Glad to welcome Sheriff Mark Emery from Nelson County be here. Obviously it means a lot to me because I work for you and I've retired and uh, but then I think so much of you that, like I, it is a it really is a blessing to work for you. I don't think there's that many people that left in our occupation that have the level of commitment that you do, not only to the deputies like me, but also to the community that they serve. And you serve some of the same communities I've served. I know you're in rock Bridge. So what I like to do is just have you start out and say, hey, you know, this is this is where I came from, this is you know, this is where I was born and all that different stuff like growing up, kind of your memories growing up and you know, just rolling from there. Sure. Sure, So thank you again for having me, and glad to have you. It's a it's a pleasure to be here and certainly pleasure to have you on air staff. So obviously I became elected sheriff back in twenty twenty three, took office January of twenty twenty four. I was born and raised in Nelson County. I was the oldest of three siblings, two daughters. But Nelson County has always been my home. I have loved that county through and through. Graduated high school class of ninety five, left, got my degree from Radford University, made a lot of good friends and a lot of good contacts. First job really out was probation and Parole. I did that for eighteen months. Oh yeah, yeah, so I started. I had an internship my last year in college down at Montgomery County and ended up getting a job with the Department of Corrections on the P and P side in Pulaski County. I did that for probably six months. It was probably one of the more interesting. Oh my goodness, County has always been a little differ. Pulaski was different. It was a good experience, though the whole time I had applied, my heart was with the Virginia State Police. I always wanted to be a Virginia State Trooper and I can tell you more about that. But got a job offer. I wanted to get back home out of Pulaski, just to get back home to be closer to family. But at that point you're already in the state system. I was in the state system, that's correct. So got an offer from District nine out of Charlottesville, being a P and P for Almore County Charlottesviield City came there under the Chief Probation Officer, Alan Rasmussen. Wonderful getting to know everybody, but I quickly learned adult corrections, community corrections was not for me. I didn't want to I didn't want to monitor. It was urine screens, this, that, and the other. It was not for me. So fortunately I had gotten a letter from the Virginia State Police that accepted me into the hundred and first base session that started March of two thousand and one, and kind of the rest was history. That started my law enforcement. And so you worked in Rockbridge County, and I know that you had a significant event over there, and I know it's probably not the greatest memory of your career, but I think people don't realize something as simple as a traffic stop, how poorly that can go. Just talk about that a little bit, what happened over in Rockbridge on this sure. So at that point in time, I was a deputy sheriff in Rockbridge County and the sheriff Blaylock. At the time, he had initiated a traffic unit, and at that point in time, I was the perfect fit for that unit with my background with the state police. Love just loved doing traffic, particularly on the interstate. So it was a Sunday afternoon. It was March the eighth, twenty fifteen. I'll never forget it. I was working. It was one of my favorite honey holes, if you will, my mark or two three, sitting in the middle between eighty one south and eighty one northbound. And it was a silver van registered out of Tennessee, came through eighty It was eighty three miles per hour at the time said seventy mile Prayer speed zone, so certainly reckless driving by speed. Go out early afternoon one o'clock, I think somewhere early afternoon, and typical traffic stop had done tens of thousands in my career at that particular point in time. The van gets pulled over right at the Augusta County line, the two oh four and a half two oh four point six mile marker on the right shoulder, and there's a there's a guardrail there, and we'll never forget it was a family get up speak to the driver, get their information advice. I was gonna write them a summons. I go back to my car. I'm sitting there and I'm writing the summons, and I'm nearing the very end of the summons to where you know, you put your your name, your credentials, your badge number on it, and then you go up and to release the violator after their signature. As I'm putting my name on it, so I'm seconds away from finishing it, I hear the sound of metal being torn behind me, and I turn and I look, and I could tell that you could you just know the sound of an accident, so I could tell that there was a collision. As I'm looking, there is a tractor trailer that is pushing has already made contact with the passenger car station wagon. Station wagon is turned that the tractor trailer is the power unit. The nose of the truck has already made contact and is pushing the passenger door of a sedan of a station wagon. And I'll never forget. As I turn and look, I'm looking at the driver and the passenger of this sedan as they're coming by me. Now the speeds are slowing. It's probably you know, twenty thirty miles per hour, that's still that's a lot of truck coming. And I'm looking at it and I'll never forget the facial expressions on these folks, and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, what in the world, how did this happen? Well, as I'm looking in my peripheral vision, I can see the trailer of the power unit is coming towards me like the truck is being jackknifed. At that point, and the moment them for you, there's no place for me to go. We're I'm already as close to the guardrail as I can so our cars at that point had we had just gotten laptop computer, so you've got a pretty busy area. It's a console, right, and nowhere to go. So I'll never forget what I did. I dropped the summons and as the as the the trailer itself is coming to me, I can see it's already starting to tilt over, so I knew it's gonna fall. I quickly said a very very quick prayer to myself. I dropped the summons in the in the floorboard, and I leaned over as much as I could into the computer very little limited space I'll never forget the explosion, And so you were in what kind of I was in a It was a brand new at the time. It was a twenty fifteen Dodge charger, so it's no very little limited space that particular year in that particular car. What saved my life was, and I'll never forget. Sheriff Blaylock Hauld mentioned this. They when they were out fitting that new year of the vehicles that they had purchased, the chargers, they had gone with a new cage system. It was a new roll cage system had never really been proven before. So what ended up happening was and had I been a trooper in a blue and gray, as you know, they don't have prisoner transport, it would I would I would have been killed instantly. So what ultimately ended up happening was the trailer did tip over on the vehicle, tip over on It tipped over on my vehicle, but since the power it never disconnected from the truck. So as the truck is still moving, the only saving grace for me was is that after the trailer hit my car, it still continued upwards. It missed by luckily the family from Tennessee that I had stopped. It made no contact with their vehicle. So basically that