Jon Martin Page Design

By JON MARTINChronicle Writer

“Fabian.”Nina McKever entered

one name into a search engine in 2008 and began the quest to find her stepson.

Nina’s husband, Tim, had Fabian when he was only 17-years-old. Tim, along with Fabian’s birth mother, decided to give their newborn son up for adoption.

Spontaneously, 14 years later, without any idea of exactly what she was looking for, Nina scoured the Internet in hopes of finding Fabian.

Somewhere.

FINDING A HOME

Fabian Jefferson, a tight end on Limestone College’s football team, was born in Florence, SC to Tim McKever and Theo Ballard, both teenagers and both con-cerned with how they would support their new son.

Ballard, Fabian’s bio-logical mother, found a family friend in Santee, SC to adopt Fabian and his half-brother, Rodney. Tim never knew where his son was taken.

“My parents just couldn’t afford me at the time,” Fabian said. “Them being young and kids themselves, they wanted to give me a bet-

ter chance.”Sharing the home with

Fabian, Rodney and their adoptive mother (who we will call Mrs. Jefferson) was an aunt, two uncles and two of the adoptive mother’s biological children.

Eight people under one roof.

Fabian’s new sur-roundings quickly turned violent, as Mrs. Jefferson became abusive to both Fabian and his brother.

Whether verbal or physical, growing up in the Jefferson household was a difficult challenge.

“She beat us with pipes and extension cords,” Fabian said. “Just me and my brother. She’d come home one day mad and that’d be all it took. She’d bring her biologi-cal kids food and not bring us anything.”

So Fabian and Rodney would wait out the night, counting down the hours until the next day’s school schedule began. It was then, during lunch, that they would receive their next meal.

Fabian never asked Mrs. Jefferson why she hit them, and he never

told anyone else.“I was afraid some-

thing would happen to me,” Fabian said. “Or somebody would come and take my brother and me away, and split us up.”

Fabian got his strength from his brother – three years his senior. Rodney

would do whatever nec-essary to protect his younger sibling, who shared his birth mother.

“I always had him there to protect me,” Fabian said. “When we were being abused, he’d take the majority of the punishment. I knew as long as I had Rodney, nothing else mattered.”

Fabian’s birth mother would come by about once every two years, and would send money when necessary. But the mother-son relationship was never there.

“I was told when I was 12 that I was adopt-ed,” Fabian said. “So I knew who my birth mother was. We never had a very good relation-ship. I don’t think it was anything she did, I just resented her because of the adoption. She was never there when I need-ed her.”

FINDING A FATHER

Tim McKever had always wondered what

happened to his son. He had discussed it with his new wife, Nina, on a handful of occasions.

So Nina, along with Tim’s sister, went to work to find Fabian.

“All they had was my first name,” Fabian said.

Poring over web pages, Nina finally found Fabian on MySpace. Even though she didn’t know his last name, she knew she found her hus-band’s son.

“My dad and I are basically twins,” Fabian laughed. “It wasn’t hard once she saw the pic-ture.”

So Nina sent 14-year-old Fabian a MySpace message.

“She said, ‘Hey Fabian, I know you don’t know who I am but I’m your father’s wife,’” Fabian remembers read-ing. “She told me that she knew I wouldn’t understand everything right now and if I needed anything to contact her. She ended it with, ‘From

THE CHRONICLE Thursday, October 31, 2013 1B

SportS Tindall’s ElectricElectrical-Heating-Cooling-Walk-in Coolers

Walk-In Freezers-Ice Machines- Cooler BoxesPhone: (864) 489-3704 - Cell: (864) 838-4036

125 Lacewood Rd., Gaffney

Limestone’s Fabian Jefferson goes through blocking drills during a recent practice. (All Photos By Jon Martin)

Fabian’s File

PositionTight End

Height6-4

Weight230

ClassFreshman

High SchoolSouth FlorenceHometown

Florence, S.C.

(Information provided by Ernest Meyers, Limestone Sports Information)

(Cont. on page 2B)

High School NotesNamed All-State as senior with the Bruins...

Selected to 2012 Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas... Earned All-Region and All-Pee

Dee Conference honors as a senior... Named team captain... Also served as team captain for the Bruins basketball team... Graduated

with honors from South Florence High School

THE CHRONICLE Thursday, March 29, 2012 1B

SPORTS Tindall’s ElectricElectrical-Heating-Cooling-Walk-in Coolers



Cash InYourGOLD

Get Extra Ca$h for Selling Your Unwanted Gold and SilverJewelry • Coins • Gold Bars • Flatware • Dental Gold

Located just down from Cato’s in the Gaffney Wal-Mart Shopping Center157 Walton Drive • Gaffney, SC • 864-489-0520

Open 10 am - 6 pm - Mon. -Sat.

All Photos By Jon Martin

Blacksburg, Landrum Raise $592.50 During Special NightBy JON MARTINChronicle Writer

When the Blacksburg and Landrum High softball teams met on Tuesday night, the most important outcome had nothing to do with the score-board.

The teams flooded the field with pink in an attempt to raise awareness for breast cancer, and the two schools combined to raise $592.50 with dona-tions and ticket sales during the course of a single evening.

“When you have events like this, it brings awareness to those in the community,” Blacksburg head coach Karen Craig said. “We wanted to

show that helping those that are dealing with cancer is very important. All of that money will go directly to Relay for Life.”

