BELLE — Chief Deputy Scott John, 55,  is running for Maries County Sheriff under the Republican ticket in the August primaries. The United States Navy veteran has held most positions at the Maries County Sheriff’s Office during his eight years of employment and said serving the community was always the plan.

“This has been the plan the entire time I’ve been at the sheriff’s office, to run for sheriff,” John said on Monday. “This wasn’t just a decision that came upon me within the last year. This is what the goal was from the time I joined the sheriff’s office in 2015 as a full-time officer.”

John previously worked for Olfa Point, the largest employer of visually impaired people in the state of Missouri, at Ft. Leonard Wood. He was the site manager for the supply center and managed the operation for 10 years. In 2013, he was at the sheriff’s office taking a conceal-and-carry class and offered his services as a chaplain.

“Sheriff (Mike Bohnam in Osage County)was a deputy for Maries County and the chaplain at the time,” John said. “I didn’t know it then, but Bohnam had resigned from the position about three hours earlier.”

John and his wife Bonnie purchased his childhood home located on the family’s farm in Vichy after he left the Navy years earlier. He was feeding hay to the cows when Maries County Sheriff Chris Heitman contacted him the day after he offered to serve as the office chaplain.

“Sheriff arranged a meeting and I met with him and another one of the deputies and he hired me as chaplain, which was a volunteer position,” John said. “I spent about a year working in the jail with inmates doing Bible Study and I rode with deputies every weekend. It opened my eyes to the need for local people to become law enforcement officers. Which leads back to why I decided to become a deputy and run for sheriff.”

John paid out of pocket to attend the Missouri Sheriff’s Association Academy in 2014, saying he saw a need in law enforcement and signed up for the civilian academy.

“For almost an entire year, every Tuesday and Thursday I got off work in Ft. Leonard Wood and drove to class in Jefferson City,” John said. “And every other Saturday.”

He graduated from the Missouri Sheriff’s Academy in 2014.

“After I graduated, I volunteered for a year working weekends for the sheriff’s office while still working at Fort Wood,” John said.

In 2015, the sheriff’s office had a road deputy position become available.

“That’s when Sheriff Heitman talked to me about working full-time and talked to me about being his replacement,” John said. “Knowing I was leaving a good job to come here, we discussed me working up to being his chief deputy and preparing me to replace him when he retired.”

John believed in the work the sheriff’s office did and threw himself into learning every aspect of the department as a whole.

“I started as a night-time patrol deputy, working my way up through the ranks, working all of the different positions in the sheriff’s office with the exception of a couple,” John said. “But I’ve been a deputy, dispatch supervisor, detective, jail supervisor, and chief deputy. Over the past three years, I’ve worked the day-to-day operations as a chief deputy, even controlling the budget.”

John said the segue into working for the Maries County Sheriff’s Office was working security in the military.

“The allure was always there,” John said about becoming a police officer. “I’ve done four years of security forces work while in the Navy, at sea during Desert Storm. After that, I transferred to shore duty where I worked as a Navy recruiter in Nashville, Tenn., where my oldest son was born. It gave me an opportunity to be home every night and weekend. Being able to have that family time was a big part of my decision not to go into law enforcement right out of the military.”

John wasn’t interested in working a dangerous job with his wife and young children at home. By the time he offered his services to the Maries County Sheriff’s Office, his sons were in their late teens and early 20s.

“It felt like the timing was right,” he said.

John has balanced his full-time career at the sheriff’s office with being a pastor at Broadway Baptist Church, located on Highway 68 near the Vichy Airport.

“I started my career at the sheriff’s office because of my role as a pastor,” he said. “As a pastor, you have to help people through difficult situations and dealing with the consequences. Poor life decisions with substance abuse are going to affect jobs and marriages. There are still consequences for that. I’m a compassionate person, and I think that helps me to treat people more humanely. However, I also understand people are still responsible for their actions.”

While John says he has learned a lot while working at the sheriff’s office, there is always more.

“Sheriff Heitman has mentored my entire career here,” he said. “But there are other people during my career that I have looked to and looked back on lessons taught.”

He also considers instructors from the police academy and many different law enforcement officers who have shared their knowledge and instruction to be mentors. After eight years of absorbing the knowledge of others and accumulating hands-on experience, John was ready to run for Maries County Sheriff. 

“I believe I learned as much as could be learned,” John said about his years in law enforcement. “There are always going to be scenarios and situations that arise that haven’t arised before. In this business, every time you think you’ve seen everything, something new arrives. But Sheriff Heitman, I believe, has thoroughly prepared me for running the sheriff’s office. Plus, I’ve developed great relationships with neighboring sheriffs. I think I have a good support group if something arises that I’ve never heard of before.”

John continues to reside in Vichy at the family farm with his wife Bonnie, a 20-year St. James school teacher who plans to retire at the end of next school year.

“I married her seven days after I graduated high school,” John said. “We’ve been together 37 years. We have two sons and a granddaughter.”

His roots run deep in Maries County.

“My grandpa Kermit John was a founding member of the livestock barn that just got tore down at the intersection of Highway 28 and Highway 63 spur in Vienna. He was a farmer his entire life. My mom was a Spurgeon and her dad, my grandpa, was Galloway Spurgeon who started the Philips 66 Station in St. James. He had family from Belle, Bland and Owensville areas. Some were teachers. My Uncle Allan owned the lime quarry outside of Belle and his wife, Aunt Georgia, worked at the courthouse her whole life.

“I grew up in Vichy. I live in the house I grew up in. I moved back to the area and bought one of the family houses from my grandfather and we raised our two boys there. It’s a multi-generational farm my great-grandparents lived on.”

John said his work with the sheriff’s office and as a pastor has allowed him to meet many people, but he is looking forward to connecting with more.

“I’m doing door-to-door campaigning and will be working hard over the next four weeks,” he said. “I’ve done Facebook posts and television interviews for the sheriff’s office over the years. I think the community knows me.”