VOL. 118, NO. 302 WWW.THEITEM.COM | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2013 | SUMTER, SOUTH CAROLINA | FOUNDED OCTOBER 15, 1894 60 CENTS
STILL IN THE GAME
VA chief: Shutdown may slam veterans
Sumter’s Witherspoon finds new home in Seattle B1
Disability payments could be stopped
CCTC expanding health care job training in 2014 BY BRADEN BUNCH bbunch@theitem.com Central Carolina Technical College has finalized its plans to start offering four new health industryrelated certificate programs, beginning with the Fall 2014 semester. The four one-year certificate programs — Cardiac Care Technician,
Sterile Processing, Certified Nursing Assistant and Patient Care Technician — will HARDEE be incorporated into its facilities at the school’s Health Sciences Center on South Main Street, further utilizing the simulator labs
located at the downtown campus. “We have many students that come to us in need of what we would call entry-level certificates,” said Dr. Tim Hardee, president of Central Carolina. “Basically, these are entry-level positions that we identified through our four-county area that there was a need for those
BY KEVIN FREKING The Associated Press
types of workers.” Several of the courses in these programs will also be available online, Hardee said. The new certificate programs — along with the $3.4 million federal grant awarded to Central Carolina to pay for the expansion — were announced at a
WASHINGTON — About 3.8 million veterans will not receive disability compensation next month if the partial government shutdown continues into late October, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki told lawmakers Wednesday. Some 315,000 veterans and 202,000 surviving spouses and dependents will see pension payments stopped. While the local Veterans Affairs office is not yet feeling the impact of the partial government shutdown, its clients are. “What we do here is file the initial
SEE CCTC, PAGE A10
SEE VETERANS, PAGE A10
SHAW’S 1ST SHUT UP AND COLOR RUN 5K
SENIOR AIRMAN TABATHA ZARRELLA / SPECIAL TO THE ITEM
About 250 participants of the 20th Force Support Squadron’s first Shut Up and Color Run 5K join in a “color explosion,” throwing different-colored powders into the air, at Shaw Air Force Base on Saturday. Read more about the event and see more photos on page A4.
Saturday event aims to bring neighbors together BY BRISTOW MARCHANT bmarchant@theitem.com One of the secrets to living in a safe, clean community shouldn’t be that hard to figure out: Know your neighbors. When you can put a face to a name and talk about common problems facing the neighborhood, everyone can work together to solve them. On Saturday, several of Sumter County’s nearly 50 neighborhood associations are holding events for a community-wide celebration, culminating in an event at South Sumter Park between noon and 4 p.m. The event will feature live music and events for kids, including a bouncy house and face painting. “We want it to be almost like a family day,” said Senthia Conyers, president of Fuller Gardens Neighborhood Association, one of several associations taking part in the South Sumter event. The event will be open to the pub-
20 N. Magnolia St. Sumter, SC 29150 (USPS 525-900)
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Interested in forming a neighborhood group? BY BRISTOW MARCHANT bmarchant@theitem.com ITEM FILE PHOTO
Members of the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office display a Neighborhood Crime Watch sign in August 2010 at Misty Ridge Apartments. Several county neighborhood associations will participate in a community-wide celebration Saturday, culminating in a “family day” event at South Sumter Park between noon and 4 p.m.
lic, encouraging others to get involved in their communities even if they are not currently members of a neighborhood association.
With several Sumter County neighborhood associations coming together this Saturday to hold community events, locals who don’t currently belong to a neighborhood group, and may not even live in an area covered by one, might be wondering what an organized neighborhood group can do for them and how one can be set up. Almost 50 different neighborhoods, both inside the city of Sumter and in Sumter County, have neighborhood associations
that act as lookouts for criminal activity in the area, organize neighborhood clean-up drives, and plan ways to help improve their community. While law enforcement provides resources to neighborhood groups to get organized, the impetus always has to come first and foremost from neighbors themselves. “Once they talk to their neighbors and get enough interest from a core group, we’ll come out and give them some information,” said Lt. Don Florence with the Crime SEE FORM A GROUP, PAGE A5
SEE NEIGHBORS, PAGE A5
DEATHS Willie Canty Jr. Lillie Mae June Esther L. Reynolds Willie J. Ragin Jr. Willie M. Hodge Fred K. Seebeck
Johnnie Garris Gloria G. Greene Bobbie Williams William E. Reynolds B4, B5
OUTSIDE CLOUDS ROLL IN Mostly cloudy today; partly cloudy tonight HIGH: 74 LOW: 54 A10
INSIDE 2 SECTIONS, 18 PAGES
Classifieds Comics Daily Planner Opinion Television
B6 B7 A10 A9 A8