Moving Company in Columbia

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Kevin Harris is finally healthy enough to play college football again after his breakthrough season as one of the Southeastern Conference’s top rushers.

Harris finished with 1,138 yards rushing and 15 touchdowns, leading the SEC with 113.8 yards a game last season. His touchdowns were second only in the league to Alabama’s Najee Harris.

The 5-foot-10, 220-pound Gamecock was eager to keep that going this year. However, back surgery to correct what he and South Carolina coach Shane Beamer called a “minor procedure” led Harris to miss all of spring camp and much of the summer.

Harris will play for the Gamecocks (1-0) at East Carolina (0-1).

The tailback “looked good out there” for Tuesday’s practice, Beamer said. “He’ll help. It’s another back in the room.”

Harris was much more than just another back in the room last season; he was the brightest spot in an offense that was 10th in the SEC in both total yards and points.

He had five games with 100 yards or more last season, including a season high 243 against Mississippi and 210 against Kentucky. Harris became only the third South Carolina runner – Heisman Trophy winner George Rogers and Marcus Lattimore are the others – with multiple 200-yard rushing games.

“I’m feeling pretty good,” said Harris, who usually keeps his comments brief. “I want to do better than I did last year.”

Harris was scheduled to play in last week’s season-opening 46-0 victory over Eastern Illinois, but an illness kept him on the sideline.

It didn’t hurt South Carolina’s running game much, gaining 254 yards including 128 from ZaQuandre White and 63 from MarShawn Lloyd, who missed all of 2020 with an injury.

Harris’ return makes things complete and gives the Gamecocks an added dimension going forward. Just this morning, Beamer joked the running backs meeting room sounded like a “frat party” with the joy they all took in knowing Harris would play.

“It’s great to have all of us out there,” Lloyd said.

It hasn’t been the easiest road for Harris to follow, Beamer said. Harris lives to compete and him missing the spring under a new coaching staff was difficult for him, Beamer explained.

“It would be easy to get frustrated,” the first-year coach said. “He wanted to play during preseason camp. He certainly wanted to be out there Saturday night” for the opener.

Harris understood the operation would correct a problem and make him more effective going forward.

“He had a big smile out there today,” Beamer said. “It was great to see him in full pads and running the football like we know he can.”

Harris is not the fastest runner, but one with an ability to hit the right hole and cut into the open field. He had 31 of South Carolina’s 51 runs of at least 10 yards in 2020, including four TD runs of 44 yards or longer.

Harris showed that versatility against Vanderbilt last season. He escaped a pair of Commodore defenders for a 25-yard touchdown run then capped his game with an 88-yard score, bursting through the line and finding the clear path to the end zone.

“We know the kind of runner he is,” Beamer said.

There’s no medical restriction on Harris limiting his carries. Although Beamer, offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield and running backs coach Mario Hardesty will put their heads together this week about keeping Harris as fresh as possible throughout.

Satterfield was impressed with Harris’ ability when he could practice. Satterfield didn’t know Harris was in and was wowed by what he saw. “I had to do a double take,” Satterifled said.

“You can tell he’s ready to run,” Satterifield said.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) today announced the hiring of three new members of the agency’s executive leadership team.

Karla Buru will assume the role of Chief of Staff for the agency, Michael Mickey will serve as Chief Information Officer, and Scott Jaillette now oversees government and legislative affairs for DHEC as the Director of Legislative Affairs.

“These three hires represent the completion of our agency’s executive leadership team,” said DHEC Director Edward Simmer, MD, MPH, DFAPA. “Each person brings a wealth of experience and drive that will help our team of talented and dedicated employees continue our critical work in providing quality health and environmental services to the people of South Carolina”

Buru holds two master’s degrees in public health and social work and since Sept. 2019 has worked in key leadership positions at the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to that, Buru worked at DHEC from 2015-2019 where her last position was as the Director of the Project Management Office.

Mickey comes to DHEC with more than two decades of information technology experience in the health care environment, having directed efforts at hospital systems in Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, and South Carolina. His most recent role was as Chief Information Officer for the South Carolina Department of Disabilities and Special Needs.

