Election 2026: Sheriff Candidate Lieutenant Wayne Blevins

Continuing with our “Election: 2026” series, this edition of our candidate interviews features Sheriff Candidate Lieutenant Wayne Blevins. 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.

Lieutenant Wayne Blevins

1. Can you speak on your background in law enforcement?

“I started at the Washington County Sheriff’s Department in 1995 as a reserve deputy,” said Blevins. “I was a reserve deputy from 1995 to 2000. I was hired in 2000 as the process server, and I think that was around June. Then in 2001, I got hired as a merit deputy in 2001, and I graduated from the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy in 2001.”

2. What inspired you to run for Sheriff of Washington County?

“When I was a kid, I had family members that were in the military, and I always liked watching those old cop shows, like Adam-12, Beretta, Starsky and Hutch, and things like that. I was attracted to those shows, and they made me think, ‘one day, I’m going to grow up and be a police officer.’ For the longest time, I was under the impression that you needed a college background or college credits. There are some departments that still require that, but I think others have done away with that. The Indiana State Police has done away with some of that too. But, I applied after I found out you only need a high school diploma or GED. It took me from 1995 to 2001 before I got hired as a merit deputy. I think I applied to the sheriff’s department 11 times.

“After I graduated high school, I went to work at Child Craft in 1986, and that’s where I worked until 1994,” he added. “Then I left there and went to work full time at the hospital. I worked on an ambulance there as an EMT from 1994 until 2000, but I stayed on and was affiliated with our ambulance department for 14 years. I also served as deputy coroner for four years under Tony Floyd when he was coroner and was a volunteer fireman as well. So, I’ve covered police, fire, EMS and coroner, but my big goal was to hopefully be sheriff. My whole career, I’ve been a road officer. I’ve not been a part of administration, you know, there are just certain things that I’ve not been able to be a part of, and I think I can offer a whole lot more as sheriff and offer a lot more to employees and the community as well. That’s my opinion. I’m not saying that any of the other sheriffs have done anything wrong, though.

“Not trying to use political parties, but out of the four sheriffs Claude, Roger Lyles, Roger Newland and Brent, there's only been one Republican sheriff that I've worked under. That was Roger Lyles,” continued Blevins. “And I'm a Republican. I've been a Republican ever since I registered to vote when I was in my 20s. But I just have not seen eye to eye with the Democrat sheriffs on certain things.”

3. What do you believe are the most important leadership qualities in a Sheriff, and how have you demonstrated those in your career?

“Well, one is treating everybody equally,” he said. “I've seen this in every place I've worked. You've got favorites. I'm just going to be blunt about it. Especially when you work for an elected official. They got their favorites. The favorites generally get or get to do more. But the main thing is, as far as leadership wise is, trying to promote good conduct and holding people accountable for their actions. We've had a lot of big turnaround. People have been leaving for whatever reason, some for money, some for other reasons. But it's how you treat the people. You can't treat this person one way and treat this person the other way or tell this one they can't do something and let this one do something.

“But over the years, even though I've just been assigned to work on the road, I've kept my eyes and ears open and I've paid attention to a lot, and I listened to a lot,” Blevins added. “I've talked to a lot of the employees over the years that have left and asked them why they left. What would they like to see different? And a lot of it is everybody being treated equally and fairly. If you got an employee that decides to move on somewhere else to better themselves, to better their life and their family's life, rather than persecuting them, be there and say, 'hey man, if that's what you want, that's what you do.' There are things I can’t say because it goes against our policy, but there are things that I would like to change employee-wise.”

