FAYETTEVILLE — Roger Morris announced Friday he's seeking a seventh term as Washington County coroner.
“I’ve enjoyed serving the people of this county for the last 12 years and I look forward to serving the next 12 years,” he said. “We’re doing really well growing with the county and I hope to keep doing what we’re doing.”
Profile
Roger Morris
Washington County Coroner
(incumbent)
Age: 47
Residency: Fayetteville
Family: Wife, Jennifer; one child
Employment: Washington County Coroner
Military Experience: None
Political Affiliation: Democrat
Education: Attended the University of Arkansas and Dallas Institute of Mortuary Science
Political Experience: Washington County coroner since 2002; Arkansas Coroner’s Task Force member
Source: Staff Report
Morris, 47, spent his childhood helping his father work in a funeral home. He spent five years as deputy coroner before his election in 2002. He’s had an embalming license for nearly 30 years. He entered office as a part-time official, in an era when coroners didn’t have their own county vehicles to transport bodies or a dedicated county phone number to take calls for service. He performed his county duties from a funeral home where he worked. The Quorum Court made the coroner’s position full time in 2009.
“In this job, experience means the world,” Morris said. “When we took over the coroner’s office, we had nothing. Now, we’re one of the top offices in the state.”
Morris convinced the Quorum Court to build a coroner’s building that opened in 2010 near the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. He's now one of few coroners in the state with a dedicated building to do death investigations and store bodies for extended periods. The Quorum Court also appropriated money to buy vehicles to transport bodies to the state crime lab.
“Even though we’re county, we’re a branch of law enforcement,” he said. “We’re an independent eye. We may see something different than what someone else sees.”
Being on call 24-hours-a-day is a routine Morris has grown accustomed to.
If his phone isn’t ringing, Morris said he checks to make sure he transferred his calls to his cellphone.
“If my phone doesn’t ring at night, I don’t sleep,” he said.
Coroner education and training is a key focus area for Morris, he said. His own training includes death-scene investigation from the St. Louis Medical School and forensic death scene investigation from the New York City Crime Lab. He has also studied death-scene photography, how to investigate sudden infant deaths and the Arkansas Mass Fatality Management Plan.
Gov. Mike Beebe appointed Morris to a Coroner’s Task Force, a 12-member group of coroners, a sheriff and medical examiner. The task force makes recommendations to the state Legislature to develop standards and policy recommendations.
“As coroner, you get to help a lot of people,” Morris said. “We want to do anything we can to help people with the recovery from death and to put their mind at ease with how the death happened. We don’t just put down a cause of death. We research it.”