Man finishes decades-long project, a history book about Texas sheriffs, as wife's dying wish

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Ronnie Erwin flipped through the pages of 'Stars Over Texas' inside the office of Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez.

The book - which provides a detailed history of every sheriff's office in Texas - looks like it belongs in a museum. But the book wasn't written by historians. It was written by Ronnie and Lynn Erwin, a couple who simply decided to take the project on.

"That was a commitment we made well over 25 years ago," Ronnie said. "We'd go to libraries, archives, museums, go to sheriff's offices, and try to find out something about that person who wore that badge."

They had always planned that once they finished the book, they would travel back around the state to deliver copies to each active sheriff.

But when we met Ronnie, he traveled to Travis County alone.

"God had a different plan. He diagnosed Lynn with a very rare disease, where she only had three or five months to live," he said. She passed before they could finish, with a dying wish for Ronnie to do so.

"I'll try darlin', I don't know if I can or not," Ronnie said he told her. "Not too long after her passing, I woke up in the night two, three in the morning, crying like a 4-year-old, and I could just hear her voice saying finish our book."

So he did. And every time he shared the book with a sheriff, he also shared the story of Lynn.

"It was the love Ronnie had for Lynn to see it all the way through," Hernandez said. She now calls Ronnie a "great friend."

Each volume has a different photo of Lynn in a dedication page at the beginning of the book.

"Sometimes when you turn a page you won't see a picture there, but I assure you, she's in between those lines," Ronnie said.

Honoring Lynn doesn't stop with the book. The Sheriffs' Association of Texas has now created the Lynn M. Erwin Memorial Award. The inaugural presentation of the aware will be later in July.