(Spirit Lake)– If you have a police scanner tuend to Dickinson county frequencies, or if you’ve ever had to call 911 in Dickinson county, chances are you’ve heard the voice of Linda Gano.
After 35 years on the job as a dispatcher, all of those in Dickinson county, Gano is retiring. She has mixed emotions, saying “if you don’t have common sense, you don’t do this job”. She says the job is also very stressful, but that it can also be personally rewarding.
Gano says the most memorable, and probably the most stressful call she ever received was when she had to dispatch medical and law enforcement officers to the scene of a motorcycle accident that involved her son. Gano says another dispatcher overheard the traffic on a scanner and came in to relieve her so she could go to the hospital. Fortunately her son wasn’t seriously injured.
Gano also pointed out the myriad of changes over the past 35 years in both technology and locations from where the dispatching originated. She says they operated out of the Spirit Lake Police Department when she first started.
Today (Tuesday) is Gano’s last day on the job.
