FROM JANUARY 2015
Larry Fowler
Hero – The Man. The Legend
SPONSORED BY F2C DESIGNS
STORY BY MARSHA BROWN
PHOTO BY MEGAN PARKS
As a decade of Sheriff Larry Fowler
riding heard on the bad guys ends,
one wonders what the next 10
years will hold
S
radio,” Fowler said. “My grandmother was really good
at telling me to go out and cut a switch when I didn’t do
right.”
Fowler recalled that his wonderful childhood ended
when his grandmother got sick.
“She had cancer,” Fowler said. “It was really, really
bad, especially at the end. I had an absentee mother and
never knew my dad.”
When young Larry’s grandmother grew so ill that
neither grandparent could take care of the energetic
young boy, they sent him to live at the Lena Pope Home
in Fort Worth.
“I was 10 or 11 then,” Fowler recalls. “I was used to
the country. I kept running away and I’d end up back at
my grandfather’s house and they’d bring me back. Finally,
my mother came back into my life and that was worse.”
Troubled teenage years followed until, at 17, young
Larry discovered a savior. It was a beloved uncle who
came to the rescue of the young boy, an uncle known as
Uncle Sam.
“I joined the Navy at 17,” Fowler said. “The Navy
saved my butt. But, I came up by my bootstraps, and
nobody ever gave me a damn thing.”
The military gave Fowler the structure and stability
that had been yanked from his life as a result of his
grandmother’s illness.
“I can talk about it now because I’m old enough; I’m
76 years old and the military saved me,” Fowler said. “I
don’t know where I’d be if it wasn’t for joining the Navy.”
Fowler sits at his desk in the Parker County Sheriff’s
Office. It’s a sturdy piece of cabinetry that was crafted for
DECEMBER 2015 PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
eems like he was born to the job.
Even John Ford could not have cast a better man
for the role of Parker County Sheriff than Larry Fowler.
Fowler has that presence about him, a distinct air of
authority, combined with a kind heart that shows through
in his blue eyes. Fowler truly is larger than life.
This month Fowler celebrates 10 years as our county’s
sheriff, and this year marks 52 years in law enforcement,
yet there are no signs that he’s losing his momentum.
“Larry seems to be timeless,” said his longtime friend
Jerry Blaisdell, who had a long, distinguished career in
law enforcement that included being the deputy chief
for the Fort Worth Police Department and decades as
Weatherford’s police chief before taking the reins as
Weatherford’s city manager. Blaisdell has worked closely
with Fowler for decades.
“Larry is as enthusiastic now as he’s always been. …
Sometimes the higher you get in an organization the more
you lose sight of what you joined it for in the first place.
When you get into administration that occupies so much
of your time that you begin to lose that thing that made
you feel good about what you were doing.”
That has never happened to Fowler. He still finds
satisfaction in keeping the streets of Parker County safe,
solving crimes, rounding up the bad guys and locking
them away.
Many of Fowler’s peers consider him the consummate
lawman, a man born to the calling of keeping law and
order.
When asked if he came from a law enforcement
family, Fowler answered with an emphatic, “No!”
followed by a booming laugh.
Larry Fowler grew up on his grandfather’s farm on Old
Dicey Road. The area was completely rural 70 years ago,
when Fowler was a child.
“I was raised by my grandfather and grandmother,”
Fowler said. “I had a great childhood.”
Fowler’s childhood was right out of a Norman
Rockwell painting.
“I remember my granddaddy listening to FDR on the
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