The following questions were submitted to every candidate in all contested races by Brownwood News.

1)How long have you been a part of the Brown County Community? To what extent have you been a part of local government in Brown County?

Brownwood and Brown County was my 2nd home, since I was born.  My grandparents, T. N. and Frankie Thomas lived here, and my dad, Everett R. Thomas, was born on the farm just outside of May, TX.  My dad moved to Odessa for work.  After I and my siblings graduated high school, my dad and mom, Bobbie Jo Thomas, purchased Mountain View Lodge and Marina on Lake Brownwood in 1979.  They ran the marina until my dad passed away in 1992.  My mom sold the business, but she kept the land all around it.

I spent a lot of time in Brown County, not only visiting my grandparents and my parents on many, many weekends, holidays and family vacations over the years. I helped with maintenance at the marina, including rebuilding the docks, etc.

My wife, Teri, and I moved to Lake Brownwood in 2013 after we spent the last couple of years traveling back and forth from Hutto, assisting my mom with health issues.  We purchased her home on the lake, so she could move to Odessa and live at an all-inclusive retirement village. She passed away this past year, and my siblings and I now own all the land around where Mountain View Lodge and Marina used to be located.

Since we were moving to Lake Brownwood, I applied to the Brownwood Police Department and went back to work.  I spent 3 months on patrol and was asked to move to criminal investigations due to my extensive experience and training in investigations.  I retired in 2018 and became a private investigator.  In 2019, I started working part-time for Howard Payne University as an Adjunct Professor in the Criminal Justice Department.

 

2)What is your vision for the future of Brown County: What changes would you advocate and why?

My vision for Brown County is the here and now.  I would like to be a leader who assists in any way I can in serving the people whereby always making the county a better and safe place to live, work and play.

The only change I would advocate at this time would be myself being successful as being elected as Precinct 4 Justice of the Peace, because I believe I am the most qualified for the job. More information can be found on my Facebook page HQ Thomas.

 

3)Regarding your prospective position, what do you consider your greatest strengths? Weaknesses? 

My number one strength is being a Christian; beyond that it is my education, training and 36 plus years of law enforcement experience, including investigations and administrative positions, have been paramount in preparing for the position of Justice of the Peace.  I have a bachelor’s degree in criminology; attended the 204th session of the FBI National Academy; and numerous training classes in homicide investigations, family violence investigations, hostage negotiations, and etc.  My Texas Commission on Law Enforcement records currently show I have 5,877 training hours with 2,800 higher education hours. Another name for Justice of the Peace is Judge.  My law enforcement career has made me a very confident judge of people’s character, ethics, integrity, values, customs, beliefs and so on. I value integrity the highest. I entered into law enforcement not as a job, but a calling by God. In addition, I was a high school and college football official for 28 years, in which the majority of the games, I was a back judge. Just like law enforcement, you have to make split second decisions, or you will end up NFL (Not For Long) in these businesses.

My biggest weaknesses are paying attention to detail.  I personally want to make sure everything is done right, and it sometimes may take a little more time than normal.  As a result, I have a habit of working long hours to make sure everyone is being served and heard.

 

4)What do you consider the biggest challenge of the position you are running for? What areas need improvement and why?

Just like with any new position, the biggest challenge for becoming a Justice of the Peace would be learning the job (this too, being calling by God). Law enforcement and Justices of the Peace interact a lot in obtaining arrest/search warrants and unattended deaths. Although I’m familiar with the other magistrate duties and concepts, such as, hearing Class C misdemeanor cases, death inquests, civil cases, and landlord/tenant disputes, these would have to be learned.

As to what areas needing improvement and why, it would not be fair to comment, until I have taken office and am able to judge for myself on how operations and budget expenditures are being conducted and applied.

 

5)What has been your greatest accomplishment in your career? In your personal life?

Of numerous accomplishments, one of greatest was when one of my detectives and I obtained a confession from a suspect on a double homicide that had occurred in Walker County, Texas. The suspects confessed to entering a home and stabbing the female rural homeowner to death, while her husband was at work. The suspect drug her body into a wooded area for burial.  The suspect also carried a sleeping 18-month-old baby to the woods and her laid her next to mom’s body.  While the suspect was digging the shallow grave, the baby woke up and fell in the hole.  The suspect rolled mom over on top of the toddler, covered them up and burying the toddler alive.  We built such a good report with the suspect, we flew with the suspect to Walker County, and he led us to the location of the bodies after being there 2 years. The suspect was convicted of Capital Murder and sentenced to death at trial.  The case was appealed all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and the confession we took was upheld.  With that said, the ruling changed how law enforcement was able to interview suspects who have been arrested on additional charges that originated out of the same criminal episode, and their respective rights with regard to Miranda.  As a result, I appeared on a national TV show on the Discovery channel, “The New Prosecutors.”  The case is Raymond Levi Cobb v. State, 2001.

With regard to my personal life, which is very much intwined with my law enforcement career, I had the opportunity to set on many non-profit boards of directors as a volunteer. One of the many boards was the Odessa Rape Crisis Center, where I was later voted in as president of the board.  During my tenure, the board and community saw the need to open a family violence shelter in Odessa, so we went to work. There was an outpouring of funds from the community; the City donated an old firehouse, and it was renovated as a shelter.  We now needed funding for staffing the project, and State and Federal Grants were not available until you were in operation for at least a year.  I learned Texas Governor Rick Perry was coming to town for a speech, so I assigned myself to the dignitary protection detail. I was a CID lieutenant at the time. When Governor Perry was getting into the backseat of the car for the airport after his speech, I was the last one to shake hands with him.  I pulled him back from getting in the car and told him I needed to speak with him.  I gave him the reader’s digest version of the problem, and he pulled out a card and wrote a lady’s number in Austin for me to call.  However, he told me not to call her until the next day, so he would have a chance to speak with her first. I called and the rest is history. The first year of the shelter, Angel House, being open, there were over 300 victims and children who came through.  Governor Perry’s wife came to the one-year anniversary and delivered a dedication speech of the lives that were being affected and sved by Angel House.