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reprint or license thisSEN. JOHN DRUMMOND
Opening day
‘Last of the old guard’ always enjoys Legislature’s first day
By RODDIE A. BURRIS
rburris@thestate.com
Stepping into the State House lobby Tuesday, Sen. John Drummond might have been mistaken for a rock star.
Every two steps or so, somebody stopped the veteran lawmaker to intone a hearty hello, issue a warm hug and renew an old tie.
Legislators, lobbyists and the ladies.
Opening day of the S.C. General Assembly isn’t old hat for Drummond, even after 40 years.
“It’s a chance to see my old buddies, let them pat me on the back, and me pat them on the back,” said the 87-year-old Drummond, Senate president pro tempore emeritus.
“I just love serving people.”
Were it not for people tapping him on the shoulder to exchange a pleasantry or two, Drummond might find the Legislature a lonely place.
Since his first day in the House, in 1965, where Drummond served only one term before being elected to the Senate, most of Drummond’s peers have faded from the scene.
The Senate opened Tuesday with a moment of silence for his close friend the late Sen. Verne Smith of Greer, who died last month, and for long-serving former Senate chaplain George Meetze, who died in November.
Smith was 81 and served 32 years in the Senate. Meetze was 97 and served as Senate chaplain for 56 years.
“He’s the last of the old guard,” said Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, who succeeded Drummond as president pro tempore.
“He always does what he thinks is right for the state, and he’s never afraid of a fight. That’s for sure.”
Good friends and memories go a long way with Drummond, a fighter pilot who strode into the General Assembly as one of the most decorated World War II veterans ever.
Shot down over France in July 1944, Drummond was held as a prisoner of war in a camp off the Baltic Sea for the last 10 months of the war.
When he returned home to Ninety Six, bearing the memories of a hometown girl, Holly Self, he asked her out, and they married in 1947. The romance lasted 53 years.
Holly Drummond died in 2000.
Another palpable memory the senator bears stems from something that happened soon after he came to the Senate.
Drummond said the Senate balcony filled one day with black South Carolinians who came to the Capitol to protest alleged cuts in the budget for South Carolina State University in Orangeburg.
Former Gov. John West, then the Senate’s presiding officer, immediately closed down the chamber.
“I saw a few of the old senators (reach into their pant legs) and pull out their pistols,” Drummond recalled.
The institution Drummond knows and loves has changed, too, he said.
(Lobbying) is a big business now. If you want to get something passed, you got to see a lobbyist first.”
Education has long been Drummond’s rallying cry in the Legislature. He finished high school and “got my education around here, in this General Assembly.”
While social invitations flood legislators’ offices, special assistant Kathie Marsh, who accompanies Drummond nearly everywhere he goes around Columbia, said the senator accepts very few.
Tuesday night, however, Drummond said, he would attend a reception for newly elected State Education Superintendent Jim Rex, who supported public education in his campaign.
“I’ll never vote for anything else but more money for public education,” Drummond said. “I’ll go down to my dying days fighting against (the erosion of public education).”
Two weeks before Sen. Smith’s death, Drummond said, he went to visit the Upstate lawmaker, who cost Drummond his seat as president of the Senate and chairman of the finance committee by changing party affiliations.
“He had to do that,” Drummond said, defending Smith. “And he should have.”
That’s the kind of loyalty that friends say will never leave Drummond lonely in the State House.
“He became synonymous with ‘statesman,’” said 65-year-old Sen. John Land, D-Clarendon, who was a House page when Drummond arrived.
“He’s a close friend, an ally and a very special person — someone I’ve looked up to and admired. He was always right on the issues, too.”
Reach Burris at (803) 771-8398.
SOUTH CAROLINA’S SENIOR LAWMAKERS
Sen. Ralph Anderson, D-Greenville, 80
Sen. Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, 75
Sen. Kay Patterson, D-Richland, 76
House Chaplain Charles Seastrunk, 75
Rep. Herb Kirsh, D-York, 77
Rep. Jimmy Bales, D-Richland, 71
Rep. Lester Branham, D-Florence, 73
Rep. Floyd Breeland, D-Charleston, 73
Rep. Converse Chellis, R-Dorchester, 70
Rep. Ken Clark, R-Lexington, 70
Rep. Eldridge Emory, D-Lancaster, 71
Rep. Robert Leach, R-Greenville, 74
Rep. B.R. Skelton, R-Pickens, 73
Rep. J. Roland Smith, R-Aiken, 73
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