Larry Scarber

By Naomi Hatch

Larry D. Scarber has been named chief of the Snowflake-Taylor Police Department. Snowflake Mayor Tom Poscharsky made the announcement July 28, noting that the Administrative Committee approved his hiring after interviewing four of the 20 applicants for the position. Two applicants interviewed were from within STPD and two were officers with Department of Public Safety. The committee includes the mayors, vice mayors and managers of the two towns. “I went to high school in Snowflake, and I consider it home,” said Scarber in a telephone interview last week. “Going back home is exciting.” He has been in law enforcement for 36 years. “I’m a little bit of a dinosaur,” he said. Following graduation from high school, Scarber served a mission in Ecuador for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He then attended Brigham Young University, where he met and married Jeannine Paynter of Minnesota, and began his career in law enforcement. They have six children and eight grandchildren. In 1979, Scarber was on the BYU Police Department. Three and a half years later he was hired by the Provo Police Department in Utah, where he was on the SWAT, Mountain Rescue and Major Collision teams. Scarber came home for his 10-year high school reunion and talked with DPS Officer Bruce Peterson, who said DPS is where Scarber needed to be. Eventually he was hired. While Scarber was in the police academy, Peterson died in the line of duty in Concho. One of Scarber’s first duties was to be in the honor guard for Peterson. During his many years with DPS he was assigned to rural areas until he moved to Tucson 10 years ago. He was assigned as an officer in Kayenta and Gila Bend, was a sergeant in Coolidge and Globe for eight years, and was promoted to lieutenant, becoming district commander. For 15 years he has been a tribal liaison for the department. Scarber now holds the rank of major in the DPS and served as commander of the Southern Bureau, but has been released from the command and assigned a special project working with the tribe for his last few weeks with the department. He will take on the assignment of Snowflake-Taylor chief of police on Sept. 1, and his wife will stay in Tucson to complete a project she has been working on. “She does a lot of genealogy,” said Scarber, noting she is working on a World War I veterans project and has found 3,200 veterans in Tucson. “She’ll be with me on occasion, but will be down there working on this project because it’s something near and dear to her, and she’s put a lot of time into it.” The new chief has been involved in the Boy Scouts of America for 28 years. He also looks forward to getting involved in Rotary, noting, “I was a Rotarian in Globe and I loved it.” And, “I’m a Lobo at heart,” he said. “I’m impressed with all the applications,” said the mayor. “All of them would have been a good police chief. “I’m happy to have Scarber, and look forward to having him (on the job).”