Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT) in Kings Mountain, SC

Kings Mountain High has tabbed a five-time state champion and former national coach of the year as its next football coach.

Strait Herron was announced as the Mountaineers’ new head man Thursday. He takes over for Greg Lloyd, whose 133 wins over the past 16 seasons are most in the program’s 100-year history.

"Today marks another exciting day in our program’s history as we announce the next head football coach to Mountaineer Nation," Kings Mountain athletic director Matt Bridges said in a statement. “Coach Herron brings with him a championship-winning mentality, a proven track record of hard work and success but most importantly the ability to grow young men into the leaders of tomorrow.”

Herron is most renowned for his tenure at Rock Hill, South Carolina, powerhouse South Pointe. From 2011-18, the Stallions won 102 games and five state championships, including four consecutive titles from 2014-17. He was named U.S. Army National Coach of the Year in 2017.

Prior to becoming South Pointe head coach, Herron spent four years as its defensive coordinator. In that time, the Stallions won a state championship (2008) and played for another in 2010.

He also helped talents such as brothers Stephon and Steven Gilmore, Derion Kendrick and Jadeveon Clowney become household names in college and the NFL.

Herron most recently served as coach and athletic director at Legion Collegiate Academy in Rock Hill. The Lancers went 15-14 in four seasons. The charter school paused its football program in February, citing “a limited number of student-athletes on the roster and remaining in the program, issues scheduling games and the lack of a football facility to play home games,” according to a statement.

Herron takes over a Kings Mountain program starving for its first state championship.

It isn’t for a lack of success, however, the Mountaineers winning 80% of their games from 2014-23. In five of the past six seasons, the team has won at least 10 games. An abbreviated spring 2021 season is the lone outlier, the Mountaineers finishing 8-1.

Kings Mountain won three conference titles in the past decade, qualifying for the 3A West regional final in 2015, 2018 and 2019. Last fall, the Mountaineers went 13-1 before falling in the 3A West semifinal round to eventual state champion East Lincoln.

K Donuts on West King Street hums with activity and by 11 a.m., the customers have nearly emptied the yellow trays in the display case, save for some crumbs and a smudge of icing.

One woman said the apple fritters are her favorite. The last time she came in she had to run to her car for some change and by the time she came back, there was only one left, which she promptly snatched up.

Sinet Yim and her husband, Komar Seng, run two doughnut shops, one in Clover, South Carolina, where the couple lives, and another they just opened in Kings Mountain last week.

It is a small family-run operation, and they have a unique story.

Sinet Yim said they are from Cambodia, and her parents-in-law fled the country and came to the United States as refugees, first settling in Tennessee. Yim said she arrived in 2016 and a year later, after her in-laws taught her and her husband to make doughnuts, they opened a business in Tennessee. Five years ago, the couple moved to South Carolina, where they opened their Clover shop.

When a friend told them there was no doughnut shop in Kings Mountain, they started looking around and talked to the owner of the space beside Domino’s Pizza at 110 W. King St.

“We see this building and talked to the owner and they feel excited when they hear we want to open a donut shop,” Yim said.

She said making and selling the sweet treats makes them happy, and they like to share that joy with the community.

“I’m happy to be a part of Kings Mountain,” Yim said. “I like to meet a lot of people.”

She said they have received a warm welcome from the town and although they have no website or social media, people have been posting about them on Facebook, which has helped spread the word.

K Donuts sells a variety of glazed and filled doughnuts, including chocolate, boston creme, maple and lemon. They also sell macarons, boba, smoothies and coffee.

Yim said they want to offer the freshest products to their customers and her husband starts making them from scratch at midnight for both the Clover shop and K Donuts.

“We want customers to have fresh, we make fresh daily.” she said. “We make the dough, cut it and deep fry it.”

Yim said she helps decorate, glaze and sell the products at both stores.

K Donuts is open daily from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. or until sold out. For more information, call 731-414-5758.

Reporter Rebecca Sitzes can be reached at rsitzes@gannett.com

Despite spending the better part of his career coaching against South Carolina opponents, Strait Herron admits it was tough giving Kings Mountain football more than a passing glance.

“Being in Rock Hill, we’d hear about Kings Mountain here and there, and in most cases I was extremely impressed with what I’d seen and heard,” Herron said last week. “You hear about how much they love their athletic programs, their student-athletes and can see why anyone would want to be a part of it.”

He’ll soon have the opportunity, Herron being named as Kings Mountain coach March 2. He takes over for former coach Greg Lloyd, the program’s all-time leader with 133 wins over 16 seasons.

