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DAYTON–The Dayton Kiwanis Club showed its appreciation to the Columbia County Sheriff's Office with a brief ceremony and shared locally made cupcakes with blue frosting Thursday, February 25, at the Superior Court room.

"We have talked amongst ourselves about what a year we've had," said Kiwanis President Kim Lyonnais. "But I don't think we can feel what our departments, our law enforcement, has felt. We read in the paper about Seattle, Portland and Minnesota, and the politics, and the defunding.

"When your families go through this, we realize that, and we're here today to take an opportunity to show thanks. We don't do that enough.

"We live in a great community, and crime is pretty low in our eyes," Lyonnais said. "I don't know what you deal with behind the scenes...but traffic and–fireworks may get a little out of hand once in a while–but what a great community, and it's you, it's you and your department, the dedication, the commitment, no grumbling...we've just really got it made, so we want to thank you and we want to keep thanking you. Thank you so much.

Former Commissioner and past Kiwanis President Chuck Reeves pointed out the benefits of deputy longevity. "There are good things about where we are and what they're doing," he said.

Reeves mentioned Civil Deputy Tim Quigg, who recently marked 40 years of service in local law enforcement. "He's been here through seven sheriffs and three chiefs of police," Reeves said.

He mentioned Deputy Lee Brown, Deputy Jeff Jenkins, Deputy Matt Wiens, all of whom were "on board" when Reeves was a five-term commissioner, retiring in 2014.

"The turnover here is not that severe," Reeves said. "One of the things is it's a good place to live. I thank the people for staying and sometimes we get a new person in and go through the training mode for them to move on to another position, but that's a minimum.

"I'm just real pleased to have people be a part of the community," Reeves said.

"I'd just like to thank you," responded Sheriff Helm. "As you know, there's a lot of stuff going on in the news media and it's one of those things to where sometimes our families get affected by it, but we are very lucky where we are.

"We were not impacted by Seattle, or impacted like some of those areas you brought up," Helm said.

"Now, when it comes to training and state reform, a lot of the time that's dictated by the other side of the mountains and so this last year was rough from that kind of aspect. But our community has been very supportive," he said

-Chronicle photo

Lending support to honoring members of the local law enforcement community was this lineup, from left, Kiwanian Gary Schroeder, Deputy Prosecutor April King, Undersheriff Robbie Patterson, Deputy David Walling, Civil Deputy Tim Quigg, Sheriff Joe Helm, Kiwanis President Kim Lyonnais, Kiwanian and former County Commissioner Chuck Reeves, Kiwanian Judi Pilcher, Treasurer Carla Rowe, S.O. Volunteer Liz Quigg.

"We have great people such as Tim Quigg. Like was said, Tim's been here 40 years. He keeps the Sheriff's Office running. He knows his stuff.

"We have good people like all our deputies Robbie, Lee, Jeff, everybody has their strengths in every different way and the one thing that we have had, even over this last year when we haven't had our normal civic and community events, all the normal things that we normally have, we have been supported by the community quite a bit and we appreciate it," Helm said.

"It's nice to get recognized and we know a lot of areas that don't get recognized but it is nice that our community does take the time to recognize us," he said. "We do appreciate that. This does make a difference.

"I personally feel we get a lot more support from our community than other areas," Helm said.

The sheriff pointed out that two new deputies have recently been hired, one joining February 8 and the other expected to start March 8. "We're trying to get our staffing back to full minimal staffing," he said.

A dozen blue frosted cupcakes from Decadent Cupcakes were presented in appreciation.