Episode 10 - Service & Legacy – Sheriff Loren Anderson

In this episode of the View from 100 podcast, Sheriff Jay Armbrister and recently retired Capt. Jason Grems sit down with former Douglas County Sheriff Loren Anderson, who hired both of them in the late 1990s, to trace the evolution of the Sheriff’s Office and Loren’s remarkable career. 

Anderson reflects on growing up near Clinton, joining the office in 1965 under Sheriff Rex Johnson, working his way from deputy to undersheriff and eventually serving 12 years as sheriff. He oversaw major changes such as the move from a nine-person operation to a modern agency with full 24/7 coverage, the construction of new jail facilities, the adoption of direct supervision, radio system upgrades and the creation of the juvenile detention center. 

Throughout the conversation, Jay and Jason share personal stories about Loren’s influence on their careers and the agency’s culture, particularly his emphasis on fairness, community-based decision-making and adapting to shifting challenges like mental health and drug issues. Their discussion helps frame Anderson as a foundational figure in what the Douglas County Sheriff's Office is today.

Transcript

Jay Armbrister: 0:11

There's very few things that are as selfless as coming into law enforcement, into the corrections, coming to a sheriff's office in this day and age,

Dalton Welsh: 0:21

from the heart of the country, in Douglas County, Kansas, this is View from 100 a behind-the-scenes look at law enforcement, community, and the stories that shape our county.

Jay Armbrister: 0:31

It's an honor and a privilege to serve not just the community, but my community. I mean, I was born and raised here.

Dalton Welsh: 0:37

Hosted by your sheriff, Jay Armbruster, bringing you insights from the badge and beyond.

Jay Armbrister: 0:48

Welcome back to episode 10 of the Douglas County Sheriff's Office View from 100 podcast. This is a, of course, this is every episode is very special, but this one is actually extremely special. We've got two very special guests, one of them, a very dear friend of mine, and a very good, a very big hero in my, in my career, in my life. But it's this beautiful April afternoon, afternoon, and we're gonna, we're gonna talk through some history of the Sheriff's Office, history of Douglas County, just kind of where things were back when, back when this county and city were were the same but different and I just I want to welcome you both to the to the program and I'm going to start with Jason, the Jason Grimms, he's a recently retired captain with the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, has come back to work for us part time doing some odds and ends jobs but he spent 25 years with the sheriff's office working alongside me for most of almost all of that, and then retired Sheriff Loren Anderson, he retired in 2000 He hired both of us back in the late 90s, to as much to his and many other people's chagrin, but he was with the sheriff's office for many, many years. And I'll let, I'll let them introduce themselves, but Jason, why don't you tell everybody, like, who you are, where you come from, why are you here, why do you stay here?

Jason Grems: 2:05

Well, hello. Thank you, Sheriff, and thank you, Sheriff Anderson, for being here. Sure, I agree with Jay's comments about you being a hero, both of us. And by the way, thank you for the job. Yeah, me too. Yeah, my wife, we're getting

Loren Anderson: 2:22

started. Good, we're on the attack. What you did,

Jason Grems: 2:28

and you certainly made it look easy.

Jay Armbrister: 2:31

Yeah, for sure.

Jason Grems: 2:32

But I know it wasn't. My name is Jason Grems. I was born and raised here. I went to grade school in junior high and high school, Sunset Hill Elementary, West Junior High, Lawrence High School. After that, I worked a couple different jobs, and I was.. I'd always thought about law enforcement, and I was working at a chemical factory here in Douglas County, and I decided that I didn't want to do 40 years of that, and so I applied, and it went, it went quite quickly for me. It was about a three or four day process from start to finish, luckily, and it was right about the part that they were hiring, the sheriff was hiring in the county for ramping up to open the new jail, man, so there was just a lot of us kind of crammed in the old jail, you know, and so we would kind of be tripping over each other, and, and trying to find things to do, and probably creating more bad than good, for sure,

Jay Armbrister: 3:52

and that many idle hands, idle hands,

Jason Grems: 3:55

and especially when you're in your early 20s, you can't sit still, so oftentimes I look back over my career in different positions I've held, and it's made me, and each position I advanced to, I got more so where I still don't understand how you got an hour sleep at night, and I've asked other, I've asked other people that, like, how did you go home and go to bed and and rest at all, especially, or at least knowing what I know, and us being in our early 20s, out running around or working at the jail or doing whatever, but I got hired on with the Sheriff's Office, july 26 of 99 I started at the old jail. I went to the new jail shortly after that. Sheriff Anderson promoted me to deputy and sent me through the academy, which I successfully completed. I came. Back after a short time I went through the field training process to be a patrol deputy, and then after a number of years I started getting promoted to different positions, and I've always.. I want to say something that I've at the time, you know, when you're young, all you, all you, all you can focus on is being a patrol deputy, like that's your, that's the pinnacle, the

Jay Armbrister: 5:27

end goal,

Jason Grems: 5:28

you know? I mean, that's where you want to be for your entire career, and you can't believe they're allowing you to do it, and you're paying me to do this for free, you know, and, and you know, you've got all your stuff in your car, and you're just trying out trying to do the right thing, and as time goes by, what I found with the sheriff's office, and the reason why I felt I was always a better fit with the sheriff's office, as opposed to some other agencies, was the ability to move around, and at times some were welcomed moves, and at sometimes they weren't so welcomed, and but what I found were even the ones that I didn't really, that I left fighting and kicking and complaining, like when I got shuffled back to the jail as a supervisor, I remember, you know, like, how, how can, how dare they do that? Don't they know my value? Yeah, yeah, you know, here I've got 1213, whatever years of patrol experience, and I'm going back to the jail, and I went back to the jail, and you know, as kind of dragging my lip, and, and I said, you know what, I'm going to give this a chance, I'm going to give it four six months, or whatever, and it not only turned out to be a benefit for, well, it turned out to be a benefit for the department and for me and the sheriff at the time and the captains at the time were able to see that I needed a break from what I had been doing, and it's something that I never would have seen myself, you know, and it turned out I really enjoyed my time in operations, and I enjoyed my time at the jail.

Loren Anderson: 7:29

Sure,

Jason Grems: 7:29

and I was very thankful for all the different sheriffs and different positions that the I've been able

Jay Armbrister: 7:37

to go through. I've said that over and over, too. Is that that's a lot of people like to ask, what's the difference between the sheriff's office and a police department? There's a lot of differences, but there's a lot of similarities as well. But for us specifically, we just have so many different places to go and work within our agency, whereas a police department, you have road patrol officers, you have detectives, you have supervisors, maybe you have a training unit, maybe you have some other specialized unit, but it's very limited in what you can and can't do. For us, we have people who can start in the jail and decide, I don't ever want to leave the jail, or they want to be a deputy, but they want to work in the jail, and they can be commissioned, or they can go on patrol, or they can go detectives, they can go to court and security, they can go to warrants, they can go to civil process. We have all these other different things to do, and I think that's a huge advantage for folks like you and I, who, who time out, who maybe have a bit of an expiration in one one spot and need to go somewhere else. I mean, I've been pretty clear about about my path, and in 2017 I asked to leave detectives because I just, I had expired, like I was done, I couldn't do that anymore, and there was an option for me to go and do something else, whereas other agencies, it could have been very limited, or it could have been the end, and so I've always been extremely proud of that, and I'm glad that you mentioned that. So,

Jason Grems: 8:48

well, I want to add something to that real quick, because, is when, when I had been reassigned to the jail, my captain at the time, who I dearly respect to this day, I remember he came out to my house to tell me, and he said, and he was the patrol captain, and he said, "Man, you've been working all these cases and doing these search warrants and stuff, and you've just been like nailing this stuff, it's like everything's just turned into gold, but and he gives me the news, and he says, but we all feel that it's, it's basically, it's become too personal. Yeah, and it's, it's just, it's, it, as you said, timed out, yeah. And it's just, it's grinding on you too much, and we can see it, and you need a break. Yep,

Jay Armbrister: 9:40

absolutely,

Jason Grems: 9:41

and they can, they could not have been more correct. That's

Jay Armbrister: 9:44

absolutely right. No, I, I look back, and considering where I am now, and considering where I was at certain points in my career, people will say, like, well, what would you have done different? Considering where I am now, I'm not, I wouldn't do a thing different, but it sure was difficult at the time. Them to make those decisions to make those changes, whether they were my choice or not. So, so, thanks, thanks, Jason. Thanks for coming, Loren. I'm gonna turn to you. Tell us, I mean, man, I just tell us about you.

