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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview K-0251, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
John Ledford, the sheriff of Madison County, North Carolina, describes his job and the changing role of county sheriff in a growing area. His job requires an understanding of the personal dynamics of the county, and many of its residents expect personal service. But Madison County is growing, and its growth is changing Ledford's job. In this interview, he describes the growing conflict between new arrivals and longtime residents; the political aspects of his position; the effects of a new highway corridor that brings business, but also crime, to the area; and the increasing complexity of a job that was once local and personal. In doing so, Ledford reveals his drive to keep pace with change and his regret that Madison County cannot remain the wooded paradise of his youth. This interview offers a thoughtful look at the challenges small communities face, caught up in an increasingly connected nation.
John Ledford, the sheriff of Madison County, North Carolina, describes the effects of economic growth on his job and his community.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Marshall, North Carolina and it is January 3rd, 2001 about a little bit before ten o'clock. John, could you just introduce yourself? I want to make sure that we're picking you up, and tell me who you are, your age, and all those kinds of things.
My full name is Chauncey, C-H-A-U-N-C-E-Y John Ledford. I am the sheriff of Madison County. I was born July 8, 1965, thirty-five years of age.
Great. John, what part of the county were you born? Oh, John you were born in '65. What part of the county were you raised in and where?
I was raised in the Forks of Ivy community of Madison County, which is a small community that sits south of Mars Hill between the Madison-Buncombe County line and Mars Hill. I'm almost probably a mile from northern Buncombe County.
What did your father do? What did your parents do? And what was your family background in county?
We live on property that my Grandmother Ledford who was a neighbor of ours had deeded off to my father upon his retirement from the US Navy. He at sixteen years of age volunteered to go fight in World War II and left and made a career of it and got out early '60s and came back. My mother is from the Spring Creek section of Madison County, and she just has been retired a few years. She taught school in Madison County for forty years. I have a twin brother, and actually the interesting thing is my brother and I are adopted children.
Huh.
They adopted us when we were a little less than two years of age. So all my life has been spent up to about the last two years except for what time I worked with other law enforcement agencies in the Forks of Ivy community of Madison County.
Were you born in this community? Were your birth parents?
From what I know we were born in Madison County. I have never researched. I never looked into that and the only parents I've ever known were James and Nina Ledford.
Wow. That's something. That's a good sign that you were comfortable with that.
Very comfortable with that. I have no desire. They were great parents and are great parents.
Now did your parents have other children too?
I have one sister Laura who was born in 1968. She is a little younger than us. She's now married and lives in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
So when your dad then retired out of the Navy, he was still relatively young at that point—
He was.
Probably forty or something.
Right. When he came out of the Navy, his brothers owned a service
station and a grocery store called the L and M Supermarket. He worked
there for a brief period of time, and then my grandmother deeded him
property and he went up the road and actually opened up a small service
station probably less than half a mile away from his brother's service
station and went into business against him. I don't know if you'd say
Now he was a, there was a time when he was in business with Don Anderson. Is that right?
He was. Sometime around 1970, early '70s, my father opened a second business. He kept his original service station but went up and opened a second business on Highway 19, which was also a service station/garage/auto parts store. He went into that business with Doctor Don Anderson who was a professor he had met from Mars Hill College who's always been a life long friend of my father's. They were very close.
Where was that original store down here that he opened?
The original store was right beside my mother and father's house. It's there in the Forks of Ivy section. There were three stores. At that time that was the old Mars Hill Highway. See there was only a two-lane road that came from Asheville to Mars Hill and the L and M Supermarket, that was Ledford and Marsh sat on the left. Then you came up to my father's place which was Ledford's gas station, which sat on the right and then directly above that—all of these were in eyesight of each other—was Thurmond Briggs who ran another Exxon Station just above it. That's where Austin Heating and Cooling is now if you're familiar with that. That was all on the main road. So everything, it was a busy place early in the morning. I can remember when we would go to school, all three parking lots would be full of people. That's, you could see both directions from our house. It was interesting thing.
Now did your family do any farming? Did your father farm at all?
They did growing up. That's originally, my father's father passed away when he was about three years of age. My grandmother raised seven children. They came through the Depression in a small probably one, two, three, four-room house, which still stands there in Forks of Ivy. At sixteen my father decided he was going to, the War broke out. World War II broke out, and he went to Detroit, Michigan and got my aunt who had married and moved there—basically with a parent's permission somehow they can sign you into the military early—so he got her to sign, I guess my grandmother's name, and he went in to join the Navy to fight in World War II and ended up making a career out of it.
So when he got back then, he basically went into business.
He did.
He really didn't farm or anything.
He did not. By that time he came back all. Like I said, my father was probably late thirties. He was the second youngest. All of those had grown up and had gone into business. They had opened up these type of merchant type trade is what they all had gone into. That's what he went in to. He came in and originally worked for his brothers and then opened his own business.
What are your earliest memories of those kind of times, that period you would've been real, real young obviously? But where did you go to school?
I went to Mars Hill. My mother was a teacher there.
At the elementary?
At the elementary there. The things I remember most about those
businesses then is that I could remember those type business as opposed
to these bigger businesses
Did you ever, was there ever any thought on your part of kind of going
into your dad's business, taking that over? As he retired or—
Well, it's interesting. I've always been interested in law enforcement. When I graduated from high school, my father—
Was that Madison High?
Madison High School, 1983, my father and my twin brother he gave myself
and my twin brother a good graduation present. He let us go down to
Myrtle Beach, and we spent a week there, and he paid for all that. When
we came back he told us, 'You can go Monday and get yourself lined up to
go to college, or you can go to work.' But he said, 'You're going to do
one of the other.' He said, 'You're not going to stay here at the house
and not work.' That was my father, 'Or you can go in the military.' So
my brother went to Mars Hill College. I went to talk to dad about
whether I was going to go to college. Dad said, 'What would you go for?'
