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LEXINGTON — By many measures, incumbent David S. Grice has done a yeoman’s job from the traditional basement office he reclaimed for the Davidson County sheriff.

Unlike “the bunker,” the more spacious digs that belonged to Grice’s famous predecessor, Gerald Hege, there are no klieg lights installed for once-frequent TV crews, no sandbags or mosquito nets as props, no cricket sounds piped in, no Court TV reality show filmed weekly in the pink county jail.

Instead of combat boots worn with bloused BDU trousers tucked in, Grice buys orthopedic-looking shoes at Walmart, comfortable after a lifetime spent as a deputy and Denton police officer.

Rather than a souped-up race car for his personal vehicle, reminiscent of Hege’s Impala SS “Spyder,” Grice drives a Buick — an ’01 Regal, the quintessential “old man car,” in Grice’s words.

Grice has a master’s degree, reads the 24-hour duty reports — no need for Ambien — got the budget under control, and applied for grants for new fingerprint technology, Glock .40s and radios that work.

How, then, does it happen? How does a three-way Republican primary May 4 between Grice, retired Highway Patrol Capt. Terry Price and Hege, become about a story about one man: Hege?

Or more specifically, how does it become about Hege’s bid, as a convicted felon unable to carry a firearm, to retake the office that catapulted him to national celebrity as “America’s Toughest Sheriff”?

Hege had help, in a roundabout way.

With tailor-made legislation supported by the N.C. Sheriff’s Association, Davidson County Republican state Sen. Stan Bingham tried to block Hege’s ability to run for sheriff as a convicted felon.

Hege was removed from office in 2004 after pleading guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice. He served a sentence of house arrest, fines and community service from a plea deal in which 13 other charges were dropped.

Meanwhile, the 12th District’s Republican Party, which Hege himself helped build through voter registration in a once-Democratic stronghold, issued a statement warning of the serious legal ramifications in a Hege candidacy.

Signs appeared on Davidson County roadsides with a pair of handcuffs and the words, “No Felon for Sheriff.”

Rather than throw a wet blanket on the fire, all this simply fanned the flames among former Hege supporters and the media alike.

And by now, Grice, who has the amiable manner of Tom Bosley, the father from “Happy Days,” knows it.

“You’re writing a Hege story,” Grice, concludes mid-way through a sit-down with an out-of-town reporter. He seems disappointed but not surprised.
Hardly surprised.

Hege has stood at the vortex of Republican politics in Davidson County since his election as sheriff in 1994. His rise, fall from grace and attempted rehabilitation, after all, IS the story. And Hege, sitting in his temporary headquarters at a used auto dealership in Thomasville, is not something out of “Happy Days.”

“I’m sort of like Omar Bradley,” Hege said in an interview last week. “Or like Dale Earnhardt. You either love me or you hate me.”

With a legal attempt to remove Hege’s name from the May 4 Republican ballot turned back Tuesday, only the precinct totals will tell what a crazy idea a convicted felon might be as sheriff.

The first question Hege faces, seemingly at every cold call on every doorstep, is the “gun thing.” What kind of sheriff doesn’t carry a gun? His first argument is that an average of 160 law officers are killed in the line of duty each year, all of them armed.

His second argument: What do people really want?

“Before, the criticism was, 'He had too many guns,’ ” Hege said. “Now, the same critics are saying, 'He’s not going to have a gun.’ ”

But the crux of the matter, for which carrying a firearm is a mere symbol, is trust. Why would Republican primary voters elect a candidate for sheriff who once presided over a department that misused vice narcotics money, and saw two jailers indicted for a prisoner-sex scandal and three ex-deputies sentenced for dealing drugs?

That is the question Hege is trying to answer. Like the speech he used to give the inmates at the end of Court TV’s “Inside Cell Block F,” he argues that he has paid his dues and deserves another chance.

“I made some mistakes, but I’m a darned good lawman,” he said. “It humbles you to the fact.”

Earlier in the campaign, he stood before a church congregation on National Highway in Thomasville and — borrowing a page from the 12-step program — he took a chance:

“My name is Gerald Hege, and I’m a convicted felon,” he said, only to be surprised by the pastor’s response.

“A lot of you don’t know this,” the pastor said, “but I’m a convicted felon, too.”

Behind the humility — real or feigned — the thing that has not changed is Hege’s knack for sales.

On his resume, Hege’s chief opponent Grice, who first took office in 2004, pledges on page one that his office is not for sale:

“I pledge,” Grice wrote,” that I have not and will not use the office of Davidson County sheriff to promote myself, sell merchandise, create 'reality’ TV shows, or participate in any other money-making schemes.”

But in the throes of the primary — which Hege started as early as last August when he planted the first few yard signs — the merchandise this time is not barbecue sauce or die-cast Spyder replicas. This time, the product is Hege himself.

In one sense, the sales territory is familiar, from the years Hege spent working in the party trenches. These are the same RFDs he once toured  on campaign swings with Jesse Helms, whom he regarded, in political terms, “like Elvis.”

Hege boasts that he used to drive up and down each county road with voter registration rolls on the seat next to him, able to tell who was a Democrat, who was a Republican.

If there were 10 Smiths on a road, he knew he only needed to visit the grandfather, not the other nine. And in Hege’s world, it is all about real estate and the gas-powered auger sitting in the corner, which he uses to plant campaign signs in front yards — by invitation only, he says.

Each sign, he argues, represents two voters. Grice, reelected in 2006, won his last Republican primary with less than half the votes — 3,090 to Price’s 2,408, in early returns. Hege, in his last primary election in 2002, took more than both of them combined, with 8,700 votes.

That, however, was prescandal. Not knowing how the scandal plays out, Hege sticks to the numbers these days and his door-to-door strategy.

“Old-timey politics,” he says, leaning forward in his chair.  “Why introduce a bill to stop me from running? Because they can’t get no yard. They can’t get no real estate. And they’re running against ME.”

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com