Chief probation officer retires after more than 30 years of service
After nearly four decades of working in the Bowie County Adult Probation Office, Jack Pappas said he’s seen a sea change in dealing with offenders, but it’s been a positive change.
“Back when I started, everything was real law-and-order oriented, but the work showed me that humanity is like an ocean,” the county’s chief probation officer said at his retirement reception Friday afternoon. “There are a few drops that are dirty, but that doesn’t mean that the whole ocean is dirty.”
Looking back on his 37 years of service, Pappas said he saw the criminal justice system go from an offender-punishment phase to more of a treatment-and-rehabilitation phase.
Along with family members and friends, dozens of fellow county employees and officials said Pappas had a lot to do with making that sea change happen.
“I knew Jack for 35 years, and in 2004 I asked Jack if he’d heard of something that was new at that time called drug court,” said former 202nd District Court Judge Leon Pesek. “Jack told me he had heard of it, and then right away, he did a phenomenal job of getting a drug court right here in Bowie County with all the funding and everything the court needed.”
Current 202nd District Judge John Tidwell said Pappas had a deep passion for helping people get their lives back together.
“Jack sees through people and he’s able to help them a lot,” he said.
Former 5th District Judge Ralph Burgess, who now serves on the Texas 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, said Pappas was always available to help.
“Jack had this unique ability to turn around and coordinate a collection of rehabilitation programs and make them work all at the same time,” Burgess said.
Bowie County Court-at-Law Jeff Addison said Pappas has a different community that surrounds him when it comes to the probation office’s other employees.
“Jack has this other family and they all work in the adult probation department and he treats them like family,” Addison said.
Former 102nd District Judge John Miller said that back in 1980, when the probation office was still housed in what is now the Texarkana Regional Arts and Humanities Council building , people weren’t sure what the probation office did—accept register offenders. “I thought that the probation department just existed to keep a score card to measure how many people would get their probation revoked,” Miller said. “But now I see how the office has matured and probationers’ real needs are being met. Jack came along and demonstrated that he had the foresight needed to turn the probation office into what it needed to be. Throughout the state of Texas, I hear people talk about Bowie County, and Bowie County seems to gets a lot of acclaim for what Jack did.”
“If this place looked as good back then as it does now, we never would have left it,” Pappas said, referring to the second floor of the TRAHC building where his retirement reception took place.
Pappas thanked all of his well-wishers for their help in getting him to be who he is and pushing him to where he’s at.
“We managed to crank out treatment and rehabilitation programs like the Beatles cranked out music, and my assistant, Terri Giles, is a person that is able to see problems quicker and work on them quicker then anybody I’ve ever known. We had 974 graduates from our women’s center since the center opened in 2005.
“Along the journey, you all have made it so easy for me to do my job and that’s what makes a good county. I can’t say thank you enough for all you’ve done to help me.”