Rick Staly’s goal had been to “hang up the gun belt at age 55. I was going to move to the mountains and I was going to be a whitewater rafting guy.” Being sheriff for a decade after he’d retired from law enforcement wasn’t in the plans, nor was marking 50 years in law enforcement, as he did–as the Sheriff’s Office and the local community did–Tuesday at the Sheriff’s Operations Center the County Commission just renamed after him.
“So how do you sum up 50 years besides frankly it just seemed like yesterday?” he told an audience that peaked at 150 and that included elected officials from every major local government except the school board, two other sheriffs, a congressman, a pair of constitutional officers (other than Staly), and County Judge Andrea Totten.
It was about the great days, the good days and the bad days, he said, borrowing from a sermon he’d just heard at Santa Maria del Mar, the Catholic church in Flagler Beach. It was also an ingenious way to sum up a life prone, like all lives, to all three, if perhaps more intensely so for a cop who survives half a century, including a shooting that but for a vest would have ended his life.
Among the great days, he put his election as sheriff in 2016 and subsequent two re-elections, one by landslide and one uncontested, as well as getting the building named for him when “you’re not retired and you’re not dead.”
Bad days are when “a deputy or a K-9 dies on duty while you’re the undersheriff or the sheriff,” he said, “or being shot on duty.” He’d always wondered how he was going to die. When the bullet hit him in the chest, he thought: so this is how. Another bullet hit him in the arm, which was not protected.
“But that one actually turned out to be a great day, because God, frankly, was looking out for me and I lived,” Staly said. “The other deputy’s life was saved, and I’m standing before you, 47 years later, and still going strong. That almost didn’t happen.”
Staly spoke at the end of a 75-minute commemoration of his 50 years, after hearing numerous tributes from some of the officials and fellow sheriffs in the audience, and starting by offering his wife Debbie a bouquet of red roses, remembering how the two of them knocked on 8,000 doors in the campaign of 2016, and said: “Debbie, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you and your support. So I love you, and thank you.”
For the duration of the event Rick and Debbie Staly sat at a table to the side of the huge briefing room as officials spoke, usually calling Staly to the lectern to receive an honor or an award, and as that stack of honors grew at Staly’s side, among them a medal of heroism from the Sons of the American Revolution.
The two fellow-sheriffs in attendance were Michelle Cook of Clay County and Bill Leeper of Nassau, Cook providing some of the funnier lines of the afternoon–other than Chief Deputy Joseph Barile correcting Chief Mark Strobridge jokingly referring to Barile as his son. “Grandson,” Barile said. Strobridge, who’s been a colleague of Staly’s for most of that half century, was responsible for both Tuesday’s commemoration and the renaming of the building in his boss’ name. He emceed the event as well.
Surveying Staly’s long career–Oviedo police officer, Altamonte Springs police officer, half a dozen assignments on his way to undersheriff at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, reserve deputy sheriff in Seminole, undersheriff in Flagler, then sheriff–Cook said: “This dude can’t keep a job.”
She then described the impact he’s had on the Florida Sheriff’s Association, which he is soon to preside over, mentoring sheriffs like Cook, defining leadership, and always being prepared: “We have these conferences. Some of the sheriffs go out and do the next morning, some of the sheriffs come in, they’re, well, hung over,” Cook said. “Sheriff Staly has got his books and his highlighters and his pens, and he’s all business. He goes right to work.”
Strobridge read admiring letters from officials who couldn’t make it, including Sen. Rick Scott, House Rep. Sam Greco and Seminole Sheriff Dennis Lemma, president of the Sheriff’s Association. Grady Judd, the Polk County sheriff and supreme showboater among Florida sheriffs, did a video message that included a retelling of when Staly got shot, and ending with a pledge: “you and I have to do at least 25 years more,” he told Staly.
Leaders from Palm Coast, Flagler Beach, Bunnell and the County Commission all spoke, with Palm Coast City Council member Theresa Pontieri, as vice mayor, among those representing the city (Mayor Mike Norris was not there) and ending a moving brief speech by handing the sheriff the key to the city.
“Rather than speaking as a leader, I’ll speak as a resident that you serve,” Pontieri told him, after honoring Debbie as well. Her voice broke as she said: “I feel good knowing that my son will grow up in this community, and I feel good knowing that our residents’ kids will grow up safely in this community. So thank you.” County Commissioner Leann Pennington echoed that perspective. Pontieri also read Staly a letter from the city and presented him with the key to the city of Palm Coast. “Does this go to the treasury?” he asked.
John Reed, representing the State Attorney’s Office, was almost as emotional when he spoke of the collaboration between his office and the Sheriff’s Office. Joe Saviak, who’s been part of the sheriff’s close circle for over 30 years and who briefly worked at the agency in leadership development–he continues to lead the county’s leadership academy–summarized the modernization of the agency on Staly’s watch and hit all the high points of that tenure in the panegyric of the day.
“There’s no question that the classes designed by your sheriff have ended up saving the lives of many deputies and police officers throughout Florida,” Saviak said, referring to a curriculum Staly developed 40 years ago for the Law Enforcement Academy at Valencia College. “He has a great deal of empathy, care and concern for others. While on patrol each week, he always offers encouragement and appreciation to his deputies for the difficult, demanding and dangerous job they do.”
All told, the event was more low-key than might have been expected: other than the inherent amplitude of the unusual occasion itself–rare is the time when an active official with no eye on retirement is honored with the renaming of a building or a commemoration usually reserved for the departing, if not the departed–there was no bombast, no martial music or corny video tribute, and whether intentional or not, Strobridge appeared to have shown remarkable tact–and propriety–by not including any members of the Sheriff’s Office among the speakers, other than himself. The voice of the ranks was reserved for former Division Chief Dave Williams, who recently retired.
Staly, who claimed he’d not known about the tribute until reading about it in FlaglerLive, walked in alone and unceremoniously from the back of the briefing room at the beginning, an ovation rising as he walked through the middle aisle to the head of the room. There was a little barbecue privately catered for afterward (and paid for by Dan Newlin, the personal injury attorney and a leading Staly fan).
If Staly had a surprise for the audience, it is that at Saviak’s suggestion, he is writing a book “about transformational leadership,” he said, to be completed next year. He spoke of no plans to retire. “And to the staff that secretly planned this and hid it from me,” he said, “you’re fired.”
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