Sean C. Morgan
Teresa Culley retired Monday, Nov. 9, after more than 33 years as a dispatcher at Sweet Home Police Department.
Just one other employee had worked for the city longer, Communications Supervisor Penny Leland.
“I’ve been blessed for 33 years to work in the community where I grew up, to have a local full-time job with benefits and no commute and to earn a reasonable living to raise my family,” Culley said. “Now it is the time for a new chapter in my life.”
“Thirty-three years is an impressive time,” Police Chief Jeff Lynn said. “With that kind of experience, she was a rock for our department, training many dispatchers over the years; and she has been key in managing records, evidence and property during the past decade. We are sad to see her go, but we wish her the best in retirement.”
“Teresa is incredibly dependable, and I could rely on her,” Leland said. “And that made things a lot easier for us. It’s going to be an adjustment moving forward without her, but I’m excited for her as she moves into the next chapter of her life.”
After teaching for two years, Culley started dispatching while living in The Dalles where she was a rural firefighter. She moved to Sweet Home in 1984 with her first husband and two children to help her father on the family’s home ranch in Holley.
Culley began her career at SHPD on June 23, 1987 as a part-time dispatcher.
“Or so she thought,” Leland said. “She learned there is no such thing as part time and was quickly transferred to full time on Sept. 1, 1987.”
Culley continued to work as a dispatcher when she became the department’s records clerk on Oct. 4, 2010.
“As if she wasn’t already wearing enough hats, she was assigned the role of our property-evidence specialist on Aug. 1, 2013,” Leland said. “This was in addition to her records clerk role and covering for dispatch, which was on a regular basis. Teresa is truly going to be missed.”
During her time at SHPD, Culley worked for three police chiefs, Gary David, Bob Burford and Jeff Lynn and in three different buildings – the basement of the old City Hall, the City Hall Annex and the current Police Department building.
She trained and saw a lot of dispatchers over the years, Culley said, noting that one thing that cannot be taught or trained is the required multitasking.
She had more years at the department than all of the department’s current dispatchers combined, and the new hires are the same ages as her grandchildren.
Culley began dispatching without computers, writing information on cards and typing stats on index cards. The dispatch center also served the fire department at the time. More than three decades later, she was keeping track of 10 to 15 passwords just to complete her daily tasks at work.
“I loved dispatch,” Culley said. “Each shift was always different, and you wouldn’t know what would come in.”
She dispatched through the February 2002 windstorm she dubbed Twister ’02. During the storm, she received more than 100 calls in an hour.
She loved the graveyard shift, she said. It allowed her to adjust her sleep schedule to fit her personal life and children’s schedules.
“As I got older, I became less patient and more hearing-challenged and less likely to want stress of the moment,” Culley said. That’s when she shifted her duties to the evidence room, which proves “this is not a paperless society.”
In the evidence room, she said, organization was the key to avoiding drowning in evidence; and she was surprised to see firsthand how many bikes get lost in Sweet Home.