Nancy Edmonds Hanson

Twenty-five years ago, a Moorhead professor shared a notion with Moorhead Police Chief Grant Weyland: How about recruiting a group of community volunteers to help the officers he commanded with some of the everyday tasks that took up time better spent on more serious matters?
That idea – one Cliff Harrison of Concordia College had gleaned from a story from Washington state – was the seed that long ago blossomed into one of the Moorhead force’s “secret weapons.” Today the Moorhead Police Volunteers, a corps of about 20 men and women diverse in age and experience, is celebrating a quarter century of lending their helping hands to officers serving their community.
And on the anniversary of the volunteer unit’s founding, Chief Shannon Monroe honored its two longest-serving volunteers, Ruthie Johnson and Eileen Hastad, for 25 years of service to the department. On hand with congratulations of their own were community policing coordinator Leann Wallin and Capt. Deric Swenson, the volunteer unit’s liaisons.
Ruthie was one of the very first contingents who signed up for the brand-new unit in 1999, with Eileen joining a few months later. Since then, the two Moorhead women, like their fellow volunteers, have stood ready to answer the MPD’s requests for a vast range of assignments. And at 85 and 77 years of age, both are still going strong.
They have written thousands of parking tickets. They have sold pet licenses at local businesses. They have checked locked homes for vacationing residents. They have ferried flood volunteers to and from the levees and controlled traffic during dozens of parades. They have fingerprinted children and helped bidders at city vehicle auctions. They have screened hours and hours and hours of security footage for detectives.
“Most of all, we have enjoyed the opportunity to be of service to our community,” Ruthie says, as Eileen nods in agreement. “We’re ready to do whatever we are asked to do, wherever we are needed.”
The chief agrees, and adds, “We couldn’t do everything that needs to get done without them.”
Both women were introduced to the workings of the department during the earliest years of the Citizens Police Academy, a series of three-hour sessions focusing on every aspect of community policing. Ruthie was among the first to “graduate” to the new volunteer organization in 1999. Eileen, who had participated in the very first academy in 1997, joined a few months later.
“We had talked about it during the academy,” she remembers. “I expected to do filing. But parking tickets?”
It was Ruthie who trained in the new recruit. “Our first car was a van the department leased for $1 a year from a local car dealer,” she reports, adding, “The heater didn’t work very well.
“It was tough in the beginning,” Ruthie reminisces. “We couldn’t write tickets. When we spotted cars without permits in handicapped parking spots, we could only leave blue cards printed with the law on their windows … and we got frustrated when we’d see the same cars parking illegally, time after time after time.
“When we finally were allowed to write tickets, it was heaven. Finally, people could understand!” At the same time, the number of handicapped parking violations started its steady decline, from 269 in 2001 to 105 in 2003 and just 40 in 2023.
In their early years, the police volunteers concentrated mostly on keeping fire lanes open in commercial lots and clearing public no-parking locations during evenings and Saturdays. A few years later, they took on Moorhead’s residential parking restrictions, in which on-street parking is banned from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. one day a week.
Tagged drivers, they say, sometimes questioned them as they wrote citations. Dressed in crisp white uniform shirts with police patches and driving vehicles with emblazoned with “Police Volunteers,” they handled those questions calmly. “Sometimes they say they didn’t know, even though their car is right under a no-parking sign,” Ruthie says. “I’ve never gotten to the point where I was afraid. Most are pretty nice about it. Some even apologize.”
She remembers one incident during a tennis tournament at the high school, with 20 cars in an area clearly marked “no parking any time.” “As I began ticketing, people started running over. I had eight people circling me, saying they were from out of town, ‘So what are we supposed to do?’ I pointed out there were 800 empty parking spots a few feet behind us.”
Eileen’s most memorable encounter was tagging a battered station wagon illegally parked in a handicapped spot at a Main Avenue gas station: “The gentleman came out and argued that he should be able to park there because had a peg leg, even though he didn’t have a permit.” She called Dispatch with the car’s license number. “Boom! Two officers were there in a minute, and soon had him up against the car, while a couple others bailed out and disappeared,” she says. It turned out there were several warrants out for his arrest.
Most of the hours volunteers spend with the MPD are less dramatic. Sometimes they help with scanning and filing documents in Records or recording fingerprints at the jail. Other days, they’re an approachable public face of the department.
Both women mention the connections they’ve made with children. “When we see children riding bikes who are wearing helmets, we stop and talk and hand out junior police badge stickers. I think the adults with them get more excited than they do,” Eileen says with a smile.
Ruthie adds, “Several times when I’ve been in uniform, someone has come up and asked, ‘Can you help me?’ Maybe they’ve heard something, or don’t feel safe with their husband, or have some other issue but are afraid to go to the police station.”
Leann Wallin, who coordinates the program, says more volunteers are always needed. Most volunteers first complete the Citizens Police Academy, scheduled each fall. To be considered as a volunteer, they must complete an application form and interview, pass a criminal background check, commit to volunteering at least 10 hours a month, and attend monthly meetings and special training events. For more information on the academy and volunteer opportunities, go to www.moorheadpolice.com.