Election 2026: Sheriff Candidate Chris Strange
- Nathaniel Smith | Editor-in-Chief
- Dec 30, 2025
- 20 min read
Continuing with our “Election: 2026” series, this edition of our candidate interviews features Sheriff Candidate Chris Strange. Leading up to the primaries, we will continue to release candidate interviews in order to keep you well educated as you make your way to the ballot box.
Publisher's Note: The Washington County Times does not endorse political candidates. Our mission is to provide balanced and informative coverage of local politics so our readers can make their own informed decisions at the ballot box. We aim to give all candidates a fair opportunity to share their views and connect with the community. This Q&A is part of that commitment to open, unbiased political reporting.
Can you speak on your background in law enforcement?
“I started my law enforcement career in 1986 when I went to Vincennes University, where I got an associate degree in law enforcement,” said Chris Strange. “From there, I went to Indiana University, and I didn't know that they had a School of Public Environmental Affairs, I just thought they had a School of Liberal Arts. I just didn't feel like that was what I was looking for. So, I ended up transferring to Eastern Kentucky University, where I finished a bachelor's degree in police administration. And then in 2006, I graduated from Oakland City University with a master's degree in business management. Right before all the medical things that happened over the years when things tanked, I was two classes and a dissertation away from having my doctorate in the medical management field, but I didn't see the point in going forward because they were getting rid of CEOs of hospitals and stuff faster than anything going on. And so more than half of that class just dropped out of it because of that. And it was kind of sad because there were some good leaders there. So that's where I come from from an educational standpoint. Also, I am a member in good standing with the Masonic Lodge. I've handled a budget before, and as you know, the jail has about a $4 million budget for operations between the inmates and the jail side and the law enforcement side. And I've been with a couple of sheriffs that I work pretty closely with, and I got to see some of that stuff. But also, I ran my own department for ten years for the county. So, I know what I'm doing when it comes to running the budget.”
What inspired you to run for Sheriff of Washington County?
“I really believe I can make a difference,” he said. “I believe I can do a better job of making a difference. I used to work at Delaney Park, and I still have kids come up to me today that say, 'man, if it hadn't been for that day camp program that you put on out there, I don't know where I would be.' Families here in Washington County need two incomes to make things work anymore. And because of that, the kids don't have anything to do during the summer. I don't want them just running around getting in trouble. If we could figure out a way to make things better, I would like to try to do that. I do have some plans for stuff like that, but I want to collaborate with some of the churches and things and see if we can work something out. I've always been a problem solver, and I feel like I could solve some of the problems that are going on right now. Or at least start in the right direction.”
What do you believe are the most important leadership qualities in a Sheriff, and how have you demonstrated those in your career?
“Well, there are a couple of things. One, a sheriff should never ask his deputies to do something that he wouldn't do or hasn't done,” said Strange. “I was a lieutenant, so I was up in rank just a little bit, and I would never ask anybody to do something that I hadn't done. Or if it was really dangerous, I would usually just go do it myself so nobody got hurt. I've been training for a leadership role like this my whole life. I'm an Eagle Scout. As you know, that's like 1% of the whole population of Scouting. It was hard. It was hard work. But I learned a tremendous amount doing it. And I think things like that are going to help me in my leadership roles. I was in the Order of the Arrow, and I learned a lot of different leadership techniques. I was an assistant scoutmaster at one point, I was a junior assistant scoutmaster, I went to Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia, in 1981 to the National Scout Jamboree and learned a tremendous amount about how to keep guys motivated and how to keep things rolling in the right direction.
“You can put me to sleep in class just by reading over something that I could read at home myself,” he added. “But if you're showing us how it's going on, people seem to do better with that. I've taught for Indiana Wesleyan, I've taught for Ivy Tech as an adjunct instructor. I'm not doing that right now just because it got really hectic and I just couldn't do it all at the same time. But I always got good feedback like, 'hey, you're a good instructor. You do great as far as keeping us involved with the discussions.' That sort of thing. And so I always felt really well with that. I was on the path to becoming a master instructor for the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy, but I ended up not applying for that just because I was getting out of law enforcement at the time. And as a sheriff, you're not required to have any of that. That's why you have your men. So, that's kind of how that takes place.
