Adam Lowe is right where he wanted to be when he was growing up — in Jones County — and he has no plans to change that.
“I’m very blessed to have grown up here, lived here my whole life, and been able to come to work every day where I grew up,” Gray’s police chief said last week. “I always laughed when people used to say, ‘I can’t wait to graduate; I’m getting out of this town.’ I wasn’t one of those people. I wanted to stay right here, and it’s been a blessing.”
Lowe, 51, has been chief for 19 years, and he doesn’t intend to change jobs.
“I’m not gonna sit here and tell you it was a lifelong dream to be in law enforcement,” he admitted, “but after I got into it, now it’s in my blood, and I’ve really enjoyed it. I’ve never second guessed what I should have done or could have done or anything like that.”
Lowe shared that he had a ‘typical’ childhood and was on the golf team at Jones County High. Following graduation, the teenager worked two jobs for a while.
“After I graduated, I went to work at UPS, loading trucks at night. Then I went and worked in the woods logging. Worked in the woods during the day after I got off.”
After about three years of that, Lowe accepted an offer that would mark the beginning of what he hopes will be his lifelong career.
“In ’95, the sheriff (Butch Reece) reached out to me and asked me if I wanted a job. I went up there and met with the sheriff, and I went on with him. I went to mandate (school) in February of ’95.”
Lowe started as a patrol officer and was promoted to sergeant six years into his job.
“I stayed there until I came here in April of 2003,” Lowe said, “and that’s just where I’ve been ever since.”
The new officer advanced rapidly under Police Chief Billy Bagwell.
“I pretty much answered to Billy, Billy alone,” Lowe stated, adding he moved up the ranks: sergeant, lieutenant, then captain in just three years.
“I was a captain when the council replaced Billy in 2006, and they asked me to be the interim chief.”
The City Council made it official in just two months, removing the ‘interim’.
Lowe’s life on the police force wasn’t all that was changing that Spring. He and Chandra Dupree met while working at the Sheriff’s Department, and both took city jobs in 2003. She has been the Municipal Court Clerk since then. They started dating in 2002 and decided to make the relationship permanent in 2006.
“It was a terrible time for all that mess to be going on,” he recalled, “because we were getting married in May, and then that happened with Billy in March. So that was a rough, rough time, you know? I had already remodeled the house, and I knew that payment was coming in.”
Lowe had one son, Sam, by a previous marriage, and he picked up four more children when he wed Chandra: Ashley (Roberson), Main Street Director for Gray now, Dylan, Keith, and Nick. All but Nick, 25, are in their 30s. There are four grandchildren: Candace, Maddox, Livia, and Knox, only six months old.
Lowe acknowledged that the city has grown in the 19 years he has been at the helm, economically, geographically and in population. Likewise, his staff and budget — including salaries — have increased.
“It was 11 of us (officers) when I started,” he recalled. “There are 17 now. Mark (Robinson) came on two years ago, and he and Chris (Williams) run my Criminal Investigation Division. I have two captains on patrol, one lieutenant and one sergeant.”
Lowe’s initial budget was not necessarily small, just under $700,000, and this year’s planned expenses and revenues total $1.3 million. He gives a former city official and council member a lot of credit for helping him early on with the financial issues.
“It was Miss Loretta Lipsey,” he declared. “If there was one person that taught me, you know, I wasn’t but 31 years old coming in as a chief, with a little over half-a-million-dollar budget.”
Lipsey, who had been City Clerk for 35 years, was in her first year on City Council when Lowe was named chief. She served two terms, 2006-2014.
“I can remember the first meeting I ever had after they appointed me interim. Loretta called me to City Hall and she said, ‘You see this budget?’ I said, ‘yes, ma’am.’ She said, ‘Forget about it. A budget is a budget.’ And I said, ‘Ma’am?’ She said, ‘Forget about it. Anything you want, you come to us. We got to fix the money in the city.’
Lowe explained that the city went from borrowing as much as $200,000 annually to a balanced budget with a tax increase in one year, and he credited Lipsey with that.
“I’ve always said as far as finance goes, in my opinion, Miss Loretta saved the city. I worked with her for eight years, and I learned a lot about money and how to run a budget.”
Lowe reflected on the past 19 years and pointed to upgrades of his department.
“I had body cameras back before anybody wanted body cameras, I think in 2007,” he noted. “It wouldn’t run but about three hours, but I always believed in that. I’ve always told my men and women that worked under me, don’t ever be afraid of that. You should be doing the right things, so what are you worried about? That’s protecting you. And for decades, those things have.”
Lowe said the city received a $500,000 grant that paid for significant improvements.
“We got brand-new body cams and new in-car cameras that do the front and the back seat.”
That same grant provided funding for a fully equipped crime scene emergency response trailer, and Flock cameras, mounted at four locations in the city to provide around-the-clock surveillance of intersections.
“That by far to me has been the biggest step forward in law enforcement in decades,” Lowe said, explaining that information collected by the cameras on vehicles passing through Gray is shared nationwide. “And they have been very useful in several burglaries that we had, entering autos.”
The chief said men from Albany came to Gray and went in several vehicles.
“We hit them on the flock, then we tracked them all the way back to Albany and got them down there.
“We got all of that through that grant,” Lowe added.” It’s hard to say a grant isn’t taxpayers’ money. It is, but it isn’t just from great Georgia taxpayers.”
Another — more personal — improvement of the Gray Police Department has been in salaries. Previously ranking well below comparable communities, Gray has moved to the top echelon, according to the chief.
“I’ll have to hand it to the city,” Lowe praised. “They (council members) really stepped up, and I got all of them a raise. Their pay went up probably $20,000, and they needed to. We were probably in the lower bracket of agencies our size, and they got us now to where, with the benefit packages the city gives us, we’re probably in the top tier. I’m very thankful for that.”
While he has answered hundreds of calls at all times of the day and night over the years and pretty much feels he is on duty 24/7, that doesn’t mean Lowe doesn’t have a life outside the department.
“I fish as much as I can and hunt as much as I can and go to Georgia football games. That’s about it. I have plenty of hobbies. I have plenty to keep me busy.”
One activity that requires some of Lowe’s attention is a local gun shop and feed store. He and Williams own Gray Feed & Seed, operated for decades by members of the Childs family.
“The opportunity came up, and I always loved that site, that industry, you know, and I said, let’s look at it. So, we looked at it and bought it, and it’s been fine.
“The COVID year was great,” Lowe recalled. “That was probably one of the strongest years we had because we were one of the few businesses that could stay open, and people were off. So, they planted gardens and did more house stuff.”
Since then, however, costs of feed and related products have sky-rocketed, and ‘hobby’ farmers have cut back on their purchases.
“The past few years have been tough,” the part-time businessman admitted.
Lowe is an avid hunter, and one of his excursions took him to Nicaragua with some Jones County friends. The trip didn’t end well.
“The last day, the police came on the field where we were shooting, and they drew down on me. When I saw who they were, I threw the shotgun out in the field and stood there with my hands up. I couldn’t understand them. They’re speaking Spanish. I’m speaking English. ‘I’m not gonna hurt you, how about get the gun off of me,’ and then next thing I know he comes right there and thumb cocks right between my eyes. I’ve had one — anxiety attack I guess is what you call it — in my life. I had another one.”
Lowe said he never found out what caused the Nicaraguan police to accost them. But he does know “that’s not happening again.” He has vowed to never leave the country again, except possibly to go to Canada to hunt.
“I’m not going out of the Gulf in International Waters,” he chuckled, then added, laughing, “I put my passport in the gun safe, and I said, ‘I think you’ll be safe here to expire little buddy.’”
