The Associated Press
PLATTEVILLE, Wis.- A music store co-owner is putting a touch of Mayberry in a sheriff’s race in western Wisconsin.
Grant County Sheriff candidate William Fenrick changed his name earlier this year to that of the actor who portrayed Sheriff Andy Taylor on TV’s “The Andy Griffith Show” in the 1960s.
He said his goal was to focus attention to a sheriff’s race that otherwise gets little.
“Nobody knows who’s running or what the issues are, if there are any issues or how the people differ,” Griffith said.
He’s running as an independent in the Nov. 7 election against incumbent Keith Govier, a Republican who has held the job for 10 years, and Democrat Doug Vesperman, who has worked in the sheriff’s department 16 years.
Griffith, 42, said he has worked in private security.
He said he was motivated in part to run for sheriff after hearing about a drug raid in Dodgeville last May in which officers went to the wrong address, then charged a group of young people in the apartment next door for having marijuana.