I said, 'Well I guess business.' He at that time we owned three service
stations. He said, 'Well, if you're going to go into business, here's
the keys. Go over to the one in Mars Hill and go to work.' He said, 'You
can run that one. And we'll run it together.' That's really what I did.
Now my brother came out and went one semester to Mars Hill College, and
then he and my best friend joined the US Army, and they left for two
years. When he returned back, I went down to the North Carolina Highway
Patrol Academy. This was 1987 by then. I stayed about four weeks and
just didn't really ever click. That just was not what, I knew I wanted
to be in law enforcement, but I just really wasn't sure what I wanted to
do. I knew that wasn't it. So came back and continued to work in my
father's business until 1990. I was fortunate to be offered a position
with the Buncombe County Sheriff's Department. That's how I got my start
in law enforcement.
You were talking earlier about the idea of the store being a hangout and places where people congregated. Was that also a school bus stop kind of right there? Were kids picked up right in that area?
Not so much at our store. It was interesting because my mother taught
school. So I always had to be at school thirty minutes early and had to
stay about thirty minutes late. There were a whole group of us, my next
door neighbor who was about four years older than me. My closest friend
growing up, his mother was also a schoolteacher. So we all, there were a
number of us. It was amazing how many of us actually school teachers had
children that were a very tight knit bunch about the same age and all
stayed after school together. Then really from the time I was probably
old enough to push a broom and stuff, my mother would take us over to my
father's store or over to the store
I watched you grow up.
Yeah. I got one of the biggest votes that's probably ever been gotten in Beech Glen in my home community box there. The year I ran, I ran it by just the man I had run against had never lost the box, and not only did I beat him in that box but beat him by over two hundred and fifty votes. So it's just, that's a lot. It was a complete swing in the Beech Glen box that year.
How did you as a child, what did you do for like entertainment? I know in a sense working at the store could function as both work and the camaraderie of the place could be entertainment. But what other kinds of things did you do as a boy growing up kind of in the county that were—?
Myself, my brother were very close and are very close. But we had
completely different tastes. When we got into high school really, my
father told us, 'You can work and I will pay you a salary, or you can
play athletics and I will give you an allowance.' It didn't take long to
figure that I'd rather have a new car as playing basketball. The monies,
financially it was just better off for me to have a job, and I was lucky
to have a job. So we worked. Many of my hobbies revolved around just
typical stuff. We hunted. We fished, backpacked, did a lot of hiking,
backpacking, rock climbing, anything that this area had to offer. I was
an avid hunter, I guess was one of the biggest things. My closest friend
at that time who is still somebody that I consider a very close friend
was about four years older than us. He had a car. So when I was like in
the—he had his license at sixteen and I was only twelve. My parents
trusted him immensely because his mother was a schoolteacher. We skated.
We were still probably, we skated. That was a big thing, roller skating,
something we did very well at.
Did you go into Weaverville?
We did. Carol Powers who is owner of Skateland or Skateland USA was a good friend of mine. The interesting thing about Carol was we had a natural ability to skate. It came out to the point where we were probably some of the best. We floor guarded and skated on speed teams. We probably were as good a skaters that were anywhere around. At that time we would go and compete different places and probably better than ninety percent of them. That's something that I still can go every now and then and do. At that time, now it's probably progressed. We could do things at that time that people I thought were very good skaters that were older than me could not do. I'm sure that's continued to evolve because the skates get faster and people get more athletic. But that was a big part of us growing up. We did all those things, very active.
It sounds like doing a lot of walking, hiking, hunting. So you spent a lot of time in the woods it sounds like.
We did. About every evening. My father bought me my first shotgun when I was in the eighth grade. It was a little Four-ten. I used to love to squirrel hunt, and then of course we grouse hunted. I never was really into big game hunting, but we did a lot of bird hunting, a lot of rabbit hunting. We had bird dogs. We had beagles for rabbits. We, I enjoyed that type. I still would enjoy it if I had the time to do it.
So it sounds like, just this whole notion of place was very ingrained in you.
It was.
That was, sounds like that was a big part. What, would you hunt in the moutains around your home, around Forks of Ivy?
We did.
One thing I see right now quite often is you see more and more posted signs—
You do.
Coming up in the county whereas when I first moved here that was just not something you ever saw.
Most of your squirrel hunting and stuff you would drive or you could
just walk. You'd take off in the woods and just walk and hunt squirrels
because like you said a lot of farm land and still a lot of wooded area
there around Forks of Ivy. We would go to Rich Mountain Mills down in
the lower end of the county here to bird hunt. We hunted in
Barnardsville, did a lot of hunting. You could bird hunt on and around
the Coleman boundary there. We would rock climb in the Coleman Boundary.
That's where we learned to rock climb out there. We'd go from there to
Looking Glass Falls and places like that. We backpacked into the Smoky
Mountains, Slick Rock Creek way out in toward I guess it's Tapico, I'm
trying to think. We were very active and doing that kind of thing.
Backpacking was something for us that was kind of—. It got into a very
big way because [when] we started out we had just probably very poor
equipment and that evolved into something. Diamond Brand Camping Center
out in Naples knew us very well. We, no matter if we had one good
sleeping bag. As soon as we had enough money, we'd buy a better one and
then backpacks and stuff. That was, our parents, they trusted us. My
brother and I had a very good relationship with our parents. They
trusted us immensely. I would come in on Friday and be thirteen years
old and say myself and my brother maybe and Glen Norville are going to
go somewhere and we'll be back Sunday. They would say, 'Well you be
careful but go.' They
That's a real, that's almost a mountain attitude I think in terms I think of raising kids. To give kids guidelines and kind of boundaries but at the same time give them lots of freedom within those boundaries.
