Long time Chilton County resident Ken Harmon Jr. recently accepted the position of warden at the Chilton County Jail.

Harmon is a graduate of Chilton County High School and George C. Wallace/Trenholm State Technical College in Montgomery.

“I started out, after college, in EMS, and then I got a part-time job here at the jail,” he said.

Harmon was a medic from 1997 until 2000 when he became a part-time employee at the jail. Enjoying the law enforcement side of life, Harmon began taking classes at the Law Enforcement Academy in Jefferson County. He graduated from the academy in April 2004 when he started working full time for the Chilton County Sheriff’s Department.

Harmon has been married to his wife for six years, and has two sons, ages 5 and 3.

“My wife and I have really been supportive of each other and our occupations,” he added.

Although Harmon has only been in the warden’s seat for two months, he has already made improvements around the jail. Sheriff Kevin Davis said that Harmon has worked to clean up the jail.

Davis has noticed the outside yards of the jail becoming cleaner.

“Ken has done a great job getting things done at the jail so far. It is nice to see the jail looking cleaner,” Davis said.

Harmon hopes to keep working on small improvements at the jail so he can create a path for bigger things to get started.

“Ken has a lot of good ideas that he is working on, and even though it may take some time to get them started, they will be assets to the jail,” Davis said.

One project is to have all of the jail employees CPR certified. He is also working on applying for a grant to purchase two automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) to keep inside the jail.

“The AEDs can help us here in the jail in saving people’s lives when an ambulance or a hospital are too far away,” Harmon said.