officer horak is my hero

this story ran on the local fox affilate in new orleans today...
my hero miss stephanie horak.
small town shy girl from bellevue to big time cop lady in new orleans.
i love you girl.
bffs and still kicking it since 1992.

Nebraska Recovery Volunteer Now On NOPD
6/6/2008

What started out as a trip to help New Orleans recover has been life changing for one of the newest members of the police department.

New Orleans police officer Stephanie Horak is from a town near Omaha, Nebraska but Hurricane Katrina changed her life forever.

"My heart was broken for the city and I wanted to come and help, but I couldn't on my own. I mean one person can't do much, so through my connection with Campus Crusade I came down to help, and after my first trip I was just hooked and it became my mission," Horak said.

She volunteered to gut homes and help anyway in the rebuilding of the city. Then she made New Orleans her new home.

"I mean I really wouldn't want to go to a city where everything seems to be put together. I wanted to come to a place that needs people and has problems. I mean why go to a city where there's not much to do," Horak said.

Officer horak says she had been interested in law enforcement and was accepted into the police academy last fall. She graduated about six weeks ago and is assigned to the department's Sixth District.

"I mean it can be the small things like taking a drunk driver off the street who may go do something else, or someone's scared that a person is going to come and calm their fear that someone is in their backyard," Horak said.

Horak works in the same district where officer Nicola Cotton was killed in the line of duty earlier this year. She says understands the dangers of the job.

"I can't let that affect my job. I think you deal with the fear of what can happen to you before you sign up for the job. It could happen any night and you can't operate with a complete fear that something is going to happen," Horak said.

Her supervisor, Sergeant Joey Laroche says though Horak is still learning the ropes with a field training officer, he sees a good officer in her.

"Some people are naturally police officers and she's one of them," Laroche said.

And Horak says she will use the passion that brought her here as a driving force on the streets of New Orleans.

Soon after Horak completes her training, she will be assigned to a more permanent shift within the Sixth District.