Larry Roy Walton

Larry Roy Walton, 96, of Utopia died March 11, 2024, in Kerrville, Texas.

 Graveside services will be held at Jones Cemetery in Utopia on Saturday, March 16, 2024. The family will receive visitors at the Utopia Public Library afterward.  

 In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to the Utopia Public Library.

  He was born in Long Beach, California in 1927 to Roy LaFayette Walton and Beatrice Kubias Walton, and preceded in death by his parents and two sons, Jeffrey Kent Walton in 1970 and Steven Gary Walton in 1972.  Larry's paternal grandparents came to the Sabinal Canyon in 1895 and settled in the Vanderpool area.  He graduated from Sabinal High School in 1944.

 Larry joined the U.S. Navy in 1944, the day he turned 17.  He was first assigned to the task of loading ammo onto naval warships in San Francisco Bay during the Pacific War, and then trained as a gunner's mate on a Navy destroyer, in preparation for the invasion of Japan.  The atomic bombing of Japan in 1945 likely saved his life. In the months after the war he was stationed in China.  After the war he attended and graduated from the University of Southern California.  In 1949 he joined the Los Angeles Police Department, where he rose to the rank of Captain and Division Commander.  The friendships he made there lasted a lifetime.  There also he met Beverly Pasela.  They were married March 16, 1952, and remained married for sixty-three years.  

 When he retired from the LAPD at the age of 39, he moved his family to Utopia.  There he became a rancher and real estate salesman, and there he continued his public service.  He traveled the country for the federal government, analyzing and transforming over a hundred city and county police departments, using the lessons he had acquired in Los Angeles.   

 Larry Walton was a public servant.  In addition to his service in WWII and with the police department, he served fourteen years as a Uvalde County Justice of the Peace.  He also served on the Jones Cemetery board, and was president of the Lion's Club, and president of the Water Board as it built the Utopia water system.  He was instrumental in creating the new Utopia Public Library.  He started the first Keep Utopia Beautiful chapter and was responsible for the many oak and maple trees planted on the highway south of town.  Larry always had something of an artistic side.  In the 1970s he took up jewelry-making and stained glass.  In later years he became interested in woodturning, and created beautiful turned wooden bowls, using a variety of native and exotic woods.  One of his favorite projects was designing and building the wildflower garden behind the Utopia Public Library.

 He was tough and uncomplaining, having survived both the Depression and World War II, but he never really got over the loss of two of his three boys and his wife of 61 years.   

 Larry is survived by his remaining son and daughter-in-law, Greg Scott Walton and Chris Gorman Walton of Austin, by two grandsons, Benjamin Scott Walton and Brian Christopher Walton.