SCIWAY News, No. 17 – December 1998

In This Issue

South Carolina Business Directory Now Online
Adding Your Business to the Business Directory
New and Notable South Carolina Web Sites
Sumter County Library Launches Web Site, Web Catalog
Read "Carolina English Teacher" on SCIWAY
Send Us Your South Carolina Nicknames
Back Issues of SCIWAY News Available on SCIway Web Site
Upcoming Festivals, Shows, Events
Surprise of the Month

SCIWAY News is a free, concise electronic newsletter that will keep you informed about what's happening on South Carolina's Information Highway. It is usually published once a month and spotlights new South Carolina websites and other noteworthy state online resources and services. If you find SCIWAY News useful, please forward this issue to others who are interested in South Carolina. But if you don't want to receive any more issues, just send the word "unsubscribe" to news@sciway.net.

South Carolina Business Directory Now Online

About the time trick-or-treaters were making their rounds on Halloween, SCIWAY's new South Carolina Business Directory quietly crept onto the Internet. This directory (https://www.sciway.net/bus/) already includes links to more than 1,500 state business websites, which we have grouped into 300+ categories: accountants, antique dealers, architects, attorneys, etc. Listings (links) for a particular type of business are grouped by city. You can browse the categories or use the directory's search feature to look for a particular company or category.

The purpose of this Business Directory is to make it easier for South Carolinians and people throughout the world to learn about South Carolina businesses. While an impressive number of state businesses have invested resources in websites during the past year, these sites are so scattered that they're hard to find. We believe that a comprehensive, statewide directory will increase the number of visitors to these sites, encourage other state businesses to develop websites, and make it easier for people everywhere to do business with South Carolina companies. On the Internet, being easy to find is an especially important advantage.

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Adding Your Business to the Business Directory

To be included in SCIWAY's Business Directory, a company must have a physical location in South Carolina and a Web page or site that provides information about the company. At least until the year 2000, there will be no charge for a basic listing under one city in one business category. (We put this free listing under your primary business category and the city or town in which your main South Carolina business facility is located.)

If, when you look through the directory, you don't find the category most appropriate for your business, please suggest it to us. Also, before you ask us to add a business, please use the directory's "search box" to see if it's already listed. We may have put it under a different category than the one you've looked under.

Finally, if you have a question, or a suggestion about how we could improve the Business Directory, please send it to business@sciway.net.

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New and Notable South Carolina Web Sites

City of Aiken - remodeled: https://www.cityofaikensc.gov/
Allendale County: http://allendalecounty.com
Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau - remodeled: http://www.charlestoncvb.com
Citizens Concerned for Boating Safety: This Web site no longer exists.
Committee to Save the City (Second try!): This Web site no longer exists.
Gold Mining in Ridgeway: This Web site no longer exists.
Palmetto Expo Center - Greenville - now Greenville Convention Center: https://meetgcc.com/
Pickens County: http://www.co.pickens.sc.us
South Carolina Assistive Technology Project: http://www.sc.edu/scatp/
South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation: http://www.llr.state.sc.us - new address
Tri-County Technical College - Anderson, Oconee, Pickens Counties: http://www.tctc.edu/
US Postal Service - Greater South Carolina District: http://www.usps.gov/greatersc/ - page no longer exists

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Sumter County Library Launches Web Site, Web Catalog

The Sumter County Library System has a new Web site and a new Web-based online catalog. You can find both at http://sumtercountylibrary.org/ or https://www.sciway.net/lib/cnty/sumter.html.

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Read "Carolina English Teacher" On SCIWAY

*** SCIWAY no longer has Carolina English Teacher online. If you are interested in specific articles, please contact us and we will try and help you.

The complete 1997-98 issue of Carolina English Teacher is now available on SCIWAY. This journal is published in printed form by the South Carolina Council of Teachers of English, and this issue is the fifth that has been republished online by SCIway. It's a special issue entitled "Mining Our Carolina Treasures," and every article was written by a South Carolina high school or college teacher or student. If you want to learn about some of the good things that are happening in South Carolina's schools, make time to read one or more of these short essays. I did, and it was worth every second.

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Send Us Your South Carolina Nicknames

In mid November I had a good time talking about SCIway at the monthly meeting of the Spartanburg Area Library Consortium. This group includes public, college, and business librarians.

Our meeting was held in the new headquarters of the Spartanburg County Public Libraries (http://www.infodepot.org/) in downtown Spartanburg. This is an impressive building, whether you're looking at it from a passing car or using its many resources inside. Everyone I meet from Spartanburg is proud of this new facility, and now I understand why.

During an enjoyable lunch at the nearby Sandwich Factory, I saw a sign on the wall that suggested that Spartanburg is sometimes called the "Hub City." I asked my hosts if this were true, and if so, why. The answers were yes ... because Spartanburg used to be a major railroad center.

They also volunteered that Spartanburg is sometimes called "Sparkle City," a name associated with a popular late 50s rockabilly group called "Joe Bennett and the Sparkletones." All four members of this band, which played on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "American Bandstand," were from nearby Cowpens. (For an excellent Web page about the Sparkletones, see https://mentalitch.com/joe-bennett-and-the-sparkletones/ .)

As the conversation continued, Camille McCutcheon of the USC Spartanburg Library asked if we knew that South Carolina was once known as the "Iodine State." In fact this motto graced state license plates in the 1930s (http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/iodine/), and the call letters of Columbia television station WIS stand for "Wonderful Iodine State."

All of this was news to me–but interesting! On the hunch that it's interesting to you too, we're going to develop a "South Carolina nicknames" page for the SCIway Web site (https://www.sciway.net). But as always, we need your contributions. If you know of a South Carolina nickname for a person or place or anything else, please send as much about it as you can to news@sciway.net. We'll begin publishing these nicknames on SCIway in January and spotlight some in future issues of SCIWAY News.

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Back Issues Of SCIWAY News Available On SCIway Web Site

A number of new SCIWAY News readers have recently asked how they can obtain back issues. The answer: go to https://www.sciway.net/sn/.

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Upcoming Festivals and Events

For the latest information on upcoming South Carolina events, please see https://www.sciway.net/calendar.html.

Holiday Festival of Lights - James Island, Nov 13 - Jan 3
First Night Charleston - Dec 31
First Night Greenville - Dec 31

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Surprise of the Month

In late October a gentlemen named Neal Vincent sent us a message asking that we add Kershaw Elementary School's new Web site (http://kes.lancasterscschools.org/ ) to SCIWAY's Education section (https://www.sciway.net/edu). Without reading his message as closely as I should have, I immediately added this new site to our Kershaw County K12 page and felt pleased that I had done something quickly for a change.

A day or so later I received a second message from Neal. This one gently explained that Kershaw Elementary and the Town of Kershaw are located in Lancaster County, not Kershaw County. Kershaw used to be in Kershaw County, he continued, but many years ago its citizens voted to join Lancaster County. (Kershaw County stretches northeast from Columbia, and Lancaster County sits above Kershaw County and extends to the North Carolina border.)

Well, I finally got Kershaw Elementary in the right county. But since then I've noticed a number of similar South Carolina "surprises." For example, we have two towns named Elgin, and Georgetown County has one community named Oatland and another named Outland. Elgin and Elgin are about 50 miles apart, and Oatland and Outland are even closer. Must be confusing!

I suspect that many of you know of even bigger and better South Carolina oddities. So with your help, I will include a "Surprise of the Month" in future issues of SCIWAY News. If you know of an interesting twist of South Carolina history, geography, politics, or culture, please write me about it at news@sciway.net. I look forward to reading your surprises and sharing them with other SCIWAY News readers.

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