REMEMBERING WILLIAM EARL HILTON

Quick facts

Record: Senate Floor
Section type: Floor speeches
Chamber: Senate
Date: March 25, 2026
Congress: 119th Congress
Why this source matters: This section came from the Senate floor portion of the record.

Readable version of the official text

Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. President, I rise today to honor a good friend Sheriff William Hilton, who was tragically killed Monday. Sheriff Hilton was a sheriff in every positive meaningful sense of the word.

He was steady. He was committed. He was there to answer the call when the community needed him. That kind of service is more than just a job, it was his life's calling, and he lived that calling every day.

He was a devoted husband to his wife Billie, a loving father to Shane

and Kristy, and a proud grandfather to Slade.

But behind a man with such heavy responsibility is always a strong

family, and, indeed, his family loved him, supported him, and stood by him through long, difficult, often 7-day workweeks. A true servant, a man others leaned on.

As Sheriff Wood his deputy and mentee said, “I talked to him almost every day. If I had any questions, who else [could I ask but him]?”

It tells you what you need to know about Sheriff Hilton. He just had lots of wisdom. He retired in 2008. He could have lived a comfortable life fishing. His community asked him to come back as sheriff, and he served two more terms.

By the time he retired for good in 2020, he had served in law

enforcement for 50 years. Again, he could have lived comfortably in retirement, but he came back because of his sense of duty.

We rode together once. There was a police ambush in 2016 in Baton Rouge, and a gunman killed four officers. Sheriff Hilton and I rode down to the ceremony for one of them, a lawman paying tribute to a fellow lawman. I always appreciated that.

And there is something to be said about a lawman's realism. Sheriff Hilton certainly had it. He once told me: When you are fighting crime, it is like mowing the grass. You never stop. You just keep on going.

There wasn't any anger. There wasn't any bitterness, just a realism.
And it was the task before him, and it was a task he was going to do.

There is a quote about losing a friend that says: The melody he played upon the lives of those around him will never be played quite the same way again.