your car is here and that that truck is just swiping across the top. It swiped across the length over it leanked. Yes, so it had it fallen and lean and stayed on top of me, I would have smothered. They wouldn't have been able to get to me, and I probably would have smothered to death. But the I mean, Kevin Young was talking about this other day on the show. It was a god thing like they hatalled it, and it just bounced. I guess it just slid across, and it didn't compress the back of. It if it had dislodged from the power unit, so the fifth wheel stayed intact. And so anyway, once it made contact, thankfully, the trailer continued, rerected, it redirected it northbound, and the whole thing flipped over right in the middle of the interstate. I never lost consciousness. I remember sitting up. I remember after all the glass exploded. Sitting up. I reached down from a radio which was in the center console, and I got on the mic, and of course I'm barely able to make any I could hear myself thinking that I felt like I was talking but nothing was coming out. Yeah, you definitely had the wind knocked out of it. I definitely had to win truck so obviously, but it knocked the radio system out. So the entire door and I think we've got pictures of that. We may, but anyway, the entire driver side door, the door was closed on it as I'm sitting in the car concluding the summons, but it ripped the entire door off. The door is found later underneath of the minivan from Tennessee that I had stopped. So what I remember what I initially did was I was able to turn my body, put both of my feet and firmly on the pavement. The first Good Samaritans that had stopped that witnessed this came over there to me and they asked me if I was okay, and I just remember shaking my head in the negative. No, I'm not, and I'm trying to talk but I can't get anything out. So I was able to get out. First responders got me out. I was driven from the from the accident scene at the Augusta County line to Augusta Health and was later flown very shortly to University of Virginia Medical Center due to a collapse lung. The long diagnosis was I was in the hospital for two days or two nights, three days uh discharged going home. I had six broken ribs and I ended up having a broken rotator. I ended up having a shattered rotator cuff here on my left So long and short. I was out of work for six months, very painful. Couldn't sleep, couldn't I had to sleep in a couldn't lay flat on my back, just sleep in a chair, slept in a recliner with a tremendous amount of pain medication. My fiance at the time, who's now my wife, she was a godsend. She was able to see me through it. We uh. She was with her sister when this accident happened. We got married that year in September. I would say what she was it worked, so she she and her sister were David's bridal picking out wedding gowns and the bridesmaid dresses when this happened. When when they got the call. It's a horrible call. It's a horrible call. So I would like to talk about that a little bit. I think all of us in law enforcement, we really do have the easy job. You know, the significant other in our lives are the ones that were not there to participate in these special events or any of these other things. And then when something tragic like that happens, it's not us delivering the message. I mean, we're fighting, trying to go, we need to get through, but our significant others are left with so many questions. So it was he's he's since retired now. But this was Steve funkauser who had relayed him, and Chris Blaylock, the sheriff at the time, came to Uva to see me. But but Steve had offered to pick up my father and my mother in Nelson County and bring them to the hospital. My mother came with my with my wife, my fiance at the time. My father he was battling cancer at the time. Uh he had he had retired from his work, and he elected not to come. He was very emotional, very upset, and he heard from me. As soon as I could get my wind back in me and get my thoughts in composure, I was able to make make telephone CONTs and he was fine. He was yeah, well, so just to go back a little bit, what was it like growing up in Nelson County. I know, I married a Nelson County girl, right and she told me before I started working out there, she goes, it is a very unique place to work. It's unique. There's nothing to do, but everybody loves everybody. It is one of the most integrated. It is loving community. It is to be part of. It's rural. It's a very close knit community. There's nothing to do there. If you're a teenager, we would either then we would either go to Stanton. Back in the mid to early mid nineties on Friday or Saturday nights, you would go to Kegler's or Downtown Mall in Charlottesville, or you would come down to river Ridge Mall and hang with your friends down here in Lynchburg. Outside of that, you know, because Waynesboro really hadn't didn't have a lot. Waynesboro hadn't developed. I tell you Waynesboro. My first duty assignon as a trooper was in Augusta County, Rosser At they had one seven eleven off Exit ninety four where it's all developed now. That hadn't none of that, None of that was there. You had the downtown that was I mean, I think that was kind of going out. Stuart's draft had more than Waynesboro literally knit at that particular point. And now that they did that, they did so. But to go back to your previous question, Yeah, it was unique. It was It was just a close knit when you when you grew up in a rural community like that, you just kind of you had your close friends and you would spend time field parties on Friday nights and you just kind of hung and did your You just kind of did your thing. And so what was. It like, I know everybody that I've ever met, the every name, like everybody knew your dad. Everybody knew him, and y'all, you actually, has he always done? Had he always done like farms and cattle. And things like that, So he had so my father his professional job was the Virginia Department of Forestry. His secondary job was the Aubor Volunteer Fire Department. He was the fire chief there for thirty plus years. And then I grew up living on the farm which I managed today. So it's a three hundred acre beef cattle farm. It was my dad, my grandfather, and then really myself, I grew up learning, not really taking a lot of things to do with the farm. I just I watched. I loved spending time with my father. He was my hero, he was my idol. How I got to where I'm at today, at least the choices of my professional career. And I tell this, and the story was brought up at his funeral back in twenty nineteen. I'll never forget I was in grade school. I was probably kindergarten, first grade. It was early five, six, seven years of age. And I'll never forget asking him, Dad, if you could do anything else in your life other than be a fireman or associated with forestry, what would you do? And he looked at me, he said, son, I want to be I would have been a Virginia State trooper. Really. I grew up idolizing this man, and to this day and I tell some of my closest even my command staff knows this story. I live every day still for my dad. I can't That's who I am, It's who I will always be until my dying day. But I'm sure your dad did the same thing for his dad. There's no doubt there. And I think that's why you have the name that you have in the county is because the Embry name to me, based on my brief experience, is a name of service. It truly is. So. My grandmother, who's still alive one hundred will be one hundred and one years old to this year this December. She