Clemson University athletics staff and Gov. Henry McMaster accounted for roughly three of every four flights on South Carolina state aircraft during the first half of 2026, according to passenger manifests filed with the South Carolina Aeronautics Commission.
The manifests cover 40 separate missions flown between January 5 and July 9. Clemson football recruiters and athletics fundraisers took 15 of them. The governor and his staff took 14. State legislators, the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture and the College of Charleston made up the rest.
The flights matter to York and Lancaster County taxpayers because the planes belong to the state, and state law requires that they carry only passengers on official business. At least one 2026 trip touched the region directly. A January 15 Clemson recruiting flight stopped at the Rock Hill York County Airport before continuing to Clemson and back to Columbia.
Every flight in the record began or ended at Columbia Metropolitan Airport, the home base for the state fleet.
What the rules require
Use of state aircraft is governed by Proviso 117.22 of the state budget, titled State Owned Aircraft Flight Logs. The version reviewed for this article is a proposed rewrite offered by Sen. Shane Massey, the Senate majority leader, as Amendment 4100R033.
The proviso says any aircraft owned or operated by a state agency may be used only for official business. It allows the Division of Aeronautics to carry the governor, constitutional officers, members of the General Assembly, and members of state boards, commissions and agencies, along with their invitees, but again only for official business. Passengers must file a sworn statement certifying the official nature of the trip within 24 hours of the flight, and the agency must keep a signed statement from its highest ranking official confirming the trip served the agency’s business.
The proviso also defines what official business is not. Under the Massey language, official business does not include routine travel to and from meetings of the General Assembly, attending a committee meeting for which mileage is authorized, attending a press conference, attending a bill signing, or attending a conference or political function. Guests who are not tied to official business must be charged a commercial rate for their seat.
One exemption is central to reading the 2026 record. The proviso states that its provisions do not apply to the athletic department or the educational foundations of any state supported college or university. That carveout means the many Clemson athletics flights operate under different rules than the government flights that fill the rest of the log.
Clemson athletics flew the most
Clemson recruiting and development staff were the busiest passengers by a wide margin, concentrated in the January signing period and a second push in late April and May.
Assistant coaches and staff crisscrossed the Southeast on single day recruiting swings, with stops in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia and the Carolinas. A separate February 9 through 11 trip flew eight athletics passengers to Naples and West Palm Beach, Florida, for what the manifest listed as development, the term programs use for donor fundraising.
Counting each mission once, the most frequent Clemson passengers were:
- Thomas Allen, five recruiting trips
- Ben Boulware, three recruiting trips
- Tyler Grisham, three recruiting trips
- C.J. Spiller, two recruiting trips
- Matt Luke, two recruiting trips
- Chris Rumph, two recruiting trips
- Mike Reed, two recruiting trips
- Tom Allen, two recruiting trips
Tajh Boyd, Chad Morris and Kyle Richardson each appeared on one recruiting flight. The eight development passengers on the Florida trip were Brian O’Rourke, Kelly Cloyd, Brandy Page, Nick Tadie, Katherine Anne Ashmoore, Evan McDow, Bubba Britton and Lauren Gaulin, each aboard for that single mission.
The governor’s schedule filled the logs
Gov. McMaster was the most frequent single passenger in the record, aboard 13 missions tied to conferences, ceremonies and official meetings across the state and beyond.
His in state trips included the Governor’s Conference on Tourism and Travel in Myrtle Beach, the South Carolina Automotive Summit in Greenville, a Cox Enterprises and Ducks Unlimited conservation event, the Black River State Park ribbon cutting near Kingstree, the Palmetto Broadband Coalition convention in Charleston, commerce events on Hilton Head Island, an annual coastal hurricane briefing, the Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina summer conference on Isle of Palms, the Southeastern United States and Canadian Provinces meeting in Greenville, and a conservation meeting near Georgetown.
