For Hamilton County Sheriff Doug Timmons, looking back on 30 years in law enforcement is both gratifying and humbling. It is a career filled with moments of great exhilaration, long nights of howling cold snow, endless budget meetings, and heart-breaking knocks on the doors of families he has known all of his life.

As Timmons prepares to retire at the end of the year, he thinks of all those moments — the good, the bad and the sad — and he knows he is ready, but there is also so much he will miss.

“Thank you for believing in me and giving me this chance,” is the message Timmons wants to send to the people of Hamilton County.

In three decades of law enforcement, the last eight years as Hamilton County sheriff, Timmons has seen and experienced far more than he ever expected in life.

“You start out and you want to accomplish things in life,” he said. “Never would I have thought 30 years ago that I would be sheriff. I was too much wanting to get out there and do the things that cops do, whether it be a traffic stop, arresting a drunk driver, drug arrests — doing cop things. I never thought I would be an administrator or sheriff.”

It may not have been what he planned, but it was a logical step forward in a long career of service.

“I’m glad I did it. It’s been gratifying,” he said. “We have a lot of great employees and I couldn’t do it without them.”

A 1990 graduate of Webster City High School, Timmons earned his degree in criminal justice from Iowa Central Community College. He was soon hired as a deputy sheriff in Winnebago County, where he spent the first five and a half years of his law enforcement career.

“I was just as happy as a lark to have a job — and in a field that I wanted to do,” Timmons said.

While in Winnebago County, he was sent to the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy, graduating in December 1995. A person cannot attend the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy until being hired by a law enforcement agency.

“I still remember graduating in a blizzard,” Timmons said of that long-ago day.

A blizzard didn’t stop graduation for the state’s newest class of certified law enforcement officers, nor would it stop those newly-minted officers as they went to work across the state. Blizzards would become just part of the job.

Timmons is clearly happy to have started his career in Winnebago County. He was equally happy when a chance arose to return home.

“I came back to Hamilton County in 2000,” Timmons said. “Sheriff Scott Anderson and Mike Hames, on the Civil Service board, interviewed me. I was just tickled as could be to be back with family.”

For an officer whose last name was already widely known in the local area, his time away was invaluable. His father, Gene Timmons, was a long-time captain with the Webster City Police Department.

“I think I matured a ton in those five years,” Timmons said.

As the new man in the sheriff’s department, it would be awhile before Timmons even had a car of his own.

“When I started, I was the 10th guy,” he recalled. “They had never had a 10th guy, so I bounced from other deputies’ cars because they didn’t even have a car for me.”

He has great fondness for the people he has worked with over the years.

“(The late Deputy) Paul Whitmore used to take me fishing. (Retired Deputy) Scotty McConnell used to chew me out for the teenage stuff that I did growing up,” he recalled with a grin on his face.

It’s the days — and nights — working with so many men like that, and many others, that he will no doubt miss in retirement. But it has given him many good memories for the years ahead.

“Back in the day, when I started, we all drove Ford Crown Vics, rear-wheel drive,” he recalled. “We would go through snow and stuff with those that I don’t know how we made it through. Now, we have four-wheel drives. We can trench through all sorts of things.”

The workhorse Ford Crown Victoria was the go-to choice for law enforcement agencies across the nation for decades. Officers did their reports with a pencil and a piece of paper. The gear that they wore was many pounds lighter, free of body-cams and so many other things that are now almost standard.

“Now you have it all on the computer in your car,” Timmons explained. “You can do everything in your car that you can do here in the office.”

Calls for service have changed drastically, as well.

“Just recently, we had information there was an active shooter at South Hamilton High School,” Timmons said. “Chris Moline (commercial motor vehicle officer with the Iowa State Patrol) and I were the first two through the door. We did our job. We work excellent together. The adrenaline pumps, and when you’re done, you think … what if there was,” a different ending to that frightening day for the South Hamilton community.

Fortunately, no gun was discovered, but one juvenile was charged with making a terrorist threat. In today’s world, every possible threat is taken seriously.

Another day he will never forget was in March 2021 when five Iowa State University students capsized while kayaking on Little Wall Lake near Jewell. Two of the students lost their lives that day. As a father, Timmons had great empathy for the families as they waited to learn their child’s fate.

While the body of one of the students was discovered on the same day, another would not be found until the following day when a rescue team with sonar devices came to assist in the search.

“I pulled into the park, and there was a car from Illinois, and I figured it was one of the dads,” Timmons recalled. “I chatted with him a bit. If it was my child, I would want to know, so I told him everything I knew. I said his son had been located, and our plan was to get in there right away. I recommended that he go to the north side of the lake by the house to wait. I had his number and I would call. He was OK with that, but he wanted to see his son. You just have to feel for those people.”

Sharing grief with people experiencing a tragedy is part of the job for every law enforcement officer. He is protective of families as they go through the worst day of their lives.

As sheriff, he was behind a desk for the first time in his life. But he thinks back often to the nearly 20 years he worked nights. Among night patrol officers in city, state and county agencies, there is often great camaraderie. At night, they can see people making some of the worst decisions of their lives.

“Sometimes people test your patience,” he said, “and you have to flip the coin and be on the other side.”

But still there is hope. “It might be three or four years down the road and that person comes up to you and says, ‘Thank you. You made me see the light.’ I’ve had that happen too.”

Those are the rewarding times for any officer.

As Timmons puts away his badge, his devotion to service is unlikely to change. The little things he has done for people over the years, jumping in a lake to help a distressed man while Timmons himself was on vacation, or just making sure an older woman gets home safely and then taking time to visit with her and carry in her groceries, will not change. That kindness is part of his DNA, of how he was raised.

For Timmons, it’s a philosophy that’s easy to sum up. “I think that comes with letting people know who you are and treating them fair, but still doing your job, treating them the way you want to be treated.”