Bulloch County Solicitor-General Catherine Sumner was appointed Tuesday by Brian Kemp to serve as district attorney for the Ogeechee Judicial Circuit, filling the seat left by the late District Attorney Robert Busbee, who died unexpectedly in May.

She will serve the remainder of Busbee’s unexpired term, which ends Dec. 31, 2028. The Ogeechee Circuit serves Bulloch, Effingham, Jenkins and Screven counties.

After serving six years as an assistant district attorney for the Ogeechee Circuit, Sumner was elected as solicitor-general for Bulloch County in 2020 and re-elected in 2024. The solicitor-general is the lead prosecutor of misdemeanor cases in Bulloch County State Court.

Sumner currently sits on the Bulloch Family Violence Task Force, serves on the Board of Directors for Community Assistance in Fire Emergencies and is a past president of the Bulloch County Bar Association.

A 2006 Statesboro High School graduate, Sumner played varsity basketball all four years and was a three-year letterman. She has been a Bulloch County resident since age 5, when she started kindergarten at Sallie Zetterower Elementary School. Her family owned and operated the PoJo's Country Store in Statesboro for more than 15 years.

Sumner attained a bachelor's degree in political science, graduating with honors, from Georgia Southern. Before attending law school, she worked as a constituency services intern for former U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson in Washington, D.C., and as a courier for Franklin, Taulbee, Rushing, Snipes & Marsh in Statesboro.

While at the University of Georgia School of Law, Sumner interned as a prosecutor with the Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office in Madison, as well as, during the summer, the Ogeechee Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office in Statesboro. In 2014, the same year she received her law degree, Sumner was named the law school's Prosecutorial Clinician of the Year.