Hilton Head's working class

The Island Packet

In 1970, real estate developer Tom Wamsley and former newspaperman Ralph Hilton enlisted help and money from a third Hilton Head Island resident to start a newspaper to cover happenings on Hilton Head, a small island off the S.C. coast. The first edition — a 20-page tabloid — rolled off the press July 9, 1970. The paper came out on Thursday afternoons to an island with only 3,000 residents. As the island grew into a renowned resort, the Packet grew with it — from a weekly tabloid into a daily broadsheet newspaper. McClatchy Newspapers purchased the Packet in 1990, and by 1995 it had become a seven-day-a-week newspaper.  

The Island Packet

In 1970, real estate developer Tom Wamsley and former newspaperman Ralph Hilton enlisted help and money from a third Hilton Head Island resident to start a newspaper to cover happenings on Hilton Head, a small island off the S.C. coast. The first edition — a 20-page tabloid — rolled off the press July 9, 1970. The paper came out on Thursday afternoons to an island with only 3,000 residents. As the island grew into a renowned resort, the Packet grew with it — from a weekly tabloid into a daily broadsheet newspaper. McClatchy Newspapers purchased the Packet in 1990, and by 1995 it had become a seven-day-a-week newspaper.  

Kate Hidalgo Bellows

Kate Hidalgo Bellows reports for The Island Packet, a publication on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, where she focuses on the workers behind the affluent vacation destination. It’s different than some other things she’s done. She wrote about guns, rats and one nomadic bear cub as an intern for PennLive in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and reported on the fight over bike lanes as a participant in The New York Times Student Journalism Institute. A 2020 graduate of the University of Virginia, she has reported on Charlottesville, Virginia, and the university for four years, first as an enterprise reporter for The Cavalier Daily, U.Va.’s student newspaper, and then as a freelancer for Charlottesville Tomorrow, where she helped cover the Covid-19 pandemic. Her reporting at The Cavalier Daily has dealt with the aftermath of the 2017 “Unite the Right” rallies, including coverage of an anniversary protest in 2018 for which she and her team won an award from the Virginia Press Association. She is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.