Meet the Candidate: Coroner Chris Nisbet

Quick with a smile or a joke, Chris Nisbet may not be the stereotype of a coroner, but he's been doing that job for 16 years now.

As of mid March, Nisbet is currently running unopposed for his fifth term.

"Being a coroner is not something you can go to school to learn to do it," he said. Nisbet worked under the county's previous coroner, who retired in 1996.

Nisbet is proud of his department staff and his focus on modernization.

He said his department has the highest morale of any department in the county. It's also one of the smallest budgeted departments. 

"I look at my department as family," Nisbet said. 

Through all his joking, Nisbet takes his job seriously. He's often the man people see in their most desperate hour, learning that a loved one has died. 

"We get great satisfaction helping people," he said. "We're not a 'feel-good' office. We have to really enjoy what we're doing."

He added that it's not often county coroners get thank-you notes, but gets them. 

Nisbet has undergone cost-cutting transformations to keep his department lean, including sending autopsies to Newberry instead of MUSC.

"We try to do what's best," Nisbet said.

Winning another term would provide him the opportunity to expand learning and accredation within his department, he said. He added that his small department now handles six times the number of deaths from the 1990s.

Editor's Note: This is one story in a series focused on candidates running in 2012. To see more stories on this topic, click here.