By By Janet Morgan

Copyright postandcourier

LONGS — More than strawberry fields straddle the state line.

A family’s past and future, a landmark and one of the region’s original agritourism farms could be in the path of a highway extension.

“The worst case? The route they want would take everything, the fields, the market, our homes. Would we attempt to restructure and find other ways to provide food to the community? Would it work? Well, you got to try it to find out. It’s not something I want to try,” Sallie Bellamy Lun said walking toward an heirloom pumpkin patch at Indigo Farms. “Our hearts desire to grow food for our community. When you’ve worked the soil, cared for the environment, it becomes spiritual.”

In a pair of adjacent fast-growing counties in two states filling with new residents, the need for new roads has been discussed for decades. The two state Departments of Transportation pinpointed extending the Carolina Bays Parkway from its end at S.C. Highway 9 north to U.S. Highway 17 over the state line.

The landing and crossing points creating the routes will be displayed at two upcoming meetings and the public will be given time to talk at another meeting. The newly formed S.C. House Department of Transportation Modernization Ad Hoc Committee will meet at 4 p.m. Sept. 23 at the Horry-Georgetown Technical College Conference and Business Center in Myrtle Beach. People will be given three minutes to talk.

One topic of the ad hoc committee meeting will be concurrency, requiring public infrastructure and services to be in place before new developments are approved.

The parkway extension will be the purpose of the meetings at Sea Trail Convention Center in Sunset Beach on Sept. 29 and Sept. 30 at the North Strand Recreational Center in the Longs community. Both meetings are scheduled from 5-8 p.m. and each will have transportation officials from South Carolina and North Carolina.