Police Chief Fegette retires

Hank Fegette is hanging up his spurs.

Chief Hank Fegette of the Black Butte Police Department retired last Friday, June 28. His 23 years of service to the Sisters Community were honored Friday evening at a ceremony at the BBR lodge.

The position will be filled by Chief Gil Zaccaro, who served for 14 years in North Bend before coming to Sisters.

"This is a great job and Hank's made it that way," said Zaccaro, who added that he's known of Fegette's reputation longer than he's known the man. "He's very well regarded throughout the state."

"Everyone knows Hank," said Bob Lengele, Chairman of the police board at BBR. "He's an icon of the Ranch."

At the time of Fegette's retirement, he was among the longest-tenured police chiefs in the state of Oregon and the only chief that BBR has known. He watched the department's budget grow from "just enough to pay our salaries," to $688,000 this past year.

In 1990, he worked with the community to create the Black Butte Police District.

"The community was right there to support us all the way," said Fegette.

Such loyalty and friendship are basic to what Fegette appreciates about the Sisters community.

"You stick out your hand here and somebody shakes it," said Fegette, "If you call for need, you may have three or four people there to help."

Fegette came to BBR in 1979 after serving for 17 years with the Burbank (California) Police Department. He was honored by the City of Burbank as Officer of the Quarter in 1976 and Officer of the Year in 1977.

"As a police officer, you were on your toes all the time," said Fegette of the California city where he grew up, which had an area roughly the same as BBR, and a population of 200,000.

It was on those streets that Fegette gained his respect and admiration for police officers.

"If it hadn't been for an LAPD officer to turn us around at times, I don't know where we'd be," said Fegette of he and his friends in their youth.

"People make honest mistakes," said Fegette who, rather than taking pride in his arrest count, seems to honor the relationships he's developed and people he's helped over the years.

"You see and do things in this job that you'll never forget, but you override that with the good things in life... saving someone's life; turning a kid's life around."

The residents of BBR obviously appreciate Fegette's style of policing.

"He is diplomatically honest," said Lengele.

Looking for a small town to live in, Fegette had never been to Oregon before his interview at the Ranch.

While it's not clear whether the clean air and small town atmosphere influenced him to stay as much as the lodge condos and nightly prime rib dinners -- one attraction is clear.

"In this town, when you have a friend you have a friend. You're the only one that can screw that up," says Fegette.

Fegette, who has two sons at Sisters High School, is currently president of the High School Booster club and a member of the Field of Dreams committee.

"There's no way I'd move away from Sisters. I love the high school here," he said.

He hopes Coach Bob Macauley will let him "shadow coach" the football team in the fall, and jokes that "they already lock the high school doors when they see me coming."

Beyond community service, he will keep busy with his '68 Camaro and classic car club. He will also work on his collection of some 3,400 police badges and plans to do some traveling.

Looking back on 43 years of service, Fegette is a little surprised at where the time has gone.

"I take pride in being in it this long," he said. "I enjoyed every minute of it. I had a real strong belief that the Lord would place me where he wanted me. He put me here and I haven't regretted it."

Fegette knows how he would like to be remembered:

"I really cared about what I was doing and that I was a good police officer."