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Show SOUTHERN UTAH NEWS 12 Focus Blasdell enjoys 'piloting' Kanab Police Department its WEDNESDAY MARCH 7, 1990 at. I surfer. Family life is where His first big change here was made a decision to stay with my Editor He got into police work for that he became a member of the family. The reason I took the secondary reasons, but Kanab LDS Church. I was looking for police job is because I wanted to Police Chief Bill Blasdell said something, he comments. They be with my family, even though the job has grown on him and he had the answers I was looking it was substantially low pay and still is. feels good about being in a posi- for." Blasdells current clean-cu- t tion to help people and to control image started to take shape at Benny Riddle was the chief at crime in the community. that time. He said he used to the time. Bill Hamblin washired Blasdell, 40, made an abrupt have a beard and shaved it off the same day as Blasdell. Six change in his careerback in 1980 after he joined the LDS Church, days later, Riddle quit and when he gave up commercial something he still has pangs Hamblin became chief because flying and joined the Kanab about sometimes. I miss my he had had experience. Another Police Department. He became beard, he admits. person was hired a couple of Blasdell met his wife, Suzy, in months later. chief in 1985. Blasdell was hired without He had moved to Kanab in late 1974 she was a secretary 1974 from Long Beach, Calif., to at the airport. They married in training but with the underpilot scenic flights over the November, 1977, and now have standing that he would go to the Grand Canyon for Sunrise Air three boys and a girl ranging in police academy within 15 months. Service and had worked briefly age from 11 to 1. for Key Airlines in Salt Lake It was this new family emThey hired me on to see if Id City. phasis that eventually spurred like it, he comments. He was Lots of changes took place in Blasdell to switch from being a hired in August of 1980 and in his life after he moved to Kanab. pilot to police work. He said he September of 1981 he enrolled h Police OffiAlthough he had served in the quit Key because he was never in the home. He wanted to live in cers Standards and Training Army and worked for Aircraft where he Kanab, so was looking for a way school in Salt Lake City. In the meantime, Blasdell was got into flying, his main interest to make a living here. from junior high school through It was the necessity of sub- finding he did indeed like being was being a sistence in this area,he asserts. a policeman. his By JEANETTE RUSK three-mont- McDon-nell-Dougl- as mid-twenti- es BBaCKIE fymjsay? i35i? JUST IN: TRUCK LOAD OF TREES AND SHRUBS Our 34 years experience can answer all your questions He said he feels police are too It started out as an interesting job that would pay the restricted by new civil rights bills, he comments. As I got more into it, I enjoyed it more. Of his temperament, he discloses, I had never been one to sit back and let somebody abuse someone else." He says he had thought about being a policeman and had friends who were police officers back in California. Claiming its not a power thing, Blasdell said he has often thought of the old adage, Theres never a cop when you need one. He said he feels good about being a policeman on the spot when one is needed. Im now in a position in Utah to stop an act a person is doing, he explains. And the act that Blasdell is particularly zealous about stopping is drunk driving. He said he started emphasizingthis area from the time he became an officer and continues to hit it hard as chief. I started out arresting all of the drunks in town, he says. I started hammering on drunk drivers. I have no tolerance with anybody thats drunk driving Blasdell said his emphasis followed a change that was taking place in society at the time. laws. Its almost like our hands are tied, he laments. The citizen probably has more rights than a policeman. But, aside from the frustrations, Blasdell finds satisfaction in his work. He likes the smalltown setting. We can control crime because we know the people, he asserts. We know who people are and where they live. Theres n o anonymity. If we see a strange car, we make a note of it. The chief also likes the varied duties in a small department. We have to be patrolman, detective, fingerprint technician, cameraman, he remarks. We are it. We have to learn new things. If theres something missing in a case, its because of something missing either in our abilities or facilities. Each officer has to take a minimum of40 hours oftraining per year, he explains. He himself is especially enjoying learning to fingerprint and getting more into photography, he notes. But he admits that a small department like Kanabs must rely on other agencies in the area to send in experts. He says People were not accepting the h es proud thathehas good rel a- drunken driver, he asserts. tions with all the other police Go down to the bar and ask chiefs in southern Utah and them, Blasdell remarks, as he northern Arizona. is probed about his philosophy Its been a long journey from of police work. being a surfer in Southern California to becominga police chief. Blasdell, a taciturn, cop, admits that he is more Blasdell, who has one brother action than talk. and one sister, says he got into I dont like to expoun d on wh at surfing in the seventh grade, Ive done, he explains. I dont and thats all I did for the next talk a lot. I perceive a lot, and I 13 years. dont give out a lot of Continued on next page no-nonsen- se JACKSON & PERKINS ROSES Choose from a selection of over 700... arriving in mid-Marc- h Good selection of House Plants, Hanging Plants - 990 and up. 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