LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS EULOGIZE LONG-TIME CAPE POLICE CHIEF

Long-time, former Cape Girardeau police chief Irvin E. Beard died Thursday. Co-workers, who had been under his command at the Cape Girardeau Police Department, remembered him Friday as a meticulous and dedicated police officer.

Beard, 85, of 132 S. Louisiana served as city police chief from May 1964 to September 1974. Prior to serving as police chief, he served for 20 years with the Missouri Highway Patrol. He died Thursday at 9:25 p.m. at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau.

The exact cause of death was not immediately available. Funeral service will be held today at 3:30 p.m. at Ford and Sons Mount Auburn Chapel in Cape Girardeau. Burial will be in Memorial Park Cemetery.

Praise of Beard came Friday from Cape Girardeau County Sheriff Norman Copeland, also retired from the highway patrol. Copeland and Beard were state troopers at the same time, patrolling adjoining zones, with the dividing point being Benton, Copeland said. As state troopers, they also attended training schools together, he said.

Copeland said, "We lost a long-time law enforcement officer and certainly one that was a credit to law enforcement in Southeast Missouri.

"Irvin Beard was a meticulous criminal investigator." Beard, he said, possessed a "vast know-how" in criminal and accident investigations.

Copeland said Beard's accident reports were excellent and drawn to scale. Even today, he said, the reports aren't drawn to scale.

"His (accident investigation) was something to behold as a finished product."

Beard worked as an officer with the patrol from 1939 to 1964. The same meticulous nature toward accident reports followed him to the Cape Girardeau Police Department, where officers who served under Beard said the police chief would go over all the reports.

Sgt. Al Moore, who joined the department's regular force in 1962 and worked under Beard, said Beard saw the accident reports as reflecting on the department because they were seen by more of the public than any other type of report.

A report needing only a minor correction, he said, would be corrected by Beard. But if a report had to be erased or changed, the investigating officer had to do it over, said Moore. Beard allowed no "white outs or strike outs" on the reports, he said.

"He was straight," Moore recalled. "He was dedicated to his work."

As chief, officers said, Beard also serviced the city's traffic lights himself. Moore said Cape Girardeau basically didn't have traffic lights until after Beard took over.

Beard majored in electrical engineering at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Later, he worked for Emerson Electric Co. in St. Louis and had a radio repair shop, an appliance establishment, and a service station in Puxico.

Carl E. Pease Sr., a patrolman whom Beard hired in 1967, recalled working patrol on the midnight shift and seeing Beard tending to the traffic lights.

"I talked to him about two weeks ago," Pease said. "He was weak and he asked me about the traffic lights...."

"He was an excellent chief, I thought."

Beard had a reputation of turning a cold shoulder to the press. Once, according to a Southeast Missourian article from June 16, 1967, he ordered a radio newsman off the department's firing range while the newsman was trying to report on the police firearms training program.

The city council granted Beard three yearly extensions after he reached the retirement age of 65 in September 1971.

Beard was replaced as permanent police chief by Henry H. Gerecke.

His departure came at the dismay of many in the public. A Southeast Missourian article from July 5, 1974 said petitions with 990 signatures were submitted to then-mayor Howard C. Tooke in support of Beard's retention. A petition in support of Beard was also submitted to the city manager by 43 of the department's 51 employees.

Beard charged he was being discriminated against because of his age, saying he wanted to remain as chief until the age of 70.

Beard was born in Puxico on Sept. 18, 1906 to Edgar and Minnie Harbin Beard.

He married Lillian Bowen on June 12, 1942 at Wardell. She survives.

Also surviving are a son, Irvin E. Beard Jr. of Norfolk, Va.; a daughter, Pamela Rasmussen of Fort Leonard Wood; and five grandchildren. Two sisters preceded him in death.