Dallas Fire-Rescue Chief Louie Bright III announced Friday that he will soon end a career that started in his hometown when he was 19 years old.
Bright’s retirement, effective March 30, will end a quiet four-year tenure marked by relative peace — excluding his leadership after a controversial line-of-duty death — in a department that had experienced strife in the prior decade.
The Roosevelt High School alum has not had much of a media presence in his tenure, and the initial retirement announcement came in a tweet that featured what appeared to be a photo of a computer screen. The department’s Twitter account is private, meaning the information is only available to people who request to follow the public department. Bright, a 34-year department veteran and Dallas native, said it was “an honor” to serve the department in an official news release sent out later.
Bright will be the first fire chief since Dodd Miller retired in 1999 to leave on relatively good terms — and even Miller, who led the department for 23 years, was under some pressure from minority groups.