Former sheriff led its state association

Ronnie Baldwin was remembered Monday for his public service work, including three decades in law enforcement.

“We were blessed to have him in our lives,” Perry County Sheriff Scott Montgomery said Monday.

Baldwin, the executive director of the Arkansas Sheriffs’ Assoc iation, died Sunday at a Little Rock hospital from complications of lung cancer, said his wife, Martha. Baldwin was 63.

“He graduated a year ahead of me from high school,” Wynne Mayor Bob Stacy said. “So I’ve known him all my life. He didn’t back down from anything. When he told you something, he meant it. I admired that about him. You knew where he stood.”

Sheriff of Cross County from 1999- 2008, Baldwin spent 30 years in law enforcement in Brinkley, Wynne, and Cross County, Martha Baldwin said, including as chief of police in Brinkley.

Pulaski County Sheriff Doc Holladay is secretarytreasurer of the association, which has offices near the state Capitol and counts each of the state’s 75 sheriffs as members.

“His whole career and life were spent in service to his community, and to Wynne and Cross County in particular,” Holladay said. “He had a love for law enforcement and a great reputation among sheriffs around the state.”

Baldwin took his leadership role at the association seriously, Holladay said, and led the move from its old headquarters in North Little Rock to the Association of Arkansas Counties building on West Third Street in Little Rock.

“That put us closer to the hub of county activity in the state, and closer to the Capitol where there is so much work with the Legislature that sheriffs are involved in,” Holladay said.

Baldwin was, Holladay said, “highly respected, a Christian gentleman, and loved by everybody.”

Holladay said he was talking on the phone Monday to a sheriff in Texas who knew Baldwin.

“Ronnie was active in the National Sheriffs’ Association,” Holladay said. “He was known by many people in law enforcement across the country. We all had great respect for him. He was committed to training, and committed to the growth of professionalism within law enforcement in the state.”

Ken Thomas, Baldwin’s brother- in- law, said Baldwin touched a lot of lives during his career.

“He was a man of his word and worked for the people,” Thomas said. “Being executive director of the association was his dream job, what he always wanted to do.”

Perry County’s Montgomery described Baldwin as a mentor.

He learned from Baldwin to “make sure when you talk to people they know how you feel in a respectful and professional way.”

Montgomery said he aspired to be on the association board, but expected he wouldn’t have much chance being from a small county.

But now, as second vice president and with Baldwin’s encouragement, he knows “this association is open to all. It’s for every county and every sheriff.”

“He always wanted to do right,” Martha Baldwin said. “He was compassionate about everything he did. He lived and worked to the fullest. He was a mentor to so many people. He just wanted to do right.”

The couple had three children, she said: Bo Baldwin, Barry Baldwin, and Brittany Rodgers. They also have six grandchildren, she said.

“I can’t tell you the people who were headed down the wrong road, and they told me, your husband saved my life,” Martha Baldwin said. “That’s what a lot of people involved in drugs said. He was stern, but he was fair.”

Ronnie Baldwin donated his body to science, his wife said.

“It was his last ultimate gift. He wanted to make a difference in somebody else’s life.”