Dec. 30, 2020

By: John A. Carlos II

A Richland County resident submits her vote at the Shandon Fire Station in Columbia, SC, on Tuesday, Nov. 3.

John A. Carlos II / Special to The Post and Courier

I've been super busy not with work, so much, but with everything else in life. I can't believe that another year is almost here... thank god for that. I also can't believe that COVID-19 basically a whole year away from us. I think I've had a full year just in a different way than I would've. In November we saw Americans gather in mass to vote in the most important election of my lifetime. This is often said but I really do think it is apt to say this time. 

Lindsey Graham and other Republican VIPs celebrate his winning of a fourth term to the United States Senate, at the S.C. Republican Party election night watch party held at UofSC Pastides Alumni Center in Columbia, watch the election results roll in on Tuesday, Nov. 3. 

John A. Carlos II / Special to The Post and Courier 

Election workers sort absentee ballot envelopes and count votes at the Richland County Administration Building in the election commission office in Columbia on Wednesday, November 4. 

John A. Carlos II / Special to The Post and Courier

On the top floor of the BB&T building on Two Notch Road a portrait of Holocaust survivor Ben Stern occupies a prominent spot in the lobby of the Columbia development firm the late businessman started with his son, Bill Stern, after relocating to South Carolina following the horrors he experienced in Germany’s death camps. “I remember my father standing in front of the portrait one day — we were both leaving the office and locking it up,” said Bill Stern, who was appointed last month by President Donald Trump to serve on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. “And I said, ‘Dad, God forbid when you pass away, I’m going to be leaving this office looking at you and I’m going to talk to you’. And I’ll be damned if there hasn’t been a time when I’ve left this office that I don’t walk over to that portrait and tell him about all of the things that are going on.” Ben Stern was tattooed with the number B-3348. Every day in the camp he could smell the burning flesh of other prisoners who’d been sent to the gas chambers. His daily work in the wintertime consisted of moving a heavy steel beam from one end of the yard to another, and then back again. The frozen metal would rip the flesh off his hands. Daily meals consisted of warm water the Germans called soup and a slice of bread. When he was caught hiding some soup in his bunk, the German guards beat him unconscious with a shovel handle, he said. When he was liberated on April 30, 1945, Ben Stern weighed 87 pounds. “I’m a businessman now and I’m independent, but at no time have I taken this place, America, for granted,” he said. “I worship every day the ground I walk on and so does my wife.” Jadzia Stern, who initially hid from the Nazis in an attic trunk as the rest of her family was captured, tells similar stories in her videoed recollection of the Holocaust. After her ultimate capture and arrival at Auschwitz on a train, German soldiers snatched her sister’s baby from her arms and killed it in front of her.

John A. Carlos II / Special to The Post and Courier

Christ Church Episcopal couldn’t hang with Gray Collegiate as the War Eagles won 33-0 to set up a matchup with Abbeville in the S. C. Class AA Semifinals.

Melbourne Florida Nov.25, 2020

Abbeville HS smothered Gray Collegiate Academy in the semi-finals of S.C. AA state championship playoffs. Coach Adam Holmes said “Proud to be a War Eagle! Tough loss tonight but our guys battled. Best season in school history! We will learn from this and we will be back”

Keywords: South Carolina; above the fold; editorial; news; journalism; 2019; photojournalist; photojournalism; photographer; SC photographer; Columbia; Columbia SC Photojournalist; soda city; basketball; NCAA; Basketball Tournament; USC; University of South Carolina; March Madness; Samantha Josephson; Uber; Ride Share; Post and Courier; Free Times; Indie Grits; Gamecocks; Tigers; Clemson; fans; Hoop Fest; Tootsie Roll; dance, Rap; concert photographer; concert; music; rock; rock and roll; country; movies; Nickelodeon; games; video; video games; hoops; b-ball; Duke; Zion Williamson; St. Pat's; 5pts; baseball; sports photographer; sports; events

Article & Photos by John A. Carlos II Copyright 2019 www.jac2photo.com