Lewis County Sheriff Bill Wiester Sr., right, and his son, future Grant County Sheriff Bill Wiester Jr., are joined by Undersheriff Tom Cooper in this photo with three of Wiester Sr.'s bloodhounds.
Today many will gather at Bethel Church to remember long-time Lewis County lawman Bill Wiester and his life, largely related to his time in the sheriff’s office.
For me, that’s almost entirely how I knew him.
After I was discharged from the Navy, I applied for the job of deputy sheriff. After passing the written test, I was placed on the hiring list to be interviewed.
Eventually I was called in. When I walked in the room, beside the three commissioners, there was Sheriff Bill Wiester.
My interview went better than I could have imagined, but it had very little to do with me. It was because once Bill Wiester found out I was married to one of his former and favorite southpaw girls fastpitch players, that’s about all we talked about.
Oh, on occasion one of the civil service commissioners would ask a question about my time in the Navy, or something else about my application, but for the most part it was about my wife’s time on his team.
Near the end of the interview, he leaned in and in his joking way (although at the time I didn’t know he had one of those) he wanted to know how come she married a sailor, and what did her dad think of that?
I wasn’t sure what to say, and then he laughed and I knew he was just kidding.
Sometime later I was hired, and I’ll never forget the encouraging words he had for the three of us new deputies: “Go out there and don’t get me into any trouble.”
And with that in mind, off I went.
I’m sure it was several years later when I was in Toledo and chased a guy out onto the bridge over the Cowlitz River. He hopped up on the railing and threatened to jump into the Cowlitz River rather than go to jail.
I talked to the guy for a while and eventually he got off the ledge. A couple weeks later at an officers meeting, Sheriff Bill pointed me out and told everyone the story of how I’d saved this guy.
I’m sure I was filled with pride, that was until he added that the guy was now a suspect in several burglaries in that same area.
He asked me to be a bit more selective next time I saved someone.
His hunting stories with his wife Jean were always good for a laugh. I don’t know, but I suspect, just like his exploits with his bloodhounds, there may have been just a touch of exaggeration, which just made them that much funnier.
I don’t know how many people knew he was a chain saw carver of sorts, but several of us cut wood with him on occasion, and when he would leave, he’d carve an owl out of a stump. That was long before I ever heard of chain saw carving or carving anything myself.
After his retirement, I’d occasionally run into him at a coffee shop or the motor pool parking lot and he always had a joke or story to tell.
Even a simple hello always took a few minutes.
I accidently ran across him in a local nursing home while visiting residents there for my church, and I always enjoyed seeing him. It seemed I always managed to come in while there was a nurse or aid in the room too, and he’d get all serious looking with her and want to tell her some story about me in my younger days as a deputy.
I can’t say I recalled any of the exploits he attributed to me.
There were always at least a couple of them, and they were different each time.
On one of those visits, I reminded him of his words of encouragement all those years ago when he swore me in. I asked him just how much trouble I’d gotten him into.
He just laughed and said, “none, no trouble at all”
And that may be his biggest story of all.
Rest in peace, sheriff.
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John McCroskey was Lewis County sheriff from 1995 to 2005. He lives outside Chehalis, and can be contacted at musingsonthemiddlefork@yahoo.com.
