Drunken Jack's Gigi Roy accepts the SCHA's "Restaurant Manager of the Year" award,

By Tim Callahan
A temporary job until she got a teaching position has turned into a lifetime career for Gizelle “Gigi” Roy.
And, she is so good at what she does that she was recently named “Restaurant Manager of the Year” by the South Carolina Hospitality Association.
Roy is the dining room manager at Drunken Jack’s in Murrells Inlet. Her boss, David McMillan, was named restauranteur of the year a few years ago.
“The owners and the staff make my job easy,” she said. “It is a team effort.”
Roy moved to the area from New England in 1991with five girlfriends from college “to not do life for about six months, but none of the girls moved back. We all stayed.”
She majored in education at North Adams State College (Mass.) but she had a difficult time finding a teaching job. She had waited tables in high school and college so she took a job at a restaurant and began to love the beach lifestyle.
“I’m a night owl and I love to have my days free,” she said. “I’m not a typical 9-5 person so this kind of work fit. I start at 3, so I can go to the beach, stop at the bank and post office and run other errands all before I go to work.”
In the off-season, she is done by 10:30 p.m.; in-season by about 12:30 a.m. “It’s not like I go home, go to bed and have to go right back to work,” she said.
She was hired as a server at Drunken Jack’s in 1994 and became dining room manager in 2005.
She has the “gift of gab,” she said, which helps with this type of work, a work she enjoys but also takes seriously.
“I am always talking to employees about not getting complacent, not taking this for granted,” she said. “It’s like those young players who win a few Super Bowls and start to forget where they came from and think it is easy. I think Drunken Jack’s is the best restaurant on the beach and I want to help keep us there. So we have to rewind.
“I hate other people’s tragedies, like with the Dead Dog,” she said. “But, we could wake up someday and not be able to do this anymore. We have to count our blessings.”
Roy said she has an “open view of society. I would put the dishwashers’ hearts up against anyone’s. You have to look beyond the image.”

By Tim Callahan
Editor/Publisher
Murrells Inlet is not officially incorporated, not an official community, not in one county but in two counties.
But, don’t tell that to the hundreds of people whose community spirit led to a community outpouring of support for the owners and workers at the Dead Dog Saloon, which suffered a devastating fire last month.
While dozens of people up Myrtle Beach way cold heartedly opined and mocked the origin of the fire on the local daily newspaper’s Web site, the people of Murrells Inlet rolled up their sleeves and took out their wallets to try to help.
Restaurant owners vowed to find employment for displaced workers; fund-raisers were immediately set in motion; emails were sent to the Messenger with info on these efforts; an advertiser used his ad this month to rally help; and, the very day of the fire, the owner vowed to rebuild. They also are posting reports daily on what they are calling “Project Phoenix” at www.deaddogsaloon.com
Now that is spunk. That is community.
My wife and I came to this area seven years ago. Covering Murrells Inlet for a weekly newspaper, I immediately noticed Murrells Inlet was different from many communities I have reported on in a 33-year newspaper career: friendly, laid back, hospitable, accepting….
I heard Murrells Inlet fondly called by its residents: the red headed stepchild of Georgetown county; a place where a double wide could be right next to mansion and that was cool; a drinking village with a fishing problem.
And, it was, and is. Man, I liked it. It was a big reason I started my own newspaper here in 2010. People here didn’t talk community, they acted on it.
Just like last month with the Dead Dog. Just like when we started this newspaper.
A party town, “a drinking village,” supports a Christian’s efforts to produce a newspaper each month that encourages, informs and inspires the community. They support it; they read it; and they advertise in it. Although the Messenger is mistakenly thought by some to be for Christians only, the paper is for everybody – like any other paper.
Like this community.

