Nice story from Winthrop University in Rockville, South Carolina, where a group of students and local Sierra Club members rallied yesterday outside Rock Hill City Hall demanding clean energy plans from their gubernatorial candidates — not more familiar calls for offshore drilling.

"We have all kinds of alternatives," said Winthrop senior Lorena Hildebrandt, as quoted in the Rockville Herald Online. "We could have thousands of clean energy jobs. Instead, they’re talking about the same old dirty policies."

As the paper reported, upset by the Gulf Coast oil spill, Hildebrandt, who heads Winthrop’s Student Environmental Action Coalition, decided to organize the rally in advance of Tuesday’s SC gubernatorial primaries. She got some support from her parents and two younger siblings who participated.

"She grew up in the woods," said her mom, Trish Hildebrandt, recalling the family’s wooded 10-acre property in Leesville. "She’s just had a lifelong interest."

Joe Zdenek and Al Rogat showed up to represent the older generation as members of the Henry’s Knob chapter of the Sierra Club.

Hildebrandt also found support from her friends at Winthrop. Carrying cardboard signs and windmill blades pinned to sticks, the group led chants calling for a halt to offshore drilling. Everyone should be alarmed by the BP oil spill, said Winthrop senior Tina Outten.

"If a spill like this occurs on South Carolina beaches, our economy is going to go down," Outten said. "We already have bad enough problems."