The White Hall and Greene County community lost two members of its law enforcement community this past week.
Claudia Fischer was a dispatcher for the White Hall Police Department, starting in 1997. She retired from the position in 2016. Fischer passed away on Thursday at the age of 74. Current Greene County Sheriff Rob McMillen says that Fischer was one of the dispatchers that was serving the White Hall Police Department when he joined the force in 1990. He says her calming presence was a benefit to him and several other young officers at the time, as they were getting acquainted with their career.
Kerry Page began his career in law enforcement with the Winchester Police and then the Scott County Sheriff’s Department before landing at the White Hall Police Department in 1980. He took a job with the Carrollton Police in 1989, before he became a Greene County Sheriff’s Deputy. Page ran unsuccessfully to become Greene County Sheriff in 2010 against a long-time friend and fellow law enforcement officer at White Hall, Rob McMillen.
McMillen says that Page spent his entire professional life working to serve the citizens of Greene County: “Basically, law enforcement was his life and he pretty much lived that life to the fullest. He just recently retired, so he had a pretty lengthy run serving the people of Greene County.”
McMillen recalls the 2010 primary where he and Page faced off against each other for Sheriff on the Democratic ticket. He says that their personal and professional relationship continued even after McMillen became sheriff: “I was contemplating what to do with my career at the time and thought it would be a good move for myself. I wasn’t really particularly fond of running against a friend of mine, but it was a professional decision that I made for my family and myself. When I called him on the phone, I told him that I was going to run on the same primary ticket that he was on. I told him we would have a clean campaign. I assured him that, and basically that did hold true. There was no bickering amongst the candidates between him or I, or even the other side of the ticket. We all ran a pretty good campaign on both sides. At the end of the day, I ended up winning. The story has been written after that.”
Page returned to the White Hall PD in 2015 before retiring completely in 2020. During his time with the Sheriff’s Department, he assisted late Carrollton Police Chief Mike Kiger with the D.A.R.E. program at local schools. McMillen says that he even went out of the county and out of state on training and other advocacy for the police department during his years of service. Page passed away on Tuesday at the age of 66.
Current White Hall Police Chief Luke Coultas said in a Facebook post yesterday that the entire Greene County community has suffered the loss of two extremely important people who served the community over the last 40 years.
Services for Fischer will be held at a later date. Funeral services for Page will be 11:00 a.m. Monday at Airsman Hires Funeral Home in White Hall.