On March 13, about two dozen people crowded into S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster’s office at the S.C. Statehouse so he could present the Order of the Palmetto -- the state’s highest civilian honor -- to a man who served not just the city of Camden for more than 25 years, but here and other places in South Carolina for several decades: former Camden Police Chief Joe Floyd.
McMaster noted that no one can apply for the Order of the Palmetto themselves; someone must nominate them and that nomination is poured over by a committee.
“(This is) to see if, in fact, the service of this person reaches that highest level of contribution to the state. It must be a statewide impact,” McMaster said. “It could be just in your job, but, generally, it’s much broader than that.”
The governor told the small group that they would likely not be surprised by the fact that Floyd met that “highest level” of achievement. McMaster went on to list out many of Floyd’s accomplishments, from graduating from the S.C. Criminal Justice Academy and the University of South Carolina (USC) to serving, in addition to his time as chief in Camden, as an officer and law enforcement leader in communities in Clarendon, Laurens, Manning and Sumter counties.
“He’s been innovative and piloted a number of fascinating programs … an officer-friendly program, which had officers in the schools. They’d walk around and get to know the students,” McMaster said, adding that it reminded him of an incident involving the late Allen Sloan, former sheriff of Richland County and a boy whose mother had told him that if he got into trouble, Sloan was the man who would lock him up. “Allen said (to the boy), ‘Wait a minute, I’m your friend. If you ever get into trouble, you call on me.’”
McMaster continued with more of Floyd’s accomplishments, including one that caught his eye.
“Successfully led security at the 2013 Carolina Cup,” the governor recited, and said that was probably deserving of the Order of the Palmetto just for that; Floyd said he had overseen Cup security 24 times.
McMaster also mentioned included Floyd’s “13th Doughnut Philosophy,” and partnerships with not only other law enforcement agencies, but civic and charitable organizations.
The governor then picked up a framed copy of the Order of the Palmetto and read it aloud -- with a few extra comments thrown in -- for Floyd and those gathered:
“In grateful recognition of contributions and friendship to the state of South Carolina and her people, I do hereby confer upon Joseph Floyd the Order of the Palmetto and the rights and privileges appertaining thereto, signed by me, Henry D. McMaster, your proud, happy governor, on behalf of 5.37 million proud happy citizens of South Carolina.”
McMaster asked Floyd if he wanted to say a few words, and Floyd responded that he was actually going to talk about McMaster.
“One of the things that I did -- I didn’t form the first CrimeStoppers program in South Carolina, but the first one was in Sumter. At the time, I was assigned to be the law enforcement liaison with the program and during that time you were out there, putting the bad guys in jail, taking their drugs and seizing their money (when McMaster was the state’s U.S. Attorney), and you gave us $50,000 for our CrimeStoppers program,” Floyd told the governor. “We used portions of that to see other programs begin in other jurisdictions. We were giving them $5,000 -- we kept pulling money out of that $50,000; we saved some of it for ours -- but what you did, you gave us the means to spread CrimeStoppers to other parts of the state, so that’s how I remember you. You are a friend, and still are, of law enforcement.”
Floyd then explained the 13th Doughnut.
“It’s a way of describing … and it goes back to me sitting in a class at USC and a professor asking, ‘Who wants to participate in a little experiment I have that will help you try to discover your earliest childhood memory?’ I was ready for it, I was 19 years old, and I was ready, and we went through that process. He took us through relaxation exercises, turned the lights down in the classroom, and I discovered a memory of my grandfather that I didn’t know I had. It was remarkable, and a couple of other people, they found different things. The memory of my grandfather, and he was killed when I was very young and I had no memory of him. I have a memory of him dying because of all the events that went on, but that memory was him picking me up, setting me up on an ice cream box in a little country store, opening the top, reaching in and getting me some ice cream out. I can actually remember him tearing the paper off, that much detail, and handing me that ice cream. As I sat there looking down on the wooden floor of that country store, several of my little cousins were there, and I was the only one having an ice cream. And the professor said, ‘How did that make you feel?’ I said, ‘It made me feel special.’ He said, ‘You just said the magic word.’
“What he was trying to communicate to everybody in the classroom was that how you make people feel will create a lasting impression. ‘You found that memory because him making you feel that way, that was filed in a different file than other events.’ Making somebody feel special brands that memory more than anything else because we have too much information to store. So, years went by and I got into law enforcement and during that time, I had people that started to work for me and I thought I have something that was given to me and I look for opportunities to do that for people. I said, ‘I need to spread this. I need to have the people who work for me understand this and look for opportunities to use it,’” Floyd said.
Continuing, he said that he came up with the name for the philosophy after remembering that a “baker’s dozen” is 13 doughnuts.
“You got something more than you expected, and that’s really how you describe this: When you can leave somebody with more than what they expect from your contact, then you’ve just given them a 13th doughnut, and they remember that,” Floyd said, adding that if he did nothing else that day but leave people with some insight into the philosophy, that would be at least part of the reason McMaster was honoring him with the Order of the Palmetto.
Floyd also said that any impact he has had on the communities he’s served, those who have worked for and with him, or the state, it is because of other people, most importantly, his mother.
“And so many of us in here have those special people in their lives,” Floyd said, “and we should never neglect opportunities to let them know that.”
It was then time for pictures, with Floyd jokingly pointing out that his granddaughter, Penelope, needed proof of being with the governor to explain why she absent from school that day.
