Master Deputy Barber retires after 31 years

After 31 years of service with the Johnson County Sheriff's Department, Master Deputy Louis Barber decided it was time to turn in her badge and begin spending more time with her family.

Barber, Spring Hill, was honored June 12 during a retirement reception. It was her final day on the job, which she began just by happenstance.

After graduating from Gardner High School in 1976 and then attending Johnson County Community College and graduating from Emporia State University in 1978 with a degree in secretarial studies, she intended to become a legal secretary.

But then she applied and was hired for a secretarial job with the Sheriff's Office.

She began her career as a secretary in the Sheriff's office working in the Investigations Division typing investigative reports using the department's new IBM Selectric II typewriter.

"During that time, we started using some new-fangled office supplies: Liquid Paper and yellow Sticky Notes," she said.

A year later, Barber was transferred as a senior secretary in the Warrant Division where she remained until December 15, 1982 when she became a deputy.

"The Sheriff's Office needed more female deputies and they asked me if I would be interested," Barber said. "I had no idea if I could do it or not, but they told me to try and if I didn't like it, I could go back to being a secretary."

Of the 60 deputies in the department at the time, only five were women.

After attending the Johnson County Police Academy at Johnson County College in the fall of 1983, she was assigned to the County Jail working in the control center.

"The other officers used to bribe me to type their fingerprints cards for them," she said and then laughed. "I remember times there were only four of us deputies on duty; we had a large kitchen and the cooks would fix great food for us, especially on Saturdays.

"Or we would get together and bring food for a meal such as chili, hamburger, and things like that, and cook after we finished our evening chores."

Barber became lead officer and then acting sergeant at the jail. She went on to become a training officer and start the first structured training program in the Communications Division.

"I was the only female in the division and worked with a few crusty guys," she said. "But they took good care of me."

She transferred to the Warrant Division in 1990 and on her second day in the division, flew to Arizona to pickup a prisoner.

Since then she has taken numerous extradition trips to transport suspects back to Johnson County for prosecution. Her main duties were to look for and arrest persons in Johnson County who were wanted on warrants. Barber also handled phone calls, confirmed warrants, answered questions from other divisions and agencies, managed extraditions on persons arrested in other states, and spearheaded improvements to the division's paperwork system to make the workload easier and more error free.

She returned to the Communications Division in 2006.

Law enforcement has been a family affair since 1984 when she met her husband Andy while on a blind date. At the time he was an officer with the Olathe Police Department.

"We had worked across the street from each other for two years and had never met until then," she said.

They have now been married 25 years.

In 1985, they both were assigned to their respective communications units at the same time and once worked together by phone to help catch a robbery suspect.

She and her husband Andy, who is a retired 911 dispatcher for the Lenexa Police Department after leaving Olathe, have twin sons Max and Jim. Her parents are Naoma and Jim Kincaide, Gardner.

Barber said she wants to remain active while spending more time with her family and says she has two choices.

"I would like to do some volunteer work," she said, and then added, "or I could always go back to being a secretary."

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