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Your connection to industry & member news | April 23, 2026
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Longtime SC editor, past president Jerry Bellune diesApril 30, 1936 – April 15, 2026
Editor Jerry Odom Bellune said he wanted his obituary to read: “Much-feared editor expires.”
When Jerry Bellune lost his hair, his enemies wondered where he hid his horns.
Bellune was born in Greenville, SC, the son of Dr. A.E. Bellune and Marion Elizabeth Odom Bellune.
He was a graduate of The Baylor School, a military school at the time, in Chattanooga, TN.
After two years of service in the U.S. Army as a United Nations peacekeeper in South Korea, he worked as an editor at The Greenville News and attended Furman University but left for a job as an editor at The Charlotte (N.C.) News.
At The State newspaper in Columbia, he met his wife Mary MacLeod Hardy, a graduate of the University of South Carolina. They were married more than 61 years.
He worked as an editor at 23 daily and weekly newspapers. As executive editor of the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, NJ, he launched a Sunday edition. In 1979, the newspaper published articles on malfeasance in a monastic order that won the Pulitzer Prize.
He reported from the White House, the United Nations and the Middle East.
He liked to joke that he sounded like a guy who could not hold a job.
Bellune coached editors and reporters at more than two dozen newspapers across the country and edited four magazines. In 1984, he and his wife bought a failing weekly newspaper, The Dispatch-News in Lexington, SC. They turned it into a highly profitable, award-winning newspaper.
After disagreements with their partners, the Bellunes left The Dispatch-News and launched the Lexington County Chronicle in 1992. After nine years of competition between the two local newspapers, the owner of The Dispatch-News sold the Bellunes his newspaper.
In 2006, Bellune semi-retired from the Chronicle and his son Mark succeeded him as editor.
In retirement, Bellune started Riverbanks Press, publishing books and self-study courses.
Bellune is a former president of the NJ Associated Press Managing Editors Association and the South Carolina Press Association and has been named its Journalist of the Year. He served as a board member of the Carolinas chapter of the National Speakers Association and Toastmasters International, where he helped establish three chapters and served as president and area governor.
He was a long suffering fan of the University of South Carolina Gamecocks.
Survivors include his wife MacLeod and sons David and Mark.
He donated his body to the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. No services are planned, but a celebration of life will be held at a later date. Read full obituary
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SCPA Foundation awards 2026 scholarships, internships
Nathan Inman, Clemson University
Mundy Scholar & Intern at The Journal, Seneca
Nathan Inman is a sports communication and marketing double major at Clemson University.
A native of Spartanburg, Inman is the son of the late Kelley Inman.
As this year’s Mundy Scholar, he will receive $1,000 to put toward his education. The Mundy Scholarship is given in memory of R. Frank Mundy, the late publisher of the Index-Journal in Greenwood and the first president of the SCPA Foundation. Inman will also serve as a summer intern at The (Seneca) Journal.
Inman has gained experience in multiple areas of media as a student, working with Clemson Video as a sports camera operator during his freshman year. Additionally, Inman is the assistant sports editor and newsletter editor of his college newspaper, The Tiger, and a writer/editor intern with the Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute. Inman plans to pursue a career in the realm of sports, particularly in areas of broadcasting, journalism or public relations.
Beyond his involvement in student media, Inman is also a Residential Community Mentor with Clemson Home. Inman has held the position since his sophomore year and will continue in the role through his graduation next May.
“I am honored to be a recipient of the Mundy Scholarship for the 2026-27 academic year,” Inman said. “I take pride in my work as a student journalist and am greatly appreciative of the recognition and support that this scholarship will provide me as I continue to pursue a career within journalism.”
Morgan Cook, University of South Carolina
Intern at The Post and Courier, Charleston
Morgan Cook is a journalism major and a sports media minor at the University of South Carolina.
She is a native of Charleston and the oldest daughter of Brian and Kelly Cook.
Cook has a diverse background in media as she interned for The Post and Courier Columbia during the fall 2025 semester.
She is currently the assistant news editor for The Daily Gamecock and was a sports and news staff writer for three semesters.
Cook is interested in growth and development, arts and culture, and business reporting as she’s written multiple articles for the Columbia newsroom on those topics.
Cook is also a member of Zeta Phi Eta, the professional communications fraternity at USC. She joined the fraternity during the fall 2025 semester.
“I look forward to working at a newspaper where I can improve my skills as a reporter and journalist,” Cook said. “I hope to better my writing skills during my internship at The Post and Courier in Charleston this summer.”
