BAKER COUNTY, Fla. – Longtime Sheriff Joey Dobson of the Baker County Sheriff's Office celebrated his 20-year career with a retirement dinner in Baker County Thursday night.
Dobson was surrounded by friends and family as he spent time reflecting on a job he is proud of and has loved for so long.
The retirement party was filled with lots of laughs and tributes to Dobson.
Dobson spent time thanking people and taking pride in the accomplishments he shared with so many of them at the party.
"I'm proud of all my friends and all of my supporters and all my staff. We have had a good run, I tell you," Dobson said. "But it's time for someone else to have some fun now and some of the hell that comes along with it, too. But I don't know what the future brings. Four years is a long time and we will see what happens in four years."
Dobson was first elected as Baker County Sheriff in 1996. He said his two decades as the top cop in the county have been rewarding and taken all of his effort.
"I have great agency. We have worked hard and it got accredited," Dobson said. "(It's) one of the smallest sheriff's offices in Florida that is accredited and I am very proud of that. That means we meet 280-something standards. And we are a good agency in spite of what politics says sometimes.”
Although politics is part of the job for an elected officer, Dobson said he tried to stay true to a simple motto that will leave a lasting legacy of him in Baker County.
"My slogan is and always will be, 'I have been in people's lives when they needed me and I didn't want to be in people's lives when they didn't want me to be,' and I think that's the kind of sheriff's office we have had and we have worked hard and gone above and beyond to help people," Dobson said.
Dobson said he has answered the call often and it is posted in his bio with the Florida Sheriff's Association.
Dobson's next calls to answer will be from his four children and nine grandchildren.