South Carolina House District 21: Meet your 2026 Candidates

Who's running for South Carolina House of Representatives in District 21? Meet Dexter Reaves, one of the candidates on the ballot in the November 3, 2026 general election. Hear where she stands on the issues facing voters, then share this episode with your neighbors before Election Day. Republican Dianne Mitchell was invited to participate but did not respond to our numerous requests.

How the interviews worked:

All candidates received the same question at the time of their invitation to join us, and they were given 10 minutes for their interview. Candidates were allowed to bring along a companion, such as a campaign manager, family member, or friend, and to record our session themselves. There were no edits made to the interview.

Candidate links:

• Dexter Reaves

• Sample Ballot

Introduction

Katy Smith:

When you go to the polls on November 3rd or during early voting, you have the chance to vote for important offices such as U.S. Senate, U.S. Congress, governor, and state House members. We want to help you get to know your candidates so you can make an informed decision.

I'm Katy Smith with Greater Good Greenville, and on this episode of Simple Civics Greenville County, we feature an interview with one of your candidates for State House of Representatives District 21, Democrat Dexter Reaves. Republican Dianne Mitchell is also running but did not respond to our numerous requests to participate. District 21 generally covers eastern Greenville County, including parts of Greer and the east side of Greenville.

Here's how the interviews worked. All candidates received the same questions at the time of their invitation to join us, and they were given 10 minutes for their interview. Candidates were allowed to bring along a companion, such as a campaign manager, family member, or friend, and to record our session themselves.

There were no edits made to the interview. We've put links to the participating candidates' preferred internet presence on the episode page. And now Dexter Reaves.

Meet Dexter Reaves: South Carolina House of Representatives District 21 Candidate

I'm pleased to be joined by Dexter Reaves, who is running for South Carolina House District 21. Thank you so much for joining me, Dexter.

Dexter Reaves:

Thank you for having me this evening.

Katy Smith:

Great. Tell us about yourself and why you're running for this office.

Dexter Reaves:

Awesome. I am Dexter Reaves. I am a proud graduate of Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice, with a double minor in political science and history.

I also have a master's degree from North Greenville University in Christian ministry. I'm married to Dr. Kira Reaves, who is an administrator. She is a chief human resource officer for Spartanburg School District 7. We have two kids. We have my son, Dayland, who will be 25 soon. And we have a nine-year-old, who's Maddie.

I started my career in law enforcement with the City of Greer in 1996—July '96, a little over 30 years ago. Started with the Greer Police Department there. I've worked as a patrol officer with the City of Greer, moved over, and the current chief during the time started a program called the boot camp program, so I was the boot camp director for the City of Greer as well.

And a little background about the boot camp program is it was a position where it was based inside of a middle school for any young person who was involved in any type of discipline issues or criminal issues, instead of the school kicking that young person out of the school. They will come to my program, which is the boot camp program.

And if you all have ever seen the movie Major Payne, I basically dress like Major Payne with a campaign hat on. And I drill young folk pretty much throughout the day. It's a five-day program where we took kids through—well, we broke them down, and then we built them back up. And there was a graduation at the end. And I basically taught life skills to get them back on track.

Also was a deputy with the Greenville County Sheriff's Office, where I worked in five schools as a school resource officer. And I also work in community patrol, so I work patrol as well. I have experience as an executive director for a nonprofit and also a county constable with Greenville County Summary Court.

Currently, I have my own business, which is called SR Executive Services, where we provide professional executive security services, armed and unarmed, private investigation services, and also process service.

Katy Smith:

Thank you. What do you believe is most on constituents' minds that you can address should you win?

Dexter Reaves:

Several things. Number one, I think safety. Safety is always the forefront of everybody's mind. Some would think that because we live in specific areas that safety wouldn't be as important, but it is.

Some of the things that I do mention when we talk about safety that are concerned to constituents, regardless of where you live, would be the issue of support in law enforcement because of manpower issues. If there's not enough manpower to cover a specific area in which you live, that law enforcement agency won't be able to assist you when there's a time that you may need assistance with a criminal issue or concern.

So I think safety, number one, when it comes to making sure law enforcement has the necessary tools and the manpower to handle the issues in that particular area.

Second thing would be school safety. We see across the country where school safety is a major issue, where we've had school violence on the rise nonstop. Just here locally, we had students at a bus stop. So I think making sure we have the right resources in place to handle those issues would really put the constituents' mind at ease.

The next thing that I would say would be teacher pay. When we send our kids to school, we want to make sure that they're receiving an adequate, I guess, education and resources, and that they have the right teacher in place to provide those services to their child. And in order to do that, we need to make sure that our teachers are being paid properly.

So I also believe that we should support raising the pay for teacher's salary. So you have two major roles right there. You have law enforcement whose salary should remain competitive because of the type of services they provide, and also with education with the teachers making sure that their salaries are up to par, so they are motivated and have the right resources to perform their task.

Katy Smith:

Thank you. What would be your plans to address those constituent concerns and interests?

Dexter Reaves:

Well, number one, because of my background, being in law enforcement for so many years and still having connections and ties with law enforcement, I know the different things that's necessary that those agencies would need to make sure that services that are needed are provided properly.

So with that, it would be basically making sure you connect with those persons in those areas, whether it be the chiefs or the sheriffs in those areas, and also just work with individuals who would be in that particular role with me as a city representative with the issues that they may have with their constituents as well to see what resources we can bring to work together to bring to all the situation.

Katy Smith:

Thank you. We have a little bit more time. Is there anything else you'd like to share with listeners?

Dexter Reaves:

I think that may be about it.

Katy Smith:

Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining us and thank you for your willingness to serve.

Dexter Reaves:

Thank you so much for having me.