served the Nelson County Rescue Squad for forty plus years. The actual Nelson County Rescue Squad building that's still there on Irish Road today. She was She was a founding member of that that actually helped design that building and got it. That building opened in the spring of ninety three and we were the first family to assemble there for a gathering the fall of that year. She has been treasurer of the rescue Squad, local church, the fire department. So the service has always been And again I grew up. She raised me when my parents worked full time and she was retired and I would always see her. She was a founding member of the original volunteer rescue squad units. So one thing that I was wondering about is like with that service and with Camille, like with the hurricane, what was that like? I mean, I doubt you were around during those times, So that was in more were the stories that you heard from. Them, lots and lots. So Camille was in sixty nine. I was born eight years later. My father was a teenager at the time, and I remember down right there below air farm, there's a small Dutch creek which is probably at any point in time seven or eight feet wide, was raging river, probably close to what the James is, or at least the Rockfish is. He actually swam that the morning there after and crossed it to get to neighbors who were living there who were flooded and trapped. That was the first story that I had heard. So how would your dad have been there. At that time? He would have been He would have been eighteen, seventeen. Eighteen years old, I mean already sixteen, already looking like, hey, these people need my help. Yes, I need as to step out. So a lot of news. When we had the fifty year anniversary of Camille back in twenty nineteen, my grandmother had come. She was interviewed by a lot of the local media outlets. She probably had all those stories. She has the stories. Her name was mentioned in quite a few other other folks that described it so long and short. Where our farm is located. Our farm is located on the Rockfish River, basin. I'll never forget hearing stories from my grandfather. A lot of the fields that I now field and operate as Hay, a lot of things were buried there because that's just how that they did things. A lot of not people, of course, but a lot of old sediments to breathe things like that that just ended up washing there, got ended up getting buried and covered up during those fields. I will never forget hearing stories from my grandfather about houses. Literally you could see from their front porch where their house is still stands today. You could watch from the front porch and there were people on their roof floating by, and it was still probably several members of not the Embry family, but my mother's family. My mother's maid name was Eiris. Several members of her distant extended family perished and have never been recovered. Yeah, I mean very, very somber. I could not imagine, like I know, the equipment and the technology we have now, how catastrophic that would be. I could only imagine back in those days. Camille, if I'm not mistake, and still holds world records from a historical weather pattern of the weather event, of the amount of rainfall that fell in one hour. But there there's some folks that are still in Nelson County today that have memories of that, that that good friend, good family friends that I know, they get choked aut that that lost loved ones in it, but they survived. And when they tell the story of how they had to survive, it's it's just it's incredible. It's almost with those folks. I mean, I feel like it's almost like prehistoric types. Well it happened, and everything happened at nighttime, and there was no advanced notice. It was just it was one of those freak. Of I don't even think back then flashlights probably not, probably lanterns, and I mean, so you don't have any of the technology that you have now. So some of the some of the family stories, again from the hair side of the family that I heard were I mean kids got their their adults now and these folks lost family members. But they were woken up by water just They're laying in their bed and all of a sudden, the wall caves in because landslides, mud slides have come through, and they're woken up by water and mud and this is one two o'clock in the morning. Imagine the panic in the hysteria that sets in not knowing what you don't know where your parents are and you have no idea where your parents are. Well, I mean that's very I mean, I don't know, that's. A it's unfortunate. When you think of Nelson County, the history that that falls back is probably one of the most historical marks is King Camille. In a really dark period. It's a dark period of time. So let's talk about some positive. Yes, So talk about what it's like to run for a sheriff in an area that you grew up in. It Uh, well, this this run was this run was unique. I mean, it's so how I ended up having to do this. I ended up having to run against my ball, my predecessor at the time. That's right, because you came from rock Ridge back well, rock Ridge, Augusta and then you went. Yes, So I was hired that the gentleman, the sheriff at the time, the incumbent who I defeated in twenty twenty three, I was employed by so Sheriff Hill had employed me in October of twenty twenty one. I came there. I came to Nelson from being a supervisor in patrol at the Augusta County Sheriff's Office. He had a vacacy. I came over in a supervisor capacity. I was employed there from twenty twenty one until twenty No, I'm sorry, let me go back twenty twenty eighteen. October of twenty eighteen. I worked there for three years. I left October first, twenty twenty one, three years to the date I had my twenty years in with VRS and I got a job offer, very great offer in the private sector from an insurance firm, Virginia Farm Bureau, who's just right down the street. So as I left, I had to get licensed to take the job, which was a very challenging aspect. I worked two years in the field at Virginia Farm Bureau. Had always wanted to run for sheriff. I didn't want to leave the Sheriff's office, but I just I was not happy at all with the direction that the office was going. Things that I saw, and I won't get into all of that stuff, but. I just think people don't appreciate how difficult it is. Yeah, and I respect I respect people that say I don't agree with what you're what you're doing, and it could be something as simple as like the job that law enforcement has to do. It is a very clear cut in my opinion, and if you have someone that doesn't view it very close to the way you, you're either extremely miserable. It's a helpless feeling. You're out here trying to service the community, you see victims, and you don't have the back king of And I'm not saying that's what happened. I'm just saying from a law enforcement standpoint, it is. I respect somebody that says I can't do it the way you're doing it, I'm going to do something else. But then you come back and you're like, we're going to do it the way. I feel like, Yes, it gives you a unique perspective. Where I was unique at you, it was I had backgrounds from three other agencies. I had an agency, the Virginia State Police, which I you know, if you're a trooper, you understand if you're not. There's some that hate the State Police. But I always look at them and I still do as kind of the pinnacle of law enforcement. They're probably I think, in all honesty as far as agencies, when you look at the quality of product that they produce in their troopers and the level of training