Six-Month Sit-Down with Sheriff Zak Benge
Greg Ritchie
Messenger Reporter
HOUSTON COUNTY – Six months in to his first term of office, The Messenger requested an interview with Houston County Sheriff Zak Benge. Benge granted the interview, and as always, was open to all questions, answering candidly about his department’s first months on the job. He asked Chief Deputy Ryan Martin and Lieutenant Matthew VanEgmond to add their comments and observations.
Benge was essentially elected in March, 2024, in a tough Republican primary against incumbent Sheriff Randy Hargrove. The two men always seemed to get along well and respect each other, but differed on certain aspects of how to best run Houston County Sheriff’s Office. (HCSO) Benge won the primary, leading to almost a year, knowing he would be the next sheriff, and time to observe and make his plans.
“When the election was over with, it was a relief — ‘thank goodness, this is done.’ I got to the point where I thought, whatever’s going to happen today is going to happen. We’re going to at least have an answer. We can get back to living,” the sheriff said, reflecting on the night of his primary win.
He added, “The next morning, lots of congratulations, a lot of people calling. But it kind of sinks in — ‘Oh my gosh, what all do we have to do? What are our goals? What are our thoughts and plans moving forward on a five-year, ten-year plan?’”
After the long months of waiting and working on his goals and plans, the first day of this year Benge was sworn in, and it was time to take the thoughts of all those months and hit the ground running.
“Day one, we had the inauguration, and then we had a mandatory meeting to go over what our goals were going to be moving forward, the things we were going to require, and how we wanted the job done,” he explained. “We had a great response. We were very blessed to have a good group of people that work here. But that first night, it was just Chief Martin and myself sitting up here at 8 o’clock, looking at each other, going, ‘What do we do now?’”
We have all had thoughts of possibly running for an elected office, or an opinion of how we might do things differently. Things are so much different on the inside, where it really does take a team to turn an overall strategy into the day-to-day tactics which shape HCSO. The sheriff credited long-serving staff for getting the administration up to speed.
“Sheriff Hargrove told us, ‘There’s so much you don’t know.’ And he was right. I’d tell anybody: you think you know what this job is from the outside looking in — but there’s so much behind the scenes you just don’t see,” he said. “Our saving grace has been Mary Jordan and Daisy Castillo. They know where everything is — files, paperwork, the keys, uniform patches. We joke they’re the real bosses. Me and Ryan, we have to ask Miss Mary if we can go to lunch!”
From the day he announced his candidacy, Benge told The Messenger communication and openness would be keys to his administration. He has kept his word, always available for comment on pending cases, providing a monthly report of HCSO activities — and even trying to improve communication with the victims of crimes.
“One idea came from my mother, actually. A lot of times when a case gets sent to the DA or county attorney, the victim doesn’t know. So now, when we send a case up, we also send a letter to the victim. It says, ‘Here’s the case number, here’s where it’s at now.’ That way, they know who to call, what to ask,” he explained. “It seems small, but it’s made a huge difference in building trust with victims.”
Benge’s push for transparency has a real-world aspect to it. While the department is transparent in their dealings and posts information to the county website, he understands some people just had a bad day, and might not deserve to be plastered on social media. Even those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty, and they all have families who are our neighbors.
“At the end of the day, the public funds what we do. So, we want them to know what they’re getting for their investment. That’s why we post monthly reports and arrest data. Everybody wants more, of course, but we’re trying to show what we can. If we arrest someone for drugs, you’ll see it on our social media — but I’m not going to post their face. That person has family. Posting their photo doesn’t help, and it often ends up hurting people who had nothing to do with it.”
Just as Benge needed the HCSO team, some of which he has built and some inherited, his department needs the county-wide team of other law enforcement agencies to support his deputies.
“We’re working on a joint major crimes task force with Crockett PD. They’ll help us, we’ll help them,” he said. “In the Ortiz murder case, it was great — no power struggles, just everybody getting together and getting it done. Same thing with the sexual battery in Grapeland. Their guys got our guy, we got theirs. That’s how it should be. And it’s working.”
