New officer rounds out P.D.

Moorcroft Chief of Police Bill Bryant has begun site-specific training of local resident Nick Curley to round out the department, which has been running a man short since the departure of Jory Tadlock in April of this year.

The town council came together in a special meeting last Wednesday evening, immediately calling an executive session for the purpose of discussing Curley’s application. With the chief’s recommendation, the governing body came out of the closed part of the meeting to officially allow Bryant to offer the position to the Wyoming certified law enforcement officer.

Curley, who is 27 years old, was raised in South Carolina and has lived in Lander, WY with wife Alexis for a number of years before hiring on to the Wyoming Highway Patrol, under whose auspices he was certified to work in Wyoming law enforcement.

Curley realized after starting his career with Wyoming Highway Patrol that, “Working on the interstate, just enforcing vehicle codes, wasn’t the facet of law enforcement I was really looking for. I wanted to get down to working with people at their houses – welfare checks, working with the ambulances, things like that. That’s more of what I was gearing toward getting into law enforcement.”

“My time with the Highway Patrol was a great experience as far as kind of getting my feet wet,” Curley continues, “but I’m really excited about this transition in law enforcement and working in a small community and getting to know people in a more personal manner.”

Because Highway Patrol does not deal with ordinances and so on, Bryant explains how he will bring Curley to a fully adapted police officer, “He will go through the entire 16 week training program,”.

“That is going to cover everything we do – calls, ordinances, statutes. He’ll spend the first four weeks riding with me and then I’ll start transitioning him to driving and with more responsibility,” Bryant says.

The Curly family has lived in Moorcroft since January, “We were looking for a quieter place in Wyoming and [Moorcroft] just felt like home as soon as we visited,” says Curley. “I think it’s just a little piece of heaven right here. You have the red rock up toward Sundance and here, you have the grass and Keyhole right around the corner. We went to the lake yesterday and spent the afternoon at the beach.”

The couple’s daughters also thoroughly enjoy the parks and library in town and are familiar with all of these important establishments, says Curley.

Curley grew up in a town of about 300 residents and worked as an EMT for approximately seven years when he graduated high school. He was also part of the Air National Guard and that is where he first realized his calling to law enforcement as a member of the military security force. “That’s when I really wanted to transfer from the EMT work into law enforcement.”

When asked what he hopes to bring to this job, Curly answers with candor, “I want to keep the bad guys out of town. I want to keep Moorcroft the beautiful town it is and protect the citizens.”