THE HEROES AND SHEROES OF AMERICA

BY: Michael A. Aun, FIC, LUTCF, CSP, CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame

When I graduated from high school in Lexington, SC, I had a number of different jobs that I tried for a period of time…

I wrote for several newspapers, including the Lexington Dispatch-News. I worked with my father during the day in his construction business and I also had a nighttime job, which I got quite by accident.

It was a work as a nighttime jailer for the Lexington County Sheriff's Department. I had helped campaign for the late Carroll Day, who ran for Sheriff against long time veteran incumbent Sheriff Fred Boatwright.

Mr. Boatwright was a nice enough guy and our family had always liked and supported him, but a mutual friend, Ralph Corley, asked me to assist in Day's campaign by handing out fliers in various neighborhoods around Lexington.

I can't tell you how embarrassed I got when I was actually walking the streets in Day's own subdivision, knocking on doors and asking for their vote. I had never been to Mr. Day's home, so I didn't know where he lived. I knocked on the door and a woman came to the door. I handed her a flier and asked her to consider voting for Carroll Day for Sheriff. "Since I'm married to him," she responded, "I suspect I will."

The Day family actually got a big chuckle out of that. After Sheriff Day had been sworn in, he called me at another part-time job I had, working for Ralph Corley at his Esso Station on Main Street in Lexington, and asked if I wanted to be a night jailer for his new administration.

I was barely 19 years old and couldn't even carry a gun, but I thought to myself, "Sure… it's not like I'm leaving a job on Wall Street to play cops and robbers."

When you work in law enforcement, you see the dregs of the world and you also meet some nice people. One of those nice guys, who stayed in the law enforcement business, was a young investigator by the name of James Metts.

Metts, like me, had just signed on with Carroll Day. Unlike me, he had actually pursued law enforcement as a career path, earning a degree in it and ultimately a Doctorate in Education. He ultimately ran for the office of Sheriff in my hometown of Lexington, SC and is still top law enforcement officer in the county today. He was believed to be the first Sheriff in America to have a Doctorate Degree

I lasted about nine months as a jailer before my interests turned to other avenues, but it was one of the most interesting nine months in my life. I met and booked killers, rapists, drug addicts, alcoholics, wife beaters… you name it.

I ultimately decided that being a Sheriff's Deputy wasn't for me. The straw that broke the camel's back came when a fellow Sheriff's Deputy, Tommy Fox, was gunned down in a nightclub in Leesville, SC on August 22, 1970 in the line of duty.

At that point in my life, I had never had anyone in my life die other than my grandfather, Eli S. Mack, Sr., the former Mayor of Lexington, SC. And while Tommy was not a relative, he felt like one. Though I spent such a brief moment among the brethren in the law enforcement community, you do feel like a family member died when you lose a fellow officer.

Though I had never been a Deputy Sheriff in the field facing similar kinds of dangers, I guess I just couldn't find the stomach to stay in that line of work.

I was after all, just a teenager and to lose a friend and colleague's life was more than I could stand. I decided that being a cop wasn't for me, but I left the position with all the respect and admiration that one could have for the good work that the men and women in law enforcement do every minute of every day. They are, indeed, the heroes and sheroes of America.