The Newton County Sheriff’s Office held its annual awards ceremony last week.

If you missed all the honorees, you can read our story at covnews.com.

The fifth-year ceremony was started by current Sheriff Ezell Brown and has brought some of the office’s best to the attention of the community.

We owe our law enforcement personnel a debt of gratitude for their around-the-clock efforts to ensure that we stay safe and that our county is looked upon as a safe place to do business.

We commend Sheriff Brown for the foresight to create this awards program so that the whole community can see and recognize its heroes.

In addition to our local law enforcement honorees, the department honored one of its own in former Deputy Joseph Griffin, who lost his life in Afghanistan while protecting workers who were there to help the Afghan people.

We salute our local heroes and Jimmy Griffin for having the courage to go into harm’s way to protect others.