48 graduate from Sheriff’s Office training

It took Terry Love twice as long as most of his classmates to finish the program at Shelby County Sheriff’s Office Training Academy, but he was president of his class when he graduated.

Love and 47 fellow patrolmen in their uniforms of green slacks and tan shirt became sheriff ’s deputies in graduation exercises Thursday at First Assembly Memphis. His role as class president had become familiar. The former Marine also had been head of the class the first time he attended the training academy in 2010.

He completed classroom training that year and was ready to go into field training when his wife, who had been in re- mission from breast cancer, became ill again. Love dropped out of the academy to care for her until her death in 2011.

Lifting her while caring for her at home caused a back i njury requiring surgery, but Love had recuperated enough to reenroll in the academy in May.

“It was something I wanted to do as a child,” said Love, who also had an uncle who had worked as a sheriff’s deputy. “And I spent 23 years in the Marine Corps and was used to that teamwork and camaraderie.”

At 48, he was the oldest member of his class. The youngest was 22, he said. Sheriff’s Office spokesman Chip Washington said the class, which began with 56 recruits, was one of the largest to graduate from the academy.

Love said training was intense. The classes “constantly change to adjust to society. It teaches you how to communicate with the people you interact with day to day,” he said.

Physical training was “extremely demanding and in line with the military,” but not as grueling as the Marine Corps. “In the Marine Corps, they

train to fight every day. I was in the infantry, so I was ready.”

And, he said, “I wanted to show the younger guys that your age doesn’t matter and that you can have the heart to keep going.”

Washington said the newly graduated patrolmen start at an entry level pay of $32,112 a year, which increases to $38,768 after six months and to $45,465 after one year.

Love said his class will step into a world where recruits learn the most dangerous sit uations usually are those involving domestic violence or “anytime you pull a car over. That guy might have just robbed a bank, and I wouldn’t necessarily know that.”

It helped inspire his the motto for his class, “The power of one is the strength of all. It means you have every individual working as a team.”