Beaver County’s sheriff candidates both enjoy working with their hands on and off the job. Scott Mitchell, the 911 coordinator for Beaver County, uses his spare time to connect with his roots as a former farmer by working in his yard. Shawn Campbell, Beaver County’s undersheriff, said he enjoys working on the ranch he owns and making saddles in his leather shop.
Campbell and Mitchell came out ahead in the June primary election that eliminated two other candidates. Mitchell received 41.76 percent of the vote, and Campbell obtained 35.21 percent in the primary. Now, they appear on the Aug. 27 runoff ballot to succeed retiring Sheriff Reuben Parker, who has worked since 1996 at the sheriff’s office in Beaver County, a 5,000-person county that makes up the eastern portion of the Oklahoma Panhandle.
With no other candidates in the race, the winner of the runoff will take office in January.
Beaver County sheriff candidate backgrounds
Born and raised in Beaver County, Mitchell began his law enforcement career in 1979. When he was a senior in high school, Mitchell said Sheriff Arlen Shook commissioned him to be a reserve deputy, which allowed him to ride with deputies and Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers.
“I’ve been in law enforcement for 45 years now. I worked 10 years in Oklahoma. I worked for the Alva Police Department while I was going to college,” Mitchell said. “I worked for the Seiling Police Department. I was their assistant chief for about a year, and then I moved back to Beaver and went to work on the police department there. I was there from 1985 to September of ’89.”
Campbell said Parker hired him in 2006 as a deputy sheriff, and he has been a canine officer and undersheriff for 11 years.
“The sheriff that has been in there, for the last seven years he’s had health issues and has been out — off and on — a lot. I have been basically just running the sheriff’s office in his absence,” Campbell said.
After a stint of farming with his father, Mitchell moved to Kansas and worked for the Dodge City Police Department. After 26 years in Dodge City, Mitchell said he retired as a decorated captain and returned to Beaver County.
“When I came back, I went to work for the county as their 911 coordinator. I’m the one that set up 911 in Beaver County. While I was doing that, Sheriff Parker, who is retiring, put me on as a reserve deputy,” Mitchell said.
As the 911 coordinator, Mitchell said he brought an updated emergency response system to Beaver County.
“The state was pushing for Beaver County to become ‘Phase 2,’ or what they call ‘enhanced 911,’ which would give the address location for where you were calling from. So, I set all that up, I did all the addressing for Beaver County, made sure that all the roads’ GPS were correct and stuff like that. I was able to get full ‘Phase 2’ 911 in place,” Mitchell said. “At the time that we did that, we were the first county to completely set up our 911 system to Oklahoma addressing standards. We set it up to where we would be compliant with the next generation 911, which is now starting to be deployed in Oklahoma and in the metropolitan areas.”
Mitchell said he worked with a large budget involving state grants to get 911 to “next generation” standards.
Campbell, meanwhile, discussed his experience with small budgets, a challenge faced by the office owing to Beaver County’s low population and tax base.
“Being able to run a tight budget and do without some things is something I’m used to, and we’ve been doing it,” Campbell said. “The hardest thing is to find people that will come out here and work for the pay that’s offered.”
Campbell said the low salaries are a primary difficulty the office faces when finding staff. The situation has been so challenging for many small counties that the Oklahoma Legislature created a new grant program for sheriff offices this legislative session aimed at boosting pay for sheriffs and their deputies.
“That’s probably the hardest thing out here in western Oklahoma is being able to find people that are willing to work out here,” Campbell said. “Most of the people that I’ve got working for me are from here and were raised here. It’s a real rural area. We don’t even have a stoplight in our county.”
Campbell said the sheriff’s office is fortunate to have some really good employees.
“That’s one reason I want to be sheriff — to be able to keep those people and make an environment where they can work and support their family but yet protect and serve the people of Beaver County,” Campbell said.
Mitchell said he continued helping the sheriff’s office as a patrol deputy when he was not occupied with his 911 job. He stayed with the sheriff’s office until recently, when he decided to run for sheriff.
“I had worked with Sheriff Parker’s dad and Sheriff Bill Cassingham, who Sheriff Parker replaced. I call them the old guard that brought me up in law enforcement. So out of respect, I had told Sheriff Parker when I first moved back that I would not run against him,” Mitchell said. “When he decided he was retiring, that’s when I went ahead and filed for sheriff.”
Campbell said he is running for sheriff to continue the work he already does as undersheriff.
“We’ve got some good dispatch and jailers. Everybody’s been there for a while, just kind of a big happy family,” Campbell said. “I felt like that when the sheriff decided to retire that I’ve been kind of in that position anyway. I just decided it’d be a good opportunity to just carry on and keep going as we’re going.”
If he wins the election, Mitchell said he will select Bill Stout to be his undersheriff. Campbell said he has not made a decision as to who would serve as his undersheriff if elected.
