Word of Kingfisher Police Chief Dennis Baker’s impending retirement from law enforcement was not met with enthusiasm by city officials or his fellow officers.

But those aren’t the people Baker is most concerned about making happy.

That short list includes adult daughters, who have never had a civilian dad, his wife Lora, who has never not been a cop’s wife, and his granddaughter, Auden, who can never have enough of Papa’s time and attention.

“This hasn’t just been my life or my journey,” he said. “My daughters and my wife have lived this too.”

For that reason, Baker insisted that his family be included in the interview for this article recapping his more than 30-year law enforcement career, including 15 years as chief and they agreed.

Baker joined the Kingfisher Police Department in 1989, one of those rare, almost accidental job moves that turned into a career.

He went straight to work after graduating from Kingfisher High School in 1985, operating a salvage yard and wrecker service.

“I had no interest in law enforcement, but after surviving two floods at my business, I decided to do something else and thought I might work as a reserve officer until I figured out what my next step was,” he said.

At Chief Ron Cooper’s urging, Baker was trained and certified as a fulltime officer instead.

And the rest is history.

But only part of the story.

As a young officer, he met Lora Yost, an even younger local girl who worked part-time at Wal-Mart while she was finishing high school.

“At first, we weren’t even really dating and I didn’t even think he was interested in me,” Lora said. “We just spent a lot of time talking and actually became friends way before we ever thought about ourselves as boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“Us even getting together and eventually getting married was really about as happenstance as me joining the police department,” Baker said. “Neither one was really something I was planning on but both ended up being the best decisions I could have made.”

Three years after they met, the Bakers got married and Lora settled into the life of being a cop’s wife.

“It was kind of interesting way back before we had kids,” Lora said. “I would ride along with him on some of his shifts. Even though nothing exciting every happened, it was kinda fun hanging out with him and I got to meet a whole lot of people I didn’t know.”

At first, Lora thought she would feel better keeping tabs on what happened during her husband’s shifts, including monitoring a police scanner from home.

“Then one time I heard a report that shots had been fired and I couldn’t get find out anything from dispatch about whether Dennis was safe,” she said. “It turns out he was, but I was frantic by the time he got home. That scanner went in the trash.”

Their oldest daughter Kelsi was just a baby when Baker was sent to Quantico, Va., for several months of specialized training.

That’s when Lora said she realized just how supportive the law enforcement community was.

“Everyone took up a collection to fly him home for a visit because they knew how hard it was on our family to be separated for that long and also that we could not have afforded the tickets ourselves,” Lora said. “That really made an impression on me.”

Continued Wednesday: Growing up as chief’s daughters.