Two groups of Mathews residents were commended Tuesday by the Mathews County Board of Supervisors for their role in helping the sheriff’s office and animal control capture escaped livestock.
Sheriff Mark Barrick wrote in a report to the board that he had discovered five horses grazing at the Cardinal Storage Units at around 1:30 a.m. on July 24 when he stopped there for a security check.
He said that sheriff’s office dispatcher Rob Hudgins had called East River Road residents Robert and Tracy Respess to ask if the horses were theirs, and Tracy Respess had said no, but that she would meet the sheriff to help with the horses while her husband drove to Tick Neck Road to find out if the animals belonged to resident Keith Faulkner.
Pretty soon, both Respesses, their daughter Kate, and Keith Faulkner all showed up to help capture the horses, said Barrick. Tracy Respess and the sheriff drove to the homes of other nearby horse owners to find out to whom the horses belonged, but couldn’t identify the owner.
In the end, Robert Respess brought his horse trailer to the scene and the volunteers rounded up the horses and loaded them, said Barrick. The owner of the horses was finally identified as a North River Road resident, and Robert and Kate Respess and Keith Faulkner delivered them home at 3:45 a.m.
“These are hard-working citizens who had to get up and go to work the next day,” said the sheriff’s report. “But they still got up in the middle of the night to assist the sheriff’s office … These citizens went above and beyond … in a time of need.”
Animal Control Officer Jean Roberts wrote in a separate report to the board that she had been contacted at 12:30 p.m. on July 27 about three goats that were discovered in the Food Lion parking lot. When she arrived at Food Lion, she said, she realized she would have trouble transporting the goats in the Animal Control vehicle.
Roberts said she called the owner of Georgetown Farms, Myra Carson-Johnson, and in less than 10 minutes, two pickup trucks arrived with Carson-Johnson’s husband, Terry Johnson, and son, Preston Carson, and a second farm owner, Yvonne Mann, with Jacob News.
Mann took the goats to her farm and housed, fed and watered them until their owner was tracked down and picked them up, said Roberts.
“The quickness of the response by these citizens and their knowledge of livestock handling made this difficult effort seamless,” said Roberts. “These citizens took extra care to protect the animals during loading and unloading as well as assisting the county in a time of need.”
Supervisors Chair Edwina Casey presented certificates of commendation to all the residents involved in the two incidents and expressed the board’s gratitude for their efforts.
“Thank you all for caring about the animals,” she said. “The horses were racing around in the early morning and eating grass up a storm. It was a long, drawn-out affair but you finally found where the horses belonged. It could have ended up in a tragic situation.”