He came from the right perspective – what is right for the community and the taxpayers. – Tracy Jemison
Jan. 1 will mark a significant day for Geauga County’s beloved Sheriff Dan McClelland
He will hand over his title, badge and keys to his chief deputy — now Sheriff-elect Scott Hildenbrand — as he enters the waiting world of retirement, traveling and grandchildren.
After 13 years as the county’s top lawman, he leaves in his wake a jail that supports itself, a staff of 140 and a solid working relationship with county officials, and other police and fire departments.
McClelland will take with him his long-time partner, police dog Midge, and the confidence that he is leaving the department better than he found it.
Sitting in his office recently, with “Midgee” roving around his desk, McClelland spoke in an easy, measured manner about how he arrived at a point where becoming sheriff of a growing community seemed to be a natural, if unlooked-for, progression.
Montville Roots
Born and raised on a farm in Montville Township, McClelland graduated from Chardon High School, where he and his wife, Beverly, were high school sweethearts.
As a teen, McClelland worked at a convenience store in Chardon where the local police would check in and have coffee.
“I got to meet them, caught a couple of shoplifters when working there, got invited to ride along,” he recalled.
It was a simple introduction, but it bore fruit when, working as a machinist, McClelland needed a second income so he and his wife could afford to buy a home.
“I wanted it to be a job I had an interest in,” he said.
So the young couple scraped together the tuition for the basic police academy at Lakeland College. McClelland graduated in 1975 and was sworn in April 26, 1976, as a part-time sheriff’s deputy in Geauga County.
“That’s how it all started,” he said.
The modest beginning got his foot in the door and he rose through the ranks over the next few decades to become chief deputy under Sheriff Red Simmons.
“They just kept looking for something I’d be able to do,” McClelland joked.
But when Simmons died of cancer in 2003, McClelland knew his name was in the hat to fill out the last 17 months of the term.
“I never had any aspiration to be sheriff. I’d enjoyed being a worker. This wasn’t on the radar screen,” he said. “But I remember thinking, ‘Somebody’s got to do this.’”
There were a few issues that might have caused some to step back. The county commissioners were suing the sheriff’s office over the department budget and the plans for the new $15 million Geauga County Safety Center were on the drawing board.
Also, as Beverly noted, he’d be taking a significant pay cut — $18,000 less a year because the salary is set by state statute.
“She said, ‘Explain to me one more time why this is a good idea,’” McClelland recounted.
His response, “I think I can leave it better than I found it,” led them into the political spectrum of law enforcement.
Political Gamble
On July 18, 2003, McClelland took the oath of office, fully aware he was going to have to convince voters to support him soon and, if he lost the election in 2004, he would be out of a job.
“It was an interesting era,” McClelland said. “Politics can be a different critter.”
The budget fuss went away when he fully explained the department’s needs to the commissioners and reduced the budget request he’d inherited, McClelland said.
Also, the court of appeals told the commissioners to consider what was needed to operate the department, not change the sheriff’s budget according to the county’s tax collection.
“The commissioners responded favorably, gave us that budget,” he said, adding that was when he knew he was on the right track.
It was also a starting point for building trust with the county, so progress could be made.
“My dad was an older farmer. He used to say, ‘The load goes a lot easier if the horses are pulling in the same direction,’” McClelland said.
Always a fan of pulling together, he impressed Hildenbrand long before taking the sheriff’s position.
“(Dan) was always kind of the peace-maker. If people were upset about something, he’d confront it right away and make sure it didn’t become a problem,” Hildenbrand said.
Confrontation can wear different hats.
When McClelland was still a sergeant in the sheriff’s department, Hildenbrand was a patrolman with Chardon Police Department.
Man with a Gun
Hildenbrand recalled one weekend when a call went out that a man with a gun had been seen near Hambden Elementary School and Chardon police were asked to assist.
“We were setting up a perimeter and Dan was in charge of the shift, giving orders over the radio,” Hildenbrand said.
But while everyone was getting set, McClelland just drove his cruiser right across the open space and arrested the suspect.
“Imagine that guy’s surprise when he saw that car coming across the field!” Hildenbrand said.
When McClelland asked the city police officer to come on board as sheriff’s chief deputy, Hildenbrand, not having enough years on the job to retire, knew he was taking a gamble.
“If he’d lost (the election), I’d have lost my job, too,” he said, but he knew McClelland, who had mentored him, was admired and respected in law enforcement and the community, so he accepted the offer.
“It was good for me and good for the county,” Hildenbrand said. “We’ve built a really good team here.”
The team includes five police dogs, of which Midge is the smallest.
In fact, McClelland said she is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the smallest police dog to date.
She was considerably smaller — about two pounds — when he first took the rat terrier/Chihuahua mix home as a puppy for “a sleepover,” somewhat to Beverly’s dismay, the sheriff recalls.