and expertise that they have in the job that they have. There's nobody better at the job that they did. Totally agreed. So I come to this with that foundation, and I never wavered even though I departed the state after almost ten years of service to go to a local agency. And I'll never forget. I'll never regret that because I needed to at some point, needed to learn local law enforcement to be able to do the job I'm currently doing. But I have that foundation. Yeah, the background of structure, it's the structure of the State Police. And and until you work close with them or you're a trooper, you most people don't understand the State Police Manual is the bible it is, and that you strictly adhere to it. So I age there is a reason for that, and I bring that. So I bring every day. You probably see the shoes I'm wearing now, I wear these, and you see me at the office. I get this. I look at myself compared to other sheriffs across the state, and you can see a difference, a little bit of a difference. And again I'm just saying I'm modeled by what I knew and what I was introduced to in law enforcement. You embrace, you embrace, you embrace the culture. Yes, I think, and I think it's a great culture to embrace, and I think it's really cool that you bring that culture back and apply it. Yes, in a service type of environment that you have exactly is a. Full So my background is a little bit more diversified than some some that have only been you know, started in a brown uniform or whatever. So anyway, I have that culture and that diversity, if you will to bring to that. What I wanted to do is and again I immediately saw hands on Nelson County has been We'll just be honest, it's been behind times a lot compared to other places I've been, both with the state state TAC teams going throughout Division six seeing what other rural counties have, and then seeing the counties that i've worked, where Rockbridge was, where it is now, what Augusta County has been able to do. And these are all counties that border Nelson. And I've always had the mentality Nelson, the citizens of Nelson deserve better, just to you, and what I knew when I worked previously under my predecessor, there were a lot of things that I wanted to do and I tried to do. But you can only make changes from the bottom up, from the bottom up, but you have to have that support and you have to have somebody that sees that vision. We didn't have that and I and I was coming at this from not a position of power and a position of leadership with the ability to make those changes. So I knew, if it's coming to Nelson, there's only one way it's gonna get there. It's gonna have to come through me, right, And that I'm sure, And that started the journey for me. But that wasn't an easy I think. I think one of the worst things right now in politics is and I think that's is reflected in it, especially on the and I shouldn't say this, but like on the national level, you really don't have to care about your image at all to run for national office because you will get destroyed. You will get destroyed here. It doesn't matter, It really doesn't matter if you've done anything wrong. The nature of politics now I learned very quickly, very very quickly, even at the local level. The thing about the local level is the people that are coming at you, whether you win or lose. You know where they live. You still have to unless you get up and leave. And I will not about to leave my Nelson County had I lost, because my farm, my family is there. You got to see these people most likely every day or at some point in time. Yeah, at the state and federal level, you're not. But you realize why people don't want to get into politics. It's ruth it is ruthless. It is unbelievable. What And I one of the hopes that I have with doing this podcast is bringing positive and realizing in everyday life it's still another human being. They might not think the same way that you think very much, but you can't and people like you that can come on here and say this is my story. They might not like your policies, but they should reckon like here's somebody who heart is in the right place. She has taking licks for you, whether you are the one that put him on him or not, and he continues to serve. And I think if we spend more time understanding like liberal conservative, I think we all want an America that looks like, hey, let's talk about this, let's have a community, let's communicate with each other, Let's not find pods of people that agree with us. It's amazing if you go and I know, you go all of these different places, you have these community events, and there are people that probably don't agree with your viewpoints, but they embrace the fact of like, hey, this is my sheriff, this is who's elected, and when you start the conversation there, it's amazing. What can happen? It is It is in these events that I go to. I go geared for one thing, and that's to discuss public safety. I can talk about public safety all day long. I have, Yet I don't think at any of my town halls, and I do them quarterly, so I'm up to about six going on seven now for this year. I really don't get asked anything when it comes to left wing, right wing politics, socially social you know, my views on social issues, I still completely stay out of the weeds on that stuff. Well, there's no I mean, from my standpoint, there's no reason to get in it. Actually, we have a very simple mission in law enforcement. I think we can get what worries me is I read today in the news about the FBI, you know, on the January sixth, stuff like what information is out there about that. It is terrifying to think that we have government people, people in government that are willing to go that far for their agenda. But then when I think about it, I also think about the wonderful people we know that work for that same agency. And then they're like phenomenal human beings and they're all about. And they're caught up in they're caught up in the political mess, if you will. They want to do their jobs. You know. I've had opportunities to work with the folks that we've worked with and have conversations with them, their good boots on the ground people. And we want to serve the general public and local law enforce I mean. And that's one of the things that I think is so cool about what you've done, is you've reached out to these big agencies, national agencies, and they have they have come and they have stood up for us. I know that one case that we had with the third you know, the national from China, like that was because you had already worked out a relationship with the fbisoutely and it worked well, it worked, and that lady would have never she would have been a victim that never got any type of restitution whatsoever if it hadn't been for the late absolute And that's the one thing that I've seen over my many years of service in Nelson and other jurisdictions throughout the Commonwealth, is the conflict between agencies. It has never made since we go back to the state police. There there are sheriffs, there are police chiefs through that that like, we don't want you in our county. We can't stand and we can't and VS and I have always embraced we despite the color of our uniform, we work together. We all have a common good. One that is to make. Sure our officers go home and we all go home to our families. But we absolutely work for the common good. We're here to protect and serve with with one mission and one mission alone. Despite how much money you make, what you offer to me. It has never been about power or ego. It has