[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 17]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 23909]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           TRIBUTE TO PORTER COUNTY COMMISSIONER LARRY SHEETS

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. PETER J. VISCLOSKY

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, October 1, 2003

  Mr. VISCLOSKY. Mr. Speaker, It is with great remorse that I rise 
today to pay tribute to Porter County Commissioner Larry Sheets, a 
special friend, a mentor and a very decent man. Larry passed away late 
Saturday evening at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago from a 
pulmonary infection acquired after undergoing a stem cell replacement 
to prevent the return of his leukemia. I knew Larry Sheets for many 
years and considered him a close personal friend. He was a good man 
with a good heart.
  Larry was a man of true and outstanding character who loved his 
family, was loyal to his friends and was dedicated to making the lives 
of people he had never met better through politics. In all my years of 
association with him, I never once saw him do something that was mean 
or petty. He was a conciliator and a man of political courage. I always 
saw him place the public good before anything else when a decision had 
to be made. During an age of cynicism about those in public life, this 
alone is truly remarkable.
  This has been a heartbreaking moment for all of us in Northwest 
Indiana, as Larry served Porter County very ably as a public official 
for 17 years. He was a fine public servant, a man who sincerely cared 
about his constituents, his fellow citizens and his civic 
responsibilities. Larry retired in 1999 after 34 years as a steel 
worker at Bethlehem Steel's Burns Harbor Plant and in 1982 won his 
first election as a Porter County Commissioner.
  In the early 1980s, while working for the late Congressman Adam 
Benjamin, Jr., I had the privilege of first meeting Larry Sheets. 
Later, during my first bid for Congress in 1983, Larry was the first 
and one of only a few public officials to endorse me. At the time I was 
``nobody.'' Larry made me ``somebody.'' Our friendship was extended to 
a shared passion. Along with my father, Larry, Bill Wallace and I would 
spend many fall Saturdays together in South Bend, Indiana, watching the 
Fighting Irish play football.
  Although his work with the community put extraordinary demands on his 
time, Larry never limited the time he gave to his most important 
interest, his family. He and his gracious wife, Paula, have two 
terrific children: Amber and Larry Jr.
  Mr. Speaker and my other distinguished colleagues, Larry Sheets was a 
wonderful man. We are going to miss him in Northwest Indiana. He 
represented the epitome of what a dedicated public servant should be, 
but seldom is, and for that he will always be remembered.

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