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Your connection to industry & member news | Nov. 13, 2025
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SCPA welcomes new members SCPA's Executive Committee voted Nov. 7, to approve the following membership applications:
Monthly Newspaper Members:
Associate Members:
Individual Members:
- August Krickel, Columbia
- Parks Rogers, USC School of Journalism Baldwin Business Fellow, Columbia
Welcome, new members!
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SCPA welcomes Michael Wright as new lobbyist The S.C. Press Association has hired Michael Wright of Copper Dome Strategies, LLC, as its new lobbyist.
In this role, Wright will lead SCPA’s legislative efforts and represent the association at the Statehouse.
Wright joined Copper Dome in September as a lobbyist and consultant.
He has nearly two decades of experience in legislative relations, advocacy and policy development, most recently serving as Director of Government Relations for the South Carolina Farm Bureau. Previously, Wright directed governmental affairs for Clemson University’s Office of External Affairs. Earlier roles include intergovernmental relations with the Office of the South Carolina State Treasurer and service in the office of former Congressman J. Gresham Barrett.
He is a graduate of Lander University with a degree in Political Science and Public Administration.
Wright succeeds Ray Sharpe, who announced last month his intention to retire as SCPA’s governmental affairs adviser. Sharpe has served as SCPA's lobbyist for the past three sessions.
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Contest publication period ends Saturday, Dec. 5 deadline fast approachingSCPA's digital entry platform is accepting contest entries until Friday, Dec. 5.
Saturday, Nov. 15, is the final day of the 2025 SCPA News Contest period. This means that anything published in print or digitally from Nov. 16, 2024, through Nov. 15, 2025, can be entered in this year’s News Contest.
All editors should have received log-in information for the site.
Let us know if we need to resend it or if you have questions about the contest.
Don't let the Dec. 5 deadline sneak up on you... start entering now! Awards will be presented at the SCPA Annual Meeting, set for March 5-6, 2026, at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center in downtown Columbia. More details coming soon!
Get organized for the 2026 Contest!While you're thinking about the contest, make a copy of this Google Sheet to help you prepare for next year's News Contest. This tool can help you stay organized as you try to determine what to enter next December.
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S.C. newspapers honor local veterans
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|  | SCPA's Executive Committee met last Friday to discuss membership, financial and open govenment matters. From top left: Jason Cato, The Post and Courier; Ryan Gilchrest, Greenville Journal; Nate Abraham, Carolina Panorama; John Boyette, Aiken Standard; Rocky Nimmons, Pickens County Courier; Bottom left: Jonathan Vickery, The People-Sentinel; President Hal Welch, The (Seneca) Journal; and Barbara Ball, The Voice of Blythewood and Fairfield County.
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Detar delivers papers by bike during the pandemic
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| Former DI News publisher leaves behind a legacy of hometown community journalism
One thousand, one hundred, and forty-nine.
That’s the total number of weekly editions produced by The Daniel Island News since the first time it was delivered to island homes and businesses 22 years ago.
Heavy rain couldn’t stop it.
Snow couldn’t stop it.
Hurricanes and tropical storms couldn’t stop it.
Not even a global pandemic could keep the newspaper away.
Every single issue went to press and has been hand-delivered each and every week since.
Daniel Island resident Suzanne Detar officially launched the community’s first newspaper out of an office in her home on Oct. 30, 2003.
‘A little community newspaper’
The idea to start a community newspaper came to Detar a few months before, while on a summer vacation in her native Pennsylvania. She was a young mother of three at the time, with a law degree and experience as a college professor. While sitting on the edge of a peaceful lake in LaPorte, Pennsylvania, the local paper was delivered.
“It’s a little community newspaper for the entire county, and believe it or not, people actually got in their cars and drove up to the general store to get it!” noted Detar in an article on the 20th anniversary of The Daniel Island News in 2023.
Detar wanted to create a similar level of excitement and anticipation on Daniel Island – a way to keep residents and business owners informed and to celebrate community happenings. Soon, The Daniel Island News was born, and the whole Detar family pitched in to help.
“I was eight when she started the paper, and it quickly became a family affair,” said Carly Stas, Detar's daughter.
“From the start, I was involved in just about everything – delivering papers on bike or wagon, even with my 5-year-old brother in the wagon, interviewing other kids for the 'Kids Say' section, and snapping photos at island events. As I got older, I took on a delivery route of my own, and those early mornings became some of my most treasured memories with my mom.”
Matt Sloan, president and chief executive officer for the DI Development Company, first met Detar shortly after she and her family moved to the island in 1997.
“At that time, we were publishing a development newsletter called The Town Crier. It was OK, but it was in our (development's) voice.
