TERRE HAUTE — Sheriff John Plasse’s memorial service Monday afternoon ended, fittingly, with those assembled giving him a standing ovation.
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A Terre Haute Police Department and Vigo County Sheriff’s Department Honor Guard escorts the casket containing the body of Vigo County Sheriff John Plasse to the hearse outside of Hulman Center as officers from various agencies salute Monday after Plasse’s funeral service.
Attendees snaked along a sprawling line on the floor of Hulman Center, passing photos, and family and professional memorabilia, on the way to Plasse’s family receiving them before his flag-draped coffin. Law-enforcement officers from around the area, including Indianapolis, filled two sections of floor seating, with the overflow taking arena seating.
Screens throughout the building flashed photos from the sheriff’s life — family shots, with scenes from his law-enforcement and military career sprinkled in, as well.
Those family shots provided a much fuller profile of the man known largely to the community for his compassion and professionalism. They included a shot of Plasse hugging his wife Julie while a parrot bit her nose, him sitting on a motorcycle toting a box of Krispy Kreme donuts, lounging in a recliner sporting a “Star Wars” stormtrooper’s helmet and laying in a hospital bed surrounded by loved ones wearing “Plasse’s Posse” T-shirts.
Pastor Billy Joe Henry opened the service with a prayer: “Thank you for giving this world such an amazing man.”
Attorney Craig McKee presided over the service, and read excerpts from a journal Plasse started when he first learned he had pancreatic cancer in March of 2022.
His first entry read, “Some things just suck.” Through the next two years, however, as Plasse would tough his way through several rounds of chemotherapy, he would marvel at all of his supporters and mournfully consider children enduring the same hardships he was attempting to surmount.
One of the last things he wrote in his journal was, “It’s hard to feel bitter or sorry for myself when I’ve had such a great life.”
Plasse’s colleague, Chief of Operations Derek Fell, opened by saying, “I already miss his awesome smile and his sense of humor,” and ended with a simple “Sheriff, I love you.”
Former Mayor Duke Bennett, who appointed Plasse to serve as Terre Haute Police Chief in 2008, recalled first interviewing him for the position at Java Haute and putting a quick end to searching for candidates.
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Vigo County Sheriff’s Department deputies and staff salute as the hearse carrying the body of Vigo County Sheriff John Plasse stops in front of the Vigo County Security Center on Monday after Plasse’s funeral at Hulman Center.
He also remembered accompanying Plasse on a ride-along and being impressed by the chief’s compassion when he pulled over a drunken driver.
“He helped me understand the brotherhood of blue,” Bennett said.
Margarita Tribble had a badge Plasse had given her. She had met with him both during his tenures as police chief and sheriff.
“You can’t find a better, more honorable man than him,” she said. “He did not judge and he helped everyone. He was there for anybody.”
Tribble sighed, remembering learning of his death. “Very earth-shattering,” she said. “You knew it was coming one day, but it still felt like a great loss, because no one can fill his shoes. Not only did he do honorable duty for the country, but he was irreplaceable for the city.”
Mike Sweeting went to high school with Plasse.
“He was a good guy,” he said. “I was extremely saddened to hear [about his diagnosis], and I just wished him the best and prayed for him. I thought he was in remission, but obviously not. It’s just a very sad day.”
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Brian Mundell pays his respects as the hearse carrying the body of Vigo County Sheriff John Plasse passes by the Veterans Memorial Museum of Terre Haute on Monday on Wabash Avenue. Mundell displayed a piece of one of Plasse’s uniforms that he donated to the museum as the procession passed by.
Vigo County Councilwoman Vickie Weger said, “I was just heart-broken. He fought the good battle. He was a guy who fought the battles, as a matter of fact. He’d take on any good battle. He faced it head-on. He was not afraid to take on the biggest battle that there was. He was a soldier, a volunteer soldier, but this was not a battle he volunteered for. It was not one that he ran from, either. He walked right into the fire.
“He was a servant in the best sense of the word,” she added, mentioning his work with Indiana Sheriff’s Youth Ranch in Brazil. “That’ll be one of the things he will be long remembered for. He recognized that if you served children it would keep them out of trouble later in their lives and he served very well in that department.”
Before asking those assembled to give Plasse the standing ovation that concluded the memorial service, Pastor Henry recalled a special kindness the sheriff extended to him personally.
“I was allowed to be chaplain of the sheriff’s department that incarcerated me 27 years ago,” he marveled. “Plasse was seeing people for who they are and not what they were.”
Plasse never touted his own virtues, Henry said.
“He wasn’t about being right — he was about right being done.”
Since Plasse was elected to the sheriff’s position as a Democrat, the party’s county precinct committee people will caucus and select his successor from those who file to run for the position within 30 days after the vacancy.
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Rickey Kennedy III and Peter Roberts display a flag Monday for the late John Plasse in the parking lot of the Vigo County Security Center after Plasse’s funeral.
