When Nancy Franks McCue started as a road patrol officer in North Miami, supervisors issued her a service weapon and a uniform skirt.
''I pointed out if I was handling an accident or chasing a burglar over a fence, it might not be appropriate,'' said McCue, the department's first female officer when she joined the ranks in February 1974.
``In the beginning, the hardest part was making sure the men I worked with understood I wasn't going to be a liability. I learned a long time ago you didn't have to be mannish to do the job.''
McCue, of Deerfield Beach, marked a series of firsts before retiring from the department in 2000: the first female sergeant, lieutenant and commander.
But her ''firsts'' started at Hialeah High School, as the school paper's first female Boys' Sports Editor.
And in 1962, she became her school's first Silver Knight winner.
''It inspires you the rest of your life,'' she said of winning the award for journalism. ``I've always been active and involved. It's the whole spirit of the Silver Knight. It's something you're always proud of.''
For 50 years, The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald have presented the Silver Knight awards to high school luminaries in honor of their community service and academic excellence.
McCue's family was in the audience the night she accepted the award. Even her brother, Paul, who had been drafted by the Chicago Cubs the year before, was in attendance after getting sent home to recover from an injury.
''I was so totally in shock,'' she said of her winning. ``The requirements seemed so insurmountable.''
She did community service collecting food and holiday gifts for the underprivileged and working on literacy projects with first and second graders, but she also had to submit articles to be judged.
After high school, McCue won the Sigma Delta Chi scholarship to the University of Miami, where she took classes but didn't graduate.
During college, she started working for The Miami Herald's classified department, the only opening she could get at the paper, while writing for UM's Hurricane.
She took a break from working while she had her children, a daughter and three sons.
THE LOCAL BEAT
Looking to go back to work, she contacted Pat Murphy, the editor of the Coral Gables Times Guide and a liaison for the Silver Knights.
Murphy hired McCue to cover local news and zoning issues and she also began writing for the North Dade Journal.
By this time her first husband was serving his third tour in Vietnam. She kept her Silver Knight statue close by at all times.
''For years when I was home with my babies I kept [the trophy] by my bed for protection if I needed it,'' she said.
All the while, she knew she wanted to be a police officer. But McCue, 5-feet-5, didn't meet the height requirement to join.
A lawsuit in the early '70s forced departments to drop the height requirement, and she signed up.
The transition from journalism to police work was a logical one, she said.
''When you do investigative reporting it's no different than an officer writing a report, you're just more involved in resolving the problem than writing about it,'' she said. ``You see people at their absolute worst as victims or offenders. To me it was very rewarding. I just loved doing the job. I worked years on the midnight shift, worked weekends, worked holidays.''
Nancy and her husband, Ed McCue, an officer with Miami-Dade police, worked opposite shifts so one of them could be with the kids. They've been together 35 years.
At first, it was difficult to be accepted as a female officer. Some people in the community called her names. Some refused to be arrested by her. She recalled when she tried to arrest a man for a traffic violation, and he began jumping on the hood of her car and screaming. The man told her she wasn't a real police officer.
''She had a rough time in the beginning, but she proved herself to be a good police officer, doing the same things that the men did,'' said Mike Croye, a retired North Miami lieutenant who supervised McCue at different points in her career.
''She paid a lot of attention to detail, and she worked well with other people,'' said Croye, who retired to Ocala. As an officer in the juvenile division, ``she carried a case load that was probably double what most of the detectives carried.''
She started a number of programs in the department, among them the juvenile division and family violence unit.
The juvenile division investigated crimes committed by those younger than 18. The unit was later expanded to deal with child abuse, and she co-chaired Miami-Dade's first task force on child abuse in the '70s.
North Miami's family violence unit dealt with crimes committed such as elderly abuse or domestic violence.
She brought on a psychologist to help deal with family problems and to give officers a better understanding of how to respond to the community.
STAYING ACTIVE
After retiring in 2000, McCue continued her community service, a legacy of her Silver Knight. She helped lead a two-year grass-roots campaign to lobby Tallahassee to reform homeowner windstorm insurance rates, capping increases.
She also led the movement for the incorporation of Cutler Bay and for three years wrote and edited The Old Cutler Bay News so residents were kept abreast of changes in the area.
Croye remembered that McCue listed winning the Silver Knight on her resume when she applied to the department.
The award remains on her resume to this day, she said.
''It's something I've always been proud of, more than any of the other recognition I received,'' she said.
Along the way, her Silver Knight trophy was damaged, the victim of moves and hurricanes.
About six years ago, one of her sons got her a new one as a Christmas present.
She still keeps it on her dresser.
''My kids have all known how important to me the Silver Knight was and is,'' she said. ``And they've seen it all their lives . . . the Silver Knight was kind of like a cornerstone.''
