‘Tireless' police volunteer dies
Only civilian awarded Meritorious Service Medal. 



 
S.R. Bryant Jr., a longtime volunteer for the Oklahoma City Police Department and the only civilian to be awarded the police 
Meritorious Service Medal, died Saturday.
He was 88.
"It's a great loss to the city of Oklahoma City,” police chaplain Jack Poe said. "There was probably not a more honest man or a man 
with more integrity than S.R. Bryant.”

Bryant worked at Exxon for 36 years before retiring and taking up a second career as a volunteer. In 1988, he began helping out in the 
Crime Stoppers program at the police department, where he worked with now-retired Sgt. Roger Wagnon for 16 years.

"It really saddens me,” Wagnon said Saturday. "To have known him, it just seemed like he was going to live forever. 
He was just that kind of person.”
Bryant, who attended Memorial Road Church of Christ, was known at the police department as a tireless worker who never sought acclaim for himself, 
Maj. Ed Hill said.  "Everyone who knew S.R. just loved him to death,” Hill said. "He was just kind of a grandfather there for everyone 
at the police department — someone you could always talk to and someone who always took the time to listen. He is going to be missed by all.”

Several years ago, Bryant and Wagnon were in the Crime Stoppers office when they heard a woman scream, Wagnon recalled. Seeing a distraught woman 
leaving the women's rest room, they raced inside and found a woman not breathing on the floor.  Bryant — who also volunteered as a CPR instructor 
at the American Heart Association — revived the woman. He later received the J.C. Penney Golden Rule Award for his efforts, said his son, Kenny Bryant, 54.

Bryant left the police department in 2003 after breaking both of his hips in separate accidents. Soon after Police Chief Bill Citty took office, he and 
many of his command staff visited Bryant to make him an honorary police officer — and perhaps the first civilian to be issued a police badge.

"I'm telling you, he lit up,” Sgt. Greg Giltner said. "For him to get that badge, he had tears in his eyes. He was just completely overcome with 
emotion from that.  His family was there, and we had a whole little deal at the assisted living center. He was so proud.”

Born in Idabel and raised there and in McAlester, Bryant was made an unofficial deputy when he was 10 years old by his father, a legendary McCurtain 
County lawman.  Acting on a tip that notorious outlaws Bonnie and Clyde had been spotted in southeastern Oklahoma, the pair took up their guns and j
oined an FBI agent to seek them out.  The tip was false, and that same night, the outlaws were ambushed and killed in Louisiana. But the incident fed Bryant's 
interest in law enforcement.

That's why, Kenny Bryant said, the Crime Stoppers gig was "like a second childhood for him.”

Nov. 26, S.R. Bryant's wife, Maxine, with whom he had three children — Kenny Bryant of Oklahoma City and Emma Magee, 57, and Diane Gordon, 55, 
both of Edmond — died.  After that, friends and family said, he seemed to take a turn for the worse.
"He knew she was gone, and I think he just didn't want to face it,” Kenny Bryant said. "He missed her.”

Bryant died about six weeks later.

"He just loved his family, loved his church and enjoyed being a servant,” Kenny Bryant said. "He never did stuff for glory. 
He always did it as a servant.”

Funeral arrangements are pending.

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