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By Valerie Sliker, courtesy Wagener Monthly

Former Wagener-Salley High School (WSHS) graduates Richie Bailey, Jamie Poole and Oscar Rushton are excited about continuing the welding programs at Swansea High School (SHS), WSHS and South Aiken High School (SAHS) for the 2016/17 school year.  The three instructors intentionally collaborate to ensure their programs run closely together. They put in a lot of time together working out different processes, project based learning (PBL) curriculum and pacing guides for how the years are going to flow.  While the students don’t actually cross-participate, the instructors pace curriculum so they can turn to each other for problem solving, as well as recommendations.

Statistics show that the trade workforce is diminishing and people aren’t available to fill these jobs because they’ve been encouraged to get a college degree instead of developing a skill.  Far too many students are graduating college with too much debt and a scarcity of jobs available.  Career and Technology classes are making a come-back and proving to support the jobs that become the backbone of America. 

High school welding students are graduating with the knowledge of an entry level welder, not requiring further education to grab a job.  WSHS Welding Instructor Richie Bailey encourages his students to attend Aiken Tech for welding or industrial maintenance, free with the Life or Hope scholarship, and about 70% did last year.  However, he adds, “Kids need to understand that you can be successful with a trade.  You can make a lot of money in the service industry.  The sky is the limit.  If you have the desire and the work ethic, you can be successful without the four-year college.”

By Valerie Sliker, courtesy Wagener Monthly

Feb. 8, 2018

The building that housed CE Tyler’s Red & White grocery, one of South Carolina’s first and last Red & White stores, is in the process of being repurposed.  Closed in the Summer of 2001, the store located next to Blizzard’s Funeral Home on Main Street, has remained empty and under the ownership of Charlie Tyler and LeMyra (Tyler) Young for fifteen years. 

“We never felt good about selling the store until now,” Charlie Tyler, son of the building’s proprietor, told me recently as he and his wife Ann talked with me in their home in the room that formerly was a covered porch where his grandmother would sit and collect greetings from Wagener residents as they did their weekly grocery shopping across the yard.

“The store was like our living room and this house was like our living room; didn’t matter, you were home either place.”  Charlie’s grandparents spent much of their time on the sun porch.  They could sit and watch the people come and go and wave to the people who were calling out, “Hey Ms. Myra!”

“We live so close to the building and we will have to live closely with whatever goes on over there,” Tyler explained.  After fifteen years standing empty, the sixty-year-old building that housed a ninety-seven-year-old store has been sold to its neighbor, Blizzard’s Funeral Home.  “Wilson’s (Blizzard) daddy was in the store every day.  He would either sit with my mother in the office or go back in the meat department with daddy and talk.  We have a long standing relationship with the Blizzards.  We’re like family.  When Wilson called about purchasing the building, I didn’t have to hesitate.  I feel like this is a perfect thing to happen to this piece of property.  It’s been a blessing and an answer to prayer.”