“Out There…Somewhere”: Lake Debate Rages For Double Decade

SOMEWHERE—It will float your boat, but many are still not on board…calling it Lake Thurmond.

“I don’t know, it just stuck with me all these years. I know it’s Lake Thurmond, but I call it Clarks Hill,” said Nina Griner, from North Augusta.

For twenty years, it’s been a raging debate, what to call the lake. In 1989, the Georgia Legislature went on the record, naming it Clarks Hill.

It’s what Kelly Goff, of McCormick, South Carolina calls it.

“I’ve always called it Clarks Hill Lake, always, it’s just natural,” he said,

Terry Young is from Augusta. So, naturally this Georgian calls it…“Lake Thurmond,“ he said with a grin. He said he did some work at Senator Thurmond’s house, once.

Not far away, Beth Moore, of North Augusta, was down on the shore of “lake what’s its name”.

“I call it Clarks Hill,” she said.

It was Clarks Hill to start with, but we can’t overlook that Congress renamed it Lake Thurmond, in 1987.

President Ronald Reagan signed the bill.

We’ve made a federal case out of this. Mike Leggett, from Jacksonville, Florida was at the lake and says this would never happen in Florida. “To make everybody happy come up with a totally different name something in between that does not have to do with either one of them,” he said.

We could always call it Lake George; yeah, I know that’s like Lake Erie.

“Beverly Hills Lake,” said the young, but seriously geographically challenged, Hunter Steger, of North Augusta, who did not care we’re about 3,000 miles east of the posh southern California town.

We could try combining the names, like Clark Thurmond.

“Oh No,” said Griner.

How about Strom Hill?

“Strom Hill I don’t like that,” said Goff.

“Everybody should just enjoy it whatever they want to call it, whether it’s Thurmond or Clarks Hill, it’s a good place to hang out,” said Moore

A rose, or a lake, by any other name still is sweet.