Police Trainer Plots His Future Academy Director Larry Plott Retires After 37 Years As Cop

As a young Twin Falls patrolman in 1966, Larry Plott didn’t bat an eye at tracking an FBI fugitive alone through waist-deep snow.

“That wasn’t too smart,” recalled the retiring executive director of the Idaho Police Academy. “That’s the kind of thing that can sometimes cost officers their lives when they’re in the heat of pursuit.”

For nearly a quarter-century, Plott has headed the academy that has trained more than 3,000 officers to handle increasingly violent streets.

Now, the 57-year-old says, it is time to move on. Plott will mark his last day of service this Friday.

“After 37 years, I thought, ‘There’s other things I want to do,”’ he said, unfurling a map of the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. “My wife got to looking at it four years ago and hung it on my wardrobe door. I said, ‘I don’t want to look at it and I don’t want to go.”’

Plott and his wife, Marilyn, plan to launch their 5-month hike in April.

That spark has not changed much in the 30 years since Plott and 63-year-old Jim Gerke were patrolling Twin Falls.

Gerke recalled the time Plott volunteered to track a fugitive for a mile in deep snow because he was the only one wearing overshoes.

Luckily for Plott, the man was unarmed when he found him in a cave near the Triumph mine.

The Idaho Police Academy trains about 130 new officers yearly and runs about 890 training schools.

Plott said it is tougher to become a cop these days because it is more difficult to be one.

“People nowadays don’t think twice about assaulting an officer. Back in my day, they were very hesitant,” he said.

Nonetheless, police work is “the best job in the world,” Plott said. “There’s no greater gift than getting out and helping somebody.”