Rural Marshall County native and Marshalltown High School graduate Melinda Ruopp has officially closed the book on a law enforcement career that began all the way back in 1988 as a dispatcher with the Marshall County Communications Center, but her passion for training K9 units will live on both through Bosco, who is currently in service with the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), and in the new business venture she is launching in “retirement.”

Ruopp, 62, became a reserve officer with the Marshalltown Police Department (MPD) in 1993, which she likened to “sticking her toes in the water,” and two years later, she moved up to a full-time gig with the department. In 2018, she transitioned from full-time back to reserve status with the MPD, but she had a “harebrained” idea to help the MCSO, which did not have a K9 at the time, get its program up and running.

“The PD was all set and everything good to go there, and I felt like the calling for me was to maybe help another department,” she said. “And in steps Sheriff (Joel) Phillips, who took me in then — and that was in 2021 — and I came to him with a proposal of stepping in at least temporarily to be a reserve deputy for a while and to help them to build the K-9 program.”

Phillips, who was appointed to his position in 2020 and has since been re-elected in a pair of uncontested elections, had extensive experience with drug investigations and the Mid-Iowa Drug Task Force from the earlier days of his career. Ruopp approached him with her idea in 2021, and while the sheriff had worked with the dogs on plenty of past interdictions, he admitted he wasn’t as familiar with all of the work that goes into training a K9 and getting it up to snuff for police work.

“What was really interesting was (that) in my mind, as an administrator, we’re looking at funds, so this is what the dog is gonna cost. But I really didn’t have a grasp on ‘OK, this is what the real cost is gonna be’ when it comes down to having a handler, the training, the compensation… because the dog, it goes off duty, but it’s still part of the agency. So there’s ongoing care. You have veterinary, you have food, so there was a lot that Melinda was very instrumental in getting set for us,” Phillips said. “I think if Melinda wouldn’t have been there for this agency, it would’ve been very difficult to get that program going as fast as we did, and honestly, whether it was gonna be successful or not kind of hinged on those early steps and those early processes.”

Once the fundraising efforts started, Ruopp, who came onboard as a reserve deputy for a whopping $10 a year salary, was almost immediately impressed by the overwhelming generosity of the public, even as the MPD was raising money for a K9 at the same time.

“This community — Marshalltown, Marshall County — this entire community is amazing because I’m involved in a K9 association with 3,000 members from around the United States, and I hear stories of these places trying to afford a dog, and they get no help from their community. No support, no assistance,” Ruopp said. “And I knew from past time within the police department that when you ask, this community is just there. They’re amazing, the people in this community. And I told (Phillips), I said ‘You’re gonna be shocked.’ And I think we all were a little shocked because it was like that without a whole lot of fuss or adieu.”

Ruopp, Phillips and Deputy Tanner Hunt, who has handled Bosco since late 2023, made the rounds and pitched the program, and before long, they had made it happen. Ruopp noted the MCSO dog often works in tandem with the MPD’s units, and they have complemented each other well in the last few years. She also handles a reserve deputy K-9 named Lizzy, who won first place in the state at narcotic trials for the second year in a row this past April.

The MPD, MCSO and Tama Police Department dogs now train together twice a month, and the Tama County Sheriff’s Office K9 will soon be added to the group.

“We’ve been pretty busy lately on patrol work, you know, tracking, article, evidence recovery, stuff like that. It’s been good. It’s been busy,” Hunt said. “(Bosco is) growing up. He’s maturing, so it’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of work, but it’s a lot of fun. And I’m glad to have Mel as a resource. It’s huge.”

Ruopp enjoyed teaching the ropes to Hunt — who, like her, had previously worked at the MPD before joining the MCSO in 2021 — and joked that he wasn’t her first rodeo, recalling that she had handled two full-service dogs (which means they are trained for both narcotics detection and patrol skills such as evidence recovery, human scent detection, tracking and criminal apprehension) during her MPD tenure.

