LEWISTON — Normand Bureau’s career as a Maine State Police trooper began with a warning.

It was 1958. A state police detective went to Bureau’s home to meet him and his wife, Irene, and to talk about life as a trooper. But the interview was cut short by a phone call.

“He had a phone call here that Paul Simard, a police officer here in Lewiston, was killed,” Irene said. He’d been killed in the line of duty, shot when he went to break up a family fight. The news was chilling for a young couple that was already weighing a lifestyle that meant long hours and a modest salary.

“It was kind of scary,” Irene said. “But you know what? I have faith, and I put him in God’s hands and hoped He’d take good care of him.”

More than five decades later, Normand Bureau says he was “blessed.”

He spent 20 years with the Maine State Police, rising from the role of dispatcher to a full-fledged detective who was nationally known for his capture of car thieves.

And he began a line of Bureau men accustomed to the agency’s blue uniforms and wide-brimmed, round hats. His son, Tom, spent 26 years as a trooper before retiring. Today, Tom’s son, Joe, is serving as a trooper. 

On Thursday, Maine State Police plan to honor the eldest Bureau with its highest award for retirees, the “Legendary Trooper” award.

Sitting in his home near Bates College, Normand Bureau said he has been touched by the recognition for a job that he so enjoyed.

“I loved my job, every minute of it,” he said. “I did everything they asked of me. It was one of the best times of my life.”

Not that it was easy.

He was a guy in his late 20s, a Korean War veteran who had spent his post-war years repairing TVs at Pontbriand Hardware in Auburn, when he first put on the uniform. After a few months as a dispatcher, he was assigned to the road, patrolling the Maine Turnpike.

“It was one man, one car,” he said. “Day or night, you were alone.”

He worked an eight-hour swing shift. One week he’d work days. Another week, he would work evenings. And another would have him on the overnight, roaming the highway from Kittery to Augusta in the days when there was no metal median running between the opposing traffic lanes.

“If we saw somebody speeding, we’d just cut through the median,” he said.

The schedule was a grind.

He’d earn one day off after seven straight work days. The only time he’d get two days off in a row was if his day off happened to fall on a weekend. There was no overtime. And he was always on call.

“I earned $75 a week as a TV repair man,” he said. “My first paycheck as a police officer was for $69. I took a cut in pay.”

But he was becoming known in the department. His technical skills had him working on installing two-way radios in cruisers, which led to him learning about cars and car theft.

By the late 1960s, he was the Maine State Police’s first trooper devoted to car theft. And he excelled. He investigated the forgery and tampering of bills of sale and VIN tags on cars. He became a regional leader among car theft cops and served search warrants that arrested people who moved cars across state lines.

He even advanced the technology of fighting the crime with the help of a Bates College professor.

“I can make a liquid that’ll tell you if these (tags) have been tampered with,” the professor said. He did and it worked.

“It would bubble up,” Bureau said, and the image of the original letter and number combinations would emerge from beneath the tarnished metal.

“We caught more guys that way,” he said. “And even the national organization was interested.”

But it was the human cases — particularly those involving children — that remain with him despite the long years of retirement. After his retirement in 1979, Bureau served a short time as Androscoggin County sheriff and worked for Bates College athletics for a while.

But faces from his trooper days still haunt him.

He recalled a case in which he and another French-speaking trooper were sent to Presque Isle to investigate the case of a missing 3-year-old girl. The police on the scene had come to a dead end.

“They thought probably one of these pedophiles picked her up and took her away,” he said.

Bureau asked to see where the girl had last been seen, near a country crossroads and a swimming hole.

“When I got there, I sat with the sergeant by the brook,” he said. The men talked about what they’d heard from family and others and examined the depth of the brook.

And Bureau spied the girl’s sister, who was about 14, watching them.

“I said, ‘That girl has something to do with this,'” Bureau said. “She’s watching to see what we’re doing.”

The next morning, Bureau questioned her while the sergeant watched.

“I said to her, ‘I’m a father. I’ve got kids. I’d like to know if something happened to my kid.’ I said, ‘If you know anything, you’ve got to tell me so we can find your little sister.’

“Tears started coming down her eyes, and I had tears coming down mine, too,” he said. “She finally said, ‘Yes. I’ll tell you what I did.'”

The little girl had drowned while swimming. Her sister was scared of being blamed and buried the girl beside the brook.

The troopers immediately went to the scene and began searching the loose dirt on the water’s edge.

“Finally, I touched the little girl’s leg,” he said. The troopers unearthed her and Bureau carried her to the house.

“The weight of the 3-year-old in her little swimsuit,” Bureau said. “That hit me the hardest of all the cases I’ve had.” 

There were other children’s cases, he said. They were always the worst.

Part of that was due to Bureau’s own family. He and Irene had seven children. They now have 18 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren on the way.

“You hear about diseases and children being sick,” he said. And, he’s known officers who were killed in the line of duty.

“We’ve had none of that,” he said. “I’ve been blessed. We’ve all been blessed.”

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