ROANOKE TIMES  
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Friday, June 7, 1996                   TAG: 9606070030
SECTION: CURRENT                  PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY  
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: LISA K. GARCIA STAFF WRITER
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
      Published correction ran on June 8, 1996.
         Barney Arnold, a former Montgomery County sheriff, is alive and well.
      A stroy in Friday's New River Current incorrectly reported he was 
      deceased. Also, retired sheriff's Lt. Joe Morgan ran for the Democratic 
      nomination for sheriff against several candidates, none of whom was the 
      present sheriff, Doug Marrs, the Republican who won the election.

RETIRING DEPUTY HAD REPUTATION FOR NEVER QUITTING

Joe Morgan was patrolling Walton on his first day as a deputy for the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office when he looked up to see a sheet hung between two light poles. On the sheet, Walton recalls now, was a greeting just for him:

"No niggers allowed. Nigger Joe stay out."

Morgan, the first black ever hired by the Sheriff's Office, said he now claims some of his best allies live in that area of the county.

"The next day I came right back through there and the next and the next," said Morgan, who was 37 when he landed the job as a deputy.

After nearly 25 years of service with the Sheriff's Department, Morgan retired last Friday. He said he was a man who tried to break down barriers.

"I want to be remembered as one who tried to help others by making the road a little smoother for those who follow," he said. "In all 25 years, I never hit a man and I never had a man hit me or spit on me. I look at it this way, I treat people the way I would want to be treated."

Morgan sat in his work clothes after mowing his yard recently and recalled his years in the Sheriff's Office. His soft voice is soothing and one must listen carefully to hear what Morgan's eyes have seen.

"It took me two years to get a job [at the Sheriff's Office] because I was black," Morgan said. "I wanted to prove to others that I could do the job."

After Morgan was hired in 1972, it took just two years, however, for him to be promoted to sergeant and a few years later to lieutenant and supervisor of patrol deputies. He held that job for about 15 years before moving into other administrative positions. More recently, Morgan ran for the Democratic nomination for the sheriff's race. He lost to Doug Marrs who won the overall election.

"I think it can be said I tried," Morgan said.

Morgan's interest in a law enforcement career began when the Beatles took America by storm. He was working as a barber at Virginia Tech's Squires Student Center - a job he held for 15 years. He said the classic cropped looks of the '50s and early '60s were replaced by lengthier locks made popular by John, Paul, George and Ringo and his clientele dwindled.

"My wife said I should try something else," Morgan said. Marie Morgan scanned the want ads in 1970 and read one out loud for a dog catcher.

"I said 'no way' to that one," Morgan said and chuckled.

A little farther down she hit the one for a deputy. Morgan said he agreed to give that a try and put in an application. He also put in applications at every other local law enforcement agency including ones at Virginia Tech, Radford, Radford University and Christiansburg.

None of them offered him a job.

It was not until Barney Arnold, now deceased, became sheriff that Morgan got his chance.

"When he was running for sheriff, he said if he was elected he would give me a job," Morgan said. "I started the same day he did."

Since then, Morgan has worked with four sheriffs. He began when the county was covered by two deputies - each working his shift alone. Now the office has 21 deputies who patrol the county and three who work in the warrants division who also often patrol.

When asked what he did when he needed backup, Morgan laughed and said, "You didn't have ... backup. You just handled it."

That's what happened the day Morgan heard a dispatcher report a Blacksburg abduction. A young man forced his girlfriend into a car by threatening her with a gun.

"I had a feeling I was going to run across this fella and I did," Morgan said.

It was a day, Morgan said, he will never forget. He even recalled the shift he was working: 4 p.m. -midnight.

Morgan saw the man parked near some railroad tracks at McCoy, he recalled. The man's girlfriend was in the front passenger seat.

"I had my shotgun and told him to get out of his car," Morgan said. But the man didn't move. When Morgan told the man to put his hands on the steering wheel, the man again refused and began fumbling with something in his lap.

"I heard this loud pop and he had shot himself in heart," Morgan said. The man was 19 years old.

"I had to make a decision. If I had backed off and he had shot the lady, they would have blamed me."

Suicide is an area Morgan became all too familiar with years later when his 17-year-old daughter, Kim JoPaula, shot herself in the head. She used her father's service revolver.

After that, Morgan said, the sheriff at the time advised Morgan not to go to calls involving a suicide. But Morgan said he felt it was his duty and, besides, he could offer empathy and sympathy.

"That's the hardest death ... you can ask yourself why, but you never get an answer," Morgan said.

Morgan and his wife of 41 years had four children. Their son Mario has been a deputy at the Sheriff's Office for eight years and his wife is an officer for Virginia Tech. One daughter, Yolanda Burton, who used to ride in the patrol car with her father as a girl, is a federal probation officer in North Carolina.

Marilyn Session, their fourth child, is a teacher at Christiansburg High School - the school where she was one of the first black students to break the racial barrier. Before the county officially integrated its schools, Morgan said he and his wife got permission from Richmond for his son and daughter to attend the high school, he said. Session graduated as the co-valedictorian of her class, Morgan said proudly.

Last Friday, Morgan's retirement reception following his final hours as a deputy ticked off the clock.

He called in to dispatch and used the 10-code that means "end of duty" to say good-bye. "I radioed in and said 'I'm 10-42 for the last time.'"

LENGTH: Long  :  111 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  (headshot) Joe Morgan. color.