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Police: 2 students bring guns to Battery Creek High By Delayna Earley The Island News Two students have been charged after allegedly bringing guns to a Beaufort County school on Wednesday, March 12. Battery Creek High School was under lockdown for several hours after the first gun was found on a student around 11:30 a.m., according to the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
The student was searched by police after they received an anonymous tip regarding possible suspicious activity, and information from the first student led police to interrogate a second Battery Creek student, who was found with a handgun roughly an hour after the lockdown started. As both students are minors, their names are not being released by police, but they have both been
petitioned to family court on felony charges of possessing a firearm on school property. The lockdown was lifted by officials around 3:15 p.m. and all afterschool activities were canceled for the day according to the communication sent to parents from the Beaufort County School District (BCSD). No additional information has been released as to why the stu-
dents had the guns at the school, but the communication sent to parents said that “there was no direct threat made to students or staff.” Out of an abundance of caution, there was an increased police presence at the school for the remainder of the week, according to BCSD spokesperson Candace Bruder. Not only do the two students
face criminal charges, but as per district policy, any student found in possession of a firearm on campus is put up for expulsion said Bruder. Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
Will Beaufort schools be affected by USDA budget cuts?
Beaufort City Councilman Neil Lipsitz stands with host Drew Carey during a taping of the game show The Price is Right on Dec. 4, 2024, in this screenshot from the episode which aired on March 24, 2025. Screenshot from The Price Is Right
Come on down! Beaufort City Councilman appears on The Price Is Right
By Delayna Earley The Island News A dream more than 30 years in the making was finally fulfilled for Beaufort City Councilman Neil Lipsitz in December, but the evidence finally aired on TV this week. After 17 failed attempts to get onto the show The Price is Right, Lipsitz was finally selected to be on the show as a contestant, a dream that has been on his “personal bucket list” for a quite some time. Lipsitz said he has been going to tapings of the show for about 35 years hoping to get picked, and in Beaufort City Councilman Neil 2024, he was selected to participate Lipsitz, left, sits with his sister, Judy on the December 4 taping of the Thornberry, right, during the Dec. 4, show. 2024, taping of The Price is Right. That episode aired on Monday, Lipsitz was selected to participate in March 24. Lipsitz was there with his sister, the episode which aired on March 24, Judy Thornberry. Though she has 2025. Photo courtesy of Neil Lipsitz not traveled with him to every taping, she has been there to support to a casting session, though. “She has no desire to go,” Lipsitz him along the way. His wife has never gone with him said about why his wife has not gone
with him. “She is just glad I got it out of my system.” After Lipsitz was selected in December, they attended one more casting call for the show to see if his sister would get selected, which she was not. “I’ve always loved game shows,” Lipsitz said. “The first time I went, I camped out overnight just to get in there. Now they tell you where to sit, but back then it was a free-forall. Wherever you got was where you sat. I sat towards the front and Bob Barker talked to me quite a bit during the show.” Lipsitz said that they look for someone who has an abundance of energy, so before he went to his casting, he drank several cups of black coffee, which he said is a lot for him. He is not typically a coffee drinker. While in his audition, he said the casting directors kept trying to get
By Delayna Earley The Island News The Trump administration has made moves to cut more than $1 billion in programs aimed at helping schools and food banks to buy fresh food and meat in early March, which has left many across the country asking about how this is going to impact them locally. The cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) primarily affect two programs for this fiscal year – the Local Food for Schools and Child Care Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS), which helped to get goods from the local ranchers, farmers and fishers into schools, and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA) which focused on providing food to food banks from small farmers within 400 miles. In Beaufort County, students district-wide began receiving meals at no charge during this school year thanks to the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) which is funded by the USDA. Each year a district policy requires the district to analyze the calculations of the CEP to see if any of the schools are eligible, according to Tonya Crosby, the chief financial officer for BCSD, and this year all Beaufort County schools were eligible for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. According to BCSD spokesperson Candace Bruder, the South Carolina Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS) will be impacted by these cuts, but while Beaufort County does receive funding from that program, they are not dependent on them to provide meals to students. “We received approximately $500,000 in each of the last two fiscal years for Supply Chain Assistance (SCA),” Bruder said. “No funds for this were received prior
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