By Scott Graber
On Dec. 23, 2024, Thomas Gaither died in Prospect, Penn. He was 86.
In 1961, Thomas Gaither was one of nine young men who decided to take their lunch at McCrory’s Department Store in downtown Rock Hill. In those days McCory’s only served white people and Gaither was asked to vacate his revolving stool.
He refused.
Thereafter Gaither was arrested and awarded a month in jail. Some will remember that Thomas Gaither chose to serve his 30 days in jail rather than seek bail.
A few Beaufort folk know that Thomas Gaither was the brother of Herman Gaither — who is very much alive — and recall Herman Gaither’s time as Superintendent of the Beaufort County School District.
Although it has been 30 years and multiple superintendents since Gaither’s time, I sat down with Gaither and we talked about his life.
“When I was growing up in Great Falls, I went to a one-room school where my mother was paid $50 (to teach) each month by the county. We used text books that had been previously used by the white students — they were battered and worn-out. In those days the school building was provided by a black church but there was no indoor plumbing.”
In 1960, Gaither matriculated at Claflin College at the same moment when Black students were trying to integrate a “white’s only” luncheon counter at Kresge’s in downtown Orangeburg, S.C.
“We would wait until 2 or 3 in the afternoon when the store was mostly empty, occupy several stools and wait for the manager to tell us we had to leave. Shortly thereafter, the Sheriff would arrive and detain everyone in a stockade,” he said.
“Later we went before the judge.”
Some years later the dime store protests moved to a bowling alley and a confrontation on Feb. 8, 1968. That night a rock was thrown and the Highway Patrol opened fire, killing three students.
Gaither arrived at Robert Smalls High School in 1970 when integration (of the public schools) had finally made its way to Beaufort County.
While Gaither was at Robert Smalls, he knew Beaufort’s black schools were falling apart.
“I had taught at Robert Smalls and knew 1/3rd of the windows were broken or missing.”
After being named Superintendent in 1994, he embarked on an effort to renovate and expand old schools and build additional schools that were desperately needed in the County. He knew that getting money from the General Assembly was unlikely, and so, working with District’s Chief Financial Officer, they devised a plan to borrow the needed money through the issuance of general obligation bonds without a property tax increase.
The millions needed to fund his capital school plan required a voter approved referendum as the needed dollars exceeded the state statute for borrowing.
For a referendum to be successful Gaither had to figure-out how much money was needed, when it was needed and how to spread out the bond issues to meet the lengthy construction schedule.
The bond issues and their debt payments were structured to factor in the growth of the mill — how much property values were increasing each year — so repayment would be within the limits of the additional revenue realized from the growth of the mill.
“We devised a plan where we would borrow, say $120,000,000 with interest-only payments for the first three years. We would spread out the remaining payments with a balloon at the very end,” Gaither said.
Gaither also insisted on a “construction manager” who was assigned to monitor the construction, making sure the work was on schedule and on budget. In addition to this person he formed an “oversight committee” to work with the construction manager and to report, to the School District, the good, bad and ugly events that usually flow from a project of this size.
Every year during construction, the District published an article in the Beaufort Gazette that outlined what was happening with the building project. In this manner he kept the public aware of what was happening with the millions of dollars being spent by the District.
Throughout his years as Superintendent Gaither repeatedly appeared before a County Council that was skeptical about whether Gaither could handle millions of dollars pouring into the District from the sale of bonds.
Before Council embarks on another “penny sales tax” referendum it might want to ask Herman Gaither how he raised $330,000,000 and rebuilt the schools.
Gaither also re-imagined the District’s curriculum, which will be discussed in another column.
Scott Graber is a lawyer, novelist, veteran columnist and longtime resident of Port Royal. He can be reached at cscottgraber@gmail.com.