Loren Anderson: 10:16

Well, where do we start? I grew up in Clinton, in the town of Clinton, west west side of Douglas County Central,

Jay Armbrister: 10:23

and that was before there was a lake named Clinton. Right?

Loren Anderson: 10:31

You asked earlier about what made me.. how did I come to the conclusion to be in law enforcement? Sure, I went after I graduated from high school. I went to college for two years, and I had 65 credit hours, and they told me I needed to declare a major. I said, I really don't know what I want to do, so I quit. I majored in quitting, and got a job with a little farmer and took the test for a state trooper and I was in the field one day and sheriff's car come rolling into the end of the field and it was Sheriff Johnson,

Jay Armbrister: 11:23

Rex Johnson, Rex Johnson,

Loren Anderson: 11:24

and he said,"Understand, you took the test for Highway Patrol, and he said,"I said, yeah. We said, "Are you going to go to work for him? I said, "Well, I haven't heard from him. Yeah, why don't you come in and talk and work for me? Okay,

Jay Armbrister: 11:39

yeah.

Loren Anderson: 11:39

So I did.

Jay Armbrister: 11:40

That was it, yeah. it? He put an application with you to come to work for that,

Loren Anderson: 11:48

and he was an inspiration for me. Sure, and that went on. I was lucky to. I enjoyed my work the whole time, yeah, and he gave me opportunities that I didn't even know were happening, yeah, you're speaking to me there, and ended up I got when we started out, we didn't, we, it was, it was nine people worked there, nine employees,

Jay Armbrister: 12:28

nine, we have nine

Jason Grems: 12:30

on each shift now. Yeah,

Loren Anderson: 12:33

that included the part-time dispatchers.

Jay Armbrister: 12:35

Oh my gosh,

Loren Anderson: 12:37

that came in at night, because we didn't have a human, have a patrol.

Jay Armbrister: 12:41

Yeah,

Loren Anderson: 12:42

it was. We had two deputies, an under sheriff and sheriff. Well, there's there was another deputy that did most of the jail work and all the photography. Sure. Anyway, we got a patrol for those who worked well for the first couple of years, it was just take call, work nine hours a day, and then take call,

Jay Armbrister: 13:13

yeah,

Loren Anderson: 13:14

and then we got set up to where we were working, one of us came in at three worked till 11

Jay Armbrister: 13:24

three in the morning or three in the afternoon. Okay,

Loren Anderson: 13:26

and the other one came in at six and worked till two, so somebody

Jason Grems: 13:31

out in the middle of the night

Loren Anderson: 13:33

took call, or from two to three, but and we didn't, and most of the time you worked by yourself, there was no black car, right? Right, you didn't just, you just didn't overload your family, that's good words to live by. And then we hired, we got two more, and eventually we got full shift coverage. You were still by yourself a lot, right? But we had 24 hour coverage every day of the year.

Jay Armbrister: 14:09

What year did you start with Sheriff's Office?

Loren Anderson: 14:13

November 65

Jay Armbrister: 14:14

of 65 Okay. Oh my gosh, and you.. so you would have been what, 22 years? Sounds like

Loren Anderson: 14:22

that, yeah. And then I got surprised, I haven't figured out yet one day when he, Sheriff Johnson, made me the undersheriff, and did the

Jay Armbrister: 14:39

previous undersheriff leave, or no, he

Loren Anderson: 14:41

went to the jail.

Jay Armbrister: 14:42

Oh, okay, gotcha.

Loren Anderson: 14:44

Because we had moved then by then into the new facility. Before that, we were in the old, old, old jail. Yeah, so, so I'll

Jay Armbrister: 14:52

just lay that out. So, the old jail was, so the historic courthouse that we have now, that is at 11th and mass with the big clock in the top,

Loren Anderson: 14:59

yeah.

Jay Armbrister: 15:00

It was a building that was between that was off to the east side of it, and that was the jail and sheriff's office, correct?

Loren Anderson: 15:06

Yes, and the living quarters for the show,

Jay Armbrister: 15:08

and the sheriff and his family lived in the upstairs of that. Do you remember how many cells or how many beds there were in that old jail?

Loren Anderson: 15:18

I'm gonna say we could hold 1818

Jay Armbrister: 15:23

okay? And was it usually full, or

Loren Anderson: 15:27

it wasn't full until 7070 okay? 70, a lot of things changed. I started 65 and by 70 we were having pretty much around 12 to 15 all the time, okay? Gotcha, mostly 15, okay. And then it moved, of course, to we were, yeah. So we're,

Jay Armbrister: 15:49

we're where I'm at today at 11th and New Hampshire, what we call the courthouse or law enforcement center, that was built in 75 opened in 76 I believe. So, and then, and that was that jail was on the second floor, which is where Jason and I started our careers. The second floor, it was what we call linear style jail, and it, as I recall, had 50 - it was a 50 bed, or 50 inmates, is what we tried to keep it around,

Loren Anderson: 16:15

right?

Jay Armbrister: 16:16

Yeah, and, and it's.. I always.. I look back now, it's the kind of jail you picture from old movies. It was, you know, had the big metal bars that rolled and clam shut, you know, and then it had the had the big levers that you had to pull to open doors, and these great big keys you carried. It was, it was much different when we moved into the what I now refer to as the new jail, in suits, 90 september 11 of 99 is when we moved into that building, but so, so, so, Sheriff Johnson and his family lived in

Loren Anderson: 16:52

the upstairs, upstairs. Well, actually, though, it was, it was a pretty nice place, I say, upstairs, it was under bedrooms were upstairs, but it had a kitchen dining room.

Jay Armbrister: 17:05

Oh my gosh,

Loren Anderson: 17:06

not bad. Yeah, no, that even had a front door.

Jay Armbrister: 17:09

Okay, okay. And so when you guys..

Jason Grems: 17:14

there's a picture of it, yeah. So,

Jay Armbrister: 17:15

and when we'll throw the picture up on the up on the screen for folks following along, but yeah, that's, and that picture was probably right towards the, this, the late mid 70s, as I recall. In fact, one of the pictures I saw of that had like a 76 olds 98 parked out front, so that had to be right about the same time that it was that we were moving into the new building, probably went down, probably did, probably did out

Loren Anderson: 17:40

just as quick as we moved into the,

Jay Armbrister: 17:42

okay, so do you, that makes where your

Loren Anderson: 17:44

office is now, yeah,

Jay Armbrister: 17:45

yeah. So, in 65 do you remember what kind of cars you guys were, what the patrol deputies were driving in the 60, late 60s?

Loren Anderson: 17:52

Yeah, we had a 63 and a 64 Dodge with a 383 four speed Hurst. Yeah, well, we don't have those anymore. They were good cars. That's a,

Jay Armbrister: 18:09

that's a, that's a, that's a fact, that's, that's, that's quite a car.

Loren Anderson: 18:13

I used to, I used to, you could chirp the tires when you chip shifted to fourth gear, which it's so, it's

Jay Armbrister: 18:22

so funny too, because we recently, a couple years ago, purchased a kind of a hot rod car show car, and it's got a six speed manual transmission, and only I'd say less than half of my staff can drive it, because they don't know how to drive manual transmissions, and it's always funny too, they want, they want to be like, well, you can show me, teach me how, and I'm like, no, you need like a 69 Ford f4 100 drain truck to learn on, you know, with the worn out steering, and then come back to me. Yeah, so now I've always heard stories about how the deputies received their calls for service, like if there was a theft or there was a fight somewhere. From when you started, how did that evolve? Because I've heard about the call boxes, I've heard about like AMFM radio stuff. How did you ever have any of that, or was it always on a like a portable handheld radio?