He added: “When we go into the city, Crockett PD knows where these suspects live, who their families are. That saves us hours, days sometimes. It just makes the whole system more efficient — and the public gets the benefit of that.”
The criminals often have access to vast amounts of cash, and don’t need an agenda item approved to fund their operations. For local law enforcement, budget is king, both finding the funds and using them timely and wisely.
“There are things we need that we just don’t have the funds for. We’ve had to drag our net, as we say — pull together what we can, however we can,” he said. “We’ve received binoculars, fingerprint kits, and tasers from donors. DPS gave us radar units and camera systems. We just got an $83,000 grant for new body-worn cameras with cloud storage.”
Although this area was spared the catastrophic flooding seen recently in Central Texas, Texas weather is anything but predictable. We may have dodged a bigger crisis this time, but those floods — plus plenty of high water of our own — is leading the department to look for new tools to fight the effects of bad weather.
“The recent floods showed us the need for a drone. FM 229 was underwater. If a vehicle goes off the road, we need to know what we’re dealing with and what it’ll take to rescue people — and not have to rely on other agencies,” he said. “We’re going to ask the public to help us buy one. Search and rescue, fugitive tracking — it’s a huge tool. And if it saves even one person, it’s worth every penny.”
At the end of the day, law enforcement officers are people, too, with families to feed and bills to pay. Finding and keeping good elements is key, not only finding people with the talent, passion and skills to do the job — but having the budget to keep them — and keep them from lucrative officers in other places.
“We’ve talked to over 100 other counties, and it looks like our deputies are the lowest paid in Texas. And our dispatchers aren’t far behind,” the sheriff said candidly. “That’s our biggest challenge. Everything else we can solve — except recruitment and retention. And that all ties back to pay.”
Finding leaders from within gives new recruits something to work for, where in. bigger agency their efforts might go unnoticed.
“We just launched our cadet program. We held interviews and selected one of our own jailers to go through the police academy,” said Chief Deputy Martin. “We want to grow our own, promote from within. These are people already invested in the department. It’s a win-win.”
Martin has a long history with the department, despite time spent on SWAT and other duties elsewhere, and forming the Latexo ISD School Police Department.
“I was 23 when I first worked here. I grew up in this sheriff’s office,” said Chief Deputy Martin. “The admin side is new to me — policy, budget, personnel — but I love it. It feels like coming home.”
Our readers will no doubt remember an incident earlier this year where a suspect shot a rifle outside the sheriff’s office. Luckily, no one was hurt, but it has led Benge to take extra security precautions which he opted not share — understandably so. It was hard on the dispatchers, locked inside their room, though, who may deal with traumatic incidences every day — just normally only by phone.
“It was very traumatic for our dispatchers. They’re used to dealing with crises over the phone — not face to face. So we arranged counseling for anyone who wanted it,” the sheriff said.
“You become more aware. You peek out the window before you walk outside now. It’s just the world we live in. All we can do is prepare and support our team.”
Benge strives for a department better equipped, better motivated and better trained, making sure the deputies act and look the part, no matter the circumstance. Not everyone who receives a ticket or gets arrested is always that polite with the officers. Even in the face of a belligerent response, Benge asks his deputies to keep their “game face”, and not let it provoke a response.
“I’ve got over 5,000 hours of continuing education. I don’t need more. But the guys on the street do — because they’re the ones in high-liability situations,” said the sheriff. “We’ve increased training across the board, and it’s paid off. I haven’t had a single complaint about how a deputy spoke to someone. That’s a huge win.”
Benge has already learned the eternal rule of public service — it can be thankless, sometimes, and criticism, both fair and unfair, come with the role. He isn’t fazed by it, since his many years as game warden taught him not everyone is happy to see you approach. In spite of that, HCSO continues to move forward, hoping to win, earn and deserve the respect of the people they work to protect.
“We’re not always going to make everybody happy. I’m learning that. But we are going to be respectful, do the job right, and do it with a smile,” he said. “We’re working with what we’ve got, and we’re doing it the right way. That’s what people expect, and that’s what we’re going to deliver.”
Greg Ritchie can be reached at [email protected]
