By Gabrielle Martin, News Editor.
At the age of 66 most people have retired – relaxing at home, spoiling their grandchildren and joining fellow retirees for card night – but Dennis Martin, a student at Delta College, is not most people.
“I love to learn. I get to work with extremely brilliant young people,” says the 66-year-old Freeland resident. “I look forward to coming here and the only thing that makes me feel good is when I can come to Delta.”
Martin graduated from Delta’s police academy in 1976, worked in law enforcement and is now back at the college. Since 2009, he has been taking classes every semester.
“I heard people calling him the Delta Dennis because he’s been here so long,” says Aaron Eichler, one of Martin’s close friends. Eichler is working on finishing up his Michigan Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers transfer agreement (MACRAO) at Delta and met Martin in a statistics class about a year ago.
“He asked me to be his personal tutor for statistics and I became his note taker… so I have a tendency to watch out for him while he’s at school. His wife asked me to,” Eichler says.
There has only been one semester since 2009 in which Martin didn’t take classes at Delta; in 2014he went to visit his daughter in Australia for four months. Even then, he stayed in school; however, he was the teacher rather than the student. He was able to teach a criminal justice class at MacQuerie University in Sydney.
In 2013, Martin graduated Summa Cum Laude with his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Ferris State University and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in criminal justice from Central Michigan University. While he is set to graduate in December, he has no intention to stop there.
Martin is hoping to go on to Michigan State University and pursue his PhD in criminal justice with an emphasis on forensics.
“It’s kind of been on my bucket list,” he says.
Martin has already been selected as one of the 50 applicants to be interviewed for the 14 available spots in the program. He had his interview on Oct. 21 and is waiting to hear back.
“I’m not sure I’d even be able to finish it due to my health,” he says. Around four years ago, Martin was diagnosed with the early onset of Alzheimer’s. Traditional of the lifestyle Martin has always lead, he did not simply accept the diagnosis.
“They were lying. I still feel that way,” he says. That fighting mentality continued this past summer. “In July, I had three heart attacks; in August, I had a stroke.”
Despite all that, Martin stayed in touch with his teachers, did his class work in the hospital and never fell behind. He currently has a 3.96 at CMU.
“Nothing’s fun if it’s not challenging,” he explains.
Pioneer policeman
Martin knew he wanted to be a police officer since the age of seven. “I had a neighbor that was on the Sheriff’s department… he used to stop over to my home and park the patrol car in the driveway and stand there in uniform and talk to me. I thought that was really special.”
In 1970, he started working for the Saginaw County Sheriff’s Department as a corrections officer; at that time, there was no such thing as a police academy. “We would be assigned with like a training officer and we’d ride with that officer for a certain length of time and we’d be trained on how to use a firearm [and] how to properly fill out an accident report or a citation.”
Not too long after that, legislation was passed in Michigan that said new law enforcement officials must go through a police academy for training; however, those who were already in law enforcement were grandfathered in. Although Martin was not required to go to do further training, he did decide to attend Delta’s police academy in January of 1976.
“I put myself through the police academy and I worked full-time at the same time,” he says. “I graduated in 1976 and I think I was third in my class.”
For the next year, Martin continued to work as a corrections officer for Saginaw County Sheriff’s Department; he then moved into doing road patrol.
In 1977, Martin started the American Association of Corrections Officers (AACO), which later became the International Association of Corrections Officers (IACO). This association evolved out of a Michigan organization. Among other things, that organization had published a newsletter, which was distributed to its members. Corrections officers from across the state would write in with their problems and concerns, which were published in the newsletter.
Once the need for a larger organization was realized, AACO was founded. The main mission of the association, which was dissolved in 2006, was to promote the position of a corrections officer and advocate for education, training and recognition of corrections officers.
“At one point, we had over 600,000 members [in AACO],” states Martin. That organization – and Martin – lead the fight to amend the Public Officers Death Benefits Act of 1976.
When the Act was originally passed in 1976, it guaranteed a $50,000 one-time payment to a small definition of public officials and only under specific circumstances. It did not give benefits to corrections officers, ambulance crews or several other groups of public officials. The only way those public officials got any benefit was if they had one through their department; even then, those benefits were only for about $2,000.
Martin tells the story of his good friend, John Utlak, who worked for the Ithaca Police Department, and was killed in the line of duty.
