Mortgage Broker Near Me Sumter, SC

The fire sent smoke over Alice Drive and Harper Street Saturday. Officials said they don’t yet know what caused it.

Credit: Mich DeLorme, special to WLTX

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Fire investigators in Sumter County are still trying to determine what caused building materials to catch fire at a construction site in Sumter on Saturday afternoon.

Charred pieces of wood, tar paper, and foam littered the area where a fire broke out at a future B.J.'s Wholesale Club site at Alice Drive and Harper Street in Sumter.

Sumter County Fire Battalion Chief Jeffrey Shirley said crews began responding to the fire around 12:15 Saturday. At one point, 40 firefighters and 11 apparatus were on the scene. Many of those firefighters remained at the site until 4:30 p.m. Saturday.

Sunday afternoon, charred pieces of debris still littered the sidewalk and streets near the site of the blaze.

Fire officials say they don’t believe the smoke from the burning materials, which included insulation and other items, posed a concern to the public since it rose directly above and did not stay low to the ground.

Bobby Riley lives across from the site and described what he saw.

“The air was filled with black, heavy smoke," Riley said. "And by the time I got out to see what was going on, they had the road blocked off and you couldn’t really see [anything]. The firefighters had a heck of a job to do.”

Bonnie Wallace’s mother also lives nearby. She described how the fire impacted her mother's neighbors.

“From what I understand the area was heavy with like a smog. It wasn’t really, really strong, but it was enough to definitely impact you," she said. “For a brand-new building, it’s not even up yet and it’s burned, I don’t know if I’m ever going to go into that building.”

Sunday afternoon, Chief Shirley said the department still does not have an estimate for the damages caused by this fire.

Check your tickets.

Someone recently bought a record-breaking game, South Carolina Education Lottery officials said Tuesday in a news release.

The person who bought a Palmetto Cash 5 ticket in Sumter won a $1,132,000 grand prize, which is the largest-ever rolling jackpot for a South Carolina lottery game, according to the release.

Now a search is underway for the winner.

What turned out to be the seven-figure winning Palmetto Cash 5 ticket was sold at the Kwik Mart gas station/convenience store at 2350 Peach Orchard Road in Sumter, officials said.

The winning numbers from Monday’s drawing were 4, 7, 10, 20 and 30.

The Palmetto Cash 5 ticket matched all five numbers drawn to win the game’s top prize, officials said.

The winner has 180 days to claim the six-figure prize, according to lottery officials.

The winner will be allowed to retain some privacy, as South Carolina is one of 11 states — along with Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Texas and Virginia — that allow lottery winners to remain anonymous.

“Sign the back of your ticket and put it in a safe location until you’re ready to come forward to claim the prize,” lottery officials said.

For complete information on claiming prizes, go to sceducationlottery.com.

The jackpot rolled 44 times before Monday’s win, according to the release.

The odds of winning $1,132,000 playing Palmetto Cash 5 are 850,668-to-1, officials said.

The Kwik Mart will receive a commission for selling the winning ticket when it is turned into lottery officials.

The Palmetto Cash 5 jackpot for Tuesday night’s drawing is reset at $100,000.

It costs $2 to purchase a Palmetto Cash 5 ticket, and drawings are held on a daily basis at 6:59 p.m., officials said.

SUMTER, S.C. (WIS) - Plans for a solar farm project coming to Sumter County have been halted for now.

Sumter’s Board of Zoning Appeals unanimously denied a special exception to zone the White Palmetto Solar Farm on Wednesday.

The proposed solar farm would’ve stretched over more than 1700 acres across rural parts of Sumter County.

More than 100 people came out before the Sumter City Council Board of Zoning Appeals to express why they didn’t want this solar farm project to come to their community.

Many folks are concerned about the environmental impacts the project will pose in rural parts of Sumter County, saying it will hurt wildlife like woodpeckers and wild turkeys that call those areas home.

“Will I have to tell my wife stories of how beautiful the birds were, and of how their songs would wake you in the morning or put you to sleep at night?” One Sumter County resident who spoke at the public hearing said, “Will I have to tell my kids stories of how I would hunt on the hills just behind my home?”

“Why aren’t we putting these solar farms in the parking lot of Continental?” another resident said at the public hearing, “Why are we not putting these solar panels in large, industrial parking lots? ”Daniel Cook was a Sumter County resident from Rember, overjoyed to see the currently zoned proposal denied.

He felt repurposing the project on industrial land at a smaller scale would be a much better alternative than the current zoning for where the project will go.

“If we’re going to do solar energy, we can do smaller parcels instead of this large, expensive project,” Cook said, “If we need solar energy, then let’s do smaller tracks of land and in areas where we’re not messing with this much habitat; put them on rooftops, put them in empty parking lots of empty businesses.”Representatives from Treaty Oak Clean Energy expressed at the hearing how the project will bring jobs and a renewable energy source to the community.

WIS asked representatives from Treaty Oak Clean Energy about what their plans are going forward, but they declined to comment.

Sumter Planning Director Helen Roodman says they’ll be a board order drafted that will be sent to the applicants before entering an appeals period.

