Meet the Candidate: Karen Box – Robertson County Sheriff

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – Early voting is underway. One race Robertson County voters will see on their ballot is County Sheriff.

All six candidates will appear on News 3 at Six before election day on March 5.

Gerald Yezak has held the position since 1996, but he is not running for reelection. Six candidates are vying for the position: Karen Box, Rip Brown, Johnny Lopez, Bill Ruland, S.A. Smith and Miguel Vasquez.

Box joined News 3 at Six on Wednesday to discuss why she believes she’s the right person for the job.

“So I’ve been with the sheriff’s office for 22 years 20 of those as a peace officer. I just wanted to give back to the community and make the area, you know do my part to make it safer,” Box said. “I started out as an investigator, started out in narcotics, moved over into the criminal investigation division, worked primarily sexual assaults, some financial crimes. Did that pretty much most of my career. Probably for about the last four or five years, I’ve done more on the admin side…budgeting that kind of thing with the Commissioner’s Court as well.”

Box says Robertson County added more than 260 addresses in 2023. She says that’s a lot to keep up with.

“The obvious thing would be more staff. With more staff, you need more equipment with that you need more training. So those are all of the things that we would need to be able to keep up with.”

She says she plans to retain deputies by developing a positive work environment “to establish a place where everybody is proud to be there, they want to come in they want to work together, achieving their own successes, so they want to come back, they want to stay, they’re happy to be there.”

Box says one of the main things she plans to focus on is improving communication between all three divisions of the sheriff’s office: law enforcement, the jail and dispatch.”

“The communication between those entities is very very important and our communication with all the other agencies in the area is very important.”

You can watch our entire interview with Box in the player above.