5 days ago
Buford Pusser's granddaughter says grandfather represented ‘respect and integrity'
McNAIRY COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) – Famed Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser died more than 50 years ago, but his daughter carried on the legacy before she died in 2018. Now the torch has been passed to the next generation.
Buford's granddaughter shared what she wants people to know about her famous family. News 2 asked Madison Garrison Bush when she first started hearing stories about her grandfather.
'Honestly, before I came out of the womb,' said Garrison Bush. 'A lot of people have told me he was a gentle giant until you crossed that line.'
Who was legendary lawman Buford Pusser?
Garrison Bush never met her grandfather, but she knows him well through the stories passed down to her. 'He gave a lot of second chances. He would say what's right is right, what's wrong is wrong.'
She said the first time her grandfather's legacy really hit her, she was on a first-grade field trip with her classmates to the Buford Pusser Museum in Adamsville. 'That first grade field trip to the museum, and the kids were like, 'Will you sign our souvenirs?' And they were my peers. And I was like, 'I guess. sure.''
For Garrison Bush, her grandfather was ahead of his time. She's proud to say that he was the first in Tennessee to hire a Black deputy. And she admits his way of serving justice would not work in today's day and age, but when need be, he showed compassion as well. She said he would allow inmates to work and earn some money.
'He would release them during the day so that they could go to work. So that they can provide for their family and then return back to the jail when the workday is done…To me, he represents respect, integrity.'
When Garrison Bush was older, her parents allowed her to watch the 1973 film Walking Tall about her grandfather. The film chronicles both Buford's crime-fighting actions, but also his wife's, Pauline, tragic murder.
Questions remain decades after death of Pauline Pusser
She remembers watching the film with her mother. 'It hurt my mom, just like it hurt my grandad, to have to walk out during the really hard scenes when we lost part of our family during all of this.'
Garrison Bush left McNairy County, but she's never left behind the Pusser family legacy. Over the years, she's come back home to the festival, just like her mother, Dwana, did, in order to award the Buford Pusser Festival Law Enforcement Award to an exemplary officer of the law.
'To me, it is a way and such an honor to keep his legacy alive in doing what I saw my mother do my whole life.'
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