Ever since he was a little boy, Sergeant Matt Southern wanted to be a police officer. Whether dressing up as a cop for Halloween year after year, riding his bicycle around his neighborhood with a blue light on it, or writing neighbors tickets for “violations,” his dream was to have a real badge and uniform of his own.

Now, 25 years after starting his first law enforcement job as a dispatcher, one of the most well-known faces of the South Carolina Highway Patrol is hanging up that uniform and retiring.

“It’s a surprise to most people, but I feel good about this decision. I feel like it’s the right decision,” Southern said. “Other cops have told me, ‘You’ll know when the time comes.’”

Southern took an unconventional path to becoming a state trooper, a community relations officer, a school bus safety coordinator, and a tireless supporter of the Special Olympics. What began with job shadowing Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, led to Southern working as a dispatcher for Columbia and Richland County. He then accepted a position teaching a safety program for the sheriff’s department at elementary schools in the area and finally became a sheriff’s deputy after his 21st birthday.

“Traffic enforcement was something that I enjoyed,” Southern said of moving over to the sheriff’s department Traffic Unit after his first patrol assignment. “But the trooper thing — it was just always there.”

In 2010, Southern got the chance to pursue his dream, and became a South Carolina state trooper with Basic Class 88. During his first years as a trooper patrolling Kershaw and Lee counties, he was offered a position as the Community Relations Officer for Troop 6, which includes much of the Lowcountry.

“I uprooted my entire family and we moved to Berkeley County,” he said. As a CRO, he appeared everywhere from web articles reporting on fatal collisions, to TV news segments about an approaching hurricane, to safety talks or demonstrations with schools, businesses, or civic organizations.  The position, he said, is an opportunity to interact with people in a different way than a road trooper.

“A road trooper might stop 20 cars a day and deal with 20 drivers,” he said. “As a CRO, you’re going into a group and talking in front of 60 or 80 people in one setting. You never know what impact you made on them, but hopefully, that one person heard that message about wearing their seatbelt, putting their phone down, or calling a designated driver.”

In 2021, Southern accepted a promotion that would allow him to have an impact on even more people, overseeing school bus safety for the 360,000 South Carolina students who ride the bus each day of the school year.

As the School Bus Safety Coordinator for the South Carolina Department of Education, Southern maintained his status as a state trooper while also embedding with the education department to answer questions about school bus safety, lead training sessions and seminars, investigate and enforce stop-arm violations, and serve on a specification committee for new school buses. He is proud of the features that are being added to new school buses to keep children safe, including stop-arm cameras, illuminated stop arms, and additional illuminated signs.

“Every day, around half of South Carolina’s nearly 800,000 students ride a school bus to and from school safely thanks to the tireless efforts of Sergeant Southern and our law enforcement partners,” said State Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver. “Sgt. Southern’s collaborative spirit and partnership with our agency has set a high standard of excellence in school bus safety. I hope Sgt. Southern takes pride in knowing that his dedication to our students and bus drivers will leave a lasting impact across the Palmetto State for years to come.”

Southern said the greatest impact throughout his career began when he was “voluntold” by his troop captain to help with a fundraiser for Special Olympics South Carolina in which cops served as wait staff at a local restaurant for one night. That led to other fundraisers that put cops on the roof of a restaurant for several hours, or in doughnut-eating contests. He also began escorting the Law Enforcement Torch Run, a national campaign that in South Carolina concludes with the final leg of the run at Fort Jackson for the opening ceremonies.

“That has been one of the most important things I have had the opportunity to do in my career,” he said. “I used to escort the Torch Run as a deputy, but I was never involved like I am now. Special Olympics athletes are special people, and all they want is to be accepted and included in our society.”

Southern will remain involved with Special Olympics after his retirement, but he doesn’t have plans for the immediate future except to spend more time with his family.

“I’ve often put a lot of other things in front of myself and my family over 25 years,” he said. “A recent death in my family changed my outlook on life. It made me realize that family is important.”

As he prepares to turn in his patrol car and his uniform, Southern pondered the significance of that shirt and campaign hat, while also remembering his late grandfather.

“I’ve worn this uniform proudly. Being a CRO, there’s so many pictures of me wearing this uniform,” he said. “My grandfather had a servant’s heart, and I do too. I inherited that from him. He was a park service volunteer — that’s what he did after my grandma died. When he died, he was buried in his park service uniform.”

“Wearing this uniform doesn’t make you who you are,” he continued. “You make this uniform by doing what you go out and do every day. I’m proud to have worn this gray uniform and done that.”