Wednesday, February 4, 1998

Hello and greetings from the Pee Dee

By Bob Greene

FLORENCE, S.C. -- Newspapers, down through U.S. history, have trumpeted their philosophies and their self-images in the mottoes they have chosen to proudly wear across their front-page banners.

The Chicago Tribune, for many years, called itself "The World's Greatest Newspaper." The New York Times declares it publishes "All the News That's Fit to Print." The Scripps-Howard newspapers inspirationally proclaim, "Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way."

Here in Florence, I picked up the Morning News and found that -- right at the top of Page One -- it referred to itself as "The Voice of the Pee Dee."

Confused, I flipped through the paper to see if I could learn what on earth this might mean. There was a feature that was called a "Pee Dee Profile"; there was a weather map that said it gave the "Pee Dee Forecast"; a report on local population shifts was headlined "Pee Dee is Growing."

I still did not know what a Pee Dee was. I got in touch with the newspaper's assistant managing editor, Richard Whiting, and asked him to explain why the Morning News was "The Voice of the Pee Dee."

"I'll tell you one thing," Whiting said. "We've got to really watch out for typos."

He said "The Voice of the Pee Dee" became the newspaper's motto in 1996 because it wanted to emphasize it covered more than just Florence. "People around here say things like, ‘This will be great for the whole Pee Dee,' so we wanted to show that we serve the entire Pee Dee."

I called the mayor's office. Mayor Frank E. Willis wasn't in, but his assistant suggested I get in touch with him over at Willis Construction, which he owns. Mayor Willis wasn't there, either, but his sister -- Martha Willis Ray -- was.

"The Pee Dee?" she said. "Those of us who grew up in the Pee Dee are used to saying it, but I suppose it does sound odd if you haven't heard it before."

She said the Pee Dee refers to the Pee Dee River. Actually, she said, there are two -- the Great Pee Dee River and the Little Pee Dee River. That's why people who live here say they are from the Pee Dee.

But they don't say, "I'm from the Pee Dee area"; the newspaper doesn't call itself "The Voice of the Pee Dee Area." They say they live in the Pee Dee.

Doesn't make sense -- they don't live in the river.

"It's like this," said Florence Police Chief Ralph Porter. "In South Carolina, if you live in Columbia you live in the Midlands. If you live in Greenville, you live Up Country. If you live in Charleston, you live in the Low Country. And if you live in Florence, you live in the Pee Dee."

Just the Pee Dee.

"As a matter of fact," Chief Porter said, "do you know the song ‘Swannee River'?"

Yes?

"The man who wrote that was really riding along the Pee Dee River when he thought of the song. That's what the song is about. But he called it ‘Swannee River' instead."

Why would he do that?

"Think about it," Chief Porter said. And the chief began to sing:

"Way down upon the Pee Dee River..."

He burst out laughing. "Doesn't sound too good that way, does it?" he said.

The local minor league ice hockey team is called the Pee Dee Pride. Susan Robertson, the team's assistant general manager, said that when she phones in scores to the Associated Press, she always senses muffled giggles on the other end of the line.

"The other teams in the league are Raleigh, and Jacksonville, and Charlotte ... teams like that," she said.

"And I'm always calling in with the Pee Dee score."

David Wansley, president of the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce, said that when he sends out marketing brochures to people and companies expressing interest in coming to the area, the phrase "Pee Dee" is not something that is stressed, at least not on paper: "The concept of Pee Dee is something I prefer to explain to someone face to face."

At the Florence Library, the library director is Harold Boyer. He moved down from Pennsylvania seven months ago. He and his family are trying to learn to say that they live in the Pee Dee.

"It's hard to get used to," he said. "But when in Rome..."

Do as the Romans do. When in the Pee Dee?

Probably better not to ask.

Chicago Tribune