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Which Candidate is Best Qualified to Lead Horry County School Board?

The race for the Republican nomination for Horry County School Board Chairman has contrasts among the candidates that should be looked at.
School boards are under attack nationwide in a concerted effort by the Club for Growth to change the makeup of school boards throughout the country for its own goals. Unfortunately, that effort has little to do with what is best for students.
Current school board member David Cox brings 14 years serving on the board, eight years as the member for District 9 and six as the current member for District 4. Cox has the overwhelming support of current board members in his run for chairman. Cox has the longest current continuous service on the school board.
Current school board member for District 6, Helen Smith, returned to the board in 2018 after a 16-year hiatus. Smith previously served as District 6 member from 1982-1996 and as board chairman from 1996-2002. Needless to say, much has changed in Horry County schools since she ended her term as chairman 20 years ago.
The third candidate for school board chairman, Darrell Ricketts, brings the most interesting curriculum vitae to the race.
Ricketts is retiring as a teacher at Socastee High School this year. However, his tenure in Horry County Schools is checkered.
Ricketts was once the principal at Aynor High School until he was caught changing the grades of over 20 students in order to make school performance look better. When that issue came to light, Ricketts was fired from his principal position and his principal certification by the S. C. Department of Education was terminated. The state left his teacher certification in place allowing him to serve as an agricultural education teacher at Socastee High School.

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Conway’s War Against Political Signs Spirals out of Control

Government officials in Conway have increased their war on political signs during this primary campaign season to a point that it has spiraled out of control.
Grand Strand Daily has learned that summonses with potential $1,000 fines, for alleged illegally placed campaign signs, have been issued to at least several more candidates in current primary races.
Most interesting is the June 13, 2021 date on the summonses for these cases to be heard in Conway City Court. That date is one day before primary election voting will take place at the polls.
Nothing in Horry County politics happens in a vacuum. One must wonder if certain Conway city government officials are attempting to influence the outcome of some of the races in the June 14th primaries?
Two weeks ago, GSD ran a story on this issue. At that time, blame for a summons and fine issued to one candidate was put at the feet of Conway City Administrator Adam Emrick due to prior statements he had made during a meeting of Conway City Council.
In the interim, several city council members have stated that candidates would be allowed to pick up their confiscated signs and no fines would be collected. However, with the escalation in the issuance of summonses, that does not now appear to be the case and city council members are now complicit for not doing anything to stop the problem.
Who is setting policy here, Conway City Council or Emrick?

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Fry Releases Cahaly Poll to Sow More Chaos and Confusion into 7th Congressional District Race

The Russell Fry campaign released poll results from Robert Cahaly’s Trafalgar Group purporting to show Fry leads in the race for the SC 7th Congressional District Republican nomination with 42% of voters preferring him.
The poll should come with many caveats.
Cahaly has consistently denied revealing his polling methodology in numerous interviews other than to say everyone lies, especially conservatives.
Cahaly blamed this tendency to lie on what is called social desirability bias. He was quoted as telling a New York Times reporter, “I just think people are not what they say they are, ever.”
Does that mean the supposed 42 percent who allegedly chose Fry in this supposed poll actually chose someone else but were put in the Fry column for some spurious reason?
How do you determine the correct answers to a poll if going in you believe the answers you will receive are lies? No wonder Cahaly does not reveal his polling methodology.
It must be noted that Cahaly correctly predicted the Donald Trump victory in the 2016 Presidential election.
However, Cahaly again predicted a Trump victory in 2020 with the opposite result.
But, that’s not the only reason I question this poll.

