Things haven’t always been the same in Karnes City. The grocery store wasn’t always called "Looney’s," a church now sits in place of where a bar used to be, drugs were an almost unheard of problem, and nearly every building downtown used to have a booming business in it.

Even the old courthouse used to look different than it does today, but as far back as a lot of folks can remember, Karnes City has always had the same police chief. His name was Nolan Jonas, a Vietnam war veteran and the son of Theo and Frieda Jonas, married in 1996 to Mary Louise Boelter.

He got the job in 1981, but his career as a Karnes City police officer goes back further all the way to 1972 when he signed on the force.

In those days, the city had a lot of bars, two police officers, and one squad car.

"It was quite active. You had a lot more going on because back then you had … let’s see, one two, eight, about nine or ten bars in addition to the Benito Juarez (dance hall) and you just had two officers. You had to do a lot with less," Jonas said. "It used to be a booming metropolis. It really was. Saturday evenings, the streets would be packed. A lot of people lived on a farm and they just stayed home and came and did their business on the weekend. Farming declined and people just moved off the farm and then everything in this town flourished."

He and Dan Stout, the police chief at the time, did a lot of work on their tiny office in the back of city hall with the help of their wives. They spent hours painting the place and fixing it up, making their little place a good area to work in.

Most of the police work took place on the weekend when people would come out from rural areas and head to town to enjoy themselves, buy farm supplies, or shop for clothes and appliances.

"Making a difference in the community is the part that made me always feel good about the job – making this a good place for people to live in," Jonas said.

Making a difference was about to get more difficult, though. Stout retired in 1981 and Jonas took over as chief.

"The weekends were your busiest time with all the bars being full of people. It’s still busy, it’s just back when I started, there wasn’t near as much dope as there is now. In the 70s, marijuana probably was the most you could get and it wasn’t that big a scale. Then naturally drugs started getting more of a hold," he said. "As far as Karnes City, (drugs) always have an affect, but we pretty well kept it under control. You can’t ever eliminate drugs, but you can control it. That’s what we accomplished by working with the task force."

Over his years as chief, Jonas has made controlling drugs in Karnes City one of his top priorities. He’d always have an investigation going and things usually ended up with a warrant being served, loads of drugs being confiscated, and several individuals going to jail.

He worked with the 81st Judicial District Narcotics Task Force, building the cases and then having task force agents arrange undercover operations to catch the drug peddlers red-handed.

It was a slow process, but it yielded results and, Jonas said, helped deter crime overall. Keeping crime back was something he looked at as a community service – a way to help better the place folks lived, worked, and did business in. Crime prevention wasn’t only for the folks living here. To him, it was economic development.

"The thing about it is, if people are going to locate in the town, there are two main things that they look for: a low crime rate and a good school," he said.

And helping him along the way have been officers he describes as good people. When Jonas took over as chief, there still were only two officers and one patrol car. As work increased, Jonas expanded the department to two officers, then three, and more.

He saw the department going from one patrol car to the six patrol cars that run the streets today.

His department became a place where officers not only got a steady job, but experience working the law and serving the public. In many ways, Jonas’ department ended up educating many officers that over the years have advanced to some of the state’s specialized fields of service.

"I’ve always had good people. Usually every time I lost someone, they bettered themselves (and took jobs with) better benefits and better pay," Jonas said. "You get them experience and they move on and you feel good about that."

The main way he accomplished always having good people working at the department was to keep morale up, he said.

"It’s important to have a high morale. No matter how good the salary is, if the morale’s low, it’s hard to keep people."

He talked about people like Sergeant Investigator Oscar Garcia, Jr., a 6-year Karnes City Police Department veteran who always has a story to tell and a way of telling it. Whether it be a story about a stakeout gone wrong or the apprehension of a juvenile suspect that literally outran KCPD officers for months, Salas always had a humorous way of looking back.

"Oscar has a way of telling them. The way I tell them, it’s not as funny," Jonas laughed. "Police work is a stressful job. You encounter some real hairy situations. Having people like Oscar around, it helps. It’s a good stress reliever. Police officers are under the gun, but when everything’s said and done and they can talk about it and laugh about it, it helps relieve the pressure."

The quirky situations and memories of handling whatever Karnes City would throw at the police department are things Jonas said he’ll miss.

Above all, it’s been hard to change his ways after 34 years of doing the same job. He said he still feels an obligation to the town.

"It’s been having an affect on me. I’m trying to adjust to the change. It’s hard to just walk away, you know? You still want to be involved in it," he said.

Not having the responsibility and feeling the weight of obligation lift off his shoulders has been a nice feeling, though, he admits.

The phone no longer will ring at 3 a.m. with someone on the other line bringing bad news and looking to Jonas to figure out what to do.

"Being police chief, you have a seven-day-a-week, 24-hour obligation. If anything goes wrong, you’re the one responsible for taking care of it," he said. "Throughout the years, my phone would always be ringing. At nighttime, too. There were plenty of times where you go to bed and you’re just sound asleep and then up you go. Those are the things I won’t miss."

The obligation has been passed on to 12-year KCPD veteran Eddie Salas.

Jonas has plans to spend more time with his two granddaughters and grandson, now, and there are a lot of cows out back behind his house that will need taking care of. Overall, he says he’s going to take it easy.

Mary Louise said she’s happy to have her husband home, and definitely happy the phone will be all quiet during the evening at the Jonas house from now on.