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CORRECTION:
An article on Page B5 Tuesday incorrectly reported the types of weapons used by law enforcement officers in a shooting competition near Portland. The officers fired both revolvers and semi-automatic handguns.

Tuesday, October 16, 2001
No. 1 with a bullet
This Live Oak lawman is a former math teacher who rarely misses his mark
By Dan Parker
Caller-Times

Michelle Christenson/Caller-Times

Live Oak County Sheriff Larry Busby prepares to draw .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver during a shooting contest in San Patricio county.

On a recent Saturday morning, 10 law enforcement officers stood in a line, shoulder to shoulder at a firing range at the edge of a farm field outside Portland.
   "Load and holster!" someone yelled.
   The officers flipped open their revolvers, loaded them with bullets and shoved the weapons back in the holsters on their hips. Silent and motionless, each man stared at a black paper target shaped like a human silhouette standing five yards in front of him.
   A whistle blew, and the lawmen drew their guns and fired eight times, sending bullet casings spinning through the air. Then each man took a few steps back and fired 12 shots from seven yards away. Then 12 shots from 15 yards. Then 18 shots from 25 yards.
   When it was over, Live Oak County Sheriff Larry Busby lowered his .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, stepped through a cloud of gun smoke and scowled at his target.
   "This one here's bad," he said.
   Out of 50 shots, he'd hit the bull's eye 44 times. The other six shots came within a few inches of the bull's eye. For Busby, this was a disappointment. He's usually more accurate.
   One heck of a shot
   In monthly shooting contests involving dozens of law enforcement officers from at least 15 South Texas counties, no one has won more than Busby. Crowding his George West office are more than 170 trophies, plaques and belt buckles he has won for shooting competitions in the past 20 years.
   "He's the epitome of an old-west sheriff," said Doug May, a Corpus Christi police officer who competes at the shooting contests. "Strap on your six shooters, and he's the law of the west. He looks like a sheriff, he acts like a sheriff and he shoots like a sheriff. Last of a breed."

Michelle Christenson/Caller-Times

Live Oak County Sheriff Larry Busby demonstrates his shooting technique.

   In many ways, Busby is the very picture of the old-west lawman. He is a longtime sheriff of a Texas county filled mainly with farms, cattle ranches and small towns. He owns a 737-acre ranch where he rides a horse and works about 80 head of cattle during his off time. He wears a cowboy hat. And, of course, he's one a heck of a shot.
   But Busby, 56, is not a country hick. After growing up in Atascosa County, he graduated in 1969 from Texas A&I University in Kingsville with a degree in agricultural business, then taught math for eight years at Mathis Junior High School.
   Busby said a law enforcement career was not his childhood dream. He said he drifted into the job because he had friends in the field, and the occupation seemed to offer the kinds of challenges he liked.
   "Hunting people is kind of like hunting big deer," he said. "Seeing if you can catch someone doing something wrong is kind of a game."
   In 1974, Busby became a reserve sheriff's deputy. He became full-time sheriff's investigator in 1978. In 1980, he ran for sheriff and won. He's been sheriff ever since. He's also chairman of the Del Mar College Police Academy Advisory Board and Coastal Bend College Law Enforcement Advisory Board.
   Natural ability
   Busby, who grew up on a ranch, was hunting rabbits on his own before he was 10 years old. He used the same .22-caliber Winchester rifle that his father hunted with as a child in the 1920s.
   When he was 11, Busby perched in a tree one winter morning and shot a 14-point buck. The deer was 100 yards away, and Busby shot the animal through the heart.
   "You have got to have a natural pointing instinct," Busby said. "If a deer would jump up, I could just throw the rifle up and shoot and hit him."
   Natural ability and years of training that have made Busby the dead-eyed marksman he is today.
   "A large part of it is concentration and following certain procedures," Busby said. "You have to have trigger control and maintain the sight picture. But you have to (accept) you can't hold that gun perfectly still.
   "You just let it wobble in a little circle as you're squeezing that trigger off," Busby said. "As you get better, you're wobbling that circle a little smaller."
   Even though he's been in law enforcement more than 25 years and sometimes deals with violent people, Busby, like many officers, never has fired a shot at anyone. As a rural sheriff, he has done everything from lassoing loose cattle to investigating the murder of a man found buried under a flower bed at his home.
   Busy county sheriff
   Busby presides over an agency with a budget in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and dozens of employees and a jail that might more than double in size soon. The Live Oak County Sheriff's Department is computerized, and computer problems are always something to contend with.
   "To maintain your fingers in that many pieces of pies is real difficult, and it takes an exceptional individual to do it, and Larry manages to do it," said G. James Ermis Jr., a Corpus Christi police lieutenant who has known Busby for more than 30 years.
   Still, Busby is aware of his image as an old-west sheriff, and he doesn't mind it.
   "I've always kind of figured myself kind of like a cowboy," he said. "I always wanted to ride a horse and work cattle. But it's hard to make a living that way."
   Live Oak County Judge Jim Huff said Busby is a good mix of the old and the new.


"He fits the stereotype of a Texas sheriff, an almost bigger-than-life image," Huff said. "Right is right, and wrong is wrong. I think he's been very popular during his tenure. ... He's well-educated too, well-rounded. You can expect him to protect you.", Contact Dan Parker at 886-3753 or parkerd@caller.com

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