May Presents Craig the Sagamore of the Wabash

BEDFORD — State Rep. Chris May presented Mayor Sam Craig with the Sagamore of the Wabash at Historic Indiana Limestone Company. The certificate carries the name of Gov. Mike Braun. It is the highest honorary distinction a sitting governor of Indiana can give a citizen, and it is not a job, a pension, or a vote.

What the award is

Gov. Ralph F. Gates created the Sagamore in 1946. He was on his way to a meeting of Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky officials and learned the Kentucky governor meant to name him a Kentucky Colonel. Gates answered with an honor of his own. The first two recipients, at a tristate meeting in Cincinnati, were Kentucky Gov. Simeon Willis and Ohio Sen. Robert A. Taft. Indianapolis attorney Kurt Pantzer is generally credited with the name.

“Sagamore” is an Algonquin word for a lesser chief, the man a chief looked to for counsel. The Wabash is the river. The certificate says the recipient is distinguished by humanity in living, loyalty in friendship, wisdom in council, and inspiration in leadership. Each governor keeps his own roll and picks his own names. There is no single official list. Gus Grissom of Mitchell received one in 1965. Ryan White, John Wooden, and a long file of mayors, coaches, and plant managers have received one since. In Bedford, May presented the same award to former Bedford North Lawrence athletic director Jeff Callahan at the chamber dinner in August 2024.

Craig

Samuel J. Craig was born March 14, 1957, to Robert and Maralou Craig. His father retired from the Bedford Fire Department and managed Craig’s Feed and Seed for his parents, Buck and Inez. Craig went through St. Vincent de Paul, graduated Bedford North Lawrence in 1976, and finished the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy. He married Lou Ann Edwards in 1982.

He joined the Bedford Police Department in 1980 and stayed 21 years: patrolman, captain, then detective commander with the rank of major, on the executive board that set policy and handled internal affairs. Voters elected him Lawrence County sheriff in 2007 and sent him back for a second term, eight years. On his own account of that office he started the county’s first tip line, stood up a multi-agency drug task force, and ran a jail study aimed at keeping the population at an even capacitance. The department he oversaw ran about 75 employees and a budget of nearly 3 million.

From February 2016 he was the city’s director of administrative services, one of seven department heads, with insurance, drug-testing policy, and the fleet on his desk. He sat on the Lawrence County Council in the same years and served a turn as president. Voters elected him mayor in 2019, after Shawna Girgis did not seek another term. He took office in 2020 as Bedford’s 24th mayor. City Hall still lists him there, at 1102 16th Street.

May

Christopher D. May was born and raised in Oolitic, graduated Bedford North Lawrence, and earned a bachelor’s in industrial and product design from Vincennes University in 1995. Before the Statehouse he worked design and engineering jobs at Ford, Cook Group, General Motors, Otis, and Whitney Tool Company in Bedford, where he is vice president of sales. He served three terms on the Lawrence County Board of Commissioners and chaired the county insurance steering committee.

He took the House District 65 oath in November 2016, filling the seat Eric Koch left, sworn in by Chief Justice Loretta Rush. He chairs the House Local Government Committee and sits on Roads and Transportation and Financial Institutions. The Indiana Assisted Living Association named him legislator of the year in 2017. The Indiana County Commissioners gave him their Outstanding Advocate Award in 2023 for the local-government work. He and his wife, Amanda, live in Bedford with their children.