Only a few people have asked about the lede in my story on Shelby County Sheriff Mark Luttrell's county mayoral victory, pointing out that he becomes the fourth elected county mayor to have served a stint as sheriff. We knew Roy Nixon (1st county mayor, elected 1975) and Bill Morris (2nd county mayor) but a trusted friend's email sent us to the newspaper morgue (what we call our library of clip files) to confirm that Jim Rout (3rd county mayor) did indeed serve as interim sheriff for the first month of 1976, after Nixon became mayor.
So we have had five elected county mayors, all of them winning by at least 12 percentage points and at least 12,000 votes ... and four of those five had a stint as Shelby County Sheriff. When you consider that now-Memphis mayor A C Wharton, the one exception, was chief of the public defender's office for so many years, it creates an interesting picture of what voters want (or do not want) out of their county mayor. Law-and-order/legal expertise seems to be valued, though to be fair Rout -- who had also served as county coroner when there was such a thing -- was much more known as a county commissioner with business experience.
And one more thought -- if in November county commissioners Wyatt Bunker and/or Mike Ritz had voted against Joe Ford in the final round of voting to fill out Wharton's term, it's very likely Otis Higgs would have been the interim mayor. And Higgs, you may recall, served ably as interim county sheriff after the Jack Owens suicide.
So we have had five elected county mayors, all of them winning by at least 12 percentage points and at least 12,000 votes ... and four of those five had a stint as Shelby County Sheriff. When you consider that now-Memphis mayor A C Wharton, the one exception, was chief of the public defender's office for so many years, it creates an interesting picture of what voters want (or do not want) out of their county mayor. Law-and-order/legal expertise seems to be valued, though to be fair Rout -- who had also served as county coroner when there was such a thing -- was much more known as a county commissioner with business experience.
And one more thought -- if in November county commissioners Wyatt Bunker and/or Mike Ritz had voted against Joe Ford in the final round of voting to fill out Wharton's term, it's very likely Otis Higgs would have been the interim mayor. And Higgs, you may recall, served ably as interim county sheriff after the Jack Owens suicide.
And I've know every one of them. Thanks for reminding us that Bluenose Ritz and Boobie Boy Bunker inflicted a Ford on us by believing his lie.