Richland County remembers those lost to COVID-19 Eleanor Tabone
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Community leaders and residents in Richland County who lost family and friends to COVID-19 paid tribute to them during a ceremony of reflection and hope on Thursday.
News 19 spoke to Dennis Bannister who attended the ceremony, a man who suffered an unimaginable loss during the pandemic.
He lost his 28-year-old daughter, Demetria Bannister, a third grade teacher at Windsor Elementary School in Columbia to the virus. Weeks later, his wife Shirley Bannister died of COVID. COVID also took his mother-in-law. To bury our daughter together, but my wife was sick also. I had doubts but I also had hope, Bannister said. I have nothing to really add to their legacy, and there s nothing I would take away from it.