BUCYRUS—On July 26, 1971, a young man by the name of Howard S. “Bud” Logan was hired into the Crawford County Sheriff’s department.

Fifty years later, and he’s still here.

Bud served in the United States Naval Construction Battalions, “Navy Seabees,” in Vietnam from 1966 until 1968.

When Bud came back from Vietnam, he got into law enforcement because he wanted to help somebody. “I was working in a factory and came back to Galion, my hometown, and joined the reserve unit—the special deputy unit—with Floyd Smith,” Bud said. “I was promoted in 1974, and in my time, I’ve worked for Floyd Smith, Ronny Shawber, and now Sheriff Kent.”

He started on the special deputies unit; he was full-time at the sheriff’s office until he retired, then he went back to the reserve unit, and the reserve unit is all volunteers.

According to Bud, back in ’71 and ’72, the reserve unit would get road certified and take the cruiser and replace the regular officer on duty if they wanted a day off because days off were extremely hard to come by back then.

“It’s not a popular profession right now for someone to stick it out for fifty years. I appreciate Bud coming out here every year, and I think a lot of the younger guys benefit by being around Bud because he’s got experience and stories that he can tell people,” Sheriff Scott Kent said. “I think you learn a lot more from hearing someone else’s experiences than you do sitting in a classroom in training. That in itself is valuable to me. Bud sits down at the South gate for us every night—it’s not a great position, but when I’m down there, I see everybody stop and talk to Bud, so I know he’s well-liked in the community. I appreciate his service that he’s had over the last fifty years.”

Over the last fifty years, Bud has been on everything from armed robberies, murders, fatal car accidents, and much more. But the most memorable experience for him, he said, was being interviewed because it was very humbling.

Bud started off what has become a third-generation family thing in law enforcement. His wife, Vicki, worked for the sheriff’s office as a dispatcher and then as a chief financial officer for Sheriff Shawber. His grandson is a second-year Pittsburgh police officer, and his son was a Virginia Beach Police Officer for eight years after he got out of the marine corps. Aside from being a reserve officer at the sheriff’s station, Bud and his wife own an airplane, and he has his private pilot license that he got in ’87. Bud said he used to be quite a hunter and fisherman, but that has sort of gone by the wayside anymore because he and his wife are happy being homebodies.

When asked if he was retiring soon, he said, “My wife says that this is it, but she’s been saying that for about five years now. As long as Sheriff Kent wants me around, I’ll probably stick around. I would have to say Sheriff Kent does not ask a lot of us [reserves], but if we can help him with some things sometimes, whether it’s the march in the parade uptown or courthouse security, we do anything we can to help. If he asks, we’ll respond to him; we’ll give it our best shot.”