A bountiful harvest in the Logan County Jail garden and plenty of other blessings were celebrated during the Logan County Sheriff’s Office’s annual harvest lunch Friday, Sept. 27, which served up a plethora of garden fare and cookout items to a large crowd of LCSO staff and retirees, fellow first responders, county and city employees and local elected officials.
Among the activities for the day was an update from the Logan County Commissioners regarding the county’s previously announced animal shelter project, which will be built on the LCSO grounds, 284 S. County Road 32, Bellefontaine.
Commissioner Joe Antram reported that the shelter project will soon be bid out, and after the final bid is accepted, plans are to host an official ground- breaking for the approximately 8,400 square foot facility, which will be operated by Logan County Sheriff Randy Dodds and Dog Warden Jacob Boyd.
Fellow Commissioner Mike Yoder explained that in recent years, Logan County has had arrangements with nearby counties to house stray dogs brought in locally.
“Currently, we’re spending $65,000 a year to ship our dogs to Shelby County. As you can tell, it won’t take very long to recoup those costs in a new building.
“Not only will we be able to recoup these costs, but people won’t have to travel to another county in the event that their dog gets loose. And we’ll be able to house stray cats here as well.
“We’re excited about it and we think it’s going to be a big success for the whole county, and the land here at the sheriff’s office.”
Plans are for the post frame facility to include space for both dogs and cats, and potentially an area for the temporary housing of livestock that are involved in legal cases such as abuse or abandonment, as previously reported in the Examiner.
The commissioners anticipate that one full-time staff person will need to be hired to run the daily facility operation and handle adoptions of animals to the public. The county commission also recently adopted new dog tag rates for 2025 to support the cost of staffing the shelter.
In addition, the commissioners have designated the Logan County Sheriff’s Office Behind the Badge Volunteers, Inc., a 501c3 charitable organization, to accept all financial donations toward the construction and operation of the facility.
Also unique to the animal shelter will be the chance for Logan County Jail inmate
trustees to provide support for animal care, building maintenance, cleaning and operations during non-public hours.
Similarly, jail inmates also earn good time credit by working in the Logan County Jail garden, an ongoing annual cost-saving project that started around 2010.
Lt. Tim Klingelhofer has been in charge of the jail garden for the last several years. He noted the huge impact that it has on the sheriff’s office budget by cutting between 15 to 30 cents per meal for every meal that is served to inmates each day incorporating fresh, frozen and canned produce from the jail garden.
“We’re able to take the average cost of $1.33 per meal down to about $1 per meal by incorporating a variety of items from the garden,” Lt. Klingelhofer said.
“We give a lot of credit to our kitchen staff, led by Supervisor Carmen Loudermilk, for making this program so successful. They are very creative with incorporating items from the garden into our daily meals.
“This year, Dispatch Supervisor Christy Astoronio even provided classes on canning for the inmates, so it’s just another great skill that they gain, along with tending to the garden,
when they leave here.”
Read the full story in the Saturday, Sept. 28 edition of the Examiner. Subscribe today.