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When you travel below the Mason-Dixon Line, you'll find some of the most mouthwatering, comforting cuisine in the U.S.: Southern food.

Southern dishes are a vital part of American cuisine, from hushpuppies to ham hocks and beignets to barbecue. It's impossible to define a classic Southern meal, but a solid one starts with the sharp savory flavor of pimento cheese dip, followed by the delicious crunchiness of fried chicken or a spicy Louisiana étouffée, culminating with a sugary slice of chess pie that's best washed down with a tall glass of sweet tea.

What's unique about Southern fare is that multiple ethnic and cultural groups have influenced it. Spanish staples, such as potatoes and cocoa, are in many Southern dishes; the Acadians, who traveled to Louisiana from Nova Scotia and later became Louisiana Creoles, contributed their seafood to many Southern meals; African ingredients—okra, sorghum (an ancient grain), and black-eyed peas—became a part of the cuisine through the forced labor of enslaved people; French cooking methods, like braising and sautéing, are used for many Southern recipes; and Native Americans introduced corn to Southern recipes, yielding dishes like succotash and grits.

The Southern culinary scene is an explosion of cultures. To find out where you can sample some Southern offerings, Stacker compiled a list of the highest-rated Southern restaurants in the Sumter area using data from Yelp as of May 2, 2025. Businesses were selected using Yelp's ranking system, which calculates an adjusted rating value that takes into account the number of ratings as well as the rating score itself. Only restaurants with at least 20 reviews tagged as "southern" on Yelp within a 10-kilometer radius of Sumter were included. As a result, some restaurants featured may serve other food items.

Read on to find the perfect spot to get a taste of the South near you.

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

#4. Susie's Chicken & Fries

- Rating: 4.1/5 (20 reviews)- Address: 303 Manning Ave. Sumter, South Carolina - Categories: Chicken Wings, Southern, Food Trucks- Read more on Yelp

#3. Jeffrey Lampkin"s Country Boy Kitchen

- Rating: 4.1/5 (46 reviews)- Address: 5642 Broad St. Sumter, South Carolina - Categories: Soul Food, Breakfast & Brunch, Southern- Read more on Yelp

#2. Sidebar On Main

- Rating: 4.1/5 (139 reviews)- Price level: $$- Address: 30 North Main St. Sumter, South Carolina - Categories: Bars, Southern- Read more on Yelp

Before she ever stepped onto a pageant stage in heels and rhinestones, Madisen Galiano wore running spikes and carried a shotgun.

From a four-time state champion in sporting clays, former track runner and colorful theater kid during her time at Wilson Hall to a first-generation college student and now Miss Sumter, Madisen is multidimensional. But beneath the titles and talent lies something deeper: a calling. And she's using her crown to answer it.

When Madisen entered her first pageant at Charleston Southern University in January 2024, she had no training and no idea what to expect. Her pageant walk was not the best, and she became emotional as she spoke about her platform. For her talent portion, she did what came naturally-she shared the gospel.

"That was the only thing I knew [how to do] at the time," she said with laughter.

She struggled to get her footing in the pageant world and wondered if it was for her. But someone in South Carolina Collegiate America saw through the nerves to a light worth nurturing in Madisen. That moment led her to compete again in January 2025- this time prepared, poised and walking in her purpose. She walked away with the Miss Sumter title and a plan to use it for far bigger than pageant glory.

Going into the Miss South Carolina competition this June, her platform, Brave Boundaries, aims to educate children, teens and adults on sexual assault prevention and personal boundaries - a subject she approaches not from a place of pity, but of personal experience and empowerment.

In third grade, Madisen was sexually assaulted. It took years before she felt comfortable enough to open up to her family. And a few more would go by before she had the conversation with friends.

"I think it is very important to have a face for the matter because every six to eight seconds, someone is sexually assaulted, and every nine minutes, a child is sexually assaulted," she explained. "Education starts within the classrooms and then with the parents."

But Madisen isn't waiting for the state title to start doing the work. Since being crowned, she's met with Wilson Hall Headmaster Brent Kaneft to discuss how schools can implement boundary and assault education at every level. She's planning to speak at council meetings and preparing to volunteer with Pathways to Healing, working a 12-hour shift answering hotline calls to be a voice on the end of the line when someone needs it most.

This kind of service runs in her blood. She admires the work of her grandfather, the late Sumter City Councilman Robert "Bob" Galiano, and is studying South Carolina legislation, building fluency in law and policy to make her advocacy more than just words on stage.

"I have educated myself so much on what is happening in South Carolina. I feel more empowered to create change and to speak about what I think should change," she expressed. "The Miss South Carolina [pageant] system is about empowering young leaders and creating us to lead the future generations."

Madisen doesn't see Sumter as a city defined by its struggles but rather a place of promise, full of small businesses carving their path, neighbors lifting each other up and young people daring to lead. Whether she takes home the crown or not this June, she wants her try at it to be the sign young people need to speak boldly, lead with empathy and know that healing and hope can go hand in hand.