the family found a home thirty minutes south of downtown. Whenever they could get away, they’ d pack up the kids and head for the Lowcountry.
Not long after Cyndy ' s father passed away in 2001, the family sold the Kiawah home and the McKinley ' s connection to Kiawah was severed.“ Over the years, I kept trying other parts of the East Coast, looking to find something like what we had on Kiawah,” Cyndy remembers.“ But my heart was here.”
For more than two decades, the couple raised their children in the Charlotte suburbs. Shep taught history while Cyndy focused on family, freelance writing, and later teaching homeschoolers online. Trips to the Charleston area were rare, and each time they passed the turnoff for Kiawah, they felt the loss.“ Every time we’ d drive down I-95, I’ d see those signs to Charleston and just cry,” she says.
Even so, Kiawah and the Conservancy’ s work remained on their radar.“ My mom was an early supporter of the Conservancy,” Cyndy explains.“ So all those years I received the Conservancy’ s magazine.”
In 2016, the McKinleys found their way back to the Lowcountry. On Johns Island, they spotted a neglected piece of property for sale on Betsy Kerrison Parkway.“ Nobody knew about it,”
Shep says.“ The realtor had it on the wrong side of the road and took the absolute worst photo. We lucked out when we found it.”
“ That was the year Collie Farah [ the Conservancy’ s Land Preservation Specialist ] began working for the Conservancy,” Cyndy remembers.“ He sent a letter out to all the landowners up and down Betsy Kerrison talking about conservation easements. We were the first to reply.”
The McKinleys bought the land, built a small shed, and began camping there— sometimes as many as seventy nights a year— while Shep was still teaching.“ We’ d drive down from Charlotte with a generator,” Cyndy says.“ It was magical.” In 2019, they added a cabin.
Then came the pandemic. Demand for large suburban lots skyrocketed, and the McKinley’ s Charlotte home suddenly became much more valuable.“ Our house value had just flatlined,” Shep remembers.“ And then boom, it just shot up. We were rattling around in a big house. All of our kids were already gone. So we decided to move.”
The McKinley’ s house sold in days. Shep had been teaching remotely from the cabin off Betsy Kerrison and opted for early retirement. They made the move permanent.“ It’ s sad to say that we benefited from COVID,” Cyndy says,“ but he was able to retire early, and we just said, let’ s just move
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