Born in Peoria on February 27, 1974 to Tim Cranford and June Cranford Abbott, Brent Thomas would attend Rome and Mossville Grade Schools and was a standout athlete in track, hockey, and football as a ghost at IVC. He played Varsity Football under Bob Prout and Denny O’Boyle who tagged him affectionately as “The Crime Dog.”

He attended Upper Iowa University at Fayette and studied law enforcement as well as playing halfback and defensive back for four years. He attained degrees in criminology and criminal psychology.

Graduating in 1996, he worked Caterpillar Security for two years then hired on in 1999 to the Chillicothe Police Force for six years after completing the Police Academy Training Institute in Champaign Illinois. He was the first canine officer in Chillicothe and for the last three years of service was with his sidekick Konan.

On December 28, 2003 he married his high school sweetheart, Brooke Breckenridge. They have two sons—Andrew now 19 and Reid 11. Brent says, “my family is my best accomplishment and they enrich my life daily.”

In December of 2005, with encouragement from then Chief  Steve Maurer, he applied for candidate training in the elite  U. S. Marshals Service in Brunswick, Georgia. After completing three months of intensive schooling, he made the cut. His first duty was Washington D. C. for four and one half years, where he helped provide safety and protection for many government officials and some foreign dignitaries at home and abroad. Among them were, Condoleezza Rice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and former U. S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as well as covering people in the witness protection program.

He is a 22 year veteran volunteer firefighter and holds the rank of Captain in our Fire Department. He is active in youth sports and coaching and is a member of the IVC School Board. In his 17 years as a United States Marshal he has worked in concert with the White House Secret Service and on occasion has traveled overseas on special assignments. Quote “ Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid.”

Brent loves Chillicothe’s small town relaxed atmosphere and the giving, generous people who support almost every cause that comes up.

In America, we are fortunate indeed to produce patriots in every generation who are willing to stand at the gates and defend the population against evil, foreign, or domestic. That spirit has lived since 1776 in soldiers, sailors, policemen, sheriffs, marshals, and deputies, male or female, who answer a calling to preserve rights and freedoms for American families.  Sometimes a young boy’s dreams come true and somewhere up high, above all clouds, farther than any eagle’s eye can see, an old Sea Bee Sailor taps the ashes from his warm pipe and smiles down proudly on a grandson who listened and acted. You might say that he was grandfathered in. When society loses its guardians of the law completely, nothing else really matters. Quote “The strongest walls are not made of stone; they are made of brave men and women.”

There have been and always will be Hometown Heroes in Chillicothe of different walks, occupations, and stature and now United States Marshal and public servant Brent Thomas Cranford joins those ranks.