State Trooper's happy presence

CRESCENT BAR - You probably wondered who'd been robbed or murdered on Crescent Bar Island the first time you saw the Washington State Patrol Ford Expedition pass through the gate into North Park this spring.

It wasn't that at all. It was WSP Trooper Troy Davis taking up temporary residence in South Park. He and his wife Chris are waiting for a deal to close on a SunSerra property in the next month or two.

"I did get a lot of looks at first, wondering what's going on," said Davis, who drives his 2006 Expedition with WSP markings everywhere.

What's going on is that Davis is stationed at the Ephrata Airport, from where he flies a WSP Cessna 182 patrolling eastern Washington Highways. He took over on May 1 for the retiring John Montemayor.

Montemayor, who was raised in Warden, left the force after 25 years. Davis, who was raised in Naches, wanted to get back to eastern Washington and asked for the job.

Davis and his wife are living with her parents, Xavier and Jeanne Ramirez at the southern-most point of South Park so they can be at Crescent Bar. They wanted to buy on the island but were scared off to SunSerra by the lease controversy.

"We love it here. We love the people," Davis said. "It's just a nice place. It's beautiful."

Davis, 42, has had quite a career with the WSP. After patrolling Yakima Valley highways as a trooper for 10 years, he took a job in Olympia piloting the WSP's 9-passenger King Air twin turboprop.

Davis flew Gov. Christine Gregoire and WSP executives all over the place for seven years. When he wasn't doing that, he was flying extradited prisoners from other states back to Washington.

"These were guys that were too dangerous to put on commercial flights," Davis said. "We had at least three prison guards, and the prisoners were shackled, hands and feet. We never had an incident."

Working out of Ephrata now, Davis's assignments aren't quite as exciting. Mostly he patrols the freeways and highways for speeders, drunken drivers and otherwise dangerous motorists.

"I like to get the aggressive drivers, the tail-gaters, swervers," Davis said. "If someone speeds up to pass a truck and then slows down, I don't bother. I understand that."

Davis does this work with the help of V-shaped markers along the roadways. They are half a mile apart.

"If they do it in 30 seconds (on a 60-mph road), they're on the speed limit. If they do it in 20, they're speeding."

Davis noted the markers are usually laid out over 3-mile courses. That gives the air patrol the opportunity to verify a speeder.

"I'm checking to see if they're consistently over the limit," Davis said.

Davis uses the plane for other assignments, too, such as taking fire officials up to get a good look at a wildfire. And he gets benevolent assignments like search and rescue.

On one recent assignment, Davis went out to look for a man with Alzheimer's who was reported lost. Davis found him walking five miles from his home, disoriented.

"That turned out really good," he said.

Davis takes off his uniform when he gets home to the island, but he understands he's a law enforcement officer 24-7. He has not had to deal with a big crime on the island, yet, but he's ready if he's ever called.