Humbled by 2019 loss, embattled ex-sheriff announces he will seek fourth term in 2023

•

Three years after blaming the Leader-Call for his shocking loss in the sheriff’s race, Alex Hodge apologized to the proprietors of the home-town paper ... and is announcing in it exclusively that he intends to seek his fourth term in 2023.

“As tough as that defeat was, I’m thankful for it,” Hodge said. “I’m a better person for it. I’m better than ever in my spiritual life, genuinely. I know I have to be obedient and answer the call. Being sheriff of Jones County is my calling.”

4 p.m. today (Tuesday), on Facebook Live, former sheriff Alex Hodge sits down with Leader-Call owner/publisher and Buck Naked Truth podcast host Jim Cegielski and special co-host Mark Thornton to answer some tough questions and to talk about what led him to seek office again. The podcast will be available on both the Buck Naked Truth and Leader-Call Facebook pages

That calling to run for sheriff, Hodge said, became as clear to him a couple of weeks ago as it was in 1997, when he was at Glade Baptist Church and made the decision to move back home to Jones County to begin working toward that goal. He and his wife Sharla were enjoying “a good life” on the Gulf Coast while he worked for the Mississippi Highway Patrol before coming home and planting the seeds to win that job.

In 2007, Hodge was elected to the first of his three consecutive terms as sheriff. In that last term, he had high-profile battles with the Board of Supervisors and the Leader-Call before losing his bid for a fourth term in the Republican primary against challenger Macon Davis, but Joe Berlin, running as an independent, was elected to the office. Hodge plans to run as an independent, too.

In his final appearance on Facebook, Hodge said that he couldn’t believe that people in the county “believed the lies” that were reported about him in the Leader-Call, and he said that he would not seek elected office again.

“I apologize, and I own what I did,” Hodge said, acknowledging that the paper was only reporting the results of court judgments and rulings during his rocky final months in office. “Y’all didn’t do anything wrong. It was me.”

Since being voted out in 2019, Hodge has been asked often if he intends to run again, he said.

“I never had any intention of going back,” he said, agreeing that he was enjoying life running his successful business, BClean, 

But about a year ago, Hodge’s wife told him, “You need to be open to it, and I continued praying,” he said. “Then about two weeks ago, I was on my knees praying and God shook me. He said, ‘Do I need to remind you of your calling? Do I need to call you again?

“Just as sure as I was that I wasn’t running back then, I was just that sure that I was running this time. I got up, walked in the kitchen and told Sharla I’m running again. She said, ‘OK.’”

Hodge’s last-term woes began when supervisors denied his request for a budget boost that would have resulted in a tax increase for residents. 

Then he took on the LL-C for its reporting of his department’s raid of an elderly couple’s property on Lyon Ranch Road in the Johnson Community in 2018. Dozens of dogs and cats on the property were in bad health and “starving,” according to press releases and Facebook posts and live updates by Hodge and other members of the Jones County Sheriff’s Department. But there was evidence that many of the animals that had been deemed “unadoptable” were dumped on the couple by a local rescue shelter that wanted to maintain its “no-kill” status and increase donations. 

The case received national attention as volunteers from around the nation descended on the property. But when suspect Mary Ellen Senne provided the Leader-Call with receipts for pet food and vet bills as she told her side of the story, Hodge blasted the Leader-Call and suggested that he may start a newspaper of his own.

After that, he cut off the Leader-Call from receiving his public-relations person’s press releases and they both refused to respond to requests for information. He earned the nickname “Hollywood Hodge” for his frequent Facebook Live updates and weekly show.

In 2019, Hodge was the subject of numerous stories after it came to light that indictments were not being served to many felony suspects in a timely manner. That oversight resulted in dozens of cases being dismissed because the defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial was violated. 

All the while, he and his department were handling the “reporting” of their endeavors via Facebook. Hodge now admits that was a mistake and said that, if reelected, the JCSD wouldn’t have a Facebook page. He has personally sworn off social media, too, he said.

“I’m going to let the media be the media,” Hodge said. “I’m just looking forward to moving forward. I’m excited. We had 12 years and did a lot of good things. I want to be even better. God restores and the future is bright.”

His campaign slogan will be “Proven Professional Leader,” he said.

Hodge will address the problems of his last year in office in-depth and talk about what is leading him back to seek office again during an appearance on the Buck Naked Truth podcast, which will be shown on Facebook Live today (Tuesday) at 4 p.m.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7rbHAnZyrZZOWua16wqikaKaVrMBwstGenJimlazAcLTOpbBmoJ%2BZtKZ7wKuropucmqymgZFvb2xqk2KDdYHFZmhqnZRihXOyxWabcJyUmIKlfsBqnG9mmKm6rQ%3D%3D