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‘We’ve got a really safe county’
Mitchell said people in Beaver County with whom he has developed relationships over the last eight years have asked for change in the sheriff’s office.
“I’m running on a platform of change, and the changes I’m making reflect what the citizens of Beaver County want me to implement and what they feel like they need,” Mitchell said.
Campbell said he wants to keep the county a safe place.
“We’ve been doing this for 20 years, and we know the people in the county,” Campbell said. “We’ve got a lot of experience, and we’ve got a really safe county. You don’t have to lock your doors all the time around here, and we want to keep that going.”
Some changes Mitchell said he wants to implement include making sure sheriff employees and 911 dispatchers receive specialized training, requiring deputies to wear uniforms and changing the look of sheriff vehicles.
“We will also be marking up our county vehicles where they are highly visible,” Mitchell said. “One of the main concerns of the citizens that have talked to me is the personal use of our county vehicles. There will be no personal use of our county patrol vehicles.”
Campbell also said he wants to increase training for sheriff’s office employees.
“Because we live in western Oklahoma, it’s hard to find training for our deputies and dispatch. We’ve got some online stuff, and then we try to go to all the training that’s offered out here,” Campbell said. “But I’d like to be able to do that a little more, be able to get a little more training for my dispatch and jailers.”
Mitchell said he hopes to cut down call times by operating a 24-hour patrol program.
“Currently, they have somebody available 24 hours, but they’re not actually patrolling for the 24 hours. [Patrolling] shortens that time because you don’t have to wait for somebody to get dressed and start that way to wherever the call would be,” Mitchell said. “Beaver County is a huge county, so it does take a while to respond to some of the rural areas. If I’ve got somebody out patrolling, then that call time is cut by 20 to 30 minutes.”
Campbell echoed a need for more patrol.
“I want to do some changes. I’d like to do a little extra patrol, a little more coverage,” Campbell said. “If I could add another deputy, that would really help.”
Mitchell said he wants to create a program with ministers in the county to give jail detainees access to spiritual counsel if they want it. He also plans to implement more security walkthroughs.
“If I’m fortunate enough to be elected, we will implement courthouse security walkthroughs and school security walkthroughs in every school in our county, which is currently not being done except by the Highway Patrol,” Mitchell said. “I look at it as, ‘This is a service to the people. We need to protect our children.’ So, if the Highway Patrol, through a governor’s mandate, is doing a number of security safety checks and walkthroughs of the school, then we can do that as well, and that doubles as a security for our schools and the protection of our kids.”
Campbell said the campaign has been difficult for him because he is working at the sheriff’s office so much already.
“I’m more of a worker (than a politician), so it’s been hard for me to get out and tell people what I’ve done,” Campbell said. “I feel like my record and my work ethic, that speaks for itself. I believe in being the first one there and the last one to leave.”
Mitchell said he enjoys working around people and that he views the public as his boss in an elected office.
“It’s ultimately up to the vote of the people. I hope that the people look at the qualifications and see that I’m the most qualified candidate for the job,” Mitchell said. “I am a home-county boy, so there’s no concerns about somebody that didn’t grow up here trying to enforce laws on Beaver County and maybe not knowing the people.”
Campbell said he has not had much time to visit with people owing to sheriff’s office duties.
“I want to be a working sheriff. Less talk and more action. I’m not just a politician, I’m a law enforcement officer. I believe in working on good reports, and I want to do what needs to be done,” Campbell said.
Mitchell said he has letters of recommendation from two of the past sheriffs he worked for in Ford County, Kansas, and the current sitting sheriff, whom he trained.
“Advice I got from sheriffs I’ve worked for in the past is to enjoy the campaign, because once it’s over, that’s when the work begins and the campaign never ends,” Mitchell said. “Even if you become sheriff, the campaign never ends. You’ve got to keep the confidence of the people.”
Campbell said he wants to provide dependable promises to the residents of Beaver County.
“I’m not going to lie to people. I want to give them a realistic truth and be able to carry out my promises,” Campbell said.
Mitchell said he feels like the county deserves more than what they have been getting from the sheriff’s office.
“If they’re satisfied with the service they’ve been getting, then I won’t get that vote,” Mitchell said. “But I’m hoping there’s enough that see what I’m campaigning on and have enough confidence in me that they know I will do what I say I will do, because my word means everything to me.”
Campbell said voters should choose him because of his experience in the area.
“I’ve got 20 years experience with the sheriff’s office. I’ve had 11 years as undersheriff. I’ve acted as sheriff while the sheriff was gone and out with health issues,” Campbell said. “I have that experience above my opponent. All my experience is in Oklahoma. A lot of his experience is in Kansas, so I’m more aware of Oklahoma law. I’ve got a lot of experience in search warrants and things.”
