J.B. Smith manages a big business which also happens to be one of the largest jails in Texas, housing over 1000 prisoners, a department of over 355 personnel, has over 100 vehicles and feeds more than 3,000 meals a day, while overseeing an annual budget of over $27 million.

   His humorous stories of country cops and bubba bad guys are the stuff of his daily life. "I look at things a little weird," he tells his audience. " You gotta remember: I run a jailhouse.”

Overcoming Adversity
   J.B. Smith, professional speaker, eighth-grade dropout, cotton picker and sharecropper's child, licensed hypnotist, ballroom dance instructor and country DJ, sometime bus driver and one-time salesman of Mary Kay cosmetics, is the longtime sheriff of Smith County.

   Sheriff Smith was one of six children raised by an alcoholic sharecropper stepfather near Sumpter, Ark. He says he never met his real father and tracked him down only after he died. His childhood memories are framed by a succession of rent houses, ragged places where wind rattled the newspapers on the walls and ice coated the floor knotholes on winter mornings. His family survived on beans and corn bread. Education, like electricity and indoor plumbing, was a luxury for town children; he quit school in the eighth grade to work the cotton and tomato fields of southeast Arkansas. "

   "A lot of people said this guy would never even make probation," said Chief Deputy Johnny Beddingfield, then a Tyler detective. "Well, he came here and he got himself elected sheriff in six years. " Outside Smith County, the sheriff and his department are among the state's best known, with fans from Austin to Washington. "Sheriff Smith is one of my heroes," said Texas Sen. Phil Gramm. "Nobody I know is tougher on criminals, and nobody outside the FBI and the DEA is better equipped."

   An East Texas media fixture, the sheriff has long been a regular on everything from TV public service announcements to guest stints as a prime-time weatherman. The sheriff now gives more than a hundred speeches a year.

Speaking Style
   A mixture of Hee-Haw and TV cop drama, they are a kind of performance art on the absurdities of being a Texas cop. He acts out showing off during a drug raid by leaping through a window, only to hit burglar bars. He crouches to tell of squatting behind a patrol car in a shootout, only to have the rookie he warned to take cover jump in the car and drive it away. He includes the exploits of Chief Deputy Beddingfield, a big, old-fashioned lawman with the improbable nickname "Butter Pickle."

   He offers observations on parents and children, juxtaposing his rancid reaction to one of his two sons' new earrings with his own mother's observation that anyone who wanted to look like Elvis so bad "don't have all his fruit jars on the shelf in the great storeroom of life."

   Sheriff Smith always delivers the same message: the joy of letting a good story fly and sharing a laugh -especially at your own expense. "You go out there and mess up, you pull some Bubba stuff, and that makes a story. Nothing goes the way it's supposed to. You wind up doing some crazy, chaotic things, and later on, it becomes funny," the sheriff said. "It's amazing to me to be able to tell that story, with a good punch line, and look out to watch people die laughing.

Testimonials:

"...Let me unreservedly recommend the talents of J.B. Smith as an entertainer, a motivator, a man with significant insights into business and people... Corrosion College

 "Without a doubt, everyone in the organization has said that you were the best speaker we've had all year." Foster Financial Group

 "His leadership in area communities underscores his humanity and generosity. Most importantly, his love of life and laughter cause him to be an ideal after dinner speaker." Rob Roy Industries

 “We haven't laughed so much at one of our meetings since—well, we've never laughed so much!" Texas Yard Bird LLC

Topic: Laughter is Lawful