“A sheriff doesn't shirk details because he thinks he's just administration. The county is not big enough for a sheriff just to be an administrator,” remarked Strange. “Washington County Sheriff's Department has a chronic shortage of deputies which has impacted basic operations. Low salaries was the number one primary cause cited by Brent Miller at one of the council meetings. Now, people like me that have been to school and know a little bit more about what's going on, know that not all people leave jobs because of money. A lot of people leave jobs because they're not satisfied with the way things are being run at that department or at that agency or with that insurance company. It's not just police, it's across the board. And so anyway, he cited the low salaries and a low pay scale, which they apparently have been trying to fix because [Brent Miller] said it led to qualified officers going elsewhere to shop and look. I would say that he's about half right on that because I think if the administration – and I'm not dogging his – but if an administration had their people happy about what was going on, things would be a little easier for them.”
If elected, what would be your top priorities as Sheriff?
“There're a couple things I would definitely look at,” said Strange. “The shortage situation that we're talking about because it's not just with deputies, it's in the jail too. We can't have a jail full of inmates and they're not being taken care of. I've had a couple people come to me and say, 'hey, if you get sheriff, you've really got to look at this.' And one of them is, there was a lady that got arrested for an OWI here not too long ago. She was on heart medicine. We both know she probably shouldn't have been drinking. However, it was three days before she ever even saw a nurse. That is a liability. And so those type things are things that I'm going to look at right off the bat because I was an EMT. That's how I started my career. I was an EMT over here at Washington County Hospital, and I worked for Washington County Memorial. When I was at Vincennes, before I got on the Vincennes Police Department as a part time police officer over there, I worked for an ambulance service and loved doing what I was doing. I learned so much about what was going on, and I was this close to becoming a nurse instead of going to be a policeman. But I just like the policeman role.
“I will tell you that law enforcement has changed dramatically in the last 35 years,” he said. “I'm not putting parents down because you do what you have to do to make ends meet, but I don't think kids get to spend the time that they used to with their parents. And when that happens, they're going to listen to somebody. It may not be their parents because their parents aren't around as much, because they're trying to just feed them and clothe them and keep them healthy. But I think that's part of what's going on. And then we also have the meth and the fentanyl and those sorts of things that are literally making people paranoid. They think the police are there to hurt them instead of help them, and it gets ugly. So those are some things that I really want to look at. Another one is the mental health crisis that we're under. We have a tremendous mental health crisis with almost zero funding to help it. And there's money out there. I've gone after grants before when people told me, 'you're never going to get that grant. I guarantee you.' And I'm talking about $250,000 grants, stuff like that. And so I think I've got some connections in the right spots and I really think I can make a difference. And I'll be honest with you, I wouldn't be running if I didn't think I was qualified to do it.
“I'm not putting anybody down,” explained Strange. “We've all done things that either we got caught doing, we got away with doing, or got swept under the rug or whatever, but we've all done something. But you can't have somebody that's just out of high school or has been out of high school for 30 years but never did anything else with his life and he decides that he wants to be a sheriff. I don't know if that type of person can run a $4 million budget. I mean, when somebody's already living paycheck to paycheck, it's hard for me to have faith in somebody to do something different. There's an old saying: 'If you always do what you've always done, you're always going to get what you always got.' And that's true. And I am 100% planning on running a positive campaign across the board. I may get slammed in every way, shape and form, but that's okay. That's that's them. That's not me. For the people that look at the qualities and actually look at the things that are different, I'm the only decision out there, really. Now, I've had some people that have had ill will because I've had to lock up a son or a daughter or whatever, and they're going to dog me. But you know what? It's okay. Because if that's the only way that they can express themselves, then it's okay with me. Because I'll take that. I'll bear that on my shoulders because I did what I felt was right at the time, and I didn't lose a night's sleep over the fact of making sure that that person didn't kill themselves that night or they didn't overdose or whatever.”
How do you plan to strengthen relationships between law enforcement and the communities you serve?