Out of state, the governor flew to Savannah for the 2026 Environmental Council of the States spring meeting, and twice to the Washington area, once for a National Governors meeting and once to attend a state visit with King Charles III of the United Kingdom on behalf of South Carolina.
A related governor’s office flight on May 5 carried Chief Legal Counsel Grayson Lambert and Cameron Cox to Richmond, Virginia, so Lambert could argue a case styled McMaster v. OSHA before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Frequent governor’s office staff passengers included Mark Plowden on four trips, James May on three, Brice Nalepa on multiple governor flights, and Jonathan Eckstrom, Kevin Boland, Michelle LeClair, Avery Ledwell and Kinard Lisbon across several missions each.
Lawmakers and other agencies
State legislators accounted for seven missions. Sens. Harvey Peeler and Josh Kimbrell, joined by Quentin Hawkins, flew to Washington Dulles in January for meetings with federal officials. Reps. Annie McDaniel and Rosalyn Henderson-Myers took two trips listed as state and legislative business. Reps. Chris Huff and Jackie Terribile flew to Martinsburg, West Virginia, for an education conference.
House Speaker Murrell Smith and Minority Leader Todd Rutherford Jr. flew to Anderson on June 8 to speak at Boys State. In late June, a group of seven House members, Jay Kilmartin, Jeff Bradley, Jordan Pace, Stephen Frank, Chris Huff, Lee Gilreath and Thomas Beach, flew to the Washington area for a meeting with the White House Domestic Policy Council.
One legislative flight stood out for its stated reason. On June 25, Rep. Jeff Bradley wrote that he was in North Carolina with no other way to reach Columbia after being called back into session, and that the Speaker’s office had asked him to return to deliver a conference report.
Counting each mission once, the legislators who flew on state aircraft in the first half of 2026 were:
- Rep. Annie McDaniel, two trips
- Rep. Rosalyn Henderson-Myers, two trips
- Rep. Chris Huff, two trips
- Rep. Jeff Bradley, two trips
- Sen. Harvey Peeler, one trip
- Sen. Josh Kimbrell, one trip
- Rep. Jackie Terribile, one trip
- House Speaker Murrell Smith, one trip
- Minority Leader Todd Rutherford Jr., one trip
- Rep. Jay Kilmartin, one trip
- Rep. Jordan Pace, one trip
- Rep. Stephen Frank, one trip
- Rep. Lee Gilreath, one trip
- Rep. Thomas Beach, one trip
Quentin Hawkins also flew with Peeler and Kimbrell on the January trip to Washington but was listed without a legislative title and appears to be a staff member.
Among other agencies, Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver took two trips, one to the South Carolina School Boards Association conference near Myrtle Beach and one to a high school dedication in the Hampton and Allendale area, traveling with James Rawls, Christy Cox and Nicole Arndt on the second. Agriculture Commissioner Hugh Weathers led a seven passenger flight to Morristown, New Jersey, for an Eastern Produce Council meeting. The College of Charleston flew eight athletics passengers, including President Andrew Hsu, to a women’s basketball championship in March.
A transparency backdrop
The proviso requires the Division of Aeronautics to post its flight logs online within one working day of each trip, language meant to promote accountability and public inspection. The 2026 manifests reviewed for this article are part of that public record.
The full text of Proviso 117.22 and the Massey amendment is available through the South Carolina General Assembly website. Readers can review the state flight logs through the Aeronautics Commission.
Source information for this article came from South Carolina Aeronautics Commission passenger manifests for flights dated January 5 through July 9, 2026, and from Proviso 117.22 of the state budget as addressed in Senate Amendment 4100R033 sponsored by Sen. Shane Massey.
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Thomas Hyslip lives in Tega Cay with his wife and daughter. After 27 years in the U.S. Army and Federal Law Enforcement, he retired to pursue his passion for teaching. Tom is now an Assistant Professor of Instruction at the University of South Florida. In 2 short years he has won 10 awards from the South Carolina Press Association, including first place in column writing, education beat reporting and best podcast.
