Agente Hipotecario in Sumter, SC

SUMTER — The sixth veterans’ nursing home in this military-friendly state officially opened Friday less than 10 miles from Shaw Air Force Base.

The $71.5 million, 125,000 square-foot facility offers veterans low-cost care complete with a barbershop and salon, community game rooms and large public and private courtyards.

“This is the crown jewel of our dedication to our community and to our veterans in our community,” House Speaker Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, said at the ceremony. “I look forward to this facility being here for years to come.”

South Carolina is home to more than 68,000 active-duty and reserve military members, 400,000 veterans and eight military bases.

“There is still sort of this rebel spirit in the heart of the South Carolinian. Military folks, that sort of draws us into the profession,” said Sen. Jeff Zell, R-Sumter, who was stationed at Shaw for eight years before retiring with 20 years of service.

“We feel at home here,” said the freshman senator.

Shaw Air Force Base, located outside Sumter city limits, has been training pilots since World War II, opening six years before the Air Force was established as a separate military branch. Last September, Sumter was designated the state’s only World War II Heritage City.

More than 13% of Sumter County’s residents are veterans, according to census data, the highest percentage of South Carolina’s 46 counties.

Yet, Sumter wasn’t initially slated for a veterans’ nursing home.

When the state sought a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs grant in 2015 for additional nursing homes, the state was looking at opening a second one in Columbia.

Then Smith became chairman of the powerful budget-writing committee in 2019 and started publicly asking why the homes weren’t being located in other cities with military bases. The three existing nursing homes at the time — all at capacity — were located in Columbia, Walterboro and Anderson.

“I asked the question, ‘Why not Sumter?'” Smith, who became House speaker in 2022, told the crowd. “Why not put them in the military communities across the state?”

What had been planned for Columbia became Patriot’s Village near Shaw.

Zell said he was impressed by what he saw Friday.

“I didn’t realize the complexities of it,” he told the SC Daily Gazette. “This isn’t just a little building.”

The other two veterans nursing homes that opened ahead of Patriot’s Village are in Gaffney, home to Senate Finance Chairman Harvey Peeler, and Florence, home of his powerful predecessor, the late Sen. Hugh Leatherman.

Future facilities in Orangeburg and Horry counties are set for completion over the next several years, said Robert Hoskins, the deputy director of facilities management for the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs.

Sumter named SC’s WWII Heritage City, recognizing military history

Gov. Henry McMaster is asking legislators to put an additional $20.6 million next fiscal year toward running the six veterans nursing homes.

The additional annual commitment would help ensure veterans are “well taken care of,” Lt. Gov. Pam Evette said Friday about the governor’s budget recommendations for 2025-26.

“I can hope you see our passion, not just in today, not just in what we’ve done, but our passion moving forward,” she said.

Veterans’ cost to live at Patriot’s Village is $68 a day, the same price as the locations in Florence and Gaffney. The three other facilities are priced at $45 a day, said Heyward Hilliard, the state’s director of veteran homes.

“It’s a great value,” he said.

All honorably discharged veterans who served full-time are eligible for the homes, Hilliard said.

The Sumter facility can accommodate up to 104 veterans and will have 130 full-time employees. Its amenities include areas for physical, occupational and speech therapies, dining areas, an on-site pharmacy and a pool hall.

Admissions are expected to begin in late February or early March.

However, one resident is already known.

Ernest Martin, an 82-year-old veteran, will be moving from the nursing home in Florence County to Patriot’s Village, so he can return to Sumter.

“Everything looks so modern, so good, so up to date,” Martin said. “It’s outstanding.”

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - Veterans in need of care now have a new place in South Carolina to call home.

Patriot’s Village, the sixth veterans' nursing home in South Carolina, will accommodate 104 veterans and create 130 full-time jobs to help take care of those residents.

“It builds a deep friendship when you’re retired military,” said Air Force veteran Mike Stanislawczyk. “Vietnam era, World War Two era, whatever, it bonds that friendship and that’s the big benefit of having veterans here.”

