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JOHN BIEWEN: Ernie Vanderhyde is down to his last few weeks as Sheriff of Dodge County. He will retire in January after 16 years as Sheriff and 39 years in law enforcement in southeastern Minnesota.

The 72-year-old Vanderhyde talks like a man who's ready for retirement.

ERNIE VANDERHYDE: Every year, it gets more complicated. Seems like it's more red tape and laws are changing, and they require more of an officer nowadays than they did years ago. It's more activity all the time. It's unbelievable the calls you get that we never used to get years ago.

JOHN BIEWEN: Ernie Vanderhyde represents a fading breed of sheriffs, those who were never formally educated in law enforcement. Vanderhyde got a high school education, then did some farm work and truck driving until going to work for the Kasson Police Department in the early 50s.

He served as a deputy in Dodge County for three years before being elected Sheriff in 1974.

ERNIE VANDERHYDE: It used to be that you could hire anybody off the street, some guy you knew of a friend or something like that just to bring them in and put a badge on them give them a gun. Then went to work.

JOHN BIEWEN: But if he were starting out today, Ernie Vanderhyde could not get hired as a police officer, let alone be elected Sheriff. In 1977, the state legislature created the Peace Officer Standards and Training or post board and made Minnesota the only state in the country that requires a two year degree for beginning peace officers.

Then in 1987, a law was passed that requires sheriffs to be licensed peace officers. Before that anyone could be elected to the post. Some critics of the requirements say they're too stringent, that they could prohibit potentially good sheriffs from running for the job. Most sheriffs now serving in Minnesota were grandfathered in, so they have varying degrees of education and training.

But the changing requirements mean that, as time passes, more and more of Minnesota's sheriffs will be educated professionals.

SPEAKER 1: Come on out here.

SPEAKER 2: --before we walk out.

SPEAKER 1: Come on out here.

SPEAKER 2: Hey. Hey.

SPEAKER 3: Quit pointing the gun at me--

SPEAKER 1: Walk towards us.

JOHN BIEWEN: This is a role playing exercise at the Law Enforcement Training Center in Edina. Students studying law enforcement at colleges around the state come to the Training Center to practice what they've learned in the classroom and get coaching from experienced officers.

PHIL DAVIS: They learn firearms skills. They learn emergency driving techniques. They learn to actually process a crime scene, how to collect and package evidence. They'll learn how to intervene in a domestic crisis, things of that nature.

JOHN BIEWEN: Phil Davis is director of the law enforcement Training Center, which was created by the state in response to the licensing law passed in the 70s. Davis says the hands on practice that would be police officers get at the center is valuable, but equally important is the range of Liberal Arts courses they have to take for their two year degree.

PHIL DAVIS: What we get out of this system is officers who have a historical perspective, have a legal perspective, and we hope have an ethical or moral framework within which to make some decisions.

JOHN BIEWEN: Davis says there are few, if any sheriffs in Minnesota that have been trained under the Post Board Licensing system itself, but a growing number of them do have comparable backgrounds, including post-secondary degrees.

Jim Conley is the 37-year-old Sheriff of Fillmore County in southeastern Minnesota. Conley has a two-year degree from Rochester Community College, and says he's attended many training sessions during his years in law enforcement. But Conley says that the increasing administrative duties that sheriffs face, even in a rural county, have done as much to professionalize the job, as have the new educational requirements.

JIM CONLEY: I have 18 people that I oversee here with my deputies dispatchers and jailers and that today. And 20-30 years ago there was probably a Sheriff and one deputy or two deputies, and maybe a part time dispatcher. And those times are gone, they're gone forever. We're not going to see them again.

JOHN BIEWEN: One Department of Corrections official says sheriffs elected in recent years are more competent and more professional than those of the past.

In short, as one observer puts it, sheriffs are no longer the Matt Dillon type authority figures for counties that they once were. The job is increasingly that of an educated administrator, even if some sheriffs do still ride horses in their county parades. This is John Biewen.