My father was a very interesting man. He's been much more of an
influence on my life than he would ever know. He would tell us, I would
go to my father and ask him for something, and he would say, 'Well, no
you can't have that.' I would get upset about it or feel like somehow I
had been cheated. My dad would tell me, 'When I was your age—which at
that time would've been fourteen or fifteen years old—we were picking
fruit in Florida for ten cents an hour, ten cents a day or whatever it
may have been. Nobody owes you anything. You have to get out and get it
on your own.' He was always, I knew that I could have anything I wanted
if I was willing to work for it. He was not going to per se, he gave us
anything we needed, but if we wanted it he afforded us— his way of doing
it was giving us the opportunity to work to get it. We could put the
hours in to get it. He made the work available. That's why we've never
been afraid of work whether it's in law enforcement or any job I've ever
had. I've never been the guy that once I got into law enforcement. If we
work a six o'clock shift at night until three o' clock in the morning, I
checked on at about four thirty and drive to the office and knock out
thirty minutes of paper work. Then when six o 'clock came I had most of
my stuff squared away and ready to go to work. I worked with a whole lot
of agents who at six
That's a real, I think that's an attitude or a value that comes from being self-employed because you have your own business, you work until the work gets done. You don't punch a clock. You just work until you get everything that needs to be done, done. That's a real difference.
My father used to always say that if you're working, you were making
money, should be making money. And if you were off you were probably
spending money. So which are you better off? So that was his philosophy.
So he, nobody in the Ledfords, even my sister as I say, we all knew that
that was part of the bargain. That was part of the package. You had to
work. You were always compensated for working in many other ways, not
just financial. I could go to my father for anything. He just, he was
there for us. My mother as well. That kind of made us, that got me to
where I am today because I just believe, when I set in to run for
sheriff, my plan was—I took a leave of absence in November from the
state, came back and went to work for my father and brother again in
Yeah, that's almost crossing the line. It's real close.
It's an interesting thing because since I've been sheriff, I've had a
lot of people say, 'Well such and such a person has died and you need to
go to funeral home.' And I'll go in like thirty minutes early and sign
the log and they'll say, 'Well you should've stayed. The family would've
liked to had you there.' And they might have. But just for, you feel
like you ought to be there for the family because they were friends of
yours, but at the same time you feel like you're either a distraction or
you feel like people are going to take it the wrong way if you are
there. So I just, I sign the log and just try to stay away from that
type of thing. That's another way this county is changing. I don't
remember ever there being an election in the fall of the year. There
was, but if you've been here since '70, mid-seventies you know there
never was a Republican elected to anything in this county in my lifetime
until '86 when Dedrick Brown beat E.Y.
That's true. The style of campaigning that you just described to me is very old style.
Very much so.
Very much kind of avoiding emails and phones and computers and things like that and really getting out and talking to people face to face often times in their homes or in the community stores, and that to me is a real, it's kind of old tradition.
Now, I had to do the other too now. I had mail outs. We put up road
signs or yard signs and signs and did mail outs as well. It was just, of
course the bad thing about it was that some time around 1994 when my
father lost, after five times, negative campaigning hit Madison County.
When I ran in '98, it was really negative. I'll tell you that's the part
I hate the least [most]. I learned early on from being out here by
watching the expression on people's faces if somebody brought up my
opponent and would open the door for me to make a negative comment if I
let my emotions go and made that negative comment, you could tell by the
look on their face that they didn't like that. They were going to see
what kind of person I was. If I made a comment, 'Well, I guess he's a
pretty nice person but I think I can do a better job,' I think I would
get much farther with that. I really believe that. I don't think it's
because the person is of negative or not negative but opposite political
party of myself. I didn't agree with a lot of the things he did and I
thought I could do them better. I thought I would work harder at it
because I knew what type person I am. I knew once I got here that I
could just about will
You're setting the example.
Sure. Like we had a situation here the other night at one o'clock in the morning they called me. The newspaper guy came across the street. He said that he showed up on the situation and he said that, 'I was laying in bed at one o'clock and heard you on the radio.' I've got an unusual voice and I knew if the sheriff was out at one o'clock that something big was getting ready to happen. He came out. The newspaper guy came out. But that's the way I've always been. I wouldn't ask any person I have here to do anything. Since I've been sheriff here, I have jailed. I have worked communications. I have transported prisoners. I have written citations. I have called court. The only thing I haven't done is taken a mental commitment. I haven't done that, but I did enough of those as a deputy in Buncombe County. I just, if it has to be done, I don't think I am above doing it.
My sense is that you're going to run again. When it comes four years comes or two years, do you sense that the way you campaigned in '98, '97, '98, do you sense that there's going to be a change as—. For example we've got so many new people in this county now who are going to respond differently to you driving up on their place to visit and that kind of thing?
Sure.
How does then this change in the demographics, kind of change the way a,
not just a sheriff, but any kind of politician kind of works among the
people.
I believe that the only way you can be beat if you run again if the
people have to vote you out. So basically you have been fired. That's my
belief now. Sheriff is an unusual position. I have been running for
office since the day I have been elected. When I say that is, one thing
that I became very much aware of once you get elected and that's even
more. I've been watching this presidential thing, and I really hope that
they'll do what I have tried to do, and I have said that I am
everybody's sheriff in this county. I have done, I have never asked a
person who has come up those steps or stopped me in the street or
anything their politics. In fact I have probably tried harder to help
some of the opposite party even whether I believe they would support me
or not just simply because I didn't want them to say I was a bad person
or couldn't talk to me. I have maintained an open door policy. And
another thing from my training with the Buncombe County Sheriff's
Department and my training with the state is I was fortunate to have
received a number of schools with dealing with the media. I'm not afraid
of the press. Always in Madison County before the sheriff here has been
the type of man that has told the press nothing, starved them out. Don't
make a comment, God they'll hang you. I don't believe that. I believe
that you have to work with the media. They have a job to do. As long as
they respect you and you respect them and you have a kind of working
relationship there that you know the boundaries of, that you'll be fine.
