For more than 32 years, Carol White has worked as a secretary and clerk in law enforcement, but that's all coming to an end.
Today is her last day at the Leflore County Sheriff's Department.
She began her years in law enforcement at the Greenwood Police Department but has worked at the Sheriff's Department for the past 25 years.
White said she will miss the people with whom she works but is excited about retirement.
"I never thought I would get to retirement time. I just thought I would work forever," she said.
But two years ago, she began thinking about when she might hang it up. Now, "it's time to go home," she said.
One person who especially will miss her is Sheriff Ricky Banks.
White began working in the sheriff's office while Banks was chief deputy under Sheriff Rufus Freeman. She was secretary and dispatcher for five deputies and didn't have much equipment other than a manual typewriter, Banks said.
"We may have gotten some cars by then," Banks said. Until that point, the department operated with one vehicle. "She would take care of everything," he said.
"Like all good secretaries and dispatchers, she took care of not only the sheriff, but the deputies," Banks said.
She always knew when one of them had an appointment, he said. "She never forgot a birthday. She always had a card to make everybody feel good."
White has handled the department's money since Banks took over as sheriff, he said. Her work has been meticulous.
Banks said White also assigned civil processing papers to deputies so they could be served. "She had to be strong enough and tough enough to make them get them served," Banks said.
"She used to be crazy about one deputy here - James Whatley," he said. "She would try to give him a lot of papers. He was like a bulldog. He would always hunt the people down and get them served. She would always brag on Mr. Whatley.
"But now she's ready to sit back and relax," he said. "Who can blame her for that? I wish her well, but I hate to see her go."
How it all began
White began working after her graduation from Greenwood High School. One of her first jobs was with the Commonwealth, where she worked as a reporter for 10 years. She started working for $35 a week and had worked her way up to $70 a week when she left.
It was former Police and Fire Commissioner B.A. Hammond who asked her if she would like to work for the police department.
"Curtis Lary was chief then," White said. She took the job on Nov. 29, 1968 and remained with the department almost seven years. It was during that time that she met her future husband, Ronnie White, now Greenwood's police chief.
At the time, he was working undercover with the Mississippi Highway Patrol drug unit in cooperation with Assistant Police Chief Miller Wyatt.
"There were only six men to cover the whole state," she said.
After seeing him come through the office, White asked the chief who he was. "He wouldn't tell me," she said. "After several weeks, he told me he was here working on a drug case."
Somewhere along the way, she said, Ronnie White gave her a name - but it was an alias.
She said it wasn't long before he asked Wyatt whether he could ask her to lunch. Then there was dinner and a movie. And the rest is history. They married Nov. 7, 1970.
Carol White left the Greenwood Police Department in 1975 to take the deputy clerk's position with the county.
Memories
Because her husband is police chief and she works for the sheriff, many might think she has an inside scoop on everything going on in the county.
That's not the case, she said.
White said, "His work was his work, and my work was my work."
And through the years, White said there have been good times on the job as well as bad.
"But the good definitely outweigh the bad," she said.
However, White said she will never forget was the death of Leflore County Deputy Buster Brown, who was killed while handling a domestic dispute.
White also remembers the Leflore Country Club murders, back in the 1970s. "They worked day and night on that, and I stayed here," she said.
Dealing with tragedy and seeing the day-to-day cases is something White said she became used to.
"After you stay in it a while, you develop an immunity and you keep in control," she said.
There were good memories as well.
As White rummaged through a box of things packed to take to the house, she found an old paper that had the names of law enforcement employees and attorneys who participated in a softball game on July 30, 1980.
She organized the event, which pitted the men against the women.
"The women were the Legal Flunkies and the men were the Legal Outlaws," she said.
"The women won," she said with a laugh. "I can't remember what the score was. But we used to have some good times around here."
What's next
Life outside of work, however, will not be boring for White.
She plans on doing all those chores at home that she's put off for years due to lack of time.
White also plans to do things with her four grandsons. She especially enjoys watching them play different sports, especially soccer.
She said her 9-year-old grandson heard her talking about retiring recently and has already made plans for her.
"He said, 'Gee' - they call me Gee - 'are you going to retire?'"
After telling him that she was, he came back with a great idea. "He said, 'You can pick me up every day after school,'" White said with a laugh.
White said she also plans to remain active in her church, Carrollton Baptist.
And she hopes to get some work done in her yard, an activity she especially enjoys.