“It’s the same for every new handler. They don’t know what they don’t know, number one. Selection of the handler is very important, and then all I can do is try to help them foresee some of the pitfalls, some of the things that are gonna happen. A dog is still a dog, and that will help you or hurt you because every dog has its own little world that it lives in, and you have to do the best you can to guide that dog,” she said. “So you have a handler that’s new and has to learn, but he also has to teach the dog and be responsible to the dog. So it’s not easy to do that because you feel a lot of that weight on your shoulders that I want this guy to succeed. I want them to do well, and I want them to do right by their department, which is very important as well.”

Hunt had shared his aspirations of becoming a K9 handler with Phillips, and he and Ruopp vetted him and determined he was the right man for the job. As a sergeant at the MPD, she was Hunt’s direct supervisor, so they already enjoyed a well-established rapport.

“Not just in the dog world, but in law enforcement in general, she’s done this job for over 30 years, so she’s a wealth of knowledge. I could always call her, pick her brain, get some help from her, so she was still active in training dogs then,” Hunt said. “When I came to the Sheriff’s Office, it was something I wanted to do, so I kind of pushed the idea up to Joel, and he was supportive of it. And Melinda helped a lot with the planning, fundraising, getting certifications, finding the dog and where we’re gonna go to training and stuff like that. That’s not something I had ever dealt with or had any experience with, so she was very instrumental in getting all that stuff set up and ready to go.”

Now that she’s retiring, Ruopp looks forward to the day when Hunt will mentor a young handler in a similar way.

“A good trainer kicks the can, so, you know, anything that I do with them from day one is designed to give them the power or the confidence to do that on their own the next time,” she said. “So whereas, in the beginning, I might have been somewhat holding hands and kind of being there, you pull yourself away from that and let the handler start to take that. So by this stage in Tanner’s career and the rest of the dogs that we train with in Marshalltown, I don’t need to be there. You don’t need to call me. If you have questions, of course, but I don’t need to go to the search warrant and be there with them anymore. I don’t need to go back them up on a call when they’re tracking somebody. My ultimate goal is to turn as much of it over to them (as possible) and just become kind of like a backup, and Sheriff Phillips has allowed me to stay involved with the program as a consultant or however you want to word it.”

Now that she’s retiring from law enforcement for the second time, Ruopp doesn’t see another return in her future, but with Bosco now three years old and in the good hands of Deputy Hunt, she’s excited to begin a new chapter in life.

“You have to recognize, as a law enforcement officer, that this is a young person’s job, to some extent. I don’t hear as well and see as well. I’m not sure how much assistance I would be to anyone if they needed help from me, so there’s a point at which you have to say ‘OK, it’s time,'” she said. “If I can stay involved with the dogs, that’s really my passion anyway. I do a lot of training on the side. I have a pretty good business going training on the side, but I will continue to provide anything I can.”

So although she’s officially turned in her reserve deputy uniform, Ruopp isn’t fully out of the K-9 world just yet, and she continues to feel thankful for the opportunity Phillips gave her to put her skills to use.

“Mel is an expert in her field, and it’s one of those things that if we can take advantage of that, we obviously will. And for her to get $10 a year in compensation for being a reserve, what we received in return was humbling,” he said.

“Don’t tell him, but I would’ve done it for free,” she replied.

Hunt was equally effusive in his praise for Ruopp, who also keeps busy as the national secretary for the United States Police Canine Association, Inc.

“We always say when we go to trials or certifications that we’re so lucky to have somebody like Mel because you see the guys that aren’t as fortunate to have somebody like that right in their back pocket that they can reach out to and train with monthly, and if you have a quick question, you can reach out to her anytime. So we’re very fortunate to have her on our side and have her as a resource,” he said. “She’s still a great resource for the county, and I think she’ll do this job for as long as she physically can. That’s how Mel operates.”

As for Bosco, he was busy at work and could not be reached for immediate comment.