Beth Calhoun begins job as new Horry County auditor after 2020 termination
By most measures, Elizabeth “Beth” Calhoun had a rocky 2020.
In the first half of the year, she was considering a run to be Horry County’s Auditor, one of several non-flashy row offices in the county government. She was working as the assistant deputy auditor and waiting to hear if her boss, then-Auditor Lois Eargle, was going to run for reelection.
Eargle had long told Calhoun that she ought to run for the office one day, and Calhoun said she had told Eargle she’d only run once Eargle retired. Throughout the first half of last year, Calhoun said she wasn’t sure how Eargle would approach her 2020 reelection bid; at first, Eargle announced that she planned to run for an eighth consecutive term, but then Eargle left the race due to health issues.
Calhoun decided to enter the race, and expected to secure Eargle’s endorsement easily. That never happened.
Eargle ultimately endorsed her opponent in the race, R. A. Johnson, the county’s deputy treasurer.
But then election day came, and Calhoun cruised to victory, beating Johnson and another challenger by winning 41% of the vote, and then winning 57% of the vote in a runoff election with Johnson. But problems for Calhoun didn’t end there. Several weeks later, Calhoun found herself involved in a dispute between Judy Clardy, the county’s deputy auditor, and the county treasurer’s office. Clardy, according to a sheriff’s report, alleged that Sandra Beckwith, an employee of the treasurer’s office, had stolen personal items from her desk at work, and Calhoun had accompanied Clardy to the sheriff’s office to file the report.
By mid-November, Eargle had learned of the allegations and the report, and directed her anger at Clardy and Calhoun. Calhoun was placed on leave for a period of time before she was formally fired. Clardy resigned before Eargle could fire her.
Now though, Calhoun is looking to put those events behind her.
“I’m loving it,” she said in a recent interview about beginning in her new role. “We’re making progress every day.”
Sandra Beckwith, who Clardy accused of stealing from her, currently has a defamation suit pending against Calhoun and Clardy. In court filings, both women have denied the allegations against them. Calhoun declined to comment on the lawsuit.
How we got here
Despite the recent drama, Calhoun has a long history in Horry County.
Calhoun grew up in Conway, and graduated from Conway High School, winning the superlatives “most spirited” and “class clown” in the process. Growing up, Calhoun was also named “Miss Horry Independence” in the first year the county held that contest.
After high school, Calhoun attended Coastal Carolina University and Horry Georgetown Technical College, and ultimately found work for a major developer in the 1980s, Resort Management Group. Calhoun worked for that company through the 1990s before taking several jobs in federal and state government.
By the early 2000s, Calhoun was back in Horry County and working in the auditor’s office, working her way up through the ranks. Under Eargle, Calhoun became deputy assistant auditor, third in command behind Clardy and Eargle, ahead of her run for Auditor in 2020.
Calhoun said that as she worked under Eargle, Eargle encouraged her to run to replace her one day. Calhoun said her answer was always the same: If Eargle chose not to run, Calhoun would consider it. If Earlge did run, Calhoun would stay put.
“I always let that up to her. She would say, ‘Are you going to run, are you going to run?’ And I would say, ‘Ms. Eargle, you and your family decide what’s best for you, then I’ll make a decision,’” Calhoun explained. “Because I really never wanted to interfere with her decision as to what she wanted to do.”
Though Eargle had announced in 2019 that she planned to seek re-election, she had dropped out of the race by mid-January 2020, citing her health. Eargle would have been seeking an eighth consecutive term, having worked as Auditor since 1993. With the longtime Auditor out, that left a race between Calhoun and Johnson, the deputy treasurer.
As Calhoun tells it, Eargle had not only encouraged her to run, but planned to endorse her if she did end up entering the race.
“She said she would support me,” Calhoun told The Sun News in an interview last year after Eargle fired her. “She said I could put that in my campaign letter.”
After Eargle’s announcement that she wouldn’t seek another term in office, Calhoun said she weighed whether or not to run.
“I still was somewhat undecided until she finally made the announcement that she was not going to (run),” Calhoun said. “So I prayed a lot about it, talked with my family. And of course I had somewhat been preparing for this for 10 years because she would always say, ‘I want you to run, I want you to run.’”
