Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Three Sweet Home natives have recently gone to work for Sweet Home Police Department.
Travis Luttmer is a police officer, and Karen Orr and Kim Lovik-Graves are dispatchers.
Luttmer is a 1998 Sweet Home High School graduate. He began working on July 24. He will attend a 10-week course at the state Police Academy beginning Sept. 11.
After high school, Luttmer, 26, attended Linn Benton Community College for two years in welding and fabrication.
He worked for 6 1/2 years for Monaco Coach in Coburg, where he was a department lead.
Before becoming a police officer, he was in the Lebanon Police Department Reserves for four months.
“I just decided I wanted a career instead of a job,” Luttmer said. “So I started looking at law enforcement.
“I’ve always been interested in law enforcement. I just finally decided to make the switch.”
That led him to the Lebanon reserves, and when he saw an opening in Sweet Home, he applied for it.
He is most interested in the community service aspect of law enforcement, “doing something to improve the community I live in,” he said, “being able to enforce the laws and keep people safe and being able to just help them out in general.
“I enjoy interacting with the community and being able to try to help them solve their problems.”
He is looking forward to a long-term career in which he can work on becoming proficient in knowledge and training and then eventually move on up toward a leadership position, he said.
Luttmer has lived in Sweet Home all his life. He is married to Courtney, and they have two children, Zachary, 4, and Dylan, 17 months.
He said he has enjoyed living in Sweet Home because it is centrally located to all kinds of recreational activities, right in the mountains and just a couple hours from the coast.
Luttmer enjoys outdoor activities, he said, and he thinks Sweet Home is a good place to raise a family in a small-town environment.
Lovik-Graves is a 2005 graduate of Sweet Home High School. She began work in May. She attended Chemeketa Community College in Salem where she worked on a criminal justice degree. She is taking on-line courses and plans to complete the degree next year.
She is married to Seth Graves, and they have one daughter, Klair Graves, 5 weeks.
“It’s a good way to get into law enforcement,” Lovik-Graves, 19, said of dispatching. She has been around law enforcement all her life. Her father is Linn County Sheriff’s Sgt. John Lovik.
Lovik-Graves plans to become a police officer when she is old enough. Officers must be 21 years old.
“I want to eventually be a detective and investigate sex crimes,” Lovik-Graves said.
Orr, 43, is a graduate of the Sweet Home High School Class of 1981. She started with SHPD on Aug. 1.
She is married to Jeremy Orr and has one daughter, five sons and six grandchildren with one more grandchild expected soon.
She has a degree in criminal justice from Linn-Benton Community College and took additional courses in law enforcement at Western Oregon University. She worked in insurance for 11 years, including State Farm in Sweet Home.
“My dream has been to work in some kind of law enforcement field,” Orr said. “I love the community, and I think that (going to work as a dispatcher) was a way to give back to my community.
“I think it’s in the blood. One of my sons is a correctional officer in New Jersey.”