the authorization. After that, it’s all systems go.

“Once it’s given the OK, we’ll put in an order, and it should ship pretty quickly. The entire process should take about a week, meaning we should have it available to anyone who wants it the week of Sept. 12, maybe sooner,” said Danielle Scheurer, M.D., MUSC Health System chief quality officer.

The new booster comes at a point in the pandemic when approximately 90,000 infections and 475 deaths are being recorded daily in this country. Though hospitalizations have become much rarer, COVID-19 is still the third leading cause of death in the United States.

Though this targeted booster should help to slow the spread of the virus, Scheurer is skeptical that it will fly off the shelves.

“My guess is the uptake will be low. So many people have gotten COVID at this point, and many just aren’t getting that sick. I think people are just over it. I hate to say it, but I think a lot of folks are going, ‘I’ll just take my chances,’” she said.

But Scheurer cautioned that people who are at higher risk, such as older Americans or those with preexisting health conditions, should seriously consider getting this booster. And for those who aren’t in the higher-risk category, one motivator to get this booster might be to avoid getting long COVID, when virus-related symptoms can linger indefinitely beyond an infection.

As for the science behind the new booster, Scheurer said it was synthesized in the same way the first vaccine was, only it’s bivalent, meaning the encoded messenger RNA targets two spike proteins, instead of one: the original virus and Omicron and its known subvariants. Additionally, the dosage for this one is a little lower.

“I think it’s important that people know that this is intended to act as a booster, not a stand-alone vaccine,” she said. “Meaning that for people who haven’t been vaccinated, the course of action is to get your original two doses and then this.”

Two boosters will be available: one by Pfizer BioNTech, for use in people age 12 and up, and the other by Moderna, targeted to those 18 years and up. MUSC expects to receive the Pfizer booster.

Though MUSC is in the process of decommissioning all of its stand-alone vaccine sites, the new booster will be offered at the MUSC Health Pharmacy at Rutledge Tower as well as by most, if not all, MUSC Health affiliated primary care physician sites.

Though things seem to be trending in the right direction in this country, Scheurer still remains vigilant.

“Given the volume of people who have gotten Omicron, I’m kind of surprised we haven’t had another rapidly evolving variant,” she said. “I think we’ve been pretty lucky. But then again, this might just be the new normal – a world where we coexist with COVID and life goes on.”

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Throughout the state, animal shelters are seeing an all-time high in animal intake numbers, causing shelters to declare a state of emergency for the second time in history.

The summer is always the busiest time for shelters, but this summer specifically, a combination of different factors has created an influx of dogs overcrowding shelters.

Some reasons for the influx could be the increasing population, home rental problems, kids going back to school, moving problems and flooding.

Joe Elmore, Charleston Animal Society President and CEO, brought Bo, a shelter dog since the beginning of August, to an interview to show how this emergency can really affect the animals.

“The state of emergency means that dogs such as Bo, don’t have a place in shelters because we’re all so overcrowded right now and they need homes,” Elmore said. “Well, what is the risk? The risk is that animals like Bo may not make it out alive at shelters across our entire state. We need people that come in and make room for one more in their homes and in their hearts for animals.”

Being the largest animal shelter in the state, the Charleston Animal Society has over 700 animals in the system at the moment with 60 dogs available for adoption right now.

“My heart is breaking for these animals,” Kay Hyman, director of community engagement, said. “They’re sitting in a cage. They want to be at your house, on your couch, in your backyard. They don’t want to be sitting in a kennel.”

Shelters like the Charleston Animal Society and Berkeley County Animal Center said more dogs are coming in than being adopted, which is where the problem stems from.

If unable to adopt, both shelters ask people to consider fostering. Tiffany Hoffman, Berkeley County Animal Center Event Coordinator, and her family are on their 28 foster dog.

“Fostering is so rewarding,” Hoffman said. “It’s like anything, you try it once and you are hooked.”

Using social media to promote is also very helpful in getting the word out about animals in shelters. The Charleston Animal Society is waiving all adoption fees and providing potential owners with $250 worth of food and supplies.

“We need to get 100 adoptions out this weekend,” Elmore said. “Cats and kittens also, but the ones that are most risk are the dogs because they don’t do well when they stay in shelters for a long time.”

Copyright 2022 WCSC. All rights reserved.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - A school principal in Charleston County has left the district after multiple investigations revealed she attempted to use her position to keep her son out of trouble and violated a number of district policies – including a policy dictating how special education students should be handled.

