TIFTON — When now Major Bobby Brannen graduated from high school in 1974, he had no idea what career he wanted. Now he’d like to work at the Tift County Sheriff’s Dept. for another 17 years so he can meet the 50-year career mark.

“The Lord has let me realize over time that there are a lot of things worse than working for a living,” Brannen said. “One of those things is not being able to.”

Tift County Sheriff Gary Vowell recently promoted Brannen to the rank of major. Brannen was standing in the agency’s criminal investigation’s division with his former co-workers (he headed that department from 1979 through 2003) when Vowell walked in.

“He (Vowell) had something in his pocket and he took it out, but I stepped back,” Brannen said. “Vowell and I go back to junior high school so I didn’t know but what he had a bug or something in his hand.”

Brannen finally took what Vowell had in his hand and when he saw the lapel pin — an oak leaf designating the rank of major. Brannen said he reluctantly took it from Vowell.

“I told him he had a lot of folks that deserved it,” Brannen said. “From the day the sheriff told me he was promoting me, honestly, it was quite a humbling experience.”

Brannen took a job at Tifton Aluminum when he graduated from high school. Two months later he was laid off and thinking of what he wanted to do with his life.

“I had a new car with payments and didn’t know what to do,” Brannen said. “I got up one morning with the idea of law enforcement and got to thinking about job security.”

Brannen talked with Edd Walker, who was Tift County’s sheriff at the time. Brannen said Walker told him he wished he was a little older. Then Tifton Police chief Hugh Smith told Brannen the same thing when he went to talk with him about the possibility of a job. He then went to talk with Henry Dean, who was then Ocilla’s police chief, when he heard there were two positions open in that department.

“He (Dean) asked me how old I was and rolled that cigar around his mouth with his tongue and looked me up and down,” Brannen said. “Then he asked me if I could be there at 10 that night and I told him yes.”

Dean asked him to bring his own gun and Brannen and his mother shopped at Jordan’s Gun Shop. They bought a .38-caliber revolver, a black duty belt, handcuffs and a case and a holster.

“I went that night and rode with Herman Chaney,” Brannen said.

Brannen went on to graduate from ABAC’s Police Academy in 1975.

Walker hired Brannen, who was just 19 years old, on Jan. 12, 1976.

“I had considerably more hair and it was a different color then,” Brannen said.

Brannen worked on drug investigations with the TCSO for 18 months, some of that work undercover. When Bob Keele, who was then head of the TCSO’s investigative division, was shot during a domestic dispute in 1977, Brannen’s duties expanded to include investigations of murders, armed robberies, rapes, burglaries, check forgeries and a variety of crimes. Two other investigators in the department “worked dope” Brannen said. Keele left the department in 1979 to become a college instructor and Walker promoted Brannen to run TCSO investigations. Brannen said he asked out of the department in 1991 when co-worker Raymond Merritt was killed.

“Sheriff Walker said he would think about it but it never happened,” Brannen said.

Brannen said he asked to be moved out of investigations because, in part, there sometimes seems to be “no light at the end of the tunnel.”

“It’s a burden to have to look someone in the face and tell them you don’t know who killed their loved one,” Brannen said.

In 1996, Brannen said he asked newly-elected Vowell to be transferred.

“He asked me to stay and he promised to get some help and he did,” Brannen said.

Brannen said Vowell put two new positions in the criminal investigation’s budget the next year.

In 2003, as part of the department’s reorganization, Brannen was transferred to the front office and supervised 11 people who are responsible for entering search warrants, subpoenas, civil papers, accidents and juvenile complaints in the computer system’s data base and into the Georgia Crime Information Center’s data base. Brannen continues to be in charge of the sex offender registry. He also handles fugitive warrants issued from other states and firearm permit applications as well as other duties previously performed by his friend and co-worker, Major Jack Woolard, who died in April.

Woolard’s old office is now Brannen’s, but Brannen said he is in no way attempting to replace Woolard.

“I can’t ever be Jack Woolard,” Brannen said. “He was ‘The’ Major Jack Woolard and I won’t ever forget him.”

Time have changed since Brannen began his work in law enforcement.

“It is a totally different ball game,” Brannen said. “It seems the group under the age of 25 don’t respect their parents and they don’t care about their teachers. They don’t have respect for us or even respect for themselves.”

Some of the “young crowd,” Brannen said, believe they gain an identity and “become somebody” when they get into trouble. He said parents should take the brunt of the responsibility for those attitudes.

“Some people’s parenting skills aren’t the best,” Brannen said. “I think that unless this thing turns around, we are headed for a scary future. Ultimately, the responsibility still goes back to the home and parents should be making a difference.”

Lack of appropriate punishment is also a problem, Brannen said, and things were different when he was a child.

“What I got on my back side made me who I am today and I who I am today is by the grace of God,” Brannen said.

Even with the difficulties law enforcement and society face now, Brannen doesn’t want to quit.

“I am blessed with good health and I enjoy what I do,” Brannen said. “If the Lord allows, I’ll retire when I’m 69 years old and I will have given 50 years. I think that record will stand for a while.”



To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.