Jack Hebert: At 82, he’s still a working man
Published 6:50 am Friday, October 21, 2022
- Jack Hebert
“Sometimes I wished I wouldn’t have resigned from law enforcement,” he said, “but then those were different times. I regret not spending more time with my daddy.”
It was from his parents, E.C. “Bulldog” and Irene Landry Hebert, and from working with them at the family restaurant, he developed a sincere appreciation of people and how to interact with them.
“It’s not what you say, but how you say it,” he said.
He described his father as a “colorful character.”
“He was an old wrestler, an old boxer,” Hebert said, “and his hobbies were fishing and fighting.”
Hebert did, as a youngster, hunt and fish with his dad, and it was during those trips he found out that his dad started fighting early in life to take up for himself.
“He was fat, and when kids made fun of him, he’d get in a fight. When his dad found out about it, he’d beat him for fighting,” Hebert said.
He told his son if he was going to fight, to do it to take up for the underdog.
“Paw Paw Jack,” which is how granddaughter Gabby referred to him on TV and radio commercials many will remember, still lives on Hwy. 27 north of Sulphur and now he uses his 300-acre farm to board others’ horses.
“It was my wife that started the paint horse business,” he said. “She died 23 years ago. I still miss her, and having the horses.”
He met Carolyn Fontenot at McNeese— he was an athlete who needed a term paper.
“Somebody told me that Carolyn had made an A on her paper and she might be able to help me. I arranged to meet her at The Ranch and when I saw her, I thought, whoa, there’s my new girlfriend. It wasn’t long before they were married.”
In the late 1960s through the mid-1970s Hebert was Chief of Detectives for Calcasieu Parish Sheriff Ham Reid. He resigned in 1976 after the Jupiter Incident.
In January 1976, Joe Hooper was killed during a labor dispute after the plant owner switched from AFL-CIO crews to Local 102 workers after a contract dispute.
“Hundreds of rounds of shots were fired,” Hebert said. “I am surprised that more men were not killed.”
In his resignation letter, Hebert accused Reid of misusing department personnel. Six other deputies resigned at the same time.
In 1987, he opened his own dealership, All Star Buick, GMC Truck in Sulphur.
Today he works for Navarre Auto Group.
“I can’t express my appreciation and respect for Ryan Navarre enough,” Hebert said.