Co-worker Melissa Metz introduced them 11 years ago because little Midge was the runt of the litter and needed a home.
She knew McClelland was hoping to get smaller dogs for narcotic work so downsized vehicles wouldn’t get torn up during a search by 125-pound shepherd-types with big claws.
Smallest Partner on Record
“I was looking in the 30-to-40-pound range,” McClelland said.
When Metz said the pup would never make 10 pounds, he nearly dismissed her.
“I actually thought ‘too small.’ But when Melissa brought her in, she sniffed everything. Here’s a puppy who understands what a nose is for!” he said with a smile.
When he puts Midge’s black police shirt on her, she knows it is time to go to work. She will retire when McClelland does, and he hopes she adjusts well.
Still, she has left her footprint on law enforcement.
“I believe she has changed police dogs through the country. Today, police dogs are 60-to-70 pounds,” he said.
The size is a plus. For instances, it makes it easier for an officer to carry a canine partner up ladders, when needed, McClelland said.
Midge has been a great public relations personality, happy to visit schools and she is particularly patient with children with disabilities, he said.
“If she couldn’t find dope if I tied it to her tail, I don’t care. She can make kids smile,” McClelland said.
She does the same for a lot of adults, accompanying the sheriff to Geauga County Commissioners meetings at the county offices and shaking down the county staff for treats while McClelland shakes hands and keeps the officials informed.
Former County Commissioner Tracy Jemison was the Geauga County auditor when McClelland became sheriff.
“I always found Dan to be a consummate professional, very easy to work with. He always came to a resolution,” Jemison said. “He came from the right perspective — what is right for the community and the taxpayers.”
When the Middlefield Rotary spearheaded the effort to build the memorial to Red Simmons, McClelland displayed some surprising abilities.
“It was a pretty big structure to put up. There’s Dan, running this crane and putting the pieces into place,” Jemison laughed, admiring the sheriff’s versatility. “He’ll roll up his sleeves, always came to the table wanting to work with you.”
Geauga’s Biggest Motel
Simmons had proposed a large jail, but it was McClelland who sold the idea to the commissioners and came up with the suggestion to increase the capacity by about 50 prisoners by adding double bunks in part of the jail, Jemison said.
“Dan and his staff contracted with other counties (to house their extra prisoners) and turned the jail into an asset,” he said, adding the safety center makes money because of that and good management.
The building would have been paid off in five years if the recession hadn’t intervened. As it was, it took 10 years, Jemison said, adding, “Dan is a visionary.”
McClelland said the jail is on track to return $1.2 million to the county — a welcome return on investment.
“That’s how it should be,” he said, crediting his staff and in particular, jail administrator Kathy Rose-Vatty. “I have people who share the vision.”
When he started as sheriff, the staff numbered about 80 and is now at 140, full- and part-time employees.
“Our biggest gain has been on the law enforcement side — deputies and investigators,” he said.
McClelland remembers his early days too well, often being the only deputy on duty at night and having to handle bar fights, robberies and domestic squabbles without backup. There were places where the radios didn’t work and a deputy was lucky if a pay phone was handy.
The new digital radios and in-cruiser computers have made law enforcement better and safer than in the bad old days.
But, a deputy has to be ready for action even in rural areas.
“I’ve never shot anyone,” McClelland said. “I’ve been attacked and, yes, I’ve drawn my weapon. I’ve wrestled hand guns, knives and a machete, been bitten, kicked and had a pool cue broken over my back in a bar fight.”
Confidence, timing and focus are good resources when a machete presents itself.
“At a traffic stop, a guy comes out with this machete — it got taken away. I’m not that big. I got lucky,” he admitted.
‘You’re Surrounded’
When the restaurant in Parkman Township was robbed one night, the waitress told McClelland where the suspect lived and that he had a gun.
McClelland, working solo, parked in the suspect’s driveway and aimed his spotlight at the door and tuned the police radio to the outside speaker.
“Then I ran like crazy from that car and used the walkie-talkie to project my voice. He came out, but he brought the gun,” McClelland recalled.
So, from where he stood, the deputy put aside the walkie-talkie and changed his voice.
“I said, ‘You’re surrounded!’ and he looked around and gave up,” McClelland recalled.
Law enforcement has offered him his share of adrenaline spikes and good stories, but he likes best the people he has worked with and the opportunities to help families, get criminals off the streets and bring closure, when possible.
He and Beverly plan to see Niagara Falls when it is frozen, then take their motor home to Utah to go off-roading with his jeep. Beverly spent 41 years keeping the home fires burning through snowstorms, tornadoes and power outages when her husband was called out to emergency service.
“In a million years, I could never have done it without her support,” McClelland said. “I’ve enjoyed my job. That doesn’t mean everything has been rainbows and butterflies. But if I didn’t like it, I’d have done something else.”
