Major Christian Logdon was 12 years old when a state trooper and a coroner knocked on the door of his family’s Kentucky home one summer day in 1983. He remembers his mother’s cries after learning his older brother had been killed in a motorcycle collision. He remembers the devastation it caused his family.
Most of all, he remembers the seed of desire it planted in him to protect other families from that kind of loss.
“I hoped that as I got older, I would make a difference,” Logdon said of the impact his brother’s death had on him. “That somehow, some way, I would make enough of a difference to change someone’s decision and change their life for the better.”
Thirty years after joining the South Carolina Highway Patrol as a trooper, that is still Logdon’s hope as he looks back on his career and prepares to retire from the Department of Public Safety. Despite having several firefighters in his family growing up, Logdon said his interest leaned more toward the law enforcement side.
Starting his career in Spartanburg County, Logdon transferred to Charleston three years later. In the years since, he has served parts of his career in the Multi-disciplinary Accident Investigation (MAIT) Team, the Aggressive Criminal Enforcement (ACE) Team, and the Emergency Traffic Management Unit. In 2022, he was promoted to the rank of DPS Major within the Division of Strategic Services and Planning.
“I have been blessed to be able to see a little bit of everything,” he said. “I’ve probably worked every county in the state in my career, and that’s a unique opportunity.”
While Logdon has worked in some of the Highway Patrol’s most elite units, and was a two-time finalist for statewide Trooper of the Year, he is most proud of becoming a K-9 handler and instructor.
“It was always something that I wanted to do,” he said.
Throughout his 30 years of saving lives, Logdon has also tried to nurture and enrich the professional lives of the troopers and officers under his supervision.
“I’ve tried my best to mentor those who worked for me to make sure they have the tools to do their job well,” he said. “I think I’ve done that, and I think it’s time for the next generation to take over.”
Logdon is similarly hopeful about the impact his 30 years have had on motorists in South Carolina. But in a profession that tends to focus on the number of lives lost on roadways, he knows it’s impossible to determine or quantify how many lives were saved because of his work.
“I hope that when my blue lights were on, it made a difference,” he said. “Maybe they saw my blue lights and thought about what they were doing, slowed down, or made a different choice. The same thing goes for interactions, whether I’ve issued a ticket, a warning, or taken someone to jail. I hope that somehow, I made a difference. Even if it’s one person in my whole career — it was worth it.”
