* Lee B. Haralson; Ex-Santa Paula Police Chief

Lee B. Haralson, Santa Paula’s police chief for almost a decade in the 1960s, died Monday at the Twin Pines Healthcare facility in Santa Paula. He was 84.

Walt Adair, present police chief, remembers Haralson as a “wonderful man and excellent police chief.”

“I was the last officer he hired,” Adair recalled. “He hired me Aug. 1, 1967. Realizing what he’d done, he retired Sept. 1, 1967. I always teased him about that.”

Haralson was born Aug. 28, 1912, in Halfway, Mo. The 60-year Ventura County resident worked on ranches before joining the Santa Paula Police Department as a patrolman in July 1946. He made sergeant in 1952 and was promoted to chief in 1958.

During his law enforcement career, Haralson served under five police chiefs and saw the department increase in size from 10 members to 27. Haralson saw the first radio installed in a police car--and the first heaters.

“They didn’t put heaters in police cars in the old days because they didn’t want officers to fall asleep,” Adair said.

A large man--he stood 6-foot-1 and weighed 220 pounds--Haralson wasn’t intimidated by anyone, Adair said. He was a man willing to go against the flow, who did not necessarily follow his own advice to young officers that they should keep their eyes open and their mouths shut.

“He had the ability to tell the city manager and City Council what he thought--usually when he thought it,” Adair said.

An accomplished trout fisherman, he enjoyed fishing and traveling in retirement with Della, his wife of 60 years.

Other survivors include daughter and son-in-law Janice and Jack Sadler of Santa Paula; brothers and sisters-in-law Bob and Thelma Haralson of Lindsay, Calif., and Don and Jean Haralson of De Soto, Texas, and sisters Virginia Ellis of Kansas City, Mo., and Margie Haralson of Springfield, Mo.

Visitation will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Pierce Brothers Stetler Mortuary in Santa Paula. Graveside services are scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday at Santa Paula Cemetery.

Memorial donations may be made to Santa Paula Memorial Hospital.