When they say Texas Ranger, they mean Joe Haralson
Longest-serving Ranger likes to keep a low profile. ‘He bleeds integrity,’ his boss says.
HOUSTON — If the draft hadn’t swept Joe Haralson from Houston to Vietnam so long ago, he might still drive a Dr Pepper truck.
“I got a draft notice, reported, and the rest was history,” he said.
It is a history that quietly weaves through more lives, deaths and crimes than most, and that has taken him into the darkest corners of Texas.
At 62, Haralson is the longest-serving member of the Texas Rangers. He has no desire to retire anytime soon from the legendary 150-officer force born as Texas rebelled against Mexico.
After leaving the Army, where he was awarded a Bronze Star, Haralson became a trooper with the Texas Department of Public Safety. In 1981, he became a Ranger. He’s been based in Texas City ever since and worked in about 35 counties.
The famous Ranger badge, still to this day made from old Mexican coins, was pinned to his chest when his current boss was in diapers.
“He doesn’t need much supervising,” Lt. Jason Taylor said, conceding that Haralson could have had his job a long time ago, if he’d wanted it. “He bleeds integrity.”
Haralson is considered by many to be a “Ranger’s Ranger” in the state’s most elite crime-fighting team, but said he wouldn’t put himself atop such a list.
He has worked more cases than he could count.
“And some of the cases you remember are the unsolved cases that you don’t even like to talk about,” he said. He points to the Galveston County killing fields, going back to the 1980s, in which women’s