Originally his dad had filed for the office but had to withdraw from the race because if illness. When this happened Buddy ran on the Democratic ticket handily defeated Republican favorite, Bob Madon (who later became Mayor of Pineville).
Buddy took office about the time the move "Walking Tall" was released. "Walking Tall" was based on the life a Tennessee sheriff, Buford Pusser, who was shot, beaten, stabbed, bombs, etc. during his tenure in office. Buddy always said that if he'd see that movie earlier he wouldn't have run for sheriff!
After that I began to call him Stumbling Short.
Sheriff Cox ran a fairly decent office although there were some accusations of payoffs by bootlegger. Eventually his Chief Deputy was sentenced to prison because of these accusations.
Certain instances of Buddy's term as Bell County's chief law officer stand out in my memory:
-- When he took office, the former sheriff - as was the usual custom - had not left much in the way of office or police equipment. Buddy's comment was that when he came into office all he had was legal pad and a pencil!
-- At one point in Buddy's term of office the Bell County Fiscal Court refused to pay the insurance premium on the department's cruisers. Buddy's solution was to park the cars - all eight of them - on the Court House lawn. There they remained, in a neat little row, until the matter was resolved a couple of weeks later.
-- In another dispute with the Court (The gist of which escapes me for the moment.) Buddy and his entire department came down with a case of the "blue flu." At the time I was working for the local newspaper and Buddy called to give the story of the dispute and walkout. To illustrate the article we took deputy "Pap" Taylor's gun belt and ivory handled .45 and hung them on the door knob of the Sheriff's office. The headline above that photo? "They've Hung Up Their Guns."
--Buddy phoned me at the newspaper office one day and asked that I come to the Court House--and bring a camera. Thinking he wanted photos after the fact of a raid, I hastened across the square. When I walked in his office he and local Alcoholic Beverage Control Agent Bruce Bennett offered my a choice: go with them on one of several simultaneous raids they had planned, or stay at the office locked in a windowless, phone-less closet until they finished.
After looking over the list of bootleggers to be "hit" I opted to go with them. I had bought from everyone on the list and was hesitant to go until I saw one name I didn't recognize.
We, accompanied by additional law officers, proceeded down KY 92 to _____'s place of business.
When we got there it was apparent that someone had "tipped" him to the impending raid. It was also apparent that he had tried to drink most of stock before we got there. What he couldn't drink he poured down the drain or in the floor.
Bruce and Buddy went to the from door to serve the search warrant. They were met by a 300 pound plus ______, heavily intoxicated, with a beer in each hand. He was standing ankle deep in a liquid mix of beer, vodka, wine and whiskey.
The photographic result for that week's paper was a shot of ______'s bathroom awash in booze. The focal point of the picture was the toilet - seat up - adorned with beer cans and whiskey bottles!
--September 5, 1990
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