Frank J. Provenzano, a popular Republican law enforcement official who served six terms as Somerset County sheriff before retiring in 2019, died Wednesday. He was 82.

Provenzano was a retired Bridgewater police captain in 2001 when the Somerset Republican organization nominated him as its candidate for sheriff following the retirement of incumbent Robert Lund. He won the Republican convention by a vote of 156 to 112 against Kevin Sooy, then an Orange police sergeant and later mayor of Bernardsville; Sooy switched parties to become a Democrat in 2018.

In the Republican primary, he ran against Ronald Skobo, a former district attorney's captain who had challenged Lund in 1995; Provenzano defeated him by about 1,700 votes, 55% to 45%. In the general election, he defeated his former boss, former Bridgewater Police Chief Richard Voorhees, by about 4,500 votes, 53% to 37%. Voorhees had been Lund's deputy sheriff.

Provenzano remained in office without much difficulty, defeating Efren Dato with 61% in 2004, Richard Myers with 55% in 2007, and Richard Arline with 58% in 2010 and 61% in 2013.

But in 2016, when Hillary Clinton won Somerset County by 13 percentage points, Provenzano won his last election by just 1,286 votes, 50.4% to 49.6%, against Democrat Darrin Russo, a former Franklin Township police lieutenant. (Democrat Steven Peter ousted Republican County Clerk Brett Radi that same year.)

Provenzano retired in 2019 and Russo won the race to succeed him.