UNION — A veteran, a supporter of the proposed Patriots Lake project, and a woman who just wanted to meet once again with “her hero” were among those who met with members of U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint’s staff at a “mobile office” in Union on Thursday.
Seth Blanton and Will Wharton, Constituent Service Representatives with DeMint’s Greenville office, brought the mobile office to Union as part of an effort by the senator’s staff to bring constituent services to the smaller communities of South Carolina.
The mobile office, which was in the meeting room of the Union County Museum, was open from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday. During that time, Blanton said he and Wharton saw a total of four people. He said the small number was not unusual.
“It was about the size that we expected, based on when we do these around the state,” Blanton said. “This was not a big town hall meeting where you see 50 or 60 people show up. Usually we have no more than 10 people in for one-on-one conversations in two hours.”
During the two hours they were in Union, Blanton said he and Wharton met with a veteran needing assistance with a matter involving the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
A second person was a supporter of the proposed Patriots Lake project who asked for the senator’s continued attention to the project.
Blanton said one person just simply dropped by to say hello.
The fourth person to stop by, however, was not only there to say hello but also to say “thank you” for help she’d received previously from Wharton.
“We had two people to stop by to say hello, one of them we’d worked with before,” Blanton said. “The lady’s son’s passport was stolen while he was out of the country and we were able to get it replaced.
“Will Wharton worked that case and she said she just had to come by and say thank you,” he said. “She called him her hero.”
Blanton said plans are for another mobile office to be in Union sometime before the end of the year.
For more information about constituent services, contact DeMint’s Greenville office at (864) 233-5366.








