Wilkes named interim Lamar Police Chief
By Samantha Lyles, Staff Writer, slyles@newsandpress.net
Lamar Town Council convened their regular monthly meeting on Monday, October 9 and announced after an executive session that George Wilkes has been selected as the town’s interim Chief of Police.
Wilkes succeeds the recently dismissed Jason Chaney, who was arrested by SLED in August and charged with two counts of theft of a controlled substance, two counts of misconduct in office and one count of filing a false report.
Mayor Randy Reynolds said during the regular meeting that he did not feel comfortable naming a permanent replacement since he is not running for reelection and Lamar will have a new mayor and several new members of Council in January of 2018. He expressed confidence that Wilkes will be a responsible Chief of Police, no matter how long his tenure lasts.
Prior to Lamar’s hiring of Chaney, Wilkes served as Chief for a few weeks, but was forced to resign when his wife got a job as a traveling nurse and he decided to travel with her. Wilkes, a Lamar native with three decades of law enforcement experience, says he is glad to have this chance to serve his community.
“I have been in law enforcement since 1988. I served thirty-one years at the Darlington County Sheriff’s Department as a narcotics investigator, a criminal investigator, and in vice,” says Wilkes. “I love this town. It’s home for me.”
During the regular meeting, Reynolds and Council members Angele White-Bradley and Willie Howell heard concerns from citizens about a number of road surface issues all around Lamar – specifically, about areas where the pavement was cut to repair water lines and never repaved. Reynolds said that several of the work areas have been patched and the town is working to secure a large load of patching material to get the rest of those pavement gaps covered before the weather turns cold.
