News briefs: Clover Middle school officer honored

Clover Middle school resource officer gets region honor

York County sheriff’s Master Deputy Ray Feaster has been named the South Carolina Association of School Resource Officers Upper Region SRO of the Year for 2015.

Feaster, who works at Clover Middle School, has been with the York County Sheriff’s Office for 23 years, with the past nine of those years as an SRO.

The award was presented at the SCASRO Convention in Myrtle Beach.

Feaster has received extensive training to instruct students on topics of Internet safety, bullying and drug and alcohol awareness. In addition, Feaster has good response to his Juvenile Jail Awareness presentations, which demonstrates to middle school students a way to make better decisions to become successful in life beyond high school.

In 2013, Feaster was recognized as the Clover Optimist Club’s Law Enforcement Officer of the Year, and has received several commendations during the years from the York County Sheriff’s Office for his work.

“Deputy Feaster is a great officer who goes above and beyond to have a positive impact on the students he interacts with during the school year, and he is a joy for everyone to work with,” said Sheriff Bruce Bryant.

Feaster was nominated by his supervisor and included letters from York County Sheriff’s Office Captains and Clover Middle School staff.

Nuclear station siren testing July 8

Catawba Nuclear Station will test sirens at 11:50 a.m. July 8.

The 89 sirens within 10 miles of the Catawba Nuclear Station will be tested for three minutes to make sure each siren works properly. This full-cycle siren test is performed once each quarter in cooperation with emergency officials in York, Gaston and Mecklenburg counties, who are responsible for sounding the sirens.

Hearing a siren does not mean to evacuate. In an emergency, sirens are sounded as a signal for residents to tune to a local radio or TV station that would carry an emergency alerting message.

For more information, visit duke-energy.com.

Library board meeting July 9

The York County Library Board of Trustees will meet at 5 p.m. July 9 at the York County Library, 138 E. Black St.

Library board meetings are held monthly and are open to the public. For more information, visit yclibrary.org or call 803-981-5831.

911 for emergencies only

York County Public Safety Communications is reminding residents that 911 is to be used for emergencies only, particularly during severe weather.

After severe weather, such as the recent storms, York County 911 dispatchers can be inundated with hundreds of phone calls, according to Ralph Merchant, operations manager. The dispatch center can bring on additional dispatchers for severe events, but typically has about six dispatchers fielding calls and dispatching responders for all fire and EMS calls in York County, the York County Sheriff’s Office and Tega Cay Police.

Merchant said people often call 911 after storms to report power outages, or to ask when the power will be restored.

“We don’t know,” he said. “The utility companies are the ones that might know because they’re the ones that are dealing with the situation.”

A power outage could become an emergency, Merchant said, if the caller requires the use of a medical machine and isn’t able to power it. He added that most medical machines are equipped with batteries in case of power outages, but that 911 should be called if the battery is running low and power hasn’t been restored.

Give blood July 9, get ice cream

The American Red Cross, WBTV-TV and Ben & Jerry’s invite donors to Give a Pint, Get a Pint on July 9 at several locations including 10 a.m.-7 p.m. at Ben & Jerry’s - Gastonia, 3908 E. Franklin Blvd., Gastonia.

All donors will receive free Ben & Jerry’s ice cream at the drive, a pint of ice cream to take home and a Red Cross gift.

For more information, visit redcrossblood.org or call 1-800-722-2767.

Give blood, get coffee

The Community Blood Center of the Carolinas is offering $5 Starbucks gift cards to donors July 1-8.

Student donors (16 years or older with an ID) who give blood at one of CBCC’s five donation centers between July 9-31 will receive a free movie ticket voucher.

For more information or to make an appointment, call 704-972-4700 or visit cbcc.us.

Agape to host dog show

Agape Senior will host its third anniversary celebration and annual dog show from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday, July 11 at Agape, 1020 N. Congress St., York.

Dog show registration will be from 9 to 9:30 a.m., and shot records are required.

Those who don’t have a dog are welcome to attend. Dog rescue groups from all over York County will attend to answer adoption questions,

Pelican’s Shaved Ice will attend to pass out snow cones for both two-legged and four-legged guests. There will be a drawing for a chance to win two tickets to the Lady Antebellum concert.

Council changes summer meeting schedule

York County Council is cutting its meeting schedule in half for the rest of the summer.

County Council will meet once in July and August, canceling its first scheduled meeting in each month. The council regularly shortens its meeting schedule after passing the county’s budget in June to accommodate members’ vacation schedules.

The next two meetings will be held July 20 and Aug. 17 at the York County Agricultural Building, 6 S. Congress St.

S.C. national parks visitor numbers up

A new National Park Service report shows that 1,519,746 visitors to national parks in South Carolina spent $81.1 million in the state in 2014. That spending resulted in 1,275 jobs and had a cumulative benefit to the state economy of $103.1 million.

The national parks sites in South Carolina are: Charles Pinckney National Historic Site, Congaree National Park, Cowpens National Battlefield, Fort Sumter National Monument, Kings Mountain National Military Park and Ninety Six National Historic Site.

The peer-reviewed visitor spending analysis was conducted by U.S. Geological Survey economists Catherine Cullinane Thomas and Christopher Huber and National Park Service economist Lynne Koontz. The report shows $15.7 billion of direct spending by 292.8 million park visitors occurred in communities within 60 miles of a national park. This spending supported 277,000 jobs nationally; 235,600 of those jobs are found in these gateway communities. The cumulative benefit to the U.S. economy was $29.7 billion.

According to the 2014 report, most park visitor spending was for lodging (30.6 percent) followed by food and beverages (20.3 percent), gas and oil (11.9 percent), admissions and fees (10.2 percent) and souvenirs and other expenses (9.9 percent).

Join summer reading programs

Summer reading programs have begun at all York County libraries with prizes and incentives for all ages.

With a superheroes theme, the four programs are: Tiny Tots for children ages 3 and younger, and their parent; Every Hero has a Story for children ages 3-11; Unmask for ages 12-17; and Escape the Ordinary for adults.

Free summer programs for children and families include weekly performances by puppeteers, theater groups and magicians. Free programs for teens include chess club, anime and gaming.

All summer reading programs are sponsored by the Friends of the York County Library. Register at yclibrary.org.

For more, visit nps.gov/Southcarolina.

Food service program continues through Aug. 14

The Summer Food Service Program will run through Aug. 14.

Meals will be provided to all children age 18 and younger without charge. The Summer Food Service Program has operated in York County for 33 years.

To locate a meal service site, call the Summer Feeding Office in Rock Hill at 803-909-7511.

This story was originally published July 2, 2015 at 2:36 PM with the headline "News briefs: Clover Middle school officer honored."