Dead Dog Employee Benefit

The fundraiser opens with a golf tournament at Island Green Country Club. There will be a 9 a.m. shotgun start. Cost is $100/person and is limited to the first 144 golfers. Hole sponsorships will be $100. Contact Gary Johnson, director of golf, Island Green Country Club, 843-650-0005.
Due to an overwhelming response already, there is also going to be a tourney Wedgefield Plantation. Same limit of 144 golfers. Wegdefield’s number is: 843-546-8587.
And, open to the public is a fundraiser featuring music, food, beverages, raffle and more at On the Half Shell. The benefit runs from noon – 9 p.m. All proceeds will go to the employees who have lost their jobs as a result of the recent tragic fire at the Dead Dog Saloon. For registration information, or to be a sponsor for the event, please contact Kathie at (843) 651-1296. Silent auction items and donations may be dropped off at On The Half Shell or Anderson Law, LLC, in Murrells Inlet.
Additionally, an account has been set up with BB&T Bank. Go to any branch to make a contribution to the Dead Dog Saloon employee relief benefit fund.

(Story courtesy of MI 2020)

Murrells Inlet 2020, the nonprofit community revitalization group, hosted its spring “Chowder Talk” on March 6. Interested citizens came to hear the latest updates, see who won some awards, and learn about area improvement projects and upcoming events.
“The chowder, donated by Inlet Affairs Banquet and Catering, is always a draw,” said Sue Sledz, executive director of Murrells Inlet 2020.
Chairman Whitney Hills said two members had been added to MI 2020′s advisory board: Denise Shelley and David Owens. Denise and her husband own Booty’s. David is owner of Owens Liquors in Myrtle Beach. Hills told the group that MI 2020 continues to seek interested and committed volunteers to serve with the board of directors.
Hills presented the 2011 “Volunteer of the Year” award to Charlie and Elaine Pinson. The Pinson’s donate their time to many of MI 2020’s programs and events, including the Murrells Inlet water monitoring program, Marshwalk Planters, the golf tournament, autumn gala, Christmas parade, wreath fluffing, and more.
And, Hills presented Chip Smith with the 2011 Golden Oyster Award. The award, presented in honor and memory of Dr. H.P. Worrell, recognizes and rewards those businesses, organizations or individuals whose actions show respect and care for the inlet landscape and waters. Smith initiated the “Plus-One Boating” campaign that encourages boaters to bring back their trash plus one more piece, a campaign now used in several areas around the country. He is also founder of the annual Spring Tide Clean-Up, which has been going strong for 21 years. Smith founded Spring Tide after Hurricane Hugo deposited tons of debris in the inlet. In 2008, Smith and his committee turned over responsibilities to MI 2020, but Smith still plays a key role in guiding and directing the event.
Sledz, MI 2020 said the “Jetty View Walk” plans, which will build a sort of boardwalk along the south end of Business 17, have been submitted to DHEC for environmental permitting. The project is now on public notice with the agency. Once permitting is complete, MI 2020 will work with Georgetown County, who will handle procurement and construction management. She said MI 2020 has been awarded a $19,000 grant from the South Carolina National Heritage Corridor grant program for the project. Other sources of funding for the project will come from the Murrells Inlet 2020 pier funds, the property owners and Sunday Sales. The estimated construction cost is $235,000.
The project could be ready for construction early this summer.
In partnership with Georgetown County Parks and Recreation, Sledz said Murrells Inlet 2020 worked to have Morse Park Landing designated as a South Carolina National Heritage Corridor site. The corridor, established by Congress in 1996, represents regions where residents, businesses, and local governments work together to conserve special landscapes and their heritage.
Morse Park Landing, site of one of the inlet’s first oyster shucking restaurants and home to the Lost at Sea Memorial, represents the inlet’s maritime and seafood heritage. The park has many offerings for the Heritage Corridor visitor, including a public boat launch, suitable for kayaks, canoes and small boats, and a crabbing dock. The park’s open area and view provides access for picnics, photography, bird watching, painting and other outdoor recreational activities. The park is also a designated trailhead on the East Coast Greenway, a national trail extending from Maine to Key West, Fla. This corridor designation will give the park and inlet great exposure in the SC Heritage Corridor’s travel materials.
Sledz also reported that a committee has been formed to plan necessary improvements to improve safety along the Hwy. 17 Business bike lanes, connect the lanes to Garden City and the river, and address safety of pedestrian crossings in critical areas.
“Patience is a virtue,” Sledz said, “and it will be key on this safety project. It’s complex and formidable, but it must be addressed.”
Sledz also said that spring event dates are set: the South Atlantic Bank “Race for the Inlet” is March 24; the “Ride for the Inlet” is March 25; MI 2020 is hosting the Marshwalk Masters on April 7; and the annual golf tournament will be held at Blackmoor Golf Course on June 23.
(Contact MI2020 at 843-357-2007 or visit www.murrellsinletsc.com for more information.)

