The South Carolina Hall of Fame Presentation to the Myrtle Beach City Council September 22, 2026 episode 59

I want to thank you first for allowing me to continue to serve on the Hall of Fame board, which y'all have done.

When I first got elected to city council, it was the one thing that I asked to be on.

And when I left, the one thing I asked to stay on.

So I've appreciated you folks allowing me to do that because this was an organization that I have been in love with since I was a small child.

My mother was the drama high school teacher the sponsor of all that.

And back then, Myrtle Beach High School didn't have a stage, so they had to do all the productions at the convention center.

And it was a small town, and I had free run of the place.

And I would go upstairs and hit those buttons and get Walter Cronkite to open the deal.

So that's probably where my interest in history began.

And one of the things I kind of am here to talk about was, you know, just kind of give you all an update of where we're going.

And what we've done over the last couple years, we've had a really good event about two years ago now where we inducted Joe Frazier, Rudy Manke, who was the SCTV biologist, and Francis Salvador were into the Hall of Fame.

We had a packed house there.

Former Mayor Bethune came and spoke, and we had a really good event, and I thought we had a lot of momentum kind of growing to kind of revitalize the Hall of Fame.

We were going to go back to do another induction ceremony, and kind of the way the things worked out, there was a change in the leadership over at the Chamber of Commerce.

Mrs. Reardon left, and that that happened rather suddenly, and so the priorities changed for a little while.

I finally got in to see Mr. Conner briefly, and I thought things were going to change then, and then, of course, they had another change, and I met with Matt Provarnak, the gentleman that's there now, and then, as some of you know, got ill at the beginning of this year and that this plan that I'm talking to you now was slowed down by that so that's let me apologize for that right up front but um the things that I've been asking y'all to do the first steps in the plan that I put together and I think I emailed all of you one is to try to get a display back up at the Convention Center now we've got the the video and the TVs there but I would love to have something nothing like what had been there before that was so huge downstairs, but perhaps utilizing that hall where the TV set is and down that cuts across and you got the walkway over to the spiral stairway.

I want to thank you first for allowing me to continue to serve on the Hall of Fame board, which y'all have done.

When I first got elected to city council, it was the one thing that I asked to be on.

And when I left, the one thing I asked to stay on.

So I've appreciated you folks allowing me to do that because this was an organization that I have been in love with since I was a small child.

My mother was the drama high school teacher the sponsor of all that.

And back then, Myrtle Beach High School didn't have a stage, so they had to do all the productions at the convention center.

And it was a small town, and I had free run of the place.

And I would go upstairs and hit those buttons and get Walter Cronkite to open the deal.

So that's probably where my interest in history began.

And one of the things I kind of am here to talk about was, you know, just kind of give you all an update of where we're going.

And what we've done over the last couple years, we've had a really good event about two years ago now where we inducted Joe Frazier, Rudy Manke, who was the SCTV biologist, and Francis Salvador were into the Hall of Fame.

We had a packed house there.

Former Mayor Bethune came and spoke, and we had a really good event, and I thought we had a lot of momentum kind of growing to kind of revitalize the Hall of Fame.

We were going to go back to do another induction ceremony, and kind of the way the things worked out, there was a change in the leadership over at the Chamber of Commerce.

Mrs. Reardon left, and that that happened rather suddenly, and so the priorities changed for a little while.

I finally got in to see Mr. Conner briefly, and I thought things were going to change then, and then, of course, they had another change, and I met with Matt Provarnak, the gentleman that's there now, and then, as some of you know, got ill at the beginning of this year and that this plan that I'm talking to you now was slowed down by that so that's let me apologize for that right up front but um the things that I've been asking y'all to do the first steps in the plan that I put together and I think I emailed all of you one is to try to get a display back up at the Convention Center now we've got the the video and the TVs there but I would love to have something nothing like what had been there before that was so huge downstairs, but perhaps utilizing that hall where the TV set is and down that cuts across and you got the walkway over to the spiral stairway.