SUMTER — Chris Sumpter walks over to a trough, carrying a bag of cow feed. Two calves follow him, their eyes on the bag all the way. He pours the feed into the trough and coos to the calves as they dig in.
Sumpter, a third-year criminal justice student, runs his family’s farm in Sumter, which stretches over a thousand acres; 765 of those acres are grazing fields, and around 400 acres of timber.
Those acres are home to Sumpter’s cattle herd, chickens and a donkey named Kitty, who Sumpter said is a good donkey when he’s not chasing the cows.
Growing up, it was all about the three E’s for Sumpter: enroll, enlist and employ.
Sumpter and his younger brother and sister are expected to enroll in an institute of higher education after high school. Additionally, each must choose to either enlist in the military or find employment.
Sumpter chose to enroll and employ and took over the family farm.
But what does any of that have to do with being student body president? According to Sumpter, more than you’d think.
“If you’re going to farm, you have to be in politics,” Sumpter said, “or else the non-farmers will come in and change things.”
And since he plans to be a farmer until the day he dies, Sumpter also plans to get an early start in the political world.
At USC Sumter, he was elected student body president before transferring to Columbia at the end of his sophomore year. Last semester, he was a senator for the College of Arts and Sciences. Now, he’s the coordinator of senate outreach on Student Body Vice President Ryan Bailey’s cabinet, works with the general assembly at the State House and is running for Student Government’s top spot.
Sumpter considers himself to be very conservative and finds security in knowing that things he does will be done the way he wants them.
“It takes hard work to make things happen,” he said. “I think you’ve got to give it your all and you delegate when needed, but when you need something done, you do it.”
Sumpter’s philosophy is simple: do everything you have time to do. So he tries to use his 24 hours each day to the fullest.
Since his campaign started, he’s been up and about at 5 a.m., doing his farm chores, catching up on homework and getting ready for the day. Once he’s good to go, it’s an hour-long drive from his Sumter farmhouse to campus. He tries to get to Columbia by 8 a.m. and returns home around 9 p.m., when he feeds the cows in the dark and finishes up odds and ends around the farm.
The commute is a bit of a pain, he said, but he’s glad he transferred. After taking all of the classes he possibly could at USC Sumter, he decided that there were more opportunities for him in Columbia. Plus, he doesn’t mind getting things done when he gets home at night.
“Coming from a farming background, we know nothing but hard work,” he said. “We work until dark when we can’t see anymore.”
It’s the humility of farm life that Sumpter said gives him an edge over his opponents.
If elected, Sumpter plans to target campus safety and give students more “bang for their buck” when it comes to costs. But most of all, he wants to make sure he’s accessible to students.
“Folks want someone down to earth, someone to give advice and something that will make a difference,” he said.
Sumpter fought his way through the bushes in the backwoods of the farm, brambles sticking to his khakis. When he got out of the thicket, he pointed up to a perch in one of the trees, about 30 feet off the ground. It’s his deer stand, he said, where he sits for hours when he hunts.
Getting up off the ground doesn’t just open up his eyes for approaching deer; it opens his mind to think about everything from Student Government to his spirituality. But in the end, he thinks about what he’s accomplished.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about how much progress you make,” he said. “That’s always real important.”
When he got back to the farmhouse, Sumpter pulled a mason jar out of his Ford and took a swig.
“Do you know why I always drink out of a mason jar?” he asked. “Sure, we take care of natural resources and all that. But really, everything just tastes better out of a mason jar.”