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vaulted Joanna Brady into the position s holds today. As Arizona s first and
only female sheriff, we ve all heard and read a good deal about howdifferent
she is, though, by virtue of being sheriff, she s somehow grown two left feet.
I can assure you that, although she may be very different from our previous
sheriffs, she s still very much the some old Joanna Lathrop Brady I ve always
known and loved.
I ve heard it said on occasion that she became a sheriff without really
meaning to. In a way, that s true. She set out on the very ordinary bath of
becoming a wife and mother, but when she reached a fork in that road, she knew
which path to follow.
Those of you who haven t yet seen the women s club s display at the Cochise
County Justice Center may not know that it consists of a series of framed
pictures formal por-traits, if you will of all Joanna Brady s male
predecessors in the office of Cochise County Sheriff. If you were to study the
pictures as a group, I believe you d find the officers featured there to be a
pretty tough-looking bunch of customers every man of them. Some of them look
more like desperadoes than they do like upholders of law and order.
When Sheriff Brady gave us the snapshot she wanted us to frame and use, her
chosen pose sparked some controversy. And so, before I make the official
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presentation, I d like to ask Joanna herself to please stand and give us a
little background as to why she selected this particular photo. Please help me
welcome Sheriff Joanna Brady.
To a roomful of warmly welcoming applause, Joanna stood up and made her way
to the podium. Thank you, Marianne. You re absolutely right, I never thought
I would be elected sheriff, but now here I am. You re right, too, about all
the emphasis on how different I am. Bearing that in mind, maybe I would have
been better off sticking to a more formal portrait. The one I chose, though,
is of me when I was seven or eight years old and setting off Brownie uniform
and all to sell my first batch of Girl Scout cookies.
Some people may laugh to hear this, but selling those cookies marked a real
watershed for me. I was scared to death. I didn t think I d ever have nerve
enough to talk to people and to ask them to buy something from me, but I did.
Some of the boxes of cookies went to people I knew, but most of them went to
strangers - to people I met at the post office and the grocery store. Over the
years I got better at it. The year I was in the seventh grade, I sold five
hundred boxes - enough cookies be awarded the prize of two weeks of summer
camp at Whispering Pines up on Mount Lemmon. Believe me, that s a lot of Thin
Mints.
Joanna paused while the room filled with laughter. Was that important? she
continued. It must have been. Years later, I applied for a job with Milo
Davis at the Davis Insurance Agency here in town. Milo asked me if I d ever
had any selling experience. I told him yes, Girl Scout cookies. I got the job.
Last fall, when it came time to talk to strangers again the voters of Cochise
County gave me this job as well.
I suspect that there are lots of women out there who are just like me, women
who, as little girls, made their first foray: into the world of work by
selling Girl Scout cookies. Marketing those boxes of cookies is a very real
job. It consists of deciding to do something, of setting a goal, and then
making it happen.
So when you look at this picture of a little girl with her Radio Flyer full
of cookies, remember, that little red wagon is the vehicle that led to one I
drive now to the one that s parked outside, at the far end of the parking lot.
You ll know it when you see it. It s the big white Blazer with the light bar
on top and with the insignia of the Cochise County Sheriff Department painted
on the door. I see selling that wagonload of cookies as the beginning of the
path that led me, inevitably to this one. And remember, too, the next time you
buy a box of Thin Mints, you may be buying those cookies from a future
President of the United States.
As Joanna sat down, the women in the room rose to their feet, cheering and
applauding. Gratified but feeling self-conscious, Joanna wailed for the
applause to die down. II was then she caught sight of Terry Buckwalter.
A wall of smoky glass separated the dining room from the lounge area and the
bar beyond it. Eleanor was right. Terry s hair was different, but not that
different. Joanna watched as Terry Buckwalter, accompanied by a man,
saun-tered across the room. The two of them took seats at the bar. From the
hand gestures and movements that accompanied the conversation, Joanna could
see that Terry was evidently enjoying her part of the animated conversation.
In one short day, Terry Buckwalter had undergone a total transformation.
When the applause ended and Marianne made the official presentation, Joanna
managed to stand and string together a few words of acceptance, but she did so
without ever letting the two people in the other room totally out of her
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sight.
Once the ceremony was over, Joanna leaned over to Mar-ianne. Could you do me
a big favor?
Sure, Marianne answered. What?
There s something I have to do. Could you please give Eva Lou and my mother
a ride back to town?
I m in the Bug, Marianne replied, referring to her ven-erable late-sixties,
sea-foam-green V.W. But since there s only the two of them, I m sure there ll
be plenty of room. Do you want to tell them, or should I?
I will, Joanna told her. Eva Lou probably won t mind, but you know
Eleanor.
Marianne nodded. What kind of car did you say your brother drives?
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