Dec. 28—I suppose 2024 is a year that we’d like to put in the rear-view mirror.
It was a presidential election year filled with rancor. We saw a sitting president not run for reelection, and we saw a former president survive an assassination attempt.
Locally, we saw some disturbing crime news involving prominent Aikenites. The Aiken Design Review Board made headlines late this year with decisions against local property owners in the historic district.
And, of course, the worst news came in late September when Tropical Storm Helene hit Aiken County. Multiple people died, and everyone was affected in some way through property damage, power/internet outages and general disruption to their lives.
But as we put together our annual list of the Aiken Standard’s top 10 stories of the year, I saw plenty of positive news.
There is a new deal in place to sell the old Aiken County Hospital building. There have been multiple efforts to sell the former county complex in recent years, but all fell through for one reason or another.
The city is making progress on two high-profile pieces of real estate. Construction on the mixed-use building on Newberry Street is expected to begin in the spring. Savannah National River Laboratory and USC Aiken are expected to lease space.
And Colliers is marketing Hotel Aiken and will work with potential developers. The goal is to find a historically-minded developer, perhaps turning it into apartments or a boutique hotel.
We gained a new superintendent for the Aiken County Public School District as Corey Murphy took over from King Laurence. He’s been joined by some new school board members who won seats in the election.
The 2024 election didn’t bring many surprises on the local level as voters returned many incumbents to office. New faces include Charlie Hartz, who won election to the S.C. House of Representatives, and Marty Sawyer will be the new sheriff after winning the GOP primary and the general election.
There were plenty of new businesses coming and some old ones going, but our economic development team landed a doozy in August.
Meta announced it had chosen Sage Mill Industrial Park for a data center, its first in South Carolina. The investment is estimated at more than $800 million, including 100 jobs.
On the sports front, Aiken County produced multiple state champions on the individual and team levels. Of those, Aiken High’s Eliza King was most impressive as she won the state title in the javelin throw for the fourth consecutive year.
Ordinarily the Aiken Standard chooses an individual for its person of the year, and we’ve had several noteworthy recipients in recent years.
But in the wake of Helene, we decided to honor multiple people for their work in getting Aiken County up and running again. These included municipal and county employees, a couple that leads the Salvation Army, and of course the men and women from the utility companies.
All of those folks were quick to deflect any praise, but please join me in thanking them for their hard work and dedication. In the days after the storm, I realized we had many good stories to tell as our community joined together.
I hope 2025 doesn’t bring us any surprise events like Helene. Hopefully we will see continued progress on many of the projects mentioned above, and our community will continue to thrive and be a special place to live, work and play.
Happy New Year!
Thanks for reading.
