John Wayne’s impact on Sheriff Greg Pollan’s life is unmistakable, especially if you visit his office in Pittsboro. The entire room is decorated in Western, mostly John Wayne motif down to the desk he sits behind.
“When they built this desk my last instruction was make it something John Wayne would be proud to sit behind,” Pollan said.
He traces his love for the movie cowboy back to his earliest memories.
“When I was a kid, my mom (Sandy) was a big John Wayne fan and my grandfather (George “Bo” Pollan) was and he sort of reminded me of John Wayne,” Pollan said.
“He was a big man – 6’2’, 300 pounds – big ole rough and tough character.”
“Back then John Wayne movies were on TV all the time, all the time. They still are, but not like it was then. One of the first movies I ever remember seeing was ‘Rio Bravo’ and it’s by far my favorite.”
“I’ve seen it probably over 100 times. I know all the lines to the movie. I remember as a kid I would say his lines in the movie before he said them and my mom would say ‘shut up and let him do them.’ It was a joke within the family how fascinated I was with him.”
‘Rio Bravo’ starred John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson, Walter Brennan, and Ward Bond. It’s about the sheriff (Wayne) of the town of Rio Bravo, Texas, who arrests the brother of a powerful local rancher to help his drunken deputy/friend. With the help of a “cripple” and a young gunfighter, they hold off the rancher’s gang.
Pollan’s love for John Wayne was only amplified in movies where Wayne played a sheriff or law man of any kind.
“I have a replica of the badge he wore in Rio Bravo that Steve Poindexter gave me,” Pollan said. “In the movie he was the sheriff of Presidio County and Steve found this for me,” 
Pollan said holding out the badge. “It was good guy versus bad guy kind of movie that had it all – gun fights, the whole nine yards – and being one of the first ones I remember I guess I just had an affection for that one over the rest of them.”
Pollan noted that in a recent poll “Rio Bravo” was ranked the 10th best Western of all time. Wayne’s movie “The Searchers” was ranked number one as it has been for a long time in most polls of Western movies.
As big a fan as Pollan is, there is one John Wayne movie he doesn’t care for.
“I refuse to watch ‘The Cowboys.’ I’ve only seen it twice, actually one and a half times,” Pollan said shaking his head. “I can’t watch the end of it because (John Wayne) is so brutally murdered. I don’t even own it. It’s not been in either of my collections because of the way he was assassinated in that movie. I saw that as a kid and it was traumatizing. I couldn’t believe they would do that to John Wayne.”
“It’s a good movie. If you were not a huge John Wayne fan it’s really good, but if you’re an aficionado you just don’t watch that one. If I catch it on television I skim across it and go to something else.”
Pollan collected more than 100 of John Wayne’s movies on VHS tape. Then when DVDs and Blue Ray came out he gave all the tapes to Larry Bratton, of Calhoun City, and started his collection over on DVD.
“I’m probably up to over 60 of the movies on DVD now,” he said.
They’re not all Westerns either.
“My favorite non western is ‘In Harms Way.’ It’s in black and white. By then they were doing color but the director chose to do it in black and white for the effect,” Pollan said. “‘Flying Tigers’ is another one. ‘The Quiet Man’ is a classic. People that don’t like John Wayne like ‘The Quiet Man.’”
If it wasn’t John Wayne on the big screen influencing a young Pollan, it was his law enforcement family leading him to his eventual career. Pollan was one year old when his dad Leslie Pollan graduated from highway patrol school.
“That’s all I ever knew and all I was ever around. My grandmother (Rogenia) was a dispatcher for the sheriff’s office at the old courthouse for over 20 years. I would go to work with her a lot and sit in the radio room for eight hours. Even before my dad got to be the sheriff, there’s a joke I served under two sheriffs before – Richard Mooneyham and Treetop Morgan.”
“I would sit around the radio room and see Treetop or one of the deputies bring in a prisoner. When I was around nine years old I would feed the inmates. It was a lot different back then than it is now. You wouldn’t open the cell door you just put it through a flap in the door.”
“When I got older and started deciding what I wanted to do it always came back to (law enforcement),” he said.
Pollan started in criminal justice at LSU, where he was living at the time, and then he came back to Calhoun County at 19 years old and finished school at Ole Miss while working part time at the Calhoun City Police Department.
“I did that for five years before a full time opening came up in 1992. I got married on July 25 and went full time Aug. 1. It was a short honeymoon,” Pollan laughed.
“In 1993 when I went to the Police Academy, one of the instructors asked one week if you can come back on Monday and tell me the name of the movie that John Wayne got ate by an octopus you won’t have to take the test this week. I knew the answer right away, but didn’t dare say it because I was scared he would make me do push ups. He asked on Monday and no one raised their hand. I slowly raised my hand up and he called on me and I said ‘Wake of the Red Witch’ and he made me get down and do 50 because I was the only one who knew it.”
Looking around at the many items filling shelves in his office, Pollan noted a surreal feeling about being the sheriff and thinking about John Wayne’s many roles. The Duke’s good guy characters in “Rio Bravo” and “The Comancheros” and many more are always important to Pollan.
“Any time he plays the sheriff or a marshal those are the ones I like the most because he represents the good guys doing good. The pictures and memorabilia in my office show that and represent that.”
Among Pollan’s favorite pieces in the collection is a piece of clothing off one of John Wayne’s shirts.
“To know I have a piece of John Wayne’s shirt in my office is pretty cool,” he said.
One of the first things he ever got was a coffee mug with the saying “Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.” One of the second things he got was a zippo lighter with Wayne’s image. Today he has action figures, trucks, coasters, bottles, books, guns, almost anything you can imagine depicting John Wayne.
“I have as much at the house as I do here in the office,” Pollan said with a smile. “I have a lot of stuff I don’t need, but I have it. I love it.”