Lacy Latham, University of South Carolina
Scholarship Recipient
The Foundation is also awarding a $1,000 scholarship to Lacy Latham.
Latham is an Honors journalism and political science dual degree student at the University of South Carolina.
She’s currently a news intern for The Post and Courier Columbia, fulfilling typical reporter responsibilities in the newsroom. Additionally, she serves as a writing intern for the Molinaroli College of Engineering and Computing communications team, writing profiles and coverage for the college.
Outside of journalism, she is a pre-law student, preparing to apply to law schools. She intends to merge her law and journalism interests in her future career, ideally pursuing both.
Beyond academics, she is involved across USC’s campus in the Carolina Marching Band, Phi Delta Phi Pre-Law Fraternity, Honors Ambassadors and more.
Invest in the future of our industry
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|  Elizabeth Timothy and her daughter-in-law, Ann Donovan Timothy, quite literally printed their mark on American history while running the South Carolina Gazette during the birth of our country. Make plans to attend this SC250 Lunch & Learn on May 19 at the Revolutionary War Visitor Center in Camden. Former journalist Pat McNeely will offer an enlightening look at these two women’s lives which have long been overshadowed by their husbands’ deeds. Learn more and RSVP here. In 1973, Elizabeth Timothy was the first inductee into the SC Journalism Hall of Fame!
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Aiken Standard announces change to frequency of home delivery
As reader habits evolve with technology, so is the Aiken Standard.
Beginning June 1, the Aiken Standard will change its home delivery of the printed product from five days to three days per week. Print days will be Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, which will be the weekend edition.
Publisher Randy Mitchell, in a letter to subscribers, said the changes reflect a shift in reader behavior with news and information being more accessible than ever on digital platforms.
“We deeply value your loyalty and support of local journalism,” Mitchell wrote. “Our commitment to delivering quality news and information to our community remains unchanged, regardless of format.”
Although the Aiken Standard is trimming delivery days, it is not cutting back on newsgathering, content or its commitment to local journalism. Subscribers will be able to find all of its journalism online or in the E-Paper, a digital replica of print, all seven days of the week. Plus, they will find extra new content in the Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Saturday E-Papers.
“Our core mission, which is to cover Aiken County, won’t change at all,” Executive Editor John Boyette said. “We are still the trusted local source for news and information for our readers.”
From Aiken Standard | Read more
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Column: You can now read from nearly 40 years of Free Times issues at these Columbia libraries
COLUMBIA — On a recent February day, my publisher and I met with librarians from Richland Library Main and USC’s Caroliniana Library. It didn’t take long for us to get elbow-deep in crates and crates (and crates) of old Free Times copies.
The staffers were there to dig through our archives, a highly sophisticated system of two storage units where we keep thousands of back issues of Free Times from 1987 to now.
We found an issue from Aug. 12, 1987 — Free Times Vol. 1, No. 1. The very first paper.
Inside, a concert calendar promoted shows around town featuring Drink Small, Dick Goodwin and John Hiatt. An article interviewing the frontman for Chapel Hill alt-rockers Southern Culture on the Skids can be found on page 3. Gary Grunson reviewed the Five Points restaurant Tavern on the Green, praising the newly opened restaurant’s Charleston Cheesecake. Ads for Manifest Discs & Tapes and live music venue Greenstreet’s dominate the back cover.
From that “premiere issue” to now, Free Times has put out thousands of issues covering topics like radiated laundry facilities in Rosewood, the Amplify Columbia plan and the 20th anniversary of Hootie & the Blowfish’s landmark album “Cracked Rear View.”
And pretty much every single issue can now be viewed at the Richland Library Main branch on Assembly Street.
“We now have the complete run of Free Times — minus a few missing issues, but not many missing issues — from the first issue in 1987 to the current issue,” said Margaret Dunlap, the director of the Walker Local and Family History Center at Richland Library and one of the librarians who dug with me through the stacks of papers.
The library’s fleshed-out collection is available at the Walker Center six days a week, “no appointment needed,” Dunlap added.
By Zoe Nicholson, Free Times | Read more
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 Current and former State newspaper employees came together with USC's J-School to commemorate the transition of The State's monument and time capsule to the USC Journalism School. (Photo from USC CIC Instagram)
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| Time capsule rescued as demolition of former State newspaper building nears end
On Monday outside Columbia, as dump trucks noisily prowled the old 23-acre State newspaper grounds amid piles of rubble, developers met there with officials from the University of South Carolina school of journalism.