Honor Roll – 2011-2012 S1
Student Name/Grade Level
Anderson, Cassandra Denise 12
Ballatore, Krystle Marie 12
Bizyak, Shannon Lee 12
Breeden, Sara Ann 12
Brown, Erin Lindsey 12
Chapman, Michael John 12
Dennison, Emily Aleisha 12
Ficklin, Brittany Adele 12
Hodge, Amanda Sue 12
Johnsen, Gregg Peter 12
Johnson, Laura Elizabeth 12
Koprowicz, Katrina Lynn 12
Lane, Gerald Preston 12
Lewis, Yessence Na’Yora 12
Liu, Kevin Wei Kyat 12
Lundquist, Haley Alice 12
Martin, Taryn Elizabeth 12
McDonald, Taylor Leigh 12
Minter, Andrew Joseph 12
Montiegel, Megan Kay 12
Morrison, Victoria Kim 12
Pickus, Sarah Jessica 12
Rhoden, Kelly Ann 12
Vohringer, Amanda Jane 12
Waldowski, Donald Zachary 12
Walton, Madison Katherine 12
Welch, Nathan Douglas 12
Wright, Brittany Theresa 12
Bazen, Sydney Blake 11
Cacace, Cassandra 11
Crum, Ryan Mitchell 11
Guyette, Geoffrey Lewis 11
Krier, Christopher Scott 11
Krier, William Patrick 11
Liger, Annika Elizabeth 11
Reilly, Jordan Alexa 11
Rhorick, Tyler Paul 11
Shelton, Margaret Helena 11
Shoemaker, Bion LeGrand 11
Singh, Ajay Pal 11
Stekson, Michael Paul 11
Suggs, Katelyn Victoria 11
Wolfe, Jean Marie 11
DeCrane, Rhylee Amanda 10
Fidanza, David Louis 10
Fultineer, Duncan Dean 10
Gordon, Eva Kimberlyn 10
Harris, Jason Tyler 10
Howard, Sarah Kristin 10
Kennedy, Savannah Marie 10
King, Haley Riane 10
Larkin, Joseph Anthony 10
Lee, Brittany Michelle 10
Lennon, Sinclair Donye 10
Maynard, Jaymee Carleen 10
Morris, Caroline Elizabeth 10
Musgrave, Lyndsay Elizabeth 10
Powell, Alexis Nicole 10
Rabbitt, Nicole Denise 10
Ramsey, Brittany Ann 10
Rolon, Krystal Gail Joanne 10
Williams-Richards, Cameron Louis 10
Eliason, Stephanie Carol 9
Elliott, Haley Storm 9
Floyd, Sarah Ellen 9
Harris, Ryan Joseph 9
Jeanjaquet, Danielle Joann 9
Kelsey, Bethany Rae 9
Luongo, Kevin Michael 9
McCoy, Thomas Randolph 9
Trout, Justin Thomas 9
Youmans, Katelyn Danielle 9
Yu, XiaoYing Mia 9

