Former Hermosa Beach police sergeant Bill K. Davis died Aug. 11 at his Oceanside home after a lengthy battle with heart disease. He was 77.
Davis was born in Mineral Wells, Texas into a traveling, musical comedy show family, which performed mostly in the Southwest. Davis was one of four children. His parents quit the traveling show when Davis was 4 and settled in Wewoka, Oklahoma.
A couple years later, Davis’s mother and the children moved to Pittsburg, California.
Davis was 6-foot 5-inches tall and played varsity basketball in his first year of high school at Pittsburg High. After graduating from Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, Davis and his brother Jerry joined the army together and served for two years, during which time Davis played for the army basketball team.
Davis attended East Contra Costa College and graduated with a major in police science from El Camino College, where he also played basketball.
When Davis worked as a shift manager at a McDonald’s, one of his fry cooks was one of the Smothers Brothers, his wife Valerie said.
Davis was living in Hawaii in 1962 and managing a restaurant on Waikiki Beach when he heard that the Hermosa Beach Police Department was hiring. He was tired of Hawaii and applied for the job and got it in 1963, Valerie said.
He married Valerie in 1969 while working as a police detective in the Hermosa Police Department. Valerie was working as the Hermosa Beach planning director’s assistant at the time.
The city had a rule back then that if two city employees married each other, one had to vacate his or her job.
“We weren’t smart enough at the time to say, hey, that must be illegal,” Valerie Davis said. “My boss tried to do everything. He was going to make me a contract employee to have me keep my job. He said, ‘Couldn’t Bill quit?’ I said, ‘No, he makes more money.’”
Davis played the piano and trumpet and had a beautiful singing voice, Valerie said. He was also a skilled dancer and they attended ballroom dances every month for several years.
Davis was the first Hermosa Beach police officer to attend the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, and he was part of the 95th Class when he graduated three months later in 1973. He returned to the Hermosa Beach Police Department to work as a sergeant. In 1978, he was forced to retire because of a heart condition.
HBPD Lt. Tom Thompson was a police cadet in the early 70s. “I remember Bill as a tall and well-respected sergeant,” Thompson said.
Wally Moore was Davis’s partner while patrolling Hermosa
Beach. Moore said their shift sergeant had gout, leaving him and Davis to patrol the city. “Bill was the big guy, easy going and mild-mannered,” Moore said.
Davis was known as “BK,” Moore said, adding that not many people knew Davis’s middle name was King.
Davis went on to work as a dispatcher for the San Clemente Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department for 17 years.
He enjoyed entertaining, and he and Valerie sang in the choir at South Shores Church in Orange County for 15 years. Bill also sang in the choir at the Carlsbad Community Church.
Davis was 1/8th Seminole Indian, but did not join the Indian Tribal Nation until he was 45. He encouraged his children and grandchildren to register as well. His grandmother, Alice Brown Davis, was the first woman chief of the tribe. Her bronze bust was unveiled in 1964 at the New York World’s Fair and was later placed in the American Indian Hall of Fame in Anadarko, Oklahoma.
The Seminole Indian Tribe stands as the only tribe that never signed a peace treaty with the United States.
Davis was an avid golfer, and in 2002 he and Valerie retired to Oceanside, California to live at the Ocean Hills Country Club, a 55-or-older community surrounding a golf course. Davis served as president of the golf association for more than four years from 2003 to 2007.
“Bill was a real volunteer,” Valerie said. “He was always very service-oriented. He took the position, and they kept re-electing him every year until he finally said no more.”
Davis is survived by his wife Valerie; brothers Butch of Parker, Colorado, Jerry of Chico, California, and sister Diane of Mission Viejo, California; son Matthew, 38 and daughter Julie, 37; grandchildren Kira, 17, Ethan, 9, Elijah, 7, and Joshua, 3.
Services will be held Sept. 22 at the Carlsbad Community Church, 3175 Harding St., Carlsbad, CA 92008.