With the remaining three-story skeletal ruins of The State’s once-venerable building as a backdrop — it looked like a war zone structure, innards laid bare — developers from Landmark Properties handed over a time capsule that for years stood at the front of The State newspaper building to the USC J-school, officials said.
The time capsule, sealed in 1991, is to be opened in 2041 — the 150th anniversary of The State’s founding. Along with a monument, the capsule had remained at The State building since 2020, when the building was abandoned and the remaining journalists moved to a downtown Columbia office building near the governor’s mansion. The old office building on Shop Road was subsequently sold.
Landmark Properties intends to build a 850-apartment, $120 million complex aimed at students on the site. It will be called “The Walk” and is expected to open in 2027. Groundbreaking took place Monday.
In a talk Monday at the Shop Road site, Tom Reichert, dean of the USC College of Information and Communications, stressed the century-old ties between The State newspaper and the university.
By John Monk, The State | Read more
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Seneca Journal, sponsors, distribute thousands to nonprofits
SENECA — The Journal, with the help of community sponsors, recently distributed thousands of dollars to local nonprofits and other organizations through its Celebrate Community program.
To date, The Journal and the program’s sponsors have awarded more than $300,000.
Sponsors include AnMed Health, Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative, Dogwood State Bank, Sandifer Funeral Home, Prisma Health, Duckett Robinson Funeral Home, Oconee Federal Savings & Loan, the City of Seneca and Visit Oconee.
Journal Publisher Hal Welch explained the program’s beginnings.
“We started it back in 2010 toward the end of the recession because it seemed like for several years, we had nothing but bad news in the newspaper,” Welch explained. “People losing their homes, businesses shutting down and all the nonprofits were cash-strapped.”
To help, Welch explained The Journal’s solution.
“We tried to come up with a way to use advertising dollars to promote healthy, local businesses while getting behind what has turned into dozens of nonprofits at this point,” Welch said.
And that plan has worked, now in its 17th cycle.
“It’s important to The Journal because we’re a community newspaper,” Welch said. “But at the end of the day, we could not do any of this without all of our sponsors. These guys — most of whom have been with us since the first year — are the very backbone of the program.”
By Caleb Gilbert, The (Seneca) Journal | Read more
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Robinson's AI and FOIA research wins national competition
CIC faculty member Eric P. Robinson, J.D., Ph.D. is helping shape the future of transparency in government as artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into public information processes.
Robinson, in collaboration with Erin K. Coyle of Arizona State University, earned third place in the Journal of Civic Information’s special research competition marking the 60th anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Their paper, “AI Meets FOIA Law: Legal Issues with the Use of Artificial Intelligence to Fulfill FOIA Requests,” was presented at Sunshine Fest 2026 in Washington, D.C. The paper will be published in the Journal of Civic Information in the fall.
This research examines how federal agencies are beginning to pilot artificial intelligence tools to process FOIA requests, specifically to locate relevant records and redact sensitive or non-disclosable information. While these technologies offer the potential to improve efficiency and reduce backlogs, they also introduce complex legal and ethical questions.
By Amy Coward, University of South Carolina | Read more
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|  | Three Gaffney Ledger employees, Larry Littlejohn, Gina Poole and Cody Sossamon, were honored by their co-workers last week for 50 years of employment at the newspaper.
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SC agency knew about polluted farms for years, but didn’t stop use of noxious sludge
Cecilia Williams lives across a dusty lane from a farm that, for years, used waste sludge provided by a textile plant to fertilize crops.
Then in 2019, government agencies discovered that the land where the sludge had been applied was polluted with dangerous chemicals like those produced at the textile plant in Darlington County. They later found the drinking water her family relied on contained the same types of chemicals.
While those findings are enough for Williams to worry about, she can’t understand why South Carolina’s government – once it knew about the pollution on the old farm in 2019 – allowed more waste sludge to be spread on the agricultural fields along Journeys End Road. “It doesn’t make sense,’’ Williams said.
“If stuff is still in the ground and you put something else on top of it, what is that going to cause? Did they ever check?’’
The S.C. Department of Environmental Services allowed sludge disposal at the former Winfred Davis farm in 2020, 2021 and 2025, after finding dangerous forever chemicals in the farm’s soil in 2019, as well as in nearby drinking water wells and creeks, according to land application records and a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report.