“One of the things that I plan on doing right out of the gate is to start having our officers come out and get to know the community,” he stated. “Again, I am not putting the current administration down, but if you've noticed in the paper in the last 3 or 4 weeks, we've had one of the candidates in the paper at like four different trunk-or-treats, and he hasn't done any of those in the last 4 or 5 years. But he's doing them now. And I'm sorry, but if we're going to do it, do it across the board all the time. That's how I look at it. I want to help the community. I want to help the people of this community because I grew up here, and I love this town. I would do anything I could to make this town a better place to live. I don't know if you realize it or not, but there are tons of people that are looking for a good, quiet town with a good school and good churches to be able to move to and not have to worry about the fact that their car gets broken into every night when they go to bed or whatever may happen. And I want to be able to to be one of the guys that feels like I'm responsible for trying to help make that change. I can't do it all by myself, but I really think that if I get a group together of concerned citizens, myself and a couple people off the council and maybe one of the commissioners, and we all put our heads together – we're smart people. We're not dummies. None of us are dummies. We just sometimes get our feelings hurt over this or that, and they want to argue about things that are not worth arguing about.
“I just truly believe that I can make a difference not only in that department, but how that department treats our citizens out here,” he continued. “From the time that they have to lock somebody up till the time that person goes to court, I don't want them to ever say, 'they treated me like crap.' I don't want that. And I just think it's important that the people see that. You'd have to pay them to do it because it would be training, but sometimes I think that it would be good for an officer that's hiring on to be put in a cell by themselves for 24 hours. Can't talk to anybody, the guards bring the food, that's it. It would really show them what they're putting somebody through when they say, 'you're going to jail.'
What steps will you take to ensure that deputies are held to high professional and ethical standards?
“There're a couple ways that you handle that,” he said. “One is you set everybody down and just say, 'hey, guys, this job requires you to be held to a higher standard.' And I'm just going to be honest with you. After 30 years in law enforcement, I went through a terrible breakup, and I ended up having an OWI. It's nothing that anybody can't find. I didn't try to hide it or anything. What the rest of the story is that people don't know about is that there was a faith based gentleman down in Clark County. He was mentoring me to get me through this drug and alcohol class. The night that it was over, I called him on something that he said was in the Bible. I said, 'that's not in the Bible. I mean, I'm not trying to be mean. It's just not there.' And he said, 'well, I guarantee it is.' I said, 'Get your Bible there and show me because I want to see it. I want you to be able to prove me wrong because I respect everything you say.' He couldn't find it because it wasn't there. And the only reason I knew that is because on my way home that night, I called my pastor, who was Kevin Carty. He just passed away. He was the pastor at West Side Baptist Church for the last 15 years. I called him and asked him about it. He said, 'no, Chris, that's not in the Bible.' He said, 'you did right.' Well, that was my last night. So the guy gives me my certificate, signs it, and I move on. The next day I took it to probation and handed it to him. He said, 'hey, Chris, that's great. You're done. Everything's over.'
“About three weeks later I get a call from a trooper, and he's actually a friend of mine,” he remarked. “He said, 'Chris, man, I hate to be the guy to do this. As a matter of fact, I've asked them to bring another trooper. Someone else that didn't know you. I don't know who you ticked off, but you ticked off somebody because they're after you. They're saying that you were false informing by lying about signing that paper.' And I said, 'well, my best friend was right there with me. Just ask him. He saw him sign it.' He said, 'no problem. We'll get this taken care of.' Well, they came to me about six weeks later and said, 'we're not going to be able to just get it taken care of. They're really wanting to hammer somebody for this. You are who they want to hammer. I can win it, but it's $10,000 up front.' I didn't have $10,000 up front to do that. And I said, 'okay, so it's going to be a misdemeanor. It's not going to be any big deal. I'll just go ahead and plea to false informing.' Then a couple months later, I got stopped in Scott County. My blood sugar was like 38, and I was screwed up because of my blood sugar. But they said, 'well, you have a pain pill in your system.' I said, 'you're right, I do have, but that's not what's causing this. I can promise you, if you'll just get me a Snickers bar or something, I'll come back around. Well, that went on forever, and they sent everything to the lab. It came back, and he said, 'they can't really win, and for $10,000, I can make this go away.' I said, 'well if I don't do that what do we do?' He said, 'well you just plea to a reckless driving charge. No big deal. Move on.' Well I didn't think about the fact I was going to run for sheriff down the road. So here I've got all this stuff that people are going to try to throw at me. But the fact of the matter is, I'm not scared. I'm not trying to hide from it. I don't necessarily mention it, but if somebody has a question for me and they want to call me, I'll talk to them on the phone personally.