Loren Anderson: 19:12

We didn't have any portable hand held radios. Okay, when I started, okay, it was all 39 high band, or yeah, low band 90 958 and telephone only.

Jay Armbrister: 19:27

Okay,

Loren Anderson: 19:28

telephone and dispatch,

Jay Armbrister: 19:29

yeah. So, if dispatch took a call and you were already out on the street, how would they let you know? Because they could tell you in your car, the car route, okay? Gotcha. Okay, because I've always heard stories about the what the old days, but

Loren Anderson: 19:44

the police department did have a light that they turned on in a tower.

Jay Armbrister: 19:48

Okay, that's the one I remember. Yeah,

Loren Anderson: 19:49

whoever the officer was on duty that would drive the station and say, "What do you want?

Jay Armbrister: 19:54

Oh, okay. See, I'd been told that they had like call boxes around town where you could stop and pick up a phone and. All dispatch, but

Loren Anderson: 20:01

they may have didn't ever hear about. Okay, no,

Jay Armbrister: 20:03

that's

Loren Anderson: 20:04

they always told me they had to drive back to station and see what, see what the call was. Yeah,

Jay Armbrister: 20:09

no, that makes sense. In the, in the police department, correct me if I'm wrong, was where Fire Station One is now, down there at right, what is that, 7/8 and

Loren Anderson: 20:17

right across the storm, right across from where we're sitting.

Jay Armbrister: 20:20

Yeah, yeah, exactly, that's exactly right, right across, yeah, on the other side, there's the library, there's the parking garage, and then there's the fire station slash senior resource center, that was the police department back then, okay, and then did they, in 75 when we built the new law enforcement center courthouse, did the police department move into that at the same time,

Loren Anderson: 20:39

exactly, okay, they had the south side, we had the north side.

Jay Armbrister: 20:45

Yeah, even when we started, they were still in there up until early 2000s Yeah, so I do. I am curious. I think that a lot of people forget that the town of Clinton existed, and everybody believes, you know, that there, that that lake has been there for, you know, some sort of a glacial lake, and has been there forever, and that's just not the case. It was built in the early 70s, if I remember, our late 60s, it started in the mid 60s, maybe,

Loren Anderson: 21:15

or overlay, the

Jay Armbrister: 21:16

lake,

Loren Anderson: 21:17

it was finished, it was, it was in the mid 70s. Okay, I think I, okay, yeah, remember, sure. But,

Jay Armbrister: 21:27

but you, where you grew up was, is that where the lake is now, or is that were you where the town of Clinton is? I

Loren Anderson: 21:36

was right on the east side of the town of Clinton, and we had a farm there.

Jay Armbrister: 21:42

Okay, so is where your farm was? Is that still there? Then

Loren Anderson: 21:46

still there? Okay. Well, the lake took the north end of it.

Jay Armbrister: 21:51

Okay. All right, gotcha.

Loren Anderson: 21:53

In the low area.

Jay Armbrister: 21:54

Sure. Sure. Is so.. is your.. is the old house still there? Oh, okay. All right. No, I didn't. Yeah, I didn't know that. And, and Rex Johnson, I mean, famously was from the town of Clinton. So, is that how he knew you? Just,

Loren Anderson: 22:08

he wasn't in Clinton yet. Then,

Jay Armbrister: 22:10

oh, he wasn't. He

Loren Anderson: 22:11

was still living in

Jay Armbrister: 22:12

the, in the sheriff's office in the jail.

Loren Anderson: 22:15

However, he did. He was a milk hauler. He held milk,

Jay Armbrister: 22:19

okay?

Loren Anderson: 22:19

And we had a, we had a dairy, and he, he picked up our milk.

Jay Armbrister: 22:24

Okay, so that's how you first met him. He knew

Loren Anderson: 22:27

of me. Yeah, sure, sure,

Jay Armbrister: 22:29

gotcha. Yeah, okay. And from, from your farm, how long would it take you to get to the south end of Lawrence before the lake was here? I mean, are we talking like before

Loren Anderson: 22:40

the lake, yeah, probably 15 minutes,

Jay Armbrister: 22:42

15 minutes, and now it's a 4030,

Loren Anderson: 22:45

minute drive, yeah, I mean, yeah,

Jay Armbrister: 22:47

so yeah, because you got to go way out west all the way around, either to Stoll or to Wakarusa, so yeah, it's I just, I always find it so interesting because people forget the fact that that lake has not always been there, there's

Loren Anderson: 22:59

no peninsula out there, Clinton, yeah, yeah,

Jay Armbrister: 23:01

and was there, was there like grocery stores, and what sort of infrastructure when I was

Loren Anderson: 23:06

there was a store, one store is all the blacksmith shop,

Jay Armbrister: 23:10

oh really, yeah, so the one where the Clinton store is now across the

Loren Anderson: 23:13

street from the store,

Jay Armbrister: 23:15

okay,

Loren Anderson: 23:15

and there was an, there were, I think there was a post office years and years ago, okay, I really don't know about that.

Jay Armbrister: 23:20

Gotcha. Yep, yep, totally fine. We'll just wait till it quits ringing, and then we'll keep going. I couldn't kill it. Popular guy, got it, yep. Nope, doing great. So, so Rex, so you started in 65 and Rex became sheriff in 6465 if I remember right. So, who, who was the sheriff before that? Was that Travis Glass or was that broker, Fred Broker? Okay, Travis was

Loren Anderson: 23:59

just before him,

Jay Armbrister: 24:00

was before him. Okay, yeah. And my, so my parents' generation, my mom and dad, they would be, you know, in their early 80s, but that whole generation of people, they, it seems like they all that grew up in this town, they all have a Rex Johnson story, where Rex caught them doing something that they shouldn't have been doing, and either called their parents or sent them on home around the way, and so I've always been kind of proud of the sheriff's office culture, like we've got kind of a more of a laid back culture, and I'm curious where that kind of started. If I've always felt like we, we, you know, and we communicate before we fight, you know, a lot of times when it comes to enforcement, and I've always felt that it starts where, like, you were talking about, where you're, you don't want to overload your fanny, or you're out there in the middle of nowhere by yourself with no help on its way, you have to figure out how to make this go as good as it can, was that has that always kind of. In the sheriff's office, thing is that always kind of been how we've operated as an agency, because it sure seems to have been the culture that was handed off to us.

Loren Anderson: 25:09

I think that that's probably a big part of it. The factor that comes to my mind is that I think that we have a nature about the people that have been in that office have realized that you're working for the people,

Jay Armbrister: 25:30

right? Yes,

Loren Anderson: 25:31

you enforce what they want enforced,

Jay Armbrister: 25:34

right? Exactly right.

Loren Anderson: 25:36

If you, if you don't do that, you're out of business, right. A good example of that is 55 mile an hour speed limit. That's a bad idea.

Jay Armbrister: 25:45

I remember I was a child, we

Loren Anderson: 25:47

lost a lot of respect. Yeah, because we were doing stuff society didn't want. Sure,

Jay Armbrister: 25:54

yeah. So it was so that was in the early 80s. When was that? That 70s? When did they, when did they kind of make that change?

Loren Anderson: 26:03

He was in it, would it would have been late 80s.

Jay Armbrister: 26:08

Okay, yeah, I barely remember 8889

Loren Anderson: 26:12

90, and in that one there somewhere. Yeah, okay, because

Jay Armbrister: 26:14

I remember my dad being so upset because it seemed like I was always playing baseball in Salina. It took forever to get to Salina, now and back driving 55 on I 70, but okay. So, what were the speed limits before that, or were they just kind of at will?

Loren Anderson: 26:30

60 at night and 70 in a daytime. Okay,

Jay Armbrister: 26:33

all right. That's what people drive now. Yeah, that's,

Loren Anderson: 26:38

I mean, that's kind of a flippant answer, but it's pretty much that's what it boiled down. Yeah,

Jay Armbrister: 26:43

yeah, it was whatever reasonable

Loren Anderson: 26:45

that was what was enforced.

