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“It is the Mission of the Kay County Sheriff’s Office to provide quality law enforcement, court security, transport services, juvenile services and civil services to the citizens and visitors of Kay County. We are dedicated to conducting ourselves in a manner respectful of the trust that has been placed upon us and transparency is of upmost importance. We are dedicated to this mission and to the people we serve to ensure that Kay County is a safe place to live, work and visit.” Kay County Sheriff’s Office Mission Statement
Kay County Sheriff Steve Kelley is in his 26th year in law enforcement and when asked what started his interest in the profession, he credits riding with his “good buddy Ian Ewing,” who served the department in Osage County and then Kay County. Helping people in this manner appealed to him. His friend Deputy Ewing was killed in the line of duty in Kay County in May 1999, but his memory lives on through those he affected, and one of those individuals is Sheriff Kelley.
Now in his third term of four years as Kay County Sheriff, Kelley began his work in law enforcement at the Blackwell Police Department in 1998. In 2003 he was hired at the Sheriff’s office and promoted to Undersheriff in 2007. The Sheriff’s position is an elected one, and it was in 2016 that Kelley ran against two opponents to first win the position. He was unopposed in the next two elections.
When Kelley began at the Sheriff’s office in 2003 there were eight employees in the department, but that has grown to 30 total, with 20 of those being law enforcement officers on the street. The command structure is the sheriff, undersheriff, two lieutenants, two sergeants and several deputies to serve the area. One of these is a K9 officer who has a German Shepherd partner Knox. There are also office positions necessary to meet all the requirements of the office, such as an administrator and administrative assistant, as well as six dispatch positions.
In what feels like a very full circle move, Sheriff Kelley recently hired Angel Ewing Kennedy, daughter of the late deputy Ian Ewing, as one of his dispatchers. Angel was born a few months after her father’s death, and she has kept his memory alive ever since she was old enough to do so. Those who know her, know about her father’s service to this community. For Angel, the chance to serve at the Sheriff’s office is special: “I believe it is an honor to work for the agency.” Those who knew her father feel the same about having her there.
There is always a challenge in finding the right individuals to fill the positions needed for the office, and the requirements they meet are diverse. They serve a county that is 900 square miles, and they are bound by state statute and county constitution. Besides patrol and investigation, part of their many duties include serving civil papers and transporting prisoners to court. According to Sheriff Kelley, deputies serve 1300-1400 civil process papers each year, such as those for lawsuits or evictions. They also travel 60,000-70,000 miles every year to transport juveniles and 45,000-50,000 miles for adult transport. Sheriff Kelley says the miles per year for the department for transport and patrol combined run 450,000-580,000.
As for the most challenging part of his job, Sheriff Kelley says it is staffing and funding, especially with call volume and transports needed. Protection of the county is a large task even when working together with other agencies. Area law enforcement agencies often work together for their common goals, and the Sheriff’s office has three deputies on the DA’s Drug Task Force. The drug problem is one that agencies generally work together on for the best outcomes.
Although drug enforcement isn’t a major part of Undersheriff Sean Grigsba’s job now, it has been in the past. He started working for the Sheriff’s office 17 years ago when the current Sheriff was Undersheriff, and he was promoted to Undersheriff eight years ago when Sheriff Kelley won the election. Grigsba emphasizes how decriminalization of meth possession has increased its use. Officers still must work to keep it off the streets, but without a stronger deterrent there is often a great deal of time and work for little outcome. However, Grigsba mentions that the worst drug on the streets is fentanyl, due to higher death rates. The problems aren’t only the drug offenses, stresses Grigsba, but also the adjacent and residual crimes that take place. We see crime rates often rise along with drug use.
According to Undersheriff Grigsba, “Agencies have come together better now than in the past.” He believes recent years have seen this change due to better and faster communication, primarily with texting and messaging capabilities. All technology at the department is better now, says Grigsba, because Sheriff Kelley “moved us out of 1975.” Updated and more computers were a big change because they used to have four (one for the sheriff, one for the undersheriff, and two for all the deputies to share — with none being synced with each other). There have been great strides in the progress for the department.
