BANGOR – Longtime Penobscot County Sheriff Edward Reynolds died early Wednesday at Eastern Maine Medical Center after a year-and-a-half-long struggle with cancer. He was 66.

Reynolds ran the county sheriff’s department for the past 18 years, elected in 1984 after retiring as a lieutenant from the Bangor Police Department. He remained in office until his death, but announced several months ago that he would not seek re-election in November because of his health.

He was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer in March 2001 and quickly learned that it had spread to his liver and bones. Despite his diagnosis, Reynolds continued to seek alternative treatments in a battle for survival.

When he was elected in 1984, Reynolds became the first Republican to hold that office in 14 years. During that race he defeated his Democratic opponent, Glenn Ross, who he later appointed to serve as his chief deputy. He recently endorsed Ross, who is now a Republican, in the coming November election for sheriff.

“I’m particularly proud he hired me for the agency after I’d run for sheriff against him,” said Ross, who has been handling Reynolds’ duties in his absence and will continue to do so. “Not many people would hire someone they view as competition or future competition. He not only did that, he sent me to training, promoted me, and set me up to be an administrator.”

Ross said one of Reynolds’ legacies is his bringing the department, which employs approximately 160 people, into the technology age.

“He and I agreed we’d never have enough people to manage all the calls we get, so we’d need technology to help. Together, we worked to bring technology to the department, whether it was laptop computers, communications equipment, portable defibrillators or digital cameras,” Ross said.

Reynolds, a tall, slender man, was known for his quiet, laid-back leadership style, saying once that he was proud that the department could pretty much run without him because of the quality people he had put in leadership roles within the patrol, administrative and jail divisions.

“That was Ed’s gift,” said the Rev. Bob Carlson, the department’s chaplain for Reynolds’ entire tenure. “He surrounded himself with good people and let them do their jobs. He was one of the best mentors I’ve met. He allowed people to grow in their positions. And if a mistake was made, he knew where the buck stopped. He was always willing to take the heat.”

Reynolds grew up in Bangor, where he graduated from John Bapst High School and attended Husson College. He also served in the Air National Guard.

He was regarded as a great baseball catcher as a young man and admitted that his start in law enforcement was due to his skill behind the plate.

“You’d never believe the reason I became a law enforcement officer,” he once said. “It has nothing to do with anything but Tommy Tilley’s fastball.”

It was 1960, the glory days for the Bangor Police Department’s fast-pitch softball team. Tilley, a young Bangor cop and the team’s star pitcher, had a fastball that hissed as it crossed the plate. What the team lacked, however, was a catcher who could handle that fastball.

Police Chief John B. Toole thought of Reynolds, who at the time was studying business at Husson College.

Soon, Reynolds found himself dividing his time between the dusty furrow behind home plate and the wheel of a bulky 1959 Dodge patrol car, combing the city’s east side for lawbreakers.

“I really didn’t know then if I was a catcher or a patrol officer, but I loved it. From day one I loved it,” said Reynolds, who was also an avid golfer always “looking for a hole in one.”

As he worked his way through the ranks of the Bangor Police Department, he beefed up his resume with credits from the University of Maine and the University of Virginia and graduated from the FBI National Academy, the Maine Municipal Police Academy and the U.S. Redstone Arsenal, which trains bomb squad technicians.

“There are eight or nine of us here who started when Ed was on the force,” recalled Bangor police Lt. Tim Reid on Wednesday. “I was a young patrolman and he was my lieutenant. He was a great guy to work for. Our relationship with the sheriff’s department is great because he came from us.”

In 1980, with just three months to go before he reached the 20-year retirement plateau with Bangor Police Department, Reynolds summoned enough local support to become a Democratic write-in candidate for sheriff. He lost the nomination to Timothy Richardson of Hermon, who was at the time the chief deputy for the department.

Two years later, this time as a Republican, Reynolds ran again, but lost the general election again to Richardson.

In 1984, however, Reynolds won the election, defeating Ross, who had won the Democratic nomination from Richardson in the June primary.

This November will find Ross and Richardson once again going head-to-head for the sheriff’s seat. The winner will have big shoes to fill, according to U.S. Rep. John Baldacci, who counted himself a longtime friend of Reynolds.

“Ed Reynolds was able to raise the professional standard of law enforcement among his peers, but he also continued to be one of the nicest persons I’ve known,” said Baldacci, a gubernatorial candidate this fall.

Reynolds, divorced, is survived by three grown children and his loving partner and best friend, Sandy Corbin.

Friends may call from noon to 4 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday at Foley Funeral Services, 299 Union St. in Bangor. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10 a.m. Monday at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Ohio Street. In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to Camp Post Card, c/o Volunteers of America, attention Glenn Michaels, 14 Maine St., Suite 205, Brunswick, ME 04011.

NEWS assignment editor Mike Dowd contributed to this report.