EDWARDSBURG — After several months of searching, the Edwardsburg Police Department has found its new officer.

Scotty Borah, Edwardsburg’s newest police officer, officially took his oath of office on July 23. This is his first job in law enforcement, but Borah is not the typical rookie. He is 47 years old, and this is his second career.

Borah said that he has wanted to be a police officer since he was in the military more than 20 years ago, but as soon as he went back to life as a civilian, he started a family and did not have the time to go to the police academy. Then this past year or so, his wife started to really push him to follow his dream.

“It was now or never,” Borah said. “I’m getting old.”

While in the academy, he and his wife frequently had to pay for babysitters while he juggled school and his job driving truck for Crystal Flash.

“It was expensive,” he said with a chuckle.

For his first couple of weeks as an Edwardsburg police officer, Borah was working as a truck driving.

“I like my old employer, so I gave them a two-week notice, so I had to do both jobs until my two weeks were up,” he said. “It was [hectic].”

He is from Paw Paw and heard about the opening at the Edwardsburg Police Department from a friend who works in the village. The position had been vacant since May.

“It took a while to find an officer because there’s just not a lot of candidates out there anymore,” said Edwardsburg Chief of Police Doug Westrick. “There’s more job openings than there are qualified applicants. It is really a tough time in law enforcement for small departments to find officers. We needed to get back up to a full staff, and we were able to find a good officer [in Borah].”

At the moment, Borah is training. He is riding along with Sergeant Andrew Erickson to get to know the community, and he learning how to do paperwork.

He said that it is very important to him to get to know the community. He wants to be a friendly face people can turn to on both their best and worst days.

“I want to be that person that helps people, the person that’s there when people are in need,” he said. “That’s pretty much it: helping people with their problems. Not everybody’s perfect. You’re meeting some people at their worst time. They need someone that can listen to them and help them with their problems.”

To accomplish this, he plans to be as active in the community as possible. He says that Edwardsburg residents should expect him to stop and talk to them when he sees them — not just drive by and wave.

Thus far, he said everyone that he has spoken to from Edwardsburg have been very nice to him and hopes that people in the community say hello when they see him.

Westrick is excited to have Borah on board and looks forward to seeing Borah grow in Edwardsburg.

“He’s coming to us at a good time,” Westrick said. “He’s got a little more life experience, so he’s going to bring that to our department. Like I said, we’re very excited. Going forward, I think he’s going to be a very good asset to our community.”