This is one thing Air Force Veteran Mike Stanislawczyk said his father-in-law, Ernest Martin, will have as he moves into Patriot’s Village.

Before Patriot’s Village, it would take any family from Sumter about an hour to travel to any of the other five veteran nursing homes in South Carolina.

Martin says this is what his family had to do when visiting him at the Veteran Village in Florence, SC. Now, he’s relieved that the journey is just a short trip down the block.

“Relief you can’t explain; it really hits me hard,” Martin said, “It’s about an hour and a half drive (for them) to come see me. This is going to compare to the five minutes to ten minutes away (now).

South Carolina’s sixth veterans' nursing home expects to start admitting residents at the end of February or early March 2025. The facility is 125,000 square feet, and the project cost more than $71 million to complete.

Amenities the facility has include bistro dining, a pool hall, a beauty salon, and places where veterans can get physical, occupational, and speech therapies.

Martin’s daughter, Mary Stanislawczyk, says she’ll worry a little less about her father at night now, knowing he’s a few minutes down the road.

“If something happens, we can get to him quicker,” Mary said, “we’ll be able to come to him more during the day (and) we’ll be able to bring his little dog Benji who means the world to him, so, we’re very excited.”

Admission to the facility is limited to Veterans who have been separated from the U.S. Armed Forces under general or honorable conditions and qualify as South Carolina residents who are in need of skilled or intermediate nursing home care.

It will cost $68 a day to live there for service-connected veterans.

Veterans can apply to live in Patriot’s Village on the South Carolina Department of Veterans Affairs website.

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - Three suspects in Sumter County and one in Richland County are charged with money laundering for cartels after a years-long investigation by multiple agencies.

In Sumter County, Caspin Powers Adachi, 23, Fnu Naimullah, 32, and Nasir Ullah, 27, were arrested on Jan. 23, following arrest warrants issued on January 14.

Law enforcement did not name the person in Richland County.

On Jan. 23, authorities from multiple agencies served search warrants for money laundering at two businesses on Broad Street and houses on Rhododendron Street and Currituck Drive. These buildings were said to have been used by Powers Adachi, Naimullah, and Ullah.

According to authorities, another suspect was arrested at the same time in Richland County for money laundering charges with assistance from the DEA, SLED, and the Richland County Sheriff’s Department.

SLED, Sumter County Sherriff’s Office (SCSO), and DEA Special Agents also charged Chinese national Puquan Huang, who was arrested in Gwinnett County, Georgia, and will be extradited to South Carolina.

The arrests come after a multi-year investigation by the DEA, with assistance from federal, state, and local authorities. Deputies say the investigation led to Sumter and concluded with the arrests of four suspects with the aid of SCSO. This investigation focused on international and domestic money laundering for Mexico’s two dominant drug cartels – the Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CING) and the Sinaloa Cartel.

Investigators believe the suspects worked directly with cartel-affiliated Chinese money launderers operating in both Georgia and South Carolina and had been doing so for multiple years.

Authorities confirm Ullah will face additional charges in Richland County after being arrested in October 2024 while smuggling about $180,000. Ullah and Naimullah’s father, Mohammad Azam Khan, remains an active fugitive and is believed to be in Dubai.

Deputies transported Adachi, Naimullah, and Ullah to the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office Detention Center. Following bond hearings, Adachi and Ullah posted $20,000 surety bonds, and Naimullah posted a $200,000.00 bond. All three suspects were released, according to authorities.

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Highest-rated Mexican restaurants in the Sumter area by diners

Just like cuisine from any country, Mexican food is not monolithic. It isn't just combo plates and tacos. (Not that there's anything wrong with that style of food; it's delicious and is responsible for popularizing Mexican food in the United States.) But Mexican food means more than that.

It reflects Mexico's diverse population—shaped by waves of immigration—and has proliferated throughout the U.S., showcasing the cuisine in all its complexity and regionality. Mexico has 32 distinct regional styles of cooking, and thanks to immigrant chefs and the rise of promising culinarians of Mexican descent looking to share their signature dishes, Indigenous foodways, and ingredients from various regions, diners are reframing their idea of "Mexican food."