Jay Armbrister: 26:47

Yeah, for sure. Okay, yeah.

Loren Anderson: 26:51

And people like that.

Jay Armbrister: 26:52

Yeah. No. Well, I, you can't really complain as a motorist, but as a, as a sheriff's office, I suppose. So, so moving forward into your career, so you got, you made, you were made under sheriff, sounds like fairly early, fairly young in your career.

Loren Anderson: 27:08

I did 19 and a half years, yeah, on patrol,

Jay Armbrister: 27:12

okay, yeah,

Loren Anderson: 27:13

as a deputy,

Jay Armbrister: 27:14

yeah,

Loren Anderson: 27:15

and then I did four years as, as

Jay Armbrister: 27:20

undersheriff,

Loren Anderson: 27:21

as under sheriff, okay, 12 as sheriff,

Jay Armbrister: 27:24

okay, and then, so in those four years, was it kind of a, I'm curious, just, you know, because Rex was the sheriff for 24 years, which is, and he had had a career even before that, you know, clearly hauling milk, and then he was also a patrol deputy before that, so he had been with sheriff's office a long time, was there, was there discussion about him retiring and having somebody else take over, or how did that all kind of.. how did you.. how did you get to run for sheriff? I guess.

Loren Anderson: 27:51

Well, I don't know. I guess are you asking why did he quit?

Jay Armbrister: 27:57

Well, no, I mean, I assume he was just retired, like, yeah, he'd been doing it a long time, tired,

Loren Anderson: 28:01

and yeah, very honestly, I felt like I want that's what I wanted to do. Okay, after probably we got real in the progression of things, we got so, so big, we had, we had rank, right, we got lieutenants and a captain, he hired a captain, and that was like, then we got a lieutenants and shot sergeants, and I went, I became a lieutenant, and then under sheriff,

Jay Armbrister: 28:44

yeah. And

Loren Anderson: 28:44

I thought, might as well get down, yeah, go for the biggie.

Jay Armbrister: 28:47

Okay, so did Rex know when he, when he was taking his retirement? Did he know that you were, you were planning to run for sheriff?

Loren Anderson: 28:56

I didn't

Jay Armbrister: 28:56

ask

Loren Anderson: 28:56

him.

Jay Armbrister: 28:57

Okay, that's fair enough. I remember, I remember it was 88 so I'd have been 13 years old or something, but I can still remember it, because it was in my, in my collective mind, I can only think of three contested in my life, three contested sheriff's office races, and one of them was yours in 88 where you ran against Dallas Murphy, and as I recall, it was in the Republican primary,

Loren Anderson: 29:19

yeah, and I'm going to correct you again. He ran, he ran against me. That's fair, fair. So, that, that one else first, right? Okay, gotcha.

Jay Armbrister: 29:29

Dallas ran against you in 88 and then in 2000 when you retired, there was a contested between Rick Trapp and Ron Wilson, and then the one that we went through in 2020 but other than that, since the, since this mid 60s, there's not been much turnover in that, in that,

Loren Anderson: 29:45

and that's a good thing.

Jay Armbrister: 29:47

I don't disagree with you,

Loren Anderson: 29:48

that's a good thing.

Jason Grems: 29:49

Can I interrupt for a moment, Sheriff? Over the years, I've, I've taken quite an interest in the history of the agency, and, and I was able through. Uh, Sheriff Johnson, Sheriff Hodson, when he was still alive, Fred Broker to meet with a lot of these folks and talk to him, and, and I've stayed in touch, and still to stay in touch with, you know, as you know, with all our sheriffs, and some level, you know, but one of the.. as I was going through pictures over the years, of course, you being a hero of ours, I found this picture, and it's absolutely one of my favorite pictures. It's even.. I like it even more than the one with Johnny Miller and the monkey, which was still.. which I have a picture. We have a picture of it, was

Jay Armbrister: 30:42

Sheriff Johnny Miller, wasn't it? And he had a monkey,

Jason Grems: 30:45

he was a deputy, I think. And

Jay Armbrister: 30:47

then there was the underserved, Ben Way was in that picture, wasn't he, or was that a different.. that's a different.. okay, gotcha. Yeah, yeah,

Loren Anderson: 30:52

he was a.. he was a deputy and city marshal for Eudora. Yes, yes, Johnny Miller, yes, gotcha. But

Jason Grems: 30:59

I found this picture, and it's framed, and it's been hanging on the walls in the law enforcement center for, for some times, but it's a picture with a map of 19, or a calendar of 1976 and it's a, it's got your name on a name tag, it says Lieutenant Lawrence T. Anderson, and it's a picture of you smoking, the smoking your pipe in your office,

Loren Anderson: 31:20

actually. actually, that's civil process office. Okay, yeah. And he'd leave papers there on his desk for me to serve down at his desk to figure out who at all I have seen that picture. Yeah, I can.

Jason Grems: 31:39

Well, there was on the side note, there's the one, a Johnny Miller with the monkey.

Jay Armbrister: 31:46

Yeah, do you have any insight as to what on earth that is about?

Loren Anderson: 31:49

I remember hearing the stories about it, but I don't know what it

Jay Armbrister: 31:52

was. It a pet monkey or was

Jason Grems: 31:53

it? I don't know. And there was also one of him that I believe was taken in Eudora with him and a lion. Oh

Loren Anderson: 32:04

my gosh, yeah. Remember hearing about that? Yeah, craziest thing. Our history is.. I wish I

Jay Armbrister: 32:13

knew him. Yeah, no kidding, no kidding. Because he probably be a lot of fun to work with. Yeah, well, the picture of you smoking your pipe is also something from my history, because we always called it the North Stairway, but the North, or the North side of the building, but there was a little back hallway stairway that went down to a little door that I walk in and out of every day, but there's a little stoop there, and I would, I would pull up in my little patrol car, and you'd be sitting out there smoking your pipe on the on the North side, and I'd wave to the sheriff, and then I'd drive away, because I didn't want to walk by you, pretend like I got a call or something. I didn't want to say excuse you, go around the block three or four times, but so as we talk through the history of the sheriff's office, you know, obviously in 2020 when I came in, I made some changes to our uniform and some of that kind of stuff, but I've always been very, very curious about, well, first off, that we used to wear what we call French blue, blue, I mean, that's in that picture that we just showed everybody,

Loren Anderson: 33:14

that became a state law, and it was a state law that every sheriff had

Jay Armbrister: 33:17

to wear them, and very few do anymore, but I was always curious about our badge. It was a six pointed star, and I never.. I'd never.. and maybe, maybe there isn't anything there, but was there ever a history or an explanation as to why we wore six pointed stars versus five pointed stars versus seven pointed stars? Do you know, or was it just.. that's just the way it was?

Loren Anderson: 33:39

I have no idea. Okay, six points are easier to draw. Well, that's absolutely the truth. Hadn't

Jay Armbrister: 33:47

really thought about that, but yeah, it's - I've always been curious about that, because you get out west of the Rockies, all of those sheriffs and some PDS wear seven point stars, and then you come to Kansas and it's mostly six point stars, and then you go south, some, a lot of them are five point stars, and I've just always been curious, what the difference was, what the, but maybe there's nothing, it's just the way it always was, so

Jason Grems: 34:10

when I had the pleasure to visit with Sheriff Hodson, he was living in Olathe at that time, and he had brought out a box of his stuff that he had, and within this box, as we were speaking, we were going through it, and he had pulled out a couple badges.

Jay Armbrister: 34:34

Oh yeah,

Jason Grems: 34:35

and I believe one of the badges that he pulled out was one that's in his picture on the wall, you know, how all your pictures are on the wall, and it was a shield,

Jay Armbrister: 34:47

oh really, instead

Jason Grems: 34:48

of a star.

