Local Outdoorsman Author Event

            The Calhoun County Library held an author event last week to support a local, well-known outdoorsman and author who has published several books, the latest of which being Local Signs & Wonders: Essays About Belonging to a Place.

Dr. Richard Rankin visited the library on Tuesday, February 25, 2025, at 5:30 PM. He writes books and articles on cultural history, nature, and hunting. After a long career as a college professor and administrator and an independent school headmaster, Rankin is now serving as the director of the Interlaken Wildlife Center in Cameron, South Carolina. The Interlaken Wildlife Center’s mission is outdoor education and recreation, the promotion of hunting and shooting sports, and wildlife conservation.

An outdoorsman, conservationist, and Presbyterian layman, Dr. Rankin and his family are the sixth generation living on family land in the North Carolina Piedmont. This property was once known as Rankintown. It is a shrinking countryside about twenty miles west of fast-growing Charlotte, North Carolina. Several days a week, Dr. Rankin travels back and forth to his family home in North Carolina and the Interlaken Wildlife Center in Calhoun County to assist with hunts.

Dr. Rankin spoke to a large crowd about his most recent work, Local Signs & Wonders: Essays about Belonging to a Place. This book is a collection of essays describing how attachment to a family homestead creates a sense of wellbeing, fulfillment, and belonging. Within the book, there are stories that represent personal experiences for him. He discussed one of these essays with us: “Wondering about the Wart Doctor,” and its topic was exactly that! The essay told about a mysterious wart healer who went to. Dr. Rankin’s father, a highly respected family doctor in their hometown. Back then, when people came in with a wart, his father gave them two options: have him cut it open, get a scar, and pay a fee or go to this magic wart doctor for the removal.

Once, Rankin got a wart himself, and his father refused to remove it. He was sent to this mysterious wart healer, and the essay tells the rest of the story. We are not going to give away the ending, so you will have to come to the library and check out your own copy of Local Signs and Wonders: Essays about Belonging to a Place.

We would like to thank everyone who came to meet Dr. Richard Rankin. We had a great crowd of people who knew him, knew the Interlaken Wildlife Center, and knew that Southern stories are some of the best. We are happy that we came together and supported this local author!