The next two years will not begin with the turn of a calendar.
For the South Carolina Fraternal Order of Police, they begin in Myrtle Beach.
This week, FOP leaders, delegates, and trustees from across South Carolina will come together for Leadership Training and the 2026 Biennial Conference. Over three days, the organization will prepare leaders, conduct the business of the State Lodge, elect its leadership, strengthen relationships, and begin charting the course that will carry us through the next two years.
This gathering is made possible in part through the support of our conference sponsors, CrossCountry Mortgage and Optavise. Their support helps bring FOP leaders from across South Carolina together as we prepare for the work ahead.
It Begins With Leadership
It begins Thursday with leadership.
Before the first gavel falls at the Biennial Conference, lodge leaders will spend a day focused on becoming stronger and more effective in the work they do for their members. Leadership Training is an opportunity to share knowledge, learn from experience, and give local leaders tools they can take home and put to work in their own lodges.
Strong organizations do not happen by accident. They require people willing to lead, but they also require experienced leaders willing to mentor those who will follow them.
That exchange of experience is an important part of what will happen in Myrtle Beach.
On Friday, the focus shifts to the Biennial Conference and the work of determining where the organization goes next.
Setting the Direction
Every two years, delegates are entrusted with making decisions that extend far beyond the walls of the conference room. They will begin shaping the legislative advocacy that will guide our work at the State House, examine the direction of the organization, and establish priorities for the two years ahead.
They will also elect the Executive Board of Directors that will help lead the State Lodge through the next two-year term.
The choices made in Myrtle Beach will help define what the South Carolina Fraternal Order of Police looks like, what it prioritizes, and how effectively it serves its members over the next two years.
The South Carolina Fraternal Order of Police continues to grow and evolve, and the challenges facing law enforcement continue to change. Our advocacy must evolve with them. Our leadership must be prepared for them. Our lodges must have the resources and support necessary to serve their members effectively.
We should respect the history that built this organization while recognizing that preserving our mission sometimes requires changing how we accomplish it.
Beyond the Conference Floor
But a conference is about more than elections, legislation, reports, and motions.
Some of the most important conversations in Myrtle Beach may never happen at a microphone.
They will happen when a longtime lodge leader sits down with someone serving in that role for the first time. They will happen when members from opposite sides of the state compare what is working in their lodges. They will happen over meals, in hallways, and during the fellowship that comes from spending time with people who understand the responsibilities and challenges that come with serving this organization.
That is how institutional knowledge is passed forward. It is how relationships between lodges grow stronger. It is how new ideas begin.
Those conversations will reach well beyond the people gathered in Myrtle Beach.
The delegates and trustees gathering in Myrtle Beach represent an organization of thousands of members across South Carolina. The direction established at this conference will influence how we advocate for law enforcement, how we support our local lodges, how we develop future leaders, and how effectively we serve our members.
A Responsibility to What Comes Next
There is a responsibility that comes with that.
We owe it to those who built this organization to protect what they created. We owe it to those carrying the badge today to make the organization as strong and effective as it can be. And we owe it to those who will come after us to leave them something even stronger.
When the final gavel falls in Myrtle Beach, another Biennial Conference will be complete.
But the real measure of its success will be what comes next.
Newly elected leadership.
Stronger lodge leaders.
Stronger relationships.
A renewed legislative advocacy strategy.
And a clear direction for the next two years.
The next two years begin in Myrtle Beach.