With the new facility, a Jail Trust Authority was put into effect 2008-9, and the Sheriff serves as its chair. There is also a county commissioner and three others from the community. There is a 2/3 cent tax that was passed for the building. The building hosts the Sheriff’s office on one side and the jail on the other. Since they’ve grown, the jail has its own director to run day-to-day operations, and the director reports to the Trust Authority, which approves the budget and purchases. The jail can hold up to 366 inmates. The average for county inmates is 280 individuals, so the facility contracts with agencies to make the best use of the facility since this is triple the population of the previous jail. There are 76 employees on the jail side of the facility with a structure much like the Sheriff’s office: the director, an assistant director/captain, lieutenants, sergeants and detention officers. The cost of housing an individual is $52 a day, with food costing $25,000-30,000 a month and medical costing about a million a year. Even though they are in the same building, the jail and sheriff’s office have separate budgets.
One of the concerns Sheriff Kelley has is that in 2029 the debt will be paid for and, at that time, part of the tax is scheduled to drop off with part kept in place to pay for expenses. However, he realizes they need the full tax to continue meeting the costs. If this comes to a vote, it is important that people in the county realize how frugal they have been with tax dollars.
Sheriff Kelley says, “Most all equipment purchased in the last 8-10 years has been through grants and donations rather than taxpayer’s money.” He goes on to explain that many other items have been funded this way as well, such as the three drones and the department’s K9 Knox and the equipment needed to provide the K9 service. Knox, handled by deputy Dakota Jarvis, is a dual purpose K9, serving on searches, manhunts and with drugs. Knox has just recently apprehended a fleeing suspect in a drug raid, so he is certainly proving his worth to the department. All this and more, with no grant writer on staff.
In addition, their gun range, which Sheriff Kelley says “is the best shooting range in the state of Oklahoma,” was purchased with federal funding and not our citizen’s tax dollars. The officers stay trained and focused on their many jobs, and it is critical to have the resources they need at hand. There are numerous items, even a boat to help with lake searches, that keep our county deputies ready to assist the citizens or those visiting the county when crisis occurs.
When asked about the most fulfilling part of his job, Sheriff Kelley says, “Helping the victims. We are ready when someone calls us.” Kelley even mentioned the pleasure of returning items after a search warrant has been executed and stolen items discovered, such as a recent return of some stolen rare coins to an individual. Sometimes items have great monetary worth and other times high sentiment, but either way there is satisfaction in their return.
For Sheriff Steve Kelley, whose heart is in helping the people of Kay County, much of his time is spent at the capital during legislative sessions to ensure those who represent us there understand how the bills before them impact our communities and law enforcement. He strives to keep all safe in the best ways possible, and this includes his officers when there are bills that would infringe on their safety.
Those in the department often serve in other ways in the community and state. Sheriff Kelley is an instructor for new sheriffs with the Oklahoma Sheriff Associations (there are 27 new sheriffs in class this year) and serves as Vice President of their board. He is the first to represent Kay County at the state level. In addition, he is the president of the local United Way board, having served as its campaign chair last year. Undersheriff Grigsba is co-chair of the current Ponca City Leadership program. There are two deputies who work with the DARE program, which was started again last year in a couple of the more rural areas of the county. It is expected to spread to other areas. These individuals have a stake in the community they serve.
Another service is the Sheriff’s Citizens Academy, which hosts up to 20 each year for nine weeks. It has been changed to October to keep it from conflicting with the Academy put on by the Ponca City Police Department. You can look for further information about this as it gets closer to that time on their Facebook page or website at www.courthouse.kay.ok.us/176/Kay-County-Sheriffs-Office. However, in the meantime, consider following their FB page for good information about your county, and you can find further information about their mission and more on the above website. The department members are like family, and they’ve kept a full staff at a time when that is nearly impossible for most places of business. They are a diverse group of individuals with leaders who value them and all they do. There is much more to this department and its officers than you may have realized, and this is a good time to thank them for their service to our county.
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