always been about the communities that we that we serve, and we do an absolute disservice When we can't even get along with other agencies. I think what is crazy. And I know you won't go into this a lot, because I know you're a lucky Oh you'd never know. But I think one of the. Things that I learned working on a state task force. Is the divisions mean something in the state Police I've never seen. I've seen conflict between agencies, but the conflict between divisions when it comes to narcotics, yeah, is unreal. So I worked in the Patrol and b when I was there, and I can assure you I've worked Division three, Division six and they're completely night and day. And I've always heard stories from my friends at Division one, Division seven, Northern Virginia, and Southwest Virginia. They're all run a different way with different levels of expectations. So if the uniform patrol field operations is that way, I have no doubt that BCI your CID folks experienced the same thing. And the thing is is I think though once I've had many opportunities. One of the opportunities I had was worked with you know, Tier one type groups overseas, and one of the things I look at is like they're high drive individuals and if they don't have a fight, they will look for it within themselves. I mean, I think maybe that's the problem with law enforcement is we have all these resources and all these humans, and if we can't find a if we can't find a target, we're going to go after each other, and maybe maybe we need to do a better job of like saying, look, this is our mission and explaining to the public, this is our mission, and let's. Get out there and do it again. I say it all. It all starts at the top. It starts with leaders that understand their agency's role and that want to do what's best for the communities that they serve. Right, That's where I'm at. Yeah, And so talk a little bit about your let's just say, your first six months in office, Like what what did you think went really well? And what did you think like, Oh my gosh, I've got like I feel like I was planning a one day hike and I am going to be. Here for well. I knew it was going to be difficult. I had I had reached out to some folks that Glenn Phillips, who we both know, who had the phenomenal person retired from the state. He and I had. He was already my number two. I knew I had to have a solid number two known and Nelson knows the Nelson community, but I can trust in law enforcement to be my right hand man. He was already on board. I already knew where I there were some other pieces, and I knew that the people that I wanted to bring in. It was just a matter of who fits where and what works best for them. Once I got that command staff set up, which would have been most of it in my mind, was prior to the election. But then as soon as the election hit, one of my one of my guarantees and promises was to be fully staff day one. That was we were on the right trajectory for that. What I didn't anticipate was so many existing deputies that were at Nelson had left and went to the UH went to AMers County Sheriff's Office, which they had every right to do. I met with everybody and and some just decided to leave for the fear of the unknown. Let's just be honest. It was the fear of the unknown. I think I think a lot just being close to it is. I think from my standpoint is if you know something is a certain way, the old grass is always a green right aside. But you Nelson was a known for them, and they were like, you know, I've probably heard the same speech you gave them before in this county. I don't know if I'm want to trust with this, and I think that's one of the biggest things. Yeah, me making the decision come is I knew you, I knew what type of person were, and it wasn't like you weren't gonna fluff it. You were just gonna say, look, this is the way it is, go do the work. So here, here's what we had to work with. By the time the dust settled, by the time we had our swearing in ceremony, which you were there, and I'm grateful for you for for reaching out to me and us talking and having you having your experience in leadership coming with us. The only person that was left in the patrol division. There was a lot of vacancies to begin with, So I don't want to think that there was just there. There was an exodus of folks, but there was also a lot of vacancies that needed to be filled. But we had one individual in patrol, the only person left that was assigned the patrol had just graduated the police Academy in December, so he was still in the field training off officer process. We had three school resource officers, we had three court security staff. That's it. We had to fill all these additional patrol vacancies. So I ended up hiring and again my hiring was limited because I didn't have that you know this I could, I didn't have the authority and I didn't have the resource do background investigations. I had to rely on my gut. I had to rely on phone calls. I mean, I didn't have certain things at my access that I did today. Once we January one, once we once we took office, so I ended up hiring a lot of officers deputies that had previously worked there, that I had worked, that I felt comfortable and I knew, And then we brought in some folks from of course, we had some folks that left Amherst after that twenty twenty three election that wanted to leave and come to Nelson. So we got within I think we still had two, if not three vacancies January one. We quickly had that filled by May. I was very very proud of that. We hire two new people to go to air to our academy for the June class. But outside of that, we we we brought in a lot of skill set. We we we brought some folks in that averaged I guess our average years of experience was about ten, which is pretty good this day and age. No, I think I think what people don't. I don't think people appreciate the market right now for long enfoce. Oh, it's it's your skimming the I mean, I mean you do you do not. Have Like if you're an experienced police officer and you have your dyeing breed, You're exactly right, there are there are so few people. And that's one of the things we uh. I actually talked to somebody the other day about it. Actually, uh our producer over there, I talked to her about it the other day, Like you know, starting programs where it's almost like they have a client that they have here that they do heating and air and basically they brought them on and when they graduated from high school, they had a job. And I think that is and I know Jessica Ligan does the same thing with her for her VETAX very much. I just think it is a very difficult. Yes, it absolutely is the biggest thing that I knew that we wanted to do. We wanted to I wanted to brand the agency. Again taking away from myself, it's it's recreating the agency, the image of the agency, giving it a new face. It starts with social media and being able to put that out there and having fresh faces. We wanted to go with new uniform to give us a new a new appearance. It took a while to do, but we're there now as you can see, and we get a lot of great, great positive feedback. I'm sorry, I wish i'd wore mine today. That's on me. It's all good, but but we wanted to. We wanted to to bring a fresh face, or with with with my fresh face and the the ad men. We wanted to give a new patch, a new uniform. We stepped away from the brown, and I wanted to more or less give the agency I wanted. I wanted the deputies there to have their voice and let their voice be heard. So what I decided to do is let them have a vote. We have department