Last week we celebrated a milestone birthday—volunteer Adele Best will soon turn 90! Adele started volunteering for the Roseville Police Department in 1996, making her our second-longest active volunteer. We’re so fortunate that she’s shared a chapter of her lifetime of service with us. Adele grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, the 13th of 14 children, and remembers getting up to milk cows before school. As soon as she was old enough, she enlisted in the Navy-- “I wanted to escape the farm,” she joked. In 1945, she served as a transfer yeoman on Treasure Island, where she met her first husband. Although due to the secrecy of the mission she didn’t know it at the time, she helped transfer many sailors to the Japan area to prepare for the dropping of the atomic bomb. After World War II ended, Adele and her husband, a career Navy officer, were transferred to Kodiak, Alaska, where due to a shortage of base housing for married couples, they lived in an apartment behind a tavern. There Adele transitioned from active military service to her long career as a military civilian employee. When the couple transferred to southern California, Adele started working for the Navy’s Office of Special Investigations (Navy intelligence). She retired from paid work in 1980, and then embarked on her next career as a volunteer. After Adele and her second husband moved to Sun City Roseville in 1996, Adele read a story in the local paper about the Roseville Police Department looking for volunteers, and decided to apply. She later boasted that she flew through RPD’s background check due to her previous FBI top-secret clearance! She soon started volunteering in the police department’s records unit, preparing report copies for insurance companies, and many other duties. She’s still an active volunteer for the department today, helping with special events and doing clerical work for Animal Control. So far she has donated 7,092 hours to the police department and Roseville community—equaling more than three years of full-time work. We’ve all been inspired by Adele’s diligent work ethic and spirit of service toward her country and community. Please join us in thanking her and wishing her a very happy birthday!
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 19:28:25 +0000
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