The Start of Scan South: Why We Started and What We Do

My name is Laurie McCarthy, and in 2018, I started a little business called Scan South… right in my dining room.

Now, I’d love to tell you this was some brilliant entrepreneurial master plan.

It wasn’t.

It actually started because my husband began scanning his dad’s old Army slides on this tiny little slide scanner I had bought years earlier from SKYMALL magazine.

And for anyone under 40… SKYMALL was basically Amazon for people trapped on airplanes making questionable financial decisions.

One minute, you were buying peanuts, and the next minute, you were thinking:

“You know what I do need? A solar-powered dancing cactus and a portable hot dog cooker.”

So we had this little scanner sitting around collecting dust… until my husband started scanning slides his father had taken while serving in Japan near the end of World War II.

And suddenly… history came alive in our dining room.

There were photographs of General MacArthur inspecting troops.

Pictures frozen in time for more than 70 years.

And I remember thinking:

“How incredible is it that these moments survived long enough for us to see them again?”

Then something happened that changed everything.

My neighbor — and best friend — came over one day and asked if I could scan her family photographs so her mother could look at them on the computer.

Her mom was beginning to face dementia.

And if you’ve ever walked through that with someone you love… you know how painful it can be when memories slowly begin slipping away.

But when those photographs appeared on the screen… something amazing happened.

She smiled.

She remembered names.

She told stories nobody had heard in years.

For a little while… those memories came back home.

And that’s when I realized:

We weren’t just scanning photos.

We were rescuing pieces of people’s lives.

After that, word started spreading.

One family told another family.

One box turned into ten boxes.

And suddenly… Scan South became a real thing.

Now technically, what we do is convert old media into digital files that can be viewed on modern technology — phones, TVs, tablets, and computers.

But honestly?

That’s not really what we do.

What we really do… is rescue memories before time erases them forever.

We preserve legacy.

Stories.

Voices.

Faces.

Family history.

And maybe most importantly… peace of mind.

Because let me ask you something:

Who are the memory keepers in your family?

Most of the time… it’s us.

The women.

The daughters.

The mothers.

The grandmothers.

The ones balancing careers, aging parents, children growing up too fast, and lives moving at warp speed… while family history quietly sits in boxes in closets and albums on shelves.

Safe… but invisible.

And I know it’s hard to make this a priority.

Because life gets busy.

But here’s the truth:

Those tapes, films, slides, and photographs are aging whether we deal with them or not.

And unlike our parents… VHS tapes don’t complain before they stop working.

Although honestly… some VHS tapes are now so old they qualify for Medicare.

So let me ask you this:

How many of you have old photos stored away in boxes you haven’t opened in years?

How many of you have VHS tapes of your children when they were little… but no VCR to play them anymore?

Graduations.

Birthday parties.

Christmas mornings.

School plays.

First steps.

Babies laughing.

Family vacations.

Pets you still miss.

Parents who are no longer here.

And here in Mississippi… probably footage of those once-every-four-years snowstorms where we all lose our minds and build two-foot snowmen like we’re living in Alaska.

And what about those old 8mm home movies your parents took when you were little?

The grainy footage where everybody waves awkwardly at the camera for way too long?

Those films are priceless now.

Because they captured ordinary moments that became extraordinary simply because time passed.

The sound of your dad’s laugh.

Your mother standing in the kitchen.

Kids running barefoot through the yard.

Friends who once felt like family.

And the older we get… the more valuable those moments become.

That’s what Scan South brings back.

Not just images.

Not just videos.

Connection.