Former Dallas County Judge Jim Foster has died

Former Dallas County Judge Jim Foster died on Friday, Aug. 14, at Methodist Hospital in Plano, according to reports by WFAA Channel 8, which cited information from his sister, Charlotte Foster Ross.

Ross said Foster, who was 82, had a heart attack after going into the hospital for gallstones. She said funeral arrangements are pending that, as a U.S. Army veteran, will be buried at the VA National Cemetery in Dallas. County Judge Clay Jenkins said that flags will be flown at half-staff to honor Foster’s service to the county.

Foster owned Paramount Security Corp., the company that provided security for many of the businesses on The Cedar Springs Strip for many years. After running unsuccessfully for Dallas County sheriff and for a constable’s office, Foster in 2006 launched a longshot bid for Dallas County judge, eventually defeating Republican County Judge Margaret Keliher to win the office.

His victory was part of the “Blue Wave” in which, two years after openly-lesbian Democratic candidate Lupe Valdez cracked the GOP’s decades-long hold on the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, some 42 new Democratic judges were elected. That made him one of five openly-LGBTQ+ elected officials in Dallas County at the time, and made Dallas County the only county in the U.S. with three county-wide elected offices held by openly LGBTQ+ people. The other two were Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, who had been elected in 2004, and District Clerk Gary Fitzsimmons, who was elected with Foster in 2006.

After serving one term as county judge — he lost the 2010 Primary to Jenkins — Foster moved to Florida to work in real estate but later returned to Dallas.

“He was a loving, kind brother that was always there for everybody. He was the most soft-spoken human being I’ve ever known,” Ross said of her brother in a statement announcing his death.

Maurine Dickey, a Republican who represented District 1 on the Dallas County Commissioners Court when Foster was county judge, wrote on social media that Foster was “the most honest man I have ever known.”

— Tammye Nash