Baldwin ? Kristen Dymacek switched careers earlier this month when she traded her pen and reporter’s notebook for a badge and a gun.

Dymacek, 27, is now a Baldwin Police officer, working for the same department she wrote about for more than three years as a reporter with the town’s weekly newspaper, the Baldwin Signal.

Even when she was attending Kansas State University, Dymacek wavered between careers in law enforcement and journalism, ultimately picking journalism. Last summer she began thinking about making a switch.

“My interest in law enforcement never lessened,” Dymacek said during a recent interview. “I thought it was a good time for me to do this. I thought if I waited longer it would only be harder.”

Dymacek can trace her interest in law enforcement back to her childhood, growing up in Eudora. Her next-door neighbor and uncle, Greg Neis, is a longtime Eudora Police officer and a cousin is a trooper with the Arizona Highway Patrol.

“I grew up hearing about their careers,” Dymacek said. “It was something that really interested me.”

Last summer, Dymacek told Baldwin Police Chief Mike McKenna of her law enforcement interest. Joining the Baldwin department at the time was not Dymacek’s intent. She had her eyes set on larger departments such as Lawrence, Overland Park and Olathe. McKenna offered to give her advice in her application processes and Dymacek welcomed that assistance.

Dymacek became one of 20 finalists for a job in Overland Park before pulling her application because a job opened up at the Baldwin Police Department. She passed the necessary tests and was hired by McKenna.

McKenna said he thought Dymacek’s knowledge of the town and its people, along with her writing skills, would be a major plus for the department.

Baldwin police officer Kristen Dymacek made a change in careers after covering the police beat for the Baldwin Signal newspaper for more than three years.

“Her writing ability will help form people’s opinions of her as an officer, whether they are defense attorneys, prosecutors or judges,” McKenna said. “It gives her more credibility as an officer.”

Dymacek agreed.

“I think the fact that I’ve had to talk to people on a daily basis and try to figure out what I needed for a story will help me in police work,” she said.

Sometime in the spring Dymacek will attend the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center in Hutchinson and take the state’s police courses. Until then she will be learning from the Baldwin officers she rides with.

“I have a lot to learn about what is expected,” Dymacek said.

Dymacek has only been with the Baldwin department about three weeks. She described her first few days as strange and awkward. She didn’t have a uniform right away and worked in plain clothes. While at Baldwin High School a teacher approached her about a story idea.

Baldiwn Signal: Writer turns cop with BCPD (12-9-04) Baldwin City Signal

“I had to tell him he’d have to call the paper, that I wasn’t there anymore,” she said.

Dymacek’s career change surprised not only her newspaper colleagues but many people around town.

“People are excited about it,” she said. “They give me some encouraging words and that is always nice. I wasn’t sure how people would react.”