top of page
Search

Richland County Sheriff again recognized at Fort Jackson

  • Writer: W. Thomas Smith Jr.
    W. Thomas Smith Jr.
  • 6 days ago
  • 2 min read

Updated: 1 day ago

August 10th, 2026

By: W. Thomas Smith Jr.


Leon Lott receives permanent name-recognition within the ongoing development of Centennial Park


Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, a South Carolina Military Veterans Hall of Fame inductee (Class of 2025), has received yet another honor with a brick bearing his name and law-enforcement title installed directly below the large flagpole at the still-being-developed Centennial Park on Fort Jackson, S.C. The expanding brick courtyard (pictured here) below the flag and directly across the street from the Fort Jackson museum will serve as the centerpiece of Centennial Park also billed as the “Gateway to the Army” project.


Once completed, Centennial Park will feature a site-commanding “soldiers’ statue;” a spacious amphitheater; sheltered pavilions (for visiting families); and a “pathway of patriots,” a pedestrian walkway with historic and militarily significant points of focus crisscrossing throughout the park.


Lott – a 2018 inductee in the Fort Jackson Hall of Fame, the 2021 National Sheriff of the Year (so-honored by the National Sheriff’s Association), and twice-named S.C. Sheriff of the Year – is the current commanding general (major general) of the S.C. State Guard (SCSG), an all-volunteer state defense force with a lineage (shared with the S.C. Army National Guard) stretching back to the First Provincial Militia in 1670.


In 2010, near the end of the Iraq War, Lott traveled to Erbil, Iraq, at the invitation of the Iraqi government to help that war-torn country establish its first-ever female police academy. Lott’s Richland County Sheriff’s Department continues its strong relationship and an officer exchange program with Iraq, as it does with other foreign law enforcement agencies and U.S. military forces domestically.


Lott has served as sheriff of Richland County since 1997. He assumed command of SCSG in 2018. And he has served as president of the Fort Jackson-Palmetto State Chapter of the Association of the United States Army since at least 2020.


In early 2025, a separate brick bearing Lott’s name and rank was also installed in the courtyard at the S.C. Military Museum.


Fort Jackson is the largest U.S. Army basic training facility in the nation.


This article can also be seen in the following publications:




WSPA-TV CBS NEWS 7 (which is one of the primary broadcast media outlets in Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson, and Pickens, S.C. also Asheville and Hendersonville, N.C.) – https://www.wspa.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/933063606/richland-county-sheriff-again-recognized-at-fort-jackson/


WBTW-TV CBS 13 (Myrtle Beach, Florence County, Marion County, Darlington County, S.C., and the greater Pee Dee and coastal region) – https://www.wbtw.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/933063606/richland-county-sheriff-again-recognized-at-fort-jackson/



 

 

 


 

 


bottom of page