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Gardner, Worley Receive Top Grades from Local Flood Group

Horry County Rising, the group committed to strengthening local standards to help mitigate flooding, yesterday released its rankings of local county council members seeking reelection in contested primaries.
The mission of Horry County Rising is to establish stronger wetland protections, increase investments for stormwater infrastructure and fund flood mitigation projects to protect our communities from flooding.
The group based its rankings of the incumbents on four criteria:
1. Level of engagement
2. Level of cooperation
3. Level of action
4. Level of preparedness
Horry County Council Chairman Johnny Gardner and Horry County District One council member Harold Worley received top grades from Horry County Rising.
Horry County District Eight council member Orton Bellamy placed third while Horry County Council member for District Two Bill Howard and current Horry County Council member for District Eight and candidate for chairman Johnny Vaught were tied for the lowest ranking.
Horry County Rising thanked its members for their engagement with elected county officials in the past several years, which resulted in Horry County Council passing the strongest flood protection standards in the state in December 2021.
However, there is more work to be done at both the state and local levels to further mitigate the potential catastrophic damages caused by flooding as the county experienced in 2016 and 2018.

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Lazarus and Vaught, the Siamese Twins of the Cabal’s ‘Reality Politics’ Show

The Myrtle Beach cabal and its chosen candidates are staging their very own political reality show during this campaign season. As with any reality tv show, it has nothing to do with reality.
Nor does it have anything to do with issues or the interests of the voters.
The programs on reality tv need conflict and tension to give them public appeal. This plotline is being recreated in the political arena by having the history of cabal candidates and their opponents rewritten.
What is at stake in this election cycle is whether the gains made in the last four years for the citizens will be allowed to continue or whether kowtowing to special interests will again be the order of the day.
Four years ago, when Horry County Chairman Johnny Gardner defeated Mark Lazarus, Johnny Vaught acted as a Lazarus surrogate attending the functions Lazarus didn’t attend and speaking for Lazarus at those events.
This time around, Vaught and Lazarus are both challenging Gardner’s reelection. Again, both carry similar false messages about what the county needs. They do not attend the same functions around the county and they are known to be meeting periodically, apparently to discuss campaign strategy.
Joined at the hip to give special interests an ally in the county chair, Lazarus and Vaught are the Siamese reality twins of this election cycle attempting to sow confusion, conflict and tension into the campaign for county chairman.

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Signs that Jenna Dukes Politics are Ugly

Despite putting a smiling face on all her campaign advertising, Jenna Dukes politics are proving to be the ugly, anything goes type of campaign that avoids reality like the plague.
Funded by the development and tourism interests, Dukes tried to play the nearly $100,000 in campaign donations that jump started her campaign as a signal that the citizens want a change in Horry County Council District 1.
The citizens have little to do with that amount. A campaign disclosure report filed with the SC Ethics Commission shows them to be the development and tourism industries, the Cabal as I call them, to be the ones who want incumbent Harold Worley defeated.
The first mailer from the Dukes campaign to voters appears to be a product of polling that identifies issues that most concern voters. So, a mailer is designed that promises to address these identified issues even though half of them do not fall under the purview of county council.
She promises to ‘fight’ for additional funding to raise teacher salaries and to provide students with safe and effective learning environments, both of which are issues for the Horry County School Board, not county council.
Dukes also promises to coordinate with healthcare providers to increase healthcare services throughout the county, even though its county council she’s running for, not applying for a job with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Why not address real issues that actually concern many of the voters in District 1 and throughout the county?

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Fry’s Campaign Becomes More Unhinged

We are in the middle of the ‘silly season’ of campaigning and no campaign has been sillier than Russell Fry’s.
His campaign ads and constant pleas for donations have to be the most pathetic I have experienced in many years of covering politics.
I have said before that his campaign is filled with terminological inexactitudes about his history and voting record. That’s the nice way of saying he’s lying.
Of course, political ethics require the only thing to be true in any political ad, mailer or other solicitation is who paid for it.
From his opening cartoon character ad through his tale of growing up in a house with no heat to his most recent tale of having nothing for dinner but a can of peas to share with his father, he called it “splitting pees” when he posted it, the Fry ad campaign has been bad, bad, BAD!
I have had a number of people ask what is the purpose of Fry’s ads. The answer remains unclear. One speculated Fry was trying to gain some kind of rapport with voters of humble origin.
Maybe Fry believes this story of growing up in a home with no heat and having nothing but half a can of peas for dinner gives him a Lincolnesque stature.
Students of American history are certainly aware that Abraham Lincoln grew up poor. But even Lincoln, whose childhood was nearly 200 years before Fry’s, had heat in his humble cabin. We know that because of the stories of Lincoln studying by the light of fire in the fireplace.