Jay Armbrister: 34:49

Okay,

Jason Grems: 34:50

and if you look at all those, they all had different badges. Sure, back to

Jay Armbrister: 34:53

right, the

Jason Grems: 34:54

conception. Well, he, he wanted me to have them. Them, but I felt I don't feel comfortable. That's surprising your family should write a hold on to it, for sure. And, and retain, but, but I do remember, Sheriff, that he, he did have a badge that was a shield, and it's the one that he has. I'll

Jay Armbrister: 35:20

be darned

Jason Grems: 35:21

on or I believe it to be the one on his uniform.

Jay Armbrister: 35:25

So, I know, like, a lot of agencies, especially I just happen to like Sacramento and San Francisco Police Department, they all start - everybody wears a seven point star as an SFPD or officer of Sacramento. And then, once you promote to a certain rank or detective, that's when you get your shield, and so some agencies work them together. We've just always been stars for everything, but yeah, it's, it's just weird how different places do different things, and for those that, for maybe that don't know, that the symbolism of a shield like that police wear, it's always worn on your left side, because in the Roman days, the even if you were left handed, you were taught to fight with your sword in your right and your shield in your left, because your shield not only protected you, protected the person to your left, and if everybody had their shield, everybody was protected. So that's that was the symbolism of that. And I'm just, I know you guys probably know that, but you know the nine people in my mom who listen to this, I want that. I'd love for them to know, but, but, but back to back to your time as sheriff. So, so you ran in 88 won the one, the primary unopposed in the general, became sheriff in 89 Vinegar

Loren Anderson: 36:35

was running against me.

Jay Armbrister: 36:36

Oh my gosh, really, I didn't know that. So

Jason Grems: 36:39

that's right, I forgot about that.

Jay Armbrister: 36:41

Okay, so you had an opponent in the general, then, and won that. Okay. Well, so then you took over in 89 So, from 89 to 2000 I mean, I know a lot of things changed and got weird, you know, just with the growing of the agency. But what was it like during that time? What were you, what were your some of your things you were hoping to get done? What were this some of the things you didn't get done that you wanted to, or was there anything that you're just like, we really did some cool stuff back

Loren Anderson: 37:06

then. I mean, we stayed busy, I know that, right? The first year I took office, I had, we had over 20 unattended deaths.

Jay Armbrister: 37:18

Oh my gosh,

Loren Anderson: 37:19

normally we'd have two or three,

Jay Armbrister: 37:21

right, right, and again, an unintended death can be anything from someone who passes away at home in their sleep to somebody who maybe committed suicide, or

Loren Anderson: 37:32

well, and also in that we had pedestrian,

Jay Armbrister: 37:40

yep,

Loren Anderson: 37:41

coming out of the outhouse down there back when it

Jay Armbrister: 37:44

was a music venue. I remember, I remember, yeah, that's right.

Loren Anderson: 37:50

Car train hit a pickup, loaded with people.

Jay Armbrister: 37:55

Yeah, yep, I remember that was that the one in North Lawrence.

Jason Grems: 37:59

I can still remember the name, yeah,

Loren Anderson: 38:01

and remember those kinds of things, but on that was that was really it, was I guess you could call it a trying time, sure, yeah, sounds like more little beyond initiation, yes, but then after you called me, I did, I tried to recall what all we did as far as changes that took place in the office. I think the first thing that came to my mind was we got a juvenile detention center.

Jay Armbrister: 38:37

Oh, yeah,

Loren Anderson: 38:39

I went around, I got 17 adjacent area counties right to sign up that they would put their people in our facility, sure they got their own

Jay Armbrister: 38:50

right, yeah,

Loren Anderson: 38:51

or went somewhere else, and and now think it's still going, it is,

Jay Armbrister: 38:55

it absolutely is, yeah, so that took

Loren Anderson: 38:58

that took some time, and then we had a gambling seizure that KBI shared the seizure money with us, and that's when we went to the high band radios.

Jay Armbrister: 39:13

Okay, yep, yep,

Loren Anderson: 39:15

and that was a step up, because the 30 958 was, it was great, because we had had communication with the police department,

Jay Armbrister: 39:27

right,

Loren Anderson: 39:28

adjacent counties, and even the highway patrol, but they all went to hire stuff, and so that was gone. They left you behind. We still had areas where the 30 958 you could hear about a shrimp boat in Gulf of Mexico, but you couldn't talk to somebody that was in Lecompton. Yep, that sounds right. And so, so that was a good step for us. Sure. And

Jason Grems: 39:56

speaking of the juvenile detention center and stuff. I just think buildings that you were part of, obviously being part of the the the jail we're in now, right? You building it. I just wanted to share this funny little thing with you. It's probably been 10 years ago, and or longer, and I was the administrative lieutenant at the jail, and of course that spot always seems to attract the question of, hey, can you set in on new hire interviews, you know, and I think I've done about a million of those, but one particular guy came in, and he sat down, and there was the three of us on the board asking these questions, and it was always the same nine questions, but at the end, what I, what I started doing was asking every one of them, I would say, Can you tell me who the sheriff is, and, and some of them would have no clue, and some of them would be spot on, you know. They did the research, even if they weren't from here, but one guy, and this, like I said, this may have been 10 years ago, and this guy's sitting there, and I said, "Can you tell me who the who the sheriff is, and he goes, 'Yes, Loren C. Anderson. And I said,'Well, thank you. And I just.. I let it go with that. So I said,'Well, we're all done with you. And I walk him out front, and I walk him out into the tundra out in the front lobby, and I look over, and there's the plaque on the wall with your name when he was sitting there waiting to come in. He sees Sheriff Lawrence forever, and I just, I just let him roll with it. You probably got a vote that year. Yeah,

Loren Anderson: 41:57

yeah. Well, after that, we did the address. We had address to county combined, went from rural

Jay Armbrister: 42:03

route box numbers,

Loren Anderson: 42:05

yeah, we everybody got an address, and we combined dispatch for the fire department, sheriff, and police, and was that was

Jay Armbrister: 42:15

that about the same time that the DCAS, Douglas County Ambulance Service, merged with Lawrence Fire Department LFD, where they became LDC FM, or was that.. I

Loren Anderson: 42:26

can't answer that. Okay, I don't know.

Jay Armbrister: 42:27

Had to be about, about the same time, because that was in 91 I think, is when they made that consolidation.

Loren Anderson: 42:35

And I think after that, we built a new jail, and then I actually retired in January of table

Jay Armbrister: 42:43

one of oh one, that'd be right, that's right, because the election was in 2000 so yeah, okay,

Jason Grems: 42:48

yeah, so you had about the the new jail, as we call it, it opened september 11 in 99 so yeah, so that fall plus the whole next year, and such change,

Loren Anderson: 43:04

that was quite a deal we had to went to the direct supervision, that was the new thing, for it was, yep, for a lot of places, including here,

Jay Armbrister: 43:15

yep,

Loren Anderson: 43:16

and I lost a couple guys,

Jay Armbrister: 43:19

right,

Loren Anderson: 43:21

didn't want to do it, you know, and don't do it, yeah. And then again,

Jay Armbrister: 43:25

for the folks that are listening, direct super. So I talked earlier about a linear style jail, and that's where you have a big solid box with a line that has cells in it, and then another box with more cells in it, and more cells, and more cells. So each one had like 555, Well, we went to this direct supervision where each housing unit had one officer that worked at an open desk, an open air desk, and then there was doors all around, and then when the inmates came out, you were in with them, like, and so, like, our medium housing unit at the time has it still has 56 cells, and we would let half out at a time, of course, some people would let everybody out, but it could be you and 28 inmates at one time, and a lot of people just didn't like the, didn't like their odds, didn't like the numbers, and we all, we were all very skeptical that this was going to work, but it turned out to work, it actually did work, and I think it's, it's a better, I had an inmate tell me it was about a year, probably about the time you were leaving, he had been in and out of our jail for my whole career, but I asked him, I said, How do you like the new jail? He says, I hate it. I said, Well, how come? He says, Because we were in charge of the old one, you guys are in charge of this one, I don't like, yeah, it was a big difference. That's the difference, but

Loren Anderson: 44:37

you were there. I went out there the first week when we opened up and spent time in, in the cell, yeah, in the Barbie called in the housing unit, yeah, housing area, and even to the extent of I sit down on the floor, lean back against the wall, and had an old bunch of guys sitting around there, the inmates,

Jay Armbrister: 44:58

yeah,

Loren Anderson: 44:59

and then. Understood what we were doing,

Jay Armbrister: 45:01

right,

Loren Anderson: 45:01

and it helped me.

