Meeting the sheriff in St. John Parish

Kevin Chiri

I haven’t had much to say lately about my continuing efforts to get officially moved to the River Region.

As some of you know, who are my faithful readers, I began my new stint as publisher here about four months ago, then proceeded to have a rough time finding the perfect little house for the wife and four children.

After a search for a rental, or to buy an existing house, didn’t bring about what I wanted, I stumbled into the most wonderful little subdivision just on the edge of Garyville known as Plantation Oaks.

With previous contracting experience in St. Tammany Parish under my belt, having built about 35 new homes there, I jumped back into my contractors outfit and now have my new house underway.

But that still leaves me commuting from Slidell every day, and probably until about the end of November when I hope to be moved here.

In the meantime, a day doesn’t seem to go by that I don’t meet some new people here and find myself getting more comfortable with this area.

I’m almost embarrassed to admit that it took me this long to officially meet Sheriff Wayne Jones, via his secretary Melanie, but I finally had my face-to-face this week. I had seen him across the room various times at some public events we both attended, but never got to actually introduce myself.

Both the sheriff and his secretary continue to give me the same impression of folks in this area. It doesn’t seem a day goes by that I don’t go home and tell my wife Gail about the friendly nature of almost everyone here.

Sheriff Jones and Melanie both certainly fit that bill, and I think the thing I liked the most about the sheriff is his sincerity about keeping the best law enforcement unit you could ask for here. He wasn’t bragging in any way, but as we talked about how much he wanted to keep the crime rate low here, I could tell that his lifelong involvement in law enforcement was something he lived, not just something he did for a job.

St. Tammany Parish, despite its growth, has done a great job maintaining a safe, smaller community kind of place for families to live. I have already felt the same atmosphere here and Sheriff Jones is clearly one big reason that is the case.

With some of my other biographical stories behind me, and yes I know Daniel Becnel dominated our pages for quite a while with my four-part series, I plan to do a close-up look at the sheriff in the coming weeks.

I had some pretty interesting reaction to the Becnel series, and as you could probably guess, it was a little of everything. But one thing I have to say about the well-known local attorney, he was probably one of the most fascinating people I have interviewed in 30 years.

I already have a long list of individuals in this area I want to feature, and hopefully you will find some of the other stories L’Observateur carries just as interesting.

KEVIN CHIRI is editor and publisher of L’Observateur. He may be reached at (985) 652-9545.