By Corey Morris
Vidette Editor
Longtime McCleary Police Chief George Crumb worked his last day with the department on Oct. 27.
In uniform, seated behind his desk, paperwork and name plates still throughout the office, Crumb said his official retirement date is Dec. 31. Though still on the payroll, he won’t be taking the calls.
“I had planned on retiring on Dec. 31 for quite a while,” Crumb explained. “I was planning on taking a vacation next month, but the mayor (Brent Schiller) suggested I just take the rest of the time off.”
Vacation time and sick days have accumulated, and Crumb will use them in the coming weeks.
Crumb, who turns 64 this month, first joined the department in 1994. Hired as an officer, he became acting chief following the retirement of former police chief Ersel May (“He’s still around, and he’ll always be my chief,” Crumb said), and later Crumb was named the department’s top position became permanent.
He left his position in 1998, serving with the Mason County Sheriff’s Office briefly before becoming Police Chief for the City of Oakville. In June 2004, Crumb was hired back as Police Chief of McCleary.
Crumb had moved to McCleary in 1994 following his retirement from a military career. He’s lived there since. Though he was born in Monroe and raised in Everett, Crumb lived the nomadic lifestyle that comes with many military careers and he says his hometown is McCleary.
“I joined the military at 19, and I’ve lived in McCleary longer than I ever lived in Monroe or Everett, and at this point, I’ve lived in McCleary longer than I was in the military, so I guess I’d say my hometown is McCleary,” Crumb said.
And he doesn’t plan to leave any time soon. Crumb owns 10 acres on Elma Hicklin. Though he won’t be moving or selling his property in the near future, Crumb does plan to travel.
“I’ve always wanted to go to Alaska,” he said. “I don’t really like mosquitoes or cold weather, so it’s kind of crazy to think about going to Alaska, but I think it would be an adventure.”
The job
So what does Crumb make of a career as police chief in McCleary — the countless calls to the department, and as many serious situations averted and solved?
“So many different things, but I’d say my overall experience would be dealing with darn good people,” Crumb said. “It’s the typical small town, and I like that. There’s no hustle and bustle. They’re good people.”
Crumb called it a “privilege” to be “allowed to deal in people’s personal lives — and that’s sometimes good, and sometimes not as good.”
He described a past situation when he found a little girl wandering along a sidewalk, crying. She was lost. She didn’t know how to get home. Crumb and the girl drove around the neighborhoods, up and down side streets looking for the girl’s house — all the while, Crumb says he was getting angry at the parents. When they finally found the home, the mother came out of the front door in tears.
“The mother was so scared, and by finding the girl and bringing her home, I relieved the horror that mother was going through,” Crumb said. “It may seem minor, but it left an impression on me.”
Not all of the memories are positive. Lindsey Baum, a 10-year-old McCleary girl, went missing in 2009. Baum has not been found. Crumb said he remembers her well. Crumb was wearing a wristband with Baum’s name on it during the interview with The Vidette.
“She did the same thing my daughter used to do walking around with her clique of friends,” he said. “I would sit here (in the office) and look out the window to watch the gas prices go up — they were getting to $4 a gallon — and she was always walking by on the sidewalk. She was part of the scenery.”
When the call came in that she was missing, Crumb said it was “high stress for days.”
“Police departments have missing kids all the time, but they’re always found,” Crumb said. “This was the first time I’ve experienced where there was absolutely nothing. It’s scary. We have no idea where she is.”
Crumb said he later learned through the FBI that missing children frequently aren’t found throughout the country. “It’s an epidemic,” he said.
Baum’s disappearance is not something he’ll forget, he said.
“It’s always going to be there. She’s the only kid in 43 years of law enforcement that is actually gone,” Crumb said. “I still hope that one day I’ll be watching the news and I’ll hear that here she is, but the FBI tells us that’s not usually the case.”
It’s a loose end.
“You always want to solve something or have it solved while you’re here, but it wasn’t,” he said.
And while there are “darn good people” in McCleary, they’re not the only people on the planet.
“There’s an element of people out there in the world who are truly evil,” Crumb said.
Mission
Crumb has always had a mission.
That mission: “When a person calls 911, a police officer should be there talking to that person within minutes.”
For the next chief, Crumbs says it will be imperative to define his or her own mission.
But it’s not as simple as defining a mission, Crumb said. The new chief will have to figure out what it will take to bring the mission to fruition. A department needs staff, and the staff needs to be supported with equipment, all of which requires funding.
“The mission is simple — it’s just getting the pieces together in a strapped county that’s difficult,” Crumb said. “Hopefully the city can give the new chief what he needs to support that mission. But the department may have that support one year, but not have it the next.”
In the end, Crumb says the best part of the job is the people of McCleary.
“The people have been the best thing here, and that’s what makes you want to keep going,” Crumb said.
