Reno Policewoman Pam Cercek reads to students at Hunter Lake School. Assisting her is Megan Hess in 1996. Three years later, Officer Pam Cercek would escape death when she was viciously attack with a knife.

RENO'S FINEST ARE JUST ORDINARY PEOPLE
by Jim Gibbs

It was not uncommon for personal relationships to develop between male and female officers. In fact, Reno’s very first policewoman, Bernadine Salonisen was married to Officer Michael Salonisen. In the late 40s, policewoman Lola King would marry officer Alvin Geiseking. There would even be a documented moment when the Geisekings teamed up to make an arrest together. Jan Novak would also be among the many men and women of the Reno Police Department that found like thinking police officers falling in love. Jan Novak would marry long time officer and detective Bob Penegor.

LOVE IS IN THE AIR AND IN THE MOTOR POOL 
A cute story published by the Reno Gazette featuring three Reno couples that had announced their weddings in 1988 and how they came to the alter. The story would illustrate the inevitable of men and women working together. Officer Melissa Montagne- Partyka and her husband, Officer Jeff Partyka would be part of that story.

Jeff Partyka joined the department in 1981. In fact, he was in the same academy with Jan Novak, Linda Shepard and Shirley Gilletti. Melissa Montagne would join the Reno Police Department a few years later in 1985. It would take a while for the two to connect. After noticing each other in the motor pool, they were eventually brought together on a date night with a mutual friend and coworker, Officer Todd Shipley. The connection was "magical" but the two kept their relationship very discreet.

Melissa acknowledged at least one moment when her overprotective feelings for Jeff took control. Officer Jeff Partyka was dispatched to a domestic violence call and had turned down his radio to talk to those involved. When dispatch failed to get a response from him when they called to his radio, Mellissa, who was working the same shift would race toward his location fearful something was happening to him. Unfortunately, she would never make it. A visitor to Reno failed to stop for a stop sign and crashed into Melissa's police vehicle. The pair would eventually be assigned to different areas of the department and the relationship and marriage can be document as a good one, a forever love.

Women in police work were not and still are not abundant. Often their status as law enforcement officers took some by surprise. In one occasion, an idiot along the Truckee River learned the hard way. In 1988 Officer Pam Cercek decided to get a little exercise on her lunch break. As she jogged along the Truckee River east of Wells Avenue a guy stepped out and exposed himself to her. She continued on looking for a uniformed officer or phone to report the incident. Not finding either, she turned around and jogged back toward the police station. Suddenly the same guy stepped out and exposed himself again. Officer Cercek told him, "You picked the wrong person to do that to," and continued on to the station. Cercek returned a few minutes later with police investigator Pat Murray and arrested Robert Ewers, age 32 on two counts of indecent exposure.

What was started by the determined pretty red head, Pam Engle and her quest to be a police officer open the doors for others, and those who followed would prove she was correct, a woman could do what many considered to be a “man’s job”.

One amazing story about how women in law enforcement have no limits with roots to the Reno Police Department is that of Jan Novak. As mentioned, she excelled to the rank of sergeant. Sgt Jan Novak-Penegor would leave the Reno Police Department for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She would marry a fellow FBI agent named Michael Fedarcyk. Janice K. Novak-Fedarcyk would also excel in the FBI.

Special Agent Fedarcyk retired from the FBI in 2012 after leading the FBI's largest field office for two years. She would retire as assistant director of the FBI’s New York office. She would also retire as the highest-ranking female law enforcement officer in the FBI. Prior to being assigned to lead the New York office she would be the special agent in charge in Philadelphia. Fedarcyk previously served in Los Angeles as a special agent in charge of the Counterterrorism Division.

Not only were the woman of the Reno Police Department bright, but they were physically capable. Case in point is Kim Bradshaw. She and Officer Dave Forarty while assigned to the bike patrol in 1997. While patrolling, they witnessed a heroin sale between the drug dealer in a pickup and a pedestrian. The offices immediately moved in and Fogarty arrested the pedestrian while Bradshaw pursed the fleeing truck on her bicycle. It is important to note that Bradshaw was a star athlete at Reno High School, University of New Mexico and UNR in her senior year, but she chased the truck down on her bike and arrested the suspect drug dealer.

