Chief deputy sheriff retires after 30 years…sort of
After nearly three decades wearing a Rappahannock County Sheriff’s Office badge — from his early days as a jailer to chief deputy — Maj. Roger Jenkins has closed that chapter of his life and retired.
Well, for the most part.
While he stepped down as chief deputy Aug. 1, Jenkins isn’t quite ready to stop serving. This summer, he is where he’s happiest — his beloved Jenkins Fruit Stand in Sperryville, where he’s been a weekend fixture for over four decades.
And starting next month, he will be back working part time as a bailiff in the courthouse.
Roger Jenkins at his roadside fruit stand in Sperryville. (Photo/Ireland Hayes)
Childhood dream
Becoming a law enforcement officer was a childhood dream for Jenkins, although it took the Sperryville native nearly 20 years to become one.
“Thinking back to when I was in Sunday school … [the teacher] asked everybody what they wanted to do when they grew up. And I wanted to be a policeman, and my cousin, Gary Settle, wanted to be a policeman,” Jenkins said in a recent interview. “He just retired as superintendent of the state police.”
Starting at the age of 15 and for the next 20 years, Jenkins worked at the Sperryville Corner Store doing “anything at all,” from stocking shelves to cutting meat, and working his way up to manager.
In February 1996, Settle, who was then Rappahannock’s sheriff, hired him as a jailer. Settle said the law enforcement profession is not an easy one, but thought “Jimmy” — a family nickname for Roger — had the people skills, drive and humble demeanor needed to do the job well.
After a few months at the jail, Jenkins completed training and became a patrol deputy.
“I said ‘Jimmy, you’ll be successful in anything you want to do, you have the DNA … but I would love for you to come to work for me,’” Settle said. “And the rest is kind of history.
“He helped the sheriff’s office succeed. And frankly, me as sheriff,” he added.
Reflecting on his career, Jenkins said at the root of it, he really just wanted to help people, whether that meant offering sage advice to a speedster to just slow down, or giving a frightened driver a break.
“When you pull someone over … sometimes, you can tell when you walk up to the car that they are just terrified just as much as they can be. And you kind of think to yourself, ‘Well, I’ve already done my job here,’” Jenkins said. “I did stop people, because that was my job … but I would get satisfaction out of not writing a ticket. Sometimes as much as if you had to.”
Helping people also meant stakeouts. Twenty years ago a persistent prank caller was harassing a resident from a pay phone in the county. For two weeks, Jenkins monitored the phone during the night shift until one day, he caught the man in the act — it was all over a neighborly dispute.
Right place, right time
When he hit his 25-year mark five years ago, Jenkins, who was a captain at the time and in his late 50s, thought it might be a good time to retire.
But two weeks after he told Sheriff Connie Compton his plans to leave in the coming months, Maj. Mark Arstino announced his departure. The sheriff approached Jenkins and asked him to fill the vacancy.
Jenkins in his uniform when he first started in 1996. (Photo/Courtesy)
“I said, ‘I’d love to come back and work for you part time.’ And she said, ‘Well, you’ll always have a job as long as I’m here.’ And lo and behold, about two weeks later, Mark Arstino handed in his two-week notice,” Jenkins said. “So it all worked out. It happened for a reason.”
In his new role, Jenkins took on behind-the-scenes work, managing a crew of some 15 deputies and their training and schedules as well as overseeing day-to-day operations of the department.
“The best way to describe Roger is he’s always available for whatever’s going on … Roger’s always there to lend that hand, lend that ear, to be that person,” Compton said. “He’s gonna be missed.
“I used to tell him all the time, he and I kind of grew up here in the Sheriff’s Office. I would tease him and tell him that he grew older, I just grew up,” Compton said.
Going out of his way
His wife, Janie Jenkins, a dispatcher and chief communications officer at the Sheriff’s Office, said she is proud of her husband’s dedication to the community. She said he’s taken only five sick days — using those to recover from appendicitis and a knee operation.
