Thank you for sharing the spirit of Beaufort
The undersigned are the current presidents of Beaufort’s three Rotary clubs. On behalf of all Beaufort Rotarians, we thank Mike McCombs, The Island News editor, for his reporting of a historic event – the July 16 Beaufort joint-Rotary meeting at which we, together with Mayor Pro Tem Mike McFee, had a video conference with officials from Beaufort’s twin city Ostroh, Ukraine.
Readers might recall the initiative began in 2022, when local residents raised more than $130,000 for humanitarian assistance to Ostroh, a city in western Ukraine selected because it is of similar size as Beaufort. Like Beaufort, it has a local university and a long history. The call was to get an update and see how Beaufort could further assist.
Mike did an outstanding job in capturing the event and sharing it with The Island News readers. He was assisted by photographer Amber Hewitt.
We thank Mike, Amber, and The Island News for sharing the spirit of Beaufort with its readers.
Sincerely,
— Ron Garrett, President, Beaufort Rotary
— Janie Ephland, President, Sea Island Rotary
— Scott Shipsey, President, Low Country Rotary
The myth of perpetual growth
On re-reading Richard Preston’s 1994 book “The Hot Zone, about an Ebola scare very near Washington D.C. in Maryland, a sort of metaphor arose. Fact is we destroy Earth’s forests and jungles and wilderness disappears — and ancient viruses there and in melting permafrost seek new homes, jumping to the humans, consuming their prior dwellings. (Now, with a less reliable CDC and a federal agency denying vaccines’ value, this book is scarier still.)
Likewise, I see the rampant unfettered development around us, most especially in rising-seas, Lowcountry South Carolina where I live — -as open to the sickness and disease of too much in too little space.
Sustainable ecological integrity is incompatible with the infinite growth paradigm. And I think all the good folks in Beaufort County who raised their voices in protest against the now-defeated Pine Island golf course community were feeling that we here locally and in the state, region country and world are on a suicidal path if we believe in that economic growth myth.
So thank your local politician and neighbor if they are agreeing with you; lobby those who are not. Hurricanes permitting, I am not leaving anytime soon.
— Timothy Dodds, Lady’s Island