So I think that my next campaign and the biggest thing in this county is
name recognition too. I really believe that. I think that was the
Ledford name may have been known, but it was known for James Ledford not
John Ledford. If you like John Ledford or you don't like John Ledford,
you know who he is now and I can accept that. Another thing is you have
to think about is that being sheriff of this county is that the more
that you do at this job, the more stands you
Has the Ledford name, do you sense that that also has liabilities, maybe among—
It does.
Especially maybe among newcomers who would come in and say, 'God Madison County politics. I've been hearing about this stuff for years. It's just a machine, and it's run by these good old boys and here's another one running for sheriff. Just passing the thing down the line.'
That's exactly what they [say]. And in fact if you really remember the
ads they ran, they are what upset me the most about the last campaign I
went through. They never really attacked me; they attacked my father.
The whole time they kept trying to say my father would be sheriff.
Anybody that knew me knew that would not be the case and knew my father
that wouldn't be the case. Then when we had the forum up at the high
school, the sheriff then again attacked my father, and attacked Dr.
Anderson. They really were on Don. They were trying to claim, some of
their ads said, 'Who will really be running the sheriff's department.'
My father came down the first day, wanted to look at this jail, stuck
his hand in his pocket and handed me five hundred dollars and said,
'This jail is pink and nobody deserves to have a pink jail. Go have it
painted and I'm going to pay to have your jail painted.' That's about
it. That's the last time he's been down here. But I'd be the first to
say I'd be a fool if I didn't draw any resource, any resource and if you
don't think like Don Anderson or James Ledford who especially Dad and
Don who have been active both in the school system and in, ran this
county for a number of years. If I didn't draw upon their knowledge of
how to get things done, I would be foolish and I would not be doing.
People kept trying to figure out how I came and how I had all these
grants. We got almost a million dollars worth of grants now since about
a year and half. We're probably somewhere between five hundred thousand
and eight hundred thousand, but I'm still writing grants. I write grants
myself and Don Anderson writes grants.
They are. They are. When I came in, I had four deputies, which was fine maybe in 1980, but Broughton Hospital is what two hours away. So if we pick up a mental commitment at six o'clock when he checked on duty, he's going to be tied up in Asheville until about eight or nine, and he had to take him to Broughton, the whole shift was gone. So it meant, who's covering the county?
Right.
So I stayed out. There was nothing for me to work all day down here on the day shift. My office was downstairs then and I would set back there and lay my head on my desk, and I would tell the dispatcher if something happens and you need to call, call me. I will take the call. I would go out or my chief deputy would stay out. So very early on, I knew I had to get more deputies. I knew the county wasn't going to pay for them. So I got almost three hundred dollars from COPS, Community Oriented Policing Grant that Clinton had come up with and put a hundred thousand cops on the street.
I remember.
We got four. I've got in now to get, I have in for school resource
officers, and I want to see us get the first school resource officer. I
convinced the Board of Education, which I can't take all the credit for.
I'm glad they had foresight in that to not only get one for the high
school but let's move one into the middle school too because every other
county has it. I don't think the citizens of Madison County deserve any
less than anybody five miles down the road has got just because they've
got a bigger county.
That's okay.
We just got a grant for twenty thousand dollars here for voice recording, logging equipment that records all radio transmissions and all telephone conversations. When I came into office, the first six thousand dollars we got—a private citizen donated six thousand dollars to us—and I used that to buy all new uniforms, leather gear. My deputies didn't have anything. We got that because me and the chief deputy spent three days and nights out here looking for three stolen four wheelers that had a five thousand dollar reward out for them, not because we thought we'd get the reward. That was just the biggest case we got information we could solve in the first week. The man was so appreciative that he just took us out up there and said I want to know what it's going to cost to get what you need and took us to Office Depot and bought us fax machines and all that stuff and then turned around and wrote us a check and equipped all our men.
That's great. That's a real. Just that whole idea of getting grant money, going out seeking donations kind of thing is kind of a new idea, kind of a new approach certainly for the Madison County sheriff's department I think. I never recall ever hearing E.Y. doing anything like that or Jed Ricker or those kinds of things. Just never, so this is a very modern kind of way of looking at things it seems to me.
It is and it's funny because like when I came in, the deputies had some
old brown uniforms, and they most of them were nylon leather gear or
nylon equipment. I can always remember being in rookie school in the
1990 and the firearms instructor telling us that nylon gear was a death
trap. You need good leather gear. We went out and were able to buy all
this stuff off of private donations, and then I got a grant for
bulletproof vests. All of my deputies have bullet proof vests, and I got
a grant and
When did you, you were growing up when—I taught at the college from '75 to '77 and during that time I was teaching there, [Highway] 19 and [Highway] 23 was open from two lanes to four lanes, that's when that was widened. I'm curious about before you were even involved in any of this kind of stuff when you recognized that this place was really changing and then—well, let's go with that first and then I'll follow up with that with another question.
Well, I probably—
This is really changing gears.
I probably recognized it about 1990 because my whole world revolved
around Madison County. We would go to Atlanta to watch a ball game, or
my brother was in DC for two years and we would drive up and visit. That
never hit home and even Asheville never hit home, but in 1990 I left my
father's employment and became a road deputy with Buncombe County.
That's where I met my chief deputy Randall Bradford. Everybody if you're
that type of macho guy, a lot of people want to carry guns and badge and
handcuffs and go out here and fight crime, but I'm going to tell you
something. When you're stuck out here on the north end of the county,
Buncombe County and you're the only deputy working and you've got a
shots fired call. There's idiots shooting at each other. You're going up
there to break that up and you've got a pistol and they've got
That's right.
