Kelley served the longest term of any superintendent to date. In 1919 Mrs. Pearl Summers was inducted into the office and has been re-elected. Mrs. Summers is holding high the standard set by Sheridan county women in public life, and if men do not look well after their official duties, the example set by women officials will have a tendency to impress the public mind, and other offices will give way to the ambition of the other sex.

Pearl Ellis, now Mrs. Pearl Summers, and Jennie Ellis were graduates of Crawford High School, being in the class of 1895. There were six members in this class. One is dead, and three of the other five became county superintendents, the Ellis sisters being two of the three which attained that distinctive honor.

Sheriffs

As stated, John Riggs was the first sheriff of

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

Sheridan count}-. Edward C. Miller and Doc Middleton were his two deputies. Riggs was a brother-in-law of T. B. Irwin, the county commissioner. Riggs was foreman at Hunter's ranch while Irwin had the same distinctive honor at Newman's ranch. These two were the old and the big ranches of the time. Looking back across the thirty-six years of intervening time, it appears that the appointment of D. C. Middleton as deputy sheriff by John Riggs was a wise bit of strategy. Doc Middleton might not have complete respect for the ownership of horses and cattle, but while deputy sheriff it is safe to say that the stock of Hunter's ranch and Newman's ranch were absolutely immune from the frequent and almost epidemic tendencies of other people's stock to mysteriously disappear.