Fall 07
Vol. 12 No. 4

HPD cadet learning to protect and serve

(page 2 of 2)

The regrowth of a dream
The next day she prepared to find a new life with the fulfillment she’d imagined would come from law enforcement.

But no matter what job Pearson took, she felt like a square peg trying to shove herself into a round hole. She was aimless and unfocused.

Then, late in 2006, Pearson saw a news report that HPD needed recruits and had raised the age limit for cadets to 44. She was 42.

“Why don’t you try?” her roommate asked. “It can’t hurt.”

Can’t hurt? Hadn’t it already ripped out her heart?

She jotted down the phone number. The next morning, she called just to see where it would lead.

On Jan. 17, she passed the civil service exam. Then she passed the mental and physical tests. She started getting excited.

Capt. Mary Lentschke welcomes Anne-Marie Pearson, left, and other cadets to the academy.

Officer Paul Singleton told her he had to do a background check and get her academy admittance approved. Routine stuff. She was almost there.

She’d heard that before.

Doubts crept in. What was she doing? Was she crazy? This was going to change her life. Was she too old?

She waited. For Singleton’s call welcoming her to the force. But also for the other shoe to drop, to learn that her dream was again being choked to death.

Then, on May 30, the little window on her cell phone’s face informed her she had a voice mail message.

“I’ve got good news,” Singleton’s familiar voice said. “Please give me a call back.”

When she did, he told her Cadet Class 193 started June 25. Be there.

She nodded into the phone, relieved and weary.

The dream becomes reality
The first week of class is about changing how cadets live, said Lt. Greg Ware, in charge of cadet training.

It’s ordered and uniform. It’s pressed white shirts and polished black shoes that bounce the light back. It’s cadets learning to control themselves before they learn to control others.

Ware anticipates six to 10 cadets in Pearson’s class won’t graduate. Some will decide this semi-military life isn’t for them. Others will have that decision made for them. Many of those will fail during the first 11 weeks, which are spent in the classroom.

During first-week assessments, Pearson passed push-ups, the 300-meter sprint and the 1.5-mile run. She was assigned to remedial classes in trigger pull, high jump and the agility run. That will make her days longer and her lunches shorter.

She takes it with good humor and high spirits.

“Yeah, it’s a challenge, and it’s tough, but it’s fun,” she said. “I’ve been looking for a challenge for years.

“This is what I’ve wanted my whole life. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“You are competing for a job,” Ware told the cadets their first morning as city of Houston employees. They won’t be HPD employees until they are sworn in the day of graduation in January. “What you are trying to do is earn the right to wear this blue uniform. You will have to earn it. We don’t give this blue uniform away.

“If you graduate from here, you should be real proud of what you accomplished.”

For Pearson, getting here was an accomplishment. Now comes the real challenge.

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