<b>By Christin Coyne</b><br><a href="mailto:ccoyne@mineralwellsindex.com">ccoyne@mineralwellsindex.com</a>
After 28 years working as a clerk for Justice of the Peace Precinct 5 “Buddy” L.J. Byers and as office manager for the district attorney, Sheila Sudderth retired from the county Oct. 28.
“Her service with the county and district attorney's office was exemplary,” District Attorney Mike Burns said. “She was always a stabilizing part in this office and will be missed dearly.”
She was not the employee mentioned last week in an Index article, not the county employee who retired amid a criminal probe into allegations of providing contraband to Palo Pinto County jail inmates at the courthouse.
Sudderth said she has been planning to retire for the past five years and the opportunity to do so is allowing her to spend time with her father, who has cancer.
“I've only had three bosses my whole life,” Sudderth said.
She began working for the county in 1981 with a temporary six-month program when the county began pushing the seat belt law.
Sudderth said she so enjoyed her time as a clerk under Judge Byers that she came home and told her mother she was going to turn the temporary job into a permanent job, and she did.
Next to her father, the man she admired most in life was Judge Byers, Sudderth said.
“When Judge Byers retired [in 2000]… I'd worked half my life for him,” Sudderth said.
Sudderth then moved to the district attorney's office in 2001 as Tim Ford took office.
“When I went to work in the D.A.'s office, I was the only girl in the office,” Sudderth said.
Though much of the vocabulary and people she interacted with were the same, it was a change to go from an office handling misdemeanor charges to a prosecutor dealing with felony charges, Sudderth said.
However, by the time Ford resigned and District Attorney Mike Burns took over his position in February 2007, Sudderth was able to give Burns necessary advice during the transition, according to Burns.
Julie Cathey, who has worked in the district attorney's office since Burns was appointed, has been promoted to office manager.
Sudderth said she is excited about retiring.
“I'm not an idle person,” she said.
Though she is spending much of her time with her father at the moment, she is also planning to volunteer at a hospice, Sudderth said.
