By James Massara
After more than 29 years of serving his home county, one local law officer shelved his badge and is looking forward to spending more quality time with loved ones.
Sgt. Chris Heydinger of the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office completed his final day of work Jan. 31, completing his nearly three-decade career.
He now hopes to give back to his family, who at times played the background to his work family.
“I want to spend time with my family,” Heydinger said. “As a detective here, my family played second fiddle a lot of years because the job came first. Someone else needed help or something and the job came first.”
Heydinger not only is looking forward to spending time with his wife, Amy, and son and daughter, Austin and Kali, but is excited to be expecting to become a grandpa at the end of February.
“I just want to spend time with them and relax,” Heydinger said of his main plans after ending his career.
Heydinger got on track to begin his career after graduating from Galion High School in 1984 and then attending Hocking College in Nelsonville to pursue an Associate’s Degree in wildlife management.
After working one summer in both the boy scout camp in Mansfield and Elkhorn Lake Hunt Club and graduating college, Heydinger worked as a seasonal park ranger for two years in Pennsylvania. He was accepted into the Crawford County Reserve Unit in late 1987 and was commissioned in March of 1988.
He was hired by Sheriff Ron Shawber as a dispatcher, then worked in corrections at the county jail and then become an on-the-road deputy. Heydinger became a detective in 1998 and promoted to sergeant in 2001 and became the supervisor of the detective bureau.
To finish his career, Heydinger spent four years as the commander of the Crawford County Special Response Team, a group that Crawford County Sheriff Scott Kent said Heydinger was a key part of its creation.
“When we started the special response team, Chris and I sat down and discussed some things, like what we could do better and protect the county better,” Kent said. “He really picked it up and ran with it and did a lot of the leg work and policy work on it.
Kent said Heydinger’s work is well known by the elected officials in the county.
“As the sheriff, you’re looking for resources and someone who puts out a good quality of work, and that’s Chris,” Kent said. “I recently talked to one of the other local elected officials and he was telling me about how important Chris has been to him as he bounced ideas off of Chris, because Chris has that experience and good work knowledge of his profession. He definitely left some big shoes to fill.”
Heydinger said he felt fortunate to have worked so many years and only work under two separate sheriffs in Shawber and Kent.
He added that he never became bored with his job.
“It’s interesting and exciting,” Heydinger said. “It’s not the same thing every day. This job you meet different people and do something different. I’ve worked with different law enforcement over 29 years, and I truly believe that being a deputy sheriff, especially in a smaller county, is the best job in the world.
“It’s just been a great career.”