One of Monroe County Sheriff’s Office longest-tenured deputies officially retired on Friday, Jan. 24 after more than 35 years of service.
Capt. Richard Coughenour was hired by Monroe County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) in June 1987, starting off in the jail radio room. At the time of his retirement, Coughenour was back working in the Monroe County Jail, but by this time he had worked his way up the ladder to Division Commander overseeing jail operations.
Along the way, Coughenour worked in field operations for nearly 30 years both as a patrol deputy and more recently, as a school resource officer. When now-Sheriff Brad Freeman was elected in 2018, he promoted Coughenour to Lieutenant, moving into jail operations, and then in 2020, he was promoted again to Captain at which point he became the jail’s Division Commander.
Had Coughenour not taken a two-year-long, mid-career hiatus to work for Norfolk Southern in the late 1990s, he would have retired as the second longest-tenured county employee at the time of his retirement, trailing only his boss, Freeman.
Freeman said he promoted Coughenour to Lieutenant and later Captain because Coughenour was always “detail-oriented” and took pride in doing his job well. He said Coughenour’s meticulous nature served him well as one of MCSO’s earliest accident reconstructionists. Freeman said Coughenour was also known as the “unofficial mayor of Bolingbroke” because he frequently rode the south end of Monroe County during his patrol days.
Coughenour said he enjoyed all of his responsibilities through the years at MCSO but said it was his four-year stint as a school resource officer from 2014-18 that was perhaps his favorite position.
“Working in the schools was rewarding,” Coughenour said. “Not only did you get to interact with the people that educated your children, but you also got to interact with children. And occasionally, you’d find a child or young adult that just needed that ear, someone to listen to. And I think I always enjoyed just listening and trying to be someone they knew they could trust.”
Coughenour was born in Fayetteville, N.C. before moving to Macon at the age of five when his father took a job with the Bibb Company in 1968. Coughenour said he knew he wanted to become a law enforcement officer as a young boy watching the Adam-12 TV series in the early 1970s, which followed Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers on patrol.
“I always told my mama and daddy that was what I was going do one day,” Coughenour said of being a deputy. “Much to my daddy’s chagrin. And still for some strange reason I stuck to my guns and that’s what I did after college.”
Coughenour graduated from Georgia College with a Liberal Arts degree but said even while he was studying history and political science, he knew his future was in law enforcement. After finishing college, he went to work for the Jones County Sheriff’s Office for a year before a friend, Bobby Land, convinced him to apply to work at Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. Little did he know, Coughenour would spend nearly four decades at MCSO.
Coughenour said he never strongly considered leaving Middle Georgia since he and his wife of 32 years, Denise, both grew up in Macon. The Coughenours have three adult daughters, Rebecca Hanley, Amanda Coughenour, and Ashley Stokes, and three grandchildren, Sydney, Jacob, and Katie Beth. A fourth grandchild, a boy who will be named Conrad, is due next week. Coughenour said he plans to stay in Monroe County in retirement, so he can spend more time with his grandkids. In addition, Coughenour said he and Denise plan to travel more, and he hopes to create a model train set if he can find sufficient space for it.
Coughenour said he doesn’t have many specific highlights from his law enforcement career, saying the 35-plus years started to run together after a while. But he said he’s fortunate that he was only involved in a handful of physical altercations over the course of his career.
Coughenour said, “The Lord has smiled and blessed me being able to go home every day and then being able to say I retired from law enforcement, particularly in today’s times.”
Coughenour said the thing he is most proud of in his career is simply wearing the MCSO badge every day.
“Just working for, in my opinion and always will be, the greatest agency in the state of Georgia bar none,” Coughenour said. “That’s always been my proudest thing to tell people I am a Monroe County deputy.”
Coughenour said he was fortunate to work for two sheriffs in John Cary Bittick and Freeman whom he admired and respected.
He said of Bittick and Freeman: “Both men are extremely fair-minded. Neither one of them hold grudges. They take care of a situation, and they move on to the next one.”
Coughenour said it was a particular pleasure to work for Freeman because he came up through the ranks alongside the current sheriff.
“We have been working together since 1987,” Coughenour said of Freeman. “Very few men can say they worked side by side on patrol at all hours of the night, drinking coffee, just everything, and then you watched the man become sheriff and you get to work for him. That’s just very unique to say that. It’s been a great honor.”
A retirement party was held in Coughenour’s honor on his last day at work on Jan. 24. He said he’ll miss the camaraderie and laughter he shares with his fellow deputies and MCSO staff.
Freeman said Coughenour was always entertaining to be around and said his friend’s “robust personality” will leave a void at MCSO.
Coughenour said of the MCSO deputies and staff: “It’s a great honor to work with those people because it makes the job so much easier when you work with strong, hard-working people.”
