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“He’s back in his element,” Priscilla Larpenter said after her husband, Jerry Larpenter, took his seventh oath of office following a four-year absence from the position of Terrebonne Parish sheriff that he previously held for 22 years.
During a low-key ceremony in the main courtroom of the Terrebonne Parish courthouse last Thursday Larpenter was sworn-in by his lifelong friend, First Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Vanessa Whipple.
Joining as witnesses to the brief ceremony were outgoing Clerk of Courts Bobby Boudreaux and his successor Theresa Robichaux.
Larpenter officially took office on Sunday but said he did not want to interrupt the running of parish law enforcement for the ceremony. State law allows for the preparatory formality.
“That was easy,” Larpenter said after taking the 57-word oath. “I have a lot of plans, but I don’t want to go into details now. As I go along, the public will know everything I have in store. There are a lot of good things coming.”
Larpenter was first elected sheriff in 1985 and for more than two decades, gained a reputation of fighting crime while maintaining a fiscally conservative approach to the office.
In 2007, he left the sheriff’s office to run for parish president against Michel Claudet, who is now serving a second term in that capacity.
Larpenter shifted into a pace of retirement, but said he became restless with the direction the sheriff’s office took in his absence. Upon the urging of others, he decided to make a return run for office during the election of 2011. Sheriffs do not take office with the turning of a year in Louisiana, but enter at the halfway point of the year after they are elected.
Whipple talked before the ceremony about how she and the sheriff grew up across the street from one another and followed each other’s careers even as adults.
“Some people say it is good to know a judge,” Whipple said. “I think it is better to know the sheriff.”
“He’s rested and ready to go back,” Priscilla Larpenter said. “He’s just not cooking dinner for me anymore.”
A seventh swearing-in ceremony for Jerry Larpenter puts him back into the role of sheriff for Terrebonne Parish. Pictured administering the oath is First Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Vanessa Whipple, left, outgoing Clerk of Courts Bobby Boudreau, Larpenter and his wife, Priscilla Larpenter, and incoming Clerk of Courts Theresa Robichaux.
