Fremont County Sheriff's Office captain announces candidacy for sheriff

Greg Owen of Canon City recently announced his candidacy in the 2026 Fremont County Sheriff election. (Courtesy photo)

The new year started with a bang for the current Fremont County Sheriff’s Office captain, Greg Owen, when he formally announced his candidacy in the 2026 Fremont County Sheriff election.

Owen looks forward to running alongside other candidates, including current Undersheriff Derek Irvine and former Sgt. Stephen Jones, as current Sheriff Allen Cooper will not seek election for a third term.

Jones spent 41 years in law enforcement, including many in California, before moving to Colorado, where he served within the Colorado Department of Corrections and with the Fremont County Sheriff’s Department. Irvine has been with the Fremont County Sheriff’s Department starting in 1996 and has served as a deputy, sergeant, and currently serves as the undersheriff.

“This has not been a spur-of-the-moment decision; this has been a lot of deliberation, a lot of conversation, and a lot of prayer that I just feel called to a higher level of service,” Owen said. “This is not another step in the ladder; this is not because I’m advancing my career, this is because I feel I am the right person to affect change.”

Having lived in Cañon City for 30 years, Owen is considered a familiar Cañon City face, and he hopes to bring his years of law enforcement dedication to the role of sheriff.

After graduating from Cañon City High School in 2008 (and subsequently marrying his high school sweetheart, Bailey), he spent several years trying to figure out his next step, which turned out to be law enforcement.

He started his career at the Fremont County Detention Center in 2012, where he quickly discovered his passion.

“It didn’t take long after I started at the jail to find out that I was meant for public service,” he said.

He worked his way to corporal within the detention center before being sent to the Pueblo Police Department for the Colorado Post Department in 2016, which, after graduating at the top of the class, prepared him to become a fully-fledged patrol deputy.

He was thrust into another leadership role when he was promoted to patrol sergeant just ten months into his patrol officer role.

“The first year or two of sergeant were pretty challenging,” he said. “I had to learn the job of patrol deputy at an accelerated rate.”

“The patrol sergeant years were really the years where I learned the most about effective leadership,” he added.

By late 2020, he’d been promoted to lieutenant over the law enforcement division, which included patrol and investigations. His day-to-day tasks in that role included more administrative duties, such as reviewing and approving incident reports, and overseeing the deputies beneath him.

“I know my deputy’s hearts and wants … I know they want to do the best job that they can do,” he said, citing the relationship he’s cultivated with his subordinates. “And they know that I support them in doing that.”

He was promoted to captain in July 2024, which reports directly to Undersheriff Irvine, and Owen oversees 29 deputies within the patrol and investigation units.

“I’m not striving for certain positions, what I’m striving for is more leadership,” he said. “And putting myself in a position that I can affect greater change.”

Should he be elected to the position of sheriff in 2026, he holds many dreams and aspirations moving forward.

Chief among them is to retain highly qualified individuals both in the detention center and on the patrol side.

“A lot of that starts with investing in deputies,” he said. “Training them…and making them feel supported by their command will benefit them and the community because of the job they’re doing.”

Currently, the detention center is relying on a proverbial skeleton crew to function and, due in no small part to his origin in the jail, Owen hopes to build it back up.

He also has high hopes to bring a sense of ease to the public’s interaction with the sheriff’s office, including transparency, and heightened communication.

“I want a sheriff’s office that the community can look to and have pride in,” he said. “In order to make a community safer, we all have to work together.”

On the lighter side of the job, he hopes to resurrect the department’s involvement in the local Special Olympics events, such as basketball games and more, and a co-ed softball team because he believes the community deserves to know exactly who is serving them — not always dressed in a uniform.

“Happy events are good times because, most of the time, when they’re [our deputies] dealing with people. They’re dealing with them on the worst day of their lives,” he said.

“I know the needs of this community and also have my finger on the pulse of the sheriff’s office,” he said

Keep up with any updates from Owen, including potential forums and meet-and-greets, at his official Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=61585906290478.