Millboro Ruritan Club Hosts Debate for Bath County Sheriff Candidates

Millboro, VA – On Tuesday October 18, the Millboro Ruritan Club hosted a debate for the candidates for Sheriff of Bath County. The event was held at Millboro Elementary School and all four candidates attended, S. Todd Frye, J. L. Pete Minetree, III, R. Larry Norfleet and Robert W. Plecker.

In this story you’ll hear two candidates responding to the question: What experience do you have that makes you the best qualified candidate for Sheriff and how much law enforcement experience will you bring to the job?

Robert Plecker – “I started out my career at the Bath County PD. If you guys don’t know where that was at, it was The Homestead. I hired on as a security officer. If you guys didn’t know Mr. McCollum, Dave McCollum, he walked in one day and asked me if I wanted to be a police officer. I was like, yeah, thought maybe it would come down the road. Two weeks later I’m in road school. So that was a big change. I had a little over eight years at The Homestead Police Department. If you don’t know The Homestead Police Department, they actually fire and rescue dispatch for the whole county at one time. We actually answered calls for the Sheriff’s Office at one time. So we did a lot through that police department. I’ve got a little over eight years there. I couldn’t do the programs that I thought I was good at within the school, so I got an offer to come to the Sheriff’s office under Sheriff Black, which I did. I now have right at sixteen years here. So I bring 23 plus years to the department. As far as training, I know there’s classes. I asked the Sheriff about this. There are classes that a new Sheriff is offered. I’m going to take everything that’s available to me to help me in this position. But I’m also going to listen to my guys in the department and they’re going to help me with the decision making and that’s why I talked about the communication process of it.”

Todd Frye – “I started my career in 1989 at the Bath County Sheriff’s Office. I worked as a dispatcher and jailer, the jail was still open then. I accepted the position, worked with Mr. Plecker at the Bath County Special Police Department, which was at The Homestead and worked there up until the new owners came in and decided they were going to do away with the department. My love for police work didn’t want to quit. So I was hired at the Alleghany County Sheriff’s Department. I worked there for several years. Worked as a DARE officer and patrol officer. Got an opportunity to go to work for Covington City, where I’m at now. I currently hold the position of shift supervisor. It’s my job to ensure that everything that goes on in that shift is taken care of and done properly. Other experiences I had I’m going to bring here is drug task force. The Sheriff said the drug task force has stepped up and they have, they’ve done a lot better job across the last four years. The best part of that is Sheriff Hall in Alleghany County provided a full time task force member. Mr. Smith sitting back there will tell you, he and I did a whole lot, just he and I . Now you got four or five guys working instead of two. My biggest asset to this department is going to be my drug task force and my drug enforcement experience. Unless you have blinders on, the drug problem is not getting any better in this county, it’s getting bigger. Out of all the candidates sitting up here, I’m the most qualified to fight the drug problem we’ve got. I’ve experienced it, I’ve been there, done it. There’s no reason we can’t do a little better up here.”

Story By

Heather Niday

Heather is our Program Director and Traffic Manager. She started with Allegheny Mountain Radio as a volunteer deejay. She then joined the AMR staff in February of 2007. Heather grew up in the Richmond, Virginia, area and now lives in Arbovale, West Virginia with her husband Chuck. Heather is a wonderful flute player, and choir director for Arbovale UMC. You can hear Heather along with Chuck on Tuesday nights from 6 to 8pm as they host two hours of jazz on Something Different.

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