Beaufort’s Mayor Billy recalls ‘best job I ever had.’ What does he say to current leaders?
Billy Keyserling, Beaufort’s renowned leader who has been called the city’s mayor for life, was back at City Hall on a recent Tuesday evening.
And the former mayor did not pull any punches that he’s not happy about the state of American politics.
Instead of having to preside over the city’s proceedings as he did for a dozen years as mayor, on this special Tuesday, when he was being honored for his years of service, he held court for the first time in five years prior to a city council meeting. The 76-year-old proved he still has his strong voice and stout opinions along with a thick mane of white hair. With a rapt audience seated in wooden pews before him, the loquacious Beaufort native — once the lion of local politics — preached about his current frustrations with the vicious state of American politics.
“Particularly today,” Keyserling said, “I think parties have become so irrelevant.”
Keyserling showed up at his former stomping grounds to receive the Order of the Palmetto, South Carolina’s highest award for civilians, for his 50 years of public service. A fixture on the Beaufort City Council for 16 years serving 12 as mayor, Keyersingly used the opportunity presented by the award ceremony to share his views about conflict and collaboration.
During his tenure on the City Council, Keyserling fought offshore oil drilling and lobbied for establishing a national park in Beaufort that tells the story of Reconstruction following the Civil War. The Reconstruction Era National Park is now headquartered in the city and continues to expand its reach to significant sites across the country that help tell that critical piece of the nation’s history. He also did his best to build consensus and continues in a new podcast to address the rancorous political climate he brought up during his award ceremony.
“People identify with the party and never look at the issue so we don’t get down to having serious conversations,” Keyserling later told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet. “So you’re either red or you’re blue.”
‘Best job I ever had’
Keyersling hadn’t been back to City Hall since he left in 2020.
Friends, family and colleagues turned out to see state Sen. Shannon Erickson, R-Beaufort, deliver the Order of the Palmetto award to Keyserling, a Democrat. The award is given to those who “demonstrate extraordinary lifetime achievement, service and contributions of national or statewide significance.” It was signed by Gov. Henry McMaster.
‘Being mayor,” Keyserling told the crowd, “ is probably the best job I ever had.”
Erickson told Keyserling that even McMaster was surprised that the former Beaufort mayor had not received the award previously. Erickson called Keyserling an independent thinker whose big heart and personal touch “left a huge legacy.”
“The state of South Carolina is better because of you,” Erickson said.
Likes ‘breaking the ice’
Keyserling is so well known in Beaufort he’s known simply as “Mayor Billy.” He sometimes tells residents he greets that he’s not the mayor anymore when they address him as such. “They say, ‘You are mayor forever,’” Keyserling says with a chuckle.
He traces his long political career to his listening skills and his love for people.
“I like breaking the ice between people,” Keyserling says. “Even my most severe critics have given me credit for listening.”
Some might not know that Keyserling spent decades in state and national politics before launching his grassroots career in 2008, including two terms in the South Carolina House and 16 years in Washington, D.C., where he worked for U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings. Keyserling ran Hollings’ unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and also owned a public affairs business in Washington that focused on managing campaigns for governor and the U.S. Senate and House.
Prior to his arrival in the nation’s capital, Keyserling cut his teeth in politics in the Boston area in the 1970s where he went to Brandeis University and Boston University. His first job was registering voters.
But Beaufort City Hall, said Keyserling, “will always be my home.”
“This chamber, and this city, have been the light of my life,” Keyserling said.
Community service was in DNA
Keyserling’s penchant for community service was handed down by his parents, who both came from families that hailed from Lithuania.
As a young Navy doctor, his father, who grew up in Beaufort, witnessed a “blood bath” when he landed with the Marines at Guadalcanal in the South Pacific during World War II. Later, he became a Beaufort country doctor who was paid with whatever his patients could afford. “He got chickens and turkeys and cakes,” Keyserling said. “He didn’t care.”
His mother, a native New Yorker, was the first woman elected to the Beaufort County Council and later became the first woman from Beaufort elected to the Legislature.
Keyserling was born at Beaufort Memorial Hospital and grew up sailing on Battery Creek and the Beaufort River at 7 years old.
“It’s sort of like Mayberry,” Keyserling says of Beaufort, referring to the small town popularized in “The Andy Griffith Show,” “except it’s absolutely beautiful.”
The city’s diversity also is notable, Keyserling says, noting it was run by Black residents for a time during Reconstruction and later attracted a mix of people because of the U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Station Parris Island and Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort.
Using his voice in a new way
These days, the former mayor, who also owns a real estate company, lives in a fashionable and cozy condominium overlooking Battery Creek where the walls are covered in oil paintings.
He moves a little slower — he nearly died during a sailing mishap on his beloved Beaufort River in 2022 (Keyserling promptly used the incident, in which he nearly drowned only to be revived by emergency personnel, to promote the importance of CPR training).
But Mayor Billy is still using his prominent voice to stick up for the city’s underdogs and historic buildings.
He’s been heavily involved in restoring historic structures in traditionally African American neighborhoods.
And he’s launched a podcast called “Sharing Common Ground” in which he and his guests explore challenges faced by those with mobility, mental health or vision issues. Keyserling says 67 million people in the country have some form of disability and are treated as a second class citizens even though they have talents to share.
“With a little help,” he says, “many can be productive citizens.”
He’s also using the podcast platform to discuss partisanship. Guests so far have included former Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg and Beaufort City Councilman Mike McFee.
At the City Hall award ceremony, Keyserling pointed to former Republican state lawmaker Scott Richardson of Hilton Head, a colleague who was in the audience. Keyserling noted that he and Richardson met regularly for lunch while they served in the House together. Their relationship, he said, is an example of how opposing parties can still find common ground if they try.
“We got along great,” Keyserling said. “Now there’s a stand off where you’re either Republican or Democrat and that doesn’t really help things.”
A civil conversation, he adds, can lead to opposing sides giving and getting a little bit — and eventually solutions.
Then, carrying his framed Order of the Palmetto award in his arms, Keyserling departed the City Council chambers where he once presided and the meeting continued without him.
“Thanks everybody,” Keyserling said as he left. “I enjoyed being home.”
This story was originally published June 18, 2025 at 9:38 AM.
