Valley trooper tapped to lead Nome police force

WASILLA — Starting this week, long-time Alaska State Trooper Dallas Massie will be back on the force. In Nome.

Massie, 61, retired in 2006 from the troopers with 25 years of experience, most of it spent in the Valley. At the time he left he was a sergeant, heading up the Valley’s investigative unit. In his time as an investigator he sent numerous murderers to lengthy prison terms.

The call to go to Nome came just before Christmas, Massie said. He agreed to put in six months heading the department after the outgoing chief, Paul Burke, had to quit so he could attend to family business in California where his daughter had been injured in a bad car wreck.

A month later, having met with the city manager and city council, Massie said it’s about as official as it’s going to get.

“I haven’t signed a contract yet,” Massie said Monday. “But I plan to sign one first thing tomorrow morning.”

Massie said he and Burke have been friends a long time. Burke joined the troopers six months before Massie did. They worked together during the start of their careers in Palmer and went to polygraph school together. When Burke called, Massie said he’d go.

“Communities like Nome need a little help now and then,” Massie said.

The call came out of the blue, Massie said. He hadn’t been looking to don a badge again.

“It was on popular request, basically,” he said.

Massie spoke at Peking Gardens in Palmer after the monthly meeting of Mat-Su Crime Stoppers. He had to resign his position on the organization’s board of directors for the six months he plans to be in Nome. The organization’s bylaws prohibit active law enforcement officers from sitting on the board.

Monday, his fellow board members wished him well.

And he read aloud the fortune received in his cookie, which, he joked, augured well for his stint in Nome: “A pleasant surprise awaits you in the coming days.”

As a trooper, Massie did more than three years in Kotzebue where his wife still owns a beauty shop. He said she’ll swing through Nome on her trips up there.

Though his days as a Bush trooper were spent a bit further north, Massie said this week’s trip to Nome won’t be his first. As a trooper he went there twice. The first was to run a polygraph on a suspect. The second was in 2003 when he headed up the initial investigation into Matt Owens, the former Nome Police officer convicted of murdering Sonja Ivanoff and sentenced to 99 years in prison. Massie said he’ll have big shoes to fill when he heads north. He has nothing but the highest respect for Burke.

“He’s very community-oriented,” Massie said. “You will hear nothing but good things from the community there.”

And he’ll have his work cut out for him.

The Nome Police Department, he said, is a 9-member force and is currently running three vacancies.

Part of what he’ll be doing, Massie said, is trying to fill those spots. And he’ll also work to fill his own.

If all goes according to plan, “I’ll work myself out of a job.”