2026 SCAC Awards Honor Lifesaving Innovation, Collaborative Conservation Efforts

This year's SCAC Awards Competition featured entries from seven counties, all highlighting innovative efforts that improve the lives of county residents.  

This year’s J. Mitchell Graham Memorial Award-winning project was Horry County Fire Rescue’s Prehospital Blood Program. The program allows trained EMS personnel to begin blood transfusions in the field for patients experiencing life-threatening blood loss prior to reaching the hospital.  

In a county that spans more than 1,200 square miles and serves 427,000 residents and millions of annual visitors, the Prehospital Blood Program makes high-level emergency medical care available throughout Horry County, as lifesaving transfusions can begin earlier.  

“We want our constituents, our visitors and our citizens that live here every day to know that when they call 911, they are going to receive progressive and high-quality care,” said Horry County Fire Rescue Assistant Chief Ben Lawson. 

The 2026 Barret Lawrimore Regional Cooperation Memorial Award was awarded to a project called “Regional Collaboration for Meaningful Conservation: Green Space Programs in South Carolina,” a collaborative effort from Jasper and Beaufort counties. Both counties are experiencing exponential growth and took a regional approach to combat conservation challenges. The growing demand for housing and commercial development, along with other environmental pressures, inspired their long-term vision for conservation. 

“Anything that happens in Jasper County affects Beaufort County and vice versa. We’re like sister counties. We share our water resources and our wastewater resources through Beaufort-Jasper Water & Sewer Authority. So we already have a partnership, and this just seemed like a natural extension of that,” said Beaufort County Council Chairwoman Alice Howard. “Conservation helps everyone. It helps those who want a nice place to live, work and play. Conservation preserves the things that we cherish the most, such as our wildlife and our land, and it preserves it for the next generation.” 

The Beaufort County Green Space Program preserves land, protects habitat for wildlife, expands opportunities for public recreation and allows Beaufort County to take part in conservation efforts outside its jurisdiction to protect land that benefits the broader region. The program has helped protect more than 10,000 acres both in and around the county by working with landowners, land trusts, municipalities, neighboring counties, state and federal agencies and national conservation organizations. 

“It’s been a wonderful relationship between the two counties,” said Jasper County Council Chairman Joey Rowell, adding that the collaboration between Berkeley and Jasper counties is a unique and monumental effort. “I think this is going to be a great working relationship toward the future. Look at both Beaufort County and Jasper County, and look at the regionalism, the cooperation and the things that we’re doing, this could be a model for other counties in the state.” 

The J. Mitchell Graham Memorial Award recognizes counties that take a unique approach to addressing community challenges and enhancing their residents’ quality of life. This year, the award received entries from Beaufort, Berkeley, Fairfield, Florence, Greenville and Horry counties.  

The Barret Lawrimore Memorial Regional Cooperation Award is given out to projects that were the result of a collaboration between two or more political subdivisions, which in this case are county partnerships formed with other counties, municipalities, districts or regional government organizations.  

Honorable Mentions for the J. Mitchell Graham Award: 

• Fairfield County (population less than 50,000) – Student Leadership Summit 
• Florence County (population between 50,000-150,000) – Solving the Silver Tsunami 
• Beaufort County (population over 150,000) – Residential Food Waste Diversion Program 

See photos of this year’s award winners and honorees.(opens in a new tab)