Tag: Governor McMaster

$71 million nursing home for SC veterans opening in Sumter

Facility is less than 10 miles from Shaw Air Force Base

BY: SHAUN CHORNOBROFF – originally posted 1/17/2025 in the South Carolina Daily Gazette 

SUMTER — The sixth veterans’ nursing home in this military-friendly state officially opened Friday less than 10 miles from Shaw Air Force Base.

The $71.5 million, 125,000 square-foot facility offers veterans low-cost care complete with a barbershop and salon, community game rooms and large public and private courtyards.

“This is the crown jewel of our dedication to our community and to our veterans in our community,” House Speaker Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, said at the ceremony. “I look forward to this facility being here for years to come.”

South Carolina is home to more than 68,000 active-duty and reserve military members, 400,000 veterans and eight military bases.

“There is still sort of this rebel spirit in the heart of the South Carolinian. Military folks, that sort of draws us into the profession,” said Sen. Jeff Zell, R-Sumter, who was stationed at Shaw for eight years before retiring with 20 years of service.

“We feel at home here,” said the freshman senator.

Shaw Air Force Base, located outside Sumter city limits, has been training pilots since World War II, opening six years before the Air Force was established as a separate military branch. Last September, Sumter was designated the state’s only World War II Heritage City.

More than 13% of Sumter County’s residents are veterans, according to census data, the highest percentage of South Carolina’s 46 counties.

Yet, Sumter wasn’t initially slated for a veterans’ nursing home.

When the state sought a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs grant in 2015 for additional nursing homes, the state was looking at opening a second one in Columbia.

Then Smith became chairman of the powerful budget-writing committee in 2019 and started publicly asking why the homes weren’t being located in other cities with military bases. The three existing nursing homes at the time — all at capacity — were located in Columbia, Walterboro and Anderson.

House Speaker Murrell Smith (center) shakes hands with Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs Todd McCaffrey as Lt. Governor Pamela Evette claps at a ribbon cutting ceremony for the state-run Patriot’s Village veterans’ nursing home on Friday, Jan. 17, 2025. (Photo by Shaun Chornobroff/SC Daily Gazette)

“I asked the question, ‘Why not Sumter?’” Smith, who became House speaker in 2022, told the crowd. “Why not put them in the military communities across the state?”

What had been planned for Columbia became Patriot’s Village near Shaw.

Zell said he was impressed by what he saw Friday.

“I didn’t realize the complexities of it,” he told the SC Daily Gazette. “This isn’t just a little building.”

The other two veterans nursing homes that opened ahead of Patriot’s Village are in Gaffney, home to Senate Finance Chairman Harvey Peeler, and Florence, home of his powerful predecessor, the late Sen. Hugh Leatherman.

Future facilities in Orangeburg and Horry counties are set for completion over the next several years, said Robert Hoskins, the deputy director of facilities management for the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs.

Gov. Henry McMaster is asking legislators to put an additional $20.6 million next fiscal year toward running the six veterans nursing homes.

The additional annual commitment would help ensure veterans are “well taken care of,” Lt. Gov. Pam Evette said Friday about the governor’s budget recommendations for 2025-26.

“I can hope you see our passion, not just in today, not just in what we’ve done, but our passion moving forward,” she said.

Veterans’ cost to live at Patriot’s Village is $68 a day, the same price as the locations in Florence and Gaffney. The three other facilities are priced at $45 a day, said Heyward Hilliard, the state’s director of veteran homes.

“It’s a great value,” he said.

All honorably discharged veterans who served full-time are eligible for the homes, Hilliard said.

The Sumter facility can accommodate up to 104 veterans and will have 130 full-time employees. Its amenities include areas for physical, occupational and speech therapies, dining areas, an on-site pharmacy and a pool hall.

Admissions are expected to begin in late February or early March.

However, one resident is already known.

Ernest Martin, an 82-year-old veteran, will be moving from the nursing home in Florence County to Patriot’s Village, so he can return to Sumter.

“Everything looks so modern, so good, so up to date,” Martin said. “It’s outstanding.”

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster and Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette visit Edgefield County following damage from Helene

Written by Graham Lee. Originally posted by WJBF Channel 6 on October 4, 2024.

EDGEFIELD, SC. (WJBF)- After visiting Aiken County earlier this week, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster back in the CSRA today. 

He joined Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette and several local leaders in Edgefield County. 

The governor says Aiken and Edgefield counties have more power outages than any other counties in the Palmetto State. 

53% of Edgefield residents are still without power—that number for Aiken is down to 32%. 

The last time South Carolina saw a storm of this magnitude was Hurricane Hugo 35 years ago…the governor says Helene’s impacts are far worse. 

McMaster says 1.3 million power customers were without power last Friday—he says that number has now dropped to 272,290. 

“It’s great progress, but we need to make more—particularly in Aiken and Edgefield counties,” the governor added. 