Former Principal Shanitra Deas worked at Deer Park Middle School since 2019. That changed this year after a series of parent complaints and multiple internal investigations. Deas was demoted in June but decided to resign as of Aug. 25.

Deas was investigated by the district twice in the last year. The first investigation started in October when there was a fight in which her son, who attends the school, was involved. The documents in Deas’ employee file say he was helping break up the fight, but that Deas should have recused herself from the student discipline process.

The documents say she became more involved and interfered with the district’s discipline procedure.

“The extend of your involvement was such that a deadline to submit a required DAP packet was not met and standard protocol was not followed regarding the consequences to students,” the documents read.

She was given a formal reprimand in January.

In June, she was placed on administrative leave as the district began another investigation. Much of this investigation has been redacted, but the documents say she again violated the district’s nepotism policies.

However, this is not the only charge levied in the investigation material. The district also noted they received several complaints from parents about excessive suspensions for their children. It says a number of special education students had been put out of the school for an excess of 10 days – violating federal law.

“Days in which administrators have sent these students home for behavioral issue have not been coded as days of suspension as required, and no measures appear to have been taken to provide the special education services the students have missed by being sent home,” the documents read.

The district demoted Deas and she was offered an assistant principal position at Stall High School. She was allowed to keep her principal-level salary of $102,931.20 a year. Deas formally resigned on August 25.

Deas did not respond to a request for comment.

Copyright 2022 WCSC. All rights reserved.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — The only disagreement expressed at the event dedicating the municipal courtroom at 180 Lockwood Blvd. in Charleston to Richard E. Fields was over the year of his birth. Was it 1920, as written on the new plaque, or 1919, as Fields claims.

It was a challenge to find solid evidence of the retired judge’s birth date, admitted City Councilman Peter Shahid, who helped organize the Aug. 25 ceremony. The plaque couldn’t be produced without it. If its date is correct, Fields will be 102 on Oct. 1.

Or perhaps he will be 103, in accordance with the information his father provided him many years ago.

Either way, he is an example to many in the city, from civic leaders and council members to attorneys and judges, several of whom expressed gratitude at the ceremony, which Fields and members of his family joined via Zoom.

Fields graduated from West Virginia State College in 1944, then Howard University’s law school in 1947. He stayed in Washington, D.C., working as a waiter to save some money before returning to Charleston. He met many rising attorneys who invited Fields to join them in various big cities, according to his daughter, Diane Fields Reed. But he was adamant about returning home to be with his parents and to serve the people of Charleston.

While in D.C., Fields would send via post his dirty clothes to his mother to wash and return. As soon as he became a licensed attorney, he bought her a washing machine.

In 1949, Fields became the first Black attorney to run a law office in Charleston since Reconstruction. In 1969, he became the city’s first Black municipal judge, a position he held until becoming a Family Court judge in 1975. In 1980, he was elected a circuit judge, and served until his retirement from the bench in 1992.

It was Mayor Palmer Gaillard who nominated him to the municipal court, and City Council at the time approved the appointment unanimously.

He has been active in civic and business affairs, helping to establish Liberty National Bank in 1980, serving on the board of trustees of Claflin University and becoming involved in rural land preservation.

Fields was among the older generation of mentors who helped usher in a wave of Black legislators and legal professionals in the 1970s and ’80s.

Charleston City Council voted to approve the naming of the courtroom on Sept. 8, 2020, but the pandemic delayed the ceremony. At the event, Mayor John Tecklenburg read from the minutes of the council meeting at which Fields’ nomination to the bench was approved, then addressed Fields directly, praising his intellect, compassion and demeanor.

“You were more than a trendsetter, you were a leader,” he said.

Emmanuel J. Ferguson, associate municipal court judge, said Fields paved the way for African Americans like him and achieved “a high idea which all judges in the city of Charleston wish to aspire to.”

Visible on a couple of big screens in the courtroom, Fields was surrounded by family.

When asked if he’d like to offer remarks, Fields said: “There are times in your life when you are hopefully going to make the great speech of your life, then you can’t find the words to accomplish that.”

But he did manage to find some words, saying he was honored to have spent a long career serving the people of South Carolina and overwhelmed by the attention he was receiving now.

“I’m 103 years old,” he finished. “I will probably want to say something to you again 10 years from now.”

Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.