According to a 2024 Pew Research Center analysis of SafeGraph data, 1 in 10 restaurants in the U.S. serve Mexican food, and nearly 9 out of 10 U.S. counties have at least one Mexican restaurant. The analysis also reveals that California and Texas are home to a majority of the Mexican American population and together host 2 out of 5 Mexican restaurants in the country.

These findings serve as a testament to the influence Mexican cuisine has had and continues to have in America. Which begs the question: Where does one go for the best old-school Mexican restaurants, loncheras slinging tacos out of a half-window, and innovative modern Mexican food pushing culinary boundaries?

To help you out, Stacker compiled a list of the highest-rated Mexican restaurants in the Sumter area based on diners' reviews on Yelp as of February 2025. Restaurants with at least 20 reviews tagged as "Mexican" on Yelp within a 10-kilometer radius of Sumter were included. As a result, some restaurants featured may serve other food items besides Mexican food. Also, in an effort to highlight independent businesses and local chains, those with more than 50 locations nationally, based on the Yelp data, were not included.

Keep reading to see if your favorite Mexican spot made the list or to discover a new restaurant to try!

You may also like: Highest-rated barbecue restaurants in the Sumter area by diners

A South Carolina farmer struggles to keep eggs on the shelf as bird flu wipes out flocks elsewhere, stores run dry, and desperate customers flood his shop.

SUMTER, S.C. — Egg prices in 2025 have surged dramatically recently, driven by avian flu outbreaks and seasonal declines in egg-laying activity among chickens and ducks during winter.

The rising cost of eggs and people looking for alternative sources are bringing in more money, but the product is in short supply for one local farmer in Sumter.

"Anywhere you go, $7 to $8. I would have never in my lifetime, I really wouldn't have thought that we would be here, but we're here," said The Farm Store co-owner Mike Dellinger.

Dellinger said he's being hit hard by the ripple effect of the H5N1 bird flu.

Commercial poultry farms are being impacted, wiping out hundreds of chicken flocks used for production at big-box grocery stores, driving customers to Mike's local store.

"That shortens the supply chain and we've seen the grocery stores become short, and now that they've become short, we see folks coming through our doors that we've never seen come through the doors by eggs," Dellinger said.

He has to limit customers to two dozen eggs per purchase because he can't keep up with demand. He also sells duck eggs and quail eggs.

Other factors are also added challenges.

"We've seen prices of the feed go up. We've seen prices of the egg cartons go up," Dellinger said.

And Mike's still waiting on a new poultry flock.

"This time we would have switched out, about December. We're already what, two months or a month and a half delayed. Looks like it may be into the month of April before we'll have fresh hens, so not only is all this concern about eggs being short in the grocery stores, but our eggs, even on the local level, because we can't get replacement birds," Dellinger said.

According to Jennifer Tyrrell, community science and research program manager at Audubon South Carolina, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has moved from wild birds to domestic flocks.

"Avian flu is not a common occurrence, and it has not been in our area for a very, very long time until recently. This more recent outbreak, over the past few years is now just happening. It's here. It's here to stay, which is unfortunate, but it's something we're going to be dealing with for a long time because it is so prevalent and so spread out now," Tyrrell said.

Tyrrell said the avian flu virus often travels with physical contact, so it travels more easily within flocks and with more social birds like geese or gulls.

"In birds, it is usually some sort of neurological issue, they can act a little strange and they just, they usually die pretty quickly once they contract it," Tyrrell said.

Oftentimes, these birds pass the sickness quickly, Tyrrell said.

"Typically, when there's an infection in a poultry population, it's safe to assume that every bird is infected or will soon be infected. And so unfortunately, a lot of them just have to be euthanized because it's just going to continue spreading and get worse," Tyrrell said.

But locals like Mike remain hopeful.

"Better days will come," Dellinger said.

Dellinger said he hopes things change for the poultry industry by April or May.

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