By KEVIN YOUNG
GLASGOW — A Glasgow Police Department officer announced his candidacy for Barren County Sheriff on Thursday.
Howard Garrison, 48, has served as a GPD officer since 2007 and has logged more than 15 years of law enforcement experience, including time spent as a sergeant and accreditation officer in the Cave City Police Department before joining the GPD.
Garrison is the first candidate to announce his intentions to enter the 2010 race, which will include a May 18 primary election. The general election is Nov. 2. Sheriff Chris Eaton, who is in his first term as sheriff, has not yet announced if he will be running for re-election. Garrison plans to file as a democrat where he presumably will face Eaton in the primary.
Garrison is a lifelong Barren County resident and graduate of Barren County High School. He also has served as a school resource officer for the Glasgow Independent Schools System and in 2008 he was named the Kentucky Association of School Resource Officers’ Region 2 School Resource Officer of the Year.
He credits his work in different agencies and settings, including in the school system, as experience that will assist him in the role as sheriff.
“I want to work with all of the agencies, police departments, fire departments, the ambulance service. I have no problem with getting ideas from other agencies. Maybe one is doing something better than another, so I will help bring those together,” he said.
He began his law enforcement career in 1986 as a Glasgow Auxillary Police officer before moving to the Cave City Police Department in 1993, where he worked for six years. He is a 1994 graduate of the Department of Criminal Justice training program.
After nearly three years of working with students in the school system, Garrison said he sees a need for further common law education for young people in addition to just the D.A.R.E. program.
“A lot of times, if they are arrested for criminal mischief, they don’t even know what criminal mischief is,” he said. “They need to have better knowledge of common law.”
Garrison said that as sheriff, he will “operate an honest and professional team to represent Barren County.”
He lives in Glasgow with his wife, Alisa, and two sons, Derek, 16, and Eric, 13. A third son, Jesse Hunter Scott, 19, is serving in the U.S. Marines and is stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Candidates for the 2010 elections, including sheriff, have until 4 p.m. on Jan. 26, 2010, to file for office.
