Featured today in Part 14 of “Called to Serve,” a weekly N-G series in which law-enforcement officers share stories about their journey to the job with Editor Jeff D’Alessio: Champaign County Sheriff’s Detective DWAYNE ROELFS.

Know someone you’d like us to reach out to for an upcoming edition of Called to Serve? We take requests at jdalessio@news-gazette.com.

‘During the ’90s, it was not uncommon to have hundreds of people show up for the police-testing dates’

By DWAYNE ROELFS

I was born and raised in Champaign County and have lived here all my life. I attended high school at St. Joseph-Ogden and graduated from there in 1988.

During my senior year of high school, I began thinking about what career path I would end up taking. I had two older siblings that continued their education beyond high school, and I believe that influenced me to look towards obtaining a college degree.

I really wasn’t certain what I wanted to do, and so I began thumbing through a Parkland College course curriculum book. The criminal-justice program seemed interesting to me, and I focused in on that as my career path.

I signed up for Parkland’s transfer program, and after completing two years of study, I transferred to Illinois State University. In 1992, I earned my degree, a bachelor of science degree in criminal justice.

While I was attending college, I learned of a couple of part-time employment opportunities in the criminal justice field. The Champaign County Youth Detention Center — now called the Juvenile Detention Center — needed part-time staffing for juvenile detention officers and transportation officers. I applied for a part-time position, and in early 1992, I obtained my first job in the criminal justice field.

During my last semester at Illinois State, I was seeking an internship at a police department and was fortunate that the Urbana Police Department accepted me on as an intern. While at Urbana, I was assigned to ride along with several police officers and that exposed me firsthand to policing.

The guys I rode with were all exceptional police officers. They were fantastic and allowed me to actively participate in a variety of ways.

As my college experiences were coming to an end, I began testing for different job openings at local police departments and discovered that it was a very competitive job market — during the ’90s, it was not uncommon to have hundreds of people show up for the police-testing dates.

In addition to testing at the police departments, I learned about pre-employment testing for full-time juvenile detention officers. I took the pre-employment test for juvenile detention officer, passed and was placed on an eligibility hire list.

A full-time position at Youth Detention Center opened and I was offered and accepted my first full-time job in the criminal-justice field. I continued there for a couple years, and during that time, I waited for other opportunities in law enforcement to open.

In December 1994, I was offered a deputy sheriff position in the patrol division at the Champaign County Sheriff’s Office, and I accepted.

The first six years of my career at the Champaign County Sheriff’s Office were spent working as a patrol deputy, responding to calls for service, making arrests and working to keep the community safer. Then, around the year 2000, I signed up for an opportunity to try working in the Criminal Investigations Division and I absolutely loved it.

Not long after, a permanent position became available in the Investigations Division and when I was offered that position, I took it. Over the last 25-plus years, I have experienced many unique, interesting and challenging cases.

During those tough cases, when I’ve seen the results of my work give a victim closure, that’s where it reaffirms to me that I made the right career choice.

In addition, I also work with four other detectives, and they are incredibly talented and hard-working guys. Each day is a new adventure, and working with our current group of detectives always seems to be an entertaining experience.