This month's spotlight policeman is Officer Doyle Ozment.
Doyle Ozment is employed by the City of Tulia. He started
working as a reserve Police Officer in September of 1984 and remained a
reserve officer for fourteen years before being hired full time in September
of 1998. He now wears three hats in his duties. He is the day officer and
works closely with Chief McCaslin and Lt. Joe Bill Dempsey. He is also the
Animal Control Officer and his duties include keeping the streets free of
unwanted animals. His third hat, Code Enforcement, involves working with the
City Manager, Bryan Easum. Those duties include keeping vacant lots clean of
unwanted weeds and debris and keeping substandard housing and junk vehicles to
a minimum. He does this by enforcing city ordinances. Needless to say, some
days just aren't long enough.
Doyle and his wife Neoma were married in Tulia June 4, 1966,
and have lived here ever since. They have one son DJ who lives in Amarillo and
one granddaughter Braeanne Dly'n. They attend the First Presbyterian Church in
Tulia where they have been members for 30 years. Doyle is currently a Trustee
and an Elder serving on the Session in his Church. In his spare time he enjoys
fishing and spending time with his granddaughter on his four wheeler. Each
Monday night, Doyle and Neoma help at the Methodist Church with the group from
Tulia Work Center, where Bible stories, fellowship, and songs are enjoyed by
everyone.
He is retired from the Texas Army National Guard with 24 years
of service. The last 19 years he was Platoon Sergeant of a mechanized rifle
platoon.
In January of this year, he was chosen as Officer of the year
for the year 2000 by fellow officers. He was also chosen Employee of the month
for February 2001.
Doyle and Neoma enjoy living in Tulia for many reasons,
maily because of the size of the town. It is small enough that any time you
walk down the street you can always stop and strike up a conversation with
someone you know, and it is not large enough that you have to worry
about traffic.
Doyle firmly believes Tulia and Swisher County will continue
to be a nice place to live as long as we keep the caliber of people in law
enforcement that we currently have in the Sheriff's Department, Police
Department, and Texas Department of Public Safety. Times change and people of
small communities like ours must be willing to change also. As any person in
law enforcement, Doyle's vision for the future is to try and keep a clean,
drug free City and County for the little ones that he sees in Church and
crossing the streets at Swinburn Elementary when he works school traffic in
the morning, just as our forefathers did for us.
Officer Ozment is committed to continuing his service to the
people of Tulia and Swisher County the same way he has for the last sixteen
and a half years.