March 29, 2024
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County elects woman sheriff Dennison a state history-maker

ROCKLAND – Knox County elected Maine’s first woman sheriff Tuesday night – and she’s still stunned at her win.

Donna Dennison, a detective with the Knox County Sheriff’s Department, was up against two formidable opponents at the polls – Chief Deputy Todd Butler, her supervisor, and retired Rockland Police Chief Alfred Ockenfels, both longtime law officers.

Unofficial results Wednesday showed Dennison with 6,236 votes (34.58 percent), Butler with 5,926 (32.86 percent), and Ockenfels with 5,872 votes (32.56 percent).

“It still hasn’t sunk in yet,” said Dennison, 54, on Wednesday. The Maine Sheriffs’ Association believes Dennison is the first woman elected sheriff in Maine history.

A big win in her hometown of St. George helped push her ahead.

Sheriff Daniel Davey, who was ousted in the June primary by Ockenfels, will leave the post he held for 22 years.

Butler of South Thomaston is an independent. Ockenfels, a Republican, had wide margin wins in his hometown of Rockport and in Camden. Butler trounced Ockenfels in Rockland, where Ockenfels was chief for 16 years and with the Police Department for 26 years. Butler has worked in the Sheriff’s Department for 25 years.

“I had some very worthy opponents,” Dennison said Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Ockenfels and Butler called Dennison early to congratulate her.

“I think she’ll be a fine sheriff,” Ockenfels said. “I think it’s great for the state of Maine” to have its first woman sheriff. “I think she’s head and shoulders above the independent candidate.”

“I congratulate Donna and wish her luck,” Butler said.

A mild-mannered Dennison ran her campaign under the premise she would help restore the department’s tarnished image from a still pending strip-search lawsuit that has cast a shadow over the department in recent years.

Being in the limelight will likely be a challenge to Dennison, who says she’s no politician – just a hard-working woman.

At 16, she dropped out of high school, but later got her GED. She married at a young age and had her children, who are now in their 30s. She has a 16-year-old grandson.

Over the years she has worked in a sardine factory, at Crowe Rope and FMC, and as a bartender at the Chuck Wagon in Rockland.

Along the way, she divorced and has been with her present partner, Steve Dennison, for some 20 years, she said. They share the same last name because Steve is a cousin to her ex-husband, she explained.

They own the Dennison Farm in St. George, where they tend to 10 horses and 40 beef cattle. In May, Donna suffered a serious injury to her knee from a horse. “I was trimming her feet and she stepped on me,” Dennison said of the horse.

After surgery and months of recovery, Dennison expects to be back to work as early as next week, she said.

Dennison got indoctrinated in the world of law enforcement in 1985.

At the old jail behind the courthouse, “Bill Reinhardt taught me how to dispatch,” she said.

One thing led to another and she was soon working in the jail as a corrections officer. She later worked as a dispatcher and part-time patrol officer before becoming a full-time deputy. Soon, she was a patrol sergeant. Seven years ago, she was promoted to detective.

Dennison has vowed to be a “working sheriff,” and to distribute the workload among her staff. Throughout her career she has taken numerous college courses through Southern Maine Technical College with an emphasis on criminal justice, she said, noting she has taken courses in police administration and juvenile justice.

Dennison views drug abuse and drug-related crimes as the most serious problem countywide that she wants to tackle. She plans to create a drug task force with an educational component.

“I’m going to try to do the best job I can do,” she said. “I don’t want to let the public down. I look forward to some positive changes in the Sheriff’s Department.”


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