Delaware County Sheriff – Ray Thomas

My name is Ray Thomas and I was raised in southern Delaware County near the Sandusky area. I attended Colcord Public Schools and graduated in 1998. I have attended the First Baptist Church in Langley, OK for the last seven years. I'm married to my best-friend Kelsey Thomas and have been blessed with four beautiful children. I enjoy spending time with my family and friends, fishing and hunting.

I started my law enforcement career in 2002 as a jailer. I went from working in the jail, to being a dispatcher and was given the opportunity to become a Field Deputy and successfully completed CLEET. During my career, I have worked for the Delaware County Sheriff's Office, Craig County Sheriff's Office and Mayes County Sheriff's Office. During this time, I have been fortunate to learn the inner workings of the jail, dispatch and patrol side of a Sheriff's Office. I was also a Captain for Delaware County Sheriff's Office and was able to learn the administrative side of the Sheriff's Office.

While employed with the Mayes County Sheriff's Office, I was assigned to the K-9 Deputy position, where I worked side by side with my partner K-9 Titan. While being a K-9 handler, l attended multiple courses and was recognized as the most dedicated, working K-9 team at the facility. Titan and I had well over 1,000 hours of training together, which included narcotics detection, apprehension, article searches and tracking.

Throughout my career, I have learned what a great leader is. A true leader should lead by example, be committed to the community he/she serves, be dedicated, have loyalty, honesty and fairness. I have been privileged to work with good leaders and bad. This taught me the standard of what to be and what not to be. Good leadership starts at the top and is pushed down the chain to staff. Morale and dedication hinge on how the leader of a department reacts to situations and treats others. Not only does it effect staff but, it effects the citizens of the communities we are serving and other agencies, which is the most important thing of all.

As your Sheriff of Delaware County, I will bring integrity, honesty, fairness and accountability to the Delaware County Sheriff's Office. My staff will be well trained and ready to respond to situations which arise within Delaware County. We will work closely with other agencies and first responders and have positive interactions with the citizens of Delaware County.

Deputies will be pro active patrolling the county keeping families safe, working high crime areas or areas needing attention where burglaries are occurring, drug activity and other types of criminal activity. I will work collaboratively with elected officials to make a positive change throughout all of Delaware County and make the county a better place to live and raise our children.

As Sheriff, I will work with elected officials to put more patrol deputies on the street to reduce call responses and conduct more pro-active patrolling. I will ask the community to do their part and help identify these high crime rate areas and report suspicious activity so the Sheriff's Office can better serve the community. I promise to be dedicated to the position, always be ethical, have a working relationship with the community and other agencies, be fair, have integrity, honesty and have accountability. I will employ those who believe and demonstrate the same mindset and morale's as I do. Thank you and God Bless.