A LONG WAY FROM 'A RADIO, A SHOTGUN AND A SIREN' ...
Thursday July 1st 2010 7:05 AM
... Police veteran retiring after 37 years ...
By Jay R. Thompson
jthompson@patuxent.com
Posted 6/30/10
After more than 35 years of service with the Baltimore County Police Department, including 16 years on the ninth floor of the Baltimore County Public Safety Building in Towson, Catonsville resident Kirk Higdon is retiring and planning to move with his wife to their beach house on the Outer Banks in North Carolina.
After 37 years with the Baltimore County Police Department, Lt. Kirk Higdon is ready to move on and relax.
The 59-year-old Catonsville resident's last day on the force is June 30.
An office manager for the county's chief of police since 1994, Higdon's career with the department began as an officer in the Wilkens Precinct.
He graduated from the Baltimore County Police Academy in January of 1974, a time when patrol cars weren't equipped with laptops or dashboard cameras.
"Times were really different back then," he said. "Just had a radio, a shotgun and a siren."
He loved being stationed at Wilkens Precinct and patrolling his hometown.
"That was a fun time working that post, because you're taking care of your own," said Higdon, who grew up on Melvin Avenue in Catonsville.
Once, Higdon pulled over a drunk driver on the street where he grew up.
"He'd been drinking and driving on the wrong side," Higdon said. "I pulled him over in front of the house I grew up in."
His former neighbors came out on their porches to see what the flashing lights were about. When they saw their native son arresting the driver, they applauded.
"I walked around like a rooster that night," Higdon said.
Wearing the uniform in Catonsville gave Higdon pride.
"One time I got assigned for the Fourth of July (parade) for crowd control at the intersection of Frederick Road and Melvin Avenue," he said. "I felt like the king."
Higdon's career in law enforcement began while a student at Bridgewater College in Bridgewater, Va.
Higdon volunteered as an auxiliary police officer, doing "mostly undercover work" for his last two years of college, he said.
Under legal drinking age at the time and working for the Staunton City Police Department, Higdon went into bars to see if they'd serve him, and visited nearby colleges to investigate problems with illegal drugs.
Higdon graduated with a degree in sociology in 1972 and joined the Staunton police. The department handed him a ticket book and gun, and sent him out on patrol at midnight, July 1, 1972.
"I was a uniformed officer out making arrests, on the beat, jockeying a patrol car about three months before I went to the police academy," Higdon said.
That fall, at St. Mark Church on Melvin Avenue, Higdon married Sheila Finnegan, his next-door neighbor on Melvin Avenue growing up.
Higdon was an officer in Staunton until September 1973 and said while he loved his time there, it wasn't home.
"I was looking for more exciting police work and I guess I was a little homesick," he said. "We moved right back to Catonsville."
Higdon remained at Wilkens Precinct until 1976, when he got a call from Richard Hauf, a Catonsville resident who'd worked with Higdon at Wilkens.
Hauf had been promoted to captain of the department's planning and research unit and wanted Higdon in the unit to help with program development and writing new department policies.
"Right away, you knew that Kirk was on the ball," said Hauf, 69. "Whatever he does, he does it with exactness."
Higdon would never again be a patrol officer, attracted by the regular hours of planning and research.
He flourished in his new role.
"Kirk was great at collecting and analyzing data," Hauf said.
"He took his work very serious, sometimes too serious," he said. "I'd have to say 'Kirk, that's good enough'."
During his 18 years in planning and research, Higdon was promoted to corporal, sergeant and lieutenant.
"It was a great pleasure to work with him, and he made me look good many times," Hauf said.
When a fellow lieutenant, Michael Gambrill, who'd worked with Higdon in planning and research, was promoted to chief, he appointed Higdon to office manager in 1994.
When Terry Sheridan, now superintendent of Maryland State Police, replaced Gambrill as chief, he retained Higdon as office manager, as has the current chief, James Johnson.
"I guess I've been fortunate to stay here because this is an appointed position," Higdon said. "I've really enjoyed it and I hope I've served them well."
Higdon had planned to work for a few more years, but, after learning he has some health problems, decided he wants more time with his wife, Sheila.
"It's our time and I want to spend it with her," he said.
The couple have never been to the Caribbean Sea, or Niagara Falls, he said.
"We've been to San Francisco once, but I want to go again," he said. "We want to go to Ireland."
A lobbyist for Johns Hopkins Medicine, Sheila Higdon plans to retire in October.
The couple will move to the Outer Banks in North Carolina, where they bought a beach house in 2007.
"We're really looking forward to spending most of our time walking along the beach, getting involved in the local community, fishing," Kirk Higdon said.
The pair plan to return to Catonsville frequently to visit friends and their four adult children, ages 22 to 30.
Two daughters, Julie Sibley and Becky Higdon, live in Catonsville, as does their son, Bobby, who is finishing college. Another daughter, Mandy Higdon, lives in Herndon, Virginia.
Kirk Higdon's older brother, Charlie, lives in Catonsville and his other brother, Paul, lives in Sykesville.
His mother, Jean, lives at Charlestown Retirement Community, as does his mother-in-law, Eileen Finnegan.
Catonsville Times
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... Best wishes, Kirk and Sheila. 'Ya done good!' ...
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/lrs