St. John's police chief is finishing a full 50

For 50 years he clinched a well-worn cigar between his teeth and patrolled the streets of a Kansas town fighting crime, but on Thursday this veteran law officer traded in his badge for one that had “retired,” inscribed across the top.

Sonny’s Ralston’s 50-year career ran a wide gamut of the alphabet starting the DVM after graduating school in 1963, to training with the FBI, running the SJPD, honors from the KPOA, and even a little back up help from the KBI.

“St. John’s been a nice quiet little place for the most part,” Ralston said as he pulled a chewed up cigar from his mouth.

Ralston spent the last 11 years of his career as St. John’s police chief until retiring from active duty in December of 2011. The city held a retirement party for him, Thursday. He has remained on the past few months to help in hiring a new replacement.

“Yep, it’s been a pretty quiet little place with a few exceptions,” he said. “We had a couple shootings, we had a string of about 30 burglaries a while back, but we caught them. I learned you don’t get too excited about a burglary or two, because if they don’t quit doing it eventually you’ll catch them.”

Ralston began his career in law enforcement after graduating from school in 1963 as a driver’s license testing clerk. He left there when a job opened up as a police officer in Liberal. He started there as an officer, and ended up serving as assistant chief and temporary interim chief.

During his time at Liberal Ralston was given the opportunity to train with the Federal Bureau of Investigation Crime investigations team in Quantico Va.

“That was the highlight of my career,” he said. “They had state-of-the art equipment, you had all the film and materials you needed. They really did it up.”

While at Quantico he studied crime scene tactics like, photography, profiling, and building a police department from scratch.

“It was all geared like college classes,” Ralston said. “You hear people talk about profiling, we did all that too.”

Ralston retired from the Liberal police force after 35 years, but continued in law enforcement serving 3 years in Kiowa before being told about a position in St. John by Judge Lee Nusser.

Ralston’s Son Kelly works with the Kansas Bureau of Investigations in Great Bend.

“It was a good opportunity, and I liked the town,” he said. “We’ve had a good department with very little turn-over. It’s ran pretty well.”

In 2010, Ralston was given a life members award from the Kansas Peace Officers Association.

“I was humbled by that award,” he said.

The recipient of the award has to be nominated and then vote on for the awards by his peers.

There are currently 3600 active members in the KPOA At this time there are currently 59 living life members.

Ralston recalled a couple of shootings over the years and a few burglaries and break-ins, but with the few exceptions felt St. John was a pretty good place to finish out his career.

One episode involving some inter-agency cooperation that Ralston may want to forget was an officer involved shooting.

Ralston was called to a residence to deal with a skunk that had been caught in a trap. He shot the animal then loaded the trap and deceased critter into the back of his truck for disposal at the animal burial site. When he stopped and went around to lower the tailgate he found out that possums are not the only animals that will “play” dead. And skunks are known for returning fire.

“As I lowered the tailgate to get the cage out, he backed up toward me, and shot me right in the face,” he said.

Ralston got a little ribbing from friends about having to call the KBI for backup when he called his son to take in to have his eyes flushed.

With the years adding up and his eyesight beginning to fail, the long-time law enforcement officer has traded in the flashing lights and sirens of the squad car for a black and white golf cart he uses to chauffeur him and his two small dogs Sasha and Toby.

He fills his spare time with woodworking projects, like some shelving for the local Girl Scout troop and some furniture repair work for friends.

“I just planning on spending my tie messing with my dogs, and hanging out in the wood shed,” he said.