POLK COUNTY, Fla. — Very few people can say they've had a 50-year career at the same place, let alone it being their dream job.

That's the case for the man who has become America's most famous lawman, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.

He celebrated 50 years at the sheriff's office Thursday and has no plans of stopping.

When Judd was a little kid in a Boy Scout uniform, he knew he wanted to be a lawman.

And not just any lawman, but the sheriff.

"I can never remember a time in my life when I didn't want to be the sheriff and be in law enforcement,” he said.

But before he became a lawman, Judd worked on a county ambulance - even helping with emergency deliveries.

"I delivered babies, two of them as a matter of fact. The first when I was 16 years old, the second when I was 17 years old working on the ambulance."

Judd was 18 years old when he started in the sheriff's office dispatch department. A couple of years later he was out on patrol and moving up through the ranks. Back in the 1980s, he was busting cocaine cowboys flying drugs into rural air strips.

"We seized plain loads of cocaine and plain loads of marijuana,” he said.

Judd joined the Polk County Sheriff's Office when he was 18 years old.

We showed Judd footage of a story covered by Spectrum Bay News 9’s Rick Elmhorst in 1999 about a raid on a marijuana grow house.

“Well, I'm thinking I gained some weight and had more hair,” Judd said while viewing the clip.

Back then it was Col. Grady Judd acting as the front man for Sheriff Lawrence Crow, and Crow was there to swear in Judd when he was elected sheriff in 2004. After that, Judd became a media star with his "man of the people" quotes.

Among them:

"In my world we call that a clue."

"I'm highly recommending they blow you back out of their house with a gun."

"Just chill out. Drink a 7-UP. Eat a moon pie. Quit murdering people."

Judd said he enjoyed his recent quotes about a woman who went after McDonald’s employees who got her order wrong.

"She created a McMess and she acted like a McNut," he told reporters earlier this year.

"I love the ones where I tell people if you point a gun at my deputies, we are going to shoot you,” Judd said. “We are going to shoot you a lot."

That little boy who wanted to be sheriff is still living the dream after 50 years at the agency.

“This is not what I do. It’s who I am,” he said. “I don't burn out. I get more excited."

Sheriff Judd credits much of his success to the many people who work so hard at the sheriff's office.

So how long does he want to be sheriff?  As long as the voters will have him and he still has the energy for the job, so it could still be quite a few years.