Jay Armbrister: 45:03

Yeah,

Loren Anderson: 45:04

and I was fortunate in even in the old, old jail, they were, they respected us to almost at least 99% of your inmates. Yeah, you always have that one that's always work,

Jay Armbrister: 45:23

yep,

Loren Anderson: 45:24

on a different page, sure, you got to take drastic action, sure,

Jay Armbrister: 45:31

sure, sure,

Loren Anderson: 45:32

but it happens, but it worked out better. I remember I toured prison in Lansing, I turned one in Cannon City, Colorado, and they were both old style, and Colorado had a new one also, and the new one was making the old one with the direct supervision, yeah, it was way better. Sure, but on top of that, when I went to the one at Lansing and toured there, it was surprising how much respect those guys did, but it comes with the attitude that, for sure, officer has.

Jay Armbrister: 46:26

Yeah, I totally agree. Can

Loren Anderson: 46:27

make or break 100% worker. Yeah,

Jay Armbrister: 46:31

absolutely, you

Jason Grems: 46:31

can make your day very hard or very on yourself. Yep,

Jay Armbrister: 46:35

for sure. Yeah, and it's not, it's not about it's not about being the hammer and laying down the law and being this, this, you know, demanding respect, it's about earning their respect. I found it was a whole lot easier to do my job if I earned their respect, as opposed to trying to force it on them. You earned it by

Loren Anderson: 46:50

being fair, that's

Jay Armbrister: 46:51

100% of the time, that's all they, they, even if they don't like it, they'll respect fair most of the time. And exactly, yeah, I don't, I think, you know, and today, looking back, you know, now 2027 years later, after that jail opened, there are, and people are like, why did they build this this way, or why did they do that, or why didn't they do this well, at the very, at the time that this was built, this was built with the very best of intentions, it was, it was cutting edge, it was the belief that this was going to be the future, and I would say 90% of it worked out. I wish, I wish that we would have made some things bigger here or smaller there, but you're just never going to know. But, but then again, it's like if you look back to our society in 1999 versus where it is today, they're completely different too, and our needs today look nothing like what we needed when we started in 9899 because the mental health and the, and the drugs that are, that are being, that are, that are out there and are changing, altering people physiologically, that just wasn't there back then, it was just, you just had a bunch of, bunch of people who had done, you know, some of them good people who had done bad things, some of them bad people who've done bad things. Nowadays, it's just different. It's, we're the biggest, we're the biggest mental health facility in this county by a long shot, exactly. And we're going to continue to grow until, until we as a society kind of figure it out. Two

Loren Anderson: 48:16

biggest changes are the mental health, when they closed our state hospitals,

Jay Armbrister: 48:20

yes,

Loren Anderson: 48:21

and we, and then we introduced drug problems. Yep,

Jay Armbrister: 48:24

yep. No, yeah.

Loren Anderson: 48:26

Now you got it right. Yeah, and it's the only one takes care of either one of the word, yeah.

Jay Armbrister: 48:31

And we're getting into the second generation of those of those folks, and coming, those kids coming from broken homes are just trouble in trouble. And so, yeah, I've always heard about the closing of, like, mini girls and the state hospitals in Topeka, and all that stuff, and it just, it's never been a part of my career, because it had closed several years before I started, so I just didn't really know what that life was like, all I know is post, but it sounds like that was a big change when it came to county jails.

Loren Anderson: 49:01

Yeah, I'm not.. I don't know, just an opinion. I'm not sure that was a good idea, but what happened, right?

Jay Armbrister: 49:10

Well, and I mean, you always hear these horror stories about how they used to be run and the things they used to do, but.. but doesn't mean they couldn't have changed the way they were operating and stayed open, but to just shut it down, it really, it forced all of that work back into the counties, especially into the jails, and we're still suffering deeply

Loren Anderson: 49:27

with change, that's for sure. Yeah, what we've been talking about, talking about change makes me remind, when I, when I started, we were, I said we had nine people, I think, and when I retired, we had 169 Yeah,

Jay Armbrister: 49:45

we're 180 now. Yeah, yeah.

Loren Anderson: 49:48

And after I retired, I went to work for an architect. I don't know what you'd call it, a consultant or marketer, or what on county jails. Anyway, I enjoyed it. It was good job. But I think it was just two or three years after I retired. It was in Dodge City at a sheriff's conference, and my station was next to a retired sheriff from Columbine, Colorado. Oh

Jay Armbrister: 50:19

yeah,

Loren Anderson: 50:20

where the

Jay Armbrister: 50:21

shooting and abnormal, yeah,

Loren Anderson: 50:22

he was sheriff when that happened. Oh

Jay Armbrister: 50:23

my gosh, oh wow.

Loren Anderson: 50:25

And so I was talking to him, and we were sure swapping stories and so forth, and I said, yeah, when I started it, we had nine people. When I retired, we had 169 He said, yeah, I know what you mean. He said, when I started, he had six, now we have 600 Wow, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah, but the point is that change was universal, clear across

Jay Armbrister: 50:51

cross country

Loren Anderson: 50:53

population. Yeah,

Jay Armbrister: 50:54

for sure. Yeah,

Loren Anderson: 50:55

demands.

Jay Armbrister: 50:57

Well, and I think I mean, you just look at, you look at the makeup of Douglas County. It used to be made up. There used to be 100 farmers with 1000 acres each. Now there's 1000 farmers with 100 farmers with 1000 acres each. It used to be 1000 farmers with 100 acres each. The

Loren Anderson: 51:16

it's now suburban county, it and it is. And that's what I tell everybody, is like this is not the

Jay Armbrister: 51:21

country anymore. You can't, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a mailbox anymore. And they, we've broken this county up into five acre pieces, and, and so it with that has just brought a huge change to the work that we do. You know, when I was, when we were coming up, I would maybe, maybe work one rear end wreck a year, where somebody was just looking out the window and ran, and somebody was stopped to turn into their driveway or something. Once in a while, we're working two and three a day nowadays, and it's because of phones, 100% it's because people are distracted within their vehicles, but that's just one tiny little space where our job has completely changed, and we used to go, and I'm sure you're the same. We would go an eight or a 12 hour shift, maybe having two or three calls. They're getting a call, two, three calls an hour now, you know. And so it's just as the people have come, and as we have, has the community has changed. Our job is just completely changed. I mean, I wish I could go back to the things the way it used to be sometimes, but I also know that that's just not possible, so we got to make, we got to make the very best of what we have, and I think

Loren Anderson: 52:25

it's going to be more, so I didn't say worse, yeah, it's going to be more so,

Jay Armbrister: 52:30

or different. I

Jason Grems: 52:32

also believe to touch on what you said about call volume, about being out in the county and becoming more suburban and stuff is I don't know how to say this, but with with non-agricultural based folks moving out into the county,

Jay Armbrister: 52:54

yeah,

Jason Grems: 52:55

they have sometimes different expectations, and they, they don't want a cow in their yard. They got out, you know. Sometimes, so there's a different type of..

Jay Armbrister: 53:09

well, I took a noise complaint one night, and it was.. it was 1130 at night. It was this out by Cedar Hill Gun Club, and this person was extremely upset because the cows next door were bawling all night, just hollering, and so I said, Well, I'm very sorry about that. There's no law against it. Plus, they just pulled the calves off of those cows, so those are mama cows wanting to know where their babies are, and he's like, You need to go tell them to shut up. I'm like, Well, that's just not gonna happen. Yeah, I'll just holler out from out my car window as I go by, you know. And it was that was kind of an example where to where it's like just different, it is, it's just different, and it's not better, it's not worse, it's just different, and and I think that's also part of our employment too, is we're we're hiring, there aren't a lot of, there isn't a lot of agricultural background these days, just in general, not just Douglas County, but like, can you imagine in hiring somebody in 1975 that couldn't drive a manual transmission vehicle, like that's.. and nowadays I promise you, half of my patrol division cannot drive a manual transmission, and they even call it a millennial anti-theft device, you know, when it has a stick shift on it, so it's just things have changed, you know, everything is just is changing.

