Q: Tell us about yourself and your law enforcement experience.

A: I was born and raised in Nebraska. I come from a law enforcement family. Both my father and my brother were in law enforcement. I started in law enforcement in Friend, Neb., before the university contacted me about coming down here for the security department at Evangel in 1969. In 1971, I started with the Greene County Sheriff’s Department as a reserve deputy. I was contacted by a couple of lieutenants. They interviewed me and I began there on February 5, 1971. Reserve officers fulfill the same role in the same capacity as a regular officer. We are held to the same standards, training level. We are required to maintain state training level. We work one day a week but sometimes more depending on what activities are going on.

Q: Why did you run for sheriff?

A: There are a number of reasons why I’m running for sheriff. One of the unique things for me is I do have background and insight into the sheriff’s department because of my involvement there as well as my administrative background at Evangel. I’ve been in the capacity to maintain budget, hire, train and follow through with all of those aspects. I worked with the board of administration, department chairs, and student leaders to make our community safe and to build upon those issues on the campus. Also, with my involvement at the sheriff’s department I’ve been able to watch and see how three administrations have worked. I’ve seen things that worked, things that didn’t’ work so well. I just think I bring a perspective the other two candidates don’t have.

Q: What would you do to solve jail overcrowding problem?

A: That’s a big issue and a big question that’s going to have to be addressed by more than the sheriff. That’s a judicial issue, the number of courts available to deal with the issue. It’s their willingness to hold night courts and weekend courts to move that process along. That’s a legislator that’s going to get more judges down here that’s going to have to pass that through the state level. I think we are going to have to look at those things that say how badly that person needs to be incarcerated. If you’re issuing a citation for this person to appear in court, the reason for incarcerating him is to put him before a judge. If you’ve issued him a court date why are you incarcerating him as well? I don’t know if that in itself is the big problem. I think we are going to have to get to the point that we say this person is not violent. We know where to find him. We can issue him a citation to appear and we can get him there when the courts need him if he does not appear. We can’t just pick them up and lock them up and say we’ll deal with it another day.

Q: What would you do differently from the current sheriff?

A: If I’m elected sheriff we will be looking at the things that put us outside the city. Yes Springfield is a part of Greene County but Springfield has the largest police department in the county. We will not have the high level of traffic and DWI enforcement that’s going on. We would not have the expectations and the pressures put on the officers to do. I don’t want to make light of that issue. A DWI is very serious thing. Its one of the biggest things we face. However, I think we are getting our officers to the point that all they feel is pressure to get those numbers and get those stats. When we’re telling them they aren’t eligible for promotion because their stats aren’t there. When they’re good officers doing a very good job but since their not issuing enough citations, they aren’t getting promoted. I have officers calling me and talking to me on length on end. They feel they must come out of the county into the more populated heavily trafficked areas to get the numbers expected of them. We are shirking responsibilities in the area of break-ins, wire thefts, cattle thefts and all of those other issues. I think that’s where we need to be and we will be reverting back to some of those things. We’ll work on instituting a traffic division to work on those areas they’re having problems with instead of expecting all of our officers to get those numbers every quarter. We can also use volunteerism to assist us in our jail to relieve correctional officers from the responsibilities they need to be doing in a pod. They need help in laundry and commissary. Correctional officers are telling us we need so much help particularly between 3:00 p.m. -11:00 p.m. That’s when we can use volunteerism from people who are working during the day. We are going to build on that all the way across the spectrum of the sheriff’s department.

Q: Why should people choose you over the other candidates?

A: I think I bring a different perspective to the department I’ve viewed and watched and seen what’s going on. I think Moral is the lowest I’ve seen it in the 37 years that I’ve lived here. We need to bring that back up. If moral is down, service is not there either. I’m not following a pattern of how the city may of done things or how the highway patrol may have done things. Those are both great departments but Greene County is different. Greene County is a country county that has become large and it will continue to get large. It’s a great place to live. Not everybody wants to move to southwest Missouri but many people do. Our population has expanded from 180,000 when sheriff Pierpont took office to where were at 270,000. Where are we going to be in 2010? We have to be ready to move with that and keep that going. I think I have the administrative ability to know how to bring the people in that we need to run a department. We will have people in place in the positions that need to be filled and we will empower them to do their job and make sure their trained to the level they need to be.

Q: What is your biggest weakness?

A: Some people think I’m too good of a guy. You know I don’t think you can be too good of a guy. I think that brings a portion of a person out that shows that he cares that he’s compassionate about the issues of victims and he can address those as well. I don’t know that I can point to a weakness. I’m sure everybody has one but I don’t know that I can pick one out today.

Q: How would you respond to someone who questions your ability to move from a university that likely has a low crime rate to being in charge of an entire county?

A: There’s no question it will be a different setting. We have been innovative at Evangel. We have worked hard to maintain a safe campus. Our crime rates are low and we are thankful for that. I would like the opportunity for me to work on that for the county. It’s all about how you administrate something, how you surround yourself with good people and how you work as a team. Our board of administration, our directors, an emergency management committees work really well together. The sheriff’s department is a big business with a multi million dollar budget. The sheriff isn’t going to do that all by himself. If you are a good administrator and you can find folks that have the expertise in that area. You promote people on their expertise and their level of involvement. If you have a good method of advancement, you’re going to have a good team there. Communication isn’t just me telling someone I want this done. We should listen to the guys that have been working those jobs for a long time. They know what works and what doesn’t. Let’s listen to them the same we do the people in our community. People are telling me as I’m walking and talking that they want to be involved. I have the administrative skills to listen to those people. Budgets are budgets. I’ve stayed within a budget of a non-profit. I can’t go say we’re going to tax you so I can do these things. We can’t tax ourselves out of every problem we have.

Q: As for medical care in the jail. A young woman made headlines when she died after being released from the jail. Judge Calvin Holden also reprimanded the jail for their medical care. What would you do differently?

A: I don’t really know how that is set up. I know they have a medical team and I know that they have a med on duty all the time. I don’t know the particulars of those issues because I have not been made privy to that. I do feel that young girl should have been removed before she was but I think there were other issues involved there, as far as possibly some drugs. If someone is ill in the jail, and its obvious they are in a stressful situation. If we don’t have the resources within our own facility to deal with that, it seems a shame that we’d wait until it’s so close to the edge and then we release her and let her be transported to a facility. Hopefully we have doctors, med techs who know what their doing, and nurses that answer to that doctor. Hopefully they respond to him and communicating to that level so they know what each of those inmates condition is. I think any of us no matter what field we work in think that young lady should have been transported to a medical facility earlier than she was. Whether she was still in our custody or not, that should not have been a deciding factor.