Answering the call: After 16 years, Cape Girardeau County sheriff still loves job

A career in law enforcement was always on John Jordan's mind, especially after attending college in Mississippi, where he worked in public safety, mostly fighting fires. With experience at the Bollinger County Sheriff's Department, a spot on the area's Major Case Squad and years of undercover work investigating drug-related crimes, Jordan said, he had a good resume to run for sheriff of Cape Girardeau County in 1994. Sixteen years later and with 31 years as an officer, the Southeast Missouri native still is passionate about law enforcement and has learned that being open with the public he serves and respectful of his staff is a part of what makes him good at his job.

Question: What was it like growing up in Southeast Missouri?

Answer: My dad worked in St. Louis and was gone most of the time during the week. Mom corralled us kids, a total of seven boys. I was the seventh son. Dad came home on weekends and we all lined up and got our whopping for whatever it was we did during the week. It was a great, great way to grow up. Country living. I grew up dirt poor. Running water was in the creek. We had an outhouse and never knew that we were poor. We were raised with a sense of responsibility to the community and more so to our neighbors. We were our neighbor's keeper. It was just ingrained in us that we were to be helpful in the community. We were to honor our mother and father, honor God and honor other people in the same respect.

Q: When did you or how did you become keen on choosing a career in law enforcement?

A: As I grew up, I went to Woodland High School, I was involved with various organizations there. Rural fire departments, conservation departments -- fighting brush fires and stuff like that. And so I was pretty intrigued by the law enforcement most of my life and had a very healthy respect for law enforcement. When I graduated high school I went to Wesley College in Florence, Miss. While I was there the law enforcement bug really caught up with me, because I became I familiar with the police commissioner there in Florence; we became good friends. He asked me to be on the reserves there. So when I came back home, I went to work in Bollinger County as a dispatcher, jailer; I did everything. I got great experience there, because you did have to do everything and you had to learn how to do every aspect of the job.

Q: What makes you a good sheriff?

A: The basic concepts that were instilled in me early. We are our neighbor's keeper and you try to help people if you can. Sometimes they're not going to agree with you no matter what. There's one rule I've always lived by, and it's that you cannot reason with the unreasonable, so don't try. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but there have been times that I've had to cut people off. I do try to treat employees how I would like to be treated. I'm fundamentally fair to everyone. I am not an iron-fisted ruler. I try to lead by example as far as doing the right thing, and I have surrounded myself with the same type of people in leadership positions. I have maintained almost all of those people, too, from day one. They're very hard-working people.

Q: What's surprised you about this career choice?

A: As far as surprises, I think the one thing about law enforcement is every day is potentially something you've never seen before and just when you think you've seen about everything you see something else that makes you say 'Wow, that happened here.' You see so much of the bad side of life that you have to stay focused through family, your personal relationship with God to see the good. You have to look for the good in people, because it's there. It's easy to become cynical. But when you become cynical, you become useless to the public.

Q: What are some memorable points during your time at the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department?

A: I've seen triple homicides. I've seen serious rapes. But I've seen the solving of the serial killings from the late 1970s, early '80s. I've seen that in my career, which was a great day for the citizens of Cape Girardeau when Timothy Krajcir was arrested and the families being able to have closure. I've witnessed having to build a jail, which is an extremely large undertaking when you're dealing with government, and we were able to do that without a tax to the people through using the federal marshal service, guaranteeing bed space there and using a per-diem to offset the cost of the new justice center. Since 2000, I was picked to be the fiduciary agent for the MoSMART program -- the Missouri Sheriff's Methamphetamine Relief Team. I was asked by Sen. Kit Bond to write a program dealing with rural methamphetamine and labs specifically. We have run a very successful program and distributed $18 million, probably close to $20 million now to rural departments around the state drug task forces and sheriff's departments to deal with cleaning up meth labs.

Q: I know you've put a lot of effort in trying to fight the meth issue in Missouri, do you have other goals as sheriff?

A: I'm happy being sheriff, I do plan to run in 2012 for re-election. After that, I'm really going to have to talk a hard look at what I'm going to do after that, because I think any public servant can wear out their welcome, no matter if they've got a good reputation and are doing a good job. I'd like to go out on a high note, if possible. After that, I'm sure I'll hang around law enforcement somewhere, in advisory positions or wherever, and I'm going to go fishing.

ehevern@semissourian.com

388-3635