New face at sheriff's office

Newsboy photo/ Sharon Kerr CHANGING OF THE GUARD- Kim Toal (right) is training replacement Sharon Borel how to process bonds in the Jasper County Sheriff's office.

Kim Toal has been a fixture at the Jasper County Sheriff's office for nine years, first as a secretary, and for the last two years as the administrative assistant to Sheriff Ronnie McBride and Chief Deputy Jack Jett.

She has been in the thick of many big events- the investigation of the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. with Sheriff Billy Rowles, the shuttle recovery efforts and the aftermath of Hurricane Rita, when the new jail became shelter and home for county first responders and their families.

"I love working with these people, and I'm going to miss them," Toal said. She announced last month that she is engaged to wed. She will be moving to Lake Charles this month and already has a job lined up as dispatcher for a tugboat towing company.

Her replacement, Sharon Borel of Kirbyville, has been working with Toal for the last couple of weeks and hopes to get a few more days training "before sink or swim."

Borel recently worked from home, but before that she worked with the Burke Center and prior to that was a long-term employee with Gulf States before it became Entergy.

Toal says Borel brings to the job excellent computer skills. Borel has found the biggest challenge so far has been to learn to process all the bonds, and to learn the alphabet soup of abbreviations and codes used by law enforcement people.