Jason Grems: 54:25

Can I add? Yeah, sure. Something I've also noticed, too, as like Jay and I growing up here. Okay, the sheriff's office is where I wanted to be, not with Shawnee County Sheriff's Office, not with Johnson County Sheriff's Office, but with Douglas County Sheriff's Office. That's where I wanted to be, and I had ties to this community, just as you did. All three of us have, and so what I found with doing new hire. Stuff, and background investigations, and different things. Is a lot of times we have people from other areas who have sent out 50 different resumes to 50 different agencies looking for a career in law enforcement, but they may be from Broken Bow, Oklahoma, or from Texas, you know, and they got out of college from KU,

Loren Anderson: 55:25

right,

Jason Grems: 55:26

and that's how we ended up with them, you know, and I'm not saying they're better or worse or anything, but they just don't have the like sentimental tie at that point, so you're drawing people in from other areas.

Jay Armbrister: 55:42

Well, I think I think it's twofold. I think there's a good and there's a bad to that, in that it's good because I know, like you tell me, you know, say, you know, you know where Hunt Singers Farm, where the old milk farm was, you know, I'm like, yeah, I can drive you right to that. That's, that's, that's a good historical knowledge of this county, and being able to having it benefit, but on the flip side of it, I've had incidents where I've had to be involved in arrests of my friends, people I grew up with, people I've respected and loved, or worse yet, incidents where they've been hurt, or my least favorite is when somebody calls me or comes to my home to talk about work, because they need my help, as in my official capacity, but they come to my home, and that doesn't happen if you're from somewhere else, you know, they don't, you don't have that base of people, but again, I also part of that is that they respected enough to reach out, you know, it's so.. it really is kind of a double-edged sword in my opinion. Like, I'm very deeply proud to be from this, this county, this.. this town, but it also is.. is, you know, the thorn in my side is from the tree I planted, you know, it's from.. it's because it's.. it makes it hard sometimes as well.

Jason Grems: 56:58

It touch on that. I think it's what you said is quite funny, and is you basically being from down south, and me being up in the northeast part of the county, I can think of a dozen people right now and name them off who over my career I have kind of become their personal deputy, right? If you will, you know, because they, they don't want to call somebody else, they, they want me to listen to them, whether they're upset or what to do, and I'm totally fine with that,

Jay Armbrister: 57:38

right.

Jason Grems: 57:39

And actually, I, you know, I welcome it. Yeah, you know, because what I would always tell my trainees and stuff, and I said, if somebody calls the sheriff's office, or they have a need to contact a deputy, whether they know him or not, that is the biggest thing in their day, and it is the most important thing going on in their life, so you need to give it your full time and attention, whether it's something you can't do anything about. Sometimes people just want to hear it, they just, they just want to talk about it. Yep, and if I can do that, I'm happy to.

Jay Armbrister: 58:19

Yep. Well, and you probably still have people want to talk to you about the old days, and when you were the sheriff, and

Loren Anderson: 58:27

well, yes, but I still have the same ones that want to talk about what do I do about this, right? Yeah, and that's still content you for advice, yeah, absolutely.

Jay Armbrister: 58:36

And again, it's it's a sign of respect, and it's a sign of of trust that they, but it is, it can be a pain in the butt sometimes, but, but you're absolutely, that's a great point, that is the biggest thing going on in their life, even though it's maybe not that important to what we need to do for a day, so any, you got any other questions or anything else for the man,

Jason Grems: 58:58

I thought it was just kind of funny, so, so I started digging through some of my stuff, and I've always been very proud that I kept this, but it's my very first ID, a baby face ID with your signature on it. Yeah, all right, yeah. Beans, you gave me this job. This is how I ended the before and after you're upright and taking nourishment.

Jay Armbrister: 59:30

Yeah, it's because those old pictures, they would take a picture of, you know, come out in four identical pictures, and then they had this little thing they would push down and it would cut out your picture, and then they would shove it in there. In a lot of our older employee files, we still have, and it's the three remaining pictures with the one cut out that went on their ID. It's kind of cool to see, yeah, to see that. But also going through old personnel files, it was really, it was really neat to see all the old people, the people who worked for us, like Don Gardner, Red Dog, he. He, I found his file one time, and had his picture in it, so I shared it with him. He's like, "Oh my gosh, I forgot all about that, you know, that kind of stuff. It's been pretty neat. So,

Jason Grems: 1:00:08

there's no.. but I do want to say, when I made the comment earlier about, you know, you being a hero, and Jay said the same thing there as time goes on over your career, and whether you spend a lot of time with a sheriff, you know where we came at the towards the end of your career, right? We were blessed to have you, and you know there's people that today knew people who, who weren't even born when, when we were hired, know your name and know certain other people's names because you left such a huge influence on us, and and we tell the stories you know about you know, like, I remember you always carried a wheel gun.

Jay Armbrister: 1:01:07

Yeah. Oh, you know,

Jason Grems: 1:01:08

I remember where your desk sat.

Jay Armbrister: 1:01:10

Yep,

Jason Grems: 1:01:10

you know, I remember you coming into the jail when it opened on a Saturday. You know, one time, I mean, I, you know, I just remember all these things, and I remember your last, your the last work car you have was a red ground Vic, and I mean, I can see it, Pat, I can

Jay Armbrister: 1:01:29

see that car sitting at your house there, I mean, the Van Heusen farm, I can still see that's

Jason Grems: 1:01:34

that's the influence that you had, is I mean, you left such a huge impression, no. I don't think we are, but we're sitting here 27 years, 28 year, whatever years later, and I still remember when you hired me, when you, you, I had the interview board, I remember who was on it, and you said somebody said, well, we'll be in touch with you, and then you said, well, just go across the hall, that's my secretary's office, and tell her when you can start.

Jay Armbrister: 1:02:13

Yep,

Jason Grems: 1:02:14

and I said, well, sheriff, keep

Loren Anderson: 1:02:15

it simple, yeah, it's so much easier. I said,

Jason Grems: 1:02:18

sheriff, I want to give where I'm currently employed a month's notice, yeah. So I can train my replacement, and I remember you kind of leaned back and you said I believe the words you said was noble. I think you said that's very noble of you to do, and you went on to tell me a story because he knew you might

Jay Armbrister: 1:02:38

be back there in a month and a half. Yeah, but

Jason Grems: 1:02:44

you told me a story about before you became a sheriff's deputy that you had, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you'd gotten a job helping out doing some demolition in Topeka. Do you remember that

Loren Anderson: 1:03:07

demolition was it? Was it after the tornado? It

Jason Grems: 1:03:10

may have been, but I remember you telling me a story about you, a bunch of guys that you were working with were kind of fudging on the job, but you were taking the time to actually clean up the faucets. I remember that, and rebuild

Loren Anderson: 1:03:26

contractor at Forbes Field.