By Sammy Fretwell, The State | Read more
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Editorial: Secret agreement to settle SC lawsuit over secrecy only sounds like parody
It happens routinely with S.C. governing boards: Somebody sues the government, the government goes through a period of razzle-dazzle and delay, hoping the plaintiff will give up and go away, and finally, when it becomes clear that won’t happen, the board gets a secret briefing from its attorney and directs the attorney to settle the lawsuit, without giving the public any indication of how.
Then the attorney presents the agreement to the plaintiff, the two sides go to court and ask a judge to approve their settlement, and it’s an irreversible deal by the time the public finds out what’s going on.
Even if the government was clearly in the wrong — in which case it never should have fought the lawsuit — and there’s little wiggle room on the financial payout, the settlement often includes some entirely negotiable aspects, starting with a confidentiality clause that prohibits either side from telling the public what the government acknowledged or refused to acknowledge, and in some cases even the amount of money awarded.
All disturbingly routine. But as The Post and Courier’s Conor Hughes reports, the first part of this scenario played out recently in Greenville County in a case that would make for a great comedy routine if it weren’t real: Greenville County Council got its secret advice and sent its taxpayer-funded attorney off to settle a lawsuit — over the council’s violation of South Carolina’s open-meetings law. Really, we can’t make this stuff up.
From The Post and Courier | Read more
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State Inspector General: 'Excessive spending of taxpayer funds' by Sumter School District in Crestwood project
After a 10-month probe, the state agency that investigates allegations of fraud, waste, mismanagement and wrongdoing among public bodies has released its report on whether Sumter School District followed required protocols with two projects.
In its report released the afternoon of Friday, April 17, the South Carolina Office of the State Inspector General determined that while the funding for Crestwood High School’s athletic field construction and turf upgrades was permissible, the district failed in the project's management, resulting "in excessive spending of taxpayer funds" and state and local violations.
A second part of the state agency's investigation regarded the district's disposal of surplus furniture, and State Inspector General Brian Lamkin determined the district failed to adhere to its own procurement code in the storage and disposal of this inventory resulting "in wasteful spending of taxpayer funds totaling $42,000."
Other violations of state law and findings are included in the report. Lamkin's investigation did not identify criminal activity or indication of fraudulent activity during the probe, the report said.
By Bruce Mills, The Sumter Item | Read more
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Two lawsuits name mayor, spouse and Town of Ninety Six
Two lawsuits filed the same day against the Town of Ninety Six and members of its leadership allege misconduct, defamation and violations of state law, raising questions about employment practices and internal operations within town government.
The complaints, filed March 31 in Greenwood County Court of Common Pleas, involve current town employee Amanda Seymour and her husband, former town employee Brian Sill.
In the first case, the plaintiff, identified in court documents as Amanda Seymour, also known as Amanda Sill, has served as acting town clerk since July 2024.
The suit alleges that while she was working full-time, 40 hours per week, she did not receive full-time pay or benefits.
By Renee Ortiz, Index-Journal | Read more
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Social traffic kinda stinks for news publishers now, in 3 charts
A lot of the discussion of news publishers’ traffic in recent months has focused on a decline in search traffic.
But social traffic is down, too. Last week, when I was analyzing how links hurt publishers on Twitter, I asked analytics platform Chartbeat for data on how Twitter referral traffic has changed.
The decline is stark. Global Chartbeat clients’ traffic from Twitter has fallen by 70% since 2022 when Elon Musk acquired the platform.
But it’s not just Twitter. Facebook traffic has declined steeply, too.
Users are also spending less time on publishers’ sites after they click through from Facebook or Twitter.
By Laura Hazard Owen, Neiman Lab | Read more
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By John Foust, Advertising Trainer
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| Use the billboard effect for better ads
A quick study of billboards can give us a better understanding of what works best in advertising. Because motorists are on the move, billboards have just a few seconds to be seen and read. It’s the same with printed pages and digital screens – readers have only a moment to notice an ad, as they pass. That’s why the best messages have a “billboard effect.” They stand out at a glance.
One of the best billboards I’ve seen was on Interstate 95 in South Carolina. Beside the bridge over Lake Marion, there was a large sign featuring an illustration of a striped bass which stretched nearly from border-to-border, big as a whale. The picture appeared against a clean background, with the headline, “Not quite actual size.” The Santee Cooper logo was at the bottom.
Santee Cooper is the state-owned electric and water utility which provides hydroelectric power from the Santee and Cooper rivers. The company created Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie, which are well-known for fishing and outdoor recreation. Their sign beside I-95 was nearly impossible to miss. Read more
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