THE BAD WITH THE GOOD - LAW ENFORCEMENT IS A DANGEROUS JOB 
While women have enjoyed their place as career law enforcement officers, the fact is, it is a dangerous world. Nothing illustrates this better than a horrific story involving Officer Pam Cercek. In 1999, a knife-wielding woman who earlier threatened to kill herself and her daughter was shot and killed by police after she repeatedly stabbed two officers. One officer, Pam Cercek, who at the age of 41 was at the time a 20-year veteran of the Reno Police Department. Officer Cercek was stabbed all the way through her shoulder and out her back with the 7-inch long steak knife. Her partner, Matt Dellavella, a 30-year-old, 13-year veteran of the police department was stabbed in the head, the upper chest and the side

While both officers' wounds were not life threatening the outcome could have been much different had the two officers not quickly reacted with their weapons to disable the attacker and save their own lives. It was later determined that the actions of Officer Dellavella may have very well saved the life of Cercek.

The women of the Reno Police Department have never shied away from the dangers of the job. Mentioned was the first woman SWAT officer which was Linda Shepherd Peters. But she was "absorbed" into SWAT when SORT was disbanded. Another woman, officer Laurs Conklin was the first SWAT officer to actually try out and be selected for SWAT in one on one competition with her male counterparts for the job.

Monica Gedry would serve as the first female motor officer working the traffic division. Officer Gedry may have in fact been the only female officer in Reno to pursue speeder while riding atop a police motorcycle.

There are others such as Zoe-Anne Barcellos in K-9, Judy Holladay serving the Honor Guard. One in particular that stands out, Amanda Hartshorn who went into training. In 2015, Hartshorn would go from training Reno Police Officers to a war zone, literally.

The Russian military intervention in Ukraine, sometimes called the Russo-Ukrainian War is a series of military actions that started in February 2014 and actually continues into 2020. It was in this environment that Chief Steve Pitts elected to send five Reno Police Officers overseas to Kiev in Ukraine to conduct training for a program operated by the United States Department of Justice. Reno Police Officer Amanda Hartshorn would be among those volunteering to go to Kiev.

Although, Pitts said that he carefully analyzed his staffing needs and risk to the officers involved in war torn Ukraine, Pitts neglected to conduct an at-home political assessment of the Reno City Council. And while he briefed the city manager on his decision, he opted not to notify the elected council until the five officers were already on a plane to Kiev. When the council learned of the deployment, they ask Chief Pitts for an explanation and then ordered the officers to be returned to Reno ending the program early.

On an interesting little side note about Amanda Hartshon. I first met Amanda at a “Run With The Recruiter” event at Reno High School. She brought her young son and it was fun to watch them interact with each other, “mom on son”. It was also obvious that Hartshorn was in very excellent condition, none the less it was difficult to vision her assigned to train Ukrainians in a war-torn county. Afterwards, while researching various women with the department I discovered that Amada Hartshorn was also very competitive bodybuilder. She is an amazing person.

RENO'S FIRST FEMALE COMMANDER
Obviously, the Reno Police Department has been endowed with brilliant and courageous policewomen over the years. There isn’t a more shining example of this beyond Reno’s Highest ranking woman officer ever, retired Commander Leigha Struffert.

In 1989, Leigha Soto would join the police department. And yes, if you picked up on the last name, she is the sister to Jason Soto who advanced to the highest rank in Reno, Chief of Police,. Three years after joining the Reno Police Department, in 1991 Leigha Soto would marry and become Leigha Struffert.

Officer Struffert would do an excellent job of blending her police career with family life. In 1996 she gave birth to a son and in 1999 another boy.

Along the way she would excel on the job. On June 24, 2005, Lt. Leigha Struffert became the highest-ranking woman in Reno police history. The 16-year veteran was promoted to the rank of commander.

Commander Struffert became the fourth officer in the department history to hold the rank of commander and would initially supervise patrol operations and other police activities for the area north of Interstate 80. Chief Michael Poehlman explained that a commander is out-ranked only by the chief and deputy chief.

Her duties involve staffing and workload issues, assisting with development of the department's community service centers, community crime prevention and outreach activities. Struffert, joined the department as an officer in 1989, was promoted to sergeant in 1999 and became a lieutenant in 2002.

So there you have it --- I am sure it is very incomplete and so many more women deserve mention. I hope that those I left out will respond by sharing with their stories. The History of the Reno Police Department is a work in progress and always open for mor information and correction.
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