Political newcomer Bridgette Frazier won a seat on the Bluffton Town Council in the Nov. 5 election. Frazier, 36, is a Hilton Head Island Middle School teacher and small business owner. She promised to focus on Bluffton’s changing identity, over-development, affordable housing, worker shortages and diversity. She is the daughter of Bluffton’s poet laureate, the late Oscar Frazier.
Bluffton News
A Monument to Honor
BLUFFTON BUILDING MEMORIAL TO VETERANS
Other towns across the United States have memorials to commemorate those who fought and who died for their country, but there is not one in the town of Bluffton.
That’s about to change.
Next year, Bluffton residents will be able to celebrate Veterans Day at a new memorial currently under construction at Buckwalter Place.
Bluffton enhances public information requirements
The town of Bluffton now requires a public notice sign at the site of each new development project at the beginning of the application process to enhance public notification about new projects. The signs are required to be erected within 15 days of submitting the completed development application. The signs will have a permit number that will correspond to the project on the town of Bluffton’s Permit Application Finder Map, where residents can track a specific project. For more information, go to www.townofbluffton.us/permit.
Bluffton to hold municipal election Nov. 5
Bluffton residents can cast their ballots on Nov. 5 for mayor and two Bluffton Town Council seats during the municipal general election Nov. 5. Those seats are currently held by Mayor Lisa Sulka and councilmembers Dan Wood and Harry Lutz. To vote, residents must be registered by Oct. 4. To check your voter registration status or verify your precinct or polling location, call 843-255-6900 or go to www.bcgov.net/vote.
‘Bluffton Song Bird’ earns top honors
Pressana Grant, known locally as “The Bluffton Song Bird,” has been inducted to the town of Bluffton’s Wall of Honor. Grant wowed audiences with her beautiful voice as a gospel singer. The Bluffton native said she had sung in every church on Hilton Head Island and many in Bluffton. She was a licensed Evangelical minister, a mother and a grandmother. She died in 2017 at age 61.
Bluffton First-Grader Wins National Handwriting Contest
Atticus Enfinger, a first-grader from Bluffton Elementary School, was the national grade-level champion in the 2019 Zaner-Bloser National Handwriting Contest. That means his print entry was the best among all first-grade entries from across the country. He was honored at a Beaufort County School District Board of Education meeting in May.
Bluffton to get a new fire station
Beaufort County Council has approved the construction of a new fire station and an emergency operations center for the Bluffton Township Fire District for a projected cost of nearly $3.5 million, according to the fire district. The buildings will be along Hampton Lake Road near the intersection of Bluffton and Hampton parkways on a three-acre property adjacent to River Ridge Academy, according to county documents. The fire station portion will be known as Station 38.
Intense rain relieves drought, causes damage
Intense rains in Beaufort County in June brought relief to a drought that had gripped the Lowcountry for weeks — but the storms did leave behind some chaos. Residents in Bluffton’s Belfair gated community dealt with a sinkhole the size of a school bus on Belfair Oaks Boulevard, and Hilton Head Plantation had to close its Cypress Gate entrance to take down two large oak trees uprooted by the rain and dangling precariously over Seabrook Drive. Bluffton’s 8.64 inches of rain in the 24-hour period from June 11-12 was the highest in the country.
Out and Proud
BLUFFTON TO HOST AREA’S FIRST PRIDE FESTIVAL
Ashley Mendez was 12 when she came out as gay to her closest friends and 16 when she broke the news to her family.
She figured being open about who she was would mean leaving her hometown of Bluffton as soon as possible, shoving off from conservative South Carolina in search of a more accepting community.
History Rings True
BLUFFTON’S CAMPBELL CHAPEL AME CHURCH EARNS SPOT ON NATIONAL REGISTER
Historic preservationist Carolyn Coppola had to search high and low to find one of the most significant physical clues to support the oral history of the old Campbell Chapel AME Church building in downtown Bluffton.
“I had an intern go up into the old belfry,” said Coppola, who led the effort to document the historic church’s past in a successful push for placement on the National Register of Historic Places. “He took pictures in the attic on his phone — on a hot summer day. We were all looking for clues. We found the yoke inscription and traced it to a company using that name for a short period of time.”