meetings every quarter, and I feel like being if I'm going to be transparent with the community, which I promised and I'm doing, I need to also be transparent with the department. Now. I need to let those guys feel like their voice matters. And so we let them. We brought in different uniform variations and let them vote and unanimously what we decided to. Some people say we're another version of the state. I understand that with our coloration, but we look very professional and we went away, which I don't think we do, but some people that don't know any differently think that. But our patch is unique and it's symbolism of what Nelson County represents, and we selected a few venues that are there that are symbolic of that. And again, very very proud of what we've been able to put together. I think I think when you look at those uniforms, you stand out, and I think I think the community that we serve stands out. It does and that's why people come to Nelson County medication and there's there's a reason why people stay there to live, even if they have to travel to find employment. That's right, Yes, and so talk a little bit. I know this is a totally different topic, but you know how my brain balances. Talk about what. I hate to think what's on on the internet now. I just think about like the farm life, like what does that look like? Trying to run a sheriff's department and trying to maintain them. It's not easy this time of year. We're in hay season. So you know, I've got thirty hit of cattle. Okay, and it's so I have a beef cattle cow caf operation. My oldest son, Zach Zach will be twenty five this year. Okay, h he is. He is a mechanic at Carter Caterpillar in Fishersville, So big ending, yeah, big big unit. He does all my service work for me. Great, great young man. I couldn't get by without him. And he lives on the farm with my mother. My father passed in twenty nineteen, so I took over the operation and I've redone the farm. I have completely redone it from where it is, new fencing, new watering system and everything. But going back to it, it's it's difficult. If I didn't have a great staff that can run the office day to day operations, I wouldn't be able to do what I do now. I'm at the office every day, with the exception of if I have something come up that's pressing. Right now this time of year, all of our well, it's wet. It's wet, and as soon as it drives, you're going to have to be cudding. Yes, So I'm in I've got, you know I do. I do round bails. Everything is machine related. I've bought some advanced updated equipment that really helps me and speed up my operation. But it's for me. It's therapeutic. I built the farm up the way before my father passed. He and I both entered into a contract with a ten year contract with the Thomas Jefferson Soil and Conservation Unit out of Charlottesville. What they did, they came in and put in all these new fences and waters. He never got to see that. He passed in twenty nineteen. The fencing and watering systems were installed this summer of that year. I'd like to think he's very proud of that, of what and that has just kind of helped us. I think that diversifier operator, I think he would be proud of it. He would because I think I think one of the things the older you get, you realize what does your legacy look like? Yes, and your dad gave you a great legacy, but he also left some things undone because like you have technology, you have all these things that are added. You have like what you're talking about, I would say, they don't like cattle to be a certain distance from creek, yes, very and so you have to comply with all that, which is a good thing, but you also have to have the technology and the thought process to get you to. That point when I'll never for the day my father passed. It was January thirtieth, twenty nineteen. He was there at the house, surrounded by myself, my mother, my sisters weren't there, my wife, and some very close friends and fellow farmers of his. And I will tell you, I mean, I had always helped my dad, but I had never really made any farm decisions because I just it just hadn't worked out that way. And you want to talk about going back to the drawing board and fear of how am I going to do this? I'm a deputy sheriff at this point, I'm in Nelson. I'm working twelve hour rotating shifts. I've now lost my father, you know, boys, I've lost my hero. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I've got to learn at that point, he was still Dad was one of these guys that he loved his family, but he didn't like to let go of the rain. So I had always helped him, but I had never managed and never made any real always let him make the decisions. I had to learn to do it all. And I mean I had the background, but I said, so fast forward. The day he the day he was buried, I left that service. I thanked everybody for coming. I went and I started doing stuff on the farm. One to kind of take my but I said, if I'm gonna do it, I got to do it and not look back. And to this day, I haven't looked back. It's it's therapeutic for me. It it gives me a lot. There's a lot of crossover though. It's a lot of crossover of like you have your growing seasons and everything else. And I think if you learn how to prioritize, make tasks, you know what's important, what's not important. On the farm, it relates back to what we do day to day. It does. I take pride with two things. I love seeing a credible agency that we've been able to build with good solid people, equipment, the technology that we've been able to bring with some of the new stuff. And then on a personal personal note, I take pride in making beautiful hay every year, three times a year during cutting seasons for me. And then incredible calfs. I've got a cow calf operation, and when you go to sell cattle, I take all my cattle to Stanton Market. That's just I'm on the north end of the county. It's more convenient for me. But when you unload your cattle and you have a lot, all the experts, I'm not an expert by any stretch, but when your cattle bring in top dollar in that top ninety ninth percentile, you know you're doing something right. Well, it's like a by definition here comes to m breeze. They always have, they do the little I think people don't realize how much preparation, just like you were talking about, Hey, I think people think it's really simple. All you do is go out there and you rake it and then you roll it into rolls. But then when you look at the rolls like you look at you go buy some of these farms and you're like, I don't know who rolled that. So the stress. So there is stress in this. And all farmers will tell you that care about their product. Usually come late April early May, you're you're I'm fixated to w ST thirteen George Flickinscher's weather forecast three or four times a day because I need to know when that window is going to be. I'm looking at my work calendar making sure I don't have any appointments because it takes I need two or three days of good time to be able to cut tetor rake bail and move out of my field into where it's secure. And that's it. Because you're looking at that window, and I'm constantly talking to my staff when they're like, hey, can we have a staff meeting, I'm like, nope, I'm cutting. Hey, can't do it. Yeah, And it's not like you can, like you can tap out and go, hey, come over here and do this for me. So it's on you. It's it's unique, not other you know, not all sheriffs or administrators have to do that. Now before right now, I'm fortunate now I'm in the position that I'm in. Prior to being