VIENNA — Buddy Thompson, 53, is one of three candidates seeking the Republican nomination for Maries County sheriff in the Aug. 6 primary. Each of the candidates participated in lengthy interviews about their policy goals for the sheriff’s office. The first part of those interviews appeared in last week’s edition.

Thompson, who is running his third campaign for sheriff, surprised some by switching his party affiliation for this year’s election. Formerly a Democrat, he is now running as a Republican. He said his initial filing as a Democrat was rooted deep in his family’s history.

“Whenever I was 18 years old, and you go up and file, you have to be a Democrat or Republican,” he said. “I hate it. I always have. My entire family was Democrats. Maries County as a whole was a Democrat County. It’s not now. Had I filed and said on my little card that you have to choose one, if I put anything besides Democrat on there, I wouldn’t have been allowed at Thanksgiving. I wouldn’t have been allowed at Christmas. I wouldn’t have been allowed at anything.”

Thompson said that over the years, he and his wife reviewed political candidates together. When they did, they focused on the candidates themselves rather than the political parties associated with them.

“I have always voted for the person, and I always will,” Thompson said. “I look at what your beliefs are, and I vote for you according to those beliefs.”

The party switch, however, is more true to Thompson’s values.

“I do mainly vote Republican,” he said. “And I believe mainly Republican. But I vote Democrat some, too.”

Thompson said that though people tried to get him to switch to the Republican party during his 2020 campaign for sheriff, he decided to stay as a Democrat because he had always been one. When that campaign was unsuccessful, he decided to try something different and switched his affiliation.

“You have to declare a party,” he said. “I hate it, but that’s just what you have to do.”

Thompson said he believes the toughest challenge for the next sheriff will be regaining the community’s trust.

“Most people know me,” he said. “I’ll just let them know upfront that I’m transparent about things,” he said. “I truly mean what I say, and I do what I say. It won’t take people very long to figure that out whenever I meet them on the street and speak to them.”

Thompson said one of the most important things he has learned during his time in law enforcement is being straightforward and honest with the people he encounters.

“Your word is everything, and I’ve stuck with that running my business,” he said. “If your word is no good, then your integrity is no good. Honesty and integrity, when you put that on something, whether it’s a sign or a car, you have to stay true to that.”

Thompson said running his business for the last 15 years has helped him learn not only budgeting but also interacting with the public. He said listening to public feedback would be important to his time as sheriff, too.

Thompson said his plan to handle drug crimes in the county is to work closely with the Lake Area Narcotics Enforcement Group (LANEG). He also plans to strengthen the relationship between the sheriff’s office and the public to encourage more people to come forward with observations they have made.

“The people in the community can tell you the traffic in the area (and) what’s going on here or there,” he said. “If they trust you’re not going to say ‘Oh, so-and-so told me about this,’ then you can take that information.”

Thompson said he knows law enforcement can unintentionally leak sensitive information to the public.

“They don’t mean anything by it,” he said. “As a deputy, if I’m in there and I know information about a drug case that’s going on, and I walk into the dispatch office and I’m talking to someone else about that in there; everybody’s related, so it just so happens that this one tells someone about it and that one tells someone else about it and directly, everything just kind of disappears.”

Thompson said his plan would be to keep active drug investigations as quiet and small as possible.

“Keep it amongst yourself,” he said. “Keep it tight. Work it the best you can. What you can’t work, turn over to LANEG, the highway patrol, let them work it (and) work closely with them. If you can work it by yourself and get it done, by all means, do it.”

Thompson said he planned to limit leaks by keeping investigations small. He said doing that is difficult because it leaves some employees in the dark, but he had personally seen how leaks could kill an investigation during his time with the sheriff’s office, and he did not want that to happen again.

Throughout the interview, Thompson said he also did not want the county to become involved in any more lawsuits, and he said he would take steps to ensure something like that does not happen in the future. In May, Maries County settled a wrongful death lawsuit with the family of a detainee who died in 2020 after experiencing medical problems at the jail.

“I would get people medical treatment when they needed it,” he said. “I would make sure the inmate that had the medical problem was getting his medication properly.”

Thompson said that as part of his goal of increasing transparency, he would issue press releases and make Facebook posts to update the public on major actions the sheriff’s office takes.

“I’m not a social media person,” he said. “Now, that being said, there needs to be that transparency so people know what’s going on.”

Thompson said he would plan to cut back the frequency with which the sheriff’s office posted on Facebook and limit it to the topics most relevant to the public.

“People need to know that there are drugs being busted here,” he said. “That there are burglaries happening around the area and stuff like that, absolutely. But do we need to pat ourselves on the back for certain things? No.”

Thompson said he knows all three county commissioners and did not foresee any problem working with them if he becomes sheriff. He said if the commissioners wanted him to participate in their meetings on a weekly basis, he would be there.

“I’m not going to be one of those sheriffs that’s going to show up and then not be around again,” he said.

Thompson said he had not given any thought to who would be his chief deputy.

“I’ll have between now and January to think about that one,” he said.

Thompson said he would probably start his search by looking at the deputies already with the sheriff’s office.

“I have no intentions of bringing someone in from somewhere else,” he said. “I would hope that there’s someone there that I can watch their activities, watch what they’re doing, and I can gain their trust, and they trust me.”

When Thompson worked as a full-time deputy from 1997 to 2003, the sheriff’s office did not have a chief deputy. He said he would consider going without a chief.

“You answered to the sheriff because he was there,” he said. “There was never a time that I couldn’t just call the sheriff or walk in his office and ask him a question, and that’s the way it should be. There should never be a time when you don’t feel like you should be able to go talk to the sheriff about something.

Thompson has not been a full-time officer for more than 20 years. He said that despite only serving as a reserve officer since 2003, he believes he is prepared to be Maries County’s next sheriff.

“I stay prepared,” he said. “I always have. I stay up with all the laws and the training part of it. I’ve always been one of those types of people, whenever I get called in the middle of the night, I’m ready to go. It doesn’t matter if I’m getting called out to go on a call somewhere or get called to come here and help somebody; I’m ready to go.”

Thompson said he lives by one of the mottos on his keychain: “I’ll never leave you in the dark.”

“That means that I’ll be there or have someone there to help you no matter what,” he said. “In this business here, we’d be ready to close the doors, and someone would pull in. I can’t tell them no. I won’t. I just can’t. I’ve been here on a Sunday afternoon and somebody comes through and needs help with something, and I have to help them. I was trained that way from years past. It’s about passing it forward. I always look at it that way. If I can help that person today, who can they help tomorrow?”