The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Community says, ‘Goodbye Henry’
Longtime community service officer retiring, reminiscing about uniqueness of Oberlin
For 34 years, the Oberlin Police Department has been the home to one of the most wellknown and loved cops to have a beat.
But come Dec. 21, the friendly face of Robert Henry Wallace, 74, of Oberlin, will be conspicuously absent, in uniform at least, as the community service officer and captain of the Oberlin Police Auxiliary retires.
Wallace, affectionately known as Henry by both the Police Department and Oberlinians, moved to town in 1967 after living in Decatur and Hartselle, Ala.
“I had a whole bunch of relatives up here and they kept telling me how nice it was, so I decided to come up here and visit,” he said. “Got up here, liked it and went back home and packed up and left.”
Wallace said at that time, Alabama was deeply segregated and he’d never felt what it was like to live in an integrated area until he visited Oberlin. The difference was amazing.
“Back then in Alabama, you didn’t live anywhere near anybody that was white,” he said. “You couldn’t even live on the same side of town that white people lived on.
“So, when I got here and saw they were all mixed and some of them even married, it was all new to me. So, I decided to stay here and try it out.”
Quiet town
Wallace said he was attracted to Oberlin because it was so quiet.
“There’s nothing else to do,” he said with a laugh. “This is a really busy town in the summertime, but the rest of the year, it’s just drab.
“People don’t have anything to do, so they mind their own business and do what they’ve got to do.”
Wallace said he chose to get involved with the police in 1984 at the urging of then Oberlin police Chief Robert “BJ” Jones, who Wallace worked under the first 16 years he was with the Police Department.
“He was hiring auxiliaries and he noticed that the majority of auxiliary applicants were white and
he didn’t want it to be all white,” Wallace said. “So, he reached out to me and asked me to come in.”
Wallace said Jones knew him from being around town.
“I didn’t want to do it,” he said. “(I) didn’t care too much for cops, but I had worked with him many times because I used to do the St. Jude’s Bikeathon every year and that was done through here and the police had to help us some times.”
Wallace said he agreed to join the auxiliary, and despite initially not knowing if he would stick with it, for the last 20 years, he has been the only man left from the initial 16 hired by Jones.
At the time he joined the auxiliary, Wallace worked full time as a technician contractor through the Federal Aviation Administration.
“I didn’t need the money, so I could afford to be a volunteer auxiliary, so that’s why I stayed here,” he said.
Wallace also enjoyed the position because his children, Sherri Wallace and Steven Wallace, were in school and the position gave him the freedom to be at any major event at their schools.
He said his position with the FAA, kept him from going to the police academy and becoming a patrol officer.
Wallace said at the time he got into the auxiliary, the Police Department didn’t have part-time positions and the FAA would not allow him to work full time with Oberlin because it constituted a conflict of interest.
“By the time they came up with part-time positions, I was already too old,” he said. “I wasn’t too old to get hired, but I was too old to do the physical stuff and I just wouldn’t do it. I didn’t want any part of it.”
Wallace added that at the
time, patrol officers weren’t making as much money as he was as a contractor at the FAA.
Operated Checkmate
A year after joining the force, Wallace started what he calls his crowning achievement: Operation Checkmate.
“It was the first program in the country like that where we went door-to-door checking on elderly people,” he said. “People who were retired and weren’t too healthy. We checked on them regularly.”
Wallace said police departments from other states called to ask him about the popular program.
“I still do that Operation Checkmate today,” he said.
Throughout the 18 years he worked as an auxiliary, Wallace wasn’t paid.
But in 2002, when he became the community service officer, that changed.
“I created (the position),” Wallace said. “I was the one that asked for it, and went and got the information on it and brought it to the chief.”
Wallace is the only community service officer Oberlin has and it is in this capacity that he has become the most visible, often driving the Police Department’s tricked out Segway, a two wheeled stand up motorized scooter, up and down South Main Street enforcing city ordinances and doing the legwork for the city’s planning department.
“A lot of times, especially on bikes, skateboards and rollerblades, I can overtake them (on the Segway) and it has lights and a siren on it,” he said. “With that Segway, I can pull them over just like they do in a police car.”
Recently, Wallace was issued a marked squad car for the colder months. Other duties
Also as part of his duties, Wallace has provided security for Oberlin City Council meetings, where he has had to stop people from bringing in weapons
more than once.
“You always run into stuff,” he said. “We have taken a lot of weapons off of people in there.
“It depends on what kinds of issues you’re dealing with. If it’s controversial issues, people come angry, they bring things and we don’t let them in with anything.”
But all of this will come to an end when Wallace retires Dec. 21 and leaves a hole in the fabric of the city.
Oberlin City Manager Rob Hillard said Wallace is an asset to the city and will be sorely missed.
“There is no replacement for Henry, just because he’s such a special person dedicated to our community,” Hillard said.
Oberlin police Chief Ryan Warfield echoed similar sentiments.
“(Wallace is) one of a kind; I hate to see him go,” Warfield said. “I wish I had five of him.”
When asked why he chose now to retire, Wallace said it’s time.
“I could have retired 10 years ago,” he said. “(But) I just wasn’t ready to go.”
Now, Wallace says he’s ready to go.
He plans to stay in Oberlin after he retires and will keep up some sideline jobs that he’s been doing.
“And in the wintertime, I’ll do a lot of hunting,” Wallace said. “And in the summertime, a lot of fishing.”