Last Thursday, the building in the 300 block of Main Street in Bennettsville that was most recently the police station was flattened by workers from Furr Grading and Paving Company.  The building was constructed in the early 1960s as an A&P supermarket.  It had served as the police headquarters for most of the last two decades.  The police department relocated to the 15-401 by-pass over the summer.  The lot is to be cleared for a new Carolina Bank building to be constructed in the near future.  

Photo by Dan McNiel

Over the last two decades, when Marlboro County and Hartsville got together, the region title and the top seed in the playoffs would be hanging in the balance.
That is not the case this year but the contest is of grave importance to both teams.  For Marlboro County, their best hope of making the playoffs may rest on the outcome.
"This is an important game for us.  We have been showing improvement in a lot of areas but haven't put it all together," said MCHS head coach Bobby Collins.
Although there are at-large bids to the playoffs for some fifth-place teams in the lower state, those go to teams with the best overall record.  Currently the Bulldogs have a 1-5 record, so anything they can do to improve the resume would be huge.
The Bulldogs will be big underdogs against number one ranked Myrtle Beach and number three ranked Wilson.  While not impossible, Marlboro County will have to elevate their play significantly to upset either of those opponents.

Students at Bennettsville Intermediate School will soon learn skills that some college students haven’t been exposed to yet.
It will be in the school’s new STEM U iNoVaTe lab, which was unveiled Tuesday during a ribbon-cutting.
Various district, Board of Education and community members had a chance to see students demonstrate how the lab will connect the dots with science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
Christopher Williams, director of partnership development at STEM U, said STEM is all of those elements merged.
“We are problem-solving,” he said. “We are teaching our scholars (students) how to problem solve, how to think critically, how to go into the real world, into different challenges and to be innovative.”
The lab will be used by students with robotics, drones, and programming.
Williams noted very few schools in the state have a non-traditional learning environment like the one at BIS.

County council members unanimously approved a funding request to expand the MARTi service to the Wallace area at their meeting on Tuesday.
Council member Willie Gladden was absent from the meeting.
County Administrator Ron Munnerlyn said there has been a fair amount of success with the MARTi bus route.
“There is a need for it in the Wallace area,” he said.
To move in that direction, a proposal was made to expand there with the on-demand or the requested service so someone can call to schedule an appointment.
Munnerlyn said it will be a full bus but a smaller one.
“We hope this is a start of another route and maybe a connection to Chesterfield County,” he said.

McArthur Farms on Highway 38 is celebrating Bennettsville’s bicentennial by creating a corn maze featuring the city’s event logo.  The maze is spread out over 12 acres and has three different pathways to explore.  “We use GPS coordinates and cut out the design when the corn is 12 to 18 inches tall,” explains business owner Rebecca McArthur.  The maze will be open beginning this Saturday and remain in operation through the second weekend in November.  McArthur Farms will be hosting its annual Fall Harvest Festival on Saturday, October 19.
Photo submitted.