“It's not just that this community means a lot to me, but I grew up in this community,” he added. “I helped build some of this community. My parents helped build a bus ministry at West Side Baptist over there. At one time when my mom and dad were in charge of this bus ministry -- and it wasn't because of them, I believe it was because of God -- my mom was feeding kids. They'd bring them out in a diaper. I mean, it's zero degrees out and they're in a diaper and maybe a little rap and say, 'hey can you have them back probably about 12:30? I should be done eating lunch and stuff like that.' And so they did chocolate milk and donuts. It was easy to fix for everybody, and everybody got it. So nobody felt like they were being pointed out. But anyway, five buses were running right here in Salem, Indiana. We were running two services on Sunday because we could not accommodate everybody at the one service on Sunday mornings. So my point is, I've got a lot invested here and I care about this community.”
How would you handle a crisis or controversy if elected as Sheriff? For instance, the bombs that were planted on bridges around the county decades ago.
“I was here for that,” began Strange. “Well, there're a couple of things that go into place right off the bat. First off, the federal government has to be notified because they have ATF as a specialty for that particular deal. But the ATF and the FBI, those guys are all brought together. They also activate the military with the bomb sniffing dogs and that sort of thing. But when it comes down to it, believe it or not, it's the sheriff's call on what's going on. And I would handle it just the way that it was handled back then. We would start an investigation. And at every place that one was placed, we would do a mile or a half a mile radius around that canvasing and looking for those very things. Like strippers to pull wires together and all that sort of thing. Now, it came to be that that didn't even happen in town. They did it out of town at the time, but that was all done in one night. And it was just so quick. And I happened to be working as a dispatcher that night for the city. The first one that went off went off about 45ft from me. Maybe a little further, maybe 50ft. But I was in the police department in the radio room, and it went off right down by the old jail. That was the first one. It was wired wrong and it burned. It didn't go off. So when they saw that that was going on they told me, 'get everybody out and get them to start looking for these things. They've not been wired right; somebody wired them wrong. They're probably going to burn. But we want to keep that evidence if you can. So we want to try to get that stuff taken care of.' So I do have a little bit of knowledge on how that was handled, and how I would handle it today. There may be a few other things involved, but I've got some really good friends in Indianapolis that are bomb tech type people. And I've got a lieutenant that's over traffic, which traffic was brought to a complete halt here because you couldn't get over any bridges. We were very lucky that that didn't end up happening.
“I worked all night at the city police department,” he said. “I left and I went to the hospital because I was working as an ambulance guy for that day. I went in and I said, ‘I have to have a couple hours of sleep before all this goes crazy.’ Five minutes into my little lay down, I got toned out because they needed help blocking traffic with our ambulance. So we came up here to State Road 135 right by the public library. This is just me, but I mean I'm a God fearing person. I feel like God put me in the right place. The gentleman that was the janitor at the library had a heart attack, and we were right there. He only lived a few weeks afterwards, but I did CPR, and I kept him alive long enough for him to get his affairs in order. And people say, 'well, you didn't really save him then.' But believe it or not, when people feel like they've gotten their affairs in order, they're not nearly as apt to have a problem with that sort of thing.
“I can tell you these things all day long,” said Strange. “I've got the experience. August of 1990, I was standing shoulder to shoulder with Lonnie Philpott when he got shot. We were at a domestic. The information did not get sent to us saying that if another officer came back out there, he was going to shoot him. He and I walked up on the porch, no problem. I see a gun in the back of his waistband. And I said, 'hey, Lonnie, he's got a gun.' And Lonnie said, 'Frank, what's the deal, man? You got a gun?' He said, 'Yeah, I got a gun!' - Boom, boom - It was that fast. I got Lonnie off the porch, and I got direct pressure put on his wounds. One hit him right in the knee, and one hit him just above the knee. But what it did for him was he never walked another day as a trooper. He got hurt. He got hurt pretty bad.”
What do you believe sets you apart from your opponents in this race?