4. If elected, what would be your top priorities as Sheriff?

“If things get going like they are, it would be to seek out and find qualified people and hopefully retain them in the positions that they're hired for,” said Blevins. “Training is another. Making sure everybody gets all the training that they need. That includes deputies, dispatchers, and jailers. A lot of training costs money. But there is a lot of free training out there. I'm a primary instructor, Tory Hildreth is a primary instructor, Joe Keltner's a primary instructor and I think Brad Shepherd is too. So, we've got a couple and all it would take is to just send one of them to these classes and come back and say, 'this is what they went over in this class.' That's like drugs. Over the years, certain people have gotten to go to certain drug classes and others didn't. If you're going to want your road guys to go out and combat property, crime and drugs, they should all have the same training across the board. One shouldn't get a certain kind of training when the others don't. Personally, I think training should be across the board. But that's the big key: training. Especially with mental illness. People with things like autism and schizophrenia. I think we need to really step up our game on that because we deal with a lot of people, and to a young officer that's not had proper training, they might think that they're under the influence of drugs or they're drunk or impaired in some way. It could just be a mental issue that they're having. I've dealt with a lot of autistic people, people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and depression. Over the years, I've dealt with people like that whether it was in an ambulance or in a police car. Like I said, you have to learn to recognize those things. I've responded to calls over the years where we thought somebody was drunk and they wrecked, but they were having a diabetic issue. Their blood sugar dropped. It's just being able to recognize those things. A big factor in that is repetition. Don't do training just once and then never again. If you don't use it, you lose it.

“There are a lot of things that I would like to address as far as issues like that,” he said. “But the big thing right now is retaining people. And it's not just our department, it's everywhere. People are getting hired in these little departments, getting through the academy and getting their year or so in, and then they're moving on to bigger departments with better pay and better benefits. When I first got hired in 2001 as a merit deputy, I was on third shift. Back then, and even before me, the third shift officer worked by himself. There were usually no troopers out after midnight, and there were only one or two Salem police officers out for the third shift. And I'll tell you what, Lucas Gray could tell you stories, too, because he was on third shift his whole career. I think he was there for 8 or 9 years. It could certainly get interesting.”

5. How do you plan to strengthen relationships between law enforcement and the communities you serve?

“A lot more community policing, I guess you could put it that way,” stated Blevins. “Having officers out all over the county. Being seen. That's the big thing, being seen and talking to people. Don't just drive by and wave or whatever. I mean actually talking to people and being more involved. Before East Washington and West Washington got their resource officers, I was the one going to the schools. I'd go to West Washington twice a week and Eastern twice a week. I'd go in and have either lunch or breakfast with the kids, and I'd walk the halls and be seen. Then COVID-19 hit, and they locked everything down. And then after COVID-19 left, that's when they started getting the resource officers. I had gone to second shift, so I couldn't really go to the schools anymore. You'd be surprised just talking to some of these kids, especially some of these kids that are in single parent homes. There are a lot of kids out there that think the police are bad, and that all they want to do is take people to jail. So, when Claude Combs was sheriff, and when Roger Lyles was sheriff, they used to let us go to the schools and do programs. Rick Stuart, he passed away three years ago, but he had one of our first drug dogs. Well, Todd Combs had the first, but Rick had a white Labrador named Rocky. I don't know if you've seen the Washington County substance abuse posters with the white Labrador that's the dog from back then. But he would let us go to the schools and talk to the kids. Now, I'm not talking about elementary school. I'm talking about the age that can understand what drugs are. We would go to all three schools and do programs. Then for some reason, we got away from that.