That's how time has changed. The only thing I think or one of the main
things but probably the biggest fear I have in my whole world is that I
get elected to a second term as sheriff and 19-23 [N.C.]becomes I-81 or
I-26 whatever it is because there's going to be a period of time.
Everybody's talking about sign ordinances. They're talking about
construction boom. But all that's got to come before tax base increases
to get increased funding for the sheriff's department. What do we do in
the meantime?
Right.
We're running right now wide open. I need, I don't have a full-time drug officer. I need one. I don't have school resource officers. I think that we need them. I sit and realize some of the things that we don't have now. I can't really tell, I've got one of the oldest if not the oldest jail in the state of North Carolina, and I've gone out here with a group of people like Don Anderson and Becky Anderson and some of these people and tried to write grants. We just put one in for about $400,000 to the Golden Leaf and I'm told—you know the tobacco settlement—and I am told that no money this year—
It just didn't get to come west of Charlotte. I go down to Charlotte and they're building. They've got everything. I'm thinking to myself —
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Now what do you feel is going to be your biggest challenge once again I-26 opens, once that whole corridor gets opened up. What do you feel like is going to be the challenge? I'm thinking what is the challenge for you both as sheriff, but what is the challenge for you personally also? How is that going to change your world?
One of the promises that I've made to myself when I came into office, I
told my chief deputy and my staff hear me say this all the time. I tell
them, 'You do your job and let me worry about the politics.' I always
tell them, 'We're not going to spend this four, worrying about the next
four.' Personally, my job is to continue to get my education. My job is
to continue to stay updated, advanced, well-trained. The FBI just called
this morning, and what they're trying to do is I believe I have
maneuvered myself into the FBI National Academy, which is in Quantico,
Virginia in April. If I get to go to that, that's probably the most
elite executive development there is anywhere in the United States, a
graduate from the FBI Academy. So personally right now personally is
still sheriff's department related. Right. They've got a lot of rumors I
have turned down jobs with bigger departments with the state and such,
but I have no desire to leave Madison County. So I want to be able to, I
want to build something here. That's what I'd like. I'd like to be the
type of sheriff that maybe not in four years but maybe eight years I'm
still going to be—I'm only thirty-five now—so I'm in my mid-forties. I
want to be able to take a day and go to Asheville, I can go, and the
department will operate without me. But I want us to have quality law
enforcement. I just think we've got to have it because I know what's out
here. I have seen what is other places.
Do you feel like some of those same problems are going to be facing, are coming to Madison County?
They're here now. The thing about Madison County is, and you've been here thirty years. You correct me if you think I'm wrong. The wrong, seems like a lot of people in Madison County, the first thing they do with any problem is deny it exists. They're like if we just don't mention it, it'll go away. But it's just like. It can't be. That's not here. Just don't look at it. Don't mention it and maybe everybody will forget about it. Then they're like, that's not going to work. So we've wasted six months now or a year because of trying to pretend it doesn't exist. Then we want to talk awhile, and then we're going to spend another year or so trying to decide the best. We're going to fight over who's going to decide. Somewhere down the line, somebody is going to decide, and no matter what he decides the other side is going to pick his decision to pieces, and then eventually it's going to get so bad we have to act and then we swallow the peel and go on.
Right.
That, it may not be that quick. It may be a whole lot of time in between
there. I can stand down here as sheriff. I think one thing though about
the people of Madison County. They appreciate hard work. As long as I'm
out leading the fight for sheriff who's visible, and I'm on that scanner
night and day, and we're making the type of arrests we're making. The
local newspapers are giving us the type of coverage and TV, and they see
that we're working. They believe the need exists. We're going to get
what we have to have. It may be that we'll never get, I'm never going to
have. My patrol car is the newest car we have. It's a '99. The problem
is I bought it in 2000. I
That's right.
Somehow, I don't know but—
That's a hard choice to make.
It is a hard choice.
It is a hard choice.
It seemed like up in Buncombe County no matter who's the Sheriff in a county that size, it's not going to make that much difference. Personnel are going to change. You've got majors and then you've got your chief deputies and you've got majors and got captains, got lieutenants, and you've got sergeants, then you get down to a whole host of just deputies. The same was in the jail. So the top knocker up there is an administrator. The department still functions. They're not going to. But down here with the change of the sheriff, you could change the whole, the whole function of this jail. You could go back twenty-five employees or less, and you could fire everybody down here and he could just, that's the only kind of thing that scares me. I'm the only sheriff that's ever been to basic law enforcement training in the history of Madison County.
Right.
And I'm closing in on the only thing I lack now is just time. I have enough training hours for my advanced law enforcement certificate. I will qualify for it the day I get my twelfth year in. I've got enough points waiting on me to get it. So my chief deputy is the only chief deputy. He holds an advanced law enforcement certificate. I have a number of officers, my DARE officers and my detective, they hold their advanced law enforcement. So we've got training and equipment has come a long way.
Do you, with this, with the road and we're already seeing it. This has
been going on for a while. It's not just the highway that's changing
this. We've been seeing a
Well, I'll give you an example of that. This is an interesting story. I
had a man at the lower end of the county who sold property to two people
out of Raleigh. They bought the farm. Got along very well, but there was
a, the old man took care of a cemetery and had a right of way through
the property he sold to the cemetery. The problem being is that I think
a lot of people in Madison County do not really know what a right of way
is. They might have abused the word right of way to the point where he
was going to do what he wanted to do on that road going in. It came down
to a verbal confrontation. Blows may have been struck and warrants were
drawn and it came across my desk. When it was all said and done, the
people who had moved in from Raleigh had charged this man with assault.
The man comes to me and wants me to go down and talk to these people and
see if we can get the charges dropped. So I go down and spend an
afternoon with these people, very nice people. Very nice. Moved in here,
educated and work in banking I believe in Raleigh, but these people,
they had some means but they wanted to come back. They really wanted to
get along. They felt like that they were being bullied over by this guy.
