Miss. Officer to Retire After 58-Year Career

On Aug. 6, 1956, Meridian Police Chief O.A. Booker hired Hubert Rivers to the Meridian Police Department, launching a career in law enforcement that would span nearly 58 years.

Rivers joined the Meridian Police Department before he was legally old enough to do so.

"He (Booker) told me I could go to work," Rivers said. "But he knew I wouldn't be 21 'til the next month."

Rivers will retire from the Lauderdale County Sheriff's Department on Friday, a day before his 79th birthday.

Rivers grew up around the courthouse, where his mother worked as a deputy circuit court clerk.

"That had an impact on my decision to become an officer," Rivers said. "I had it in my mind that maybe that's what I wanted to do. It was an accumulation over time of different incidents."

Rivers married Virginia Combs on Nov. 7, 1954.

"She had some apprehensions about my becoming an officer," Rivers said. "But she put up with it through the years."

In the nearly six decades since joining the Meridian Police Department, Rivers worked under three more police chiefs and two sheriffs in Lauderdale County, including current sheriff Billy Sollie.

"He is definitely a different breed or comes from a different generation," Sollie said of Rivers. "He has devoted his whole life to serving citizens. So many enter the profession today and don't have the vision of 40, 50 years of service as he did."

Sollie also served as an investigator under Rivers with the Meridian Police Department.

"He is a people person," Sollie said. "He could make a bad situation not as bad. He always strove to make people better under his leadership."

When Rivers began his career, police would walk their beats and check businesses on the city's streets.

"When I first started out, you had to work in a patrol car with an officer who was seasoned. Then, we walked a beat from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., in downtown," Rivers said. "If you got into something, you had to find a taxi phone and that was a great a help to us. But you had to walk a beat, checking doors. And during Christmas, there was heavy traffic in downtown.

"Nowadays, they've gotten more high tech equipment everywhere."

In 1961, Rivers went to Brighton, Mo. to get the first police dogs the Meridian Police Department used.

"I stayed in the German community in Brighton for two or three weeks," Rivers said. "The wife of the man who had the training school cooked all German food. For weeks, I ate and slept German. We had two police dogs. My dog's name was Tiger. Lester Joyner's dog's name was Bob."

Rivers said Tiger saved his life twice. The first time came while the pair were searching a building.

"We came upon an intruder and Tiger keyed on him," Rivers said. "I hollered for whoever (it was) to come out. He threw down a piece of pipe and came out. This was on 22nd Street. Tiger did the same thing on another burglary, just about the same incident on 9th Street and 32nd Avenue."

In 1968, the Ku Klux Klan targeted Meridian's Congregation Beth Israel. In a response, Jewish communities in Meridian and Jackson raised funds to pay a Klan informant. That informant tipped off the FBI and local police and an attempt to bomb the house of Meyer Davidson was thwarted, but not before one person was injured and another killed in a shootout with police.

"There were some hectic times then," Rivers said. "Had a lot of people with a lot of anger or people who just wanted changes. We just tried to stay as neutral as we could between the people and the Klan."

Rivers retired from the Meridian Police Department in 1987.

"I left the police department to seek different avenues," Rivers said. "I was 51 and could still do something else if I wanted to. I did private security and bodyguard work before I joined the sheriff's office in 1992."

Rivers was also active in the community. In 1973, Rivers, along with Meridian resident Ronnie Miller began a boxing program.

"I met him when he was managing boxing in 1974," said Eddie Collins, a boxer Rivers trained. "I went down to the gym to try out. My relationship to him has been on from then on. He was like a second father to me."

Rivers came to the sport naturally. He began boxing with the American Legion Golden Gloves when he was 14. Rivers and Miller thought boxing would provide Meridian youths with a positive outlet.

"We decided to get together and give them something to do, to get them off the streets and put idle hands to work," Rivers said.

The club got a boost in 1978 when Paul Broadhead offered to sponsor the boxing club.

"He sponsored us fully for 22 years. Whatever we needed, whatever we wanted, he was there," Rivers said. "He was the largest shopping center developer in the South at the time. We had been operating from hand to mouth before then.

"He acquired the Kress Building for us in the 80's."

Collins boxed professionally and had his final professional fight against a former world champion.

"I had my last fight with Marvin Johnson," Collins said. "It was in New Jersey. I lost and I cried. He told me 'Don't feel bad. You did something no one else in Meridian, Mississippi has ever done. You were in the ring with the world champion.'"

While working with the program, Rivers coached the team representing the U.S. in international competition in 1984, against boxers from Africa, Ireland and Sweden.

The boxing program ended in 2004 and all the equipment was put in storage, and eventually disappeared.

"It got misplaced, misused," Rivers said. "We lost over $10,000 worth of equipment."

During his career in law enforcement, Rivers has been awarded the Sartoma Service to Mankind Award in 1978, the Mid-City Exchange Club Police Officer of the Year Award in 1975 for the service to the community, the Meridian Exchange Club Deputy of the Year in 1995 and the Law Enforcement Officer of the Year by the Meridian Optimist Club in 2004.

Rivers and Virginia, who worked 41 years as a nurse, look forward to taking it easy.

"There comes a time when you need to put your bucket down," Rivers said.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service