After almost five years as police chief, Rex Baity has decided to retire from that job and a full-time position with Yadkin County EMS. He will continue public service on the Yadkin County School Board.
He is regarded by many in the quiet town and across the county as a person that does not look the part of a police chief but someone capable of getting things done. "If you talk to people who know him, people who vote and support him politically, they believe in him," former town commissioner Joe Reece said."
Reece was on the town board when Baity was hired as chief. He believes that Baity made a difference in the community. "Thanks for keeping us off the front page of The Yadkin Ripple and the Elkin Tribune," Reece said in remarks to the retiring chief in front of the crowd of well-wishers at Boonville Town Hall.
Baity had been working as a part-time police officer during a time of turmoil. "Rex came to us kind of in a time of crisis," Reece said. "He did well for four years, almost five. I don't really know what we would have done without him."
The town had been through a series of police chiefs who had not worked out, including one who had been arrested by SBI, accused of inappropriately listening in on phone conversations.
Other police chiefs didn't fit in well with what commissioners had in mind for the job.
"We were looking for a chief who would go into businesses and talk to people," Martha Peeler said. She served as a commissioner for nine years until 2004 and helped oversee police department operations.
One of the chiefs who didn't work out "just wanted to write tickets, tickets, tickets," Peeler said.
She felt that having a chief who was known by business owners would help provide him with extra eyes and ears on the street. That's the kind of chief they found in Baity, someone who knows the community and is known by the community.
Another of Baity's predecessors was from the western part of the state. "He was always going back over there. He wasn't interested in getting into this community," Peeler said.
"If you want to find someone who is a right fit for Boonville, come home," she said, adding that the new chief, Greg Gibson, is from Iredell County. "I think that's coming home," she said.
Baity admitted uncertainty in the beginning of his career as chief. "It didn't know how that would work with an EMS job."
At the end of the tenure, it has worked out well, he believes. "We have made progress. I just thought it would be good to give Greg a chance at it. We'll progress even more."
He expressed thanks for help from the other law officers in the area and to the commissioners. "You still have some worked to do on salaries," he said to them.
The staff now consists of Gibson and three full-time officers plus a collection of part timers.
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