In my mind this guy here may not have thought that he was bully over
them. He just simply thought that, "Well, hell I sold them the property.
I've got a right of way, and I'm going to use the right of way. It's my
cemetery, and I've got to get in and I'm going to show who boss is." I
spent the day down there and talked them into dropping the charges. I
don't really want to say talked them into dropping the
Or just even a lack of contact.
Lack of communication maybe is a better word.
Exactly.
That's kind of funny because I know the old farmer because I'm from
Madison County and grew up in there. I know them all, and I can talk, I
can talk their language, but I've been out of here and worked off from
here and I understand how an educated person moving in here from Raleigh
would think and might, and what their customs might be. Maybe that's a
good thing. So as long as I can continue to function
I think the sheriff of this county has to do that because I hadn't been
sheriff, what Brenda, I guess about three months down here and one day
an old man in
That story you just told was just really very interesting to me because I think that that's what I see kind of being the type of problem. It becomes almost like a cultural or class kind of issue as opposed to almost maybe even a law enforcement issue. It become something totally different and twenty, thirty years ago, E.Y. didn't necessarily need to be able to deal with so many new people coming in because they weren't here for one thing, or they were just starting to come. But the fact that you recognize that you have to be able to go both ways.
Sure. A woman was talking to me yesterday at lunch and she said,
'Sheriff, how do I get a handicapped license plate?' I said, 'Well
ma'am. I'm not real sure on that.' I said, 'But I know you have to have
something in writing from your doctor to start that process.' She said,
'Are you sure about that?' She says, 'Is it a form or just a letter?' I
said, 'Well I'm not sure.' I said, 'Tell you what you do. You check with
your doctor.
Yes.
Probably five times a day. That's nothing unusual.
Exactly. That woman right there is one that wants to write a—. She has sat down there and composed a play dealing with the stresses involved in emergency management fire fighters and law enforcement. She feels like this play needs to be put to a training film so that it can help. It may be a great thing. She's been to everybody but now she's come to me because she wants me to sit down and with her get together and write a grant so that she can get money to produce this play. Now whether that money exists, I don't know. I don't even know how you can check into that. But I'll tell you when I get with this woman, I'm going to spend a portion of my day trying to work that out. Is that a law enforcement function? Probably not. But it is a sheriff department function in Madison County.
That's interesting.
It's just, it's just the type of thing. If they're not sure, they come
down here to me. You wouldn't believe some of the type things we've had
down here. I've got one woman here that lives in this community and her
and her neighbor, she has a son who is somewhat of a hellion so to
speak. He goes out the driveway too fast. They must share a right of
way. But one thing they also share are water rights. The man, the
neighbor controls the water. Apparently he has the ability to shut the
water off. When the son gets
Exactly.
They know I'm going to tell them.
That's that social work function that we talked about.
It is.
It's interesting because kind of a modern law enforcement in cities certainly that function is basically eliminated. It is really a law enforcement thing. But here, one thing that always impressed me about E.Y. Ponder was, I mean, he was this kind of father figure almost.
Sure he was.
In the whole county. He played that role as the, I mean, he was really hard core when he needed to be, but at the same time he was also like the knowing kind of father who was really going to do that first.
Sure.
What I'm hearing you say is that the county is changing so much that there is this need for modern law enforcement but—
There is.
Yet at the same time there is still this very clear need for the other.
E.Y. affected generations I guess. There are generations that knew
E.Y.or still know E.Y. or knew E.Y. as sheriff. That is the E.Y. people
that you're going to, they expect you, they call me the little E.Y.
They'll come down and say, 'Well you're the next little E.Y.' or 'God
bless you.' To be sheriff of Madison county is just unbelievably great
sometimes because I can walk into Carl's up here, restaurant and some
little old lady will come over and just hug my neck and just say, 'God
bless you. You're doing a good job.' I don't know them from Adam, and
that'll make a glass eye cry. That's great. Then sometimes though I'll
have them down here in the lobby, and they'll get in a knock down drag
out and I'll be—I often tell the story that I feel like King Solomon and
the two harlots. That one rolls over and smothers the child, and they
come to me to decide who's going to get the live baby. He says, 'Well
cut the child in half.' In Madison County half the people would say,
'Saw it up,' and they'd start fighting over who got the head or the
feet. That wouldn't work in Madison County. You've got to even be
slicker than that. But the sheriff settles a lot of things. But at the
same time with E.Y., he never had to worry about luminol or blood
splatter or DNA. Those were a different generation of law
That's right.
They're all going to call and ask you.
Sometimes it seems like they all call at once too.
They do. I've been to funeral homes, and people hand me speeding
tickets. The day of that parade that we were riding, I had a couple of
guys bring me speeding tickets run along side the car ask for help. Me
riding in the Christmas parade. It's just as simple as this. You just
imagine this. You walk into the steak house at Mars Hill, and you're the
sheriff. You start through the line. You've had kind of a bad day, don't
really feel good, arguing with your family. You don't really want to be
messed with. You're going through and you see, there are ten people that
know you in the room, and you speak to nine of them. The tenth guy you
don't speak to because you just don't see him, you're not really got
your head on straight that day. You're distracted on something else and
don't speak to him maybe the most powerful politician of the bunch. If
you don't speak to him and recognize him, he may be mad. Or he may say
because you didn't speak to him, 'John must be mad.' Or he'll call down
here and say, 'Why didn't you talk to me?' Those are not the normal
stresses that anybody has to deal with. That's what you deal with being
sheriff. The rumors in the county, my life is like, I can only imagine
what it must be like to be a celebrity sometime with the paparazzi.
Because Madison County doesn't have paparazzi they have the rumor mill.
