Wood
Joe Wood said he plans to stand on his record of how he does business in his personal and professional life in his Republican Party primary campaign for Cherokee County sheriff.
“I’m going to be the same person regardless,” Wood said.
Wood, a lifelong resident of Cherokee County, has worked with the sheriff’s office since July 2000. While this is his first run for sheriff, he was elected to the Cherokee County Board of Education in 2018, saying with a laugh that he might be in the less-intense race this year.
Wood lost his father to cancer at a young age. Tragedy struck again when his wife, Hope, was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at age 39 in 2014. They have three adult children.
“The community unbelievably came together for us,” Wood said of what happened after his wife passed. “We would have lost everything, but they stood with us and held us up.”
That experience further made him want to serve the community, something Wood said he was taught by his parents while growing up in Wolf Creek.
“Our father was a Vietnam veteran, and he said to stand up for what you believe in and give people a hand up,” he said. “We’ve always been servants in our family.”
Wood has the distinction of serving under the last three sheriffs, both Democratic and Republican. He said that helps him bring something else to the table.
“I’ve seen what worked and what didn’t,” he said. “When they failed it was not acting when they initially saw some of these issues coming up.”
To help regain the public’s trust, he preaches accountability and wants to further develop a Public Integrity Division to investigate corruption and the like.
“Sheriff is a stand-alone office for the people, not to be controlled by other offices,” Wood said. “Every deputy is a constitutional officer, it’s as simple as that.”
One of the most important aspect of the sheriff’s office is recruiting, and retaining, high-quality people. Wood promises to properly vet and train everyone coming to work with him. Since being named chief deputy, Wood has changed the leader in each division.
“A sheriff is only as good as the people he puts in leadership around them,” he said. “We want to create an environment that people want to work in. Hiring is more competitive in law enforcement today than it has ever been.”
To fight the flow of illegal drugs into the county, Wood has helped create partnerships with agencies in the county’s border states.
“You need to leave your ego home to work with other agencies,” he said. “Of course, you want to have the arrests happen here, but we want to stop it before the drugs even get to Cherokee County if possible.”
Wood is hopeful some of the money coming to the county from the federal opioid lawsuit settlement can be used to create a program to have an intermediary at the jail to help inmates with substance abuse, better their education and teach them a trade “so they don’t return to a life of crime.”
“If we can set one person on the right path, it’s a win and we’ve done our job right. That’s our goal, on the streets and inside the jail,” he said.
At the same time, Wood said he has been saving the county money by tightening the sheriff’s office’s belt. He’s also willing to increase the number of federal inmates in the county jail if the revenue will help the county with other financial challenges.
Wood said he would like to keep 911 Dispatch under the sheriff’s office. “We’ve turned it into a professional organization,” he added.
Wood has announced that Chris Wood (no relation), a longtime N.C. Highway Patrol officer, will be named chief deputy should he win the election.