Sours was a steady leader

With Bob Sours, the adjectives were always different.
Asked to describe the Portland police chief who retired last week, we’d look for words like thoughtful, unassuming, soft-spoken, fair, tech-savvy or modest.
Those aren’t the adjectives usually trotted out to describe a small town police chief.
But with Chief Sours, they fit.
It’s tough to be a cop. And it can be even tougher in a small town, where boredom and routine and pettiness are often bigger threats than serious crime.
The job requires an even keel, a steady hand on the tiller.
Chief Sours had both.
Over his 10 years as chief, he dealt with a parade of young reporters for this newspaper, most of them just out of college. He didn’t coddle them. He could be gruff at times. But he played things straight, and he became a part of their education.
Though he would probably balk at the description, he could also be gracious.
In the chaos surrounding the 2005 ice storm in Jay County, an editor barged into Mayor Bruce Hosier’s office asking for help finding a site for a temporary newsroom so that the community would continue to receive a newspaper.
Chief Sours was the first to step forward and offer a conference room on the second floor of city hall. On the second day the temporary newsroom was in operation, Chief Sours was offering assistance in getting the newspaper connected to the Internet so it could receive news from The Associated Press. Always a bit of a geek, the chief was city government’s unofficial information technology expert.
Now he can focus on his hobbies and non-work interests: Computers, software, the Internet, aviation and who knows what.
He’s earned that, and the community has been fortunate to have had his hand on the tiller all these years. — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]