{"id":37304,"date":"2022-11-09T10:42:07","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T17:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/steve-nowlin-is-reelected-montezuma-county-sheriff\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T08:36:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:36:53","slug":"steve-nowlin-is-reelected-montezuma-county-sheriff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/steve-nowlin-is-reelected-montezuma-county-sheriff\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Nowlin is reelected Montezuma County sheriff"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Montezuma
Montezuma County Sheriff Steve Nowlin on Friday said two deputies face disciplinary action after \u201cinappropriate\u201d behavior during a security check at elementary and secondary schools in Dolores.<\/span>The Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Republican Steve Nowlin won his reelection bid for Montezuma County sheriff.<\/p>\n

Nowlin will serve a third, four-year term.<\/p>\n

According to unofficial final results, Nowlin had 8,663 votes, compared with challenger Odis Sikes\u2019 2,961 votes, a winning margin of 74.53% to 25.47%.<\/p>\n

Voter turnout was 66%, with 12,499 ballots counted out of 18,894 registered voters.<\/p>\n

More than 6,000 ballots came in Monday and Tuesday, with over 3,000 ballots arriving on Election Day, said Montezuma County Clerk and Recorder Kim Percell.<\/p>\n

The election for sheriff was the only competitive race in Montezuma County. There are no local ballot questions.<\/p>\n

During his campaign Nowlin emphasized his 45 years of experience as a certified peace officer in Colorado law enforcement. He said he runs his department professionally with officers who are carefully vetted for good character, ethics and a willingness to serve the public.<\/p>\n

Nowlin began his first term as sheriff in 2014. Before serving as sheriff, Nowlin has served with the Cortez Police Department, the county Sheriff\u2019s Office and 21 years with the Colorado State Patrol as a Trooper and a criminal investigator.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a very professional and well-trained agency,\u201d he said during his campaign. \u201cI could not be more proud of men and women that serve this community in your Sheriff\u2019s Office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sikes, the unaffiliated candidate running against Montezuma County Sheriff Steve Nowlin, touts Constitutional values, tough-on-crime policies and community relationships.<\/p>\n

Sikes has lived in Montezuma County since the late 1980s, but only considered running for sheriff early last year after encouragement from J. Fargo\u2019s manager and Montezuma County Patriots Freedom Rides leader Tiffany Gray (formerly Tiffany Ghere) and other members of the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe share the common belief that our Constitution was bought and paid for by blood; it was not given to us by our government, therefore cannot be taken away from us by our government,\u201d Gray said. \u201cGiven the position and authority that the sheriff\u2019s position has, we need someone who\u2019s strong and stands on the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked why he decided to run for sheriff, Sikes said, \u201cI\u2019m not a politician. We don\u2019t need a politician, and I\u2019ve never been in law enforcement, so I\u2019m not a cop. I don\u2019t think like a cop. I think like you think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several candidates running for Montezuma County offices are unchallenged and were elected to office. They include:<\/p>\n

Republican Jim Candelaria for county commission District 1; Gerald Koppenhafer for county commission District 3; Republican Kim Percell, clerk and recorder; Republican Ellen Black, treasurer; unaffiliated Leslie Kennedy-Bugg, assessor; unaffiliated Rita Jeanne Caffey, surveyor; and George Deavers, coroner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republican incumbent holds on to big lead over challenger Odis Sikes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[266,28,29,445],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-37304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-newsletter-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83621,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37304\/revisions\/83621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37304"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=37304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}