B.J. Barnes

B.J. Barnes served as Sheriff of Guilford County, North Carolina from 1994 to 2018, a 24-year tenure that made him the longest-serving sheriff in the county's history. During that time he led a department of 650 employees with a $63 million budget, oversaw the construction of a new county detention center, and presided over what he described as a 65 percent reduction in crime in the county. After leaving the sheriff's office he was elected mayor of Summerfield, North Carolina in 2019. The ACM recognized him with the Dirk Koning-George Stoney Award for Humanistic Communication in 1999, early in his tenure as sheriff.

The award placed him alongside public officials and community leaders who demonstrated that humanistic communication principles, openness, accountability, and the use of media as a bridge between institutions and residents, could operate within law enforcement as well as in community media centers.

His recognition reflects the field's periodic practice of honoring public servants whose approach to community communication embodied the values that community media advocates argue all public institutions should carry.