January 2020 Blues Vol 36 No 1

BACK TO THE FUTURE

BACK TO THE FUTURE Let’s go back. Way back! Some 35 years in fact. It was just before Thanksgiving in 1984 that a few Harris County deputies at District 2 started talking about the recently formed Sheriff’s Union and their lack of a monthly newsletter. The competition at the time was the Harris County Deputies Association, which was pretty much a rubber stamp of what the current administration wanted it to be. Somehow, the conversation led to, “Hey Barron, you have a big mouth and no filter. You should write the newsletter for the Union.” After a few conversations with the Union, I decided if I was going to put my job on the line, I’d better make some money doing it. I had no publishing experience, but the idea of the County Blues came to me watching the popular TV show “Hill Street Blues.” As they say, the rest is history. The first issue was printed on plain old letter size paper and looked absolutely horrible. Sheriff Jack Heard had nothing but praises for it, but as it turned out, he liked it because incoming Sheriff Johnny Klevenhagen hated it. Not only did Klevenhagen hate it, he called me into his office a couple of years after we started and demanded I stop printing it or else! My union attorney advised ole Johnny that my constitutional rights gave me every reason in the world to ignore his demands and keep right on poking the bear. Score a win for the Blues, not so much for Barron. I was immediately transferred to nights with, wait for it, Mondays and Wednesdays off. As far as I know, I was the only employee in the history of the HCSO to ever have non-consecutive days off. Again, my attorney pled my case and I eventually was given Mondays and Tuesdays off - for LIFE. As the newspaper’s circulation expanded to law enforcement offices all over the State, we eventually changed the name to just, The Blues. It was about that time that I left Harris County and went to work for one of the greatest Sheriffs in all of Texas, Sheriff Joe Max Taylor in Galveston. As my publishing and law enforcement careers expanded, I turned The Blues over to G.L “Buddy” Williams, a Houston cop who had been editor of both The Blues and HPD’s Badge & Gun. For the next 30 something years, Buddy did a magnificent job of keeping the tradition alive. In August of 2018, Buddy wrote a parting editorial and pulled the pin on a tradition that had continued for some 34 years, setting a record for the largest and longest running independently operated Police Newspaper in the State of Texas, and that was that. The Blues had closed and gone peacefully into the night. Until September of 2019, that is. A local TV station contacted me about running a story on the 35th Anniversary of The Blues. “Hey great” I said let me reach out to Buddy and let him know. It was then that I had discovered The Blues had closed, and Buddy had retired for good. Never wanting to let a good thing go, I decided, what the hell, let’s do a modern version of what The Blues was famous for – entertaining Texas cops. That, my friends, is how the “rest of the story” begins. Introducing, The Blues Police Magazine, a digital magazine that will be published monthly and distributed FREE of CHARGE to over 30,000 law enforcement officers around the Great State of Texas. (To join simply click on this link.) The great thing about digital publishing is the sky is the limit on what we can offer our readers each month. Interactive stories with videos, hot links added to the content, not to mention incredible photography throughout the publication. Of course, in order to produce a great magazine, you must have a great team. Our editorial staff is led by the incredible talents of Rex Evans, former Police Chief and now head of Emergency Management for Klein ISD. Our features writer, Michelle Hatmaker, will be covering some pretty cool stories, including a behind the scenes look at LIVE PD. The lifeblood of any publication is its advertisers, and Rebecca Cesari is the one to contact if you and your business would like to reach over 30,000 law enforcement officers each and every month. If you would like to make some extra cash and write for The Blues, please email us at: bluespdmag@gmail.com 6 The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE The BLUES POLICE MAGAZINE 7