The Greater Burgess Community Association will be holding its quarterly meeting at the South Strand Recreation Center off Scipio Lane, Myrtle Beach, on March 8 at 7 p.m.
Horry County Councilman Gary Loftus will discuss roadway design issues concerning the widening of Hwy. 707 from Tournament Boulevard South to Hwy. 17.
For more information, visit www.greaterburgesscommunity.org

Recording artist Heather Layne will be performing at Beach Church on March 24, starting at 7 p.m.
Layne is doing many concerts around the nation at churches that offer Celebrate Recovery programs. Celebrate Recovery meets at Beach Church every Friday night at 7 p.m., and is a biblically-based 12 Step program for people who want help with any hurts, habits or hangups.
(Visit beachchurch.org or heatherlayne.com for more information.)

By Joe Scanlon

March isn’t a particularly memorable month. Of course, it’s supposed to blow in like a lion and out like a lamb but I don’t remember any past Marches for the weather.
March is Irish American Heritage Month, a tragically overlooked holiday – probably the revelers haven’t recovered sufficiently from last year’s celebration to properly organize this year’s.
Super Tuesday is in March this year so we are treated to the politician’s blow-harding in like Chinese parade dragons and blowing out like punctured balloons. Overall, a good reason to cancel March altogether.
However, March has an anniversary that will forever make it the most important month of the year to me.
Happiness is a rare commodity. Contentment is rarer still. Loyalty and self-sacrifice, caring more for your family and loved ones than you do for yourself are qualities that seem to be going out of style in these tough times. When you happen upon a person who exemplifies these values it is cause for celebration.
My best friend and the person I admire most in the world was born in March. It is the middle of tax season and she is managing partner of a busy accounting firm in Pawley’s Island. From January to April, she is up at 4 a.m., and dressed and out the door by 5 a.m, looking like an ad out of Vogue Magazine.
Much of her clientele reads like a “Who’s Who” of Lowcountry business, but she still makes time to do income tax returns, with the same attention as she does for millionaires, for people who can barely afford to pay her – or can’t pay at all. She takes time with her staff and goes out of her way to see to it they have security and benefits in their jobs.
She raised two fine daughters as a single mom, while putting herself through the rigorous accounting program at CCU, and in a few short years went from a staff accountant to owning, with her partner, a prestigious accounting firm.
Her grandchildren wouldn’t know anything about this because “MeMa’s house” has to be overseen by someone who doesn’t have anything else to do but think about what would be fun and inspirational for little children. She also single handedly cares for her elderly mother, ensuring she will be able to stay in her own home as long as possible, and does this without missing a beat from keeping the most beautiful home imaginable.
Reading this over, it reads too good to be true, but that is why I’m chronicling it because it is true. And as long as people like Joan Hodges live lives like hers there is reason to be optimistic about the fate of the human race.
Happy Birthday, Joan
(Joe Scanlon is the director of the Counseling Center of Georgetown).

By Heather McKeown:

