I read with great interest Chris Calder’s two great articles back to back on Sheriff Kendall in the Anderson Valley Advertiser. What spiked my interest was that the Sheriff came to Santa Rosa when he was a young man to study marketing at the Junior College. That really interested me, as some years ago I taught marketing at Santa Rosa Junior College. I tried to put the date together to see if Sheriff Kendall had been one of my students. Especially when I read that he indicated that marketing sucks. The dates he was there did not match when I taught. I was an adjunct teacher for one year, then the college hired a full-time instructor, so my job was eliminated.
Sheriff Kendall also mentioned that while he was in Santa Rosa, he got a job in a feed store in Fulton. The owners of that feed store are lifetime friends of my wife and I. Coincidentally, my wife had lunch with the lady owner, Lynn, just a few days after the articles were published. Lynn was telling my wife the story of how she got to know Sheriff Kendall many years ago. As she remembers it, she got a phone call from Steve Olsen, then Dean of the Agriculture Department at the College. He told her about a promising student that needed a job so he could continue his studies at the college.
As fate would play out, Lynn and her late husband could use some help. An interview was held and Sheriff Kendall went to work in his spare hours at the feed store in Fulton. After a few days’ work, there was a discussion about where Sheriff Kendall was living. He indicated that he was really looking for a place. It turned out that Lynn had a room in the back of the feed store that had a bed and facilities. So, Sheriff Kendall soon took up residence in the back of the feed store temporarily, until he could find something more permanent.
As spring approached business picked up and Lynn needed more help. Sheriff Kendall had some relatives from Covelo who also needed work, so they were hired. Lynn said, “Kendall and his relatives were the best damn workers I had ever seen.” They waited on customers, unloaded trucks of feed and hay, moved it into the store and then carted all of the merchandise out to customers vehicles. To this day Lynn refers to all of them as the “boys.”
When Lynn recently learned that Kendall was the new Sheriff, she found a picture of both of them that was taken at her fiftieth birthday party held at the feed store. She put the picture along with a note and mailed it to the new Sheriff. To no surprise, Sheriff Kendall sent a thank you note back to her. A note I am sure she will treasure for years to come.
I hope to meet the new Sheriff. I probably met him when he was a Junior College student some 30 years ago at that birthday party.
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