Social Circle police celebrating history

Chief Jason Guest looks to archive department lore

Social Circle Police Chief Jason Guest points to a display of some of the earliest badges worn by the city’s police officers. Guest is working to assemble a history of the Social Circle Police Department, to give officers and future police chiefs some understanding of, and appreciation for, the department’s place in the community. Photo credit: Jim Thompson | The Walton Tribune

For Social Circle Police Chief Jason Guest, history is more than just a dry collection of facts. For him, knowing the history of an organization like the Social Circle Police Department, and imparting it to those coming into it, “helps you have ownership and buy-in … .”

“When you know the history of something, you … become a part of that history,” Guest added, noting the importance of his officers having some sense of how the department they now serve has woven itself into the city’s fabric.

And that’s a big reason why, ever since his arrival as Social Circle’s police chief a little more than two years ago, Guest has been digging into the department’s history.

He also has another vision for his work, confessing in a recent interview that he I “would absolutely love to have a coffee-table book on the history of the Social Circle Police Department.”

Guest’s work has sent him deep into the minutes of long-ago Social Circle City Council meetings, and has prompted conversations with Social Circle City Clerk Susan Roper and Social Circle City Councilman Steve Shelton, a former public safety director for the city, the equivalent of the post that Guest now holds.

Both Roper and Shelton have long histories with the city, and deep knowledge that Guest describes as “invaluable” to his efforts.

“They know everything about Social Circle,” Guest marveled, calling Roper “the historic linchpin that we always go to” across all city enterprises, and “the keeper of the historical keys.”

With Shelton, Guest recently enlisted his help in identifying the time periods in which some badges stored in the police chief ’s office were used. During that work, Guest found what turned out to be Shelton’s old badge as director of public safety. Two months later, Guest presented the badge, mounted in a shadow box, to Shelton to honor his years of service to Social Circle.

Part of Guest’s challenge in assembling a history of policing in Social Circle is working through three separate histories, with somewhat indeterminate dates. The exact start date of the city’s first police department is just one of the historical questions Guest is working to unravel. Just recently, he found a note referencing 1940, stating that on April 29 of that year, the chief of police at that time was paid a $65 monthly salary, and received $10 monthly for the use of his car. It’s precisely that kind of happenstance hint at dates in the department’s history that keeps Guest dig- ging into that history.

“I’m very, very excited about that,” Guest said. “To be able to learn something brand new … how cool is that?”

Whenever it was that the city started a police department, at some point in the 1970s or 1980s – yet another date Guest is still working to tie down — the city contracted with the Walton County Sheriff ’s Office to provide police services in Social Circle.

For now, the first mention of having the city contract with the county for police services – or at least the first mention that Guest has thus far uncovered – came from the minutes of a June 20, 1975 city council meeting. Those minutes noted that a motion was made “to meet with county commissioners to contract with the Walton County Sheriff ’s Office for police services; all members of the Social Circle department to be absorbed by the county.”

Heralding the next phase of the city’s policing history, the minutes from a 2004 city council meeting mention hiring a new public safety director for the city. From there, the first mention of a public safety director is reflected in the city council meeting minutes of May 9, 2005.

“So we, as a department, have adopted May 9, 2005 as the start of the next (and current) generation of the Social Circle Police Department,” Guest said.

That milestone prompted Guest recently to issue special 20th anniversary badges to the department, to give its personnel a tangible sense of their place in its history. But even with that definitive date, questions remain for Guest. Initially, the 2005 iteration of the police department was as a public safety organization with combined firefighting and policing duties.

What that meant, according to Guest, was that “the firefighters had to become police officers, and the police officers had to become firefighters.”

In turn, what that has meant for Guest is tracking down the names of the city’s former directors of public safety and former police chiefs to determine exactly when policing and firefighting became separate duties in the modern history of the city.

“That’s our chunk (of local history) that we’re working on right now,” Guest said.

And just as he has relied on people like Roper and Guest to provide information on the history of policing in Social Circle, Guest is now turning to the wider community for help.

“I would absolutely love, if anybody has any knowledge of the department before the sheriff ’s department took the contract” to get in touch with him, Guest said.

Beyond that, Guest is ready to get some other help in developing a history of the Social Circle Police Department.

“I would actually love to engage someone – like a college student who is a history major, or a high school student who wants to be a history major — to come work with us and … find the historical documents and help us create” a definitive history, Guest said.

Next in his litany of things he’d love to see happen to assemble a history of the Social Circle Police Department, Guest says he “would love for anybody who has anything from the Social Circle Police Department from the past – if they know anything, and they feel like sharing it with us, we’d greatly appreciate it.”

“What I’d really like to do,” Guest continued, “is engage the high school, and say, ‘What if you did this as a class project, for the kids that want to be history majors or things like that?’”

Guest seems confident he’ll get help from the community in his quest to assemble the police department’s history.

“One of the things that I’ve learned since I’ve been here,” he said, “is just the incredible support this community gives to this police department.”

Guest only half-joked that his officers may be tired of hearing him talk about the department’s history. Nonetheless, he’s confident the department’s history is being passed from veteran officers to new arrivals at the police department in informal settings during the workday.

Still, he said, “I’ve just been very, very fortunate that the department that I have right now has embraced my quirks about history. I hope they genuinely enjoy it.”

Noting that former Social Circle Police Chief Tyrone Oliver, who held the post from 2016 to 2019, had
begun the work of assembling a history of the department before his arrival, Guest said that just as knowing a police department’s history is important for officers, it’s doubly important for chiefs.

Speaking as a chief, Guest said, “… (T)hat should weigh heavy on you, that you are part of a department’s history moving forward, and the good things – or the bad things – that you do are going to shape that. That should be a monumental weight you should feel, coming into a place like this, and that’s exactly what I felt when I walked in.