Moorcroft welcomes new officer

Katie Plum has been riding with Moorcroft Police Chief Bill Bryant for the last week, learning the area, alerts, rules and a plethora of other important facets of being a good cop as she makes the transition from a Great Falls, MT corrections officer to a Moorcroft, WY patrol officer.

The 35-year-old mother of three recently moved south to be closer to her sister, who resides in Gillette, with a plan.

"When I originally got here," Plum stated as she sat for a few minutes during her ride-along Sunday afternoon, "The goal was to go ahead and make the jump from corrections to patrol and I saw that Moorcroft had an opening. I like the idea of starting my career in a small town – easier to learn and you get to know your community a little bit better."

As she begins her education in patrolling Moorcroft's streets, she notes, "It's the same type of thing, just on a smaller scale, I feel like and everybody's really friendly and welcoming, which is kind of nice, too. Everybody knows everybody's name and I like the small-town feel."

Her children are spending the remainder of the school year with family in Montana as Plum prepares a home for them. She is still living in Gillette as she searches for a quiet place to make her own in the Moorcroft area.

Plum shares her first experience that drew her to law enforcement, "What started piquing my interest at a young age was my father, he worked at a Job Corp. center and he had the K9 dog. I got to help him run drills with the dog and I got to see a sort of law enforcement and I really started getting more interested in it when I started catching shoplifters for Walmart [as security]. That interaction with the police and how we got to help with the investigations and those types of things catching bad guys so to speak, it just became fun. I decided that starting off in a jail would be a good way to gain experience."

Plum hopes to make Moorcroft her home for the foreseeable future, "I want to learn and get to know the community. I plan on being here for a while. I have no intention of just using this as a stepping stone and then running away as quickly as possible. I just hope to get to know the community and become a part of it."

Plum is waiting for her uniform to arrive and will be riding with the chief for almost three more months before attending the academy to become a fully accredited police officer. Right now, "[Bryant's] got to make sure that I'm good to go before I can be on my own."