Lori's Story

11/2002

My husband and I met while going to school at Phoenix College (both for Criminal Justice). By the time we met, my husband had almost finished his degree. He had been testing for police departments throughout Arizona, Nevada and California. He wasn't getting anywhere and had thought to apply to the Border Patrol. He had already done this before we met.

We dated for a year and then moved in together. We had been living together for about six months when he found out that he had been hired and would be stationed in Ajo. We didn't even know where Ajo was. He wasn't even sure that he wanted to be in the Border Patrol.

He was just trying to get into any law enforcement. We started looking at maps and thought that maybe I could still work at the job I loved in Phoenix and we could just live in Gila Bend. (We found out that this was not a good idea when we looked at the housing.) When he got to Tucson he called me and said that all of the trainees were either going to Ajo, Nogales, Douglas or Casa Grande. I told him that if possible, try to get Casa Grande as I had lived there for a few years during high school. No such luck. Luckily he was still stationed somewhere in Arizona.

My family had moved to Chandler and his family is from Benson, so we are still close. He went to the academy in Charleston. I stayed in Phoenix as I really enjoyed my job and couldn't see uprooting our daughter and our lives for four months. It was really hard. We talked almost every night on the phone, even though there was a three hour time difference. I went to visit him for the 4th of July and then went for graduation.

I moved to Ajo a month before he graduated. This was hard, too, as I had to find the house and move all by myself. He came home in September and we were married in January by the Justice of the Peace in Ajo! If you had told me that I would get married in Ajo, I would never have believed you! We ended up having a big wedding in Phoenix the following October. Come to find out, he loves his job. He is so happy that he wouldn't leave for any other law enforcement position. He has been trying to transfer to the Tucson area so that we will have better medical care and more opportunities for our children, but he still loves his job.

It is hard because our son had a seizure in April and was in the hospital for three days and he also goes to speech therapy twice a month. We are constantly taking time off to drive to Phoenix to go to the doctor. Instead of just using a lunch hour to drive to the doctor or dentist, we have four hours of drive time for each visit. Then, when we need to take our daughter, she has to miss a day of school.