Butch Says It All Started with Watching TV

By: Butch Dale

Have you ever wondered why you chose the occupation that you work at today? When I graduated from high school in 1966, my goal was to become an electrical engineer. I enjoyed the math and science classes that I took at good ol’ Darlington High School. Making good grades always came easy for me, and when I graduated as the class valedictorian, I received a full scholarship to General Motors Institute in Flint, Michigan to earn a degree in electrical engineering. I envisioned my future job to be both challenging and high paying. But after working as an intern in the engineering department at Allison’s in the summer of 1966, I started to have second thoughts. And after two weeks at college that fall, I decided that this was not what I wanted to do.

To make a long story short, I enrolled at Purdue and earned both my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in education. I became a teacher at…yep…Darlington Middle School, and I even had a brother and sister in two of my classes that year! Several years later, I attended a class in Criminal Justice, which dealt with law enforcement and the judicial system. When it appeared that my old school was going to close, I started thinking about a change in careers…to law enforcement. I was hired as a Montgomery County deputy sheriff, and after many years on the force, was elected County Sheriff in 1994. But hold on. When my oldest boy started Purdue in 1990 and I needed to earn more money to pay his tuition, I also was hired as the librarian in Darlington. So for many years…now as the father of four children, I worked from 11am to 6pm as a librarian, and then 7pm to 4am as a police officer…often getting no sleep if I had to cover a big case or traffic fatality late at night. It was very hectic to say the least. I retired from the Sheriff’s Department in 1997 and returned to teach six more years, while also working part-time as librarian. I also taught college level criminal justice at Ivy Tech for one year. I have had several hobbies through the years, too. I have written four books and hundreds of newspaper columns, and have also painted and drawn over 1000 art pieces. In my “spare time,” I have read almost all of the non-fiction and biography books, which number in the thousands, at my library. And to top it off, I received a federal

firearms license in 2006, which I still have, and I buy and sell firearms (mostly antique) …over 3000 thus far. At age 74, I can’t seem to slow down…and that’s good!

I have always wondered why I chose these occupations and hobbies, because I never considered them during my high school days. But recently I read an article in Psychology Today that helps to explain my decisions. According to the article, “like the foundation of a house, our childhood experiences are the foundation on which the rest of our lives are built.” Like many of you “baby boomers” who were born after WWII, many of your childhood experiences were affected by what you watched on a newfangled invention…television. As a toddler in the early 1950s, my two favorite TV shows were The Gene Autry (cowboy) Show and Miss Frances’ Ding Dong School. This might explain why I eventually became a police officer and teacher. It was part of my basic psychology. My mother also read those Little Golden Books to me hundreds of times. One book in particular was entitled “Teddy Bear of Bumkin Hollow,” and in the first paragraph, it read as follows…”Teddy was a little brown bear. He was just about the cutest bear that ever lived in Bumkin Hollow. But he had one very bad habit. No matter what his mama told him to do–he wanted to do just the opposite.” Folks, that last sentence described me! She read that book so many times that I had memorized every word by the age of four. She turned the pages, and I recited the words! And guess what? I finally straightened up my behavior, by attending Sunday school, (and with the assistance of Dad’s belt on occasion). When I started first grade at the age of five, I was ahead of everyone, and it continued that way for the remainder of my school years. I loved school, especially my 4th grade teacher, Audrey Cox!

If someone had told me during my high school years that I would be a teacher, a police officer, and a librarian, then I would have told them they were crazy! But if you look deep down at my early childhood TV experiences, and with the way I was brought up, plus the fact that my father was class valedictorian, and my mother had artistic talent…so how could it be otherwise? Thanks Gene, Miss Frances, and Mom and Dad…I have loved my life!

– John “Butch” Dale is a retired teacher and County Sheriff. He has also been the librarian at Darlington the past 32 years, and is a well-known artist and author of local history.