Ashley Kidd is Union County Sheriff candidate

Ashley Kidd is the Republican candidate for Union County Sheriff in the November 5 general election.

Kidd, now age 37, attended Northeast Mississippi Community College and went to work for the Walmart Distribution Center in New Albany. He went through a number of Walmart management training programs. He says he’d intended to make a career working for Walmart, and is an admirer of the company. However, he became interested in law enforcement through a friend who is a lawman.

His entry into a law enforcement career is somewhat unique in that he paid his own way through the police academy. Kidd graduated from the Law Enforcement Training Academy on March 11, 2009. He married his wife Katy three days later, on March 14.

After graduation he went to work for the Mississippi Department of Corrections (DOC) as a probation and parole officer.

While Kidd was still working for DOC, then Union County Sheriff Tommy Wilhite hired him as a part-time deputy sheriff in May, 2011. Kidd left DOC and became a full time Union County Deputy Sheriff in November 2011.

He joined the New Albany Police Department (NAPD) as a full time city patrolman in October 2013. For the past four years with NAPD, he has been assigned as a school resource officer in the New Albany public schools.

Kidd said his goals, if elected sheriff, would include analyzing the sheriff’s office budget to eliminate waste. He hopes to improve the pay of deputies and jail personnel, within the budget authorized by the county’s board of supervisors.

“This is not an end-of-career goal for me,” he said. “My age makes me at the middle of my career. I have a lot of energy and want to work hard for the people of Union County to make their sheriff’s department the most professional and best it can be.”

He will face two-term incumbent Sheriff Jimmy Edwards in the November 5 election.