For nearly his entire life, all Sgt. Steve Sheldon has known is law enforcement. After 30-plus years in the field, he is ready to bid his position farewell.
Sheldon has been with the Lampasas Police Department since 2003, where he has served in multiple capacities. Most recently, Sheldon was sergeant for the School Resource Officer program within Lampasas ISD. Sheldon’s last day with the force will be June 30.
“It’s been a great 22-plus years,” the officer said. “Working at the schools has been great. I’ve made a lot of friends and acquaintances in not only the police department but also the schools.”
For as long as he can remember, Sheldon was fascinated with a career in law enforcement. His initial intrigue was piqued with the popular television show “CHiPS.” The show followed California Highway Patrol motorcycle officers Jonathan “Jon” Baker (Larry Wilcox) and Frank “Ponch” Poncherello (Erik Estrada), as they patrolled Los Angeles highways.
As a student at Copperas Cove High School – from which Sheldon graduated in 1990 his foray into the police world started when he joined the local police department’s “Explorer Group.”
“We’d do ride-alongs, and we had an Explorer Group that had a uniform that was kind of a semi-police-looking uniform, and I had handcuffs and stuff,” Sheldon said. “I was doing that before I even got out of high school, and it always interested me.”
He started his law enforcement career with the Copperas Cove Police Department as a jailer/ dispatcher before going to the police academy at Central Texas College.
After a short stint with the Killeen Police Department and seven years with the Coryell County Sheriff’s Office, Sheldon came to Lampasas in 2003.
Originally on the patrol side, Sheldon became interested in the SRO program in 2008. After working on patrol and being a K-9 handler in Coryell County, he was looking for a change of pace – which he found here.
“I found I really liked it [as a school resource officer],” he said. “Obviously, you can’t complain about the hours. It’s normal hours compared to working late nights and overnight shifts all the time. Basically, Monday through Friday, the schedule was normal. It gets you a normal schedule all the time.”
Sheldon has served as an SRO in two stints. He was assigned to the high school campus from 2008-2015 before transitioning back to the patrol side of the police department, and then from 20192025 was the SRO’s sergeant.
When Sheldon started as a school resource officer, Lampasas High School was located at the site of the current middle school. In those days, students were allowed to roam off-campus for lunch, which added to the SRO workload, he said.
“It was pretty crazy during lunch time,” Sheldon said. “I would have to ask the patrol guys to help me out because sometimes we’d have fights in different places. Honestly, we’d have kids smoking in the alleys and stuff – we’d get complaints on that.
“We had a lot of things going on in that time,” the sergeant said. “Then, when they moved the next year [to the new site on U.S. 281], it was a closed campus, and it helped a lot on the enforcement part of that.”
Although there have been times when students needed some correcting, Sheldon said he has enjoyed the relationships he built with the younger generation.
“I built good relationships through the years with kids,” he said. “I still see some kids out there and about that graduated that I run into occasionally that say, ‘Hey, you were the school officer when I was in school.’ I say, ‘Yeah, it’s been awhile; it’s been awhile.’ Every once in awhile, I run into one.”
Sheldon’s most memorable moment as an SRO didn’t happen on campus, but rather at a Badger football playoff game. After the Badgers arrived late to their matchup with the Alice Coyotes due to a poor bus route selection, Sheldon said he had to help restrain an upset Superintendent Dr. Chane Rascoe, who credited Sheldon for keeping him out of trouble.
“He got pretty heated that day,” the SRO said of Rascoe. “I don’t think we have that body camera footage anymore, but I did have my body camera on me, and I looked back and it did get pretty heated.”
Across his more than three decades in law enforcement, much has changed. Sheldon said vehicle technology such as body cameras, license plate readers and video cameras all around were not present when he first started. Perhaps the most memorable change came in weaponry from a revolver to a semi-automatic pistol.
“When I started at Cove, we were issued a revolver, a Smith & Wesson 686 revolver,” Sheldon said. “We had speed loaders that were two six-round speed loaders that we had. That was what we were issued when I started.”
In recent years, societal changes also have had some effect on law enforcement. To remain credible and trusted by communities across the country, Sheldon says officers should always strive to set the perfect example.
Throughout his career, Sheldon has worked to put his best foot forward.
“We should and are held to a higher standard,” he said. “We should set that example to especially our students and our youth. If we can’t be that example to everyone, then what are we showing, what are we doing?”
Sheldon is not ready to count out some part-time law enforcement work down the road, but in the early days of his retirement he will be busy at home.
“I think I’m going to see what is out there and slow down,” Sheldon said. “I know my wife has a list she is making for me for things that need to be done around the house that haven’t been done. So I’m sure that’s on the list of things to do for me.”