SCDNR officer will lead SC’s coastal region
Denetta Dawson has been promoted by the SCDNR to captain over South Carolina’s Region 4, overseeing units along the entire coast. She was promoted in early March.
Region 4 is made up of South Carolina’s coastal waters and nine counties: Charleston, Beaufort, Colleton, Dorchester, Berkeley, Hampton, Jasper, Georgetown and Horry.
Dawson is the first female to lead a region at SCDNR, and it’s not the first time she has broken barriers within the agency. When she was first hired in 1997, she was the state’s first African American female game warden.
After serving as a game warden in McCormick County in her early days with the agency, she transferred to Charleston County and worked in recreational and commercial fisheries enforcement for several years. She then joined the Education Division as a staff sergeant, then was promoted to lieutenant of the Education and Outreach Section.
Dawson earned a bachelor’s degree from Charleston Southern University, and a master’s degree from The Citadel. In 2023, she completed the Command Officers Development Course from the Southern Police Institute of Louisville, KY.
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