She shone the light on a forgotten SC island. Today, it’s a hotspot for research
The eroding, storm-battered island 17 miles east of Beaufort had for years been virtually abandoned by researchers and state officials as funding dried up and attention shifted away from scientific work there.
But before Sarah Haselhorst arrived in South Carolina four years ago, the public didn’t know much about that. Through a regular drumbeat of stories, Haselhorst told the sad tale of Pritchards Island, a panoramic sliver of sand and maritime forest on the Atlantic Ocean.
Haselhorst, a McClatchy climate reporter who quickly developed a local network of sources, wrote about the neglect at 1,600-acre Pritchards Island and how the University of South Carolina could have lost the property as a research site. The stories energized leaders to refocus attention on Pritchards.
Today, the late journalist’s work as a reporter for The State and the Island Packet is being recognized at a USC-Beaufort exhibit. The university has put together a display on its Beaufort campus about Pritchards Island, with a section of the exhibit dedicated to the importance of Haselhorst’s reporting.
”Sarah’s in-depth investigation, insightful writing and willingness to travel to Pritchards Island helped the public and our elected officials understand the potential and challenges for research on the island,’’ said Carol Weir, a spokeswoman for USC-Beaufort.
A cache of stories Haselhorst wrote about the largely forgotten island caught the attention of Gov. Henry McMaster and the Legislature, which has since approved hundreds of thousands of dollars for a new wave of research at Pritchards.
About a dozen scientific projects are in the works these days, including studies on sea turtles, birds, bats and wildlife in general at Pritchards Island. The state also has removed a sagging research center that had been hit by waves. And officials have a renewed commitment to the barrier island.
The university’s display about Pritchards Island, which has been featured on two other occasions, comes as USC-Beaufort has scheduled the first-ever symposium about the island. Much of the work underway at Pritchards was to be discussed at the April 7 symposium.
The symposium was scheduled for the Fripp Island Beach Club. The display featuring Haselhorst is at the university’s downtown Beaufort campus.
Haselhorst, a University of Missouri graduate, was an intense reporter who put in extra work to write stories about South Carolina’s coastal climate. Well-respected by her colleagues at the Island Packet and The State, the 31-year-old reporter died unexpectedly in October 2024. Haselhorst wrote many environmental stories before her death, but the Pritchards Island issue was the one that perhaps best defined her short career in South Carolina.
Pritchards Island, with a beach more than two miles long, was privately owned until the 1980s, when a local family gifted it to USC. It contained a few small private cottages family and friends used, but was otherwise, devoid of development.
Pritchards Island is not far from the highly visible Hunting Island State park. It is sandwiched between the gated Fripp Island and St. Phillip’s Island, another state park property.
Research at Pritchards, among other things, is expected to show how a barrier island reacts to rising seas and climate change. Its beach is eroding and moving toward the mainland, a natural occurrence that isn’t seen on many developed South Carolina beaches. Seawalls and beach renourishment projects are often used to keep developed shorelines from moving, based on storms and sea level rise.
In transferring the island to USC long ago, the deed for Pritchards specified that it must be used for research. But most had fizzled by 2009.
Haselhorst reported that, because of the way the deed was written, the island could be turned over to the University of Georgia if USC let scientific work lapse. Following her stories, McMaster made a point of pushing for rejuvenating the research effort.
In 2023, the Legislature approved $500,000 in recurring funds for Pritchards Island. The exhibit on display calls Pritchards “a Lowcountry treasure.”
This story was originally published April 3, 2026 at 7:43 AM.
