If you ask Steve Boyer how he ended up in law enforcement, he’ll tell you about an incident he saw as a boy.

“There was a house fire down the street,” Boyer said. “Two little girls were burnt very badly. I remember watching the firemen and the police working so hard to help. A couple of days later I went over to look at the house and I thought ‘I’d like to know what to do in an emergency like that.’”

And that was the seed that was planted in his head and his heart. And now, after 43 years in law enforcement, Boyer will retire on Dec. 31 when Sheriff-elect Gary Simpson is sworn in as sheriff.

His decision not to run for another term as sheriff was made based on a combination of his health and his age, he said.

“If I’d run, I’d be 68 when that term was over,” he said. “My doctors said run if I wanted to. But I wanted to have some time with my family before I get too old.”

Boyer began his law enforcement career with the Washington State Patrol in 1974 and worked on the security detail for then Gov. Dan Evans. In 1985, after being promoted to sergeant, Boyer became a road cop, working with WSP sergeant Dennis Bonneville, who eventually became Boyer’s undersheriff in Kitsap County.

Boyer made lieutenant in 1988 and worked a number of administrative jobs including heading the state patrol SWAT team. In that role, he helped contain an inmate uprising at the prison on McNeil Island.

Boyer said it was a tough decision for him to leave the State Patrol and run for office. But when County Sheriff Pat Jones resigned, he did. That was  in 1998, and in the next three elections, Boyer never dropped below 69 percent of the vote.

Under his watch, crime has dropped in the county from 35.8 incidents per thousand in 2000 to 28.8 in 2012.

After serving four terms as sheriff, Boyer had many memories of his time in law enforcement.

• His proudest day:

  “March 15, 1975,” he said. “I took the day off and married my high school sweetheart.” His wife, Judi, is a nurse at Harrison Medical Center and they’ve been married for 39 years. They have three children, Andrew, who works for the State Patrol as a trooper in Seattle; Tamara who is a nurse like her mother and works in Bellevue; and Sean, a lawyer who is an NCIS agent and also served in Iraq.

• His hardest day:

  “Two of them,” he said. “When Trooper Tony was killed in 2012, and when two of our deputies were shot at at Walmart in January of 2011.”

  Boyer spoke of Washington State Patrol Trooper Tony Radulescu who was shot and killed while making a traffic stop on a driver of a pickup truck on State Route 16 at Anderson Hill Road, in Gorst, in February of 2012.

  He also spoke of an incident at the Port Orchard Walmart where Kitsap County Sheriff’s Deputies Andrew Paul Ejde and John Roy Stacy were shot while attempting to rescue a young woman who authorities thought was being held against her will. In that incident, Sheriff’s Deputy Krista Rae McDonald shot the suspect and was later given a national award for her work on that day.

  “All the little stuff pales in comparison to seeing your own guys get shot,” Boyer said.

  And, he said, crimes against children are equally hard.

  This summer’s murder of Jenise Wright was difficult on everyone involved, Boyer said. But he is very proud of how the law enforcement officials and the community worked together to see that the suspect was found. Three recent cases of shaken baby syndrome also have deeply affected him.

  “Crimes against innocent children are the hardest,” he said. “I won’t miss having to be a part of that.”

• The unsolved case that troubles him:

  “Ruth Davison of Illahee,” he said, without hesitation. “Ruth was just this sweet older lady who would go out an feed the birds in Lions Field Park. She was everybody’s Grandma. I had met her. She was the nicest lady.”

  According to Boyer, Davison, 90, was found dead in her home at the Illahee Shores Mobile Home Park on July 16, 2000. Her death was ruled a homicide by sheriff’s detectives and no one was ever convicted in the case.

  “The case is still open,” he said, noting that her body was found in the bathtub inside her home. “We have a person of interest, but we have to have probable cause to move forward. We haven’t given up. We review every open case every year.”

• The thing he’s leaving on the table:

  “The deputy’s contract,” he said. “We were so close. We spent an overwhelming amount of time in mediation. We had everyone at the table, but we we’re able to get to an agreement.”

  Deputies are still working under a 2009 contract and are battling over how much deputies should pay in insurance premiums.

  “It’s going to have to go to court now,” Boyer said. “Arbitration is the next step.  I want to see my guys paid well. It’s expensive to hire and train them and then to have them go elsewhere because the pay is better — that’s not good.”

  Boyer hopes to see the department go to a set schedule in future years where on July 1 each year, bargaining would begin with a concrete end date by which the contract would be settled. But he’s leaving that in the hands of the incoming sheriff.

• What people don’t know about him:

  “I never liked writing tickets,” he said. “The only time I did, was when it was to take a drunk driver off the streets. I like to help people and I know people don’t like getting tickets.”

For Boyer, it’s been a long time since his first day on a job.

“I threw papers and mowed lawns,” he said. “And at 15, I went to work at my uncle’s Texaco service station. When that bell went off, we’d run out there in our green uniforms and fill the customer’s gas tank for them.”

In his retirement, he hopes to kayak more, travel with his wife, and spend more time with his two granddaughters.

“I don’t golf, or hunt, or fish,”he said. “But I’ve been working for 43 years and there’s a lot of neglected projects at home that I need to get to.”

He also plans to stay active in the community and in Rotary.

Change is good for an organization, he said, and Boyer felt this was the right time for him to retire.

“There’s no one factor,” he said. “It’s just time. And I still can’t believe I got paid for 40 years to help people.”