The world is starting to listen to Mervin D. Mayo sing.

The veteran Richmond Police officer who serves as a school resource officer is fast becoming a gospel sensation. More than 70,000 people currently follow him on YouTube and tune in to listen to his weekly offerings.

Bookings also are pouring in, and he has had to call on a friend with a management company to handle the flood.

Mr. Mayo, a tenor, is now on the road almost every weekend to preach and sing at churches across the country, accompanied by his supportive wife, Mechelle Mayo, a middle school counselor for Richmond Public Schools.

And later this month, Tyscot Records, an Indianapolis-based Black-owned gospel recording label, will release his first single, “Best Friend.”

A burly, bearded man, Mr. Mayo is doing his best to take the heightened attention in stride. However, he said that for a kid from Creighton Court, it has been an amazing ride.

“I never expected anything like this,” said the 46-year-old Mr. Mayo, who is well known among Richmond Public Schools students whom he has served and mentored in his dream job as a resource officer for 13 years, first at Huguenot High and currently at the Richmond Alternative School.

His celebrity in the gospel world happened suddenly.

Also an ordained minister, Mr. Mayo has been posting videos of himself singing gospel for years on YouTube, but attracted few visitors. That changed on March 4, 2020, when he did a cover of Marvin Sapp’s “The Best in Me.” He posted it, went to sleep and woke up to find everything had changed.

Someone in the gospel industry saw the video and sent out an alert to followers to tune in.

Mr. Mayo said he got a call from the person, but said he had no idea of the individual’s influence until he felt the impact. He said 5,000 people had watched the video, and the number kept soaring as the video went viral.

Now nearly 20 months later, Mr. Mayo attracts tens of thousands of listeners on his weekly YouTube posts. But the new-found attention also has created a tug-of-war between his two careers – being a resource officer and being a singing minister spreading the gospel. He doesn’t want to give up either.

Mr. Mayo said that he wanted to become a police officer to be like the two men who ensured he followed a positive path. Violence and temptation were all around him as he grew up in public housing, and he credits Officers Curtis Simmons and Gerald Tuck, who were assigned to the Creighton Court area, for staying on him and keeping him out of trouble.

“Without them, I could easily have gone in a whole different direction,” he said.

Mr. Mayo joined the Richmond Police Department soon after high school with a goal to become a school resource officer so he could help young people facing the same challenges and temptations he did.

After a nearly three-year stint as a patrol officer and detective, he achieved his goal, and he said he remains committed.

“I love what I do,” he said.

Music has been equally important. Mr. Mayo said he started singing at Thirty-first Street Baptist Church when he was 9, but his love of music took off when he was a student at Armstrong High School. He said his music teacher, Dr. Carmen Ward, allowed him to learn to play the piano. Teachers remember him skipping class and finding him holed up in the choir room singing and playing.

Dr. Ward also created a singing group for him and several other young men to compete in a talent show. He said the group became friends and kept singing.

“We were pretty full of ourselves,” he said. “We called our group ‘Charm,’ which stood for cool, handsome, attractive, romantic men.” During high school, he said the group was popular and appeared at a variety of school events.

After high school, he said the group got more involved with church and singing gospel and took on a new name, “Changed.”

The quintet of tenors, which included himself, Shawn Heckstall, Damion James, Marcellus Corbin and Antwon Fuller, also gained popularity, he said. Though part time, the group was regularly booked at churches and a host of other events in Virginia and other states. They also opened shows for touring artists, such as Shirley Caesar, Bishop Rance Allen and John P. Kee, he said.

But after more than 15 years, he walked away, fed up, he said, with what he saw as the institutional hypocrisy he found in organized religion. He even gave up attending church, preferring to worship on his own.

He said he was drawn back after meeting a minister-police officer, Anthony Franklin, founder and leader of the small nondenominational Truth Ministries, which operates from rented space in the 4700 block of West Broad Street.

Mr. Mayo said he started by playing

for services and then became wholly committed after a few weeks. He said Rev. Franklin later ordained and licensed him to preach. And Mr. Mayo found an outlet on YouTube where he could share his singing gift with others.

The sudden growth of his music career means that something might have to give, said Mr. Mayo, who, with his wife, is raising a blended family of three children.

Now under the management of Baron L. Sorrell Jr., founder, president and chief executive officer of the Richmond-based God’s Glory Music Group Inc., Mr. Mayo is assured of having his travel and housing expenses covered and of receiving a fee for his appearances. To keep up, though, he said he has had to use up the vacation and leave time that he has accumulated as a city employee.

At this point, he has been able to maintain both roles and is hoping that he will be able to serve as a police officer until he can secure his pension, now about eight years off.

But if his single takes off and the success continues with additional recordings, then who knows, he said.

For now, he said he is enjoying the best of both worlds.