LAWRENCE SHERIFF CANDIDATES WANT TO TACKLE DRUG PROBLEM

LOUISA - Six candidates want the opportunity to try to unseat long-time
Lawrence County Sheriff Bobby Workman this fall.

Workman, a Republican, is involved in a primary race with Blaine T. Grace
and Lenwood Howell.

Workman has been sheriff since 1990, when he was elected to fill the
unexpired term of his father, the late Arlie "Hoover" Workman.

Jim Tackett, chairman of the Lawrence County Republican party, said he
thought Workman's GOP challengers were facing an uphill battle.

"Bobby has done a good job, from everything I know," he said.

Workman said he hoped voters would return him to office based on his record
and his experience.

"It took me about a year and a half after I was elected to get my feet
under me," he said. "With all the changes in the law that have taken place,
I think it'd take a new person at least that long, maybe longer." Neither
Grace nor Howell returned candidate questionnaires mailed to them by The
Daily Independent, nor responded to repeated phone calls.

On the Democratic side of the ticket, Louisa Police Sgt. Garrett Roberts,
Lawrence County solid waste abatement and animal control officer Dennis Ray
Marcum, heavy equipment operator Morris Howard and bait shop owner Claude
"Buddy" Moore are vying for the nomination.

Marcum and Howard are both repeat candidates, while Roberts and Moore are
making their first runs for office.

Lawrence County Democratic party Chairman Larry Donohoe said he expected
the race for the Democratic nomination to be a close one.

He said expected it to come down to a three-way battle between Roberts,
Marcum and Howard.

Roberts lives in Louisa, Marcum in Martha and Howard in Webbville, and all
three "are fairly well-known in their sections of the county," Donohoe said.

Voter turnout may be the determining factor in the Democratic race, Donohoe
said.

Challengers for the sheriff's post mentioned drugs as the major problem
facing Lawrence County and said more needs to be done to combat them.

Workman acknowledged that the county has its share of problems with drugs,
but he said his office is doing what it can about the situation.

He said he had recently hired a resource deputy, Travis Hughes, whom he
planned to have stationed in the county schools.

Workman said he was also looking to obtain another drug-sniffing dog for
his department. The department used to have such an animal, but it had to
be euthanized because it had cancer, he said.

Workman said his department also had several grants in the pipeline that he
hoped to be in office to administer.

Roberts, 35, said he would like to start a community-oriented policing
program and foster greater cooperation between citizens and the sheriff's
department.

He also said he would like to start a part-time bailiff program, which he
said would free up more deputies for road patrols.

Roberts said he felt the training and experience he had gained through
151/2 years of police work had given him the skills "to run a very
effective sheriff's office."

Marcum, 50, said the sheriff's department needs more deputies working road
patrols and making undercover drug buys.

He also pledged to make "active use" of the county's constables and to hold
community meetings with citizens to discuss crime and other concerns.

"Lawrence County is a great place to live and has good people," he said.
"They don't deserve to come home and find their doors kicked in." Howard,
53, said he had spoken to a number of people during his campaign who had
told them were afraid to leave their homes for fear of having them broken into.

"There are a lot of people here who feel like prisoners in their own
homes," he said.

Howard said he favored strengthening drug-education programs for young
people and having deputies make undercover drug buys as means of reducing
the county's drug problems.

Moore, 58, said "a lot of dope and a lot of break-ins" were the county's
major problems, and he proposed to solve them by placing more deputies on
the road.

He said he felt his major strength as sheriff would be that "I treat
everybody the same."

Moore said his major goal as sheriff would be "to make the community safer."