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Adam Emrick Sign Czar

An apparently out of control city administrator in Conway may be starting a war over political signs that he cannot win.
According to a story in the Horry Independent last week, Conway city employees collected “more than 400 political signs” that were allegedly placed in locations they are not allowed.
Emrick reportedly told Conway City Council members last week he is tired of the great expense to the city of picking up political signs placed in the wrong place. What Emrick is apparently talking about here is signs placed in public rights of way.
The alleged illegally placed signs have been removed and placed in a city warehouse rather than being destroyed, according to the story.
However, Emrick told city council members he is ready to impose fines of up to $1,100 per sign, supposedly allowed by city ordinance, when someone comes to pick up the signs from the warehouse, according to the story.
Emrick also has a plan to bill the candidates whose signs have been picked up, according to the story.
As a point of reference, Horry County Government employees also pick up political signs that are placed in public rights of way. Those signs are disposed of in a county dumpster and candidates are free to remove their signs from the dumpster if they choose.
What Emrick proposed to city council is government overreach at an extreme level. One could call it a violation of the 14th Amendment protections of the U.S. Constitution with respect to due process.

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Why Won’t Rice and Fry Agree to a Second Candidate Debate?

Word has reached GSD of an attempt by the Myrtle Beach Republican Women’s Club to organize a debate among all seven candidates for the SC 7th Congressional District Republican nomination.
According to information received by GSD from those trying to arrange the event, neither Tom Rice nor Russell Fry want any part of another debate (one was held in Florence two weeks ago). Rice, reportedly, claimed a scheduling conflict with the proposed May 27th date for the event, but declined to specify what that conflict was.
Fry, reportedly, said he would debate, but only if Rice was included.
It makes one wonder if the campaigns of Rice and Fry are colluding behind the scenes to ensure a second debate does not take place. One claims a scheduling conflict while the other sets a condition he will not show up without the other.
Former President Donald Trump, of course, wants to see incumbent Rep. Tom Rice defeated for the 7th Congressional District Republican nomination because of Rice’s January 13, 2021, vote to impeach the former president.
Trump endorsed state representative Russell Fry, in the SC 7th Congressional District race, apparently without vetting any of the other candidates in the race, merely on the recommendations of Gov. Henry McMaster and SCGOP Chairman Drew McKissick.
However, in picking Fry, Trump endorsed a politician just as mired in “The Swamp” of Horry County politics as Rice on the recommendation of two other “swamp” politicians, McMaster and McKissick.

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Dukes Campaign About Misdirection Not Ideas

Horry County Council candidate Jenna Dukes appears to be running a misdirection campaign in her challenge to County Council District One incumbent Harold Worley.
Dukes’ picture is on everything her campaign does – billboards, yard signs and mailers.
It appears the campaign strategy of Dukes and her consultant Walter Whetsell is to concentrate on the picture and confuse the message.
A Dukes mailer came out last week. Its message, in a word, is unbelievable.
The mailer promises as a member of county council Dukes will:
Coordinate with state health officials, hospitals and healthcare providers to increase services and recruit new providers.
Fight for additional funding to raise teacher salaries
And
Collaborate with the school board to provide safe and effective learning environments and plan for growth to avoid overcrowding.
All that sounds wonderful and is designed to attract the votes of what I call casual voters at the ballot box.
However, none of the above has anything to do with the issues considered by county council and all of those could be considered an attempt at extreme government overreach by Dukes if she actually carried out those initiatives in the event she is elected.

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