Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 24, 1995 TAG: 9510240039
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Long
Each candidate says he has the right stuff for the job.
Dobbins has had the sheriff's title for five years. When Frank Conner retired from the sheriff's post in 1990, a year before an election, he recommended Dobbins as his replacement. Dobbins won a full term handily as the Democratic incumbent over an independent challenger.
This year he is facing a Republican challenger, a veteran trooper who says he retired specifically to make this race. Dowdy, who grew up in neighboring Giles County, logged more than 36 years with the Virginia State Police.
Both men have made law enforcement their careers, and they want to finish out those careers as Pulaski County's sheriff.
"If I kept my health," said Dowdy, 61, "and I felt the people still wanted me, I would seek a second term."
"I'm 40 years old. I still have a long way to go to retire," Dobbins said. "If I'm re-elected, I absolutely plan to run again, and again, and again."
Dobbins got his first taste of police work during embassy duty as a Marine. When he returned home, he joined the Pulaski Police Department starting as a patrolman in 1977. In 1981, he joined the investigations division in the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office and was promoted to lead it in 1985.
He says his supervisory and management experience should give him an edge over Dowdy. That's what it takes to run a 65-person department, oversee a jail with 70 prisoners, prepare an annual department budget which amounted to $2.9 million this year, make sure civil papers are delivered properly, and more, he said.
Dobbins has held the first-line supervisory positions he now oversees and knows what each job involves, he said. "I have the in-house knowledge of how this department works. ... You can come in here and learn to do these things, but the mistakes that you make cost the taxpayers money."
Dowdy, however, says that through his own "36 years plus, I think I've been familiar with most of the criminal laws and all of the traffic laws." He has worked on homicides, drug cases, several suicides and many grand larcenies and burglaries.
"I've touched bases with about every type of crime," he said. "The two previous sheriffs of Pulaski County had about the same education that I have and they appeared to do well in taking care of their budget."
Dowdy's law enforcement education includes annual retraining for his first 20 years and every other year for the last 16 with the state police. He has been an investigator of trooper applicants and has helped train troopers.
Dobbins said he prepared himself for the job by earning police and forensics science associate degrees at New River Community College and returning to take business courses even before his sheriff's appointment.
"I knew way back 19 years ago the value of the college education and this training," he said. "I went on my own time. ... I knew it was going to take that to get ahead in this profession, and it's paid off."
Since he became sheriff, Dobbins said, he has modernized the department, started a drug awareness program in county schools, reworked the jail to house female prisoners and save the county from paying to place them elsewhere, and started a medical copayment plan for prisoners to pay some of their medical costs.
"I've been here and I've been doing it," Dobbins said. "I have nothing at all but respect for the Virginia State Police. ... But this is not an election between the Virginia State Police and me. It's an election between myself and a man that's retired from the Virginia State Police. ... He retired and decided he wants to be sheriff."
Dowdy says he wants to be sheriff because "I feel like I can offer the county something from all my years as a police officer.
"I was approached by numerous citizens of Pulaski County and was asked to leave my department and run for sheriff," he said. "After a few sleepless nights and deep thoughts, I decided to retire and seek the nomination. ... If elected, my retirement would go in limbo. I would just have a salary from the sheriff's position until such time as I decided to leave the Sheriff's Department."
Dowdy's first assignment after completing state police training was in Buchanan County in 1959. He transferred to Pulaski County in 1964, still carrying some of the buckshot from when he was shot in the back while assisting the Buchanan County Sheriff's Office in an abduction case.
Dowdy said he has met a lot of people during his campaign in Pulaski County, where he plans to live the rest of his life.
"I've been here a number of years. I call this my home," he said. "It's going to be a win situation for me. ... Win or lose, I'm going to have a whole lot more friends."
Name: Ralph Dobbins
Party: Democrat
Age: 40
Family: Wife, Deborah Wood Dobbins; children, Amber, Justin, and twins Corey and Katelyn.
Experience: Nineteen years in law enforcement, including four years with the Pulaski Police Department and the rest with the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office.
Education: Associate degrees from New River Community College in police and forensic sciences, other courses.
Last movie seen: "Forrest Gump."
Hobbies: Fishing and, while not a great golfer, he enjoys playing.
Dislikes: "I do not watch these police dramas," he said. "I think they're filled with a lot of nonsense." For TV, he prefers watching comedies and, more recently, the baseball playoffs.f\ hvyo Norman Dowdy
Party: Republican
Age: 61
Family: Wife, Betty Dowdy; children, Sandra Kay Singleton, Tammy Suzanne Yopp, Norman W. "Buck" Dowdy II.
Experience: More than 36 years with the Virginia State Police.
Education: Pembroke High School, retraining annually for first 20 years and every other year thereafter as trooper.
Last movie seen: "Horizons West," a 1952 Western, on television. He collects videotapes of vintage movies, particularly Westerns.
Hobbies: Raises quarter and Tennessee walking horses, hunts and fishes.
Dislikes: Flying, although he has had to do some, including surveillance flying. On his first flight, which was to New Jersey, the pilot had to land in a blizzard.
Keywords:
POLITICS PROFILE
by CNB