Veteran SC political reporter Lee Bandy dies

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) âone space€one space” Lee Bandy, a reporter who covered South Carolina politics and its congressional delegation for 40 years, has died. Mark Lett, executive editor of The State newspaper of Columbia, said Bandy’s family told the newspaper (http://bit.ly/16qYI20 ) he died Monday from complications from Parkinson’s disease. Bandy was 78. Several former colleagues were at his side. Bandy covered nearly the entire careers of U.S. Senators. Strom Thurmond and Ernest “Fritz” Hollings before retiring in 2006. Bandy spent much of his career as the chief Washington correspondent for The State, but returned to Columbia in the mid-1990s. He became a source of advice for both his colleagues and national reporters heading to South Carolina to cover the state’s early presidential primaries. This summer, Bandy became an inaugural member of the newspaper’s Hall of Fame.