Meet the Local: Joseph Turner

I was born in Pawleys Island. My parents are both from Georgetown. All but one of my grandparents is from Georgetown County. I’m pretty sure a supermajority of my great grandparents were from ‘round here.

I spent the first eighteen years of my life here, roaming through the woods, working my way through the school system. Though I spent the following fifteen years away, I was never too far away to come home for weekends and holidays as it suited me.

I grew up in Hagley, in what was at the time largely woods and swamp. We were on a dirt road, though it has long since been paved. The shape and the feel of those woods, and the river, and the beaches, and the creek, are the foundation for all of my childhood memories. Mother’s Day picnics at Brookgreen Gardens. Church outings to Huntington Beach State Park. Riding my bike to Hagley Landing to go for a swim in the late afternoon.

After fifteen years away, I’m finally back. Though a lot has changed, a lot hasn’t. Pawleys is in many ways the same town I left for college all those years ago. What has changed is my interest in really absorbing the area - experiencing what there is to be experienced, learning what there is to learn.

And what I’m finding is that there is a bottomless pool of things to do, things to learn, people to meet, and experiences to have. I built this site to help transmit some of that knowledge to others who might be thinking of moving down here, but don’t know where to start, what neighborhood suits them, where the kids can go to school, or where to go to church.