Looking Back !       Old Column Snippets Taken From: The Keowee Courier Newspaper, Walhalla, SC   Compiled by: John "Ashton" Hester   WebPage Hosted By: Oconee County SC GenWeb Project

05 Aug 2011                    

                                                                          ASHTON HESTER's BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION, 2009

Ever since coming to the Keowee Courier (a small weekly newspaper in Walhalla, S.C.) 36 years ago as reporter/photographer/news editor, Ashton Hester has been fascinated by reading through the volumes of old Couriers of bygone years.

Over the years, he has compiled a weekly column of items taken from the old Couriers. The column was formerly called "From the Files" but is now called "Looking Back." It highlights years that end in the same number as the current year.

In previous years these columns contained only items from Walhalla and surrounding communities, which is now--and has long been--the Courier's primary coverage area. However, about three years ago Hester expanded the column to include items from all of Oconee County--which the Keowee Courier used to cover when it was the county's dominant newspaper--from its beginning in 1849 through about 1915.

After about 1915, the Courier became primarily a newspaper of Walhalla and surrounding communities, because the other two major areas of the county--Seneca and Westminster--acquired strong newspapers of their own.

Hester was born in Savannah, Ga. in 1942, and moved to Inverness, Fla. at the age of 3, where he was raised. He graduated from the University of South Florida in Tampa in 1965, and served two years in the U.S. Army, including a year in Vietnam--six months as a clerk-typist with 18th Engineer Brigade Headquarters in Dong Ba Thin, and six months as an information specialist with the 937th Combat Engineer Group in Pleiku.

Before coming to the Keowee Courier in August 1973, he was employed as a reporter with the weekly Lake Wales (Fla.) News and as sports editor for the twice-weekly Seneca (S.C.) Journal (now published five days a week and called The Daily Journal.)

HAVING PUBLISHED ITS FIRST ISSUE ON MAY 18, 1849, THE KEOWEE COURIER IS THE SECOND OLDEST SURVIVING NEWSPAPER IN UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA. ONLY THE ABBEVILLE PRESS AND BANNER/ABBEVILLE MEDIUM IS OLDER, HAVING BEEN FOUNDED IN 1844.

Newspaper articles donated to the Oconee County GenWeb Project on 21-Aug-2009

by Ashton Hester of the Keowee Courier Newspaper