If I talk to a woman, there's
Yeah. This place, that impressed me right away when I moved here about how fast word travels and that kind of thing. Your dad and Don worked for years and I totally agree with you that I don't think that they were working at all for themselves but really working for what they perceived as for the betterment of the county. They were looking to bring more things into this county for people. One of those things is the I-26 corridor. Another is the widening of 19-23 and will be the widening of 19. That's the next big project that's going to come those kinds of things. But it also has meant the four-lane from Weaverville to Marshall and the health clinics—
And some of the biggest things, green boxes.
There's any number of things.
The green trash boxes.
Exactly.
Were one of the biggest things I'll ever remember. Those, trash is still the biggest issue in this county. Nursing home, they worked this thing and they still sit on that board over there. We didn't have one.
Health clinic.
Health clinics.
Hot Springs health clinic. All those kinds of things. What I guess I'm
getting at is, is there a point where change then becomes problematic?
Where, do we, I again, I know the county I think fairly well. I
understand certain—. I was here before the
And still is.
And still is.
It's a law enforcement issue of getting from one end of the county to the other if you don't have but one deputy working. He's in Spring Creek and has to go to the other end.
Exactly. So I guess what I'm wondering is, what I always ask myself is. I spent so many years it seems like wishing that more things were available, wishing it was a little easier to get out although I did want to live here, wishing that access was a little bit better. But then it seems like we've reached a point where it's kind of like I find myself saying, "well enough is enough now." Do we really want the same problems that Asheville has or Greensboro has? Those kinds of things. So again how much change do we want?
How much change is good? Where do we—
I guess my answer to that is and I think you would agree with this,
change is inevitable. It's coming. You want to throttle that or control
how much change comes in. The things that the county commissioners or
even the sheriff have to be very careful of is to make sure that change
is fair. Every community in this county is different from the next. Mars
Hill people are even though they're from Madison County are different
than Marshall. Marshall is different from Laurel. Laurel is different
from Spring Creek. They're different in many different ways. We have to
be fair about it. When I first came in, my statement was that the reason
that I wanted these four COPS officers—and this is
Right.
I watch Haywood County and some of these counties have these interstates
through them. It seems like. I'll give you an example. In 1991 my chief
deputy and I, my chief deputy was the chief investigator and I was the
fugitive officer working in Buncombe County. Mark Lane ran a pawnshop on
Leicester Street. He was about twenty years of age and was shot and
killed. They sent myself and another SWAT team member to Dandridge,
Hamblen County, Dandridge, Tennessee on a manhunt. The boys that did it
were named Davis and Hood. These boys, one of them was paroled, had
killed a man in Ohio, did seventeen years and paroled out. Came down and
lived with his sister in Hamblen Tennessee or Hamblen County, Dandridge,
Tennessee there and began to armed rob everything down there. Came over
into North Carolina and armed robbed the McDonalds in Canton and came
out and pulled this armed robbery and shot and killed this young man. I
spent five days in Dandridge, Tennessee. The sheriff down there at that
time, this is 1991 now, they had about eight deputies about like my
department now, a little smaller. The deputies didn't have bullet proof
vests and really were no better equipped, probably not as well equipped
as we are now. I know they were. They sent Charlie Long, who was the
sheriff then, sent two of us down there heavily armed because he figured
they'd come home and there may be a shoot out, and they wanted help.
They signed a mutual aid agreement and sent us down. We had Federal
warrants. We had jurisdiction. They had a hotel there, and they had one
truck stop type diner. This year, which is about not even ten years
later, I went to Pigeon Forge with my wife and got off
With kind of change coming say at Exit 11 right there at Mars Hill, what do you anticipate is going to be your biggest law enforcement issue at a place like that? What is going to be the type of thing that you're anticipating?
The immediate thing you'll have is armed robberies. Now of course that
will be annexed into the city limits of Mars Hill. But there are two
things on any interstate, you deal with drugs, couriers that type
things, transportation of drugs. You're going to be coming right out of
Florida. I-95 is known as the drug pipeline. 26 [N.C.] now is going to
come, go right into 81 [N.C.], right on up too. So you're going to have
to deal with that, and then the type of crimes that are committed that
come off of interstates. Those type crimes, if you will look at most
counties, most would tell you—Sheriff Alexander or Bobby
We're not talking about personal use marijuana, which is probably to the
point now that most law enforcement would tell you the best thing to do
is just decriminalize it. It's everywhere. I probably ought not say
that, but I've never been convinced that marijuana, personal use of
marijuana is any worse than alcohol and probably not as bad. I've got a
real problem with alcohol, alcohol especially with the way its abused,
and the way we allow it be abused for money. Marijuana is illegal, and
it's just illegal. Alcohol is just as bad, and it's legal because
there's so much money in it, and they've got lobbyist. As an ALE agent,
you tell me why we've got fifteen hundred troopers out here trying to
catch people driving drunk and a hundred and ten ALE agents trying to
stop people from selling it to them. That doesn't make sense to me. Then
that's another thing. Will we become a wet county, a county that allows
alcohol sales? Are we going to watch, since, at some point in time there
are going to be enough people move in here that we're going to realize
the money from the sales of alcohol and stuff such as that and
restaurants and stuff and if you are going to have growth, you're going
to have to be wet. We're going to have, we're already wet in Hot
Springs. Hot Springs from what I am told and what little I am able to
get out down there, especially at night and all they have some very good
bed and breakfasts and restaurants and stuff. They seem to be thriving
very well. So how long can we hold it off? How long can Mars Hill
College say, "Well, we're a Baptist college. We're not going to allow
it." How long until the retail end of it is bigger than the college,
which has always been bigger than the mainstay.
Exactly.
Well, like you say the new people coming in too. There'll be a point in time where that population will overcome the Baptist population that is kind of restricting the sale of alcohol.
Sure. And you know—
But that adds a whole 'nother level of problem.
