Bill 'Buck' Henry walked two career paths: law enforcement and higher education

May 6—Loyalty meant a lot to him. So did doing the right thing for the people he served, first as a police officer and later as a college professor and college president.

Bill "Buck" Henry, who walked two distinct career paths during his life — law enforcement and higher education — died April 12 after contracting an infection following a medical procedure. He was 67.

"I not only lost my husband, I lost my mentor and my best friend," said Kailani Henry, Bill Henry's colleague and friend for many years, who became his wife in 2020.

Born in Bakersfield on Feb. 7, 1956, Henry graduated from Highland High School in 1974. He knew what he wanted to do, and he didn't wait around for an invitation to the dance.

Only months after his high school graduation, Henry began his law enforcement career at the Kings County Sheriff's Office. He was only 18.

The following year, he married the former Cheryl Thomas. The young couple had two children together, but the marriage would come apart in the mid-1980s, but not before the young sheriff's deputy made the transition back to his hometown where he joined the ranks of the Bakersfield Police Department.

There he would stay for more than two decades.

"He was 'Buck" to his BPD friends, 'Bill' to everyone else," Kailani Henry said of his nickname.

He was funny, she said, and didn't mind letting down his guard to be a little "goofy" at times.

"Bill made people laugh all the time," she said. "He had the uncanny ability to make people feel comfortable."

At BPD, Henry worked as a patrol officer, motor cop, and detective before moving into an administrative role with the department, including as an aide to the chief and as a public information officer.

But it seems he had more to give. In 1979, he started working as a part-time criminal justice professor at Bakersfield College while he continued working at the BPD.

He couldn't have known that first foot in the door would eventually lead to several positions at Porterville College, including president.

John Means, who served on the Bakersfield City Council from 1979 to 1984, first met Buck Henry after someone took a shot at Means near his home in the Oleander neighborhood.

Henry was assigned to a protective duty, to patrol the neighborhood around Means' home.

"Bill would sit in his patrol car at night ... One night I went out and introduced myself and thanked him for what he was doing," Means said.

It would be years before they would meet again.

In 1997, Henry followed in his father's footsteps and was inducted into the Kern County Officials Association Hall of Fame after many years of service as a high school and junior college umpire.

Henry taught part-time at BC until his retirement from the police department in 1998.

It was a forced retirement, said Henry's daughter, Janae Witcher, due to a botched shoulder surgery.