Editor,

My name is Michael F. Gay. I would like to endorse Capt. Josh A. Wyche Sr. for sheriff. Capt. Wyche doesn’t know me, but I am a retired correctional officer with 29 years of service in Virginia, and it bothered me that he is a 35-year employee of Southampton Sheriff’s Dept., and has risen to the rank of captain and none of the people he worked with all those years on a daily basis [have] endorsed him. I want to call them phony.

Some people know your experience, qualifications, education, work ethic, integrity and dedication. Some of them saw him on his very first day. Thirty-five years later, none of them think he has what it takes to be sheriff of Southampton County, even though he has a distinguished career.

It’s really good to know how your coworkers — peers — really feel about you and publicly state so.

In my career I was named employee of the year in 2016, and that’s the highest honor I believe you can have. But my coworkers knew they could count on me. I was dependable, committted, trustworthy, dedicated, and I feel I didn’t do anything extraordinary to get the award. I look at it as I was “just doing my job,” and it would bother me to know that all these years I have been working with these people that none of them didn’t think I was good enough to lead them, only good enough to work with, not work for.

I’m going to make the common sense choice and that’s 35-year veteran of the sheriff’s department. He knows the daily operations in and out. What better choice?

Michael F. Gay

Drewryville