Prior to joining DHEC, Jaillette served as Director of Business Development and Government Relations for Whitaker Contracting Corp. In this position, he led local and state government relations in Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. He also served as a valued member of the Office of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham for more than 15 years.

“I look forward to our board, staff, partners, legislature and the public getting to know these talented leaders as we continue our work to make DHEC the best agency it can be,” Dr. Simmer said.

Jaillette’s first day with the agency was Aug. 30. Buru and Mickey will begin work at DHEC on Oct. 4.

The team’s biographies are available here. The team's headshots are also available for downloading: Buru, Jaillette, Mickey

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Media Relations Statewide

The S.C. Supreme Court has ruled that state regulators must allow a private water company to collect money from ratepayers to cover some costs associated with its new headquarters, even as the justices were critical of the price tag associated with the new “opulent” offices.

Blue Granite Water Co. had asked to collect the cost of its new office space in downtown Greenville after the rebranded utility, formerly known as Carolina Water Service, moved from its West Columbia headquarters. The Supreme Court joined state regulators in criticizing the rent in Greenville and the money spent to improve the offices, which amounted to $500,00 for 10 employees.

“The yearly rent for Blue Granite’s new Greenville office space was $73,665 — almost triple the $27,260 annual cost of office space in West Columbia,” the court said in its order, written by Justice John Kittredge and concurred with by the court’s four other justices.

“The decision to rebrand the company while simultaneously moving into an unnecessarily-expensive office location is yet another example of Blue Granite self-inflicting wounds to its reputation and requesting its customers reimburse it for the associated expense,” the justices wrote in their order.

But the court’s order, filed Sept. 1, mostly upheld a prior decision by the S.C. Public Service Commission to deny Blue Granite the full rate hike it had sought, which would have caused some customers’ bills to jump by up to 56%.

Blue Granite serves 30,000 customers across South Carolina, including many in Lexington and Richland counties and near Rock Hill in York County. The company had appealed the commission’s decision to the Supreme Court earlier this year, seeking to recoup $23 million the company said it had spent on infrastructure improvements.

But the one area the court’s justices disagreed with the commission was in denying Blue Granite the ability to cover its rental expenses, even as the court order agreed with commissioners that asking customers to cover the full cost of Blue Granite’s headquarters in a renovated historic building on Greenville’s South Main Street was unreasonable.

“It is, of course, not unreasonable for Blue Granite to want to provide its executives opulent offices as a job perk,” the Supreme Court found. “However, as the PSC found, it is unacceptable to pass the costs associated with that opulence on to ratepayers, who receive no quantifiable benefit from an expenditure of that type.”

However, “Blue Granite is entitled to collect from ratepayers some reasonable amount for its headquarters office rental.” The court sent the matter back to the Public Service Commission for consideration.

The court also indicated Blue Granite should better justify its decision to open its new Greenville office, finding the data it used for Greenville, Columbia and West Columbia markets was not comparable. The justices said the company would have to produce identical data for all three cities, plus Anderson and Rock Hill, where Blue Granite already has offices.

“Moreover, it is incumbent upon Blue Granite to present evidence of reasonable rental amounts for similarly-sized offices, regardless of their location in Greenville or throughout the state,” the court order said. “We find it highly likely there are a number of alternate office locations — in Greenville and elsewhere — that would demand significantly less in yearly rental expenses than a historic building on South Main Street.”

The company’s annual rent in Greenville’s prime real estate market stood in stark contrast to the $11,174 in yearly, combined rental expenses paid by ratepayers for Blue Granite’s other five locations throughout the state, the court found.

The new Greenville office also required extensive upgrades to make it a functional office space, the court found, including things such as new drywall, paint, telephone ports, wiring and office furniture.

“While Blue Granite repeatedly claimed that its new office was ‘not luxurious or gold-plated,’ the upfit expenses totaled approximately $500,000 for an office space intended to house only ten employees,” the court said.

The state Office of Regulatory Staff had opposed Blue Granite’s rate request, arguing it was part of a wider rebranding effort after criticism of its services and not related to the company’s operations.

“The Company represented to its customers that the refreshing of the Company’s brand would be at no cost to them and is now contradicting that representation by attempting to pass on to customers relocation and office upgrade costs that were part of its rebranding,” state regulators said, adding that Blue Granite’s brand problems were “were caused by the Company, not its location.”

