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Sheriff
Spencer County Sheriff's Office, Indiana
| Appointee | Kelli Reinke |
|---|---|
| Role | Sheriff |
| Organisation | Spencer County Sheriff's Office, Indiana |
| Domain | Law Enforcement |
| Start | 1 January 2019 |
| End | 1 January 2023 |
| Notes | First woman to win a modern competitive election for sheriff in Indiana (prior 20th-century women came via widow succession or term-limit-workaround marriages) |
Kelli Reinke was elected sheriff of Spencer County, Indiana in November 2018 and took office on 1 January 2019, becoming the first woman elected sheriff of Spencer County and the dataset's modern competitive-election entry for the State of Indiana. She had served the Spencer County Sheriff's Department for 23 years full-time and 33 years total in law enforcement before her election. She did not seek re-election in 2022; the office passed to Sherri Heichelbech (also a woman) in January 2023.
Why "modern competitive" for Indiana
The Indiana sheriff first-woman record runs through three earlier 20th-century events that the dataset's editorial rule excludes:
- Mayme Lange — Dearborn County, 1 January 1930. Appointed by the county commissioners to complete her late husband's term. Widow succession.
- Lillian Mae Holley — Lake County, 1932–1934. Took office after her husband, Sheriff Roy F. Holley, was killed in the line of duty. Widow succession.
- Marietta Hardy — Scott County, 1979–1982. Succeeded her husband Raymond Hardy, who had served the office 1971–1978. Indiana sheriff term-limit and family-rotation pattern.
In each of these the pathway was not a competitive election won on the candidate's own record. Reinke's 2018 race was an open-seat campaign against male opponents in both the Democratic primary and the general election — the earliest such event the dataset accepts as a clean first-woman event in Indiana.
The partial verification badge reflects the absence of an explicit state-first citation in available sources. Reinke herself described her election as "one of the firsts in Indiana history" in a post-election interview, which is consistent with the dataset's framing but not a definitive Indiana Sheriffs' Association declaration. If a future research pass identifies an earlier Indiana woman who won a contested election (outside the widow / term-limit-workaround pathways), this entry's framing will be revised.
Background
Reinke joined the Spencer County Sheriff's Department in approximately 1995 and rose through patrol, investigations, and command roles over twenty-three years. Her 2018 campaign emphasised internal-discipline reform within the office.
