Mortgage Broker in St. Andrews, SC

Conway, S.C. – John Ojiako tallied a season-high 20 points to lead six players in double figures as Coastal Carolina registered a 110-46 win over outmatched St. Andrews University in a non-conference game Monday night at the HTC Center.

Ojiako, the Chants' 6'10" graduate, enjoyed a height advantage, and made the most of it. He had six dunks on the night and collected his fourth consecutive double-double, as the big man from Nigeria also had 12 rebounds. Jacob Meyer added 19 points and Kylan Blackmon had 15, while Ian Granja, Jimmy Nichols and Miroslav Stafl came off the bench to get 12, 11 and 10 points, respectively.

Other reserves also got a chance to shine, as 6'11" freshman Braeden MacVicar and junior guard Joey Kahn got their first points of the season. MacVicar had nine points and three blocked shots, while Kahn had six points, a steal and an assist.

Coastal trailed only momentarily in the early-going before pulling away to a 66-point cushion in the final minute, at 110-44 to run their record to 3-5.

"This is a wonderful gift," said Coastal head coach Cliff Ellis on the eve of his birthday. "I'm proud of our team. They took care of business and never looked back. We got to play the last 13 minutes with our reserves, and I told them, 'This is your opportunity to shine.' "I think it will be January before this team peaks, but you can see there is talent there.

And shine they did!

The outcome was only in doubt for four minutes, when St. Andrews held an 11-8 lead. From there, however, Coastal unleashed a scoring barrage that took the strength out of the Knights' armor. Ojiako led a 23-1 onslaught over the next seven minutes, giving CCU an insurmountable 31-12 advantage with still eight minutes left in the first half.

Nichols punctuated an 8-0 run near the end of the first half, giving Coastal a 52-23 lead at the break. When the dust settled on the first stanza, Ojiako already had 14 points and 10 rebounds, with five dunks. Meyer took the outside route to get his 14 points in the half, hitting 4-of-8 three-point attempts. Blackmon added 10 points, with a couple of buckets from long range.

Coastal stays at home to host Wofford at 2 p.m. ET Saturday, and then has home contest against North Carolina A&T and Troy before the end of the calendar year. The Chanticleers will play NC A&T at 7 p.m. ET Dec. 21 and Troy at 2 p.m. ET on Dec. 30.

For complete coverage of CCU men's basketball, follow the Chants on social media @CoastalMBB (Twitter), facebook.com/CCUChanticleers (Facebook), @GoCCUSports (Instagram) or visit the official home of Coastal Carolina Athletics at goccusports.com.

Stephen Thomas, the principal of St. Andrew's School of Math and Science in the Charleston County School District, has been selected to participate in Curriculum Associates' Extraordinary Educators Leadership Collaborative. (KEH Communications)

CHARLESTON COUNTY, S.C. (WCIV) — Stephen Thomas, the principal of St. Andrew's School of Math and Science in the Charleston County School District (CCSD), has been selected to participate in Curriculum Associates' Extraordinary Educators Leadership Collaborative.

According to a press release, Thomas is among 16 principals nationwide and the only from South Carolina selected for the program.

Read more: CCSD announces new principals at Laurel Hill Primary, Montessori Community School

All of the principals participating been in their current role for three or less years, according to the press release. They additionally have experience using i-Ready and / or Ready for two or more years, lead staff who illustrate growth and achievement via formal assessments, demonstrate schoolwide innovation and engagement practices for students, are evangelists for high standards and student achievement, champion equity, and are eager to grow as leaders.

Throughout the year, the class of principals will participate in a flipped classroom design, where they will learn, meet, and collaborate virtually in small groups around important leadership topics. This includes discussions around building school culture, using data to accelerate student learning, forming learning partnerships, cultivating joy and connection, engaging in self-care, building community, celebrating teacher, and student success, and more.

The press release says the principals in the collaborative will also be invited to participate and present at the Extraordinary Educators Leadership Summit as well as other professional learning events.

Read more: Stephanie Mitchell named new principal for Matilda F. Dunston Elementary School

"A major focus of the Extraordinary Educators Leadership Collaborative is giving leaders time and space for connecting as well as collaborating with each other on the importance of building positive school cultures," said Danielle Sullivan, national director of content and implementation at Curriculum Associates, in a statement.

"We look forward to working with this stellar group of highly motivated and highly passionate educators as they progress in their profession and learn new ways to further serve their school communities," she continued in her statement. "And we look forward to celebrating their successes along the way."

Intersections for two of the busier roads in the Columbia area will temporarily be closed as CSX makes repairs to railroad crossings, officials said.

The train track maintenance began Monday, according to Lexington County officials. And next week, the closures are scheduled to affect the Harbison Boulevard and Lake Murray Boulevard intersections with St. Andrews Road, where there are railroad crossings.

Work on the railroad crossing at the Harbison Boulevard intersection will begin Feb. 5, and proceed to the Lake Murray Boulevard crossing the following day, a Southern Commercial Development official said.

The closures are expected to last at least three days, and could take up to five days before the roads are reopened at the crossings.

The Harbison Boulevard/St. Andrews Road intersection is in Columbia, while less than 2 miles away the Lake Murray Boulevard/St. Andrews Road intersection is in Irmo.

Harbison Boulevard is a popular shopping district in Columbia, densely packed with retail stores and restaurants. Sandwiched between Harbison Boulevard and Lake Murray Boulevard, where there are also many businesses and restaurants, is Columbiana Centre, one of the largest and most popular shopping malls in the Midlands.

