ONE COUNTY, ONE OFFICER TO KEEP THE DRUGS OUT

When you live in a county of about 14,500 people, it's not unusual to
run into someone from your high school class.

For Eric Uselton, who travels the highways and streets of Crockett
County as a deputy sheriff, it's even more likely.

But one such meeting surprised him. Uselton arrested a former
classmate on a drug charge, and he was convicted of a felony.

But there were no hard feelings.

"Me and him didn't have a problem with it," Uselton said. "I have a
job I'm doing, and they consider it a job they're doing." Uselton
didn't want to name the classmate.

Uselton, 30, is the Crockett County Sheriff's Department's sole
narcotics officer and canine officer. He's been with the department
for nine years, taking the job after a former sheriff rented a video
from him and offered the job.

These days, Uselton is no longer married to the girlfriend he wed
shortly after high school and with whom he has a son, now 12.

Like many of his classmates, Uselton praises the rural life in
Crockett County. But like someone who does the kind of work he does,
he sees how big-city problems have spread to the rural landscape.

As a parent and as a sheriff's deputy, high on his list of concerns is
reducing the availability of drugs.

"We've come a long way, and it's not as exposed on the streets like it
was before, but if the government can't keep cocaine from coming into
the country, how can 12 men with the Crockett County Sheriff's
Department do it, where we only have one narcotics officer? And I'm
it." But violent crime isn't a big problem, Uselton said.

"We don't have people running up and down the roads killing each other
like in some of the cities," he said, adding that the county had no
murders and only three armed robberies in 2002.

Uselton echoed the sentiments of many classmates when he said he'd
like to see more for young people to do in Crockett County.

"You can go to the Wal-Mart parking lot in Jackson or Dyersburg and
see five or six Crockett County kids hanging out anytime," he said.

Back in high school, Uselton used to think about living elsewhere, he
said, but he has no plans to leave now.

"I'm trying to make Crockett County a place where people want to live.
As far as I'm concerned, Crockett County is the center of the world."