"When Sue came to talk about starting the DI News, it was an early indicator that the community had the potential to present itself as almost a small town. Many voices, editorials, advertisements, human interest pieces. It was such an upgrade, and we at the development company were so proud to be a small part of it.”
By Elizabeth Bush, The Daniel Island News | Read more
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New faces join The Lancaster News; Jenkins named editor
The Lancaster News is welcoming two new faces to the staff and one familiar one in a new position.
Andrew Chodes started [last week] as the paper’s new sports editor. He comes to Lancaster after spending the last year-and-a-half in Greenwood at The Index Journal. He covered 10 high schools and two colleges there and was honored for his work by the South Carolina Press Association.
“’Excited’ doesn’t do justice to how I feel about starting as The Lancaster News‘ new sports editor,” he said. ...
Andrew “Dew” Wright also joined The Lancaster News [last week] as a reporter. A recent alum of Buford High School (Class of 2020) he graduated from Charleston Southern University, where he majored in Communication Studies with a minor in Business Administration. ...
Additionally, Travis Jenkins, who has served as interim editor of the newspaper since May, was recently named editor on a permanent basis. Jenkins is a three-time South Carolina Journalist of the Year and has won numerous other prestigious honors, including the Montgomery/Shurr Freedom of Information award on seven occasions. Jenkins has served as editor of The Chester News & Reporter since 2012 (a position he will continue to hold).
“I’ve lived or worked right next door to Lancaster for most of my life. There is so much growth and so much happening there right now and we want to be a part of telling the stories of all of it,” Jenkins said.
From The Lancaster News | Read more
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|  | Paul Harris Fellow Awards can be awarded to non-Rotarians whose achievements are in keeping with Rotary's values. Such is the case of Margaret Evans, who with her late husband Jeff, published Beaufort's iconic Island News and Lowcountry Weekly. The papers share a common goal: to do something good for the community. The Rotary Club of Beaufort is honored to bestow its Paul Harris Fellow award to Margaret, who accepted on behalf of staff and her husband Jeff who sadly passed away shortly after he and Margaret were notified of the award. Margaret is pictured with the Beaufort Rotary Foundation Chair Ethan James (right) and Club President Ron Garrett (left). Photos courtesy of Amber's Eye Photography.
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Editorial: If USC wants to hide its player contracts, it needs to talk to the Legislature
It was back at the height of Jim Holderman’s flamboyant reign as president of the University of South Carolina that a lawsuit was filed that would bring down a central component of government secrecy regimes. When USC wanted to spend public money in a way it didn’t want the public to know about, the university funneled that money to one of its private foundations, which then claimed it didn’t have to make the spending public because it wasn’t a public body.
Oh, but yes you are when you’re spending public money at the direction of a public institution, the unanimous S.C. Supreme Court ruled in 1991, in a less colorful version of the “walks like a duck, quacks like duck” metaphor.
In the years since, the Legislature has had ample opportunity to change the Freedom of Information Act to allow colleges and other public bodies to hide their spending behind a private foundation. Thank goodness it has consistently refused to do that, so the precedent set in Weston v. Carolina Research & Development Foundation still stands more than three decades later.
Today, it’s a central argument in Mount Pleasant businessman Frank Heindel’s lawsuit seeking a look at millions of public dollars’ worth of revenue-sharing contracts with USC football players. Mr. Heindel filed a suit in September asking for name-redacted copies of revenue-sharing contracts between players and USC or — under the Weston precedent — any outside entities.
From The Post and Courier | Read more
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Marion County agrees to pay out $3M for Kansas newspaper raid, expresses regret
TOPEKA — The county involved in a small-town Kansas newspaper raid in 2023 will pay a cumulative $3 million to three journalists and a city councilor.
In two of the four agreements, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office also crafted a statement admitting regret.
“The Sheriff’s Office wishes to express its sincere regrets to Eric and Joan Meyer and Ruth and Ronald Herbel for its participation in the drafting and execution of the Marion Police Department’s search warrants on their homes and the Marion County Record. This likely would not have happened if established law had been reviewed and applied prior to the execution of the warrants,” the statement reads.
Marion County’s board of commissioners approved agreements Monday with Eric Meyer, the owner and editor of the Marion County Record, and Ruth Herbel, the Marion city councilor whose home was raided in tandem with the newspaper office, and two other journalists. The agreements coincide with consent judgments expected to be submitted in their federal cases against the county.
By Anna Kaminski, Kansas Reflector | Read more
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"These initial studies show that newspapers make a difference. They hold governments accountable, especially to budgets. Local governments are more likely to be careful with our tax dollars and less wasteful. Engagement improves. Voting turnout improves. … Newspapers matter in saving democracy.”
– David Cuillier, Ph.D., director of the Freedom of Information Project for the Brechner Center for the Advancement of the First Amendment at the University of Florida
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