elected to this office, I was having to do this. Like I said, when my dad passed, I was still a patrol deputy. I was working twelve hour shifts and we were doing night shifts. So it would be times I would get off at six a m. If I had to. If I had to cut, you maybe get three or four hours of sleep on my own because I have no help to do this. My son helps me when he can, but I understand. But outside of that, this was all my thing. My wife and mother I haven't trained taught them yet, have operated exactly terrible, terrible. I used the wrong tea word taught. I have not taught. You're getting take use the t word of takeout because exactly that's exactly right. So uh, but it's not easy. And I bring that up because I enjoy doing this. I could easily just bush, I could easily just sell everything, and but that wouldn't be what my father would want. So why I would say, there has to be a lot of pride, not like the bad pride, but the pride of like man, the product that I produced. I know, I trained dogs, and like when I see the dogs that I've trained, I think that is the coolest thing. Is that is the closest thing is an extension of me. Yes, because good or bad. Yes, that is a reflection, absolutely. And so I invest in that in that. Way, just like any business leader. I mean, if you know you want your if you're manufacturing a product, you want it to be top notch. Will you want it to I think you take to do it in it. Yeah, but I think the difference between animals and machinery it's totally totally differently because you have you have to invest, yeah, and you have to be so in tune with what they do day in and day out. People think they're riding through the fields and they're I guarantee, if you ride through your field, you'll know where each one of those cows are physically, nutritionally and everything else when you have to and if you don't pay attention, you missed one day, Like I know right now, no farmer, but I know that my garden is suffering because it rained for two or three days. And I can't catch a lot. Of folks when they go to the when they go to a supermarket and they're looking, they're they're just buying a steak and the hey, they hey, I want a steak for the weekend or something. They take for granted what all went into producing this. Well, at this point it probably isn't from here anyway. I was gonna say, probably not. So what I know you can't recommend. But like just as a p s A. People that want to buy local, are there places local in Nelson? County that sell beef for sure, Okay, all right, so that I I guess it's just a matter of just going out there and finding one that works. Yeah, do you sell your beef front? I don't know. I take it. I take it straight to them, because it takes a process to do that. You really gotta rain the animal and you got to do this. And to do the USDA and all that other stuff too. Well. I don't know how they I don't really know how they do that, but there's a lot of time and investment that goes into getting that animal to a certain size. You really have at that point. It's a science and it's it's time consuming, no sir. I get them to a certain size and weight when they need to be coming off their mother, and that's that's it. And that's I don't know. Like to me, I think like you have a calf and all the things that go into that, Like I do think people take for granted, like all the effort that goes into that. So back to the department. So like from your standpoint, I don't want to make a general statement, but I will law enforcement, how good of a job do we do explaining to the general public? Actually what our job is, because like I feel like ever since George Floyd, I think we have adopted we're in a safe place. We interact with the public in in a way that makes them comfortable as opposed to know and I know you're not like this because I work for you. But how many leaders do we know that are like their thing is? I want to my best deputies are the ones that I'm not getting complaints on because they're not contact in the general public. If you're not, if you don't get a complaint, there's probably a reason you aren't contact in the general public. Now, you definitely are not acting as a as a You can say you're a protector and everything else, but letting stuff go doesn't work. And so like for me from a law enforcement standpoint, how do we transition to general public? We're very fortunate in Nelson people. I feel like, for the most part, we're very supportive in our community. Obviously very much. Obviously we'll get like he's driving too fast, he was using this, all these different things, but for the most part they want law in order and so but in other areas where they have the different opinion about law enforcement, what can we do and what can leaders do to prepare the public to say, we have all these violent acts committed in this area. If we send law enforcement in there, they are going to have that same violent interaction. It's probably going to be on our body camera. You can either choose to interact with We can either in law enforcement go after the people that are responsible for the violent acts, which are going to create a violent act more than likely because most violent people do not voluntarily comply. Yeah, I think that. I mean, you know that, Jewett. There's only one way to do it, and I've learned it. It's transparency. You have to have transparency. There's a reason why I do the town halls one. I feel like it's it's it's it's needed, and it's an expectation as a constitutional officer, I need to do that. But the community just doesn't understand what we do. And it's not just us. I've learned this from I'll use VDOT for an example. We brought ve Doot in back in November and I asked and and and and they did not want to do this, but they they did. They they decided to. Do like the calf that didn't want to get pulled in. That's right, they got there. But they saw what we were doing. They saw that we had an issue with fatalities back in Nelson County during a high number of fatalities on the twenty nine corridor in a one week time span, and the critiques that I was getting for not having enough deputies out there. I went to VITOT and VDOT came back to me and like, we'll sheareff. You know we can't do this unless we do this, And I said, well, no, I didn't know that. It was just an example of something that they use and everything else, well the study, well they use something like that. They know you can't put an I didn't know this. They brought to my attention in a closed door meeting that we can't put an extra traffic light on twenty nine in Nelson County if we're going to go that route. And that was something that people were asking at some intersections where we were having trouble, and they said, if we have to put a traffic light at this intersection, we by law, whether it's federal or state, I don't know. I didn't go into the weeds. We have to remove a traffic light on the twenty nine corridor from another jurisdiction. I said, well, if I don't know that, these people in Nelson County don't know that, why not get out and educate. That's what I feel like. That's where I feel like everybody lacks. It's just education and communication. When you do that, you gain public trust. When you gain public trust, you really you can't go wrong. You can't go wrong. Now. Do we make mistakes, Yes we do. Do I own them when I do it? Yes, I do. That's why I say I believe transparency and accountability. If I make mistakes and I come out and I say, yes, this happened and I'm sorry for this and it's not going to happen