Wheat set to retire from sheriff’s office

The Sequoyah County Sheriff’s Office has announced the July 31 retirement of Investigator Gene Wheat.

Wheat has spent more than 50 years in public service with the fire service and law enforcement combined.

“Gene has been a consistent, hard-working fixture in this department since I took office in 2017,” said Sheriff Larry Lane in announcing the retirement. “His wisdom and experience will be missed by all of us, and we already miss the comedy relief he has always provided. Gene has been a friend of mine for 27 years, we went to the CLEET academy together.”

Wheat went to work for OG&E in 1969. He was assigned to Warner as OG&E’s local representative. While there, he joined the Warner Volunteer Fire Department in 1972, and always loved being involved in the community.

OG&E transferred Wheat to Poteau in 1976, so he then joined the Poteau Fire Department, which was classified as a paid fire department. He continued to work for the PFD until 1990, when he retired from OG&E. Wheat then took the full-time Fire Chief position in Grove, where he worked until 1996, when he chose to retire from the fire department.

Wheat was then hired by the Oklahoma State Fire Marshal’s office, and in 2004, he was promoted to agent supervisor for southeastern Oklahoma. He retired from the Fire Marshal’s office in 2013 due to a job-related disability. After three major back surgeries, he went to work for the Sequoyah County Sheriff’s Office in 2015 as an investigator, and has been instrumental in helping to solve several burglaries, thefts, fire investigations, financial crimes and homicides.

“If I’d have went to work 30 years ago for Larry Lane, I would have never worked for the State of Oklahoma or the city of Grove or the city of Poteau or anything else. I’d have been right here,” Wheat said Monday at the Sequoyah County Commissioners meeting. “You cannot find anybody that is a better person to work for than Larry Lane. Back in 1997, I went to the CLEET with Larry — we didn’t know each other then — but I knew in that time that Larry was gonna be a good leader.”

Lane and Undersheriff Charles House on Monday presented Wheat with a plaque in recognition of his half century of service.

“Gene has truly loved his job here at the sheriff’s office. He was always the first one in the door in the mornings, often getting to the office at or before 6 a.m. He told me on more than one occasion that if he would have started his career here, he never would have worked anywhere else,” Lane said.

“Gene was always a little ornery, though. He liked to pick at the younger deputies and investigators, just to get a rise out of them, and sometimes he’d get them fired up enough to get a ‘shut up, Gene’ from them. Once in a while, he would maybe get even a little worse than just a ‘shut up’.”

Wheat and his wife Dana have been married 56 years. They have a son, Randall, who is a career teacher/coach, and his wife Melanie teaches at Poteau Public Schools. Gene and Dana have three grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Wheat and his family attend the First United Methodist Church in Poteau.