By Gay Brennan After 20 years of service to Grayson County, Sheriff J. Keith Gary is planning to retire at the spry young age of 80. With his fifth term ending in December and the election approaching for a new Sheriff, we look back at the career of this former Howe resident.
Gary was born in Laredo, when he was 12, moved to San Antonio and is proud to be the third generation in his family who is fluent in Spanish. He started college as a music major at St. Mary’s, played tuba, baritone in the band and thought he would be the state’s best band director. He transferred into Sam Houston State where he met his wife, Uva and got serious about getting married. After a year, he decided that if his wife was going to be a teacher, then he ought to have a job in a different profession. He graduated from Lamar in with a B.S. in Social Science while Uva taught school in Port Arthur.
As a student at Lamar University, Gary was required to take a speech class, chose the topic “The Need for a Republican Party in Jefferson County” and interviewed the Republican Party chair in Jefferson County to get information. Years later, he went to a meeting of the Republican party, which was in its infancy in Texas, at the time, and a lawyer approached him. The Northern part of the district (Tyler) had gotten the appointment for U.S. attorney, so the southern part of the district wanted to have a person from Beaumont or Port Arthur appointed as Marshal. He asked the lawyer, “You’re really serious?” and the man replied, “Oh yes!” At the library in Beaumont, all he could find about Federal Marshals, was a breakdown of the Departent of Justice from a few government textbooks. In the 1960’s, a Marshal was an administrator with a group of deputies to direct.
A few days later, the lawyer called him to ask if he had made a decision about the Marshal job and said, “We have to get someone in Tyler by Sunday to be interviewed.” Gary replied, “I’m not sure I am qualified for that, but go ahead if you want and submit my name.”
He drove 200 miles and arrived at the old Blackstone Hotel and there 8-10 cowboy-types were standing there, all wearing western hats and boots. Gary walks up in an olive green suit and flat shoes, at the end of the line and where all the other men were waiting to be interviewed by a panel of judges.
The guy next to him was about 6′ 7″, looked at him and said, “What are YOU doin’ here?” “Well, I’m here to interview for the Marshal job.” “WHAT?!?! Are you a policeman or a sheriff?” “No, I’m a fire and casualty insurance agent.” “A whaaat??!!”
He was questioned by a panel of eight who explained they would let him know their decision. “Next day, Monday morning I went to the insurance office where I worked and about 10:30, the receptionist said there was a telegram for me. I opened it up and it said, ‘It is my pleasure to nominate you for U.S. Marshal, signed John G. Tower,’ who was a Senator in Texas at the time. It took about five to six months to do a background investigation, I was sworn in and served in that capacity for eight years, from 1969-1977. Then the politics went against me.” Jimmy Carter was elected President which meant all the Republican appointees were on the way out. While the family lived in Corpus Christi, he earned a Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice from Texas A&M, then completed another bachelor’s degree as a Chemical Dependency Counselor through a distance learning program from the University of New York.
“I liked law enforcement so much that I decided to stay in the field. I became a Federal Probation officer, but had to be stationed in Corpus Christi, where the vacancy was and we lived there for three years. I wanted to get back into the Eastern District because of the ties I had in the area. In 1980, I applied for the exact same position in Sherman and they selected me to open the new office.”
He lived in Grayson County for a little while, while wife Uva and children stayed behind. Brian was going to be a junior, in 11th grade and BeBe was an 8th grader. He used the time alone to search for the best school district in Grayson, visited several and ultimately chose Howe. He continued as Federal Probation Officer for the next eight years.
The Republicans had the Presidency. Senator Phil Gramm and Gary had become friends. He applied for the Marshal job again, went to Washington, DC to meet with Gramm, who had been a professor at A&M before he was elected. Keith Gary asked how A&M was going to do that year in football. Then Gramm said, “I hate to rush you off, but I have a committee meeting and I really need to go. I appreciate you flying up here. We’ll get around to looking at this as soon as we can. So stay alert and we’ll get back with you.” They walked to the door of the office. Gramm reached over and took him by the elbow and said, “You know what? With your background, there’s no need to interview anybody else. As far as I’m concerned, you’ll be our Marshal.” So he went back to the Marshal job in Tyler and spent eight years doing that.
By then it was 1994 and he decided to retire and return to Grayson County. Gary and wife Uva tried to buy a lot in Howe, but couldn’t find one and finally found a builder for a house in Sherman. He was approached about being Sheriff of the County, ran for Sheriff and was the first Republican to be elected.
