The Wrangell Police Department earlier this month added a couple of familiar faces to the staff: Matt Nore switched careers after almost a decade of teaching at Wrangell schools, and Jordyn Buethe returned to town.

Nore, who started as a kindergarten teacher in 2015 and worked as a middle school math and language arts teacher and high school physical education teacher the past school year, is the department’s newest police officer.

Buethe, who grew up in Wrangell before leaving at age 13 and attending high school in Arizona, has been hired to handle the Wrangell department’s dispatch and work as corrections officer at the jail.

He followed in his stepfather’s footsteps by pursuing a career in law enforcement when he attended the Arizona Department of Corrections Academy and graduated with the highest academic scores in the class, according to the Wrangell Police Department’s Facebook posting announcing the new hires on July 3.

Buethe, who is a stepparent to five children, commented in the Facebook posting: “Out of everything I have faced, parenthood has been the most difficult but also the most rewarding.”

For Nore, joining the Wrangell police force is a return to his years of work in the U.S. Army as a military police officer, where he graduated with honors from the military police investigation course, according to the police department’s Facebook post.

“While he valued his time in the classroom and the opportunity to guide young people, he always felt a strong pull back to law enforcement,” Wrangell Police Chief Gene Meek said in the post.

“Becoming a police officer is a natural continuation of his commitment to public service,” Meek said in the posting.

In addition to serving in the U.S. Army, Nore served more than 20 years in the Alaska Army National Guard. During a deployment to Kuwait, he served as provost marshal at Camp Buehring, where he was responsible for overseeing base law enforcement operations.