Published: August 24, 2009 06:49 pm      

Eddy County Detention Center warden to retire

CARLSBAD, N.M. — The warden of the Eddy County Detention Center has announced his retirement just 20 months after taking the job.

D. P. Lyons says he’ll leave his position at the end of this month and return to Holly Springs, Miss., where he still has a home.

Lyons came out of retirement to take the Eddy County job in December 2007.

His stated goal was to make the detention center a first-class institution that would be proactive against litigation by inmates and foster pride and professionalism in the corrections officers working at the facility.

The Eddy County Commission says Lyons did that in his short tenure.

Lyons previously worked for more than 30 years in corrections that included a stint in correction in New York’s Rikers Island — a city-operated jail with about 16,000 inmates.