Forest Acres’ long-serving police chief gets SC’s highest honor before retiring
Forest Acres Police Chief Gene Sealy’s Friday lunch came with a side of South Carolina’s highest honor.
Sealy received the Order of the Palmetto at Forest Lake Presbyterian Church in a surprise ceremony that he believed was just a luncheon in honor of his soon-to-be retirement.
“Forest Acres has been the biggest part of my life,” Sealy said to the crowd of about 75 people. “This means so much to me. But it’s not about me. It’s about you.” He thanked his family, his wife, his children and many more in a speech.
There to celebrate Sealy’s award were S.C Rep. Beth Bernstein, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott and the Forest Acres Mayor Frank Brunson. Past and present city council members and other police officers also attended. A representative of U.S Rep. Joe Wilson presented Sealy with a Congressional recognition.
The Order of the Palmetto “was indicative of how you served with honor,” Bernstein said.
“When it comes time to work, he goes to work and gets things done,” Lott said, before pinning a medal to Sealy recognizing his receiving the Order of the Palmetto.
The Order of the Palmetto is “presented in recognition of a lifetime of extraordinary achievement, service and contributions on a national or statewide scale.”
After almost 50 years wearing the badge, Sealy’s final day as chief in Forest Acres is Jan. 2.
From dirt roads to police chief
Born in 1954, Sealy is a hometown kid in Forest Acres. He remembers when Trenholm Road was two lanes, other streets were dirt, and Interstate 77 had yet to be built on the town’s west end. He graduated from A.C. Flora High School.
While studying pre-med at Clemson University, he took a summer job at the Forest Acres Police Department as a dispatcher in 1973 and joined the department’s auxiliary ranks.
Sealy had all the reason to get out of police work before his career even began. In 1974, Forest Acres police officer Richey Finch was gunned down during a traffic stop by a group of criminals. Finch didn’t even know the gang had just committed some crimes, Sealy said.
“I wasn’t deterred,” he said. “I was always impressed or amazed of the sacrifice that he made and others as well.”
In 1975, Sealy became a full-time beat cop with the department. Unlike today when would-be officers are required to do specific courses, Sealy said his early training came from being on patrol. His formal training came from the South Carolina Police Academy in 1976.
In those early years, the department was a significantly smaller operation. Two officers worked each shift, he remembered.
Over the next two decades, Sealy worked his way up the ranks. He became an investigator, worked on the narcotics teams and “pretty much everything in the police department.”
In 1994, Forest Acres City Council appointed him as chief of his hometown police department.
Two moments in the long career that followed which still stay with Sealy happened in his later years on the job and only days apart — the killing of Office Greg Alia in September 2015 and the flood that devastated Forest Acres and other parts of Columbia. Alia’s funeral was held the day Forest Acres flooded, Sealy remembered.
“Everybody just pulled together and came in and did their job,” Sealy said. “I was just real proud of our police force” and the community that was “there for us.”
“That meant a lot to us,” he said.
Through the years, he’s had chances to go to other departments but the comfort he felt in Forest Acres kept him in his hometown.
“I always appreciated our community and the relationship our community has with the police department,” he said. “It’s very supportive.”
As for the future, Sealy, who will be 68 when he retires, and his wife plan to visit their grown children more and he hopes to do volunteer work. He also has the “big list” that his wife handed him of stuff to do around the house.
Other than that, the future is wide open for this recipient of South Carolina’s highest honor.
This story was originally published November 19, 2021 at 12:10 PM.