More than 17,000 cars per day travel down Harbison Boulevard, while about 26,000 will drive on Lake Murray Boulevard, near the intersections with St. Andrews Road, according to South Carolina Department of Transportation traffic data.

CSX is making the repairs to railroad tracks in Lexington, Richland and Newberry counties, officials said. Several other intersections have already been closed, or will be blocked as work begins on the train tracks.

For the railroad crossings that are one-way in/out with residents behind them, CSX will work to have the repairs completed in 12 hours, Lexington County officials said.

All maintenance and repairs are expected to be finished by March 8, according to Lexington County officials.

To complete these repairs, a total closure of the railroad crossings is required, officials said. A total closure means that no traffic will be allowed to cross the track until the work is complete, while signs and detours will be implemented to reroute traffic around the closures.

All work dates are subject to change, and drivers should anticipate extended travel times and delays.

“Please avoid the closure areas if at all possible,” Lexington County officials said.

In a breaking news situation, facts can be unclear and the situation may still be developing. The State is trying to get important information to the public as quickly and accurately as possible. This story will be updated as more information becomes available, and some information in this story may change as the facts become clearer. Refresh this page later for more updated information.

For nearly two decades, Midlands residents have delighted in the cookies, biscuits and other treats that have come out of the ovens at Blue Flour Bakery in Irmo.

But soon those ovens will be turned off for the final time.

Blue Flour owner Teri Pringle recently announced she will close the bakery, located at 7703 St. Andrews Road in Irmo, after 17 years in business. It will be open two days next week for its finale, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, May 11 and Friday, May 12.

Pringle said customers can begin making online cookie pre-orders for those final days at 6 p.m. Friday, May 5, at blueflour.com. There also will be a limited amount of cookies available for walk-in customers on May 11 and May 12, and they will be sold on a first come, first served basis.

While Blue Flour has made its mark on the Midlands culinary scene for the better part of two decades, Pringle said the time was simply right to retire the Irmo bakery.

“I just want to spend more time with friends and family,” she told The State. “I’ve got two girls in grad school, so this gives me more time to go travel and visit with them.”

Aside from the Irmo shop, there also once was a Blue Flour location on Main Street in Columbia. It was open from 2016 until fall 2020.

Before going into the bakery business, Pringle had a career in the hotel and hospitality industry. She worked for the Marriott corporation and the Hilton corporation, working in roles in catering and as a director of sales. She was later able to meld those business capabilities with her personal love of baking.

“I had a lot of background in marketing, branding and food and beverage,” she said. “Baking, I just did it for fun. It wasn’t something I went to school for. But, it seemed to all work out.”

Anyone who has ever had one of Blue Flour’s sweet, decadent cookies can confirm it did, indeed, work out. The cookies are, frankly, massive, with Pringle confirming that some of the cookies weighed in at nearly a half-pound each.

Customer loyalty has been a key to Blue Flour’s popularity through the years, Pringle said. She has seen generations of folks come through the Irmo shop’s doors.

“They are the ones who have made us successful,” Pringle said. “For all those years, the same people kept coming in. We have seen people who have been pregnant and their families come in and now their kids are 10, 12, 15. It’s like ‘Oh, my goodness.’ I think that’s the hardest thing to leave. It’s the customers that come in daily. It’s not so much that I’ll miss the actual baking part. It’s the seeing our customers every day.”

While it is exiting the Midlands scene, the Blue Flour name will live on in another part of the country. Pringle’s brother, Brian Florczyk, plans to use the name and offer baked goods at farmers’ markets in the Syracuse, New York, area.

Pringle admits there is a mix of feelings as she prepares to close the doors at Blue Flour.

“It’s always hard to close something you worked so hard to create,” Pringle said. “That’s the hard part of it. That, and missing the customers. But the great part, that I’m super excited about, is to enjoy some time doing what I’d like to do. As a bakery, we are working the holidays, we are working seven days a week. So it will be nice to wind down, do some projects at home. So, it’s like the whole bittersweet thing.”

GREENVILLE, S.C. (FOX Carolina/AP) - 28 Upstate churches are set to leave the denomination at the end of June after their separation from the United Methodist Church (UMC) was approved over disputes about LGBTQ+ issues.

The Upstate locations are among a total of 113 across South Carolina whose members voted to separate from UMC’s 2023 South Carolina Annual Conference, which “overwhelmingly approved the closure” of the churches, according to a news release from the conference.

Conservative leaders within the United Methodist Church unveiled plans Monday to form a new denomination, the Global Methodist Church, with a doctrine that does not recognize same-sex marriage.

These churches, having completed the Local Church Discernment Process, determined that they can no longer function as a United Methodist church because they firmly believe that the denomination has not consistently upheld its stated doctrine on issues of human sexuality. The UMC Book of Discipline prohibits performing same-gender weddings and the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals.”

The move could hasten the long-expected breakup of the UMC over differing approaches to LGBTQ inclusion. For now, the UMC is the largest mainline Protestant church in the U.S. and second only to the Southern Baptist Convention, an evangelical denomination, among all U.S. Protestant churches.

“We pray for these churches that have chosen a different journey,” Bishop L. Jonathan Holston said after the vote. “May we also acknowledge that that which binds us will never leave us. In the midst of our separation, may we show each other the grace and love that you demonstrated through your sacrifice on the cross and your resurrection from the grave.”

Here’s a list of all the SC churches set to close effective June 30, 2023:

Anderson District

Charleston District

Columbia District

Florence District

Greenville District

Greenwood District

Hartsville District

Marion District

Orangeburg District

Rock Hill District

Spartanburg District

Walterboro District

MORE NEWS: Officials explain ‘loud boom’ heard in part of Upstate

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