July 18
2019: Beaufort’s Mike Rainey, dealing with a damaged propeller, makes an emergency landing on the 18th fairway of the Cat Island Golf Course in his vintage 1943 De Haviland Tiger Moth biplane.
2020: After the annual concert on the sandbar in the Beaufort River that usually coincides with the Beaufort Water Festival was canceled because of COVID-19, dozens of boaters hold an impromptu gathering at the sandbar anyway.
July 21
2008: Beaufort Mayor Bill Rauch resigns with less than four months left in his administration after being charged the previous week by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with insider trading. Mayor Pro Tempore George H. O’Kelley Jr. presides over the Beaufort City Council and holds the office on an interim basis until November.
2019: Erin “Tank” Morris is named the 65th commodore at the close of the 64th Beaufort Water Festival. Morris took the reins from Brian Patrick.
— Compiled by Mike McCombs
