Sheriff's deputy from Abingdon retires at 80

ABINGDON William Slemp ties little notes to the various weapons he keeps hidden in potted plants and bookshelves all over his Abingdon home.

"I carried these two black jacks while working at Abingdon Police Department and Washington County Sheriff's Office," one reads. "Used them many times, crack'n heads."

The notes are so that when he dies, he said, his son will know what each thing meant.

Slemp is, for the most part, an average old man -- hard of hearing, prone to giggling, crazy about his granddaughter. Except at 80 years old, he just retired after 58 years in law enforcement.

The Washington Sheriff's Office threw Slemp a surprise party Thursday afternoon, with cake and punch, his fellow officers and friends from church. Sheriff Fred Newman presented him with the gun he carried as a deputy and a plaque honoring almost six decades of service.

Slemp keeps a scrapbook of newspaper clippings -- a chronicle of a local lawenforcement celebrity. It begins in 1955, when he was an Abingdon police officer and got shot in the chest. A few years later, he joined the Washington Sheriff's Office.

He was promoted to chief deputy in 1961, a headline reads. Then he was hired as a deputy U.S. marshal and moved to Roanoke for 20 years. He chauffeured President Harry S. Truman in 1960, escorted a famous kidnapper in 1964, then swung clubs at anti-war protesters in 1966.

Newman recalled that Slemp approached him several years ago and said, "When you think I get too old to work for you, let me know."

Newman said it never crossed his mind. Then in December, at the department's Christmas Party, Slemp turned in his resignation.

"Well, I can't hear a thing anymore," Slemp said Thursday. "And I had shoulder surgery. And I just like to retire. I've retired three times already and I always get a party."

But his wife, Dot Slemp, said it broke his heart to say goodbye.

. . .

When the Sheriff's Office cleaned out the old evidence locker several years ago, workers came across a bullet, wrapped in cotton and tucked inside a little white box.

They gave it to Slemp, whose heart that bullet nearly passed through in June 1955, when he was 24.

Back then, Abingdon Police Department officers would wander around town at night, checking door handles to make sure businesses were locked. He jiggled the knob at Abingdon Laundry, where, unknown to him, three men were inside trying to rob the place. A bullet flew through the window and into his chest, 2 inches from his heart.

"It didn't hurt, just stung a little," he said, giggling. "Until about five minutes afterwards. It went all the way through me, about a half-inch from coming out my back."

He fired back, he said, pointing to a faded 50-year-old newspaper picture of the window riddled with bullet holes. He almost died.

"Right here's the hole where the bullet went in," Slemp said, tapping on a shadowbox propped up on his kitchen chair. Inside is an old, gray police shirt, complete with badge and whistle and a little hole just above the left shirt pocket.

His son, William "Tom" Slemp Jr., made the shadowbox for his dad. The bullet is in there, too. And in another box, he has the gun it came from.

William Slemp calls himself a "crazy rat-packer" and trudges through the house, occasionally climbing up onto chairs, hunting for the revolvers and handcuffs, patches and badges that he keeps scattered throughout his otherwise tidy house.

"You see why I don't bother dusting," Dot Slemp said, laughing.

. . .

Tom Slemp said his own career was never really left up to him. He started just as his father did, at the Abingdon Police Department. Now, Tom Slemp is a supervisory deputy U.S. marshal.

"He's just exactly what I always wanted him to be," William Slemp said. "He's taking my place, only doing it better."

He has two grown grandsons, both U.S. Marines, and a 9-year-old granddaughter, Taylor, a Girl Scout and third-grader. "Taylor's going to be a deputy marshal, too," Slemp exclaimed, nudging her.

"You don't meet many people like Bill," said his friend Jack Long. "Every person I've ever met likes Bill. He's just an all-around good person."

Slemp often looked after the inmates when they went on outings to clean up trash. Newman said they respected him so much, no one dreamed of giving him any trouble.

"He always tries to help people in need," said his pastor, the Rev. Jerry Eggers. "Even his prisoners -- he wasn't there as an enemy to them. He was trying to help people who have gotten on the wrong side of the law."

Slemp fell out of his rocking chair and broke his shoulder several months ago. He had surgery and still is recovering. His ears aren't getting any better, he said. So he's finally ready to let it go.

"It's been a very interesting career," he said.

Dot Slemp interjected: "In other words, he loved every minute of it."

Claire Galofaro is a staff writer at the Bristol Herald Courier.