HOUSTON COUNTY, Ga. — The governor-appointed district attorney of Houston County wants to run for sheriff in 2024.
Will Kendall told 13WMAZ he filed the paperwork to run as a candidate last month after we found his campaign website.
He said he's always wanted to be a cop, even as a lawyer.
Kendall is an Indiana native from the town of French Lick, a town of around 1,700 people. He said he lived in Florida and Georgia during his childhood and attended middle school in the Peach State.
When he moved back to Indiana in high school, Kendall said, he was a part of a cadet program with the French Lick Police Department from 2003 to 2006 and was a volunteer firefighter with the Orange County Rural District 1 Fire Department from 2015-2016.
Kendall said he graduated high school in 2004 when he was 17, then worked for his uncle's business, a truck-broker agency, before joining the Marine Corps in 2006.
"June of 2006, I got shipped off to boot camp and graduated September of that year," he said.
According to his resume, Kendall was in the military working dog handler (MWD) in the Marine Military Police from 2006 to 2009. During that time, he seized drugs, conducted traffic stops and supervised K9 teams.
Kendall was also a Marine Criminal Investigator, also known as a CID Agent, from 2009 to 2013. He said he investigated and conducted crime scene examinations, instructed law enforcement training courses and analyzed data to target crime trends.
After about eight years of service, Kendall said, he wanted to "catch up on life" and pursue a criminal justice associate degree in 2014.
"I made a conscious choice that I like the law, I certainly wanted to work in it," Kendall said. "At that time, it was also sort of my backup plan. I had made it to the second or third phase of the FBI and Secret Service job application process, so while I was awaiting bar results, I actually got a job in the Cordele Circuit."
In 2015, Kendall earned his bachelor of science in homeland security and public safety.
Three years later, he graduated from the Southern Illinois University School of Law with his Juris Doctorate as an early graduate.
"I always knew I was coming back here, I had fond memories as a kid," Kendall said. "Despised the cold weather, but this is my home."
Kendall returned to Georgia after undergrad and said he "watched his friends walk across the stage" while he was already working at the Cordele Judicial Circuit in December 2018, the same month he graduated law school.
While in Crisp County, he worked in family violence cases for all four counties in the circuit, including Crisp, Dooly, Turner and Wilcox.
Kendall said he also met his wife while working in Cordele; he has a stepdaughter and is expecting a baby with his wife.
In 2020, he worked under his current position's predecessor, George Hartwig, as his chief assistant.
When Hartwig retired in August 2021, he was the acting district attorney before he was appointed into his position by Gov. Brian Kemp the following September.
Kendall said, if you count the last few year's he's been the district attorney, he's been in law enforcement for 12 years.
"I have just a foundation and a history of law enforcement, much so more actually than I have been a lawyer, believe it or not, which I know sounds strange for being the DA," Kendall said. "But, like I said, the biggest thing, or the most important thing up front is that I feel called to do it, and I have to be obedient to that."
He credits the work accomplished by his office to the attorneys who work with him.
Kendall said his main priority as sheriff would be to build upon Cullen Talton's half-century-long legacy.
"Whether it's the district attorney or sheriff, I am a tax payed public servant, that's my job," Kendall said. "Not a dictator, or a guy who sits in a throne or tower. My job is to answer to the people. That's what it will be as sheriff."
You can read more about Kendall on his website here.
He is running as a Republican.
Republican and Democratic primaries for the 2024 election cycle are in May.