Clerk takes over sheriff’s department

State law requires official to step into vacated office

Wakeeney ? An unusual series of events at the Trego County’s sheriff’s office has left the county clerk as the county’s chief law enforcement officer.

Trego County’s sheriff resigned in early April amid an investigation by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. The undersheriff quit earlier this week to take a job with the city police department.

And the county’s only other deputy was fired Monday by the county commission while he was training at the state’s law enforcement academy.

Now, a woman who says she knows virtually nothing about law enforcement has become sheriff until someone is named to fill the post. That’s expected to take at least a month.

“My main concern is I am ignorant of the operations of that department,” County Clerk Kathleen Conness said. “I pay the bills, and that’s it.”

Under state law, the county clerk is required to step in as sheriff when the office is vacated. Conness plans to rely heavily on the police department to keep law and order until a new sheriff is named.

The process to replace Curt Bender, who resigned as sheriff April 2 after becoming the subject of a KBI probe, was prolonged this week when the county Democratic Party’s nominee for the job withdrew his name after it had been forwarded to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

The county’s Democrats have 21 days to make a new nomination, then the governor will have a week to confirm it. The group will meet May 8 to discuss a new nominee.

WaKeeney Police Chief Terry Eberle likely will be asked to handle the county’s day-to-day law enforcement operations. He said he would do the job without compensation.

Conness said she would appoint Eberle as temporary director of the sheriff’s department, but the City Council has to approve before he can assume those duties.

County commissioners haven’t said why they fired deputy Dustin Shultz, who had had nine or 10 weeks left at the Law Enforcement Academy.

The KBI hasn’t disclosed the nature of its investigation of Bender, but it did get a search warrant and searched his residence as part of the process.