SUPERIOR – At the Montana Law Enforcement Academy’s graduation ceremony on December 13, two Mineral County deputies were among the graduates, one of whom left with top honors.

Mineral County Sheriff’s Deputies Tim Case and Melissa Crane were among the 55 graduates of class 151. Crane sang the national anthem at the start of the ceremony. However, Mineral County’s other graduate received an even higher honor.

Case received the Jimmy Kaaro Award at the graduation ceremony. The award is given to the officer with the highest grades and scores in the class. According to a press release from the academy, Case received an average of 98.49 percent on all of his course work at the academy.

According to Ernie Ornelas, sheriff of Mineral County, Case also received high recommendations from the faculty and the director of the academy. Updates from the academy said Case did well from the start. This was not too much of a surprise to Ornelas, given the officer’s background.

“Tim, in the past, had been in the Navy and was a submariner,” said Ornelas. “Most of the guys they put on the submarines, especially the nuclear submarines – which he was on, they’re pretty smart guys.”

A letter was also sent to the sheriff’s office by a member of the academy’s faculty to praise Case’s work. According to Ornelas, in his time at the academy Case received perfect scores on several of the exams.

According to Ornelas, the sheriff’s office was very proud for someone from Mineral County to be top of the class at the academy. He said it was quite an accomplishment and one he was happy for.

“It made us feel pretty good at the graduation,” said Ornelas. “We were just proud that Tim did so well.”

Ornelas felt the achievement could not have been easy to earn. Apart from the class work, there was also the environment the cadets were in. Ornelas compared life in the academy to a college dorm with plenty of distractions to pull a person away from their studies.

However, shortly after the graduation Case resigned from his position as the misdemeanor probation officer According to Ornelas, Case’s resignation became effective at the end of the day Monday, December 16. A reason was not available at the time of press.

Originally, the probation officer was part of the county’s court system. Ornelas said the county commissioners decided to see how it would work to move the position to the sheriff’s office. The move was given a one-year trial to see how well it would work.

“Before Tim came over to the sheriff’s office, he was working for the Justice Court,” said Ornelas.

Case was able to work for the sheriff’s department before he attended the academy. According to Ornelas, because of the state’s population, Montana has a special rule, which allows cadets to work while they wait for a spot to open at the academy. The system is similar to a college internship taken early.

“In some states…people don’t work for the police or the sheriff’s office until they go to the academy,” said Ornelas. “In Montana…we only have one academy for the entire state. [Case and Crane] were deputies before going to the academy.”