Officer Moves from Field Work to Homework

 Desiree Mendez, circulation manager

A typical peace officers day consists of fighting crime but for Officer Joe Wise a typical day consists of teaching.

Wise grew up in Levelland and  graduated from Levelland High School. He then attended South Plains College for a few years. He got married in 1971 and then joined the military, serving two years in Rota, Spain, with the Naval Reserve. He was glad that his wife got to go with him to Spain.

Wise’s career goals while growing up were either to be a teacher or to work in a business. He and his father-in-law then opened a glass shop and construction businesses for several years.  By this time, he had three young children living at home.  When the economy went into decline they sold the business and Wise needed a job. He then took a job at the Lubbock County Sheriff’s Office.

“ I loved working for the Sheriff’s Office,” Wise said. “It was a challenge and it was very exciting.”

Law enforcement was never a career goal or even an interest for Wise before he began working at the Sheriff’s Office.

“My favorite things about being a peace officer was the challenge of handling difficult situations and sometimes difficult people,” stated Wise.

He then became a TCLEOSE (Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education) certified instructor and began teaching classes at the Sheriff’s Department Academy.

“It was also satisfying to help people who quite often were not in a position to help themselves and knowing that you were performing a service that was beneficial to society,” said Wise.

In 1995, Wise took a full time instructor position at South Plains College in the Law Enforcement/Criminal Justice program. He only had a bachelor’s degree at that time, but he was fortunate enough to go back to school and get his master’s degree at West Texas A&M.

“ I really enjoy teaching,” Wise said. It is really fun and I have a lot of fun doing it.”

Wise has been teaching law enforcement courses for 11 years now.  The interaction between the instructors is great in the Law Enforcement department is great. Wise is still TCLEOSE certified.

“I owe a lot to our former department chairman George Lawless, our present chairman Larry Nichols,” said Wise. “Also to Randy Fesperman, Jimmy Richey, and Randy Robertson.”

“ Working with the students keeps us young at heart, and we learn a lot from them,” stated Wise. “ I enjoy seeing our students succeed in what they want to do in life.”

Wise has been married for 34 years to his wife Carol, and they have three grown kids. Whitney is an aquatics director for the City of Lubbock, while Meredith is an accountant in Athens, Texas, Wesley is a senior at Oklahoma Panhandle State University.