Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 10, 1994 TAG: 9408100045
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
What little league pitcher growing up in the early 1960s didn't?
Beheler even emulated the Dodger left-hander. "I tried to throw as hard as he did, yeah. I tried to throw hard like that all the time."
He hoped to someday play in the big leagues himself.
Maybe make the Hall of Fame.
How he ended up 30 years later as a Conservator of the Peace instead is, in many ways, like the story of every little league kid who nurtured a wide-eyed ambition and a decent arm only to concede to the reality that a kid's dream is often just that - a dream.
Deep down, Beheler never expected baseball greatness.
So, he plotted an alternative path.
He always liked guns and playing cops and robbers. He loved old westerns and Wyatt Earp. And in his neighborhood, there was a policeman and crossing guard he came to know, Norman Gregory, whose friendly manner and blue police uniform had a profound impression.
Beheler saw his future.
As he grew into adulthood, baseball took a back seat to girls, cars and dating. He stopped playing little league at 14. Sandy Kofax retired in 1966. And when Beheler graduated from William Fleming High School in 1970, he didn't come away with a major league contract. He became a mailman.
He also joined the National Guard and volunteered for the Roanoke auxiliary police in hopes of positioning himself for a police job. But as an adult, it wasn't the guns and the uniform that drew him to police work, like when he was a boy. It was the view of human nature and the human condition.
"The average person has no idea how people really live. Police work will show you that."
In 1974, he was hired as a city patrolman, a job he kept for five years. It was enough time, however, for Beheler, like any cop, to log the kind of war stories that will stay with him forever. Stories marked by controversy, danger, tragedy and humor.
Stories not found in the confines of a baseball park.
In his first year on the force, Beheler and another officer, on a silent run to a burglary call, crashed their patrol car into another car that had turned into their path on Williamson Road. Two people in the other car were killed, and a series of lawsuits ensued. They were settled by the police department out of court, Beheler said.
Another time, he went to arrest a drunk he had arrested several times before without any problems. In hindsight, Beheler said he treated the arrest too casually, too routinely. In a split second, the man had a gun pressed into his gut.
"He could have easily killed me."
But Beheler sidestepped the gun and made the arrest without incident.
The story that sticks in his memory most, though, was when he was the first to arrive at the scene of a burning massage parlor. A man was stooped in a doorway. He was in flames, crying for help. Beheler tried to get to him, but the heat was too intense.
He watched the man die as he pleaded and looked at Beheler helplessly.
"I still see his face."
Beheler left the police force in 1979 and took a quieter job as a deputy with the Roanoke Sheriff's Department, serving warrants and civil process. He said it was a lot like being a mailman again - not as interesting as police work, but the straight daytime hours were much more appealing.
He stayed there until three years ago, when he moved into his current job as Conservator of the Peace at Carvins Cove Reservoir, a funny-sounding moniker that conjures up images of a Barney Fife-like character some place where nothing ever happens. It is also a title that poses the questions: What exactly is a Conservator of the Peace anyway? And why does a water reservoir surrounded by mountains and woodlands need one?
"I get razzed on that all the time," Beheler said. "People say, what do you do all day? Arrest deer or turkeys?" The truth is the same people would love to be in his shoes.
He has a great job.
A Conservator of the Peace is essentially a fancy name for a police officer who works for one jurisdiction but has police powers in another. It is necessary for Carvins Cove because the reservoir is owned by the city, but the land is located in Botetourt County and Roanoke County.
"I really refer to it like a game warden's job," Beheler explained. His primary duties are to patrol the reservoir for boating and fishing violators, and for hunters and swimmers, which are prohibited at Carvins Cove.
Mostly, it is quiet. The boaters and fisherman are mostly regulars, and other visitors are there mostly for recreation, for hiking or bicycling or a picnic. It isn't like police work. "They don't come out here to start domestics," he said.
"Everybody's happy."
The only downside is that the job is more sedentary than a policeman's or a deputy's. Beheler, 43, weighed 218 pounds when he moved to Carvins Cove. Earlier this year, he topped out at 259.
"I'm not in and out of the car 120 times a day serving papers anymore," he said. "Out here, I ride in the boat. I ride in the police vehicle. Everything I do is riding." And although baseball has helped him trim down to 240 this summer, Beheler said his weight remains a constant struggle.
There's another downside, too.
As a Conservator of the Peace, he'll never make the Hall of Fame.
by CNB