again, and we'll do better, well, there be repercussions, yes, but I don't lose that trust from the community. That's what The fact that you own it, that's it. So when I'm transparent and I get out every ninety days and I say this is what we've done. This are the stats of what we've done, and people answer questions, I constantly have it, and I don't mind that. I feel like that's what we need to do, and I really do. I've noted locally. Some other agencies are starting to put out on their social media sites statistics it's worked for us. I don't know if they're doing that following us, or they see and it's working, or it's just something that right. It's I mean, I follow other agencies too, And I'm not saying that we need to be the premieer what we're doing. What we're doing works for us and it works for me. Yeah, and they can see whether it works. Yes, But so what would you say if if somewhere to ask you, like, so, what is the mission of the Nelson County Sheriff's Office as it relates to public safety and service? So for me, the mission obviously it's protecting and serving. But I want to be I want to be in the community, which I already am. I want to have that community trust and I want to provide services. I want to see our youth. We see across the country we see a decline in people wanting to get involved in law enforcement. Now we can sit here and have a debate as to why that is and when did that break down. What I want to do is I want air youth. I want I'm not going to hold this office forever, but however long I'm in there. I want it to succeed and I want it to continue to grow and strengthen those ties and binds with their youth. That's why we're focusing so much right now on our cop camp SR programs and things of that nature. But to answer your question, I want to bring a community together. I get together with church leaders. I go to a different church pretty much every other Sunday. Wherever I'm invited, I go. And it's not easy, but it's again it's if people can see me and I represent this agency, then they know that we're here for the community and that that will never waver as long as I'm as long as I'm in the seat. It's building that community, which Nelson again has never had. And that was one vision that I had that that we wanted to do, was to strengthen that. Yes, while we make arrest and we do these other things, we're also we want to provide services and and and. Just so along those veins. From a prevention standpoint, I think I think I feel like law enforcement. I don't feel like that where we're at, But like, how do you go from a reactive and I think about and I'm trying to lead you into it because I most I am most impressed with your desire to make community safer active shooter training things like that, because like for me, it's too late, yeah to train. You know, I had a T shirt a long time ago it said something to the effect of, if your life depends on having a skill, it's too late to learn it. Yep. And how much skill have you provided these deputies since you've been. Oh, it's it's been. It's been a one eighty versus what they've had in the past. So obviously, one of my biggest campaign platforms was we want to train by annually, not just annually. And the reason we do that is, you know, from your years of experience, you have to keep your mind fresh and you learn from muscle memory. And so what we've done and we've been proud to make contacts with our Alert, We've adopted the Alert Active shooter training. We've got a collaboration with our schools so we know when we can do it in our schools. We're hitting it at spring break, fall break, and we're continuing to use the assets that are available to us. There's other agencies out here that love to train, and we've got those resources now we've got that bond. So if we're training in April when school is on their spring break session, which we have done the last two years, and now we're following that up in the winter with Virginia State Police tag teams that are coming in and just providing scenarios to our guys, we're keeping that mental fresh. Now we're incorporating our volunteers and our professional fire and EMS staff that have also they train not necessarily volunteers, but not to a degree in a level that we just threw at them a couple months ago. So what is all brand sure? What was the feedback? I know I didn't I wasn't there because I was in and out a lot, But what was the feedback from EMS and fire? After all, they said, why haven't we done this before? Isn't that crazy? And it's for their feedback? Was my god, how much did this cost you? And when I say this is free training, these people travel across the country, they bring you food, they give you the knowledge, and they give you the best training possible. All we have to do is make ourselves available, have a venue to provide them, and we have to be receptive to what they're teaching us. And we learn from it and we build from it. And the question they said, thank you, this is the most incredible training we've had, but why haven't we done this before? And so how do we build that moving forward? How do you feel building the the is it? How do you transition into the next phase in Nelson? So obviously you surround yourself with people that believe in what you want to believe all of our fire So luckily for us we have one paid organization with a green fire and rescue and Chief Sheets and Assistant Chief Mike Riddle are completely on board from that standpoint. Air the Nelson County Emergency Services Council, which is comprised of our local fire and rescue chiefs, they have bought in on this air. Nelson County Dispatch Center has bought in. And certainly all of our deputies have deputy that they want, they want training opportunities they wanted, they want that. So the big thing for this, there were two national scenes that I take from all of this. One was Lakeland, Florida, Parkland, I'm sorry Parkland, Parkland and Uvalde, Texas. And I brought this up and it's a failure to train and it's a failure to act, and we won't dive into what DOJ found and what those results came from all that, But I always said Nelson is unique, and this, God forbid if it happened here. But our guys are going to be prepared. Our school resource officers are going to be prepared. It's not the first time they're going to see this, and we need to give them all the tools on their belt to in the resources to be able to handle this. God forbid if this happens, and if it happens in an adjacent jurisdiction, we give them all the tools to respond and help our fellow neighbors out. So I'm committed to this, Jewett, and. I think it's been it's been an amazing thing. I think I think whatever marks that you have in your brain, you know, like, hey, this is a watermark of where we've arrived at what we need to do. So we're already on the books for twenty twenty six in April. So and those guys love it. I mean they you can tell the folks that come here to as to us. They love working with people that are always receptive and want to train. Yes, well, I appreciate your time it has been. I always enjoy spending time with people, especially people that have the same thought process as I do as far as service and man, especially somebody that's rose to the highest level and is implementing a plan. I think it's awesome. Well, it's good to be here. I thank you, and we'll have to do this again some time and again. I feel terrible. I'm not wearing a new uniform again. I'm very very proud of It, but I wanted you to be comfortable, absolutely all right, So thank you, thank you.
