“A name is a name is a name.” – Gertrude Stein

Picking names is a serious process. I shudder when parents with a twisted sense of humor saddle a little day-old baby with a grotesque or, what they deem comical, name. That baby, 40 years later, may want to be a college president or big church preacher. On the other hand we should honor the desires of individual personages and call them what they want to be called, and not persist in calling them what seemed cute when they were 4 years old.

The same goes for place names. The Orangeburgh District until the 1850s had its name spelled with an “h” on the end as do Newburgh, N.Y., and Pittsburgh, Pa.. Newburgh was George Washington’s last posting in our Revolutionary War and was where the Continental Army was disbanded after we’d won that war. Pittsburgh was named after William Pitt, the elder, prime minister of Great Britain, our mother country, and is at the confluence of three rivers. It’s where the Ohio River commences down which our pioneers paddled their way to the opening of the continent.

As Orangeburgh’s historian Richard Reid tells us, nobody ever officially dropped the “h” from the name Orangeburgh. It just happened. A historian of Orangeburgh, Daniel Culler, wrote “The people ... had fallen into the careless habit of misspelling the name of their own town.” No official act dropped our “h” – just old inertia, ignorance, laziness. Today I know we’re better than that.

Let’s bring it back, each of us. It needn’t be expensive to do. I don’t know about you, but when I order new stationery, I’m going to spell “Orangeburgh” this way. No sweat, no problem for the post office. Just a gradual movement. Or do it when you have a new sign painted. Historically I’ll be correct and those who don’t adjust will be wrong, wrong, wrong. It was an old mistake. Don’t let’s perpetuate it.

One definition of dementia is to keep making the same mistake. Listen to students of old times, Richard Reid and me, dear reader.

Did you know that St. Matthews used to be St. Matthew’s with an apostrophe? And before that it was called “Lewisville.” I’ve taken a poll (three people) and they like their present name, “St. Matthews.” Makes them happy. “Nuff said”. “ORANGEBURGH” – now that’s real class!

Orangeburgh is on a roll. Speaking about all the sudden national attention we’ve engendered following hard on the national presidential debate held on our premises, Rep. Jerry Govan says, “Let’s capture that momentum and ride it into the future.” He’s right. We do have the “BIG MO” from several dozen movements, issues, suggestions, governmental and private enthusiasm, and ongoing pressures emanating from city and county bodies and individuals. We must be doing a lot of things right.

We all can recollect periods when Orangeburgh (note my spelling) was somnolent, dormant, doless, you name it. Not any longer.

“Whas” happend?“ – Tony Soprano

Where to start? In the last 11 years, downtown Orangeburgh has been singled out at least 24 times for special positive praise and awards thanks to our Downtown Orangeburgh Revitalization office. That’s more then two a year. And we’ve been picked twice as an All-American city; generated individual merchant and city initiatives; university alertness, public service awards; renovation on a grand multimillion-dollar scale; hometown heroes; outstanding public utility improvements; splendid private merchandising. I can’t begin to cover it all by name. Have you ever seen a more tasteful public event than Taste of Orangeburg’h? Or the free Hoppin John on New Year’s Day? How lucky can you get? Or back-to-back years of record-breaking industrial development? Or anything more exciting than the interracial, intergovernmental inter-institutional teamwork? Or the selection of OCtech as one of four South Carolina two-year colleges for start-up funding to achieve better testing of student success and closing of achievement gaps. (Whole lot of achieving in this paragraph). A real honor.

Or the monthly persistence and hands-on effectiveness of our own spectacular Community of Character movement. It’s changing children and adults for the better, one person at a time.

I’ve suggested a corridor in which to enter Orangeburgh, proceed through it and see it at its best – the “Great Day” corridor. Do it. It may be my last helluva good idea!

Orangeburgh is rightfully called the “Garden City.” At this time of year, our parks and many of our streets are sooooo beautiful.

Our medical community, including our hospital, which we taxpayers all own (RMC) – has tripled in size in the last 20 years. RMC, my morning T&D tells me, has just been selected as the safest – has the lowest loss ratios – of any hospital in the state with 201 to 500 beds. It stands alone among medium-sized hospitals in South Carolina. It’s made Orangeburg County a magnet – a medical center.

How does our local society measure up in diversity and inclusion? In these contentious fields there’s no such thing as perfection, but my answer would be “as well as any I’m aware of.”

To top it all, I’m writing this on 7-07-07.

“ORANGEBURGH” – now that’s real class.

Attorney Austin Cunningham has been the president of five business companies and in 1988 was named Outstanding Elder Citizen of the Year for South Carolina.

You must be logged in to comment.