July 22, 2018
ROBERTS SAYS PARTING WITH WILHITE WAS CORDIAL AFTER SEVEN YEARS
LAWRENCE COUNTY SHERIFF GARRETT ROBERTS THOUGHT THIS LAST YEAR OF HIS SUCCESSFUL FOUR TERM RUN AS LAWRENCE COUNTY SHERIFF WOULD BE EASY. BUT THEN THREE OF HIS LONGTIME DEPUTIES SIGNED UP TO TAKE HIS PLACE…
Roberts was faced with thin air within the department and an atmosphere of professional competition. But nothing new erupted in a decent campaign with limited mudslinging, especially for a sheriff’s race.
Two of those deputies, Mark Wheeler and Chuck Jackson have worked for Roberts for much of his tenure as sheriff. And although things seemed to be quiet during the Primary, some signs of side taking came up this week when the odds out deputy, Mack Wilhite, who was sworn in in 2011, abruptly resigned and announced he will be moving to Greenup County for a similar job.
There is speculation that Wilhite, who came within less than 200 votes of beating Wheeler in the Republican Primary, could be siding with Jackson although he is a Republican.
Louisa Police Chief Greg Fugitt, who ran a close race with Jackson for the GOP nomination has said he will remain neutral.
Sheriff Roberts did not immediately answer questions as to whether he will hire a replacement for Wilhoit at this time.
Sheriff Roberts gave the following statement at noon today (Monday)
“…Wilhite came into the Lawrence Co. Sheriff’s Office 15 minutes before his shift was supposed to start on July 16, 2018. He stated he was leaving and turned in his assigned equipment, he also stated he was looking to join the Greenup Co Sheriff’s Office. He thanked me for the opportunity to work as a Lawrence Co. Deputy, I wished him well and told him to be safe.
—Sheriff Roberts
“…Wilhite was not a Sgt. he was just a road deputy, I would like to replace him but it would only be with someone who has already been academy trained, it takes 20 weeks for someone to finish the academy and 3 more months to get them POPS certified, so that would put it well past the 1st of the year to hire a brand new rookie, someone who is already trained can go to work immediately, with school starting on Aug 8th and the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office committed to providing a deputy to the Blaine and Fallsburg Schools this year, we are working the schedule around to provide the most coverage we can as close as we can to what we had.
Mason Keefer with be the Deputy who will be the new School Resource Office for the 2 schools, he will work along with the dayshift Deputy to provide what we can for the schools.
Stay tuned to this one, folks…