Everyone who relieves personal tension by writing realizes the necessity of being able to “get it out.”
Putting pen to paper was what my Grandma Bilton introduced to my life when I was five years old. It was instant therapy for a lonely little girl, who usually very happy but, with a mother in the hospital for months at a time, a father and brother back home, far away, and a set of grandparents to fulfill all her needs, well there was something missing.
Enter that pencil.
“Write Mommy a letter. You’ll cheer her up,” Grandma would say. She was a woman who spent hours a day writing letters. Sitting at her old Underwood typewriter, she wrote to everyone in the news, executives worldwide, astronauts, movie stars, singers, heads of state, royalty, or someone she’d heard about who might write back. With one of the largest, most expansive stamp collections in Canada, Grandma had two motives for communicating; hoping folks would “write back” and then to “get the stamps off their envelopes.”
To suggest that I write to my mother was to keep me quiet, plus Grandma knew what it felt like when she went to the post office and found letters. Grandma knew that there was something therapeutic for the writer as well as for the person on the other end. I think it was how this amazing woman made her life such an inspiration to me and others. I was just as proud of Grandma, when Princess Grace of Monaco would call her whenever visiting North America, as I was of her boxed up letters from Elvis. She also kept every letter written to her. Her voice rings true to me even now, “Write a letter to Mommy.”
Perhaps it would “cheer her up,” but writing to my mother would cheer ME up. Writing became my salvation. Now, fifty-five years later, it still is. This story has an ironic twist, though, because it deals with writer’s block and how much strength it takes to overcome it, sit down and just write my heart. I was hoping the stoppage of play wouldn’t last long and got my wish today when I heard a Whitney Houston song. Of course, it was her, “I Will Always Love You,” and it was the warm up to a broadcast about her eighteen year old daughter’s reaction to the loss of her mother. I couldn’t stop crying.
Now, I’m wondering if her daughter can write, will write.
My mom and Ms. Houston, each brilliant in her own way and each tragically troubled by involvement with prescription drugs, died at forty-eight. I was two months shy of being 18 when my mom died. I knew I needed to write about the parallels because I know what the young survivor will go through over the next decades.
If she’s lucky, she’ll be able to fill that gaping hole with the love of her own children, a husband or two, special relatives and lifelong friends. If she’s lucky, her healing will involve the expenditure of vast amounts of positive energy in an effort to overcome feelings of abandonment. If she’s really lucky, she’ll be able to express herself somehow.
Why writer’s block? So strange that I would be so blocked by this, a death of someone I’d never met. Or was it? It wasn’t Ms. Houston’s departure that brought me up cold but the mental picture of her daughter’s reaction. I relived it. I figure the only way I’m going to get back on the horse is to list the things that any daughter loses when a mother dies at forty-eight. Also, what the dead mother misses out on: prom night; talks about boyfriend stuff; high school graduation; college class discussions; first career steps; first (maybe even last) wedding; births of grandchildren and every single thing that follows.
Everything.
I feel like I’ve purged through this little story. Thanks for reading all or part of it. I know that I now feel better.
Grandma was so right. Now, I think I can get back to writing my next book.
Life goes on. Life gets better. Hurdles are thrown up on the path of life but don’t let them become roadblocks…or writer’s block. And remember, if dead mother’s could sing, they’d definitely belt out, “I Will Always Love You” to their children.
If you don’t hear it while they live and breath, wait for it. Mothers, on drugs or straight, flawed or perfect, will ALWAYS love their daughters.
(Heather McKeown lives in Murrells Inlet and Vermont. She is the author of “Above and Beyond: Inspiring Adventures into the Blue,” available at www.amazon.com)

(Charlene Blanton helps Maureen Caggiano pick out where she wants to put linens in her new home.)

