ABBEVILLE — The plot was complicated and the conspiracy deep.

Stories were told and then counter-stories were given.

There were even stories to counter the counter-stories.

Family members and friends had been given what amounted to a mission impossible — trying to keep longtime Abbeville County historian May Baskin Hutchinson in the dark on her induction into the Greater Abbeville Chamber of Commerce Hall of Fame during Tuesday’s membership banquet. It was not going to be an easy task.

Hutchinson, an Abbeville County Museum and Abbeville Opera House board member, is not one to have the wool pulled over her eyes.

But her daughters — Jean Hutchinson, of Charleston, and Ann Waigand, of Herndon, Va. — succeeded in doing just that. And when Mary Chase Ford began to read the career highlights of the newest Hall of Fame inductee, May Baskin Hutchinson knew she had been snookered but good.
“You have no idea what they did to get me here,” she said. “I’m still shaking right now. I had no idea any of this was going on.”

Which was just the way her daughters wanted it.

“I was always scared to tell her a story, I just couldn’t do it,” Jean Hutchinson said. “This was the woman that had eyes in the back of her head and we pulled one over on her. We’ve told some tall tales, and then tales to keep up with those. For once we got one over on momma.”

The evening’s second Hall of Fame induction went to former City of Abbeville special projects coordinator Jim Simpson, who died last fall.

His wife, Betty Simpson, accepted the award on his behalf.
The Chamber Community Service Award was presented to Helen Speer, while Ivan and Gloria Swartzentruber — owners of The Dutch Oven restaurant — were presented with the organization’s small business award.

Chamber president Brad Evans also passed the leadership position over to incoming president Wayne Tucker, of Milliken.
“It’s exciting to see how far we’ve come,” Evans said. “We have grown, and we hope to continue to grow in the years to come.”

Serving as special guest speaker Tuesday was journalist and author John Boyanoski, who used inspiration found in Abbeville to pen his first book — “Ghosts of Upstate South Carolina,” written in 2006.

The book’s cover illustration features Abbeville Opera House.
“Who believes in ghosts?” Boyanoski asked the crowd. “I was completely blown away by the beauty of your town — the square and the churches.”

Later, when the time came to compile his book on prominent ghost stories of the Upstate, he was again blown away by Abbeville, and just how many unique tales there were to be told in the small community.

“That’s what set Abbeville apart from all the others,” Boyanoski said. “Every town seems to have that story about a haunted bridge or a hitchhiker story, but Abbeville had so many stories that were all so unique.”

The ghost story that is said to have taken place inside Abbeville Opera House involves a lone chair in a deserted section of a forgotten balcony area that is no longer used. The chair — which Boyanoski says could have been placed there as early as the 1920s — remains unmoved to this day.
Actors who have performed at Abbeville Opera House have long claimed to have seen a woman standing and applauding after shows.

Boyanoski has no idea who the woman could be.

“There’s no good theory as to who she is,” he said. “There was once a shooting inside the opera house and a man was killed. Maybe she was a family member or something. We just don’t know.”

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