END OF AN ERA:Longtime Kings Mountain football coach Greg Lloyd steps down

BIG TIME HIRE:Kings Mountain football: 5-time S.C. state champion Strait Herron is new head coach

“It’s an exciting time. Once the job was posted and I did my research, I knew this was the right place for me,” he said. “Obviously, coming behind (Lloyd) adds some pressure. But we’re excited to get started, and hopefully we can give the kids what they want and need.”

Herron is most renowned for his tenure at South Carolina powerhouse South Point. From 2011-18, the Stallions won 102 games and five state championships, including four consecutive titles from 2014-17. In addition, he was named U.S. Army National Coach of the Year following the 2017 season. He also won a state title as South Pointe defensive coordinator in 2008.

He most recently served as coach and athletic director at Legion College Academy in Rock Hill. The Lancers went 15-14 in four seasons before the charter school announced in February it was pausing the program.

Though savoring the experience, Herron said it also left him wanting more.

“It was a great experience, but I also didn’t believe I was getting what I needed for football (from the charter school),” he said. “But I’m not ready to hang it up. I still believe I have 12-15 years (of coaching) left in me. In that time, I believe we have what’s in place to get Kings Mountain football where it wants to go.”

Kings Mountain has won three conference titles in the past decade, qualifying for the 3A West regional final in 2015, 2018 and 2019. Last fall, the Mountaineers went 13-1 before falling in the 3A West semifinal round to eventual state champion East Lincoln. Herron said a lot about Cleveland County reminds him of his old Rock Hill stomping grounds.

“Cleveland County is also well known for its football. Obviously, the most attractive part to that is knowing there are athletes and special players, as well as a community atmosphere that’s bought in,” he added.

The new Kings Mountain head man starts April 3. He doesn’t plan to sit on his hands until then, getting further up to speed about the program with Lloyd, along with building a coaching staff and getting acquainted with returning players.

“A month and a half seems long, but there are decisions to make and holes to fill," he said. "But because this is Kings Mountain and what it’s done before I got here, I doubt there will be any issues in that regard.”

KINGS MOUNTAIN, N.C. —

A federal judge on Friday rejected a legal challenge by the operator of North Carolina’s two casinos, saying that the tribe had no grounds to oppose a competitor’s plans for a third gambling operation in the state.

The South Carolina-based Catawba Indian Nation has already begun working to establish Vegas-style gaming on the Kings Mountain, North Carolina site, about a half-hour west of Charlotte, North Carolina. That came after the tribe officially inked a profit-sharing deal with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper earlier this year.

Click the video player above to watch the latest headlines from WXII 12 News.

After the Interior Department signed off on the agreement last month, South Carolina’s sole federally recognized tribe faced one more hurdle in its years-long quest to build the casino — a lawsuit by the North Carolina-based Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians, which runs two casinos in the southwestern corner of the state.

The competing tribe argued that the land for the Catawba casino was historically theirs and that the Catawba tribe and the Interior Department had violated federal law.

But the Eastern Band lost the roll of the dice, U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg wrote in his 55-page opinion Friday: “In the end, though, they come up with snake eyes, as on each claim they either lack standing or lose on the merits.

The Eastern Band had previously called the Catawba efforts “a modern-day land grab” and that, under the legal process, the government is supposed to follow to acquire trust land for the Catawba tribe, that land must be in South Carolina. Strict laws in South Carolina prohibit most forms of gambling in the state.

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But the Catawba tribe has said they have a right to the land for the casino based on a 1993 agreement that gave them federal recognition. The tribe points out that it has long had historical and ancestral ties to land in North Carolina.

Catawba Indian Nation Chief Bill Harris praised the ruling, saying he hoped the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians would not file a “frivolous appeal and that our two tribes can now work together for the betterment of our people.”

“This decision reaffirms the clear historical record of the Catawba’s ancestral lands and cultural ties in North Carolina and the rigorous process of review undertaken by the U.S. Department of the Interior in taking the land into trust,” Harris said in a news release.

Richard Sneed, principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, said in an emailed statement that the tribe was reviewing the ruling late Friday. He added the tribe is “examining all options for next steps. It remains clear to us that the law was broken and we will not stop until justice is served in this case.”

Filed last summer, the lawsuit was the latest dispute in a years-long casino turf war between the two tribes. The Catawba have long sought the jobs and good fortune the casino would bring to the cash-strapped tribe. Their attempt to cross over to North Carolina, after struggling to surmount anti-gambling opposition in South Carolina, led the North Carolina state legislature and U.S. senators from both states to get involved.

The Catawba Indian Nation held a groundbreaking for the casino last summer and is working on a “pre-launch facility” scheduled to open this summer, Harris said.

