The city of DeRidder celebrated its most successful National Night Out event last month since first participating in the program in 2019, and many city officials are crediting police department secretary Jacki Herrington for her work behind the scenes in making this year’s event so popular.

Herrington first began coordinating the event for the DeRidder Police Department in 2019 at the request of interim police chief Christopher Rudy, and she said she was immediately drawn to the event.

“I was immediately drawn to the mission of uniting the community and police together. Being meaningful and purposeful in a program or in life in general is very important to me, so it was easy to relate to the event’s mission,” Herrington said.

Herrington holds a special place in her heart for the DeRidder community. A graduate of DeRidder High School, she went on to attend Northwestern State University and her path from college took her away from her hometown. Still, years later she found herself returning to her roots and the hometown she loved.

Herrington worked for the city of DeRidder for 10 years in the water department before being hired in 2018 as secretary to the Police Chief under Chief John Gott before he retired. Since then, Herrington has worked for Interim Police Chief Rudy and now for Police Chief Craig Richard.

Chief Richard said Herrington is responsible for far more than people may realize, and that she continuously goes above and beyond her duties in a desire to serve her community.

“She does so much to help me and this community every day. She was an unstoppable force behind this year’s National Night Out and it would not have been what it was, had it not been for her,” Richard said.

In addition to Herrington’s secretarial duties, she also provides support to the entire department in various efforts including last year’s toy drive. For National Night Out, Herrington estimated that six months of planning went into this year’s event.

“I was really pleased with how this year’s event went, and I’m always looking for new ideas or ways to make next year’s event even better,” she said.

With National Night Out behind her for now, Herrington wasted no time in setting her sights on the next program to dedicate her time to; reintroducing McGruff the Crime Dog to a new generation of students.

Already, Herrington has helped to bring the bloodhound in a trenchcoat into area schools in person, and she said she hopes he can visit other schools very soon.

“In whatever job I do, I just try to focus on making things better than they were before. I hope I can continue to do that,” Herrington said.