They may call him "C.G." up in Texas and he may wear a white, 10-gallon Stetson on his head and cowboy boots on his feet, but Celvin G. Walwyn’s heart will always be on St. Croix.
In the meantime, though, the Crucian-kid-turned-Texas-lawman has his focus set on one thing: becoming sheriff of Wharton County, Texas, population 45,000. And like most things Texan, Wharton County is big. St. Croix’s 85 square miles (albeit with about with a slightly larger population) could be dropped into Wharton 10 times with a bit of room to spare.
With an accent somewhere between Crucian kallaloo and Texas chili and punctuated by hearty guffaws, Walwyn says that in the 20 years since he left St. Croix for Texas, he’s taken to the Lone Star State and its people –- and vice versa. So much so that he married a Wharton native, Antoinette Dickerson-Walwyn.
He says the idea of a West Indian "outsider" running for sheriff in a predominantly Caucasian county 45 miles southwest of Houston doesn’t matter.
"They don’t see me as an outsider," the 42-year-old Walwyn says. "I crossed that barrier a long time ago. I have white supporters, Mexican and black. It’s not about race, it’s about qualifications."
The stereotypical Texas, he says, "is changing, slowly changing."
Walwyn’s rise, however, has been anything but slow. Born to Kittitian parents, young C.G. grew up on St. Croix. He credits several people on the Big Island –- Pastor Spencer Walwyn, Vivian Bennerson, Claudette Petersen and Joe Perez, to name a few –- and the V.I. Police Department Citizens' Police Academy and pre-cadet program for laying a strong foundation on which he has built his law-enforcement career.
In need of a "change" in 1980, Walwyn, then 22, says he took what he learned on St. Croix and headed to "the Big H" — Houston — where "one thing has led to another." He started out working as a claims investigator for an international insurance company, then moved on to become a police officer. His first cop job was in Kendleton, a tiny village about 40 miles (and that's a drop in the bucket in Texas) southwest of Houston. He also served a stint there as the interim police chief.
Walwyn then headed to Florida, where he worked as a sheriff’s deputy around Orlando. Since 1991, he has been a deputy sheriff in Harris County, which consists mainly of Houston and its suburbs.
In Houston, with its 10,000-strong West Indian population, Walwyn has honed his policing skills, Texas-Caribbean style. He’s been a member of Houston's Caribbean Gang Task Force and had done some security work at the only reggae club in the city. It’s at the club that his Texan veneer gives way to his island core.
"When the kids start talking crap, I start talking Crucian," he says. "It has its effect. I’m still a Crucian at heart. I can speak like that when I have to."
Still, it can come as a surprise, especially when Walwyn’s got his $125, standard-issue Stetson perched on his head like a West Indian John Wayne.
"As a matter of fact," he says with a laugh, "the hat is a legitimate part of my uniform. Two of them — straw in the summer and felt in the winter."
Naturally, they are good-guy white hats.
At the moment, Walwyn is looking at the coming November election with his heart still plugged into the past but an eye on the future.
"I’m a Crucian because I grew up on St. Croix," he says. "I represent the Virgin Islands everywhere I go."
