HARDIN CO.—After last night’s county board meeting brouhaha, which lead basically to nowhere except perhaps recriminations, a sensible solution might soon be reached: The Hardin County board appears to be considering the late sheriff Lloyd “Smokey” Cullison’s wife Joyce as an appointee to replace him.
According to reports out of Hardin tonight, Joyce Cullison, who’s been helping out at the sheriff’s office in an administrative capacity since Smokey was in office and especially since he’d been sick with cancer, is a consideration for the county board.
County board chairman Wayne Eichorn says he’s giving Joyce time to bury her late husband and to grieve before he offers her—or anyone else—the option of taking over the office. Our Hardin sources have told us since yesterday that it wouldn’t be the first time a sheriff’s wife had taken over the office in the event of his death: in 1999, when Sheriff Tom Dutton died in office, his wife, Jackie, was appointed and took over what was largely administrative duties (Jackie, incidentally, was the sheriff who gave Smokey his deputy job way back when). Most of the law enforcement end would continue to be handled by chief deputy Tom Maynor under the circumstance of Joyce Cullison taking the office of sheriff until a new sheriff could be duly elected in the next available general election, which would naturally be this November.
The main problem with Maynor, however, is his history.
According to folks with whom he’s worked, Maynor has a lot of baggage, including an incident that occurred in Dupo some years ago, which when they were brought up to the Galatia board not long ago, reportedly cost Maynor his job in that little burg.
We’re working on the details. However, in the meantime, Hardin still has deputies, as we’re hearing that last night’s threats of all the deputies quitting over keeping coroner Roger Little in office any longer than necessary was somewhat…overblown. We’re working on that too. Suffice it to say, according to the Constitution and Illinois law, Little can only remain sheriff for 60 days following the duly-elected one’s death or incapacitation; then an appointment needs to be made, followed by a proper election for the fulfillment of the unexpired term.
We’ll see how this shakes out.