EUGENE — Carl Wilkerson, a native of Creswell and a 30-year veteran of the Lane County Sheriff’s Office, was appointed Sheriff on Wednesday afternoon.
“This is truly one of the most humbling times of my life,” Wilkerson said. “I am honored to have the opportunity to serve our community in this regard, and I’m honored to get to serve our staff. To quote others, ‘I’m not a hero, but I work with a few,’ and they’re pretty amazing people. I could not be more proud of the men and women who make up our office. So, thank you for allowing me this opportunity.”
Sgt. Tim Wallace, public information officer, said that the sheriff position requires significant expertise and training, which takes time to develop, noting that Wilkerson was the sole qualifier for the position.
He succeeds Cliff Harrold, also a Creswell native, who resigned on May 16 after serving in the position since 2019. Harrold has accepted the role of security manager for the PeaceHealth Oregon network.
“In this case, and as is often the case, as I’ve seen, the sheriff, as an elected position, is a very high threshold for a person,” Wallace said. It’s a position that has a great deal of authority and responsibility, but also training. This is a person who’s essentially supposed to be an expert in their field, which you can’t do overnight.”
Wilkerson joined the LCSO in 1994 and became a deputy in 1996. Throughout his career, he has served in corrections, as a patrol deputy on the Traffic Safety Team, a contract deputy in Creswell, and a county patrol officer, covering an area of approximately 4,600 square miles.
In 2005, he was promoted to detective in the Criminal Investigations Section. By 2013, he had advanced to the rank of sergeant. In 2018, he was promoted to police services lieutenant, and in 2019, he was appointed as chief deputy, serving as Harrold’s second-in-command. The two go way back. Both Harrold and Wilkerson began their law enforcement careers as teenage cadets in the Sheriff’s Office Explorer Post.
“The Cresswell connection, it’s a time and place that (Wilkerson and Harrold) came up together,” said Wallace. “We do have a fair number of deputies who have worked here from Creswell and the Lane County area in general. It’s a little unique to their story in that time and place, and kind of how they started as both cadets and came up through the sheriff’s office together.”
Along with his refined experience, expertise in his field, and upbringing in local programs, officials said above all, he shines as a selected sheriff for his ethics and the strength of his character. That is credited as the main aspect in the final decision to swear him in.
“We can teach all the knowledge we can, but it’s very hard to teach someone to be ethical,” Wallace said. “To teach someone to be a good person. If you don’t have that coming into a law enforcement career, you’re probably not going to learn it, right? That’s where we see officers on the news, for you know, not good things. If they don’t have characteristics, it’s very hard to instill that in someone who’s already an adult or already has their way.
“Carl once quoted Winston Churchill, who said, ‘Do the right thing for the right reasons,’” said David Loveall, Lane County Commissioner. “My dad told me something that was fairly similar. He said, ‘Don’t be hypercritical. Use your head and heart to discern what is right, to test what is authentically right, then you’ll know truly what right is.’ So today, the Board of County Commissioners is appointing the right sheriff for all the right reasons.”
