A deputy sheriff in Boulder County, Colorado, in 1974 Dutrow became the department’s first juvenile specialist. And after his shift, he took his work home with him: as a foster parent, he’d bring troubled boys into his home, sometimes three or four at a time, helping to turn their lives around.
“He was my hero,” says Nic Dutrow, 20, one of three foster sons Dutrow legally adopted. “He basically saved my life. If I had left his home, I would be dead or in prison now.” Dutrow “turned a lot of boys’ lives around in the last 34 years,” says Boulder County’s current sheriff, Joe Pelle. He taught each boy how to shoot safely, to hike, to camp, and personal responsibility. Even as he grew older — and ill with cancer — he still took in new boys.
“He would say, ‘This is what I love to do’,” his niece said. In all, more than 250 boys spent time under his roof. Dutrow also kept going to work, getting up each day until he collapsed on March 10, and died from cancer. He was 63.