The couple met at work when Janie started in 2002, became friends, and then married in 2013. Janie said both working odd shifts and overtime was hard at times, especially with young children at home, but they found a way to stay committed to their family and jobs. “We made it all work,” she said.
“Not too many people … have a career that spans 30 years at the same place,” Janie said. “We’re just so, so proud.”
Roger with his wife, Janie. (Photo/Courtesy)
Tommy Sisk, a fellow deputy who grew up with Jenkins in Sperryville, recalls working in the courthouse with him and hearing him recite the bailiff’s preamble — the “hear ye, hear, ye” speech given before each term day — from memory.
“I said, ‘How did you remember it?’ He said, ‘I would say it when I was running’ … I guess he would bring a piece of paper, and when he would get stuck, he’d flip it up and just keep reciting over and over,” Sisk said. “That was probably three, five miles he was running. And you’d see him every morning.”
Sheriff Compton said Jenkins possesses a quality she thinks makes a good deputy — the willingness to go out of one’s way for someone in need.
“Roger was always that deputy willing to go that extra mile to help the citizens out, to make sure that they got the service that they should have gotten,” she said.
Settle echoed Compton’s sentiments: “There’s a heavy weight behind that badge, but there’s also a person behind it … and I don’t know if I’d be as successful as I have been without people like Roger around me … I never had to worry about him giving that extra effort.”
Outside of law enforcement work, Jenkins is a member of the Sperryville Cemetery Committee, a group of residents who volunteer their time to keep the space maintained.
Despite all of his work, Jenkins’ daughters Brookelyn, Allie and Brooklynn said he always made time for them and their blended family, coaching softball teams, playing pranks on them and their friends, and acting as their live-in financial advisor.
“Some people get wrapped up in working and don’t really have a lot of time for family, but he never did that,” daughter Allie Phillips said.
“I’m glad he gets to have a break,” Brooklynn Jenkins said. She’s also glad her dad, a true animal lover, will have more time to spend with his two Shih Tzus, too.
Roger Jenkins at his roadside fruit stand in Sperryville. (Photo/Ireland Hayes)
For the love of a fruit stand
At a green roadside stand nestled at the entrance to Sperrville on Route 211, Jenkins has been selling fruit for 44 years.
He discovered his love for apples at age eight, living on Mount Vernon Farm where his father worked the orchard. Jenkins’ grandfather also worked at Mount Vernon, and was the family’s original fruit seller, operating out of the back of a flatbed wagon in the 1960s. His parents, inspired by that makeshift storefront, built the original roadside stand in the 1970s.
When the next decade rolled around, his parents’ stand long closed, Jenkins said he had an epiphany.
Roger Jenkins holds a birdhouse he made and sells at his roadside stand in Sperryville. (Photo/Ireland Hayes)
“In ‘82 it just hit me, you know — put a fruit stand there,” he said. He’s loved it ever since.
“This is his church,” Janie said.
The stand operates about four months out of the year, through peach and apple seasons, and sells fruit sourced from Jenkins Orchards in Woodville — no relation. Janie hopes now that he’s retired, he’ll consider her idea of extending the season to sell Christmas trees, poinsettias and hot chocolate. “Like a Hallmark movie,” she said.
Back in uniform
Jenkins will be back in uniform in September on a part-time basis in the courthouse, where he has filled in when needed for about eight years.
“That’s all I want, just something to piddle around with,” he said.
Sisk said he’s excited for Jenkins to be back, completing the three-man security detail the courthouse needs. “It’s comfort … he’s got a lot of institutional knowledge,” he said.
The decision to retire wasn’t easy, but Jenkins, who turns 65 later this month, said the timing just feels right.
“For the most part, the Lord’s blessed me with good health and a healthy family …. it’s the right time,” he said.
Roger Jenkins packs a bag of peaches at his fruit stand in Sperryville. (Photo/Ireland Hayes)