By Tim Callahan
Ninety-year-old Tony Caggiano was scheduled to go home soon from the hospital.
He won’t recognize the outside of the home, but he will recognize the inside.
With the help of Caring Transitions, Tony’s wife, Maureen, moved out of their home of 26
years in Live Oak Village and moved into Garden City Manor. With five or six hands on deck, the move took one day and included setting up her possessions in the new home in a layout similar to the old home.
“Moving is very stressful,” said Caring Transition’s Charlene Blanton. “If it is what they want, making a floor plan of the new home like the old one eases the stress and transition.”
And, that is the company’s main goal, reducing stress.
“I had a million questions for them about the move,” Maureen said, “but Charlene just kept saying, ‘Relax, Maureen, we’ll take care of it.’ And they did.”
Caring Transitions can do any of these things – senior moving, downsizing, cleaning and de-cluttering, estate sales, full or partial liquidations – or
it can do all of them.
With a move, Charlene said, “it is not a yahoo move with stuff scattered all over the sidewalk, disrupting the community at all hours. It is a professional and courteous move.”
Maureen said she was no longer able to maintain a three bedroom home, and she was stretched to the limit by medical bills incurred from both her and Tony’s health problems. Still, she needed to pack and move and unpack. She said Caring Transition’s “helped me worry only about Tony. The Blanton’s told me, ‘Let us worry about the
the move.’”
“People are uptight about their stuff,” Charlene said. “Who wouldn’t be? But, at Maureen’s
age most people want less – not more. We can clean out a room in 35-40 minutes. It might
take some people five to six days to do it. I know. As part of the training, we had to
go home and de-clutter one of our own rooms. You agonize over every little thing. Should I
throw this away? Where do I put it now? Do I give it away? We make three piles – family
items, those to sell to cover expenses and those that can be donated.”
Echoing Charlene’s comments, Maureen said as she gets older she is seeing the need for less and less room and less and less stuff. She was worried about her things being handled by others but, she said, the way it was done by Caring Transitions impressed her.
And, if an estate sale is involved, “they are professionally promoted, priced and run,” Charlene said.
The sales are held all day on Fridays and on Saturdays until noon. At one o’clock on Saturday, everything left is half-priced.
Right now, with items marked as donations, Caring Transitions is donating the items to a local Christian church. Both the Blantons are Christians, who see their new business not just as a business but also as a way to help and serve people who are going through some of the tough transitions in life.
A former registered nurse and Brooklyn native, who married an Italian and lived in New Jersey before moving down here in 1986, Maureen Caggiano is going through a tough time, a tough transition. Her and her husband are getting older, getting sick off and on, and finances are getting tight.
But, she is keeping her chin up.
“I think men have a harder time with changes in circumstances than women,” she said. “A ninety year-old man still expects to do what he did when he was 50. I’ve learned you have to accept it. If you don’t, you’re miserable. I mean, what can you do about it anyway?”
However, she said, “once Tony sees the new place, and everything that matters all there and taken care of, he will see it’s alright.”
(Caring Transition’s phone number is 843-516- 1824. It’s web site is: www.caringtransitions.net)

Steve Strickland, Murrells Inlet native and author

By Tim Callahan
A home project for Steve Strickland, a fourth generation Murrells Inlet native, “ballooned”
into the Murrells Inlet History Project.
It is projected to culminate this early summer in a book with 240 pictures and captions, to be published by Arcadia Publishing in Mt. Pleasant. Arcadia has published 7,500 titles since 1993. The “Images of America” series is very popular and has included towns from Maine to California.
Murrells Inlet will soon be added to the list.
After soliciting pictures and the stories behind them for four years, Strickland had more than 1,000 pictures to choose from. He conducted 40 to 50 in-person interviews, he said, and received picture identifications and stories through a MI History Project Facebook group page that grew from a handful to 576 members. He also wrote a detailed introduction, using another local history book on plantations as his source.
“I had no clue where this was going,” Strickland said, smiling as he sat in the conference room of Earthworks, his engineering and design business in Murrells Inlet, founded in 1996.
“It all started in 2008 with my mother, Glenda, giving me a suitcase of pictures of my grandmother’s, many from the 1920’s to 1940’s,” he said. “But, who were all these people? I might as well have been flipping through a magazine. What were the stories behind the pictures?”
He then began thinking of Murrells Inlet itself. How many stories, how many pictures, were going to die out without ever having been told or seen.
“Our history is dying every day, one person at a time,” Strickland said. “What did those people know that we don’t know?”
In 2009, he had a scanning party at Inlet Affairs, who have been very supportive of the project, he said.
“A lot of locals brought pictures,” he said. “We had a great time.”
Another scanning party followed and, last month, he held a preview that was attended by
about 50 people who had added pictures and memories to the project.
He said some stories, from “bootleggers galore and houses of ill repute,” were better kept “off the record.”
Once the book is in his hands, Strickland said, “you will probably find me down on the Marshwalk. I want to get them in people’s hands. It’s our history.”