“I'll just start out by saying my education helps,” Strange said. “My training that I had throughout the years. And training can be very widespread stuff and the way that they have to get so many hours and all that sort of thing. I attend West Side Baptist Church. I am a 100% God fearing Christian man, and I love my Savior. I know that He died for my sins, and I think that that sets me apart from a lot of people that aren't that way. Now, I'm not trying to be Mr. High Horse or any of that stuff because that's not how God would want it done. But what it does do, is it lets you know that I care as much for some little kid just walking across the street as I do for my own kids. I feel like that is an important thing for me. We've all sinned and have come short of the glory of God. We've all done that. But my point is, I picked myself back up and I dusted myself off. And I went on, and I think that I'll be the best candidate in the field.
“I've actually figured this out: 96% to 97% of the time when I walk out of the booking area [at the jail] and I've handed the prison over to the jailer, they tell me, 'Chris, thank you so much. You could have added so many more charges. You could have done this, could have done that. I was a butthead to you, and I am really sorry. Thank you for being nice to me.' I believe that everybody deserves another chance,” Strange said. “And that's the one thing that I worry about. Is Salem going to give me a chance to prove to them that I'm the best guy going for this job? And it's not just because I think it's the case. It's because of all the extra things I've done all my life just to get me here.”
Do you have any final thoughts you'd like to leave with our readers?
“All the way up through Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts and through high school, I volunteered a tremendous amount doing different things,” he said. “After I left law enforcement, I took a job somewhere else, and I was working out of town sometimes and didn't get to do some of that sort of thing. But the fact of the matter is, I'm somebody that if I tell you I'm going to get involved and help you, I'm going to do it. I have many, many drug users that I've helped stop using heroin, meth, fentanyl, that sort of stuff. And I think that's important. I really do think it's important. I don't want to see their babies end up in that same vicious cycle. And as of right now, our kids are getting caught in that same vicious cycle, and I am diligently working on some plans to try to fix that. To where that doesn't happen all the time. Because you know as well as I do, there are plenty of things that could be done if people just take the time to do it. I know the sheriff's busy. He's got this going on, he's got that going on. But what's wrong with trying to help out a little bit if you can do so to make things better? I helped out for about 3 or 4 years as a junior assistant scoutmaster, and I've been an assistant Scoutmaster. However, you're supposed to put as much time into it as they gave to you. And I have not done that yet. But I hope to be able to sometime, and I think being the sheriff would be the perfect place to be able to help do some of that. Not that I'm trying to integrate inmates with scouts or anything like that.
“The sheriff at this point in the game very seldom sends anybody out to help with pickup like at the fair,” continued Strange. “Used to, we'd get 4 to 6 inmates. We'd bring them over there and they would help pick up and take all the stuff to the trash dumpsters, and they would sweep up and clean up after the evening. And because I was always out anyway with my guys, I would put my guys right with them and let them do it. Them knowing they still had to get up that morning, they would stay and help me. Now a lot of people say, 'oh, of course they helped you because there were people taking drugs up there too and stuff.' But we have a scanner now that we can pull that through and see if there's something in your system or not. So it's not like it's rocket science here anymore. It's something that can be done. It could be very easily established. I figured out one time, I was working four guys 363 days a year, at least eight hours a day, most of the time ten hours. And if you put pen to paper on that and you do that over ten years, you've saved the county a lot of money that nobody else had to deal with.
“Law enforcement officers in Washington County frequently encounter individuals experiencing mental health crises, a problem compounded by the lack of available mental health services in the community,” Strange concluded. “And because of that, deputies often serve as first responders to mental health calls in which they may have had specialized training in or not. You don't know at that point. And the jail population impact is significant because that just continues to rise. And all of these people that are having mental health issues are just being stacked on top of one another in the jail. That creates unsafe working environments for your people. I know there's got to be a way that we can fix some of that. I've always considered myself a problem solver, and I think I can come up with this, I really do. Everybody says, 'well, all the sheriffs over the last several years haven't.' But none of the sheriffs, except maybe Brent right now, has even seen what could be done. They've looked at what's going on. But he knows, 'hey, 11 months from now I'm done so it doesn't matter.' He thinks, 'well, if I can just hold off 11 months with nobody getting killed, and nobody doing anything at all. I'll be fine and we'll let the next guy deal with it.' Whatever I do, I want to leave it better than I got there when it happened. And maybe that's the scout in me, I don't know, but that's just how I feel.”