“He was murdered by some juveniles. He had met some juveniles who were involved in drugs,” Martin explains. “At his department, there was a $2,000 death benefit, which barely paid for anything. If he would have been married, the law at that time was that if you were married, you got a $50,000 death benefit, but because he wasn’t married, he didn’t.”
The amendment to the Public Officers Death Benefits Act was made in 1988, as part of the amendment to the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. Martin had the honor of being invited by President Reagan to attend the signing ceremony at the White House. In addition, Chief Justice Warren Berger presented Martin with a copy of the bill.
Martin talked about the bill as a guest on NBC’s “Today Show,” the CBS Evening News, “Meet the Press” and the “Oprah Winfrey Show.”
Martin’s career kept going from there. President Reagan appointed him to the commission “On the Study of Interracial Tensions and Equality in Criminal Justice,” which was headed by Coretta Scott King (wife of Martin Luther King, Jr).
“What Coretta King was really concerned about was the disproportion of black people in prison compared to whites,” says Martin. “One of the most critical things [we found] was that most of the people were black and who were in prison were of lower income.”
President George H.W. Bush appointed Martin to the National Drug Task Force Advisory Committee, which explored various methods of drug control. He was reappointed to that committee when President Bill Clinton took office.
President George H.W. Bush also appointed Martin to the Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, chaired by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“He had just done the first ‘Terminator’ movie,” recalls Martin. “He was fun to be with.” Martin adds that, though he and Schwarzenegger don’t keep in touch anymore, they were good friends while serving together.
Through his career, Martin had many other adventures, including one relatively rare honor: he was presented a commission on the Texas Rangers, Department of Public Safetyby the Governor of Texas.
“I was ecstatic,” he says. “When I got invited down, Congressman Wright and Governor White had a ceremony and they presented several other Texas Ranger Honorary commissions at this function… Their badges are made out of a coin. They’re very hard to get. They’re very rare.” Martin was honored with an ID, badge and certificate. Few people have the bragging rights that Martin now has.
“I’m a retired Texas Ranger.”
Balancing act
Balancing work and family can be a struggle for many households. For Martin, the struggle was just as real. Often, his job would require him to be away from home for extended periods of time. For example, he worked in the Cayman Islands for a year improving their security. He also traveled to Europe quite a bit throughout his career.
“It was hard because they couldn’t always go with me,” he says. “There was a point of almost 2 years where I didn’t see them.”
“I stayed home with the kids and I had to work,” says Martin’s wife, Jacquelin.
Martin says that he did try to spend as much time as possible with his three daughters, son and wife and take them on as many trips with him as he could. In particular, he says that he went on a lot of cruises for conferences and he always tried to take his family on those.
“It was more fun to share things with your family. It wasn’t as much fun to go to special places that are beautiful or historic and all you have is a camera and you just take a picture of it. I mean, you can get a picture of any place just by going in the library, but to have your family there and get a picture of them there – that was special,” he says.
Sometimes, taking his family with him led to humorous situations such as when his wife accidentally parked in the wrong place at the White House while dropping Martin off for work.
“The president came out with his limousine and they made her get out of the car and my kids … she had sat right in front of where the president was coming out,” Martin laughs. “My kids still talk about it.”
Martin says his wife was incredibly supportive of him throughout his career and continues to be today. Jacquelin is actually the reason Martin came back to Delta in 2009. After an unsuccessful business venture, Martin was feeling depressed and, one day, his wife brought him to the college.
“He has to stay busy; he enjoys it,” Jacquelin explains. She says that being around people is where Martin feels the most comfortable. “He likes people. He’s totally opposite of me. I’m perfectly happy to sit at home by myself and he has to be around people. He can go in a room and when he comes out, everyone will know about him.”
Because Martin can no longer drive, it is Jacqueline who brings him to school each day. Sometimes, she simply sits at Delta while Martin is in class.
“Maybe she would like to spend more time with him,” says Eichler, “but she knows how important school is to him.
In addition to making sure Martin gets to school, she celebrates with him when he finishes a class or a big project.
“I finished a major class at Central … I got an A in it and my wife and I stopped at McDonald’s and we both got a hot fudge sundae,” explains Martin. If Martin gets accepted into the doctorate program at MSU, it will be his wife driving him to classes.
“She’s as great today – probably more so – than ever. She just spoils me rotten,” says Martin. Even if Martin doesn’t get into the doctorate program at MSU, he plans on continuing his education.
“There was a lot more that I wanted to accomplish in my life and I’m hoping I still have some life left to do more.”