| He
gave up a good paper route to be Sheriff.
Although
his name conjures up images of weekly gunfights, he was actually given the
matinee-sounding sobriquet when his father set him astride a watermelon and his
uncle commented his eyes looked "a little buckshot." This was a fortuitous slip,
for nobody would take "Bloodshot" Lane seriously, even without the watermelon.
Newly married,
young Buckshot needed a better paying job than his early morning paper
route, even though it was the largest in the county. He ran for Sheriff on a campaign
slogan of "Vote for me, or get your paper in the mud." While that isn't exactly
true, it might have been on the minds of the voters who elected him by a wide
margin.
Buckshot
served as Wharton Constable for 8 years and as Sheriff for 12 more.
Early on he gained a reputation for honesty and fair play. Employing a common
sense approach to law enforcement, he would differentiate between the "accidental"
and habitual criminal.
One
of the highlights of his career was burning the Kentleton Bridge on Highway
59 in 1935. The bridge had caused scores of accidents due to the faulty
alignment of the gravel road leading to it. After 3 college students were killed,
the bridge mysteriously caught fire, causing the State to built a new (and safer)
one. The District Attorney said he would buy "the finest suit available" to whoever
would confess. Buckshot learned from none other than J. Edgar himself,
that the statute of limitations on bridge burning was 10 years. Shortly after
the 10th anniversary, Buckshot asked for his suit.
Buckshot
was not without his critics. As he put it: "It's hard to get along with
County Commissioners if you count the gravel trucks", which he did.
He
taught himself fingerprinting, learned to fly, and raised money for an airplane
the county couldn't afford by requesting a dollar from anyone who wanted to donate.
His fund-raising slogan was "A Buck for Buck". A total of $6,500
was raised and Buckshot had the name of every donor painted on the aircraft.
If
you listened to the radio in El Campo, did that make you a Kulprit?
Long
before "America's Most Wanted," KULP Radio in El Campo gave Buckshot
an early morning 15 minute "program" six days a week, where he would tell individuals
with warrants to turn themselves in. Many did. Talk about a wake-up call. "It's
6 am, 56 degrees and John Johnson, if you're listening, don't make me come get
you!" | 
