Willacy County sheriff ’s star shined for 35 years
Longtime lawman, Air Force veteran, FBI staffer earned honors for courage, service during long tenure in Rio Grande Valley
RAYMONDVILLE — During the 35 years he wore his badge, Sheriff Larry Spence’s star touched the lives of most families across Willacy County’s farm towns and sprawling ranches.
On his office wall hung some of Texas’ top law enforcement awards including the J. Edgar Hoover Award for Distinguished Police Service and law enforcement’s Silver Star for Bravery.
In 2016, the Sheriff’s Association of Texas presented Spence with the Texas Peacemaker Award “established to honor a law enforcement professional that has exemplified over their lifetime of public service an extraordinary dedication to the public good and community which they have served and whose approach to law enforcement has been not only to maintain order but to bring justice.”
On New Year’s Eve, Spence cleaned out his desk in the office he called his second home until a bout with cancer placed him on leave in July 2019.
Spence had announced he wouldn’t seek re-election for a 10th term in the office he won in 1985.
“Maybe the timing is right,” Spence, 72, said in his gruff drawl. “Maybe the sickness helped me make that decision. I finally came face-to-face with it — this is something I needed to come to terms with. It’s sad, in a way. That’s been most of my life — a public servant.”
For 35 years, the close ties the folksy lawman forged with residents across the county helped make him Texas’ second-longest serving sheriff at the time he left office on New Year’s Day.
“I’m thankful for the people in Willacy County who’ve been there all these years,” Spence said from his home.
“I tell them at the department, ‘You take care of the people and people take care of you.’ That’s what they’ve always done. They’ve been very supportive. It was heart-warming. I didn’t want to let them down. For elected officials, you have to be that way and do it in a manner that people can see and understand. You’re a public servant — you’re not there to serve self. You’re there because they put you there. I was raised that way.”
Spence was born in Clinton, Ind., the oldest of three children.
At school, he was in fourth or fifth grade when he served as a patrol boy, helping children cross the street.
After high school, a friend nudged him into taking a job with the FBI in Washington, D.C., where he worked for two years updating criminal files.
In 1966, Spence joined the Air Force, serving on its police force from California and Illinois to South Vietnam, where he helped secure his base during the Tet Offensive.
After his return home in 1968, he took a job as a patrolman in his hometown of Clinton, where he married Maria Reyes, a Raymondville native with whom he had a son, Gary.
After six years with the Clinton Police Department, he moved his family to the Rio Grande Valley, where he took a job as a Willacy County sheriff ’s deputy on June 1, 1976. Nine months later, his wife died in a car accident, leaving him to raise his son.
Under Sheriff Orlando Correa, Spence climbed the ranks from deputy to lieutenant.
In 1979, Spence was working as a deputy when he stopped Raymondville’s legendary onion strike from turning violent.
“Someone threw something at a guy driving a pickup truck and he slammed on his brakes and got out of the truck and walked toward the crowd of people. Then I saw a gun in his hand,” Spence recalled.
“One of the (strike) leaders was coming toward him and the farmer was walking toward him when I saw him raising the gun up like he was going to fire. That’s when I reached out and grabbed it and the hammer came down between my hand and forefinger. It stopped it from firing. Any number of people could have got hurt.”
For his action, the American Federation of Police presented him with the J. Edgar Hoover Award for Distinguished Police Service along with law enforcement’s Silver Star for Bravery.
After he served as chief deputy under Sheriff Raul Arevalo, residents across the county talked Spence into running for office.
“They were business people, ranchers, everyday people,” he said.
On Jan. 1, 1985, Spence was 39 when he took the oath of office as sheriff of Willacy County.
“It’s been a long ride but it’s been a good ride,” he said.