NEDERLAND — Darrell Bush has long heard from people who retired before him that he would know when it was his time to move to the next phase of his life.

And for the past two years he’s been contemplating it — retirement.

On Monday he made his intention known both to the city council and to his friends that he will be retiring May 31.

Bush chose that specific day for a reason — on June 1, 2001, he became chief of police in Nederland.

“I’ve had lots of congrats and lots of positive responses from lots of folks,” Bush said. “I’ve been doing this for 46 years, 44 of it has been here and 17 as chief.”

His decision to retire was not made in haste — this is something he has considered for quite some time, and he has just been waiting for the right moment. This past December his wife, Sheila, retired.

“Consequently, we have decided that we are ready to start a new chapter in our lives,” Bush said in a statement posted online Monday.

Bush began his career as a dispatcher for Lamar University in 1972 and moved up to patrolman. In February 1974 he was hired on at the Nederland Police Department where he worked as a dispatcher. An officer left that November and he became a patrol officer.

Law enforcement is something he always wanted to do, he said.

“Even as a kid. Then people would tell me you’ll grow out of it, it’s a childhood thing. I guess I never grew out of it.”

Nederland City Manager Chris Duque said he was surprised to hear Bush’s plans but is happy for him.

“I think everybody is sad to see him go. We are also wishing him well in his future and plans for retirement,” Duque said. “Darrell has always done a great job as police chief for the past 17 years and I have been able to work with him for the past nine. He is somebody I always could count on and able to go to with any problems, and I know all of his co-workers and peers as far as other department heads felt if they needed help from the police department they could reach out to him.”

Always a jokester, Bush “laid out his plans for after retirement.”

“The first thing, I’m going to clean out the garage. That should take at least a year to get done,” he said with a laugh. “And then I’m getting in business, put a snowmobile dealership here. I think I’ll make a good living.”

But seriously, Bush plans to “not do much of anything.”

“Kind of the standard response here, but spend more time with family,” he said. “I live to hunt and I’d like to do more of that. I love to fish and I’d like to do more fishing. Travel. We have a cruise planning for June.”

With Bush’s retirement more than a month away, city leaders are looking at filling his soon-to-be-vacant position internally, Duque said. Applications will be taken for the next three weeks for the position of chief. After that, the council will review the applications at the last meeting in April and likely begin the process of scheduling interviews with finalists for the position.

“There are a lot of good officers who will be meeting the qualifications, and that says something about Darrell, to say he hired the people in these positions who are qualified, and this also speaks to his management of the department over the past 17 years,” Duque said.