“I like being involved,” he added. “Like going to a restaurant, for instance. If you're taking your lunch break, and you're going to go eat at a restaurant, talk to people. Don't just sit there. When people come in, say, 'How are you doing?' If you don't communicate, you won't get the support you need from the public. So, I'm really big about community policing. If I'm caught up on stuff, I like to go out and drive around. Sometimes I catch hell about it because I go out too far, but I like to go out to places where people never see a police car to let them know, 'hey, we're here. We're patrolling.' And then there have been times that I've pulled into driveways to say, 'hey, how are you doing?' And people seem to like that. Except for the ones that may be up to no good or doing things that they don't want the police to be around for. But if somebody is in an area up to no good and they see a police car, chances are they're just going to leave. And that's the big thing about patrolling. I'm not talking about going out and stopping cars left and right. If a police officer stopped every moving and equipment violation, that's all they would do all day long. Honestly, that would be all we would do. And policing is more than stopping cars. Now, here lately these last couple of years, we've been involved in that CHIRP (Comprehensive Hoosier Highway Injury Reduction Program) program where the state pays officers overtime off duty. They pay them off duty to go out and do extra patrols and stop cars. You have to stop so many cars. I mean, there's a lot required in it. I did it years ago when it was called Operation Pullover. I've just not had time to mess with this new program. But some other guys do. They go out and they get a lot of good arrests. They get drunks off the road, people with warrants, and they're getting drugs off the road. If you check that busted page and look at a lot of the arrests, a lot of it is batteries, drugs, and domestic violence. But, most of it is drug related. Some of it is marijuana. It's not legal yet in Indiana. Have I caught people before that had a roach or something in their ash tray? Yeah, get rid of it. I'm not going to take somebody to jail for a roach. Now, if they're impaired, that's a different story. Most officers aren't going to arrest somebody for a roach or something. You've got to have a substantial amount or some other factor there. And sometimes when you look at the comments people make on Facebook, they are doing so without knowing all the facts. If you're going to comment, that's fine. But make sure you've got all the facts before you comment. Because, to me, when somebody makes comments when they don't know the whole story, it makes them look like a fool, not the person they're trying to shame.

“Unfortunately, if I get elected sheriff, until Indiana makes marijuana legal, we have to enforce the law,” continued Blevins. “But, if I was sheriff, I wouldn't tell the deputies, 'go out and arrest everybody you come across if they have a joint, I don't care what it is, you arrest them.' In Indiana, misdemeanors are officer's discretion in victimless crimes. With felonies, we must make an arrest. But with misdemeanors, it's the officer's discretion. There have been a lot of people I could have taken to jail over petty stuff. Again, victimless crime stuff. And I've given warnings to them. And those people have never crossed my path again. Early in my career, I went out and I looked for drunk drivers. Me and a couple of city guys and state troopers. We'd go out and hit it hard looking for impaired drivers. But it's not like it used to be. We used to be able to get a drunk driver every night here. Now, they're very few and far between anymore.”

6. What steps will you take to ensure that deputies are held to high professional and ethical standards?

“That’s a good question. It's how you treat them. If you treat them well, they'll treat you well, and they'll treat the public well,” Blevins remarked. “When you get an officer that gets to the point where they're burnt out, you as the leader should pull them aside and talk to them. Say, 'hey, what's going on?' Don't just let them just keep riding it out until they end up doing something that they end up getting fired or suspended over. It's about recognizing the issues with your employees before anything like that happens. Again, it all comes down to leadership and how you treat your people. When I worked at Child Craft back in the 80s, there were certain employees that could take half hour breaks and somebody else would take a ten minute break, and their foreman or supervisor would be like, 'get back to work. Get back to work.' I'm only 57. I'll be 58 this year. So, I can't say I've experienced everything in life, but in all my years in the different places that I've worked or been affiliated with, there have always been little cliques. If I was to get elected sheriff, I would make it perfectly clear from the get-go, there will not be any cliques, no good old boys, no A squad or B squad. It's going to be one squad. When I first started up there as a reserve and when I first started up there as a merit deputy under Claude, we were all like family. All the officers knew each other's spouse, their girlfriends or their boyfriends. They knew everyone's kids. We had Christmas parties together. It was like a family. Then over the years, I don't know what happened. Now I work with people and I don't even know if they're married, or if they have kids. That's what my goal would be, is to restore professionalism and bring everybody together, and to not have everybody against each other.”

7. 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.

“Well, hopefully that won't happen, but if it does, the main thing is making sure that I have good mutual aid with all these other agencies,” he said. “For instance, the city police, conservation department, state police, you know, all these other resources. But if something like that were to happen, the first thing I would do, if it was in the city of Salem, is I would partner up with the chief of police in Salem. We'd get together to make sure that we evacuate everybody that needs to be evacuated. All of this goes back to training. Back years ago when I was working in the ambulance, and even those first few years as deputy, we used to do mock disaster drills so that the deputies, firemen and EMTs would know what to do if a certain emergency arose. We'd know what to do, and we'd be able to work together. The first thing we would do if it's bomb-related is evacuate. Do what you need to do. Secure the area. Don't let anybody go in. We don't have a bomb squad. So, we'd have to go to the FBI, state police or ATF. Right now, there's not a whole lot I could do. There are not a whole lot of people who want to talk to me as a deputy and give me information. I get that. But if I was elected sheriff, I would like to reach out to all the surrounding counties and find out what resources they have. Because I know Floyd, Clark, and some others have a joint task force type deal. But if you don't know what other counties have in terms of resources and you do have an emergency, you may have a resource that you could be using, and it's just being wasted.

