NEWTON – He’s quick with a joke and he loves a good story, but the Catawba County jail hallways have stopped ringing with the laughter of Capt. Bob Riley, of the Catawba County Sheriff’s Office.
Friday was his last day on the job. Today he’s a retiree.
“I love this job,” Riley said. “If I could do it all over again, I’d start tomorrow.”
Now that he’s stepped away from law enforcement, it’s his old DARE days that he’s missing.
He worked at elementary schools where he connected with kids and did his best to steer them away from drugs and trouble. His favorite memories are of a time 20 years ago when he would drive his patrol cruiser into the housing projects and ask who wanted to go roller skating.
Children would flock around him and would take carload after carload to Skateland where every child got a free piece of pizza, a drink and rollerskates for the afternoon. He’d keep driving until every kid who wanted to skate was skating. When it was all over he’d take them home carload by carload.
