Kiedra Meece Named Minooka Officer of Year for Second Time

Minooka Police Chief Meyer With Officer Kiedra Meece

At the February 28 Minooka Village board meeting, Chief Meyer presented Officer Kiedra Meece with the 2022 Officer of the Year Award. Officer Meece is a 23 year veteran of the Minooka Police Department. She has gained experience as a Detective and a Field Training Officer and she is currently assigned as the School Resource Officer at the Minooka Junior High.

This award is determined through nominations by her colleagues after demonstrating and maintaining the highest standard of performance, professionalism & effectiveness over the course of the year. She encourages positive community relations through volunteer work at community events and coordinates with the school district to purchase Christmas gifts for children during the holiday season. Her patience and compassion with everyone in the community and dependability within the police department does not go unnoticed and truly exemplifies the traits of great Officer.

Congratulations Officer Meece!

The story below is from the April 19, 2017 issue of The Paper.

Former Campus Woman Named Police Officer Of The Year

KIEDRA MEECE, formerly Kiedra Cuddy of rural Campus, was named Police Officer of the Year for the Village of Minooka. She is pictured after she was presented the award by the Minooka Village Board last month.

by Myke Feinman Managing Editor

Kiedra Cuddy Meece, who has been a police officer in Minooka for 17 years and formerly resided in rural Campus, has been named Minooka’s Police Officer of the Year for 2016.

Meece, a 1993 graduate of Herscher High School, worked as a police officer in Dwight from June 1997 to December 1999.

After her stint on the Dwight Police force, she secured employment as a patrol officer for the Village of Minooka, where she has held a position as police officer for 17 years.

Shortly before taking the Minooka position, she married Craig Meece of Coal City in 1999, and they have one son, Colin, who is now 14.

Meece was presented with her award by the Minooka Village Board at its meeting in March. When Meece moved to the Minooka police department in early 2000, at the time she was swapping one town of roughly 5,000 population (Dwight) for another.

Today, Minooka has grown to 12,000 people, she said. The village is off Interstate 80, east of Morris. To be named Officer of the Year, you have to be nominated by your fellow police officers. Then the Officer of the Year is voted on by the segregants and chiefs.

“It’s a great honor, especially since you are nominated by your co-workers,” she told The Paper last week.

The job as a patrol officer keeps her “fairly busy” especially with traffic accidents along Interstate 80, she said. “But there are no major crimes,” she said. For eight of the 17 years with Minooka Police, she was in investigations.

During that time, roughly five years ago, there was a shooting at the Pilot Truck Stop/Gas Station off Interstate 80, a crime which she investigated, she said.

But that type of crime is rare in Minooka, she said. “The big cities can keep that in the big cities,” she added, referring to major crimes.

She described Minooka as a town with an average crime rate. When asked about the recent epidemic of drug overdoses, she said that officers now carry Narcan. Narcan is a drug that can reverse the effects of a fatal heroin overdose.

She said that as part of the ceremony at the Minooka Village board meeting, other officers were given the “Life Saving” award, some for administering Narcan to people who had overdosed. She said she is very fortunate to have grown up in the Campus area, worked in Dwight and now in Minooka.

“I loved where I grew up,” she said. “I grew up in the country.” When not fighting crime on the streets of Minooka, Kiedra and her husband Craig transport their son Colin to various Coal City High School sporting events, so her son keeps her busy on her time off. She is the daughter of Denny Cuddy of Cabery and Brenda Chellson of rural Campus.