Brian went to San Angelo State University, then TCU for his MBA. Gary was sitting at his desk one day in Tyler as a Federal Marshall and Brian called saying he’d been accepted into Baylor Law School. Brian married Cheryl and they have three children. Now Brian is District Judge in the 397th district, he enjoys his job and is a good student of the law. BeBe went to Southwestern Baptist in Missouri and met her husband, Scott. They have two children, live in Denton, where Scott works at a law firm. One of the things that Sheriff Gary is proudest of, is his grandson Jake, who is planning his second mission trip to Trinidad, where he helped a young man accept Jesus as Savior, last summer.
As Sheriff, he is most proud of the fact that the jail has 97 jailers now and every position is filled and 200 additional beds have been built. For the last 96 beds, they didn’t have to pass a bond issue to make additional room. Not a penny is owed because they found innovative ways to add beds. Gary says he wishes we didn’t have to lock people up, but there are people who are dangerous to society that have to be corralled. Grayson County jail now has 480 beds for those accused or convicted of a crime.
“Eye in the Sky” is a control room in the women’s section of the jail, which was built in 2012, where one female officer can monitor the prisoners with 16 cameras, instead of requiring three or four officers, which would cost the county more in salaries. Two female officers are in the “pit” with the women at all times. They are staffed properly and he gives credit to the Commissioner’s Court for that. They’ve been very good to him and the county. There are five officers per shift covering four shifts.
For example, there could be an offense that has occurred on Lake Texoma and the only car available to go, is east of Van Alstyne. It might take 30 minutes for an officer to reach them with the lights and sirens on. A city cop in Grayson can get anywhere in their city in five to seven minutes. Grayson County deputies have 934 square miles to cover with five working per shift.
The officers are required to take 40 hours of Continuing Education every other year. Grayson County goes beyond that by providing more for their workers, believing that one can never have too much training. Sheriff Gary would have liked to have more man power. However, the Commissioner’s Court has been very good about salaries over the last couple of years. “We don’t compete with big cities. Those in law enforcement who live in Sherman, may work in Dallas, Plano, Frisco. They would love to work in Sherman, but there aren’t many positions available. Many Grayson County deputies have offduty jobs to make additional income, such as providing security at ball games or events. That means we have to do a better job with the folks we have, that they are being continually re-educated, that we try to get that salary up.”
The low point in his career was when five violent inmates escaped from Grayson County jail. The leadership team is constantly reaccessing the security in the jail, so that type of incident will never happen again. He believes it is a much better agency now.
When he worked as a U.S. Marshal during the 1970s, the biggest concern was bank robberies in small towns because the criminals could be gone before anyone law enforcement knew the crime had occurred. Gary had 20 deputies to cover 40 counties.
Not long after Vietnam War, a group called the Rainbow People met once a year in a different state and one year, they chose the National Forest near Lufkin. Gary asked a judge to help him keep control over the gathering, so the judge instituted a limit of 2,500 people. Each day, Gary would stand on a stump and count groups of people. There were no bathrooms or port-a-potties, so dysentery was a concern.
The U.S. Marshal Service is the oldest law enforcement agency in the country, founded in 1789. The President appoints, Senate confirms. At age 34, he was the second youngest Marshal in the U.S. The first time he was a Marshal, Richard Nixon was in office. There are only 94 Marshals in the United States and four in Texas. He retired from Marshal service in 1994.
One of his most memorable times was during his first time as a Marshal 1969-1977. The U.S. Marshals had an annual conference in Washington, D.C. and he had been chosen to be on a 10-member advisory board to the Director of the Marshal service. Patricia Nixon, when Nixon was Vice President, held a tea party in the Rose Garden for the 94 Marshals and he had the privilege of speaking with her and reported that “she was a very quiet lady, but easy to talk to”.
“We loved Howe, lived on Cassandra Street for six years. My wife described it this way: ‘What a wonderful place!’ Our kids did well in Howe schools. Brian played football and basketball. BeBe blossomed. Howe Texas is a frame of mind. We still see the people that we went to church with at First Baptist Howe. It’s 30 years later and they are still inviting us to come and be a part. Great friendships.”
With 20 years of experience, Uva was hired as a teacher in Howe, taught grades fourth, fifth and sixth grades, in consecutive years, thereby moving up with a particular group of students. At the end of three years, they were all tired of each other, Uva said, “The kids were ready for me to go and I was ready for them to go.”
When asked what makes Howe a special place, Gary immediately responded, “The people. They are generous and supportive. I can’t say enough about them. It was probably the happiest period in our life. Here I am 80 years old and that’s saying a lot. We call it our ‘Howe Days’.”
We, at the Howe Enterprise, want to congratulate Sheriff Gary on a long and successful career. We thank him for his service to Grayson County. He is a true servant. – MCW