In a surprise move, though, Eargle endorsed Johnson. According to a statement Eargle released last June, she said she chose to back Johnson over Calhoun because she felt that Johnson was better for the job.
“R.A. better understands the relationships needed between the Assessor’s, Treasurer’s and Auditor’s offices for the county tax and collection system to operate effectively and has participated in many discussions about making those offices work efficiently,” Eargle wrote. “It is extremely important that they continue to work together as they have throughout my career. It is for that reason I continue to endorse R. A. Johnson as the person I believe best qualified to take my place.”
Calhoun, though, said she was taken aback by Eargle’s endorsement. She said it was “hurtful.”
“There was nothing I (could) do about it. Ms. Eargle had been quite sick. It was hurtful because I cared for her like my parents,” Calhoun said. “But I accepted it, that’s all I can do. And I try not to dwell on that, I don’t think about that, I have to move on.”
Eargle couldn’t be reached for comment for this story.
The Sheriff’s report
By early July 2020, Calhoun had won the run-off election and was considered to be Horry County’s Auditor-elect, and was soon pulled into Clardy’s accusations against Beckwith. In the weeks prior, several employees of the auditor’s office had transferred to the treasurer’s office, a move that county Treasurer Angie Jones said was routine. In Horry County, the Assessor, Treasurer and Auditor’s offices all work closely together to handle tax billing and collection, and serve as checks and balances on one another.
In the report, a sheriff’s deputy noted that Clardy was accusing Beckwith, one of the transfers, of stealing from her desk, and that Calhoun had accompanied her to the sheriff’s office to file the report. Though the report doesn’t make clear specifically what Clardy was referring to, the sheriff’s report quotes Clardy as describing the work atmosphere in the auditor’s office to be “so very bad” during last summer.
Around the same time, an employee of either the auditor’s office or the treasurer’s office had contacted the state Department of Revenue to complain that the offices were sharing duties, which could violate state law. The state agency sent a letter to the treasurer’s office warning of the concern,which Jones refuted at the time.
By the fall, when Jones and Eargle were presented with copies of the report, they were incensed. Eargle moved to fire Clardy and Calhoun, and Jones told The Sun News at the time that the terminations were justified.
“I would fire for that,” Jones said, referring to the sheriff’s report. “If I had an employee who jumped over the chain of command…without a shred of proof…I wouldn’t allow for that. I wouldn’t be having my people going and doing things like that. It’s insubordination.”
In the months since her firing, Calhoun said she and Eargle haven’t spoken. Calhoun added that last year’s controversies wouldn’t follow her into her new job.
“I’m not worried about it, because it will not be a reflection of me,” she said.
Moving forward
Despite the controversies of 2020, Calhoun was sworn in as Horry County’s new auditor on June 30 without incident. She said that she’s now working to bring herself up to speed on office operations, as she’s been absent for the first half of the year, and had been absent for a significant portion of 2020 due to running her campaign.
Because the auditor’s office helps determine taxes on resident’s cars, boats and other “personal property” they have to pay property taxes on, they’re often one of the first offices new residents come in contact with when they move here. Calhoun said she wants to capitalize on that, and ensure that her office is offering the best customer service they can, so that new residents are properly welcomed to the Grand Strand.
“It’s frustrating when you’re moving here...I think that we have a unique opportunity to be very welcoming to them, show them what Southern hospitality is and excellent customer service,” Calhoun said. “And I do truly believe that this office is very good at that.”
Jones said that the two offices are working well together so far, and that last year’s controversies aren’t affecting day-to-day operations.
Though she and Eargle aren’t as close as they used to be, Calhoun credited Eargle with starting the office’s reputation for good customer service. Calhoun added that as she gets used to leading the office, she’s in a unique position because she’s held many of the jobs in the office herself, and is able to easily learn on the fly and fill in where she’s needed.
“I just hope to continue to expand what we already have,” she said. “There’s nothing that my staff would do that I won’t get in there and do myself to help them.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to replace a repeated quotation from Calhoun.
This story was originally published July 20, 2021 at 2:12 PM.
