Protection Services News

From left, Chief Vern White, Sharon Currie and Staff Sgt. Monique Perras are all smiles during a ceremony in which Currie was named an auxiliary officer.Photograph by: Photo courtesy of Staff Sgt. Monique Perras, .

Police help make Ottawa woman's dream come true
Sharon Currie is the city’s first and only honorary auxiliary officer, thanks to her friends — and the chief

OTTAWA — Sharon Currie had long dreamed of being a police officer. She’d gone so far as to take a two-year policing course at Algonquin College and write — and pass — pre-application tests.

But it was not to be. Last May, in the same week she wrote the tests that would have opened the door to a policing career, doctors told the 26-year-old Almonte woman that her cancer, first diagnosed in 2006, was back. Her future was suddenly very uncertain. Needless to say, the dream of a police career had to be abandoned.

Well, not quite. As of Friday, Sharon Currie is the city’s first — and only — honorary auxiliary member of the police department. Call it a dream partially fulfilled.

The credit for this gesture goes to two friends, Chantal Thériault and Carolle Viau. Thériault also happens to be a friend of Currie’s, while Viau knows police Staff Sgt. Monique Perras. As these things go, Thériault told Viau about Currie’s condition — and her seemingly unattainable dream. Viau, in turn, told Perras, who, late last week, approached her boss, police Chief Vernon White.

“We wanted to do something that would make her (Sharon) feel good. I told the chief about her dream and said why not make it kind of come true. The chief said ‘absolutely, we’ll do it.’ ”

And so on Friday afternoon at the Ottawa General Hospital, in a small private ceremony attended by Currie’s parents, Keith and Stella, and various friends — Currie was well known at the hospital, having worked there for five years as a security officer — the chief of police presented Currie with the hat, shirt and name tag of an auxiliary officer, along with a certificate testifying to her unique status. Oh yes, there was also a teddy bear dressed in a police uniform and a frog — a gift from Perras — in a hospital gown.

“He (Chief White) told her ‘I heard you wanted to become a police officer and I thought we could do something for you’,” Perras said.

“She would have made a good police officer,” says Sharon’s mother, Stella Currie. “She kept working out at the gym to keep up her strength even while she was getting treatments. She finished her police foundation course at Algonquin. That’s the kind of character she is. She’s full of stamina and determination.”

Stella said her daughter was happy to get the recognition. “She didn’t know if she wanted to cry or laugh (during the ceremony). It was very exhilarating, very uplifting for Sharon and for everybody.”

The picture of Sharon standing between Chief White and Staff Sgt. Perras with a big grin on her face testifies to that.

The Ottawa Citizen

Sharon Currie, 26, died in hospital Tuesday, Feb 22/10.

Update: Sharon was made an Honorary Auxiliary Sergeant with the Ottawa Police Service and was given a full police escort, pallbearers and bagpipes!