The land for the proposed casino is 35 miles (55 kilometers) northwest of the Catawba reservation in upstate South Carolina.

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Kings Mountain has two candidates for mayor this year with incumbent Scott Neisler running against Rob Wagman.

Voters will choose one of the two men during the November municipal elections.

Recently The Star talked to both candidates about their priorities, goals, challenges and what they hope for the future of Kings Mountain.

Scott Neisler

Neiser has a long history of serving the city and was first voted to the position of mayor in 1991, a position he retained until 1999. He said he then took a 15-year hiatus before running again in 2016 and winning. He said he got “the fire in the belly” to run again and as long as he has that fire, he feels inspired to serve the city.

Born and raised in Kings Mountain, Neisler said he’s been in the radio business since 2008 and was in textiles since 2012. He said his great great grandfather was the first mayor of Kings Mountain.

“It’s not that nobody else can’t do the job, I just love the community,” Neisler said.

He said he has enjoyed giving back to his hometown by bringing things such as the annual Christmas light show to downtown Kings Mountain.

Neisler said Kings Mountain has found an identity as one of the top five entertainment destinations in North Carolina with its Beach Blast and summer concert series.

Now, he’s looking ahead to the future.

“I think at this point you have to have a bridge from the past to the future because of the growth,” Neisler said.

The growth is being spurred on by the Two Kings Casino and Albemarle lithium mine.

He said the area around the casino - located five miles away from downtown - is a “blank canvas” with the potential for new commercial, retail and housing developments.

In addition, Albemarle has plans to begin mining for lithium beginning in the next five years.

“Really and truly the thing that will affect Kings Mountain most is lithium,” Neisler said.

He said it will bring not only jobs to town, but high-paying jobs.

“That in itself will boost Kings Mountain,” he said. “It’s exciting really.”

When asked about challenges facing the city, Neisler said he believes their challenges are their opportunities.

Some of his future goals, if re-elected, include careful planning for the future so they don’t have urban sprawl.

He said leaders need to talk to other cities, such as Cornelius and Huntersville, to find out what they did right and wrong as they faced rapid growth.

Neisler, who serves on the North Carolina League of Municipalities, said he has a network of people to draw from who offer their experience, insight and opinions.

“After all, we’re not reinventing the wheel,” he said. “I have used my network to my advantage which I think makes me a better public servant.”

He said one of the things he has publicly opposed was a recent tax increase passed by City Council.

“I think we’re spending too much money,” Neisler said. “We’re in a spending frenzy.”

Neisler said the city is in great shape financially and has a 60% fund balance.

He said instead of raising taxes, he was in favor of spending less on paving roads this year and buying one fire truck as opposed to two in one year.

“I serve at the pleasure of the council, and the council voted on the budget,” he said.

Rob Wagman

Wagman said this is first time running for office, and he has more than 35 years experience in media and radio.

“I've been associated with Kings Mountain since 2004, that's when I met my wife who is from Kings Mountain,” Wagman said.

The couple moved back to the city in 2018 and around that time, he said he began hearing concerns from people who lived in Kings Mountain.

“Everyone was talking about we need change, we need change, we need change,” he said.

When he told people they should make that change and run for office, no one wanted to.

“So if they're not going to, I guess I will,” Wagman said.

After praying about it, he decided to throw his name in the hat.

One of the issues he wants to tackle if elected is transparency.

“The people who live in a town should not be in the dark about things going on in their town and that's how it's been since I lived there since 2018,” Wagman said. “The transparency is pretty blurry.”

He called the current system of communication, such as sending information in a newsletter with customer’s gas bills, archaic and not a thorough means of communication.

Wagman said he believes the city can communicate about events, things happening around town and discussions, quickly and more effectively using social media

“In my opinion day-of memos from the city about what’s happening later that day or happened that morning, that's not transparency, that's like a shell game where you have to keep track of where the ball is. There’s some manipulation. I would change that in a quick minute,” he said.

Wagman said he’s been campaigning by going door to door in different wards to talk to people.

He said as mayor or city council, the priority should be first to the people they govern.

“That needs to be the true thing and not just something nice to say for city hall,” he said.

Wagman said people are confused about the role Albemarle will play in the community and what the casino is doing and when their building process will start.

He said people are in the dark.

Wagman said he believes the city could have used both the casino and Albemarle as a negotiating tool to clean up and modernize the downtown area.

He also wants to find ways to attract new businesses and support existing ones.

Wagman said he would work with council to incentivize people to put ideas forward so locals could create businesses in the town where they grew up.

“People have to feel like they can dream,” he said.