Donning badge

Editor’s note: Jay County has a crop of young professionals — some of whom were born and raised here — who represent a new generation of activity and leadership in our community and elsewhere. If you know of a young professional we might overlook, email us at [email protected].



For the Miskinis family, the career involved in community policing skipped a generation.

His confinement to a wheelchair because of polio kept Don Miskinis from becoming a police officer. But Dunkirk residents knew him as their police dispatcher.

Ryan Miskinis has taken the path that was unavailable to his grandfather, as today marks four years of service for him as an officer for Redkey Police Department.

“I like that it’s never the same thing,” said Miskinis, now an Albany resident. “You take the same call, the same traffic stop every day, and it’s never the same outcome.”

Having a career as a police officer wasn’t what Miskinis was expecting after graduating from Jay County High School in 2011. He first headed off to the University of Indianapolis to study software engineering.

But he didn’t particularly want to be in the classroom, and he wasn’t looking forward to a job that would have him in an office day after day.

His dad, Donnie — Ryan’s first name is also Donald, but he goes by his middle name — suggested law enforcement as an option. 

After a year in Indianapolis, Miskinis moved back to Jay County, started taking classes at Ivy Tech and worked at Bell Aquaculture and Finish Line to pay the bills. He earned an associate’s degree in criminal justice in 2014, the same year he started as a reserve officer for Jay County Sheriff’s Office.

A year later, the job opened up with Redkey police. 

The jobs in law enforcement required a 40-hour course (reserve) and then Tier II basic training at Indiana Law Enforcement Academy (full-time). As an officer, he must have 24 hours of training each year in areas such as emergency vehicle operations, firearms, defensive tactics and drugs.. He estimates that through Redkey, Dunkirk, Albany, the sheriff’s office and Indiana University Health Ball Memorial Hospital, he doubles that requirement.

“I don’t think you can have enough of it,” he said.

For his first two years working in Redkey, Miskinis worked the second shift. Now, he’s the department’s overnight man.

There are some distinct differences.

During the late afternoon and early evening, he handled far more traffic stops and domestic disputes. His overnights involve more drunk driving and drug arrests.

“You have far fewer incidents, less contact with people,” he said, “but usually at 3 in the morning when you do have an incident with somebody, they’re not supposed to be out doing what they’re doing.”

So, beyond the differences in terms of shifts, what is it like to police a small town like Redkey?

The good thing — you know everybody.

The bad thing — you know everybody.

On one hand, Miskinis can watch cars go past and know who is driving about 75 percent of them.

“If John Smith … runs a stop sign and tries to take off, I can just go to his house and wait on him,” he said. “I know where he lives.”

On the other hand, he may have a personal relationship with those that he has to arrest.

When he’s away from the job, Miskinis’ life revolves around his family — wife Jessi, also a JCHS graduate, and daughters Chloe, 7, and Camille, who is 12 days old today. A baseball player for the Patriots, he now spends a lot of his free time coaching Chloe’s softball teams.

As for his future as an officer, he’s not sure if it’s long term. He enjoys the work but he also worries about the dangers involved, especially with a wife and two daughters at home.

“I love the job,” he said. “I love what I do.

“But any call I go to could be the day I don’t come home.”