Help in a time of trouble

The prize goes to the best all-around recruit, and is voted on by staff and peers. When her name was announced, “I was shocked,” she said. She had cast her vote for the award for another person, the academy class’s leader.

The award recognizes best all-around fitness, academics, professionalism, leadership, attitude, teamwork and performance in survival skills. “This is the highest honor that a student can receive,” stated a letter from the director of training at the police academy.

Fedunok (the ‘u’ is silent) has been an athlete all her life and loves hiking and kayaking, among her many interests. In college, she majored in psychology and criminal justice, and did master’s level work in forensic psychology, with thoughts of becoming a prison psychologist.

But, hearing from people in the field, she realized that wasn’t what she wanted to do.

So she headed back to school and studied environmental resource management. She started working for the state parks system in her home state of Pennsylvania.

She had a ranger-like uniform, and was regularly asked if she was one. “Every time somebody called me this, I thought, ‘I wish I was a ranger.’”

And so, when she and fiancé Jeff Rosier moved to The Dalles in late 2012, for his job here with The Nature Conservancy, she quickly applied when a job opened at the police department.

She sort of happened into an interest in law enforcement. She’d taken a criminal justice elective in college, and liked it so much she majored in it.

“It’s absolutely an important part of every community,” she said of police work. “It’s something that the public expects to rely on. We’re there for all the times people don’t have someone to call or they need help with something.”

A former gymnast, Fedunok is a petite 5’2”. The most critical skill or trait an officer has to have, she said, is the ability to handle conflict. “You have to be able to communicate with people because every time you go to a call there’s two sides.”

Paying attention to details and serving as mediator are critical elements, she said.

She also quickly learned to be less rigid in her dealings with people. She found that “people in the public don’t react very well to that.”

The uniform is intimidating enough. She’s learned to “just talk to people like you normally would.”

And while she’s been called a name or two, she’s also seen the respect police officers receive.

She looks much younger than her 30 years, and recounts how the first time she was called “ma’am,” she almost looked behind her to see who the person was talking to.

And, after considering prison psychology and doing environmental work, her parents were surprised when she landed in law enforcement. “My mom constantly worries,” Fedunok said.

Her grandma embarrassed her at the police academy graduation by admonishing The Dalles Police Chief Jay Waterbury – who happened to be the commencement speaker at this graduation – to “take care of Amanda.”

Her brother is also a police officer, and was a motivation for her to go into the field also.

Unlike her, with her varied career paths, “He’s always wanted to be a police officer, his whole life – since he was five.”

Fedunok said it’s an honor to win the Victor G. Atiyeh Award. “Even having this job, being a police officer is an honor in itself,” she said.

— Neita Cecil