Like most of you, I find it very difficult to sum up forty years in a couple of paragraphs.  Of those that know me and have talked with me on the telephone have found out just how talkative I can get, so this may be very stressful, but here goes.

 After graduation from high school, I spend the summer times in Girard painting houses inside and out to make gas and beer money.  Bill Pierce and I went over to Parsons and played football for one year, and then they shut down the program.  I played third string quarterback and my career thrill was throwing a touchdown pass in one game, but other than that it was not much to brag about.  I moved on to Pittsburg State and seemed to major in cards and pool mostly for a year at which time they requested I find another institution of higher learning ( at least it wasn’t jail).  Speaking of jail, I had taken a weekend job at the Crawford County Jail in Girard, working the radio and weekend jailer.  I started there at age 18 while still at Parsons and there’s where my law enforcement career got its roots. 

 In April 1967 I moved to Wichita and started rookie class for the Wichita Police Department.  I experienced the unrest times during the late 60’s and for a boy from a small town, couldn’t understand why these people wanted to riot and burn their own businesses.  That was a very strange time.  I was promoted in March 1970 to the rank of detective and assigned to the vice/narcotic section.  We worked plain clothes and undercover mostly on narcotic cases, but also assisted the vice section at times with gambling, prostitution and liquor violations.  What fun we had at times, especially with the prostitutes.   

 Friday, November13, 1970 brought about the reality of being a law enforcement officer for me.  About 1:30 a.m. a silent hold up type alarm was announced by the dispatcher at a convience store which my partner and I happened to be near at the time.  We responded and interrupted an ongoing armed robbery by two males.  The result was I was shot at point blank range in the chest; the robber was shot and killed at the scene.  Now that will make you think about a career change, but I loved the work, so after recovery, I returned.  I got divorced in 1981 from Donna (Pyle), but we had two great kids.  My son is Roger Brent, now 36, and daughter, Kristen Ellen, 31.   

 I completed my BS degree at Wichita State University and after a year off, went back to graduate school to work on my Masters.  In October 1974 I was hired by the U.S. department of Justice/Drug Enforcement Administration as a special agent.  The Masters Degree work went on hold.  During my career with D.E.A., I had some great experiences of travel around the U.S.A. and met some very nice people who are very sincere about the job and responsibilities we shared.  I became very patriotic about the government.  During the early 80’s I worked in Florida during the Vice President’s anti-smuggling operation and did a lot of flying in the Keys and Bahamas chasing aircraft and big power boat smugglers. 

 In 1985 while in St. Louis, I was hurt during a case and subsequently retired and returned to Wichita.  My wife Karyl, who is from Wichita, has three children when we married, two boys and one girl.  All the children are or have been married and we have nine grandchildren and they all live within fifteen minutes of us, so we see a lot of them, sometimes, too much. 

 After returning to Wichita, I did the retirement thing for over two years and then in 1988 I took a job with the State of Kansas, Court Services Officer, doing probation supervision direct with the district courts.  I am looking forward to age 65, then its goodbye to this place also.  I accepted the job then with the stipulation that it was 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. with no weekend work, because of the type of work I have been used to doing I didn’t want to subject my family to any more of that never being home and never knowing when I was going to take off somewhere with not being sure when I would come back. 

 My favorite hobby is hunting and some fishing, but hunting is number one.  I’ve been lucky to have had the chance to hunt in the past with John Slavin and others from Girard in the early years, then enjoying the trips to western Kansas and Colorado.  I have great friends, my son, son-in-laws and both step-sons that also enjoy the sport, so the old man gets out a lot in the winter months. 

 In all these years I’ve had to count my blessings that I’ve had, what I’ve had, and hope to continue on for several more years.  I look forward to seeing you all next June and hope we can have a large and happy group attend.  See I told you it was going to be difficult to keep this short.  Come see me in June, 2003.  Go Trojans.

Roger