Senator Lindsey Graham paid a visit to Aiken County Thursday afternoon, where he promised county leaders that help from FEMA is on the way. 

McMaster said the same to county leaders in Edgefield, while also sharing the tremendous job communities are doing to support each other statewide.

“We’ve had the National Guard, the State Guard, troops helping, military, law enforcement—charities, churches, Salvation Army, Red Cross: everyone has been phenomenal,” McMaster said. “That is the South Carolina spirit that most people around the country never get to experience.”

He also told reporters that 18 counties around the state are now eligible for individual assistance through FEMA. 

Those counties include Aiken, Anderson, Bamberg, Barnwell, Cherokee, Edgefield, Greenwood, Greenville, Laurens, Lexington, McCormick, Pickens, Saluda, Spartanburg, Abbeville, Oconee, Richland and Union. 

The governor says with the help here and more on the way, patience is key.

“We’re going to fix this, and it’s going to get better. We ask people to have patience, as some places—including here—deep rebuilding is required. It’s going to take a little bit longer than some people think,” said McMaster. “But the companies are working hard to see that this is corrected, and that our people are safe and comfortable as quickly as possible.”

Lt. Gov. Evette joins McMaster as he signs bill to create Robert Smalls Monument

By Lauren Pierce: Originally posted on August 31, 2024 by UpsateToday.com

COLUMBIA — Gov. Henry McMaster and Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette were joined by other state leaders Thursday for a ceremonial bill signing of the Robert Smalls Monument — a tribute to a man who played a significant role in South Carolina’s history.

House Bill 5042 creates the Robert Smalls Commission, tasked with determining the design and location of a monument honoring Smalls on the South Carolina State House grounds.

“What we’re doing today with this man, Robert Smalls, is one more piece of important, crucial history that people need to know about,” McMaster said. “We have a fantastic history, and our history is what makes us — what we’ve been through, what we know, our land, our water, the geography, all of that is what makes us what we are.”

Smalls was a South Carolina statesman born into slavery in Beaufort in 1839. He escaped to freedom in 1862 by piloting a Confederate ship out of Charleston Harbor and delivering it to Union forces. In 1868, Smalls was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives and later to the South Carolina Senate. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1874, serving five terms. 

Smalls fought for several causes, authoring legislation that was the “first free and compulsory public education for South Carolina” and founding the South Carolina Republican Party, State Senator Gerald Malloy said.

Malloy likened the addition of the monument to adding a chapter to the “living museum around us” and on the grounds of the statehouse. 

“We are here today to commemorate the passage of the bill that was passed, that honors the remarkable life and legacy of a true hero, Robert Smalls, by establishing a monument in his name. … It’s the first time we have an African American man that goes up on the statehouse grounds, the first individual to go up there,” Malloy said. “And how deserving is he for this? Robert Smalls was a man whose courage, determination and unwavering commitment to freedom and justice had left an indelible mark on both our state and nation’s history. 

“By passing this bill … and authorizing this monument, we acknowledge the importance of preserving and sharing the stories of those who have fought for the ideals that define our beloved state,” he added. “It is through remembering our past, by learning from the past that together we can shape a better future. … It unanimously passed both bodies — 99 to zero in the House, 44 to zero in the Senate. I think that message of working together is one that would make Robert Smalls proud.”

State Rep. Jermaine Johnson pointed to the impact this monument will have for the younger generations.  

“This is a South Carolina that our young people deserve; they deserve this from us. In a few short years, we’re going to be able to sit under the gaze of not only a South Carolinian who’s a hero, but an American hero, an individual who fought for all of us, an individual who we all benefit from today,” Johnson said of the future Robert Smalls monument. “This individual will be somebody that we get to look at and say, You know what? Look at this amazing man, what he did for me.”

The bill passed the South Carolina Senate and House unanimously, something Johnson said surprised him when considering today’s political climate. 

“I was talking to my Democratic colleagues, (Rep. Brandon Co) was talking to his Republican colleagues, and we were ensuring that this piece of legislation would make it across the finish line,” Johnson said. “I don’t think in our wildest dreams that either one of us thought that this thing would be passed with not only just a unified, just a unanimous vote, not just on the House side, but also on the Senate side. If you know anything about politics, you know that doesn’t happen very often. A lot of times they use bills as leverage, and they want to hold things hostage … but this piece of legislation proved to be uniting.”

Monument process

The 11-member Robert Smalls Commission will report the proposed design and location of the monument to the State House Committee for approval by Jan. 15, 2025. McMaster’s office said the monument must be completed and dedicated by Jan. 15, 2028, at which time the commission will be dissolved. The final design must receive approval from the General Assembly by concurrent resolution. 

The legislation will direct the commission to raise private funds, gifts and grants to create the monument. The commission may establish a tax-exempt nonprofit to receive and disburse funds for the project.

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