Sheriff Terry Box, who has served as Collin County Sheriff for over 31 years and has a law enforcement career that spans 48 years, has announced his retirement.
Born and raised in McKinney, Box has his roots in the area, has been married to his wife, Rendy, for 47 years and still pilots his purple ’55 Chevy to car shows.
Taking the sheriff’s reins will be Jim Skinner, the first new sheriff for several generations of local residents.
As Collin County has grown – from about 200,000 residents when he started to around a million now, so has the office. Starting with 40 employees and a $4 million budget in 1981, the office has expanded to 500 employees and a budget of over $50 million today. The local jail population has also grown, from an average of 40 inmates a day in 1981 to 1,000 today.
Box’s career milestones are many, among them not having a single line-of-duty death during his tenure as sheriff, being past-president of the Sheriff’s Association of Texas and raising over $2 million dollars for charity through his annual golf tournament. The awards he has won over the years include the 2015 Texas Jail Association Hall of Fame Award and numerous recognitions from community service and charity organizations, including having the children’s wing at CASA of Collin County named after him. Sheriff Box has also served on a number of law enforcement, public and community boards.
“Everybody asks, ‘What are you gonna do when you retire?'” Box said, in a post on the Collin County website. “I always say it’s not what I’m gonna do… it’s what I’m not gonna do.”