New Sheriff in town

When Steven Greenwell grabbed the Good Book and told the Lavaca County residents and honored guests who gathered that New Year’s Day inside the local courthouse that he wanted to open by reading a few words, several in attendance instinctively bowed their heads.

Still, you’d be hard pressed to find the words he read that day in any Bible other than the one he brought with him.

For the words he shared came from a handwritten inscription from the man who gave him that Bible, some two decades earlier, back when they worked together in a newly formed division of the Department of Homeland Security, solving crimes against children committed via the worldwide web.

It was difficult work, Greenwell admits, but it was made so much easier by men like Marty Greer, who not only served as a federal agent in the Internet Crimes Division, which Greenwell headed for several years, but as a local pastor as well.

Although Greer passed away back in 2020, Greenwell said he couldn’t help but feel that the words he wrote to him back then carried an especially significant meaning on that day, too, as he prepared to take an oath of different sort.

“Sometimes we wonder why God places us where he does,” Greer wrote in the front pages of a Bible that was made for policemen, his inscription dated as “Christmas 2005.”

“But He is all-knowing and does things for a reason,” he added. “I believe he has placed you where you are for a reason. Be patient and maintain your zeal!”

To which Greenwell then added, “I believe God placed me here for a reason,” a comment that drew a hearty round of applause from the many gathered on New Year’s Day at the courthouse in Hallettsville.

Still clutching his Bible, Greenwell then handed over the reins to Roy Boyd, sheriff of Goliad County, who led Greenwell in his oath of office as the new sheriff of Lavaca County, with Kim Greenwell standing faithful at her husband’s side for every word and, later, pinning that familiar Lone Star shaped badge to his lapel, all to several more rounds of applause from the audience at every step.

It was an office he won in first half of 2024 in a Republican Party primary run-off election against Sheriff Micah Harmon, who was seeking his sixth term in that office.

Oaths now taken and papers signed, Greenwell then turned to the men, and one woman, who he asked to join him there that day in uniform as his deputies, while he led their respective oaths of office.

While a few familiar faces remain from the previous administration, several new faces were also introduced, all of them officers that Sheriff Greenwell hand-picked personally.

Such as Lavaca County’s new chief deputy Carl Herbst. Before Greenwell stepped down to run for sheriff at the end of 2023, he was working his first term as Precinct 1’s Justice of the Peace, which for a while, saw newly elected Precinct 3 JP Mark Yackel serve briefly as Greenwell’s court administrator so that two of them could learn the ropes of their respective offices while assisting each other in getting their respective caseloads caught up.

Precinct 4’s JP Hannah Hall from Yoakum, Lavaca County’s longest serving justice of the peace who also doubles as Hallettsville’s municipal court judge and has assisted with that local JP training process for years now.

Their learning period completed a few weeks later, Yackel returned to Shiner to apply what he learned in the JP’s office there, leaving Greenwell in search of a new court administrator. Much as he hoped he would, Greenwell said he had several incredibly qualified people apply for the job, Herbst among them.

Greenwell said he ultimately chose someone else to fill the courtroom opening, and alluding to the same inscription passage from his Bible that he shared to kick things off, Greenwell said he also told Herbst then that he was certain God made sure their paths would cross for reason.

That reason revealed itself a few short months later when Greenwell said he found himself in search of a new chief deputy.

Also, from his time with the Department of Homeland Security, Greenwell introduced Joshua Vaclavik as his new Captain of Enforcement and Operations for Lavaca County. In addition to proving a more than capable agent with the Internet Crimes Division, back when Greenwell ran things there, Vaclavik went on to become one of the top investigators for the federal prosecutor’s office in Texas’ Southern District Court.

New to the Lavaca County Sheriff’s Office but not the area are Deputies Mitchell Bennett, who joined Greenwell’s team as a sergeant investigator, and Austin Hannah, who will be working patrols. Both are transfers from the Hallettsville Police Department, though Bennett also served previously as chief of police for the Moulton Police Department.

Speaking of police chiefs, Hallettsville PD’s Chief Randy Schlauch, Moulton PD’s Chief Daniel Beyer, Shiner PD’s Chief Wayne Denson and Yoakum PD’s Chief Karl Van Slooten were all in attendance to welcome the county’s new head lawman into his role, as was Michael Furrh, chief of EMS operations in both Lavaca and Colorado counties, along with new Lavaca County prosecutor James Reeves.

Asked to step in to his role a few weeks early to assist with caseloads, Reeves came to work in the assistant’s role alongside Kyle Denney, the man he replaced. Reeves accepted his oath of office earlier that same day, when all other Lavaca County elected officials who began new terms of office on Jan. 1 had their ceremony.

Sheriff Greenwell, prior to Jan. 1, also assisted in the local prosecutor’s office last year, helping wrap up several open cases that the county attorney’s office had pen.