Ward Calhoun

Getting Things done

For over thirty years, I have had the honor of serving the citizens of Lauderdale County as part of the law enforcement community. I have spent my career looking for and implementing solutions to the challenges we face in our community. Working alongside the members of the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Department, leaders of our city and county, members of local agencies, and the citizens of our county, I am constantly reminded that success does not come from individual effort but through collaboration. Here are some of the improvements and accomplishments we have made during my time with the department:

• Expanding the Crime Stoppers program from a local initiative to a regional organization.
• Organizing a Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) program designed to assist the mental health community in providing support for individuals experiencing a mental health crisis and their families.
• Extending CIT training to officers statewide using funding from the State Department of Mental Health offered in hopes of replicating our local success in other communities.
• Making our roadways safer by aggressively enforcing our state’s traffic laws in conjunction with educating our community on the importance of wearing seat belts and not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
• Implementing new technologies that increase law enforcement effectiveness, including officer body cameras, patrol car computers, agency-provided cell phones installed with law enforcement specific apps, and a computer-aided dispatch system.
• Voluntarily meeting the standards (the first law enforcement agency to do so in our state) set by the Mississippi Law Enforcement Accreditation Commission (MSLEAC) and continuing to meet those standards again and again over the last fifteen years.

This is just a sampling of the accomplishments we have made over the years I have been with the department, and collaboration has been the key. Our success is due to the persistence of our personnel and their desire to improve service to the community. Their efforts, along with the help of other community agencies and individuals, have created positive results.

I am proud to serve this department as chief deputy, and it is my utmost desire to continue working with them as sheriff. Teamwork has been and will continue to be the cornerstone of our success.