It does. It's an amazing amount of problems. It's also going to require that the sheriff of the county is going to have to be educated. The county commissioners are going to have to be educated because of a different set of issues. Used to be I think, my father is a very, he's a very quick study. If you've ever been around my father, he would amaze you with his ability for numbers and memory and read something and grasp what it says probably much in excess of my ability. Don Anderson is just phenomenal. He also had the ability to stand at that store behind that counter, and the farmer could come in and tell him his problems and concerns were and dad would keep that in the back of his mind. Always when he got in these meetings, that problem was in the back of his mind. So he could balance it out. There's going to come a point in time though where as you say, retail's going to come up. New people coming in. Farming land is going to go down. It's going to maybe be a tourist type economy, that type thing. So the decisions that the commissioners are going to make may not be influenced by native Madison County people who were fifth generation or whatever it is. Somewhere I hope somebody will keep that in the back of their mind and be here at that store, a man can still walk in and lay that number down and they'll still say, 'I may be busy but I'm still going to call and make an appointment for you.' That's what we can't lose. If we lose that, we've really lost everything. It's a shame. I think it's a shame.
You know Bobby Medford like
Right, which is so amazing because of what this place is all about. You've got this history of community law enforcement—
It's like I was almost born to be sheriff because the first
community-oriented policing squad west of Gaston County that I know of
anywhere was in 1992. Charlie Long got into that in a big way. He sent
five of us. It was called the sheriff's community enforcement team. He
got, it got into problem-oriented policing in a big way. Basically
that's what says as opposed to going out and writing tickets and kicking
in doors and stuff, you identify the problem and you eliminate the
problem. The problem may not be solved with just enforcement efforts. It
may be code enforcement. One of the big things we were having problems
with at that time. We were having problems with parks there in Buncombe
County, drug use in the parks, prostitution in the parks, homosexual
solicitations in the parks, Karen Styles there disappeared. What we did
was we decided
It's interesting. How do we solve a problem for example some guy in some rogue from down in Charleston or somewhere, down in Florence, South Carolina comes up here, gets off the interstate at Exit Eleven, goes up here and I don't know robs Bill Zink or somebody like that, then jumps right back on the interstate? That's the type of thing that it's very difficult to solve with community policing but also is a problem that probably didn't even exist in this county twenty years ago. Although at the same time I remember there was a period where when that crowd came through here late '70s I guess early '80s and their car broke down over near Belva and—
Killed the boys.
Killed a couple of boys over there. That was a similar kind of thing. They were from out of state and driving through and that kind of thing. And were eventually apprehended out in Colorado I think.
Colorado, what you do in a situation like that, you have to just have a
well manned, well-equipped sheriff's department. You have to have
Crimestoppers, big thing. We don't have it, love to have it, but who's
going to do it. We're just now getting to the point where I've started
working with a couple of communities on Community Watch. It comes down
to having deputies. Eventually we're going to have to have zones in this
county. We're going to have to have enough deputies where we're going to
have one in Mars Hill. He's going to be the Mars Hill cop because that's
all he's going to do because with all, you've got to work those type
things. You've got to have communications. You've got to have training
and people who can do and in that kind of scene, crime scene
That's right. That's really true.
That's' the way their going to work it out. We just can't pay $25,000,
nobody is worth that. If you think about it, what I'm trying to tell you
is your chief deputy is probably, he was the lieutenant at the Buncombe
County Sheriff's Department who was in charge of all major
investigations in Buncombe County which was 460 let's see, 460 square
miles and about 165,000 [people] when I was a deputy there, the
population. He ran the detective division, which gave him four detective
sergeants and twenty-five detectives, and he was making a sizable much
amount more. He came down here to be my chief deputy because he wanted
to be chief deputy, and he's my friend for $30,000 a year. He's got
eight deputies, and he's still got 450 some square miles and about
22,000 people. Much more rural and nothing to work with. He went from
having anything he wanted to really having not much. Having to make do.
I left a job at the state
This is the opportunity not just for Randy but also for yourself to really build a department, and often times I know from myself I've taken jobs or done things because of the opportunity that it offers, and not, it's got nothing to do with money or—
Sure, it really doesn't. The only thing about it is that I hope one day my frustration level just doesn't get to the point. You know I don't know how to compare it. It's just like you know what needs to be done, and you know what equipment you need to do it. You've just got to get the money to get it done. Everything revolves around money. When you go out here and you write these grants and they give you $10,000 down here in Madison County for a new phone system for crime control and public safety, that's great because you need that phone system. But then you turn around and APD [Ashville Police Department] who's got all kinds of money and gets $70,000. You're like, how the hell did they do that? Proportionally which one needs it more.
Exactly.
Which one is going to be affected more. Is Madison County with that
seventy dollars going to get more bang for the buck than I think we
would. I think we would. We've got some monstrous things we're going to
have to undertake. It concerns me that I know what I need from a law
enforcement standpoint. But we've got schools that have roofs leaking. I
don't care what it costs. The children, they come first. Bad guys unless
it's a serious violent crime, they've got to come somewhere below that.
I
It's an all-weather, all-terrain kind of vehicle.
All-weather.
That makes complete sense.
We've had to make do because we didn't have any money. So we took the vehicle that's bright red and looks like a firetruck coming down the road and we used it. We went and bought a used highway patrol vehicle and they both, I'm not complaining, but I'm just saying I got both of those, one given to me and one on a grant. So it didn't cost the county anything. But now I'm not going over and asking them to buy me this thirty thousand-dollar vehicle. I'm going to ask Crime Control and Public Safety, my old organization for the money, and let's see if they'll give it to me. I'm going to call and beg and borrow and steal to do that.
I'm going to ask this last question and we might not, I might not get all of your answer, but would you have liked to have been sheriff during E.Y.'s time?
I would've.
Would you like to go back?
I would've. I told my wife that I was probably born—
END OF INTERVIEW