A large crowd of family and friends, along with officers from the Hampshire Police Department, filled Village Hall on Thursday night in order to watch the swearing in of two new officers for the Hampshire police force.
Caitlin Meneely, of Fox Lake, graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in history. Melissa Hughes, who was born and raised in Harvard, previously worked as a legal administrative specialist for the McHenry County state’s attorney’s office.
According to Ray Sabin of the Hampshire Police Commission board, Meneely and Hughes will start classes at the Police Training Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on Sept. 27 and graduate Oct. 15.
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“They will ride along with training officers for 10 weeks,” Sabin said. “On March 1, 2017, they will be out on the street working by themselves.”
Sabin said that when the commission first contacted the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services in April to place advertisements for the positions, 73 people responded.
The choice was eventually narrowed to the top three, who were interviewed by the Hampshire force before the final two were offered the positions and later sworn in.
Denise Moran is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.