The idea was brought up by the Blacksburg team itself, as the players wanted to put on a fundraiser during one of its games this season.

“I thought it would be great,” Craig said. “Malory Sanders’ mom, Jane Sanders, is a sev-en-year breast cancer survivor. I am an 11-year breast cancer survivor and Carli Norman’s grandmother, Mary Norman, is also a survivor. We decided to raise the money with con-

(Continued on page 2B)

THE CHRONICLE Tuesday, March 6, 2012 1B


Walk-In Freezers-Ice Machines- Cooler BoxesPhone: (864) 489-3704 - 125 Lacewood Rd., Gaffney

Gaffney players explode off the bench following the final horn of Friday’s title game. (Photo by Jon Martin)


Gaffney’s L.J. Peak stepped to the free throw line with seven seconds left in regu-lation, his team trailing Lexington 50-48 for the Class 4A State Championship.

GHS head coach Mark Huff saw the situation, turned to an assistant and stated, “We’re going to overtime.”

With the pressure of an entire season on his back, Gaffney’s talented sophomore took a deep breath and calmly buried both shots, sending the game into overtime and send-

ing the crowd into a frenzy.Four minutes later, the

Indians raised the champion-ship trophy following a heart-stopping 58-55 victory.

“That’s just the way we’ve been all year,” Huff said. “At Lancaster we were down and found a way to win a game we should’ve probably lost. It’s just little things we do. That game showed our guys that it’s never over until it’s over and Friday night we made some plays when we had to.”

The Indians were down by seven with 2:37 to play, and down by six with 1:45 to go

when they shifted into an extra gear that Lexington simply couldn’t match.

Down 46-39, Gaffney went on a 9-4 run to get the game to 50-48 with just over 10 sec-onds to play. Quinshad Davis fouled Lexington star Shaq Roland to end Davis’ night with 15 points as he fouled out of the game.

Roland, who had 10 points in the fourth quarter alone, missed both free throws and then fouled Peak with seven seconds left to foul out of the contest himself.

Indians WinSecond StateTitle In LastThree Years




Walk-In Freezers-Ice Machines- Cooler BoxesPhone: (864) 489-3704 - 125 Lacewood Rd., Gaffney





Men’s starting line-up (above from left): P.J. Foster, Phillip Moultrie, Charles Blue, Joe Raga and Mike Barrett. The Saints are coached by Brandon Scott.

Women’s starting line-up (above from left): Danielle Dixon, Maria Young, Stephanie Hayes, Morgan Brown and Tia Williams. The Saints are coached by Corey Fox.

DID YOU KNOW? - The Limestone teams are a combined 3-0 against their first round opponents... This is the men’s second ever trip to the tournament... The women put together a program-best 19-game win streak this season.


The last two seasons saw the Limestone College basketball programs break into the NCAA Division II Tournament for the first time.

This season, the Saints are delivering another first.Both the men’s and women’s teams are in the Big Dance

in the same season for the first time since Limestone began competing in Division II athletics, and both squads have aspirations of making a run towards the Elite 8.

MENOn the men’s side, the Saints will be competing in the

Aiken regional beginning Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. against Wingate. Limestone enters as the fifth seed after finishing second in Conference Carolinas during the regular season, and falling in the conference tournament champion-ship last weekend.

Limestone head coach Brandon Scott said the team’s focus this week was on getting healthy, as starters Mike Barrett and Phillip Moultrie were both hobbled during the confer-ence tournament.

“We first and foremost have to get healthy,” Scott said. “We expect both guys to play this weekend. From there, we’re just wanting to shore up some things on offense. We’re getting a lot of shots up in practice and focused on guys moving around in our offensive sets. We’ve also been doing some film work on Wingate, so we’ll be prepared for Saturday.”

Wingate enters after winning the SAC Tournament Championship last weekend, including an emphatic 69-53 win over top-seeded Lincoln Memorial, who was set to host the NCAA Regional until that upset.

“Wingate’s really good,” Scott said. “Their team make-up is like our women’s team from the standpoint that they have a lot of players who came in as freshmen together, and this is their fourth year playing together. They have two conference titles under their belt and won an NCAA Tournament game last year. They have two really good big men and their guard play is exceptional.”

Scott said he expects a tough game Saturday, as both teams like getting physical under the boards.

“It’s going to be a fight,” he said.Limestone has already beaten the Bulldogs once this sea-

son, claiming a 75-71 win on Nov. 10 at Wingate.Charles Blue had a big game that night, pouring in 23

points en route to the victory.Scott said he believes his team may gain a little confidence

from that game, but Wingate is a different team now than they were at the beginning of the year.

“It was so long ago that I don’t think it’ll be an enormous amount of confidence,” Scott said. “It doesn’t hurt that we beat them, we know we can play with them. I think this group, when they play well, can play with anybody.”

The Saints plan on having a final meal in Gaffney on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. at the Olive Garden before departing for Aiken.

If Limestone is victorious Saturday night, they’ll play again Sunday against the winner of USC Aiken and Belmont Abbey. A win there will put the Saints in the Sweet 16 next Tuesday where a victory would send them to the NCAA Elite 8 in Louisville next weekend.


The Limestone College men’s and women’s basketball teams will both compete in the NCAA Division II Tournament, beginning this weekend. The men travel to the Aiken Regional, while the women will take part in the Atlanta Regional. Tournament action tips off Friday.

Documents

Jon Martin Page Design