Jason Grems: 1:03:28

Yeah, and and you told me that story that day, and I've never forgot that story, and difference in my life, and what it does really is it's like if if you're gonna clean the faucet, clean the faucet. Yeah, you know, I mean, act like you want

Loren Anderson: 1:03:48

to do

Jason Grems: 1:03:49

it. And so I remember that all these years later. So when we say that you're a hero to us, I mean, don't hold that lightly. I

Jay Armbrister: 1:04:00

would say we have less than 10 employees left that you hired, wouldn't you say? Probably about 10, probably, and not a one of them would say a bad thing about you, but I always, I go back to, in my early career, it was you and Don Crow, those are the two people that really, really have ridden with me, you know, and I think I speak for Jason as well, in, in being kind of that voice in the back of your mind, like, are you sure, or you know, Don Crow saying, what, what the hell is the matter with you, you know, are you simple, what's the matter with you, and, and, but, but, no, I'm with Jason, it's, it's, it's not, it's not every day you get to sit down and talk to somebody like that, and you know, in some maybe 25 years from now, somebody want to have us on their podcast to tell us what knuckleheads we were, that kind of stuff, but but I always, through my career, and Jason, I think, would will agree with me, is that I've had probably 100 different supervisors, I don't know, maybe 100 And I learned from a few of them how to do the job, and some of them I learned how I will never do this job, you know, I learned what the wrong, what not to do, and the people that are in that, that how to do it was a much smaller group, and you're definitely in that group by a long shot, but, but so we'll just kind of, we'll round this out, I really appreciate you coming in and taking the time to speak with us. I have a feeling that this, and I'd mentioned it to Jason, this episode was more for the two of us than it is for the people that are listening and watching it. It might be a little bit boring, I'm very sorry, but this was something that I always wanted to do. But

Loren Anderson: 1:05:37

having me,

Jay Armbrister: 1:05:38

oh man, it was an honor. It's an honor, and honestly, you know, the heroes in our lives, just Don Crow just passed away last year, and you know we're losing the people that we, that we need to be to be learning and hearing from, so not, you know, not that I expect you to go anywhere anytime soon, but, but we all know that everything must, must end at some point, so I do, I always ask, I always ask some crazy questions of the guests, and I'll ask the both of you. I've kind of morphed it into two different questions. One of them's kind of funny, one of them's a bit more serious, but the funny one.. well, I will do the serious one. If you could sit down and have a cup of coffee or a beer with anybody, alive or dead, that's not a family member, somebody maybe historical, somebody that you wish you, you could just sit down and talk to, who would that person be?

Jason Grems: 1:06:25

Mine's easy.

Loren Anderson: 1:06:27

I'd have to think about that. We've known a lot of people for a long time, Truman. The

Jason Grems: 1:06:33

night before, I decided to drop the bomb.

Jay Armbrister: 1:06:35

That would be, that would be quite a cup of coffee, I think.

Jason Grems: 1:06:38

I think I've always pictured that setting in, like, a dim-lit office, you know, and with he's probably got, like, a scotch or something, and he's sitting there, and he's thinking, I can save hundreds of 1000s

Jay Armbrister: 1:06:58

of us,

Jason Grems: 1:06:59

or I can take hundreds of 1000s of them,

Jay Armbrister: 1:07:01

or by, I think he, I think he did them both. I think both things happened at that moment,

Jason Grems: 1:07:06

and, and I've always felt that that is probably one of the most pivotal or toughest decisions ever made in mankind, 100%

Jay Armbrister: 1:07:19

Yeah, that's he was, he was dealing with our civilization's existence at that moment. I think from what I've read and heard, it sounds to me like that, that weight was not lost on him. Like, I think some presidents would, would maybe not understand that the depth of that, but it's not like it really, it was quite a deal. No, that's a great, that's a great one.

Jason Grems: 1:07:37

Thank you.

Jay Armbrister: 1:07:38

Yeah, just thank you. If anybody

Loren Anderson: 1:07:40

stay, stay with, let me, let me just reserve the right to think of that 100% absolutely, absolutely,

Jay Armbrister: 1:07:46

but the, the fun, the funny question I always ask everybody, and you know, not everybody goes to music shows or concerts, but it's always, you know, what was the, what was the first music or concert show you went to, what was the most recent, and what was your favorite? I think you learn a lot about people.

Loren Anderson: 1:08:02

First one I ever went to was Sonny and Shear in Nebraska.

Jay Armbrister: 1:08:06

Don't get what year would that have been?

Loren Anderson: 1:08:10

I'll have to think about that also, but it was I was a deputy and myself and Bobby Ellison from KU Police Department went there to what do you want to call it? Research, because they were coming to KU next.

Jay Armbrister: 1:08:25

Oh, okay, yeah, okay. So that would have probably been late 60s, early 70s, maybe

Loren Anderson: 1:08:31

late 60s.

Jay Armbrister: 1:08:32

Okay, yeah. So they, so my mom and dad, in fact, my mom and dad's first date was at a Peter, Paul, and Mary show at Allen Field House. They used to have concerts at Allen Fieldhouse once in a while.

Loren Anderson: 1:08:43

No, that was Peter. That's what this one was. Oh, was it really? Yeah, yeah,

Jay Armbrister: 1:08:47

yeah. So that wasn't

Loren Anderson: 1:08:48

Sunny, and

Jay Armbrister: 1:08:49

so that was a.. that was, would have been in the mid to late 60s then. So yeah, because I've always heard about like Bo Diddley played at some place on the.. it was the barn or something, but it burnt down in the 90s. It was on the west side of Lawrence on West Sixth Street, out towards where the

Loren Anderson: 1:09:05

chimney dairy

Jay Armbrister: 1:09:06

is, that what it was? Yeah, and they used to have concerts and shows in there. Yeah, so I guess Bo Diddley played there. I want to size in high

Loren Anderson: 1:09:13

school, they had dances there every,

Jay Armbrister: 1:09:15

okay, every weekend. Yeah, Jerry Lee Lewis, I guess, played there after he had kind of had his downfall. Yeah, so it's, yeah, it's, but it's weird, it's weird to think about having a concert in Allen Fieldhouse, because I've never been in there for anything other than a basketball game, so, so that's that's cool.

Jason Grems: 1:09:34

Well, my first concert was the late great Merle Haggard,

Jay Armbrister: 1:09:39

oh yes,

Jason Grems: 1:09:41

with with Clint Black.

Jay Armbrister: 1:09:45

Oh, okay.

Jason Grems: 1:09:46

Was fresh,

Jay Armbrister: 1:09:47

so it had been like in the 80s or 90s, late 80s, yeah,

Jason Grems: 1:09:50

early 90s. All to me it was just amazing, because my I grew up with. Listening to WDAF 61 country with my dad, you know, and Paul Harvey, Paul Harvey in the afternoon, you know, of course,

Jay Armbrister: 1:10:07

getting the pork belly market and futures.

Jason Grems: 1:10:10

I grew up on Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, you know, and stuff, and my, my favorite is tough, because obviously seeing the Eagles with the Kansas City Symphony backing them up,

Jay Armbrister: 1:10:31

that would be cool.

Jason Grems: 1:10:32

Playing the whole Hotel California album,

Jay Armbrister: 1:10:34

yeah,

Jason Grems: 1:10:36

was pretty impressive, but being able to see, I saw him with both singers, so you'd have to split it up, but when Jay and I went and seen Van Halen in Oklahoma in like 2012 and but being back with David Lee Roth, because you know they were popular in the late 80s and, or you know, early 90s with him, and, and you know, I remember their album, 1984 which is such a big album, yeah, and it's, I believe it's our both our favorite, first favorite album, album of all time. Well,

Jay Armbrister: 1:11:13

and that was such a weird show, too, because Cool and the Gang opened up for him. Yeah, it was very, it was kind of diametrically opposed. It was a, it was a wide breadth of music that night, yeah.

Jason Grems: 1:11:23

And I remember one thing about it is Jay's mother was kind enough to take us, yeah, to the concert because she has family in Oklahoma,

Jay Armbrister: 1:11:33

and she was worried we couldn't find our way out of there, yeah, for many reasons, and

Jason Grems: 1:11:36

and so Jay and I had hydrated while we were there, and, and it was cool, because after the show she pulled right up the curb, picked us up, and then took us to Wendy's. I guess she figured we needed some carbs. Yep,

Jay Armbrister: 1:11:59

yep. So, all right, it

Jason Grems: 1:12:00

was great. Yeah,

Jay Armbrister: 1:12:02

well, I think we've gone on long enough. Okay, yeah. So, thank you again for being here. We really appreciate it. And if you come up with some answers or things that you think that you wish we, you would have told us, get a hold of me and let me know. I'd love hearing more about it. But other than that, I appreciate you. Give you the rest of your day, day back, and we'll call it good. So, thank you so much. Absolutely, appreciate my pleasure.

Unknown: 1:12:27

Thank