Larry Wallace

Larry Wallace, the only person to be both head of the Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), died after a short battle with cancer Aug. 6, 2022. Wallace was 77. He began his law enforcement career in 1964 as an officer with the Athens Police Department before joining THP as a trooper three years later. He rose through the ranks to special agent with TBI in 1973 then served as sheriff of McMinn County for two terms before returning to TBI in 1980. He was later named head of the TBI criminal investigation division and was selected to be colonel and commanding officer of THP in 1987. The following year, he was also named deputy commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Safety. In 1992, he was then appointed to a serve as director of TBI, where he served until his retirement in 2003. He later joined the faculty at Tennessee Wesleyan University in Athens and helped develop its criminal justice program.