“So again, it's training,” he continued. “In an emergency, depending on the jurisdiction of course, the sheriff is the head law enforcement officer for that county. But if it was in the city, I would be there for the police chief. I wouldn't want to step on his toes. I'd be there for whatever he needed, and my people would do whatever he needed. And if it was out in the county, I would hope that the chief and his guys would be there for us and be under my direction. Now, if I called in an outside agency for a certain emergency, I would want to be a main part of that. But whatever agency came in to secure that threat, I'd let them call the shots on that. Because I have no experience with bombs. So, if those guys come in, they are going to have to do what they need to do. It just depends on the scenario. But over the years, people have gotten lost out at Delaney or on the Knobstone trail, and other things of that nature. I've had to deal with a lot of that stuff by myself along with the fire department. And so far, knock on wood, we've always been able to find the people. I've even had standoffs with people before and was able to get the scene under control before any backup got to me. So I mean, it's just knowing your job, knowing your limits and knowing when you need to call for help.”

8. What do you believe sets you apart from your opponents in this race?

“I can't say training because most of us, we all pretty much get the same training through the police academy,” said Blevins. “I think I'm the only one that has experience in police, fire, EMS and deputy coroner. Danny Libka was coroner for a short period. I can't remember when he took over, but he was deputy coroner at some point. I'd say if you put Joe. Danny, I can't speak for Chris because I don't know what all he did for the city. But if you took Joe [Keltner] and Danny [Libka] and our department, I'd say I've probably done twice the amount of accidents, investigations and calls than what any of them have ever done. But bottom-line, I'd say what sets me above them is my training, my experience, and my personal life. My personal life is nothing like some people think that it was. In those first two elections, people were calling me ‘Cocaine Wayne.’ I still have bad allergies, but I was always blowing my nose and sniffing in high school. One of the friends that I had jokingly said, 'what'd you do? A line of coke this morning, Wayne?' So, it was just a small group of friends that said it. It wasn't all the time, but just every now and then they'd say, 'hey, Cocaine Wayne!’ Just like any other stupid nickname you get in school. Well, it went away eventually after I left high school. Then I became a police officer, and people unfortunately wanted to start bringing that back up. And then it went away again. But in those last two elections, people wanted to bring it up again. They said, 'well, I heard you do cocaine and sell cocaine.' Throughout all the random drug tests that I get picked for, I've never flunked a single one. Even when I've gotten hurt and I've had to take a drug test, I've never flunked one. And I say, 'if I was a big drug dealer, I would not be here in Washington County.' I've told people that back in high school in the 80s, I've smoked pot before. Was I a pothead? No. I didn't smoke pot every day. I didn't go out and buy pot. I wasn't selling pot. But back then, most of your parties that you went to were out on farms in the middle of nowhere. You hang out around a bonfire, they pass around a bottle of whiskey or vodka or something, or they pass around a joint. You either took a hit or a swig or you didn't. But the last time I smoked pot, I think I was 18 years old.