ORS said the costs of such an upfit were “difficult to explain to customers that struggle to pay their water and sewer bills,” when other more modest accommodations were available.

Sportsbook Wire

The South Carolina Gamecocks (1-0) and East Carolina Pirates (0-1) meet Saturday at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium in Greenville, N.C. Kickoff is scheduled for noon ET. Below, we look at the South Carolina vs. East Carolina odds and lines; check back for our college football picks and predictions.

South Carolina routed Eastern Illinois of the FCS by a 46-0 count in Week 1, while allowing just 31 rushing yards and 78 passing yards. The Gamecocks gobbled up 258 yards on the ground in the victory. Perhaps the only thing which needs to be cleaned up are the eight penalties for 61 yards.

East Carolina was on the short end of a 33-19 score against Appalachian State in a neutral-site game in Charlotte. The Pirates allowed 226 yards on the ground, and 259 yards through the air, something which must improve.

South Carolina at East Carolina odds, spread and lines

Odds provided by Tipico Sportsbook; access USA TODAY Sports' betting odds for a full list. Lines last updated Monday at 7:35 p.m. ET.

2020 betting stats:

South Carolina at East Carolina head-to-head

South Carolina leads the all-time series 14-5, with the intrastate opponents last meeting Sept. 17, 2016, in Columbia, S.C. They haven't met in Greenville since Sept. 20, 1997, when the Gamecocks routed the Pirates 26-0.

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - School nurses across the Midlands are facing increased demands with large amounts of students either sick with COVID-19 or quarantined.

In addition to their regular nursing duties, many nurses also are acting as contact tracers.

Richland School District Two nurses are particularly hard hit, with some saying they’re on the verge of quitting.

“I have several nurses that are right there on the verge of right now today feeling like they can’t do it and they’re ready to quit because it is a lot,” Dawn MacAdams, R2′s Coordinator of Health Services, said. “We’re trying to put things into place to ease the burden, to make things more streamlined and easier to do, but when you’re doing new procedures and doing things in a new way, it always takes a little bit of planning to try and implement it well.”

R2 currently has nurses staffed in every school. However, the district is still hiring some unlicensed staff, including health room assistants. Many of its nurses are feeling overwhelmed and overworked, MacAdams said.

Across R2, 1600 students are currently out of the classroom, according to the district’s COVID dashboard. 291 students are either COVID positive or symptomatic, and 1316 students are quarantined.

Currently, district nurses are the ones gathering this data and calling parents. They’re identifying positive students, performing contact tracing to identify close contacts, and then notifying families individually that their students have to quarantine.

One R2 nurse told WIS that the current situation is “unsafe” and “dire.”

MacAdams says the R2 is working to streamline this system so instead of nurses making 50 or 100 phone calls, there is one notification that goes out to parents.

She also suggests that district nurses reach out to administrators or teaching assistants for contact tracing help. Additionally, teachers can make this work easier if they have an assigned seating chart.

“Nurses tend to want to want to try and do it all, and this is a situation we can’t,” MacAdams said. “And we have to lean on others and the squeaky wheel gets the help.”

This isn’t a problem unique to R2. Many districts across the state are facing similar issues. Lexington-Richland School District Five and Richland School District One each have two school nurse openings. LR5 officials say their nurses are working long hours on nights and weekends.

MacAdams also acknowledges the mental toll that the increased pandemic responsibilities have taken on nurses. When making quarantine calls, they are sometimes met with screaming parents.

“It’s not personal against the nurse, it’s just that reaction in that moment, but that doesn’t stop the sting to the nurse when you’ve just been cussed at and yelled at by a parent because you’re putting their child into quarantine,” she said. “We’re trying to do what’s best for their child, and we’re getting blasted for it. And that’s hard to take.”

The South Carolina Department of Education recently sent school districts a list of DHEC-approved vendors that can assist with contact tracing and administrative procedures related to COVID-19. To pay for this service, the district can use any of the federal COVID relief funding they’ve received.

R2 officials say they’re looking into this to see if it’s a viable option.

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