Russell Sears was there when the state police barracks opened on Taylor Avenue in Annapolis in 1971, and he was there when it closed in 2008.

He finished hanging metal doors left off their hinges by a bankrupt contractor, and four decades later stood in the courtyard at midnight and took possession of the Maryland flag that had flown over his beloved building for the final time.

Russell Sears died this month in his Annapolis home at the age of 88 after a long illness, leaving a behind a wife, two grown children and a legacy of volunteerism that spanned a half-century with the state police and even longer, 73 years, with the West Annapolis Volunteer Fire Company.

At this funeral, firefighters joked that the state police "were less fortunate because we only had him for 50 years," said Lt. Michael W. Thompson, who commanded the Annapolis barracks from the summer of 2007 until it closed, and recalls the ever-eager Sears as an omnipresent force in the office.

The 40-year-old lieutenant and the octogenarian were both veterans of wars - the officer a Marine in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the volunteer a shipfitter during World War II - and they formed a close bond. Countless troopers, civilian employees and visitors encountered Sears, a father figure to all.

Thompson and Sears sat in an office three days a week and pored over to-do lists.

Sears cleaned bathrooms, repaired chairs and filed reports. In 1991, he joined dozens of volunteers in searching for a gun thrown into the woods off U.S. 40 by an AWOL Canadian soldier who had shot at two troopers from the Annapolis barracks. It was Sears who found the cocked and loaded 9 mm Czech weapon.

And in 1992, when it came time to marry his friend Hazel Dittman, then 70, the couple of course took their vows on the steps of the Annapolis barracks, an honor guard of state troopers looking on.

Not many women would agree to a ceremony on the steps of a drab police building, but Hazel just laughed when I asked. The reason for the location was simple and, to her, obvious.

"Those people were our friends," she said.

They met in 1969 at the U.S. Naval Academy. He worked as a shipfitter and plumber, she for the alumni association. Through him, Hazel said, she also started volunteering with the state police in Annapolis.

While her husband fixed doors and hunted for guns with his metal detectors, she hemmed uniforms and sewed patches for the troopers.

The big question is why Sears put in all that time with the police.

Thompson, who now commands the Leonardtown barracks in St. Mary's County, called it a good question: "I wonder what can make a man give so much of himself and never ask for anything in return?"

He didn't know the answer. And a statement announcing Sears' death doesn't elaborate either. I turned to Sears' wife, Hazel, and all she could tell me was, "He enjoyed it."

Sears didn't seek attention. Newspaper articles about the shooting noted that a volunteer found the gun but never mentioned his name.

He had a firm handshake, a booming voice and broad smile - stronger, louder and larger than for a man his size, police noted - and had a way of making everyone he met feel important.

"His look-you-in-the-eyes gaze communicated warmth, caring and a genuine appreciation for making your acquaintance," state police spokesman Gregory M. Shipley wrote in a statement.

Authorities announced Sears' death among their news releases, listed alongside details of crimes - fitting for a man who made the cop shop his life's work.

He began volunteering back when the Annapolis barracks was closer to downtown. By the time it moved to Taylor Avenue, Sears had been donating his time for nearly 20 years.

When state authorities announced that budget cuts would force the closure of the Annapolis building, Thompson, who had previously led the governor's security detail, said that for the first time, he began to worry about his friend.

"Russ indicated that he was going to go down to the governor's mansion," Thompson recalled. "I joked, 'I don't know if that would be great for either of our careers.' "

And so on June 25, 2008, at midnight, when a trooper locked the building's Taylor Avenue doors for the final time and Thompson led a close-of-command ceremony, everybody knew that Sears would be there.

"I knew there was no way to close without him standing next to me," Thompson said. They lowered the Maryland flag and a trooper handed it, folded in a triangle as if it had been a funeral, to Sears.

Last December, Thompson, three troopers and an aide visited the ailing Sears at his home and posed for a picture.

"He was still as vibrant and spry as we had ever seen him," the lieutenant said. "He hadn't missed a beat."

Sears died two months later, on Feb. 14, survived by his wife, a son, Russell O. Sears Sr., of Riva; a daughter, Alice Ann Myers of Arnold, three stepchildren; and numerous grandchildren. His parents, six brothers and two sisters, with whom he grew up in Weems Creek near Annapolis, are deceased.

When I called Hazel last week and asked how she was doing, she told me not well, having just returned from the doctor's office. But the Texas native perked up as she chatted briefly about her husband.

Together, before and after they were married, they traveled, driving to 49 of the 50 states, including Alaska. They flew to Hawaii.

"We had a wonderful life," she said.