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Terrell sheriff contest heats up

• John Bowens has been in law enforcement for 37 years.

Susan McCord

DAWSON — In one of many area elections to be decided in the July 15 Democratic primary, John W. Bowens is facing two challengers in his bid for a fifth term as sheriff of Terrell County.

“The sheriff’s election doesn’t belong to me — it belongs to anybody that wants to qualify for it,” said Bowens. “The best man is going to win anyway.”

Employed in law enforcement for 37 years in Terrell County, except for 18 months in the 1970s when he worked for Dougherty County police, Bowens, 61, became Terrell’s first black sheriff in 1992 after 18 years as a sheriff’s deputy.

His longevity he attributes more to being fair and honest with “all citizens of Terrell” than to being liked.

“There’s some that want me out because they can’t stand for me to do the right thing,” Bowens said, “and there’s some that want me in because I do the right thing.”

Four years ago, Bowens beat opponent and former deputy Joey Harris by more than 1,000 votes, and Harris is running against Bowens again this year. They’ll also face Dawson police officer William Gene Shattles.

“I’m not the type that goes out and slings mud,” Bowens said. “I don’t play dirty politics; it doesn’t help you. The more people talk negatively, the stronger it makes me.”

Being sheriff is an around- the-clock job, and Bowens never objects to doing any aspect of the work himself when his eight full-time and two part-time deputies are busy, he said.

A staff of 12 operates the Terrell County Jail, which is under an order to improve conditions from the Justice Department, though Terrell may continue to use it until a new facility is completed, he said.

Crime in the rural county of about 11,000 isn’t severe, he said, but nor does it ever stop. Drugs such as cocaine and the two marijuana grow houses that were raided last summer remind the sheriff’s office that fighting crime is always a losing game, he said.

“When you get to the point that you think you know it all, you’ve gone wrong somewhere,” he said.

Bowens said tougher sentencing might keep drug offenders off the streets.

Send “a strong message on the drugs and you wouldn’t have as many doing it,” he said.

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