“But I met my wife when I was 18 too though,” he added. “She's the best thing that's ever happened to me. It's been three years since she passed away. She was the one that encouraged me to run for sheriff the first time. She said, 'Wayne, you got your 20 years in. You could retire. What do you want to do?' I said, 'as long as I'm healthy enough, I'd like to just be a police officer.' I said, 'if I get to the point where my health or my physical abilities are going to hinder my job or maybe get somebody hurt, then I'll step away.' Right now, I'm still fairly healthy. I keep up with the 20 and 30 year-olds that are in the department. But she's the one that really encouraged me. She said, 'why don't you just run for sheriff?' I said, 'you know, I've always thought about that.' But yes, she was my biggest supporter. We spoke the week before she passed away after I had lost the primary election, and she told me, 'you're going to run again, right?' I said, 'yes, if you want me to run again, I'm going to run again.' So I made a promise to her that no matter what, I'd run again. Win or lose, I'd run one more time. I told her if I lose this time, then it's just not in the stars. So, I would gracefully bow out, and that isn't a big deal for me if I lose the election next year. I'll be 58 this year, and I'll be 59 when I take office. Almost 60 years old. I don't know what my health is going to be like then.

“I can't predict what things are going to be like a year from now,” Blevins continued. “But, my wife has supported me throughout everything, and I made her a promise. I told her, 'you're the one that pushed me.' She supported me when I became a police officer, and she supported me as an EMT as well because at Child Craft, I worked Monday through Friday. Hardly any overtime. Hardly ever worked weekends. Going from that to a job to where you have to work 24 hour shifts and be on call all the time, she supported me through all of that. And then as a reserve, she continued to support me. Then when I told her I wanted to be a full time officer. She remained supportive.

“As far as the jail goes, what works for one jail may not work for our jail,” he said. “And really it's the demographics. I've spoken with different people, like over at Scott County for instance, and they seem to have a pretty decent jail going. Jackson County had a pretty decent drug rehabilitation program going on. But if I was sheriff, I would have to reach out and I might have to go to 4 or 5 jails and take bits and pieces from each of them to make it work for our jail. Nothing is definite and nothing is for sure. But, having the ability to actually reach out and talk to different people and different jails is important because there's still an issue with ours. I see a lot of repeat offenders. Working with other agencies and making sure they know what our resources are, and we know what their resources are is crucial. And another big thing is promoting the transparency and accountability of operations. You've seen here recently with people calling out certain elected officials saying they're corrupt. It's not just here. It's everywhere. But personally, I've witnessed things that I wished I had never witnessed. And unfortunately, whistleblowers are made out to be the bad people, not the ones that are actually bad.

“Moving on to the budget. I've been paying attention for the last 5 or 6 years to the budget,” added Blevins. “And like our overtime, we can't predict our overtime. For instance, tonight. I was hoping to be home at 4:00 pm, but at 4:30 pm, I got sent to a call, and I got stuck. I've listened to Brent talk about the budget, and you can't predict it from one year to the other regarding how much money you need for overtime. It's just impossible. But then again, like I said, the community policing and the training, these are the things that are my priorities. I would just like to have the chance to get in there and do something for the community and not just do it for the power. I've seen power go to people's heads, and they end up being not so good leaders. But I'm laid back. It takes a lot to get me really upset. But like I said, it is so important to treat everybody with respect. The biggest thing that I want to do is restore professionalism and gain people's trust. If I was sheriff, I would be very proactive. If my officers are busy and they have a call waiting, I'm not going to let those people wait. I'll go do the call. It doesn't matter what it is. I will do the call. There is no sense in letting people wait for another officer to get freed up when you or your chief deputy is available.”

9. Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to leave with our readers?

“Like I said, I'm not a politician. I'm looking at it from a road officer's point of view,” concluded Blevins. “I've paid attention to what the last four sheriffs have done, and I have seen the negative states in which people have left it. So, watching how the other four sheriffs before me have done stuff, I want to go into the department, if elected, with an out-of-the-box attitude, and do things a lot differently than in the past. I don't want to be the guy that says, 'I'm the sheriff.' I want to be the guy that says, 'hey, we're a department. We all need to do this.' I don't want to be the person that wants to throw around my title. But, that's just the way I was raised. That's how my mom and dad always raised me. If you want something out of life, you have to go out and earn it. You work for it and earn it. I've never really had anything just given to me in life. I left home when I was 17 years old, and I stayed with friends and went to school. Then, I left school and went to work at Child Craft, met my wife, got married, had a kid, and then had another one. We had a really good life until she got sick and ended up passing away.”