Harrell to retire

Harrell to retire


cindy harrell
Cindy Harrell has always been a person who wants to help others and since 1996 she’s done that for the City of Sikeston.

Harrell will retire from the City of Sikeston on Dec. 30 after serving as a communications officer with Sikeston DPS for 17 years before becoming the court clerk for Sikeston Municipal Court in 2013.

“I’m just ready,” Harrell said.

On April 12, 1996, Harrell started with Sikeston DPS as a communications officer and wasn’t sure what she had gotten herself into. But after two years, she began training other communications officers.

As a communications officer, Harrell worked with all kinds of agencies including the Missouri Highway Patrol and different sheriff’s department. She was also assigned to work Sikeston Department of Public Safety’s Mobile Command Unit working the Cotton Carnival as well as big crimes that took place.

But it was some of the small things that weren’t crimes that Harrell remembers vividly. Like the time a boy, who was left at home with his younger brother, called 911 needing help.

“The younger brother marked up the wall with a marker, so the older brother was washing it off and washed the paint off,” Harrell said. “The brother calls 911 wanting an officer to bring him some paint so they could paint the wall before mom got home.”

Harrell said she told him that DPS could not do that and gave him a non-emergency number to give to his mother if there were any problems.

After 17 years at DPS, Harrell was looking for something a little less stressful and moved to the municipal court as a clerk.

Harrell said she enjoyed her time with the municipal court.

“The stuff I did in communications with the police department kind of overlaps to the court system, so I kind of had a background knowledge to that,” Harrell said.

While Harrell enjoyed being a municipal court clerk, it ended up being more stressful than she envisioned after the Michael Brown events in Ferguson, Missouri, led to a lot of changes in the court system.

Now, all the court systems in Missouri are on a main system called Show-Me Courts.

“Now all the municipalities are on Show-Me Courts and all the circuit courts are on Show-Me Courts. They can see everyone’s warrants or if they need to see a history on a case, they can see all of that,” Harrell said.

Just like with communications, Harrell worked with all different types of people as a municipal court clerk.

“You get to work with all the people from different walks of life,” Harrell said. “I guess God puts people in your life for different situations. Maybe you’re helping them or they’re helping you.”

Harrell, who has family in North Carolina, Utah and Texas, may do some traveling but helping people may still be in her future.

Since about 1999, Harrell said she has trained with the Missouri Disaster Relief Team, learning how to do mass feeding and the shower unit.

“I’m hoping when they get deployed out, I can go help them,” Harrell said, adding she will also do a lot of volunteer work as well.

“I want to enjoy life,” Harrell said. “Like they say, ‘when one door closes, another one opens.’”