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By Sean Jarem
The Dispatch
Sherry Forrest is a deputy clerk of court in the criminal division for Davidson County.
Sherry Forrest is relatively new to the criminal justice system after spending more than a year working as a deputy clerk of court in Davidson County .
“It’s very interesting,” said the 32-year-old Davidson County native. “You learn something new every day.”
Forrest was hired in October 2005 after originally being turned down for the position. It was during a time of transition for the mother of two young boys after she was laid off weeks before from a tele-communications company.
Her husband of 16 years drives a truck, and she was forced to draw unemployment for a short time.
Then the phone rang.
An unexpected position opened at the courthouse, and it wasn’t long before Forrest was back working a 40-hour week.
“I can honestly say that this is the first job that I had that I feel like this is my calling,” she said.
She works the front desk in the criminal division, mainly answering phone calls and directing people to where they need to be.
“We get a lot of the same calls with the same questions,” she said. “Some just need phone numbers or they don’t know the name of their court-appointed attorney.”
Forrest graduated from Central Davidson High School in 1992 and lives in Welcome.
She has plans to get certified as an emergency medical technician. She wants to begin classes in March at Davidson County Community College .
But she doesn’t have a desire to work as an EMT on a full-time basis.
“I would be a volunteer on the weekends,” she said. “A lot of people in my family work with either fire departments or the rescue squad.”
She previously took the EMT certification class, a demanding six-month course, and failed the exam by four points.
With encouragement from friends and family, she refused to let a test score stop her from achieving her goal. She said this time around will be different.
“Sometimes you go through life and feel like you are not making a positive difference in someone’s life,” she said. “Doing this will give me the satisfaction of knowing I am lending a helping hand to someone in need.”
Sean Jarem can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 228 or at sean.jarem@the-dispatch.com.
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