Kandy Fatheree On Being First Woman Elected Summit County Sheriff

Last week was historic in breaking the glass ceiling news; as Kamala Harris rose to the second highest office in the land, and became the first woman to become Vice President. 

And here in Ohio, a few glass ceilings have been shattered this year, in the field of law enforcement. Both Summit County and Hamilton County swore in their first women to serve as Sheriffs in either counties' history.

For reference, Summit County is 181 years old and Hamilton is 231 years old. In Summit, the new leader is Sheriff Kandy Fatheree, who had worked in the Sheriff's office for the last 25 years.

In Hamilton, the new leader is Charmaine McGuffey, who had worked in the Sheriff's office for the last 33 years and who is also the first openly LGBTQ sheriff in the county's history. 

Remarking on that shattered ceiling, McGuffey told the Cincinnati public radio station, WVXU last month, "My role is to be an example of what you can accomplish as an LGBT person because there's a lot of discrimination out there. There were lots of times that I struggled to keep my sexual orientation to myself because I knew that if it got out it would hurt my career."

But while the ascension of these two women may make appear that women have made leaps and bounds in law enforcement, there's still a long way to go to achieve equality. The pair are only the 5th and 6th women sheriffs in Ohio's history. 

Ohio's first woman to serve as a county sheriff, Maude Collins of Vinton County, served back in 1925, because her husband died and she inherited the job, which was common at the time. 
It wan't until 1976 that Kathy Crumbley, Sheriff of Belmont County, became the first 'elected' sheriff in the county, and in the state. She served just one term.

After Sheriff Crumbley, it would take another 40 years before a woman was elected as sheriff in Ohio: In 2016, Deb Burchett was elected in Clark County, and is still serving. 

This lack of representation is not just an Ohio problem.
 
In 2008, the most recent statistic we could find from the National Sheriff's Association, there were only 42 women serving as sheriffs in the country, of more than 3 thousand jobs. That could be because there's not a large number of women in law enforcement in general. Women nationally make up 12% of law enforcement officers, but that is up from just 3% in the 1970's according to US Department of Justice data. 

This hour on The Sound of Ideas, we're going to start by talking to the newly elected Sheriff of Summit County, Kandy Fatheree, about her historic achievement, and what she hopes to accomplish while in office. 

Then, Rick Jackson's conversation with Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on the statewide identity theft scam that you need to know about. 

-Kandy Fatheree, Sheriff, Summit County 

-Dave Yost, Attorney General of Ohio